dan mccabe is an airline traffic controller, one of the thousands of air traffic controllers who continue to go to work every day keeping you safe without a paycheck. thank you, dan. thatp w that wraps up the hour for me. i will see you back here at 11:00 p.m. eastern time and 3:00. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. there's plenty to celebrate today in the kremlin. vladimir putin's goal of weakening the wes. selling chaos and discord is having a binner week in the uk and u.s. for the first time in more than 30 years speaker nancy pelosi has called on donald trump to delay his state of the union address. pelosi citing the longest government shutdown in this country's history as the reason, leaving donald trump unwanted on that center stage he so palpably craves. pelosi also robbing the president of an opportunity to dig out of increasingly unfavorable poll numbers. it's a political crisis he's

created for himself and his party over a border wall that is not popular enough among the public to create any pressure on the people's house. this humiliation caps another devastating day of headlines about donald trump's subservience and secrecy when it comes to russia. "the new york times" today revealing key details of donald trump's first face-to-face encounter with putin in germany. just a few months into his presidency. including this stunning account of what took place just afterward. from that report by peter baker, who joins us on set today, quote -- as mr. trump was on air force one taking off from germany heading back to washington, he telephoned a "times" reporter and argued the russians were falsely accused of election interference. while he insisted most of the conversation be off the record, he later repeated a few things in public and little notice to size. he said he raised the election hacking three times and mr. putin denied involvement. but he said mr. putin also told

him that, quote, if we did, we wouldn't have gotten caught because we're professionals. mr. trump said, i thought that was a good point because they're some of the best in the world at hacking. asked how he weighed mr. putin's denials against the evidence that had been presented to him by mr. comey, john bronnen and cia director and james clapper, then director of national intelligence, trump said mr. clapper and brennan were the most political intel chiefs he knew and comey was a leaker. wow. here to suss today's development some of our favorite reporters and friends, former u.s. attorney and former senior fbi official chuck rosenberg. jeremy bash, chrs at the cia and pentagon and at the table, peter baker's here, chief white house corespondent for "the new york times" and kimberly atkins, all msnbc analysts and contributors. i have to start with you because this is your reporting. this is new to me, this is the

first time i read in your pages just what length the president went to, not just to accept putin's denials of everything he been told by u.s. intelligence, but to convince you and your colleagues of the same. wow. >> to buy into the argument, well, if he says they're too professional to be caught, that must be tree and we couldn't have caught them. we the americans aren't good enough to catch the russians. in fact what the intelligence and fashionists have told us over the year is the russians at a certain point in 2015, 2016 were acting so brazenly, they didn't care if it was known they were showing off to their american counterparts. so the fact the president was accepting president putin's explanation was a rather striking thing. that was my colleague, and he mentioned in his book, i told everybody i would mention his book on cyber warfare, worth picking up, but this conversation is relevant to what the president's state of mind

was on that flight back from hamburg germany on air force one. something else was happening that day as well n that very sim flight he's dictating a statement back to other colleagues of mine at "the times" about the story they're about to break at the trump tower meeting from 2016 with don why are, paul manafort and jared kushner meet with russians on the promise of getting incriminating information. >> let's hit pause, not to re-create this day, joe becker and investigative reporters pressing on donald trump jr. to answer questions about how that meeting went. just remind us, that was really sort of the dam that broke, that really, mark corralio, longtime republican strategist quit over the lies that were crafted on that airplane. everybody on that airplane involved in crafting the lie that came out of the white house that day has been of interest to robert mueller in the obstruction probe at least. that was as big of a watershed moment in the effort to obscure and obstruct potentially the investigation into russia meddling than anything else. >> the key to both issues of

collusion and obstruction, right, president trump said again and again there was no collusion. and yet at this meeting they took the meeting on a supposed promise of getting assistance from moscow. the e-mail sent to don jr. says, the russian government is supporting your father and we would like to give you incriminating information about your opponent. he says i love it. that by itself indicates at least an openness to collaboration, cooperation with russians as part of their campaign. and then as you say the statement that president trump drafts on that flight home says, this is a meeting about russian adoption without mentioning anything about the fact it was really intended at least to collect information for the purposes of the campaign from the russian government. >> jeremy bash, if the crime of conspiracy was committed over a period of days, including this one, and the crime of obstruction was committed over a period of days, including this one, this could be a day that ends up in a report of incredible significance. just tick through the same

events and tell me if i'm missing some perfectly logical for -- i think another thing hand just before he got on that plane, i think he dismissed the american translator and chitchatted with vladimir putin using only vladimir putin's translator before i ghe got on airplane. could that have happen? plus picking up the phone and calling peter's colleagues saying he believes putin's denials and getting up and crafting a lie about the meeting at trump tower? >> it's definitely cultivating when you see vladimir putin in his head, manipulating his thoughts, what comes out of the president of the united states's mouth. it's a very creepy denial if you think about it, that if we didn't do it, but if we did, we're so professional, we would have gotten away with it. can you imagine interrogating a possible rapist of murder, who said i'm so good, if i had done

it, would i have gotten away with it. for the president of the united states to cred that creeit that denial, say that would be the analysis of what the adversaries are up to shows you just the extent vladimir putin has been able to manipulate donald trump's very thoughts about this issue. i think it goes to the heart of the issue, which is why. we know there was a lie. the question is why? why is it he wanted us to all believe that the trump tower meeting was about adoptions? adoptions fundamentally is about the ma knitsky act. magnitsky act is about sanctions. sanctions relief is what donald trump wanted. it's what his administration is doing at this hour with respect to deripaska. and as you and i talked about on friday, they, the trump administration, needed sanctions released on financial institutions. >> chuck rosenberg, can you take me through this time period from the perspective of the fbi, which we know now based on last

friday's reporting in "the new york times" opened a counterintelligence investigation into this president on the suspicion or out of the desire to make sure that he wasn't wittingly or unwittingly working on behalf of russia? these three actions seem very much like they would have been part of what would be under scrutiny in that investigation. >> you bet, nicolle. by the way, i like jeremy's description of a creepy denial, hollow denial. it really, truly rings false. but to your question, prosecutors look at context. they love color. and here's the color to what happened here. a private conversation with putin requests that the american interpreter give the president his notes of that meeting. another meeting where the only interpreter present was the russian interpreter. all of this to me is indicia of

guilt, guilty conscience, guilty mind. what it makes me think of are two meetings the president had with comey. one was designed to be one on one where they had dinner and the president asked for comey's loyalty. comey described that in detail. but the other meeting in some ways is even more interesting in which the president threw everyone out of the room except for comey, and then told comey what a good guy michael flynn was and how he hoped the fbi director would go easy on him. when you want to do something nefarious, you skinny down the room. if i wanted to rob a bank with you, nicolle, i wouldn't ask you in front of your panel. i would ask everyone else to leave. the president keeps having conversations like that with putin and without other americans present. why? >> jeremy bash, want to take a stab at that. why? >> well, i think there are two possible explanations. one is he wants to conduct secret diplomacy that would be seen by other u.s. officials as compromising american interests. whether it's undermining nato,

resisting sanctions, whether it's on what he ultimately did in syria, which was a unilateral hasty pullout. i know we will talk about syria later in the hour. there's another rational which he wants to talk about how they're both going to fashion the cover story, explanation for what russia undoubtedly did in 2016. maybe it's a superficial conversation. hey, hey, vladimir, i want to back you up. i want to be able to say you denied what you said you did. i don't believe you did it, and i'm going to back you up. you know, i know some people want to say it's also them conspireing about other aspects of a conspiracy. i don't think we have evidence or information about that. but chuck's point is fundamentally right, which something was discussed either on policy or intelligence that the president of the united states did not want his senior most officials to hear. he knew they would be in a position to undercut the fundamental premise of what vladimir putin was trying to sell to the american president. >> chuck, we learn about things like this from peter and his

colleagues reporting that on five occasions that are detailed in peter's article, donald trump met with vladimir putin and no one really knows what was said. greg miller had some reporting in "the washington post" along those same lines. we learned from news reports like yesterday's and also "the new york times" that he talked repeatedly about pulling out of nato. i had reported during that time to the trip to europe, our affirmation of article five was in the speech, he took it out. aides put it back in. he took it out. finally on the last stop he said it. is it safe to assume every person involved in the crafting of foreign policy, actual policy and statements, has been into that interrogation room in mont mueller's offices? >> it's safe to assume that, nicolle, absolutely. if you're bob mueller again, what you need is context and color and the folks who add context and color are the folks who were either in the room or thrown out of the room. there are conversations that hand before, during and after. and you have to have all of that.

you mentioned before mark corralio who resigned after being witness to that conversation on air force one. >> hearing about it. i'm sorry, mark wasn't on that trip but he was on the phone getting instructions from, i believe, hope picks. >> i'm sorry, i misstated that, hearing about it. but i would also ask mark what happened before and what happened after. and you would ask everybody else who was on the plane, on the phone or who talked to anybody who was on the plane or on the phone. investigations sweep broadly. by necessity they have to. by the way, that's why they take a long time. i still maintain that there's more to do on the counterintelligence side regardless of whether or not bob mueller drops a partial or interim report any time soon. >> chuck rosenberg said on this program shortly after new years, it was alarming, he said i don't mean to be alarming and when chuck rosenberg says that, everybody's alarmed.

but this idea that the country's law enforcement agencies had to think about or at least take into consideration the possibility that they had to protect the country from the president is so stunning, and i think people are still processing the reality of that. you covered this building. what is the effect of that report? >> well, they expressed outrage publicly but i think it raises larger questions, which is to say the president has spent a lot of times in the last few months beating again and again no collusion, no collusion and basically he sold a lot of people on the idea he's right. and a lot of people who in fact don't even like him have said in the last few months, maybe mueller doesn't actually have anything on collusion. we don't know what mueller has or doesn't have. this brings that back to the floor again, if you look at what greg miller reported the other day and my colleagues reported on the fbi counterintelligence investigation. it just raises questions and here you had a spectacle of the president of the united states being asked, do you or have you ever worked for the russians, and him taking offense to that. whether he has or not, just the

very fact we're discussing it obviously is damaging for the president. >> can it also bring into focus that he is certainly acting like someone who's working for the russians. i agree with chuck and everybody that asserts we don't know what mueller knows but we have to assume mueller knows a whole lot more than we do. we see pieces of it when you all report it but we don't know everything he knows. do you think that anyone inside this white house is prepared for the fallout, should it come to be wittingly or unwittingly he's been a russian agent the whole time? >> i don't think so. how can you prepared for something this unprecedented? and we are seeing the president has been putting forward these sort of cover stories. i think what chuck said is right or jeremy said is right, fashioning these cover stories. remember when he ran, he first got into office, he kept saying no, no, i should talk to russia. wouldn't it be great to be friends?

wouldn't it be great to have this great relationship? it seemed from that point he was laying this groundwork in order to continue to talk to vladimir putin to have an excuse as to why he's doing it and he's continuing to do that. the problem now we not only have the mueller investigation, we have house oversight that's going to be doing investigations into this. you have very robust reporting from news organizations breaking this down and it's a lot more difficult for him to keep up this cover story, even with vladimir putin and former kgb, who's very good at planting things in his head to facilitate that story. it will get harder and harder and more difficult for the white house. >> jeremy, i ask this because it's getting harder and hearder for people inside the administration to say there's nothing there. the first time i saw cracks in the kinds of conversations i'm sure peter has a lot more of than i do was after helsinki, when the president's closest allies said you know what, maybe you're right, maybe there is something there. you heard it again after he took up the putinesque defense of soviet adventures in

afghanistan, if you will. you heard it again around these stories the friday reporting in "the new york times," weekend reporting in "the washington post," peter's great story today and nato piece. what do you think the breaking point is for anyone who ever wants to work again in public policy? >> i don't know the answer to that because every time i thought there had been a breaking point, it's been stretched. it's been expanded. and i wonder also about foreign policy hawks on capitol hill and elsewhere, what they're willing to tolerate with respect to the president's undermining of american's foreign policy and our nato alliance structure. it's the reason fundamentally jim mattis left the pentagon, because he could no longer count the way the president was handling american foreign policy. what struck me as i reflected over "the times" story about the counterintelligence investigation is what's straining our constitutional et afass, what is so challenging to our system of government is we never had a situation in which the commander in chief, the president of the united states, was in fact deemed to be a potential threat to national

security, because after all, what would you do about that? he was elected president. how can you handle that situation, save going to congress and asking them to think through the process of removing a president from office. and the president does have a defense here, which is i'm commander in chief and i can conduct american foreign policy in a manner i deem appropriate. however, i think there's a limit to that. this has come up in the bar hearings. there's a limit to presidential power and national security. if that action by a president has been corruptly obtained, if it's been obtained by bribe, i don't think he has that power at all. >> chuck, let me give you last word and put you on the spot as i always do, what happens next? >> i don't know what happens next, nicolle. i appreciate you putting me on the spot like that. but here's what i imagine happening. i can imagine what might happen next. the mueller investigation continues. remember, they just extended the -- i'm sorry, sentencing date for rick gates by two months and they continued their grantd jury for another six months.

so we know there's more stuff left to do. we also know prosecutors in the southern district of new york have a number of financial investigations at which they are looking closely. finally, the counterintelligence investigation as we've discussed is something that often takes a very long time to unwind. so all of these things are happening next. they're happening simultaneously. what we don't know is where it ends up. i agee with jeremy, it raises very troubling questions, particularly since the president is the chief diplomat and since he owns the intelligence apparatus of the united states, what do you do when you suspect he is working for a foreign power? it's an extraordinary question, and i really don't know we have a good answer to is t. >> but you always deliver when i put you on the spot, you heard it here first, robert mueller has a lot of stuff to do. i appreciate that. thank you for joining us, chuck rosenberg. after the break, new information from the special counsel's

office about paul manafort, what ro robert mueller is still investigating when it comes to the former campaign chairman and his ties to russia. also ahead, u.s. service members are among the dead in syria following an attack from isis. that strajdy taking place on the very same day vice president mike pence claims isis has been defeated. nancy pelosi calls on donald trump to delay this year's state of the union address until after the longest government shutdown in u.s. history is resolved. all of those stories coming up. hey, what is it? i realize i love you, but as long as you're with jessica, there can never be anything between us. listen cassie, there's no need to cry. besides, i've got really great news. you're leaving jessica? no. i just saved a load of money on car insurance by switching to geico. i saved. i thought that meant something to you. geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. whoooo. planning a vacation...

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robert mueller reveals prosecutors have even more dirt on donald trump's former campaign chairman paul manafort that they're keeping under wraps. the 188-page account filed under seal contains heavy redactions, hidden from public view according to prosecutors because they, quote, relate to ongoing law enforcement investigations or uncharged individuals. joining our conversation, former u.s. attorney joyce vance, kim and jeremy are still here. joyce, what would be going on still with paul manafort that there would be such heavy redactions, a desire to protect ongoing investigations and unindicted persons? translate. >> so it's important to remember procedurally where we are s manafort had a plea agreement. it looked like he was cooperating with mueller. and suddenly everything blew up. the allegation is he's been lying. but that doesn't mean he has not been provided special counsel with information, with evidence. he obviously has been doing that

and one suspects not just special counsel but also some of these cases that have gone out to u.s. attorney's offices. the most interesting tidbit we get is a combination of manafort's poorly redacted pleading and the information from special counsel that says constanten kilimnik, manafort's russian business partner, seems to be a focus of this. we know there's this august timeline where we don't know what the subject of those meetings is for certain but it seemed likely it involved the transfer of polling data. so i think the real question is, does the buck stop with manafort? is he has high as this conspiracy goes? is he trading polling data with the russians hoping to get favors in return, or there someone or some people in the campaign who are also involved? >> jeremy bash, excuse this question if it's too basic. everything i know about russian spies i learned on "homeland." but is con stannen kilimnik the

kind of person who would be running someone like manafort or would manafort be trying to deliver for donald trump? donald trump had an insatiable desire for input from his campaign deputies and there were never many at one time. he went through a lot but there were never many at one time. do you think this was the kind of arrangement and do you think mueller is probing this to figure out which direction it went? >> i don't see kilimnik handling the asset wait you would classically think of an espionage operation. however, kilimnik does have ties to russian intelligence and it's possible the russian entity that was trying to influence outcomes in the 2016 campaign and maybe even affect policy once trump came into office under a parallel act of measures campaign by the russians, was using the kilimnik/manafort channel. one of the things in the reporting we saw from the prosecutor's document, the part that wasn't redacted, is manafort was trying to place people signed the

administration. that could be trying to show somebody how much influence he has but also be a way to show the russians i can deliver for you and i have influence with this new team. >> peter baker, the white house gave manafort the just shy of the popolopodus coffee boy defense. but manafort was the campaign chairman. manafort was handpicked by jared kushner and ivanka and he was around after donald trump became president. he's got a lot of stuff. >> yes, when president trump a while back said he was only a campaign manager for a few months. that's true but not the full scope of his tenure there. it was odd i was chosen. paul manafort had not been involved in elected politics for a number of years. he been a long time ago, reagan and ford era. >> 2 1/2 decades. >> dole was the last time he had a major campaign so it was odd he would be chosen give iz his ties with pro-russian ukrainian forces at this particular moment. what we don't know and jeremy and joyce are right, we have to be careful about what we don't know. we don't know if he -- he had debts.

deripaska said he owed him money. was he trying to be a big man? he had his own polling data. is it possible he had his own interests there and we don't know where his interests ended and campaign began. could it be the polling that said here the districts are most important in michigan to target/here are the arguments that might fuel a social media campaign disruption? that would be interesting to know. if it's just horserace stuff, that could be just showing off. we don't know enough to make that conclusion. but it is suspicious and it raises question. it is the president's campaign chairman. >> joyce, what would you surmise robert mueller needs more time for the sentencing of rick gates and paul manafort to do? >> so it's incredible how quickly the mueller investigation has wrapped, literally every prosecutor that you talk to is stunned by how quickly an investigation of such complexity has proceeded. and so i would even say the basic sorts of matters that you

need to do to wrap down an investigation are still, you know, within this time frame probably not being completed. we know that gentlemjerome cors roger stone have self-identified as potential target for future indictments. tony podesta and some of the other folks working with manafort, that case, there's been reporting has been sent to the southern district of new york to consider whether they failed to register as agents for ukraine like they should have. there were a lot of matters here that gates could be continuing to cooperate on. what you never know as a prosecutor though is when you're going to stumble upon the next big thing. and you might think that the case is winding down, that it's almost over and then suddenly a new nugget of information comes your way and you're back up and running. so i know we have report rg saying mueller is close to finishing the criminal part of the investigation, obviously as chuck rosenburg said, the counterintelligence part will

continue. but i wouldn't put mueller out of business just yet. >> joyce, i've heard the same thing and that frame that reporters put around timing for investigation betrays an ignorance how investigations could work. a witness could walk in today, lie. that wois would itness would be investigated and prosecuted and it would again tomorrow. is that fair/. >> i think it is. prosecutors usually have an assessment. they say we think we're wipednd down. sometimes prosecutors will say that for a vardy of reasons, because it's important to tickle the wire in a sense to see what reaction you will get. so we don't know exactly what's going on here. joyce vance, thank you for keeping it real. we're grateful to have you. senchs an hour after the deadliest attack in syria that isis claimed responsibility for, pence claims isis is defeated. pence claims isis is defeated.

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this commander in chief and

courage and sacrifice of our armed forces, we're now actually able to be able to hand off the fight against isis in syria to our coalition partners and we're bringing our troops home. the caliphate has crumbled and isis has been defeated. >> isis has been defeated. that was vice president mike pence hours after a deadly attack in syria today that took the lives of four americans. a warning, the video we're about to show you is graphic and upsetting. isis has already claimed responsibility for the attack, although that hasn't yet been confirmed. u.s. central command says two service members, department of defense civilian and contractor supporting the dod are dead and another three service members were injured. over on capitol hill, lindsey graham, who rarely passes up an opportunity to publicly agree with the president these days, seemed to lay the blame at trump's feet. >> my concern by the statements made by president trump is that you have set in motion

enthusiasm by the enemy we're fighting. you make people who are trying to help wonder about us, and as they get bolder, the people we're trying to helper going to get uncertain. we saw this in iraq. and i'm not seeing it in syria. i hope the president will look long and hard about what we're doing in syria. >> remember it was last month that james mattis, seen by many as the last human guardrail on the trump presidency, resigned in protest over the decision to rapidly withdraw troops from syria. joining our conversation now, ron claim, former chief of staff to vice president's biden and gore. and here at the table, a.b. stoddard, associate editor and columnists for real clear politics. i have all of the baggage that comes with the other war that lindsey graham was talking about as well as all of the lessons learned and mistakes made. one of the fastest and easiest

ways to betray the public trust and really to dishonor the military families is not be straight about where we are or not in these conflicts. >> absolutely, nicolle. first, let's give credit where credit is due, vice president pence has a son serving in the u.s. plmarine corps. we honor that service and we know how seriously he takes the troops around the world. but to stand there and say isis has been defeated when obviously it hasn't, obviously we are seeing the horrible attack we saw this morning, is shredding the white house's own credibility and they just keep repeating it over and over again. a month ago the president said eisen was beaten in syria and a few weeks after that said we needed a wall at the southern border because isis was in mexico. they have to get their story straight. they have to communicate clearly about the national security threats we face. and they have to tell the truth to the american people about that. >> ron claim, i remember saying

coming on the air still wattled by the news about the mattis resignation and saying the world was less safe but hoping i was wrong. do you think the world is less safe with somebody like mattis, whose word to reassure our allies in these deadly, lethal fights? >> there's no question about it, nicolle. i have always been skeptical of the idea adults can restrain a president. he's commander in chief. when we have a reckless and lying president that the the heart, unfortunately, of the american security posture but i do think secretary mattis was able to assure allies and ignore or fire of 0 the worst instincts of the president. with him gone, with john bolton now as the national security adviser, you really have no controls over reckless trump instincts. who knows what we will see next, whether it's pulling out of nato or pulling out of syria or anything else that's at the whim or wish of a foreign dictator or business partner of the

president's. we're really at the mercy of that and that's a very dangerous place to be. >> jeremy bash, i think it's important to know a terrorist attack sau attack is always the fault of the terrorist. that said, i think everybody understand for something to be so bad jim mattis would have quit it had to be really, really dangerous to america. do you think that's what's manifesting itself? >> i think first of all as a nation, nicolle, we're going to mourn these four fallen heroes, we will welcome them back as heroes and close ranks as a country. i think we're also going to try to transmit to our allies around the region that american can't leave hartley or hastily because to do that would give a gift to our adversaries, to isis. and i hope that's the message that we're transmitting. i fear, however, isis has taken a message from our hasty announcement of withdrawal and they can hit us on the way out. and to echo what senator graham

said, sometimes these messages of hasty withdrawal embolden the strategy. this will require a lot of careful diplomacy, a lot of careful consultation with our allies and careful orchestration by the military to make sure as we pull back, as we draw down, we don't give a golden opportunity for the adversary to do more damage to us. >> when i see lindsey graham speak, i wish he would hold on to some of his credibility. he some ten years ago. he seems to have squandered it all. on a day like today, i wish he had some of it. >> it's so remarkable because i was just thinking the same thing today when i was reading his reaction. when he tried to come up with a c compromise to reopen the government with jared kushner less than a week ago, the right wing like mark levine slapped it down on twitter. you can see it online

immediately. he said no and immediately said it was the democrats' fault and tile for a national emergency. you just never know where he will jump to next, be the statesman to the national security or be a yes man to the president. today he's in competition with senator rand paul, who went to have a personal meeting with the president today to assure himself that the president was remaining steadfast in his syria withdrawal plan. he's the only one in the camp with the president, except for some other people outside of the congress. but all of the concern you see in the congress, you see among the ranks and in the military, all of the people who are telling the president, including mattis and pompeo and bolton, who originally objected this this withdrawal plan, mattis has gone and they're not being listened to. rand paul is. lindsey graham knows well enough no matter what he says, the president believes this was a good plan, that he promised in the campaign and he's going to stick with it. >> is there any one trying to fill the space occupied by

mattous mattis in his national decision s? with his ain't. >> there really is nobody. mattis was experienced with procurement and things that matter a lot in the pentagon but not a strategic military thinker per se. >> not allies around? >> not allies. doesn't have the relationship mattis had or experience or the experience mattis had first of his term. so you have a president on his own basically. by the way, there will be some people who looked at what happened today and said he's right, we should get out. why are we wasting more lives in this hell hole? why does these poor people die, because we were there and should have been out in the first place. the question is whether will make that case or this will change the debate along the lines the way lindsey graham is pointing out. does that resolve and change the dynamics and give sucker to the

enemy. >> jeremy bash, quick last word. >> i agree with peter, i think there's a strong debate that can be had about where u.s. forces should be postured. but once we're there, once we're there, we have to protect them. to announce a hasty withdrawal without consulting with our allies i think only helps our adversaries and unfortunately i think we may see more incidents like we saw today. >> jeremy bash, thank you for spending time with us. we're grateful. after the break, nancy pelosi calls on trump to hold off on his state of the union address until the federal government is once again open for business. that story next. ry next.

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from "the washington post" national political reporter and moderator of "washington week" robert costa. robert was what is the state of the state of the union address? >> here at the capitol, house democrats tell me the speaker is drawing a firm line until the government reopens and she feels comfortable with the security provisions for a state of the union address when so many government officials would be here. they're not going to have some kind of televised address later this month, and that's something that house democrats now in control are sticking with. >> what is the sort of political calculation that she's making, that this should deprive donald trump of his lifeblood stage and tv time to make the case on the backs of these unemployed workers and citizens suffering, or is she trying to get something done on the negotiation of the actual shutdown? >> both. taking to senior lawmakers, they say they appreciate be speaker pelosi's gesture. even some republicans probably say that because they believe it could prod the stalled negotiations forward. she's following the

unconventional playbook of politics that president trump has long followed, using bold moves, taking the communications front away from him, that has been an area he wanted to use in the state of the union to lecture lawmakers. she's now stopping him from that opportunity. at this point pelosi -- speaker pelosi, a longtime inside player is playing the outside game as well. >> kim, you're nodding. >> yeah, i think we're seeing turn after turn after turn president trump underestimating nancy pelosi as a political adversary, as a negotiation opponent. he is the master of the art of the deal, right? it seems she has outsmarted him from the beginning, from the moment he thought he could bring the cameras in the white house and embarrass her and that didn't work. where do we stand now? the democrats are almost entirely united on this, and it's the republicans that are fracturing. it is nancy pelosi using her levers of power. yeah, the president might still give an address from the white house but he won't have the body

of congress with republicans standing up and clapping at everything that he says. >> we know how he likes that. >> she knows where to go exactly to hit him where he hurts. she's been doing this along the way. >> rob, our viewers can't see you but i can see you smiling. >> look, really just cut through the bottom line and nancy pelosi ought to invite ann coulter and rush limbaugh to give the state of the union because they're the people who are going to side when the government opens again. as long as they tell trump he's a wuss to open the government, that's where we're going to be. i do think this is a smart move by speaker pelosi to deny trump the platform he wants. worth noting when president trump gave that nationally televised address on immigration, it was the democratic response that got higher ratings and more poll approval. so she's got a heads i win, tails i win situation here where she denies trump this platform. i think whatever trump does, her response will be just as effective, if not more

effective, than whatever the president says. >> having said that, i always expect ron's judgment on this and he may be entirely night. i saw this happen once on a microcosm level in the state of virginia. there was a deadlock and they withdrew the invitation of the republican governor to give his state of the commonwealth address from this capitol. he said fine, i'm just going to do it in my office and suddenly they realized woe have the show all to themselves and changed his mind and begged him to come down anyway and said i'm fine and was above it all. >> i don't think there's a chance trump looks above anybody. >> he can still command a stage in the way members of congress can't. and the question is, he can at least to his followers say, look how petty and partisan they are. they won't even invite me here or hear me speak to them. it could play both ways. >> let me give you a chance to respond, ron. >> i think again we saw this play with the oval office address. there's nothing more presidential perhaps than an oval office address, the president gave it and didn't move anybody on the wall, certainly didn't move anybody on the shutdown. more people watched the democratic response.

if the president does another oval office address, that's not nearly as good of a format for him as the state of the union with the republicans cheering and applauding. again, the democrats, networks will have to give the democrats a response. i think this is a smart move. >> right across from the east room. >> let me ask you, and i want to follow up on this and on the other side of the break, where do we stand on the substance? it seems if the wall were popular, the government wouldn't still be shut down. no one is calling the offices saying give me my wall, give me my wall, give me my wall, or they would be running with conference rooms to meet with democrats to get the government open, no? >> you're right, nicolle. speaker pelosi made headlines with trump and her state of the union but here at the capitol in my notebook, the big news today, group of bipartisan senators, republicans and democrats, are pushing the white house to potentially release a letter today urging the government to reopen for three weeks. the cracks on the republicans' side are only growing that. more than anything, moderate

rebellion. that's why the democrats had some of the moderates to the white house today. the moderate level is growing and public frustration mounts as well, that could be the thing that pushes this shutdown towards a close rather than any kind of tit for tat between the president and speaker pelosi. t tat. >> i want to hear more about this modern republic, don't go anywhere. we'll be back with that. public,o anywhere we'll be back with that. you might take something for your heart... or joints. but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory.

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ron, let me ask you to pick

up on the reporting that a moderate or maybe militant has the people being angry about government workers missing a paycheck. >> the pay of this will mount, donald trump, whatever she, he is not a feel your pain president. i don't think he will do well as this skriecrisis continues, and will reopen the government and say this is pointless. but the politics for the democrats are not just about the wall and the substance, it's about not giving into a terrorist tactic. >> what they're saying privately is they're in a tactical tack.

they don't get something that bears him a political cost. something on dreamers that the right ring with will call amnesty and forgiveness on law breaking, he will do it on the debt ceiling in march, they will do it lots of times. this is a one sided conversation about demand. if they give in that is the end of the next two years, they want to hold the house majority. >> they held the election in the midterms and they won it to stand up to him on a variety of things. there is no traz here. you give us this and we'll give you that, it is how much of what you want are we supposed to give you and this is not a democratic priority, it is a bipartisan employee. >> people are blaming the

president for this shut down and the hardship it is causing. >> the pole numbers for this are terrible. that is usually something that inflicts pain on him. this this instance it seems that the attacks from people on far right wing radio were more rushing than the poll numbers. >> the pole numbers are crushing for general election voters and generally speaking, but he is still pretty strong, the core voter is still sticking with his team and that is what so many senators tell me is really influencing them right now. fear of a primary, they don't want to be seen as breaking from president trump. >> it might flip around on him if they wait long enough. when we come back ron clain gets

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moderates winning a reopening of the government. the democrats are not going to buckle or move. trump will have to blink in some way, shape, or form and stop listening to ann coulter and rush limbaugh. thank you so my guests, that does it for our hour. "mtp daily" starts right now. >> i will see you back onset tomorrow. >> good. >> if it is wednesday, if it walks like an asset and talks like an asset, is it an asset? good evening, i'm chuck todd here. we start with what could be the defining moment of this presidency. what is