administration. the core is abusing children to send a message of detour rauerr family overseas. >> that's "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. >> thank you, much appreciated. thanks to you for joining us. the government shutdown is in day 27 but winter doesn't care. looks like there will be another major storm arriving in the next few days. this looks like to hit the northeast this weekend. i know that, i feel comfortable telling you that on television. i can describe elements of that. i can talk about potential places that might be hit harder than others and when these -- i can do all that. i can even factor that all into my own weekend plans this weekend because there are thousands of employees of the national weather service working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide, we, the people, with that kind of very valuable

information and all of those employees are doing that work for free. they are doing it without being paid. hour after hour, day after day, storm after storm. yesterday you might have seen headlines about a georgia man who was arrested for planning attacks on multiple sites including the white house. you should know the fbi agents that got that guy and arrested and working without pay. we learn tonight that at the new york city officers of the fbi, they started a food bank. as of today for fbi agents and their families because you can only work so long without pay before you need to turn to charity in order to eat. as of today they are having ping-pong fights about what the president is personally able to do during the shutdown and what congressional leadership is personally able to do during the shutdown.

we have no clarity on whether or not there will be a state of the union address. there has never been one before while the government was shut down. nancy pelosi says as a matter of security, they cannot responsibly bring the president to a joint session of congress to issue an address, not while the government shutdown, not while so many of the personnel involved in the planning for a security event of that significance so many of them are not working at all right now or again, they are working without pay. in response to that potential cancellation or rescheduling of the state of the union that pelosi suggested yesterday, the president today decided he would cancel the military transport for a congressional delegation that nancy pelosi was set to join to visit u.s. troops in afghanistan. now the defense department, military transportation for a congressional delegation, that's not actually effected by the shut down but they wanted to do that anyway to smack her back about the state of the union or

something. and because he wanted to make as big a deal as possible about him cancelling that military transportation, the president also today publicly disclosed for the first time that that trip was supposed to happen. which means even if nancy pelosi and other members of congress did find alternative means of transportation to go take that congressional delegation to go visit troops in afghanistan, they now of course cannot for security reasons because the president blew that up. there is a reason when high-ranking american officials are flying into an active war zone, we don't find out until they are there. it's for their own safety. the president blew that up and told pelosi she should fly commercial anyway. and whether or not you care where the president or whether any other political leaders are personally spending their days while the shutdown persists, it is now increasingly bizarre and

more than remarkable. the trump administration with each pasting day really are expecting hundreds of thousands of federal employees to show up to work all day long without being paid. that's something federal workers have been able to do for a few days and we've had shutdowns here and there but we never had a shutdown this long and showing up and working without pay is only sustainable for so long. how long could you sustain that in your family? it may not be sustainable legally for that much longer, either. and poll loit tick itically it'e how administration is going to be able to sustain this expectation hundreds of thousands of americans will work without pay. it's hard to see how they will be able to sustain that when the cost is now so blunt and so

human and each passing day of this just makes it that much worse. >> we're not paying people to keep us safe. the t.s.a. agents who stop bombs from coming on to planes, the f.b.i. agents who track down terroris terrorists, the d.e.a. agents that stop the flow of drugs into our country and the officials who patrol the border. people think of public employees, federal employees in the washington area. no, they are all over the country. they are in small town u.s.a. and other places around the country. i don't understand why the reality of this in people's lives is not sell to concern or cared about by administration, not only are these workers not paid, they are not appreciated by this administration. these are the people who deliver services to the american people. we should respect what they do for our country.

we're saying let's get a date when government is open. let's pay the employees. maybe he thinks it's okay not to pay people who do work and i don't. my caucus doesn't, either. >> nancy pelosi speaking with reporters today. i am not a political expert, ask me about some of my past political predictions. i'm not great at it. i am not a great political expert. i have never run for office. i never would. i have never been part of a campaign for anybody else running for office but it strikes me in -- in political terms that if you have picked a big political argument and in so doing, you have put your political opponent in the position of arguing against you that it's their position that people who work should be paid for their work, if that's their position against you, that seems to me like maybe you're going to lose that fight. honestly, if you think whablt is

-- what is going on, logistically, i don't know how they will end it. politically, the way the president set this up is that he's put the democrats in the position of being able to make two cases to the public. the democrats have two public positions right now in this fight with the white house. they have two points. let's open the government and if people work, they should be paid. the trump administration and now the republicans in congress are in the position now of saying okay, we get that you want to open the government, but okay, but, yeah, and we understand that people should be paid but there is this other stuff that we also need to -- there is other factors here that you need to. i mean, the polling is increasingly terrible for the president and republicans with each day. started off bad for them and getting worse as this goes on longer and causes more real human pain. that doesn't mean, though, that any of us know when it will end.

certainly the politics of this are only going to get worse for those who are trying to sustain it and not better but again, we don't know how long they decide they will keep this going. outside of the on going stand off for the shutdown, there were a few surprises in the news today rae elated to the scandal. turns out that stuff doesn't stop for the shutdown. emily jane fox will be here tonight in just a moment from ""vanity fair."" jane has important new reporting on that story tonight specifically about president trump potentially having some new criminal liability from another campaign related revelation michael cohen. emily jane fox will join us live in a second with some of that new reporting. you are going to want to see that before we get to the michael cohen case, there is other developments and one of them i can't tell you much about

what the bottom line of it in terms of what the bottom line is in terms of what it means but i am very intrigued by this. we have learned late this evening before starting the show, the supreme court of the united states tomorrow, the justices of the supreme court tomorrow are once again going to consider at least some part of what we affection anytime recall the mystery case. this relates to robert mueller and the special counsel's office and high-level prosecutors working for the special counsel's office are believed to be associated with this case. i have to couch it like that because the filings and arguments in the case have been conducted under seal so i can't just show you something that proves that. the parties in this case are secret. the lawyers are secret. and even with the supreme court apparently considering an element of this case tomorrow, we're not sure what aspect of the case supreme court justices

will be looking at. broadly speaking, we know from previous court filings that this appears to be a case involving an unnamed corporation. "the washington post" has reported that they believe it is a financial institution of some kind, but who knows. from court filings we can tell this unnamed corporation that's maybe a financial institution. it's owned by a toforeign count. a federal court previously ruled that this mysterious owned corporation can't ignore a subpoena it receives and appears to be from the special counsel's office. lower court ruled that this company has to respond to that subpoena. that court also imposed a $50,000 a day penalty on that corporation for every day that they refuse to compile with the subpoena. that's got to be adding up. well, some element of that mystery case is going to be considered in conference by the

justices of the u.s. supreme court tomorrow. so in conference, means it's not going to happen in open court where you see the lawyers arguing back and forth. this will be the justices behind closed doors deciding amongst themselves but i'm intrigued. it's funny. everything about this case has seemed like it must be of out si -- out sized importance. all i can tell you is something about it is being adjudicatadju. the accesupreme court has taken up and we won't know until somebody decides if and when it can be unsealed. we also had another surprise announcement from the justice department about a big fancy expensive well-regarded law firm, one of the biggest and richest law firms on earth and they have just gotten in trouble for their role in the russia

scandal and it's various criminal offshoots. do you remember the guy alex van der zwann. he was that tall, blonde, tapper foreign lawyer that pled guilty to lying to federal investigators about his work with paul manafort. alex van der zwann is one of the people caught up who has not only pled guilty to a felony but sentenced to prison and already completed his prison sentence and gone home to europe. when he turned up in federal court in washington, there was a couple things interesting about his case and who he is. first of all, it turns out he's the son-in-law, married to the daughter of a russian billionaire. one of the billionaire owners of alpha bank. alpha bank is not a state-owned russian bank. it's the biggest bank in russia, i think, that's not state run although there is noise quite recently the kremlin might take over. the owner haves tu eers have tu

numerous times. for one, day athey are mentione the christopher steele dossier, part of the consolation of anecdotes and collusion between the trump campaign and russia during the 2016 election. the owners are involved in a legal dispute with fusion gps over their being named in steele's dossier. alpha banked turned up because computer servers associated with alpha bank were reportedly observed during the summer of 2016 having lots and lots of unexplained online communications with computer servers for the trump organization. why would computers at the president's business in trump tower be cocom communicating repeatedly by computers owned by the russian bank during the campaign? we don't know but that was alpha bank and one of the billionaire

owners of that bank is hermann is alex van der zwann and in his role of lying to investigators about the work he did for paul manafort. when alex van der zwann turned up in court, that was a strange detail we learned right off the bat and maybe that's just a coincidence. maybe that's a weird hair pin turn in the middle of the space time but the other thing that was interesting about alex van der zwann when he turned up in court was not just his odd family connection, but also the if i remember where he worked. because when alex van der zwann got in trouble for the stuff he got in trouble for, he was a relatively junior lawyer at a super fancy american white shoe law firm called skadden arps. the senior partner that over saw his work including at the time he was doing the stuff he got in trouble for, his supervisor, the

senior partner over him was a very famous, very well-connected american lawyer named gregory craig who was a former obama white house official. greg craig worked in the ocho boll -- ocbama white house. he was ocho bama's first white e counsel. alex van der zwann no longer work there is. gregory craig is no long aeropaaerer a partner. he left the firm in april. today surprise, the justice department revealed a multi million dollar civil settlement between the justice department and that very fancy law firm. the firm in this settlement agrees to retroactively register as having been an unregistered foreign agent working on behalf of the government of ukraine that paul manafort represented. the firm also agreed to pay back to the u.s. government the more

than $4 million paul manafort allegedly secretly shovelled to them so they would do work that looked like the independent work product of this very prestigious law firm but what they were doing is whitewash work for manafort's foreign clients. so there is a few things that are interesting about this. number one, this is a surprise. i didn't know this was coming. also, big prestigious rich connected american law firms like this one don't usually get in trouble for anything. [ laughter ] let alone for criminal foreign corruption cases like this one. seeing this law firm in this settlement is in itself a remarkable thing. that said, what they are getting from the justice department in this settlement, fie nsnanciall doesn't qualify as a slap on the wrist. it is such a gigantic rich law firm. the wall street journal said their revenue is something like

2.5 billion-dollar in rs in reva year. them having to pay the government back $4.6 million, that's like a freckle on a flea to them. that is not even a rounding error for them. they will not even feel that in one day's billings. and we should also note the money they are paying back apparently according to prosecutors, that 4.6 million they are paying back, yeah, they have to pay back to the government but that's just the money they received to do this illegal foreign lobbying work. that's just the money they got secretly shovelled from paul manafort. so that means all the justice department is requiring of them is they don't keep the illegal money they got but they don't have to pay anything on top of that. this is like if you were caught going 100 miles in a school zone, the cop is like whoa, you were 80 miles over the speed limit. it's 20.

you didn't see the flashing yellow? and your punishment is you have to slow down. you're no longer allowed to go 100 miles an hour in a school zone and you pledge that you won't anymore but other than that, you're free to go. aren't you ashamed? that's the equivalent of what happened here to this rich un u influential law firm. they get in trouble, embarrassing press release but have to register as a foreign agent. but they otherwise sort of get off scott free for what they did. that said, the justice department does praise them for their cooperation in this matter, so maybe they are helping with something else. also, this may not be the end. this civil settlement between the justice department and this rich law firm today, it doesn't resolve anything other than the conflict between the firm and the government. it doesn't resolve any related allegations that may arise about

any individuals. greg craig himself, the former obama white house lawyer, obama's first white house counsel, he appears to play a starring role in what is described in the settlement today as the firm's misconduct. he or somebody who described as partner one who appears to be gregory craig is repeatedly described as having made false and misleading statements to investigators looking into what was going on and whether or not this firm was engaged in illegal lobbying with paul manafort. so there have been previous public reports that gregory craig is personally under potential criminal scrutiny for his role in the saga but tonight, his firm aleast st lea settled things in something embarrassing but super cheap and remains to be seen whether any white shoe or not is about to drop with any further indictm t

indictments or plea agreements or cooperation deals or anything else we may hear about. and on top of that, there is the freaking unbelievably weird story about the president's long-time personal lawyer michael cohen, which broke this morning in the "wall street journal." did you see this? did you see this? in one of the surreal things about this presidency, no matter what else is going on and happens in any given day in the news, in the back of our minds, we all know somewhere that this president, whatever he's doing, good or bad, you know, exciting or embarrassing, whatever it is, this president is also technically known as individual one in a multiple felony criminal case that's about to send his long-time personal lawyer and business associate to federal prison for three years. the president is individual one and named as such by prosecutors when they brought charges against cohen for paying a quarter of a million dollars in hush money to make sure two women wouldn't go public with

their allegations they had affairs with the president. of all the things this president has been accused of and associated with, those hush money payments to those two women seem so small, right? so tabloid and dumb. and embarrassing to talk about, right? it was almost hard to take the legal maneuvering around them as something potentially quite serious to the president and presidency. but michael cohen pled guilty to two campaign finance felonies because of those hush money payments. the president got that, right? the president became individual one. he's described as having been the person who conspired with cohen to commit those felonies. they describe him as the person that directed the commission of the felonies and benefitted from them. nbc news reported that had the president not been president, with all the complications that employeds for a potential felony prosecution for somebody holding that office, had he not been

serving for president of the united states, he, too, would have been charged with felonies in the cohen case. well, now there is another one. as broken this morning by the "wall street journal", quote in early 2015, a man who run as small technology company showed up at trump tower to collect $50,000 for having helped michael cohen, then donald trump's personal lawyer, try to rig online polls in his boss' favor before the presidential campaign. quote, in his trump organization office mr. cohen surprised the man by giving him a blue walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash and comma, randomly, cam omma, a boxing gl mr. cohen said was worn by a brazilian mixed marshall arts fighter. the man in question confirmed to

the "wall street journal" in an interview he did do what he was paid to do. he did try quote to manipulate online polls in trump's favor. after he was directed to do so by michael cohen. and promised $50,000 for his trouble, even though he only got paid 12 to $13,000 plus a glove. because the news gods have a sense of humor, i should also tell you the man currently serves as the chief information officer at liberty university, the teuniversity, whose not ask whose online poll jesus would rig in exchange for a walmart bag with a glove in it. [ laughter [ laughter ] this again is that perfect trump era crossover between i need to take a shower and i can't believe i have to read this for

work. right now we can update the cast of characters here from the playboy model being paid by david pecker at the "national inquirer" and charming and hilarious smart adult film star with a bombastic lawyer who may run for president, to that cast after characters, the chief tech guy from televangelist university from the school by taking bags of cash and maybe boxing memorabilia as payment for trying to rig polls to get trump to seem like a top tier candidate. it's too stupid and dirty to care about, right? instinctually, that's what you're feeling but sometimes crime is small and dirty and boring and embarrassing. i mean, after the "wall street journal" broke this story this morning, michael cohen said publicly online, quote, as for the "wall street journal" article on poll rigging, what i did was at the direction of and

for the sole benefit or donald trump. and embarrassing as this is, if donald trump did know this was happening on his behalf and if he did direct it and if he did pay michael cohen $50,000 for this service and michael cohen did turn around and pay this contractor a bag of dirty $2 bills for this service plus a boxing glove and this service was designed to increase trump's perceived public standings so he would be seen as a credible presidential candidate to help him in the election, then yeah, this is dirty and small and hilarious but also in the same ballpark as the kind of felony campaign finance violation that's sending michael cohen to federal prison for three years. he starts the sentence in a fee wor -- few weeks and the case the president earned the moname individual number one. if this was an illegal

contribution and inkind payment to aid the election, that may not seem like the most important thing of the disgusting story but may be the criminal part and that question of whether the president was in on this, whether the president as michael cohen says knew about this and directed it, that may end up being a question of critical legal significance. for the president and for the presidency. and emily jane fox will break news on that front here with us next. fox will break news on that front here with us next sometimes, bipolar i disorder can make you feel like you have no limits. but mania, such as unusual changes in your mood, activity or energy levels, can leave you on... shaky ground. help take control by asking your healthcare provider about vraylar. vraylar treats acute mania of bipolar i disorder. vraylar significantly reduces overall manic symptoms, and was proven in adults with mixed episodes who have both mania and depression. vraylar should not be used in elderly patients with dementia, due to increased

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joining us now here onset is emily jane fox. great to see you. thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> the story broke this morning that michael cohen was paid $50,000 by either mr. trump or the trump organization, i'm not sure which for something that cohen sort of invoiced aztec nickel services. "wall street journal", we found out that some reimbursement like that happened during earlier charging documents. wall street appears to have tracked that down and figured out he was paying a guy to rig

online polls to make trump sound like a better candidate. does mr. trump deny this happened. >> no, i think he said in his tweet today, there was no denial there. he said clearly today was i did this at the direction of president trump, which is what he said about the other things he pleaded guilty to last year and the exact same language. he expressed his remorse and i think from my reporting today, what i know is that not only does cohen say this but there is a document that backs up his claim. >> there is a physical document that backs up his claim that the president was aware of this? >> that this was happening. >> the president does not use e-mail, at least we believe. the president, we don't think uses a computer. >> from all my reporting and every reporting i've ever done on the president, he doesn't text, he doesn't e-mail. >> so wouldn't have been an electron in this case communication.

>> i don't know what the document is but there is documentation. this is what i'll say about cohen. he's pled guilty to lying about things. there have been things in the past he's lied about publicly. cohen pleaded guilty to lying to congress. he is -- that is part of the reason he's going to prison in march. it would seem incomprehensible to me and against any better judgment for him to go to congress again and lie. he's already going to prison for this. so this is the kind of thing, this document and what he is saying about the president directing him or the president's knowledge of this payment ahead of time is the exact thing i'm sure he'll be asked about on february 7th. this is the reason he's going. there are things in the mueller probe cohen won't be allowed to talk about. there will be things totally off the table. this seems to me squarely in line with what he's going to be asked about and allowed to talk about and that's why this hearing will be so important.

it would be unbelievable for me to believe that cohen would go and lie to congress again. >> let me be totally clear on what we got here. cohen said publicly he did this at the direction of donald trump. you say he told you there is a document that backs that up. >> my reporting. >> your reporting is that there is a document that backs that up and cohen has access to that document? >> i would assume that he has access to this document. >> do we know if this is something that he has discussed already with either the southern district of new york, which prosecuted him on the other campaign finance felonies or with the special counsel's office or with other investigators? >> here is what i do know. he's spent upwards of 70 hours with investigators. if there is something permanent to a case he's involved in, he's shared it. not sitting in those rooms with

investigators playing with your thumbs or talking about the weather. i know he was not a official cooperating witness in the district of new york but it's my understanding he was fairly, if not fully corporative and that the investigations that we have known about publicly. >> is it your impression, my last question for you on this, it is your impression what the wall street journal is describing and cohen is not denying and there may or may not be documentation of backing up his assertion this was at the die rekrection of the president it your assertion this is the campaign related expenditure that may be, may have criminal implications? >> how could it not be? it is not $130,000 to one woman but if it is a payment that was made at the direction of president trump and potentially could have influenced the election, isn't that the exact kind of payment cohen was in trouble for and the exact payment people on this network have been saying for months could potentially implicate the

president or individual one? it's the same thing in my mind. >> we'll see if it ever is adjudicated. there is a complicated question you're allowed to spend as much of your money as you want on your campaign but you have to declare what you're doing that. >> that's that pesky little rule. >> don't stuff it in a boxing glove and stick it in a carry on bag. emily, thank you very much. much appreciated. >> much more to get to. stay with us. appreciated. >> much more to get to stay with us ♪

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we've been covering an effort over this past week to block the trump administration from dropping sanctions against companies associated with a putin allied russian oligarch. deripaska has been sanctioned over russia's interference in our election. when the effort to stop the lifting of those sanctions came up for a vote in the senate yesterday, 1 1 republicans brok ranks with the leadership and white house and voted with the democrats that the trump administration's plan to lift those sanctions should be revoked, should be blocked. the vote to block administration from lifting those sanctions, it was 57-42 and sounds like it won. that's a big majority 57 votes. still, that wasn't enough to get them to the 60 vote threshold they needed to stop this thing. so they got close to stopping it in the senate. they did fall short by a couple of republican votes. you can thank mitt romney and lindsey graham. but check this out, today

democrats in the house introduced their own version of this resolution, trying to block lifting of sanctions on daca deripaska's companies. the house voted overwhelmingly to stop the trump administration from lifting the deripaska sanctions. the vote in the house was 362-53. of the 362 yes votes, there were 136 republicans who broke ranks, who joined house democrats today in a big bipartisan overwhelming rebuke of the trump administration on this issue and the house vote alone cannot stop the trump administration from lifting these sanctions on deripaska's companies. can't do it without the senate passing it, too, but the house spoke in a unified voice. that's a lot of republicans, way more republicans telling the trump administration they are wrong on this than siding with the trump administration on this. now, what does this mean going

forward? super pointed question that you ought to be asking about that is coming up next. stay with us. 3w4r57

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. check this out. you may remember this. it's a video posed to instagram a couple years ago. two guys on a yacht, apparently somewhere on norway, pretty scenery, fancy yacht, lots of random jumps and dance music but if you ignore the weird production of it and look really closely, one of those guys on the yacht reportedly is russian oligarch oderipaska posted this video to instagram in august 2016, during the 2016 campaign with audio of someone she says is oleg deripaska discussing relations between the u.s. and russia. her video was uncovered last year by the anti putin russian leader and he used the video in his work and argued the yacht

trip amounted to a bribe paid by deripaska to the other guy on the boat with him, who was allegedly the russian deputy prime minister. now oleg deripaska was the trump campaign chair paul manafort. manafort reportedly owed him millions of dollars. manafort also offered deripaska private briefings on the campaign while he was trump's campaign chair. the apparent video of deripaska on the yacht got a lot of attention at the time including in the american press but shortly after that news appeared, just three weeks after the video appeared online, the woman who had posted the video, she got arrested in thailand. she said she had been in thailand teaching seduction seminars for tourists.

she was scared of being deported and ending up in russian hands and it was under those circumstances from inside a detention center in bangkok that she made a very startling claim. she said she had more recordings of oleg deripaska where you can hear them discussing the 2016 presidential election. she said those tapes would specifically shed light on the russian government's ent interference in the election and told "the new york times" they were discussing elections. deripaska had a plan about elections. she said she also had recordings of conversations between deripaska and three people who spokesh fluently. people who she thought were americans. now, to be clear, deripaska denied any wrongdoing or involvement in russian interference and denied russia did interfere in the u.s. election and as far as we know,

nobody has ever heard these tapes on confirm whether or not they exist but there she was in march, making those claims and in conconjunction, pleading wit the united states government to please give her asylum and pleading specifically, if she was able to get out of jail in thailand, she please not get deported back to russia. quote, if america gives me protecti protection, i will tell everything i know. i'm fraud afraid to go back to . some strange things happen. she stayed in the jail for months. she was charged for soliciting prostitution and faced a decade in prison. the fbi did try to get in touch with her while she was detained but she definitely never got the asylum she was seeking from the united states. in august, she said she no longer had these tapes. she said she had given them to deripaska and promised him her silence. but then on tuesday in an unexpected move, she appeared in court, pled guilty to

prostitution charges and under a deal, worked out ahead of time with the judge apparently, that guilty plea laid the groundwork for her to be released. time served. you're out. released and deported. a friend of hers told "the washington post", she was hoping to be deported somewhere on earth other than russia. if a situation like this could be described as hopeful, thailand shipped her out of the country this morning. she reportedly had been offered safe passage on her way home . she was told even though she would have to stop in moscow on her commercial flight, she would be allowed to proceed home but today when she landed in moscow for a change of flight, she was arrested. she was taken at the airport. there were a ton of journalists in that airport waiting there to try to talk to her. she was not allowed to speak to anybody. she was taken by russian law

enforcement. she had asked for help months ago after challenging this russian oligarch and challenging oleg deripaska and said she had evidence of what happened. she wanted u.s. help, she definitely did not get u.s. help. what happens now, we don't know. while all of that is playing out on the other side of the world, state side we've been following a different challenge to deripaska. the trump administration moved to drop u.s. sanctions on all of his companies. as we have been covering on monday, 11 republicans in the senate joined democrats to block that plan but that effort fell two votes short and the house today, though, as i mentioned, it was a different story. today in the house 136 republicans, nearly 70% of the republican members of the house joined the democrats in saying no, no sanctions relief for deripaska, not now, not in the middle of this. are there intelligence consequences of what is going on around this russian oligarch,

those votes and this action overseas. congressman eric joins us in a moment. n eric joins us in a moment you're made of trillions of cells. they work together doing important stuff. the hitch? like you, your cells get hungry. feed them... with centrum® micronutrients. restoring your awesome... daily. feed your cells with centrum® micronutrients today. psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream.

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joining us now is congressman eric swalwell of california. he's on both the intelligence committee and the judiciary committee. congressman, it's really nice to have you here tonight. thanks for your time. >> thank you, rachel. thanks for having me back. >> i want to ask you first about -- actually just about the shutdown. i don't know if you have any insights for us or any predictions for us about how and when this is finally going to end.

i don't know if you can tell if the end is coming. >> boy, i hope it's coming. before the show i was serving meals to federal workers at the world central kitchen with jose andres's team, and it was very hard to see, you know, fbi, police officers in uniform coming in for meals, mothers bringing their kids. and it was also federal workers volunteering to serve other federal workers, showing solidarity with their colleagues. and they just want us to open up government. i heard time after time. whatever the politics is here, can you at least just open up government and then negotiate what has to be done for border security. >> we've seen an interesting i think sort of collapse of what is the usual partisan divide in congress, specifically on this issue of russian sanctions over the past few days. we saw 11 republican senators peel off from their leadership and from the trump white house in the senate. we saw 136 republicans today in the house peel off from the

trump white house and join democrats to try to stop the trump administration from lifting russian sanctions associated with oleg deripaska. i know the shutdown and the sanctions issue are different things, but i wondered if that kind of fissure, that kind of fracture of our usual partisan expectations gives you some hope. >> well, it does. it also shows and demonstrates that there's bipartisan consensus in both chambers. over 400 members between both chambers. that believe that this is a bad move for our national security. and also recognizes that sanctions are a tactic to change behavior. and russia hasn't changed its behavior. former secretary of defense james mattis said that they actually sought to interfere in the 2018 election just as they were in the 2016 election. so why would we be rewarding them? i'll just say this, rachel. if you're looking at a quid pro quo, i think you can file this under the quo. more quo evidence between donald trump and russia.

and it's actually dramatically sped up since that helsinki meeting, where we don't know what was said, where the interpreter's notes have been taken by the president. since that meeting with vladimir putin president trump has now sought to ease sanctions, he's pulled us abruptly out of syria, and now we've learned from reporting he has time after time talked about pulling us out of nato. and just today as speaker pelosi was going to brussels to meet with nato leadership he cancels her trip, which may be a petty move in light of what's going on with the shutdown on his part but may also be i think his insecurity about demonstrating support for nato. >> on that specific vote in congress, i'm also struck by the fact that we've had a whole bunch of revelations and hard questions raised specifically about deripaska while the trump administration is lifting sanctions specifically on his companies. i mean, we just got that the somewhat inadvertent revelation that manafort was sharing polling data francis the campaign with his intermediary with deripaska, who's a guy

associated with russian intelligence. deripaska, of course, is the guy who manafort was offering private briefings too. there's this disturbing case of this belarusian woman who just got out of prison saying -- after having said that she had damning evidence linking oleg deripaska to the russian election interference effort. she had apparently given assurances that she would be left alone by russia and allowed to go home. russia then picked her up at the moscow airport today and she hasn't been heard from since. all of these things are sort of deripaska adjacent. while the administration is moving to ease sanctions specifically related to him. >> there are only open questions about deripaska, and there's none that have been closed. we know that the mueller investigation is still open, that the line of inquiry into paul manafort is still open. his sentencing hasn't occurred. and manafort had a direct line of communication to deripaska. there's classified information about deripaska as well that mr. schiff, our chairman, talked about. not the classified information but the existence of it. on the floor today. we know he's connected to

vladimir putin. i think the most responsible thing to do would be if there's ever going to be a discussion about easing sanctions against russia have that conversation, have that discussion after the mueller investigation is closed. >> congressman eric swalwell from the intelligence committee, the judiciary committee. sir, thank you very much. good to have you here. >> my pleasure. thank you. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. e right back stay with us like my bike and my calves. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

hi susan!hs) honey? i respect that. but that cough looks pretty bad... try this new robitussin honey. the real honey you love... plus the powerful cough relief you need. mind if i root through your trash? new robitussin honey. because it's never just a cough. thafrnlthsz for being with us tonight. for the record i just want to say there is no symbolic significance to the fact i'm accidentally wearing a blue blazer instead of the same black blazer i've been wearing for the past 2 1/2 years. i didn't realize it was blue. the lighting in my office is a little dim and i'm getting old. we'll be back to black tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> rachel, i'm missing a blue blazer in my closet upstairs. i -- yeah. yeah. rachel, you will remember the night, i don't know, it seems leek a couple years ago, i