about the state of the union? >> i would hope that. i don't think the president would be that petty, due? >> reporter: you're essentially accusing the president of the united states of endangering the lives -- >> all right. speaker of the house nancy pelosi there taking questions from reporters on the white house, how she dubbed it there, outing her travel plans to afghanistan. the back and forth between the speaker and the white house continues. we'll have more on that. our garrett haake there on capitol hill just asked that question. he'll join us in just a bit. that's going to wrap up this hour of "msnbc live." "andrea mitchell reports" starts right now. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," if true, the two most important words in washington today after a bombshell report lays out for the first time that the president of the united states allegedly instructed his former fixer to lie to congress about the trump organization's plans to build a tower in moscow. >> if trump said to michael cohen, look, this is going to be politically embarrassing to me, if anybody asks about the trump

org, say it stopped in january, that's one thing. did he explicitly say when you testify to congress say that it ended in january, that is quite another thing. grounded. the president cancels nancy pelosi's secret trip to afghanistan, a war zone, saying the speaker of the house needs to stay in washington while the shutdown is on. now pelosi is saying the president's announcement endangered personnel on the ground. >> the fact that they would leak the commercial plan, that we were flying commercial, is a danger not only to us but to the other people flying commercial. so it's very irresponsible. and second date. north korea's top diplomat comes to washington for the second time. is another summit with president trump and kim jong-un imminent? good day, everyone, i'm

andrea mitch ctchell in washing where the president is lashing out at michael cohen in response to what could be devastating breaking news about his presidency. two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter telling buzzfeed news that the president directed his former fixer to lie to congress about when negotiations with the russians over a trump tower in moscow ended. it is the first reported allegation of mr. trump personally instructing a subordinate to lie about any link to the kremlin. nbc news has not independently confirmed this reporting. the president's personal attorney is avoiding any discussion about the story's sources. rudy giuliani instead telling nbc news overnight, if you believe cohen, i can get you a great deal on the brooklyn bridge. that is called a non-denial denial. joining me now, nbc's kelly o'donnell, nbc national security reporter ken dilanian, and msnbc contributor barbara mcquade, a former u.s. attorney and our "of counsel" for today.

thank you all for being here. ken dilanian, that's the laub bu let's talk about buzzfeed's reporting and what your own reporting has concluded, while we have not officially confirmed this. >> that's right, andrea, we don't have source to go confirm this story but we're not being steered off of it. lanny davis, a spokesman for michael cohen, issued a statement last night in which he did not deny the story, he simply declined to comment on it. michael cohen has denied the allegation that he went to practicing prague and met with russians in the past, so it's interesting that he hasn't denied this. the rudy giuliani statement, you say said, was a non-denial denial. white house spokesman hogan gidley was on fox news, raising questions about the source, accusing people of lack of credibility, but not flatly denying that it happened.

andrea, this is huge and it's separate from the russia investigation. the buzzfeed story says it happened after the election. and so it raises the question of whether donald trump suborned perjury and concocted a scheme to lie to a co-equal branch of government, the congress. and that's why you're seeing all these democrats saying, look, if this is true, this requires an impeachment inquiry, because this is exactly the kind of thing that drove richard knocks nixon from office, andrea. >> it could be suborning perjury and could also be obstruction of justice. so very heavy implications here. kelly o'donnell, how is the white house responding? >> there's been a lot of attacking of michael cohen, which has been a strategy they've used before. but what that lacks is dressing the underlying claims in the buzzfeed article which as you have pointed out, we have not independently confirmed, that indicates that investigators have possession of e-mails and other sort of digital fingerprints that include

documents from the trump organization that in some way would corroborate this, perhaps conversations behind the scenes about alerting the president, we don't know. just imagine what that might include that goes beyond the voice of michael cohen alone. one of the things we've heard from the president directly, using his twitter feed, is one of his tweets today, which quotes a fox news report that says don't forget michael cohen has already been convicted of perjury and fraud and as recently as this week, "the wall street journal" suggests he may have stolen tens of thousands of dollars. that's the end of the quote. this is the voice of the president, lying to reduce his jail time, exclamation point, watch father-in-law. what the president has not done is directly addressed the claims. he could have used his twitter account to say, i never urged him to violate the law, i never told cohen to lie to congress, which is a crime. he has not done that. we don't know if his lawyers

have been involved in how he uses his twitter account, we haven't seen much of that in the past, so it's all about cohen. the other piece of that is the father-in-law suggestion. he's done that before, he did it when he spoke to his good friend and fox news host jeanine pirro, saying without any specifics, look at the father-in-law. we have learned from our team who has sourcing close to cohen that he has been rattled by that and concerned about his family's safety. the specter of an accusation, somehow that the cohen family might be in some additional jeopardy after all they have been through and will be going through as he heads to serve a prison term. we don't yet know if the white house will go beyond that. but spokespeople here have, again, said that the report is lacking credibility because of its source, buzzfeed, and also saying that cohen lacks credibility, not addressing the underlying issues, and kind of

rewarning the sorts of attacks on cohen that we've heard on earlier steps of the investigation. andrea? >> there are a number of significant parts to that presidential response. it misstates that michael cohen was never convicted of percentaperjury per se. cohen has said he was reconsidering whether he was going to testify on february 7th as had been agreed to before congress because of the president going after the father-in-law, so that was potentially an effort to try to back him off and make him more fearful about his testimony to congress that has at least been scheduled and announced. barbara, let's talk about the legal implications. let's posit that perhaps, you know, as the indications are, perhaps this is in fact true, what are the legal implications of the potential felonies that would be involved here, especially as they relate to what william barr has said? >> yeah, i think it's very

significant. you know, if this was a statement under oath, there's been some question about it, it could be suborning perjury which is a statutory crime, punishable by prison. if it was witness tampering or obstruction of justice, which these facts if true would fit, is a 20-year felony. because we're talking about the president of the united states, instead of talking about violations of the criminal code, we're talking instead about high crimes and misdemeanors. but this is the very type of thing that richard nixon was charged with, an impeachment article was prepared for him, it was not charged. so these are very serious matters. with respect to your particular question about william barr, i think this would even fit within william barr's definition of obstruction of justice. he wrote that letter to the justice department talking about a particular theory of obstruction of justice did not fit and he thought it was fatally flawed, and that was a

theory where the president is asking his subordinates to stop investigating a particular matter. he said that the president has the right to do that. but what he also said is the president would be guilty of obstruction of justice if he were to conceal evidence. and this allegation is in that category. >> and i want to just make clear, eric swalwell, a member of the intelligence committee, he did say on our air last night that michael cohen was sworn in. so whatever he said to congress was under oath. let me play a little bit of william barr from his confirmation hearing earlier this week, answering those very specific questions from amy klobuchar about what he had said in that june letter. >> you wrote on page 1 that a president persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction; is that right? >> that -- yes. any -- well, any person who persuades another. >> any, okay. and you also said that a president or any person convincing a witness to change

testimony would be obstruction; is that right? >> yes. >> okay. and on page 2 you said that a president deliberately impairing the integrity or availability of evidence would be an obstruct n obstruction, that is correct? >> yes. >> could you clarify, barbara, under that rubric, if all those facts add up, that barr would say that in that case a sitting president could be indicted, or is it just that it could become articles of impeachment, or both? >> i think what he's saying is it could constitute the crime of obstruction of justice. and in that case, you know, under the theory that a president could not be indicted, it would be up to congress to look into that theory. or if there is a theory that the president could be indicted, it would satisfy the elements. the gist of his letter was that what he was aware of, that is, president trump asking jim comey to stand down from investigating mike flynn, could not constitute obstruction of justice because the executive has the absolute power to decide what the

department of justice does and does not investigate. but this, based on those admissions to senator klobuchar and the allegations, is very different. it's a different type of obstruction of justice. it is the destruction or concealing of evidence, not use of his executive power, but instead trying to tamper with the integrity of evidence, a very different type of category. and william barr has said yes, that would constitute the crime of obstruction of justice. >> thank you so much, barbara mcquade, kelly o'donnell, and of course ken dilanian. we have breaking news now. we'll quickly update you on what's happening on north korea because the white house has just announced that kim yong-chol, the former intelligence chief, top official, right hand person to kim jong-un, who is in washington today, he met with secretary pompeo at 11:00 and he's now heading over to the white house or will be shortly, for a meeting with the president. that would seem to indicate that plans are afoot for a second summit, perhaps to be announced today. we'll have a lot more coming up

later in the program. meanwhile, texas democratic congressman joaquin castro serves on the intelligence committee. congressman castro tweeted his initial reaction to the bombshell buzzfeed reporting thursday night, writing, if the buzzfeed story is true, president trump must resign or be impeached. congressman castro joining us now. thank you very much for being with us. first of all, from what you've heard so far, if this report is true, would you want to proceed to impeachment? that is not what nancy pelosi has been saying, and the democratic leaders. >> yeah, i think if this report is true, if the president directed michael cohen to lie to congress, then that's a clear case of participating in perjury and obstruction of justice, and he should resign. but if he doesn't resign, he should be impeached. >> you are a member of the intelligence committee. did you hear michael cohen's testimony? >> yes.

i was -- along with adam schiff, he and i were the main democratic questioners in that interview. >> is there any way you can confirm what he said, is it what it is claimed he said, that he prevaricated about the timing of the trump tower -- when the trump tower negotiations ended? >> yeah, as you can imagine, michael cohen was in a very different place when he did that interview with us. and of course he's admitted now to lying to congress. so that's part of the reason that we need to bring him back now to the intelligence committee, but possibly -- obviously the over the committee, perhaps the judiciary committee, and get to the bottom of this specific question. the other thing is i hope that bob mueller will let him talk to us, because if this is the case, if this is true, what buzzfeed has reported, then congress needs to take action. it means you have a president

who is directing at least one person and who knows, perhaps others, to lie to congress. >> what about the argument from many of your colleagues that you all should wait for the mueller report or for whatever mueller reports to the attorney general before proceeding with anything on impeachment? >> look, i mean, there's something to that argument. the reason is we can't -- as compelling as this news article seems, we can't just go off a news article. we have to either independently confirm it ourselves by bringing witnesses in, which we'll start doing. adam schiff said that yesterday. and then -- and/or, the second thing is, bob mueller has already gone through that process and he puts out a report before we have finished our investigation into this. so i think whenever of those two things comes first, if we determine that this report is true, then we should move forward with impeachment. >> do you consider the president's tweets, again going after michael cohen's

father-in-law, as in any way an attempt to intimidate a witness who is about to testify on february 7th and could that be obstruction? >> oh, i think so. it should be at least considered a form of witness tampering. he's trying to mess with a witness there. it's actually just on a personal level, andrea, if you think about it, how dangerous it is for that man when the president of the united states, who has a twitter following of, i don't know, i don't follow him on twitter, but 40 or 50 million people, whatever it is, and you're basically, you know, maligning a specific person, that gets very dangerous on a personal level for someone. >> who is not a public official or, you know -- >> right, he's a private citizen, sure. >> and in fact someone who is an immigrant to this country as well. let me play a little bit of what your twin brother, julian, who is running for president, had to say on "morning joe" today on the subject of impeachment. >> based on last night's report about the president instructing

his lawyer to lie to congress, do you believe congress should begin articles of impeachment against the president? >> i believe that they should wait for the hearings and probably the mueller report. >> before beginning. >> yes. >> there seems to be a distance between you and your twin brother on this very subject of the timing. >> it's actually the same. if you look at my tweet, i said if it's true. other members of congress have said the same thing. what we mean by that is, it looks like a compelling news report but you have to independently verify it, or you're relying on bob mueller to present it to you. so he's right, either you have to do the hearings or you're going to get the mueller report. >> very quickly, now that he's running and you're where you are, as kids, did you guys ever impersonate each other, just to fool friends, family, anybody else? >> no. we actually never did. we got accused of it but never did. i -- actually we switched

classes one time. i think it was an english class. there was a substitute teacher. so i don't really count that. >> so we won't see you in some debate if he's not quite up to it? just kidding. >> i have said i will either grow a beard, shave my head, or something else to make sure everybody knows, i don't want to be mistaken for a presidential candidate especially when i don't have secret service protection. so don't worry about that. >> thank you, i know it's a busy day for you. >> thank you. coming up next, the shutdown, the squabble between speaker pelosi accusing the president of endangering u.s. personnel in afghanistan by announcing her secret trip to the war zone. the latest on the escalating duel between the president and the speaker. president and the speaker. your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish,

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house speaker nancy pelosi this morning saying that president trump put her secret trip to afghanistan in danger after he abruptly canceled it just about a half hour before she was supposed to take off. in a statement pelosi says, quote, in the middle of the night, the state department's diplomatic security service provided an upgraded threat assessment detailing that the president announcing the sensitive travel had significantly increased the danger to the delegation's and the troops' security during the trip. this morning we learned that the administration had leaked the commercial travel plans as well in light of the grave threats caused by the president's action the dell gas statiegation has d

postpone to troops so as not to endanger the security of other travelers on the flight and the troops. nbc's garrett haake caught up with the speaker and asked her if it was a deliberate counter strike. >> i hope not. i don't think the president would be that petty, due? >> garrett haake joins us, and steve israel, the former chair of the democratic congressional campaign committee. garrett, you talked to the speaker, very politely put, "i don't think he would be that petty," sarcastically or ironically put. obviously there is concern about outing a confidential trip. >> anger over the cancellation, and frankly, angry over the degree to which the president's actions here put people in danger both by outing the trip in the first place and then, as pelosi says she believes, the white house leaking the details

of the commercial travel plans that they used as a fallback puts the delegation at risk, puts the folks they would be meeting with on the ground at risk. i believe you call that shade, what we just heard from nancy pelosi. it is striking, the tone that she has tried to continue to take with the president in public, there turning the question back on me rhetorically, continuing to stick to the line about rescheduling the state of the union purely as a security measure. she has not let the dogs of war go, if you will, against this president yet. she has held back members of her caucus who have talked about impeaching him. she has held back quite a lot so far. and you just wonder how long that can continue as the shutdown stalemate drags on. >> and the white house statement in response to pelosi is, when the speaker of the house and 20 others from capitol hill decide to book their own commercial flights to afghanistan, the world is going to find out, the idea that we would leak anything and put the safety of any american at risk is a flat out

lie. i'm not sure that anything like that, it was announced by the white house. steve israel, i have not seen anything like this. you can argue the wisdom of pelosi leaving the country while 800,000 people are out of work and whether that was the right move even though she's going to visit the troops, you know, whether she was giving up whatever competitive advantage she had in this argument, but aren't people going to say, why don't you guys stop fighting and trying to one-up each other and get back to getting the government reopened? >> well, the fact of the matter is that you can pursue your constitutional oversight responsibility with respect to activities in afghanistan, you can visit the troops, you can get a sense of what is happening with civilian control of afghanistan, and also work to end the shutdown at the same time. andrea, let me say this. i've been to afghanistan and iraq over a dozen times as a member of congress, went as a member of the majority in the house, went as a member of the

minority in the house. rule one, in every single case, was this: you don't publicize this. you don't let people know you're going before you go. you don't let people know you're there when you're there and you do not let anybody know you were there until it's wheels down at andrews air force base. so the fact that the white house did in fact bring light to this trip was in my view dangerously irresponsible and unprecedented for republicans or democrats. >> the other thing, congressman, and garrett, apparently the president is not aware that the speaker of the house since 9/11 is supposed to fly military only, that in the succession, since it comes right behind the vice president in the succession to the presidency, this has been a rule since 9/11. congressman? >> well, that's correct. the speaker does fly military air into certain areas. there are times when the speaker of the house, whether it's a republican or a democrat, will

fly commercial. but particularly on codels, when you're going into dangerous operational areas, you fly military. one other thing, this isn't just about the protection of the speaker of the hours or the members of the codel. this is about the protection of the troops and the security detail. you don't want the bad guys to know when you're on the ground or heading towards that ground or imperil the people who are assigned to protect those dignitaries. >> garrett, has anybody in the white house to your knowledge also reacted to the fact that melania trump, at the same hour, was flying on a similar military plane by herself to mar-a-lago when the president was canceling the speaker's trip and saying that during a shutdown that plane should not take off? >> to my knowledge they have not yet responded to questions about this, andrea, although one could argue that melania trump is less involved in the shutdown negotiations than nancy pelosi. >> understood. thank you very much, garrett haake. thank you, steve israel.

and more coming up. deep impact, a month into the shutdown. federal workers struggling to make ends meet. we'll meet two furloughed workers sharing their personal stories next on "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us on msnbc. mitchell reports. stay with us on msnbc. no more excuses with cologuard. we all make excuses for the things we don't want to do. but when it comes to colon cancer screening... i'm not doin' that. i eat plenty of kale. ahem, as i was saying... ...with cologuard, you don't need an excuse... all that prep? no thanks. that drink tastes horrible! but...there's no prep with cologuard... i can't take the time off work. who has two days? and i feel fine - no symptoms! everybody, listen! all you need is a trip to the bathroom. if you're 50 or older and at average risk,

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with federal workers caught in the crossfire of the shutdown fight, and coping with mounting financial stress at home, tens of thousands have been forced to seek unemployment benefits and according to the labor department, those numbers are expected to grow. joining me now here is joanna mcclellan, program analyst for homeland security, and dan romberg, aviation inspector for the faa, both former air force veterans and furloughed federal workers. joanna, what is the impact on you? you're at home, you've got a child. >> it's the stress of the whole thing. it's one thing to, you know, go without one paycheck. that doesn't seem like that's such a huge deal. but we're probably going to miss a second paycheck, we most likely won't see any income until february 1st. we managed to meet our bills

this month but next month is really going to be hard on us. i was telling dan in the green room earlier that i woke up in a cold sweat, like 3:00 in the morning yesterday, because i realized i have a travel stipend that's supposed to come in and i have a standing order against, and i said, i have to cancel that because i can't afford to pay it if it hits. the commuter folks told me they don't know if they will get the stipend from the government. most federal employees in the d.c. region, we get reimbursed for our metro cards and for taking the train into d.c. it's kind of an impetus to get us to use public transportation instead of driving our cars in. if the government doesn't pay that stipend then you have to pay that out of your own pocket. it's hundreds of dollars. at this point i'm worried about spending, you know, the money at the grocery store and buying all the generic stuff and making sure i'm only getting the bare minimum to get us through the week. this is the impact that this is

having. because even if you have savings, without knowing -- at this point it doesn't look like there's any end in sight. and you don't want to spend any money because you don't know how long it's going to have to last. so whatever you do have, you're hanging onto. >> dan, you were in the air force. you were deployed overseas. you graduated from the air force academy, became a private pilot. we know they're very well paid, for the most part, compared to government service. but you missed government service, so how do you feel now about coming back into the government? >> well, you know, i'm glad that i did it. i think, you know, i was raised that it's a privilege to be involved in government service, that it's something you can do for your community, that it's something that you can do for your nation, it's something to be proud of. but there are sacrifices involved. you're not going to be famous. you're not going to make a lot of money. but that's okay, because the job

will be reliable and steady and that's part of the deal. that sacrifice never involved you're not going to be paid to do your work. and i think that's really part of the very difficult reality for a lot of federal workers and a lot of federal workers like me, we have folks that are going to work that are not getting paid. they have to pay for elder care or they have to pay for childcare to go to work to collect a zero dollar paycheck. that's really tough because the money is flowing out for them to go to work or be fired. and there's no paychecks coming in. and no end in sight, as joanna said, when the paycheck will be coming in. >> you've been furloughed. what about airline safety? you work for the faa. how safe is air travel and what about the stress on these people, unintentionally, people are not sleeping. joanna talked about waking up in a cold sweat. >> absolutely. the faa has just begun recalling inspectors because they've

decided that the inspectors really need to be out there monitoring the airlines, so good for them, but they're not going to be paid. they're inspecting for free. but i'll give you an example, probably one of the best examples that i can use, is an air traffic controller. so you've got someone who is in a high pressure environment, they're controlling airplanes. they're trying to think about where this airplane is, where that airplane is, where that airplane is going to go and what they're going to do and how much of their mind is on whether their mortgage is paid and whether their childcare is taken care of and whether they have ramen noodles at home or -- i mean, i don't want that. i have a mom and a little niece and, you know, a family that flies on airplanes. i would like my friends who are air traffic controllers to be fully focused on their jobs and not be worried about financial issues. >> joanna, you work for homeland, and homeland is the center of this dispute, all the other appropriations bills have been passed actually by both houses, now re-passed by the

house. what about the whole argument that border security is being ignored by democrats and has to be dealt with first before any negotiations on getting the government reopened? >> it's hard to hear, because the goalposts keep moving. you know, it was a wall, and then it was the steel slats, now it's we're changing it to border security. being in the federal government and, you know, i'm detailed to a customs and border protection office right now, i know that we're dedicated to border security. so it's kind of hard hearing either side, both sides, arguing about a lack of border security, when, you know, i'm in an office that knows what programs are being built on the border, and i know that we're funding it. i know it's all happening. so it's kind of hard to hear. it seem disingenuous for this argument to even be happening right now. >> what would you say to them? >> to at least -- you know, it doesn't make sense to have all of the other government agencies closed over an argument about border security, especially when

it's impacting people. irs, faa, other departments, it's impacting people. so reopen those, you know, fund at least for a temporary time, fund dhs, and then have the discussion. because i mean, this is a bigger problem than what we're going to be able to fix during a couple of weeks during a shutdown. we need to have an actual discussion and we need people around the table to do that. >> thank you so much for sharing your stories. >> thank you. coming up, the "i" word, calls for the president's impeachment grow louder among democrats after the bombshell buzzfeed report that president trump directed michael cohen to lie to congress. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." more coming up on msnbc. g "andrl reports. more coming up on msnbc.

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added one handed pumps and beat the top safety standards the new johnson's® choose gentle this just in, the president's personal attorney rudy giuliani has just issued a new statement in response to that buzzfeed report that the president had instructed michael cohen to lie to congress. quote, any suggestion from any source that the president counseled michael cohen to lie is categorically false. michael cohen is a convicted criminal and a liar. to quote the prosecutors, he has traded on a pattern of lies and dishonesty over an extended period of time and for that he is going to pay a very serious price. today's claims are more made-up lies born of michael cohen's malice and desperation in an effort to reduce his sentence. peter baker, chief without correspondent for "the new york

times" and matt miller, msnbc justice and security analyst and former chief spokesman for the justice department under eric holder. thanks so much. peter baker, what do we know, what do you know based on the buzzfeed reporting? we have not confirmed it at nbc. >> no, we haven't yet posted a story confirming this. our reporters, my colleagues, are obviously chasing around town trying to figure out what we do know and don't know. it's an exposlosive story. that's why it's always good to be careful as journalists, look for your own sources and your own understanding of a story as big as this. that's what we're trying to do right now. >> matt miller, the implications are very serious, if this were true. as peter said, we have to be very careful because it is such an explosive accusation. >> yeah, that's right. if this story is accurate, and we should note these two reporters have a pretty good

track record so far of reporting around the trump tower moscow deal, so they have a track record here. if this story is true, it's about to move from the realm of prosecutors to the realm of congress. since may of 2017 when the president fired jim comey, we have been debating whether the president's actions constitute obstruction of justice. the legal argument would be over if this story is true. there is no argument that this, suborning perjury, is anything but a crime. and the question only becomes factually did it happen or not. the president now through rudy giuliani, 14, 15 hours after the statement, is saying that it didn't. i guess there would be a quasi legal argument then, well, this was a crime but not a high crime and misdemeanor. the debate now, if this this accurate, moves to congress. really, with a story like this, there is no reason for congress to defer to bob mueller and wait to investigate this. this goes directly to them and

to their authority to hold the president accountable. it's the kind of thing they ought to move immediately to investigate and not wait for the end of mueller's investigation. >> couldn't they be interfering with mueller's investigation? he still has witnesses open, he still has that grand jury open. >> they can do a bit of deac de-confliction with him. they can try to make sure they don't interfere with the investigation. but congress has its own responsibility here. this lie, if this was a lie, was to congress. the justice department has made clear they are not the final adjudicators of presidential behavi behavior. they've made clear they can't indict the president. pleading guilty to a crime is not on the table for the president. so it's up to congress. there is no reason to wait and investigate. >> peter baker, what about the mood inside the white house, from what you're hearing, the "new york times" report about

how the president was complaining to people on the shutdown issue that he was getting crushed. there seems to be a lot of stress going on inside the oval office and the environs of the white house. >> keep in mind, it's also kind of an empty place. a significant share of the white house staff is not there because of the shutdown. a significant share of the household staff is not there because of the shutdown. the president himself has talked about this, he's sitting here alone in the white house, he says, just me and the guys with the machine guns. he's not surrounded about the apparatus that a president would normally have to confront these multiple challenges that he has here. one, of course, the continuing shutdown, the longest now in american history. two, a terrorist attack just the other day killing four americans when he wants to pull out of syria. three, the latest revelation, as matt says, bringing directly the question of a possible impeachable offense to the doorstep of the president of the

united states. i think matt's point is exactly right, by the way, up until now a lot of these things that we've been talking about, there's been a debate whether they would be impeachable. the trump team has argued from the beginning there is no such thing as collusion, no crime of collusion, and even if he did it, which he didn't do, there's no actual chargeable offense. it's also not possible to charge him with obstruction of justice because he's allowed by virtue of the constitution to fire an fbi director. up until now those things have been, you know, questionable debates. there's no debate about suborning perjury. if in fact he were to have told somebody to lie to congress, that is as clear-cut an allegation as we've seen so far. >> to say nothing of tweets that are trying to intimidate a potential witness, a future scheduled witness, february 7th, by talking about michael cohen's family, his father-in-law. peter baker, matt miller, thank you both so much. and coming up, president trump and north korea's top nuclear negotiator reportedly

meeting in the white house as we speak. what message is kim yong-chol bringing for president trump from kim jong-un? stay with us right here on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. orts" on msnbc. ', baby♪ ♪tryin' to hold back this feeling for so long♪ ♪and if you feel, like i feel baby then come on,♪ ♪oh come on let's get it on applebee's all you can eat is here. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. there's brushing...and there's oral-b power brushing. oral-b just cleans better. even my hygienist said going electric could lead to way cleaner teeth. and unlike sonicare, oral-b is the first electric toothbrush brand accepted by the ada. oral-b. brush like a pro.

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at that time hour at the white house, the president is meeting right now with the right hand man of north korean leader kim jong-un. we believe finalizing plans for a second summit between the two leaders. secretary of state mike pompeo met with the north korean about an hour ago. joining me is korean affairs analyst director for asia fares in president george w. bush's city council, and msnbc political analyst rick stengel in the obama administration. first, since that first summit in sipping a pore, there were promises for denuclearizing. the north koreans have not delivered on any of those promises. they are demanding that the u.s. and allies lift economic sanctions before they get rid of their nukes. so why would we rush to a second summit? >> well, i think the reason there might be an inclination for the white house to go for a

second summit is that they need a win. i mean, there is so much other stuff going on right now with the shutdown of government, possible impeachable offenses, a six-month period of time after the singapore summit where really nothing happened in terms of the diplomacy. and kim jong-un gives a new year's speech where he's very open to having a second meeting and talks about denuclearization as a goal. the president really liked that speech. he even tweeted that he liked the new year's speech. so i think he sees this visit by kim yong chol as an opportunity to get the formal response from the north korean leader that they're ready for a second meeting. and that meeting could happen fairly soon. it could happen as early as next month, somewhere in southeast asia, the results of which, of course, we don't know. we don't know if there is going to be any concrete denuclearization steps taken by the north koreans. there were certainly none following the singapore summit six months ago. so there is a lot up in the air here. but i sense a little bit of desperation on the part of the president to try to get a

meeting to take all of the attention away from everything else that we're seeing on the news these days. >> well, to that point, rick stengel, is there a concern that the president's so eager for a distraction, a shiny object -- he likes summits -- would agree to withdrawing troops now that jim mattis is not there to backstop him, to suggest what might be possible after singapore, or lift sanctions even though we don't have an inventory of their weapons, which was the initial demand in singapore? >> yes, andrea. the fact that president trump may agree to have a second summit is the dividend kim jong-un wants. and as victor said, it reflects a certain amount of desperation, as you said, a distraction. and it comes one day after the defense department issued a report yesterday, the missile defense review, that north korea represents an extraordinary threat to the united states. one day after vice-president

pence had said that they've taken no concrete steps towards denuclearization. in fact, the two sides can't even agree on what denuclearization means. and usually when you get a second summit, it's a recognition that you've made some progress since the first one, and there's no evident progress at all. >> in fact, victor, aren't there indications that they've been cheating on their commitments? >> yeah. i mean, they're continuing to produce material, their missile and nuclear programs. the only thing they've agreed to do is close down an old nuclear test facility and freeze operations on one of the missile bases. but we know there are many, many scores of missile bases in north korea. in addition to what rick said, i think the other reason they want to have this meeting now is the united states and south korea are scheduled to have their major military exercise key resolve in march and april. i'm sure one of the demands on

the north korean side is that those exercises continue to be suspended. this is what president trump promised out of singapore, surprised the entire u.s. government, south korean allies, to give this to the north koreans. i'm sure the north koreans are going to hold that out as a price for a second meeting as well. >> and, of course, with jim mattis gone now, there is very little in the cabinet to stop him from doing that. brett mcguirk, who is our negotiator for syria, has come public today in the washington post in an op-ed saying, trump said he beat isis. instead, he is giving it new life. this, after, of course, the suicide attack this week. rick stengel, this is a pattern, isn't it, of the president doing things on foreign policy that are not advised by his, by his cabinet? brett mcguirk quit along with jim mattis. >> yes. he makes statements that have nothing to do with reality. i worked very closely with brett. brett ran the international 70-plus nation coalition against

isis. and the fact is, to do these things prematurely, to say that isis is defeated, to tweet as he did about north korea, that north korea doesn't represent a nuclear threat any more, is the height of irresponsibility. and to your point about jim mattis and others not being around, who is going to protect us from the irresponsibility of the chief executive? >> we have to leave it there. of course, we are waiting to see what happens in the oval office, if there is video of this meeting. thank you so much, victor cha and rick stengel. we'll be right back. i was just finishing a ride. i felt this awful pain in my chest. i had a pe blood clot in my lung. i was scared. i had a dvt blood clot. having one really puts you in danger of having another. my doctor and i chose xarelto®. xarelto®. to help keep me protected. xarelto® is a latest-generation blood thinner that's... proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt or pe blood clots from happening again. in clinical studies, almost 98% of patients on xarelto® did not experience another dvt or pe.

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thanks for being with us. remember to follow us online on facebook, on twitter at mitchell reports. here are ali and stephanie for "velshi & ruhle." >> good afternoon. i'm ali velshi. >> and i'm stephanie ruhle. it is friday, january 18. let's get smoorter. bombshell, president trump himself ordered his lawyer michael cohen to lie to congress. >> which some members of congress say could be the most serious allegations yet about donald trump and russia. >> buzzfeed reporting that president trump directed his former attorney, michael cohen, to lie to congress about plans to build a trump tower in moscow. >> one texas democrat now says if this explosive new report is true, president trump must either resign or be impeached.