that wraps up this hour of "msnbc live." i'll see you tomorrow morning on "today." breaking news with andrea mit mitchsmitc mitche mitchell, she's apparently one of the few people who enjoyed the super bowl. >> it's football. >> we'll give you a pass on that. >> good to see you. for the first time in his presidency, donald trump will speak with a divided congress amid controversy and a bitter battle over a wall at the southern border. declares unconditional war on poverty in america. >> one year of watergate is enough. >> the state of the union is not good. >> a second american revolution of hope and opportunity. >> a new world order. >> the era of big government is

over. >> an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. >> last week the supreme court reversed a century of law that i believe will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations. follow the money. federal prosecutors in new york issue a sweeping subpoena for documents from the trump inaugural committee, investigating allegations of millions of dollars none documented donations, possibly from foreign contributors. >> i've always thought that was the bigger problem for two reasons. one, because the southern district of new york has no restrictions on their purview. bob mueller has a task, it's russian interference and potential collusion in the 2016 election. southern district of new york is whatever the heck you want. and the waiting game. the governor of virginia trying to hang on amid mounting pressure, even as the lieutenant governor who would succeed him fiercely denies a sexual assault

allegation from 2004. >> does anybody think it's a coincidence that on the eve of my potentially being elevated, that's when this uncorroborated smear comes out? does anybody believe that's a coincidence? good day, everyone, i'm andrea mitchell. president trump is preparing for his second state of the union address tonight, a speech delayed a week after losing a showdown with nancy pelosi over the government shutdown. the powerful speaker will be presiding just over the president's shoulder in a dramatic demonstration of the new reality the president faces, divided government. filling the chamber as well, a new class of empowered democrats who have taken over the house majority. at least four prominent democratic senators running to replace him in 2020. the president's appearance tonight coming as he is threatening to declare a national emergency to get the funds for his border wall, a challenge to congressional authority over government spending that his own republican senate leaders have warned him against. and he's also facing new legal

challenges, as much as from new york prosecutors probing the possibility of illegal foreign contributions to his inaugural, as well as new revelations about his dismissive handling of intelligence briefings. joining me now to talk about all of this, kristen welker, andy card, a former chief of staff to president george w. bush, and here with me in new york, jeh johnson, former homeland security secretary under president obama. welcome, all. kristen at the white house, you've been briefed, you've been talking about officials. how does the president deliver this speech of getting together and fighting disharmony, given everything he has said, everything he's even been tweeting? >> right. and andrea, fresh tweets this morning, taking aim at chuck schumer, the senate minority

leader. a big back and forth between the two of them throughout the day. so that's the backdrop against which president trump now, according to white house officials, is going to try to strike a spirit of bipartisanship. and you can see the tweet there, essentially saying, i see schumer is already criticizing my state of the union speech even though he hasn't seen it yet, he's just upset that he didn't win the senate. so really undercutting any tone of unity that he might hope to gain, hours before delivering that speech. but in terms of what he's going to focus on, officials here saying, look, he is going to talk about areas where he thinks there can be bipartisan agreement, areas like infrastructure and trade. and kellyanne conway earlier today seeming to indicate that he would talk about ways to combat hiv/aids. of course the big issue looming all of this, what will be front and center, immigration and the border wall. the issue that caused the government to shut down for 35 days, the issue that delayed

this speech in the first place. a lot of questions about whether the president will declare a national emergency tonight. i asked kellyanne conway about that earlier. >> reporter: is there any chance the president will declare a national emergency tonight? >> president has said he can do that, he has an absolute right to do it. >> reporter: will he do it tonight? >> he's never wanted to -- he's never wanted to -- to do that. he wants congress to finish its work. >> seeming to indicate, andrea, he's not leaning in that direction. of course a lot of republican allies are trying to urge him not to do that. of course we'll all be watching the politics and the optics, the fact that house speaker nancy pelosi will be sitting behind him, a sea of democrats in front of him, andrea. >> and robert costa, from your reporting, you talked to lindsey graham, i believe, about all of this. i wanted to play for everyone what senator cornyn had to say on monday about that emergency declaration the president has been threatening. >> i think it's a dangerous

step. one, because of the precedent it sets. two, the president's going to get sued and it won't succeed in accomplishing his goal. and third, because i think ms. pelosi may well introduce a resolution of disapproval that will pass the house and come over here and divide republicans. so to me it strikes me as not a good strategy. >> we know mitch mcconnell and now cornyn, the number two in the senate, have warned the president against this. what is lindsey graham, the president's chief defender in the senate, say? >> senator graham tells me he's spoken with the president over the phone just a few hours ago and he's trying to urge the president to reconsider making a deal on immigration, lowering that threshold for border security and a barrier, a border wall, from $5.7 billion to somewhere around $2 billion, maybe exchange some protections from the dreamers in there. the senate republicans here,

talking to them outside the coffee shop, talking to them outside the cloak room, they're trying to get this white house to back away. they're actually encouraged by the president's tweets this morning where he said you could have a so-called human wall. in their eyes, the president could be sending troops to the border rather than doing formal declaration of national emergency. >> jeh johnson, you were the secretary of homeland security. the president deploying the troops against the objections in fact of some of his military advisers, although they didn't object publicly at the time, because at the time they were trying to hang on, but then you saw what happened when jim mattis left, of course, over the syria withdrawal. but the border, the president is going to have guests in the galleries representing people who have been harmed, he says, from illegal immigrants. he's going to try to dramatize the crisis as well as border -- the argument from border authorities. what are the facts on the

ground? >> the facts on the ground are this, andrea. first of all, illegal migration on our southern border is a fraction of what it used to be 18 years ago, because of investments in that have been made in the bush, obama, clinton years. it is much harder now to cross our border illegally. because of the investments we made in surveillance, technology, we have built a wall, a fence, pursuant to the secure fence act of 2006, and because of the economy in mexico. the economy in mexico is much improved. so it's a traction of whfractio used to be. the demographic has changed. it's now families, women and children coming from central america who are desperate to escape poverty and violence in that region and want a better life. ask any border security expert what more is needed, they'll tell you a combination of technology, more planes, more lighting, more roads, and perhaps additional fencing or

wall in places where it makes sense to have that, to either fortify or possible build on additional land. but simply building a wall for the sake of building a wall doesn't really make sense. it is not a wise investment of taxpayer money. >> and andy card, you've got a president here who has very poor relationships with people on the hill. i've spoken to senators in both parties who say they don't even know who the legislative team is, who is negotiating for the president. then you had the embarrassment for the vice president as well as for the white house and republican leaders of agreeing to something that the vice president said the president was going to accept before the shutdown and then he refused to go along with it. they say they don't know how to negotiate with him. how do you deal with that? you're a former white house chief of staff. >> first of all, you want the government to work. you don't want it to be shut down because it doesn't have money and you don't want it to be shut down because people don't have the courage to work with each other. i want the president to stand up and say, let's work together.

i think he's going to do that. i hope that he demonstrates that he will do that. but clearly the president has got to empower his team to be visible on capitol hill and to be listening and engaging in a constructive way, and calm the rhetoric down on both sides so that they can get together. i want our democracy to work. i want the government to be open. and i want the democracy to work. and i want the world to see that. the state of the union address used to be a fabulous opportunity to invite young people to see how our government is functioning. and i'm hoping people will watch the state of the union tonight, but i hope the government will demonstrate that it takes the hint of doing the job and getting things dong. that's what should happen. >> one of the problems that he's had is the departure of so many cabinet officials. take a look, andy, and all of you, at the people who were there last year this time who will not be there. and you've got people not yet confirmed, we just had an interior secretary, an acting

interior secretary nominated for the job, a former lobbyist now from the oil companies representing interior. but look at all of the people who have since left. andy card, doesn't this leave a president who is basically surrounded by a very poorly staffed team and a poorly staffed cabinet? >> first of all, i want the president to succeed in what he's trying to do. i agree with many of his policies. i don't like how he is talking about them and trying to get them done. i think he steps on his success all the time. let's celebrate successes and try to build for more. but yes, you need to have a team of people who are dedicated to work. the president should have the courage to empower that team. listen to the team and work constructively inside the administration to invite those people outside the administration to be part of the solution. look, there's been much more turnover than has been normal. it's not good for the nature of the executive branch and it's not good for the relationships that need to be built with the

legislative branch to get things done. congress is different than it was when the president took office. his cabinet is now different than when he first took office. let's bring those differences to light so that we can address the problems and solve problems. that's the way it should be done. >> jeh johnson, you've watched white houses and you've served in the cabinet, you served in the cabinet and also over at the pentagon. this is very, very different. and arguably he's got his own style, he did not come from either the military or the political world. but the revelations about executive time that were revealed from those leaked documents to axios, have you ever seen a president of the united states who works this way? >> well, first, before i take on executive time, i want to go back to something andy said. i hope the president's legislative team is telling him, you ought to accept whatever bipartisan compromise congress

reaches on border security because at all costs we have to avoid another government shutdown. the damage from the last one is going to last months if not years. every president has their own style, their own work habits, their own hours. some make more effective, efficient use of their time. this notion of executive time, frankly, it's been out there for quite a while. what i find most striking about this week's revelation is that somebody took it upon themselves to leak those documents, which are really damaging to the president. somebody very close to him decided to give all that to the press. >> at the same time, robert costa, you have a real war developing between the president and his intelligence community. and we're going to explore this in the next block, but i wanted to ask you about what you're hearing from intelligence officials after the president was so dismissive of them in the interview with cbs.

>> you see an unraveling across not only the intelligence community but across the republican party, the gop here in the senate breaking with the president on syria and afghanistan with that resolution just a few days ago. and they also are very concerned, republicans here in congress, about the institutional erosion. they see the president's positions, his agenda, even his attacks have had on the intelligence community. that's create a gap between this white house and the political establishment, especially on the conservative side. >> and kristen welker, do you think we'll be hearing something definitive today or tomorrow about this upcoming summit with kim jong-un? >> andrea, i wouldn't be surprised if we learned more about the second summit with kim jong-un, either leading up to the speech or directly after the speech. look, the white house has been very clear, president trump himself said, we will learn the details of where the speech was going to take place in the early part of this week, in or around

the state of the union speech. will it be something he talks about in the speech? that remains to be seen. but we know he's going to talk about his efforts to get north korea to dedenu nunuk nunuke de. >> thank you all for start us off today. coming up, will president trump continue to contradict top intelligence officials about global threats in tonight's state of the union address? you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. hell. choose glucerna, with slow release carbs to help manage blood sugar, and start making everyday progress. glucerna.

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for the first time in two years, senior intelligence briefers are now breaking they're silence, warning that the president is putting america's security in danger. in an article for time.com, veteran journalist john walcott reports agency officials say president trump displays willful ignorance when presented with his intelligence briefing, reporting that, quote, the officials, who include analysts who prepare trump's briefs and the briefers themselves describe futile attempts to keep his attention by using visual aids, confining briefing points to two or three sentences, and repeating his name and title as frequently as possible. joining me now to talk about this and other foreign policy

challenges, a former national security adviser to president obama, and richard haas, president of the council on foreign relations. welcome, both. ben, first to you, this is the first time we've heard from the intelligence community itself, really striking back after the dismissive comments the president made on cbs, saying that his intelligence briefers need to go back to school. this was after, of course, they disagreed with many of his conclusions in their global threat warning. this is a dangerous pass. what is your take? you're been inside the white house and you've been to all of these briefings. >> yeah, no, look, andrea, i've never seen anything quite like it. i was in the pdb with president obama every morning. we relied on that intelligence. the fact that you see people speaking out i think indicates the alarm they feel. but also, andrea, the problem here is the differences aren't just on degrees of analysis. these are fundamental issues about whether or not the

president of the united states is making decisions based on facts. the intelligence community finds factually the iran is complying with the nuclear deal. trump says they're not. the intelligence community finds factually that isis is not defeated. trump says they are. the intelligence community finds factually that north korea is not denuclearizing. trump says he's eliminating the threat of north korea's nuclear weapons. again, these aren't shades of gray here. you have a president of the united states who refuses to acknowledge basic facts if they are inconvenient to the policies that he's trying to sell and the boasts he's trying to make. that should be very concerning to all americans. >> and what john wolcott is reporting, richard, is what is most troubling, according to this piece, is that these officials and others in government and on capitol hill who have been briefed on the episodes, trump's angry reactions when he is given information that contradicts positions he has taken or believes he holds.

two intelligence officers report they have been warned to avoid giving president trump assessments that contradict stances he takes in public. >> i agree, that's the most concerning part of the piece. their job is to speak truth to power. they can't force the president to listen to it or take it into account. the only thing they have control over is that they marshal their arguments, marshal the facts and give it to them. the idea that they would pull their punches, trim their sails, whatever, that's something that should never happen. that's one thing -- policymakers politicize intelligence, cherry-pick it, we've seen that in the past, intelligence officials can't control it. the only thing they can control is the quality of the work and how directly they communicate it. what's the worst that can happen? they get shut out of the oval office? okay. they really have an obligation. i hope that part of the article is not representative. >> both of you have worked in the national security council. the other thing is the current national security adviser is

reportedly not holding principals' meetings, not holding deputy meetings, not coordinating the intelligence. the surprise on the president's withdrawal from syria, for instance, it was a surprise, according to testimony today, from the general from centcom who is in charge of that part of the world. let's watch what he had to say to the senate armed services committee today. >> general, were you aware of the president's intention to order the withdrawal of our troops from syria before that was publicly announced? >> i was not aware of the specific announcement. >> so you weren't consulted before that decision was announced? >> we were not, i was not consulted. >> ben, how do you not consult your top commanders before you make that decision? >> it's astonishing, and it shows like just like he doesn't care to know the facts from his intelligence community, he's not interested in the opinion of his

journey journ gener generals who are responsible for carrying out that decision. they're coordinating with kurds and arabs on the ground in syria. they're coordinating with many allies who have been with us in the fight against isis. they're coordinating with regional governments like the iraqi government. trump is surprising all of those people. he's not consulting with allies, he's not even consulting with his own administration. that sows chaos. an adversary like isis, what they prey upon is crishaos and uncertainty. they're given an opening by trump's inability and refusing to even go through the motions to make sure everybody is on the same page here. you want a policy in which our military, our allies, our partners on the ground are all moving in the same direction. trump, by the way, has every right to move in a different direction. but if he wants to do that effectively, and not end up in a complete calamity, he has to do

the work of actually being president, and it's clear he's not doing that. >> you worked for brent scowcroft, who many on both sides of the aisle say was the epitomy. >> because he was. we have a national security adviser -- let me take a step back. they wear two hats. they're a counselor to the president and a traffic cop. they're supposed to make sure the system works, the president gets the input he wants. this national security adviser is essentially only wearing one hat. he will be a counselor to the president and advocate. he's not working the system. so we're seeing people in the field surprised and not being asked for their input. that increases the chances you will get low quality decisions, or whatever the quality of the decision is, it will not be implemented in an effective way. so this is an administration that's essentially working against its own self-interest by cutting people out of the process.

>> richard haas, a lot of disturbing trends there, we'll have to see what he has to say about foreign policy tonight. thank you, ben rhodes, thank you so much. coming up, federal prosecutors subpoena the president's inaugural records. former new jersey governor and federal prosecutor chris christie joins me next. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance

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president trump's inaugural committee has been ordered to hand over documents about donors, finances, and activities to manhattan's u.s. attorney's office. in the subpoena issued monday, investigators also showed interest in whether any foreign parties illegally donated to the committee, which raised a record $107 million but held fewer events than the obama inaugural and was not required to account for $46 million of what was spent. a trump presidential inaugural committee spokesperson said in a statement, while we are still reviewing the subpoena, it is our intention to cooperate with the inquiry. chris christie, the former governor of pneumococcal anew j former u.s. attorney. his new book is "let me finish," it tells quite a story.

>> yes, thanks, andrea. >> first of all, your reaction, last night with chris hayes, you reacted very strongly to this subpoena of the inaugural subpoena. why is this investigation, separate from the mueller investigation, of possible real peril to the president and his associates? >> i've always thought the southern district of new york's investigation was much more concerning than the mueller investigation for a simple reason. they have tour guides and no restrictions. so their tour guides are michael cohen, who is a longtime lawyer for the president, and rick gates, who is particularly important to the subpoena that was issued yesterday, because rick gates was the executive director of the inaugural committee. and so, unlike bob mueller who has restrictions placed upon him by the deputy attorney general when he was appointed, that his inqui inquiry is on russia, interference in the election and potential russian collusion, and

you saw that mueller reacted to those restrictions by sending the michael cohen matter that he discovered to the southern district of new york. southern district of new york has no restrictions. u.s. attorneys will tell you, they call them the sovereign district attorneys. there will be no restrictions on sdny. >> what about deutsche bank? a lot of questions have been raised about whether or not the president was going to deutsche bank, "the new york times" had a story last weekend, he was going to deutsche bank for more loans during 2016 and eventually the top officials in the bank decided it was too risky, in case he was elected, how do they recover their funds. there have been all sorts of questions about whether deutsche bank in the past was responsible for alleged russian money laundering. >> well, listen, you know, deutsche bank, an international bank based in germany, who knows what investigators may be looking at, at any bank, at any

given time, given the world banking system. i think it's more important to focus on, yesterday there were some very specific things in that subpoena. they laid out the specific potential criminal statutes that are implicated very specifically. you list them, foreign money, money laundering. they listed conspiracy, they listed false statements. they went through a whole menu of potential statutes they believe may be implicated and they basically asked for everything from the inaugural committee. when you look at the subpoena, it's everything they have. so i don't think there's some place now where they're deep into this investigation. but it's obvious to me from some of the specifics in there that they have a tour guide. and my guess would be that that tour guide is rick gates, because he's cooperating with the government. and you don't just cooperate with mueller, you cooperate with the justice department. and you can get sent anywhere they want if you want to get full cooperation credit. >> what about thomas barrett, long-time friend and business -- a business associate, i should

say, of the president's steering committee? >> i have a hard time believing -- i've known tom for a long time, i have a hard time believing tom had anything to do with this. my understanding of tom's role was he was there to raise the money and encourage people to contribute to the committee, but that the day-to-day operational decisions of the committee were being made by rick gates, who is the executive director. so if i -- and it's a guess, because i wasn't involved in the inaugural committee. but knowing tom as long as i do, i don't think tom would have had anything to do with anything that was the least bit near the line, or over the line. this is a guy who had a great career, lived an honest life. i think this will be centered on gates and who gates was involved with in terms of how the money was spent and how it was accounted for. >> what about the mueller report, the mueller probe, once it's redacted, once things that are sensitive are taken out? the president is not committing to making it public. i guess it's the attorney general's decision. >> it is.

it is. it's going to be bill barr's decision. i think that bill should err on the side of transparency, because i think there's been so much attention to this report over the last, you know, 20 months or so, that the idea that it wouldn't be made public, at least in large measure -- now, i understand, if there are sources and methods to intelligence that are in the report that shouldn't be seen publicly. that i can understand. and i think bill barr, given his background and experience, will err on the side of transparency. >> one of your jobs in the past as a prosecutor was also to be aware of and involved in counterintelligence. how do you feel about the way the president talks about his intelligence officials and more importantly, treats them? >> well, i think it would be much more helpful if he acted differently, right? but i also know, because i know two of those three people very well, i don't know ms. haspel all that well, we've met, but i don't know her well. i know obviously senator coats very well. and i know chris wray extraordinarily well. what i can tell about you both

of them is neither of them are affected by it. they're just not affected by it, andrea. these are professionals, they're tough, and they understand they're protecting the importance of american intelligence and what it serves both here and around the world. so i think that, again, actions speak louder than words, and the president, you know, at times has said some things that i think are unnecessary and at times inappropriate. but i know chris and i know dan, and they're not going to be affected by that stuff. they're going to do their jobs. they're going to protect the american people and they're going to make sure their organizations are protected. >> have you spoken to the president since your book came out? >> we have not spoken directly since the book came out. we've communicated. >> how do you communicate? >> through some other people. i've been -- as we talked about before i came on air, i've been crazy busy with the book tour. and he's been pretty busy himself. but i read his interview in "the new york times" where he said he liked the book. he said he thought i was very respectful of him in the book. and that's exactly what i

intended to be. it's an honest recitation of what i think happened over the time since i endorsed him to today or at least until i put pens down on the book. >> do you think that the graphic that we showed earlier with all of the people who have left the administration from the cabinet, i mean, the turnover has been extraordinary, do you think that that would not have happened if chris christie had still been in charge of the transition and not been removed? >> some of it would have happened, andrea. most of it would not have. i'll give you an example of the difference. our first choice, our top recommendation for hhs secretary was alex kx azar. he was never presented to the president as a possibility after we were all fired. he picked tom price, which was a disaster, he was over his head as a former member of congress, trying to run one of the biggest agencies in the government other than the pentagon. but he hired alex azar because

of how good he is. i'm a proponent of the garbage in, garbage out theory of government. he's got hundreds of decisions to make. if we had presented him with people like that, like mitch daniels in the department of education, the people that we have put together, i think if the president met them and been presented with them, he would have picked them and the beginning would have been different. but others believed their consolidation of power and authority was more important than serving the president well and serving the country well. and that's a lot of what we talk about in the book. >> and do you think a former congressman who was an omb director can be acting chief of staff and still run omb? aren't they perpetuating the same problem? >> it's hard for mick. i have great respect for mick mulvaney, i think he's a really bright guy and a tough guy. i think he's got a lot of the traits you need to be a good chief of staff. the question is, can you do both

those jobs? i think anybody will tell you who has been director of omb, it's a huge job and a very difficult job. he's got some able people there who i think are acting as omb director while he's acting as chief of staff. i have a lot of respect for mick. i think he has the potential to do a really good job there if he's permitted to do it. >> would you ever consider running for president again? >> i would never say never to it. i love seeing the reaction to it as if that's some revelation. i'm 56 years old and i ran once. >> you're just a kid. >> yes, a child. that's what i keep telling myself, thank you, andrea. i take it with all due respect. no, i would never say never. i'm certainly not challenging the president in 2020. i fully expect to support the president and for him tosh the nominee of our party. he's got 81% job approval the last time i saw among republican voters. anybody who ran against the president in 2020 under the current circumstances in a primary, it would be folly. that's a very narrow landing strip to try to land a candidacy on. but, you know, in the future, who knows? i don't know where my life is

going to go from here. i certainly love my country and i feel like i care deeply about it and i have a lot to offer. so who knows? >> well, to be continued. >> yes, ma'am. >> and the book is "let me finish." thank you very much. >> thank you, andrea, for having me. >> great to see you again. coming up, over his shoulder. the president preparing to deliver his first state of the union address to a divided congress under the gaze of a powerful speaker of the house. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. nly on mc health and fitness is a big part of my life. for 14 years, i played professional football and

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tonight i have the high privilege and distinct honor of my own as the first president to begin the state of the union message with these words. madam speaker. >> it was 2007. nancy pelosi had just become the first woman speaker of the house, a pivotal moment that marked a new era in washington with a resurgent democratic party and a president on the ropes, people thought. but after four years in power, the democrats were ousted, until tonight, when nancy pelosi again is center stage for the first state of the union since retaking the gavel, and this time during an escalating feud with a combative president. joining me now is nbc's kasie hunt on capitol hill, nbc's steve patterson in nancy pelosi's san francisco neighborhood where he spoke with bay area residents about tonight's speech, and jennifer palmieri, former white house communication director for president obama and former communication director for

hillary clinton's 2016 campaign. welcome, all. kasie, you're going to be front and center. you're going to be in the chamber, a place i've always longed to be on state of the union night. you're going to have the best view of it all. but in particular, the best view of that podium with nancy pelosi looking over his shoulder. he's got to have some play, he is the performer, to try to disarm her or the television audience. >> it's an absolutely fascinating dynamic, andrea. that clip you played, first of all, of george w. bush and madam speaker, something that nancy pelosi actually often refers back to. george w. bush used to call her number 3. when i asked her about what it was going to be like to work with president trump, especially as a woman, that was what she started talking about, about how she had had a very respectful relationship with a republican president who was a man and wondering whether or not that was going to be very different under president trump. and, you know, you've seen her become one of the very few

politicians who has been able to get the best of this president. he doesn't have a nickname for her. it's been reported that he is afraid of her in some ways. he certainly respects her political prowess. you have seen her, you know, denigrate his manhood in private conversations with her members, only to have that leaked to the press. you're showing that oval office meet right now where she basically showed him up in public and then walked out of the west wing, put those sunglasses on and walked away, in an image that has become pretty iconic. that's personally what i'm going to watching for as this speech unfolds tonight, andrea. >> and jennifer palmieri, stacey abrams doing the rebuttal, opposition rebuttals are famously bad. but she's such a rising star in the democratic party and has such an interesting voice. joe kennedy, the charismatic

young congressman from massachusetts, and the heir to that whole tradition, and he gave her the advice to be yourself, you'll crush it, he'll talk longer than you expect so keep snacks handy, be the fighter we know you are, misplace your chapstick, you have millions of americans standing with you, self-deprecating. he didn't drink water the way marco rubio did but he did use chapstick. >> i think that stacey abrams is going to be great. i really hope that among policies that she talks about, that she talks about voting rights, because, you know, whether you're a democrat or republican, making sure people have the right to vote and that it's easy to vote in this country is imperative. that had a big impact on her race and her loss, i hope she talks about that. i think it will be a very compelling picture we see tonight with nancy pelosi sitting behind donald trump as a

visualization as her role as a co-equal partner, a leader of a branch of government. and, you know, normally the state of the union is where the president lays out before the congress and the country, the agenda that he wants to work with the congress on. and that's not really how this president operates. he operates week to week. so we'll think about the wall and the february 15th deadline on funding running out for the government. but also, i imagine her sitting behind him, lurking, if you will, knowing that she and the democrats in the house are likely to sit in some sort of judgment on this president when the mueller report comes out, and holding this president accountable, among other reasons for what they were elected to do. it's sort of the first scene of what's likely to be a very long drama that plays out over the course of this year. >> and steve patterson, in san francisco, which is of course her backyard, what are people there telling you they want to

hear tonight? >> oh, i think one of the most recent displays of pelosi's power is obviously that the state of the union is happening today and not on january 9th or january 29th when the president wanted it to happen. she was very adamant about this happening after the government was back open. but this is not only obviously pelosi's city but this is her district. this is really her community. this is where she gets her hair done, right here. she lives just a couple of blocks away. this is the famous neighborhood of san francisco. this is often where she brings her family to eat, rosa's cafe in the heart of her district. we can open up and show you where she often sits, which is right in the corner over there. we've been talking to residents, constituents here about the job they feel she's doing. they love that she's a bulwark between the president and the citizens of the united states. and obviously the president has spent a lot of time admonishing not only pelosi but the city of san francisco. he's said a lot about the quality of the city. and so whenever he speaks, they

feel further entrenched behind her. they love the job she's doing and are obviously rooting for her, the hometown girl, and hope she does a good job, sort of pr tonight and displaying that power she's put on display for so long. during obviously this whole border fight. but also just sort of as her time as speaker. back to you. >> thank you, all. we'll all be watching. coming up, virginia reeling as governor northam continues to weigh whether to step down under pressure. the man who could replace him faces his own challenge. i hear it in the background and she's watching too, saying [indistinct conversation] [friend] i've never seen that before. ♪ ♪

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virginia's embattled democratic governor is resisting calls to step down amidst growing fallout over those racist photos on his medical school yearbook page. as the lieutenant governor is denying an uncorroborated sexual assault allegation dating back to 2004. following this from it the beginning in richmond, the state capital. any developments today? we know the accuser of the lieutenant governor has hired a powerful legal team to pursue her accusation, which had not -- whether had previously rep row

se represented blousy ford. >> nbc news has learned that she has enlisted the legal advice of the same legal team that advised dr. christine blousy ford. here's the state of play as i stand here and talk to you at the virginia capital. governor northam is still on the job five days after that racist photo first surfaced. i'm told he still believes, wants more time to consider his path forward, to clear his name. the governor, i'm told, believes that time is on his side. at least in part because his would be successor, how telieut governor fairfax, now faces this uncorroborated sexual assault. more confusion descending on this capital. the governor still on the job. >> when you talked to fairfax yesterday, was he indicating to you that he suspected that the governor had leaked this information about him?

>> right, there was some reporting that lieutenant governor fairfax was leaving open the idea that governor northam was behind it. he flatly told us no. he did not believe that northam was linked to or responsible for this leaked allegation. >> geoff bennett, thank you. we'll be right back. (avo) life doesn't give you many second chances. but a subaru can. you guys ok? you alright? wow. (avo) eyesight with pre-collision braking. standard on the subaru ascent. presenting the all-new three-row subaru ascent. love is now bigger than ever.

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and that does it for today. on andrea mitchell report. join us for complete state of

the union coverage starting tonight at msnbc. follow us online on facebook and twitter @mitchellreport. here is ali velshi and stephanie ruhle for velshi and ruehl. >> it's interesting the feed back on social media. they don't want to watch it and they don't want us telling us about all the interesting things the president might say because they're so used to being disappointed about the speech. the rules of what a state of the union is have changed. >> people should know. this say momeis a moment of dem. you need to see the president. you need to see the reaction. fact check him yourself. >> great to see you in person. hello, everyone, i'm ali -- >> i'm going to help you out. >> thank you. >> i'm stephanie ruhle. >> i'm ali velshi. it's tuesday, february 5th. let's get smarter. >> hard to say. the president's second state of the union address which he'll deliver in just hours from