now. hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york, and the state of the investigations into whether donald trump is bought and paid for by foreign interests is just getting started. house intel committee chairman adam shift announcing today his committee will widen its probe into the president in order to, quote, allow us to investigate any credible allegation, financial interests or other interests are driving decision-making of the president or anyone in the administration. and quote, that pertains to any credible allegations of leverage by the russians or the saudis or anyone else. schiff made the statements as the committee voted to turn over to robert mueller the transcripts of more than 50 witnesses so that the special counsel could check those transcripts against other transcripts and other evidence and determine if any witnesses lied to congress. to date, two trump confidantes have already been charged with lying to congress. presidential fixer michael cohen, whose testimony before that committee is at this hour

up in the air, and roger stone, longtime political counselor to donald trump. so it may come as no surprise that the president responded with a personal attack on adam schiff today. >> he's just a political hack who's trying to build a name for himself. and i think that's fine because that's what they do. but there would be no reason to do that. no other politician has to go through that. it's called presidential harassment, and it's unfortunate. and it really does hurt our country. >> how is that for unity, guys? the moves by the top democrat on the house intel committee come as the speaker of the house responds to donald trump's threat last night, that if the investigations into him don't stop, there cannot be peace on earth. telling reporters today, quote, the president should not bring threats to the floor of the house. the democratic-run intel committee sending similar lines of inquiry for its investigation as the federal investigation. "the new york times" fresh reporting on the government's keen interest in following the money that flowed through

convicted felon and former trump campaign chairman paul manafort. from "the times," quote -- federal prosecutors in recent weeks have been interviewing witnesses about the flow of foreign money to three powerful lobbying firms that paul manafort recruited seven years ago to help improve the image of the russia-aligned president of the ukraine. here to help us, "the new york times" political reporter ken vogel, former u.s. attorney joyce vance, with us at the table associated press white house reporter jonathan lemire, nbc news senior nerl expandant keers simmons make his triumph frapt return, and tim o'brien, bloomberg opinion executive editor. kieran, let me start with you. we're happy to have you back. you've covered this story from foreign capitals, most importantly moscow. the idea that the new chairman of the house intel committee is now going to begin anew all of this work that could have commenced two years ago if

republicans had been interested in our national security, he's now today announcing he's going to start to investigate whether or not donald trump may be compromised. it's stunning. >> it's absolutely stunning. and hiding in plain sight if you want to find the motivation around the world for many of the things happening, it's two words, make money. he's a president who telegraphed around the world, i'm the guy you can do deals with. i'm the art of the deal. ol goings and property magnets around the world read that as bring your money and we can do deals. if you're russian, we can do deals to try to get rid of these sanctions possibly. if you're ukrainian, we can do deals to improve the image of ukraine. the property in the gulf, one that i sat down with, who went to some of these inauguration parties are was seen with president trump, describes himself as a friend of president trump, he's trying to do deals on property in his region. so it's not a surprise that the

man who is the art of the deal is very attractive to a lot of folks around the world who have made a lot of money by doing deals. >> he had his hand out. there's reporting in "the new york times" the last few days he was looking for a big loan from deutsche bank. michael cohen testified he was looking to do a deal in moscow with putin's assistance and assistance of his government. rudy giuliani says through election day. this was someone that had the -- not just the motive, the stated desire to take something from russia. how is he not compromised? >> well, whether or not he's compromised may not be the point. >> he lied about all of that. >> right. >> so at a minimum, the russians knew he had his hand out and american voting public and law enforcement didn't. >> but the deutsche bank story illustrates here you have a president who's thinking about his money. in a sense, he doesn't need to necessarily be compromised. the compromise may simply be he

wants to figure out thousand make more money, protect his money. one russian ol agarg i spoke to who is wrapped up in a meeting in the seychelles, i went to him and said why don't you do an interview and clear things up? you know what he said to me, i was just in the room with guys worth trillions of dollars. why would you would i want to speak with you? there are so many unanswered questions about meeting after meeting after meeting. for me a thread that ties it together, it's all very wealthy people. >> it's all very wealthy people and donald trump wanted to be more wealthy. the quid pro quo is established too. they sought sanctions relief, dangling it in front of them. i guess what's stunning to me, two years in, the house intelligence committee, and i'm old enough to remember that functioned as a bipartisan, nonpartisan oversight branch. >> but for devin nunez. we can remember he ran interference for the white house

when progress was trying to be made around these very issues. i think it is the mueller's team credit they plowed ahead. i think what the president defines as presidential harassment, everybody else would call the rule of law. >> or american national security. >> or making sure that the executives properly check other branches by the government. i think what we wait to see now is the extent to which the president was potentially compromised. i think it's money is the easy answer here. we know it touched his inauguration committee. it touched the transition. it touched his business. it's touched the white house. there's nothing he was involved with from 2015 to the president that investigators in new york and in washington aren't asking questions about. i think the thing to play out here is what's the narrative around this? was he directing things? did he direct michael cohen to lie to congress. did he direct roger stone to lie? did he direct roger stone to continue to get information from

wikileaks and russian hackers about his political opponent? did he essentially open a door to let foreign interests play a stam role in the 2016 election, and in the making of foreign policy in exchange for padding his own wallet? >> joyce -- go ahead, i'm sorry. >> this is the moment here that the white house knew was coming, and feared. as soon as the democrats on election night, when the democrats took control of the house, this was the moment. >> why they hired 17 lawyers. yes, they prepared. slow to start but now gearing up. they're getting ready for it. they knew this probe would expand dramatically. it wouldn't just be about collusion or conspiracy with russia. it would be into the president's finances and so on, whether he was profiting off business administration policies. >> can i stop you, if you knew it was coming, why did he rip up the notes with five meetings with vladimir putin? >> that's a very good question. likely he had something he wanted to hide or at the very least fearful would leak out.

this is something people and people around him have been gripped by this fear, not paranoia, because it's real, that this day was coming, the democrats would look into this. and i think you mentioned at the top of the show, highlighting the state of the union. there was so much, a lot of smoke and distraction and funny moments even, but one of the most telling lines and striking lines is he sort of suggested the american economy was booming and it could only be derailed by partisan investigations. he also suggested about endless wars, i and we will get to that later pulling out of iraq and afghanistan, but he highlighted the idea not suggesting what mattered was the rule of law or transparent investigation, but rather he want it's to simply go away and it appeared to be a threat from the house floor. >> joyce vance, not only mentioning rule of law, not mentioning american national security and to call them partisan. they were started by a republican, jim comey. they're now republican by

republicans. robert mueller, back when republicans had a spine and soul, they used to investigate things like this. let me ask you, joyce vance to look at this list of people who were witnesses in front of the white house committee whose testimony has been tribbanscrib and in the hands of robert mueller jr. >> it's a very sort of a pregnant list, because now that the official copy of those transcripts is in mueller's hands, can he do two things, he can compare it against evidence he has or testimony that he has taken himself, but he also has the physical document that he would need to trigger a prosecution. in other words, prosecutors don't indict people for perjury without an official transcript. they need it for evidentiary reasons in a courtroom. and that's why house republicans made this last-minute play trying to avoid naming people to

the committee so that these official transcripts couldn't be sent over to mueller. now he's got what he needs. i'm sure donald trump jr. is at the top of his list. there have been public reporting that indicates he may have contradicted himself. but there's no telling how deep into this list he could be looking. >> go ahead. >> i just want to follow up dropt j donald trump jr. point, people around him have been setting up signals they feel like he's in the clear, after the reporting last week that the phone calls before and after the trump tower meeting to the block numbers weren't his father, weren't the now president but allies of his. i was in washington for the state of the union, at the trump hotel lobby, which we came through a watch party and donald trump was there walking around the lobby, taking pictures and signing autographs. very much feeling confident. >> and roger stone does that as well. >> he does it every day. but projecting the sense of it, but here's the reality, he's not in the clear. >> jared kushner too, when you

bring jared kushner into it, it moves beyond russia. you also have china and saudi arabia. you have multiple foreign interests reaching into various parts of the trump constellation and they're all at risk. >> i want to get to your reporting but i want to ask you to weigh in on the day's news. you sort of are more knowledgeable about the intersection of the interview and the money. what does it say to you adam schiff has handed over all of the transcripts of all of these witnesses? what does it say mueller may be looking for. >> we've already seen this is a tool for puyoler, these congressional transcripts and testimony is already charged. michael cohen and roger stone. michael cohen charged by the southern district and stone with lying to congress. we know it's an end you can charge people for but also a means, you can apply pressure to people who have exposure because they said something that may be

slightly different to congress than what they told you or what the evidence mueller had collected suggests and use that to push them to give more information on either things that they directly spoke to that are at issue or other things that are sort of peripheral. in that way, you kind of build out cases here that might take you in new and interesting directions that you did not originally intend. that's why you had this legacy of the mueller investigation of these cases that do seem to, at least on their face, be peripherally related or in some cases not related to the question that was his core mission of whether there was russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether the trump team coordinated with it or in any way facilitated it, but that are in fact related to or spawned from that core focus. >> and they're all the admitted liars. hope hicks acknowledges she tells white lies for donald trump with a headline last spring. jeff sessions was investigated

by the fbi for possible perjury over russia denials. don jr.'s testimony stands in pretty stark contrast to the sentencing documents for michael cohen. donald trump jr. testified in front of the senate judiciary committee that he was peripherally aware of the trump tower moscow conversations. cohen has testified he briefed the family from three to a dozen times. these are admitted an established liar who all told the same lies about russia. >> yeah, and it's also one that sort of -- to put it charitably like misrepresentations or different representations of these events is also why it's tough to imagine a near-term end to either of the investigation or investigations around mueller. because not only are there the questions related to the actions and the issues at hand, but

there are the cover-ups and the ways in which these people around donald trump have sort of stumbled into these misrepresentations that potentially yield more investigation. >> ken, i want you to get you on the record about your great reporting today about mueller's line of inquiry, vis-a-vis paul manafort and following the money as you do. >> yes, that's another great example. it's not, you know, the trump allies will be quick to point out this lobbying that is in many ways at the center of the manafort case and in some ways a seminole feature of the mueller investigation took place in 2012 and 2013, but the sort of ramifications of it, the money trail from it and covering up of the money made by manafort from a continue well up until he was working for the trump presidential campaign. so it's not quite so clear.

you can't say this is something that's directly related to the core mission of the mueller investigation versus something that's more peripheral. p these efforts to do so by republicans and trump supporters as a way to kind of minimize the import of the mueller investigation, i think, are misguided. it's also notable in this investigation that we wrote about that two of the key -- of the three key players are democrats. and so it's tony podesta, whose lobbying firm worked for manafort on behalf of this nonprofit that was sort of trying to whitewash, a pejorative way to put it, the reputation of the russian-aligned president of the ukraine. and greg craig, the former white house counsel for president obama, was working directly for the ukrainian ministry. it just goes to show this was not necessarily the parts, the legacy of the mueller investigation by exposing the influence of federal in

washington, way before trump and up through trump. >> joyce, certainly blows a hole in the idea robert mueller is conducting anything resembling a witch-hunt. >> it absolutely does -- >> that was for joyce, sorry. >> sorry, ken. it does do that though. it runs a straight line through paul manafort's longtime practice of influence peddling and working for dictatorships. ukraine for pro-russian interests. and that's not a set of facts that occurred in the back room. we have all of the lies centering around relationships with russia. this straight line continues right through the campaign, through the inauguration, possibly into the early days of the presidency. there's no reason to believe that mueller has strayed from his core mission, which is to determine whether or not there was influence on the presidential campaign as the result of a conspiracy between folks in the campaign and

russia, i think it all comes together in the end. we just don't see how all of the pieces fit yet. >> wrap this all up for me, ken, reporting the investigations that commenced today. >> i can speak from the perspective of the foreign oligarchs that i talked to and reached out to. i have this mental image of this coming to washington to try to drink at the swamp and instead find their walking into a minefield. a lot of mistakes were made. these were people who knew how to make money but they didn't understand the law in the united states. i'm struck pi one comment by ukrainian, who said these are the traditions of the united states, you go to the inaugural parties, you meet more than people -- >> americans, not russians. >> well, yes, exactly. right. they think they're doing what donald trump wants them to do. >> they're from iowa though. that's the whole thing. if you're supposed to be from hawaii and new hampshire to go to those things, not ukraine.

>> again, these are guys who made money by bendling the rules. as far as they're concerned, they're bending the rules for more. >> and trump for sale is the variable. >> that's the impression they have at least. so potentially in terms of the investigations, there's so much to investigate. why did victor vexleburg, the russian oligarch, get all of his train when he landed in america, we don't even know why he was interviewed yet. >> and donald has your back when no one was listening. after the break, donald trump versus donald trump on isis. this will keep you up at night. also ahead, fool me once, shame on you. fool me 8,000 times, shame on me. the audacity of donald trump's unty lie told with a pitchfork in hand of the democrats he fears most. and betting and beto, is he in? hey, darryl! hey, thomas. if you were choosing a network, would you want the one the experts at rootmetrics say

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we've been fighting for a long time in syria. i've been president for almost two years and we really stepped it up. we have won against isis. we've beaten them and we've beaten them badly. we've taken back the land. and now it's time for our troops to come back home. >> talk about going rogue. that was one of the president's most stunning policy announcements, the withdrawal of troops from syria on the basis that isis had been defeated. it was a decision that caused his defense secretary to resign and one his own handpicked intel chiefs refuted. >> while isis is nearing materialtorial defeat in iraq

and syria, the group has returned to guerrilla warfare roots while continuing to plot attacks and direct its supporters worldwide. isis is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in iraq and syria. >> brett mcgirk, who was donald trump's envoy to fight isis, reiterated the danger of withdrawal on "face the nation" when he explained why this decision by the president caused him to resign as well. >> i've been part of this campaign four years across two administrations. american leadership counts. leadership built this coalition. it led to these games against isis and leadership requires some presence on the ground and consistency. it was a total reversal of our policy, i concluded i could not be effective in carrying out those new instructions. >> fast forward today to when the president spoke to the global collision on the defeat of isis and said a formal announcement will come next week that we have 100% of the caliphate. joining our conversation, former deputy security adviser to

president obama, and former democratic congresswoman. we do not, as i understand it, have 100% of the caliphate, do we? >> no. look, the problem here is number one donald trump doesn't listen to his own intelligence community, who is telling him something very different. i think the second thing that should really worry us, thnicol, by putting this out there and continuing to go out and declare isis defeated, he's essentially daring them to demonstrate they're not. and this is an organization that has long experience, they were part of the iraq insurgence, underground network, their ain't to launch attacks is still there. so he's making us less safe by going out there and daring them to demonstrate to the world they're still present, they're still there. the last thing, nicolle, i worry about is he hasn't laid out any kind of coherpt strategy for what's happening in syria.

one day we're withdrawing troops, next day we're not. one day we're leaving troops there to counter iran. now he's standing up in the state of the union talking about eyous as his focus. what's the strategy here? >> i think that's the question former senior national committee officials like yourself, former senior intelligent officials are asking every day and asking of their counterparts who are still in government. i guess i ask you, what do we do? you worked for a president that had a very different foreign policy in this region than my old boss but he was not reckless. he made decisions that may have been controversial, as all politicians stand before the volters ultimately every four years and let the voters decide, but this president is doing both, making decisions that are reckless, making decisions that are krincontradicted by the facs delivered by the fact-masters, the heads of the intelligence agencies. >> nicolle, here is why this matters so much. the u.s. presence is a hub for a lot of activity by a lot of

other people, by our partners on the ground, syrians ps and kurds who fought with us, the coalition around the world. none of these countries or allies know what u.s. policy is. he's not coordinated that with any of them. the general who i worked with in the obama administration testified before congress he wasn't consulted before president trump's announcement. so the danger here is that trump has the rest of the world guessing at what the united states is doing, including people who fought with us on the ground, who fought with our weapons on the ground. other countries who have contributed airpower and intelligence resources to this effort. everybody is wondering what is actually the united states' policy? all trump cares about is the politics have presenting himself as defeating isis and pulling out of syria. he's not looking at the bigger picture of american international security >> donna, he's also put democrats in the position, i said this last night, of being

the guardrail around our national security agencies. they're the ones who can through testimony like we saw last week, that donald trump characterized our coverage of fake news, they were live hearings that we carried live. you couldn't fabricate them if you wanted because they were on in their entirety live. how do democrats sort of reach their arms around the hand apparatus, the hand-appointees of donald trump and protect them? >> i think democrats have to continue to do what they did in that intelligence briefing and that is bring the pirinciples i front of them both closed doors and in public hearings so the american people can actually hear the facts for themselves. i think what's disturbing -- there are a number of things disturbing about the president, but not only does he skip his intelligence briefings, he doesn't read the presidential daily brief. so whatever information he might be acting on, it could be months old. and there's a danger both for the united states but also for

the presidency. so i think for democrats, their role is even more important now to sort out what the truth is so that the american people can hear it from the finders of fact. that's what those intelligence officials are. >> chuck schumer last week said his desire was for an intervention to try to improve the president's quality of information. you make such a good point, sometimes the president is acting on old information. sometimes the president is acting on something he heard on cable news. >> and it's not really clear to me, frankly, that the president wants to act on the information that is coming from the intelligence community. we can all speculate about why that is, because it serves his own narrative. but it's very dangerous for the united states, it's unclear with our allies and our friends what they can trust coming out of the administration. and i think that for the people who have to do the acting and the military community, they don't actually know whether they should be acting on information

from their commander in chief or from their commanders in the field. >> ben, let me put you on the spot. i have heard from former senior national security officials after the president remarked on super bowl sunday that he wanted troops in iraq to spy on iran, and i think this was hours before the iraqis actually rebuked donald trump for that utterance. i said to the official, what is the pentagon leadership do, who would be in charge of dispatching of troops? what does the cia do that would be in charge if that's what the commander in chief wants spying on iran. he said, we ignore him. well that's news too. if you're saying the apparatus should ignore the president's remarks in an interview televised in front of the largest american audience on super bowl sunday, that, too, is news. what do you think they do? >> nicolle, the president of the united states, commander in chief, should not be giving orders to the military through a television interview, right.

>> fair point. >> i think what the military's responsibility is take orders through the chain of command. >> right. >> if president trump wants to give those troops in iraq a mission of countering iran, then he needs to communicate that through the secretary of defense, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, commander on the ground. frankly, they also need to tell congress there. there's no authorization for those troops to be there to somehow counter iran. so they have to operate through the chain of command and honestly, super bowl sunday is not part of the chain of command. but i worry about the risk to iran. they talk about troops in syria and iraq, having this mission to confront iranians, which is not why they were sent there. >> right. and as he's under additional preb ur at home, you and i talked about this, he could be looking at a pretext to start something. >> who him, wag the dog? after the break, we will

never tire of the tedious tasks of counting donald trump's lies. but the surprise whopper lie from last night's speech, the idea he can be a unite her for even one day. we will show you all of the ways donald trump's unique brand of petty partisanship flipped out over the last 24 hours. over the last 24 hours liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. great news for anyone wh- uh uh - i'm the one who delivers the news around here. ♪ liberty mutual has just announced that they can customize your car insurance so that you only pay for what you need.

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this is the time to rekindle the bonds of love and loyalty and memory that link us together as citizens, as neighbors, as patriots. you are a rude, terrible person. that's okay, i know you're not thinking. you never do. they call her pocahontas. very low iq. low iq. this is our future, our fate and our choice to make. low life, she's a lowlife. we call him 1% biden until obama took him off the trash heap, now he couldn't do anything, and now he's talking about running >> i think she's very bad for our country.

i'm asking you to choose greatness, no matter the trials we face, no matter the challenges to come. that hair is getting whiter and whiter and he's getting crazier and crazier. we must go forward together. >> thank you to the brilliant people on my team to put that together. that says it all. i don't have anything to add. the person who calls for unity said all of those things. so it's do as i say, not do what i do. if the address seemed sanctimonious, considering what trump told tv anchors at a private lunch literally hours before. peter baker in "the new york times" writes -- mr. trump dismissed vice president joe biden dumb, called chuck schumer of new york a nasty son of a bleep and mocked governor ralph northam of virginia who he said choked like a dog. in his conference where he tried to explain a racist yearbook photo according to multiple people in the room. joining us the reporter with the scoop, peter baker, "the new

york times" correspondent. there are some things you read that are amazing and it wasn't choke like a dog but what was amazing they would spin the anchors and talk about unity. that to me was the big whopper lie of the night. >> it's one thing to turn the corner to pivot away from some of the division out there and try in effect to set a new tone of bipartisanship or unity, but to have a few hours earlier a lunch like this where you made clear that's not really what's in your head and heart that moment, is pretty striking. >> forget about his head and his heart. here's what else came out of his mouth, he said he hoped he would run against bide anticipate. i hope it was biden. biden was never very smart. he's a terrible student. his gaffes were unbelievable. when i say a gaffe, it's on purpose. it's not a gaffe. when biden says something dumb, it's because he's dumb. leave his heart out of it, i guess. but what comes out of his mouth

is venom, vitriolic, low, bottom of the gutter vitriol. >> i think the donald trump they saw at this lunch is the one that's more natural to him. he's a naturally combative person, he's a naturally blunt, spoken person. a lot of people as you say find it crude or offensive but it has been successful as he views it. that's how he got to where he is. when he gets up there last night in the house chamber and he reads from that speech that was written for him, that's what doesn't feel very authentic because it doesn't sound like him. it doesn't sound like the donald trump we've come to know. and that -- it's a ritual he feels obviously he needs to do through that but i don't think it will define how this next year will go out how he's planning to communicate his politics and his positions to the country. >> from like the day after on. today he attacked schiff. this is also in peter's reporting. he recounted again the story of

what he considered senator john mccain's trail. although mr. mccain has died -- although mr. mccain has died -- peter had to write that sentence -- mr. trump remains upset. by the way, trump said, he wrote a book and the book bombed. >> commenting on the sales of a deceased senator's book is rather remarkable for even this particular president. that is true this, one stuck in his craw since john mccain late at night -- >> if he were my grandfather, would i take him for a brain scan. that's bizarre behavior. >> he's someone whose defining characteristics is inability to let something go. he holds grudges. >> or have empathy of the family members of a deceased man. >> that's true. we can cycle analyze it if you want but john mccain, someone he had a political rivalry with all along, i prefer war hero that was captured, but the after

midnight vote when he went into the senate for the health care plan that delivered obama care and humiliating defeat to this president. he's not gotten past that. he's time and time again brought it up. senator mccain has been dead for months. and this is something he brings up again to friends and aides and now it gets out again in peter's good reporting. >> there's more than an ax to keep grinding and grinding. there's something wrong with somebody who carries on with a political war after they're buried. >> about a year when he gave the state of the union, all of this dialogue came out is this the moment donald trump suddenly became presidential? >> i like the record, i never asked that question. i knew the answer. i knew the answer. i got asked the night of the address, and i said i don't think he will ever be presidential. four days after that he started claiming obama wiretapped trump tower. donald trump is a 72-year-old man. he's been this way for about 68 years. he hasn't really evolved, he's not someone who's going to

change and he sees the world in very black-and-white terms, he's a classic bully. she's a short-term thinker and he wants to win usually around the smallest, how he appears publicly, whether he's seen as the victor. if that's the tragestrategy tha him in the white house, it's not the strategy for successful policy. he's dug in on the wall because he doesn't want to be seen as a loser. he's dug in and claimed robert mueller is conducting a witch-hunt. the common thing about the negotiation for the wall and mueller investigation is trump is cornered. nancy pelosi outmaneuvered him on the border negotiations. ro ront mueller's team really moved him into a corner. because he is who he is, i think we will see over the next year and maybe the next few weeks, it's mott just him being a bully. we know that about him. not him being insecure or a bigot or thug, we've seen all of

that, i think he's going to lash out because he's now got a congress that's checking him. he's got law enforcement that's checking him. and he's got very few ways in which he can independently act on his own. unfortunately, one of those arenas is foreign policy and north korea and iran. and i think he's going to take action in ways people should really i think be wary of. >> is that what you're sort of seeing, peter baker, all of this today making these comments about isis, the section of the speech last night about iran, do you see sort of the a lurch towards after this colossal failure over the shutdown, do you see a lurch towards foreign policy in terms of the bright, shiny ball that gets the president's attention? >> well, look, foreign policy is always the refuge of a president who isn't going to get anything done on capitol hill. it's the one place where they have a lot more latitude, a lot more freedom. in this case you see the president, for instance, in recent days taking on president maduro in venezuela, making a

big issue out of recognizing his opposition as the legitimate government. a lot of nations support him on that, by the way. he's talked a lot about moving out of syria and afghanistan, ending these endless wars as he puts it. but that doesn't mean he has a treel strategy going forward. it is in fact sort of situational at this point. we are going to be going to vietnam at the end of the month. he will have the second meeting with kim jong-un to talk about denuclearizing north korea. it's not at all clear about whether that can actually add up to anything. the first one in singapore produced good spirits and they said they fell in love, aor he said they fell in love, but so far no nuclear weapons have been eliminated as a result. this time you will have to start seeing concrete results out of this. it's unclear whether that's going to happen. >> ben rosen, smorgasbord, take your pick of what peter baker just said, what is the scariest thing, he's turning towards foreign policy, he's in love with kim jong-un, going back for another meeting? take your pick.

have at it. >> you and i have talked about this for a while, nicolle, i've been worried about this turn he's making. i think the scariest thing is that the very attributes we discussed to make him this kind of un-democratic person at home, applied to the world stage, that's all right eviscerating our alliances and our credibility around the world. but there was a bizarre line yesterday in the state of the union where he warned congress not to investigate him, which first of all, if you're doing that, you're losing. in eight years, we never had to do that. he said we can't have war aren investigations. the lincoln between warren investigations is an odd thing, as if there's a correlation there. the thing that worries me is iran and venezuela. on venezuela he made a big play, to some extent well coordinated but he put all of the chips on somebody the venezuelan military is not backing as president while threatening military options. on iran he's wrachetting up the

pressure talking about troops being there to counter him. i would keep my eye on iran and venezuela as two wild cards, two places where trump frankly sees some domestic political benefit of taking the instances he's taken. we know, look, he's no advocate of promoting human rights around the world, look at saudi arabia. he picked venezuela because that serves a political interest i think for him in florida. if you look at venezuela and iran, those are the areas i'm kerped about over the next year or two. >> my daily dose of i won't sleep tonight thanks to kear baker and ben. thank you. after the break, there's winter in new hampshire and ohio state fair and then the oprah primary.

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by god, when are you going to know the answer? by god! when -- can we get amy and ul

ulysses and the whole family together. when are you going to know? have you given yourself a deadline? i'm serious about that. >> and the serious answer is really soon. it is really soon. before the end of this month. >> that was oprah asking what many democrats have been wondering since beto o'rourke lost his texas race to ted cruz in november. he would be joining an already-crowded field as democrats for president. he wasn't the only one hinting, amy klobuchar teased she will make a big announcement this sunday, making her the fifth women in the race. donna, i have to start with you, how do the democrats harness all of this energy? i mean, running for president is like running 20 marathons while getting eggs thrown at your head the whole time. i have worked on a presidential campaign. it's such a healthy sign for the party so many people want to

run. but how do you keep them focused on the man they will ultimately face? >> not just so many people want to run but so many people of such high caliber are running. i think the key is they have to run a primary where they don't beat each other up and damage each other, damage the eventual nominee by the time they get to the spring of 2020. i think that's going to be very hard to do because there's not a lot of policy wise that really separates the candidates for them to distinguish themselves. and so there's where you do actually run the risk that you have a much more aggressive campaign among the candidates. look, i want somebody who inspires me, but i want somebody who can win. for me, that's the bottom line. and whomever that nominee is is the one i'm going to be supporting. >> does trump have an opinion about who he runs against? >> he has a lot of opinions about who he runs against. he's telling his staff and advisers we talked to from the residence every night, he's

engaging this. >> working on nicknames. he's busy coming up with nicknames. >> he's looking at it. he was really impressed with kamala harris', beginning of r kamala harris debut was great. he likes elizabeth warren, he thinks he can beat her on her heritage thing. beto is something that he feels he could win on experience and record, but beto is like half his age. >> threatened by a younger -- >> when t"the apprentice" took off he said is it getter to be a movie star or a tv star. and lauroren said it is better

be a tv star. he has been focused on fewer things in his life than celebrity. who has that magic dust. that is a key factor in a presidential race and i think shehe is assessing them on intangible magic. i think kamala harris has that. i think he recognizes that. i think he knows that an independent candidate would blow up the democratic vote. . >> joe biden is an interesting case as well. he personally feels like he could take booid nn a 101.

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today it fell to kristine pelosi to remind us that before she was speaker of the house,

she was a mom. she said yes, that clap took me back to the teen years. she knows, and she knows ta you know, and she is disappointed that you thought it would work. here is a clap. sending a signal to trump, best not to mess with mom. she had a great night. >> she did, it was interesting to read ter face knowing her. and i think that for america, it was like gosh, finally we really do have the adult controlling the levers. >> we're going to sneak in our last break, stay with us, we'll be right back. st break, stay wi be right back. [birds chirping]

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john, you get the last word, you're going with the president

for another form trip. >> yeah, this time we need concrete agreements. >> they met privately, too, right? it could happy again. that does it for this hour. i'm nicolle wallace. >> we're out of dumpster fire e me zis. and we're out of them, there is too many dump ster fires to keep track of. speaking of wednesday, there are too many jump ster fires to count. good evening. let's be honest, it has been one hell of a da