i'll see you tomorrow morning on "today." a rare treat, andrea mitchell in new york city. >> the treat is mine, thank you so much, craig melvin, gradeat see you. on "andrea mitchell reports", strong arm tactics. >> i don't know who gave you that, it's more fake news. there's a lot of fake news out there. no, i didn't. in his sights. vladimir putin threatening to target the united states, even as andrew mccabe explains why the fbi opened an investigation into the president and russia. >> does that mean you leave open the possibility that the president of the united states was taking direction from russia? >> absolutely. that's the possibility that exists in a counterintelligence investigation. and crowded house. in the first 24 hours of his new presidential campaign, bernie

sanders reportedly raises $6 million while joe biden sounds like he's getting closer to a third white house bid. >> guys, it's time to get up, get off our knees, get up. remember who the hell we are. this is the united states of america. there's nothing we've ever not been able to do. not a joke. good day, i'm andrea mitchell in new york. president trump unloading on "the new york times" today as the enemy of the people after the newspaper's exhaustive report on a two-year pattern of alleged attempts by the president and his team against investigations into his campaign and his conduct in office. multiple officials telling "the times" that late in 2018, president trump pressured then acting attorney general matthew whitaker to try to put a trump appointee, the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, jeffrey berman, in charge

of the cohen investigation that had implicated mr. trump. p berman was already recused from being involved. house democrats are talking about calling whitaker back for further testimony. >> at no time has the white house asked for nor have i provided any promises or commitments concerning the special counsel's investigation or any other investigation. >> did the president lash out to you on or about december 8th, 2018, to discuss the case before the southern district of new york where he was identified as individual 1? >> no, congressman. >> did anyone on the president's behalf, either inside the white house or outside the white house, contact you to lash out or express dissatisfaction? >> did they contact me to lash out? >> yes. did they reach out to you in some way to express dissatisfaction? >> no. >> joining me now, nbc white house correspondent kristen welker in a snowy washington.

msnbc contributor jill wine-banks, former watergate prosecutor, frank fugliesi, and michael schmidt, one of the authors of that expansive front-page "new york times" story. michael, you and your team reporting, going back two years and putting together a lot of pieces that add up to a mosaic which some would call obstruction of justice. >> there's a lot of themes in the way the president has approached the investigations around him. one of them is the issue of loyalty, as far back as the seventh day of his administration he was asking then-fbi director james comey for loyalty. more recently he was obsessed with the loyalty of the person overseeing the investigation into michael cohen, would that person be loyal to him. and discussing with the acting attorney general the possibility, the idea of whether they could get his u.s. attorney

that he had appointed to that office to be in charge of that investigation. he's beaten this theme throughout the entire time, and it has created a lot of problems for him because mueller has had to look at these questions as part of the obstruction of justice investigation. >> frank fugliesi, when we talk about this, let's get to what was going through the minds of andrew mccabe and others in the fbi and in the justice department when they saw what was unfolding in those hectic days, tumultuous days right after jim comey was fired. >> we see reflected in this chaos confusion and identification of a threat. fbi agents are trained to identify and mitigate threats. and i'm convinced, andrea, that in this chaotic time, andrew mccabe saw a threat coming from the oval office. and when you combine that with already predicated russian collusion type counterintelligence investigations about influence

on the complaampaign, you can s where mccabe said, we've got a problem, it's time to formize this and protect these russian cases in the form of putting trump in the subject line of the case. >> now, kristen welker, you're at the white house. there has been a storm of tweets from the president today. he's going back to enemy of the people, he's going back to dishonest, totally out of control. this is a very angry president. >> this is the tweet you're talking about, "the new york times" reporting is false, they are the true enemy of the people. what is so notable about that, we've heard him take aim at "the new york times" before when he doesn't like a story, we've seen him call the press the enemy of the people. but this is the first time he's specifically used that name to lash out at a single news organization. typically when we've pressed him or his top officials, who specifically he's talking about,

"oh, he's just talking about fake news." this is a more direct attack and more troubling from that perspective i perspective. making it clear that the "new york times" reporting is getting under his skin. the challenge for the president and for this white house is they haven't refuted any specific fact or any specific line in that article in "the new york times." and of course he's used that term "fake news" before. we've learned of course afterwards from various different people who then go on to go on the record that in fact it is in fact the case. so this is adding to the president's unease as he awaits the mueller report, as everyone awaits the mueller report. and andrea, just one more note, that testimony that you played by whitaker, the fact that you now have these revelations in "the times," it's only added to the scrutiny and the calls on capitol hill for him to reappear and explain what democrats have called some of his inconsistencies, andrea. >> and jill wine-banks, the tempo is certainly increasing.

we're expecting, as pete williams was first reporting last month, that mid-february would be the time of the mueller report. what we're talking about is mueller wrapping up his investigation to the point where he turns the report in to william barr, the new attorney general. that does not mean, certainly, from what barr said during his confirmation hearings, that the public will actually get to see this. >> it doesn't. the rules that the and prosecutor is operating on under this administration does not require that it become public. but i think the public has to demand that it become public. it is crucial that people know what the facts are. and it needs the full mueller report. but more than the mueller report, congress has to hold hearings, because the only way you can truly evaluate what the evidence is, is when you see the body language, when you hear the testimony directly. and one of the things that helps so much in watergate was before we brought indictments, before

there was an impeachment vote, before there were articles of impeachment, there were public hearings. and people already understood the facts so they could accept the results in a way they wouldn't have. the facts were out enough that the public rose in protest after the saturday night massacre. that's why we need public hearings right away, even if mueller's report is made fully public, you still need public hearings. >> now, "the new york times" on twitter has responded, michael schmidt, to all of your reporting and the team, saying, we stand by the investigation which was rigorously reported and based on review of confidential white house documents as well as interviews with current and former government officials and those close to president trump. can you give us an idea of how long you were working on it and how you were weaving threads together? >> yeah, the problem with

understanding what is going on during the trump era is there are so many different developments every day about different aspects of the investigation. and there's different parts of it, there's michael cohen, there's obstruction, there's collusion. what we were trying to do is look at the question of obstruction and look at the individual instances and see if there were themes in the president's behavior, had he learned anything from what he did before. in our reporting, we showed that it was in 2017 when he obsessed about getting jeff sessions to unrecuse himself from the russia investigation, sessions stepping aside because there were questions about whether there was appearance of a conflict. that ultimately failed, he couldn't get sessions to unrecuse himself, he actually had to keep sessions as his attorney general. so no success there. but mueller then had to look at that question and make that part of his obstruction of justice investigation. so the president not that successfully getting what he has wanted. the president struggling to be an effective obstructor.

in many ways, he has had success in terms of the public dialogue, doing a constant job of trying to undermine mueller and raise questions about his credibility in hopes of softening the ground for an eventual report. >> now, one of your excerpts in the piece is about a conversation that took place between the president and sean spicer, then his press secretary, his spokesperson, about the resignation of mike flynn. and there seems to be a lot of controversy over that, first of all, the amount of days after sally yates' warning that they kept flynn in the role of national security adviser even after being warned that he was a national security threat, he was compromised, he could be blackmailed. she said very clearly, according to her sworn testimony. in that excerpt, mr. trump and his advisers are in the oval office debating how to explain the resignation of mr. flynn. one of mr. trump's advisers mentioned in passing what paul ryan, then the speaker, told reporters. mr. trump had asked mr. flynn to

resign. mr. trump seized on those words, that sounds better. mr. trump turned to mr. spicer and said, say that, mr. trump ordered. but was that true, mr. spicer asked. say that, trump said. frank, it's been really hard to understand how sally yates, then the acting ag, had been deputy ag, goes to the white house and says, your national security adviser could be blackmailed by russia, is compromised. there's a counterintelligence issue here. goes to the white house counsel. and it takes 18 days to get him out of there, and then they say we got rid of him because he lied to the vice president. >> there's more than the sally yates briefing, which in itself should have caused almost immediate response. but we hear reports, andrea, that the fbi provided defensive counterintelligence briefings early in the campaign, which is very common, particularly once you get the nomination, you start receiving classified briefings. >> i think it started in august.

>> indeed, at very high levels of the fbi, presenting this to the candidate and his team. at the end of those briefings, which i've done myself, you give the business card and you say, so, any of this happens, you give me a call, right, if you see any of this. none of that happened, reportedly. so we've got an administration that's more interested in making things go away than identifying and addressing threats. >> and kristen welker, when you're at the white house, on this beautiful snowy day, you've got a president fuming, this is all heating up, you're going to get to see him or the pool will get to see him later today when the chancellor of austria comes in. there's the putin threat, all of this, "the new york times." this could be quite a photo op. >> it could be, andrea. of course yesterday he did take questions from the press. and so we're hoping and anticipating that he will perhaps take a few today. look, he is going to be meeting with the chancellor of austria and they'll be discussing a range of issues that he may want to talk about, immigration may

be one of them, the two of them see eye to eye on that. but other, thornier issues like trade. perhaps those are among the topics that will get him going. andrea, he's making it very clear today on twitter that this is what is top of mind. so will he answer questions today? we'll have to wait and see, and excuse me for talking loudly because of course the snowblower is right behind me, andrea. >> you are really plowing through, no pun intended, plowing ahead, despite all the interference. thank you so much. finally, jill wine-banks, the tempo here quickening, the mueller probe, the report could be coming imminently. it is very hard to have a coherent narrative that penetrates the american people, that's partly our job as well, "the new york times" is trying to put the pieces together. >> i think so, and it is up to

the fact press, which is most of the press, which is relying on facts, to summarize. it's hard for almost anyone to remember what happened yesterday let alone a week or two ago because there are so many pieces of wrongdoing that are being revealed every day. so many they mentioned that should be of concern. and the news media is one of the most important things we have left. it is essential to democracy. it is not the enemy of the people, it is the friend of democracy. that is what we need to keep looking at. i think the report of "the new york times" and others who are combining, this is especially true when you have mueller not able to say anything. he has to remain silent. so you have a defense being put out and no prosecution being put out. that's why we need the public hearings and the press. >> jill wine-banks, thanks so much. kristen welker, thank you. michael schmidt and frank

fugliezzi, stay with me. coming up, vladimir putin threatening the u.s. with new missiles amid new questions about his relationship with president trump. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. "andrea l reports" only on msnbc guess what day it is! huh...anybody? julie! hey...guess what day it is? ah come on, i know you can hear me. mike mike mike mike mike... what day is it mike? ha ha ha ha! leslie, guess what today is? it's hump day. whoot whoot! ronny, how happy are folks who save hundred of dollars switching to geico? i'd say happier than a camel on wednesday. hump day!!! get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more.

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what's your best explanation for why president trump has seemed again and again and again to lean toward the russians, to defend vladimir putin in cases when no one else would? >> the facts are we have -- it

doesn't take a surreptitious recording. it doesn't take extreme investigative techniques. all you have to do is watch the president, watch what he does, listen to what he says. and you can't help but escape those questions. it seems hard to imagine it's a coincidence. i think more importantly, we've never seen this before. >> andrew mccabe, the fired acting fbi director, detailing what led him to launch a counterintelligence investigation into the president of the united states and russia. as russia's president putin today in his annual speech to the russian parliament today threatens to target the u.s. with new weapons systems if the u.s. deploys new missiles in europe once the inf treaty is dead in five months or so. joining me now, msnbc interment affairs analyst and former ambassador to russia michael mcfaul and nbc political analyst elise jordan, an nsc staff member in the george w. bush

white house. also still with us, frank fugliezzi, former assistant director of counterintelligence. president putin's annual speech to the duma, tell us what the most important part is. we're all focused on the threats. what do you think he's trying to accomplish? >> the most important part of the speech is all the social benefits he's promised to the russian people. and he did that because he is falling in the polls there considerably and he needs to do something to shore up his electoral support and popular support. with respect to the united states, yeah, the threat, predictable, by the way, of course, if we're going to deploy new missiles against them he will deploy others against us. and he made that threat very explicit today as a way, i think, to try to preempt any discussion of deploying new american missiles in europe and warning countries who might host them there will be consequences

for their security as well. >> isn't he in this threat trying to take the advantage that, frankly, president trump has given him by canceling the imf treaty, the u.s. becomes the bad guy around the world, we're the ones launching a new arms race. what is the effect of this decision to back out of the arms control treaty rather than trying to fix it? >> i just think it was a strategic mistake. and let's be clear. russia was violating the inf treaty, although there was a dispute about that. but they were. but i think the prudent course would have been to put that information, declassify that information, have a public discussion of how russia was vooil violating it, then get back to the treaty. by pulling out, as the trump administration did, they've made us the problem. i was in munich a few days ago and what i was struck by at that meeting, the munich security conference of european and

american officials, everybody was talking about the rift in the trans-atlantic relationship and there was hardly any discussion of the threats from russia or china. it was very striking to me. pulling out of the inf is a part of that narrative. >> frank, at the same time we've got a president who is elevating putin by this strategy, and also being accused of being an asset by andrew mccabe or an unwitting asset of the russians. >> we're living in very perilous times. ambassador mcfaul referenced a strategy mistake. he's right, but let's look at that word "strategy." what concerns me the most is when we have a president who is putting personal political interests over national interests, is it possible we're looking at an actual strategy of appearing to be tough on russia, saying they're out of compliance with inf, we're going to pull out because they're out of compliance, and now we see putin coming in and threatening us. is this all for our purpose? is this to appear tough on each

other and further mask a relationship that they already have? is this toughness all about a show and trying to show that we're really understanding a threat here from each other when perhaps they're not? >> your background is in counterintelligence, elise, yours is as well, in national security. what do you think is going on with russia? >> i found the speech noteworthy. ambassador mcfaul, please correct me, you've read the full version and i didn't see it, that putin chose to call out america's ruling elites for their posture towards russia. he wasn't necessarily calling out donald trump. he was calling out people in national security circles who want a stronger stance. and he wasn't blaming trump, he was blaming more so the foreign policy blob in d.c. it signaled a coziness that you wouldn't have necessarily seen vladimir putin hesitate from, say, his critique of president

obama. >> what do you think about that, ambassador mcfaul? >> oh, i think that's absolutely right, it's a great observation. it's a pattern we've seen for a couple of years. putin always talks about this deep state, the foreign policy elite. he's talking me. he's talking about us when he says that. and it's a way for him to distance his relationship with president trump. he's still holding out the idea that if he could just work with trump, they could resolve these kinds of issues. and it's new, he didn't talk that way during the obama administration. >> does this make you worry even more about that two-hour meeting in helsinki with no note-takers, no american witnesses, and all these private phone calls apparently that take place? >> yes. i mean, for a couple of reasons. one, that's just not standard operating procedure. you know, i worked three years at the white house. you always have a memorandum of those conversations to help your foreign policy team.

but two, we've seen time and time again that when trump and putin get together, president putin spins lies and disinformation that president trump accepts. so we've heard that he thinks that north korean missiles can't attack us had of we've heard that people like me in helsinki were involved in some cockamamie scheme to launder money out of russia to help the hillary clinton campaign in 2016. we've heard crazy stories about how the people in montenegro are going to start world war iii. all of that is putin disinformation. what's just shocking to me is that our president of the united states, the commander in chief of the united states, parrots it. that's very troubling. and that, andrea, is all the stuff that we do know. there's still a lot of things i'm sure they discussed that we haven't even heard about yet. >> and here is andrew mccabe talking about willie geist on "morning joe" today about what the suspicions were and why they

opened an investigation into a relationship between donald trump and vladimir putin. >> do you believe, as some have suggested, that the president of the united states is a russian asset? >> i can't sit here, willie, and tell you that i believe that. what i can tell you is that i know we had good reason to open that investigation. >> you know andrew mccabe and you've gone through all of this. what do you think about the pret predicate? did they have good reason to open this investigation? >> i think this is an important question, andrea. people need to understand when mccabe says he opened a case, he ordered a case to be opened, we need to make a distinction between him protecting the already existing cases by inserting trump's name at the head of a separate investigation. so people would be wrong to think that there weren't already predicated, well-predicated russian counterintelligence investigations.

and mccabe is saying, i opened the initial cases. he did not. it's important to say what he did was take steps to ensure that those cases were protected by adding two layers, an obstruction case on the president himself and a counterintelligence case on the president himself. to shortly answer your question about whether those were properly predicated, indeed i believe they were. and i think i would have done the same thing in his place. >> in fact the fbi investigation into russia and counterintelligence had started during the campaign, in july of 2016, at least. >> indeed. so we're talking about simply layering the president's case on top of those cases as an insurance factor to ensure that if someone wanted to close all those cases, they would have to get through the assertion that they themselves were obstructing those cases. >> this will clearly be at the heart, as we know, of the mueller investigation. frank, thank you so much, elise jordan, and ambassador mike mcfaul. tomorrow at noon, andrew mccabe will join me right here on

"andrea mitchell reports." coming up, fired up and ready to go. joe biden taking direct aim at president trump in his latest speech. is he getting ready to launch? the inside scoop on 2020, coming up next. stay with us on msnbc. next. stay with us on msnbc.

we've kind of forgotten who we are. democrats and republicans. we walk around like, oh, woe is me, we have so many -- no, i really mean it. think about the -- think about the dialogue. oh, my god, we're in trouble, oh, we have these -- oh, how are we going to -- what are we going to -- jesus god. guys, it's time to get up. get off our knees. get up. remember who the hell we are. this is the united states of america. >> joe biden, classic joe biden, speaking on home turf to the university of pennsylvania on tuesday, road testing a message that could become the basis of a potential campaign. let's get the inside scoop from mike memole, msnbc contributor sam stein, and beth lui.

mike, you were there in the audience, you saw the way the kids reacted. this was classic biden. of what's your read on this? >> yeah, andrea, that's right. i'll be perfectly canned it with you. you know from the discussions that we would have off the air here in the bureau and elsewhere that my own reporting and my experience in covering biden now for more than a decade had been pointing me in a direction that he was less likely to run in 2020, that we would have a similar situation as in 2016 where he got close to the line and backed off. but my conversations over the last week or so with members of his inner circle has me realizing that his default position is that he will run for president. two things are clear, one is that he believes he has time. you were in munich, you heard him say over the weekend that he thinks we start our election process too early. as one biden adviser said to me,

we just had the super bowl. we know family is still a factor, it's not a factor in the same way that it was in 2016, but he does want to take advantage of this additional time and make sure that while a final decision has not been made, before he gives that green light, that the pieces are all ready for a campaign run. >> beth, we talk about joe biden taking his time. but here we have bernie sanders launching a campaign and within 24 hours raising $6 million, they say. >> right. >> that is an enormous amount of money. and we've seen other big fundraising numbers from some of the other new candidates. how long can joe biden really wait without a financial base? >> yeah, he doesn't really have much of a financial base. of course he was a senator from delaware for all those many years and he was reelected in a landslide every single time so he never really needed to build a naturally fundraising base. when he was president obama's running mate and the vice president, certainly president obama had that capacity to raise tons of money online.

but that's not something joe biden ever really had to do. even though he's got near universal name recognition, he may well be the most popular politician in the country right now, that doesn't necessarily translate into the gritty stuff that you need to do to set up an operation in iowa, set up an operation in new hampshire, set up a national operation where you're going to be fending off, as you say, all these other candidates who have now been in the race, some of them for over a month, raising money with that online presence, very adroit on digital media, social media, all sorts of things that joe biden really hasn't had to do as a candidate, ever. and for him to sort of jump in and try it, we all know he's an experienced guy and he knows what he's doing, but it's a tall order, even for somebody with his skills. >> and sam stein, what about bernie sanders and joe biden, the age issue, with this new crop of very diverse candidates? >> i think it's a factor. there is sort of a generational appeal that some of the younger candidates are making as a way to effectively turn the page on not just trump, obviously, but

on a politics of a bygone era. in the end maybe it's possible that joe biden can overcome that. i think it's more likely that bernie sanders could overcome it in part because he proved in his last cycle that he has a real connection with students, for instance, but also because it's not just the money. he has an immense network of volunteers that he can rely on. when you look at the money, it came from hundreds of thousands of donors already. those people will go out and canvass for him, knock on doors for him, recruit for him. i think bernie is actually better positioned on the age matter than joe biden is precisely because he has an infrastructure that will help him do that. >> those people who were with bernie when bernie was the anti-hillary-clinton, now you have amy klobuchar, the possibility of beto o'rourke jumping in, a host of candidates out there and more jumping into the fray every day. >> i think the issue in talking to bernie's folks about this,

there is obviously a concern that he benefitted a lot from having that one on one contrast with hillary clinton in 2016, and that's not there for him in 2020. so that's a problem, obviously. and of course there are other candidates in the race who can make more overt appeals to younger voters and a more diverse electorate this time around. that being said, he does enter the race with a real strategic advantage, which is he has a network of volunteers, the activists. he has a huge e-mail list that he can tap in order to reach out to those people and pull them back in. and he starts way ahead of everyone else in the field. people talk about bernie having a sort of a cap on the people he can get in the democratic primary. i'm not totally sold on that prospect. there's a possibility that that cap could actually be busted through. >> and mike memoli, can joe biden wait until march, until april, and see who rises to the top? >> what i've heard from biden

advisers, yes, they may have lost some potential staff to other campaigns or to, for instance, members of congress who are still hiring up in their offices, but that they do have a number of people who have expressed an interest in only working for joe biden. so they're very confident they can put together the campaign team that they need and also that, as the former vice president, somebody with more experience than anyone else in the field, somebody who has campaigned for democrats up and down the ballot in 2018 very actively, he can start running at a later point than most of the other candidates. now, i think we're likely at this point still weeks away, even if he makes a decision in two weeks, it will take another several weeks for his campaign to really launch. at that point you look at, we're going to start the second fundraising quarter, he wants to put up strong fundraising quarters to show he can compete with these other folks. we're still probably a month away. he thinks he can enter that race late and still succeed. >> beth, one of the big arguments he's making both in immuni

munich and in philadelphia, he's the only one of these candidates with foreign policy experience. not clear that foreign policy is important to the democratic voters right now. they're talking about health care. >> right, they are. and the other disadvantage for joe biden, he's trying to stake out that central position, bringing everybody together, kind of rides the moderate lane in all of this. the energy for democrats is on the left right now. and all of these candidates are having a challenge in figuring out how to negotiate that. bernie sanders, we know where he stands, he's got that left edge, you know, at the moment strongly. elizabeth warren to some degree as well. joe biden is really -- you know, everything we've heard, he really doesn't think the country is ready for that yet, which may be a great message for the general election. it's hard to see how that breaks through among democrats. and that's a challenge also that others who are kind of driving that moderate space will face as well, like amy klobuchar. >> and mike bloomberg if he gets in. >> that's right. >> thanks to all.

coming up, fighting words, acting secretary of defense patrick shanahan goes head to head with a top republican senator. what could that mean for shanahan's future at the pentagon? stay with us on "andrea mitchell reports" only at msnbc. tchell reports" only at msnbc tation. so, we re-imagined the razor with the new gillette skinguard. it has a unique guard between the blades. that's designed to reduce irritation during the shave. because we believe all men deserve a razor just for them. the best a man can get. gillette.

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prison, now going to jail on may 6th, monday march 6th. his legal team says their client will be called to testify before congressional committees. now to nbc's new reporting on a major clash between the president's acting defense secretary and mr. trump's strongest ally in the republican senate, lindsey graham, an argument that could spike the cabinet secretary's chances of holding onto his job. according to the report, acting secretary patrick shanahan and lindsey graham got into a heated argument over the 'president's plan to withdraw all u.s. troops from syria. graham reportedly unleashed a string of expletives and called himself shanahan's adversary. joining me now, nbc's national security and military reporter courtney kube, co-author of the story and someone who was in munich for all the action last weekend. courtney, this is very tense, you don't want to lose lindsey graham if you're the acting

defense secretary already being criticized by many for not being up for the job, not having any military background, coming from the defense community of boeing, he basically was a corporate executive in boeing as a contractor rather than as anyone with anyone, you know, experience with boots on the ground. >> that's right. so secretary shanahan, i don't think anyone disputes that he understands sort of the defense industrial base side of the job, of the pentagon. and a lot of people might argue that as the deputy secretary of defense, the job that he had under secretary of defense jim mattis, that's actually really important, you're administrator of the pentagon in a lot of ways. but as acting secretary of defense, a role he's been in for two months, there's a much larger geopolitical role that you play in that. and so last week we saw his first overseas trip. he went to the war zones, iraq and afghanistan. he went to nato and brussels. then of course he went to munich

where you and i spent quality time at the security conference. this was his big stepping out on the world stage. he had had international events as the deputy but never as the acting secretary. so this delegation, lindsey graham headed up a congressional delegation, bipartisan members, senate and the house, and they had a briefing with him on a whole range of issues and topics. but when it got to the withdrawal of u.s. troops from syria, senator graham, who has been pretty vocal about his opposition to withdrawing all u.s. troops from syria, he really clashed with him, getting angry, according to a number of people who were in the room during this briefing and ultimately said, on this issue you and i will be adversaries. >> patrick shanahan has the support of the president, he's been praising him at cabinet meetings, in public. does he keep the job or does lindsey graham's opposition mean that he would have trouble getting confirmed?

>> so the people i've been speak to about this are a little bit split. when shanahan first came into the job, in those first a couple of weeks, everyone really thought at the pentagon that it was his job to lose. he just needed to, you know, support the president, put on a good face, and ultimately he would be the nominee. his showing on the world stage didn't really help that last week. and i'm starting to hear more and more talk about potential -- other potential people who might actually get the nomination. one of them is the air force secretary heather wilson. another is actually secretary of state mike pompeo. his name has been out there for some time and i'm hearing more whispers about it recently. the people on the hill who i've been asking about this, they seem to think that if he got the nomination, he could probably get through confirmation. but people just aren't really certain at this point whether he's actually going to get it from president trump. >> i can tell you that mike pompeo is in good steady with the president. in cairo, a couple of months back, he described himself, "i'm a military man."

he was first in his class at west point, he was very proud of that, as he should be, and i can see a scenario where they could shift him over if that's what the president wants. >> yes, absolutely. >> courtney, thank you so much. coming up, firing back. president trump vowing to take on the 16 states suing him over his emergency declaration. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. great news, liberty mutual customizes- uh uh - i deliver the news around here. ♪ sources say liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. over to you, logo. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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otezla. show more of you. what's your reaction to the lawsuits yesterday filed by the states against your executive order? >> i think i called it exactly, right? including the fact that they would put them in through the 9th circuit. that's where they put them in. i think we'll do very well. we have absolute right to do that. i have an absolute right to call national security. we need strong borders. we have to stop drugs and crime and criminals and human trafficking and we have to stop all of those things that a strong wall will stop. >> president trump continuing to defend his decision to declare a national emergency to pay for that wall. but 16 states led by california are suing the president over the order, setting up a legal showdown as he predicted. they could go to the supreme court. now the president is digging in deeper in his fight with california with the department

of transportation moving to cancel nearly a billion dollars in grant funding for the state's planned high speed rail system. is it pay back? joining me now is former democratic congressman joe could crowley. it does seem like a pay back. there is a tweet from the president. california wants to scale back their already failed fast train project by substantially shortening the distance so it no longer goes from l.a. to san francisco. a different deal and record cost overrun. send the federal government back the dollars wasted. is he targeting california because of the fight for the wall? >> it's not new. if you look at the tax bill passed in the last congress, you saw him focusing on big states like california and new york in terms of the salt provisions. >> state and local taxeses no longer deductible. very debilitating. >> tax paipayers are seeing hug changes in their refunds. >> unfortunately, i think this may be par for the course. this is how donald trump reacts

when he doesn't get his way. and clearly, the power of the purse lies in the hands of congress. it's clear not constitution, and the president is trying to usurp that power by any which way he can from the congress. >> now, he's right as it goes up through the courts, it will end up presumably in the supreme court where he has a 5-4 advantage on most cases, although there's plenty of precedent, precedent with many of the conservatives in the court have ruled against this kind of expansive presidential power. >> his own party here. right now republicans control the white house. democrats conceivably will in the near future control the white house. how will his party feel when they start -- when the president can't get anything done in congress, starts moving in executive orders, and calling for medicare for all, or calling for a bill that passes the green new deal -- >> some future president. >> yes. i think therein lies the

problem. the process breaks down, and that's what the founding fathers had recognized, the potential for this. and that's why this provision is in the constitution, to protect the congress and its right, and the people's right. it's not the members of the congress. it's the people's right. their representatives make that vote happen. it's what turned the tide of history. you look at the vietnam war. it was the power of the purse, the cutting off of those funds that turned that political process around. >> the cutting off of the bowen amendment in the contra war. >> exactly. >> what are you hearing, what else are you hearing from members of congress about possible, you know, pay back against them for going against him? >> i've heard from a couple of offices now that on certain issues in dealing with state and maybe dealing with homeland security, that they're not get being the responses, that they're being told they don't have to respond to congressional inquiries. i think that is also, again, very, very dangerous. i served during the bush administration. i never had any -- and we certainly didn't agree on a lot of issues, but no one from that

administration ever said they would not take up a congressional inquiry or look into a particular matter based on my political affiliation or the affiliation of my colleagues. i think that's again -- sounds like a bullying tactic this president is more than up to and forcing the administration to do that. but i think it's very, very dangerous and ought not take place. >> this is something we're going to have to follow-up on with our congressional team. joe crowley, thank you. >> great to be with you. >> and we'll be right back. crohn's disease, stelara® works differently. studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. some serious infections require hospitalization. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection or flu-like symptoms or sores, have had cancer, or develop new skin growths, or if anyone in your house needs or recently had a vaccine. alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion and vision problems. these may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition.

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thanks for being with us. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." remember following the show online on facebook and twitter at mitchell reports. here is ali velshi and stephanie ruhle, "velshi & ruhle." >> have you looked out the window? >> anything happening out there? >> i think you either have to get back or you're going to be here for a little while. >> i don't think getting back is an option. have you looked outside here and washington? >> there's some good snow out there. stay as long as you like. have a good afternoon. >> maybe we'll all go skating after this. >> that would be fun. there's a rink near here. i'm ali velshi. >> i'm stephanie ruhle. it is wednesday, a snowy wednesday and we have a lot to get to this hour, so let's get right into it. we'll begin with this. the 2020 election is already under attack. you thought i was going to say underway. no, under attack. a new report from politico reveals disinformation campaigns are happening as we