>> i can't imagine anything more romantic. sounds perfect. well done, my friend. thank you, chris. live show chris is the best chris. i love it. all right, thanks at home for joining us. great to have you here. voting due to start in the new hampshire primary just three hours from now. it will be only three towns that start voting at midnight but still that will be actual voting and as we race toward that eventuality tonight there's a whole bunch of news we're keeping our eye on. within the last couple of hour, for example, the president's longtime political adviser, roger stone, learned what kind of prison sentence he may be facing. in november mr. stone was found guilty on all counts in a federal criminal indictment brought against him for lying to investigators and obstructing the investigation into russia's involvement in the 2016 election and a particularly nefarious instance of witness tampering. he was convicted on all counts.

now there's the question of what sentence he gets. today in a 26-page filing the prosecutors in his case told the court that he should get seven to nine years in federal prison. now, that is to be clear just what prosecutors are asking for. the judge is the person who does the sentencing. the judge is absolutely free to ignore that request from the prosecutors but if the judge does go along with what prosecutors are asking for here, that would put both the president's longest term political adviser, mr. stone, and his presidential campaign chairman paul nana fort in federal prison for roughly the same amount of time. president trump's campaign chairman paul manafort currently searching 7 1/2 years in the middle of what prosecutors in steen's case are asking for him as well. meanwhile, the president's first national security adviser mike flynn, who has also pled guilty to a felony, there was a surprise filing in flynn's case

yesterday. yes, on a sunday, weirdly on a sunday morning this filing came in? that's an odd thing itself. in this unexpected sunday morning filing, the prosecutors in mike anyone's case asked to delay his sentencing. and nobody is quite sure what that is about but attorney general william barr did recently install one of his own close aides to be the new u.s. attorney in that office in d.c. handling both the flynn and stone case. so it is worth watching very closely what happens to these prosecutions of all these myriad figures in the president's orbit who have been convicted or pled guilty now that william barr installed his own guy as the top of that prosecutor's office in d.c. we'll have a little more coming up later in the show. that's intriguing. we're also going to be speaking with the former senior national security council official about the firing of lieutenant colonel alexander vindman.

and oddly his brother, as well, colonel vindman testified in the impeachment trial after he was subpoenaed to do so. his brother had nothing to do with the impeachment trial whatsoever other than the fact that he's related to his brother alexander vindman but both have been fired from the white house. we'll talk about the consequences of that from someone who is very well placed to know what those consequences are. that's all ahead tonight along with the bizarre news that the u.s. department of justice admits they now will -- they were advised this was happening -- we were advised it was happening and the justice department confirmed that they have opened up some sort of intake process for rudy giuliani to feed the justice department anti-joe biden stuff that he's been cooking up in ukraine. the president obviously was just impeached for throwing out u.s. policy to ukraine in favor of a rudy giuliani-led extortion effort to pressure that country

into trying to hurt joe biden's political chances in the next election. now that the republican-led senate decided that didn't bother them that much and the president should be left in office despite those things, apparently he's just going to keep running the same op. except he'll run it directly out of the u.s. department of justice so he doesn't have to pressure some poor foreign president. he'll just have his own people announce them here. seems legit. sure, the former head of counterintelligence at the justice department today reacted to the news by saying, quote, there is nothing normal about the attorney general creating a special intake process in the field for information relating to claims advancing a white house political narrative particularly from someone reportedly under criminal investigation. oh, right, rudy giuliani is reportedly under federal criminal investigation.

for the various work he has been doing recently in ukraine. but apparently he's now going to report the results of that work to the u.s. department of justice that set up a special process to receive it from him. you know, maybe this is -- maybe this is normal. maybe the process that the justice department has set up to receive this information from rudy giuliani is actually a hilarious trick in which they're basically just convincing him to confess everything. yes, mr. mayor, we've opened an intake process for you. tell us everything else you did. hmm, can you show us evidence of that? can we look at your phone for a sec. want it try on these handcuffs to see if they fit? maybe opening up an intake at the justice department to receive information from rudy giuliani reportedly under federal criminal investigation for what he's been doing in ukraine i mean maybe it's one

big genius pross skew electoral gambit to get him to confess or president trump runs for rele election with bill barr giving false credence to his political opponents? which one seems more likely? a lot to keep your eyes on on this point n terms of how how this plays in the presidential election contest which is impossible to avoid because it is new hampshire eve, terms of how it will play, hard to say. unusual thing to have all of these people from the president's campaign and his administration and his longtime associates and advisers all going to prison. it is an absolutely unprecedented thing for the president to run for re-election having just been impeached. but in a generic sense structurally political science tells us all things being equal presidents do tend to get re-elected. there is an advantage of

incumbency. almost all of the presidents in the modern era who tried to get re-elected have done so. presidents as different as barack obama and george w. bush and bill clinton and ronald reagan, even richard nixon got re-elected to a second term even though he had to quit not that long after. all things being equal, the expectation broadly speaking is that it's hard for a party out of power to oust a sitting president who is trying to hold on to the job. that said, i mean that could be overstated. that's just sort of the structural fact of it in poly-sci terms. the specifics matter. who is the president is, how he conducted himself as president and how his opponents run against him are things that matter. i thought about this today when we got the president's budget for the year. you may remember in 2012 mitt romney was mounting an admittedly uphill battle to try to oust barack obama who was then the incumbent president running for a second term and

again structurally presidents have the advantage of incumbency and tend to get re-elected. always a height for mr. romney but mr. romney made the hill he was climbing a little steeper when he chose this whippersnapper as his vice presidential running mate and there were reasons for mitt romney to pick paul ryan. by all account mrs. romney and mr. ryan really liked each other, paul ryan had a lot of support in the republican party. in the context of romney having just come out of a hotly contested republican primary that year, probably paul ryan seemed like a good fit. which seems to particularly bolster his hard line bona fides. but the reason paul ryan had that, he was the top budget guy for republicans in the house and paul ryan if he was known for one thing in national politics at the time mitt romney picked him to be his running mate he was known for one thing it was

his budget. that he had drawn up and that was absolutely associated with him more than any other thing about him. it was a super draconian budget plan which he had introduced in congress which among other things had gigantic crippling cuts to health care. and that's what he was trying to do in the house as a member of congress as the head of the budget committee. as a vice presidential running mate that was not an awesome thing for the campaign to be saddled with. i mean a vice presidential choice is supposed to be an uncomplicated do no harm boost but he picked ryan and that meant everybody likes paul ryan but had to spend a significant portion defending this totally politically unpalatable budget that was the only thing paul ryan was famous for, he ended up spending a big portion of the general election running against barack obama who had as president overseen the largest expansion of health care coverage to americans in

generations. mitt romney had to spend his general election campaign running against romney -- running against obama saying obama getting more people health care is terrible. and my running mate, my vice president is the guy who's got his name on the gigantic crippling cuts to health care. those -- the paul ryan budget cuts to health care and social security, i mean that wasn't romney's budget. it was paul ryan's thing but because he picked him to be his vice president romney had to spend all that time defending that thing even though wasn't his own. that was 2012. eight years later we are in an election year again and this time the incumbent president is in the republican party. and today the day of the new hampshire primary, president trump rolled out his budget for the next year. and you would think the white house would be acutely aware this is a year in which the president is trying to get rele elected. you would not think they would want to saddle him in his re-election campaign with something that will be hard to defend especially for general

election voters but rolled out president trump's budget. it has a travel dollars in health care cuts. very for me, donald trump. i know the first term has been rocky but in the second term i plan to cut $1 trillion in funding for health care. also if you're a little worried about that coronavirus thing that's happening, the world health organization that's coordinating the international response to that crisis, my budget proposes cutting their budget by more than half right now. who needs it? vote for me. i mean, at least when mitt romney got saddled with this in 2012 it was paul ryan's fault. it was only mitt romney's fault because he picked paul ryan not noting this albatross that ryan was going to drag into the race with him. in this case it's the president's own doing. in this case this genius political move for the president to be running for re-election proposing a trillion dollar in health care cuts is -- this is the president's fault alone, the

fault of the trump white house. and, you know, ultimately you never know what's going to be determinative in a big general election fight. i mean some of this we've seen before. some of this we haven't. we've seen republican candidates have a hard time running for president when promising to gut american health care. when americans are very, very concerned about their health care. that's, you know, there is a precedent there from 2012 and have never seen a president run for office with his campaign chairman and deputy campaign chairman in prison and the president impeached and for people from his campaign heading off to the crowbar hotel all the time. how do we weight that? and just in terms of his own behavior on tape, i mean, the video library the things this president has said and done when he was a candidate for president and since he's gun president, we've never had a president run for re-election with this much ready-made opo just lying around

to be shaped into snappy campaign ads against him. >> ask not what your country can do for you. >> it was all [ bleep ]. >> ask what you can do for your country. >> knock the crap out of him. >> their cause must be our cause too. >> i could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot somebody and i wouldn't lose any voters. >> and we shall overcome. >> as as we left they knocked the [ bleep ] out of everybody. >> mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. >> build that wall. >> americans are strong and decent not because we believe in ourselves. >> i'd like to punch him in the face. >> but because we hold beliefs beyond ourselves. >> grab him by the [ bleep ]. >> the future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. >> this is the crap we have to put up with. >> it belongs to the brave. >> i never want to be -- >> i'm asking you to believe, not in my ability to bring about change but in yours.

>> how about if i take his money but in the end i screw him and don't do anything for him? ♪ >> this is an ad being run by mike bloomberg, the former mayor of new york city. one of the richest men on earth who spent well north of $200 million already. on ads that, yes, promote his own candidacy but also soften the president up. putting his ad shop and the huge amount of money he has behind his advertising campaigns into making the president more beatable. frankly by anyone on the democratic side, mike bloomberg included but not exclusively him. and in part because that's the way he's running bloomberg is another factor in this race that is kind of a black box. kind of hard to see how it plays out and affects everything else. the amount of money he has spent on ads thus far while not competing in the first four contests, iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, that makes these

dynamics hard to model. hard to predict the effect that have much money. quinnipiac has a new national poll out which shows him leaping to 15% today which in this new poll puts him this third place. the sanders campaign is obviously most excited about this poll because it's the first one that shows bernie sanders holding a national lead of a good size. but honestly, the amazing thing about this new national poll something how much movement it shows in every direction. sanders, yes, is on top and that is a big deal for his campaign up by four since the last of the polls two weeks ago. the reason he got such a big lead over the guy in second, joe biden, the guy in second dropped by nine points in just two weeks. bloomberg, yes, spiked from 8% up to 15%. almost doubling his standings nationwide. elizabeth warren says steady in fourth just behind bloomberg. buttigieg serves 4 points to

sdpet himself out of single dig digits. these are all over the place right now. we're having -- we've had iowa already. basically ends up being a jump ball bean buttigieg and sanders. new hampshire starting at midnight tonight, looking ahead to nevada and south carolina next one of the key issue there is which you've been hearing over and over again is african-american support crucial in south carolina and a very big deal in nevada. look at it in this new national poll. over the course of two weeks, joe biden drops 22 points among african-americans. he was at 49% support among trinh african vote he and dropped 22 down to 27. still, 27% support among african-american is good. look at bloomberg surging 15 points with african-americans specifically. i mean, the race on the democratic side is in flux. the numbers are not just moving

but moving in big chunks and fast and disruptive ways and bloomberg's massive spend something a chaos factor in terms of anybody's ability to project what will happen next or how the democrat also settle on their nominee but tonight at midnight eastern time less than three hours from now, when voting starts at those first three towns that vote at midnight in new hampshire, they're not going to settle any of that particular part of the cha chaos in this year's democratic party because nobody going to vote at midnight or tomorrow, nobody will have mike bloomberg on their ballot tomorrow. that's interesting in the larger sense because it's hard to mottle the dynamics when you have this guy not competing in the early states while running this huge spending operation nationwide. in the smaller sense it's also really interesting that bloomberg isn't going to be on the ballot in new hampshire because when you look at the ballot in new hampshire it seems like it's almost impossible for him not to be on that ballot because everybody and their

third cousin is on that ballot. look at this. this is the democratic ballot, this one is from harts locate, one of the three that vote at midnight. the democratic ballot. and the order of candidates is different in every town this. is just a sample of one, right? these are the candidates new hampshire voters will choose from tonight. henry hughes, amy klobuchar, tom cuse, raymond michael, sam sloan, david thon thistle. thomas james torgusen. elizabeth warren, beetz, julian cast, john delaney, jason evert dunlap. michael ellinger, tulsi gabbard, ben gleyberman. marc stewart greenstein and kamala harris. yes, some of those names are familiar to you. because they are people who used

to be running for president but dropped out like cory booker, john delaney, kamala harris, others are in the race like tulsi gabbard and pete buttigieg and deval patrick but this gigantic overthrow crowd you have to wade through to find your likely candidate and despite that gigantic list no mike bloomberg anyway despite the fact that he spent $280 million. the republican ballot has a slightly smaller version. here's a sample republican ballot from albany, new hampshire. at the bottom of this there's president trump along with joe walsh who just ended his bid and bill weld who is still running against president trump. but then the whole rest of the page is filled up with other names of other people who are also technically in the running in new hampshire including one person whose name is already president. which has got to be some kind of advantage.

in terms of the polling heading into the midnight votes and tomorrow's statewide votes in new hampshire we're going to get the latest from steve kornacki. the bottom line, bernie sanders is favored like he was in iowa although again this late shifting in the polls is making things much more interesting and complex than that simple top line result might indicate. just a few hours less than three hours we are going to get the first votes from dicksville location and harts and mills fields, new hampshire. and by this time tomorrow we'll look at real result instead of this anxious difficult predicting which is an unavoidable part of our lives. joining us now at the big board is the great steve kornacki. steve, just hours away from voting in new hampshire. the race has been moving very

quickly this past week at least that's what it seems like to me. how has it changed since the caucuses a week ago. >> changed dramatically potentially in two different ways so created some last-minute suspense. let me show you what i mean. first a look at how the polling in new hampshire changed from iowa basically until friday. friday of last week just before the weekend so check this out and you can see, clearly there was one candidate who moved basically all of last week after iowa or really while iowa was being tabulated and it was pete buttigieg. tracking poll from "the boston globe" and releasing it every night and saw buttigieg over the course of the week actually took the lead. this was as of last friday and move add head the sanders, sanders flat, sanders and buttigieg sharing that win in iowa but it was buttigieg who got the bounce from that clearly and you see it was joe biden who fell back seven points basically all of that loss that biden had

was going into buttigieg plus some more so that's the first story of the change in new hampshire. that was the big story all last week is buttigieg rockettiinini rocketing up to the lead. three-hour debate and over the weekend from the same tracking poll check out the change this, is where things were basically right before the debate on friday night. this is where things were two nights later. note the change. amy klobuchar jumps up eight points. she was buried way in single digits at 6% before the debate and by the way you can see in this tracking poll within five points of pete buttigieg who dropped six. so you had a situation where buttigieg surged and took the lead over sanders before the debate was up nearly 20 points over amy klobuchar and in this tracking poll, over the course of the weekend, klobuchar closed

that gap with buttigieg to five points. that is the late movement here over the weekend. and the question, rachel, when i say that's last-minute suspense the question, is that a weekend blip? did she get favorable headlines or a little buzz after that debate that will wear off by primary day or is this something that was playing out over the weekend, playing out today, playing out tomorrow and is there a rise there that we won't know the full extent of until the results come in tomorrow night. >> this late -- this late -- the latest results that you were just showing there, steve, showing sanders still pipping up after the debate. that seems significant given that his lead in new hampshire has been totally solid for a very long time in the polling, right? we did see buttigieg pip him in the one tracking poll before the debate but sanders has been on top. the favorite and looks like he has room to grow >> that's the interesting thing. all this movement and saw buttigieg taking the lead. it wasn't because sanders was collapsing, it was because biden

was losing and all of it was going to buttigieg and this is where things start to get complicat complicated. sanders up a couple of points from that debate but his margin over buttigieg grows to 8 points here. the best thing that could happen to bernie sanders is if klobuchar surges, but not enough to actually threaten for the lead, but enough to eat into buttigieg's potential pool of support and to allow sanders to sort of skate by there. a 33-point combined performance for buttigieg and klobuchar, that is good news this this poll. >> steve, thank you. we'll be back at midnight as first votes are cast in new hampshire. it's going to be a very exciting 24 hours. municipal more ahead. stay with us. memory loss related to aging? prevagen is the number one pharmacist-recommended memory support brand. you can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

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midnight vote something not a thing that happens in a lot of places. polls typically open in the morning on election day and voters make their way to the polls over the course of the day and into the evening. but in dixville notch, new hampshire and a couple of other towns voters will get the chance to cast some of the first primary ballots of this year's election at the stroke of midnight thanks to a tradition

alive since 1960. there's a little town calls millsfield and harts location that will vote at midnight but for decades dixville notch has been the most famous place to spectate and there's a specific reason. in 1960 a millionaire plastics mogul named neal tillotson who owned a hotel in dixville made a deal with a national poll reporter. the deal was if the poll reporter could basically publicize dixville notch's voting and get everyone to come cover the primary in dixville notch then the millionaire local hotel owner would help make it easier for those reporters to get the story out nationwide. they would make it easy for them to have access to phones to call national news bureaus and that was a nice offer. new hampshire public radio has a new podcast this year about the new hampshire primary.

it's called the stranglehold and they dig into the history of dixville nofrp. >> journal i in the 1950s ran on telephones. nurps needed pictures and those pictures were sent from the field to newsrooms by phone lines and the balsams resort had its own telephone company, that was huge and own power plant and a place for teams of reporters to set up shop. when the morning papers were printed on election day all little town has voted in the middle of night. >> but didn't get the attention dixville did. there are newspapers all across the country that have neal tillotson and eight of his closest friends standing there smiling holing up signs saying they voted for nixonen over kennedy, 9-0. >> co-host of the strangle hold

about the status. thanks for being here. real pleasure. >> thanks, rachel. great to be here. >> so the great thing about this the stranglehold, it takes this thing you think you know everything about and you think that, you know, it's just your -- you need a four-year reminder of all the kitsch and like folksy stories about the primary but you've heard them all before and you guys have been turning over rocks and finding stuff people don't know about it new hampshire primary. has it made you feel cynical about the primary? >> has it made me feel cynical? oh, that's hilarious. we get so much heat about this because we're just raising questions. you know as well as anyone this, is so beloved, right? it gives new hampshire so much power. it's part of our identity and once we start asking questions about this thing we hear from people all over, sometimes it's other reporters, even the governor told me he's disappointed that it's not just a positive podcast about the

primary. casey mcdermott, the reporter who blew open the dixville story found out not everyone there lived there and even the one who is did live there were employees of the balsams resort. there is a much bigger story here than many of us ever knew and it's really opened people's eyes to the full story of the new hampshire primary but, again, i can't stress enough how interesting it's been to see the results of, you know, the response from people in new hampshire. you know, i can't believe how many types i've had to say it is not my job to protect the first in the nation primary and it's not my job to say it should leave but asking a question that caused drama. >> i have enough connections with people in new hampshire through family and other things that i believe a lot of people who live in new hampshire believe it is their job to protect the first in the nation status of the new hampshire primary because it does benefit the state in so many ways and i wonder if that has -- if what went wrong in iowa last week has

sent a little bit of a shock wave, right, because that's people criticizing not just iowa but iowa and new hampshire, seeing how things went wrong in iowa, a lot of democrats very angry about how that sort of stomped on what should have otherwise been a clear political story. has that freaked people out about the necessity of getting it right and making the case to hold on to the first? >> oh, yeah, that's the best way to describe it. i went to a buttigieg rally and every voter i talked to, they wanted to talk about iowa and their faces said it all. can you believe it? what does it mean for just this is why a stranglehold is such an interesting project. we're in such a interesting moment. of course this thing is always change, traditions are always changes. when you see what happened in iowa and candidates like julian castro running for president hoping iowa and new hampshire vote for him criticizing the demographics of the two states. that's a criticism thrown at us before but when these things

become more tumult out, when elections can't be trusted that's when the criticism really comes in and we've certainly seen that and so, yeah, new hampshire people are nervous. on the one hand, rachel, i talked to people who said, oh, we have nothing to worry about. we got ballots. in another case, secretary of state said you can't hack a pencil but on the other side, people say we get tied together with this state. if they go down, what does that mean for us? and so it is certainly been on people's minds and i should say if there was any more attention going to be paid on us, i mean, we certainly are getting it extra now. >> lauren, i have to ask you, is there a candidate who you feel like has run a qualitatively better campaign than the others, not necessarily who is going to win but ran the best campaign. >> what i've been watch something a changing in the

dynamic of how candidates campaign. you cannot just bank on the house parties anymore, right? you cannot compete house party to house party with an elizabeth warren who can bring people in at a rally. as preet bharara as you guys talked about and amy klobuchar got more energy what, a are the doing? that changed around here. you're right. i can't tell you what i think is the best. >> fair enough. lauren, political reporter and co-host of "the stranglehold podcast, thanks for being here. enjoy tomorrow. it will be super fun? thank you so much. >> all right. we've got more ahead. stay with us. we'll be right back. - adt's been asking you to watch the big game

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in 74 different agencies of the government there's an inspector general at work. an inspector general is basically independent and the job is to look into potential wrongdoing at those agencies. well, today the top democrat in the senate chuck chooum called on every inspector general in the whole federal government, all 74 of them to investigate potential retall virginia yi acts against whistle-blowers who have reported presidential misconduct during the trump administration. schumer sent it after alexander vindman and his twin brother

were both escorted off the white house grounds on friday and fired. schumer's call for the inspe inspectoinspecto inspectors general comes amid reports that president trump is reportedly considering firing one of those very same inspector generals. specifically the intelligence community inspector general michael atkinson who first alerted congress to the whistle-blower complaint that set off the flurry. president trump may want to fire the inspector general of the intelligence community for the grave crime of doing what he was legally required to do when he forwarded that whistle-blower complaint to congress. it's just incredible. three days after last week's purge there has still been no explanation from the white house about why alexander vindman's brother who played no mart in

the impeachment inquiry was fired from his white house job and removed from his post. as for colonel vindman, kind alex vindman his removal from his position came after defense secretary mark esper promised publicly that vindman would not be retaliated against, that the defense department would protect him. esper saying in november, quote, he shouldn't have any fear of retaliation. that's dod's position. there is no retaliation. it's that simple. thereafter, secretary of defense esper's deputy, the deputy secretary of defense david norquist wrote on his behalf making the same commitment in writing let me asure you the department will not tolerate any act of retaliation or reprisal against them. well, vindman and his brother have both now been fired from their jobs at the national security council and marched off the white house grounds. we haven't heard a peep from the defense department despite those promises that they would stand up for vindman, that he would be

protected, that the defense department wouldn't allow anything to happen to him. not a peep. tells you something about how much the men and women of the defense department can trust the word of secretary of defense mark esper and the deputy secretary of defense david norquist. but we do now have some new reporting about how the white house started targeting colonel vindman and his brother even before they got fired on friday and that story is next. stay with us. >> i plan to support michael bennet. >> what do you need to make happen on tuesday night. >> i need people like roland shop. >> you better tip him well. frustrated that everyday

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the highest levels, step si secretary of defense gave overt assurances. those defense officials said they would protect colonel vindman and allow no retaliation against him and in december after colonel vindman did

testify in the impeachment inquiry. those same officials said nothing in response to colonel vindman being marched off the white house grounds on friday and removed from his national security council job along with oddly his brother who had nothing whatsoever to do with the impeachment inquiry. a former senior advise story national security adviser h.r. mcmaster told "the washington post," quote, every career official will tell you it is not just chilling but frightening. he also says the rhett -- retribution from the white house was exacted on the two vindmans on both alexander vindman and his brother well before friday's firings. quote, on ukraine policy, alexander vindman was sidelined said cutz who keeps in touch with staffers who are still serving, quote, he hasn't been playing a key role. he had not been in the room. as for his brother, quote, white house officials instructed national security council staff to bypass yevgeny vindman on

ethics marys and take questions directly to the white house counsel's office, said cutz. he said, you're seeping things happen in an unprecedented way that even nixon didn't do. the broader message to career officials is that you can't speak up. even if you see something illegal, something unethical, you can't speak up. joining us is fernando cutz, former senior adviser to h.r. mcmaster. i appreciate you taking the time to be here. >> thank you very much for having me, rachel. >> i have to ask, start with a little meta question. your comments about the chilling effect that recent events have caused among national security council current staffers and generally in the field, i have to wonder if that applies to you as well and if you are thinking about potential consequences about speaking out in this way. >> well, you know, it is a very dangerous thing these days to

speak up but but i know that the folks who still work at the white house today, the folks who still work all over the u.s. government right now are career professionals, they have sworn and oath to the constitution of the united states. and they will uphold that oath. i have no doubt about that no matter what kind of different techniques or intimidation that might try to fall their way and so while they might not be able to speak right now for themselves because of their position in government, i who have left government am able to try to help them out right now. that's what i'm trying to do on their behalf. no doubt that the chilling effect and the fear that the president is trying to put on them is not going to work and they will keep doing what they need to do to uphold their oaths to the constitution and to our laws. >> i have to say that i'm not terribly surprised by the president's instincts in this regard. i feel like he's telegraphed for a long time this type of revenge is sort of what he considers to be among his legitimate tools for exerting power.

in the case of lieutenant colonel alexander vindman i have to tell you what sticks with me and kept me awake about this case is not just that the president took this action but that specifically for lieutenant colonel vinldz after he gave that testimony there was an effort to essentially insulate him from something like this happening. the secretary of defense, deputy defense secretary talking about a serving military officer saying under law we will allow no retaliation against him. prompting in advance they would take action to prevent this then it still happened and heard nothing from the defense department. as a civilian that feels most chilling to me but as somebody would worked at the high levels of the national security council do you feel like that's an appropriate way to look at it or should i take a different ang juul. >> absolutely. you know, i think at the end of the day, lieutenant colonel vindman did not go out and decide to speak publicly to the press. he didn't start tweeting about what he saw or what he disagreed with or agreed with. he followed a lawful subpoena by the united states congress and

he attended that subpoena after he was summoned and he testified under oath about what he said happened at that moment and then he left and went back to work. that's all he did to be clear, right? he didn't write a book. he didn't write an the press. so he has followed the rule of law thoroughly and fully. he cannot be blamed. neither can anybody else involved in this situation who was merely following the lawfully issued orders by the united states congress. therefore, it's absurd to have any kind of row tetaliatory act against these officials. when you serve at the white house, you serve at the pleasure of the president. he can remove you because he didn't like you anymore, doesn't trust you anymore. that's within their right. from what i heard from reporting today, it sounds like lieutenant colonel vindman knew things were not looking good. he was about to resign. i think the president wanted to jump the gun and not allow him the graceful exit and actually

fire him on friday. again, it's really purely vindictive at this point. it's a sad state of affairs. it sends a very bad message to our men and women who are serving our country but also civilians working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep our country safe. >> mr. cutz, thank you for your service and joining us. service d anjoining us i'm bad. you're stronger than you know. so strong. you power through chronic migraine, 15 or more headache or migraine days a month. one tough mother. you're bad enough for botox®. botox® has been preventing headaches and migraines before they even start for almost 10 years, and is the #1 prescribed branded chronic migraine treatment. botox® is for adults with chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more. effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking,

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the president's longest serving adviser, roger stone, got his sentencing recommendation today. they recommended he get seven to nine years in prison. roger stone's sentencing is set for late next week, ten days from now. the judge can do whatever the judge wants in that case. the judge is under no obligation to follow that recommendation. that's a significant recommendation from prosecutors, seven to nine years. president trump's first national security adviser mike flynn is awaiting his sentencing as well. it doesn't look like the mike flynn movie of the week will wrap up soon. here is something to watch. you will recall flynn pled guilty to lying to the fbi about his contacts with russia. initially after his guilty plea, he cooperated with federal prosecutors. they were happy with that. they said he was doing right by them. he was cooperating effectively. prosecutors originally recommended that flynn should

get no jail time whatsoever despite him pleading guilty to a felony because he provided them substantial assistance. then something happened. mike flynn changed his lawyer, changed his legal approach, stopped cooperating with prosecutors. prosecutors went back to the court and changed their recommendation, telling the court, okay, actually, general flynn deserves up to six months in jail. we revise our earlier statement. you should be lenient with him. things have progressed. flynn is trying to withdraw his guilty plea all together. he says he doesn't remember if he talked to the russian government about sanctions when he lied to fbi investigators about it. all of this u turns in the flynn case have meant flynn's sentencing date has been kicked down the road for more than a year. he was on track to be sentenced december of last year. then he was due to be sentenced last month. that was pushed back to this month. today, mike flynn's sentencing

got postponed indefinitely following a surprise filing in his case. it was a surprise because filed sunday morning, which is weird. it was also a surprise, or intriguing, because this surprise filing in flynn's case asking for a sentencing to be put off indefinitely, it came one week after attorney general bill barr installed one of his very close aides as the new u.s. attorney overseeing that u.s. attorney's office, including mike flynn's case. bill barr's aide took over as the u.s. attorney in washington, d.c. last week, on monday. less than a week went by, sunday morning when the office filed this strange motion asking more time in the flynn case, to put off the sentencing again. one other thing that's weird about this is something that's not on that filing. the federal prosecutor who has been on the flynn case from the very beginning. he was part of the special counsel's office. he stayed with the flynn

prosecution when it went from the special counsel investigation to the u.s. attorney in d.c. he has been signed on as the prosecutor on almost all of the filings, up to and including last month in the flynn case. but all of a sudden now, with this new turn in the case, his name has vanished, starting with this weird sunday morning filing from bill barr's newly minted u.s. attorney asking for more time, suddenly he is gone. something is going on here. when are we going to find out and who is going to tell us the history of what happened here? because if it's going to come from bill barr's office, i'm not going to trust what i hear. we will figure it out. watch this space. hood. ♪ rock music >> man: so i'm not taking any chances when something happens to it. so when my windshield cracked... my friend recommended safelite autoglass. >> tech: hi, i'm adrian. >> man: thanks for coming. >> tech: oh, no problem. >> tech: check it out. >> man: yeah. they came right to me, with expert service

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lease the 2020 nx 300 for $359 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. three new hampshire towns are about to throw open the poles for midnight voting. the chair of the board of selectmen told us they have 45 voters on their checklist. 18 they expect to vote in person tonight at midnight. 21 who voted absentee. six who signed an affidavit saying they are exercising their right not to vote. that accounts for everybody. they have a plan for moving fast. a state rep tells us they are expecting to be done in about five minutes. as soon as every eligible voter in town is accounted for, they will announce the results. we might get three announcements in the midnight hour tonight. brian williams will have live coverage of the midnight voting in new hampshire. cal