joining me is national reporter mike and sam stein, who is the politics editor for daily beast, and bothovering joe biden for so long and know him so well. first to you, mike mimily, as to the decision of whether to run or not to run, and i want to play a little bit of our friend craig melvin introducing jill and joe biden in september on "today" show and look at the way that dr. jill biden answered the question. >> dr. biden, say hypothetically come january, this follow sitting next to you is coming to you, and he has been crisscrossing across the country campaigning for people, and anybody who knows him recently knows that he has the fire in the blly. and he comes to you in january and he says, sweetie, i want to be president of the united states again, and what would you say? >> i would say, joe, you would make a great president, but let's think about it. >> that is an endorsement. >> and to me, that is a tell. you have spent a lot of time with the bidens. >> yes, andrea. joe biden is one of the two or three democrats for whom a lot of other decisions about 2020 depends on and we know

and sam stein, politics editor over at the daily beast. good evening and welcome to you all. robert, i'd like to begin with you. is this a digression, a kind of ad lib to the core of the core, away from what we thought was the trump closing argument, the trump agenda? >> it's a reprisal, brian, of what we heard from the president during the final week of the 2016 presidential campaign. we have a candidate now returning to grievance politics, to the issues that stoke his political base. messages against the national media. messages about immigration. a militaristic theme on the border. this is something that he believes, the white house believes and the republican party now at large in his camp believe, that this is the only way to perhaps save the congressional majorities is to turn out that trump voter and to do it with fervor. >> and nancy, how is this being received by republicans perhaps there in washington? does that depend on just what side of the republican party you're on? >> well, we saw house speaker paul ryan, who is leaving at the end of the year, come out yesterd

sam stein beck with us as well, politics editor at the daily beast. tamera keith also returns to our broadcast, from npr. >> is this what it seems to be that donald trump comes out of the concentrated for him sessions with his legal team and in plain english learns how bad it is and then goes on a rant on twitter? >> well, there is a big issue here which is that they have been trying to get written responses to mueller for several weeks now. the president's lawyers thought it would happen by wednesday. it still hasn't happened. the president's lawyers have had the questions from mueller. they've known the topics for many, many months. why is it that they can't give the written responses to mueller? what's the problem with the answers? does it incriminate the president in a certain way? why is it that he can't answer them? and that is the question tonight. what has caused this delay? the negotiations over the interview began 11 months ago. we are still here today, waiting for some resolution of it. you have to wonder when bob mueller says, enough is en

robert costa and sam stein. "the new york times" reporting over the weekend it's not just trump and house democrats crosshairs. his family is, too. the democrats are lying out lines of inquiry that could lead to not just mr. trump and white house aides but also to his immediate family. republicans returning to capitol hill next year may be forced to take a harder line toward the trump family. likely targets include not only the president's personal finances and the trump org but actions taken by don junior and eric and son-in-law jared kushner during the 2016 campaign and its aftermath. >> this is a mess, a complete political mess for the president. it's one of the reasons you don't bring in your immediate family members onto your team because they can create serious conflicts and exposure problems. obviously the stuff that deals with the campaign is its own separate genre and don junior and the trump tower meeting is a huge problem for him. if you look separately at that in terms of what house democrats may go

. >> along with joe, willie and me, we have professor at princeton university eddie glott jr., sam stein, and jackie alamaney with us. overnight, breaking news. a federal judge has temporarily blocked the trump administration from barring asylum for migrants who enter the country outside a legal port of entry. president trump issued a proclamation back on november 9th stating that anyone who crossed the southern board er illegally would be ineligible for asylum. that was challenged in court by the aclu and the center for constitutional rights. and the federal judge ruled the policy is likely a violation of federal asylum law. the block remains in effect until december 19th, at which point the court will consider arguments for a permanent order. well, this judge was appointed by president obama. his decision comes after two other federal judges appointed about by president trump ruled against the white house. on friday, u.s. district court judge timothy kelly said the white house violated a cnn reporter's fifth amendment right to due process by suspending his press badge without explanati

sam stein, politics editor for the daily beast.hannon pettypiece, white house correspondent for bloomberg. and mimi rocah, former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. these days a distinguished fellow in criminal justice at the pace university school of law. shannon, i'd like to begin with you because you of all of us had the most recent conversation with rudolph giuliani. always a party. tell us what he said about things like manafort and the possibility of pardons. >> he said that essentially the president is not going to be pardoning anyone anytime soon. but it doesn't mean that he necessarily won't be taking -- won't be pardoning people eventually. giuliani said that the president's lawyers advised him back in april, so right when giuliani came on board, not to talk about or consider or issue any pardons until the investigation is over. so what the president said today when he said that there's a pardon for manafort still on the table, giuliani said that's in line with that, that the president doesn't

i'm willie geist alongside washington anchor for b bc newark caddie kay, mike barnacle, sam stein, noah rothman and eugene robinson. joe and mika are off this week. everyone has agreed to go along with my voice this morning. >> it's beautiful. >> are we okay with it? >> it smoked 25 cigarettes a day is what it sounds like. >> long night in the clubs. >>> let's begin with a new filing against paul manafort. robert mueller's office is accusing paul manafort of violating the plea deal he agreed to earlier this year. quote, afteren signing the plea agreement, manafort committed federal crimes by lying to the fbi and the special counsel's information and does not agree with the government's characterization. but manafort's legal team replied in part, manafort has provided information to the government in annest to live up to his cooperation obligations. he does not agree with the government's characterization or that he has breached the agreement. back in august, a federal court found manafort guilty on several counts of financial fraud. manafort entered into a plea deal by participating in

another democratic lawmaker confirmed to me and my colleague, sam stein, that that person's office wasing at the same question. i don't yet have knowledge that the senate democrats has a bloc are working together on this. some of the questions have to do withstanding that raises the question of did a certain actin this case of matthew whitaker violate a legal right? and were each of the individual senator's legal right to advise the president, the constitutional right to advise the president on these points violated? or was the entire senate as an institution violating their rights? in other words, can an individual senator have standing to sue over whitaker's appointment, or would the senate as a chamber of congress have to vote to say we, as an institution, have had our rights violated. that's an open question. these are 40 convoluted issues. if the congress decided to sue individually or as a group, it's something we expect to see fully fought out in court. >> sure. in addition to this potential lawsuit, josh, you have a flurry of investigations the democrats are are hoping to targe

politics editor for the daily beast and sam stein. and back with us from new york, "new york times" reporter nick. i want to start this hour with something that dan balls wrote in the washington post. at home and abroad the president is being watched for how election defeatsthe washington . at home and abroad the president is being watched for how election defeats affected him. he must know what was lost in the midterms but seems lost in knowing how to respond. here is the president setting the record straight on what really happened, according to him, in the midterms. >> are you ready? i won the senate. and that's historic, too, because if you look at presidents in the white house, it's almost never happened. that's a tremendous victory, nobody talks about that. that's far greater victory than it is for the other side. number two, i wasn't on the ballot. i'm not on the ballot but in a certain way i'm on the ballot so please go out and vote. there are many people that think i don't like congress that like me a lot. they say if i was o

. >> joining us danny cevallos and sam stein. i've got to get your thoughts on the timing of this.us very combative news conference with the president and reporters. and almost minutes afterwards this bombshell that attorney general jeff sessions is effectively resigning. you immediately think was this deliberately done by the administration as a distraction given the midterm elections and why wouldn't the president bring this up in a news conference and announce it to the public? >> it does seem conspicuous, the timing. i think this was obviously planned for a while. the president's relationship with jeff sessions was toxic at best. he had long been angered at the fact that he had recused himself from the russia probe and he wanted to push him out. of course to do so before the midterms would be really problematic, so they waited. i didn't think it was going to come literally hours after the midterms. i wish they would have waited one day for my own personal well-being. but now essentially trump has an ally in the position of u.s. attorney general and someone who can oversee the p

i'm willie geist alongside washington anchor for b bc newark caddie kay, mike barnacle, sam stein, noah

sam stein, you were last at this table the day after the mass shooting at a synagogue in pittsburgh and here we are again. >> this is happening too often with me and you and then second early, i was looking today because this has been so near our last mass shooting and i looked at the databases. a mass shooting is defined as 4 or more victims. there have been 11 instances of gunfire that resulted in four victims or more. victims meaning not necessarily fatalities. we have a gun problem in this country, and there's no political willpower to solve it. maybe the house democrats will pass some sort of legislation but everyone knows it's going to die in the senate anyway. and we just continuously have these news events. we offer our thoughts and prayers and then move on to other topics. and it's sad and disheartening and watching this father speak about having to tell his other children that their older brother, his first-born son was not going to be coming home sent chills down my spine as a new father. and i can't imagine ever having to have a conversation like that. it is heart wrenching.

i'm joined by shona thomas for vice news and sam stein, politics editor for the daily beast.u think they would do if think kept clinging to power? >> i think the tax cut thing is what they would want to do is make the tax cuts from the middle class term. it had a ten-year sunset period. and one of the things they kept saying -- you okay? to make the math work. >> yeah, excuse me. >> basically run the indicate the amount of time that tax cut was available. and later on they'd make it permanent. so i think they may try to do that a little earlier than anyone thought. >> but why would they do that? mitch mcconnell is out there talking about deficits all of the sudden. after a trillion dollar tax cut for rich and corporation, he says whoops, we've got a deficit problem, almost a trillion dollars a year. >> deficits don't really matter to them, unless it uses a cudgel to go after democrats when they're in power or as an opportunity to attack entitlements. >> and it gives them another opportunity -- >> do you say they lie? >> yes. they do care about their deficits. evidence shows w

communications strategist and msnbc political contributor rick tyler, politics editor for the daily beast sam stein, white house correspondent for p bs news hour yamish elsendor. good to have you all on this morning. we have a lot of news. tuesday night, americans gave democrats their biggest house gains in a midterm election since watergate. president trump emerged somewhat in denial. democrats have won control of the house where they gained at least 28 seats with 15 still undecided. and republicans lost 7 governs mansions and 323 seats in the state legislature for a total of 367 during the trump presidency. hold on one second. because that's an important number. willie, you know how we had said at the end of barack obama's eight years in office, we said, hey, listen, we understand everybody is focussing on hillary clinton losing the race, but if you want to understand just how bad things are with the democratic party, you have to look at the thousand seats that were lost over barack obama's eight years. to understand the true scale of this thumping, just how badly donald trump lost on tuesday nig