tonight -- rosie o'donnell, host of msnbc's "deadline: white house," anchor nicolle wallace, music fromanileigh. featuring the 8g band with brandon buckley! ♪ [ cheers and applause ] ladies and gentlemen, m seth meyers. this is "late night." how is everybody doing tonight? [ cheers and applause ]thats gr. in that case, let's get to the news. former trump adviser roger stone today pleaded not guilty to charges in the russia investigation, which raises the question, what does he wear when he pleads insanity? [ laughter ] ahead of the expected polar vortex this week, president trump tweeted last night, quote, "what the hell is going on with global warming? please come back fast, we need you." [ laughter ] okay. once again, you're confusing weather with climate. how can i explain this to you? okay, let's watch a clip of you being a decent person. >> i will say this about hillary. she doesn't quit. she doesn't give up. i respect that. >> seth: see, that was weather -- a quick, one-time thing. now, this is climate. >> i moved on her like a bitch. i don't know what i said! you know what? you'v

i want to extend the conversation that started in this room with nicolle wallace.e a prosecutor, a process guy, a former fed after all -- >> yep. >> -- the likes of which we have on this broadcast all the time. and a patriot. are you not remotely curious what everyone is lying about? are you not remotely curious why there were russians in cleveland at the gop convention? >> well, listen, i'm not remotely curious about the russians in cleveland because there were all kinds of foreigners in cleveland as there always are at every national convention. so that doesn't bother me. the lying bothers me. bothers me a lot as someone who as a former u.s. attorney hated when people lied to us and misled us because it cost us time and money and faith in the system. now, i also know as u.s. attorney that dumb people and bad people lie for reasons that make no sense. >> but they're all lying about one thing and they're all in service to one guy. >> but that's what they're being asked about. and my point to you would be if you asked them about the weather, some of these people wou

nicolle wallace. the washington president trump has come to know in his first two years in office is now a thing of the past. today the white house. today is a day the white house has long dreaded. the new congress has officially been installed and democrats have officially taken control of the house which means gone is the republican firewall that is so far helped to protect donald trump and his administration from oversight and investigations. setting the tone for this potentially dangerous new world, the president finds himself facing an ominous message from the newly minted house speaker nancy pelosi that may show president trump just how vulnerable he could soon become. >> do you believe the special counsel should honor and observe the department of justice guidance that states a sitting president cannot be indicted? >> i do not think that that is conclusive. no, i do not. >> could robert mueller come back and say i am seeking an indictment? >> i think that is an open discussion. i think that is

earlier today in this very studio, nicolle wallace asked chris christie a central question, why is ito many people around donald trump have been accused of lying about russia? >> why would so many people tell so many lies about russia? >> well, what i'll tell you is what i said to someone earlier today. in my experience, bad people and stupid people lie all the time for no reason at all. because that's just who they are. and if you look at this list of people -- >> jeff sessions is bad and stupid? >> well, i don't think -- i don't think jeff was bright enough to be in the position where he is. >> so just stupid but not bad? >> i don't think he's a bad person. i like jeff on a personal level. i really do. >> do you think he lied about conversations with kislyak out of stupidity? >> yeah, i do. absolutely. >> it happens to be the same lie told by mike flynn, george papadopoulos and others. >> we don't know what bob mueller is going to uncover. there is another consistent strain to consider in addition to russia, and that is that sometimes dumb and bad people lie. >> chris christie with

i'm nicole wallace in for brian. day 732 of the trump administration now halfway through the president's first term in office. the end of these first two years is now marked by the longest government shutdown in history. by the time this broadcast is over, the government will have been closed for one month. this is the day the nation honors dr. martin luther king jr. trump spent two minutes at his memorial today, accompanied by vice president pence. and the washington post noted this milestone. the paper's fact checker database showed trump has made 8,158 false or misleading claims, misstatements and shifting claims also seem to be the hallmarks of the explanations about the president's ties to russia. over the past 24 hours, remarks from rudy giuliani appear to raise more questions about those ties, particularly where they involve michael cohen and a potential trump tower moscow. back in 2017, he had testified to congress that discussions about the moscow project ended in january of 2016. he later admitted that was

you will be in the good hands of nicolle wallace.ite house with nicolle wallace" starts right now. >>> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. the headline out of today's confirmation hearing for william barr, donald trump's nominee for a.g., isn't about barr, but about special counsel robert mueller. barr responding to a question from democratic senator chris coons about whether he'd resigned if asked to fire mueller without cause. >> if the president directed you to change those regulations and then fire mueller, or simply directly fired mueller, would you follow richardson's example and resign instead? >> aseemi inin ining no good ca >> assuming no good cause. >> i would not carry out that instruction. >>

that does it for us, i'm nicole wallace.huck. >> happy monday, it will be an interesting week. if it ask monday, rudy giuliani changes the story, again. >>> hello and welcome to "mtp daily." the president's trump tower moscow problem is not going away any time soon and it may have just gotten worse. right now the president and his legal team could be on the offense over the special council's rare rebuke of the buzz feed news story on friday.

literally not one says nicole wallace.ver on espn, one of the hosts suggested it was racist -- not surprisingly -- if the president to serve clemson football team fast food at the white house. it's the fad of bigots -- it's the food of bigots. of course. >> when i saw him giving the football players predominantly black sport and fast food, my thought went different place. >> i think the president likes fast food. >> a bunch of jocks, i mean c'mon. >> tucker: so the consensus is the racism is on the right, only conservatives can be racists. so what is racism? what does it look like? how do you know if you are racist? we have a handy checklist for you. get a pen and follow along to see if you can answer the questions. racist, they would support treating people differently based purely on their skin color. they would hand out jobs and contracts and college admissions letters based on your d.n.a. rather than anything that you had done. they would also say that some people opinions don't matter because of their skin color. that

nicole wallace and chris hayes are here with me onset. nicole, let me ask your response to that, in some senses typical partisan staging with the remarks from the president and the response from the opposite party but two very different sets of remarks. >> listen, if you want to go to the politics, they were on the ballot eight weeks ago. donald trump ran on that message. he ran on the made juup caravan and almost the same play. he doesn't have a lot of them so he reran it. his party was tluhumped, lost control of the house. nancy pelosi and chuck schumer's message tonight was stronger because they can add not only are you wrong but also like an 8-year-old taken your toys and gone home by closing the entire federal government. in politics in washington especially now, it's all zero. if it's a seesaw, who went up and who went down, the political po potent is on the rise and tragic stories of horrific crimes. >> chris hayes? >> the sort of difference in emphasis between the two is the most notable thing about the two addresses like donald tr

nicolle wallace.he washington president trump has come to know in his first two years in office is now a thing of the past. today the white house. today is a day the white house has long dreaded. the new congress has officially been installed and democrats have officially taken control of the house which means gone is the republican firewall that is so far helped to protect donald trump and his administration from oversight and investigations. setting the tone for this potentially dangerous new world, the president finds himself facing an ominous message from the newly

you will be in the good hands of nicolle wallace. "deadline white house with nicolle wallace" starts right now. >>> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. the headline out of today's confirmation hearing for william barr, donald trump's nominee for a.g., isn't about barr, but about special counsel robert mueller. barr responding to a question from democratic senator chris coons about whether he'd resigned if asked to fire mueller without cause. >> if the president directed you to change those regulations and then fire mueller, or simply directly fired mueller, would you follow richardson's example and resign instead? >> aseemi inin ining no good ca >> assuming no good cause. >> i would not carry out that instruction. >> barr also seemed to lean in to the idea that a president could be impeached if he interfered with the investigation. >> the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. >> if he attempts -- if the president attempts to intervene in a matter that he has a stake in to protect himself, that should, first, be looked at

i'm nicolle wallace. mpt daily starts right now. >> did anything change?'ve been gone. >> i haven't seen you since last year, and yet everything changes and everything stays the same. >> from phillip bump, he gave up golf for now. >> good for him. baby steps. >>> thank you nicole. if it's friday, it's all about that base. base. >>> good evening, i'm chuck todd here in

"deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts now. >>> hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in the new york. we will get to donald trump's crisis and trip to the border they didn't want to take in a minute. but breaking news this hour, donald trump's terrible week just got worse. his one-time fixer and personal lawyer michael cohen will testify in public before the house oversight committee on february 7th. that's four weeks from today. remember, michael cohen is the man who claims donald trump directed an illegal hush money scheme in the months before the election to pay off women he had relationships with. and if you need to be reminded of just what michael cohen means to the president, here's how he described the raid on cohen's office that put in motion what is largely thought to represent the single gravest legal threat to the president. >> frankly a real disgrace. it's an tack on our country in a true sense. it's an attack on what we all stand for. >> in a statement just in the last hour, cohen promised his candor saying, quote -- >> he knows the truth. i know the truth. others know th

nicolle wallace and chris hayes are here on set with me. nichole, let me ask your response to that. in some senses typical partisan staging with the remarks from the president and then the response from the opposite party, but two very different sets of remarks. >> yeah, and listen, if you want to go to the politics of what they both said tonight, they were on the ballot eight weeks ago. donald trump ran on that message in the midterms. he ran on the made up caravan. it was almost the same play. he doesn't have a lot of them so he reran it. it didn't work in the midterms. his party was thumped, lost control of the house, and nancy pelosi and chuck schumer's message tonight was actually stronger than what they ran on in the midterms because now they can add, not only are you wrong but you've also, like an 8-year-old, taken your toys and gone home by closing the entire federal government. so i think if -- in politics, in washington, especially now, it's all zero sum. so if it's a seesaw, who went up and who went down, the power, the political potency of their message tonight is on the

i'm nicolle wallace. here monday for "deadline white house" at 4:00 p.m. >>> no end in sight. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm steve kornacki in for chris matthews. president trump and congressional democrats are no closer to a deal to reopen the government as that partial shutdown barreled today into its 14th day, emerging from a nearly two-hour meeting from t

the united states >>> that's it for me, we will hand it over to "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallaceght now. >>> hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york two things are clearer today than ever before, an alarming number of people in donald trump's orbit came into contact with russians and russian agents, and a growing list of them lied about it to congressional committees and federal law enforcement. the question we're left with today, why is the picture of friday's early morning arrest roger stone comes into focus, the crush of evidence shows contact with russians was rampant and lying abou

up next is nicole wallace. >> hi, everyone, it is 4:00 in washington.pport in washington, trump is corners. he gets desperate. the white house has started laying the ground work for national emergency. a fire storm that could pave the way for an end to the three week government shut down. democrats

that does it for our hour, i'm nicole wallace, "mtp daily" t t starts now. hi, nicole. >> i'm told it is wednesday. whatever day it is, someone said flat circle day. >> that's a good one. have a good show. >> the state of our union is a shut show. dirty minds all of you, s-h-u-t. michael cohen will not testify next month because threats for rudy giuliani and for michael cohen's family, but they said he will testify, and some people are talking about subpoenaing him. we will speak to a top democrat on that committee. we will begin with even bigger breaking news. the shut down starts with major questions involving now the democratic party's strategy in all of this. nancy pelosi said he will have to cancel the state of the union if the government is still shut down. that came hours after house democrats offered the president everything he wanted financially. $5.7 billion to spend on border security if he reopened the government, which of course is not happening. the president said this afternoon "this shut down will go on for awhile." none of the money they offe

up next is nicole wallace. >> hi, everyone, it is 4:00 in washington. without enough support in washington, trump is corners. he gets desperate. the white house has started laying the ground work for national emergency. a fire storm that could pave the way for an end to the three week government shut down. democrats blasted the president for manufacturing a crisis at the border where crossings are the lowest in decades. >>. >> the president is holding the american people hostage over his vanity project, this is a crisis of his own making. >> that is not democracy, that is dictatorship. >> despite an attempt at reassurance last hour, donald trump reportedly looked at funding his wall on the backs of victims of natural disasters. nbc news proposes that trump could dip into the $2.4 billion allocated to projects in california including flood protection and projects at the folsom dam. even republicans are warning against the emergency declaration this hour. >> i don't want to see a declaration. i think that would be done in the most extreme schisms. >> it i

"deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. >>> hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new yorko celebrate today in the kremlin. vladimir putin's goal of weakening the wes. selling chaos and discord is having a binner week in the uk and u.s. >>> for the first time in more than 30 years speaker nancy pelosi has called on donald trump to delay his state of the union address. pelosi citing the longest government shutdown in this country's history as the reason, leaving donald trump unwanted on that center stage he so palpably craves. pelosi also robbing the president of an opportunity to dig out of increasingly unfavorable poll numbers. it's a political

"deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts now. >>> hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. rudy giuliani making a mess out of donald trump's always-shifting story about his ties to russia and his lies about how long donald trump engaged in negotiation over trump tower moscow. one could never be sure what rudy is up to. he clearly established a brand-new fact pattern as it pertains to the timeline of donald trump's discussions with his personal attorney, michael cohen, over that deal. cohen had claimed in testimony to congress that those discussions about trump tower moscow ended in january 2016. he later admitted that was a big, fat lie in

going to hand you over for "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace, which starts right now. >>>i, everyone, it's 4:00 in the new york, 1:00 here in san francisco. the remaining guardrails on this president, ready for a fight. as donald trump digs in against his own leaders at his own intelligence agencies. fears mounting today major policy collision between the intelligence community and its top client, the president, may be imminent and donald trump may be increasing our risk of war with iran or north korea by refusing to accept the assessment of the country's top national security officials. assessment based on facts in evidence, which we all know by now the president struggles with. one former senior intelligent official telling me today donald trump is overtly attempting to politicize intelligence across a continuum of issues. his depth of breadth is unprecedented. the stark warning as the president once again refused to confirm his own cia director and his own director of intelligence. >> i disagree with some of the things that they said. i think i'm right but time will pro

"deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts now. >>> hello, everyone, it's 4:00 in washingtonugh courage to buck the base, donald trump is all but broken down. donald trump gets death threats. "the washington post" reports, quote, the white house has begun laying a groundwork for declaration of national emergency to build trump's border wall, a move certain to set up a firestorm of opposition in congress and the courts but

, veteran fbi counter intel specialist and long-time on air contributor frank figluzi on with nicolle wallace this afternoon, talking about the russia investigation. listen to this. >> i keep coming back to what's already been said which is why all the lying about russia, and nicole, i am left now with only one conclusion, that the news on russia, the truth about russia is so bad that no one can afford to let it leak out. we have too many people covering up the same thing over and over again, and the only conclusion i have is that it's about as bad as it can be. i'm developing a real sense here that there is now knowledge within the trump circle that the russians did assist with in a successful way the winning of the presidepresidency. i am increasingly convinced that this is what people are trying to cover. i'm particularly focused on paul manafort, right, and his incredible reticence and reluctance to fully cooperate. mike flynn and the judge saying you're not there yet. i'm not ready to accept the -- to handle sentencing yet. the trump family members, cohen saying they're getting briefed.

>>> my thanks to our guests, i'm nicole wallace, and time for "mtp daily." >> can you use your emergency powers to stop congressional hearings. >> it is donald trump, but he will try and they will add it on to the end of the impeachment hearings. >> we will see. it is thursday and people may want to stay at the border. >> good evening, i'm chuck todd here in washington. guess what? the next crisis is likely going to be bigger, longer, and i'm possible to control. the president's long time lawyer and fixer has agreed to temperature publicly. democrats are going to have to draez kashlly with this one. while he admitted to lying about some matters, we're going to talk to a top democrat in just a few minutes to find out the scope, what can they talk to him about and what can't that. but speaking of mueller's report, cullin's testimony will be a amtizer to the anvil that is about to drop on this. they say that the president is in the bottom of the ninth inning and that report could land on his desk in late february or early march. an emergency declaration is not are really an option. the pres

"deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts now. >>> hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york.thing you thought you knew about the special counsel investigation. the idea robert mueller was investigating two separate kinds of crimes, collusion with russia to aid donald trump's campaign in the 2016 election and many of us believed the president's efforts to obstruct that investigation after he became president. a friday night bombshell from "the new york times" revealed for the very first time that the fbi opened a counterintelligence investigation into the president after he fired fbi director jim comey. that investigation was ultimately become the mueller probe but the revelation recapped every development with the new understanding that the country's top law enforcement agency thought there was ample evidence to investigate the president as an agent of a foreign adversary. from that "times" report -- quote, in the days after

deadline white house with nicole wallace starts right now. >>> hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. before donald trump was at war with his own justice department and fbi over the russia investigation, he was engaged in a feud with his own intelligence agencies over their assessment of russia's role in the 2016 election. today, he has returned to that battle with a broadside against his intelligence community whom he called, quote, extremely passive and naive in an early morning tweet. that was over testimony given yesterday on the threat posed by iran. trump also suggested, without a hint of irony, "perhaps intelligence should go back to school." the intelligence community dealing with unprecedented challenges in the trump era, a president who disregards their expertise on the topics of russian meddling, the saudi crown prince, north korea, and now iran. also, a president who

"deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. >>> hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york time to add witness tamper in chief to his title? donald trump's harassment of the family members of michael cohen, his former personal attorney and fixer, prompting cohen to post public testimony planned for february 7th. cohen's attorney lanny davis announcing in a statement today the delay is, quote, due to ongoing threat against his family from president trump and his lawyer rudy giuliani. the president's attacks against michael cohen and his family have come in the now typical trumpian form, via tweet to millions of viewers like this one, quote, lying to reduce his jail time. watch father-in-law. and this recent diatribe on fox news -- >> and in order to get a sentenced reduced, he says i have an idea, i will give you some information on the president. well, there is no information. but he should give information maybe on his father-in-law because that's the one that people want to lk

steve schmidt, nicole wallace and brian williams.out what's actually happening at the border and today's bomb shell accidental revelation suggesting trump collusion with the russians.

here is what chris christie just told msnbc's nicolle wallace. >> i think the investigation is not the president's biggest problem and the southern district of new york investigation has always been much more dangerous, with much more hazard to it than does the mueller investigation. >>> let's get to it. maya wiley is a former prosecutor in that district. howard raines, former executive editor of "new york times," and nyu law professor. roger stone is a very new york story. i wonder what you think of the intersection of his legal situation and this pandemonium that he's leaning into. >> this is peak roger stone. this is a guy who loves the bluster, he was doing the most, and what we saw in the courtroom was a more subdued roger stone, not typically of most criminal defendants, but a very different roger stone. i think we'll see him doing more of things on the steps and less things inside courtrooms. >> i want to discuss the gag order. publications like the one you ran, they live off characters like this this gets ink for a -- in this environment, he wants to defend him -- >> sooner or

"deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. >>> hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new yorkd trump takes his immigration propaganda to primetime tomorrow night. he has asked for network time to address the nation about the now 17 day-old government shutdown of his own making. the president announcing the address scheduled for 9:00 p.m. tomorrow night, so he says, even though it remains unclear at this hour how many networks have agreed to broadcast that event. all of this a blatant effort to distract from stories he fears, the mueller probe and his own ties to russia. on the deliberate intent on the president's part to change the subject, "the new york times" reporter maggie haberman tweets this -- having this dominate kpabl news is something potus prefers to news focused on the mueller probe. but his press secretary ran into trouble when she trotted out trump's border lies on "fox news sunday." >> we know roughly nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists come into our country illegally, and we know our most vulnerable point of entry is -- >> wait, wait, i know the statisti

"deadline white house with nicolle wallace" starts right now. >>> hi, everyone.s 4:00 in new york. two developing stories in the russia investigation. both pertaining to individuals who participated in the now-infamous trump tower meeting. the one in which donald trump junior was promised dirt on hillary clinton and giddily accepted the offer to meet with russians. one of the participants, russian natalia vesenletskaia, charged with obstructing a money laundering investigation by the justice department. the indictment references documents first reported exclusively in an nbc news report in april of 2018. we're going to get to that story in a moment. but we start with donald trump's former campaign chairman paul manafort and brand-new information about just what he lied about to special counsel robert

i'm nicole wallace. i'll be back here monday for "deadline white house" at 4:00 p.m. >>> good morning. welcome to "up." i'm joshua johnson, host of the public radio program 1a sitting in for david gurra. day 16 with more negotiations coming today. >> the president is not coming off his $5.7 billion figure. >> president trump is refusing to give in as the democrats demand the details of his border wall budget. >> you want the headline to be the president no longer wants a wall, he wants a fence. >> the president is going to secure the border with a barrier. >> plus, elizabeth warren is campaigning for president in iowa and she's talking about the infamous dna test. >> i am not a person of color. i am not a citizen of a tribe. >> it is sunday, january 6th, and if you're interesting trouble keeping up with the border wall plan, don't feel bad, it's not just you. >> we're going to have a door in the wall. >> precast plank. >> harded concrete. >> steel slats. >> up with us this hour, l joy williams. shermicha

"deadline: white house" with nicole wallace starts right now. >>> hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new yorks one of the most dramatic and potentially devastating developments in the donald trump versus michael cohen saga to date. a new report so damning that, if true, could very well put in motion donald trump's impeachment. a late-breaking report in buzzfeed last night claiming donald trump has president, quote, directed his former lawyer and fixer michael cohen to lie to congress about negotiations to build a trump tower in moscow. according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in the investigation of the matter. the special counsel's office learned about trump's directive to lie to congress through interviews with multiple witnesses through the trump organization and interm company e-mails, text messages and a cache of other documents. cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office. cohen's testimony marks a significant new

it's now time for "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace. >>> i h.veryone, it new york. donald trump's delayed response to nancy pelosi's state of the union dis is in, 24 hours after she suggested he delay his state of the union address because of a shutdown, donald trump is responding in a letter, canceling her previously unannounced trip to afghanistan, which was scheduled to leave less than an hour after trump put out his letter. trump labeling pelosi's trip, where she was likely to meet with u.s. service members, a public relations event and an exertion. from his letter, quote, in light of the 800,000 great american workers not receiving pay, i'm sure you would a

"deadline: white house" with my friend nicolle wallace, who will pick it up from here. >>> hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. reality bites. donald trump in the you know where, the president's address to the nation failed to rally gop support for his wall as the tally climbs to at least four republican senators who have broken with trump on the shutdown. less than 24 hours after delivering his oval office address, the president has already changed his wall message, threatening to declare an emergency to fund that wall. >> why not declare a national emergency? >> i may do that at some point. chuck and nancy, who i'm meeting with in a little while, if they don't agree to the ft

deadline white house with nicolle wallace starts right now. >>> hi, everyone. happy new year. in new york. donald trump woke up to a sharp rebuke from "the wall street journal" today and the defection of two republican senators on his shutdown shenanigans. soy what do you think he did? he set up the rose garden for a press event and held court there for a full hour, desperate to change the subject with a promise of keeping the government closed for years if he doesn't get his steel slats and a threat to build that wall or those slats without congress, if need be. >> this is him quoting you. i just want to check, that the shutdown could go on for months or even a year or longer. did you say that -- >> i did. i did. >> is that your assessment of where we are? >> absolutely, i said

"deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. >>> hello, everyone.00 in washington, d.c., where you can feel the twin breaking news tsunamis swamping everything else today. the trump government shutdown reaching a catastrophic crescendo on day 35. there have been crippling delay at our nation's airports. federal workers have gone unpaid for a month. and the politics of donald trump's unwanted and unpopular border wall forcing him to capitulate and reopen the government today without a single dollar committed to his beloved border wall. >> i am very proud to announce today that we have reached a deal to end

that does it for us, i'm nicole wallace. katie turr is in for chuck. >> happy monday, it will be an interesting week. if it ask monday, rudy giuliani changes the story, again. >>> hello and welcome to "mtp daily." the president's trump tower moscow problem is not going away any time soon and it may have just gotten worse. right now the president and his legal team could be on the offense over the special council's rare rebuke of the buzz feed news story on friday. rather they seem to be back on defense after rudy giuliani said this to chuck on "meet the press." >> it's our understanding they went on throughout 2016. can't be sure of the exact date, but the president can republican ha -- republicmember having conversations with them about it, probably up to october or november. >> as far as the president was concerned, an active project until at least october or november of 2016, an active potential deal? >> i would say an active proposal. >> october or november of 2016. if you believe what he just said yesterday, it is a hug

. >> and i'm nicolle wallace. >> as you may know, we tried this last year, thinking what could be worse than 2017? what could be more eventful than 2017? surely they won't ask us to do this again. >> but here we are. >> here we are. we have been compiling our list of ten items that were the most fill in the blank. >> yeah, we cover these stories night after night after night, but there are some that stay with you, that you go home and you're still thinking about them. you talk about them with people outside of the business. that's usually a good indicator of what broke through. >> it is hard to believe what we witnessed and lived through. >> and it's why they feel like dog years. so much happened. >> and we should be honest, this was difficult, because we had way more kind of honorable mentions, people, places, moments than we had firm categories. >> so before we start our countdown, let's look at the list of people who didn't quite make our top ten, but they're worth an honorable mention. >> this was the year we learned two names. >> let me tell you a little bit about stormy daniels. >

it was durling a meeting with nicolle wallace when the president cleared the room and asked him to back the flynn investigation. i think it's critical because the key about the president's activity that day has always been his motive. why was it he was asking the fbi director to back off the investigation? was he just trying to help someone he thought was really a good guy and not exert any pressure, which is what the president's defenders say? even comey in his congressional testimony said he didn't think the president was trying to end the russia investigation, he was just trying to end this piece with mike flynn. maybe that was the case, but when you look at it in context, the president the day before took a step that he, thought naively, would thought wound. he says, that's not going to end the investigation. a few hours later, quite clumsily takes another step that he thinks may end the russia investigation. >> in 30 seconds, can we assume that has been part of a whiteboard time line in the mueller office? >> they may not have known about the christie conversation. but you see the