first, john mclaughlin, let's clean up things on the president's daily brief. we know the president spends a lot of time every day with mike pompeo, the cia director. he really likes getting this delivery. but what we're hearing with extensive reporting from the "washington post" is that it is in writing, in full, with all the language that we would understand about russia and threats, but that the verbal brief avoids some of these more sensitive topics. what concerns would you have about that? >> if that's true, andrea, it's a very bad thing. i've briefed four presidents and none of them liked to hear unpleasant information, but they all want to hear it. they all know it has to be part of their tool kit as they try to figure out international affairs. so i can see circumstances where you might not want to put it in front of the president in a room full of people, but the director can always, as i have done on a number of occasions, take the president aside or speak to him privately and say, there's something you really need to know here, mr. president. and in

john mclaughlin. we had booked you earlier today to talk about mike pompeo at the cia and i do want to get to that, but you've been a fairly outspoken critic of this president, the way he makes decisions, his interactions with the rest of the other branches of government. so i'd like your reaction to the news we just have of this pardon of joe arpaio. >> well, you know spend most of my life analyzing foreign countries and here i've found myself here by virtue of the mess our own country is in, doing analysis of the united states as well. in this case, my sense here on these things the president has just done, both the transgender ban and pardon of joe arpaio is that i think foolishly, he is working overtime to consolidate his base, which is increasingly narrow. these are are both things that will appeal to the 35 million or whatever the current number is, of people who are avidly in his corner. and one of the regrettable things about this president is that he hasn't learned to speak to the rest of the

. >> msnbc john mclaughlin spent 40 years studying the counter espionage.hile the broad themes of the dossier seem to be bearing out, collusion is a hard thing to prove. >> if you're looking at the fact pattern we have here involving a number of figures in the trump administration having had one interaction or another with the russians whether financial or otherwise. you know, if you're in the intelligence business, that still amounts to smoke. >> it may be only smoke, but there seems to be a lot of it billowing up from places that christopher steele first pointed out in 2016. ♪ with expedia, you can book a flight, then add a hotel, and save. ♪ everything you need to go. expedia >>> it began as a hunch. a feeling among donald trump's political opponents that his frequent praise of vladimir putin -- >> i respect putin. he's a strong leader. i could tell you this. >> -- might be based on something more than mutual admiration. >> putin did call me a genius and said i'm the future of the republican party. >> that's what christopher steele was hired to check out

here's how cia john mclaughlin responded to that offer. >> russia does not carry a lot of weight in this realm, but it would be to his advantage to be seen as an international statesman. >> viewers will know as the two sergeis underscored the need to resolve the north korean nuclear crisis through diplomatic means. in addition today washington slapped two sanctions on north korean officials both believed to be involved in pyongyang's nuclear missile program. thank you for being with us. i'll see you back here tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m. good night from nbc news headquarters in new york. >>> good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. the president of the united states proclaimed he was getting back to work today, then he did, attacking the fbi and robert mueller's probe as one of his congressional allies came on this network and called for a, quote, purge of the fbi and the department of justice. the latest on the president's undermining of the mueller investigation in just a moment. also tonight, in the wake of the trump tax cuts, david cay johnston on the president's alleged declar

here's how former cia director john mclaughlin responded to that offer. >> russia doesn't carry a lotlm, but it would be to his advantage, particularly with a presidential election coming up to be seen as an international statesman. >> the foreign minister in this may 10th oval office meeting with our president underscored the importance through diplomatic means. washington slapped new sanctions on two north korean officials both believed to be in pyongyang's ballistic missile program. that's our broadcast tonight. thank you for being with us. i'll see you back here tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m. good night from nbc news headquarters in new york. >>> thanks to you at home for joining us. rachel had a well-deserved off night tonight. we'll take you back to march 2004 when george tenent appeared to provide annual testimony on worldwide threats facing the u.s. the lion's share of the testimony focused on terrorism and the ininsurgencisy in iraq. but buried in that record the cia had another warning. that russia could reassert itself after a putin victory. the cia warned after a greater a

. >> reporter: msnbc contributor john mclaughlin spent 40 years analyzing the dark arts of counterespionage while the broad themes of the dossier do seem to be bearing out, collusion is a hard thing to prove. >> if you're looking at the fact pattern that we have here, involving a number of figures in the trump administration, having had one interaction or another with the russians, whether financial or otherwise, you know, if you're in the intelligence business, that still amounts to smoke. >> reporter: it may be only smoke, but there seems to be a lot of it, billowing up from places that christopher steele first pointed out in 2016. the r penguin migration. trekking a hundred miles inland to their breeding grounds. except for these two fellows. this time next year, we're gonna be sitting on an egg. i think we're getting close! make a u-turn... u-turn? recalculating... man, we are never gonna breed. just give it a second. you will arrive in 92 days. nah, nuh-uh. nope, nope, nope. you know who i'm gonna follow? my instincts. as long as gps can still get you lost, you can count on geico savin

here's how former cia director john mclaughlin responded to that offer. >> russia doesn't carry a lotweight in this realm, but it would be to his advantage, particularly with a presidential election coming up to be seen as an international statesman. >> the foreign minister in this may 10th oval office meeting with our president underscored the importance through diplomatic means. washington slapped new sanctions on two north korean officials both believed to be in pyongyang's ballistic missile program. that's our broadcast tonight. thank you for being with us. i'll see you back here tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m. good night from nbc news headquarters in new york. >>> less than a week into winter and snowfall records are already being shattered. one city declares a weather emergency as the east coast braces for a possible new year's snowstorm plus the latest, russia continues to insert itself into the north korean crisis, lecturing over its rec rick. even as the u.s. takes knew actions and new scrutiny into that infamous meeting at trump tower, a new report is connecting the dots as t

john mclaughlin, clearest collusion is gop and fox news to delegitimize inquiry. >> we are in danger, democracy is in danger. one person in control of the military right now, commander in chief is donald trump, there is a risk of him using that power to destroy our democracy, call it coup or anything else. not from critics of donald trump that danger is posed. it's fact that man who is commander in chief of our military engaged in obstruction and other crimes is also psychologically deranged. and think we're in serious trouble. next two weeks are critical to make sure that robert mueller stays in place. >> what is it about the next two weeks specifically that concerns you? >> first of all, on the holiday, lot of members of the house and senate are away. and if robert mueller were to get fired, only responsible thing to do would be to convene house and senate judiciary committee immediately. i don't care if it happens christmas eve or day or new year's, we have to swing in action. they're off on holiday. second thing is democrats have had lack of wisdom of forcing out senator al franke

. >> msnbc john mclaughlin spent 40 years studying the counter espionage. while the broad themes of the dossier seem to be bearing out, collusion is a hard thing to prove. >> if you're looking at the fact pattern we have here involving a number of figures in the trump administration having had one interaction or another with the russians whether financial or otherwise. you know, if you're in the intelligence business, that still amounts to smoke. >> it may be only smoke, but there seems to be a lot of it billowing up from places that christopher steele first pointed out in 2016. (amanda vo) i adopted scrappy on a fluke. and he totally has a super-power. didn't know i was allergic to ibuprofen. and i had fallen asleep... (scrappy barks) (amanda) he was totally freaked out, digging and pawing at me. and when i woke up i realized that i was in anaphylaxis and went to the emergency room. i don't know what i would do if he wasn't there. he's the best boy. (vo) through the subaru share the love event, we've helped the ascpa save nearly forty thousand animals so f

let's bring in john mclaughlin. former cia acting director. also an msnbc national security analyst. john, let's start with the uranium one story. just your thoughts on the justice department taking this new look at the uranium one deal. why now? >> it's fair enough for a department to check and double-check past investigations. but the timing of this is what is of concern. i see it frankly as part of a larger pattern that we see showing in many other aspects of politics right now in which the republicans in congress, elsewhere, media sympathetic to them are trying to discredit bob mueller's inquiry and surround it with controversies about other things that previously have been settled and the uranium deal falls in that later category. it has been examined before. it has been settled. but reopening it now serves that larger purpose of surrounding the mueller investigation with controversies on other manners. t's what's going on here. >> you mentioned the special counsel, senator mark warner from virginia that took to the store yesterday of the

. >> reporter: msnbc contributor john mclaughlin spent 40 years analyzing the dark arts of counterespionage broad themes of the dossier do seem to be bearing out, collusion is a hard thing to prove. >> if you're looking at the fact pattern that we have here, involving a number of figures in the trump administration, having had one interaction or another with the russians, whether financial or otherwise, you know, if you're in the intelligence business, that still amounts to smoke. >> reporter: it may be only smoke, but there seems to be a lot of it, billowing up from places that christopher steele first pointed out in 2016. liberty mutual stood with me when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night. hold on dad... liberty did what? yeah, liberty mutual 24-hour roadside assistance helped him to fix his flat so he could get home safely. my dad says our insurance doesn't have that. don't worry - i know what a lug wrench is, dad. is this a lug wrench? maybe? you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. my dbut now, i tak

with us tonight to talk about this former acting director of cia john mclaughlin is with us also msnbc security analyst. nayyera is with us formally of the state department. . john the president doesn't agree on anything as we got a license in last we can. i can't remember the congress would vote 98-2. this is a voe toe-proof -- a veto-proof majority. how does this look that this document is sitting at the white house? are there be a signing statement? a public version of our policy toward russia? >> well, brian those questions underline really what's very different about in particular dust up with the russians. i've been through a lot. this one is very strange, very different. among other things we've never had the congress telling the president what to do in this way. apparently a sign that they don't trust him on this issue. maybe another sign that the republican fire wall is beginning to break a little bit. the second thing is we've never been through one of these when we have a weak president who seems paralyzed by the russia issue. third of course is the absence of a policy. as b

. >> msnbc political analyst john mclaughlin, former cia director and security analyst.ick, first to you. we go back to 1948 and reaffirm with 1979 in camp david that the united states would keep its embassy in tel aviv and would not recognize israel, jerusalem as the capital. even though it's the capital for all intents and purposes, because they did not want to close relations. what is the fallout later today when the president makes the announcement? >> as you know, all the issues they've had over the years, they saved jerusalem for last because the rest is child's play compared to figuring out jerusalem. i talked to someone the other day who sides with mr. kushner's thoughts about it, and they do see it as a real estate deal. it is a real estate deal with hundreds of degrees of history, with religion, with politics associated with it, and jerusalem is just a very thorny knot that you save to figure out. >> when we think about the ramifications, in 2000 the prime minister sharone went to the temple mount in a disputed area, and it sent a revolt. there is a real possib

john mclaughlin as many of you know was the acting director of central intelligence, deputy director for intelligence at the cia. i have grown reliance on him as a person who comes to our small meetings and is able to distill the strategic points that everybody has been struggling to articulate and he manages to capture it in a way that i just find breathtaking. christine wormuth, former undersecretary of defense and an old and valued colleague of mine, whenever we had the internal things to work through, having christine on my team was always a sign that we were going to be successful. she's currently directing the adrian arched center for resilience at the atlantic council. so what we have our people with tremendous intellectual ability and government experience to help us think about where is all this, where are we trying to take it? where is all this going when we talk about counterterrorism in north africa. how much should we care about it? what should we be doing about it? when should we stop focusing on it and when should we start focusing on it? because it's easy to take some

ron, he sound like the old john mclaughlin. wrong!n binge and the fact that he seems like a reaction. not rocket man, but reaction man. why would you watch all ual day thinking of ways to get bad and react to? >> there is a lot that is disturbing in this story. you know, let's just take the two little headline items you mentioned, the television binging and the diet coke. this is behavior that would be concerning to a parent if they found it in their high school student. they'd want to intervene. and you wonder, eight hours of television a day. the presidency is a pretty all consuming job. when does he find time to actually be president? the answer from this article seems to be that he's not really ever being president in the way we think of being president. in other words, engaging with issues all the time, grappling with different things, you know. arm twisting members of congress, all that sort of thing. he is mostly interested in how he is being spoken about on television. but the metta points about this that came out to me, at le

. >> jill wine-banks, john mclaughlin, charlie sikes and catherine rampell, thanks to all of you. that does it for "all in." you can catch us every night week night at 8:00 right here on msnbc. >>> hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. i started this show one day by saying that the bottom was calling. it wanted to know if we were there yet on day 2 of the president's fight over how his predecessors handled the most solemn of presidential responsibilities, the calls to families of the men and women who give their lives to protect america. it feels like the right time to reup the question. anything sacred. covering a man for whom scandals and mistruths are served up in costco-sides portions overwhelms the circus. but here are some of the previous moments that we thought represented the bottom at the time they occurred. . >> he is not a war hero shirks a war hero hi, is a war hero who was captured. i like people that weren't captured. i have to tell you. >> now the poor guy. you god got to see. i don't remember what i said. i don't remember! >> if you look at his wife, she was standin

. >> john mclaughlin just said on the previous panel that ambassadors are only useful champions not only for the countries but for the concerns that they see on the ground and not having ambassadors in place in much of the world handicaps our ability to be responsible. >> i believe i'm correct that only one regional assistant secretary has been confirmed for the entire state department, one, and that's europe. that's stunning. as you say, john, lots of ambassadorial positions vacant. earlier i was in korea during one of the missile crises. we weren't even sure given north korea's attention whether we could get out of south korea. we weren't sure whether south korea -- well, whether military conflict might break out while we were there and all hell is breaking loose. we did not have an ambassador in >>> in the midst of a cries where you may remember that he ordered the carl vincent off the waters in south korea kept it went the other way. so there are real problems when a great power. a country putting together its first ever diplomatic course and as real consequences for our partners, al

john mcallister. daniel mccarthy. robert mccollum. charles mckee. bernard mclaughlin. jane melber. john merrill. marie miazga. joseph kenneth miller. jewel mitchell. jane and morgan. eva morson. helga mosey. rituals minette t. mulroy, john, sean mulroy. karen elizabeth newman. mary murphy. thomas mitchell. >> daniel emmett o'connor. denice o'neill gwen it's a win. robert opened. martha owings. laura abigail owens. robert owens. michael papadopoulos peter pierce. michael pescatore. >> sarah s.b. philipps james andrew campell pet. david platt. walter porter. pamela lynn posen william pugh crisostomo estrella quiguyan, rajesh tarsis priskel ramses 35, anmol, garima, suruchi rattan. anita reeves. and my husband, elia strattas. >> mark allen rein. jocelyn reyna. i represent louise rogers of syracuse and -- syracuse university. diane marie rencevicz edina roller. janos roller. andrea victoria rosenthal. daniel peter rosenthal. myra josephine royal. arnaud david rubin jean sarah city. scott saunders. teresa saunders. johannes otto schauble robert thomas schlageter sally elizabeth scott's. i represent a

the joint tax rate shows middle income are the biggest winners over ten years polling -- john and jim mclaughliners have been on this network many times. their polls, do you favor the trump tax cuts when they weight the polls giving republicans 32% and 35% and democrats 36%, 37% which is the average of the last four elections actually 57% favor the tax cuts. i must say, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. you'll get it fast by february the irs will release its new withholding tables and people will see marginal pay and the business side is lr working. you look at the cap x neck buums and the overall economic numbers, people are ready to pull the trigger big time. i'm very optimisti >> this morning's cnn poll, 55% oppose the tax reform proposals, 33% support the tax reform proposals. so i agree. >> v you can make polls say whatever the hell you want them to say you dropped in a not guilty bet that people will lose their health insurance is that technically correct? or is what will happen that because the individual mandate forcing people buy insurance disappears that those people will

john, you kind of echoed that in our remarks saying why should we care about it. i was particularly impressed by the fact that mr. mclaughlin said he thought it was a priority region. the general said he thought it was going to be a test case of whether we could effectively address these problems without a major military intervention. before i ask the question i want to say thank you to csis for actually holding this conference on the maghreb so we are paying some attention to it and recall it was at least a dozen years ago when i attended the first conferences csis did so thanks for continuing to bring attention to the problem. my question is this. if it's true as the doctor observed that we pay so little attention to it, why do you think that the region gets so little u.s. attention and what do people in the region have a reasonable right to expect from us in helping them address their problems? >> i'll take a stab at it. i'll address the ye question ofy does it get comparatively little attention. the simple answer is the united states government has to make addresses about its priorities. it is a more straightforward pat