>> well, kacie, you always get me going when you say looming government shutdown. it's the 100th day in the ten-month presidency of donald trump that he's at a property where he has a home but it's also branded in the trump name and that certainly fits mara lago where the president is for this extended holiday weekend. he is calling it a working vacation. the white house we've seen a number of times has emphasized that because they're hearing the criticism of the time the president spends away from the white house or on the golf course and they want to emphasize he is president all the time. which is true of any president. today, two public events that were on camera, we don't know if he had any other personal work business such as phone calls behind the scenes or things like that. but he began the day with a tweet to the nation wishing happy thanksgiving and then brought in the white house press pool for his video conference which connected the commander in chief with five difference installations of military personnel, where he talked about wide-ranging subjects

hallie jackson, kacie hunt, thanks to both of you. here's how republicans pitched their plan earlier today. >> this is it. this is a very important and special moment for our country, for all americans. with this bill, there's relief for real american families. there's relief for american workers and tax relief for hard-working job creators of all sizes. >> cnbc's john harwood, politico's jake shurman, who was in the room where the republicans unveiled their bill. john, let me start with you, because you just heard them saying, look, this is relief. we heard the president saying this is a big beautiful christmas present. if you're the average middle income american, is it? >> no. there will be some tax cuts for middle income workers. there will also be some whose taxes go up. we haven't gotten the score. we haven't gotten distributional charts. but the way they've moved the brackets around for tax rates, the way they have altered some of the deductions including the state and local deduction is going to create winners and losers. now,

kacie. >> mr. president, did you seal the deal on tax reform? >> mr. do you have the votes on tax reform? >> andrea, as you can see -- >> not surprisingly, he would not talk going into this political meeting. as garrett was pointing out, they've got a lot of negotiating to do about small businesses versus the big corporations and how to try to dress it up as a middle class tax cut when there's a lot of evidence that it actually would raise classes on the middle class and certainly people who make less than $10,000 a year. we're going to let this go and come back to you guys as soon as we get something. you want to finish what you were saying about the pass throughs? >> only if there's not a solution to this by about 2:30 today, there's this budget vote that ron johnson or corker could vote no and make this difficult for leadership. they can't stop the bill from going to the floor. but it would take just the kind of procedural shenanigans that have been the things that john mccain has spoken up so loudly about in the past. there's an opportunity here at

with kacie hunt who is on capitol hill, she was there when the president arrived. kristen welker at the white house. msnbc's garrett haake is also on capitol hill. kacie, you were there as president trump strolled by. i heard you scream a question at him. what did you scream? i don't think we got a response, did we? >> we did not get a response. we did get a thumb's up. the president is currently in mitch mcconnell's office and there are quite a few still photographers who are anxiously waiting for him to walk out and head into that lunch. the clicking of those shutters would indicate you probably have a shot of the president coming down the hallway. there he is. with actually john barrasso and mitch mcconnell. so they're heading in to this luncheon with republican senators. we also saw several top white house staffers here on capitol hill, john kelly, the chief of staff, gary cohen, who's been a key part of the tax reform talks. mark short, his legislative director. and sarah huckabee sanders, who to my knowledge is a relatively rare presence up here on capitol hi

kacie hunt join us with that part of the story. ca kacie, what is the senator saying about all of this? >> you heard the long list of descriptions of what has prompted leann tweeden to come forward in this and senator franken has essentially acknowledged -- he put out two separate statements today. the first was very short, acknowledged that he remembered things differently, apologized to her. but his office clearly felt like they needed to expand on the statement. we do have a new statement from the senator from minnesota. and he says -- and of course nationally, the second i go to read it to you, i manage to pop it off of my screen. so hopefully our viewers are taking a look at it. it says, quote, the first thing i want to do is apologize to leann, to everyone else who was a part of that tour, to everyone who has worked for me, to everyone i represent and to everyone who counts on me to be an ali and supporter and champion of women. there's more i want to say but the first and most important thing, and if it's the only thing you

kacie hunt there for us on capitol hill. i want to bring in ruth marcus. ruth of course "washington post" columnist and, ruth, you wrote something that caught our attention here. and you were talking about, again, somewhat difficult to keep track here. but you were actually writing about al franken and you wrote in your column today, quote, one risk now evident with the case of senator al franken is overcompensating for earlier apathy. not all crimes deserve the death penalty. the clamor for franken's head is at best premature. i was a little surprised to read that from you, ruth, admittedly. where do we draw the line? >> well, i think that that's the question we're all grappling with. i wrote that column on friday. that was before the new allegations involving his alleged conduct in congress, when he was talking the photo at the minnesota state fair, that instead of putting his hand around somebody's shoulder or waist, he actually held their rear end. and that's, look, that's inappropriate and troubling for two reasons. if it's a lot different than what y

kacie hunt -- i like that eye roll right there. i appreciated it. >> we'll work on that next time around together. >> thank you, my friend, appreciate it. >>> and today in an interview with cnbc's john harwood, one of the top white house officials charged with selling the president's tax plan, backtracked on whether the wealthy would get a tax cut. back in september, national economic council director gary cohen was quite adamant the wealthy would not get a tax cut. >> we have also said that wealthy americans are not getting a tax cut. >> will the wealthy get a tax cut or not? >> the wealthy are not getting a tax cut under our plan. >> well, fast forward to today and cohen appears to admit what a slow of studies have already indicated. yes, the wealthy will benefit. >> you're not saying, as you did a few weeks ago, that the wealthy do not get a tax cut under your plan? >> there's unique situation, to everyone out there. everyone has their own story. it's not our intention to give the wealthy a tax cut. >> but they're getting one? >

we're going to get the details now from nbc news capitol hill correspondent kacie hunt, host of kacieis unbelievable, tell me about it. >> well, stef, these allegations essentially are coming out and buzz feed says it obtained affidavits related to this settlement. they said it authenticated those with four people who were aware of the case. but the documents came originally from a pro trump activist. buzz feedz acknowledged that in their story. so nbc has not authenticated these documents directly. i have, however, spoken to a lawyer who says that the nondisclosure greelt in question looks like some of the other ones she's seen in the course of representing people who have brought sexual harassment complaints to members of congress. in this instance, the reporting says that this woman was on the receiving end of sexual advances from this congressman, john conyers, he's actually the dean of the house of representatives, the longest serving member of the body, and that she was fired when she refused them. she received a $27,000 settlement that came out of conyers' office, not out of a

right now, my friend kacie hunt picks up our special thanksgiving day coverage., you and me, for the next couple hours. >> we are holding down the fort. very happy thanksgiving to you. happy thanksgiving to all of you. i'm kacie hunt. it's 1:00 here in washington. here's what we're watching this hour. alabama's senate scandal. republican roy moore is now fund-raising off the almost endorsement from president trump. we're live on the ground with just three weeks to go. until that state heads to the polls. also this hour, donald trump's first thanksgiving as commander in chief. he visited members of the u.s. coast guard but couldn't resist a joke at the expense of a favorite target. >> -- the media here to do the questions or should we just -- you know what, it's thanksgiving, so let's let the media stay, okay. >> and protecting a holiday tradition. we're in manhattan where security was tightened for this year's mercy thanksgiving day parade. but let's begin in alabama with the scandal surrounding their republican senate candidate. roy moore's campaign is seizing o

kacie hunt is standing by. what have you learned?stephanie, we are talking to sources inside the room here. we're learning a little bit more about what they're being told about what this bill will look like. right now, they're talking about individual tax rates. we do know and we've reported some of this already, there will be four tax brackets starting with zero percent, 12%, 25%, 35%. we're also told there will be that 39.5% tax that some call the millionaire's tax. this notable doesn't have the income threshold for that 39.5% tax rate. as you know, that's important because it affects people potentially we're hearing who make as a couple more than $750,000. that's the lower threshold we're hearing. it could go higher than that. i would point to that as an important still unanswered question. so i'm going to talk you through a little bit more of what we do now know and explain why we actually don't know as much as we think we might. we're learning about the standard deduction. again, we've reported this, $24,000 for married couples.

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. >> kacie? >> if republicans can't get this done, do you deserve to control the commerce?ur second question? you know why, because the american people are counting on us. we're going to get this done because we told the american people this is what we're going to do if we get the majority, and you know what? we're doing it. appreciate it, people. >> this is the republicans selling the tax plan. they are using very specific examples which they built to say the middle class families are going to actually pay lower taxes. we have other examples through the course of the day. i think you're going to see a lot of them. the fact is there are going to be winners and there are going to be losers to this. the thing we're trying to figure out which degree of middle class americans are winners, not just to reduce taxes but the argument the republicans have put forth this is a job-creating, wage-earning plan. will that happen with this tax plan? we don't to want prejudge. we don't know there is evidence that it is going to or isn't going to. we're going to spend a lot of time looking

gordon told us this morning, told kacie hunt, that he tried to block this trip by page and thought it a bad idea but carter page went around him to more senior campaign officials. as you said, lewandowski was on the chain, hope hicks was also informed. i mean, yes, they said it was a personal trip but of course the russians who are meeting with carter page in moscow knew he was a foreign policy adviser to donald trump -- >> so it didn't matter if he was saying i'm going on a personal trip. because he's associated with the campaign, he's going to make connections that he would not make on a -- i guess a holiday to moscow. >> i think that's fairly clear. and then he reported back to j.d. gordon and others with e-mails saying look, i've got some great insights with my meetings from russian legislators. he talked about the meeting with the russian prime minister who he said was very supportive of donald trump. clearly this was very much about the trump campaign. >> is it possible that he was just trying to oversell himself, ken, to the trump campaign? he was trying to get in? he was tryin

kay kaci. >> should john conyers resign as speaker of the house can you guarantee tax reform will bes passed by the end of the year? >> first, marianne brown, is that her name? i heard what she said on nbc. no one should have to go through something like that, let alone here in congress. yes, i think he should resign immediately. i've been briefed on the torrent of allegations and i think he should. your second question was on tax reform, i'm not a guy who's in the guarantee business because i can only control this side of the capitol, i am very confident we can get this done this year. >> tomorrow marks one week before the december 8th funding deadline, based on the current state of play how long do you think a continuing resolution would need to be for a deal to be reached and at what point would that come together? >> it would be nice if they show up to meetings. our counterparts would participate in the negotiations necessary to not just keep the government open but to get a cap agreement. i don't know why they decided not to show up for these negotiations. when you negotiate legi

so kacie d.c., thank you.irts. >> should be there by friday. >> i'm waiting for them. >> wait, wait. where is it? no, no, no, no. we go back to kascie we don't leave until we see the thunder bolt. >> kasie dc. that's her name. >> i like that radio voice joe uses. >> laser rock. exactly. we're back. >> my god. what does the democratic party plan to do to capitalize on last night's success? we need to do something. former dnc chair donna brazile has her new book on the 2016 election continues to make waves. >>> plus the senate's number two democrat, dick durbin and joaquin castro of texas, his state still stunned after the horrifying church massacre. "morning joe" coming right back. fresh cinnamon? or for something really special... ...'new car smell'. [smelling] don't mind if i do... ♪ ring in the holidays with buick. hurry in to your buick dealer and get 17 percent below msrp on almost every 20-17 sedan model. that's nearly 7-4 hundred on this lacrosse. hurry, offer ends november 14. accused of obstructing jus