we've got white house correspondent for bloomberg news shannon petty piece and nbc political editor mark murray piece for nbc.com looking at the five big overlooked stories of 2017. good morning to you it both. mark, let's get into your list. first is trump's big imprint on the judiciary. what are you looking at there? >> yeah, willie, to be clear these are stories that i think for any other president would have been a-1 stories their first year of the presidency. these are the ones that for the trump presidency, for all of the other stories we covered were the a-4, the a-16 stories. number one on the list is trump's imprint on the judiciary where in total 19 judicial nominations ended up winning confirmation by the senate. that's compared to 13 for barack obama in his first year. trump ends up including kneel gorsuch to the supreme court pick as well as 12 appellate court nominations, compared to three for barack obama in his first year. that 12 for trump was the most-ever for a president in their first year in office. >> you know, shannon, that's such an important one to be on the list, becau

murray joins us now from chicago. can you quantify how much money bob: itse western mark will cost murray energy $60 million per year ininate 65,000 is u.s. senate's legislation a huge tax increase on all capital on highly leveraged businesses. they left the alternative and among tax in their plan, but they deleted the deduction for interest expenses. like labor and any other cost. this is a mockery of tax reform. i suspect it will apply to many businesses that do not realize what this senate has done to them. it's not tax reform. alix: if you look at the relationship of coal production and coal jobs, what do you find historically? bob: it has come back and can tell us about that. there is more demand for coal as the global economy picks up. if you look at this chart i brought along, you probably know it i'm talking about. coal jobs parallel coal production in the united states until 2016. now, production is up and jobs are up, but not nearly as much. the argument is you are replacing coal workers with automation because it's more efficient for you. this is some of the information you are talking about. donald trump is

including the third ranking, the third highest ranking democrat in the senate, patty murray joining this list. markat's going on here? >> well, as kirstin jilly grand said in her statement when this first came out, it's a time of reckoning right now. it's important for you to point out patty murray, the number three democrat in the senate has asked for al franken to step down. what does that mean. >> it means clearly the democratic leadership knew that this was going to happen. so it's not like they're going to be caught in the dark. of the six people we've seen so far, they are all women. when will we start seeing democratic male senators coming out and asking for al franken to step aside? right now al franken, the minnesota. >> is on borrowed time. i would say by the end of the day, i can't imagine he would still be in office. he may do what john conyers did yesterday and may just resign. >> and kaitlan, what do you think, al franken has been defiant? he has said that he's apologized. he has denied some of the allegations against him. he's apologized for some of them especially if there's photogr

mark hurtling. jason miller, to one of the problems sarah murray was reporting on.nks the investigation is going to be over soon. he thinks he is getting a letter soon that he is cleared in the investigation, yet "the washington post" reports it's going to go on for another year. how much of a problem is that? >> i don't think it's a problem. because i don't think that president trump did anything wrong. so whether this goes another couple weeks or another year i don't think that's going to be an issue for him -- >> the issue is will he get upset? if it doesn't end soon as apparently his lawyers have told him it will, is that going to set him off? >> no, i think the american public is who is going to be upset. because we have the booming economy and after a year, we have nothing to say the trump campaign did anything to include with a foreign government in the election. let's go to the transition team e-mails. i thought the purpose of this was to talk about the campaign colluding with a foreign entity we're talking about transition team e-mails. this is well after t

sarah murray, cnn, west palm beach, florida. >>> joining me to discuss is mark lamont hill and ben fergusonrning to you both. >> good morning. >> ben, the president, the white house, his supporters, the members of congress, have said that, in part, this investigation began with a dossier. it appears now, according to "the new york times," that it started with this conversation between papadopoulos and an australian diplomat in may of 2016 saying three weeks earlier, he had gotten the information about russia having dirt on clinton. it seems to hallow out the center point by saying it starts with this dossier, does it not? >> it could be a combination of both. we don't know what triggered this. this could be part of what triggered it or could be overall looking at the page and saying we are here this, there is a dossier. we don't know. the bottom line is this individual deserves to be in trouble for what he has done. clearly, i think he has tried to, you know, big-time people and overstate his involvement until the campaign. he also doesn't tell the truth very often and the reason he to plea

something that susan collins has pushed for, patty murray, the democratic senator from washington state has pushed for, and send it back to the house. i talked to mark meadows, the chair of the house freedom caucus earlier today, he says he doesn't think there will be a majority of the majority in the house to pass that. that's a problem. there is a perversion called the hyde amendment, named after the the late congressman henry hyde, banning federal money going toward abortion. it even if that provision is in there, mark meadows suggested that would be a problem for house republicans. they get into ping-pong in the house and was headed for the house starts with the bill, they ping it over to the senate, they had senate changes, they pong it back. the problem is, they don't have a lot of runway. if you are going to avoid a government shutdown by 11:59 friday night, especially at christmas time, they may as well just tie some thick antlers to your dog and take them down the mountain toward hooverville. people will start on the government like the grinch at christmas or something like. >> shannon: we always appreciate you. we will see you then, if nec

president trump found time to lash out at the f-b-i and the media.sara murray has the latest from washington. donald trump is marking wrote-- "i hope everyone is having a great christmas, then tomorrow it's back to work in order to make america great again (which is happening faster than anyone anticipated)!"but that wasn't the only tweet mister trump sent over the holiday weekend. in between his official duties...and some christmas celebrations...the president found time to praise himself and criticize a few favorite targets. i think that puts us in peril. (darya)(darya) peril.puts us in i think that targets. i think that puts us in peril. (darya) coming up on the kron 4 morning news... the warriors beating the cavs: it's a christmas tradition and we love it! highlights of the game ( darya )plus ... a christmas miracle in hawaii.after two life-long friends discover something that changed their lives.the heart-warming story ... after the break. ( will ) two men in hawaii who've been best friends for decades... find out they're also biological brothers. elyssa arevalo shares their story. alan robinson and walter macf

murray, thank you for that report and merry christmas. enjoy the nice weather down there. president trump is touting accomplishments as he approaches his one-year mark in office. he said he deserves more credit than he is getting. let's discuss that. commentators ben ferguson and teeth. merry christmas to you both. >> merry christmas. >> thank you to both of you. let's start with the tweets. the president tweeted over the weekend about the tax cuts and reform bill, including massive alaska drilling and the repeal of the highly unpopular individual mandate and brought it all together as an incredible year. never mind the fake news. we won't even talk about that right now. in terms of what the president is tweeting that he is trying to blow his own horn. he is not alone. politicians do that all the time. is he right that he is not getting as much credit as he might deserve on the issue of keeping promises he made? >> look, i think early in the year, that would probably not be an accurate statement. they had a lot of tough issues that didn't get done, but i agree with him on this one. he has done an awful lot of the things he promised to do. whether it

murray in west palm beach, thanks. >>> i had a chance to speak with one of those "new york times" reporters who broke this story. mark masseti. i asked him why he believes that australian intelligence sat on the information for two months before telling their american counterparts. >> it is possible that the australian whose name is alexander downer, the top diplomat in the uk, heard the information. it was not considered urgent until two months later when we saw emails spilling out publicly that were damaging to hillary clinton's campaign. specifically the dnc emails. and after that, it became clear that this was what pap tap louse was talking about. and they put two and two together and urge lnt i went to the united states. that's some speculation, but it is possible. >> so what did the fbi do then after they got that information from australia? >> so what has been publicly and spoken of by senior officials is in late july of 2016, the fbi opened a counterintelligence investigation, basically looking at what, what is behind this intelligence about contacts between the trump campaign and russians? what are they to m

murray. >> thank you chairman alexander and to our guest today. great to have an opportunity to talk to you again. dr. godlieb, i'm looking forward to your updates. next week marks the one year since the signing of the bipartisan 21st century cures act and as i said at the time, as much as this law helped to build on america's leadership and life saving public health initiatives and innovation, cures was first and foremost about providing hope. hope to the millions of peepl and families impacted by illness and disease. hope for our communities suffering at the hands of the opioid epidemic, for example and like all of my colleagues, this crisis is something i hear about every day. and i have visited with countless communities back in my home state of washington that have been devastated by addiction. so while we know we can and must do more, i'm glad that cures took an important step to help fight back. and we insured money went directly to states that needed it the most. for far too long our health system has failed families seeking treatment and support. that's why we prioritized expanding access to quality care for mental illness and substance use disorders an

mark lawrenson, who signed for £900,000 in the summer of 1981. we‘re on at midday with martin keown as well (tennis now. andy murray reached the semi—finals of the pdc world championship, after beating world number three seed, gary anderson, last night. this is taylor‘s final event before retirement, and the chances of his bowing out as world champion have increased considerably with this 5—3 victory at alexandra palace. he‘ll face qualifier jamie lewis in the semi—finals. reigning champion michael van gerwen plays rob cross in the other semi. we‘ve been talking about the new years honours list. plenty of sportsmen as well, sam warburton, heather knight, the women‘s cricket captain. so loads of people on the bbc sport website, if you want to see exactly who‘s got the gonings this year. —— gongs. see exactly who‘s got the gonings this year. -- gongs. very organised, the website. they always are. they‘re the prime source of organisation in bbc sport i think. in the bbc generally! just check the website. they‘ll have got it right. thank you very much. when it came to arts and culture in 2017, you had to go to hull and