philip rucker. this is a new level of intensity, shall we say.he question is, what might be next and what does this mean to ruling, if you will, of administratin administrating? >> i don't know what is coming next. every time i think we've seen something that is impossible to occur in the white house, something more extreme happens. i think phil rucker covered the campaign. he has been covering this process, donald trump for a long time. so, for him to write this kind of headline or team of reporters to write this headline is pretty significant. looking at jeb bush and that debate brings back a lot of memories from some campaign trail. something that they reiterated over and over again is that she called president trump or at that time candidate trump unfit. that is something we reiterated time and time again. she did and our surrogates. we are seeing that come to light and it's very disturbing. i don't know how we'll survive three more years. >> it was also said that president trump when he was at mar-a-lago today or overnight had discussed this

let me bring in philip rucker. you reported recently about jared kushner, maybe a diminished role for him in this administration. the news this week that that top-level security clearance now has been stripped from him. what can you add to this breaking reporting we have here? >> it's just another controversy involving the presidential son-in-law who has seen his role diminished substantially. he's isolated inside the administration right now. his colleagues are mocking him. he's lost some of the power that he once wielded in those early days of the presidency. however, he continues to oversee the peace in the middle east process. and so it's obviously an area of scrutiny and has been for sometime publicly. as your colleagues are reporting, it appears to be an area of scrutiny for the mueller investigation as well. >> betsy, we're going to try to get one of the reporters who broke that story for nbc news on with us when i'm we scramble to do that, let me bring in betsy woodruff here. the question of the overall sto

and philip rucker did as well, the white house bureau chief for "the washington post" and an msnbc political analyst. philip, i'm going to start with you. why is hope hicks leaving, and why now? >> well, brian, in her sort of official version of events she's leaving because she's ready to move on. she's ready to explore opportunities in the private sector, to get back closer to her family in connecticut. white house officials tell us she's simply exhausted and emotionally and physically drained by working for three straight years in the trump orbit. but the timing is, of course, interesting. it comes a day after she was testifying for nine hours with the intelligence committee about the russia probe. she has become ensnared in this russia investigation. she's met with robert mueller, the special counsel. because of her special and unique and close relationship with president trump, she's not just a communications professional, she's his confidant. she advises him on really all matters, from the most substantive to the most trivial. and she has been in that role at his side for three straight

with us from "washington post," white house bureau chief philip rucker. with me on set, a.b. stoddard for real clear politics. jeremy peter, "the new york times" reporter and msnbc contributor. . michael steele, former rnc chairman and msnbc analyst. also philip bump, political report frer fer the "washington post." we have a full team. he's joining us, philip is, from new york. phil, i'll start with you. it's your birthday today. i figure you get the first one right off the bat. happy birthday. >> thank you, peter. >> why won't the president call out vladimir putin? they just imposed sanctions on russian nationals, they just determined the russians meddled in our election, they've agreed with the uk, france, and germany, that the they were involved in that poisoning of a spy in the uk. so why not call them out? >> well, president trump has never really called out president putin, despite the activities that you just laid out in his administration. people working in his administration are moving aggressively to try to confront russia, but the president is not leading that char

philip rucker, tamara keith and sam stein and we'll call this byline, we begin, "trump is not consulting with top advisers, including chief of staff john f. kelly and chief white house lawyer don mcgahn on his russia legal choices or his comments about the probe," according to one person with knowledge of his actions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive conversations. the president continues to complain his lawyers are not protecting him and that deputy attorney general rod j. rosenstein, who is supervising the probe is up to mischief," said the person who spoke to trump in recent days. can you shed any information on what mischief rosenstein is up to and fill in the blanks here? >> i think it's two-fold. the white house staff, the people working in the government, john kelly, don mcgahn and others would frankly not want to be a part with the russian discussions. but the president feels increasingly emboldened to make his own decisions, to act as his own lawyer, his own strategist, his own p.r. specialist, if he will. he wants to call his shots and handle this mu

good time to bring in our leadoff panel on a thursday night, philip rucker, white house bureau chief for "the washington post," who was co-author of that "the washington post" report, peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" and anita ckumar. we have heard and i highlighted the active tense wording in sarah huckabee sanders' tweet, that is the white house pushback against your reporting. it's 11:04 and change eastern time and we have to say this because things change very quickly around here. what's your reporting at this hour? >> well, they do change very quickly, brian. but we stand by our reporting which is that the president has made a decision that he wants to remove the national security adviser, h.r. mcmaster, that does not mean that h.r. mcmaster was fired today. in fact, the president's comfortable taking some time as he figures out how to execute this decision for the two reasons that you alluded to at the top of the show which is to try to preserve some integrity for mcmaster, avoid humiliating him and line up a successor and wants to make sure

i'm joined now by white house bureau chief at "the washington post" and msnbc analyst philip rucker at mar-a-lago with president trump this week and former deputy chief of staff for the obama administration. mr. rucker, we'll start with you because you've got the better backdrop. who in this white house is the president still listening to? >> craig, it's a good question. he's listening most of all to himself. he's making a lot of his own decisions, sometimes without even giving his staff a lot of notice in advance to prepare. but certainly there are people around him that he's listening to more and more. mike pompeo, the new secretary of state or the president's nominee to be secretary of state is increasingly influential in the white house. look for john bolton, the incoming national security adviser to play a big role. and the president's daughter ivanka and son-in-law jared kushner continue to be senior advisers in the white house and do have the president's ear. a lot of those close confidants of the president, including hope hicks have now departed. it's a real changing of the ord

. >>> joining me now from the white house, is "the washington post" philip rucker.hil, you asked sarah huckabee sanders about stormy daniels. what did you learn. >> i asked about the interview this morning that her attorney had regarding -- or the allegation that stormy daniels was physically threatened for his silence. again the white house is referring those questions to the president's personal attorneys, sarah told us that the president -- she's not discussed the matter with the president but that they would condemn that sort of a physical threat in general. but the white house has been very careful not to weigh in on this stormy daniels matter. we've seen over a number of briefings the past few weeks where sarah has been asked questions about the allegations from the adult actress and has not really had a lot of detail to provide. i think there is an effort to try to separate that scandal from the work happening behind me at the white house. >> what other news was made in that briefing. what popped out to you. >> what stuck out is reiterating there are no perso

of course jonathan swan and philip rucker.was so much news this week i almost forgot rex tillerson was fired. >> early in the week. >> i don't know about you. but what is the next sort of shoe to drop here? i mean, it seems like there's a couple -- first of all, there are a lot of rumors. you've been reporting on some of this about h.r. mcmaster and others that the president has said i'm close to having the cabinet i want which suggests he still needs to make some changes. i think there is trouble ahead for pompeo and gina haas pel on the state and cia on the hill. even further problems. what do you see as the next step in this story? >> the president doesn't have the team totally in place that he wants. we were told friday at the white house that there were no personal announcements at this time, but this is a new week. something new could happen. we'll see. we know that he's still mad about a number of bad headlines sort of optics problems that some of his cabinet secretaries have had. that doesn't mean they're going to get

i think you heard the darkness that philip rucker of "the washington post" was describing.t's your descriptiprescriptiw the white house gets out of that? is. >> policy. one word, policy. you get back by pushing policy and ideas and getting congress to work in this transportation bill, try and figure out something on the second amendment to make sure if you do pass something, you don't infringe on freedoms. look at daca, still an issue that's out there. you have a number of issues out there, you have congress trying to deal with yet another potential government shutdown at the end of this month because they have not finished their appropriations bills for the year. so this whole idea of the i almost feel like msnbc is becoming ms-tmz because we're talking so much about these controversies and who's going to leave, who's going to stay, what happened with hope hicks. it's interesting, but ultimately the american people care more about policy than all of these scandals. >> shots fired by brian darling. let me turn to you, victoria. on the subject of policy, there's policy and t

k >> woodruff: and we'll tre about the power dynamics inside the white house with philip rucker, ite house bureau chief at the "washington post." phil, welcome back to the program. so we thought there was instabity at this white house before, but i think this week, with the departure -- announced departure of hopeicks, this back and forth with the attorney general and theheresident, jared kushner concerns, and even speculation about the president's national security advisor h.r. mcmaster. where are we? >> judy, it is a truly chaotic moment for this white house, and it reminds me of the early days of the presidey back at th beginning of 2016 when, every day, there was a new brushfire to put out. and that's wh wre going through right now. jared kushner has been diminished by thins downgrade his security clearance and the knives are out for him. other administrationicials are trying to harm himal inte. there's a bit of a power stggle with the chief of staff john kelly. kelly seems newly empowered with gais movest kushner but it really is unsettling and the president's closest aide hope

>>> joining us ann garron, philip rucker, and tim alberta, and nbc news national security and justicek you for being here. i don't even know where to start. i have a list that includes jeff sessions, kushner, gun control, russia investigation, hope hicks, and i loved what righein priebus said. this is how the president makes decisions. >> it is. and we saw last night at the grid iron where he was giving the comedic routine. but he actually said, look, i love chaos. i thrive on chaos. i manage with chaos. this is how he ran his businesses, his real estate empire. it's how he ran "the apprentice" and the white house. there is a lot of credit schism of his management style. but trump's defenders say he got tax cuts done and he's cutting regulations in the agencies and stock market seems okay. >> mitch mcconnell would say he put a lot of federal judges on the bench. axios writes this week. ann, you read a lot about america's position in the world. how does what is happening in the big picture with the white house, i mean, we're caught up in it every day. i can't even keep up sometimes wit

>>> my thanks to philip bump, ab stoddard, michael steele, and phillip rucker who was here earlier. that's going to do it for us this hour. i'm peter alexander. "mtp daily" starts right now. >> thank you, my friend. we're both wearing the washington uniform today. >> if it's tuesday, we now have a republican senator saying firing bob mueller would be an impeachable offense. >>> tonight, the anti-firing squad. >> there's not even a consideration. >> more republicans are warning the president, keep bob mueller in place. >>> plus, big data, big questions. how senator on both sides of the aisle are uniting to hold facebook accountable on its user profile practices. >> what's being done to stop it from happening again. >> and inside the texas serial bombing investigation. >> the bombings in austin are terrible. local, state, and federal are working hand-in-hand to get to the bottom of it. >> this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. >>> well, good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington. welcome to "mtp daily." buckle up. it's been a wild day of headlines involving russia, the pres