and those individuals were banned from working in the white house. and he also had some disdain for people who had worked for george w. bush. so the prior administration. so given the small size of the campaign, given the fact that he had ruled out hiring a lot of individuals who had worked for the prior republican president, the recruiting pool was already very small. and not only that, it was small and it was inexperienced when it came to government. and politics. especially washington, d.c. as a result i think that it's made it harder to recruit and rehire, because the pool of applicants is not as large as it probably typically has been. and secondly, when you lack experience, i think that working in government can be very frustrating. there are lots of rules and regulations and i think the learning curve is extraordinarily steep when you first enter the white house. people who work in the private sector just may not be well suited for that. i don't blame them. it's not for everybody. the other point that i would make is that president trump himsel

the whites on the staff were amazed, but not joyful. nurse pomeroy quickly "became aware of intense disapprobation and disgust among the white officers. who a moment before had been all graciousness and suavity. their conversation was afterwards reported to her. this is what they allegedly said. "anybody would know she was the massachusetts woman, for no one else would do such a mean, contemptible trick as to introduce those damn niggers to the president. yes, said the surgeon in charge. it was in massachusetts that the first abolition egg was laid. even the hospital's patients felt insulted by the presidents cordiality to black people. now lincoln often visited a contraband camp, where former slave mary dines volunteered as an assistant teacher. she recalled that the president "was very fond of the hymns of the slaves and loved it to hear them and even knew most of them by heart. on one saturday, he and the first lady attended a camp concert. as the black residents intoned hymns and patriotic airs, lincoln wiped tears from his eyes. du

it changes the white house. s. >> there seemed to me to be a terrible cloud everywhere. >> vincent foster was a lifelong friend of president clinton's, and mr. clinton returned to arkansas for the funeral service. >> in the meantime, he's asked the justice department to coordinate the investigation of this tragedy. >> but on the night of the suicide and the days that followed, that investigation would be complicated by disputes over the contents of foster's office and who had access to it. >> vincent foster has died. the president has been informed. mrs. clinton has been informed. people then start visiting vincent foster's office in the white house. >> there was evidence that documents were removed from foster's office. >> the white house counsel, bernard nussbaum, presidential aides, mrs. clinton's aides start removing documents. now, what's going on with that? >> the park police wanted to come in and search the office for his papers. >> mr. nussbaum is denying them access. >> his position was, "i'm just trying

and they come into work in the white house and so they don't count for the overall count of white house staff members. it's also the case that presidents, there is something called the us government manual published by the government publishing office, gpo. for while i sort of latched onto this because it started and if you are and i thought this is great i can get a list of the staffing all the way from fdr all the way to the president until i realized by a kind staff person that the list consists of whatever the white house decides to submit. so if they want to include 40 people, they include 40. if they want to include 60, they include 60. there is no regulation. long story short there is no comprehensive list of white house staff. but in 2001 while was at the brookings institution, my lo colleague steve has with a presidential scholar called me and said katie, look at this and with the publication that no longer exist it's called the "national journal" and the title of this publication in june of 2001 was decision- makers. and it was a single addition devoted to the white house staf

kelly o'donnell at the white house for us, garrett haake on capitol hill. kelly, we've got another meeting scheduled to take place in the situation room. set the stage for us right now. what is expected to happen? anything realistic going to emerge? >> reporter: the location the situation room is a message in and of itself from the trump administration trying to equate border security with national security and a kind of threat level for the other kinds of meetings or briefings that would typically happen in the situation room. it's also a place where cameras are never permitted, press cameras are never permitted. so they will have some quiet for this meeting. of course one of the times we saw in the oval office with the president and congressional leaders, we saw that free for all realtime negotiation on camera that's been played again and again. that can't happen today based on the location they chose. do we expect any breakthroughs? hard to say except that meeting is a better thing than not meeting at all. when you have a little bit of a signal from congr

the white house grounds coming forward. and you can see there, the blue line is where constitution avenue is today. that was going to be a canal. it ties the creek which runs underneath constitution avenue. the plan, l'enfant's plan is a grid but it has radiation lines coming from the white house and from the capitol. and they are like rays of light. and i feel that the plan of washington very explicitly in letters and comments by washington, jefferson and l'enfant himself is about life one of the central themes of this city and one of the wonderful things of living in it. here you see the buildings are starting to come up and the background goes in. there's a little putty here in the for ground. -- in the foreground, and he's holding the plan of the city. you'll see when you see the paintings upstairs, there the capitol is in. and some of the monuments that l 'enfant planned. he planned that each square wouldrcles in the city belong to a particular state, and each state would put up a monuments, and on the plan is a list of

today the white house and the president have responded and they issued their own letter.is one is to nancy pelosi. dear madame speaker, due to the shutdown, i am sorry to inform you that your trips have been postponed. in light of the great american workers not rereceiceiving pay, sure of postponing this event is totally inappropriate. joining the strong border movement to end the shutdown. obviously if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would be your prerogative. i look forward to see you soon. finally receive the attention funding and security it so desperately deserves. sincerely donald trump. it looks interesting because i don't remember seeing nancy pelosi was traveling to any of these places. i wonder if anybody will know this better than i will if the president outed a classified trip that nancy pelosi was going to make for afghanistan. kelly o'donell is at the white house. i do want to g-- kelly, any ide is coming? >> reporter: i was speaking with white house officials who say this should be interpreted as a look at the calendar. the ne

>> next, a discussion on staff turnover in the trump administration in the white house and the executive branch. the washington center hosted brookings institution senior fellow katherine donetempis, following her remarks she takes questions from students attending the inside washington 2019 seminar. this is 45 minutes. >> please take your seats. [inaudible conversations] >> all right. this morning we have our first speaker, kathryn dunn tenpas, who will talk about you are hired, your 5, staffing the trump presidency, analysis and comparison. kathryn dunn tenpas is a senior fellow with governance studies and secretary of the governance institute. her research addresses the intersection between the presidency and politics including president reelection campaigns and trends in real presidential travel and pulling, expenses, she has looked at white house staffing with particular focus on turnover rates and individual white house exigency like the office of political affairs, office of faith-based and community initiatives and staff secretary. kathryn dunn tenpas authored the book presidents

at the white house they are refusing to budge on the demands for a border wall. the vice president said if there is no wall, there is no deal. mitch mcconnell is throwing bashes at his democratic colleagues repeating he won't touch anything if the president hasn't signalled he will sign it. >> the package presented by the house leaders yesterday can only be seen as a time wasting act of political posturing. making laws takes a signature. this shouldn't be taken lightly and viewed as an opportunity with the new house democratic majority to prioritize political performance as an art form ahead of the public interest. >> as for the democrats, they are not willing to move an inch either. nancy pelosi is coming to today's meeting as the newly minted house speaker. >> we are not doing a wall. does anybody have any doubt? we are not doing a wall. >> do you worry about backlash? >> it has nothing to do with politics. it has to do with a wall is immorality. it's an old way of thinking. >> nancy pelosi speaking on capitol hill. she is now at the white house. that's where a

it is richly varied, depending on the guest of honor. arrives whenent whitee diplomatic reception room just off the south lawn entrance, and at 8 p.m., word was passed on the official guest was on his way from blair house to meet president and mrs. johnson under the north portico. washington's chief of protocol -- after posing for progress the was escortedy upstairs to exchange gifts in the yellow oval room. for the formal state gifts, president johnson presented their guests with a silver desk set. for a personality gifts, they gave a portable shortwave radio. also, there was a gold bowl and .andle sixth -- candlesticks presented -- the emir mrs. johnson with a traditional kuwait gift. partyard, the president's percent the staircase to pose for the official photo. that's descended the staircase to pose for the official photo. ♪ the receiving line was formed in the east room, first by protocol and then enough medical order. at the head of the line, president and mrs. johnson, who have had long experience in receiving guests and making them feel at home. they

and the security clearance process has been a recurring worry in the trump white house. there was that alarming nbc news report last year that a year into the trump administration dozens of senior administration officials who had applied for permanent security clearances still had not been able to get them. almost exactly a year ago, "the new yorker" reported that senior white house adviser jared kushner had been unable to obtain a security clearance for at least his first year working in the white house. when the president nevertheless, among other things, was allowing that senior adviser to read the highly classified president's daily brief every day while he couldn't get a security clearance. just this week, we have been on this story. the committees in the new democratic-led congress are getting their membership lists square away. they're getting their new chairmen and chairwomen elected. as the committees get geared up we learned from the oversight committee chairman, elijah cummings, democrats right now out of the gate are pursuing from the trump white house critica

fill us in. >> the white house is actively engaged in the search.ifferent locations around the world that the white house is considering as locations for the summit. we know that singapore which is where the last summit was is not on the list, but there are a host of other countries that have pros and cons. the u.s. doesn't have a leading contender yet and haven't shared a list of possible locations with the north koreans. that's going to be the key. it's going to be a challenge on two fronts. the first of which kim jong un doesn't like to leave north korea and he is cautious. doesn't like to leave it without his control. an administration official told cnn, my colleagues here that he was particularly sensitive after the singapore summit. he received criticism for arriving on a china air flight. it will be a challenge to see how he gets there. as i mentioned before, with stalled diplomacy, how are you going to figure this out? if steve is meeting with his north korean counterparts, they have to get it on the calendar. >> thank you. thank you for joi

on this roller coaster unpredictable ride that is the trump white house, there is one thing american can always count on, frequent denials about any kind of contact with russia. >> there has been no collusion between the trump campaign and russians. >> there was no collusion between the trump campaign and the russian people. >> there was no collusion whatsoever. there never has been. the last thing i want is help from russia on a campaign. >> and rudy giuliani is just one of the many people in trump world making that case to the public. here is the president's attorney last summer. >> is it still the position of you and your client that there was no collusion with the russians whatsoever on behalf of the trump campaign? >> correct. >> and if someone did collude with russia, giuliani's response was -- >> i've been sitting here looking at the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime. >> it's not. >> collusion is not a crime. >> so just to recap, the first story was, there was no collusion and it changed to if there was collusion it wasn't a crime and now we know paul manafort sh

the white house is starting to come in. only does the city have to be in perspective, but the river has to be in perspective and the cloud shadows have to be in perspective as well. you have got to be looking down on it at the same plant -- time you're looking across. it is a competition business, but it is one thing artists dated that photographers never managed to pull off. on we go here you can see the wharf. appearing, there it will be aapital city of canals and you can see how it comes right through. the canal had was practical, it was about shipping materials and moving things and people, but also have a ceremonial function. lafond had experience designing ceremonial events. the white line strong over the top of the painting can let the paintings and process took two years. a lot of changes had to go along. we could not see where the engine of the city walls, that was part of what is called boundary road. just going to keep blasting along here. we've got a look at a few things closed up. this is an enormously magnified

white house to continue negotiations. in the words of one white house official, prepare for a long shutdown. this could go on for a while. christine and dave. >> kaitlan, thank you for that. after meeting with the president, democratic leaders told reporters they believe they gave mr. trump a chance to do so. he did not do so. >> i said mr. president, give me one reason why you should continue your shutdown of the eight cabinet departments while we are debating our differences on homeland security. he could not give a good answer. >> we are asking the president to open up the government. we are giving him a republican path to do that. why would he not do it? >> earlier in the day, the president made clear he is standing his ground on funding for the border wall. he says he will not compromise on keeping americans safe. >> would you accept anything less than $2.5 billion? >> not 2.5. we are asking for 5.6. somebody said 2.5. no, look, this is national security we're talking about. >> senator lindsey graham says the shutdown is at

is the gate the white house press corps uses to get to work. down a short driveway, past the green tents where tv reporters do live shots. >> when you come through the gates of the white house, it doesn't take you very long to walk right into the west wing. >> that regal portico is the gateway to the oval office. the office of the president of the united states. the man who constantly attacks. >> the world's most dishonest people. >> and tries to undermine the mainstream media. >> i call it the fake news. the enemy of the people. >> about 75 feet to the left is the door where the journalists he calls enemies enter the white house. the entrance leads directly into the briefing room. site of the much-watched -- >> and i'm trying to answer. >> -- much-talked-about daily briefings. >> frankly i think my credibility is probably higher than the media's. >> actually, the briefings are no longer daily. but we're getting ahead of ourselves. >> all rise. >> it never gets boring. >> what is it about these white house press briefings that has become must-se

house, but then democrats and republicans from the white house and senate, that meeting was in the white house situation room, which normally is a room where they have the most extreme national security secrets that are discussed. was that unusual from your perspective? >> yeah, so clearly, he's trying to sort of emphasize that border security is a national security issue. traditionally, border security is a national security issue, when you're talking about actually securing the border and u.s. territory from genuine threats. the problem with trump's wall, it's not actually going to secure anything. security experts agree, it is an ineffective waste of money. and there aren't genuine threats here. president trump is sort of pretending as though desperate individuals are some sort of genuine security threat. what the president is trying to do is sort of co opt the images of national security as a form of pageantry for political purposes. we see him do this a lot, whether or not he's giving political rallies in front of uniformed troops or holding things like this meeting in the situation

live from the white house.i don't know what sarah sanders is supposed to say, but i want to get to the nitty-gritty of this and the legal in just a minute. again, this is the ceo of the trump organization who said he was going to run the government like a business. what business school teaches you that if you're the ceo and now six people -- five of whom are actually pretty close to you. in the case of michael cohen and roger stone, very, very close to you -- are under indictment. there's been no direct criminal allegations against the president with roger stone. michael cohen alleges he is involved in another violation. in another document, michael cohen admits he lied for the president. what else do they need? if you put them in the search engine on computer, you will find that they are snakes. >> the irony is if this actually were a business, it's hard to believe they would survive. we have so many people with so many legal problems. trump, before he came into the white house, surrounded himself with some pr

table and of course that's something the white housensel would be involved with. >> joining us now is congressman will heard, a republican from texas whose district includes a large stretch of the border. welcome back, congressman. on the shutdown, is there any end in sight to this? how does this get resolved in your opinion? >> i think it gets resolved with some rank and file members who understand this topic, who have trust amongst each other to try to negotiate or suggest an alternative plan. one of the problems that we have right now are that the leaders negotiating this lack trust amongst each other. some have just met each other that are involved in these negotiations and that's unfortunate. i actually don't believe you should be negotiating on the backs of almost a million workers trying to do the right thing for the country. if this was a crisis, the people that are dealing with this crisis should get paid. so i hope that several of us can talk through some of these issues and suggest an alternative. >> you were on the border. y

the white house remains the wild ca card. wolf, take a look at those two bills that failed on the senate floor, the president's proposal got fewer votes than the senate democratic proposal, leading one democratic aide to tell me that the president has leverage at all after that vote on the floor, quote, is not in touch with reality. in those votes, senate democratic proposal brought six republicans to the democratic side. one of those republicans, senator mitt romney. why did he vote with the democrats? take a listen. >> when the vote for the president's proposal failed, we went to see the second alternative. i voted for that as well. again, because i want to see government get open and government workers get paid. that proposal also failed. now it's going to be up to republican leadership, democrat leadership to come together and begin to negotiate. >> reporter: wolf, those negotiations are, in fact, happening. what everybody on capitol hill is waiting for is where the white house is going to come down. senator lindsey graha

they come into work in the white house of the don't count for the overall count of white house staff members. it's also the case that presidents, there's something called the u.s. government manual published by the government publishing office, the gpo. and for a while as served latched onto is because stored at fdr and i was like this is great, i did get a listing from fdr all the way to the present. until i realized i kind of staff that the list consists of whatever the white house decides to submit. if they want to include 40 people come to include 40. if you want to include 60, they include 60. there's no regulation. there is no comprehensive list of white house staff. but in 2001 why was at the brookings institution my colleague steve hess calls me and he says look at this pic it was a publication that no longer exist called the "national journal" and the title of this publication in june of 2001 was decision-makers. and it was a single edition devoted to the white house staff and people in in the executive branch, but more importantly it was put together by approximately four to

they put someone new in the office of personnel security in the white house. nbc says he carl kline was asked in connection with the story and didn't reply. four months into this administration, they put this new guy into the office of personnel security into the white house. a lot of the reporting about the initial security clearance problems were people were working at the white house without being able to get a clearance. four months in, they put somebody in to get a problem solved. once he was in there, he was over ruling when career security clearance folks said no, no, this should be a rejection. this reporting is that 30 times, at least this one supervisor who trump put in there, 30 times at least this guy handed out a clearance to an incoming trump white house person who was otherwise flagged as two risky to get a clearance approved. 30 of them. at minimum. christ. for very basic context here, as far as i understand it, there are basically four levels of security cler raarance. there is confidential level and secret next level up and top secret and abov

the white house has denied it. it just underscores that the government's still shut down and these are the people that are supposed to be talking and figuring a way out of this and it just seems that everybody is further apart and not moving. they believe their winning the political fight and believe their bases are happy. we essentially stand now almost four weeks into this shutdown exactly where we did on day one of this shutdown. none of that is happening over the weekend either. there's the microon the fight over the flights and there's the macro and things are broken down right now. >> talking to a coast guard wife yesterday she just said how scared she is. phil mattingly, thank you. >>> what about the potential 2020 contenders? they're weighing in on this buzzfeed news report today from senators corey booker to bernie sanders. we'll take you live to iowa where senator kirsten gillibrand where she addressed the possibility that the president obstructed justice. what she just said next. at fidelity, we help you

sahil: it was the white house that wanted the changes. it wasn't that democrats were making changes to that already. pedro: a little inside baseball for the 115th congress. we expect that house democrats take control? katherine: the house rules proposed package came out late so i've nott night, read the whole thing but i do know that as much as we have already heard, there are slight changes to how the house will operate on timing for votes and things like that. the real thing we are looking out for is in the new congress is after or before, depending on the timeline, of fixing the shutdown is hr one, the house republicans big push to overhaul , money innsparency politics, a huge package that we will see if that remains priority number one as the shutdown gets pushed onto the democrats plate. things stuck out to me in house democrats rule package. they are banning members of congress from serving on corporate boards. members of congress make the rules for these people, and if they are literally tasked for batting for those -- katherine: w

the questions aren't going away for the white house. look at this, the sixth trump associate charged in the special counsel investigation does this change things for the white house in terms of messaging? >> i don't know that it will change anything on messaging. i agree with alice's point. their strategy is to be defensive and get offensive. it's driven by the fact that everyone who goes out, the president is watching. if they don't attack in donald trump's style they won't have a job for much longer. roger stone is all of those things. the longest serving political aide to donald trump. what we are finding is donald trump surrounds himself with unsavory characters. donald trump surrounds himself with criminals. the more we hear about this, the more the case is built that donald trump himself may be an unsavory character who is a criminal. to say, you know, to argue that it has nothing to do with the white house, this has everything to do with the white house. it has -- you know, there are people who worked in the white house who were i

the white house is saying every week, the gdp growth goes down by .13. they acknowledge that. think that's the number of president is looking at. he is at 41% in the latest real clear politics polling average, where he normally is. a little lower in the cnn poll. the stock market as of today's close is up 22% from inauguration day. i don't think he is worried about the gdp. >> he won't budge as a result of this government shutdown. >> i think if this goes on for months, that becomes a president. in the short-term, i think he sees the politics playing for him as someone who draws the line in the sand and sticks to it. >> what do you think of the statement from -- turning to the confirmation hearings of the attorney general nominee william barr, that feinstein, the top democrat on the senate judiciary committee, she says his statements have been confusing about what he is going to release once the mueller investigation is complete, what he is not going to release. >> i think she's right. his statements have been confusing about what report he might have been referencing, about h

the head usher of the white house. you have to talk to the gardener, you know, to make sure you're not going to step on the plants or anything they may have. because you want to make everybody happy. so i have to talk to everybody to make sure it's all on board. and beside having them out there like that, we got to hope it's not going to rain today. and we also do mock stuff to make sure it's all right, first, like two days before i had different staff come out and sit and pretend to be one person or another. to make sure this was going to work. so it's fun trying to set stuff up. if you're a portrait photographer in a studio. i got a big studio, it's the white house. it's the lawn, the front of the house, the back of the house. all of these wonderful cabinet people. look at them. men and women. men and women. four score. no, it's cabinet. gore wasn't there. this is the cabinet. gore wasn't there gore was doing something else. i don't remember what. no, gore wasn't there for that one. this is the last shot this is the s

elizabeth warren is heading to iowa and she eyes the potential 2020 white house run. ic senator will visit four cities in the early caucus states and sliding her 2020 those were committee monday. warren's committee announcement will raise campaign money. after taking time away from politics kanye west is throwing his m aga had back in the ring making sure everyone knows he is still team trump. carly shimkus with fox news headlines serious xm 115 here with the online reaction. good morning and happy new year. >> reporter: kanye west appears to be back on the trump train ringing in the new year with a politically charged tweet, writing trump all day. the 40 one-year-old wrapper went on to say one of my favorites of many things of what the trump hat represents to me is people can't tell me what to do because i am black. this after kanye west set on twitter a few months ago that he would be distancing himself from politics but is -- appears to be music to the ears of trump supporters with many chiming in, including this president is to grab his is good for easy for not bei

a live look at the white house. mentioned we're expecting the president's meeting with conservative leaders in just a moment. he's opened this up to press, which previously they sad no press at this. now the president has changed that order. we will hear from the president and conservative leaders on the shut down in just a moment. the senate is getting ready to vote on not one but two different bills that would end the longest government shut down in american history. the problem is neither of those bills has the support necessary, we believe. let's get to the chief congressional correspondent, mike emanuel on capitol hill. two votes on thursday, right? tomorrow? >> absolutely right, shep. votes on two different measures. the one that president trump offered over the weekend. it would trade some border security money for temporary protections for some immigrants. democrats have come out against it. it's not entirely clear that it will get to 60 yes votes. >> i plan to vote yes on the first one, the one that is being

jim acosta over at the white house. joining us, democratic congressman john garamendi who serves on the arms services committee. you want to give me your quick reaction, 5,000 u.s. troops potentially being deployed to colombia if they're needing to deal with the situation in venezuela? >> we always talk about the constitution. the constitution says only congress can wage war. is that what he intends to do in venezuela? we're going to go to war in venezuela? we don't know. this is something an imperial is presidency is what we're developing here in the united states. he wants to use his power to override the authority of congress in the appropriation of money with regard to these emergency appropriations. now sending troops into venezuela. to what? wage war? to change the government? we don't know. >> he's sending them to colombia, but what if these troops are needed to rescue american diplomats or american citizens? >> something to think about. congress would -- >> have to approve that? >> probably not have to approve th

let's bring in bret baier, anchor of "special report" at the white house and also just inside the white house. and i wonder if you can give us a flavor, i don't know what the groundrules were, for your meeting there at the white house, maybe you can give us the flavor of it. >> bret: sure. it was an off the record lunch with the president and the vice president, other officials. nothing i can quote from that lunch. i can tell you, that the quote i can use is it was wonderful having lunch with you today. we had ceasar salad and ice tea. >> dana: i admire. >> that's i'll give you a flavor for where the white house is, i can't give you quotes. you know this very well, they have a sense, like they are in a position of power. they believe that this issue is one that works for them. not only with the base, but with republicans across the board on capitol hill. there is kind of an entrenchment as far as making this presentation to the american people tonight. that will be fairly short. i mean, it's going to be eight minutes, max. democrats obviously will have a response to that. but the feelin

kelly, no reaction from the white house yet. at least the last time i checked my phone. >> reporter: that's right. i think this is something where they really need to take a moment and figure out what they want to do. this is a surprise. in some ways i guess it could be expected that the resources needed to stage a state of the union in the modern way we're accustomed to seeing it would be taxed to the hilt. if there is no change in the government shut dourn. in some ways i guess this is a move we should have anticipated. but for the white house it's a surprise and how they respond. this is the case where they could do it in writing. a tv president is not going to want to do that. he's going to want that moment where he can argue his case, and on a whole range of issues, not just the issues related to the shutdown. this is one of the markers of any presidency to try to outline what the agenda will be for the following here and the president is approaching the halfway point of his term. so the white house will have to decide how t

you know, i've covered the white house. ents have misspoken or press seblgt spoks misspoken, they say you got us, here's what we mean. this white house doesn't do that. really at the end of the day the only thing the white house press secretary has when it comes to talking to the media and public is credibility. and once that goes away or erodes, it is very, very hard to reget it. >> isn't it interesting, frank, that this fact check came from a fox news host. will this make the white house think twice do you think? >> well, yes fox matters when something like this happens. chris wallace is frankly one of the best. he is an excellent interviewer. and i thought it was very effective for him to say wait, i studied up. it was a way to inject himself and say i know the facts here and let me confront you with them. and that's what he did. it was very good television frankly, but also excellent interviewing. and the kind of interviewing that has to take place with people like this who are being as i said so man ipulative with the f

the main obstacle to ending the 20-day government shutdown. white house lawyers are laying the groundwork for such a move. and with the mueller investigation, clearly in its own stretch, the president's legal team is also preparing for a major fight over executive privilege. cnn has learned they believe much of the special counsel's report should be kept from congress and the american public. but new light may be shed on the russia investigation as former trump lawyer michael cohen has now agreed to testify publicly before congress. i'll speak with maize hirona of the judiciary committee. our correspondents are sfanding by with full coverage. let's begin with the breaking news and robert mueller's investigation and bring in our senior justice correspondent evan perez and crime and justice reporter shimon prokupecz. why does the white house want to block the mueller report from becoming public? doesn't that make the president appear to be guilty? >> they don't believe it does. it comes down what you said, executive privilege. they believe that the in

the white house of course has pushed back. they want the platform. most of us can't remember a time when the speech wasn't broadcast in prime time. but the hoopla surrounding it is a modern invention. chad pergram has his own unique look at how we got here. >> article 2, section 3 of the constitution states that the president shall fro time to time give congress information on the state of the union. recommend that their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. president washington gave the first speech. president jefferson halted the practice. he sent a written copy to the house and senate. for a century after that, presidents submitted a written report to congress. a house clerk read the remarks out loud in front of lawmakers. that changed in 1913. president woodrow wilson rejuvenated the practice of an in-person address journeying to capitol hill. president coolidge was the first to deliver the speech on radio in 1923. the advent of radio built president roosevelt into that star with his fireside chats in the 30s. roo

white men pounding his fist on the table. as he pounds he yells a white person can't get a job anymore. i'm around the room and see 40 employees, 38 of whom are white. why is this white man so angry? why is he being so careless about the impact of his anger? why doesn't he noticed the effect his outburst is having on the few people of color in the room? why are all the other white people sitting in silent agreement or tuning out? i have, after all, only articulated a definition of racism. people in north america live in a society that is deeply separate and unequal by race and white people are the beneficiaries of that separation and inequality. as a result we are insulated from racial stress at the same time we come to feel entitled and deserving of our advantage. given how seldomly experience racial discomfort in the society we dominate we haven't had to build our racial stamina. socialized into a deeply internalized sense of superiority that we either are unaware of what could never admit to ourselves we become highly fragi

i do want to say that the white house has just announced a briefing. sarah sanders will come out for the first briefing of the year, not yet, but we're keeping an eye on when that gets going so we'll take a look at that. you heard what she said, sym ho ne. how big of a deal is that for her to say it's an open discussion? >> i think now speaker pelosi is doing exactly what she's supposed to do. you can not simply shut the door on a number of things that have not been asked and answered. it still is -- there's something to discuss. that is an open question. again, today, i think what we've seen from democrats is going into today, again, this historic day. more than 100 women will be sworn in in the united states congress, more women than have ever served at one time. today we're highlighting the historic day and democrats want to get the government back open. yes, speaker pelosi will answer questions about indictment and impeachment all day long what, folks are very concerned about is the fact that we are now going into the second week of a government shu

so the kids sat down and talked with every major star that came to the white house. we had the whole cast of hamilton come back and perform it was a very full circle moment for me. the first cultural event we did at the white house wa with the spoken word events because rap, for those of you that don't know, poetry, sort of cool poetry, had never been done in the white house in the east room with george and martha standing there so we were going to do that as the first event so we were finding some of the hottest voices and this kid came up and we were like what are you going to perform and he said i'm going to do a rap about alexander hamilton and we were like sniggering. remember you are the president and cannot laugh in the face of your guest and then he went on to perform the first number that is the first number that he had prepared and it was obviously amazing and so afterwards you were like that's really good and he said yes i'm going to do a whole broadway show on it and we were like -- snickering. good luck with that, did. [laughter] and then it blew up and w

there's a growing sense in the white house they're really boxed in here. the democrats have no incentive to deal. no incentive to give him money for this wall. so it's not a done deal yet, there's certainly momentum growing behind the deal of declaring a national emergency but even then, the president will face pushback. they're expressing doubt whether that's an appropriate presidential power. this morning representative from oklahoma here on "morning joe," we asked him about it, and he said it would not be okay and he's a staunch trump supporter on most issues. this is not necessarily the easy way out people in the white house hope it is. >> donna -- i'm sorry, go ahead. >> it is hard to predict anything that's a bridge too far for republicans at this point. he's crossed red line after red line. the kind of constitutional government they say they believe in. they seem to go to the core of that but we will see. >> john heilemann on the show yesterday this this is a move towards autocracy. they're up for election every two years, so the big flashing i think

this time the white house has asked for time. so they made the decision, the broadcasts, not to carry president obama talking about the 2014 executive actions. but he didn't ask for the time. >> mm-hmm. >> so this time the white house did. he's getting the time. i think that's the right move. i know a lot of people are upset about it. i hear you. i read my twitter feed. i get it. but i think it's also the right thing to do. >> listen, i'm not saying we shouldn't do it, but do you think it should be -- i don't know -- a delay of some sort, and then you can -- because people believe it. the president will say what he has to say. people will believe it whether the facts are true or not. i guess that's the chance you take with any president. >> yeah. >> but this one is different. then by the time the rebuttals come on, we've already promoted propaganda possibly, unless he gets up there and tells the truth. >> he has his right to make the argument to the american people. and by the way, wanting barriers along the border is not propagan

so the white house isn't even on the same page at this point. and number three, i think that this meeting that's going to take place is just sort of offering president trump cover to say we've had a briefing on homeland security, laid out all things happening at the border and democrats will likely talk to reporters about what happened and he'll be able to say they still don't want to cut a deal. what we learned today is this shutdown is going to go on far longer than 11 days, it's probably going to drag on to mid january and that the president is not able or even willing to negotiate down from that $5 billion figure. >> and while all this is going on, there are nearly a million federal workers not getting paid. it is interesting to see the president undercut his own vice president in that meeting in is the second time the vice president has tried to talk to lawmakers about the government shutdown, reassuring them the government would sign the cr, which did not happen. >> he dispatched mike pence to capitol hill last weekend to sit down with ch

that's how the white house years felt. usually on a longer trip i could get into a book, but it was, it was a hectic eight years. >> now, you said pick up a book. that implies the physical book. >> i always, i'm not an e-reader. e-reader. i like to have a book in my hand. [applause] even in my writing process i like to hold it. i can't really add things on the computer. i feel like i have to write down my thoughts. i can jot down things on an iphone, but that's hard. i had to feel that, still be up to touch it. i'm old, sorry. [laughing] so we still have a lot of books in her house. my husband who as unit is an avid reader and still loves books around. everyone with god just boxes and boxes of books that i i can't t rid of. he will not allow me to do it. we are still household that is can we have books on shelves, lots of books on shelves. >> you know as a library i did some research, and i understand that there's a library you actually worked in a library bindery? >> yes. i worked in a book bindery one summer. bob goldmans

the white house finally begins pushing back. then in a rare move, the special counsel's office takes issue with it, buzzfeed responds. buzzfeed's editor and speech is tweeting. the president is tweeting. go back to pam brown at the white house for that. >> reporter: as expected, the president is responding to the statement from the special counsel disputing the buzzfeed report by tweeting. he is just retweeting at this point. there have been a few retweets. he retreated from a radio talk show host who tweeted, we called it, fake news, more buzzfeed bs. he retweeted another tweet from a reporter who said, i told you the buzzfeed story was nonsense. he also tweeted this retweet his son don junior, which showed a video of donald trump speaking to oprah in 1988. he retweeted that basically saying, just a son who loves his dad. unclear what prompted that tweet. certainly, white house has stayed mum. they are letting the president tweet, speak about this and just letting this play out. there is an attitude here of vindication and i tol

as for today's session here's how the white house described it in a statement. secretary nielsen was able to provide breathing on the crisis at the southern border. the conversation looked productive and they agreed to meet again tomorrow. there was no in-depth conversation about the dollar figure that the priorities for security. tomorrow another working session in the white house as the president does you no heads up to camp david for strategy and planning sessions with the senior cadre. we will be there on the hunt for pictures and a full readout. as we get them i promise to pass them along. jon: kevin corke thank you. only days into the new congress and some democrat freshman house members are already making headlines. michigan congresswoman rashid to leap using profanity as she calls for impeachment of president trump while alexandria ocasio-cortez is proposing passing top income earners as much as 70% on their proposed program to combat climate change. garrett tenney has more on that. >> at perth is -- just a few hours after being sworn in detroit congress

it is actually john kelly's last day at the white house. mick mulvaney already moved in, so we will not see him at this meeting. what to watch for, what the president says about mitt romney and how he talks about the shotdown and potentially negotiations with nancy pelosi, whether he goes after her aggressively as we have seen lately or if he's in a different mode and actually strikes a tone which indicates he may be willing to strike a deal with democrats. >> we'll see. the art of the deal, will it happen. >>> now to mitt romney and his blisters op-ed about the president that comes one day before he assumes his senate seat. quote, the trump presidency made a deep descent in december. the departments of defense secretary jim mattis and white house chief of staff and the president's thoughtless claims that america has long been a sucker in world affairs all define his presidency down. romney goes on to write, with a nation so divided and angry, presidential leadership and quality and character is indispensable. ouch. the timing interesting, a

the strategy behind the white house beefing up its legal team with more than a dozen attorneys. >>> and new this morning, a report from the "washington post" chronicling efforts by president trump to conceal his conversations with russian leader vladimir putin. the paper reporting that top u.s. officials do not have detailed records, even in classified files of trump's in-person interactions with putin over five locations over the past two years. that includes a conversation shrouded in secrecy between the president and his russian counterpart on the sidelines of the g-20 summit in germany back in 2017. "the post" reports that on that occasion, president trump took, quote, possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials. the pattern of secrecy extends to the president's two-hour meeting with putin during their helsinki summit. several administration officials telling "the post" they were never able to get a reliable readout of that meeting. president trump calling into fox news last night

, this one is "under fire: reporting from the front lines of the trump white house". similarities or differences between the two books? >> big differences. this book was tougher to write because it is about me. as a journalist you are not supposed to be the story and i had to take you inside to the fight, the real fight, the argument, the name-calling, the back-and-forth, why they put me on a blacklist, why they don't like, i had to tell you, brought you insights, took the veil off, the mystery of about the white house, bringing un from my view as a reporter. who cover that place for 21 years. it is different now. the danger, how it all started. just the difference of this atmosphere versus atmospheres of years ago. it is my story, it is true. it was painful. it was hard to write this. the first book, i that people talk and tell the story. everyone holds -- tells a story but i report on other people. it was tough. >> host: your life has changed quite a bit since the trump administration came into office. you are a regular on cnn and you have been a lot more public. >>