Melber and chuck todd. Later, a sunday sitdown with the current king of country music, Chris Stapleton. Were at home in tennessee with a man who spent years in nashville as a songwriter before breaking out on his own with a lot of help and harmony from his wife, morgan. Hes completely true to himself and it out shined the sun in a lot of ways to me. I dont know if thats youre blushing, chris. Well, outshine the son. Co sun. A sunday sitdown with Chris Stapleton and his wife and harry smith. Lets begin with new questions about what President Trump may have known after a tweet from his account claiming he fired former National Security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to the fbi. Could that tweet put the president in legal jeopardy . Nbcs jeff bennett is at the white house with more for us. Jeff, good morning. Reporter good morning, willie. This morning special counsel Robert Muellers russia investigation appears to inch closer to the president s inner circle. President trump is defiant saying hes not concerned about the guilty plea of Michael Flynn. Are you concerned about what Michael Flynn might tell the special counsel. No, im not. Reporter President Trump addressing for the first time his former National Security advisers guilty plea for lying to fbi investigators about prior contact with a russian official. As part of a plea deal Michael Flynn has agreed to fully cooperate with special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian Election interference. What has been shown is no collusion. No collusion. Theres been absolutely theres been absolutely no collusion. [ inaudible ]. Well see what happens. Reporter on twitter the president defended flynn writing it is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide. But potentially incriminating himself. I had to fire general flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the fbi. He has pled guilty to those lies. Some calling the president s word an omission to the obstruction of justice. He gave no indication he knew flynn had lied to the fbi. No, i fired him because of what he said to mike pence, very simple. Reporter former fbi director james Comey Told Congress that the day after flynn exited the president asked him to be going easy on flynn. I understood he wanted me to drop any investigation of flynns account with the russians. Reporter earlier on twitter mr. Trump said he never asked comey to stop investigating flynn. The president s personal lawyer john dowd saying he was the one who crafted the tweets. The white house hasnt weighed in, but the tweets sparking questions this morning about how much the president knew and when. Reporter willie, john dowd is telling nbc news he drafted the tweet and gave it to another white house official. He said hes out of the tweeting business and did not intend to make news. Dowd indicated to nbc he conflated the president being aware of flynns looig to the Vice President and lying to the fbi and that is not the case. Jeff, thank you. Ari melber is an nbc legal analyst and host of the beat. I had to fire general flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the fbi. Do you see a legal problem there . And if so, why . The potential legal problem, lying to the Vice President , bad, usually legal. Lying to the fbi, automatically illegal. The white house is the last house in the country youd expect to want to combine those two which this lawyer says he did accidentally. And it goes back to the president initially saying he fired mueller because of lying to the Vice President with no mention he knew he had lied to the fbi. Right. Thats why he fired mike flynn. Right. The issue there is what the criminal liability is. There might be a reason that you remove a Government Official because youre just unhappy with their performance. Thats how theyve always cast the mike flynn situation. This adds intrigue where they dont want it. Mike flynn, of course, allegedly has criminal exposure for more than just lying. As soon as the white house itself starts to add to the pile of information the president may have known, it can look bad for the president if this lawyer ease telling the truth though, it would suggest another staffing error and not on this one the president s fault. Part of the White House Defense for all of this is that it was totally normal. In fact, responsible for general flynn and the Transition Team to meet with the Russian Ambassador, to talk on the phone with the Russian Ambassador as they prepare their new administration between election day and inauguration day. If you lie to the fbi thats a problem but does the act of his speaking to the ambassador a problem . No. The sole act of talking to a foreign official is not automatically a problem at all, and that is why its easy to get your head spinning here. You say, wait a minute, the trump folks right . Are they on to something by saying that . The problem with that defense for them is even if thats true, it raises the bigger question if it was so routine, why were you lying about it . Because nobody really disputes that now, right . There is a bit of a circle here, but the circle lands back on mike flynn hiding something and now heres the big difference, bob mueller and mike flynn agree on this. They agree that he lied and they say mike flynns going to be on the team to help explain why and solve other crimes if he was not acting alone. Rewere expecting another busy week. Thank you. You can watch by the way aris show week nights at 6 p. M. Eastern. Lets turn to chuck todd. Good morning. Good morning. Good to see you. The president is up and tweeting as jeff reported at the top of the show. Undermining the fbi was his tweet saying its at an alltime low. Undermining his attempts to undermine the Mueller Investigation here, tweeting about hillary clinton, calling her crooked hillary again, tweeting about abu qatada and their suspension of brian ross. What now, a question weve asked many times on this show and checked in with you on, is the level of concern. This is theyve struggled to compartmentalize this investigation throughout the year but now its almost going to be impossible to do this. Willie, the white House Counsel is now being interviewed as a witness with the special prosecutor. This is a person thats in charge of being the lawyer for the office of the presidency, not the president s personal lawyer, but when you start having conflicts like that, it just means everybodys looking over their shoulder inside the west wing and thats the importance of the mike flynn flip here is that it brings the scope. It sort of it sort of focuses things for mueller we now know where his focus is. Theres not many people above flynn, right . It brings it inside the white house to the president because mike flynn worked there, but it also brings it inside the trump family circle. I have to tell you this. You look at all of this, probably the person thats popping the most tums this weekend is jared kushner. Yeah. Thats a name we keep hearing. Whats jumped out at you the most this week, chuck . Theres so much going on. I think sunday morning is a good time to crystallize it and sort through what is important. What is the one you say, you know what, this is a story thats going to punch through look, i think one story that sort of got lost in the ether here was the president telling people that he thinks a Government Shutdown is good politics for him. That is that is introducing another issue in the month of december that i dont know if our political world can handle. But i have to tell you this morning, willie, lets if you just look at what weve seen this morning, weve got a couple of smoking what look like smoking guns. The president s tweets that weve been debating. Id like to know how many times john dowd has sent tweets before this one. Seems like a highly unusual thing that john dowd tweets for the president. And then k. T. Mcfarlands email. Right. You just take those two at face value and youre like, what else is there . Right. And the question theyre raising with k. T. Mcfarlands email, being influenced by russia, theyre saying they were kidding and characterizing what the democrats had said. Right. There was some Business Done on capitol hill in the dark of night, about 2 00 in the morning on saturday morning. The Senate Passed tax reform by a 5149 margin. Now they have to get together with the house, thats no easy feat. Do you think the president is going to get his wish of tax law before the end of the year . Im still thinking its only 5050 he gets to sign this before christmas. I think its possible. The differences between the house and senate bill could get a little gummed up between the two of them. Look, they have very little margin for error. And in some of the differences here could be the difference between 218 votes in the house and 216 votes and things like that. So i think its possible this thing doesnt get signed until after january but hes going to sign this tax bill. And what its going to mean is this i think youre going to have a political war over this tax bill that will feel very reminiscent to the political war over the Health Care Bill in 2010. Yeah. And weve already seen some strong comments from democrats, the leadership, saying this is effectively the death of democracy the way this thing went through. Chuck todd, thank you very much. Well look for more on meet the press. Chuck will be joined by former Trump Campaign manager cory lewandows lewandowski. Lewandowski will speak out about that pook tomorrow on today. Some other headlines, abc news has suspended brian ross reporter for four weeks without pay for what the network is calling a serious error on his reporting. On friday, when Michael Flynn entered his guilty plea, ross incorrectly reported that flynn was prepared to testify that toig told him to make contact with the russians while he was still a candidate. The report rattled the financial markets. Abc later issued a correction. A florida teenager who was missing for nearly a week has been reunited with her parents after she was found more than 1,000 miles away from home. 17yearold caitlyn frazinas parents flew to upstate new york after she was found on friday afternoon with her 27yearold soccer coach ryan rodriguez. Caitlyns aunt says to nbc news shes doing well and eager to get back home. Scary moments in the middle of a College Basketball game. When a South Carolina state player collapsed while he was on the sideline. The team trainer and emt crew rushed in to revive tyler solomon. While fans watched in stunned silence and players for both teams gathered in prayer. Solomon was carried off on a stretcher and the game resumed. Just hours after the game South Carolina state coach said solomon is awake, responsive and surrounded by his family. No word yet on the cause of his collapse. Dylan is here now with a look at the weather. Good morning, dylan. Good morning, willie and everyone. A big change to the forecast. Colder temperatures are working in. With that comes a little bit of snow. Were seeing it back through mainly the higher elevations. It is going to get pretty nasty especially across the Northern Plains with gusty winds tagging along with the potential for a few inches of snow. We will see conditions improve out west but we do have some winter storm warnings, winter storm watches extending through south dakota, north dakota and northern minnesota where we could see wind gusts up near 50 miles per hour. That combined with a few inches of snow means we could see reduced visibilities and possibly blizzard conditions. The highest elevations get most of the snow. About 9 to 12 inches possible. Even across northern minnesota, International Falls could see about 6 inches of snow. But again its the blowing snow that is going to make things so dangerous. This cold front is going to move eastward. Behind it is where the cold air is. Were going to see rain work into the midwest. As we go into monday. Heavy rain up and down the east coast late tuesday and it could end briefly with snow on the backside of that by wednesday showers overnight, clearing skies in San Francisco and almost supermoon. That will be later on tonight. Right now, almost full moon, partly cloudy skies. Temperature lower 50s. Low 50s in san jose. Mostly sunny, cool and breezy this afternoon. Upper 50s, San Francisco. This begins a dry stretch of weather with gusty winds monday into tuesday, staying dry into and through next weekend. And thats your latest forecast. Straight ahead the highs and lows of the week including the insane aerial stunt that went viral around the world. Well explain how exactly these guys jumped off the top of a mountain and landed midair in a moving plane. Plus, the internets favorite dog of the week in the drivers seat and laying on the horn of his owners car. Well tell you why. And later, a raw and startling look inside the Opioid Epidemic inside america socalled Safe Injection Sites running under ground here in the u. S. , legal in some other countries. Are they a good idea . Go ahead. In the tent . Yes. It sounds like theres an overdose happening right now in progress inside the tent and thats why they have these tents. Its all coming up on sunday today. As we head to break, the photo of the week, the Rockefeller Christmas tree shining bright after it was lit on wednesday night, unofficially kicking off the holiday season. So healthy and delicious, with good fats, great taste, and nearly 20 vitamins and minerals. Theyre extraordinarily good and healthy. How extraordinarily good and healthy . If avocados from mexico were pilates, theyd be very. Very. Very. Very extraordinary pilates. Avocados from mexico very extraordinary pilates. Its whats insident the person who opens it. Give ancestrydna, the only dna test that can trace your origins to over 150 ethnic regions. Save 30 for the holidays at ancestrydna. Com. Ai had a lot on my mind. Could this happen again . Was my warfarin treatment right for me . My doctor told me about eliquis. Eliquis treats dvt and pe blood clots and reduces the risk of them happening again. Not only does eliquis treat dvt and pe blood clots. Eliquis also had significantly less major bleeding than the standard treatment. Eliquis had both and that turned around my thinking. Dont stop eliquis unless your doctor tells you to. Eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding dont take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. If you had a spinal injection while on eliquis call your doctor right away if you have tingling, numbness, or muscle weakness. While taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily. And it may take longer than usual for bleeding to stop. Seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. Eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. Tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. Both made eliquis right for me. Ask your doctor if switching to eliquis is right for you. 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No, traveling at about 85 miles an hour they caught up with a moving plane and then flew one by one into the five foot wide side door. They say they practiced the jump more than 100 times but a recap now. The french guys jumped off the mountain and stuck the landing inside a moving plane, unbelievable. If theyre traveling at the same speed as the plane, its easy. Amazing. What are you doing this weekend . You must be some daredevil. Our first low is something that went horribly wrong. It happened on studio ten when a local Science Teacher showed the host how to make a homemade rocket with liquid nitrogen and soda bottles. Heres how that went. I put in the liquid nitrogen. When i say invert it, that means turn it upside down. Turn it upside down. You are then what do i do with it . Just face it towards the sky, not towards the camera. Upside down. Lets see that again in super slow motion . Narrowly avoiding, well, lets just call it disaster. Reminds us why we tv hosts leave that stot scientists. Were happy to report shes okay. Did it take down a tree limb. It took down trees. Almost took down something else. We do this like an animal segment. Hold the bobcat. Something needs to be included. Lets stay away from that. With apologies to prince harry and meghan markle, our next high goes to our favorite marital reunion. Bow niece had planned to mary her sweet hard. So with some help from the nursing staff at the university of california, she secretly moved up her date