I dont want to waste time. The fact is you can get it started that way. The fact is you do not have the votes in the house. Nancy, i do. And we need border security. Its very simple. We have a lot of disagreements here. The Washington Post today gave you a whole lot of pinocchios because they say you constantly misstate how much of the wall is built and how much is there. But thats not the point. We have a disagreement about the wall. Whether its effective. Not on border security, on the wall. We do not want to shut down the government. You have called 20 times to shut down the government. You say i want to shut down the government. We dont. We want to come to an agreement. If we cant come to an agreement, we have solutions that will pass the house and senate right now and will not shut down the government and thats what were urging you to do, not threaten to shut down the government let me finish because you cant get your way. Mr. President , you say my way or well should down the government. We have proposal that democrats and republicans will support to do a c. R. That will not shut down the government. We urge you to take it. And if its not good border security, i wont take it. Its very good border security. 60 people of the Republican Party are losing their offices now because of the transition. And weve gained in the senate. Nancy, weve gained in the senate. Excuse me, did we win the senate . When the president brags that he wins north dakota and indiana, hes in real trouble. We did win north dakota and indiana. We came in here in good faith and entering into this kind of a discussion in the public view. But its not bad, nancy. Its called transparency. Its not transparency when were not stipulating to a set of facts and we want to have a debate with you you know what . We need border security. I also know that nancys in a situation where its not easy for her to talk right now and i understand that. And i fully understand that. Were going to have a good discussion and were going to see what happens. But we have to have border security. Mr. President , please dont characterize the strength that i bring to this meeting as the leader of the House Democrats who just won a big victory. Elections have consequences, mr. President. Thats right. And thats why the country is doing so well. But the president is representi representing, his cards are not factual. We have to have an evidencebased conversation about what does work, what money has been spent and how effective it is. So let us have a conversation when we dont have to contradict in public the statistics that you put forth but instead can have a conversation about what will really work and what the American People deserve from us at this uncertain time in their lives. The one thing i think we can agree on is we shouldnt shut down the government over a dispute and you want to shut it down. You keep talking about it. The last time, chuck, you shut it down. No, no, no. 20 times 20 times. I dont want to do what you did. 20 times you have called for i will shut down the government if i dont get my wall. Youve said it. Ill take it. If we dont get what we want, one way or the other, whether its through you, through military or whatever you want to call, i will shut down the government. We disagree. I am proud to shut down the government for border security, chuck. I know, i know. John of john avalon is at the edge of his seat with what we just watched. Its nothing short of extraordinary. Its like the latest episode of trump, chuck and nancy and its just such a it was a total show. It was something. That was weird. Chuck and nancy visit the oval got really weird. In some ways, it was the best and the worst of the trump administration. Theres a radical transparency. Theyre debating in president ial terms in real time. And mike pence is sort of like the elf on the shelf and not saying a word. Nancy pelosi is going toe to toe with the president saying we need to have an evidencebased argument. The president says, fine, you want to say ill shut down the government, ill be proud to do it for border security. That is a highstakes moment. December 21st, theres not a lot of days to fix this. Theres ten days away. The fact that you have trump saying ill take the mantle, ill shut it down. Thats something that republicans are like record scratch, what did you say . Democrats are taking that to the bank. Youve never had a Government Shutdown where one partys in control. This is unprecedented. The problem beneath the surface is deeper than it may have looked in that contentious, odd exchange. The republicans are saying theyre not going to sign off on everything unless its got the 5 billion the president wants for border security. On the 5 billion, this is nancy pelosi and senator schumer after that whole thing outside the white house. The president made clear that he wants a shutdown. His position, if he sticks to his position for a 5 billion wall, he will get no wall and he will get a shutdown. Unfortunately that the president chooses to shut down the government, that we have a trump shutdown as a Christmas Present, a holiday present to the American People. So doesnt it seem to you that theyre saying, you know, if trump doesnt budge on the 5 billion that he wants and its pretty stunning to democrats that theyre even there offering 1. 3, right, there will be a shutdown. That seems inevitable. Were headed for a shut down. Republican leadership will say what it always does, were not going to have a shutdown, no big deal. But this president is not afraid to threaten a shut down and not afraid to go over the cliff. And democrats from nancy pelosi saying bring it on. You guys have unified control. You want to gift americans a Christmas Present because if it shuts down on the 21st and congress only has a couple days left, its probably going to go through the new year. This is going to last because theres a big gap there. A lot of folks on the far left are saying why are democrats even going in and offering 1. 3 billion for the wall. Exactly. It is raw. The Vice President , the socalled elf on the shelf to quote you, not saying a darn word. No, no. Why . I think because the Vice President is used to in this role in public just basically saying what he said. Mike pence has been in the house. He could help navigate that, but he doesnt want to get out in front of the president and so hes really sort of this third wheel in the room, fourth wheel in the room. John avalon, thank you so much. Next hour, lawyers for Paul Manafort will be in court for the First Time Since mueller detailed why he accused the former Trump Campaign chairman of lying to him. We are also expecting trumps former National Security adviser Michael Flynn to ask a judge for no jail time, echoing muellers investigation. Wait, theres more. Former fixer Michael Cohen will be sentenced tomorrow and on friday a mystery document will be filed. Alleged russian spied maria buttbut butina will change her plea and will cooperate. This steady drumbeat of revelations also appears to be influencing voters. That is according to new cnn polls which show the approval of trumps handling of the russia investigation now stands at 29 . That matches an alltime low hit in june of this year, 29. The president is also losing support among fellow republicans. 51 approve of his actions around the russia investigation, down double digits from october, but there is one group of republicans Standing Firm with this president and you can find them in the u. S. Senate. We have to get all the facts, and im going to wait. Take a step back and wait until we have a more complete picture. If you phrase it am i afraid the president might be involved in a crime, of course. The question is whether this socalled hush money is a crime. Those senators are all downplaying the fact that the president has been implicated in a felony and say they want more information before making any decisions. Their colleague, senator orrin hatch, took it one step further. I dont care. I dont think he was involved in a crime. Then can you make anything a crime under a current law. You can blow it way out of proportion and do a lot of things. If that sounds to you like a total reversal for senator hatch, you would be correct. Flashback two decades. He then blasted then president bill clinton nor what he called crimes of moral turpitude and explained his vote to convict clinton in his impeachment trial this way. This great nation can tolerate a president who makes mistakes, but it cannot tolerate one who makes a mistake and then breaks the law to cover it up. As you just heard, the mood among some Senate Republicans on trumps dealings with Michael Cohens crimes ranges from dismissal to not caring but for some 44 lawmakers who once roamed those halls of the senate, the view is decidedly different. And in a Washington Post oped, the Bipartisan Group is pleading with their former colleagues to, their words, stand in defense of democracy. One of those former senators is John Danforth of missouri. He now joins me. Senator, a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you. So you tell me why you and 43 other senators, democrats, republicans, all decided that the time was now that you all wanted to write this letter and what specifically do you want to see from congress . Well, the whole point of our country really has been to hold ourselves together. Thats been our mission from the very beginning. Were a very diverse country. The idea of the constitution was to provide a framework for keeping the keeping america as one country with all our differences. And were falling apart. And a lot of people have commented on this, were becoming increasingly polarized. And it looks as though were heading to even a more polarized situation. So our concern is that, you know, we cant just have the democrats on one side, the republicans on the other side exasperating the situation. And so our idea is to make an appeal to the United States senate, which should be the place where things are worked out and to get on with it on a bipartisan basis and to try to reach some sort of accommodation with each other. As you are making this appeal, we just were talking about republicans up on the hill who are completely ignoring these current accusations facing this president. Are you disappointed in, say, senator orrin hatch . I think that theres a lot of blame to go around, republicans and democrats. I long for the days of sam irvin and howard baker during the watergate time when you had very esteemed people on both sides and they werent playing the political cards. It wasnt im a republican, therefore im always going to support the president , im the democrat, im always going to oppose the president. It was a sense of real statesmen working together and trying to serve the American People as a whole. But, senator i didnt see that today but i long for it. How do you explain this Current Group of republicans . I dont im not going to tee off on republicans or on democrats because i think that, you know, it takes two to make a problem and i think you see that every day, when its as though the republicans as a party line up on one side, the democrats as a party line up on the other side on everything and it not just, you know, the trump situation, its on, for example, confirmation votes where regularly the vote on the confirmation, not talking about kavanaugh, but any confirmation is like 5149. Its a Straight Party line vote. So there is a total break down of any sense of coming together, working through problems. Its just im on one side, youre on the other side, its defined by party label. I know you want to talk about all the groups to the, republicans and democrats, but i do want to ask you about republicans looking ahead to 2020. I mean, you have been candid in how you feel about this current president , senator. Im just wondering looking ahead to 2020, would you welcome a republican challenger to President Trump . I would personally, yes, but i dont know that thats going to happen. Who . Who, senator danforth . Can we name names . May we name names, sir . No. Who would you like to see challenge President Trump . No. I dont know. Why is it that i mean, we just finished one election and already were immediately talking about the next election. I mean, something is really screw ball in that, isnt it . And you hear it all the time. The campaign does begin pretty soon. You hear it on every tv channel. I mean, screw ball or not, were going to blink, sir and its about to be 2019 and the campaigns, theyre about to begin. Well, it seems to me that people should get elected to serve and not just get elected to get reelected to get reelected one election after another. And all of our attention is focused on that. And almost no attention is focused on real problems anywhere. Either by politicians or i might say by the media. How much attention is focused on, lets say, the national debt, what were doing to our country, what were doing to the future, whats the future of medicare, of social security. Where are we going as a country . Its as though, you know, that doesnt matter at all. I mean, thats just beside the point. Lets talk about politics and lets talk about candidates in the next election. Lets talk about whether youre for candidate a or candidate b, and its backwards. We should be elected to do something. Not just get elected to be reelected. Senator, im hanging on your every word. I fully agree with you on electing to serve. I think we can all agree on that. But with this president and alleged crisis and a massive russia investigation, id love to talk tax, politics and American People but hes got us pretty people. We will be talking about the next elections and campaigns coming next year. Senator danforth, you are right about everyone coming together for solutions. I thing you for all your years in washington and for coming on today. I truly appreciate it. Thank you. Ahead, more on this clash between President Trump and the leadership. And he faced 20 years in prison in formal rape charges. How he came to a deal to avoid time behind bars. The victim now blasting the judge. And a show on force. Two russia bombers are on the move. Is president putin trying to seasoned the administrati send the administration a message . Opportunity is everywhere. Like here. Where nothing stands between you and your best friends. Tap one little bumper and up go your rates. What good is having insurance if you get punished for using it . News flash nobodys perfect. For drivers with accident forgiveness, Liberty Mutual wont raise your rates due to your first accident. Switch and you could save 782 on home and auto insurance. Call for a free quote today. Liberty mutual insurance. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. In them therr hills on your guarantevacation. Find gold but we can guarantee the best price on this rental cabin. Or any accomodation from hotels to yurts. Booking. Com, booking. Yeah a showcase in contrast playing out today in the russia investigation in the next hour, Paul Manaforts attorneys are due in court to respond to accusations that trumps former campaign chief broke his plea deal with special Counsel Robert Mueller, and yet another extrump insider will be detailing how cooperative hes been with mueller. Michael flynn eaves ss sentenc is already due today and its already been recommended flynn receive no jail time. Lets start with manafort. His attorneys are saying their client has been cooperating, but you make the point mueller has all the receipts. How do manaforts attorneys show hes been truthfully cooperating . I think its going to be very difficult for them. The type of confidence, one might even say hubris you see in the special counsels brief talking about how hes going to be able to prove that manafort lied suggests that manaforts lawyers are going to have an uphill battle. The thing is, the more they push to argue that their client was telling the truth, the more that the special counsel is incentivized to bring out more and more juicy information showing how he lied. The issue isnt just that theyre arguing he lied, but that he lied about a variety of issues, everything from his contacts with the suspected russian agent to the nature and amount of his contacts with the white house after trumps election. They seem to have a lot of different topics that theyre ready to prove up. I want to come back to your last point about manafort contacting the white house as recent as this spring. As Michael Flynn, do you think muellers already done the work for flynn . Absolutely. A no prison time sentence for simple lying to the fbitype crime is pretty straight forward. I dont expect a lot of fireworks in flynns own sentencing memorandum. Muellers already done the work for him by recommending that sentence. Where we should see more fireworks this week are at manaforts hearings and Michael Cohens. Something that struck you was Michael Cohens conversation with the white house before he talked to congress. Tell me more about that. Exactly. The language that the special counsel used in his sentencing memorandum was that mr. Cohen provided information during cooperation about how he circulated the statements he was going to make to congress, but he wasnt trying to pass the blame. And its kind of code words from prosecutors. It rather clearly shows that cohen told them that he got approval for what he said to congress both in writing and in live testimony and someone higher up approved it. We dont know yet who it would be. And going back to your point about manafort talking to the white house as recent as this spring and we dont know who he they spoke about, but what would be your biggest question on manafort there . Well, i think its important that we ask why is it important to the special prosecutor what manafort was saying after the