His own political future. My calculation has never been whos running, can i win, can i not win. Its, is this right for me to do . Good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington with new details on the latest scandal to rock the trump white house. The resignation of staff secretary rob porter, after allegations of abuse by both of his exwives became public, including disturb images of a black eye his first wife said was the result of physical violence. A white house official confirms to nbc news he could be departing as soon as today. He released a statement saying these outrageous allegations are simply false. I took the photos given to the media nearly 15 years ago and the reality behind them is nowhere close to what is being described. I have been transparent and truthful about these vile claims but i will not further engage publicly with a coordinated smear campaign. Chief of staff john kelly over the course of the last 24 hours shifted from full support to porter to saying he was shocked by the new allegations in a second Statement ReleasedLate Wednesday night. This has Vice President joe biden says todays controversy raises questions about how this white house functions. Biden also questioning whether the president tells the truth and how hes damaging americas reputation around the world. I sat down with the Vice President earlier today as he begins a new venture today, the Penn Biden Center being inaugurated today near the capitol. Let me ask you about something that is breaking today. Youve been a big supporter of combatting violence against women, the legislation. Here you have the fbi warning the white house, this white house, for months that one of the top advisers in and out of the oval office was accused by two exwives of domestic abuse. How do you explain his access to the president of the United States and the chief of staff frankly in the last 24 hours, describing him as a man of personal integrity . I cant explain it. Its long past due that he left. I understand hes departed. If you just look at it from a perspective of one thing, the fbi didnt think he should get a permanent security clearance. They had to know that. Sure, they knew that. They were warned . And look, the cultures changing, but not fast enough. The idea that this would happen in the oval office. Now, i dont know, i heard in the way i was briefed on the way in that when the president found out about it, he said go. If thats the case that the president never knew about it, good for the president. How could the president not know that one of his closest advisers did not have a top security clearance . What does that say about the president and this white house . Oh, andrea, look, im having enormous difficulty understanding how this white house functions and whos on first, whos on second and whos pitching, whos catching. I mean, it really is confusing. All i know is that the result of this seems like controlled chaos, its damaging us internationally, domestically, and i cant quite understand how they cant get their arms around just the functioning, the daytoday functioning of the white house. Well, let me take you back to what you said just the other day about whether the president should sit down for an interview with robert mueller. And you said that your advice youre a lawyer would be that he should not, because to quote you, he has some difficulty with precision. What do you mean by that is this. Well, there have been so many misstatements, deliberate misstatements. And you look at him and wonder what in the heck is he talking about. From the first day, saying that the largest crowd ever at an inauguration, to talking about things that are simply not true. But its almost like its its been dumbed down so much almost like it doesnt matter. But he says things but it does matter because hes the president of the United States. It matters immensely. It matters immensely. But its just, i find him just not credible in the things he says. Do you mean that hes a liar . Look, im not going to call the president of the United States a liar. He does not tell the truth. Hes not accurate in much of what he says. So to take it further, if he does not agree to an interview, does that mean hes above the law . No. He can be subpoenaed. Look, i was literally answering the question, if i were his lawyer, what would i recommend. Now, i think he should go before the counsel. He says he wants to do it. Do it. Go ahead. But i was answering a literal question. I put on my hat as a lawyer. Were i his lawyer, would i let him go before the counsel and answer questions . I would be very, very concerned. You can tell his whole team is concerned about what he says. I mean, you have the chief of staff a long time ago allegedly trying to stop his tweeting. And its not just his tweeting, its inaccurate tweeting. Hes like a loose cannon. And i dont but he should, a president should be prepared to answer the questions about one of the most serious Security Breaches thats occurred in american history, russia attempting to affect an impact on the American Intellectual process. Theyre doing it in europe on a regular basis. Mexico . Mexico. Theyre doing it and theyre trying to deconstruct a liberal order, the notion of freedom of democracy, theyre trying to deconstruct all the things that were built up after warorld wari that were designed to and i just cant fathom, i cant fathom why the president , just as a patriotic american, let alone as president , would not be looking for every single bit of data in evidence that would show what they were doing and what theyre attempting to continue to attempt to do. Let me just button down whether he should submit to an interview or not. Obviously he should. Can the president of the United States take the fifth and not suffer grievous political harm, or can this president get away with taking the fifth . Well, i you know, if the president took the fifth, he is by definition, in my view, abdicating the responsibility of the presidency of the United States. The idea that a president of the United States says, i take the fifth, that i might incriminate myself in something that is this consequence, you know, that to me is constitutionally permissible as an individual. Its an abhorrent notion as a sitting president of the United States of america opinion. Y the United States of america. You talked about the russian interference, the cia chiropractor and the secretary of state have said its still going on. The secretary of state said we cant stop them between now and the mid terms. Is that because this white house has not moved aggressively . Absolutely. Look, my understanding and i dont know, i dont have access to classified information anymore. I dont get briefed every morning by the agency as i did for eight years. What we do know is, their attempts are continuing. What we do know, what im told, is, there has not been an interagency, bringing all the relevant agencies together at one time in one meeting, to focus on how do we stop them. To the best of my knowledge, theres not even been an interagency meeting to do something about this. Foreign Relations Committee democratic report said thats negligence. It is negligence. Its absolutely negligence. Youre talking about secretary of state saying, we know theyre still doing this and we cant stop them. What have you done . Have you brought together the cia, have you brought together all the agencies of the federal government that have the capacity, at least, to be able to stop and thwart what theyre doing . Havent even done that. Why do you think this president is so reluctant to take on Vladimir Putin . Look, i you know, i i want to give every american, including the president , the benefit of the doubt. But i cant fathom any reason other than, he is concerned what putin might say or do, or what information he may or may not have. But unrelated to the issue of whether or not theres collusion, separate and apart from all that, its necessary for us to stem this problem. Its necessary for us to corral the russians. I just wrote a major piece in foreign affairs, talking and the first call i get, i got a call from former Prime Minister wanting to put together a group of six or seven, sitting and nonsitting Prime Ministers, representing the pana plea of left to right in europe to set up an International Commission on russian interference in europe. After i wrote the article. I mean, what has to be done . What has to be done to convince these guys that theyre being derelict in their duty and they are, in fact, jeopardizing American Security . Is it appropriate for the president to be attacking the fbi, as he has from day one, when the fbi is investigating him . Lets assume the fbi wasnt investigating him. Lets assume the fbi was doing bad things. The way to settle it is internally, first fix it. Then announce you fixed it. But were making Vladimir Putins case here. What is everything and i know you know this inside and out. What is Vladimir Putins objective the last six, eight, ten years . Its to delegitimize the west. Delegitimize them. So here you have the president of the United States of america, saying that the single most important domestic Law Enforcement agency is not relevant, is not reasonable, is not honest, is not all those things. Putin must be sitting behind his desk in the kremlin going, its working, man. The rest of the world gets the message that the United States of americas chief Law Enforcement agency is not truthful, is not honest, is plotting against him, is a deep state. My god well, you knew this was happening, to a certain extent before the election. Yes. The administration, your administration said something on october 7th. The agencies were working on it. President trump says that if you had thought he would win, you would have been more outspoken, but you were so confident Hillary Clinton was going to win. Would you have been more forceful, spoken out more if you thought she were going to lose. It had nothing to do with that. First of all, we didnt have the information that we ultimately had in january. Number one. Number two, we didnt want to play into putins hands, doing the thing that he was trying to do. What would have happened if barack obama had come out and said, the fbi has information that the trump team is colluding with the russians to try to tip the election to Hillary Clinton . It would have been chaos. And we didnt have the data we have now. We didnt have the data we had even in january. And we did go before the election, to Mitch Mcconnell and say, we should put out a joint statement, so we dont make russias case for them, that we jointly are, democrat and republican, not bringing a judgment whos a bad guy, whos a good guy, were looking at russian enterfeerinterference i election. They wouldnt do it. Hillary clinton and her supporters certainly are blaming it all on james comey because she was the momentum was rising and, bam, he came out late in the game and reopened the email investigation. Do you blame james comey . Would she have won if not for james comey . Its hard to make that judgment, what would have happened. But were mixing two things now. James comey wasnt investigating the russians. James comey was investigating her emails. So i just want to make sure i know you didnt intend to do that but if he had not reopened the email investigation straight question. Look, theres no doubt it had to hurt her. Whether that was enough to make the 72,000vote difference in the key states, it remains to be seen. But let me put it this way, it sure didnt help. Would she have won if she were a better candidate . I think what happened was something weve never seen in american politics. The vast majority of people in and out of public life and the press thought that he had disqualified himself 15 times, you know, by the things he said about his groping women, the and what i realized, the shoren steen school at Harvard University did a study. Only 4 of all the chatter and all the news about Hillary Clinton had to do with issues. He was looking at it in retrospect, think about it when he started losing the fight in the floor of the house and the senate on health care, what did he do . He started talking about taking a knee in a football game, kaeperni kaepernick, and these distracting initiatives, which you think would be disqualifying issues for this candidate, seem to work for him. But she was never able to get to the subject matter. For example, what are you going to do about middle class families . How do women who are qualified to work, pay 22,000 a year in washington for childcare and still work . How do we make sure people making sending 60 grand a year can send them to college . All the things that affect middle class people, we never got to talk about. The first part of our interview. Now to breakdown the headlines out of the first section of our interview with former Vice President joe biden. Chris matthews, host of hardball right here on msnbc. Ruth marcus, and mike medley. Weve been following joe biden a long time. But he very clearly said the president of the United States does not tell the truth, that he does not understand his position and their position on rob porter in todays breaking news, that resignation. Well, two things. Ones manners. And the others confidence. Hes Still Old School on manners. Hes not going to call someone a liar. He did call someone a joke the other day, and i think he regretted that. The fbi works with any politically elected government, like this trump administration. You rely on the fbi to do a full field investigation on every one of your employees. As a speech writer, you had to go through it. They had a fullfield report on rob porter. Thats all you need. So why did they have any more information required . They didnt act on it. Thats a problem, not working with the fbi on something the fbi has absolute responsibility for, which is to check out people. And he talks about doing putins business for him, doing his job for him, ruth, by attacking the fbi, which is investigating him. He says every citizen has the right to take the fifth amendment, but that as president of the United States, it would be derelict in your duty to take the fifth amendment if he is subpoenaed by the grand jury. What i have scribbled down here, its an abhorrent notion to imagine a president of the United States taking the fifth amendment in a criminal investigation involving his own conduct in office and during his candidacy and transition. And it is an abhorrent notion, and no other president who has found himself in that situation would have dared, i think, even to imagine it. No president s lawyers in this situation want him to go wander into the special counsel and start answering questions. You want to contain it. You want to slowwalk it. You want to limit it as much as possible. And thats what happened with president clinton back in the day. And obviously President Trumps lawyers have a particular problem with this client because of the way this client tends to talk and tell things. I thought the Vice President was very artful in the way that he said hes not a liar, but he doesnt tell the truth. And yet the notion that in the end when the grand jury says and the special counsel says, no, we really seriously need to talk to you, that President Trump would take the fifth, that is going to i think that moment very well could come and that is going to be a fascinating question of whether he can get away with that. And this was a shot across the bow. Politically. Mike, youve spent so much time covering joe biden. Youve heard him on the book tour and in all of these different iterations. But it struck me today that he is, you know, deadly serious about the what democrats on the foreign Relations Committee that joe biden used to lead, is negligence. And he points out there has not been a single Deputies Committee meeting. They have not mobilized this government to counter the russian meddling in this election. Its fascinating to watch him in his interview with balance the respect he still has for the institution, the office of the president , with his very real distress about what hes seeing happen in the oval office. You see him at his most animated when hes talking about an abuse of power. And he used that term in describing the situation that he sees here. I spend time dealing with different congressional investigations that are not focused on russia, that are talking about emails and texts. And what the Vice President says in this interview is what were hearing from democrats. Weve taken our eye off the ball. We need to be focussing on what russia is doing. Its 12 days away from early voting in texas. This is 36 congressional races, a u. S. Senate race, the governorship, and we havent seen anything to get ahead of what our own reporting is about potential interference this year. In fact, there was an attempt to redirect it towards this Election Fraud commission which fell of its own weight and didnt hold a single meeting. Chris, you can see and well talk more with him in the next section, more about the politics of 2016, as well as 2020. But you can see that hes champing at the bit. I think this will be a role model he wont like to hear me say, but its the nixon model from 66. Hed lost the governors race, he was out of po