He has repeatedly claimed credit for the surging stock market and gave the markets a highprofile mention at his state of the Union Address last week. David leonhart of the New York Times joins us from washington. Phil rucker, White House Bureau chief for the Washington Post, and politicos Michael Crowley are all here as well. David, let me start with you. You make the most sense. You sort of write about this intersection of politics and the economy. Can you speak to what has happened today, people tuning in right now, feeling panicked about what they see the markets do . Can you speak to the real world implications of todays headlines . Yeah, so the first thing i would say, nicole, to everyone out there is when you hear journalists like me confidently tell you why the stock market failed, dont believe us. No one knows most of the time exactly why the market rose or fell. Thats why we use phrases like animal spirits. And so yes, it seems like people are getting nervous about a slowing economy but were not sure. So that means were not sure when this is going to end. It could be that political chaos is playing some role in the market jiters. Maybe its playing no role. And i think thats why its so dangerous for President Trump to have taken all this credit for the stock market because hes effectively suggested that he can control the market. And not even a president can understand or control the stock market. Ali velshi in his handoff, i dont know if you heard him say this, he said live by the sword, die by the sword. Yep. But it seems like hes made his bed, hes going to have to lie about. I think the topic he tweets about most often is the trump economy, and i have to say from interviewing voters this is the thing that voters give him the most credit for. Do you think there will be any effort to use his twitter handle or use his influence to try to sort of put the toothpaste back in the tube when he sees what happened today . There may be. I think in the end its probably reality that matters more than how any president describes economic reality. And so we have always seen that in ways that are actually unfair voters give president s too much blame and too much credit for the economy. Right . George h. W. Bush lost his job over it. Jimmy carter lost his job over it. Bill clinton was able to keep his job despite all of the problems in his presidency. And so i think no matter what trump is doing or not doing i think on the margins its a real mistake for him to try to claim credit. But my guess is if the economy starts to weaken theres probably not much the president can say that would make people feel better about the fact that the economys weakening. And the flip side of that is if the economy remains strong it really is going to put kind of a floor under his support. And i wonder if you could stay with us because ali velshi has just joined the table and i always need ali velshis brain but never more than on a day like today. Now, this is ive been watching you for the last hour. I was changing out of my jeans and sweats but i was riveted. But this is the largest point drop ever. Yes. Why shouldnt people be scared . Well, so thats the problem, that regular people who do have investments in the stock market have logged in and see their investments go down, theyve seen that for the last couple of weeks. And while a lot of people dont own stocks, it is a bit of a proxy. This big board and this stock market is a bit of a proxy for how we feel. Now, the fact is we dont have any signs of the economy weakening. Its strengthening, building on a Strong Economy that the president likes to take credit for all the time. But were not seeing weakening and were not seeing weakening signs anywhere else in the world. However, as you know from your administration, recessions happen. Business cycles happen. For all the technology in the world, we havent figured out how to stop that from happening. And its not that far along back that its not in peoples minds. So they get freaked out by this. If you look at your 401 k today, generally speaking it is higher than it was on january 1st of this year. Now, youve lost pretty much everything, but its just been a month. Its not crazy. We have forgotten how stock markets operate. Theyre supposed to go up and down a bit and overall they gain 6 to 10 a year. Weve seen 20 and 30 gains without a pullback. So its hard to rationalize it but you shouldnt. This is really a collection of pullbacks that have all happened in the course of a few days. The question is momentum. Once you see these pullbacks and the average investor, our parents and our brothers and sisters start saying i dont want to be left holding the bag, they start selling out and then it accelerates and it accelerates and thats how you get a market drop. Were not there yet. We dont have a lot of telltale signs, the velocity of the selloff. We dont have panic. You dont have reasons for this. Earnings are still strong. The economys good. But the market is psychology. A stock is worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it and today theyre willing to pay less for it. Now, you im sorry, go ahead. Sorry, nicole, i was going to say there is a vulnerability here. Im not going to make any predictions about the stock market. But there is a vulnerability, which is stocks are really expensive right now. Relative to the longterm underlying earnings of companies. And that means i think theres less margin for error and there is a greater chance people are going to get nervous and say whoa, maybe these stocks p really wront arent worth as much as we thought they were a few months ago. David, ill put you and alli on the spot because you both referenced your third or fourth potential factor, a destabilized political environment. I just want to ask you, the president was just in davos, and his case for Foreign Countries where otherwise things might be a little strained, really is the strength of the American Economy. He sits across leaders from countries who are not happy with the direction were taking on trade, not happy with the direction were taking on immigration, but it is the strength of our economy that brings them to the table. I wonder if you can speak to what todays stock market drop looks like on the world stage first, david. Well, again, i want to just reiterate that i dont know why exactly the market is doing what its doing and no one does. But having said that, i do not think it is good for the american system or the American Economy to have a president calling out members of congress as little so and so, to have a president who is constantly making up his own facts, which is another way of saying lying. This just isnt good. It does not instill confidence in the country or in the world about the functioning of our government. And i dont know whether that had anything to do with todays market fall. I think it didnt have much if it had anything to do with it, but i think its not good. I think it leaves us less room for error, and i think it makes people more nervous that if there is a crisis this white house isnt going to be able to deal with it. Say what you will about the Obama Administration and the george w. Bush administration. They were very different. Both of them were extremely serious about dealing with the financial crisis. And it would have been much, much worse if they had not dealt with it the way they had. I dont see any reason to have confidence that this administration will be able to deal with hiccups, small or large, in the markets the way that those two administrations did. Thats the single scariest thing youve said all hour. Phil rucker, let me bring you in on that because the president tweeted i think about 15 minutes ago, thanks to the historic tax cuts that i signed into law your paychecks are going way up, your taxes are going way down, and america is once again open for business. It sort of reminded me of the tweets he sent out on election day and the day before election day, and to his credit they worked but i wonder if this message is a sign of things to come, that hes going to now start cheerleading for the economy instead of against the fbi. Well, thats a good question. He has been a cheerleader for the economy all along, and its interesting, the stock market measures, its really one of the only numerical measures that hes pointed to of his presidency. He again and again and again for the past year has said the medias not covering the stock market but look at it, the numbers went up by however much every day and every week and he would claim credit for that. He would say the stocks are improving because of trump. And now hes in this position of the stock market falling. And hes going to have to be careful what happens in the future because as ali and david were just saying he has really no control over the way this markets going to go over the next few days. David and ali, were always grateful to have you but especially today. You got the bright red flashing s. O. S. S. Thank you so much, my friend, for being here. My pleasure. Turning now to the other breaking news this hour, we are waiting for that vote in the House Intelligence Committee on whether to release the democratic memo thats expected to counter what the fbi described as material omissions of fact in a republican memo released friday. We will be joined by a member of that committee shortly. First the president s motives in releasing sensitive classified material over the objection of his own fbi directors grave concerns are now clear. But did we catch them in the act or what . You know what im oh, did we catch them in the act. They are very embarrassed. They never thought they were going to get caught. We caught them. We caught them. So much fun. Were like the great sleuth. Good god. Speaking of instability. Trumps Smear Campaign against the fbi is one hes pursued with gusto since the gop memo was released, tweeting this attack against the top democrat on the House Intel Committee. Little adam schiff who is desperate to run for higher office, is one of the biggest liars and leakers in washington, right up there with comey, warner, brennan and clapper. Adam leaves closed Committee Hearings to illegally leak confidential information. Must be stopped. Funny, must be stopped is what director wray said about the release of the nunes memo. Schiff responded to the president , mr. President , i see youve had a busy morning of executive time. Instead of tweeting false smears, the American People would appreciate it if you turned off the tv and helped solve the funding crisis, protected dreamers, or really anything else. The white house also weighing in on the process they will undertake if the Committee Votes to release the democratic memo this afternoon. If they vote to release this democratic memo, what will the president do . The president will use the same methods, same mechanisms to go over that document just like he did over the republican memo. In fact, youll remember we talked in great length about the president meeting with his team and white house counsel, also with members of his National Security team to deem whether or not the contents of the republican memo threatened National Security at all. He will do the same thing and take the same painstaking care to look at the democrat memo as he did the one from the republicans. You remember that process included the president putting the odds at 100 that hed release it before hed even read it. You must release the memo. Oh, dont worry. 100 . Can you imagine that . Yes, sir. Hed be hed be too angry. We want to bring in democratic congressman jim himes of connecticut, a member of the House Intel Committee. Thanks for spending some time with us. Let me ask you what is your prediction on how this vote will go down here in about 50 minutes . Im pretty confident that the House Intelligence Committee will vote to release the memo. Weve gotten that commitment from a number of republicans. So i do imagine that that happens. I was just chuckling there about the extensive and detailed process that the president undertook to do his part in terms of the careful evaluation. Of course him saying he was going to release it before hed even seen it. Hey, if he wants to do that with the democratic memo im all in. What i do worry about, of course, is that it would surprise me frankly if this president looked at that memo, realized that it was a refutation of what he held up as proof that somehow, you know, people were out to get him and then he allowed it to be released. So im standing by for white house noise and white house obstruction around releasing this other memo. I talked to a u. S. Government official, a trump appointee in the d. O. J. World whos very eager for the democratic memo to come out, and for this individual who is a proud republican, serves a republican president , its an odd position for him to be in to be eager for your memo to come out to rebut and defend the professionalism and the conduct and the ethics and the integrity of the fbi. Talk about the shifting politics and the position that your committee is in to really set the record straight on behalf not just of chris wray who was public in his objections but to every member of the fbi whos been smeared by the president s attacks. Yeah. And it doesnt surprise me one bit that you were talking to a Senior Department of justice official who really wants this out there, who is also a republican. Look, the American People really need to understand that senior officials at the fbi, at the department of justice, and junior officials and rank and file, of course they have their political opinions. We all do. But that doesnt necessarily mean that those opinions influence the work that they do. And by the way, if it does influence the work that they do, they get castigated for doing, it the way those two agents were taken off the investigation when it was found that their bias was expressed in tech. So what was happened here of course is that the president has tried to make this about some crazy secret democraticdriven cabal to keep him from becoming president or to damage his presidency despite the fact that jim comey is a republican, bob mueller is a republican, you know, Jeff Sessions is certainly a republican. Rod rosenstein, republican. I mean, so what we really need to do here, nicole, is to realize that these entities are comprised of people with political opinions and partisan affiliation but theyre very, very good people who put their job and the country ahead of whatever party label attaches to them. Were you aware of christopher wray, the fbi directors request to brief your committee before the first vote on the republican memo . He was not permitted to do so. But did democrats get to weigh in . And were you in favor of being briefed by director wray before that first vote . Of course we were both aware and in favor of that. In fact, we made a motion in the meeting to allow the department of justice and the fbi to come in after having a moment to reflect on the allegations in the nunes memo. Because remember, sunday night or something, the head of the fbi director, of the fbi reviewed it. And to have a conversation about what was true and what was not true. If that had happened there would probably have been less damage done to the federal bureau of investigation. There certainly would have been less damage done to devin nuness reputation now that the memo is out there. But look, nicolle, you know, this oversight in the congress is not about firing memos out of committees. There are careful hearings, witnesses coming before the committees, being asked questions, dialogue back and forth, conversations with inspector generals. Thats oversight, and thats critical. Firing out a partisan memo without letting the target of that memo even respond to it, the American People understand that that has nothing to do with oversight and everything to do with a nasty partisan campaign to back this president s fantasies. Im not going to ask you about the memo because its still classified i understand and theres a process that you have to go through, right . If it passes your committee, the white house has five days to release it, is that right . Thats correct. But i want to ask you about some of the public reporting about what the memo achieves. I understand, again, from Justice Department sources that what the memo achieves, it erases what chris wray described as the material omission of fact. It puts into context the way that the information gathered by former British Intelligence officer Christopher Steele was used. That the judge was not unaware of his politics, if you will. And it was also described to me that informants are all flawed. To be a criminal informant is not to be a nun or a schoolteacher. So can you talk about what your memos release would achieve in terms of helping to clear the fbi from this nunes trump Smear Campaign . Yeah. No, i think its an extensive memo and i think what it will do for people who care about truth, fact, and reality, which sadly seems to be a declining percentage of the american population, they will look at it and they will say, okay, it may be true that the steele memorandum or elements of the steele memorandum were used as part of a much larger fisa application. They will learn that it is not true that either the judge was hoodwinked here. They will also learn that just because a source, as you said, just because a source has a and ias, that does not therefore mean that what the source says is untrue. The whole nunes memo relies on the notion that simply because the fusion gps was paid for by the Clinton Campaign and paid for by the dnc by the way, of course this is an effort that started with a Republican Opposition research attempt that it is somehow compromised, wrong, and not legitimate. Look, i do a lot of Opposition Research myself just the way any elected person does. Youre well versed in the art and anything thats untrue is of no value to you either.