There is no doubt that the president who has had some rough times in the white house is now facing perhaps his toughest run. The reports coming out of the white house all suggest its a president who is growing increasingly disinterested in his job, increasingly angry. Weve got phil rutger here and well be talking about it in a moment. But willie, none of the portraits are flattering, of course, of the president , but also not comforting to americans and people around the world who understand that the president of the United States is one of the key figures in Global Politics and right now he seems to be checked out. Yeah. Well have all this reporting from Phillip Rutger and nbc news about the state of mind of the president and whats going on in the white house right now. But it supports i think what youve heard and what a lot of us are hearing is that because of the Mueller Investigation, because of the midterm elections which day by day continue to get worse for republicans, the president is isolated, perhaps even depressed about whats happening. And dont forget now, we learned yesterday that he is filling out written questions from bob mueller. So he is getting in the thick of the Mueller Investigation, realizing what is being asked of him there and dealing with the fact that hes going to have a Democratic House thats going to be coming for him in january. It all adds up to a very isolated president of the United States upstairs in the west wing. Well, you know, willie, before were going to get to that in just one second. Something i read on your twitter feet last night and i was reading it while i was reading a book to jack for his good night because, you know, we have twitter tickers in all of my childrens rooms. He does not. And yours flashes. So im reading this book with jack and it starts flashing on your twitter feed. Sometimes we have an alarm going off and it wakes the kids up. Thats amazing. Fire drill. And last nights fire drill was so you are at a place where one of our favorite places, p. J. Clarks, right . Uhhuh. And youre at p. J. Clark and nikki haley hears theres some veterans in the building. What does she do . P. J. Clarks throws a dinner with us for veterans day. He year we have this big dinner with them. Downstairs, nikki haley and her family happened to be eating dinner. Someone lets her know theres a group of veterans upstairs. She comes up and spends a bunch of time with these men and women and comes to get to know to group. So we have so Much Negative going on in politics, but i wanted to let people know oftentimes, in fact, politicians do good things and do the right thing. And ill tell you what, that means the world for nikki haley. U. N. Ambassador, somebody that they know well. For somebody to spend time with them, she could have very easily stayed down there with her family. Im sure, you know, its tough to grab family time when youre there, too. So it wasnt an easy thing to do. But great to come up and recognize the extraordinarily difficult thing that those men and women have been doing for this country. So, yeah, thats a real class act. Lets start with what could be the source of all this concern in the white house. We begin with the democratic wave that still continues to grow. Boy, every night. Yeah. You know, we got hammered for not congratulating somebody for winning oh, right, well. The morning after. It looks like, yikes, she may end up losing. No worries for that. That will help explain, though, the president s mood and were going to break it all down in just a moment. In arizona, the democrats flip a Republican Senate seat in that state marked another major shift for another reason. As the New York Times notes democrats now hold six sheets in the states congressional delegation and the republicans five. The the democrats have not had a majority in the arizona delegation since the 1960s. And the current ballot count in california makes it appears as if the republicademocrats will t seats. Republican young kims lead has dwindled to 711 votes over democrat gil cisneros in the race to succeed ed royce. The cook political reports Dave Wasserman tweeted, quote, its only a matter of time before he takes the lead. Looking like another republican loss. Mike barnacle, you look state after state, nevada, arizona, again, two states with quite a few spans hispanics there. And there is no doubt that what the president was considering great strategy to bring out his base, you know, this stupid cara van Conspiracy Theory which he hasnt talked about since election day which fox news barely touches on, right . It ends up thats devastating there. Lets look back. The house, bigger losses for republicans at any time since warrantgate. The senate, they had every structural advantage. Theyre going to end up picking up maybe two. And then you go to arizona. Democrats havent been in control of had a majority there in the congressional delegation since the 1960s. Mike, that is so long ago, thats when you got your first aarp card. Well before that, joe. Well before that. Oh, my god, joe. Thank you very much for reminding me of that and reminding people of that. Thats very nice of you. I get mine in a week. But yeah, go ahead. Whats really interesting about it is that we were clearly very premature in a lot of the election calls, you know, a week ago. Campaigns are really important. All of these are individual victories rather than party victories. They become party victories. But the campaigns that were run by the democrats in these republican districts were all to a campaign very interested in that they focused on local issues, a lot of them, that they didnt vilify trump so much as they vilified what was happening to the country around us and to the services that people expect for congress to provide, that the Congress People to fight for and be happy with the constituents. In both arizona and california, arizona, i think, much more so than california. You can see the color of the state changing. I mean, its gone from red to a sort of a blend of purple and now in the next cycle, i think its going be democratic. But california, the numbers in california that just recounted are incredible that they would w have, what,ing going into the next congress, eight members of the delegation would be republican. I think that was the number. Only eight in the state as huge as california. Thats astounding. Yeah, it really is. Susan page, so many of the democrats that are talking now were saying, hey, we didnt have to talk about donald trump. We didnt have to talk about his racism. Our voters saw that every day on tv. So we can talk about health care. We can talk about traffic in the suburbs. We can talk about local issues. So we got our positive messages out. And donald trump did the rest of the work for us by turning off College Educated women and College Educated men by delivering this blatantly racist message about hispanics. It really blew up in his face. You know, democrats especially in these house races were so disciplined in focussing on health care, you know, a majority of the ads the democrats aired in house races across the country dealtel with the issue of health care, not with the issue of President Trump. And i think democrats are looking at this for some signals, some Lessons Learned for the 2020 president ial race. How do you run against President Trump . Do you try to focus on hiss provocati provocative rhetoric . So i think that is one of the things that democrats think a lesson they can draw from the success that theyve had. This was a very successful election for democrats, especially in these house races and in some of these governors races, as well. So this brings us to the mounting reports about discontent and disruption within the white house. As the Los Angeles Times reports, President Trump stung by a rebuke in the midterms and nervous about the Mueller Investigation is retreating from traditional president ial duties. A source outside the white house who has spoken recently with the president said fridays wall street journal report confirming his central role in quietly arranging payoffs for two women, alleging affairs with him seemed to put trump in an even worse mood. The Washington Post dives deep into the past five days of furry with the president s temper boiling over. Shortly after the president snapped at a reporter for what he called a stupid question about the russia probe, he reportedly also snapped at americas closest ally. Sources tell the post that aboard air force one, trump lost his cool in his phone call with british Prime Minister theresa may who called to congrat you auto la congratulate him on the midterms. He reportedly berated may. He watched tv with rapt attention as late counting votes resulted in a senate race in arizona and a number of house contests to slip out of republican hands. After he chose not to attend a memorial for american soldiers due to a lengthy motorcade, trump told aides he thought he looked terrible and blamed his chief of staffs office for not counseling him that skipping the cemetery visit would be a Public Relations nightmare. Willie, its just confusing that he would need to be told that, but okay. So phil rutger, this is your reporting. Its an incredible piece. Thank you. But just talk about the president s state of mind right now. A lot of people thought his failure to attend that ceremony in france was bad, but even people who support him say i cant believe he didnt go lay a wreath at arlington. Just to go do that on veterans day. It spoke to someone who was so isolated and so worried about something that he cant leave the white house at this point. Talk about where he is right now in terms of his frame of mind. Willie, according to our reporting with white house officials and other people close to the president , he remains in a pretty sour mood. He has been for the last five days. Hes been very preop occupied wi preoccupied with the midterm elections. You see it day after day. Hes pushing out baseless claims. Hes sort of at a loss for what to do. He had claimed victory in the midterms. It does not look like the big victory that he thought it would be. Meanwhile, while he was in paris, he was bothered by emanu emmanuel macron. He thought macron attacked him personally. He was bothered by theresa may and that testy phone call and he was very bothered by the media coverage. He thought the coverage from his trip in paris was bad because he skipped the cemetery. Because of it, he lashed out at the chief of staffs office and most especially the deputy chief of staff, zach swentis who was the one that had to brief him about the travel delays for that cemetery visit. And Mike Barnacle, again, the president , as willie pointed out, not only failed to go to the ceremony in france, he refused to get in his car and drive a couple of minutes to arlington to do what every president since jfk at least has done on veterans day. And hes spewing conspiracy theories that only the most bizarre followers would believe. Well, and marco rubio. Did you see his threepoint kick tweet, marco rubio, trying to explain, again, a Conspiracy Theory. Somebody needs to explain to him that in america we call that a field goal. But a theepoint kick, i dont i dont really get that. British soccer . Marco is the why is this guy feeding into the trump conspiracy theories . Thats a very good question, joe. Doubling down on his defense of nationalism, senator rubios defense of nationalism, thats a very good question that i do not have the answer to. Your point about the failure to cross the bridge, to go to the memorial, the tomb of the unknown, to lay a wreath in front of the tomb of the unknown, that President Trump not doing that, staying in the white house, it raises the issue in talking to several people yesterday close to the white house, including one person, a staffer who has left the white house, they view this as perhaps the most deeply troubling moment of the donald trump presidency. Right now. Were in the midst of it. And phil rucker, my question to you, is after speaking to that person yesterday, they indicated that part of the problem this is according to the former staffer, is that the president at the end of the day really, when you think about it, has no friends. He retreats to the white house residence and he sulks and hes even more isolated than a president of the United States is. He is truly doubly isolated and feeds on paranoia watching tv. But other than his family and im wondering if your reporting bears this out at all, he has no friends he can rely on and call and bounce this off of. Donald trump through the years has always had a large number of sort of associates of people in his orbit who he can call to get information from. That he can ask favors of, to shoot the breeze on the phone. But hes lacked true heart to heart confidants. Youre right. There are not particularly sort of close loyal friends that he feels he can confide in with any regularity at a deep emotional level. Certainly his family is that. And he has ivanka trump, you know, in washington with him. But still, hes a bill isolated. He spent money at the white house and has been consuming an extraordinary amount of news developments throughout the midterm elections and dealing with the mounting pressure of the mueller campaign. And, willie, lets get to the nbc reporting of this, too. I want to ask you, ask, all of these conspiracy theories that understand why marco is doing it, as much as i dont understand the whole threepoint kick. Maybe hes from london. He must follow soccer, like me, but even i know you call it a field goal. Roger bennet would even know. But even nbc news is reporting this, arent they . Yeah. Nbc news. Carol lee is reporting clashes with officials and the first lady is driving chief of staff john kelly to leave the white house soon. Seven people familiar with the discussion say kelly has been on the wrong side of Melania Trump over staffing issues and travel requests and some of the disputes have escalated to the president s attention. Melania trump raised concerns with her husband earlier this year at the height of the Stormy Daniels controversiessy that kelly repeatedly denied her request to promote some of her had aides. Who white house officials telling that to nbc. Saying, quote, i dont need this blank. A furious trump told kelly familiar with the conversation. There have been instances where the east wing staff were not treated as equals to the male dominated decisionmakers in chief kellys office. Promotions were denied and then granted after months of requests. The white house declined to comment on this. Carol lee, lets pick up your reporting here. So it looks to some people like the first ladies of the United States is making personnel decisions. That statement came out of her office yesterday, of the first ladys office condemning a National Security adviser. Whats going on here . Yeah, willie, that was a truly remarkable moment. Its not something that weve seen before from the first lady. Melania trump clearly feels emboldened to flex some of her authority and shes clearly been unhappy with some of the things shes seen happening in the west wing. But weve seen a president who is untraditional. Now youve clearly seen a first lady who does things differently and speaks her mind in a way we havent seen before. When it comes to john kelly, you know, the first lady in the east wing and by the way, they have a very small sav in ttaff in the wing. And the feeling over there is that there is you know, the first lady wants to do things the way she wants to do them and she doesnt want to be told what to do by the president s chief of staff. She didnt like john kelly fired some people she thought were very loyal to the president. She didnt like that her promotions for her staff took so long. When she travels with the president , she doesnt like her staff is treated as second class. Theyre not given seats on the plane, theyre not there arent hotel rooms for them. Theres always some sort of hiccup. And she viscerally felt that this deputy chief of staff, an ally of john bolton and hand picked by him is somebody that was very difficult to work with and really caused a lot of headaches around her africa trip. Well see what happened. Weve been hearing about a year now hes told people ive had enough of this. Come on. The next episode. Ted cruz, what did he call it . I think it was the shot and the basketball ring. Politicians somebody struggles sometimes when they talk about sport, if i may use the term. All right. Theres and hes coming to the senate, too. Yes, he is. Okay. Theres more from the nbc report from carol straight ahead. Melania trump goes public with her call to fire a top National Security official. Were going to dig into her role within the white house. And what it says about the president s inner circle. But fist, here is bill karins with a check on the wintry forecast. Bill. Too early for this, mika. Were looking at a decemberlike forecast in the middle of november. Lets get into it. Its already snowing in louisiana this morning and in arkansas. Very rare for even december let alone the middle of november. This is just the beginning. Winter weather advisories for memphis. St. Louis is on a winter storm warning. Youll be plowing tomorrow in areas of st. Louis to southern illinois. Then its going to be a sleet and snow mess in the ohio valley and all of this will come up to the northeast. Here is the timing of it. The heavy rain today will be in atlanta. Airport delays are a good possibility. And then tomorrow morning, we wake up. Snowstorm from st. Louis through southern illinois. Icy mess from cincinnati northwards, columbus to indianapolis. And here it comes in d. C. , right around 7 00 a. M. Tomorrow morning. A burst of snow, maybe a quick inch or so and then it turns to sleet and then to rain it washes away. Not a high impact for d. C. New york will be colder, maybe a inch, then sleet. Keep that i