Also, bold accusation. President trumps lawyer now claiming special counsel bob mueller unlawfully obtained thousands of emails in the russia investigation. And hitting the campaign trail. The president plans to aggressively campaign in next years midterms, but do all republicans really want him by their side . Those are the big questions. We begin with Vladimir Putins phone call to President Trump, the second call in just four days. There are reports that putin called President Trump to thank him for a cia tip that helped thwart a terror attack in st. Petersburg. We have an Incredible Team of reporters for us to break all of this down with, of course, the latest developments. Nbcs Geoff Bennett is at the white house. Ill start with you. What more can you tell us about this phone call between putin and trump . Reporter good afternoon. We know that Vladimir Putin initiated this phone call and hes making it public. We know he called President Trump, whos spending the weekend at camp david to thank him for a tip that came from the cia that helped the russian government thwart an apparent terror attack that was planned in st. Petersburg. Now, white house secretary Sarah Huckabee sanders has confirmed that the call happened. Were still waiting for the official readout, the official characterization from the Trump White House about, you know, how that call went. But at the moment what we know is that the two talked. We also know that Vladimir Putin pledged cooperation with the u. S. , saying that russian agents would then hand over any tips about suspected terror attacks here in the u. S. To the u. S. Government. So, at the moment, without having the white house version of this phone call, we have to urge caution. We cant read too much into it because we dont quite know what the kremlins motives might be here, yasmin. Well, and its interesting that we are getting sourcing from the kremlin. Important to note that, and we havent gotten the readout from the white house yet. As you mentioned, we are waiting that, and hopefully, well get that as were on today. I understand you have new reporting with regards to the headlines weve seen surrounding special counsel bob mueller and the Trump Transition Team with regards to the emails that mueller obtained from the Transition Team. What do you know . Reporter a source close to the Trump Transition Team tells me that he is troubled, that the source is troubled by the way Robert Muellers team accessed the emails from the General Services administration, the gsa. This source makes the point that Robert Muellers team went to the gsa at a time when the gsas general counsel was hospitalized and unaware of the request. Okay. Reporter and that the deputy general counsel is the one who then handed over the information. The then general counsel, who is hospitalized and incapacitated at the time, never knew about this request and was not involved in it. Now, we should say that the deputy general counsel has disputed that accusation, denies it entirely, but there are some sort of lingering questions about how that whole thing unfolded and about the motives at play here. And also the major question coming out of all of this, were these sort of questions and calls made by the Trump White House and the Transition Team only made to sort of put the question out there in peoples minds to further sort of muddy the waters with regards to the mueller probe. Geoff bennett for us, appreciate you joining us. I want to bring in former u. S. Attorney barbara mcquade, an msnbc contributor and terrorism analyst malcolm nance. Malcolm, im going start with you on this one. So, president putin calling President Trump to thank him for a cia tip that thwarted a potential terror plot. Lets break all this down. How unusual is it to get a call like this . Well, it is unusual for a public notification of a foreign leader to give thanks to a u. S. President regarding a tip. Usually when we send out tippers from the National Counterterrorism center or the fbi, whatever authority which is tasked out to give that information to a foreign power, these are done very quietly, principally because when we thwart these attacks and when we put that information out, we dont want to give any hint as to the source or even the nation of origin to the source. So, the United States may have gotten it from a third party and then turned it over to the russians. That in itself is not unusual. We do that with many nations. But you know, Vladimir Putin seems to understand how to play president donald trump. You flatter him, and you flatter him publicly and you flatter him often, and donald trump responds quite nicely to that. So, isnt the m. O. Of our intelligence agencies to then share intelligence with the kremlin . Weve done this before . Yeah, well, its not its a question of intelligence. Intelligence can just be a single sentence, you know, that we have indications that there will be an attack on kazan cathedral in st. Petersburg on this date, these players are involved. So long as we dont give away any of the data that shows how we got that information, sources and methodologies. We dont know whether that happened, because as we know, you know, President Trump made a mistake earlier this year and shared topsecret sources and Data Information from israel about an activity that was occurring in russias sphere of influence in syria. Right, right. So, that being said, this information, we do share that. We share it with just about everybody. So, glethz into the second point you make. From what i understand, obviously, the kremlin being the first initial source of all this, sort of revealing this phone call and giving us the transcript of the phone call between putin and trump. And as i mentioned when talking to geoff, we havent gotten the transcript from the white house yet, but what do you thinks behind this . Because you did sort of get into it a little bit. Well, you know, its always important to understand that the person who is the leader of russia is a former kgb officer. Yeah. He understands, you know, the interdynamics between the espionage world. When talk being putin, thats always something that one needs to remember, in the way in which he operates and the decisions he makes. Absolutely. Hes an out krautocrat, but he the same tools from the old kgb world, and how he operates within the modern world and hes harnessed cyber warfare and cyber technology. That being said, he understands this president. So does president xi of china. They understand that you can lead donald trump around by the nose ring if you flatter him. And by making a very, very public compliment of an operation which may have been sensitive, if, you know, based on whatever information we have, whether its accurate or not, he knows that now he has put donald trump in a position where he can allow him politically to continue complimenting putin and to be amenable, quite possibly, to changing u. S. Policy infavorably in russias direction. Barbara, do you think this undermines the white house, the way putin has gone about this, and do you think that was his incentive here . You know, its hard to say. You would hope that allies share information with each other, but russia, of course, is our adversary, so its hard to know what he had in mind, what motivated him. But as president reagan always admonished with respect to russia, trust but verify. You know, its also interesting because this is the second time that the two leaders have spoken in the last four days, which is pretty rare, i have to say. On thursday, in case people dont necessarily remember, president putin praised President Trump for the nations economy during his annual press conference, which went on for hours and hours, which is very per putin. But heres what President Trump said on friday in his response. Take a listen. It was great. He said very nice things about what ive done for this country in terms of the economy. Then he said also some negative things in terms of whats going on elsewhere. But the primary point was to talk about north korea. I wanted to get both of your takes on this, barbara. So, we have a russia investigation going on in which a special council was formed. We have a senate intel investigation going on as well, and then we kind of have a bromance between putin and trump, it seems. Whats going on here . You know, again, hard to say, but i think one thing that investigators would be worried about is, is there any leverage that russia has over President Trump . Is there any compromising information do you think there is . That russia obtained that could be the explanation behind the kind of behavior that were seeing . Do you think there is, barbara . Do you think that russia has any leverage over mr. Trump . I think thats for Robert Mueller to glean out through his investigation, but im sure that thats an area that theyre concerned about in light of some of the information that was included in the dossier, for example. Malcolm, do you think theres any leverage there . Well, i wrote a whole book, you know, about potentially the leverage that well, we dont have time for the whole book, malcolm. Well, potentially, the leverage that russia has over trump. There are right now people are saying we dont have any evidence. No, what we have is we have information that is in the hands of the special prosecutor, special counsels office. And hes already convicted two people, made them plead guilty to lying to him about that leverage. And so, we are getting a lot of indicators. You know, people say, well, theres a lot of smoke but no fire. Well, you know, its the smoke that kills you. Fire just consumes your body. So, there is a lot of smoke here. You know, malcolm, a theory thats being thrown out there is the fact that this is also about putins own presidency and his sort of reelection, shall we say, because we all know that hes actually going to become the president , no matter what happens, yet again, but this is all about sort of his Reelection Campaign as well in a couple of months. Youre absolutely right, and i find it fascinating that putin would sit down and would calculate the release of this information. You know, the first group that he always plays to is the population of russia but its not surprising. Its not surprising, though right. Considering the fact that hes a former kgb officer. No, not at all hes also an autocrat that runs essentially a mini dictatorship run by an oligarchy that gives him an 82 Approval Rating that donald trump is terribly jealous of. And by doing that, by releasing this information, he also plays the sympathies and admonishments of the cia against itself. I mean, donald trump has been hammering the u. S. Intelligence community and the fbi. Lets see if putin comes out and says something negative about the i believe we just lost malcolm there, but we thank malcolm nance for joining us, as well as barbara mcquade. Thank you both. Coming up, President Trump on the verge of his first major legislative victory with tax reform, but how much does it really help the middle class . What you need to know, next. And a new msnbc poll is signaling a seed change for democrats. At planters we know how to throw a remarkable holiday party. Just serve classy snacks and be a gracious host, no matter who shows up. Do you like nuts . Sometthats when he needs the way ovicks vaporub. s sleep. Proven cough medicine. With 8 hours of vapors. So he can sleep. Vicks vaporub. Goodnight coughs. Welcome back, everybody. President trump and the Gopled Congress poised for their first major legislative victory this week. The new republican tax bill expected to bring widespread changes to the tax code for the first time in 30 years. A vote could come as early as tuesday. Earlier today, treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin was promoting the bills potential, key word here, impact. This is the biggest single change to the tax system in fixing a broken tax code that we have ever had. A family of four making 75,000 will get about a 2,000 tax cut, and a family of four making 150,000 will get almost 4,000. Plus, we think as a result of lowering business taxes, wages will go up. So, this is a huge opportunity for creating jobs, creating tax cuts for working families. All right, joining us now to break it all down, erin del more, Senior Correspondent with bustle. Com and Annette Lopez with business insider. Welcome to both of you on this early sunday evening. Ill start with you. Give me your sort of 311, plus your opinion, your 311, plus your opinion all right. On the latest tax code. This code definitely simplifies things for regular americans, for individuals, but eventually, the benefits they see, those will end. Those are temporary. What lasts forever is the cut for corporations and a new complexity that will kind of, some say, make things more easy for the rich and for those with Assets Abroad to be able to hide their money and get around the tax code. One interesting thing that i see as a wall street reporter is that people in states like new york, california, theyre not going to be able to deduct theyll have to make some ramifications here. Exactly. So, i think the political ramifications for President Trump are going to be very interesting, especially in the house. Well, for instance, we had a republican congressman from long island, i believe, yesterday. I forget the name of the person, if you guys in my ear could tell me, but it was a republican congressman from long island yesterday who came out and said i cant vote for this because its going to hurt my constituents negatively because they are from new york exactly, new jersey, california but the rest of the country as well. Yep. And there are going to be a lot of people who say, one, we like this plan because its a huge achievement for President Trump. Then there will be people who say i dont know whats in it, but i trust that it will work out. I keep hearing im getting a tax cut for christmas, but you have to look at when those cuts expire and who exactly is receiving the cuts. This is going to be terrific for corporations, but for the middle class, for the average american family, what are they going to get back and how long will it last . Those are the questions. Lets talk about the expiration dates. 2025, the individual tax rates expire. Corporate tax rates do not have any expiration dates whatsoever, right . The distinction. There is a staggering there. For lower income americans, theyll see their tax rates go up as early as 2019. For everybody making, i think its under 75,000, theyre going to see their tax rate go up by 2023. So, this really is temporary. And the grandstand that marco rubio made for child more of a child tax credit, that, too, is just like a little bump. Were not really seeing a big benefit for the middle class, aside from the doubling of the standard deduction, which also expires in 2025. So, everything thats good for the middle class is either small or its going to be gone. But republicans, theyre sticking to their guns here, saying its going to be good for the middle class, aside from the sort of outliers like mcconnell said a couple weeks ago where he did admit that taxes could go up for some middle class people in this country. Also, newly elected alabama senator doug jones, which weve been covering incessantly for the last month or so, voicing his concerns on this, erin. And he sort of said he likes some of the tax plan but the math doesnt add up on a lot of it. Lets take a listen to him. This seems to be plopped into a vote too quickly. There are things i like about it, cutting Corporate Tax rates, cutting some things for the middle class and increasing the standard deduction, but my biggest concerns are the process and also the fact that its going to increase the deficit by over 1 trillion. That causes me great concern. I dont buy into the fact that its going to grow the economy such that that 1 trillion debt will get wiped out. I think thats a major problem. So, its between 1. 4 and 1. 5 trillion over the next ten years, according to the cbo score, that it could increase the deficit here. So, does doug jones have a point . To me, his biggest point is the very last thing he said, that he doesnt automatically buy into this argument that growth is going to be as big as republicans have said, and thats what this hinges on here. They say hey, if we give Corporate Tax breaks, thats going to translate into more countries repatriating their profits and more jobs coming here in america, but if that doesnt happen, and if those wages dont trickle down to middle class workers and dont trickle down to more jobs, thats when people are going to feel it. Lets talk about the importance of the passthrough tax break, which Steve Mnuchin talked about earlier today. Lets listen and then talk about that. Passthrough are the engine of growth in this country, and this is about creating the lowest tax rate for passthrough since the 1930s. Thats going to be massive, massive economic growth, and its about fixing a broken business tax system. Weve had one of the highest corporate rates in the world with companies leaving trillions of dollars offshore so that they dont have to pay taxes. This is a historic event to fix a broken tax system. The reason why we have the passthrough tax break is because we believe there will be about 4,500 in wage growth that will go back to workers. So, much of this, lynette, tax code is based on trickle down economics. A lot of people not necessarily agreeing with trickle down economics and how it