Transcripts For MSNBCW MSNBC Live With Alex Witt 20180107 :

MSNBCW MSNBC Live With Alex Witt January 7, 2018

But first, as we were saying, weve got this breaking news about steve bannon and his apology to the president. After remarks of bannons were published in that tellall book. Lets go right now to mike allen from axios. Mike got the exclusive interview with bannon. Mike, with a welcome to you. What is this all about and what do you think is behind this apology from steve bannon to the president . Well, alex, steve bannon knew that if he was going to be a leader of the conservative movement, he needed to try to fix things up. So at the very top of this statement, alex, he is praising the president s son, donald trump jr. , who as you know is very popular with the trump base. And it goes on to say that he regrets that he waited so long to walk back the comments of the book. So he doesnt deny that he said anything. There is not the word sorry in apology, but this is steve bannon trying to get back in the good graces of the trump family. He says that he defended trump and trumpism and he says hes ready to stand in breach again if he needs to. Part of what you report, mike, you say look for don jr. To accept the statement graciously, but bannons still got a way to go with the president , because according to your reporting, he wants everyone appearing on television to bury steve. Alex, youre exactly right. The president has said to people who are going out on tv he wants them to bury steve bannon. So thats the jump off now. But that shows you that steve bannon is going to have to do a lot more than this to get back into the good graces of President Trump. Mike, what do you honestly think is behind this . I mean, clearly steve bannon has been vilified by so many over the last couple of days, those within and outside the administration. Advisers to the president and the like. And hes lost his financial backing for breitbart from the mercer family. Is this selfserving, is thats whats behind all of this from steve bannon . Its more alex, thats a jumpoff at this second, its more selfpreservation. I think he could lose his job at breitbart and he wants to preserve his viability. He wanted just a few days ago to run the president s reelection campaign. That definitely is not happening now. Alex witt, thank you so much for having me on. Okay, mike allen, i know its a busy day for you. Thanks so much for joining us. Lets go now to Michael Wolff, of course dishing all the new details on this firestorm brewing behind the scenes of the white house. That book there, fire and fury, it has consumed washington for the past four days as well as the news cycle. The author Michael Wolff appeared today on meet the press. I went into this and a decent part of the country went into this, his entire staff went into this thinking maybe this can work. Its different, even peculiar, but who knows what can happen here. And that was exactly my frame of reference. I would have been delighted to have written a contrarian account here and donald trump the this unexpected president is actually going to succeed. Okay. Thats not the story. He is not going to succeed. This is worse than everybody thought. Did you im just curious because its a very tough book. You basically youre sending a message here to anybody reading this book. Did you leave out good stuff because it got in the way of the narrative . If people said positive things about him, not saying that you left it out because you thought it took away from the thesis of the book that you wanted to get out there. If i left out anything, its probably stuff that was even more damning. Its that bad . Its that bad. Its an extraordinary moment in time. And the last the last several days focused on my book i think are proof of this. This is what happened here, whats going on here, this is, you know, i think not an exaggeration and not unreasonable and its not unreasonable to say this is 25th amendment kind of stuff. This is did anybody say that in the west wing to you . All the time. 25th amendment . They would bring up the 25th amendment . Yes, actually they would say were not in sort of in the mid period, were not at a 25th amendment level yet. Or they would thats alarming. This is alarming in every way. And then this went on. Okay, this is a little 25th amendment. So 25th amendment is a concept that is alive every day in the white house. Let me ask you a final question about steve bannon. Why do you think hes disloyal to trump . Why do you think he was so willing to dish the way he dished . Whats his motivation . I think he was deeply concerned. I think he is deeply concerned. I think that he found himself in this in this white house with this opportunity and i think steve is a man a man of very clear beliefs and principles. Mmmhmm. And he looks i think this was his he looked at his as his moment. He made donald trump president. And that he believes this . Not only does he believe this, its absolutely true. Steve went into this campaign in the middle of august, it had fallen it had imploded. Was over. Steve was the guy who said, you know, there is a case here, its the economy, stupid. If we go through florida, ohio, michigan, pennsylvania, we can pull this off. Did you at all think he was using you to settle scores with the kids . I think im sure he probably was. I think that he saw this white house as dysfunctional in part in large part because it was being run by the president s family. People who had, a, no experience, but also on any organizational level, men that meant they were the family, they could overrule everything. I mean, calamity. One of the things about this book and why its hit such a chord and become such a cultural moment is that its given everybody this focused opportunity to say, holy crap. All right. Michael wolff there just this morning on meet the press. President trumps surrogates also made the rounds on the sunday talk shows to defend himself against the allegations made in the book. Joining me now, ali vitaly and jeremy peters. Jeremy, im going to start with you here. The trump bannon feud. Youve been writing about the fallout here. I want your reaction to the latest response he gave to axios. Do you think its too late to fix things between these two titans . Never say never with donald trump, of course, alex, he has a long history of excommunicating aides and inviting them back into the fold. Look at corey lewandowski, look at roger stone. Theyve all said terrible things about one another. However, to suggest that this isnt a severe, severe breach between steve bannon and President Trump would be fantasy land. This is bad. Did you and steves Political Capital is on the line if it if any really is left at this point. Do you have a sense, jeremy, of where the line was crossed . Was it going after don jr. . Was it hitting the family . Or is it enough just to hit the president hard . It was the family. And thats what bannon is attempting to clarify in this statement. He is saying, look, i didnt go after don jr. I didnt intend to go after don jr. , i intended to say that Paul Manafort was the one who should have known better. And that, you know, i dont know if thats going to fix things. It certainly is an attempt to peel back a layer into what bannon was thinking when he made these comments. But its i just dont know at this point whether its going to be enough. It was curious to me, alex, to see today on the morning shows stephen miller, a onetime ally and friend, really, of bannons, going on television and denouncing bannon in completely unflinching terms. Just devastating. This was a twist of the knife by the white house. When mike allen was saying earlier its the white houses intention to bury steve, thats exactly what they were doing. This is brutal. Weve seen donald trump do this before. He likes to kick people while theyre down and i dont know that this statement, this mea culpa of sorts from bannon is going to make the president all of a sudden look more favorably upon bannon. And your thoughts on all of this, ali, whether or not there is a reconciliation between these two possible or what youre hearing, the sense of the white house has to whats just been reported on axios . So i think there are two things that you really want to look at here. First of all, jeremys right when you say that Stranger Things have happened and people can come in and out of trump world after somewhat clam tuesday fallouts, but i think in Corey Lewandowskis case and roger stones case, they may have been going at each other, but they certainly werent going at the president. Good point. Thats what makes Steve Bannons comments so much different than that. When you take credit for trumps own success, yes, going after the family is definitely a red line, but when you go after trumps success and credit yourself with the success had in 2016, he takes that personally because he really does feel he was the voice and the persona of that movement and he alone was the one to understand and tap into that electorate. On the other hand, i also think i spoke to someone from the white house saying, you know what, this might be too little, too late. The level of anger coming out of the administration was that everyone was so angry and there was a sense of betrayal there because steve was in the white house, however irrelevant they want to paint them during that time, he was there. And i think that a lot of people feel very betrayed, the president among them, but staffers as well. So i think that when this person says to me, yeah, it might be too little, too late, i think thats certainly true, especially when there is not an imsorry or i apologize in there im looking to clarify the record a little bit. There was inaccurate reporting in this book, according to steve bannon. So, jeremy, regarding all the questions about the president s Mental Fitness. Cia director mike pompeo coming to his defense this morning. Lets take a listen to what he said. Those statements are just absurd, chris. Just pure fantasy. My personal experience, i was with the president yesterday at camp david. Im with him almost every day. We talk about some of the most serious matters facing america and the world, complex issues. The president is engaged. He understands the complexity. He asks really difficult questions of our team at cia so we can provide him the information he needs to make good, informed policy decisions. Ive watched him do that. Jeremy, when you have the director of the Central Intelligence agency vouching for trump, how far does that go to settling the case . Well, i think that, you know, on one level that allows us to see what is really going on here. This is much more than just a spat between steve bannon and donald trump. This criticism the criticisms levelled in this book by aides, some on the record, some not, cut to the heart of Donald Trumps competence and his adequacy as a president. And thats what the white house is really concerned about. And when you talk to people privately, i think, you know, this cant be said enough, the comments in general made in the book by people who were critical of the president , who claim that he has lacks the temperament to be president. That he is erratic. He had a volcanic temper. That he, you know, sometimes loses focus, those are all things that people do say privately. So the general critiques of this book, at least the ones that i have seen out there so far, seem to me really to be in line with the with what people say. So the president this morning was up tweeting and he wrote this, ive had to put up with the fake news from the first day i announced that i would be running for president. Now i have to put up with a fake book written by a totally discredited author. Ronald reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will i. So ali, how much does the white house just want to get past the fallout of this book . With the president tweeting things like this, is that possible . I think that as weve seen many times, there have been inconvenient news cycles is that the white house would definitely like to see their way out of and then the president goes and legitimatizes that story and often gives it legs so it can be talked about several days after the fact. Not that we wouldnt be talking about this book anyway, but when you see him out there in the morning saying he is a mentally stable genius and hes, like, really smart, that definitely gives us more wind to then talk about all of the claims that are made in this book and i think as much as the white house would like to see that stop, hes certainly not doing them any favors when he does continue to tweet about it. Now this week hes advertised on twitter that tomorrow hes going to be doing some kind of Fake News Media awards. So im sure if that actually happens well see way more about these fake claims that hes talking about in the book. But hes not been secretive about the fact that he doesnt like negative stories about him or his administration. Yeah. And hes been very quick to paint those as fake news. Yeah, this is a book as opposed to a news story. Its still the same claim from the president , the news i dont like about my administration is fake. I think the best part about those awards is Stephen Colberts approach. Bring it on, i want an award. Thank you both so much for weighing in on all of this breaking news. All of you stay with msnbc for interviews with the author of Michael Wolff. Hes going to be on morning joe. The last word with lawrence odonnell. Hes then going to play hardball with chris matthews. Visit nbc. Com wolffbook for more on that. The gops focus on Christopher Steele, the former spy behind the trump dossier. Whether the concerns are valid or just political. Dad can you drive me to jessicas house . Uuughhh this is what our version of Financial Planning looks like. Tomorrow is important, but so is making the most of the house before theyre out of the house. Spend you life living. Find an advisor at northwesternmutual. Com. Wifiso if you cant live without it. T it. Why arent you using this guy . It makes your wifi awesomely fast. No. Still nope. Now were talking it gets you wifi here, here, and here. It even lets you take a time out. No no yes yes, indeed. Amazing speed, coverage and control. All with an xfi gateway. Find your awesome, and change the way you wifi. Everything that ive done is 100 proper. Thats what i do, is i do things proper. And, you know, i guess the collusion now is dead. Because everyone found that after a year of study theres been absolutely no collusion. Theres been no collusion between us and the russians. Now, there has there is the president restating once again the position there was no collusion between his campaign and the russians. Lets bring in National Political reporter and natasha, Political Correspondent with business insider. A good day to you both. Well go ladies first here, natasha. We heard the president there at camp david. He seems pretty annoyed by the New York Times article detailing his struggle to keep a grip on the investigation. Absolutely. This is more evidence that mueller is building a pretty aggressive obstruction of justice case against the president. He keeps saying that there is no collusion, no collusion, but what he doesnt seem to realize is that collusion is not the only thing that Robert Mueller is investigating. He also has a ton of evidence, it seems, especially from this New York Times report, that trump was furious when he learned that Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the russia investigation. Jeff sessions aide, one of them, went to capitol hill and looked for dirt on james comey they could give to the press to discredit him. All of these are further evidence that Robert Mueller is, you know, getting closer to trumps inner circle and in an attempt to determine whether or not trump had corrupt intent when he fired james comey. And, natasha, the trump tower meeting, that came up in the book fire and fury and steve bannon referencing saying that the chance that don jr. Did not take these guys up to his Fathers Office on the 26th floor is absolutely zero. What are you sources saying about that . It is very unlikely that donald trump would not have, introduced to these people that came to trump tower that day. Trump was there. He was there, you know, when this meeting took place. It happened around 4 00 p. M. Around 4 40 p. M. , trump began tweeting about Hillary Clintons missing emails. One of trumps lawyers went on tv a couple of months back and said, well, you know, it raising questions to me why there is so much controversy over the russians who visited trump tower because the secret service actually had to do background checks on them before they came in. Now, what was interesting about that is that the secret service was not protecting donald trump jr. , Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort at that time. The only person that they were protecting at that time as a candidate was donald trump. So if they did do background checks on veselnitskaya and the other russians that attended the trump tower meeting, it raises questions, well, was it because they were going to meet with donald trump himself . Mike, so republican attacks on the fbi and new focus on the Christopher Steele dossier. That all continues today. Lets take a listen to Lindsey Graham on meet the press. I want a special counsel to look at not only how mr. Steele conducted himself, what the fbi did with the dossier, whether mr. Orr, whose wife worked for fusion gps alongside mr. Steele, what involvement did he have in the dossier . I want to find out if the lead investigator of the clinton email investigation had a political bias against trump. So this idea, mike, of a Second Special counsel, is that gaining any traction. Well, i think if we can trace this back to december 1st, which is turning out to be at least politically and in terms of what the congressional investigators are looking at a real turning point in how they proceeded. That is when michael flynn, the former National Security adviser, pled guilty and that he was cooperating with President Trump<\/a>. Mike, what do you honestly think is behind this . I mean, clearly steve bannon has been vilified by so many over the last couple of days, those within and outside the administration. Advisers to the president and the like. And hes lost his financial backing for breitbart from the mercer family. Is this selfserving, is thats whats behind all of this from steve bannon . Its more alex, thats a jumpoff at this second, its more selfpreservation. I think he could lose his job at breitbart and he wants to preserve his viability. He wanted just a few days ago to run the president s reelection campaign. That definitely is not happening now. Alex witt, thank you so much for having me on. Okay, mike allen, i know its a busy day for you. Thanks so much for joining us. Lets go now to Michael Wolff<\/a>, of course dishing all the new details on this firestorm brewing behind the scenes of the white house. That book there, fire and fury, it has consumed washington for the past four days as well as the news cycle. The author Michael Wolff<\/a> appeared today on meet the press. I went into this and a decent part of the country went into this, his entire staff went into this thinking maybe this can work. Its different, even peculiar, but who knows what can happen here. And that was exactly my frame of reference. I would have been delighted to have written a contrarian account here and donald trump the this unexpected president is actually going to succeed. Okay. Thats not the story. He is not going to succeed. This is worse than everybody thought. Did you im just curious because its a very tough book. You basically youre sending a message here to anybody reading this book. Did you leave out good stuff because it got in the way of the narrative . If people said positive things about him, not saying that you left it out because you thought it took away from the thesis of the book that you wanted to get out there. If i left out anything, its probably stuff that was even more damning. Its that bad . Its that bad. Its an extraordinary moment in time. And the last the last several days focused on my book i think are proof of this. This is what happened here, whats going on here, this is, you know, i think not an exaggeration and not unreasonable and its not unreasonable to say this is 25th amendment kind of stuff. This is did anybody say that in the west wing to you . All the time. 25th amendment . They would bring up the 25th amendment . Yes, actually they would say were not in sort of in the mid period, were not at a 25th amendment level yet. Or they would thats alarming. This is alarming in every way. And then this went on. Okay, this is a little 25th amendment. So 25th amendment is a concept that is alive every day in the white house. Let me ask you a final question about steve bannon. Why do you think hes disloyal to trump . Why do you think he was so willing to dish the way he dished . Whats his motivation . I think he was deeply concerned. I think he is deeply concerned. I think that he found himself in this in this white house with this opportunity and i think steve is a man a man of very clear beliefs and principles. Mmmhmm. And he looks i think this was his he looked at his as his moment. He made donald trump president. And that he believes this . Not only does he believe this, its absolutely true. Steve went into this campaign in the middle of august, it had fallen it had imploded. Was over. Steve was the guy who said, you know, there is a case here, its the economy, stupid. If we go through florida, ohio, michigan, pennsylvania, we can pull this off. Did you at all think he was using you to settle scores with the kids . I think im sure he probably was. I think that he saw this white house as dysfunctional in part in large part because it was being run by the president s family. People who had, a, no experience, but also on any organizational level, men that meant they were the family, they could overrule everything. I mean, calamity. One of the things about this book and why its hit such a chord and become such a cultural moment is that its given everybody this focused opportunity to say, holy crap. All right. Michael wolff there just this morning on meet the press. President trumps surrogates also made the rounds on the sunday talk shows to defend himself against the allegations made in the book. Joining me now, ali vitaly and jeremy peters. Jeremy, im going to start with you here. The trump bannon feud. Youve been writing about the fallout here. I want your reaction to the latest response he gave to axios. Do you think its too late to fix things between these two titans . Never say never with donald trump, of course, alex, he has a long history of excommunicating aides and inviting them back into the fold. Look at corey lewandowski, look at roger stone. Theyve all said terrible things about one another. However, to suggest that this isnt a severe, severe breach between steve bannon and President Trump<\/a> would be fantasy land. This is bad. Did you and steves Political Capital<\/a> is on the line if it if any really is left at this point. Do you have a sense, jeremy, of where the line was crossed . Was it going after don jr. . Was it hitting the family . Or is it enough just to hit the president hard . It was the family. And thats what bannon is attempting to clarify in this statement. He is saying, look, i didnt go after don jr. I didnt intend to go after don jr. , i intended to say that Paul Manafort<\/a> was the one who should have known better. And that, you know, i dont know if thats going to fix things. It certainly is an attempt to peel back a layer into what bannon was thinking when he made these comments. But its i just dont know at this point whether its going to be enough. It was curious to me, alex, to see today on the morning shows stephen miller, a onetime ally and friend, really, of bannons, going on television and denouncing bannon in completely unflinching terms. Just devastating. This was a twist of the knife by the white house. When mike allen was saying earlier its the white houses intention to bury steve, thats exactly what they were doing. This is brutal. Weve seen donald trump do this before. He likes to kick people while theyre down and i dont know that this statement, this mea culpa of sorts from bannon is going to make the president all of a sudden look more favorably upon bannon. And your thoughts on all of this, ali, whether or not there is a reconciliation between these two possible or what youre hearing, the sense of the white house has to whats just been reported on axios . So i think there are two things that you really want to look at here. First of all, jeremys right when you say that Stranger Things<\/a> have happened and people can come in and out of trump world after somewhat clam tuesday fallouts, but i think in Corey Lewandowskis<\/a> case and roger stones case, they may have been going at each other, but they certainly werent going at the president. Good point. Thats what makes Steve Bannons<\/a> comments so much different than that. When you take credit for trumps own success, yes, going after the family is definitely a red line, but when you go after trumps success and credit yourself with the success had in 2016, he takes that personally because he really does feel he was the voice and the persona of that movement and he alone was the one to understand and tap into that electorate. On the other hand, i also think i spoke to someone from the white house saying, you know what, this might be too little, too late. The level of anger coming out of the administration was that everyone was so angry and there was a sense of betrayal there because steve was in the white house, however irrelevant they want to paint them during that time, he was there. And i think that a lot of people feel very betrayed, the president among them, but staffers as well. So i think that when this person says to me, yeah, it might be too little, too late, i think thats certainly true, especially when there is not an imsorry or i apologize in there im looking to clarify the record a little bit. There was inaccurate reporting in this book, according to steve bannon. So, jeremy, regarding all the questions about the president s Mental Fitness<\/a>. Cia director mike pompeo coming to his defense this morning. Lets take a listen to what he said. Those statements are just absurd, chris. Just pure fantasy. My personal experience, i was with the president yesterday at camp david. Im with him almost every day. We talk about some of the most serious matters facing america and the world, complex issues. The president is engaged. He understands the complexity. He asks really difficult questions of our team at cia so we can provide him the information he needs to make good, informed policy decisions. Ive watched him do that. Jeremy, when you have the director of the Central Intelligence<\/a> agency vouching for trump, how far does that go to settling the case . Well, i think that, you know, on one level that allows us to see what is really going on here. This is much more than just a spat between steve bannon and donald trump. This criticism the criticisms levelled in this book by aides, some on the record, some not, cut to the heart of Donald Trumps<\/a> competence and his adequacy as a president. And thats what the white house is really concerned about. And when you talk to people privately, i think, you know, this cant be said enough, the comments in general made in the book by people who were critical of the president , who claim that he has lacks the temperament to be president. That he is erratic. He had a volcanic temper. That he, you know, sometimes loses focus, those are all things that people do say privately. So the general critiques of this book, at least the ones that i have seen out there so far, seem to me really to be in line with the with what people say. So the president this morning was up tweeting and he wrote this, ive had to put up with the fake news from the first day i announced that i would be running for president. Now i have to put up with a fake book written by a totally discredited author. Ronald reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will i. So ali, how much does the white house just want to get past the fallout of this book . With the president tweeting things like this, is that possible . I think that as weve seen many times, there have been inconvenient news cycles is that the white house would definitely like to see their way out of and then the president goes and legitimatizes that story and often gives it legs so it can be talked about several days after the fact. Not that we wouldnt be talking about this book anyway, but when you see him out there in the morning saying he is a mentally stable genius and hes, like, really smart, that definitely gives us more wind to then talk about all of the claims that are made in this book and i think as much as the white house would like to see that stop, hes certainly not doing them any favors when he does continue to tweet about it. Now this week hes advertised on twitter that tomorrow hes going to be doing some kind of Fake News Media<\/a> awards. So im sure if that actually happens well see way more about these fake claims that hes talking about in the book. But hes not been secretive about the fact that he doesnt like negative stories about him or his administration. Yeah. And hes been very quick to paint those as fake news. Yeah, this is a book as opposed to a news story. Its still the same claim from the president , the news i dont like about my administration is fake. I think the best part about those awards is Stephen Colberts<\/a> approach. Bring it on, i want an award. Thank you both so much for weighing in on all of this breaking news. All of you stay with msnbc for interviews with the author of Michael Wolff<\/a>. Hes going to be on morning joe. The last word with lawrence odonnell. Hes then going to play hardball with chris matthews. Visit nbc. Com wolffbook for more on that. The gops focus on Christopher Steele<\/a>, the former spy behind the trump dossier. Whether the concerns are valid or just political. Dad can you drive me to jessicas house . Uuughhh this is what our version of Financial Planning<\/a> looks like. Tomorrow is important, but so is making the most of the house before theyre out of the house. Spend you life living. Find an advisor at northwesternmutual. Com. Wifiso if you cant live without it. T it. Why arent you using this guy . It makes your wifi awesomely fast. No. Still nope. Now were talking it gets you wifi here, here, and here. It even lets you take a time out. No no yes yes, indeed. Amazing speed, coverage and control. All with an xfi gateway. Find your awesome, and change the way you wifi. Everything that ive done is 100 proper. Thats what i do, is i do things proper. And, you know, i guess the collusion now is dead. Because everyone found that after a year of study theres been absolutely no collusion. Theres been no collusion between us and the russians. Now, there has there is the president restating once again the position there was no collusion between his campaign and the russians. Lets bring in National Political<\/a> reporter and natasha, Political Correspondent<\/a> with business insider. A good day to you both. Well go ladies first here, natasha. We heard the president there at camp david. He seems pretty annoyed by the New York Times<\/a> article detailing his struggle to keep a grip on the investigation. Absolutely. This is more evidence that mueller is building a pretty aggressive obstruction of justice case against the president. He keeps saying that there is no collusion, no collusion, but what he doesnt seem to realize is that collusion is not the only thing that Robert Mueller<\/a> is investigating. He also has a ton of evidence, it seems, especially from this New York Times<\/a> report, that trump was furious when he learned that Jeff Sessions<\/a> had recused himself from the russia investigation. Jeff sessions aide, one of them, went to capitol hill and looked for dirt on james comey they could give to the press to discredit him. All of these are further evidence that Robert Mueller<\/a> is, you know, getting closer to trumps inner circle and in an attempt to determine whether or not trump had corrupt intent when he fired james comey. And, natasha, the trump tower meeting, that came up in the book fire and fury and steve bannon referencing saying that the chance that don jr. Did not take these guys up to his Fathers Office<\/a> on the 26th floor is absolutely zero. What are you sources saying about that . It is very unlikely that donald trump would not have, introduced to these people that came to trump tower that day. Trump was there. He was there, you know, when this meeting took place. It happened around 4 00 p. M. Around 4 40 p. M. , trump began tweeting about Hillary Clintons<\/a> missing emails. One of trumps lawyers went on tv a couple of months back and said, well, you know, it raising questions to me why there is so much controversy over the russians who visited trump tower because the secret service actually had to do background checks on them before they came in. Now, what was interesting about that is that the secret service was not protecting donald trump jr. , Jared Kushner<\/a> and Paul Manafort<\/a> at that time. The only person that they were protecting at that time as a candidate was donald trump. So if they did do background checks on veselnitskaya and the other russians that attended the trump tower meeting, it raises questions, well, was it because they were going to meet with donald trump himself . Mike, so republican attacks on the fbi and new focus on the Christopher Steele<\/a> dossier. That all continues today. Lets take a listen to Lindsey Graham<\/a> on meet the press. I want a special counsel to look at not only how mr. Steele conducted himself, what the fbi did with the dossier, whether mr. Orr, whose wife worked for fusion gps alongside mr. Steele, what involvement did he have in the dossier . I want to find out if the lead investigator of the clinton email investigation had a political bias against trump. So this idea, mike, of a Second Special<\/a> counsel, is that gaining any traction. Well, i think if we can trace this back to december 1st, which is turning out to be at least politically and in terms of what the congressional investigators are looking at a real turning point in how they proceeded. That is when michael flynn, the former National Security<\/a> adviser, pled guilty and that he was cooperating with Robert Mueller<\/a>. And now a much more concerted effort by republicans to push back on two fronts. On the one hand, we see republicans saying, listen, weve done dozens of interviews, reviewed thousands of documents, spent hours looking at this and so far were not finding a whole lot. Theyre planning to release their own probe very soon. Secondly what we saw Lindsey Graham<\/a> talk about this morning, a focus really on the dossier and on the fbi and how they handled the investigations. Whether they were appropriately Briefing Congress<\/a> about what theyre were doing. Whether there was a real conflict of interest among some of the key players in the fbi as they were handling this. Its unclear if any of this is going to result in a special counsel. Weve seen Jeff Sessions<\/a> when he testified before the House Judiciary Committee<\/a> sort of downplay that possibility, but there is still some time to go here. But, mike, with your reporting, is this a diversionary tactic or are there legitimate concerns as to the fled for this special second counsel in the gop camp . As it relates to what Lindsey Graham<\/a> was part of on friday with chairman Chuck Grassley<\/a> of the Senate Judiciary<\/a> committee, this criminal referral, which was an unusual step, democrats are really scratching their head about it because what essentially Lindsey Graham<\/a> and Chuck Grassley<\/a> are asking the fbi to do is to investigate information that it already has in its possession. Presumably they are already looking at this question. Lindsey graham, it should be said, put a little bit more light on what exactly theyre talking about here, this idea that Christopher Steele<\/a> may have been speaking with reporters about the contents of his dossier. Christopher steele is a former spy. He was obviously contracted by an Opposition Research<\/a> firm to accumulate this information, but he referred that information also to the fbi when he thought there might be a criminal act here. The idea theyre going to try to discredit the entire probe based on what Christopher Steele<\/a> did in terms of talking to reporters or whether every single thing thats part of that dossier is corroborated is not exactly what we would see in a situation like this. So natasha, we have white house National Security<\/a> adviser h. R. Mcmaster saying there are signs of russian interference in mexicos election. To what extent are u. S. Officials concerned about the 2018 midterms and interference . Well, there is still a lot of concern that the russians could try again and that actually they never even stopped. We saw a big report in the Washington Post<\/a> about two weeks ago that said that the russians are still actively spreading disinformation and propaganda on social media. Every time we see a controversy erupt in the fbi or some kind of allegation that perhaps the fbi is politically motivated or anything that really aligns with trumps talking points or the white houses do you know talking points, we see it erupt on social media immediately. That is really causing concern among people who investigate this and among people who are really, you know, trying to stop what happened during 2016 from happening again during the 2018 elections. Now there really is no indication that the white house is taking this threat seriously because the president , of course, keeps calling it a hoax. So whether or not we are adequately prepared to deal with the possibility that russia will continue to do this and do this again in the 2018 election is really up in the air. I think that, you know, there is going to be, you know, a concerted effort by perhaps the Democratic Party<\/a> and members of congress to make this a priority in the administration, but whether or not the administration actually takes it seriously remains to be seen. This is exactly what im going to be talking about in the next hour. Thank you both in the meantime, mike and natasha for joining me. Coming up, President Trump<\/a> joining the conversation about his own Mental Health<\/a>. Next, were going to ask a congressman what he thinks. Moms got this cold stuffynose nosleep mouthbreather just put on a breathe right strip it instantly opens your nose. Up to 38 more than Cold Medicine<\/a> alone go to breatheright. Com today to request a free sample. Welcome back, everyone. Im alex witt here at msnbc World Headquarters<\/a> in new york, approaching the half hour heres what were monitoring for you. The worst of that dangerous cold spell in the northeast is ending but our friends at the Weather Channel<\/a> say another weather system is going to deliver snow, sleet and freezing rain to parts of the midwest and east through tomorrow. Fresh concerns over President Trump<\/a>s fitness for office after Michael Wolff<\/a>s tellall book is depicting an erratic head of state. This has trump responded to direct questions about these concerns yesterday. This morning you were tweeting about your mental state. Why did you feel the need to tweet about that this morning . Well, only because i went to the best colleges, or college. I went to i had a situation where i was a very excellent student. Came out and made billions and billions of dollars. Became one of the top business people. Went to television and for ten years was a tremendous success, as you probably have heard. Ran for president one time and won. Joining me now, congressman john yarmuth of kentucky. Welcome, sir. Thanks, alex. Your reaction to how the president handled that question is . Well, when i heard that i said Michael Wolff<\/a> can rest his case. I think thats pretty much what Michael Wolff<\/a> said, too. Yeah. And look its just bizarre. The first words out of his mouth is because he went to a good college, i mean, that has absolutely nothing to do with mental zabstability or anything that he was responding to. It was just kind of an indication of how scatter brained this is. Im reminded of the david brooks line when he said that Donald Trumps<\/a> mind is like six fire flies rattling around in a jar. And thats kind of the way he sounds when hes addressing these things. You know, i understand that you spoke with that yale psychiatrist about her observations about the president last month. What kind of new information did you learn and did it change how you view this president . No, not really. I think what i learned from dr. Lee was that after 20 years of studying the mental characteristics of violent tendencies that she and many other psychologists and psychologists have seen a pattern of behavior in President Trump<\/a> that is consistent with people who have a tendency towards violence. And that she in her professional capacity and these other psychologists think its their professional obligation to warn the public about the dangers that he poses, that President Trump<\/a> poses. So i think virtually anyone who watches the president closely and who reads the tweets and listens to his speeches and his public appearances kind of comes away with the same observations, but she put a professional framework around it and can i ask you, though the perspective as to why we should be concerned. Okay. But there is a difference between violence and, you know, kind of nuts or unhinged or whatever. I mean, when she says violence, did she describe what she meant by that . No, just that if you combine the impulsiveness and the what they call the hedenism that President Trump<\/a> exhibits. He lives in the moment and doesnt consider the consequences of his actions. That combined with his power poses a very dangerous situation. We have reaction from the American Psychiatric<\/a> association saying its unethical to provide an evaluation of a public figure if they have not been personally evaluate. Look, he was a reality tv host. You know that what you see on tv is not the same as what happens behind the scenes necessarily. Right. Yeah, well, i mean, im not going to comment on the American Psychiatric<\/a> association or their standards. I know what dr. Lee and the 26 other Mental Health<\/a> professionals who wrote the book, the dangerous case of donald trump, said and they said we are not actually presuming to diagnose him, what we are saying is we have observed patterns of behavior weve observed over many years and this causes us grave concern and we have a professional obligation to warn people. They specifically say theyre not trying to diagnose him, theyre basically just saying we have concerns because of his behavior. Patterns that theyre seeing. Okay. Glad for clarifying that. You are certainly the top democrat on the house fwugt committee. We know that the president is seeking 18 billion for a border wall which he demands must be part of any potential deal with the democrats on the daca program, which democrats are saying thats a nonstarter. Strategists have suggested to me both parties could walk away happy by giving trump a wall in name only and then walking away with some sort of path to citizenship for d. R. E. A. M. Ers. Is there a way that you could expand the definition of a border wall to come to some sort of an agreement . Actually, there is. I was on the socalled gang of eight in 2013, trying to put together bipartisan comprehensive Immigration Reform<\/a> and we dealt with the issues of border security. When you talk about defending the integrity of the borders as opposed to a specific physical manifestation of that, you actually leave plenty of room for negotiation and compromise. We talked about this at length in those meetings and talked about the combination of electronic detection and drones and personnel and barriers. And ive been to the border. Ive talked to the border patrol. What they say is that actual physical barriers make some sense in some places. Make no sense in other places. That all they do is slow down the progress of someone trying to get in, get across the border, but if youre out in the middle of the desert 100 miles away from any city, you have days and days to actually apprehend somebody who comes in illegally if you detect them. You can detect them, again, with different types of devices. So, yeah, i think there is plenty of room for compromise on this. The president just needs to get off of this absolute commitment to a physical barrier stretching hundreds and hundreds of miles. I spoke to your colleague from the opposite side of the aisle, charlie dent of pennsylvania today, he said exactly that. The president is ratcheting up with rhetoric, saying were going to build a big, beautiful wall, 20 feet high. The reality is thats not what anyone on capitol hill is talking about, never mind people in the heartland or along the boards borders who are actually envisioning a wall thanks to the president. He said its all about an operational wall. Thats right. Is that what youre talking about . Its not necessarily the physicality of a wall. Exactly right. I think i actually was watching. He talked about operational control of the borders, which is exactly what were talking about. Charlies a very, very smart guy. And if he were in control, wed have a deal very, very quickly, i think. See, i like bipartisanship. Charlies a republican, youre a democrat. Its all good. Thank you so much. Always good to see you. Good to see you, alex. Thanks. President trump says his approach to north korea is working, but is it really . Thats ahead in our next hour. Im also on a lot of medications that dry my mouth. I just drank tons of water all the time. It was never enough. I wasnt sure i was going to be able to continue singing. I saw my dentist. He suggested biotene. It feels refreshing. My mouth felt more lubricated. I use biotene rinse twice a day and then i use the spray throughout the day. It actually saved my career in a way. Biotene really did make a difference. [heartbeat] 40 million americans are waking up to a gillette shave. And at our factory in boston, 1,200 workers are starting their day building on over a hundred years of heritage, craftsmanship and innovation. Today were bringing you americas number one shave at lower prices every day. Putting money back in the pockets of millions of americans. As one of those workers, im proud to bring you gillette quality for less, because nobody can beat the men and women of gillette. Gillette the best a man can get. This is 25th amendment kind of stuff. Did anybody say that in the west wing to you . All the time. 25th amendment . They would bring up the 25th amendment . Yes, actually they would say were not in sort of in the mid period, were not at a 25th amendment level yet. Or they would thats alarming. This is alarming in every way. And then this went on, okay, this is a little 25th amendment. So 25th amendment is a concept that is alive every day in the white house. Author Michael Wolff<\/a> of the controversial tellall fire and fury on the trump administrations awareness of the 25th amendment and now that President Trump<\/a>s Mental Fitness<\/a> has been called into question, we want to become aware of it as well. Here to answer our legal questions today, former federal prosecutor cynthia. Always good to see you, cynthia. So what wolff says, if it is true. I want to say nbc news has yet to confirm any sort of details in this book, but what kind of mentally unstable deeds would legally qualify to put this amendment into effect . Well, the 25th amendment, its section 4 that were talking about, doesnt really specify. It just says if hes unable to perform his duties. The Vice President<\/a> and a majority of the members of the cabinet have to notify the president of the senate that the president is incapable. The problem is that then it goes on, and everybody should read it, its very short and you can google it. It goes on to say if the president says hes able, then he sends a letter to the president pro tem of the senate. There is back and forth and ultimately the congress will have twothirds of the congress, both the house and senate have to make a decision. Twothirds of the congress cannot make a decision about anything. So its probably mostly an interesting discussion for us to have and not very realistic. I would think this is never going to happen. Yeah. The weekly standards bill kristol tweeted out, asked counsel to prepare a draft document transferring power in accord with 25 amendment in case its suddenly needed. He discussed this with chief of staff kelly. So what does that mean, that he that would be the first step, i guess . That would be the first step. A majority of the members of the cabinet or congress can appoint a special commission to do that as well. So look into the president s mental stability. But because of what all the details of what has to happen later, its unlikely. But bill kristol is right, the first step would be the Vice President<\/a> , who, by the way, is sort of a legendary sycophant, is not going to go against the president. But the Vice President<\/a> has to be involved. And it just makes it that much more likely anything like this would ever happen. So relative to the Vice President<\/a> , i want to talk about where he might or might not dfi into the russia investigation. When do you think special counsel Robert Mueller<\/a> would meet with him and then the president . Would the Vice President<\/a> definitely be on his docket of people to meet . He will definitely be on the docket, and well get a sense the investigation is coming to a close when the Vice President<\/a> and the president are interviewed. Usually in a grand jury investigation, as you learn new things, you might reinterview witnesses and certainly many of the witnesses here or some of the witnesses have been interviewed more than once, but the president of the United States<\/a> and the Vice President<\/a> of the United States<\/a> know. So once they are interview, then we know mueller is coming to a close in the investigation stage and theyre beginning to go into the writing stage, which theyre probably doing at the same time. That would be the sign that the investigation is coming to a close. What about attorneys who could become witnesses in the investigation . That would include don mcgahn, rod rosenstein, maybe even Jeff Sessions<\/a>. What are the difficulties mueller faces when it comes to lawyers becoming fact witnesses . You know, its an interesting thing you raise. The lawyer there are a lot of lawyers, its very unusual. There are a lot of lawyers in this case that have become fact witnesses. For example, jay sekulow, the president s private lawyer, he makes an announcement and goes on television that the president was not involved, absolutely not involved in the statement that was written when it was first discovered that don jr. Had been involved and had this russian meeting with Paul Manafort<\/a> and with Jared Kushner<\/a>. And he went on this network and many others saying is that happened. That did not happen. Well, it turns out, thats not true. In fact, the president was involved in that. Now the question is, why did jay sekulow say that . Did the president tell him . Which makes him a fact witness. Or did somebody else tell him . It puts him in a very difficult position. Rosenstein is in a difficult position because he was involved in the firing of comey. Sessions is in a difficult place because he was involved in the firing of comey. And in the discussions with the president. Ord ordinarily you would say once a lawyer is involved and is a fact witness, he should no longer be the lawyer, he should be the fact witness, but because everybody is a fact witness in this case, everybody cant resign and it creates a real rats nest of problems. Don mcgahn has been a fact witness, and in fact, mueller has interviewed him. I want to get back to what you said about jake sekulow and if he is saying things that are later proven to be other truths, at the direction of the president does that then draw a line to obstruction . It might. We just dont know. I mean, i dont think we know enough yet. If the president if the president said to him, i was not involved in that and i never would have been involved and lied to him so that he would go on nbc news and say on meet the press, you know, that could be part of the obstruction case, in that it helps show the president s intent. It shows his consciousness of guilt that what he was doing was wrong. But until we find out exactly what happened, we dont know. But its an interesting legal problem that is very unusual in this case and different from anything you would expect happening. You would expect lawyers to resign as lawyers if theyre fact witnesses and thats just not happening here. Okay. Well have you back again, no doubt, to talk about all of this. Appreciate it. Youre welcome. Stay warm. Coming up, the apology to President Trump<\/a> from steve bannon. Questions about whether were going to see a white house reunion. And in my next hour, whether President Trump<\/a>s tough talk on north korea is yielding results. Trust 1 doctor recommended dulcolax. Use dulcolax tablets for gentle dependable relief. Suppositories for relief in minutes. And dulcoease for comfortable relief of hard stools. Dulcolax. Designed for dependable relief. New shots add former chief strategist steve bannon over comments attributed to him in Michael Wolff<\/a>s book fire and fury. Steven miller challenging bannans credibility saying his accomplishments in the white house have been greatly exaggerated. Its tragic and unfortunate that steve would make these grotesque comments so out of touch with reality and obviously so vindictive, and the whole white house staff is deeply disappointed in his comments, which were grotesque. And with respect to the trump tower meeting that hes talking about, he wasnt even there when this went down, so hes not really a remotely credible source. Lets bring in msnbc contributor howard dean, former governor of vermont, and republican strategist susan del percio. Here we go, susan. Steve bannon has responded. Were going to get to that in a minute. But first, how do you interpret what is playing out from the white houses position today . Are steve bannon and the president irreconcilable at this point or might we see something between the two . I think republicans like Mitch Mcconnell<\/a> would be making a big mistake if they think steve bannon is out of their is not in their future down the road. We saw this after charlottesville, when the president fired steve bannon. And republicans kind of eased back and did a little happy dance, if you will. But he was never far away. And i think that these apologies that well get into later, that steve bannon is trying to give a reason to kind of get back in decent graces with the white house. Which we know when we look at past folks like corey lewandowski, roger stone, trumps people, they may get knocked out for a few rounds, but they usually come back. Listen, its a rough and tumble game it appears in that ring. I want to read a portion of bannons statement, and it clarifies his statements. My comments were aimed at Paul Manafort<\/a>, a seasoned campaign professional with knowledge of how the russians operate. Those comments were not aimed at don jr. I regret my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding don jr. Has diverted attention from the president s historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency. Do you buy that . This is sort of a sick psychoodrama between very damaged people, including stephen miller. What bothers me more is that the Republican Party<\/a> is willing to stand up with trump on all this stuff. They are doing things, for Lindsey Graham<\/a> over the weekend to send a case unilaterally to the Justice Department<\/a> and ask them to review it, this is not the Lindsey Graham<\/a> we used to know, who was thoughtful and bipartisan. They have all been taken over. They have drank Donald Trumps<\/a> sie psychodrama koolaid. Trump is a nut, for sure, but so is steve miller, who was cut off for being such a sycophant. The Republican Party<\/a> is really going to hell in a hand basket. We need the Republican Party<\/a> to be part of this countrys solutions. And they have not been and they will not be. Just to follow up on that, if i may, alex, is that they will be burned by this president , and the trump wing of this party. I mean, excuse me, and the bannon wing of this party again. They are not its not going to be clear sailing for republicans. They need to stand up. They need to keep their agenda moving forward. And when the president does things that are inappropriate, they need to stand up to him. You know, susan, as i look at this Statement Issued<\/a> by steve bannon, one of the things he does not say in this statement is what exactly is inaccurate about the reporting or that he is sorry. He just says he regrets his delay in responding. He doesnt say hes sorry for meeting with Michael Wolff<\/a> in the first place. How do you think the white house is going to interpret this overall. The white house and should be very embarrassed by this book in the way it was allowed to happen. How a reporter sat down on a couch in the west wing for at least 17 visits is insane, especially this reporter who has a history of doing slash jobs on the people he profiles. So that is the first, and its a significant concern because it says how the operations were going pretty much before general kelly came in as chief of staff. So that tells you a lot. Now, the way the president reacted was even more telling and more troublesome because this is its clear that this is his obsession right now. He needs to be doing other things. We have talks with north korea coming up, we have a budget Government Shutdown<\/a> looming, and hes giving his state of the union in three weeks. This is not the stuff that a president should be focused on. And you know, for all their talk about being upset about this book, all of their responses have led to record sales for this author. I want to play lastly very quickly for you, howard, part of what Michael Wolff<\/a> said this morning on meet the press. Lets play the next sound bite. I dont know when the train is going to finally hit the wall. I think the entire narrative of this presidency, i mean, and this candidacy and then presidency has been its going to hit a wall. And the thing that keeps everybodys attention absolutely riveted is global attention, is that the train keeps going, but the wall is still there. I need a Quick Reaction<\/a> from you to that, howard. I think thats true. Although whats really happening is kim jongun is running circles around trump. What he did was really smart. Hes now sat down with an essential ally of ours with the president who has always been interested in making peace with north korea. And now theyre having serious talks. Trump is sidelined in south korea. Thats incredible. Okay. Howard dean, susan del percio. Good to see you guys. Thank you. Protecting the midterm elections. What the russians might be up to to disrupt our democracy once again. Thats ahead. Mom, i have to tell you something. Dad, one second i was driving and then the next. They just didnt stop and then. Im really sorry. I wrecked the subaru. I wrecked it. Youre ok. Thats all that matters. vo a lifetime commitment to getting them home safely. Love. Its what makes a subaru, a subaru. Trust 1 doctor recommended dulcolax. Use dulcolax tablets for gentle dependable relief. Suppositories for relief in minutes. And dulcoease for comfortable relief of hard stools. Dulcolax. Designed for dependable relief","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia800400.us.archive.org\/13\/items\/MSNBCW_20180107_170000_MSNBC_Live_With_Alex_Witt\/MSNBCW_20180107_170000_MSNBC_Live_With_Alex_Witt.thumbs\/MSNBCW_20180107_170000_MSNBC_Live_With_Alex_Witt_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240617T12:35:10+00:00"}

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