Departure was trumped by trump. Kelly spent 17 months on the job but his likely replacement could have even less time in that role. Trump versus comey again. The president lashing out. A newly released transcript shows the russia investigation began by looking into four individuals and details how a member in trumps circle was using information leaked to the fbi. After a long week of russia headlines, we have to do this once in a while. A bit of a laugh with snl. Dont be scared. Its just me, Robert Mueller, your dads friend from work. Im not allowed to talk to you. Thats fine, eric. It was pretty clear early on that you dont know anything. Nope. I wish i could say the same thing for some of your dads friends. Like mr. Pillowfort. Manafort. Mr. Papa johns pizza. Papadopoulos. You might want to call him federal inmate 10358. All right. Going to start with the fall out from the bombshell revelation ppsrevelations. A growing number of republicans fear the legal trouble will go to the rest of the party. He announced his chief of staff, this happening just yesterday. Kelly will be leaving. John kelly will be leaving. I dont know if i can say retiring but hes a great guy. John kelly will be leaving at the end of the year. It might surprise some because trump and kelly had agreed to announce his departure on monday. Advisers tell the Washington Post he revealed the move a few days early amid a flurry of headlines he wanted to change which you can understand the headlines were talking about. Sources tell nbc news kelly will be replaced by mike pences current chief of staff nick ayers. A young millionaire, political operative and could not be more different than the military man hes replacing. Trump is expected to make a formal announcement any day now. Lit Michael Cohen faces sentencing wednesday for lying about trump ice busine business dealings in moscow. Jeff, you and i talked about this yesterday when it happened. You were in philadelphia with the president. Honest departure. President trump did something many did not expect but maybe we did because of what happened in the previous 24 hours. Any more read in on how that happened, why and when will the official announcement come out . Reporter i can tell you theres a growing fear. Certainly growing anxiety among trump allies and republicans that the white house is in no way prepared for the legal and political danger and drama that awaits and that the fall out could damage the partys prospects in 2020. Why is that . Youve got democrats seizing control of congress in three weeks time with subpoena power. Theres turmoil in the Global Financial market from the trump trade war. You have the russia investigation picking up speed, and youve got those new Court Filings out friday implicating President Trump in a felony. On that front, the legal exposure the president faces on account of the Michael Cohen court documents. Take a listen to what Chris Christie has to say. Chris christie is a trump ally. I thought that the Michael Cohen situation was mump more perilous for the white house than bob mueller. Theres been no proof of russian collusion. I dont think there will be. It doesnt appear there will be. This is the stuff thats much more concerning to the White House Legal Team and that language is very, very strong and very definitive. The prosecutors better have corroboration. If they dont, and going with Michael Cohen, thats a problem. If they have corroboration, that could be a problem for the white house. Reporter in a typical administration, white house chief of staff would help the president , help the west wing weather a political storm but not necessarily in this one because we now john kelly is on his way out at the end of the month after a contentious and controversial tenure. Waiting in the wings is nick ayers. Hes chief of staff to mike pence. He has agreed to serve as acting chief of staff to President Trump. The reason is ayers planned to go back to his home in georgia with his wife and 6yearold triplets at the end of 2018. He told the president he cannot make this twoyear commitment that trump has requested he make. Because multiple officials tell us that nick ayers is a polarizing guy. Hes a hard charging reputation and there are questions about a potential domino effect if trump ultimately names ayers to the role. Inside the white house theres talk of numerous staffers who are threatening to quit if he becomes white house chief of staff which add to all of the other turmoil you talked about at the open of the show. There in lies the story. As we look forward to monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday is if he does make the official announcement, who will go with him. What does that mean for other cabinet members that this chief of staff has been working with and has been the rabbi for. Thank you for the very latest. Lets go to jeff mason. Hes a white house correspondent. Jeff, i want to start with you on this. What is the domino effect . What is the tip of the iceberg here because if john kelly makes the official announcement himself or the president tomorrow on monday, theres a bunch of folks not only in the white house but on this hot button issue of immigration, the head of dhs and who might be missing the person thats been protecting them, if you will . You identified one right there. The head of department of homeland security. Shes a close confidant of general kelly. They have been seen as a team. She took over once he went into the white house. She would be one. Shes already somebody who the president has been critical of. I think you also have to look what the will nick ayers do when he comes in. He will have a mission, particularly if its only for a short period of time to prepare the white house for the coming months and next two years. To prepare the white house for an election, to prepare the white house for democrats having subpoena power in the house of representatives. He will want people around the president an at the cabinet level who are ready to do that. Eli, if it goes this way, the signaling is moving away from commanding control, moving away from operational, moving towards election and one has to ask is this the right strength, the right muscle set based on some of the challenges in front of this administration right now. Russia, investigation going on there. China, we have seen the markets get hit last week. Who knows what will happen in the coming days. Congressional oversight in the next two years. The ability to be on the hill. Eli. Theres a lot of storm clouds swirling over this white house for whoever the next chief of staff is. If it is nick ayers, the people who are supporters of his, ivanka and jared, point to his political experience and background. They believe thats the right skill set for somebody heading into the president s reelect. I would caution from viewing this too much through the lens of moving away from process, from john kelly sort of military style of discipline because even no that w though that was the narrative that im bringing in a four star general here. Hes going to really tighten up this ship. That didnt happen. The most resistant person to that sort of discipline was the president who escaped into the reside resident, speak way more executive time up in the residents tweeting. All the efforts by john kelly to keep the president on task were met with a whole lot of resistance. This has never been an operation. The trump operation with donald trump at the head thats had a lot of process or discipline or sort of routine to it. I dont think whoever the next chief of staff is is going to be able to impose that when its donald trump sitting in the chair behind the resolute desk. One take away is it did not run like a swiss watch. Jay, one of the headlines were looking at today thats from cnbc, john kelly questioned by the mueller team. One advantage is you are getting out what happened before. Were moving onto a different phase and given that as eli and jeff has been saying this Current White House was not necessarily running super efficiently. I think they have all resigned themselves to kind of just winging it. That seems to be the president s plan as Rex Tillerson said. This isnt a president that reads in a lot, that prepares a lot. He plays a lot by his gut. Thats the way he won this election. He argues thats the Winning Strategy. Its always been his Winning Strategy and thats where hes really wanted to go since hes become president. He had people who have resisted that like john kelly who has made him better prepared and organized. Every time somebody comes in to do that, he does resist it. This time around you have a young nick ayers coming in. Seems like he will be coming in to be the chief of staff at a time when they should be, traditionally, preparing war rooms to respond to white house subpoenas. Preparing war room for the campaign. Preparing a war room for whatever mueller comes up in his final report. Instead they are not preparing anything. They are just waiting for things to happen and waiting to respond to things and sort of by his gut kind of doing whatever it is, responding the way hes always responded by just spinning out different ideas, different issues. Instead of responding to mueller, hes talking about comey and his testimony before congress and trying to distract from the news of the day. Thats really been trumps strategy in the way hes handled things from the beginning. Its increasingly let trump be trump. If trump is going to be trump and if one of the hypotheticals here is that Jared Kushner and ivanka trump are strongly behind some of the major decisions here, this one include d, as we look toward, potentially that they did not get along with kelly. Are we seeing an administration going back to the way things used to be done. A smaller group, a family group and really taking a step back from what was maybe a bit of an extension, bit of a test to see if ill go institutional, if you will. Its a good question. I think its hard to answer until we see who else comes into that inner circle. Also to see if its nick who ends upta taking over. Hes run a tight ship in the Vice President s office. On the press side they are pretty savvy. He would probably bring those skill sbos into the oval office he ends uptaking the chief of staff job. There are other positions to fill. There are just openings that people arent coming into. They will need to fill those as well. Theres so much to do. In addition to working on election, they have to deal with the russia probe and House Democrats and Everything Else we have been talking about today. Adding to what might be next, is secretary mattis watching. Does he have an ear to the ground. The other fellow general in the cabinet going off into the sunset. Is mattis in the conversation and how might he be in the conversation . You think back to the start of this administration and mattis and tillerson and those folks described as being the grown ups. Mattis is the most senior and only one of those left. Obviously in a very important position. Hes swomeone that the presiden still respects for the most part. We have seen him go around mattis. The thing that keeps people in these positions is a sense of responsibility, needing to stay and stick around and make sure that the pentagon continues to run and that the president doesnt do anything or direct the pentagon to do something that he cant stop if he thinks he needs to. The other thing is the fact theres so many positions that we might see changing. We mentioned the dhs secretary earlier. Theres an interior secretary who is facing ethics investigations. Likely to be brought before a democrat house in the new year if they dont switch him out. Theres a lot of changes. I think the triage mode keeps certain people in place. Theres so many fires to put out. What is good for this president and what is good for this institution of the presidency . Those things not necessarily being the same. I was going to say theres increasingly big difference between whats good if the president and whats good for the country. As the president defends himself and his office and his election and whether the election was actually a fair and just and well done election, theres so many questions swirling around that as these increasing allegations come out from mueller about whether or not there was collusion in that election. What is good for the president and the white house seems to be diverging. As that diverges, republicans on the hill are becoming increasingly worried that their party might go down with this man if this man is going down. I think the thing to watch moving forward especially once democrats take the house is how do republicans on the hill respond. Do they move to protect the president and do they say were not going to protect him anymore . The mid term midterms still over. Thank you and have a good sun sunday. Coming up, trump versus comey. The president lashing out. This following the release of transcripts of his meeting with house investigators. Why comey says the russia probe began in the first place and why the investigation will go on even further if trump were to fire mueller. These people, they speak a language we cannot understand. [ telephone ringing ] whoa. [ indistinct talking ] deductible . Definitely speaking insurance. Additional interest on umbrella policy . Can you translate . Damage minimization of civil commotion. When insurance needs translating, get answers in plain english at progressiveanswers. Com. He wants you to sign karens birthday card. Its a high honor. He wants you to sign karens birthday card. Discover card. I justis this for real . Match, yep. We match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. Whoo i got my money hard to contain yourself, isnt it . Uh huh let it go whoo get a dollarfordollar match at the end of your first year. 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They are now exposed. Comey says, there are not many things i would bet my life on. I would bet my life that bob mueller will do things the right way. Joining us now nbc National Political reporter. You had about 45 sekconds to analyze 245 pages yesterday. What did you come up with and whats one of the take aways . One of the things as we look at this politically, the left and right are looking for talking points as they move forward on is the Mueller Investigation real or not. Theres the email investigation bucket. Theres the origins of the russia investigation and the last one which is what did the testimony reveal about whats going on with the Mueller InvestigationGoing Forward. Thats coming into focus as much more significant as weve had more time to read through this. One thing that jumped out, we have a government lawyer, the Justice Department lawyer for the first time in an open setting stating theres an obstruction of justice investigation that is part of the special counsel probe. I think we have all assumed that for some time but to have that stated publicly was rather significant. Whats interesting now, i was on the hill yesterday as comey was testifying. He came out to speak to reporters and within the minutes the first filing came down. We know that comey will come back and speak to lawmakers in another week, i think. Hes going to have an opportunity to weigh in more on some of the things he discussed. One of the them, what happens if mueller is fired. James comey said you would have to fire almost every one in the Justice Department for this to come to an end. Least got so much ammo. If youre sitting on the reason side and evaluate for us very quickly, do the republicans gain more by going to this second set of testimony or do the Democrats Gain more . We heard pr republicfrom rep a lot of frustration about what he cant answer. He cant comment on specific questions. Hes a very skilled lawyer and politically. You see him sparring with republicans, raising russia on his own even when they are not. Having some fun with them. I think that will be interesting. Working so hard. Hes now put two days together. It was friday that you were listening. Youll be back on the hill for us. Thank you for stopping by. Lets turn to our panel. Start with Barbara Mcquaid and elliot williams. This idea that comey is saying you can fire mueller but youd have to fire just about everybody to stop this investigation. Is that what you would agree with . I think so. I think we have reached a point where so much of the investigation has seen the light of day that it would be difficult to end this. A piece of it is owned by the Southern District of new york. Even if there was no special counsel, theres still the Michael Cohen case, the disclosure in that case that President Trump directed him to commit the Campaign Finance violation and the publicly filed documents. Grand juries have returned indictments. Judges are presiding over cases. I dont think those will just disappear. I do agree with him if Robert Mueller goes away tomorrow, these cases