Way. Senator al franken is addressing the allegations against him. No intention to resign . No. We have an ethics process that i agreed to cooperate with completely. He insists hell be back at work today. Congressman john conyers stepping aside from his powerful position as Ranking Member on the House Judiciary Committee amid an ethics investigation. Conyers is an icon in our country. Do you believe his accusers . Do you know who they are . They havent come forward. Congressman conyers, release her to tell her side of the story. There is a powerful story to tell. The list of Unfinished Business for lawmakers is brutal. The vote to overhaul the tax code. Moderate members may think this plan is too friendly to corporations. Nobody showed up at a donald trump rally last year was chanting, cut Corporate Taxes. We dont know any fiscal conservative could ever vote for the bill. You see a bill passing by christmas . I do believe in prayer, number one. Hope we get it done. I cant imagine were not going to support this through the end, as a whole, the senate. That was funny. Josh earnest. Anybody at a trump rally, cut Corporate Taxes. The power of lobbying. Nobody was going, cut Corporate Taxes, yet it is a priority to cut Corporate Taxes. Wonder why. The newest fight in d. C. , a showdown at the Consumer Financial protection bureau. Get your dukes up. Mick mulvaney showed up, Dunkin Donuts in hand, for work, taking on the role of the bureaus acting director, after being appointed to the position by President Trump this weekend. According to cnbc, he told staff this morning to disregard directions from recently appointed Deputy Director english. Over the weekend, english filed a lawsuit to prevent mulvaney from taking the reins of an agency he described this way in 2014. It is a wonderful example of how a bureaucracy will function if it has no accountability to anybody. It turns up being a joke. Thats what the cfpb really has been, in a sick, sad kind of way. When he arrived at the office this morning, mulvaney was confident in his authority. Director mulvaney, nbc news, morning. Morning. Do you believe you have le t legitimate authority over this bureau . Yes, i do. Cnbc reports he was given access to the Directors Office with the cooperation of his new staff. Cooperation that was likely help aid long by the bag of dunkin he brought with him this morning. Listen, thats fair. He is a new boss. Sure. Butter up the colleagues. It would work for me. English, however, got a highpowered boost early in the weekend when massachusetts senator eliz be wbeth warren tw, the dodd frank act is clear. If there is a vacancy, the Deputy Director becomes acting dire director. Donald trump cant override that. You have to put into context, the cfpb is Elizabeth Warrens baby. Ms. English faces an uphill battle. There was an eightpage memo, concluding dodd frank doesnt displace the president s authority to appoint an acting director, citing the reformat of 1998. The cfpbs own General Council released a memo saying, it is my legal opinion that the president possesses the authority to designate an acting director for the bureau. So that would be a blow to ms. Englishs case. Got it. So with all the uproar around the cfpbs leadership, lets step back and look where it came from and what it does. After the financial crisis of 2008, the newly elected Democratic Congress put in regulations to govern financial institutions. Those efforts turned into the dodd frank act, which President Trump signed into law in july of 2010. Part of the law, title 10, created the Consumer Financial protection bureau. The bureau has been targeted by republicans since its inception, blaming it and the dodd frank act as a whole for Rising Bank Fees and a decline in the number of Smaller Banks and smaller bank lending to local businesses. The bureau, the cfpb, is charged with protecting consumers from predatory practices by banks, credit card companies, student loan and mortgage companies. Debt collectors and payday lenders. In 2016, the bureau ordered citi bank to follow a court order, refunding 11 million to consumers in a Debt Collection case. And late last year, it fined wells fargo 100 million after it was found that many employees were secretly opening bank and credit card accounts that were not authorized by customers. But with this fight over the top job, the bureaus work is in serious question. Okay. The problem is, theyve done real things, stephanie. Mick mulvaney and President Trump i think the president tweeted this morning its done nothing useful or helpful. If youre not a consumer, youre not interested. Listen, when it is called the Consumer Financial protection bureau, of course, the name, just like the epa, Environmental Protection agency would lead you to believe there is protection for the subject. They do great things. It doesnt mean theyre perfect. It doesnt mean that they should go unchecked, untouched. No, but the president isnt saying that theyre imperfect. Mick mulvaney is saying it is sad, sick, a failure. Its not those things. Theyre absolutely wrong. But in terms of wells fargo, for example, the cfpb was late. If it wasnt for the la times reporting, it is unclear whether the cfpb would have gotten the job done. It doesnt mean the cfpb cant get better. Sure. People dont like that theyre funding doesnt come from congress, it comes from the fed, so congress cant touch it. Where the president or Mick Mulvaney is failing us, what is the resolution . Right. If the answer is it is failing you, you need smarter and better regulation. Great, bring it on. But where is it . It is looking like we need no regulation, at least thats the argument the president and Mick Mulvaney uses. When you say, dodd frank sinksink stinks, get rid of the cfpb. Take mes bas me back to 2008, ps that led to the financial crisis. Banks were okay within a year but people out there lost their homes, lost everything, who are still suffering. Right. If the answer is, we dont want too much regulation, the correct answer cant be, we have none. We need better, smarter. If thats what youre offering, President Trump and Mick Mulvaney, what is it . Lets see how the shakeup, showdown, whatever it is, is going to affect consumers. Nbcs Kristen Welker joins us now. It seems that director mulvaney has suk secceeded in the early s of taking over at the bureau. We didnt have a morning in which two directors showed up. One filed suit. We dont know where that stands at moment. The other one, Mick Mulvaney, showed up with donuts. Insane. Think of the week mulvaney would have without the cfpb. You have a budget. Were facing a government shutdown. We have tax reform. But he has time to take over the cfpb. Reporter well, thats right. To the first point about the legal issue, guys, look, ive been talking to white house officials. They feel very confident that the federal vacancy act trumps, for lack of a better word, what was in dodd frank. This is within the president s authority to appoint an interim director. Of course, you have the Justice Department in the eightpage memo that you mentioned agreeing with that, as well as the cfpbs legal counsel. Which i think is a really interesting and important point to underscore. I wouldnt be surprised if we heard a little more from Mick Mulvaney a little later on today. Look, this is going to be tied up in the courts. Hes still going to work there. With this power struggle make it difficult for him to carry out his job there at the cfpb . I think thats going to be a big question. I think exactly what you guys were talking about is the other important question to ask. The fact that the president tweeted that the cfpb has been a disaster, that Mitch Mulvaney called it a joke in the past. To the other important point you all raised, how is Mick Mulvaney going to do that as well as be director of the omb . I spoke with a Senior Administration official who said that he is capable of doing many things at once. He is a talented guy. Theres no doubt that the stakes couldnt be higher because of tax reform and because of the allimportant december 8th deadline. Thats when Congress Needs to pass a spending bill or else we could see a partial government shutdown. Back to you. Well follow this with you all day. Kristen welker at the white house. Thanks. President trump on the attack in a different subject. Today, it is against one of his favorite targets. Guess what . The media. On his twitter feed, he suggested a contest, not including fox news. Thats fun. To see which network is the most dishonest, corrupt and or distor distorted in its political coverage of your favorite president , me. The winner would get a fake news troy trophy. Would the president give it out . If he has it in his possession, does that mean he is the current champion of it . He tweeted cnn is fake news, saying it represented the country poorly to worldwide audiences. These attacks on cnn by name come by the way as the Justice Department is trying to prevent a merger between at t and cnns Parent Company time warner. Trump also went on the attack friday. Time magazine i have to slow this down. This one blew my mind. Time magazine contacted him about probably naming him person of the year. Though he claims he turned the magazine down. The tweet went out against the backdrop of a successful acquisition attempt by the Meredith Corporation, owner of family circle, and other magazines. It was backed by the republican megadonors, the Koch Brothers. President trump tweeting, clearly making up this nonsense story of time person of the year, when earlier in the day, he said, after golf, ill go back to maralago and talk about companies im bringing back to the United States, jobs. Never gave us any information about what really matters. Bringing jobs back to the country. But gave us this absolute nonsense story about person of the year. Nobody cares about that. Joining us now is clair atkinson, who followed these things for years. Hi. Lets talk about this Meredith Corporation thing. Is there any relation to the is it between the fact that donald trump and his Justice Department havent come up with remarkably good reasons to block the at t purchase of time warner . On the other side, the Meredith Corporation, backed by the kochs, are buying time and the president is attacking time and cnn . Strange thing going on in government. We have a two track situation. With the fcc deregulating media, telling newspapers and stations, you guys can get together now. On the other side, you have the Justice Department clamping down on at ts ability to acquire time warner. And the trump tweets seem to play into the at t lawyers hands. Right. They seem to be giving them evidence so when they go to court and they say, were here and were protesting the Justice Departments blocking of this lawsuit, they can then come up with all of these tweets that say, the president says he doesnt like it. Then all of a sudden, you have the Justice Department asking us to sell turner. Stevenson, the ceo of at t, this weekend gave an interview to new york times. He is raising the prospect that there is interference. He said, i dont know if theres been political interference, but it is logical to ask the questions. Youd be naive not to. Listen, any type of deals like this, of this size, theres always a political agenda. Theres always lobbying. But here, it is extraordinary. As we look at meredith potentially going through, now that theyre backed by koch, we know sin claire broadcasting has gone through and it is right wing. Is there not a concern whats working for the right isnt working for the left . It is a good question. But one of the things the analysts on the meredith call asked today was, why the Koch Brothers . It seems to be an unusual investme investment. It is from their private equity arm. 650 million in a magazine company. Is that a good investment in this day and age . Most people would say no. But it would appear that meredith is interested in making more acquisitions. They not only own a big magazine house, they own local stations. Folks might be asking themselves this could be the building of a and this is not a surprise. Yeah. On the analysts call, was there questions around the Koch Brothers influence over content . They were asked why the Koch Brothers. They said, both in the press release and on the call, that there will be no influence. Theyll have no seat on the board. They didnt even want any oversight of things. But, i mean, this is what everybody says at the beginning, right . Right. Then you see not going to be involved. Ill leave it to the ceo to run it. How it works. Would we see a Fortune Magazine story about the Koch Brothers now . Could you read it in the same light . I dont think you could. Thank you very much. Senior media editor for nbc news. Were not going away. Stick around, everybody. Alabama Senate Candidate roy moore set to give a big speech tonight. We havent seen him in 11 days. First appearance in over a week. Hes getting another boost from President Trump. Just two weeks before the special election. Interesting. Stay around. You know what youre doing this morning. Youre watching velshi ruhle. K woke up with a sore back. But hes got work to do. So he took aleve this morning. If hed taken tylenol, hed be stopping for more pills right now. Only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Tylenol cant do that. Aleve. All day strong. All day long. Welcome back to velshi ruhle. Sexual misconduct scandals are rocking washington as Congress Returns from its thanksgiving break. The latest fallout, Democratic Congressman john con yens conyers of michigan stepped down on the Judiciary Committee. The 88yearold is facing an ethics investigation after two women accused him of Sexual Harassment. Conyers saying, quote, i very much look forward to vindicating myself and my family before the house Ethics Committee. I spoke with conyers attorney earlier today. The bottom line is congressman conyers is categorically denied any conduct that remotely resembles Sexual Harassment. What the congressman supports is the truth coming out. He supports a full investigation. And what he supports and is looking for ward to is when this investigation is completed, that he is clear like we anticipate that he will be. Also this morning, House Democratic leader nancy clpelos disappointed members of her party when she defended conyers yesterday on meet the press. We are strengthened by due process. Just because someone is accused, was it one accusation, two . John conyers is an icon in our country. Hes done a great deal to protect women, violence against women act, which the right wing is quoting me as praising his work on that. He did great work on that. The fact is, as john reviews his case, which he knows, which i dont, i believe he will do how is it that you dont let me finish. Sure. I believe he will do the right thing. Garrett haake joins us now from capitol hill. Congress is confronting Sexual Harassment. The house is expected to vote on a bipartisan resolution this week, mandating Sexual Harassment training for members of congress and their staff. The senate has already done it. What else are we expecting to see . Isnt it amazing they never had Sexual Harassment training . Every job i ever had reporter stephanie, it was a potluck system on capitol hill for a long time. Individual offices handled this in different ways. This step that the house will vote on to mandate an across the Board Training Program is being warmly received up here. There is also a since that it is kind of closing the barn doors after the horse is already done. This has become a bipartisan issue, in a sense, we are seeing accusations of different stripes against members of both parties. But there really is an atmosphere up here right now that seems to be a lot more of these kinds of accusations are going to come out in the wash. You hear the discussion about due process, but it is important to note that the committee processes in both the house and the senate up here are very opaque. You may find out nothing at all about the substa