Good evening. I am chuck todd here in washington. At this hour theres chaos in the white house, at the pentagon, and, yes, on capitol hill. Thanks to one person, the president. And were going to bring you the latest on all of it. Oh, and by the way, the stock market just had its worst week in ten years with the nasdaq in bear market territory. Welcome to what is going to be one hell of an hour here at mtp daily as we build towards the possibility that history will see this moment after the jim matt mattis resignation repudiation as part perhaps the beginning of the end of this presidency. We have news from capitol hill where the president has been marching his gop troops toward a partial government shutdown, now potentially hours away. But there appears to be some exit strategy in the works. What were hearing is it would end up looking like a white house cave again on border money, at least through the lens of ann coulter and Rush Limbaugh. At this hour, there is also growing panic among some democrats and Top Republicans after one of the last guardrails on this presidency, defense secretary jim mattis, unexpectedly announced he was quitting, and he did so loudly, in protest because of the president. We have the latest tonight after nbcs exclusive reporting, the government officials and people familiar with the matter expect bob muellers bombshell report to drop much sooner than anticipated, perhaps as early as midfebruary. Folks, usually a presidency is tested by a crisis. People have been talking about just wait until this president is tested. But in this case, the presidency itself is perhaps the crisis. We begin tonight with the chaos on capitol hill. With less than seven hours until a critical chunk of the government shuts down as the gop is scrambling to find a deal to save itself from another selfinflicted wound. So lets joined now by kasie hunt. At the white house is Geoff Bennett for us. We have tonights panel, jeremy bash, a former pentagon chief of staff, Nbc News National Security analyst, neera tanden, former adviser to president obama and hillary clinton. And hugh hewitt, an msnbc political analyst. Kasie, let me start with you. Obviously there is a lot of chatter. White house negotiators went to Chuck Schumers office, seemed to walk out, walked over to the house. That sounds like a ping pong strategy has developed, but it sounds like its an acknowledgement that democrats have all the leverage. Its fundamentally an acknowledgement of that, chuck. Theres a reason they started in schumers office. But i think you have it right. Frankly this is a much better scenario standing here at 5 00 than it was even at 2 00 because people are talking. For a long time, there were no conversations going on. What has been building here over the last couple of hours is pressure to get a deal, pressure to avoid a shutdown. Theres still a lot of big question marks as to how exactly we get there, but the conversations at this point seem to center around perhaps reviving the seven appropriations bills. Those are massive spending bills, combined im sorry, they would include 1. 6 billion in border wall funding. Theres a question about whether schumer goes for this at this stage. Were hearing the white house is signaling the president may go for it, but those are the real Big Questions here. So were watching the floor. Were expecting Chuck Schumer and Mitch Mcconnell at any minute to go down to the floor and at least give us a little bit of insight as to how they might proceed with this. Kasie, correct me if im wrong. 1. 6 billion was the original offer Chuck Schumer made, right . Basically. There was 1. 3 billion. Essentially were right back where we started if this happens. This has gone in a giant, useless circle that has wasted a lot of energy, perhaps caused stocks to drop, and really given the president quite a few political headaches that were completely unnecessary. Well, lets go to that culdesac right now called 1600 pennsylvania avenue. Geoff bennett, is the white house acknowledging that are they finally acknowledging reality, that they have a math problem when it comes to the senate . Reporter yeah, right. Thats what at least a few white house officials are telling our Hallie Jackson and kristen welker, that the president might be, underscore might be, open to accepting that 1. 6 billion in border wall funding that was already locked in by the senate. But where we stand right now, chuck, is what had republicans nervous some ten days ago when President Trump sat there in the oval office across from Chuck Schumer and nancy pelosi and said hed be proud to shut down the government, that he picked one of the biggest fights of his presidency that almost would certainly end in a government shutdown. And he did it at one of the points where his leverage was the lowest. So what i think was fairly revealing today was that you heard republicans like bob corker not only complain about the outcome, but the process. He said there is a tyranny of talk radio, that the president was onboard with this government funding plan until he was goaded into being against it by the likes of ann coulter and sean hannity, and that the president was more concerned about his own political standing than he was about the welfare of the federal government and keeping the lights on past midnight friday midnight tonight. All right. Geoff and kasie, you have to hang around this hour as we await to see what this deal may looks like. It sounds like well be checking back in within minutes there. But let me take this to the panel. Hugh, ill let you start. Its the talk radio wing that basically dragged the president back from this deal, and now apparently hes inching back. Whats the point . I had no idea i had such power. In fact, if we had this power, we wouldnt be withdrawing from syria because the talk radio wing is very deeply against that. However, i think what happened is the president did get an enormous amount of heat from one person, Rush Limbaugh. And one person with the largest daily audience in america. You know how absurd this sounds . I know. But that one person has 20 million listeners, and 20 million listeners is four or five times as large as any cable show. So the president is not ill advised to take into account whatever rush is senator corkers says, we have two talk radio show hosts i dont know if ann coulter hosts a radio show host. Who basically influenced the president , and were in a shutdown mode. Its just thats tyranny, isnt it . Neera, i dont think you could have written that quote any better for bob corker. I mean we all think its a game, but the stock market seems to be in a free fall. Federal workers dont know whats going to happen. We have the most dysfunctional government that weve had in my entire lifetime, and thats what happens when you basically listen to two talk radio show hosts in a country or one tv show host, one talk radio show host in a country of over 300 million people. Donald trump is not the president of the United States. Hes the president of the right wing of this country, and that is why we have so much dysfunction. You know, jeremy, you have been, i would say, a product and a participant in the functional aspects of government, particularly in the intelligence community, defense department. So you talk to a bipartisan set of folks who i know are shaken by the messed up norms in all of this stuff. But some of this is just trump being a disruptor. We kind of knew we were going to get this. Well, he does like to govern by chaos. But when there is a leadership vacuum and crisis and chaos is in fact the substitute for leadership, thats a very dangerous scenario, not just for domestic priorities, not just for the functioning of our government, but for our National Security. I think our adversaries are watching tonight, and theyre actually emboldened by the fact theres chaos in washington. Well talk of course about whats happening at the pentagon and elsewhere. But when they see the fact that the government cannot operate, they cant even pass an appropriation for one month to continue operations, that sends a horrible signal to our friends and allies. As a tactic at this point, im sorry, when i hear threaten of shutdown, i sort of now shrug my shoulders. The public doesnt even hear this anymore. Isnt this a useless leverage tactic now . I mean, look, it does have impact it has impact on peoples lives, but nobody gets anything out of it. Its not work. The big challenge is the president has zero leverage, right . Every time you go through Something Like this and you try to exert leverage and you dont have it, you become weaker and weaker. And i think the odd thing about this whole situation is the president is trying to donald trump is trying to exert leverage, and he has a Democratic House coming. The politics only get worse for him. He shuts down the government, how he is going to open it up again when a democrat, nancy pelosi, is going to be the House Speaker . The interpretation is the president is trying to create leverage having give it away in the oval office meeting. He did it over a year ago. Daca for the wall. Now hes trying to dig a trench on, i will not shut down. There are 480,000 people who will not make their mortgage payments and College Tuition payments. Its a real deal, an important deal. On the other hand, i think hes in a better position today than three days ago so he went from 1. 3 to 1. 6. He went from nothing to 1. 6. Not really. He had 1. 6 a week or two weeks ago. But it was done by three days ago. He had the whole wall. You could make a case for a brief period, which would have made the left wing of the Democratic Party insane. Last winter. Yes. He had the whole wall. Bad deal maker. Its bad deal making. He has not expanded the political appetite for the wall. That is something that isnt that and by focus on the fence, by border barriers, hes doing a good thing. But what i cant understand is he had a great week. The bipartisan Prison Reform bill was a wait. Hugh, hugh, hugh, jim mattis basically resigned as defense secretary because he said his boss does not see eye to eye with 70 years of American Foreign policy. That wasnt a good week. You cant call that a great week. I started by saying the bipartisan Prison Reform bill is a big win. Could have been a big win. And the resignation, the decision on syria, was a very bad decision. Ive written about that in the washington post, and the think the consensus of the conservative Foreign Policy establishment is that its a bad decision. But that doesnt mean that he is in a worse position at the end of this week because he had lost last week to Chuck Schumer. This week at least hes back in the game. I couldnt disagree more. The other thing that happened earlier in the week, was last week cohen was sentenced in the Mueller Investigation and the szny investigation. This week the flynn sentencing came up and it was delayed in part because the judge wasnt buying the trump Legal Echo Chamber argument that he was somehow hot boxed by the fbi, and the judge said im not going there unless you want me to throw you in jail right here, right now. I think this has been a trying time for the president. Hes felt closed in by the investigations. He lost the midterm elections. Now hes ordered the defense secretary to pull our troops out of afghanistan and syria. The defense secretary quit over it. The president is really lashing out, and hes out of control. If i can just push back, as soon as you come up with a new defense secretary, whether its jim talent or tom cotton, that will settle down, and the department of defendant will salute and take the chain of command very seriously as general mattis did on the way out the door. As soon as you get a new secretary of the interior, the zinke problems go away. Its going to be donald trump at 45 , waiting for the democrats to selfdestruct when they nominate a hard left candidate who says abolish ooi. C. E. The idea that youre savoring that theres going to be a hard left candidate, keep doing that. But the truth is nancy pelosi was is becoming speaker in part because the country was enough with the chaos. We want to stop the chaos. And everything the president s done since november 6th is to demonstrate why there was relief that theres a check on this president. I think youll continue to see that. I think the idea that the president is doing a great job and this week is really great is youre in an echo chamber of your own. That is not how the country is seeing it. No, im at msnbc. Im definitely not in my own echo chamber. Republican reaction to mattis, Mitch Mcconnell, who does not like to be seen as publicly crossing this president , says, i am particularly distressed that he is resigning due to sharp differences of americas global leadership, not a singling out any party. Marco rubio, we put that one up. We are headed towards a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation, damage our alliances and empower our alliances. Adam kinzinger, referring, i believe i forget the retweet he was looking at here. But just over the president s tweet saying that hes ignoring sound military advice. Its been an axiom of republican Foreign Policy theory that isis loves a vacuum, that russia loves a vacuum. What does donald trump create . A vacuum. There can be some discussions about how he would take down our force structure in afghanistan, in syria. What would be the rules of engagement for strikes against isis targets. I think those are legitimate issues. But when you announce out of the Clear Blue Sky without consulting, you say, were out of here because i want one win every day to i want this bring up this reporting that we have that both pompeo and mattis and other members of the National Security team had prepared a list of talking points when the president was on the phone with the turkish president , erdogan, and the whole goal was to get him to back off a potential attack on the kurds. And instead, apparently the president decided to accept the advice of erdogan who said pull the troops out. Does that not alarm you here . Oh, i am a lot alarmed that the president that erdogan had more influence over the president of the United States than mike pompeo. Again, i cant go all that way because my sources in the state department say that the secretary and ambassador bolton remain firmly convinced that the president is executing a strategy that has a gap in it. Now, i spent an hour with general mcchrystal yesterday. Hes very worried about soleima soleimani. The president is indifferent to this. Meanwhile, though, pompeo and bolton are trying to pop back up. Saudi arabia and jordan and egypt, and they are effectively pursuing that. General mattis was not 100 with that strategy. Can i just say also i think were undermining the fact that when you look at the president s Foreign Policy over the last year and a half and this week the withdrawal from syria is only part of this. All of this actually demonstrates a kind of keen kinship at the very least with russias interests. It is not in our interests. It is in russia interest. And i think the thing we should focus on is we had a secretary of defense write a letter, in which he did not say very many positive things about donald trump, and did say that the president of the United States was not taking our adversaries seriously and did not have a keen understanding of malignant interest essentially. I think that should deeply disturb any american. The president and secretary mattis have had disagreements on the paris accord, on the jcpoa and now on syria. The jcpoa, the iran deal. A longstanding series of disagreements. That he is leaving is not a crisis in the what i would argue is all the more reason why this is a crisis. Heres why. I know jim mattis. He has had policy differences with him. I was in meetings where he had differences about policies with respect to taking military options off the table in iran. He doesnt quit over mere policy differences. He quits when the National Security interests of the United States are in peril. Hes a patriot. Thats the mode that he wrote that letter in. Let me pause this conversation and let you take a listen here. Ive got republican senator James Lankford from oklahoma here. By the way, we are awaiting Mitch Mcconnell and Chuck Schumer. Theyre supposedly going to come to the floor to announce the process way forward, not necessarily the deal. Senator lankford, i appreciate you coming on and sort of look, your plans are probably all over the map just like ours are this hour, so i appreciate that. First, can you tell us any more than what were hearing about rumors of at least a deal on how the process might work . What can you tell us . I cant. Im more focused actually on the product than i am on the process. Theres a Different Group of folks working on the process. I think there is the possibility we could get a deal. It probably wouldnt be tonight based on the text and language, but theres lots of ways to be able to do a shortterm cr to be able to keep things open while the negotiations are still happening. Well see what they pull together on process. I was just going to say, is that what this is likely going to be is some sort of deal that allows the president , allows democrats to both say were going to continue this conversation in 2019 . I would hope we actually continue it tomorrow. Were close enough in so many other issues that we should try tow resolve it now. I think thats best for the American People rather than being able to extend this out.