Storm. Those are some of the headlines in our news tonight. And on top of those stories, all of which well discuss tonight, another story that will not go away for the Trump White House just got worse. Tonight theres more news about private air flights taken by the secretary of health and Human Services tom price. Politicos new headline is this. Price took military jets to europe, asia for over 500,000. They write, quote, the white house approved the use of military trips to africa and europe this spring and asia in the summer at a cost of more than 500,000 to taxpayers. The overseas trips bring the total cost to taxpayers of prices travels to more than 1 million since may, according to a politico review. They have led the way on this story. Before that report dropped, price took questions about the controversy for the first time, explaining his plan to try to fix the problem. There will be no private air charters at hhs going forward. A second is to cooperate fully with the inspector general. I called for an internal review within the department itself. Finally to pay for my portion of those trips. Clearly we got werent sensitive to the taxpayer on these instances, which is why ive taken the actions that ive taken today. About that comment, my portion of those trips, he is paying on a prorated basis for his seat on those flights. Not the full 1 million tab. Thats according to politico tonight. His Department Says hell write the government a check for exactly 51,831. 71. Again, earlier before this latest reporting broke, the press secretary was given a chance to say whether or not price will keep his job. Is the president looking further into tom prices use of the private plane . The president said yesterday hes not thrilled, certainly not happy with the actions. Were definitely looking at the issue. Theyre conducting both interm and an ig full review. But to be clear, also, the white house does not have a role on the front end of approving private charter flights at the agencies. Thats something that were certainly looking into from this point forward. And have asked a halt be put, particularly at hhs on any private charter flights moving forward. Until those reviews are done. A full review, well see what happens. Tonight the white house is also on defense on its response to the devastating lack of basic necessities in puerto rico. Theres a struggle to get supplies to the people who need them. Shipping containers filled with food, water and other essentials sit in the port of san juan. But there arent enough trucks or drivers to get them moving. Today the administration defended the response they say is proceeding well. Why has it taken eight days to get a threestar general on the ground to start organizing this . We know the island situation, et cetera, but why eight days . Yeah, well, because it didnt require a threestarp general eight days ago. You are seeing devastation in puerto rico. That is the fault of the hurricane. The relief effort is under control. It is proceeding very well. Considering the devastation that took place. And more on all that later on in this broadcast. And then theres the tax plan this white house and congress have pivoted to in search of an issue to win on. Trump has called it a miracle for the middle class. But experts say its hard to determine whether thats true based on the information we have thus far. From what they can tell, it does appear to help wealthy americans, including the president and his family members, after trump repeatedly said the plan is not good for him. Heres how the white house responded to that today. How can you say that this is not helping him . The American People are concerned about their financial position. I think what theyre concerned about is when they go to work every week and they get their paycheck at the end of the week, how much do they get to keep . How much goes in their pocket versus how much goes to government . This tax plan appears it will benefit the president and his family. Why not be candid about that . Look, i told you it will benefit the middle class. I think thats what american tax american taxpayers care about what they take home. They care about what they have to spend. Lets turn to our leadoff panel on a thursday night. Peter baker is back with us, chief White House Correspondent for the new york times. And Shannon Pettypiece is back with us from bloomberg. And jonathan la mere, for the a. P. , also an msnbc political analyst. Welcome to you all. Peter, there are optics to talk about. Theres obviously suffering and substance to talk about. But lets go with tom price first, because it is very likely to be top of mind with the president. Whats the latest . Well, i think the latest is you see a drip drip drip for tom price as to whether he gets to keep his job. President trump has been the sort of president weve seen before with Jeff Sessions not to offer a lot of support when somebodys in trouble. In fact, to hold somebody in his circle out to dry if he chooses to. And this is a situation where hes genuinely mad at the secretary for embarrassing him, for doing the kind of thing that perpetuates the idea that the swamp is not being drained, but the other way around. Does that mean hes going to be out . We dont know. Certainly tom price tonight is nervously waiting. Shannon, people even in the loyal base are going to hear that figure, 1 million in private and or military air travel. That leaves a mark. A check for roughly 52 grand may look like a too cute by half response. Right. As peter said, this is the classic swamp. This is everything the base hates about washington. This is what they feel they fought against. So thats why this story has some resonance. And for tom price and his future in this add m, he was already on thin ice with the president after this failure to repeal obamacare. You know, weve seen a lot of people come in and out of trumps doghouse. Some people stay there. And some people like Jeff Sessions have a way of sort of going through the revolving door and coming back out. But because price is really out of favor with the president , i think thats why his situation here is kind of perilous. Theres already talk on the hill and among others about a possible replacement. Scott gottliebs name from the fda has been around. Thats sort of the stage were at, about really sort of talking about whos next or where do they go next, even whether or not price will be in the job two weeks from now. There are two clear choices, stay or go. Weve seen cabinet members stay and get publicly humiliated, i. E. , the attorney general. But none of this looks good. No, it does not. Jeff sessions is a great example. He was one of the president s closest allies on the campaign. Trump got very, very angry with him when he recused himself from the russia probe. He did not broadcast that publicly for a few months. But now then he did. In a series of tweets. Still hard to comprehend that a sitting cabinet member he went after him. Sessions kept his job. Trump behind closed doors as recently as this week saying hes still mad at the attorney general. Secretary price does not have these longstanding ties with the president. As the other panelists have said, is taking some of the brunt of the blame for the failure of the health care plan. Yes. Lets remember what the president said yesterday, well see whas his phrase when he asked if price would keep his job. That in trump lexicon is often a kiss of death. He said, well see, about five days before he fired steve bannon. Weve seen the extraordinary amount of turnover here in the first handful of months in this administration. I dont think secretary price should be sleeping easy tonight that hes going to have this job much longer. The president is telling people around him that hes disgusted with this. He thinks it looks bad. It flies in the face of the drain the swamp credo. He hasnt made up his mind but secretary price is certainly in trouble. Lets pivot to the suffering going on in puerto rico. The president on twitter has tried a couple of times to point out how great the effort is, and its received high marks from the governor, the president also along the way retweeted bill oreilly tonight, if you did a word cloud of the business journalism tonight, this night next week i have a feeling the word katrina is going to pop, because the comparisons may become inevitable. And certainly impossible to stop. What is the confidence level on the inside, beyond all the pr, that theyre ahead of this, that they are where they want to be eight days after this storm . Well, certainly theres a feeling of catchup at this point. Certainly at the very least as you pointed out at the top on the optics, certainly the suffering is also, you know, real and very hard to get their hands around. There is a logistical issue here, but it is also about leadership. We saw with katrina and president bush, not just the actual efforts on the ground which were hobbled by a number of obstacles, but the sense of leadership, the sense that the president cares and is investing urgency in the problem. In the last few days, hes begun doing that in a much more sustained way than at the beginning. But its taken a real toll on the perception of his leadership that he didnt do it right away. Shannon, there has been a palpable empathy gap, an absence of empathy. You hear stuff, you read stuff, anyone in the white house who didnt previously know that Puerto Ricans are americans certainly knows by tonight. And they also know this is the stuff of accountability. Mayors are graded on clearing the snow after a big snowstorm. President s are often graded on how they respond when nature hands us the very worst. Yeah. And this is thursday. And on sunday, i could see my twitter feed and my facebook feed being posted with images of people saying, what is going on here . Why is the president talking about nfl and why is the country so upset about that when we have this humanitarian crisis unfolding in puerto rico . The optics just keep continuing. We now have a cruise ship from a private company evacuating people off this island. And it just rings this memory of katrina where you had the walmart trucks going into new orleans when fema couldnt get there. Here we have once again a private company, carnival cruise, evacuating people from this island when the federal government is saying, no, we cant get there. You know, or dont worry, were on top of it. The optics arent good. Going into the weekend, theyre not going to get any better. The president goes there on tuesday. I think theres a sense that hopefully the situation will be better by tuesday, or not you know, better, but the optics will be better by then for his trip. But he could be flying into a very difficult situation visually as well as, you know, physically on the ground for so many of these people. There were a few heroes in katrina. Jonathan, whats it like on the inside . We havent really talked nor do we plan to with the war with the nfl tonight, at long last, or war of words with north korea. While all this goes on. Thats right. This is a president and administration that likes to say frequently, we can talk and chew gum at the same time. They like to think they can handle multiple things at once. Weve hear Sarah Sanders say that repeatedly. They have to do that now. You didnt even mention the ongoing russia probe. There are certainly in the last few days publicly theres been much more of an effort to engage here on the crisis in puerto rico. Its not just about optics. These are real lives. But theyre playing optics game very poorly. We have the acting director of Homeland Security today saying its a good news story, in terms of the federal governments response to this crisis. I think very few people on the ground in puerto rico would agree with that. The president , though, certainly he is starting to focus on this more. Hes worried about the response. Behind closed doors, hes still talking about the nfl. Hes telling groups of conservatives this week he thinks thats a winning issue for him. He feels like that theyre his base, really responding to that, theyre angry that the people that players are taking a knee and linking arms in protest of the national anthem, because he has also decided to turn this into a personal issue for him where he feels the protest is as much about the president as it is about the flag. Last word, peter, you were around for 43. You know better than most. Empathy counts, appearances and action really count in events like this. They absolutely do. President bush went back to the gulf coast in new orleans repeatedly after the initial storm. I think he went back almost 20 times. He spent tens of billions of dollars. He never caught up to the First Impression that was left. The First Impression that was left was it wasnt being effectively managed. That hurt his presidency for the rest of his second term. The perception that the presidency was not on top of something as important as that. Thats why its important for President Trump beyond the next few days, whether he can change that perception after having done or seeing at least hes done a pretty good job on texas and florida, that remains to be seen. Thanks to our great friends. Peter, shannon, jonathan, thank you for starting us off. After our first break tonight, still ahead, well get a live report from san juan as millions of americans continue to wait for help there. Also tonight, the heat is increasing on twitter on capitol hill. Well discuss the russia investigation with a man whos investigated a sitting president before when the 11th hour continues. The presentation that the twitter team made to the senate intel staff today was deeply disappointing. Their response was, frankly, inadequate on almost every level. One of the topics well get to in this very segment. Mark warner, the ranking democrat on the Intelligence Committee not satisfied with twitters explanation as to how russia is using its platform to influence american politics or what theyre doing to stop it. Company execs met with the senate and house Intelligence Committees today. Twitter shut down some 200 twitter accounts it traced to kremlin operatives. Some were the same agents that bought facebook ads during the president ial election. Across town at fbi headquarters, one impact of the russia investigation was on display today. New fbi director Christopher Wray was formally sworn in. Notably absent, mueller and comey. There is some new information on muellers investigation this evening. Were learning that Vice President mike pences attorney spoke with special counsel mueller over the summer. Politico reporting it this way. The meeting which has not been previously reported was held at pences request to express his willingness to cooperate with muellers investigation. Joining us tonight is someone who knows quite a bit about special investigations, ken starr is with us, former federal judge, former solicitor general and independent counsel in the whitewater and Monica Lewinsky investigations. I ins youre of the belief that the president should be much more wary and onguard and worried about these congressional investigations than the mueller investigation, and if we have that correctly, why is that . Well, no, i think hes got to be wary about both. I think theres a tendency, brian, to ignore what congress is doing, when famously, during the watergate investigation so many years ago, the explosive fact of the white house tapes came not from archibald cox, the special prosecutor, but from congressional investigators during a deposition. I would say its all hands on deck. But i very much appreciate what was just reported about the Vice President saying, we are going to cooperate. The president s lawyers are saying that. Thats exactly what needs to be done. Lets get this over with. The way to get it over with is through cooperation. Though among reasonable people, shouldnt it be assumed that mike pence is going to fully cooperate with the investigation . It should. That should be the operative principle. These are folks that are sworn to uphold the law. And they need to do their duty. And right now, it is to cooperate with a dully appointed special counsel as well as congressional oversight committees. Ill just say, i worked closely with bob mueller when we were both serving in the bush administration, bush 41. Bob is a terrific lawyer and extraordinarily able. And he has very good judgment. Hes honest, total integrity. So my advice is, cooperate fully. Based on the tea leaves and what we see in public, which, of course, is a small fraction of whats going on beneath the surface, not unlike an iceberg, do you read anything into where this stands, how far along we are . I think were not that far along. But it looks as if especially in light of what we now know, which is the surge of Paul Manaforts condominium, early in the morning, thats an extraordinary action. I believe, my reading of the regulations under his appointment is that he likely consulted with the Deputy Attorney general. I dont know that. Because that was an extraordinary action. Very highlevel person, high visibility person. And it sends a really powerful message. I mean, business. Its a bit of shock and awe. So i and the report is that there will be an indictment. I think there will be a number of indictments before this is over. When i arrived at little rock in august of a long time ago, 1994, bob fisk, my predecessor said, move your family here, youre going to be here for a long time. And sure enough, there were 14 criminal convictions by the end of our tenure. How will interviewing various white house aides, some very senior, change the tone and tenor of this . They all, after all, have to go back to the west wing and work with each other, not knowing what was asked, what was said, what was answered. Its a terrible situation within the white house. Its demoralizing. Its one of the reasons that you want to get these things over with quickly. As quickly as possible. But my advice, again, youve got to be transparent. As we see now with the jared kushner, the latest revelations, these facts are going to come out. Truth will come out. So the choice is to, do i try to hold on, stonewall, or do i say, you know, the best thing for me to do is just to get it all out there, and then face the consequences of that. But youre right, they then have to be very judicious and confidential about what theyre doing in the white house. So you have to essentially compartmentalize sgld yes or no answer if this is possible. Do you see the president being p