Well, good evening once again. As we start a new week from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 746 of the Trump Administration. The eve, of course, of the president s second state of the Union Address. And tonight, the feds have spoken once again. The branch of the u. S. Justice department that covers the Southern District of new york has tonight issued what is apparently a wideranging subpoena to the trump inaugural committee. This is a new legal front dating back to before trump was President Trump. This is more pressure on the trump legal team, of course, by the feds. Well have all of it covered as we go along the way here tonight. The trump white house, dont forget, was already dealing with the damage done by a huge leak, someone handed over to axios copies of the president s private schedule for virtually every day over the past three months. That covers nearly every working day since the Midterm Elections. They show that trump has spent around 60 of his scheduled time over the past three months in what is called, quote, unstructured executive time. For example, first schedule from november 7th, 2018, day after the Midterm Elections. This also happened to be the day that former attorney general Jeff Sessions was fired. Turns out trump spent several hours that day in the aforementioned executive time. His only event was a meeting with his chief of staff. Axios notes that the president usually spends the first five hours of the day in executive time, and that those hours are rarely spent in the oval office. We quote, instead, he spends his mornings in the residence watching tv, reading the papers, and responding to what he sees and reads by phoning aides, members of congress, friends, administration officials, and informal advisers. Report does say that not all of the president s activities show up on the schedules that were leaked in this case. And it says a lot of meetings are spur of the moment, while others appear on a more detailed schedule, guarded by a Smaller Group of west wing aides. Nonetheless, axios says this latest revelation has, set off internal fingerpointing and speculation more fevered than any since the New York Times anonymous opped. White House Press Secretary responded to the report with a statement of her own that says in part, and we quote, President Trump has a different leadership style than his predecessors and the results speak for themselves. While he spends much of his average day in scheduled meetings, events and calls, theres time to allow for a more creative environment thats helped make him the most productive president in modern history. Madeleine westerhauth, the president s lead assistant who sits right there outside the oval office, had a more forceful response. And she wrote, what a disgraceful breach of trust to leak schedules. What these dont show are the hundreds of calls and meetings donald trump takes every day. Among those meetings are briefings that trump gets from the nations intel ageagencies. Were learning a lot more about those as well. Not all of it good. According to Time Magazine, and we quote, intelligence Officials Say trump displays what one called willful ignorance when presented with analyses generated by americas 81 billion a year Intelligence Services. The officials describe futile attempts to keep his attention by using visual aids, confining briefing points to two or three sentences and repeating his name and title as frequently as possible. What is most troubling, say these officials, and others in government and on capitol hill who have been briefed on the episodes, are trumps angry reactions when he is given information that contradicts positions he has taken or beliefs he holds. John walcot, author of this piece in Time Magazine spoke to Lawrence Odonnell in the previous hour tonight and described a commander in chief increasingly less engaged with his Intelligence Community. For the most part, lawrence, the briefings have stopped. The president doesnt take them, unlike president obama, who took home threeinchthick notebooks at night. The president doesnt read them. Often doesnt take them. The National Security adviser, john bolton, takes some of them. Vice president pence has taken some of them. He simply ignores them. Troubling stuff. The gulf between trumps beliefs and his intelligence chiefs assessments became public, starkly, last week after a senate hearing. The president criticized his intelligence chiefs and accused the media of misrepresenting their televised remarks. Trump was asked about the intelligence assessments during that interview this weekend with cbs news. Your intel chiefs do say irans abiding by that nuclear deal. I know you think its a bad deal. I disagree with them. By the way you disagree with that assessment . I have intel people, that doesnt mean i have to agree. Trump prepares to speak so the nation about his agenda, priorities. The Washington Post reports trump is at a cross roads at his white house, as it tries to deal with multiple threats to its own existence. Phil rucker is joining us in just a moment, one of three journalists sharing a byline for this piece. They write, the challenges mount at a moment when trump is as unchecked and isolated as ever. Inside the white house, aides describe a chaotic freewheeling atmosphere reminiscent of the early weeks of trumps presidency. With that, lets bring in our leadoff panel, shall we, on a monday night . A. B. Stoddard back with us, veteran journalist, columnist, social editor at real clear politics. The aforementioned phil rucker returns as well. Pulitzer prize winning White House Bureau chief for the Washington Post. We also welcome back robert costa, National Political reporter, also with the Washington Post. Big night for that newspaper. Hes also moderator of Washington Week on pbs. Phil rucker, your reporting, no other way to put it, shows a disconnect between president and presidency. How has this happened or was it inevitable . Well, brian, i think it was inevitable and its not entirely new, to be honest. You know, this is how President Trump has decided to conduct his presidency and conduct his time in office. He has a very different routine during the day than his predecessors. He treats the Intelligence Services as you just got into very differently than his predecessors, and at this point, hes unrestrained. He has a new chief of staff, acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who does not have the same control over the president and over his decisionmaking process that john kelly did, the retired fourstar marine corps general who was ousted at the end of last year and the president is increasingly turning to his soninlaw, Jared Kushner, a Senior Adviser in the white house who in many respects is functioning as the chief of staff and making a lot of these decisions as it pertains to the Government Shutdown and the Border Security debate. I have to point on the intelligence issue regarding the president s intelligence briefings, i interviewed him a couple months ago in the oval office. One thing he said really stuck out to my colleague, josh dawsey and i. He said, look, i have a gut, my gut tells me a lot more than anybody elses brain can tell me. Thats how he views the advice hes getting from within the government and within the administration including from his own political appointees. He has incredible faith in his own beliefs and own core instincts. Robert costa, you are always talking to the hill so its in that spirit i ask, what has this leak revealed . If not surprise, is there any kind of embarrassment . Theres not surprise because most republican law make who are have a relationship with the president are often calling madeline westerhout, the president s assistant outside the oval office. They know its often best to go through the president directly through the oval office, not the acting chief of staff or other Senior Advisers unlike so many previous white houses. At the same time, republicans are alarmed in divided government, this is a president who still has a freewheeling style. It worked a little better, they tell me, when republicans had control of the government across congress. But now with democrats in the senate and all these different issues laying before the president that phil detailed so well, you have a president whos challengd and making a lot of calls and a party thats worried that maybe hes not getting the best advice because the white house is not coherent as it once was. A. B. , do i have your permission to call you an institutionalist . Is that okay still . Yes. Having said that, having established that, you were shaking your head when we were talking about the portion of our lead story, dealing with these intelligence briefings. Well, all nations seek to influence and find leverage over every administration. A year ago, we learned that four nations believed our Intelligence Community had concluded that they had ways to leverage and influence Jared Kushner. He was given a wide Foreign Policy portfolio. So much so that the first secretary of state really felt he was on competition with him. As phil points out, Mick Mulvaney has taken his hands off of the wheel so that Jared Kushner and ivanka trump and President Trump can do what they wanted to do before john kelly implemented a more structured environment. The concern here is that if only senators rand paul and Lindsey Graham who are opposite on the spectrum in terms of Foreign Policy, National Security, were just giving their best advice to the president all morning in unstructured time, that would be fine. The fear is by shunning intelligence and his own advisers and the facts, he is seeking input from tv anchors and old buddies in real estate, and, therefore, could end up on his unsecured phone line, be influenced by people who have agendas through foreign actors because theres no longer a check either from general kelly or a regular briefing by the intelligence officials and experts who he actually is engaged with. Hes just turned it off. Well, i got no problem with the tv anchor part of that. Lets look at it the opposite way. Servants and more who have devoted their lives, nonpartisan, they stay in theyre jobs from administration to, studying iran to name one. Thats brainpower. Thats advice. Thats part of what comes with the job. But he has openly, just like he said in that interview, and he told phil openly, he doesnt believe them. He doesnt need to believe them. He goes on his gut. Kellyanne conway said its not that he doesnt that he distrusts them. He doesnt believe them. He has a fixed notion about whats going on with iran right now, whats going on with iraq, afghanistan, and syria, north korea. We know that mike pompeo, that kim jongun in a love letter says he doesnt want to deal with secretary of state, he wants to deal directly with the president. Why . Because he kim jongun knows that hes not taking his intelligence briefings. And engaging with the intelligence presented to him. He is acting on his guts. Hes pretty open about it. Phil rucker, our friends over at Monmouth University are out with another poll. All the caveats apply. Its two years out. Yeah. A week is a year in politics, but here you have it. Should he be reelected in 2020, yes, 38 , no, 57 . Thats way underwater for where a president would like to be right about now. And im guessing theres a pretty solid base of recognition for this in the west wing. Yeah, brian, this is not news to those who are helping guide the president s reelection campaign. They know that they have to do things to get those poll numbers back on in a more comfortable space and, you know, the instinct from President Trump and from some of his closest political advisers has been to focus on the base. To energize, mobilize, galvanize, those core supporters, but theres a growing recognition that in order to win back, again, a second time those industrial midwestern states that he carried in 2016, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, to be sure that he wins florida again, for example, to try to be competitive if some of these other swing states like north carolina, hes going to have to expand beyond the base and what weve not seen yet from the president in these last few months since the Midterm Election defeat, is an expansion of his appeal. An attempt to reach out to people who are not onboard the trump train today, and get them onboard for november of 2020. Well see if in the state of the union he tries to do that. Hes talked about delivering a unifying message tomorrow night, but the focus on the border wall and immigration and the Government Shutdown is really geared at the base and trumps going to need to go beyond the base to win reelection. Robert, right there, well take phils point and that is this message about unity. If worst case tomorrow night is that we get a broilerplate photograph about unity, and starting in the limousine over to the white house, he is tweeting about the idiot democrats, if thats worse case, what is best case for this president at this time in history walking into that chamber tomorrow night . Theres going to be the image tomorrow night of the president , hell be cheered by republicans. Put aside the obvious divide with democrats, there are real tensions on the republican side. Outside of the senate today, republicans are telling the Washington Post theyre very worried about the president possibly declaring a National Emergency at the border and going against what they see as norms of conservatism that they would not like to see messed with and they have a president who still has the partys base in his grip, but the pageantry and the pomp and circumstance of tuesday night will not tell you about all the tensions that are really there in the gop as well as elsewhere. A. B. , with 30 seconds remaining, not to scare anybody or foment anything, you and i were talking about the energy in the air right now that will be in the air in that chamber tomorrow night, especially since theres a whole slew of new democrats in there for the first time. Right. I think the fighting spirit of the freshman democrats will have to be kept in check, and they should give him they should take the high road and give him a nice welcome, let him say his piece. What if he does Say Something unifying . Then they can have the response which is going to be given by Stacey Abrams and can chat it up the following day. I think they should act like theyre the majority and leading the house of representatives tomorrow night. Always the optimist. A. B. Stoddard, philip rucker, robert costa, our thanks to the three of you for starting off a new week here. We really appreciate it. And coming up, as weve been reporting, Donald Trumps legal troubles just got worse on another front, especially here in new york tonight. Tonight, what the feds here would like to know. And later, the audience in front of this president , again, is going to look very different tomorrow night, not to mention how the view will be different right behind him over his shoulder as well. A preview of his second state of the union ahead as were just getting under way on the 11th hour on a wednesday night. This isnt just any moving day. This is moving day with the best inhome wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. And this is moving day with Reliable Service appointments in a twohour window so youre up and running in no time. Show me decorating shows. This is staying connected with xfinity to make moving. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and twohour appointment windows. Click, call or visit a store today. Were back. Some would argue it was Wishful Thinking that led me to call wednesday night right before the break. Ill cop to that, it is monday night. Forgive the error. Back to the other lead story were covering tonight, however. This was brief but urgent. Earlier this evening when the Associated Press reported the following. Federal prosecutors in new york issue subpoena seeking documents from Donald Trumps inaugural committee. The New York Times reporting it out this way, a lawyer working with the inaugural Committee Received a subpoena on monday evening seeking documents related to all of the committees doors and event attendees and that prosecutors also showed interest in whether any foreigners illegally donated to the committee as well as whether Committee Staff knew that such donations were illegal. And theres more as the man on tv says. The Washington Post adds these critical details and we quote,