your man. the president lunched with rudy giuliani. that meal just one of several gestures that president trump made this weekend alone to show support for his personal attorney. it was days ago that the president seemed to distance himself from giuliani now facing a possible probe about his dealings with ukraine. now joining me now national security correspondent with politi politico. welcome to both of you. let s start with you on this. what are we to make of what appears to be trump s renewed support for giuliani? >> we can probably be sure that it is completely dependent on giuliani remaining loyal to the president. trump was loyal to michael cohen until he realized that michael cohen was going to flip on him. i don t think that anything can be take frn granted with regard
now it should be noted that even if that was happening, 30 minutes experts tell us is enough time for him to have committed suicide. so the real question becomes why was he taken off suicide watch. we are told the protocol would have called for a face-to-face mental health evaluation. there s no doubt the fbi and inspector general will be looking closely at the circumstances of that and how it was that these federal authorities decided that especialepstein was not a threat to his own life. >> yeah and 30 minutes is very much. a lot of time for somebody to kill themselves. and you have hundreds of inmates that are there at that facility including paul manafort. leave it there now. joining us right now, joyce vance, msnbc contributor and former u.s. attorney and andrew, a congressional reporter for politi politico. andrew, congressional lawmakers already demanning an investigation into his death, including ben sass, the senator.
reinstatement of the federal death penalty. we ll go live to washington to talk to our justice correspondent pete williams in just a moment. first, the biggest question democrats face today. when will they make up their minds about impeachment? here to help us answer this question, nbc s hans nichols at the white house. jake sherman, senior writer, split close. natasha bertrand, national security correspondent at politi politico. brett stephens is here, new york times op-ed columnist. mr. sherman, i ll start with you there on the hill. what are you hearing from your sources there, what are democrats planning next? >> i mean, listen. the reality that democrats are going to face in just a matter of hours is they re gone for the next 46 days, they re gone from
congresswoman waters in several different ways. >> but he has repeatedly called her dumb repeatedly throughout the years. >> you know, i just don t -- what i don t quite get still is there s probably 10% to 15% of the people who say they approve of the president s job performance who really don t like any of this, and i just keep thinking of him as the 401(k) trumpites. also up from the washington post david ignacius a from politi politico. >> south carolina, a state i know very well, a state i love, especially the greenville area, i have known people up there for a very long time, the upstate
pathway to relinquishing our freedom. >> tonight s hardball roundtable, and a carney from politi politico, cornell belcher and political analyst john brabender a republican strategist. what do you make of cabinet secretaries that only speak the truth after they re out the door. >> what we re seeing from a lot of republican leaders. like the jeff flake syndrome. when there s nothing to lose anymore, they speak truth to power. with tillerson it s quite rich to hear this from him now when he was the least accessible secretary of state ever, alienated the press corps that didn t travel with him because he wouldn t let them. >> he let one reporter, erin mcpike, whatever it was. he didn t let the main reporters go around with him ever. >> do you think there s a sense that like for rex, he didn t speak up or say anything because he wanted to be the adult in the room. we talked about early on we ll have some adults in the room with trump and rex was one of
they did on the campaign that won the support of tens of millions of voters. >> nancy cook, i want to move from the press baefing room into the cabinet room if i could, a subject of the president s ire. i ll read a little bit here from politi politico. trump s advisers have been increasingly criticizing the homeland security chief in private with the president, arguing that she isn t doing enough to improve bored are security and noting that she wasn t a vocal trump supporter during the campaign. what s your sense of where she stands in this administration, what it says about cabinet officials in the trump administration more generally? >> this is just another issue of back biting in the trump administration. rather than in the communication shop, this is at the cabinet levels. there a number of trump advisers inside and outside the white house that keep stressing for the president that she worked
politi politico. rachel, people knew he wasn t going to seek reelection but to announce today, help us understand. sources are saying one of the reasons is he s just had enough of trump. how big a factor was that? >> trump has definitely changed the party as paul ryan has known it for years and decades. he came here as a staffer, came up the ranks, became a member of congress, a vice presidential candidate, came back and became speaker. he s been the number one supply-side republican, your typical fiscal hawk who believes in capitalism and free markets and trump has definitely changed the party, right? we re talking about tariffs, the president is, there s a lot of infighting going on, paul ryan has had a lot of issues with drama, he doesn t like it, he wants to stay with it. so, sure, that is a factor about
does seem that trump and his allies throughout the conservative media and on capitol hill, we ve been watching this closely in politi politico. the rhetoric is escalating. we ve been through cycles like this. people may remember the holidays at the end oh of the year, the rhetoric was cranking up and there were predictions that mueller would be fired. that didn t materialize. but it feels like it s cresting again, and maybe even more intensely. and i think joseph digenova joining the legal team adds to that. but there is this confusing question about what is the legal strategy when it comes to an interview with mueller? i think that s not been resolved. but trump did say today that he wants to talk to mueller. ty cobb may be winning that fight. so that is a kind of parallel track that we need to be watching closely, because the stakes of an interview like that are incredibly high. >> vivian, because of your aforementioned front seat on
for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. more now on secretary of state john kerry s speech defending the white house decision not to veto last week s vote at the united nations. also, president-elect donald trump blasting the obama administration over its handling of israel and israel s prime minister thanking trump for his support. what does this all mean for the united states relations with israel? let s bring in elianna johnson, national political reporter for politi politico. elianna, i heard a lot of speechspeech s from john kerry over his years as secretary of state and before but rarely heard him as exercised as he was today. he seemed really hot about this construction issue. >> yeah, kerry had to go out today and defend what is widely unpopular decision by the obama
so a lot of the establishment is just sitting on the sidelines and i think the moment to go after either has passed. >> it s too late? >> it s too late. and it just -- it -- two-thirds of the party is in one of those guy s pocket. one-third is in the establishment lane. that doesn t auger well for the establishment going forward beyond new hampshire. >> ben, here s what i don t understand. all the establishment guys began the week by beating each other, laying off cruz and trump. maybe now they ll find out trump wants to take cruz on and that might make them happy but it seems beating each other up is no way to help each other. >> it s a demolition dur biand they know one will survive, has to survive, so they have to climb over their brothers back before they can manage to take on trump or cruz. >> let me bring in the rest of the panel here, helene cooper, pentagon correspondent for the new york times, jeff greenfield, long time correspondent for many networks not named nbc and writes for politi