Most with Brian Williams and nicolle wallace. Fake news. Period. Congratulations, mr. President. I am outraged. Lordy, i hope there are tapes. This trump and russia thing is a madeup story. Were getting nothing done. Violated my body. It was disgusting. He mashed his lips against my face. 2017 has been an unbelievable year. The most outrageous, the most surprising and exhausting. The greatest number of have you seen this events weve ever seen. Everybody makes lists this time of year. Were calling ours, the years 10 most. Welcome to the 10 most. Im Brian Williams. And nicolle wallace. I hoped she was going to jump in there. He kicked me. We have done this before. I should explain, were on the 27th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in a kitchenette. We dont like to brag, but its pretty nice. We chose it, though. We did choose it to get away from the usual studio look and, boy, did we succeed. We have been at this before. Our producers on this project in their wisdom said to us about a month ago, hey, why dont you kids sit down and hash out what would be your list, brian, and your list, nicolle, for the ten most, and there were a million different subcategories because its been a year. Has it not . Here are some highlights from our first sitdown. I feel like you copied my list. I have not seen your list. My list. We can do better on culture. Im going to put Bruce Springsteens broadway show on here. You have no list discipline. Snapchat . I just was trying to be edgy and young. I dont really know what it is. Lets get to the list. Starting with number ten. Bob corker, republican, departing senator from tennessee. From the great state of tennessee. The most important voice, of course, on Foreign Policy in congress, Foreign Relations chairman senator bob corker. Bob corker is so interesting. He was rumored to be a candidate for Donald Trumps running mate. Came to trump tower. We saw him in trump tower. Came to trump tower. Was an ally. Lent his credibility as a figure with a good deal of respect on the world stage to trumps candidacy when he endorsed him during the general election. Hes had a very public breakup with donald trump. The president has not yet has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful. During a time these last few months when profiles in courage have been rare, even though i know you said on the air this year that he had the truth serum of not running for reelection, i think we would still list bob corker, as i always call him a workhorse and not a show horse in the senate, as one of those profiles, perhaps. Its a shame the white house has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning. This was not the first time corker expressed grave concerns about the president s conduct. Listen, i think that republican senators who have stood up to trump in some instances get too much credit. Jeff flake is not on the list because he is fluent in antitrumpism, but he never puts actions behind it. Regret because of the coarseness of our leadership. People are starting to ask questions about the president s fundamental fitness. If that becomes a bigger thing, a bigger conversation, corker will have started it. Its obvious his political model and governing model is to divide, and he has not risen to the occasion. He is someone that said out loud what a lot of people in washington only say behind closed doors with a couple of cocktails, that donald trump appears to lack the stability and competence for the presidency. He held a hearing to question whether or not he should have all of the Nuclear Command at his disposal. Can i expert a point of personal privilege and ask you as my friend and coworker what 2017 has been like. You are a very visible Republican Communications director in the 43 white house. Whats it been like for you . Its like an endless funeral. Its like going to the political wake of a party i served for from the time i was 25 until the sort of calamity that was the mccain palin campaign. This sort of wave started in 2008 with the crowds that came out for sarah palin. Great answer. Number nine. The mayor of san juan, carmen cruz. Lets move, people, move born in puerto rico. Degree from boston university. And a masters in Public Policy from carnegie mellon. A very substantial person who it turns out was required theres no way you can tell me our response to what happened to puerto rico was a response to what would happen to one of the lower 48. I totally agree with you. Parts of buildings being blown off. Debris strewn throughout the street. Trees being toppled. Communications are starting to go down. Hurricane maria, one of the strongest storms ever to hit puerto rico. A total death count still not known. I am begging, begging anyone that can hear us to save us from dying. Shes that rare politician for whom that wasnt hyperbole. People were people are still dying. If anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency and the bureaucracy. I mean, she was on my list from the first day we got this assignment. She is someone who i think will stay with me forever. And donald trump really messed with the wrong twitter combatant when he picked a fight with her. President trumps dramatic series of tweets critical of her and others in puerto rico saying they want everything done for them. Puerto rico did not get the response the victims of the hurricanes that hit houston and florida got. Full stop. Thats true. It didnt. What she did probably saved lives. What she also did was stand up to someone who was, in the moment, bullying her. He trolled her. He trolled the mayor of san juan. The president unleashing 12 tweets on puerto rico today saying results of Recovery Efforts will speak louder than complaints by san juan mayor. He can attack me all he wants. Bring it on. Im here. Mr. President , between one and ten, how would you grade the white house response so far to the hurricane . I would say it was a ten. The islands decimated infrastructure makes it virtually impossible for workers to get to many of the areas. A few weeks back she was on with Rachel Maddow here in this building and was wonderful. I dont know how she views her future. In politics. I think a good Many Americans would have voted for her for just about anything at the height of this. Its been very difficult, but its a lot more difficult for people that still dont have water or have to boil their water, but they dont have anything to boil it with. She has an urgency about her and a decency about her. And a competence about her. This president attacked her during her roughest time. She went to meet him when he visited puerto rico and had that ridiculous paper towel moment. When he did that, when he threw paper towel at her citizens, the island still had zero power and maybe 2 or 3 and i think 41 of the island had no safe drinking water. But she never broke face. She never made it personal. She simply stood up and defended her citizens. When we come back from a break, our list of the ten most continues. Its been said the president loves generals. Well, a few of them have gotten into trouble over the years. We will talk about that when we continue. We know life can be hectic. Thats why, at xfinity, weve been working hard to simplify your experiences with us. Now, with instant text and email updates, youll always be up to date. You can easily add premium channels, so you dont miss your favorite show. And with just a single word, find all the answers youre looking for because getting what you need should be simple, fast, and easy. Download the xfinity my account app or go online today. Our list of the ten most comes to number eight. Its been said that one man more than others knows exactly where the Mueller Investigation is going to go because he lived it. Would you like to tell our audience who that is . Mike flynn. Lock her up. Thats right. Thats right, lock her up. Mike flynn is the most stunning well, not just indictment, but mike flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi. Former National Security adviser. Former National Security adviser to the president of the united states. The question that we sort of leave with after this dramatic news of his guilty plea is not just what does he know and what has he told mueller, because the answer is everything and whatever mueller wants, according to every prosecutor who has ever been involved in a case like this. The people who interacted with flynn, they know who they are. So whether it was take your pick, the Vice President , kushner, sessions, trump. The question is, how high up did this go . This explodes the idea that no one in the white house knew and that he misled everyone. Not a Single Person who knew flynn from his military days thinks that flynn was the strategist of a prorussia campaign. Thinks that flynn would have on his own said, im going to rip up russia sanctions. A few biographical notes. Three stars in the u. S. Army. A lot of people said that something changed, something turned in mike flynn. This former army ranger, a man who had spent time in combat, a man who a lot of the retired generals who stick around the military knew and spoke so highly of, had changed. I think he saw donald trump as a blank slate. Our friend chris christie, he believes one of the reasons he was fired from the trump president ial transition is because he was waving a red flag about mike flynn for weeks. I begged him to get rid of mike flynn. So, you know, that was a bad hire. Its almost shakespearean. His son had become ensnared in the Mueller Investigation. You have a son. I have a son. I dont know any parent who wouldnt do just about anything for their son. We dont know yet if this was a test for flynn, if his loyalty for trump was infinite but for the legal exposure of his son. Thats one of the theories out there. Its impossible to overstate what a big deal this is. How important it is. And once again, today, this moves closer to the oval office. We see the unraveling of all the lies. We also dont know yet how cooperative he will be. I mean, mueller grants his reprieve on sentencing at the end of the process. So mike flynn works for mueller. He works for team america until mueller is done with him. Number seven is an athlete, Colin Kaepernick. We must confront systemic oppression as a doctor would a disease. You identify it. You call it out. You treat it. And you defeat it. He is famous in his own right because the story of Colin Kaepernick became intertwined with the story of donald trump. Colin kaepernick and what he has stood for, or more appropriately knelt for, has attracted the attention and criticism of donald trump. Colin kaepernick from your San Francisco 49ers took them to the super bowl. Has not worked in the nfl for some time but is now synonymous with taking a knee. And i think bringing it back to kaepernick is the right way to put this on the list. Because there were a lot of players who by the time donald trump was attacking the nfl week after week after week, Colin Kaepernick wasnt playing for the 49ers anymore. Wouldnt you love to see one of these nfl owners when somebody disrespects our flag to say, get that son of a [ bleep ] off the field right now. Hes fired. Hes fired he had started something that the president saw as an opportunity for twisting the knife in some of our sort of cultural booboos. One of those ouchies is around the issue they were trying to raise awareness for. That was criminal justice reform, social injustice. What kaepernick was doing was almost epitomized peaceful protests and the right to do so. The message is that we have a lot of issues in this country that we need to deal with. We have a lot of people that are oppressed. We have a lot of people that arent treated equally, arent given equal opportunities. I think what makes the kaepernick story endure is that, ultimately, the nfl didnt ban the protest. They said they didnt like them. But ultimately it was touch and go for a little bit. But ultimately, the nfl stood up to donald trump. We saw a number of things. We saw some things that had to be called straight up stunts when jerry jones took a knee with his players before the anthem. Then we saw it get hijacked as somehow antiveterans. Antimilitary. Antitroops fighting overseas. It was never about our people in uniform. You know who agrees . Most people in uniform. I think in this vacuum i think its safe to just assert that in the trump presidency, theres a morality vacuum, a leadership vacuum in our national politics. There have been some athletes who have stepped in around issues, and this was around the most basic american idea, free speech, and filled the vacuum. We will leave this here. When we come back, two men, both powerful figures. And thats about all they have in common. All of your time in republican politics, in all of your time working at the white house, how many people came up to you and said some version of russia or russians . Never. I would like to introduce you to joe russian or join me at the Russian Embassy or can i get your boss involved . Nothing . Literally never. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever. We talked about russians when we were last here in this beautiful space. We didnt talk about vladimir putin, number six. American president s come and go, but putin has outlasted them all. Hes perfected the art of controlling every detail to achieve his own goals. All you really see when you look putin in the eye is exactly what he wants you to see. There is an inexplicable, so far, and irrational affinity and i think affection on Donald Trumps part for vladimir putin. In every utterance during the campaign, the president went out of his way to praise vladimir putin, to speak highly of him. He bragged about what a good, strong leader putin was when confronted by our colleagues. Joe scarborough and mika brzezinski. He is running his country. At least he is a leader, unlike what we have in this country. Again, he kills journalists that dont agree with him. Well, i think our country does plenty of killing also, joe. You and i get to hang out around terrific experts. We get to have them on our broadcasts. You take a guy like malcolm nance, a 35year veteran of counterterrorism. Get him started on vladimir putin. He views the fsb and kgb officers as the new nobility of russia. They are the pinnacle of russian society. He uses them on a daily basis. Used to be kgb. Now fsb. They sound like savings and loan institutions. They are decidedly not. This guy is a trained spy. They can both find you. He would argue hes a trained killer. At the end of the day, he messed with us. The only part of the story that doesnt satisfy a majority of americans is that trump isnt mad about it. There was some incredible reporting in the Washington Post about how the Obama Administration knew that the russians were meddling. They didnt do anything. Someone described it as we choked. But the putin story could have ended on election day if donald trump said, i won fair and square, but im going to make sure that putin stays out of our democracy. I am puzzled by why our president isnt getting our defenses up so that we dont get hacked in another election. Weve got all of congress coming up just next year. Then two years after that weve got another president ial. I dont feel prepared. I dont feel like we have been warned. Our number five selection on our ten most list is john mccain. Ive loved my life. Ive loved every minute of it. The disappointments, ups, downs, wins, losses. But no one has had the wonderful life that ive had. No one that i have ever known. Hes an american icon. He, too, got caught up and criticized in the sweep of donald trump. He was a prisoner of war. So, not for the first time in his life is he in the fight of his life right now, john mccain. Hes become an extraordinary spokesperson and a valiant warrior now against cancer. [ applause ] i stand here today looking a little worse for wear, im sure. I have a refreshed appreciation for the protocols and customs of this body and for the other 99 privileged souls who have been elected to this senate. John mccains place in history was secure even before this year. But this year you could argue has been really extraordinary. One in the fight against cancer. And two, in that thumbs down vote against repealing health care. There was a lot of drama leading up to that. Its expected to be a very long night in the u. S. Senate where republicans are in a marathon session leading up to an expected vote. Theres going to be a voteorama on gazillion amounts. In that moment which we carried live on television, it was a harrowing moment when he came out of the cloak room. Everyone saw Something Different. I saw a man with his outstretched arm put his thumb down. But just in his outstretched arm, i saw the scope of history of john mccain. Both of his arms were so grievously injured. He has never been able to comb his own hair. He cant raise them above shoulder height. Everything he was about was put into that moment, a vote he could not cast despite feverish lobbying efforts. Looking back, it was so john mccain. If you are looking for a republican senator who has never strayed from his set of principles, thats john mccain. Stop listening to the bombastic loud mouths on the radio and television and the internet. To hell with them [ applause ] they dont want anything done for the public good. Our incapacity is their livelihood. They wont always be in line with what democrats like and believe to be the right policies. But john mccain has never stopped putting the country ahead of politics. He sort of represents the best idea of what the senate was supposed to be. I believe in americans who are capable of better. Ive seen it. Were hopeful, compassionate people. We still have leaders who will uphold the values that made America Great and a beacon to the oppressed. He has some of the best friendships ive ever seen. Hes got lifelong friends in Lindsey Graham and joe lieberman. They were the three amigos. Together again. The band back. The e street band. I dont know what it is. Another good friend of his is joe biden. He was on the view recently where he tried to comfort megan mccain. Joe bidens son beau had the same type of cancer. There is hope. If anybody can make it, your dad her dad is one of my best friends. Her dad her dad goes after me hammer and tong. Were like two brothers who were somehow raised by different fathers or something. What do you want to be remembered for . He served his country. Thats what id like to see. He served his country. Hopefully with the word honorably on it. Thats all. Well be back in a moment. When we do, the news media start to work their way into our list. Old and new. When we first sat here, one of our more boisterous conversations was about what wasnt going to make you attacked me about buying toothpaste on amazon. You have amazon. Is that amazon prime, or are we talking three to five days . Amazon is a multi its on multiple levels. Big customer here. I live above a drugstore. I order toothpaste and deodorant on amazon. Thats tragic. They might as well call that Carbon Footprint toothpaste. Amazon does get us to the owner of amazon, jeff bezos, who is also now the owner of the Washington Post. Great news for the journalists, i think they would agree, at the Washington Post because theyre a wellfinanced news organization. This brings us to number four on our list. The reporters. Joining us is Michael Schmidt of the new york times, reporter who broke the story. With me now is david ignatius, editor for the Washington Post. Im joined now by my colleague carol lee. Covering this administration has sparked an entire industry. Its also created some of our best tv friends. Ashley parker, White House Reporter for the Washington Post. New york times political reporter nick comfosori. These people are family because we rely on not just their scoops, which come at a pace that its dizzying. But they have also become our storytellers of this presidency. Kasie hunt, thank you. Ken dilanian, now to you. They manage to cover this white house to maintain all the access that they have. Carol, you are the lead byline on this story so im going to start with you. Not to take anything away from our Investigative Unit which breaks stories all the time, but to cover such a disruptive period in politics, whether it was a democrat or a republican, it takes a village. What we get to do is showcase all the journalism. Nbc news learned special Counsel Robert Mueller has enough evidence to bring charges in his investigation of former National Security adviser Michael Flynn and his son. As were having this conversation, im remembering my broadcast we had Julia Ainsley talking about her exclusive, peter baker and robert costa. Republicans are enthused because President Trump is in the corner of roy moore trying to rev up that base in the state. The stakes are enormous. Its really, at this point, its a jump ball. More often than not, that resembles our first segment. We throw stuff out the window that we cant handle in our hour. Theres so much news now. This network is all about covering it. I mean, they are competitive, im sure. But there is a camaraderie to covering not just donald trump and the unconventional ways that he has turned the presidency on its head, but covering this moment. You think of all of the people sort of bringing us these stories day after day after day. Its an embarrassment of riches. We know this christmas season, meryl streep and tom hanks i have heard of them. In this movie called the post. The times has 7,000 pages detailing about how the white house has been lying about the vietnam war for 30 years. The first thing im going to do on my first day off of christmas break. Have you seen it . I have not. It goes to this point about what we are living through. The idea that the media was a check at these pivotal points in our history is an important inflection point. The parallels cant be ignored. Under constant fire, these institutions like the times and the post, like nbc news and msnbc have to make it through the other end. Exactly. You know, the publishing of the pentagon papers is often overlooked when people talk about watergate. There have been a lot of movies made, deservedly, about the great journalism of bernstein and woodward. This one, i cant wait to see this. Number three, the twitter feed of the president of the united states. It comes after President Trump unleashed the highly charged allegation on twitter accusing the former president of spearheading a nixon watergatestyle plot. Theres always statements from the president available. Declarations of war, declarations of peace. Then from donald trump, obama tapped my wires. Its audacious. I think this will be controversial. Because even in the press, there is a group of thought, a school of thought that we should ignore them. I come down on the other side. Its on his twitter feed that we see the sharpest edge, the fighter that they all describe. Everyone has been talking about it from daytime to late night with seth meyers. Trump thinks he is working hard because twitter went from 140 characters to 230 characters. My workload has doubled. Sent from the president s twitter account saturday, i had to fire general flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the fbi. Despite the constant negative press kafefa. That was it. Trump wrote on twitter, why would kim jongun insult me by calling me old when i would never call him short and fat. Oh well. I tried so hard to be his friend. Its hard to believe the people he has gone after on twitter, and as the phrase goes, the whole world is watching. Its hard to believe the time of day, the frequency, the day of a terrorist attack he is likely to attack the media or the country already under attack. Its not nitpicking. Getting these things right goes back to where you started. They are official statements from not just donald trump the man but the office of the american presidency. They are. To the degree that it is our job to mark dramatic shifts to institutions, the office of the presidency has been dramatically altered by donald trump. When we come back, the placement on our list of an issue americans have been talking about nonstop in the last several weeks and months. The tail end of 2017. Also, the items that did not make this years list. I want to bring our audience in on the treat that was our first discussion of what wasnt going to make the list. None of us have donald trump because its a given. Donald trump. We are doing this broadcast and compiling this list in the era and in the presidency of trump. Neither of us have mr. Bannon. I dont know if i if i agree with that. Trump and bannon, i would give them last year if we had done this last year. We were busy. But i would give them 2016. I would put Jared Kushner on that list, too. I would put the Trump Campaign and sort of what they pulled off on the 2016 list. Melania trump is on your list. Shes stoic. I wouldnt have put her on a 2016 list. In 2017, shes been pretty perfect. Separately, as you know today, George Papadopoulos who was an unpaid policy adviser to the Trump Campaign, he actually pleaded guilty in a secret Court Hearing on october 5th. And it looks like the government in his case, theyve charged him with one count of lying to the fbi. Papadopoulos. I mean, just because he was a nobody and we know his name. Its fun to say. I agree. Its just a mouth party. Its just fun. George papadopoulos had no formal role in the campaign. He was a lowlevel volunteer. You are a greek american. Theres some element of pride, im guessing, that were saying papadopoulos. Papadopoulos. President trump ignored shouted questions today but called his former adviser papadopoulos a lowlevel volunteer and a proven liar. I brought some things not on the list, either cultural or news markers of this year. Ken burns series on vietnam will go down as having been a product of 2017. Okay. Dunkirk, which i thought was extraordinary and powerful. Spicy and the mooch. Fidget spinners. Houston in terms of floods and world series victory. The total eclipse. There it is. Theres the corona. Loved the eclipse. We were all out there looking through odd devices. I think i have permanent damage. That is unbelievable what las vegas endured, what mexico city endured, what charlottesville endured. O. J. Simpson is out of jail. You have some favorites. Here is why i think Big Little Lies deserved an honorable mention. New category. Okay. Were getting into this. This is happening now. They didnt know we were going to this. Were going rogue. Honorable mention. Look at me and smile. Big little lies, by putting so many successful actresses in one body of work, by putting rape and Sexual Assault at the center of the story line, really elevated the topic. All of which brings us to number two on our ten most. Something we are calling, after some deliberation, the reckoning. The wave of Sexual Harassment and assault accusations and dismissals in certainly more than one industry. I have been silenced for 20 years. I have been slut shamed. I have been harassed. Ive been maligned. And you know what . Im just like you. Mr. Moore attacked me when i was a child. I did nothing to deserve this sexual attack. I think the best thing about the reckoning, about companies and organizations and institutions purging any man who is harassing women from its ranks, a lot of people probably believe thats long overdue. That moment for so many women who have felt voiceless has come way too late. But come it has. And its a wave. It swept through this company. Good morning. Breaking news overnight. Matt lauer has been terminated from nbc news. As im sure you can imagine, we are devastated. We are still processing all of this. Savannah guthrie articulating what we all feel, that complicated feeling of not knowing the side of a person and feeling heartbroken. So brave of the women who come forward and tell their story. Before 2017 was born, in its formative dna, whether we knew it or not, this was coming. This was baked into who donald trump was, the man 63 Million People voted for, was the man on the access hollywood tape. When you are a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. 2017 was born of a womens march that exploded. From the streets, in this city, other cities around the country, other countries around the world, that was the formative dna. The revolution starts here. The lava that formed into rock and gave us something to build 2017 on. Harvey weinstein is related to that. Its all related. Harvey weinstein denies the allegations. But in so many of these things on our list are connected. Go back to the newspaper and the journalism thats taken place this year. Just the journalism in the first stories about harvey weinstein. Then the journalism in the Washington Post about roy moores nine accusers. The Washington Post sought me out. I didnt go looking for this. This fell in my lap. Roy moore denies these allegations and further says he does not even know you. I wonder how many mes he doesnt know. The wave that is sweeping up men who are accused of harassing women is one phenomenon. The journalism that has chronicled it is another. In the view of many women, certainly the women who have been victimized by men in the workplace, probably a moment i the porkplace, wholly a moment long overdue, but undeniably one sweeping every industry. Sweeping ours. Sweeping through corporate america, through technology. Getting tripped up a little bit in republican politics. Elective office. Right. Theres donald trump, but even the trump accusers getting a lot more attention than they did during the campaign. All of a sudden hes all over me, kissing and groping and groping and kissing. I think to his great surprise and great dismay, he might have thought to coin a phrase this matter where he was concerned was put to bed. I think he thinks, and he has certainly sent his press secretary out to say this, that the victory cleansed him of all transgressions. Thats been their message. Well, people knew it and they won anyway. The president addressed these accusations directly and denied all of these allegations. No one whos been accused, Sexual Harassment in the workplace was spared when it came to their companys decision how to handle it, and it is Something Different to see donald trump and his allies try to distinguish his conduct from the others. There is no distinction. When we come back, our number one selection on our list of the 10 most. This is probably a good time for me to admit that my favorite part normally of the emmys and the oscars has nothing to do with the awards that they hand out, but as a news person, i always look at those who have departed and left us this past year as the sign post of what the year was all about and a little bit of who we are, because they take a little bit of us with them. With that in mind you make it so shallow. I look at the just to remind everyone of some faces. What a deper cher year. Mary tyler moore, glen campbell, judge wapner. Roger moore. Jim nabors, david cassidy, harry dean stanton, robert osborn, bill paxton, robert gee yon, della reese, adam west, hugh hefner. Fats domino and chuck berry and tom petty. Dick gregory, sam shepard and two giants of comedy, jerry lewis and don rickles. That was a huge part of 2017. And think what they what they take with them and what they gave us in life. And now the time has come for number one. You ready . Robert mueller. We did not disagree. Quite the opposite. From the first conversation we had about our number one selection. Theres nobody more important in men politics right now than bob mueller. Heres the mueller story i hope we focus on. Theres a picture of the st. Pauls hockey team. I didnt know what st. Pauls was growing up and i think it was called americas hogwarts, and i mean that only in the nicest way. A picture of the st. Pauls hockey team and theres mueller and kerry, on the hockey team. I didnt know that. So mueller grows up with enough money and awareness to go to a place like st. Pauls, which most person kids have never heard of and then princeton and at a time when all the guys his age are trying to get out of going to vietnam, joins the marines infantry. Becomes a captain. Is wounded by the north vietnamese, comes home. As i reflect upon my career, i can say that i never could have anticipated where i have ended up. We have talked about him on television together many times, and we always come back to the theme of this life. That he is someone who has chosen public service. He is, if you were to go into a laboratory and create the perfect nemesis for donald trump, someone immune to twitter, someone who does not care about his own press. Someone who is not at all distracted. Hes not distractible. He is the opposite of donald trump in almost every way. What the prosecutors should be looking at are Hillary Clintons 33,000 deleted emails. He defines discipline and focus in a way that makes him, as you in 2017, head into 2018, he is the looming threat over Donald Trumps presidency. And unyielding commitment to the rule of law and to the safety and security of the citizens we serve. Think about this. Since that first discussion we had, his power has only increased. We havent seen him eat in a restaurant. We havent seen him drive a car. We havent really heard his voice, yet his power more than undiminished, i think, has increased, and i think people in the center politically in this country and people certainly center left view him without question nothing dramatic about it as probably the most important person in our democracy right now. And wed be remiss to leave out the fact that he is under vicious assault. Night after night after night on another network. Special counsel and former fbi director Robert Mueller must be fired immediately. They assail the integrity and the character of bob mueller and his team. So and i think if they knew how ineffective it was with a man like bob mueller they might not do it, but i think theyre doing it floor an audience of one. An audience in the oval office and its the kind of are thing bob mueller is likely to brush off but the sort of thing that makes him even more riveting. Its aformable list. I would defend it. I think it will hold. How do we end this . I think this list was about difficult choices. It was about having too much. It was about the velocity of the year and the events. Lock him up alternative facts. No. Russia did not help me. Yeah. Thats him. Mr. Rosenstein is your testimony today that you believe bob mueller is a person of high integrity. Is that right . Yes. And i think that bob mueller ended up at number one with us because hes already indicted or put out for former Trump Campaign officials one, a form other National Security adviser and he heads into 2018 with the fate of the presidency in his hands. Just been told weve had cameras on us while having this conversation the whole time. Thanks very much for joining us. Good night. This sunday looking back at 2017 and ahead to 2018