That includes Tennessee Republican senator bob corker who you may recall voted no the last time around. The first time around. A vocal critic of donald trump who is not running for reelection. Corker attracted a lot of attention when he sudden will i decided to vote for the bill in the past couple days. Critics blamed it on a socalled corker kickback, suggesting hes been bought off by a provision of the bill favorable to him. He vigorously pushed back on that today and said tonight hed had a change of heart. At the end of the day, you have to decide, do you think this is better for our country or worse for our country, worse off having this . I think its better and im glad to be supporting it. So why go ahead and vote for this now at a time of economic strength . Yeah. For all the reasons i just mentioned, wolf, again, i was the only no vote that friday night on the floor. I still felt there was a possibility to with that no vote and maybe some other things that were happening to potentially have some democrats come onboard, but also to create a better situation as it related to the bill. And, look, so i voted no, and i said at the time, very clearly, that ill look at it when it comes back around. Im doing that now. You can criticize me, but i dont really know, wolf, what it is that youre getting at. What are you trying to say here . Im not criticizing you. Okay. I want to give you an opportunity, prchmr. Chairman, explain. I explained it three time. It went on like that. Republicans can only afford, remember, to lose two votes. With senator john mccain back home in arizona recovering from his cancer treatment, Vice President mike pence arrived at the capitol earlier tonight. He canceled a trip to the middle east this week to be in washington and lend his necessary support. The house approved the legislation earlier today, but not without a few snags. They learned only after paul ryans thunderous gavel bang that the vote wasnt final after all and that theyll have to do it again tomorrow because of some procedural missteps. Parts of the bill didnt come fly with senate rules. Since both houses need to pass identicalory party will have to. Politico is reporting it this way tonight, the stumble is an embarrassment for republicans who just hours before were celebrating on the house floor and getting kudos from trump for passing the landmark bill and sending it to the senate. It also plays into the hands of democrats who have been saying the speed with which republicans are pushing the plan through is a recipe for chaos. This will be the first major piece of legislation President Trump will sign after almost a year in office. Washington post tonight reporting that with passage of the tax bill, trump hopes to shed the label of legislative loser, but whether the probable win could help him pass other agenda items in 2018 and catapult him onto firmer political ground ahead of the Midterm Election is an open question. This piece goes on to say, although the administration has a better sense of how congress works, senior white house officials acknowledged it remains unclear whether trump will adjust his controversial style of leadership. Lets turn now to our leadoff panel tonight, on capitol hill for us this evening, correspondent garrett hake is standing by. Here in new york, Kimberly Atkins is with us. Chief washington reporter for the Boston Herald and msnbc contributor. Plus John Heilemann, author, political journalist, msnbc National Affairs analyst. So, garrett, you get to go first because youre our report from the field. Is this a done, done deal . Whats the chance for surprises and whats our timetable . Realistically, brian, the only surprise tonight would be if a senator goes out to dinner and doesnt make it back by the time they call this vote. Republicans feel very confident that theyll have the votes they need to pass this in the senate and that mike pences presence here on the hill will be purely symbolic. This snafu in the house today is an embarrassing false start, but make no mistake, getting this bill back through the senate was always going to be the most difficult part of this. And republicans expect to be able to pull that off tonight. Theyll do it late. Theyll do it under the cloud of this sort of embarrassment, again, of having to change the bill at the last minute and send it back through the house. And theyll do it, brian, having made a number of promises to other senators that are going to be hard to keep going forward. And i think thats one of the most interesting parts of this. Susan collins, for example, who has proven hes willing to vote no on big republican priorities, promised her vote on this, if the majority leader would make sure that they vote for a couple of obamacare stabilization measures that she favors. They will be very unpopular in the house. Republicans will get this done tonight and again tomorrow but theyre setting themselves up for more fights. The price of getting this tax bill passed. Garrett, we have noticed some increased sensitivity. Collins, corker, to name two, were kind of lastminute changed votes from maybe or no to yes. Any similarity between the two . Well, corker was interesting, i talked to him this morning and i think it was clear he sort of found himself in a spot he didnt expect becoming almost a liberal darling by being the one republican willing to vote no on this bill. He told me he talked to a lot of people back in tennessee including a friend of his who he said a prominent democrat back in his home state who did ultimately urge him to support this bill. All of these folks want to get to yes, but all of them, corker and collins in particular, had made statements in the past, corker famously said he wouldnt vote for hthis bill if it added one penny to the deficit. This is a lot of pennies going on the deficit, so getting back to yes did take some verbal gymnastics and some willingness to trust the party that says yes, the growth part of this will pay for it when so many others disagree. As garrett pointed out, other senators asked to talk, senator scott from South Carolina is on the floor right now. Kimberly, about bob corker, hes going to end up, if theyve already gone to print, on a lot of topten lists for the year, a lot of different profiles in courage lists for the year, and yet this is a surprising turn for him. It a surprising turn. I mean, hes someone whos sort of emerged as this republican who was willing to stand up to President Trump because he didnt have an election to worry about so on this bill, looked on by most americans as something meant to benefit the rich, finding out about this loophole came out before he voiced his support for it, whether he knew about it or not, its a bad look and sort of really creates a very different picture and, you know, its emerging again that republicans are in lockstep for a policy that is unpopular and that is going to pass. Going into 2018 when the democrats have headwinds going into the Midterm Elections. And its a really tough time. Hes going to be seen as someone handing President Trump a big win at a time where the American Public from polls including todays nbc poll shows that people really think this is a gift to the rich. All right, mr. Coauthor of game change. How big a game changer is this . And what how do you define whats happening tonight . Well, i just very quickly on very skeptical look on your face. I just want to say about bob corker, the most explicable flipflop in the world. Bob corker is dont tell anybody who loves him in the msnbc audience you going to say hes a politician . Hes both politician and a republican. In the instances when donald trump has not behaved like a republican, or where corkers had profound doubts about his temperament, he has stood up in a politically, somewhat courageous way, given hes not running for rerecollection. On this issue, hes a republican and a really rich guy whos going to get a personal windfall from this. Who has ideologically been both in favor of deficit control, but also in favor of cutting taxes like almost every other republican. In this instance, donald trump is acting like a republican. Hes pursuing a tax cut bill that republicans universally like and democrats universally do not. So i dont find it surprising in some ways at all that bob corker ended up being sort of the republican he really is, deeply, and not the kind of liberal that, or the kind of faux liberal that a lot of democrats have come to cheer when hes been taking on donald trump. Is it a game change, brian . I dont to coin a phrase. To coin a phrase. I think its obviously important from the president s point of view, but it may be rather quite different, apparent victory, because its incredibly unpopular. Its really hard to pass a tax cut that is as unpopular as this bill. You got to work to pass one that only a third of the American People like and one that is going to let these guys have a victory lap for sure, but whether the politics of this favor republicans, whether they can make them work for them in the short term, which is all really they care about right now, can may take that work for them in 2018 . Because just the sign of some victory is more important than the substance of the victory. Thats a huge, as you said, and as garrett said, a huge open question. I think one thats more doubtful than open. Kim, lets go back, you mentioned polls, john mentioned polls. We have some professionals in the field as journalists whose job it is to shepherd and follow this tax bill who still dont really know whats in it. How are people able to form such highly negative opinions of this bill that were still grappling to read and understand . I think there are people who are voting on it tonight who still dont fully know whats in it. Dont tell anybody. Yeah, look, its been pretty clear. I think the two things. The democrat the have been fairly good at pointing out exactly what this bill does. Which does it lower taxes for middle class folks . Yes. Does it low eer taxes for high earners a whole lot more . Yes. The republicans really havent had any way to combat that because its the truth. Every study, even by groups that support this bill, support that fact. It also shows that the tax cuts for individuals are temporary, they will expire and after it expires unless Congress Intervenes again, taxes will actually go up for individuals whereas the Corporate Tax cuts are permanent. I mean, i think democrats have sort of put out what the facts are, that they knew, and the public is listening to this. This is about peoples pocketbook. This is not, you know, sort of, you know, highminded or technical d. C. Speak that theyre fighting about. This is about peoples money. Theyre going to Pay Attention to that the same way they paid very close attention to the Health Care Bills because thats about Peoples Health care, about something that people understand. Hey, garrett, back to you. Is this is there this requires you to be a meteorologist. Is this dread or elation in the air . Is this an albatross or an ace or are opinions somewhere in between . Are they going to slither out of washington for the holidays having voted for this . No. Republicans are going to run home beating their chests about voting for this, brian, and its interesting you talk at the polls, i asked Mitch Mcconnell about this earlier today. Republicans dont dispute that this bill is unpopular right now. In part, they blame us in the media for that and accuse reporters on this of having misrepresented whats in it. But the bet that theyre making is, lets have this question about whether or not this bill is popular or not in april when people have started to see some difference in their paychecks. Thats what Mitch Mcconnell has said, what republican senators have said. They dont want to theyre not fighting the point that, yes, this bill polls badly now. Their hope is that their math is right, and that the difference it will make in peoples paychecks will be enough to convince folks next year when it really counts electorally, that, yes, this was a good idea. John heilemann, are you willing to say straightup that this is great for donald trump and his friends . No. I think its i agree where garrett, what he just said. I think republicans are making a gamble right now that because the worst redistributionist elements of this that takes money away from the middle class and gives it to richer people and corporations, the worst of it will not be felt until after 2018. Right. And that in the short term, because everyones going to no ones going to get hit with the tax increase next year. And because their big bet, which is that what weve seen over the last year, which is that the stock market has been up, that gdp growth has been pretty solid, that theyre going to get a big boost in Business Confidence and although most corporations will sit on their profits, they will put enough money back into the economy that theyll be able to point next summer and into next fall, theyll say we had robust growth, jobs are growing, we got a lowincome growth here and the market is still soaring. Theyll be able to create a kind of gishtult of this is kind of working in some broad sense and will not, the negative aspects of the middle class and the working poor, will not be felt until after the midterms and all theyre focused on right now is the midterms. Theyre not focused on the out years. Theyre looking at next year. Kimberly, one last reminder, midterms are going to happen with the specter of investigation overhead. Yeah. I mean, look, 2018 is not going to be a great year necessarily for the president. Even with this win. You have the midterms coming with the democrats having headwinds, you have Robert Muellers investigation still going at full speed. It will not wrap up at the beginning of the year despite how much the president wants him to. The next thing the republican lawmakers are going to take on are things like cuts to medicaid and medicare and entitlement reform and welfare reform. More unpopular policies. Heard them today say theyre going to bring back repeal and replace efforts. I dont think that these are the things that the voters going to the midterms are going to its going to give confidence that republicans are the best option to them. To sum it all up, how a bill becomes law and your government at work tonight, with our thanks to Garrett Haake on the hill, Kimberly Atkins, John Heilemann with us in new york. When we come back after our first break, Robert Muellers office set to meet with white house lawyers this week. What could go wrong, as critics step up their efforts to undermine the entire investigation. The unprecedented attacks may be having an effect. Plus, a giant overhaul of the tax system limping across the finish line, but without hiccups and interesting poll numbers. The 11th hour back after this. Turn up your swagger game with one a day mens. A complete multivitamin with key Nutrients Plus b vitamins for heart health. Your one a day is showing. I worked with bosh westeb ws fbi director, he was u. S. Attorney. Hes a credible guy, not a perfect guy. Hes going to make mistakes. To say now the guy is in the tank for somebody or another, i just dont buy that. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who was also part of the president s transition team, dont forget, before being let go, talking with Nicolle Wallace in this very studio earlier today about special Counsel Robert Mueller who, according to the washington post, is set to meet with President Trumps lawyers sometime this week. Donald trump has said hes not going to fire mueller, but theres a Smear Campaign under way against mueller. Its happening largely on the right, friendly media. An article posted on politico today looks at a strategy behind this and says, the purpose of the onslaught, according to people close to the white house, isnt to encourage the president to oust the special counsel, rather, these people said, the goal is to sow public doubt about mueller and his prosecutors in advance of upcoming criminal trials and give the president Police Officer cover if he wants to start issuie ining pardons. A new nbc news wall street journal poll gives indication of how members of the public view the special counsel these days. 28 held positive views of Robert Mueller in december up from 24 in june. While 21 held negative views in december up from 11 in june. Here to talk about all of it, julia anzly, jennifer rogers, former assistant u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york, these days executive director of columbia laws center for the advancement of public integrity. Welcome to you both. Julia, i know you mentioned one of our producers, this is not the first meeting between team mueller and team trump. Its just that this one and the timing may be the most interesting to date. Thats right. And it isnt unusual defense and the prosecution to meet during a trial like this. It this seems to have higher stakes because of what the president wants o ut of this meeting. He, of course, wants to be can exonerated. He wants to remove himself, all the while not caring if the train goes forward on other people who may have worked with him. He just wants to be removed. I think the lawyers are promising him this, of course, to keep him calm, to keep him from issuing other tweets or do Something Else that could be damaging to himself, both his presidency and his case. So, counsel e i know you cant speak to this meeting. How do these go . What language is used, formal or inforl, one question, whats the chance team mueller is going to say, by the way, we want to talk to your guy, talk to your client before this is all over. This is one of the meetings where theres lots of words but not a lot of content. So unusual for washington. Yes, well, maybe. You know, theyll just kind of say, heres what we need from you, there might be a checklist of things they need from the white house that theyll ask for. The white house will say, you know, when will you wrap up . They will say, oh, we dont know. There will be noncommittals. Theres not going to be a whole lot of information going back and forth, i suspect. Will they issue a request to get testimony there the presidefrom . I dont foe. Thats a very interesting question. I think they will need that in order to wrap up. Certainly theyll need that to wrap up even the obstruction investigation which i think is going to be the first piece theyll be finished with since its such a discreet subject matter. Maybe they will issue that request. That will be very interesting to see. Julia, the fear here is that the advice the president s been getting from counsel, counsel who may not want the whole reaction to bad news, is not going to be what the president wants to hear. Right. I miean, we know this was a job that few people in washington wanted. There were a number of people that were interviewed to be trumps lawyer who turned down this job. Its a tough one to be in. You have client who will mouth off and go in a different direction thats apart from strategy. In this case, he may not get the news he wants to hear, and they may just keep delaying that deadline. You know, they told him just wait until thanksgiving, wait until christmas. Now theyre saying wait until the new year. Maybe thats a strategy for a little while. Just sort of keep dangling the end a little further down the timeline. Is any of this, jennifer, compulsory . Theres that process in trials called discovery, where both sides have a process back and forth about evidence and witnesses. Is this courtesy, or is this written down somewhere . So this is courtesy. Until a case actually start sta there are no real procedural requirements, there are some policies that the Justice Department follows with grand jury investigations, so if you ask whether you are the target of a grand jury investigation, the prosecutors have to tell you that, but in terms of turning over information, there are no requirements until a case is actually filed. So this is just courtesy, which, of course, they still need things from the white house, and, you know, for, i guess, political with a small p reasons that they want to have this mieeting, willing to have this meeting. Its not compulsory at all. Julia, you have a byline for us and sit down to write and file stories every day and have to start out with a blank computer page. What is the story you want to write . Whats the whats the unknown youre chasing as 2017 gets ready to give way to 2018 . I think where we really start to kind of untangle this web and see where everything fits together is what meetings the president , himself, knew about. Did he know about that june 2016 meeting that his son had with the russian lawyer . Did he know about flynns calls to the Russian Ambassador to talk about sanctions . And did he even direct some of these calls . Right now, weve gotten a lot of details from the indictments and the plea agreements that special counsel mueller has put out, but theres a name missing from all of this, and thats donald trump. We need to see where he fits into that and then we need to see, of course, in the obstruction case, what he may have been trying to hide from this prosecution in the meantime. Counselor, you want to take a whack at the same question . Well, i agree, i mean, to me, the obstruction piece is a little bit more interesting because i think its much closer to being a real case, so i want to know what he said in those meetings with his advisers, hi aides. Thinking about should we fire comey . You know, how are we going to do it . Why are we doing it, right . Thats the big discussion that they clearly were having that we dont know anything about yet. And that the 3450mueller team i finding out as they sbrir these people in the white house. Thats. What i want to know, be a fly on the wall in these meetings. We now understand this better thanks to the two of you. Cant thank you enough your c e comicom coming in, appreciate it so much, julia ainsley, jennifer rogers. Coming up after a break for us, why President Trump is hoping for a statement of exoneration from the mueller team and why Chris Christie says that is still a possibility. When we continue. David. Whats going on . Oh hey thats it . Yeah. Everybody two seconds dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance. Through the Tuition Assistance program, every day mcdonalds helps more people go to college. Its part of our commitment to being americas best first job. Person of honor, integrity, in all my dealings with him, i believe hes on honest guy and i believe hes going to try to do a good, honest, fair, just job. I think they think, well, if we discredit him, anything that happens could be discredited. This could turn out that mueller exonerates the president and dont want to discredit the guy who might, in fact, exonerate you. How much of a Political Risk is President Trump taking by essentially allowing his allies to publicly discredit Robert Mueller and institutions like the fbi, to name one, and by taking part of part in all of it, himself . With us now, two journalists you just saw joining our Nicolle Wallace when she spoke to governor Chris Christie today, eli stokols, white house repo reporter for the wall street journal. Msnbc political analyst. John heilemann agreed to stick an for further punishment. Eli, lets just say to continue our discussion from the previous segment, Donald Trumps been getting legal advice, look, boss, we expect this to be all wrapped up by the end of the year, certainly all these witness interviews are over. Lets just say thats not what his team hears from team mueller. Is everyone now girding for a negative reaction to that, is that possible . They probably have gamed this out. I think a lot of the strategy of putting this out publicly and telling donald trump this is to keep him calm. How they continue to do that, when they run past all these deadlines that his lawyers have told him its going to be over by thanksgiving or by christmas, or by early in the new year, i dont know how long they can keep him calm about that. But he continues to be more agitated behind the scenes than weve seen on his twitter feed, and continues to express consternation to friends who he speaks to on the phone still and also every time hes asked about this. To the media, his answer is, theres no collusion, but what you see i think from the allies outside who are smearing Robert Mueller, they are preparing for a possible obstruction charge which they like to say, oh, its just a nitpicky little obstruction of justice charge based on, oh, he just didnt know any better, wasnt malicious, wasnt intentional. Thats what theyre trying to put down. As we covered, theyre really trying to tar and feather bob mueller because they need to politically insulate the president from whatevers coming. John, we had guests on this broadcast, people sitting in that very chair who have used some form of the expression, the Mueller Investigation is just getting started. How is this president going to go about being president in 2018, again, with the midterms looming . Time and space have been compressed in this era of news, as we all established. How is he going to go about that . Unhappily. Agitatedly. Probably borderline profanely. You know, hes not going to be a happy camper. Eli made the point earlier today on nicolles show that trump denounced this investigation in a million way, called it a witch hunt, said it was bogus, said it was democratic hit job. The onefrained from going is going after mueller personally. The notion that he might fire mueller came from the New York Times interview, it was kind of he didnt, like, say im going to fire mueller. He said, if he crossed certain lines, i might consider it. Hes been its the one place hes tried to be kind of careful, not take on mueller pes personally. Hes all got now in a coordinated way his henchmen on capitol hill, in conservative media, in other places trying to delegitimize mueller and the purpose may seem obvious, that they know on some level, he knows somewhere in his heart, that 2018 is going to be a year of greater contention, theyre softening the ground for whats going to be a fullscale attack including the president on mueller. Whether that leads to a firing or not, we dont know. Over the course of the next year, going to be at least a year more of the investigation, on the basis of what sources are saying and signals coming out of the special prosecutors office. You have the potential to soften the ground for pardons if there are criminal convictions. Soften the ground for direct attacks of the president on mueller and for a 2018 Congressional Election that could end up being largely a referendum on the question of, is donald trump impeachable or not . If republicans are essentially saying, well never do that, i think there are a lot of democrats who are going to find it hospitable to go out and say, look, we want to leave it open, let the rule of law play out, open to whatever muellers conclusions are and leave it open. R us to take over the house of representatives. Eli, have you been surprised the number of republicans, some bigname republican republicans gotten on this lets kneecap Mueller Campaign and the fbi while were at it . Acquiescence to trumps behavior, going further in this case than trump has in trashing mueller, really is more interesting than behavior that weve seen from donald trump and see from him day in and day out. Just months ago you go back and when this first possibility of firing mueller was approached, republicans on the hill said, oh, no, republicans on the hill would never go for that. Bob mueller is a republican, hes a veteran, hes respected. He was the head of the fbi. This is a guy whos beyond reproach. They were all saying this at the time. Yep. Its amazing how fast that has changed, and with republicans, elected officials who find themselves in this dire political position, mostly because of the trump presidency, and yet they are incredibly willing, it seems to do his bidding with no regard for how history will look back on what they do, for no regard no regard for the publics faith in the rule of law, and the Justice System in this country, which one of the pillars of our democracy. Theyre just out there saying that he should be fired. I mean, its basically hysterical already at this point, just in the couple weeks that weve seen since the flynn indictments came duown. It was conventional wisdom three months ago, six months ago, that firing mueller, trump moving to fire mueller in some other way would be the red line. Would be the red line. It is clearly no longer the red line in the house of representatives. May still be among senate republicans. I think it probably is. For most of them. But in the house, all the signals coming out of House Republicans are that they would be under certain circumstances not just open to the notion of him firing mueller but actually applaud him firing mueller in certain circumstances. Thats what this is an orchestrated move for at least in that corner of the conservative elected officialdom. It is clearly the ball the ground rules have changed a lot on the question of bob mueller. It is astonishing given not just what was said six months ago, three months ago, but who bob mueller is, what his role is in American Life and what the hero that he has been, both as a combat veteran, and in the days after 9 11, its an extraordinary thing that we are where we are. I find it so interesting, Caroline Kennedy and the kennedy president ial library give out the profile in courage award every year and im obsessed with figuring out who is going to get it for 2017 when its all over. Our thanks to eli stokols, our thanks to John Heilemann. Appreciate it, gentlemen. Coming up, a new nbc news wall street journal poll on one of the most storied institutions in American Life, federal bureau of investigation. The nations former intelligence chief who suggested Vladimir Putin is playing the president like an asset. When we continue. Whcold sore. Et you . Grab lunch . Cold sore. 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Former director of national intelligence, james clapper, yesterday, said Vladimir Putins experience, as you heard, as an intelligence officer, helped him manipulate President Trump. Today, the president S National Security adviser h. R. Mcmaster rejected that suggestion. Its just not true. What the president asked us to do with russia, though, as well, is to make sure we can deter conflict. You see that with the peace through strength pillar in the National Security strategy, but also to try to find areas of cooperation. Clinton watts is with us in the studio tonight. He is a former fbi special agent on the joint Terrorism Task force and these days an msnbc National Security analyst. Thank you so very much for coming in. It struck me and as you sat down i mentioned this, i havent had the chance in person to ask you about what has also become an attack, an ongoing, slowrolling attack on the federal bureau of investigation, an institution you love. What do you make of it . Who do you blame it on . It doesnt serve the American Public, i think thats what i dont understand about it. I understand it might serve President Trumps interests in terms of this investigation, you know, if he can damage the investigation or make it, discredit it. Ultimately it hurts the fbi. If youre an fbi agent in Trump Country and youre going out and running a lead, doing an investigation, looking into whitecollar crime or some of these things that the president isnt really excited about, youre now going to meet pushback. And its also about putting a wedge, at times, between federal and state Law Enforcement. They work very well together for the most part out in the field. Despite what you hear in the news. And this is also playing to a base, state and local Law Enforcement, while wedging the feds against them. And so this is consistent with the fbi. We saw it with the cia where he also discredits their intelligence assessment about the russia meddling in the investigation. So its a consistent pattern and degrades our institutions. It not only makes o s their abi to do their job harder, how are they perceived around the world . Would you want to share intelligence with the cia right now . Would you want to work with Law Enforcement and the fbi right now . It makes everyones job harder and americans are ultimately the ones that suffer. Given your Career Training in communications and intelligencegathering, as you look at these two individuals, Vladimir Putin and donald trump, what do you take away from this relationship . What do you think is going on, to clappers point . Well, in russian espionage, they always look for two kinds of people to pony up to when theyre trying to doinfluence. One, a useful idiot. A terminology theyve always used. Term of art. Unwitting participant that does your bidding for you due to greed or ego and play to those sorts of things. Others are fellow travelers, those who think like you and want what you want and arent adverse to working with you as partners. This might be like a marine lapen in france, that sort of category. They play to both of them. The way you do it is as weve seen with President Trump is you play to his ego. Weve seen many times if you praise him on twitter, he will retweet you or respond to you. Same thing in Public Communications which the kremlin does better than anybody is they dont communicate unless they have a purpose. So when you hear this story of thank you for sharing the intelligence, we always have e the you know, we always advance to protect people around the world. And the u. S. Has always shared information, but we keep that under wraps. You know, the general rule is keep your head down, your mouth shut. Share with people, but you dont say out publicly this is where the sharing came fromli like yo dont bring the russians to the white house and say we have intelligence from another country. Thats whats most confusing about this. All the science that goes into your line of work, is it really easy enough to having a Briefing Room if youre an overseas nation, flatter this visiting american guy, youll get anything you want . Yeah, it is sththat easy. Even to this point, just with twitter, if i took all the president s tweets, i could tell you what words he uses most commonly. I would use those words back at him most commonly. Wow. Anything i saw he picked up on thats called mirroring. Mirroring. What you do as a good journalist or an intelligence officer, Vladimir Putin, a kgb officer. He was trained in this discipline. Hes doing it directory in front of our face. Interesting to see how this game pray plays out. He clearly thinks he has the upper hand. Youve been called upon to help our live coverage of tragedies here and there. Its wonderful to have you on our broadcast to hear you out, based on who you are and your lifes work. Tau thank you so much. Thank you. Clint watts, thanks for being with us on the nighttime edition. Coming up, will there be blood, political damage, from the fax tax bill that congress is poised to pass on to the president for his ekglike sillture . When the 11th hour kt continues. Vernment . People all across the country lost their savings, their pensions and their jobs. Im tom steyer and it turned out that the system that had benefited people like me who are well off, was, in fact, stacked against everyone else. Its why i left my Investment Firm and resolved to use my savings for the public good. But here we are nine years later and this president and the Republican Congress are making a bad situation even worse. They wont tell you that their so called tax reform plan is really for the wealthy and big corporations, while hurting the middle class. It blows up the deficit and that means fewer investments in education, health care and job creation. Its up to all of us to stand up to this president. Not just for impeachable offenses, but also to demand a country where everyone has a real chance to succeed. Join us. Your voice matters. Turn up your swagger game with one a day mens. A complete multivitamin with key Nutrients Plus b vitamins for heart health. Your one a day is showing. Swim in to with our 90day trial and being the highest ranked mattress the power of tempurpedic sleepswim in to in Customer Satisfaction by jd power, its easy to love. Find your exclusive retailer at tempurpedic. Com do you want clean, stain free dentures . Try polident. The four in one cleaning system kills 99. 99 of odor causing bacteria, cleans where brushing may miss. Helps remove stains and prevent stain build up. Use polident daily. Now, were hitting numbers that nobody thought possible, and the numbers going up are going to be much better than anybody anticipates. In fact, theyre going to say that trump is the opposite of an exaggerator. We are back home starting to do, i will tell you, youre reading, and youre seeing, really, really well. President trump enjoys talking about the Strong Economy and the stock market during his presidency, thus far. He even has Vladimir Putin talking about it on his behalf. But on the eve of a major tax bill victory, a new nbc news poll shows more americans actually think democrats do a better job on the economy than republicans. 35 to 30 . This is a shift that took place after trump took office. First time in years that voters have felt that way about the democrats. Here to talk about it, one of each, two former members of congress, donna edwards, democrat from the great state of maryland. And david jolly, republican from the great state of florida. David, you get to defend what your party is about to pass in both houses of congress, and send to your president. What exactly are we witnessing here . Thats a lot of invectives there, brian. Sorry. I would vote no on this. I voted against donald trump. But you are speaking to something really remarkable. This is a tax bill that like it or not really does cut taxes for the vast majority of americans. Though it does so discriminately favoring the rich. And yet it is historically unpopular. I think what it speaks to is we are living through a remarkable level of distrust of the gop. Distrust thats really bordering on dislike, to dislike, to be h. We have a president , a republican leader whos continued to lie to the American People. We saw the foubl of the obamacare replacement where the republicans had no plan fwhoor ca for what came next. Now today were on the cusp of a tax plan thats not historically formed for personal taxes, it simply is not. Its historically reformedtor corporate and asset based revenue for individuals. But for the vast majority of voters this is not historically reformed for them and thats high they dont trust the republicans anymore when it comes to the republicans and tax policy. Congresswoman, is there a perverse thrill among democrats its hard to believe its only been a week since roy moore, maybe alabama was a har bah ger of things to come, maybe the Russian Investigation are an indication of things to come and maybe, just maybe, what theyre parsing is passing is going to damage people and that will end up good for democrats at the polls . Democrats are never happy when youre harming the American People, whether you have a tax bill that gives most of the benefits to the super wealthy, not even just the wenalthy and over time it will harm the American People. I look at that tax bill and say you gave 414 billion to donald trump and other real estate interests, but you couldnt fund the childrens Healthcare Plan for 14 billion. I mean, this really is a rip off for the American People. In ten years, the tax these tax cuts expire for workingclass americans, but they stay for corporate americans. So i think what is going to happen is, you know, buried deep in the 1100 pages of this tax scam were going to see day after day provision after provision where americans are going to realize like they already do, that this tax plan really is not going to benefit them. And i think that that is a political benefit for democrats, but we would rather have had the political advantage and did without harming the American People. As the democratic leader in the senate, mr. Schumer prepares to speak, david, are you surprised at whats known in the trade as the whip effort that the republicans did get as many republicans to come around as they did . And i guess seeing that theres sensitivity among corker and collins to name two is an indicator that they feel some sensitivity . Look, i think john holman was right, at the end of the day these are republicans, and republicans myself included support a more competitive domestic Corporate Tax environment so that we can compete internationally. But what they looked is on the personal side. Theyre rolling the dice and youve heard it from others asual. People will see their withholdings dmang january and they will see a little bit more money in their paychecks starting in january. I dont think theyll be voting next november based on the kp expiration of these tax cuts but will the change be enough . He likes to talk about the stock market. Hes making an assumption that every voter is in the stock market and they simple, are not. And thats a point broader gop is missing as well. How does this not matching the senate bill after that big bang of the gavel from the speaker they have to go back and do it again tomorrow. The fact is when you have 1100 pages of a tax bill in such a complicated environment thats being rushed through both houses in order to meet some artificial end of the year deadline because the president hasnt accomplished anything over this last year, thats what happens, mistakes happen. And if we think that thats, you know, one set of mistakes that causes them to revote on this bill, wait until were really able to see it and dig into it. Speaking of which how dare the republicans claim that democrats never read the Affordable Care act. They definitely have not read this tax bill. When we read it and when we see it and each one of us figures out our own taxes, republicans are going to pay the price for that. To two form irrelevant members of congress, donna edwards, david jolly, sorry i called him your president , our thanks so much for joining our conversation tonight. Thank you as always. And coming up the story for every person who has ever said their vote didnt matter when we continue. Whoooo. Going somewhere . Heres some advice. Tripadvisor now searches more. Than 200 booking sites to find the hotel you want and save you up to 30 . Trust this birds words. Tripadvisor. Americas Small Business owners. And heres to the heroes behind the heroes, who use their expertise to keep those businesses covered. And heres to the heroes behind the heroes behind the heroes, who brought us delicious gyros. Actually, the gyro hero owns veros gyros, so he should have been with those first heroes. Ha ha thats better. So, to recap Small Business owners are heroes, and our heroes help heroes be heroes when theyre not eating gyros delivered by ah, you know what i mean. Coaching means making tough choices. Jim youre in but when you have high Blood Pressure and need Cold Medicine that works fast, the choice is simple. Coricidin hbp is the 1 brand that gives powerful cold symptom relief without raising your Blood Pressure. Coricidin hbp. Last thing before we go here tonight, dont ever let anyone tell you your vote doesnt count. Red state, blue state, purple state, dont let anyone talk you out of going to the polls on election day and heres why. In the Common Wealth of virginia where the democrat won the race for governor, there, also some unforeseen democratic victories down ballot and it appears that by a margin of one single vote, control of the house of delegates will be evenly split 50 50 between the parties. It was a single race for a single seat in that how fast delegates that led to the tie between the parties. After a recount, democrat shelly sigh monda simonds was found to have 11,608 votes to david yancys 11,607 votes. Exactly one vote deciding the one race the state was waiting for to decide which Party Controls the house. And thats why its going to be a 50 50 power share in the virginia house. The victorious democrat said she was in awe of the recount process. Says there were no disputes, no arguments and says, quote, it was a beautiful thing to see democracy in action. This means that somewhere in newport news, virginia, someone, perhaps they were late to work or tired after a day at work, someone pushed themselves to go to the polls and that person was vote number 11,608 who made the difference across the entire state. And that is our broadcast for tonight. Thank you so much for being with us. Good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. Thank you for join us this hour. Big night in washington tonight. If you have late night plans tonight you might want to cancel them. I honey im going to be late for dinner. I know, just leave anything in the oven, i promise ill take the dogs out when i get in but im going to be late. Sorry. Heres an interesting thing about whats going on tonight in washington. Even though everybody knew in advance that this was going to be a big night in washington, a big consequential night, when a very big decision would be made, there is one person who doesnt need to be there in washington tonight as this decision is happening, and its this guy. And this is becoming a recurring theme of th