The president twitter teases a major announcement about the southern border hell be making saturday afternoon. The 11th hour on a friday night starts right now. Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Im steve kornacki. Brian williams is under the weather. Day 729 of the trump administration, day 28 of the shutdown, soon to be day 29. We begin with breaking news. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is disputing this buzzfeed report that broke late last night claiming that the president of the United States directed Michael Cohen to lie to congress about negotiations to build a trump tower in moscow. Citing two Law Enforcement sources familiar with the investigation, buzzfeed reported that trump also endorsed a plan to visit russia during the campaign and to meet personally with putin to advance the deal, and that the president and two of his children, all received detailed and regular updates from cohen on the status of the project. Buzzfeed also said that according to its sources, quote, the special counsels office learned about trumps directive for cohen to lie to congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, Text Messages, and a cache of other documents. Earlier today trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani pushed back on the buzzfeed story. Tonight, the special counsels office made a very rare move of issuing a public statement. It reads, quote, buzzfeeds description of specific statements to the special counsels office and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office regarding Michael Cohens congressional testimony are not accurate. Buzzfeeds editor in chief responded with this statement, quote, in response to the special counsels spokesman, we stand by our reporting and the sources who informed it, and we urge the special counsel to make clear what hes disputing. Short time ago, ben smith spoke to our colleague, chris hayes. We went to them 24 hours ago and, you know, they declined to comment on it. Obviously the special counsel prefers to control the time line and for reasonable reasons wants to operate on his own time line and without revealing a lot of detail. Smith also told Rachel Maddow that buzzfeed sources continue to stand by their information. Rudy giuliani also weighed in tonight sending this message on twitter. Quote, i commend bob muellers office for correcting the buzzfeed false story that President Trump encouraged cohen to lie. I ask the press to take heed that their hysterical desire to destroy this president has gone too far. They pursued this without critical analysis. All day he used the fakenews. The president just sent this out, remember it was buzzfeed that released the totally discredited dossier paid for by crooked Hillary Clinton and the democrats as Opposition Research on which the entire russian probe is based, a very sad day for journalism, but a great day for our country. Again, that is the president moments ago on twitter. Lets bring our panel for another wild friday night here. Jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the cia and the pentagon, also an Msnbc National Security analyst. Andy carny, White House Reporter for the New York Times. Joining us by telephone tonight, matthew miller. Hes an msnbc justice and security analyst and a former chief spokesman for the Justice Department. Matt miller, its in that context, your background as a spokesman for the department of justice that im glad to have you here. I want to begin with you. I want to put up on the screen a tweet, your reaction earlier tonight to this statement with the special counsel. You said in that tweet, let me see if we can get that up on the screen here. We may not there it is. He says you can spend hours parsing the carr statement, but given how unusual it is for any doj office to issue this sort of on the record tonight let alone this office, i suspect it means the storys core contention that they have evidence trump told cohen to lie is fundamentally wrong. That seems like the crux of the question here, matt miller, what would it take to get muellers office to break its silence . You say it has to be a significant error in their view in this story. I think thats right, steve. Look, as i said in that tweet, a lot of people are trying to parse and say maybe what the special counsel is saying is that just some details of this story are wrong. Look, its very unusual for any office in the Justice Department to issue this kind of statement about an ongoing investigation. Its just not something the department does. Its even more unusual for the special counsel to do it. Hes now been at this for almost two years, it will be two years in may. This is the first statement of this kind hes ever issued. And i think its very hard to see him doing that if he was just quibbling with one minor detail or even a major detail in the story. And it wasnt because the entire thrust of the story was wrong. What i suspect is happening is here is this is without a doubt not the first story about muellers work that has been wrong. Usually the special counsels office just lets those pass without correcting the public record. I think the difference here was the magnitude of the accusation contained in the story, that the president committed a crime and they had evidence that he had committed a crime and that the fallout that was ensuing with members of Congress Already talking about bringing impeachment hearings. So if youre the special counsels office and youre seeing something that you think is unfairly maligning the president because you know its wrong, and its being attributed to Law Enforcement sources, so there are a lot of people reading the story that think muellers office is leaking that, it really does put them in an untenable position given the gravity of the accusation and the underlying story. Given the gravity of the story, the discussion that was just rampant today about the implication, you kept hearing if this is true, if this is true quickly followed by discussion of impeachment. Given that as a possible factor in the special counsels office breaking its silence and given that buzzfeed is not backing down from this story and is, in fact, challenging the special counsels office to reveal more, do you think its possible we will hear more from muellers office or will this be it . I dont think theyll say anything else on the record. I think what youll see is probably them talking to other reporters on background and knocking down the original buzzfeed story, something they could have done yesterday. You saw in that clip from ben smith, they contacted the special counsels office, they didnt comment. Oftentimes people at the Justice Department will tell reporters if they call you with a story thats not right, the Justice Department spokesman will tell those reporters on background before they publish this is wrong. You really dont want to get this wrong. Seems to me the special counsels office has done very little of that. Theyve been unwilling to Police Reporting even on background and off the record events. So i think given that we didnt see them do it yesterday, my guess they would like to go back 24 hours, so theres no way to put the genie back in the bottle. They knocked it down as definitively as they could. Andy carny who covers the trump white house, let me bring you in. We gave folks a taste of the president s reaction on twitter tonight. Rudy giuliani as well. You saw he used that fakenews, seems clear from trumps standpoint they are going to try to roll this into a broader critique of the entire news media. Thats for sure and you can i mean, this plays right into their hand of the fake news. This plays right into their hand of the fake news. They said donald trump jr. Being retweeted by his father. The one thing thats a problem for the president here is hes act liking like he was just exonerated by the special counsel. Matt is saying this was a clearly definitive knocking down of the story. We dont know yet. It certainly puts the story in a gray area. The facts are in gray. Well eventually find out whether or not trump directed cohen to lie is a fact or not. But right now its in a gray area and trump is acting like its a definitive thing. Hes cheering on the special counsel. What will that look like if down the line the special counsel comes out with evidence that is not to his liking . He is propping this up as a way to shoot down another enemy. In previous times hes called the special counsel like 13 angry democrats. Hes acting like hes exonerated. Hes exonerated maybe in this news cycle, but it does feed into the it hurts journalists for him to be able to say fake news and for there to be solid ground making that claim tonight. Right and on that front, i think we were looking all day. I think the question last night when this story on buzzfeed first broke. The question was will other news organizations be able to replicate the reporting, corroborate the reporting, advance the reporting in any way. There is some new reporting from the Washington Post and the New York Times worth highlighting here. Folks havent seen this. This is from the Washington Post. Let me read a bit of it again. This just in the last hour or two. The story according to the Washington Post had claimed cohen acknowledged to muellers prosecutors that the president directed him to deceive congress about key facts linking the president to the proposed trump tower project in moscow. Buzzfeed also said mueller learned about the directive to lie from interviews from multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, Text Messages and a cache of other documents. Muellers denial according to people familiar with the matter aims to make clear that none of those statements in the story are accurate. That again from the Washington Post tonight. Jeremy bash, that seems to be initially what seemed to be the major significance of the buzzified report, what was the major significance of the buzzfeed report was the claim that mueller had evidence, that mueller had text, emails, documentary evidence that could establish the president suborned perjury. This was not the word of Michael Cohen or somebody else. This was documentary evidence and now you have again this report in the Washington Post and the statement from robert mueller, a huge potential here. That was my reaction, how could you possibly parse this if youre putting on your lawyer hat . Of course, one way is to say, well, they really talk narrowly about the descriptions and the characterizations, not about the underlying claim in the story. Another possible way to parse it is to suggest that while mueller does believe that the president and cohen conspired to fabricate a story about the trump tower matter, a story which then cohen took to congress, and that means the president bears some responsibility for that falsehood, but he didnt learn that through Text Messages and emails. And he didnt learn that through witness interviews and he didnt learn that through cohens direct testimony. So there may be some ways to parse this. I tend to agree with matthew that this is a fairly significant and straightforward denial by the special counsels office. But it doesnt mean the president has no responsibility for this lie that we know definitively Michael Cohen told to congress. Right. Again, on that subject, i say its some new reporting thats out there tonight. I showed from the Washington Post. The New York Times also in its reporting tonight, we can put this up on the screen. They have one person, one source they say familiar with mr. Cohens testimony to the special counsels prosecutors said that mr. Cohen did not state that the president had pressured him to lie to congress. Jeremy, youre talking about this. I know there were some of those Court Filings in conjunction with his sentencing suggested that cohens lies were an effort to align his testimony to congress with trumps public statements. I think lanny davis said in december on a podcast that the president had not directed cohen to lie. But, again, theres the question with Michael Cohen. Just exactly what for instance, hes going to be testifying in front of a Congressional Committee february 7th. Thats coming up all awfully soon. All eyes will be on that testimony, clearly. Big picture, steve, the president told a false story about the trump moscow tower deal. He said, i have no business dealings with russia. We then learn that, of course, that the deal was happening not just through the primary season in late 2015 and early 2016, but all through mid2016 when trump was actually the republican nominee. We know that Michael Cohen lied to congress about it. We know that Michael Cohen tried to align his story with the false narrative the president was telling. The idea that the president did nothing wrong here or bears no responsibility for Michael Cohens false testimony, i think its something that members of congress are going to significantly challenge. Annie karni, quickly, in terms of what was going on at the white house today, i know this story went up at 10 00 last night. There was a very Quick Reaction from Rudy Giuliani that just simply said dont trust Michael Cohen. That left the question of what about this supposed evidence. It seemed today it took them a while to get a formal response. They were caught off guard. What was going on at the white house . Take us inside there. You can see what happened. The first responses were from a spokesman on fox news this morning saying a nondenial denial. Saying were not calling it absurd and not going to get into it. Sarah sanders followed that, so did kellyanne conway. And the president hadnt tweeted anything. I think there was some sense that sometimes the aides are kept in the dark and dont know. Rudy giuliani then came out with an on the record statement denying the story, which is rare for him to do as well. And then the white house spokespeople who usually dont comment on legal matters jumped in and denied it. And then once the special counsels statement came out, its now a free for all. Just to add to my point before about how trump is using this to bludgeon all media, in the tweet you showed, he accuses buzzfeed of publishing the fake dossier. Buzzfeed recently won a court ruling, a defamation suit that said that it was newsworthy about a public figure and they won on the dossier. Again, this allows trump to kind of say everything, buzzfeed, and all other outlets published that i dont like it, its negative, its fake news. Yeah, and, again, buzzfeed is Still Standing by this story, again, calling on mueller to put more information out there. Matt miller, so much here about the supposed evidence, documentary evidence that their sources tell them that mueller has. In the buzzfeed story, this is referred to as Law Enforcement sources. You have a background in running the Communications Shop at the department of justice. When you see Law Enforcement sources in a story, can you give us a sense of what the range of possibilities are in terms of what that source could be . It could be any number of people from senior political appointees at the Justice Department to fbi agents, other agencies who happened to be briefed on the matter because they have a connection to the investigation. There are a lot of ways you can interpret it. I do think that one of the problems for the special counsels office is because the underlying reporting was about the conclusion that the special counsel had supposedly drawn, he found evidence the president committed this crime, most of the people who would read that story would naturally interpret the leak of information was coming from the special counsels office. For the special counsel, if you know the underlying information is not true and you have the president accusing you of leaking and you have a number of people in the American Public who think this came from your office, its not a position you can let stand for very long when its a story thats that damaging to the president if, in fact, its not true. Matt miller, annie karni, thank you all for joining us. Coming up, more on tonights unprecedented statement from Robert Muellers office. Then President Trump promises a major announcement tomorrow on the shutdown. Will it be big enough to end the standoff . Two reporters covering the story tell us what to expect. And later, trump in 2020. Were going to take a look at what his poll numbers say about his campaigns potential for success or failure 655 days from now. The 11th hour just Getting Started on a friday night. These folks, they dont have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps. Com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the Amazing Services of the post office only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again welcome back. It is exceedingly rare for the special counsels office to comment on anything related to the ongoing russia investigation. Robert mueller is known for running a tight ship, one that typically does not leak. Thats part of what makes this dispute over buzzfeeds reporting so remarkable. Joining us now, cynthia oxney, a former federal prosecutor and veteran of the Justice Department. Jill winebanks, attorney, former assistant Watergate Special counsel and msnbc legal analyst. Thank you both for being here. Cynthia, let me start with you and continue the conversation we were having in the last block and ask you the question that i think everybody is sort of asking and trying to chew over right now. You have this report 24 hours ago from buzzfeed that put material out there that immediately suggested, if true, possibility of impeachment. You have the special counsel essentially for the first time putting out a public statement. We almost never hear from Robert Muellers office. How do you read the statement from mueller tonight . Is he saying theres no there there when it comes to this reporting . The one thing youre missing in that setup is not only do we have the report, but we had a feeding frenzy. Maybe we need to start hearings. Maybe we need impeachment hearings. The city of washington was completely ginned up. And then you have the statement from muellers office, which is basically a good oldfashioned spanking. Its just wait a minute. Hes communicate in a cryptic way that he does not agree with everything in the buzzfeed article and it is not designed for us to understand exactly what he doesnt agree with. Unfortunately, where that leads us is, were just going to have to wait. It is a good object lesson just to slow down and not be part of a feeding frenzy before were really ready for that. Theres nothing else to do but wait a little bit. Along those lines, we were going to put this up on the screen. We were showing you earlier the Washington Post, the New York Times there both out with some new reporting tonight related to this, the fallout from this. This from devlin barrett, one of the reporters, a National Security reporters with the Washington Post. We quoted from his story earlier. This is how he summarized his story. For those trying to parse the mueller statement, it is a straight up denial. Maybe buzzfeed can prove they are right, maybe mueller can prove them wrong, but its an emphatic denial. Devlin barrett, the national securitier with the Washington Post whose story we quoted from earlier. Jill winebanks, it does seem if mueller is going to prove that the buzzfeed story is wrong, what is more likely at this point, that theres further Public Comment from muellers office, or we find out if and when we see a final report . I think it will wait until theres time for him to get it out in a more appropriate fashion. But in terms of parsing this, this isnt a outright denial of the underlying charge, that it edges along to say the details are wrong. What that means, i dont know. Does it mean there arent certain documents, texts. I dont know what it means exactly. But im not willing to throw away the entire buzzfeed story based on the language that they used in this denial. The skeptical question would be, because we talk about it here. Im here and there on different shows and we talk about it all the time when the subject of mueller comes up. This has been an airtight investigation. We never hear from mueller. We never hear from the office. We never see leaks. And then when there are stories that hes looking at this, looking at that, we never get any comment. For him to weigh in, would it have to be over something thats just clear cut and emphatic as opposed to maybe we have some documents. Would it be quibbling . Yes. And i am troubled by it. Its almost inexplicable that he commented, whether its a total denial or whether it was just along the edges and about the details. Because of their past history, why they picked this one, the only thing you can say is because this is the clearest case linking donald trump to a crime that cannot be evaded. It isnt, well, he had the power to fire comey. Thats within his constitution the rights. This was a straightout obstruction of justice. William barr in his testimony said to senator klobuchar, yes, it would be obstruction of justice by the president or any other person. So this is one where he might want to say, hey, dont rush into impeachment hearings. Just lets wait and see what happens. I think its going to make it much more interesting on february 7th to listen to cohen and the latitude hes given. I dont think this relates directly to russia, and so to the extent that mueller has said i dont want you testifying about russia and that congress has agreed to limit it, this is about obstruction of justice. Its about subornation of perjury. About telling someone to lie. That was an Impeachable Offense for richard nixon. It would have been an indictable offense. We chose during watergate to use the impeachment route rather than trying to go ahead with an indictment. Its going to be interesting to see whether he can testify on this subject. Ill be waiting with bated breath to hear what he says. Cynthia, i guess the other question it raises, jill is getting at it there, the broader sort of political context of the reaction today before the special counsel weighed in, and that was you had democratic members of congress in part reacting to that reporting, raising the specter of impeachment. The fact that democrats now control the house, now can instigate impeachment proceedings, now can theoretically react to a news report like this or any other news report and go in that direction, do you think that will affect the special counsels office at all in terms of its publicfacing activities . Will we hear more in general from mueller given that the democrats are now in position to react and respond from an impeachment standpoint to any explosive reporting thats out there . You know, i think the explosive reporting, which got people talking about impeachment in this case did affect the desire by mueller to shoot this down, but i wouldnt predict youre going to see more of that. I really dont. But theres some big issues that are still raised that we know are outstanding when it has to do with cohens testimony. To me, one of the biggest is that he circulated his testimony at the white house before he testified, and that went to some lawyers associated with the white house. Don mcgahn said it wasnt him but apparently it went to lawyers. Thats going to be interesting on the february 7th testimony. If those lawyers knew that what he was saying wasnt true, theyre going to do some exposure. That is a very big deal looking down the pike, as well as we also know or we think we know that mueller asked trump, did you talk with cohen about your testimony or felix sater about the trump tower deal . And who else were you discussing this with . And he asked him that in his written testimony, his takehome testimony, takehome test, and that will also come out in the next couple weeks. Everything has to do with this trump tower. Cynthia alksine and jill winebanks, thank you for being with us. Coming up, President Trump promising a major announcement on the shutdown tomorrow. Will it be enough to end the stalemate and get thousands of furloughed workers muchneeded paychecks . What our reporters are hearing from inside the white house tonight when the 11th hour continues. We are now less than 24 hours from what the president says will be a, quote, major announcement concerning the southern border and the Government Shutdown. The longest ever shutdown is now minutes away from entering its 29th day and hundreds of thousands of federal workers are still not being paid. On thursday trump grounded House Speaker Nancy Pelosis military flight to afghanistan citing the shutdown as a reason. Pelosi was still planning to fly commercially with her delegation, but today her office said the white house leaked those plans so the trip was canceled over security concerns. The white house has denied the leak. Heres speaker pelosis take. The fact that they would leak that we were flying commercial is a danger not only to us but to other people flying commercially. Very irresponsible on the part of the president. Well go again. Well go another time. How how do you know the leak came from the white house . The white house is denying this i rest my case. Do you view this as retaliation for your letter about the state of the union . I would hope not. I dont think the president would be that petty, do you . With me for more, jonathan allen, Nbc News National Political reporter and gabby orr, White House Reporter from politico. Let me start with you. The president says major announcement tomorrow about the border and the shutdown. Any idea what hes talking about . Thats a great question, steve. Ive talked to a few white house officials earlier. And some people outside of the white house and the consensus seems to be that the president tomorrow will not declare National Emergency but will outline a path forward and a way out of this shutdown. That being said, the white house is holding its cards close right now. We dont know necessarily what type of plan President Trump will outline tomorrow, whether it will be some sort of compromise that he thinks Congressional Republicans and democrats can reach, whether it will include a fix to daca, which he has mentioned before. This is something that sort of hit reporters, myself included, by surprise today when the president said there would be this announcement tomorrow, that it would touch on the humanitarian crisis at the border and also on the shutdown. We dont even know yet if the president has consulted with Congressional Democrats aside from that meeting with the Problem Solvers Caucus earlier this week. John allen, we know the basic contours of this. The president is out there saying 5 billion for a wall. The democrats are saying a wall is immoral. In the three plus weeks of this, four weeks now, has any plausible path to a compromise or solution presented itself . Capitol hill is known for its dysfunction for the lack of movement, paralysis, if you will and the last four weeks have stood out even on capitol hill for the lack of movement. Nothing has happened. Theres been no progress or negotiation. So much so that when Vice President mike pence and jared kushner, the president s soninlaw, come to capitol hill, theyre talking to republicans who dont have the power to move these bills by themselves. The president is not inviting nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer anymore, hes inviting rank and file democrats. Some of whom have declined the invitation and some who are not willing to talk to him until he reopens the government, theres been absolutely no progress. Speaking of no progress, there was this today, a Trump Campaign fundraising email sent out that says donald trump for president is offering red faux bricks to be sent to Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer in exchange for a Campaign Contribution of 20. 20. The bricks printed with facts about the need for border security. Gabby, i guess this tells us this whole idea of the president looking at these polls because weve seen several polls now that show more americans blaming him than blaming the democrats for this shutdown, but the president s eye is more squarely focused it seems on his base. Absolutely. And yet theres some already Division Within his base on the strategy here. There are people wondering, including federal workers who are furloughed because of this shutdown, but may have supported trump in 2016. When theyre going to get their next paycheck and if this is all worth it for a border wall that is not even necessarily seen as the greatest deterrent against illegal immigration among those immigration hawks support president donald trump. Thats the irony here, steve. The Campaign Email today i think a lot of people reacted to that, saw that as being in poor taste. Were in the middle of a Government Shutdown that is now reaching its 29th day, 800,000 federal workers are about to go through their second pay period without a paycheck. Here the Trump Campaign is fundraising off this. I dont think it was necessarily the right time for a Campaign Fundraising email to be sent out, for them to be trying to fill their coffers, and it certainly belongs in the category that Lindsey Graham called sophomoric behavior when he was talking about things like the president s decision to ground speaker pelosis plane and now this fundraising email that was sent out earlier this afternoon. John, one of the things that strikes me as you look back on past shutdowns and you look at the polling divides about who to blame, 1995, 2013 over obamacare. The numbers we see now when you look at the overall divide on this are numbers i think that have gotten folks to fold in the past. So it seems like those old political rules arent applying necessarily as the white house certainly, which is losing on the side of overall Public Opinion right now to believe the polls, they dont seem to apply here. What would it take politically . Is there any sense that would change that equation . There are a couple things that are very different about this shutdown, steve. Generally speaking during a shutdown its the president that wants the government to be open. The president that wants basic services to move forward, that its concerned the economy will tank because of the government is shut down. Its usually congress thats demanding something, congress thats holding back Appropriations Bills because of some particular pet issue. Number one, thats a reversal off the typical situation. Number two, you have a president that bragged he was going to be proud to shut down the government. Nobody has any illusions about who forced this issue. Not only did the president brag before he did it, but for months on the campaign trail and before that, he suggested that he thought it was going to be good for him to shut down the government as a forcing mechanism to get the wall. A lot of his base doesnt like the federal government. A lot of his base wants the wall. I think he saw it as a winwin. What hes finding now is its difficult to get out of this situation without capitulating. Even if he were to eventually try to go outside of congress and build the wall through some sort of National Emergency by the way, there are a ton of logistical and legal problems with that. Even if he were to do that at this point, that would be him backing down from this fight. He really is trying to find some traction and has failed to do so. John allen, gabby orr, thank you for being with us. And coming up, workforce a week of headlines that might red flags about our National Security, well ask how concerned we should be when the 11th hour continues. You never know how your skin will look. And it can feel like no matter what you do, youre always itching. But even though you see and feel eczema on your skin, an overly sensitive immune system deep within your skin could be the cause. So help heal your skin from within. With dupixent. Dupixent is not a steroid, and it continuously treats your eczema even when you cant see it. At 16 weeks, more than 1 in 3 patients saw clear or almost clear skin, and patients saw a significant reduction in itch. Do not use if you are allergic to dupixent. Serious allergic reactions can occur, including anaphylaxis, a severe reaction. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems, including eye pain or changes in vision. If you are taking asthma medicines, do not change or stop your asthma medicine without talking to your doctor. Help heal your skin from within. Ask your eczema specialist about dupixent. Seven days ago the New York Times was reporting the fbi had opened an investigation into President Trump and whether he might have been working on behalf of russia. This past week also saw reporting that the president went to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Vladimir Putin. But it is obvious the president has been a frequent critic of those investigations and those running them. The people doing that investigation were people that have been caught that are known scoundrels. Theyre i guess you could say theyre dirty cops. About what the president calling dirty cops as this Government Shutdown stretches into week five, the impact is now hitting federal Law Enforcement officers. The Washington Post reports efforts by the fbi and federal agents are now being directly impacted with dangerously low operations. With us tonight clint watts a former fbi special agent and member of the joint Terrorism Task force as well as Msnbc National Security analyst, he is also the author of the book messing with the enemy surviving in a social media world of hackers, terrorists, russians and fake news. Clint, you make social media sound very inciting with that title. Yes, you want to tweet immediately. I want to run away from it forever. I want to get to the impact. Trumps war with the fbi. Let me start just on the big news i think everybody is digesting. And theyre trying to process it tonight. You had that buzzfeed report 24 hours ago, explosive report and now you have the special Counsel Robert Mueller weighing in with that statement tonight. Im curious. Ive been asking our guests how do you read that statement from mueller, an expansive statement that calls into doubt the entire story, or do you read this as narrower statement on his part . I see it as more expansive, actually, for two reasons. One, this provoked a reaction in d. C. About impeachment thats immediate. If true, that is a very clear thing. Its the executive branch versus the legislative branch, do not tell the truth. Thats an impeachment proceeding. You can see that in d. C. Today. If his case doesnt support that, he needs to get out in front of it. Im sure thats why he came out so vociferously. We never heard from him. We never hear from him. Theres another part to this too which is leakers. The Mueller Investigation itself is oftentimes labeled as leakers or if any information comes out of it. They fought very hard to run a tight ship. Two Law Enforcement officials said, thats what the sourcing was of the story. He, i imagine, wants to assert very clearly this did not come from my investigative team, we are not leakers, we are in control of this investigation. So i think it was two parts. Its sustaining the credibility of the investigation and also stopping this machine from turning in d. C. That really ramped up overnight. We mentioned in the introduction the impact of the shutdown on Law Enforcement, the impact potentially on the fbi, the idea of dangerously low funding. Were four weeks in and counting. Who knows how long its going to be. From a Law Enforcement standpoint, from an fbi standpoint, what are the implications of the shutdown . I would tell you its an eightweek impact for four weeks. Heres why. As soon as the shutdown starts being discussed, ive been at headquarters when this happens, you start planning for the shutdown. Resources are already diverted. Then theres resources diverted to restart back up. So youre losing time, youre losing all sorts of support staff. Once the shutdown goes into place, you lose support staff, investigative, you lose Cash Payments for informants, things that might go out for technical surveillance all goes down. Every one of those inputs slows down cases. You cannot cover as much ground and now youre just relying on agents just as human beings to cover the gaps. Nearly impossible to sustain that pace. So all investigations across the board will run much, much slower at this point. Everybody tonight talking about the buzzfeed story and the response from the special counsel. A week ago tonight it was that story from the New York Times about the fbi opening that investigation into donald trump and whether he might have been a witting or unwitting agent of russia. We played in the introduction the sound of the president talking about folks at the fbi as scoundrels. Maybe to broaden out a little bit here but just people working in the fbi, fbi agents, just the climate within the fbi now and over the last two years as the president has engaged publicly like this about Law Enforcement, about the fbi, what is it like for those agents in that climate . Its terrible. I mean, imagine youre working without pay, you havent gotten a paycheck. You have no support staff, you have none of the investigative sort of resources that you had before and at the same point your commander in chief is telling you youre a scoundrel. You shouldnt be list archbishoped to. Now youre getting essentially erosion of public trust in your ability to do your job. Its almost like a twofront war on you as an investigator. Its got to be tough to keep morale going. At the same point youve watched this investigation now starting in the summer of 16 all the way till today. And its just devastating. Theres constantly more information coming out in two part, one, either the president while hes yelling at you as an fbi agent, or any investigator, also going out of his way to maybe dangle a pardon or talk about the investigation or openly have his lawyer go and discredit you. And youre seeing what is a counterintelligence threat, a National Security threat. Policy positions advanced by russia being repeated by approximated the president that only sourced to the russian government, and your president taking the word of Vladimir Putin over the intelligence community. Across the board thats four different angles that you can look at. You have to be concerned about whats going on in the country and you have to be worried about how to do your job under those constraints. Clint watts, thanks. What would it take for there not to be a candidate trump on the ballot in 2020 . Im going to head to the big board and take a look at what the polls can tell us about that when the 11th hour continues. Im alex trebek here to tell you about the Colonial Penn program. If youre age 50 to 85 and looking to buy Life Insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. What are the three ps . The three ps of Life Insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. A price you can afford, a price that cant increase, and a price that fits your budget. Im 65 and take medications. Whats my price . You can get coverage for 9. 95 a month. I just turned 80. Whats my price . 9. 95 a month for you, too. If youre age 50 to 85, call now about the number one most popular whole Life Insurance plan available through the Colonial Penn program. It has an affordable rate starting at 9. 95 a month. No medical exam, no health questions. Your acceptance is guaranteed, and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock, so your rate can never go up for any reason. And with this plan, you can pick your payment date, so you can time your premium due date to work with your budget. So call now for free information. And youll also get this free beneficiary planner, and its yours just for calling. So call now. All right. Well, folks, its early 2019, but the 2020 race, we already know its off and running on the democratic side. What about the republican side . Is donald trump going to coast to renomination for a second term without opposition . Is donald trump going to get a challenger for the republican in the republican primaries . Is it possible that whoever emerges from the massive democratic field wont even face donald trump in the general election . We thought we would take a look at that question, take you through some interesting poll numbers weve been seeing as 2020 starts to come into focus. How about this, this is a new poll from marist this week. They asked republicanleaning independent voters an interesting question. They said should another republican run against trump in the primaries . Look at this. 44 said yes, almost the same number who said no. That suggests, hey, there might be an appetite there among republicans, at least theoretically for somebody to get in this race. Keep in mind, though, take this with a grain of salt. The same question was asked about barack obama among democrats at the same point in his presidency. The result looked almost the same. Remember, obama, no opponent in his 2012 primaries. How about this, though, take a look at trumps Approval Rating among republicans. Look how steady this has been his entire term, 88 . That looks impressive among your own party and historically among your own party it is. This is how his most recent predecessors have fared with their own parties at this point in their presidencies. Trump sitting there at 88 . You look at that and say, geez, that may not spell primary challengers. If thats the case, this would be the situation republicans are looking at, someone who is extremely popular within their party but is still sitting there, this is his current average Approval Rating with all voters, who is still sitting there in the low 40s, goes down to the high 30s, the low 40s. Thats been his range the entire presidency. Thats what republicans are staring at. Someone their base is not going to throw out who would have to win reelection with an Approval Rating like that. Well see. Coming up, the longest Government Shutdown gets even longer as we head into day 29. How businesses are stepping in to help those stuck in the middle when the 11th hour continues. The last thing before we go tonight, we are now moments away from the longest Government Shutdown in american history. Getting one day longer. The president says he will be making a major announcement concerning it tomorrow afternoon. But four weeks in, frustration from those going without paychecks keeps growing. I am a single mother. I lost my husband last year. I bought me a house in the process. And im worried about how im going to pay my mortgage. We most likely wont see any income until after february 1st, so its gotten to the point where its, okay, we managed to make our bills this month, but next month is really going to be hard on us. I woke up in a cold sweat like 3 00 in the morning yesterday because i realized i have a travel stipend that is supposed to come in that i have a Standing Order against. I woke up going, oh, god, i need to cancel that. I cant afford to pay it if it hits. Going to a food bank, which we did last friday, had to explain to one of our sons afterward when he didnt understand, daddy has a job, you know, why why didnt we pay . And its something i cant how do you as a parent answer that question . But there are companies that are helping out, and that includes paypal, the popular payment app said today employees who use paypal credit will be able to avail an advance of up to 500 each without having to pay any interest. The program will last until the government reopens and employees receive their first paychecks. Delta Airlines Announced it is contributing more than 83,000 to reopen the Martin Luther King National historic park ahead of mondays National Holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader. It will remain open until at least super bowl sunday. George w. Bush and his wife, the former first lady delivered pizzas to the members of the secret service today. They called for an end to the shutdown. With midnight here on the east coast, a few seconds from now good evening from new york. Buzzfeeds blockbuster report that the president of the United States elected michael con to lie to congress about negotiations to bailed trump tower moscow, siting two Law Enforcement sources familiar with the investigation. They report trump also planned to visit with russia during the campaign and visit with putin drktly and that the president and two of his children all
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