Tonight. The president is at maralago for the 29th time at president , 175th day there as president. In washington, a fairly explosive day at the usually quiet Justice Department. A second straight day of completely mixed signals, including what appears to be a slow Rolling Campaign to seize increasing amounts of control over politically charged cases. They are numerous. The New York Times was the first to report that trumps ag bill barr has tapped and outside prosecutor to, quote, scrutinize the criminal case against President Trumps former National Security adviser michael flynn. Barr installed a handful of outside prosecutors broadly reviewing the handling of other politically sensitive National Security cases. They go on to say over the past two weeks, the youd sioutside prosecutors have begun grilling line prosecutors about various cases. You may recall flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi during muellers investigation of ties between the Trump Campaign and russia and all those contexts. Earlier tonight, Andrea Mitchell explained to the audience why a review of this case is raising concern. This sets off all sorts of political alarms. First, former fbi Officials Say if there are concerns they should call in the inspector general, not a prosecutor. Second, flynn now wants to withdraw his guilty plea saying the fbi surprised him. Former prosecutors say being surprised is no excuse for lying to the fbi. Thats a crime. Third, as with roger stone, the Justice Department overruled the prosecutors reducing his proposed seine sense from six months to probation. This raises suspicions that the president has Sole Authority over pardons, he might be trying to make a case for a pardon for flynn. The Washington Post is reporting feds in new york, the office we call the Southern District of new york, has taken new steps into the investigation of the man who once ran the Southern District of new york, rudy giuliani. Those new steps include apparently evidence and witnesses potentially against rudy. Even as the main Justice Department in washington reported days ago with a straight face they set up a mechanism to receive private citizen giulianis information that he gathered in ukraine. Tonight, Justice Department has dropped its case against former fbi Deputy DirectorAndrew Mccabe who was accused of lying to investigators about a leak to the media. The u. S. Attorneys office in washington informed mccabes attorneys, quote, the government has decided not to pursue criminal charges. We consider the matter closed. Mccabe opened a counterintelligence investigation into trump in 2017 after the president fired comey. That launched the russia inquiry. That put mccabe and the fbi in the president s cross hairs and mccabe has been trolled, threaten and attacked ever since. They should look at these fbi guys who got fired and demoted. I think he is a sick guy personally. Andrew mccabe, a bad guy. Andrew mccabe made a fool out of himself. I think hes a disaster. What he was trying to do is terrible. He was caught. All of this is taking place while the president appears to be asserting his growing control over federal Law Enforcement. And as attorney general barr is speaking out about trumps habit of weighing in on all things Justice Department, yesterday barr told abc news the president s twitter habit was making it impossible for him do his job and he suggested the president stop it. Hours later, the president tweeted about barr, quote, the president has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case, ag barr, this doesnt mean i do not have as president the legal right to do so. I do. Have chosen not to. Barr who today marks one year on the job is under fire for his decision to reverse a sentencing recommendation for convicted trump ally roger stone. The decision was announced shortly after the president criticized the recommended federal sentence of seven to nine years. Tonight, the Washington Post reports roger stone has requested a new trial. A day after trump accused of jury forewoman of bias, interestingly, barr tells abc news, he was all for stones prosecution. I supported it. I think it was established. I thought it was a righteous prosecution. I was happy that he was convicted. Nonetheless, there are at least Nine Senate Democrats calling on barr to resign. They are accusing him of lying to congress when during his confirmation hearing he pledged to keep the Law Enforcement process free from political influence. One former federal prosecutor and u. S. Attorney who we have come to know says based on the past 24 hours, it is time for the ag to step down from office. If you are bill barr and if you have gone on record telling the president to stop tweeting, and if you believe in the independent Justice Department, which barr has gone on record as saying he believes in, then when the president s response is to tweet and say he will meddle in criminal cases whenever he damn well pleases, your only move is to resign. Here for our discussion on this busy friday night, susan page, who is at work on a biography or nonesy pi nancy pe philipp rucker, White House Bureau chief for the washington pos post, coauthor along with carol lennig of the best selling book a very stable genius and Josh Gerstein for politico. Welcome to you all. Susan, what do you think the attorney general is up to . Do you remember a time that we were too young when the president appointed his own brother, who had never tried a case in court, when the assumption about doj was they were going to straight up endeavor to do the right thing in all cases . Yeah. I mean, there have been times in the past during the Nixon Administration as you say and the Kennedy Administration but not in my time in washington have we seen a situation like this where the president is asserting his right to meddle in any criminal cases that he wishes to do so and that we have an attorney general that seems to be public if you take him at his word, pleading with the president to stop weighing in on twitter on the Justice Department issues. There are mixed messages coming out of the Justice Department. I guess it depends whether you think bill barr is sincere when he says he is trying to keep things from being too politicized or if you take a more cynical view he was trying to calm a storm in his own building with career prosecutors. Josh, that brings us to your beat. It was just tuesday, the four feds walked off the case, choosing to walk off the case because they cant put out statements and call press conferences. This is their form of protest and warning. Then yesterday, the interview that susan was referencing, people wanting to take an attorney general at his word, becoming the first sitting cabinet member to criticize the boss. What is going on inside the department of justice based on your reporting . The atmosphere and uproar is something i have only seen on a couple prior occasions during President Trumps term in office. One would be the atmosphere, the feeling surrounding the firing of fbi director james comey and the other would be on a couple days when it looked like rod rosenstein, who appointed special counsel robert mueller, was about to be fired by the president and one day when he was in a car and we were told he was expecting to be asked for his resignation when he arrived at the white house. This is more pervasive and a bigger problem. It really has infected the line prosecutors, the front line people, the investigators who do the day to day work of the Justice Department. As disturbing as some of the other events were, you are talking about reshuffling the leadership of the Justice Department. Here after you had those four prosecutors withdraw from the roger stone case and one of them quit the government all together, it became clear that this has infected things all the way down to the ground level, to the nittygritty place where the rubber meets the road. I think thats why you saw the attorney general come out yesterday and make the statements that he did. It became a crisis of confidence in him and the department as a whole. Phil is know dummy. We note traveling with the president you get a weekend in florida. Phil, whats the viewpoint of those around this president traveling with the president just like yourself . Well, brian, theres so much swirling over the last few days involving the president and the department of justice. One thing that is sure to get the president s attention and perhaps stoke his wrath is the ending of essentially this investigation for andy mccabe. The decision by the Justice Department announced today not to file any charges for the former deputy fbi director, mccabe has been enemy one or two for trump now for more than a year. The president has firmly believed and has said so publically that he thinks mccabe should have been charged. He surely is not pleased with this decision. My colleagues at the Washington Post reported that earlier today when that news was announced, the white house did not have a heads up and there was an effort underway in the oval office at the white house to calm the president , to control him, to urge him not to speak out about mccabe. The white House Counsel rushed in to try to talk to the president white away about this mccabe decision. We will see what the morning brings in terms of tweets from the president. Im sure he is none too pleased with the outcome. Josh, for the charges the feds nicked roger stone on, i think, correct me if im wrong, the max is, like, 20 years, if they wanted to throw the book at him. In this case, they did what they always do. They looked at federal sentencing guidelines. They came back with an answer of a recommended sentence seven to nine years. The president calls it a miscarriage of justice. Bill barr with a straight face says, yeah, i got involved. I took a look at it. Here is Andrew Weissman on how rare it would be for a sitting attorney general to do just what he did. The attorney general does not review sentencing submissions. That never happens. Everybody in the department knows that. To make it sound like he did, which is this is a normal thing that i review them, no. He reviewed them in connection with two rich white men who are connected to the president. That is the only two. I would love to hear from the attorney general, who else has he done this for . Josh, thats saying a lot. Second, this Cabinet Agency you cover is easily the most process driven and ideally the most rigor driven branch of the government. Right, brian. I think it could be up to 50 years that roger stone in theory could be sentenced to. The thing thats really troubling and what i would pick up from what andy said is when he talked about rich white males. You have a Justice Department who fwunder this attorney gener and the previous one Jeff Sessions has gone out of its way to say they thought the prior administration, the Obama Administration had been too lenient with criminals and that folks should have been receiving guideline sentencing, whatever the sentencing guidelines require. You shouldnt deviate, depart downward because they had a difficult upbringing. You should insist on those in almost every case. To come in a case involving the president s long time confidant and say, in this case, we think the sentencing guidelines are too much, its extraordinarily departure from the public rhetoric. Bill barr was giving a speech where he said, we need to be super tough on criminals. Why the people of interest to the president are getting a special break is something thats going to be tough to explain. Phil, in a normal west wing, in a normal political shop, the domestic policy adviser may come up with a policy initiative to pivot off of postimpeachment for a president. Is there any such mechanism, any such plan in the west wing you cover . I mean, brian, if there is, i have never i have not heard of it. What we see in this west wing, its what we have seen for three years, is a constant churn from crisis to crisis. A president scrambling every day for survival. He is fixated on the news cycle, fixated on whats happening at the department of justice. If theres a broad domestic legislative agenda underway, the American People dont really know about it. The president is doing very little to promote that. He is, we should point out, going to be in Daytona Beach over the weekend at the daytona 500. There are reports that he may take the motorcade on a lap of the racetrack. He is fixated on Campaign Event like that and trying to promote his image more so i lenggislati. Susan page, you are one of two susans we read with regularity around here. The other is glasser who writes for the new yorker. I quote from her to get your reaction. Although the president himself is unchanged, the context around him is very much altered. In the history of the trump presidency, there will be a before impeachment and an after. Your view of that . Yes, i think so. There have been speculation about what would be the affect of the impeachment process. We were sure that President Trump was going to be acquitted. What would be affect . There were some who suggest cha. Thats not the case. President trump has been emboldened since he was acquitted by the senate. We see that every day. We see that in his tweets in what he is doing now in these criminal cases. I think we will continue to see that. Do you think roger stone will spend a day in jail between the Justice Departments actions and the president ial pardon . I would be if i had a farm, i would not bet it on the idea that roger stone will spend a night in jail. Josh, 30 seconds on this. This judge is in a tough spot. The chief judge yesterday put out a statement covering her employees saying, this office is not affected by outside pressures. Right. Remember, this sentencing, unless its deferred for some reason, is now basically less than a week away. Its next thursday. Its supposed to take place. The notion that this story will drop out of the headlines because the president s going to Campaign Rallies is not going to happen. Theres so many wheels in terms of the reviews that barr has started in the flynn case and in other cases that its just hard to see this going away. I think that Amy Burman Jackson will probably give a fairly stiff sentence to roger stone. She didnt seem to care for his behavior very much at all. I think he is looking at a tough time. Like susan says, he may get a pardon very quickly after that. The prospect of pardons put everything in question. To susan, to philipp, to josh, our thanks for joining us after the week we have all had late on a friday night. A closer look at the decision to clear Andrew Mccabe. A case one federal judge says was run like an inquiry in a Banana Republic. What happens in vegas and nevada as a whole may reshape the democratic race in its own way yet again. We have a preview for you tonight when we continue as the 11th hour is just Getting Started on this friday evening. 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And save even more when you say bring my own phone into your voice remote. Thats simple, easy, awesome. Click, call or visit a store today. Ig referrals to u. S. Attorneys offices are handled many times, a year and very quickly, typically declined before the ink is dry on the igs report. This one they decided to spend two years thinking about. Im sure a lot of that time was spent thinking about how frustrated the president would likely be when they came to the inevitable conclusion there was no case here. Thats just a theory on my part. There were Court Transcripts released just today from a freedom of information act lawsuit. Its how we learn a lot of what we learn about this government. Those transcripts reveal what one federal judge thought about trumps affect on Andrew Mccabes case. This judge happened to be appointed to the federal bench by bush 43. He warned prosecutors back in september that whatever decision they made on charging mccabe would be tainted by the president s comments on Andrew Mccabe. In a closed door meeting with prosecutors, the judge said, the public is listening to whats going on and i dont think people like the fact that you got somebody at the top basically trying to dictate whether somebody should be prosecuted. I think its a Banana Republic when we go down that road. Back with us tonight is frank figloosi, a former fbi assistant director. You said on this broadcast about a week ago it was tile for the doj to put up or shut up. They have chosen the latter. What do you make of this decision . Can Andrew Mccabe go back to living his life . Andy wont be able to live a life as he previously knew it. You cant do that when you have been subject to this kind of witch hunt and hex foax for two years and your family has been subjected to it. I used the terms witch hunt and hoax because the president is claiming he and his associates have been victims of a witch hunt and hoax. Here is the difference. In the witch hunt and hoax against mccabe, theres no charges to bring. Theres no criminality there. In the alleged witch hunt and hoax against the president and manafort, flynn and stone, we have an impeachment, we have convictions, we have two dozen russians indicted. Thats the difference. Theres nothing to bring when it comes to andy mccabe. When you hear the reporting out of the white house, we talked about it on this broadcast last night, that the president is tired of finding never trumpers throughout this government he has inherited and partially staffed, and its a whiff of loyalty test as they go through the payroll. When you hear that, what are your thoughts regarding your beloved former bureau . Yeah, its so important for americans to understand that the only thing that department of justice and fbi employees are loyal to is the constitution and the oath they took when they signed on to the job. You know, the president can continue to assert that there needs to be loyalty to him or that people are partisan. He just doesnt get it. Thats not why you sign up for the fbi or department of justice. You sign up because you are about the rule of law. The sooner the president can figure that out, the better off we all will be. Skeptics in the audience looked at ag barrs remarks and the abc news tics who where adept at surviving office politics, lets say. They came up with a scenario in their minds that barr went to the boss and said, i gotta kick you around in an interview because i just have to because of this roger stone case. What was your take as a veteran of figuring out Interpersonal Communications . Im one of those skep tib ti this abc interview. The attorney general has been disingenuous with us. I think he speaks with forked tongue. Here is why. You laid it out earlier. There was a freedom of information act request that was about to expose a federal judge saying, hey, this thing stinks to high heaven, you better bring charges on mccabe or move on because this looks like a Banana Republic. Boom, all of a sudden, after four resignations at doj, we get barr pushing back on tweets by the president. Then we find out, brian, we find out today theres been secret use of u. S. Attorneys, hand picked by this attorney general, to continue to investigate who . Mccabe, comey, pete struck, all around the interview of mike flynn and the flynn investigation. People who think barr has changed his stripes need to understand that simply hasnt happened. Frank, thank you as always for joining us on the broadcast and explaining this to us. Coming up, were a week out from the nevada caucuses. 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While the middleclass continues to struggle. Thats what happens when billionaires are able to control the political system. Our campaign is funded by the working people of this country, and those are the people that i will represent. No more tax breaks for billionaires. We are going to guarantee health care to all people and create up to 20 million good paying jobs to save this planet. Im Bernie Sanders and i approve this message because we need an economy that works for all of us, not just wealthy campaign contributors. Early voting begins for nevadas Democratic Caucus a few hours from now. Voters there have until tuesday to submit paper ballots before the actual caucuses get underway next saturday. Wait until you hear the story of how they are going to be organized. A new telephone opinion poll of nevada likely caucusgoers has Bernie Sanders leading the pack. Joe biden is second. Other democratic contenders are neck and neck, within the margin of error. Its been pointed out. Back with us tonight is our friend jonathan allen, senior political analyst, and our friend erin hayes, veteran of the los angeles times. Shes editor at large for the 19th, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom focused on gender, politics and policy that launched this summer. Its great to see you. Jon, since you are here in new york, home field advantage. You wrote recently, sanders is winning ugly. What on earth did you mean by that, my friend . Well, we saw the first two contests. He got the most popular votes in iowa. He got the most popular votes in a tie for delegates in new hampshire. In both cases, he got about 25 of the vote. He got wins in terms of the popular vote. He is not really getting a huge win there. Particularly in new hampshire, he basically won because Amy Klobuchar was able do well enough in third to stop Pete Buttigieg from getting past sanders. If sanders wants to win the nomination, he will have to do better than 25 wins. The reason i say that is, there are a lot of democrats in the party, the establishment, that is lined up and wants to prevent him from being the nominee. Some democrats are so concerned about stopping him from taking over the party that at times it appears they are more concerned about that than winning the presidency. In order to go into a convention and win, he cant go in as the leader with Something Like 25 of the delegates or 30 . He is going to have do better than that. Erin, i hope you can see a monitor where you are. I want to put two sets of South Carolina numbers up from the latest polling there. This is opinion poll of South Carolina democrats going into their primary. You see one in two, biden, sanders. Next is africanamerican voters going in to South Carolina. Biden, sanders, 36 , 20 . Erin, what do you make of the numbers in do you believe that these numbers, even though reflected in the latest poll, are on the move . I think that they are definitely on the move. What you are seeing in that Biden Sanders split with black voters, sanders starting to erode the black support that joe biden has had with black voters for much of this primary cycle. That seems to be generational, from voters im hearing from on the ground in South Carolina. You have older black women who are really pretty still solidly with the former vicepresident. He is making the case to them, if you can get me out of this state, i will deliver for you. I think that they trust him. I think they believe him. They are ready to work for him in terms of getting that Ground Organization that he is going to need to, frankly, finish first, which im hearing from his campaign a lot that he needs to have a strong if not first place finish in South Carolina. Bernie sanders is somebody younger black women that im hearing from are open to his candidacy. He has the best ground game from what i understand in South Carolina right now. That really marks a shift from 2016 when he didnt do as well with black and brown voters. That was a problem for him. Hillary clinton was able to capitalize on those folks in states like South Carolina and super tuesday states. To the extent that senator sanders has learned those lessons from 2016 and is building that Multiracial Coalition that he is going to need should he become the nominee, i think that South Carolina is going to be the first test of that. Another quick question. Steyer has been on the air in South Carolina for a long time. Now that we have two billionaires in the race, is steyer making genuine inroads . Absolutely. A name that i do keep hearing come up is tom steyer in South Carolina. That is because he has really been in that state up with radio ads, locally. You see him everywhere on television, local and National Television in South Carolina. He is really working very hard to familiarize himself with voters in the state there. What i hear is that, that effort feels more like an investment than transactional, which is a word i hear a lot when people talk about mayor bloomberg and the way in which he is using his money to influence this election. The endorsements, especially with black mayors, the columbia mayor, Steve Benjamin was one of the early endorsers and the houston mayor endorsed him today. Some people see that as suggest that mayor bloomberg is buying black leadership, for example, i think its also important to point out that these in a lot of cases are longstanding relationships that mayor bloomberg has with these black mayors in terms of giving money through his organizations to a lot of the cities they govern and stepping in where the federal government didnt to provide resources for those communities but also training in terms of governance that has been valuable. I think that both mayor bloomberg and tom steyer, the inrootd i inroads will be tested soon. Jon, have a good week or a bad week . I think he had a good week. He was able to dominate a lot of the News Coverage in a week where there was a primary he didnt he didnt participate in. This was the shock and awe week of Mike Bloomberg jumping into the middle of a democratic primary without being on the ballot, without being on a debate stage. Suddenly finding himself in third place in National Polling after all the other people had been campaigning for a year. There is that. He is also now fending off a tremendous amount of bad fendin stop and frisk. A mixed week but a positive in terms of dominating coverage. Thanks to two of our friends. Jonathan allen and to erin, we wish you luck with the new gig. Thanks for coming on. Just ahead, how the president s tough talk and proposed defense spending is resurrecting fears that a couple of american generations have lived through when we come back. With hepatitis c. I felt i couldnt be at my. Best for my family. In only 8 weeks with mavyret. I was cured. 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Talk to your doctor about mavyret. The business of family time. And downtime. And you time. And forgetting what time it is. Altogether. Modernized comfort inns and suites have been refreshed because when your business is making time, our business is you. Get the lowest price guaranteed on all Choice Hotels when you book direct at choicehotels. Com. Treat yourself to president s day savings. This friday through monday. Buy 2 get one free on all dog toys. Or buy 2 get one free on all dog treats four days only. At petsmart skip to the good part with alkaseltzer plus. Now with 25 more concentrated power. Nothing works faster for powerful cold relief. Oh, what a relief it is so fast north korea best not make any more threats to the united states. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. The president seemed to have ditched his love affair with north korea for now. Yesterday, the atlantic published its interview with john kelly from a College Event at new jersey who said trumps efforts to use personal diplomacy with kim jongun were few ti futile. I never did think kim would do anything other than play us for a while. And he did that fairly effectively. The president has been touting expertise on this issue since the 1980s. The man who at the age of 39 is not content with being new york citys latest real estate billionaire, donald trump has ventured into gambling and professional football and says he could negotiate a Nuclear Disarmament treatment with russia. A story were about to hear from our next guest. Fred kaplan is back with us. National security columnist for slate. For tonight, heauthor of the new book, the bomb. While its not necessarily germane to your work, tell us the donald trump story. Its germane. He seriously lobbied to be bushs arms negotiator. He was talking to people. Bush nominated richard bert. He runs into bert and says, you are the guy negotiating with the russians. He goes trump had just written the best seller the art of the deal. I have a great idea how you can get a great deal from the russians. First meeting with them, you show up late. Then you walk over to their side of the table, you pound your fist on the table and you say what he said this isnt premium cable. F you. Bert negotiated a good treaty by which time another one of trumps businesses had gone bankrupt. The topic of your book, it strikes me has been used twice in World History in anger. We kept it there. Is it to you akin to loosening norms, what we are seeing on our society, that another generation is coming up having not known the sheer Awesome Force of this . Are we getting too casual in tossing about mentions of it, threats of the use . Casual is a word. Cavalier might be another, trump attitude toward this. The famous meeting that took place in the tank on july 20, 2017, there had been books that describe calling the generals pussy and weaklings and babies. He was shown a chart, a number of Nuclear Weapons over the ages. The peak was 1969 when we had 32,000 Nuclear Weapons. We have not quite onetenth that now. This was shown to show the value of treaty making and the new stability in the world. Thats not how President Trump took it. He looked he pointed to the peak and goes, how come i cant have as many Nuclear Weapons as we did back then . They explained to him the reasons. He seemed convinced. I was told about a week later in a meeting in the white house with then National Security adviser h. R. Mcmaster, he remembered this chart. How come i cant have as many Nuclear Weapons as other president s have had . With him, this is why he loves the military parade. Nothing do with what you need for legitimate National Security. Its bigger, stronger looking, more. He was upset that Richard Nixon had more Nuclear Weapons than he did. For no good reason. Your closing quote, i will leave the audience with this. Past is not precedence. Some incalculable mix of shudness and sheer luck has kept the hole le cost at bay, who knows how many wars we can dodge before an alignment of slowwitnessedness and miss fortune tips the balance the other way. Its called the bombs. Speaking of president s, coming up, a president ial historians comparison of our first commander in chief with our 45th. Before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn, marie could only imagine enjoying freshly squeezed orange juice. Now no fruit is forbidden. Nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for allday, allnight protection. Can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn . So wim searching for info allnight protection. On options trading, and look, it feels like im just wasting time. Wasted time is wasted opportunity. Exactly. 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In august 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon, near point comfort, virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved africans, who were sold to the colonists. No aspect of the country we know today has been untouched by the slavery that followed. America was not yet america, but this was the moment it began. [sfx typing] but this was the wheneveryone is different. A, which is why Xfinity Mobile created a different kind of wireless network. One that saves you money by letting you design your own data giving you more choice and control compared to other top wireless carriers. Now you can choose unlimited, shared data, or mix lines of each and switch any line, anytime. No one else lets you do that. Design your own data with Xfinity Mobile. Its wireless reimagined. Simple. Easy. Awesome. The upcoming president s day weekend begins a heavily promoted miniseries that will tell the story of George Washington. Its billed as a look at the full arc of washingtons journey from soldier to the first president of the united states. Washington is without question the greatest hero and le leader in american history. But he is a stranger. I George Washington do solemnly swear. People see him more as a monument than a person. You cant understand him unless you acknowledge he was human. I will faithfully execute the office of president of the united states. When we understand the man behind the myth, it actually becomes empowering and inspiring for us. Back with us doris kearns goodwin. Her latest work is leadership in turbulent times. She happens to be executive producer of this threepart miniseries, washington, about our nations first president. Jarated by jeff daniels, it. Doris, first of all, its great to see you. Im glad to be with you. Secondly what are we apt to learn . Whats a mass audience apt to learn about this guy that we havent been told in american folklore, and what will peoples minds do when they necessarily compare it to our times . I think the most important thing is what you said. Its the arc of his life. So you see him as a young man. He makes mistakes. He has losses. He suffers adversity. But the most important thing is his ability to grow. He learns from his mistake. He surrounds himself with people, a team, almost the original team of rivals, people who can argue with him in the Continental Army and people who can argue with him in the presidency, and he grows through them. And he understands his weaknesses, and he understands his strengths. In the break, i asked you about his physicality, his bearing, how hes portrayed in the miniseries. Share with the folks what you said to me. Yeah. Theres a funny part of it where joelis, the historian, is talking about the fact that martha was a great catch for him because she was wealthy and she could bring him land, but he was a great catch for her because he was a stud. Im not sure we think of him he was tauller than most people. Women talked about how gracefully he danced on the floor. He had a presence. Life was so hard. By approaching it todays standards, we cant imagine it. But all of them in philadelphia that hot summer were wearing wool and wigs, and if they were lucky, would dine on hot mutton and kind of a lukewarm ale at the end of the day. It was not a life. No, thats really true. Then you think about escalating what you just described when hes at valley forge and when he has to keep those soldiers alive, when the rations are cut down, when theyre dying, onefifth of them are dying, and yet he gives them a sense of purpose. And by the end of it, theyve survived enough to continue on. Its hard to imagine. Martha came and visited him at that time, and they lived and the great thing about it is that one of the historians talks about the fact, no, its general powell who talks about the fact that he saw war young. Hes on his First Mission as a british officer. Hes 22 years old. He sees people dying. He sees the toughness of life. After that, you never think of war as an adventure again. You never think of it romantically again. Youve experienced war. Of course general powell as a decorated combat veteran knows that all too well. What is your theory about does history find great men and women to step up and play in these roles and or do they grow to the occasion . I think they definitely grow to the occasion. I mean one of the historians says he was not born great. He took a journey to greatness. And i think if you saw him at the beginning, hes making so many mistakes in those early days before the french and indian war, and he screws up like human beings do. But what makes it possible is that they learn from that. And then opportunity arises, and he happens to be there, and hes the right man at the right time in the right place. I mean he could have been anything he wanted to. He could have been a king. The most amazing thing that he leaves to us is the peaceful transfer of power. After the war was won, most generals take control of the government. He takes off his uniform, goes home, and decides that this is it. And the king george iii says, oh, my god, if thats true that he really did that, he gave up power, hed be the greatest man in the world. Then hes president for two terms. He could have stayed until he died, and he goes back home. So thats a really important lesson for us that power can be transferred. He becomes a citizen again, and hes not a king. Hes a president. Put it this way. We had a choice of who to name our capital city after. I think by the end of part three, most viewers will come away thinking we got that part really right. Dor dor doris kearns goodwin, congrats on this. This is a great thing. Coming up for us, an unusual show and tell session as it played out in front of cameras today. [ indistinct talking ] a new kind of investor is changing things up. With an app thats changing the way we do money. Download robinhood now. But allstate helps you. With drivewise. Feedback that helps you drive safer. And that can lower your cost now that you know the truth. Are you in good hands . Tracfone lets you keep your leftover data each month. Unlimited carryover data 20 bucks. What are you doing . I want to ask you about your data. Oh, i thought you said dating. This is your wakeup call, people. The new tracfone wireless. Now youre in control. Last thing before we go tonight is from an event at the white house today for the National Border patrol council. Big day for the president because he got to talk all about his wall and share photos. Well hit you up with some facts at the end of this, but heres one to start with. The president wants to divert 4 billion of Pentagon Spending to continue his project, and it looks like even republicans may object to that. But for now, the president seems very proud of his project. I dont know if you can see this, but its pretty impressive. These are different pictures, different shots. This is the wall going up. Theyre working at night as you can see. Either that or its an extremely dark day. Heres another shot. This is a shot of a little different section. After its up, it gets spraypainted black. The black makes it extraordinarily hot, especially in areas along the mexican border. Its not known for cold weather. Its known for quite hot weather. The black absorbs the heat, so not only would you have to be a good climber, but youre going to have to bring a hose with lots of water to water it down, and there arent too many hoses in the area. Virtually impossible to climb over the top. Heres another shot. But we got it built, and i made your jobs a lot easier. Say thank you, mr. President. Finally and as promised, a fact check from the federal government. Border protection put this out 20 days ago showing that as of last month, 99 miles of new wall have been constructed where an old existing barrier stood. There has been one mile of totally new wall construction along a section of the border where no barrier previously stood. On that note, that is our broadcast for this friday night as we bring another week to a close. Happy valentines day to all. Thank you for being here with us. Have a good weekend and good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Thank you for joining us for day four of the rule of law crisis that has been unleashed by President Trump and his attorney general william barr. Today, interestingly, is actually the oneyear anniversary of william barr taking over as attorney general at the Justice Department. Congratulations. Hows it gone . In this current scandal this week, we are not only learning what general barr has been up to this week as it has become a gigantic scandal and has all started falling apart. We are now learning as of this part of the week, from public reporting and from sources starting to squawk about it, were now learning what exactly attorney general william barr has been up