Unless they can figure out a way to add to the 1100 figure, i wont support the bill. We have an update this hour. And good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington. As President Trump dives deeper into his controversial slamming of the russia investigation, ignoring a host of comments from both parties including the Republican Senate intelligence chairman, that the issue of collusion is still wide open. There is absolutely no collusion. That has been proven. When you look at the committees, whether its a senate or the house, everybody, my worst enemies, they walk out and say, there is no collusion but well continue to look. The president gave a readout of his call with Vladimir Putin saying it focused mostly on kim jongun. Prthe primary point was to tk about north korea because we would love to have his help on north korea. China is helping, russia is not helping. We would like to have russias help. Very important. And he predicted success for his tax bill. I have seen it. I think its going to do very, very well. I think that we are going to be in a position to pass something as early as next week, which will be monumental. But more criticism for a favorite target, the fbi. Its a shame whats happened with the fbi, but were going to rebuild the fbi, everybody, not me, when everybody, the level of anger and what theyve been witnessing with the fbi is certainly very sad. And he did not rule out pardoning Michael Flynn. Reporter would you consider a pardon for Michael Flynn . I dont want to talk about a pardon for Michael Flynn yet. Well see what happens. Lets see. Joining me now is msnbc correspondent kristen welker, White House ReporterAshlynn Parker and washington correspondent greg miller. Foreign special agent cliff watts and jeremy peters, as well as former cia officer and daily intelligence briefer, david preece. First, kristen welker, out there on the south lawn, it must have been very cold but the words were hot. Tell me your biggest takeaways today. Reporter i think the biggest takeaway was the clip you just played, andrea. The fact that you heard President Trump not rule out a pardon for Michael Flynn. I have been speaking with sources familiar with his discussions, with his attorneys. I am told that there has been no discussions as of right now about an actual pardon for Michael Flynn. So i think that is important to point out. But still, the language is important, the fact that he responded to that question is significant. Now, i asked him, when did he learn that Michael Flynn lied to the fbi . Of course, we all remember that tweet that got so much attention in which he said he fired him because he lied to the Vice President and the fbi. His legal team walked that back. When i asked him the question today to really put a fine point on it, andrea, he said, you know the answer to that question. The reality is we dont know the answer to that question. Were still waiting for the answer. Its clearly of interest to reporters but investigators as well. He doubled down on his criticism of the fbi. Likely the fbi under james comey, you heard him say, were rebuilding it now. Just two weeks ago he said the fbi is in tatters. Of course, hes talking about some conflicts hes uncovered with the ranks there at the fbi. Really doubling down on his fire and fury as it relates to the fbi, and weve seen some pretty serious backlash by way of him making critical comments of the law enforcement, andrea. And to greg miller, because you were part of the team reporting on extraordinary reporting that the president rejects criticism of Vladimir Putin, russia and all the rest. In his daily intelligence brief, putting the cia on the spot so they put things in writing with the understanding that hes not going to read the full brief and verbally they just ignore the things that they know will set him off. Yeah. So this is the intelligence officials we spoke with emphasized that were not withholding critical information from the president , but everybody we talked to said that there is a great deal of massaging of this that goes on to try to avoid drawing his ire, and to try to avoid, as one official told us, having the Daily Briefing go off the rails, which is what happens if hes confronted with Sensitive Information about russia and the interference in the election. So as you just said, there are coping mechanisms, if you will. Theyll put material in the written product so that the Intelligence Community can say, look, its there, its there for the president , were not withholding anything, but it may not be called to his attention orally in that daily presentation. David preece, youre an expert on this. You used to give the daily brief. These are the crown jewels of american intelligence. Weve had differing ways of different president s accepting it verbally, in writing, every day, in person. But in my experience, this is the first president who is, from all their reporting, which is extensively reported, not taking it in, not either reading or i moon, theyre editing it. Theyre basically trimming their sales. Its unprecedented. In the reporting, i didnt see it, unless greg can fill us in on this. I didnt see anything that they were taking out russian analysis from the written daily brief give ton tn to the president. They simply werent calling it out in the oral briefings. Whats the result of that, though . It is up to the reporters to adapt to the president s style. But when they change their conclusions in the analysis to meet the president s wishes. That is a fine line the reporters have to walk. The reporting is he doesnt read it, so hes not taking it in. We dont know how much he reads. We havent seen that definitively written. But if the president is not taking it on board from reading it and not from the oral briefings, then what happens . Does the president take away a different message from the Intel Community than theyre trying to give . Ill compare it to george w. Bush. The Intelligence Briefings every day were telling him how bad things were. The implication was the Intel Committee wasnt working. We seem to see the opposite. Reporting from greg and others is showing hes pushing the reporting away, which means the policy discussions that need to happen arent happening. And cliff watts, the criticism of the fbi is in sync with this also, because its the cia and the fbi in the briefings that offended him on russia. Hes increasingly insulting both agencies. Comey was the one that really brought the dossier to his attention was actually trying to help inoculate him against those claims, and he sort of pushed that away and shoved that away, and we know the history of comey. But even more, hes degrading the snuinstitution, and whats scary in this scenario is not only his personal battles with the fbi, he just gave a speech about how do we improve criminal justice around the country . And the most important element of that may be the fbi. Thats why theyre the federal entity. Hes now degrading their ability to do that job. If youre showing up in trump country, they may not help you, they may not believe you. It hurts investigations, it does not help them. How damaging, ashley, do you think the whole controversy over the fbi emails, the republicans harping on it, those republicans, at least, who are trying to undercut the mueller and congressional investigations. Theres no law against fbi officials having their own personal opinions, but theres no indication from any of the evidence thats been presented so far that their personal political opinions infected the subsequent investigation that took place a year later. Thats true, but i think it is incredibly helpful to republicans and the president trying to discredit the fbi, especially trying to discredit muellers investigation. It gives them something they can point to. President trump all along has basically said the system is rigged. As you mentioned, hes attacked these agencies in an unprecedented way. But one thing that often happens with President Trump is there is always or often a kernel of truth to what hes saying, and now he has the evidence to point to to back up his claim that the system is rse rigged and that t Text Messages could be potentially biassing. I think youll hear a lot more of this from the president to try to make his point. And jeremy, the president planning to head to camp david later today. We know that hes there on the brink of what we think might be victory on tax cuts for them. Shortterm victory, perhaps, because it is politically so unpopular. But the fact is there is some indication, and well get into this a little bit later, that they may be picking up the votes. They may have a deal that marco rubio can accept. We have yet to hear from rubio on this. Apparent victory it may end up being, andrea, and i just dont right now see any other option for the Republican Party but to pass this bill. Thats whats so unusual about it. When you talk to republicans behind the scenes, they admit this is not a great bill. Some may even tell you its a bad bill. But the need politically for them to do something that isnt catastrophic to their own selfinterest is so great that theyve got to pass this, even though its quite a mediocre piece of legislation. And coming on top of all of this russia stuff weve been talking about, its even a greater need for them to get something done. Because next year is an Election Year with an intensifying investigation around the president and his aides. Its going to be brutal. And i would even question calling it mediocre. Because according to every independent analysis of this, it is really terrible economic policy. Bad to have a tax cut at this point the way this is structured, not helping the middle class. Kristen welker, the white house has a very big megaphone, though, on social media and the president himself in person. Theyre going to try to sell, sell, sell this assuming they do get the final votes. Absolutely. The president has been making his final pitch throughout the week, including on wednesday when he gave that big speech here. We asked him, peter alexander, my colleague, if he had actually seen the final bill. He said, yes, hes seen it. It will do very well. I asked him if he would be willing to increase the Child Tax Credit to get marco rubio to yes, and he indicated that, yes, he is. And that was really our first sign that they were getting close to a compromise package so they can unveil their final piece of legislation a little bit later on today. But look, the president needs this win. He didnt repeal and replace obamacare as he had campaigned on, and so for this white house, for this president , getting something done on tax reform is really do or die so that he can have a legislative achievement under his belt, andrea. And greg miller, lets talk about Vladimir Putin. Yesterday they put out a readout that he was calling or whoever called whom, that the call was this part putin praising President Trump on the economy and advancements in the u. S. In the president s annual fourhour News Conference yesterday. Thats pretty weird. And once again we heard about this call first from the kremlin and not the u. S. They only responded to it afterwards. Its really interesting, and im sure david would hit on this point, but other former cia officers who deal with russia regard this as a sort of putins masterful ability to manipulate trump from afar in some ways. Hes intentionally praising trump during putins annual press conference. He knows those words are going to resonate with the american president. He knows how desperately sometimes trump seems to crave that kind of attention and praise, and so i mean, this is hes frfrom moscow to was, he is making that connection. And trump calling him to thank him for it just reinforces just how much he values that praise from putin. He is putting the russian president in a position of evaluating the american president. It gives putin a great deal of power and influence. And its remarkable that the white house even puts that out in their four or fiveline readout, that thats the main point that theyre telling us, the president really appreciated that flattery from Vladimir Putin. Im not sure we need to call this masterful strategy. It doesnt take a trained kgb officer to see it. Its right there for the taking and hes exploiting whats available to him. This is a president who has created his own reality and lives in that. He is a man who built a tower with his name on it on fifth avenue and lived inside of it for decades. So to have all this positive reinforcement coming from his enemies is a really dangerous thing for the country. Ashley, i want to follow up. Obviously well be drilling down more into Rex Tillerson and the north korea policy coming up. But give me your take on Rex Tillersons relationship right now with the white house and the president , because weve seen the nfc pushing back against what tillerson said just a few days ago about wanting talks with north korea without preconditions, and now, as were about to report and show you, he has edited his prepared text today at the Security Council and taken all of that out after criticism from the white house, from the nsc, that he had gone too far, too forward leaning. Where do you think things stand from your reporting from the white house perspective about the tenure of the secretary of state . So i think the relationship between the two men is what it has been from almost day one, which is abysmal. It sort of goes on a scale from deeply abysmal to only slightly abysmal, but theyve never had a good relationship. They sort of temperamentally dont get along, and a lot from what were hearing from the white house is while they also have different world views and the president does say, rex is so establishment in his thinking, its really more that personal chemistry thats lacking and what has hurt the secretary of state. And he also i think hes been very frustrated with the white house at times, with the president , the way the president has undercut him repeatedly, and we were just talking about how the president loves praise, and secretary tillerson does not always do a good job at holding back his dismay. Weve heard he sighs, he rolls his eyes. So i think the disappointment is irreparable and the oneyear mark is going to be it. Interesting in that tillerson is one of the few people that actually pushes back on some of the key policy issues, trying to focus on diplomacy with north korea, with iran, and thats partly, ashley, why i think he got himself into some real trouble. The iran deal, wanting to stick with it knowing what the world view is if we end up getting out of it, if the president decides to abandon it next month when the next deadline takes place. Ashley . I think thats exactly right, and i think the secretary of state was thrust into this sort of nowin position where he is the person, hes the nations top diplomat, and his job was to sort of go out and hear from all these foreign leaders and other diplomats saying, whats really going on, and his job is to kind of reassure and soothe them, but the problem is those reassurances and that soothing often contradicts the world of the president who doesnt like to be contradicted. Ashley parker, thanks to you, thanks to everyone else in the group. What a way to start a friday. And looking at the United Nations. Toughening his language to be able to talk to north korea. Youre watching Andrea Mitchell reports only on msnbc. Stay with us. But on the inside, i feel like chronic, widespread pain. 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Rex tillerson is at the United Nations for meetings on the north korean threat. As he said in his speech last week, the white house made it clear it was not happy with tillersons approach. The japanese also wanting to toughen that language. President trump also wanted to comment today before leaving the white house. We have a lot of support. There are a lot of nations that agree with us, almost everybody. We cant let that happen, and were going to see what happens with north korea. We hope it works out. Joining me now is ambassador wendy sherman, former secretary of state for Political Affairs and a global a fires contributor, and John Mclaughlin, an msnbc security analyst. Nice to have you both on everything happening around the world. First, John Mclaughlin, lets clean up things on the president s daily brief. We know the president spends a lot of time every day with mike pompeo, the cia director. He really likes getting this delivery. But what were hearing with extensive reporting from the Washington Post