We start with the shutdown. We reached the end of the fifth week of this partial Government Shutdown. Day 35 to be exact. Missed paychecks for hundred of thousands of federal workers, federal agents, service members. The talk along washingtons pennsylvania avenue this morning concerns a deal with three weeks of funding, believe it or not after two senate bills one from the derjs one from the republicans failed to cross the 60 vote threshold. The republicans proposal garnered 50 votes. The alternative mustered 52 votes with every democrat and six gop republican senators. Not long after the vote President Trump suggested a compromise floating a down payment on the wall he said, mexico would pay for. Nancy pelosi put down trumps offer as nonsense. Mitch mcconnell met with Chuck Schumer and they have to see what happens at their meeting to see if they can work out something maybe on a temporary basis. One of the ideas suggested they pay sort of a prorated down payment for the wall, which i think people would agree that you need. You need the wall. That is not a reasonable agreement between the senators. I dont know if he knows what hes talking about. Democrats are likely to reveal a counter offer in a News Conference sometime today and senators have been told stick around for potential votes. Republicans have remain largely united on the shutdown but at a private luncheon of gop senators and Vice President pence divisions were on display. This is your fault ron johnson told Mitch Mcconnell at one point. Are you suggesting im enjoining this mcconnell snapped back. The Washington Post confirmed the exchange with johnsons senate office. The hill reports mcconnell told pence that shuttering the government to secure funding for the border wall was not a smart approach. A gop source says mcon kneel talked about how we need to bring this process to a close. We never should have had a shutdown. They dont work. Theres no education in the second kick of a mule. Mcconnell spokesman declined to comment but pointed to similar comments he made before the shutdown began. Senator john cornyn told reporters that pence got an earful from senators. Were hearing from our constituents who are working for no pay. Tempers flared on the senate floor yesterday as congress failed to reopen the government. Ted cruz gave a speech blaming democrats for federal furloughs and pushed legislation that would pay the coast guard during the shutdown. Colorado senator Michael Bennet took the floor after him to express his anger at the shutdown and specifically senator cruz. The democrats are fond of using the phrase hostage taking. They are quite literally holding the men and women of the coast guard hostage because they want to win a political victory against the president. Their objective here is to have the president back down and have not a single mile of border wall built. These crocodile tears that the senator from texas is crying for First Responders are too hard for me to take. They are too hard for me to take. Because when you, when the senator from texas shut this government down in 2013, my state was flooded. It was under water. People were killed. Peoples houses were destroyed. Businesses were ruined forever. And because of the senator from texas, this government was shutdown for politics. Wow. Senator bennet will be a guest coming up later this morning on morning joe. You dont want to miss that. Joining us on set reporter for the Washington Post eugene scott. Good to see you in person. Thanks for coming up. Hell also be on morning joe later. A lot happening. So were starting to see, i feel like a lot of infighting amongst republicans with regards to the shutdown. Are there cracks at this point . Are we starting to see cracks amongst the Republican Party . Absolutely. When you look at the constituents who have expressed such a change in lifestyle because of this Government Shutdown, many of them actually do come from states represented by republican lawmakers. Theres this perception amongst some people that the people, only people affected by this Government Shutdown are People Living inside the d. C. Bubble. The reality is weve seen people in food bank lines, people just looking for other ways to find ways to fund their home and in many of these spaces that voted for republican lawmakers and voted for trump. Let me get your thought who sunday more political pressure is it President Trump or Mitch Mcconnell. The president is defiant. Hes come one criticism. People have said why has Mitch Mcconnell gone to such lengths to protect him and not allow a vote to go to the president. Is Mitch Mcconnell facing that same rebellion either within the senate or his own party . On monday i would have said hands down donald trump. In the last 24 hours where people have realized how silent Mitch Mcconnell has been there are voters, republicans and democrats that realize trump is not going to give it all and that people that work with him have to help him realize the reality of his situation. Mcconnell being the adult in the room and the one with more experience in this area theres more pressure on him to do so. Whats the likelihood we could see some movement on this in the next week or so. I think there will be some. Were getting to a point where trump is seeing significant drops in his polling overall but hes losing his base. White evangelicals, white working voters have dropped their support of trump in the last month. These are the people he thinks about more than anybody else. Thank you very much. Well talk to you in a little bit. Two career White House Security specialists rejected Jared Kushners application for a top secret clearance but were overruled by their supervisor. Two sources familiar with the matter telling nbc news that the officials rejected the clearance after an fbi background check raised concerns about potential foreign influence on President Trumps soninlaw. Kushners fbi background check raised questions about his foreign contact, foreign travel and meetings he had during the campaign. Kushner was one of 30 cases overruled by carl cline a former pentagon employee. The two sources said cline overruled career Security Experts and approved kushners clearance eligibility. Two people familiar with the matter said that after reviewing the file cia officers who make clearance decisions balked. One called over to the White House Security division wondering how kushner even got a top security clearance. Sources say the cia has not granted kushner clearance to review sensitive material. Nbc news was unable to reach carl cline for comment. Kushners attorney did not have a kmomt and the white house did not respond. Turning now to the crisis in venezuela and the state department ordered all nonemergency Government Employees to leave that country. The department has issued a travel warning stating they should strongly consider departing while commercial flights are available or ensure they have adequate supplies to shelter in place. However, the u. S. Is not closing its embassy in caracas at this time. It comes after a change as secretary of state said u. S. Would not recognize venezuelan president maduros demand that all diplomatic employees leave the country within 72 hours. Since the u. S. Government views maduro as in illegitimate leader they will not respect his call. John bolton revealed yesterday that Vice President mike pennsylvania spoke with the venezuelan Opposition Leader and head of the national assembly. The evening before he declared himself interim president of the country. U. S. , canada and all countries in the region recognized the claim. Maduro gained the public backing of the countrys military and russia and china, two biggest economic backers of maduros re reign warning the u. S. Not to intervene. Still ahead trumps former fixer Michael Cohen gets subpoenaed by the Senate Intelligence committee. Well talk to a legal expert about what that could mean. Senator Elizabeth Warren has a new plan to attack some of the richest people in the United States. That story plus a check on your weather with bill karins when we come back. Bill karins when we come back. We just hit a spot, and we just lost control. glass shattering my life flashed before my eyes. 911 operator 911, whats your emergency . overlapping radio calls if the firemen didnt answer their call, i truthfully dont know where i would be. Im grateful for you guys, every time i step on the field. 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 [ neighing ] [ screeching ] [ sigh ] its bring your own phone, not pony. So i could have taken the bus . Yeah. Bring your phone. Switch your carrier. Save hundreds a year with xfinity mobile. Plus get 100 back when you bring in an eligible phone. Call, click or visit a store today. The Senate Intelligence committee subpoenaed President Trumps former fixer Michael Cohen. The news comes one day after cohen delayed his public testimony before the House Oversight committee. Citing alleged threats against his family from President Trump. A source with direct knowledge of the matter telling nbc news that cohen will testify on february 129. Cohens Legal Adviser says cohen intends to comply with the demand for an interview. Will Michael Cohen testify if subpoenaed under terms, perhaps, perhaps not in open session, witnesses testify all the time to these committees in private. Will he honor a subpoena . Of course he will honor the subpoena. But what hell do as a result of the subpoena is a legal issue that would come down to reasonable discussions. All right. The Top Republican on the house Intelligence Committee congressman devin nunez called cohens claim of being threatened by the president silly. I would love to have cohen in Congress Answering these tough questions. Saying hes getting threatened seems pretty silly to me. We wanted cohen to come in. It makes no since hes using the excuse hes been threatened. Cohens Legal Adviser weighed in on some of President Trumps comments about cohen. When the top Law Enforcement person in the country, the president of the United States, amazing im about to stha, calls somebody who tells the truth a rat and then praises people who are refusing to tell the truth, then youre sending a signal of lawlessness by the highest office in our country. So, mr. Cohen is concerned that when youre labelled a rat, and youre in a federal prison, there could be some danger from other people. All right. Joining us here on set msnbc legal analyst danny sevalis. What do you make of the subpoena . It creates an interesting legal situation. Although congress has the contempt power to enforce its subpoenas they never use it. That usually falls on the executive branch to enforce contempt with regard to federal subpoenas. If Michael Cohen decided to say im not showing up and maybe even im concerned enough about my family that i wont show up even with a subpoena, the real body who would be likely to enforce that is the executive branch. And our President Donald Trump heads the executive branch. Thats an interesting loop of legality. Another interesting aspect of our commanderinchief and president hes been tweeting at Michael Cohen, hes also been calling him names, some have interpreted that to be intimidation. Hes gone after the fatherinlaw. Does that amount to witness tampering given the fact hes cancelled one appearance before congress and now being subpoenaed to appear once again. When it comes to witness tampering and obstruction of justice like this, words and context are everything. We have to look closely at what was said and what was the meaning behind it. In a case like this, in any criminal case it is Standard Practice for a criminal defense attorney, for example, to stand up in court or to the press and say this witness, this cooperator is a liar, hes singing for his supper, hes here because hes a criminal and negotiating the best deal for himself and his family. That is Standard Practice in any criminal case involving a cooperator. On the other hand, when the president is making those statements as the head of the department of justice, as the chief Law Enforcement person in the United States, they take on a different context. And, merely calling cohen a liar is probably not criminal. Once you start getting into the area of referencing family members depending on the context watch out for the fatherinlaw. Thats interesting. Watch out for. Could that mean watch out for what this person has done in the past. Or watch out what i might reveal about the fartherinlaw. Again, context becomes everything when looking at these words, because the speak, the person who said them depending on his or her relative power and their intent to do or follow through on those alleged threats is everything. And the conversation that we had surrounding cohen not fully cooperating with the Southern District of new york was about the fact that we thought it involved his family. Exactly. Ive been thinking about this so much lately that donald trump remember hes privy to information, we forget this. He knows things that we dont know from two different avenues. Number one through Rudy Giuliani and his conversations with mueller but also because the information that naturally trickles up to the president of the United States. So donald trump saying Michael Cohen is lying and hes trying to save his fatherinlaw, that does coincide that Michael Cohen was ultimately not drobd a true kroopting witness. In other words, he was willing to give information but stopped at a certain point and wouldnt give it up on certain people. Maybe, and this is just my theory, those certain people were his own family members with potential criminal exposure. He said whats the biggest thing were listening from Michael Cohen. In his testimony . Yeah. Everything. Rules of evidence dont apply. Never before have you had people on both sides, republicans and democrats sharpening their knives to get at this witness and the rules of evidence theres political reasons as well. Right. The rules of relevance dont apply in a congressional proceeding the way they do in a courtroom. So the sky is limit. They can ask cohen virtually anything under the sun. Well see if hes more truthful this time than he was the first time. Hopefully so. Are you lying then or are you lying now. When you were lining . Judge with that lets switch gears and bring in bill karins. The frigid air has arrived. This weekend is pretty commonwealth. Little snow here and there. Temperatures are dangerous this morning. We have dropped down to negative 30 to negative 35 below in some areas when you factor in the wind. Thats the feel like trench. If you have no exposed skin thats not too bad. Thats the temperature on your skin. Advisories go from central ohio up to northern minnesota and were right now watching these temperatures plunging in chicago. Were down negative 22. Thats the coldest of the season for you. Look at davenport, iowa, negative 29. Youre just as cold as duluth. That cold air is trying to push through the ohio valley. Columbus is 0. Chilly in the northeast not too bad tomorrow morning a little colder. The grunt is the great lakes and plains. Saturday morning, 2 in rochester, 1 in burlington wind chill. Still in the 20s and teens new york city. Still a very cold. Chicago to minneapolis. Its going to stay this way. It looks like a week or two weeks of this where well get little weak systems of snow and right behind it more cold. Only is 11 for a high. Pretty nice travel day. The whole southern half of the country looks good for your travel. When we come back well talk about your weekend forecast and cold is pretty much the bottom line. Its midwinter. Soul crushing. All right. Thanks, bill. Coming up some potential bad news for President Trump. A Major Conservative Group is telling donors it will stay out of the 2020 race. Well have those details for you straight ahead. Ahead alright, up and down, never side to side, shaquem. You