Reportedly john kelly has offered to resign. Whats going on in this west wing . Ill ask legislative director marc short and republican senator jeff flake of arizona. Plus Russian Election meddling. President trump says he doubts Vladimir Putin did anything wrong. I believe that he feels that he and russia did not meddle in the election. And secretary of state tillerson seems to shrug his shoulders. Once they decide to do it, its pretty difficult to preempt it. Is the administration saying theres nothing we can do . Ill talk to nbc analyst clint watts. Always, the Winter Olympics are under way. Who is most interested in the game and what does what you watch say about your politics . Joining me for insight and analysis are wall street journal columnist peggy noonan, eddie glaude, chair of the center for african studies, Kristen Welker, and Erick Erickson, editor of the resurgent. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press. Good sunday morning. It wasnt just the stock market that experienced wild swings this week. Consider the last few days at the white house. White house staff secretary rob porter resigns amid charges by his two exwives of physical abuse. Chief of staff john kelly reportedly offers to resign over his handling of the issue. We learned that White House Counsel Don Mcgahn has known for a year about the alleges against porter. White House Communications director hope hicks who is reportedly dating porter takes part in crafting the initial statement supporting him, and white house chief writer David Sorensen resigns after his exwife claims to the fbi he was physically abusive. Yesterday, President Trump tweets in an apparent defense of both, quote, peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Is there no such thing any longer as due process . Finally on friday, as if all the staff chaos wasnt enough, the president chooses to block, at least temporarily, the democratic memo attempting to rebut the republican claims that the fbi abused its authority as part of its russia probe. All of this as many on both sides of the aisle wondering, is this a white house west wing right now that is spinning out of control . Well, we wish him well. He worked very hard. President trump defending former top aide rob porter on friday who resigned after allegations of Domestic Violence went public. As you probably know, he says hes innocent, and i think you have to remember that. Porters two exwives accuse him of physical and emotional abuse. Both women describe his abusive behavior to the fbi. He definitely let me know that i was going to be contacted by the fbi once he was tapped for the white house, and he was curious what i was going to say. I told him, im going to tell them truth. Now a second white house staffer is out, speechwriter David Sorensens former wife told the fbi during a background check that he had been violent and emotionally abusive. He denied the allegations but he resigned. The president , who has denied allegations of Sexual Misconduct from a variety of women they have no witnesses. Theres nobody and. They just come around. Some are probably doing it for a little bit of fame. Has come out against Sexual Violence against women. Now mr. Trump is venting, reportedly on how he is unhappy for the way john kelly handled rob porter. He said it could prevent him from passing a background check. But in a statement on tuesday night, kelly was still defending him calling him a man of true integrity and honor. Some white house staffers are accusing kelly of rewriting history by claiming that he acted quickly. Tuesday night. That the accusations were true. 40 minutes later he was under. Also under scrutiny is White House Counsel Don Mcgahn who first learned about the allegations against porter more than a year ago. And Communications Director hope hicks who is reportedly dating porter and was involved in crafting the original statements defending him. I dont care who you are. Even if youre a rhodes scholar. You cant beat the hell out of your spouse. Now mr. Trump is openly musing about potential chief of staff replacements. Kelly denied to nbc news friday evening that he has offered his resignation, but if kelly goes, he would be the latest in a long string of President Trump administration departures. With the white house in chaos, there is a real question of who can take control. That was supposed to be kellys job. The general is there to put in policies and processes and procedures, and in this case those didnt work, and we need to find out why. Joining me now is the white house legislative director marc short. Mr. Short, welcome back to meet the press. Chuck, thanks for having me back. As Vice President pence and others have said that the white house could have handled this rob porter situation better, what were some of the missteps now that you can outline here that you hope to correct . Well, lets put things in perspective. I think that rob is a friend to many of us in the administration. Rob is somebody who is a rhodes scholar, is a harvardeducated guy. He did a great job as secretary, but there can be no tolerance for domestic abuse, no tolerance for violence against women. We have to be absolutely clear about that. I think there is probably in the process there was probably a lack of communication between different elements in the white house, but keep in mind, chuck, this is the same process of the administration that the Obama Administration used, the Bush Administration used, and others, and that the fbi runs this clearance process. When they provide somebody an interim clearance, that means theyve done an initial vet and said this person is okay, theres mitigating circumstances, were going to continue to investigate. We had not received a final investigation. When general kelly learned the depth of the nature of the accusations tuesday night, by wednesday morning, rob porter submitted his resignation. Explain why john kelly only found out on tuesday night when theres been plenty of reporting now that indicates that don mcgahn, the white House Counsel, he knew. The fbi informed him of the two allegations and then he was contacted by a former girlfriend in november saying, hey, take these charges seriously. So is don mcgahn not informing the chief of staff or is somebody not wanting to hear bad news . Its a fair question, chuck. I dont know, to be honest. I dont know who knew what at this point. Let me pause you here. Why . If we dont know the ticktock, then, how can you defend any of this . Because john kelly didnt know until tuesday and by wednesday rob porter was out. Should he have known earlier . I they we are following the same investigative process the other administration followed which is the fbi does the investigation, they complete it and they come back and tell about the investigation. Theres been people in the last two years who have had a wrath of Sexual Harassment investigations, including of your own network, that you say they could have didnone better. I guess the white house has gone through that same experience. I guess i want to go back to the idea that you say the fbi is the final say. The fbi raised plenty of red flags here. How do you guys vet staff . Do you just outsource it all to the fbi . In previous administrations, white House Counsel actually led the vetting of staff with the assistance of the fbi investigations. The fbi is the final investigation. They had not completed that investigation, chuck. Who gave the ability of rob porter, since he only had interim status, which meant on paper that doesnt give him the highest security clearance. Somebody would have had to have waived that. Did the president waive that and did he know why he had to waive that . The president didnt waive security clearances. I think we all had full confidence in rob and i think because he had been provided interim clearance, there were mitigating circumstances. There are some who dont even get that interim clearance because theres something that comes up in their background and he doesnt get that final step. Right, well, Jared Kushner does not have full security clearance and supposedly getting able to read the president ial daily briefing. Again, the fbi is saying hes not theyre not ready to sign off on a full security clearance for him. Why is this fbi report basically only taken as a suggestion . So my understanding is that this is typical in the beginning of the administration, chuck, that yes, these sort of review processes begin to get faster. When you start an administration, youre flooding the fbi with hundreds and hundreds of requests for security clearances that take longer. So i think there will hopefully be an expedition of several that are outstanding. Did john kelly want porter fired or not . I dont think that because his at tuesday changed. On tuesday he was almost lamenting the resignation, calling him a man of integrity. Then by wednesday he said he was shocked by the allegations. Again, we went through why he didnt know at the time, but what changed there . Chuck, i think were all saddened by this. Were all saddened by the nature of this. When you work with somebody for a year, your first instinct is to say, that doesnt match up with the man i know in the office. But it doesnt mean you can have tolerance for it, and general kelly had no tolerance for it. Why did President Trump never talk about the victims of rob porter . Chuck, as i said, i think that probably theres more reason to go back and talk about the victim gist as im sure that nbc learned about the way they handled the matt lauer situation. This isnt about nbc. I understand why youre doing trying to do that. We knew rob for years in this white house, so yes, when we learned about it, we were sad and shocked and didnt think this was something rob would be capable of doing. But if it is true, there is no tolerance for it, and he has since left the white house. That happened between tuesday night and wednesday morning. There are other Republican Party members who went on some of the president s favorite programs last night and blamed the fbi. Does general kelly blame the fbi . Were not blaming the fbi. The fbi did its job here . The fbi, we wish we could all expedite this process, but i think thats incumbent on all of us to see what we can do to make sure it goes faster. So members of congress who are trying to deflect blame, and put it to the fbi, theyre not blaming the fbi . Im not blaming the fbi, chuck. Fair enough. Let me ask you one more question about the president. He seems to hesitate accepting the story of an accuser. Let me show you an array of responses hes made over the years. Its my opinion that to a large extent mike tyson was railroaded in this case. Its very sad. Because hes a very good person. These people are horrible people. Theyre horrible, horrible liars. Roy moore denies it. Thats all i can say. He denies it. And by the way, he totally denies it. He said very strongly yesterday that hes innocent. Does the president believe rob porter is still innocent . I think the president is shaped by a lot of false accusations against him in the past, chuck, but in talking to the president , i think hes very disturbed about what happened to rob, hes very disappointed and i think he believes the resignation is appropriate. Does he have confidence in general kelly . He has confidence in general kelly. Did general kelly offer to resign or not . Theres been confusion in other reporting. Did he unofficially offer to write the Resignation Letter but not officially hand it to him . What can you clear up . General kelly in my mind is an american hero. There are few families that have sacrificed more for our country. John kelly knows he serves the president and he will step aside any time the president doesnt want him to be there. But john kelly has not offered his resignation. John kelly has done an outstanding job. In the last four months weve seen 1. 24 million americans get bonus or wage increase. Weve seen isis flee over 100 of its territory that it had between iraq and syria is gone. General kelly is doing a great job. Let me ask you about the memo and the decision by the white house to delay the release of the democratic memo or essentially not release this version of it. This is what you said before the release of the republican memo, you and a bunch of your colleagues. Take a look. I do think that we typically prefer transparency. We want full transparency. Its what weve said all along. This president has said from the beginning and certainly since ive been the chief of staff of six months now, i want everything out. I want this thing i want the american people, a, to know the truth. This president is for transparency and accountability in the main. That was the message before the release of the republican memo. Yeah. Democrats write a memo. Nope. No transparency. Why is the president afraid of transparency on this one . Were not afraid of transparency. You can see us release the memo, chuck. What the president said is that we believe congressman schiff intentionally put in there methods and sources that he knew would need to be redacted. And if we redacted it, there would be an outcry that says the white house is trying to edit it. So we said take it back, work with the fbi, clean it up and well release it. I think we have every expectation why do you not need to do that for the republican memo . The fbi basically issued a primal scream about the republican memo and you didnt respond to the fbis there were not sources and methods of concern in the republican memo. There were concerns of us releasing it because they didnt want transparency. Its different. Talk about highway pk sy. Hypocrisy. They offered to release the republican and the democratic memo. Democrats in the house only voted to release their memo. They voted against the republican memo. There is a hypocrisy here, chuck. We will be releasing that memo. Weve asked them to clean it up. Marc short, ill leave it there. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for having me, chuck. Joining me now, republican senator jeff flake of arizona. He joins me from phoenix. Senator flake, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me on. Let me start very quickly with what youre seeing in the white house. Do you have faith in john kelly as chief of staff right now this morning, sir . I think the white house said they could have handled the situation better. Thats a bit of an understatement, yes. They could have done a lot better particularly with the rob porter situation. It seems do you worry that this is a pattern here, that it seems as if, particularly with the president , that, number one, accusations are not believed, its sort of a knee jerk response always and, you know, you could decide whether its projection or some other reason, but it seems as if women are never believed when it comes to an accusation to the president or somebody close to the president. I do think if you put on a political hat that that is a big problem. Certainly how we are viewed as republicans in the next election, i think that that is a big problem. And certainly, substantively, its a big problem not to show any concern or empathy for the potential victims of these incidents. That is a problem. And thats something i think the president ought to correct. There seems to be also another thing weve discovered in all of this which is weve got a security clearance backlog, the fbi is clearly theyve had to spend a lot of time doing background checks on some people in the administration. Theres also a backlog of some others. Does this process need to be reformed in some way, and, you know, its not clear to me if the white house views fbi background checks as suggestions or as definitive. Right. I think there are signs that it does need to be reviewed. I think were going to have to talk about that with the judiciary committee, certainly in the senate, because to have so many, dozens of people who are on an interim clearance over an extended period of time that are certainly viewing and considering classified material is a problem. So if we do need to reform the process, lets do it, but this Current Situation shouldnt continue. I want to move on to a couple other topics. One has to do with the president s use of the word treasonous and criticizing democrats who didnt clap. You went on the senate floor this week and said treason is not a punchline. And yet, the white house has said many times that, actually, some of these most controversial tweets should be treated just like that. Take a look. The president was clearly joking with his comments. He made a joke. Maybe you guys should get a sense of humor and try it sometime. I believe he was making a joke at the time. Can you say affirmatively that whenever the president says something, we can trust it to be real . If hes not joking, of course. And he was making a sarcastic point about those 33,000 emails. Let me ask you on the treasonous comment. Do you think we need to get a sense of humor, or does the president need to watch his words . No, i think the president stops needs to stop calling democrats or republicans or others who dont stand or applaud at every line that he has, that they are unamerican. He also used that term, or treasonous. Words matter, and when he talks about fake news, for example, i gave another speech where i talk about how that gives aid and comfort to authoritarians around the world who are labeling their position or dismissing real dissent as fake news. So those things matter. I dont think its a joking matter to say that somebody is treasonous and he ought to stop it. Youre one of the few republicans who spoke up on that issue. Not many others did, and it seems that fewer and fewer are able to criticize the president when he does some of these sort of unusual attacks on his opponents. Why is that . I think the real problem, as i tried to mention, is we are seen now as normal, things we shouldnt see as normal. And this degradation of the political culture is a real concern where were no longer outraged when we ought to be. And thats a problem. So i do think that more of us ought to stand up and say, hey, this is beyond the bounds of where politics ought to be, and the longer we go without doing th