Good morning, im gigi stone, were at msnbc headquarters in new york. Alex witt is off. Its 6 00 a. M. In the east 9 00 a. M. In the west. I want you folks to not think i am keeping my promise. I am keeping my opinion promise, signing it before christmas. President trump crowing about the tax bill. Wing will at whether some claims about it are true or false. Plus the missed opportunities in the tax deal, one experts take on where it can go wrong, how it can do damage in the long run facing questions, the questions longtime gate keeper entangled in the russia investigation. But who is she . And why do congressional investigators want to talk to her . Robert mueller on the firing line, new gop efforts to discred at this time special counsel and whether theyre orchestrated. Details next on nsnbc live next, President Trump and the first family getting a start on their tenday vacation at the maralago estate in florida. Before leaving, the president uses the signing ceremony to attack democrats for opposing the gops landmark tax bill. Lets listen. Democrats dont like tax cuts. They want to raise your taxes. They dont want to lower your taxes. They want to raise your taxes and spend money foolishly on things that we dont need in many cases. So, were cutting taxes, taking care of our military and taking care of people and were really doing a job on jobs. Meanwhile, new development in the russia investigation, nbc news has learned yesterday in new york, a handsful of house intel members interviewed rona graph, a longtime assistant to donald trump. And Cory Lewandowski and former white house strategist steve bannon. President trump savoring wis i his win after sending the tax cut into law. We want to go to kelly odonnell, shes in florida, where the president is settling in for the morning break. Good morning. Reporter good morning, just a few minutes ago, President Trump and the motorcade with our colleagues who are in todays compliment of the white house travel pool left maralago. We dont know the destination yet, but if history is any guide, perhaps the president is going to one of his golf clubs here. What we certainly saw is for President Trump, the tradition of bringing the family down to mrg smrg a part of the Christmas Holiday f. He had anything on the wish list for santa, it certainly appears he got it with a tax bill that has now become law. Air force one returned to palm beach for the holiday, where President Trump found a present of sorts waiting for him. A crowd of cheering sign waving supporters. The president used the friendly response tohension his tax cut win. Earlier at the white house the president did a rare solo bill signing to make the tax cuts law. I am keeping my promise. I am signing it before christmas. Reporter the president said despite polls showing the tax cut package is unpopular, he does not need a public tour to promote it. I dont have to travel too much to sell it. I think its selling itself. Having failed on a full repeal of obamacare t. President touted the tax cut law, which eliminates the Health Insurance individual mandate and its tax penalty. I think it ultimately leads to the end of obamacare. Reporter President Trump ended something else, too. A 15year tradition of past president s who held a white house end of year news conference, but on capitol hill, Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell did wrap up the year with reporters, with dry humor about sometimes being the target of angry trump tweets. With regard to the president s tweeting habit, i havent been a fan until this week. Im warming up to the tweets, actually. Reporter and on prospects for their agenda if 2018. We Work Together seamlessly and i think we go into the few year with the high level of confidence in our ability to Work Together with the administration. Well, at least at the moment the relationship between congressional leaders a and the president is very good and there will be a lot for them to work on in the new year. One of the things the president talked about with reporters as he was signing the tax bill into law and a measure to keep the government funded for a period of weeks as they still have to deal with the budget was the notion of infrastructure. Could that be something where republicans and democrats could potentially Work Together . The president said he thinks so. Its unclear if democrats would go say long. That is often a tough area where you do see some bipartisan support, how you would get there, how it would funded, the specifics involved would certainly come into the political realm of a fight in the new year. But at least thats something on the president s wish list for 2018. Bipartisan agreement would certainly be a change. Thanks lets bring in a reporter at axios and walk conte for usa today. Thanks for being here. Lets watch what President Trump said in the oval office about this legislative win. We have, of course the individual mandate, which is a very unfair and very unpopular provision as you know in obamacare, essentially, i think it ultimately leads to the end of obamacare. Essentially, i think obamacare is over. And yet its not. President trump making that comment despite signups nearing the 9 million mark. That is a surprise. Elena, whats the calculation for the president making this assertion and just continue tag repeal drum beat . Right. Well, President Trump isnt one to admit defeat they tried twice over the Affordable Care act and they failed. You see mcconnell at the end of the Year Press Conference said looking forward to 2018, any effort to try to do it again probably wont succeed. He said, good luck to anyone that tries to do it. But trump makes these assertions. He doesnt want to admit the failure. I thought we were going to play sounds on President Trump there. This is obviously an incredibly polarizing topic. Let me show you how polarizing this has gotten. Reporter for the president to layout a tax cut there would be a middle class miracle. Thats exactly what the Congress Passed today. This tax bill is armagezdon. Whats the gop strategy during the midterms, how are they going to manage that . Well, i this city theory here, President Trump has never been one to worry about the details. All he wants is the top line, i won, it has the trump name in it. The trump tax cut. For the gop the issue is, can they see, will people actually see some increase in their wallets basically . Will there be tax cuts . Will there be increases in their paychecks because of withholding is reduced. That is what their sales game is. You can see these companies rolling out new deals and bonuses for workers is a part of the attempt by corporations to help the president sell his bill. Right, its not working so far, americans are incredibly skeptical that this is going to help their pockbooks. I have to ask you, during the president s oval Office Statement yesterday, he suggested his administration doesnt get credit for all of its accomplishments. Lets talk about this, beyond the appointment of neil gorsuch, the tax bill, can you take off a lot of wins . What are they . So neil gorsuch is one that mcconnell during an axios event said thats a top accomplishment. Tax reform is a close second. Theyve signed a bunch of legislative achievements. Looking into 2018, there will not be many more easy legislative executive orders that they can sign, so trump in true trump fashion is going to tout any success he can. He says the media isnt picking up on these things, theyre focusing on things like the Russian Investigation. That may detract from some of the wins. But as you said there is not that many huge big wins that theyve had, tax reform is the one legislative success that you saw in this first year. And the Russian Investigation is definitely a dark cloud over there. House Speaker Paul Ryan is pushing back on nancy pelosi wrote a letter urging him not to curtail the work happening in these congressional committees. A spokesperson said leader pelosi would like to see this investigation go on forever, whether it concludes next month, next year in three years, she will say its too soon. You know, a lot of people think this investigation will wrap up shortly. Do democrats have any recourse, paul . Well, im not convinced it is going to wrap up shortly, if you consider the fact that there are ongoing criminal indictments against several people that have to play out in court, including paul manafort, the former campaign manager. It is not clear at all that the investigation is done in the courts. Now, on capitol hill, its an interesting question whether the house and Senate Intelligence continue to play out their investigations. I think what the democrats continue to do is during the campaign year, which were going into, is bring up the question of are we doing something to prevent our election systems from being hacked by russia or anybody else if 2018 and i think that that is a topic that they can continue to drive whether or not these are ongoing investigations in congress. Thats a really important question and yet what we are hearing from the gop, this repeated effort to under mine fbi investigation. I want to play you elijah efforts to discredit muellers investigation. Whenever it seems as if mueller is getting closer and closer to the white house, it seems that were distracted to something else, so now weve reached into the book of playbooks, trick, now theyre pulling this out today. So were prepared. I want to ask both of you, does this appear to be the case . Who is leading the republican charge for the gop on that front. Right. I think that one what weve seen with this investigation is, you look at ty cobbs, trumps personal attorney keeps pushing it will be over by 2017, thats clearly not the case. It will go into 2018, probably 2019. On the Trump Administration they ask, are you going to fire mueller, whats happening here . He keeps saying he wont, he maintain hess has no plans to fire mueller. But if you look at what theyre trying to do is discredit some of the evidence that could be brought up down the case in this road. You look at the attacks on the fbi, some of the other people that theyre trying to undermine with who they are bringing in. Its really them trying to cover their bases for anything that could arise in the investigation moving order. And affect the publics opinion of the Mueller Investigation, regardless of what the results are. Paul, what itself your reaction before we wrap up . Again, this is a pr campaign more than anything else. They are not in control of the legal situation. For them, the pr situation is, those guys are all out to get us. Its all corrupt. You know you are based on our supporters, we did the right thing. Theyre trying to do whatever they can to tarnish our victory. By all accounts, Robert Mueller is beyond approach and will not be affected by any pr spin. That is for sure, thank you for joining us both coming up, we have a new report suggesting the white house may have played a role to discredit muellers investigation. So stay with us. Well talk about that. The day after chemo might mean a trip back to the doctors office, just for a shot. 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If youd rather be home, ask your doctor about Neulasta Onpro. Tcan lead toof plenty of questions. Fortunately, theres a place to get the answers, for them and for you. Find articles, tips and tools from experts and others who have been in your place. The Caregiving Resource Center at aarp. Org caregiving. Welcome back. We have been discussing how republican criticism of the Mueller Investigation has ramping up. Well, now theres new information. A report that suggests some of the special counsels most vocal gop critics have been in direct contact with the white house. Three republicans, jim jordan, matt gaetz and ron desan tis. They have all had contact with the white house or President Trump. Heres congressman jordan. Have you had conversations with the white house, not about the questions you ask, but about the Mueller Investigation in general . Well, i talk to the white house about all kind of things. We have talks about tax policy, talks about welfare policy, obamacare. Of course, weve had talks with the white house. Joining me now is Natasha Bertrand political Business Insider reporting on all of this you heard it from representative jordan, himself, he says hes had routine contact with the white house. Do you see this as a new undermine of the russia tampering probe . It wouldnt be a new strategy the president has been trying to undermine mueller via intermed areas for months, he was pressuring members of congress to put an end to come out and publicly exonerate him. Saying he had done nothing wrong. So this will be nothing new for him. If he were talking to jim John Desantis or gaetz, telling them, do your job, question them fiercely, which is what matt gaetz and jim jordan did last week when they were quebec rod rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney general. They really guild him about whether or not there is bias in the fbi whether these Text Messages tainted the entire investigation. So this is something not coming in a volume, it would be surprising if trump werent speaking to them and egging them on. Whether they coordinated their criticism of mueller and his investigation, you say you think its possible the president reached out to talk about the investigation. Do you know . Do you believe this is the case . Absolutely. Trump has been saying for the last year the investigation is a hoax. He asked jim comey if he could consider letting mike flynn go. He asked him for his loyalty, with he would write a letter telling the public he had done nothing wrong. So this is a pattern. This is not something the president wants hanging over his head. If he can find allies in congress or the fbi our wherever he can get them to be on his side and have this conversation with them and encourage them to you know discredit the entire investigation. He will no doubt try to do that as weve seen in the past. It seems like the American Public doesnt realize how serious this is. How unusual is it . Is it typical for members of the judiciary and Oversight Committee to be discussion an open investigation with the president . No the last time we saw a president tried to undermine the fbi to this extent, we saw what happened, it was 96 within watergate so this is something that you know legal experts i speak to former fbi acts i have regular conversations with say it is very, very bad for the president. This is not the kind of thing that he wants to be drawing attention to, these fights with the fbi, ultimately mueller has an investigation. He has been conducting these investigations and james comey opened it in july. There is a ton of evidence they have been checking over the course of the year, where if trump continued to come out and speak and maybe tried to protect himself in the investigation and Say Something that could perhaps undermine or contradict anything that mueller has found, that can be extremely damaging for him. You talked about how the president talked to congressman desantis according to your reporting. Yet, just yesterday the president endorsed desantis for the florida governors race what do you think of that . Its interesting, its definitely noteworthy, because desantis introduced a provision that would dramatically limit the scope and funding of muellers investigation so this has become one of his most important subjects he has been working on, of course, he met with Trump Aboard Air force one a couple weeks ago before that rally in pensacola, where matt gaetz, who was also there, was telling trump that muellers probe has infected with bias. Its unclear whether or not desantis actually weighed in. He has been privy to those conversations the fact that trump would so aggressively endorse him on twitter, it raises eyebrows. It smax of controversy. Thanks for joining us, thank you this morning. Thank you so much up next. Tax cut real yilt the potential impablt pact for you and the impact for you and the country. The center for american congress, a think tank says the president will save 11 to 15 million a year because of these new business rules. So why does he say