Mueller probe. They are discussing a range of options for how the president could respond to their questions. The new report says those options include, quote, written responses to questions in lieu of a formal sitdown. According to three people familiar with the matter. A second person familiar with the president s legal strategy said another possibility being contemplated is an affidavit signed by the president affirming hes innocent of any wrongdoing and denying any collusion. A spokesperson for the special counsels office has declined comment. Joining me now, two nbc news reporters, National Security and justice reporter Julia Ainsley and White House Correspondent hallie jackson. When did these talks start and what can you tell us about them . Reporter lets stress these are according to folks weve talked to in the course of our reporting, preliminary, ongoing discussions inside the president s legal team regarding what would happen if and when there was to be some kind of a conversation between donald trump and the special counsels office. So, we know that, for example, members of the president s legal team sat down with members of the special counsels staff in late december. So, we know the conversations have been going on for at least, roughly, what, three weeks to a month, if not longer than that. Now, when you look at our reporting, youve laid it out sort of as as far as what theyre considering, these preliminary options for any interaction here. The president himself was asked about this at camp david over the weekend. The response was rather noncommittal. The president said, yeah, and then went on to elaborate about what he thought about the special counsel investigation as a whole without really or specifically answering the question. That is something, if the president by the way, hes on his way right now to nashville. Hes heading to joint base andrews. Hell be flying to nashville to give a speech. Then on to watch the College Football game tonight in georgia. It is, of course, a possibility the president will come back into the press cabin, perhaps, to take questions from a small pool gathered on air force one. We dont have any expectation that will happen. No expectation it wont happen. Were eager to hear from the president on that. Were also eager to hear from the president s legal team. The president s outside counsel declined to comment initially but a few hours ago i heard from john dowd, the president s outside lawyer who says, the white house does not comment on communications with the osc, the office of the special counsel, out of respect for the osc and its process. Adding, the white house is continuing its full cooperation with the osc in order to facilitate the earliest possible resolution. Thats interesting. The earliest possible resolution. What ive heard privately and i think youve heard publicly from the president s legal team, they believe, they hope this will wrap up relatively soon. Thats obviously something the president is hoping as well. When you listen to his comments about all this, denying what he says is any collusion between his campaign and russia. Listen. There is no collusion and everybody has said and i think you will admit that, there is no collusion between me and my campaign and the russians. No collusion, no obstruction. By the way, folks, just in case youre curious, no, russia did not help me. Okay . Russia. I call it the russian hoax. One of the great hoaxes. It was a hoax. I mean, you look at the votes, it was 306 to, what, 223 or something . They lost it by a lot. They didnt know what to say, so they made up the whole russia hoax. Reporter and, chris, that is obviously a position that has not changed for donald trump in the intervenie inine ining weeke of those sound bites happened. Julia, how would Something Like this even work . For example, would Robert Mueller conduct an interview himself . What do we know about this process should it go forward . We know this is not something the special counsels team is likely to even consider. And we know from chuck rosenberg, who is a former chief of staff of jim comeys and also worked as a u. S. Prosecutor, he talked to us, spoke just about an hour ago, saying a grand jury could subpoena the president to talk. So, if he was wanted to compel him to speak, he could do that through the court system. Of course, the lawyers for the president want to keep his communication as minimal as possible. They know he cant plead the fifth because its very hard politically for him to just say nothing. But they want to be able to control what he says. Theyre looking at trying to be able to do written responses. At least in the phase of the investigation that Robert Mueller is conducting before it would go forward to the grand jury. Theyre trying to minimize that and control the message here. Were going to get a lot more on this coming up in a minute. Hallie, i want to come back to you because im getting my inbox flooded with people immigration activists very upset about the administrations decision not to renew not to renew this reporter temporary protective status. Temporary protective status. Its about 200,000 people from el salvador, many of whom have lived in the United States since 2001. Reporter since an earthquake there. Julia knows as well as shes been reporting on the moves by the department of homeland security. According to Senior Administration officials who just briefed the press on this change, that group of people from el salvador, as you said, about 200,000 people, will be losing their temporary protected status. Essentially, these folks will have until 2019 to either seek permanent residency or force deportation. This stems from the earthquake. The move is not entirely unexpected as the Trump Administration did something similar with folks from honduras and haiti. Lawmakers as well, some coming out very upset about this, very angry about this. A Senior Administration official said essentially the country has recovered at this point from those earthquakes now, what, 16, 17 years ago. So, that is essentially the basis of their decision. I expect this to play out for a period of weeks not just with immigration add vee cats and lawmakers but at a time when immigration is when it comes to funding for a different program, for d. R. E. A. M. Ers, daca, the program that protects about 800,000 people in this country, this is against the back drop of the Trump Administrations immigration policies. I think youll see that come to a head over the next couple of weeks here. Thank you so much, hallie and julia. We appreciate it. I want to bring into the conversation nbc News National correspondent, frank, former assistant of counterintelligence, and ashley parker, White House Reporter for the Washington Post. Good to see both of you. Lets talk about the president s lawyers, frank, talking to the folks over at the special counsels office. You have particular knowledge about this because you know how special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald interviewed president george w. Bush and Vice President cheney throughout that Valerie Plame investigation. Whats your thought . How would you expect the mueller team to be approaching this . Sure. We do have, as you said, some precedent for this. This is not a case of first impression. In fact, back in 2006, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald who was working the Scooter LibbyValerie Plame cia leak case, if you recall, did, indeed, interview president george w. Bush and Vice President cheney. He did it in the oval office with the president. He did it in the presence of a senior fbi agent. Were likely to see that happen here. On the president s side, the president hired private counsel to be present as well. So, a very small group. But what i see happening here will be slightly different in that clearly the mueller team would want an inperson interview. They want to be able to look across the table. They want to ask imp proromptu questions. They want to develop a sense of whether candor is taking place or not. And they want to be able to push buttons. Robert mueller will have some buttons to push that will be very delicate and sensitive areas for the president. And i see also because of the complexity of the questions in many areas, finances, money laundering, obstruction, russian collusion, its possible there might actually be different teams of prosecutors and investigators who will pose different questions throughout that long period of time. The Patrick Fitzgerald interview lasted about an hour. I would expect were talking about multiple hours here. Yeah. And i think when clinton gave his testimony, it was about four hours. Ashley, its interesting to use the term pushing buttons. It would seem that donald trump is going to say what hes going to say, right, as we saw in the lester holt interview, two days after the president fired james comey, the president tied his actions directly to the comey investigation. Regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey, knowing there was no good time to do it. And, in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a madeup story. Its an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election, that they should have won. So, hes not a lawyer, obviously. To the point of pushing buttons, how easy would it be for an experienced prosecutor, who knows everything that he knows and the president and his lawyers dont necessarily know all that, to trip him up . Thats a great question. And, look, if you just look at the president s staff to begin with, everyone including general john kelly, they come in and they say, my job isnt to control the president. Im not trying to control the president. I couldnt control the president if i wanted to. Thats a particularly acute problem for his lawyers, whose job is, in fact, to control their client. And thats one of the reasons i think youre seeing written answers in this case, especially for someone as President Trump, as you pointed out, does what he wants to do, says what he wants to say, is a safer option. If you look at how he speaks, what was successful in the world of real estate and reality tv, speaking in embellishment and puffery, to use some phrases, is fine there. That may be how youre successful. One thing his lawyers early on tried to impart to him is you cannot lie and you cannot embellish when you are talking to a special counsel. Thats certainly going to be a challenge. I just want to let people know that what were watchings on the other side of your screen is joint base andrews. Thats the president s motorcade. He would normally take marine one. The weather is not great in the washington, d. C. , area, so hes taking the motorcade. Hell be getting on air force one and heading down to nashville. Trump said in june he is 100 willing to testify under oath. I mean, even if his team and his aides tell him, dont do it, that doesnt mean he wont. Hallie pointed this out, he said everybody tells me, im not under investigation. Yeah he might be willing to go under oath. But lets look at that contrasting it to whether or not he would sign an affidavit. If hes already been on camera so many times denying hes done anything wrong, saying categorically theres no collusion, would an affidavit give them anything they dont already have . So, hes really between a rock and a hard place here because if it were a simple affidavit he signed saying there was no collusion, as weve heard here, thats not helpful and could be construed as obstruction. He has to manage this affidavit question. I dont think its in his benefit to do it. I dont think the mueller team will accept a statement, everything is proper, signed, President Trump. Thats not going to cut it. If its elaborate and responses to specific list of questions, that could be negotiated. My guess is well see a hybrid. Some questions meriting responses and some in person. Thats my prediction. We saw Stephen Miller talking about russia on sunday, including questions about a report miller helped trump draft early, and apparently revealing letter about the firing of james yoem. That letter was never sent. Let me play part of what miller had to say. Did you write a letter outlining reasons to fire comey and list the russia investigation . Is that true . Heres the problem with what youre saying. The file draft of letter im not talking about that. Im talking about the one comey has if you want if you want to have an answer to your question and not to get hysterical, then ill answer it. The file draft of the letter has the same line about the fact that there is a trump russia investigation that this has nothing to do with. Ashley, you wonder if thats the best defense that the white house has. What is the feeling as far as you know it in the white house about all of this . Well, the white house is trying to respond on a number of fronts, including questions that were raised in the briefing last week and in michael wolfs book about the president s stability, in addition to handling the latest news and the great reporting on russia. So, one thing theyre trying to do, at least on the book front, which is what ive been more focused on recently, is sort of not address the question of the president s fitness for office, but really focus on trying to draw a wedge as a white house official put it to me today, between the book, the author of the book, and the truth. So, later in that interview, and before in that Stephen Miller interview, when the mere question comes up, instead of addressing the questions at hand, he dismisses it as a grotesque work of fiction. Not getting to the actual questions being posed and reported in the book but to discredit and disqualify the entire thing. I should point out, if you have anything you want to say about this, we just saw bob corker who likened the white house to a playground, getting on the plane and flying to nashville with the president of the United States. So, just when you think you know whats going on, people surprise us, do they not . They do. And one thing to add there is one thing the president has done tremendously well and doesnt necessarily get enough credit for is he has coopted a lot of his critics. If you keep in mind bob corker was incredibly critical of the president , Lindsey Graham. All of these people they may all have their different reasons. There is a sense sometimes you want to stay close to the president , try to have his ear, influence him, if you think hes irresponsible, you think you can be more responsible. On the part of outreach through the president through golf and flattery and private screenings at camp david, hes done a good job of coopti ining a lot of h congressional critics. Thanks to both of you for that. Just like the gipper, President Trump loves to compare himself to Ronald Reagan. It comparing his mental stability and the medias coverage of it to reagans a smart move . And blackout at the Golden Globes. The fight against Sexual Harassment and gender inequality Takes Center Stage at the awards slow. The founder of the me too movement twas there and she jois me. Will it be president oprah 2020 . Speculation she could make a run for the white house. A new day is on the horizon it takes a lot of work to run this business. But i really love it. Im on the move all day long. And sometimes, i dont eat the way i should. So, i drink boost to get the nutrition im missing. Boost high protein nutritional drink has 15 grams of protein to help maintain muscle and 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d. All with a great taste. Boost gives me everything i need. To be up for doing what i love. Boost high protein be up for it youre smart. 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In a series of tweets over the weekend, the president compared News Coverage of him to Ronald Reaganing writing the democrats and their lap dogs are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental instability and intelligence. Ive had to put up with fake news from the first day ive been running for president. Now i have to put up with a fake book written by a totally discredited author. Ronald reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will i. I want to bring in callan from the Washington Post. You have a piece out saying trumps illadvised claim. What do you think they have wrong here . I think the comparison to reagan could apply but i dont think he should want it to apply. Saying theres equivalence here, hes sort of opening the door to the idea that maybe there is some problem with his Mental Health. Keep in mind when the press in the 1980s was writing about presi