Say doesnt exist. How the president s own words may come back to bite him. And hate crime or hoax. Thats the question Chicago Police are trying to answer, investigating whether the investigation against smollett was staged. We have a show with our team set up and ready to go. Fallout from Andrew Mccabe. The president calling him a liar. The white house saying he has no credibility and the doj maint n maintaining mccabes version of events are inaccurate and incorrect. So heres mccabe in his own words describing what he saw and heard. In another explosive new claim, Andrew Mccabe says the president dismissed u. S. Intelligence on National Security recalling an instance in which he says President Trump insisted north korea did not have the capability to hit the u. S. With Ballistic Missiles because russian president Vladimir Putin told him so. Intelligence officials in the briefing responded that that was not consistent with any of the intelligence our government possesses. The president replied, i dont care, i believe putin. In another instance, it was suggested to wear a wire. Mccabe says the justice departments denial is off base. And that rosenstein was not being sarcastic. He said i never get searched when i go into the white house. I could easily wear a recording device. He was not joking. He was absolutely serious, and in fact, he brought it up in the next meeting we had. My colleague Geoff Bennett is at the white house. Geoff, we know the president is paying attention to this because we Pay Attention to his twitter feed. And hes been on a bit of a rant about Andrew Mccabe this morning. Youre right about that. President trump this morning predictably ripping into Andrew Mccabe calling the former fbi director disgraced and calling his story deranged. Here are the tweets. The president says he was fired for lying and now his story gets even more deranged. He and hod rosenstein look like they were planning a very illegal act. This was illegal and treason. An insurance policy in full action. Missing in the criticism is the point that mccabe points that the president s own behavior, his own statements so startled fbi officials that they took the unprecedented step of launching the investigation and at least brooch broached the notion of using the 25th amendment. The doj is reacting with some new comments out this morning. Doj official tells us this. It says this special counsel was appointed to ensure that the russia investigation was truly infeint and without bias. Something that mccabe could not have accomplished. Look, there is fallout for both sides. For andy mccabe, it looks like theres a congressional hearing in his future. Lindsey graham, the republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee calling for a hearing into what he calls an administrative coup, and then there were notes on the interactions with the president that he says hes handed over to the special counsel. Say copious contemporary ten times. Thank you. Ill see you at the white house in a little bit. Let me bring in clint watts, daniel alonzo, kelsey snell, Jonathan Allen joining us as well. Clint, let me start with you. Lets start with the top of what you heard in the segment. Andrew mccabe saying there was a meeting in which the president dismissed north korea intelligence because Vladimir Putin told him it was wrong. Its shocking. Its also consistent. Weve seen on several occasions whether its poland, trumps take on why the soviet union went into afghanistan, many other occasions weve seen him essentially take kremlin propaganda lines. If you add this to the list, we saw him in helsinki take putins word over the Intelligence Community. We see him here essentially behind closed doors taking putins word over the Intelligence Community. This is a consistent pattern. The president does not believe the Intelligence Community. Does not rely on them for his information. And instead goes to our enemies, our opponents overseas and uses their information to gain his perspective. It is not just troubling. It is dangerous. We have a disconnect in our country right now between the largest Intelligence Community probably in the world which has all of our expertise as a country providing him opinions which can be quickly refuted by someone who maybe helped elect him to president. Theres a legal question. There is manage mccabe addressed when he talked about the justification for firing comey. Daniel, i want your read on this sound bite from the 60 minutes discussion of mccabe talking about rosenstein and his interactions with President Trump. Concerned by his interactions with the president who seemed to be very focussed on entiring the director and saying things like make sure you put russia in your memo. That concerned rod in the same way that it concerned me and the fbi investigators on the russia case. He didnt want to put russia in the memo . He did not. He explained he did not need russia in his memo. The president responded, i understand that. I am asking you to put russia in the memo anyway. Russia did not end up in that memo, daniel, of course, but what does it say to you that the president made the request . You have to understand mccabe and rosenstein were in an impossible situation. You have a request by the president. It would have given some cover to a possible defense if rosenstein had put russia as a reason for the firing in his memo. He didnt. And the two of them resolved this impossible situation by ultimately following the law and seeking a special counsel. I want to bring in kelsey and jonathan as well. As jeff alluded to, there is now discussion about bringing in both mccabe and Rod Rosenstein in front of lawmakers. I want to play what senator graham had over the weekend. Hes the chairman of the judiciary committee. He was asked directly would he issue a subpoena. And he said if need be, yes, the answer is yes. Watch. We will have a hearing about who is telling the truth, what actually happened. Were a democracy. People enforce the law, cant take it into their own hands, and was this an attempted bureaucratic coup . I dont know. I know rosenstein denied it. Were going to get to the bottom of it. That is a huge potential question that for graham to ask if this was attempted bureaucratic coup, thats a big, big deal. But thats what the president is alluding to. Graham is not the only person who is going to be investigating this. House democrats have lots of plans to bring not just mccabe but a host of people in. Youre going to see dueling investigations on the hill. It will be a question of trying to figure out who can win the public opinion. Graham went from Donald Trumps biggest critic to Donald Trumps biggest defender in congress. I dont know what his hearings are going to look like. It sounds like the defend donald trump at all cost hearing. The house side would be a more interesting hearing from the perspective of the president. I would note the president is already misleading about this stuff. He points out rosenstein and says sessions appointed rosenstein. Thats not true. Donald trump appointed Rod Rosenstein. Thats how it works. When you talk about a deep state or bureaucratic coup or anything like that that Lindsey Graham is talking about, these are people that the president appointed who are supposed to be part of the deep state and the pure karatic coup against him. That is ridiculous. Part of the criticism against mccabe he was fired from the fbi, accused of essentially lying about interactions with the media. Theres a new op ed out from matt lewis. It says Andrew Mccabe is not a hero and unelected operatives do not get to unseat a president. Does that have merit . I dont think mccabe it seems like the discussions have gotten muddied around the 25th amendment. Mccabe said i did not bring it up. It was part of a discussion i was part of. What we need to focus back to the Mueller Investigation is what made these two people Rod Rosenstein and andy mccabe so concerned about what was going on that they felt they needed to take extreme measures . Why would they think they need a wire on rosenstein . Why would the 25th amendment come up in because he kept interjecting russia into the discussions. He did it with lester holt. He brought it up to Rod Rosenstein. If you look at this as an fbi agent, there are alarm bells all the way through that 18month period leading up to this moment. What were they supposed to do . They were probably exploring all the options. I still believe there are things we dont know that caused them to explore those options. I hope when the Mueller Report comes out we get to know what the things were that caused such alarm between the two individuals. Daniel, rosenstein, if you take mccabe at his word was not totally sold on appointing a special counsel to look into this. He said Rod Rosenstein was not initially convinced we needed one saying he was concerning if he did appoint the special counsel, mccabe believed rosenstein worried he might lose his job. The department of justice has pushed back on mccabes version of events. I was told this morning that the special counsel was appointed to ensure the russia investigation was truly independent and without bias. Something that mccabe could not have accomplished. What do you make of that . Thats right. Mccabe couldnt have accomplished it by virtue of being with the fbi within the president s chain of command. Rosenstein to the extent he didnt say yes immediately, thats his job. Hes supposed to be skeptical. The attorney general was recused. Hes supposed to apply the regulations in an impartial way. He wanted to hear more information. I think that the way that this special counsel was appointed strikes me as the way we want it to be, the information is brought to the attorney general. The attorney general weighs it and makes the decision according to regulations. Daniel, clint, thank you for being with us. Andrew mccabe will sit for his first live interview tomorrow morning over on the today show with savannah. On wednesday well join morning joe. Youre not going to want to miss either of the discussions. Still ahead, a series of stunning developments in a high profile alleged attack with sources saying an actor from empire is no longer seen as a victim in the case. So what is he . And right after this break, why words matter. The president partly running around congress to get the wall money he wants. What legal experts say about why his own words may be held against him. Danny is looking into that and into the courts where lawsuits are apparently imminent. E appar. It offers a lot of Great Technology inside. 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Nbc news learned hes trying to put together a coalition thats expected to include new mexico, hawaii, oregon, connecticut, minnesota, and theyre all pointing to a particular part of the president s rose garden speech on friday. I want to do it faster. I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didnt need to do this, but id rather do it much faster. Our msnbc legal analyst says the courts are likely to consider what the president did and did not say during his remarks at the white house. Let me bring in danny now. Kelsey and jonathan are back with us as well. Danny, that key part of the president s speech that we just aired, the part where he says i dont need to do this, why is that critical . The president s words are what creates the national emergency. And once he declares it, that unlocks a number of different, hundreds of different statutory powers available only in times of national emergency. So if the president s words are that powerful in simply declaring a national emergency, then a court might conclude that so too are the other words that he says in order to determine whether or not this truly is a national emergency. And saying he didnt need to do this might undermine that claim. However, a court may also conclude that because there really are no rules or limitations on the declaration of a national emergency, that even saying i didnt need to do this, well, that doesnt really matter as long as he says those words, national emergency, thats where we are. You look at the states that are looking potentially to sue here. California, of course, the attorney general indicated that is coming in probably a matter of hours at this point. The question has been as our Pete Williams explained, who has the legal standing to be able to bring this case in front of a court and ultimately, potentially the Supreme Court. Does california have that . Standing is a core issue of any lawsuit, and that is a the people who might have obvious standing in a case like this would be private landowners whose property would be imminent domain taken over to create this wall. But standing is a requirement of every lawsuit that must be satisfied at the outset. That means that the plaintiff has to have some concrete interest in the outcome of the litigation. The mere fact that you or i might not like taxes doesnt give us standing to file a lawsuit. So standing is a constitutional requirement. And so listen, and precedent is probably going to play a part in any kind of a legal challenge. And this is something that Chris Wallace got into with the white house topic immigration adviser Steven Miller on the musunday shows. It got pretty feisty. Can you name one case where a president has asked congress for money, congress refused and the president has then invehicloked National Powers . The Current Situation yes or no. The Current Situation pertains to the military construction authority. Im asking. Congress said no and he then many t meaning of the statute is clear on its own terms. If you dont like the statute, or members of congress dont the answer is no . There hasnt been a single case like this . How important is precedent here, danny . Precedent is critical. The key case is the case called youngstown where president truman tried to nationalize the Steel Industry during the korean war declaring a state of national emergency. The Supreme Court ultimately struck down trumanens attempt to take over the industry, saying that when the president acts against the express will of congress, his power is at, quote, his lowest ebb. Its important to note that even at its lowest ebb, the president s power or authority may prevail in this third weakest category, and Steven Miller might have answered to the question, that the authorization of congress isnt so much in what the senators may be saying today. Its in the fact that congress has enacted statutes that arguably expressly give the president power. For example, in the case of military construction projects. It doesnt matter so much the president may argue what individual senators say today. Its what the authority is contained in the statute. Kelsey, one thing youre heard a lot about on the hill. This is something weve talked about at nbc, the idea of what this means not in this particular sort of microinstance, but macro, for the executive branch and legislative branch. One concern is they have what they refer to as article one powers. Its their constitutional duty to be the ones who decide how money is spent. It seems like thats washington speak for congress is in charge of the purse. They dont want to give that up. Theyre worried that the president is getting in their way. The other thing that theyre very worried about is the precedent that this sets for future president s. So one thing that keeps coming up is that pass president s use this Emergency Declaration for 9 11 and the swine flu. And noncontroversial. Nobody disagreed those were energies. Yes. Emergencies that