to a formal sit-down with special counsel mueller. and bannon backing down, or at least trying to. apologizing to the president and don jr. after getting heat for his comments. as the president and his top aides fight tooth and nail defending trump's mental fitness to serve. >> the reality is the president is a political genius. >> political genius. and stealing the show, the golden globes set the tone for award season, sending a very strong message about sexual misconduct and gender inequality inside and outside of hollywood. >> a new day is on the horizon! [ cheers and applause ] >> the one and only oprah. we begin today with the nbc news exclusive. president trump's lawyers trying to figure out how he might answer questions from the special counsel's office on, what else, the russia investigation. and i've got a awesome team here this morning to break all of it down. i want to go first to nbc's kristen welker and julian ainsly, two of the extraordinary women who broke this story. julia, take us through the options that president trump's outside counsel is considering. because at the end of the day, they're lawyers, it is their job to risk manage. clearly in the world of risk management, you do not want the president to let it rip to roro mueller. >> you're right, stephanie. we've spoken to a lot of prominent defense attorneys. you don't want you client to incriminate himself or herself. when your client is the president of the united states, it's not political tenable to plead the fifth. they're starting these very preliminary conversations with mueller's team to try and figure out if and when they want to interview the president and come up with some kind of middle ground. they're looking at mental responses they could do or possibly, as one person put it, sign an affidavit that would say the president would basically say i've done nothing wrong here and i'm innocent and i don't know if any collusion with the russian campaign. they're trying to come up with alternatives, stephanie, to keep the president from testifying, but also to keep him from just saying i plead the fifth and staying completely silent. >> when i think about the fact we are only starting week two of 2018, there has been so much drama surrounding the white house. now we have this story lumped on top of it. what reaction are you getting from the white house? >> no reaction from the white house yet. in fact, lawyers for the president, as well as officials with the special counsel, declined to comment on our reporting. let's take a step back and look at what the president said himself over the weekend, while he was at camp david, meeting with top officials and some of his cabinet members who was asked directly if he would still commit to meeting personally with robert mueller, if he were asked to do so. the response that the president gave he said yeah, and then quickly pivoted, trying to put the focus on the fact that he says there's been no collusion and then he tried to actually bring up the issue of hillary clinton. of course we learned last week that the justice department is looking into actions by the clinton foundation yet again. so he tried to sort of pivot back and forth to that discussion. it wasn't clear in that yeah was an acknowledgement of the fact the question has been asked or if he was saying definitively, yes, i will meet with robert mueller if asked. what's on the president's schedule today, this afternoon, he departs for nashville, where he's going to attend a farming event. we will try to get some questions to him about all of this to see if, in fact, he definitively will meet with the special counsel or his team if he's asked to do so. he's going to wrap up his day at the ncaa championship and get back very late this evening. certainly we know this is an issue that gets under the president's skin like none other. he tweets about it. he has pushed back fiercely. he's referred to the entire investigation as a hoax. and so yet again the white house waking up to another russia-related headline. they'd rather be talking about policy for sure, stuffer. >> stef. >> i want to get straight to my panel. evan siegfried is a republican straig strategist. gentlemen, welcome. stanley, i got to go to you first. career prosecutors and investigators, there's no way they're going to be satisfied with the idea they're going to get a written statement from president trump. >> no, that's not going to happen. but i think it is a complicated thing because if you -- as she just said a moment ago, you can't plead the fifth, you shouldn't plead the fifth. i don't think trump has ever said he wants to plead the fifth. i think the problem is that process versus content. that still does not keep you insulated from the process of being interviewed. if you think about it, michael flynn, his biggest problem is a line or a -- you can get confused. you can get mixed up. all kinds of exposure if you are simply dealing with a prosecutor. you don't want to do that when you're in a high-profile case, if you can possibly avoid it. >> granted, it was on the campaign trail. the president does like to talk a big game. he did say last june he would be more than happy to speak. take a listen. >> he said those things under oath. would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version of those events? >> 100%. >> if robert mueller wanted to speak with you about that? >> i would be glad to tell him exactly what i just told you, joe. >> okay, 100%. does that make it harder for president trump's team to make the argument that he shouldn't have to sit down or no? because he says a lot of things. >> optically, it does for a moment but not really. because he said 100% statement when he was not with counsel and not facing a specific information. but his lawyers have got to have some ability to talk to mueller and talk about ground rules. there's no question about that. >> all right, congressman, you are part of the problem solvers caucus. what are democrats plan here? democrats can say all day long this man needs to be impeached. we see big democrat donors put out ads that say it. but we're a million miles away from impeachment. is your game plan let's win the midterms and then get to that? or is it let's just make sure robert mueller keeps job? >> game plan is to get to the facts. when i hear from people at home, let robert mueller do his job. let's get the information out there. then assess where we are. i think that's what -- in the months ahead, that's what we need to get to. let's just get the facts out there that will start obviously with what the president's going to say in answering. it's also bringing the information together and letting him do his investigation. >> evan, how hard is this inside the white house? you've got president's white house team, a portion of them who are with him on the campaign trail. they will say and do whatever need be to please the president. and others who joined the administration after he won kind of distanced themselves from russia. when he actively says via twitter no collusion, everything related to russia is a hoax, hoax, hoax, how hard is that for him? robert mueller, come on, you can't possibly say it's an absolute hoax if you've got george papadopoulos, michael flynn and paul manafort and rick gates in the cross hairs. >> i think if you're a white house staffer, you're popping a zxanax more than twice an hour t this point. >> wow. >> because the president really makes you nervous. not just on the russia investigation, on pretty much everything. when the president says he's 100% willing to meet with mueller and testify under oath, you have the white house staffers saying oh, my goodness and paul cobb probably having agita. i think he would love to tweet his responses but they're not going to get it. the president needs to come clean. think if the best disinfectant is sunlight, the president should testify in a way the american people can see and do so under oath because then we can put the russia investigation behind us and allow for the facts to come out and robert mueller to finish his job. he's a man of integrity and republicans have acknowledged this. >> let's talk about policy. does the week we just had, does the michael wolff book, does president trump's team actively going on the sunday shows to defend the president and then a story like this, what does this do to the legislative process? john kasich said last week we need stories like this, all this noise, to go away so we can get to policy. because the concern is it just sends democrats to one corner and republicans to another. >> i think we need to walk and chew gum. mueller needs to do his investigation. we're coming back with a serious investigation. infrastructure. crumbling roads and bridges. we've got a january 19th looming once again budget issue. we've got to pass a resolution or pass a budget so we can keep the lights on and issues around that. to me, we've got to focus on the issues. when you go home, people want us to actually do our jobs. that's what i'm focused on. that takes us working together to get it done. that doesn't mean the investigation should go on. that should be going on while we're doing our work. >> paul ryan and mitch mcconnell would agree. you saw a united gop front this weekend at camp david. is that the truth or how hard is it for rank and file republicans to stay on message? they're feeling a huge victory since the tax cuts came through. but couple that with all -- with the book, with the russia stories. how hard is it for republicans to continue to stand behind the president? >> it's easier for me to hop up mt. everest on one foot. >> really? because paul ryan said the president was an exquisite leader i think just a couple weeks ago. >> the tax cut package that passed, while it's very good and people are liking that they're getting companies raising their wages, many people -- or more americans don't like it. they think it benefits the uber wealthy as opposed to the middle class. that meeting they had at camp david, they said, all right, we're not going to have too much legislative results in 2018. 2017 is the real legislative results here. we have to sell what we did in 2017. which isn't much. and the tax cut package, because it's polling so terribly for republicans, you have to became to sell it. and you can't sell it when the president of the united states is going out and tweeting he's a stable genius or the michael wolff book comes out. >> if we do see wage pressure and we see wages go up, if we see the economy continue to improve, that does forgive a lot of pretty awful things -- >> how did the economy play out for all of our republican candidates this year in november 2017? it didn't work. >> i'd say it depends where you are. what i'm hearing at home with the tax cut bill that just got passed, people in the tristate area are panicked. they've lost these key deductions. they pick up the tab for the moocher states that we always pay the bill for. >> i want to go back to this story for a moment. stanley, let's take the other side of the coin. if you're ty cobb and we know the president doesn't like tough conversations. he doesn't like bad news. he sends people packing who try to deliver tough talk. if you're one of these two guys, what are you saying to the president? because these guys have been saying for months this investigation is almost over. it's not. >> well, the timing of the investigation is really important for all the reasons we're talking about. one of the reasons you want to ask at this point is why is this discussion happening now? typically the prosecution does not get to the top of the pyramid, that would be the president, until you're close to the end of the investigation. so why are these discussions happening now? is that a signal that mueller is, in fact, getting closer to wrapping this up, which would be a bit of a surprise. these investigations typically go on for many, many months. or is it only an initiation of a request to wrap it up by the white house? i would want to know if that's the case. because if that's the case and, in fact, mueller is getting close to wrapping it up as signaled by his effort to go after the president's interview, then you've got a big change in the landscape. >> all right, then quick yes, no, because i want to time stamp this. president trump, is he going to try to fire mueller? >> no. >> no. >> no, it will be -- >> there we go. we have a bit of news. different news about the president. his new york city residence, trump tower, firefighters are there now. they put out an electrical fire at the building earlier this morning. secret service were the ones who first noticed the smoke. one firefighter was injured when debris fell on him. an engineer was also injured but refused treatment. the cause of the fire is still under investigation. all right, up next, stable genius. you heard it all weekend long. the white house goes on a full-court press defending the president's mental fitness. this as new surprising details about the president's daily schedule are revealed. and later, a global statement. the women of hollywood set the tone on the red carpet and host seth meyers made sure that it carried into the awards show itself. >> marijuana is finally allowed and sexual harassment finally isn't. harvey weinstein isn't here tonight. but don't worry, he'll be back in 20 years when he becomes the first person ever booed during the memoriam. it will sound like that. always have been. when i found out i had age-related macular degeneration, amd, i wanted to fight back. my doctor and i came up with a plan. it includes preservision. only preservision areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula recommended by the national eye institute to help reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd backed by 15 years of clinical studies. that's why i fight. because it's my vision. preservision. i knew at that exact moment, whatever it takes, wherever i have to go...i'm beating this. my main focus was to find a team of doctors that work together. when a patient comes to ctca, they're meeting a team of physicians that specialize in the management of cancer. breast cancer treatment is continuing to evolve. and i would say that ctca is definitely on the cusp of those changes. patients can be overwhelmed ... we really focus on taking the time with each individual patient so they can choose the treatment appropriate for them. the care that ctca brings is the kind of care i've wanted for my patients. being able to spend time with them, have a whole team to look after them is fantastic. i empower women with choices. it's not just picking a surgeon. it's picking the care team, and feeling secure where you are. surround yourself with the team of breast cancer experts at cancer treatment centers of america. visit cancercenter.com/breast yeah, i got some financialbody guidance a while ago. how'd that go? he kept spelling my name with an 'i' but it's bryan with a 'y.' yeah, since birth. that drives me crazy. yes. it's on all your email. yes. they should know this? yeah. the guy was my brother-in-law. that's ridiculous. well, i happen to know some people. do they listen? what? they're amazing listeners. nice. guidance from professionals who take their time to get to know you. politics don't matter. everybody looks at trump the same. 100% of the people closest to the president. to donald trump believe there is something wrong here. >> author of course of the controversial new book "fire and fury," michael wolff, standing by his reporting that everyone close to the president worries about his mental state. and former white house chief strategist steve bannon now backtracking some of the comments attributed to him in that book. refrained his comments about don jr.'s meeting with the russians at trump tower which he originally called treasonious and unpatriotic. now he says, my comments were aimed at paul manafort. i regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding don jr. has diverted attention from the president's historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency. i got to walk through this with phil rutger, white house bureau chief at the "washington post." phil, it is worth noting that bannon is apologizing to don jr. he made no mention of jared kushner, ivanka trump, two people that he goes after in the book and even don jr. he -- there's a quote where he says special prosecutor robert mueller is going to crack don jr. like an egg on national tv. so where exactly is the full throated apology and what's steve bannon's goal here? i don't know how you get back from that. >> it's not a full throated apology and it doesn't seem to be a goal of trying to win back over the president and bring the president in his good graces. it seems more like an attempt at damage control to preserve whatever remains of steve bannon's platform and political operation. he's lost the support of his biggest benefactors, the mercer family. and think the apology statement that he issued over the weekend was an attempt to try to shore up some support among the president's base and with other financial supporters so he can have a political platform going forward. >> the president, i don't want to say he's obsessed with loyalty but we know those closest to him, kellyanne conway has made it clear from the beginning, the president likes those who are loyal to him. give than is so important, can steve bannon get back in the good graces of the president? >> i don't think so immediately. eventually, he might. we have to remember this is sort of m.o. in trump world where people fall out of favor and then they get back in and then they fall back down and then they get back up. and it's all this kind of drama that trump likes to have around him over many years. i don't think we're going to see, you know, any sort of a get-together summit with steve bannon in the next week or so but it might be a year from now bannon finds his way back into the orbit. >> well, there is or was a lot of love between the president and steve bannon for quite some time. but let's talk about the gop because you could go down the line. you could play a best hits of sound bites from gop leadership saying pretty negative things about the president. not just during the campaign. but bob corker not that long ago said trump was potentially setting the u.s. on a path to world war iii and described the white house as an adult day care center. he's going to be flying with the president to tennessee on tuesday. so it seems almost as the president grows more erratic in the last week, the gop is more loyal to him now than they were two months ago. >> i think that's right. i think it's not just senator corker. look at the comments lindsey graham made during the campaign and all the praise he's heaping on him now. look at the comments, you know, former governor rick perry made during the campaign. he's now serving in the cabinet as the energy secretary. there's been a real transformation in the way a lot of these republican leaders speak publicly about donald trump now that he's the president. >> the true trump loyalist steve bannon had an extremely contentious interview -- excuse me, steven miller, extremely contentious interview just yesterday with jake tapper and i want to share some of that. he of course is a white house policy adviser. >> it's tragic and unfortunate that steve would make these grotesque comments. you have 24 hours a day of -- >> stephen, you're being -- >> you're not going to give three minutes for the american people to hear the real experience of donald trump. >> i hear you. there's one viewer you care about here and you're being obsequious in order to please him. >> it was reported stephen miller had to be escorted from the cnn set. the president weighed in afterwards tweeting, jake tapper got destroyed by stephen miller. so to jake tapper's point, steve miller was performing for the president. how did you hear the interview went over in the white house beyond just the president? >> i think the president liked it. that's sort of what matters. remember, the people in the white house who speak publicly like this, sean spicer when he was the press secretary certainly. they play to that audience of one. they perform for the president. they find ways to stroke his ego. and make him feel good about situation, in the news and that seems to be what stephen miller was doing. there's nothing trump wanted more sunday morning than to see a fight with cnn and that's what stephen miller delivered. >> all right, i want to talk about president trump's schedule. because axios is reporting that there has been some changes. first of all, i'd like to say i'd love a schedule like that. now sounds more like he's going to be starting around 11:00 a.m. he's going to have some alone tonight. where he spends it with twitter and watching cable news. what's your take on all of this? >> it's pretty extraordinary that the presidential schedule has so many hours of what they're calling executive time. which is time for the president to be by himself in front of a television screen watching cable news shows, calling his friends on the phone, tweeting what he chooses. the report in axios which reviewed copies of the president's actual schedule showed that he often doesn't get to the oval office until 11:00 a.m. and then he's back home by about 6:00 p.m. so that's a pretty short work day for a president who campaigned as someone who was going to work harder than anybody else. >> i just want to point out, i would love that. between last week, cheeseburgers in bed at 6:30, shouting at two tv screens and then getting to work at 11:00 a.m. i'd love to get a little bit of that in my -- >> it's three screens i think. >> yes, i'd love that in 2018. how do you think general kelly takes it? we know he wants a very tight organized house. he wants to control and understand every minute of the president's time. that's not general kelly being a control freak. that is similar to chiefs of staff we've seen before that who have said we need to -- every minute of the president's time is so important. how is general kelly going to take to all this openness? he said he doesn't even follow the president on twitter and now he's going to have all this free tweeting time? >> well, you know, john kelly's been trying to enact some discipline in the white house with the operation and the schedule and the paper flow of information that the president receives. but there are real limitations to that. kelly has made clear from when he first took the job he's not going to be able to control the president on twitter and he's not going to be able to personally manage the president in what he chooses to do every day and what we've seen in this report from axios about the schedule is there are really only six or seven hours of date that john kelly can manage and the rest of the time trump is being trump, you know, acting on his own accord in his quote/unquote executive time. >> trump is being trump. i and i alone. those are his words. all right, thank you so much. i got a feeling we got a big week ahead. up next, if you're not feeling well, you're not alone. a devastating flu season is having deadly consequences across the nation. but first, bills nation. we told you bills fans donated 345 grand to an opposing quarterback's charity. yesterday, the bills lost in the first round of the playoffs to jacksonville. that did not stop hundreds of fans from showing up to a snowy tarmac to thank their team for a great season. well played, buffalo. it might be a cold city but there's a lot of love in that town. ok, so with the award-winning geico mobile app, our customers have 24/7 access, digital id cards, they can even pay their bill- (beep) bill has joined the call. hey bill, we're just- phone: hi guys, bill here. do we have julia on the line too? 'k, well we'll just- phone: hey sorry. i had you muted. well yea let's just- phone: so what i was thinking- ok well we'll- phone: yeah- let's just go ahead- phone: oh alright- the award-winning geico app. download it today. welcome back. time now for your morning primer. everything you need to know to get your day started. we begin with president trump traveling to tennessee and georgia this afternoon. first the president's speaks to a group of farmers in nashville. tonight, he will attend the ncaa national championship football game outside of atlanta. and delays in new york's jfk's airport this morning after a water pipe break. cold weather caused the pipe to burst, flooding terminal four sunday. the airport was already experiencing delays from last week's snowstorm. people there stecertainly don't like this news. and space x has launched a secret satellite code named zuma. apparently the project is so classified space x ended its commentary of the launch five minutes into the flight. and nbc news has learned the number of federal workplace safety inspectors has fallen under the trump administration. the report raises questions about the government's efforts to protect workers. and the nfl is talking to the carolina panthers about concussion protocol after the quarterback cam newton took a hard hit during sunday's game. as newton walked to the sideline, he dropped to his knee. the question is whether a coach told him to kneel or whether he fell. hope he is feeling better. happening right now, the opening bell on wall street. right now, the dow is continuing to head up after a week of record highs. right now, it's inching down. i can't get my red and green straight. president trump said he expects the dow to reach 30,000. a lot of investors have said the same. dom, it really seems there's a sense the dow could hit 30,000. >> there is a sense it could at some point. first, if you're a stock market investor for the long term, you're betting on america over the long term. we all hope as americans the dow hits 30,000 at some point. how quickly it becomes a bigger issue. we have a situation where president trump has market gains under his belt for the first year. at least as these gains start to progress, they're going to get harder. whether or not infrastructure spending becomes part of that big story for 2018 remains to be seen as well as entitlement reform, anything else they want to do out of washington. it's going to take a little bit more to get those markets to really feel like we can hit those record highs, at least that dow 30,000 market. >> the market continuing to climb. in looking at the jobs number last week, we saw that slower job growth, we got slower job growth than expected. we saw retail jobs fall. and we're most likely going to get more of those retail jobs disappear this year. so is this where we can say there's a clear divide? the market climbing is one thing. the economy is another. because job growth and wages are what matters to people across the country, especially with only 50% of our population even owns any stocks, is invested in any way. >> all right so this is -- that's a great point, stephanie. the issue right now is we have an economy that emerged from the financial crisis, right, back in 2009, 2010, under president obama. we have a market here that's already seen a lot of those gains happen because we were working on a very low level. it was a very bad time for the u.s. economy. as we start to see things get better over time and things have gotten much better than they were back during the depths of the financial crisis, things have already seen -- we've already seen millions of jobs created. we've already seen a lot of that stuff happen. as we start to progress and get more mature in an economic recovery like this, job gains are going to slow. here is the problem for the trump administration right now. the problem that they have is with these gains in jobs slowing, what are they going to do or what can they even do to make sure those gains stay on pace? you would argue -- you can argue as we have an economy that has such low unploiemployment like have right now, those job gains are not going to be easy to come by because a lot of people are already working. that doesn't say there's a lot of people out there already struggling. the trump administration will have to find a way to jump start the economy. some people will say it could be the tax reform. some say it could be another infrastructure plan. no matter what though, a lot of the easy job gains have been had over the course of the five, six past years and it's going to be harder to get job gains going forward. >> we cannot undervalue how important deregulation has been for small and large business owners alike. over the last eight years, when you and i would interview ceos, the regulatory overhang left so many business leaders sitting on cash, unwilling to spend. now it seems they want to spend more. we just don't know what they're going to spend it on and if that's going to help workers. >> right. that's going to be the real key. because remember, during the last big tax holiday we had during the bush administration, we saw a lot of, yes, investment in -- perhaps in people, hiring and whatnot. a lot of it also went towards rewarding shareholders. you know, paying higher dividends or buying back more shares. whether or not this happens this time around is going to be a real key for whether or not america can get behind a lot of these policies that corporate america's been kind of championing over, like, the last couple of months. >> great point. thanks so much. we cannot forget that. as many bonuses as we see companies give out there, that number pales in comparison to the massive amount of share buybacks we saw even in the last month. we're going to take a turn to the flu. experts say it is one of the worst flu seasons in years. it didn't just hit joe and mika. it's hitting this country. the centers for disease control and prevention reports three times as many cases as this time last season with outbreaks in 46 states. southern california, which is interesting, has been hit particularly hard. the "l.a. times" reports emergency rooms and pharmacies are struggling to keep pace. nbc's jacob zubrof joins us. those of us in new york always think flu season is where it's cold. it's cold outside and we get sick. but that's not the case, not this year. >> no, we're getting hit super hard out here, stef. 10% more confirmed cases of the flu in southern california at this time this year than we had last year. in san diego, a tent setup outside the hospital to deal with an overflow situation with patients. here at usc, a lot of people are showing up at the energy department. ambulances will come to this door and come through this way. this is dr. dorian who is the associate chief medical officer at usc. i'm going to have to sanitize after shaking your hand. thank you for having us here. people across the country are wondering, looking at what's happening not just in southern california but virtually every state in the union, saying why is the flu so bad this year? >> it definitely is worse than the last few years. it seems like h 3 n 2 is more prominent than the classic h1n1. but it's no different every year where infection happens and emergency departments are getting a flux of patients. >> i want to make sure we respect patient confidentiality. you've got patients in the hallway in this emergency department right now. dr. dorian, how long has it been like this at usc with patients virtually everywhere you look? >> well, it's been the last two weeks but we pride ourselves on trying to move people inside the hospital as soon as possible. the problem is we want to make sure we're taking care of them the best we can so keeping them under our eye sometimes is more important than putting them in a room. but yes, this flu season is a lot worse than previous. >> talk to me about vaccinations. there are rumors going around, you hear things from friend s that the flu vaccine isn't working this year. is that true? >> it was an early study, it was not done in the united states. in general in the united states we're anticipating it between 30% and 40% effective. realize that's 100% effective of the 30% of the population. we still want you to get vaccinated because it gives you some of the characteristics of that virus your body can fight against. >> thank you, on behalf of everybody out there, thank you for making everybody here feel better. stef, i hope you, you kids, your family, don't come down with the flu. it is miserable out here. >> i feel that. i'm sneezing just as you're speaking to the good doctor. all right, thank you. all right, coming up, we're going to talk money, power politics. my favorite part of the show. high tax states scrambling to find loopholes around the new tax law. new jersey congressman thinks he found a way and he's defending his plan next. first, you got to see this video. everybody knows i love nba superstar steph curry. it was this all weekend that had people dying. an ad for britta water filters. it was trending. i feel like every minute of this weekend. and here's a small portion of a jingle you're never going to get out of your head. sorry not sorry you're going to nonstop sing this but it's awesome. and look at him dancing. >> ♪ first name stephen ♪ last name curry ♪ he came into my life ♪ now everything's less blurry ♪ helping me out needles. essential for vinyl, but maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. because there are options. like an "unjection™". xeljanz xr. a once daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well. xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma and other cancers have happened. don't start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests and cholesterol levels have happened. your doctor should perform blood tests before you start and while taking xeljanz xr, and monitor certain liver tests. tell your doctor if you were in a region where fungal infections are common and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. needles. a must for vinyl. but for you, one pill a day may provide symptom relief. ask your doctor about xeljanz xr. an "unjection™". it's my favorite part of the show, money, power, politics. residents in high tax states like new jersey, new york and california are bracing for their tax bills to go up under the newly passed tax law. under the new law, deductions for state and local taxes, including property taxes, are capped at 10 grand a year, which is way less than many people in those states currently pay. so state officials across the country are desperately trying to find ways to circumvent the federal tax overhaul and save their homeowners thousands of dollars. one proposal in my home state of new jersey would let homeowners contribute to charitable funds in exchange for tax credits. charitable contributions are still fully deductible under the new law. it sounds interesting but it sounds complicated which is the opposite of what the goal of this tax law was. i want to bring back congressman gonheimer from new jersey. >> the way, as you point out, state and local tax deductions have been gutted. so greatly limiting people's ability to deduct their state income taxes. their taxes are going to go up 3,000 to $5,000 a year, this year alone. >> that teacher already can't deduct buying pencils and pen and papers. excuse me, i'm wrong, they can. >> they can, but this is just incredible insult to injury, making your taxes go up. so what do we do about it? one way, as you pointed out, what we've developed, looking at what 22 other states already do and the irs has sanctioned is you let towns set up a charitable fund. people can make contributions to that charitable fund that are tax deductible. the town can give you a tax credit on your property tax bill at the end of the year. you actually keep your property taxes the same but have picked up a charitable deduction. so now we found a way, given the fact people are losing their state and local tax deduction to actually still give them a deduction to let them save on their taxes. i think we need to do everything possible to cut taxes and find relief in the face of this tax hike bill which is directly targeted at states like ours as these other moocher states like mississippi and alabama, who by the way, alabama and south carolina, use this charitable contribution deduction already. so now they just want to take more out of our pockets and that's what incredible about it. >> if 22 states already have it, then how come the tax foundation says your proposal violates irs rules? a senior policy analyst said this, i want to share it. to be deductible, charitable contributions must have a genuinely charitable aspect and cannot primarily benefit the contributor or involve a quid pro quo. so if that's what the tax policy center says -- >> they obviously didn't read any of the press in here. they obviously didn't read the irs rulings on this. and they didn't study the programs happening in 22 other states, by the way, mostly red states, i'd add. what makes this interesting is as long as you're not -- you can't have it where it's your property taxes become deductible directly. that of course would be a direct -- would not be charitable. however if you want to pay your property taxes but also make a contribution to the town fund, the town charitable fund, and the town wants to give you a deduction on your property tax bill, that's completely up to the town. in new jersey, we've got the governor-elect who says he's going to back this. we're going to push legislation through. what they're going to have to do is reverse themselves and stick it to 22 other states who are also already using it. >> governor cuomo of new york says this state is going to sue over the new law calling it unconstitutional and an assault on new york. you just mentioned these moocher states and how this tax law takes advantage of blue states like yours. where's chuck schumer on this? because i spoke to someone inside the white house who worked on tax reform who early on said yes, i know the state and local tax thing, people aren't going to like it, but let's see what chuck schumer has to say, assuming that chuck schumer would fight it, fight it for new yorkers. but he really didn't. >> well, i'm not going to speak to what chuck did. i think he was actually out there fighting the elimination. let's talk about what we need to do now. just like any business or anybody else who's looking for how to make sure we study every aspect of this new tax hike bill, let's look at how we can fight in new jersey and other states and make sure we get back tax cuts for our people in the case they try to stick it to us. >> why are people leaving new jersey? it's the number two state where people are leaving the state, moving elsewhere. for me, obviously, it's mind blowing, because i view it as god's country. >> me too, by the way. >> they can't afford to be there? >> they obviously don't like springsteen and great pizza. we have great people and great neighbors. this is a great argument. which is why we need to do everything possible. >> why are people leaving? >> i think it's expensive and that's why we have to cut taxes. i believe we're going to have a great argument to get people and keep them here. there's no reason why you wouldn't want to be in jersey. you're right near everything. you've got the shore. you've got great food. amazing schools. >> who needs st. barts when they have long island island? >> exactly. the best cops and teachers around. >> government shutdown, what's going to happen here? >> i don't think so. i think, by the way, it's going to be a fight between now and then and we're going to -- both sides are going to line up and fight hard. i think we've got to -- you can't shut the lights off on the government, right. you can't cut their social security checks off. >> from your lips to god's ears. >> we're going to keep fighting. >> coming up, from black dresses on the red carpet to oprah's stirring me too speech, everyone at last night's golden globes seemed intent on speaking out, including the presenters. >> and here are the all male nominees. it's the phillips' lady! anyone ever have occasional constipation,diarrhea, gas or bloating? she does. she does. help defend against those digestive issues. take phillips' colon health probiotic caps daily with three types of good bacteria. 400 likes? wow! try phillips' colon health. what i know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have. so i want all the girls watching here now to know that a new day is on the horizon! >> you don't need a political agenda. those were inspirational remarks from the one and only oprah winfrey. at last night's golden globe awards with the me too movement to take center stage, oprah praising the scores of women who have come forward with allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct. stars wore all black and shared the red carpet with activists to call attention to the issue. anne thompson is joining me now. anne, we have never seen this kind widespread protest at an award show. is this here to stay in hollywood? >> i think the big question now, stephanie, is last night's actions, are they really going to change anything? and natalie portman made that point where after oprah's rousing speech, she came out with ron howard to announce best director and said, here's the list of the all male nominees for best director. that's exactly the problem in hollywood. >> it's the point barbara streisand made. where she said, 34 years ago was the last time a woman won best director. i mean, that has us standing there going, what? >> yes. if you look at last night, when you look at the awards that "big little lies" got that was executive produced by reese witherspoon and nicole kidman, and look at lady bird directed by berta not nominated. and the best musical in a comedy section. those are the real steps forward. but the question is, when will the balance of power change to what they call gender parody where women have this equally as big a voice and say in hollywood as men do. >> well, it was a night about girl power. let's make it a feature. anne thompson, thank you so much. coming up, much more on an nbc exclusive news report to trump's lawyers exploring all the options about how the president may or may not answer questions on the russia investigation. and later today, "fire and fury" author michael wolff joins nbc's katy tur at 2:00 p.m. eastern. then catch him on "last word tonight" at 10:00 p.m. and finally chris matthews on "hardball." that's call a media tour, kids. it's time now for the "your business" of the week. nate honda of ozobot says kids don't have to be just passive consumers of electronic toys, they should be creators. so he makes programmable robots to get kids to learn to code. now his business is taking off. for more, watch your business weekend mornings at 7:30 on msnbc. >> sponsored by american express open. helping you get business done. i kind of feel like it's a game changer. i wouldn't go that far. are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary. (phone ringing) what? keep going! yeah... (laughs) (voice on phone) it's not millennial enough. there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you! so we're doing it. yes! "we got a yes!" start saying yes to your company's best ideas. let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. with smart, revolutionary hhearing aid technology available right now, why does it take most of us 7 years -- when we know we have hearing loss -- -- to actually do something about it? will you continue to feel left out... to constantly ask people to repeat themselves... and to miss out on so much in life... for all that time? really? with the aarp hearing care program, provided by hearusa, why wait even 7 minutes? call right now. and receive the highest level of quality, care and value in the industry. which is why so many people have trusted us to get their lives back. because the time to enjoy virtually invisible hearing aids... to enjoy how they connect with your tv... to enjoy their extraordinary sound quality...is right now. discover hearing care beyond compare. attention aarp members. call hearusa today to find out how you can save an additional $500 off your next purchase of a pair of digital hearing aids. call us today. before i go, i always like to end with good news because i know there has to be some happening somewhere and it has to be about the golden globes. clearly oprah winfrey's speech is getting a lot of attention, and deservedly so. it was beyond inspiring. but there was another message i heard last night that i want to draw attention to. and it was by laura dern accep accepting her speech for "big little lies." the world we are delivering to our children, we are hoping to give our kids a better world than we got. and whether it is fiscal issues or social issues, the hate rising in this country worries me. and i know our kids deserve better. and laura derm reminded us what we are handing those kids and it was a positive note. take a look. >> many of us were taught not to tattle. it was a culture of silencing that was normalized. may we teach our children that speaking out without the fear of retribution is our culture's new north star. >> our culture's new north star. that is ending on a high note. thank you, laura dern. thank you for watching this hour. i'm stephanie ruhle. see you at 11:00 a.m. right now, more news with hallie jackson. we are talking more about that speech and others from the glo glo golden globes later in the show. but we start with the president preparing potentially to open up with someone else, wishing he had kept his own mouth shut. lawyers for president trump in touch with the special counsel in initial talks about a possible conversation with the president.

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