Now its time for the last word with lawrence odonnell. Ari melber is in for lawrence tonight. Fly. Joy, are you having too much fun . Too much oh, i want to wish the best to rachel. I cant give her what you gave her. Nope you know, do you know this expression . More life . I do. I want to have more life and and more joy. Oh would you be willing to come on this show because theres a thing i want to talk to you about. Okay. Whos the most admired person in america according to americans. Would you be willing to come over to the sunset. Ill be right upstairs. Ill head up. This is a real thing. Joy, ill see you in a minute. Fly. See you soon. She has more fun and better at it than me. It looks fun over there. Joy reid will be on the last word in a minute. A real news story, i cou indica that the Donald Trump Legal Team is bracing for something more, something apparently worse coming out of the mouth of Michael Flynn. That is the key takeaway in a report thats making waves even on what might be a quiet weekend in washington from the Washington Post. Trump lawyers saying theyre looking at plans to depict flynn as a, quote, liar, seeking to protect himself if he accuses the president or senior aides of any wrongdoing. One person helping craft the strategy describing flynn as not lowing. He said it himself. Hes a liar. The strategy apparently been in the works since flynns news first broke that he would be cooperating. He signed a legal Cooperation Agreement with special counsel mueller and that, of course, has been public for sometime. Why is this breaking now . The post reporting the administration has spent time here strategizing how to neutralize flynn in case flynn makes any claims. This is very clearly a shift for President Trump. If you watch the news and you probably do if youre watching this you will note that he has publicly and repeatedly done something very different from the Washington Post report of this new legal strategy. Donald trump was praising mike flynn even after firing him. Michael flynn, general flynn, is a wonderful man. I think hes been treated very, very unfairly by the media. I think its very, very unfair whats happened to general flynn, the way he was treated and the documents and papers that were illegally, i stress that, illegally leaked. I do feel badly for him. He served the country. He was a general. This man has served for many years. Hes a general. Hes in my opinion, a very good person. Well, i feel badly for general flynn. I feel very badly. Hes led a very strong life and i feel very badly. He may not be feeling badly tonight. Donald trump turning on mike flynn would be a significant change in the probe and i say regardless of where this probe heads. We dont know what mueller has or will find. Recall the daily beast in may saying they were warning trump about reaching out to flynn and a couple weeks ago trump wasnt ruling out a possible pardon for flynn. About Michael Flynn, would you consider a pardon for Michael Flynn . I dont want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet. Lets see. You dont have to be a lawyer to say theres a long way from publicly saying youll see to pardon someone and having the lawyers tell the Washington Post someone sa terrible liar. Some of flynns family members thinking about that clip i just showed you saying donald trump should pardon flynn. This was a tweet taken down and posted by one of flynns brothers calling for just that. Meanwhile, new indications from an interesting report of yahoo News Reporter that muellers probe is deepening. He report that is in just the last few weeks, muellers investigators questioning rnc staff about the Party Digital operation that worked with the trump cam tony to target voters in key states and seeking to determine if the joint effort was related to the activities of the russian trolls and bots. Joining me now is noah shackman of the daily beast, tim obrien author of trump nation and msnbc contributor. Noah, the saying used to be are you bought or not . The bots on the one hand can seem like a relatively trivial thing although they have certainly had impact in various countries and yet bob mueller doesnt look at this as trivial at all. Why not . Because theres a lot of evidence what happened digitally on twitter and facebook, one of the decisive moves in the campaign and who controlled the bots . Bought the bots . And how they were coordinated is really the key issue. It may be the key issue that unlocks how much the russian fifth in the Trump Campaign activity proper interlinked. You think about the way that the Digital World has exploded through this campaign. And you have a large background in that as well as politics. There are Digital Footprints to things that are different. Watergate was a physical breakin and fingerprints and led to something. The idea here is that there could be, what . Records, flash drives, targeting data that would basically pinpoint who may have been in on this operation . Yeah. Look. I dont want to speculate too much about exactly what kind of data may or may not have been there but its true that, you know, theres no place to hide on the internet and everything does leave a kind of footprint. Tim, no place to hide and as the new yorker put it on the internet no one knows youre a dog if youre a dog and socalled fake accounts and trolls and Fake Identities of ideas of something behind the veil. Well, and i think i think its part of a fact pattern that bob muler is trying to assemble thats going to be i think parts of a threelegged stool. The first is collusion. The foundational reason for his investigation. The second part and i think the more dangerous part is obstruction of justice. And the third part of this would be any kind of financial quid pro quos that would exist between the kremlin and trump. And i think those are driving forces behind anything that muellers going to look at and in that context bots and rigging facebook or at least fine tuning facebook to aid the Trump Campaign is part of all of that. Heres the question we cant answer and anyone in this wants to answer and that is why does it seem like everyone close to trump is freaking out this week . I dont think that theyre necessarily freaking out this week. I think theyre freaking out all along and i dont think theyre on message together. Donald trump is probably the worst client you could have if youre an attorney because hes never on message and he doesnt do what hes told. And if the lawyers themselves are gearing up to smear mike flynn, i dont think that meres that the president s on board with that strategy necessarily. He could undercut it. Lets show something about kushner and then go to you, noah. Kushner and potentially more exposure searching for a Crisis Pr Firm for press inquiries, a step taken by people who believe they could be facing criminal charges. Now, that lawyer abby lowell and who i have spoken to insists something to see here and yet again i would disagree slightly with tims analysis. I have spent months covering this case. Where people are in the white house on the same note and were cooperating. Yeah. A lot of republicans, outside of what you might call the extra fever fringe, a lot of republicans were holding their fire. Now youve got everyone from ken starr to bright bart eitbart tof Congress Taking on the fbi. The shift is now to smear the fbi and the mueller operation. And i do think that if youre seeing some extra concern i think its because of the financial front more than the digital front perhaps. You know, kushners not just facing problems in the Mueller Probe itself and also facing additional legal pressure about us, loans from deutsch bank which is sort of famously russia friendly on a property basically to buy the old the New York Times building and prosecutors here in brooklyn looking into that, too. Right. Hes not just particularly because of the timing of that loan, too. A month before the election. Right. So its not just facing sort of mueller pressure. Hes also facing pressure in brooklyn and who knows where else . Well, and this goes to something i want to play now which is congressman francis rooney. You know, in our jobs here, we talk about people and sometimes we talk about what they say on tv. Im not a big fan of, you know, taking shots at someone for a poorly chosen word. I think that happens to all of us if were being honest. But you have congressman rooney here coming back on. He said this about the purge of the fbi yesterday which is really stalinness language and then asked about it on cnn and we have to question. Trump is trump. We have to question if other members of congress and leaders taking us down a road of purges of our nonpartisan Law Enforcement. For viewers, play it. Take a listen to francis rooney. Are you sure you want to be throwing a word like purge around . Well, it might be a pretty strong word. Im not maybe the most nuanced political person in the world coming from a career in business but im pretty frustrated that all the things that have come out by the strzok and or and may or may not have taken place in the deputy generals macabe tim, your view on that . I think i think its very disturbing that were at a point in time that the law and order party in the united states, the gop, is fairly flagrantly both undermining and taking pot shots at Law Enforcement official who is are in the midst of a very well heeled and logical investigation, something that Law Enforcement should be undertaking. Bob muellers doing what hes charged with doing. Proceeding by the books. Hers what i dont get and throw it out to both of you for a final thought here. Part of our job as journalists to listen to all sides and then figure out whats logical and fair versus whens rank lies. So not false equivalency but to take all theories seriously. There are theories in the Trump Campaign world is one is something did something wrong and the president didnt and will be exonerated. Thats a reasonable theory. What doesnt strike me is reasonable that the theory that the fbi which very publicly announced all of its thoughts and suppositions about Hillary Clinton during a president ial campaign and then had a trump investigation that it kept completely secret to the point no one knew about it and nothing leaked until after the investigation and the same fbi now in the tank against donald trump. I cant as a fair journalist understand how thats a fair theory. Not just the fbi that trump has taken on. Hes attacked the federal judiciary, the media, any organization. Does this theory hold up in any way for you . No. I dont think it holds up at all. Not at all. The reason theyre attacking the ogss because theres something there. In the closing days of the campaign, comey felt the need to reopen the Hillary Clinton investigation because of pressure of agents within the fbi. If anything, i mean, from what i know of bureau guys, they tend to be more republican, more thats right. More inclined to an administration, not less to it. So i think the theorys just kind of nuts. Noah, thank you for joining us. Ill be talking to you in a second. Coming up, President Trump losing to president obama in a big National Survey that could make Donald Trumps obama derangement issues more pronounced. Later, whens trump exhaustion . Do you have it and could it have midterm indications . daniel jacob for every hour that youre idling in your car, youre sending about half a gallon of gasoline up in the air. That amounts to about 10 pounds of Carbon Dioxide every week. malo hutson growth is good, but when it starts impacting our quality of air and quality of life, thats a problem. So forwardthinking cities like sacramento are investing in streets that are smarter and greener. The solution was right under our feet. Asphalt. Or to be more precise, intelligent asphalt. By embedding sensors into the pavement, as well as installing cameras on traffic lights, we will be able to analyze the flow of traffic. Then that data runs across our network, and we use it to optimize the timing of lights, so that travel times are shorter. Who knew asphalt could help save the environment . We have more legislation passed including the record of harry truman. A listening time ago. We broke that record so we have a lot to thank. Hard to hear a little bit but its not true what president said just there. Historians, Fact Checkers rebutting that false claim of President Trump. He said it today and made the same claim last week when he signed the tax bill. Here is the actual deal, mr. President. A lie is still a lie no matter how many times we tell you and well show you why you should know its a lie. 94 bills signed since taking office, historic low compared to his 9 press december sos and topping harry rue than record, untrue. Take it from the Truman Library saying we dont have a figure but 240 to 250, according to statutes at large. Congress passed 292 bills in the session. You could sub frakt from january to april, a few vetoes and that figure. Theyre as we say in the weeds. The weeds showing donald trump was not telling the truth. What about his other achievement as the most unpopular president in the history of National Polling . Well, according to a new gallup poll, theres insult on top of injury because americans in a separate question apart from approval separately named president barack obama today as the most admired man. This is the tenth time of that honor and obama won all eight years president and 2008 of course coming into the office. This also marks the First Time Since 2008, ouch, donald trump, a sitting president didnt top the list. And heres another little factoid. Americans voted Hillary Clinton the most admired woman 16th year in a row because maybe people and not the Electoral College are involved in this poll. More joy, joy reid working late and back with me, tim obrien. Joy, i want all the feelings, all of your analysis. All the feeling. Of this. Yes, yes. But these polls are funny because as you know they often follow the president. Yeah. Billy on the street and puts a mike in peoples face on camera and name a person. The president. Right. But that tendency has run into a brick wall for some reason this year. Its interesting. No matter which way you look at the poll, as true admiration or name i. D. , it is going to drive donald trump insane either way. Tims a better expert on dromps psyche and the fact is donald trump is either less popular and loved by than barack obama and drives him crazy. Negatively obsessed with obama or less wellknown than barack obama. That also hurts. Painful. On the women, because the kay gallup asked this, most admired man and woman. Hillary clinton up there. Michelle obama behind her. Behind her, oprah winfrey, Elizabeth Warren and angela merkel. You think about alabama where women and specifically africanamerican women were so key to changing the state red to blue. What does it say that so many of the women on this list, this question to both of you, seem to be of the left or center left persuasion . Well, i mean, i think well find out what that means when the midterms roll around. You can set your watch right now to how long it takes for donald trump to start tweeting about this poll. Because i agree with joy. I do think it drives him nuts and he is ranked below a woman he a woman he defeated in a president ial election. And the president he succeeded. This kind of stuff grates at him. And its right where he lives. And hell dismiss the polls as lacking credibility. He tends to cite polls that favor him as being more credible than those that dont but it drives him nuts. Gal loup is sort gallup is a standard. Not lefty Public Policy poll and going to hurt. I have to acknowledge beyonce bae on the poll. Number ten tyked with melania. Tied with beyonce. Its significant. The admiration that people have for people like more than three. Rice and nikki haley. It does show theres a greater diversity of who people know and care about. And admire. Thats not a good not good news for the Republican Party which is still essentially the party of older white america. Right. And in terms of the people that theyre putting forward. I want to play president obamas interview here, joy. Youre big online. Youre on tv and online and he did something that he often does. Not cater or a bumper sticker. He kind of here at the end of the year. He used this discussion with prince harry and you know and covered and spent time around the obamas and i think thoughtful when he does do an address or a speech or an interview. He clearly wanted to make a point about the polarizing and antireality elements of the internet. One of the dangers of the internet is that people can have entirely different realities. They can be just cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases. A good way of fighting against that is making sure that online communities dont just stay online. That they move offline. You find areas of Common Ground because you see that things arent as simple as have been portrayed in whatever chat room youve been in. Its also, by the way, harder to be as obnoxious and cruel in person as people can be anonymously on the internet. You know, Barack Obamas a candid individual. Both disdainful of what social media and the internet can and ran the most internet and tech savvy campaign we have seen in modern history and top ten tweets of