legend as he looks to become the first three-time gold medal winner tonight. her time. all eyes on skiing sensation michaela schifrin as she gets ready to hit the slopes in her debut. could she walk away with five olympic gold medals? all that plus why are russian athletes showing up in force despite the country being banned from the games? and the winds having major havoc on the competition. and going up? the hottest new olympic sport, riding the escalator? we ll explain. today, tuesday, february 13th, 2018. from nbc news, this is a special edition of today, at the olympic games, with savannah guthrie and hoda kotb, live from pyeongchang, south korea. hey, everybody. thank you for joining us. it is 7:00 a.m., on a tuesday morning. 9:00 at night here at pyeongchang. you are looking at not only our awesome crowd, but some terrific athletes joining us on the plaza. we have great members of team usa. there s one member of team usa, that everybody is talking about. yo
good morning, everyone, i m alex witt at msnbc world headquarters in new york. 9:00 a.m. and here s what s happening. not so fast president trump blocks the democrat memo on russia. the one respond together gop memo, released last week. the reason behind the decision, next. he says he s innocent. and i think you have to remember that. he said very strongly yesterday, that he s innocent. the president s take on one of his top aides resigning over domestic abuse allegations. but now there s another resignation from the white house. new details this morning. the fate of hope hicks, new information on where the latest west wing turmoil leaves the long-time trump loyalist. plus i tried to be that person and then all of the people around him attacked me. from white house to big brother house, omarosa in hushed tones spinning tales from the west wing. is it self-promotion or truth, or both? reaction ahead. and this reaction from capitol hill, president trump s refu
i need you to say no, it s going to be okay. it s not going to be okay. it s not. omarosa, oh, my, oh, brother. can we really take her seriously? but we begin with a live picture of capitol hill, where democrats are pushing back on the president s refusal to authorize the release of their intel memo, meant as a rebuttal to the gop memo that was released last week. here is what congressman rubin gallego, who was here last hour, told me. the republican memo has a lot of false assertions and in general leads the reader into a false direction. the democratic memo blows the cover that donald trump and his complicit partners on the house intel committee have trying to create, which is an excuse to fire the deputy attorney general. president trump tweeted this morning that the democrats sent a very political and long response memo which they knew, because of sources and methods and more, would have to be heavily redacted, where upon they would blame the white house for lack
democrats saying they intentionally included the information. molly is live from the white house with details. the president is saying the democrats should have known this was coming. in that, the president said the democrats wrote the memo in such a way that it could not be released. he tweeted this my democrats is a very political and long response memo which they knew because of sources and methods and more. would have to be heavily redacted. whereupon they would blame the white house for lack of transparency. told him to redo and sent back in proper form. republicans had the same memo led by devin nunes that we could go. and they did so by the secret fisa court allow the ff to sign former trump campaign advisor carter page. republicans say the bulk of the evidence used was political opposition research. ultimately hunted by the democratic national committee and the hillary clinton campaign. democrats dispute that and the top democrat on the house intelligence committee,
this week, we learned more about the best people donald trump hired to staff his administration. starting with his former staff secretary, rob porter. both his ex-wives have accused porter of years of domestic violence and abuse. that was not news to some senior members of the administration. white house counsel down mcgahn knew of the accusations back in january of 2017. trump s chief of staff, john kelly, learned of the allegations this past fall when he found out that the fbi was delaying porter s security clearance. yet porter stayed on as kelly s right hand man, designated to see classified material, despite reports that porter was one of 30 officials working without full security clearance. that list including jared kushner. when the allegations against porter were first made public tuesday night, john kelly defended porter as a man of true integrity and honor. he reversed course the following day after porter first wife, colbie holderness, released this photo showing a