and when peace is breaking out on capitol hill, he calls for war. he claims the shutdown is his, and you're going to be seeing that a lot in clips in the coming days, if democrats and republicans don't come together. that does it for us, though. katy tur picks up the coverage right now. katy? >> guys, i really liked your tech segment earlier today. that was awkward. they couldn't hear me. hi there, i'm katy tur in for stephanie ruhle this morning. down to the wire. less than two days until another government shutdown. but the president doesn't seem too worried. >> i would love to see a shutdown if we don't get this stuff taken care of. >> the house passes its fifth stopgap bill as leaders in the senate rush to cobble together one long term deal. >> we've had one trump shutdown. nobody wants another, except maybe him. the white house mulls whether to release the

democratic rebuttal to the nunes memo. and marching orders. the president asks the pentagon to plan a military parade throughout washington after he got jealous of the bastille day celebrations in paris last year. >> one of the greatest parades i've ever seen. we're going to have to try and top it. we begin today with congress staring down the barrel of yet another government shutdown. just 39 hours away. the good news, lawmakers seem intent on avoiding it this time and are trying to hammer out a long term deal. but will the president stand in the way? i've got a great team to help me break it down. let's start on capitol hill with nbc's garrett haake. kasie hunt just sent around an e-mail saying the senate may have found a unicorn, a deal that would please both republicans and democrats. if that does go through, what's the likelihood that the house will get on board for it? >> reporter: if the senate is

able to strike a big deal, katy, house conservatives may not necessarily like it, because what we're talking about in a lot of cases is ways to spend more money, so more defense spending, more domestic spending, more spending potentially for disaster relief efforts, and a lot of other things crammed into one big deal that could pass the senate. but then house conservatives won't be the only ones to have a voice in this. all of a sudden you'll see how democrats potentially come off the sideline to vote for a bill that could clear the decks on a number of these big issues and takeaway the shutdown threat for a good long while. we heard from the senate leadership yesterday, both mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer talking about this unicorn possibility. take a listen to what they had to say. all right. no sound bite. we won't listen to them. i'll summarize thusly. that one's on me. but look, both men were optimistic that a deal could be struck. this is language you frankly haven't heard here on the hill

for quite a while. now, listen, the other risk factor here is, think of this, if we can switch metaphors, almost like a house of cards. every layer you add to a deal makes it a little less stable and potentially risks a little bit more complication. so the bigger the deal gets, the more optimism there is that holy cow, maybe we can clear the decks on all these things, but the more complex the process becomes. so we'll be watching this very closely today. what's really going to be a lot of closed door conversations between leaders to get something done, to potentially take this shutdown threat away, for maybe two years if they're actually able to get this done, katy. >> garrett, a lot of folks went home yesterday, had dinner with their families, woke up with the last thing on the news being donald trump saying that he wants a shutdown, that he welcomes it, that if the democrats don't get on board for immigration, there should be a shutdown. immigration is not in either one of these bills. how did the president's -- did he throw a wrench into anything?

there seems to be a disconnect there. >> reporter: there is definitely a disconnect there. look, no one up here is talking about attaching an immigration bill or immigration debate to what's being done right now, in the next 36 hours, to prevent a shutdown. that's a wholly separate issue, and it's going to be dealt with next week. mr. speaker, are we going to have a shutdown next week? i always try. he never answers. if he's going to pop through, i feel like he has to ask. >> he doesn't take questions in the hallway, isn't that the policy? >> reporter: yes, he's told me this many times, but look, this is my job. going back to your question, the idea that there would be a shutdown over an immigration bill isn't connected to the legislative reality we're facing right here. and by the way, if this big budget deal passes, that largely removes the mechanism for a shutdown of any kind as they move to debate immigration next week. i think a trump-driven

immigration shutdown is a thing that is just not going to happen. >> nbc's garrett haake, thank you very much. now to the white house and nbc's period of time alexander who is standing by to us. period of ti peter, i was just talking to garrett about what the president said yesterday about wanting a shutdown. was the president not in the loop or in the loop when it came to what exactly the democrats and republicans were negotiating on congress? >> reporter: it's a good question, the tone certainly didn't match the tone that we were hearing from the top republican and democrat senators yesterday. a week ago the president stood there on capitol hill before the country in the state of the union and called for bipartisanship and unity, his words exactly were that we should set aside our differences to seek out common ground. that obviously did not last. first he accused democrats of being treasonous during the state of the union, tongue in cheek the white house says, and then that declaration that he

repeated during a meeting on gang violence, seemingly, as garrett noted, ignoring the process on capitol hill, threatening to hold the government hostage. >> i would love to see a shutdown if we don't see this taken care of. if we have to shut it down because the democrats don't want safety and unrelated but still related, they don't want to take care of our military, then shut it down. we'll go with another shutdown. >> reporter: so after those repeated calls from the president, as we've seen in the past, it was left to his precise secretary sarah sanders to try to clarify. here she is. >> we are not advocating for the shutdown. that's the fault of the democrats not being willing to do their jobs. the president wants a long term deal and he wants to get a deal on immigration and we hope that democrats will come to the table and get those things done. >> reporter: as for that debate over immigration, obviously the chief of staff, john kelly's comments, aren't likely to make

it easier, kelly facing back lashes for calling undocumented immigrants or dreamers who never signed up for daca "too lazy." >> let's ignore sarah huckabee sanders and john kelly for a second, because this is often about what the president will say or do and he oftentimes says things very different from what his staff says. he says he wants a deal on immigration as part of this funding bill. if he doesn't get a deal on immigration, is there a chance that he won't sign it? >> reporter: it's a good question. here is the bottom line. this is important to try to understand. remember, this bill that's being discussed, this longer term, larger bill being discussed by congress right now, specifically by senators right now, it does not include immigration. so what he was talking about was far removed from the deal that they are talking about right now. so he wouldn't have, as garrett indicated, that mechanism to try to shut down the government over immigration if this is to pass, if this is to go forward. what will the president do with

immigration? it's now going to be up to lawmakers to deal with this independently. one of the president's on-again/off-again allies, lindsey graham, said he felt present optimistic that they were back on track after the conversations that have been had. so for now we wait and see what the president's next move might be. >> nbc's peter alexander at the white house, peter, good morning, thanks for being here. let's go to today's panel, jeremy peters, lorena maxwell, and rick tyler. jeremy, let's stay on this topic for one more question of where the president stands. is anyone listening to him on capitol hill? because it sure seems like with that comment we heard yesterday and what's happening today, that the answer is no. >> i think that's right. and -- >> i mean yes -- well, no. >> leaders have said as much,

the president, the president as usual is having these conversations with himself in a silo, completely divorced from reality on capitol hill. we've seen this time and time again, where the president doesn't understand or care to understand the finer points of how deals get done on capitol hill. the immigration debate and the budget debate are happening completely separate from one another. they're not related. and if there's not an immigration deal, the government is not going to shut down. so the president's insistence that a shutdown would be great is just really irrelevant to this discussion. now, however, you do think that where the president's words will matter going forward is in the immigration discussion. and when we get into next week, and as we get closer to the expiration that the president -- expiration date the president has imposed on daca, that's when his pressure will matter. you're going to see a wing of

congressional republicans who are very likely, republicans tell me, to take their cues from the parking lot. -- the president. if he is supportive or not supportive of the dreamers issue, that's going to make a difference in the debate and shaping the contours of that discussion. >> we'll get to the dreamers and immigration in a moment, but let's stay with the shutdown for just a beat. the legislation in the senate increasing spending, a two-year deal, it will add $300 billion to the budget, roughly split between defense and nondefense spending. it seems like a pretty fair deal. republicans want more defense spending. democrats want more domestic spending. what took so long to get here? >> that's a good question, because i think that, you know, all along you had both saying they want to reach a compromise, yet no compromise was reached. republicans obtained to the deals in the previous shutdown

fight. without daca and deadlines and essentially that leverage, it will be a tough moment for democrats to try to force the president's hand to do something on daca. that's really unfortunate because 120 people a day are losing their status. so this is actually about real people and not just the policy and the numbers that we're talking about. >> mark meadows, the chairman of the freedom caucus, not a fan of raising the deficit, not a fan of spending more, he was on "morning joe" a moment ago and basically saying that he was resigned to the additional spending. take a listen. >> i'm afraid that the numbers will get so high, and the debt ceiling will get added, and it will be a christmas tree of spending that a lot of votes will be bought. so it will be, quote, a bipartisan deal but you'll end up with 120 or 140 democrats and maybe about the same on republicans sending this to the president's desk. >> he's not happy about it. i'm not saying the freedom

caucus is going to necessarily sign on for this. >> the republican party used to be against deficit spending and balanced budgets. >> didn't that get blown out of the water with the tax bill? >> absolutely. he doesn't have any leverage here. look, the democrats don't want to shut down. they learned their lesson last time. there's going to be no shutdown, that's not going to happen. the idea that president would throw daca into the middle of it, that's just him being a blow hard. it's posturing to look like a tough guy. it's just amazing that he didn't understand that detail, that daca and all the immigration had been taken off the table, they're going to deal with that separately, they're going to pass a budget. democrats and republicans would like to get a two-year spending bill so we don't have these fiscal cliffs every 90 days. >> the democrats would say the dreamers right now who are still waiting for -- >> the compromise will be

expensive. >> jeremy, what is the timeline for the debate, where do the bills stand? do you foresee any ability by the different wings of congress to come to a bipartisan agreement on what to do with dreamers and what to do about border security? >> i think, katy, the question comes down to what house conservatives want. i think that you look at chuck schumer's comments, you look at mitch mcconnell's comments. in the senate it's going to be easier to get to a deal, not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but you could conceive of a situation where they get the votes in the senate and it gets sent to the house. the problem is, in the house, in 2006, 2013, immigration failed because republicans did not support it. you see this time and time again, the conservative wing of the republican party gets whipped up by talk radio, is afraid of their base, and in all of those previous instances, you

didn't have president trump. so the issue of immigration now is so much more raw and so much more personal, and quite frankly, with john kelly's comments and the president's comments, has become so much more inflamed that i think getting to a solution, even on just something as specific and singular as the dreamers, is going to be really hard to do. >> we're completely out of time, but a quick question, if democrats, in order to get dreamers passed and saved, are democrats in the position where they have no choice but to give donald trump basically everything he wants? >> yes. >> stay with us. the pentagon is planning a military parade after president trump asked for us. is this a celebration of our armed forces or just a waste of money? the white house is in damage control after president trump calling the democrats treasonous for not standing during the state of the union. press secretary sarah huckabee sanders said the president was, quote, clearly joking.

"the daily show" agreed it was a joke, it was just the wrong venue for the joke. >> did anybody happen to see the state of the union address? okay. you're up there, you've got half the room going totally crazy, wild, and you have the other side, they were like death, and un-american. un-american. somebody said treasonous. i mean, yeah, i guess, why not? . and tank. and tiny. and this is laura's mobile dog grooming palace. laura can clean up a retriever that rolled in foxtails, but she's not much on "articles of organization." articles of what? so, she turned to legalzoom. they helped me out. she means we helped with her llc, trademark, and a lot of other legal stuff that's a part of running a business. so laura can get back to the dogs. would you sit still? this is laura's mobile dog grooming palace and this is where life meets legal.

at president trump's request, a possible military parade is in the works. the president has often praised a big show of force parade like the one he saw in the bastille say celebrations he watched in paris last year. now we could see a similar festivity in washington, d.c. let's go to nbc pentagon correspondent hans nichols and the executive editor of "defense one," good to see you, gentlemen, bright and early this morning. hans, what has the pentagon said about where we are for the plans for a parade? >> katy, they're not denying this at all. the speed with which the pentagon confirmed this was surprising, normally it's very difficult to get any sort of readout on directives that have been given inside the tank, that's a secure room here in the pentagon. they confirmed it right away. their general take has to be, we

do parades all the time, it's part of our outreach, if the president wants one in washington, d.c., we'll accommodate him. it seems like the prognosis is pushing for veterans day, or the fourth of july. a senior military official told me all options are on the table. >> fourth of july would be interesting. this isn't the first time we would have a large scale military parade like this in the u.s., the last one was in 1991, it cost $12 million. with inflation it would cost $22 million today. where does that money come from? kevin? >> gee, good question. i think it depends on the region or the district. usually these kind of parades are done on bases. it's been so rare. there is a military district in washington, d.c. that might pay for it. i'll tell you, the last time i went to one of these was in kuwait for the anniversary of the gulf war and kuwait's 50th year of independents. the americans, the saudis, the countries that participated in the gulf war went to basically the beltway outside of kuwait

city to put this on. these are not small affairs. military units have to drill and train for them. it takes them away from doing their real jobs. twitter has blown up in the military community. veterans and active duty folks saying this stinks to make us do this, this isn't for us, this is for you. but some others say, hey, i love parades, we'll do it if we have to. but, you know, it's not exactly our number one priority right now. >> hans, what's the reception in the pentagon about this? republicans are trying to get defense spending through, democrats want an increase in domestic spending along with it. $22 million or who knows how much it's agagoing to cost, is there any concern over where this money will come from? >> if there is concern, i'm too lousy of a reporter to find it. you have community outreach budgets in every base, it's part of recruitment. before 9/11 and in an earlier time, a lot of these parades

were done on military installations. now they go out in the community more. this is part of their budget. remember, a large part of what community outreach does is trying to get the next generation of soldiers, the army itself has to get 80,000 soldiers. that was their target for this year, to keep it an all-volunteer force. and kevin knows this as well, officials here, whether it's army, air force, navy, marines, they're constantly looking for opportunities to tell their story. the general view here is this is something they would like to do. as kevin and i know, any time you go to a military base, they want to show you their equipment. they're not toys, but they want to show you the military hardware. if given the chance to parade that around, frankly, they will seize the opportunity. >> kevin, you've got new reporting on afghanistan, you were in the middle east with a centcom commander. what's the status of the war in afghanistan? is there hope that it's going to come to a positive conclusion

now? and what's the reception for the president out there? >> yes, so general votel is the central commander, in charge of all the troops from the edge of turkey all the way to afghanistan. this is the job general mattis had before him, a couple of generals ago. so he's gone out to really look at the start of what you could call the trump surge, this new south asia strategy. the troops out there have said basically in short that they've been on the defense since 2014 when obama declared the end of combat operations, and that they've been waiting, waiting to go back on the offensive and really go after the taliban, that the afghans have held their own but everyone knows it's not a good situation out there and you're seeing more and more bombing attacks. i was with votel on base, operation resolute support headquarters, i was in kabul when the suicide bomber went off a week ago. it was a moment to say, look, this war is still going on, these attacks are going to

happen. there's a lot of hope. the generals, the colonels out there, they have maybe a little bit too much hope, i think. a lot of folks in d.c. are really skeptical. there are a lot of cynics. there are a lot of veterans who have fought in many, many iterations of this war since 2001. a lot of people think how is this going to be different. we found out it is going to be different. there's a new plan, a new era. it's not the same afghan force. it's not the same taliban. with a little bit of authority to go on the offensive, they're hoping to make a difference this year. >> do they credit donald trump with the change in policy? >> they do. they really do. now, it's not exactly trump's policy. general votel said he and others have been -- before mattis even got there, they've been pushing up to washington that they wanted more of these authorities. and it took a little bit of time form mattis to come into place, to work with chairman dunford. now it's finally coming into play.

maybe you can go back to november or so, that with new authorities -- actually you can go farther back in the year with special operations forces, being able to go attack leadership. now they'll go after things like the drug labs and drug networks and financial networks, just as they went after the oil networks for isis in iraq and syria. they sent more attack planes to help with offensive operations and cover support for ground forces, both american and afghan. so they do credit trump. they like the south asia strategy. they're glad that they have at least that. it's not much more than a speech and five bullet points, but they say it's more than perhaps the guys in syria know they're fighting for. so they have a little bit of direction and they're ready to go. >> check out kevin's article in "defense one," "meet the believers, u.s. commanders ready for a reboot." it's a fascinating read. kevin, great work with that, hans nichols, thank you to you as well. we're minutes away from the

opening bell on wall street. dow futures are down once again. could it be deja vu all over again? first, we're less than 48 hours away from the opening ceremony of the olympics on nbc, in case you forgot. earlier today, 229-member all female cheering section from north korea arrived in south korea for the games. the delegation is led by kim jong un's younger sister, the first time any members of the kim dynasty has visited the country just to their south. we'll be right back. at ally, we offer low-cost trades and high-yield savings. but if that's not enough, we offer innovative investing tools to prepare you for the future. looks like you hooked it. and if that's not enough, we'll help your kid prepare for the future. don't hook it kid. and if that's still not enough, we'll help your kid's kid prepare for the future. looks like he hooked it. we'll do anything... takes after his grandad. seriously anything, to help you invest for the future.

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welcome back. it's so early in the morning for me. stephanie is awake at 9:00 a.m. i'm usually still a bit groggy. i'll try to do that again. welcome back. time for your morning primer, everything you need to know to start your day. yet another scare for amtrak passengers, a train traveling from washington, d.c. to new york broke apart while going 125 miles per hour. this is amtrak's third incident in one week, and it's the fourth in just two months. the man suspected of driving drunk and running his car into

indianapolis colts linebacker edwin jackson and an uber driver, killing both, will appear in court this morning. he is an undocumented immigrant who has been deported twice. the u.s. military has reportedly completed its investigation into last october's ambush in niger that killed four soldiers. cnn says the findings could potentially lead to reprimands or punishments for those involved in authorizing the mission. casino mogul and gop donor steve wynn is stepping down as ceo of wynn resorts amid sexual assault allegations. he's denied all the allegations. spacex is celebrating a successful launch of its biggest rockets, carrying a tesla roadster into outer space forever. they want to eventually carry humans into outer space. let's go now to wall street. the market just opened and the

dow is down. after a wild day of dramatic swings on tuesday, the dow rallied to close up more than 500 points. let's go to cnbc's dominic chu. dom, how are the markets looking this morning? >> reporter: it's a little more stable. after that wild swing yesterday, we were down 567 points on the dow yesterday only to rally back to close up 567. one of the biggest rides we've seen in terms of overall point volatility. today, an early sign of stability at least early on. we'll see if traders take that as a sign that things are starting to bottom out a little bit. markets have been generally stable. this kind of volatility should be expected and has been over the long term, katy. >> why did we see a rally last night? >> reporter: so the trends are things that people watch in terms of investors and traders on wall street. the trend over the last couple of years is that the market has been up and away with no real signs of a pullback whatsoever. every time there's been a little

bit of a pullback, investors have stepped in to buy. when you have a bigger pullback like we saw over the last few days, it pretty much brought a lot of folks back into the marketplace saying, hey, if i can get stocks on sale, maybe i'll buy some. that was one of the reasons we saw the big drive higher to a big close. >> what does this mean for everybody's 401(k)'s and their investments? >> reporter: that's a totally relevant question. if you're a longer term investor, i have a 401(k), i'm not sure if you contribute to yourself. >> i do. >> reporter: you've been a systematic buyer every paycheck, let's call it every two weeks. for those people who have, a lot of financial advisers we talked to say, just stay with it, don't panic about these types of situations. if you're a systematic buyer of the stock market and a longer term investor, this is not the time to think about selling everything just because you've seen some volatility in the marketplace. let's not forget, if you do have a retirement account and have been contributing over the last few years consistently, we are

still within 7, 8% of a record high in the stock market. so your 401(k) or ira should be doing good right now. >> you're telling me ignore my financial statements, don't worry about it and power through until i retire? >> reporter: katy, you and i are young enough right now where we have a number of years before we're thinking about that retirement. for folks like us, we don't need the money right away, we should feel okay about what's happening in the market right now, especially because the economy is still growing, albeit mod he is -- modestly. >> speak for yourself, dom, the news has been wild, i might want to retire at 40. >> reporter: me too, i'm get morning gray these days, katy. >> cnbc's dom chu, thank you very much. the white house is deciding whether or not to release the democratic rebuttal to the nunes memo which blasted the fbi for using the steele dossier as a rationale for wiretaps. now a new report details how steele went from an unknown former british spy to the

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considering whether or not toe release the democrats' rebuttal to the russia memo put together by republican devin nunes. a brand-new report by "the washington post" details the key timeline of how former british spy christopher steele who wrote the now infamous trump dossier became a flashpoint in the russia investigation. the report says, quote, in the fall of 2016, a little more than a month before donald trump was elected president, christopher steele had the undivided attention of the fbi. he had grown so worried about what he had learned from his russia networks about the kremlin's plans that he told colleagues it was like, quote, sitting on a nuclear weapon. let's bring "the washington post"'s rosalind hellman. rosalind, the story, first of all, is absolutely fascinating. >> thank you. >> we learn a lot about

christopher steele, who he was, where he came from, and what he felt like he was finding out and how alarmed he was. lay out a brief version of your reporting for those of our viewers who might not have read it of themselves. >> sure. thank you so much for those kind words. christopher steele was a former mi6 officer, had been stationed for a while in moscow and led the british government's efforts out of the london office before entering the private sector in 2009 and starting this sort of business intelligence company that was largely hired by private corporate clients. he had done some work with the fbi before, though. he had worked on this big fifa case which ultimately ended up resulting in 14 people being charged with criminal felonies in the united states. when he was hired by this american company to do research on donald trump and russia in

june of 2016, he kind of put out feelers to his longstanding russian network and were told by his friends and associates things that he was very alarmed by. we lay out the whole history of his attempts to sort of balance his obligations to his paying client, who ultimately was the clinton campaign, but also to his own conscience and the obligations he felt as a former public servant in great britain to kind of sound the alarm. "the washington post" spoke with him a number of times. would you say he was alarmed? >> i'm sorry? >> you guys spoke with him a number of times, before the election. would you say that he was genuinely alarmed? >> so we do reveal in this story or confirm in this story for the first time, because it's been in some court records, that he came to "the washington post" twice before the election to discuss some of what he was finding. those conversations were off the

record and we're going to continue to honor that off the record obligation and not reveal what he talked about. but i think it's fair to say that his actions in that time frame show he was increasingly agitated and, yes, alarmed by what he was finding. >> chuck grassley is talking about a criminal complaint about christopher steele potentially peddling false information but also not being truthful about his media contacts to the fbi. what's your take on that? >> so we learned some new things about that just last night. charles grassley put out a sort of unclassified version of his criminal referral. and so what we learned was that there was this article in yahoo! news by michael isikoff in late september 2016 that talked about intelligence reports being given to u.s. intelligence, and cited a western intelligence source as giving that information. we now know from these ongoing

libel suits that christopher steele did meet with yahoo! in that time frame. however, according to senator grassley, the fisa court that gave permission to monitor carter page was told the fbi did not believe that steele had directly given the information to yahoo!. that was actually in the fisa application. so he's raising questions, did steele lie to the fbi to lead them to that conclusion. and, you know, we're told that this has been particularly dismaying, this notion that these actions to kind of warn the u.s. government has resulted in a criminal referral has been particularly dismaying to steele, and in fact my colleague tom hamburger spoke to a number of members of parliament in the uk saw this as a special affront to great britain. you have this guy, respected public service career in the uk, who, you know, did have a

private client but was trying to warn our government, and now we've got u.s. senators who want to have him criminally investigated. >> zerlina and rick, you guys have been on campaigns in 2016, ted cruz, hillary clinton. rick, when you read this article, tell me what your reaction was. >> this is unbelievable. you can understand how fiction writers have a hard time today. it's an epic story. tom and rosalind did an amazing job. opposition researchers in general, they look at the public record, they'll look at divorce filings, tax filings, they'll go to the hometown of the opposition and talk to a few people. this is on a whole different level. this is an actual spy, someone who has been trained to spy, who is integrated deeply into russia and has all these connections that no opposition firm that i know of would have ever gotten. >> just because it's opposition research, does that mean it's not credible? >> no, of course not. but it's going to have the patina of being political.

so you have a campaign and ultimately the hillary clinton campaign controlled what became known as the dossier, the 17 memos, and that makes it very easy to question motivations, because this is about the presidency. and so, no, the information -- i personally think the information is very credible. i think steele found himself -- he left the british spy agency, went into business by himself, he gets hired by fusion gps, and he is alarmed, and i think he's a patriot, not an american patriot, a british patriot, but respected that relationship with the united states to warn the united states. but that's in direct conflict with his client's -- he has a client. and now the trump campaign and administration would say, look, it was politically motivated the whole time, and they're not wrong in saying that. >> if this was the opposite, if it was the koch brothers funding somebody against hillary clinton, wouldn't the reaction be the same from democrats? >> i don't know that it would be the same. the facts about what was in the

memo and what has been verified, because if you listen to dianne feinstein when she talks about the dossier, she's very careful in her words. she says, every time she talks about it, there have been no claims that are unverified. obviously we all focus on the salacious video, potentially, but there are other things in that document that are perhaps even more important to the national security of the united states, the financial ties, and people can be blackmailed for having too much debt and financial ties in the same way they could with a salacious tape. so i think that, yeah, perhaps it could be politicized if the roles were reversed. but does that matter in terms of national security? >> here's a way we could easily clear this up, if donald trump released his tax returns and show that he has no financial ties to russia. that has not happen. let's also remember that one interview that don junior gave, maybe he was exaggerating, maybe he was not, but he said a disproportionate amount of money that comes into the trump organization comes from russia. that was from a few years back.

rosalind halderman, great reporting, a fantastic pees. former vice president joe biden is weighing in, and he's not holding back. stay with us. [ click, keyboard clacking ] [ keyboard clacking ] [ click, keyboard clacking ] ♪ good questions lead to good answers. our advisors can help you find both. talk to one today and see why we're bullish on the future. yours. talk to one today and see why we're bullish on the future. no one burns on heartburn. my watch! try alka seltzer ultra strength heartburn relief chews. with more acid-fighting power than tums chewy bites. mmmmm...amazing. i have heartburn. ultra strength from alka seltzer. enjoy the relief.

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former vice president joe biden is calling out president trump on a wide range of issues, including his comment this week that anyone who didn't applaud his state of the union address was treasonist. listen. >> anybody who didn't stand up and clap for him was un-american and maybe even treasonist. what the hell? >> they said it was tongue in cheek. democrats can't take a joke. >> let me tell you, he's a joke. >> matt, what do you think about biden's comments? >> i think it's true that we should stop calling people traders. the democrats have spent the last year calling donald trump a trader, saying he colluded with russia. you know, your coverage on this dossier. we spent a lot of time throwing around the t. word and the president was putting it right back in their face that it's not -- it's an unkind charge and

maybe what we ought to do is start working together better in this country to solve our problems. >> i'm not sure how many people are throwing around the word treasonist in the coverage, the reporters at least. but that's a bit of a -- >> i didn't mean that charge. >> but it is a bit of a conflation. the dossier is allegining usurping -- donald trump saying they didn't clap for me. >> the dossier is unsubstantiated by the fbi's own internal conversations is accusing donald trump of treason, which is not accurate and has dominated our politics for a year and it is un -- it just seems ridiculous to all of a sudden bring up the concept that donald trump is raising this term treason. he is the one who has been charged with it by almost every elected democrat for a year. >> let's talk about mueller and frankly we don't know what robert mueller has been able to

substantial in that dossier or not substantiate, but we don't know. >> that's right. >> do you think the president should -- there's this reporting "the new york times" that trump's lawyers do not want him to sit down with special counsel robert mueller because he's at risk with purgering himself. >> anybody is running a large risk. think of mike flynn. mike flynn is accused of saying something that the fbi views as not similar to what he said in another conversation not with the fbi. not under oath, not having anything to do with perjury. it takes -- it's the fbi's opinion that you even give a slightly different answer that can lead to a misdemeanor immediately. so that's what they call a perjury trap. every good lawyer would be

redsent to put their client in that situation. >> he told the fbi that he did not have a conversation about sanctions when the fbi heard him talking about sanctions. but moving on from that, you're talking about a perjury trap of donald trump has nothing to hide and if he just tells the truth -- >> he has nothing to hide because of what i just described which is let's go back to the reason why we have a special counsel is because there was a charge that was collusion with russia. no one has a scintilla of evidence that there was or that mueller has any evidence of any collusion. now the question is it a fishing expedition to find anything, something. give me something on donald trump so that we can charge him with something, including what they charged mike flynn with, which is not perjury, it is saying one thing to one person and another version to the fbi that the fbi views as not similar enough. >> you can't lie to federal investigators. there's that.

>> i don't think you should. by the way, i don't want -- if he did, you shouldn't do that. i don't want to justify that. >> we don't know what the mueller investigation is going to come up with. let's make that clear. there have been two indictments and two guilty pleas. that is something to say this investigation is not a big nothing burger. >> nothing having to do with collusion. >> we don't know yet. >> this is a fact. none of the indictments have anything to do with russian collusion. it has to do with manaforts and gates with activities before they were involved with donald trump and with lieutenant general mike flynn has to do with what i described twice it is not perjury and it is not a crime. >> we'll see what else robert mueller comes out with. >> that's right. >> if you read "the new york times" article and talk to those who know donald trump and i talk to those who know donald trump, have known him for a long time, the real concern is that he's not disciplined enough to testify under oath. he says so many things that are not true on a daily basis that he cannot be trusted or is too much of a risk to sit down with

the special counsel. donald trump says oftentimes veri verifybli many hours during the day. >> i think donald trump runs a risk if he sits down with mueller if mueller has it in for him. i worked with bob mueller. i respect bob mueller. i'm going to continue to believe that he will continue to do right by the country and only pursue wrong doing if there's wrong doing. that being said, i do think after a year of this special counsel and the way this is all gone down, i can understand donald trump's lawyers being red sent to think he's going to get a fair shake. >> i think we're all curious to find out what happens next. matt schlapp thanks for joining us. we'll be right back.

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that will wrap up things for this hour. the groggy stephanie ruhle is back tomorrow. i'll be back at 2:00 p.m. today where i hopefully will be awake. i can't talk. right now, more with hallie jackson. >> give her more coffee stat. >> thank you much. we appreciate it. we start off saying something we do not often say here in washington, it looks like congress may be getting ready to break the cycle of governing by crisis one day before the potential second shutdown of the year. overnight, the house sent the senate a spending plan tha