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Trump's Tweets All Migrants "Will Stay in Mexico"; Nancy Pelosi Facing Tight Math in Race for House Speaker; Trump to Hold Two Rallies in Mississippi Tomorrow; Democrats Hope for Stunning Upset in Mississippi; Roger Stone's Associate in Plea Negotiations with Mueller. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired November 25, 2018 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[08:00:16] NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN HOST (voice-over): President Trump threatens to shut down the government and close U.S. border, and picks a fight with judges.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've got a lot of bad court decisions from the Ninth Circuit. It's a disgrace.

HENDERSON: Mueller's end game? Could he flip the man who could connect the Trump campaign to WikiLeaks?

Plus, Nancy Pelosi fights for the gavel. But who is she actually fighting?

REP. BRIAN HIGGINS (D), NEW YORK: There's not an alternative right now.

HENDERSON: And the midterms aren't over yet. The Mississippi run-off turns into a referendum on race.

SEN. CINDY HYDE-SMITH (R), MISSISSIPPI: For anyone that was offended for my -- by my comments, I certainly apologize.

MIKE ESPY (D), MISSISSIPPI SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: It's caused our state harm. It's given our state another black eye that we don't need.

HENDERSON: INSIDE POLITICS, the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters, now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HENDERSON: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm Nia-Malika Henderson, in this morning for John King.

To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thank you for sharing your Sunday.

President Trump ended the Thanksgiving week like he spent the rest of it, lashing out at critics and slamming U.S. immigration policy. Migrants at the southern border will not be allowed in the southern

United States until their claims are individually approved in court, the president tweeted last night. All will stay in Mexico. If for any reason it becomes necessary, we will close our southern border. There is no way the United States will, after decades of abuse, put up with this costly and dangerous situation anymore.

That tweet, just days after a federal district judge struck down his plan to deny asylum to anyone crossing the border illegally. The president did not take that decision well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You go to the Ninth Circuit and it's a disgrace. And I'm going to put in a major complaint, because you cannot win if you're us, a case in the Ninth Circuit. This was an Obama judge. And I'll tell you what? It's not going to happen like this anymore.

It means an automatic loss, no matter what you do, no matter how good your case is. And the Ninth Circuit is really something we have to take a look at because it's not fair.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: That implied threat in his talk of an Obama judge prompted a rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts, who released a rare public statement, saying there are no Obama judges or Trump judges and that we should all be thankful this holiday season for an independent judiciary.

With this morning, this Sunday, to share their reporting and their insights, we got "Bloomberg's" Margaret Talev, Michael Warren from "The Weekly Standard", "The Washington Post's" Karoun Demirjian, and Catherine Lucy from "The Associated Press".

Thank you all for being here on this holiday weekend.

Margaret, what a week we've seen from this president, really raging, right, in that call with troops about immigration, about a possible shut down of the border and there's also this talk of a possible deal with Mexico. Where do things stand right now? What's Trump's next move? What's Mexico's next move?

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG: Yes. Well, you're right. It was an absolutely extraordinary week. You don't see John Roberts sort of stepping in and speaking his mind very often.

HENDERSON: Right.

TALEV: That tells you to his mind what point things have come to. What's happening now between the U.S. and Mexico is a combination of a couple of factors, and one is that you just have this exodus of people from Central America, Guatemala, other places, coming up through Mexico, kind of stuck at the border. It's a humanitarian situation, it's governing situation for the Mexican government as well as the U.S.

The president obviously has his own political concerns, keeping the base satisfied that he is working on his immigration-related pledges, and dealing with a reality of a Congress that he's not going to have really very much control over at all anymore, because Democrats have taken over. Things will get that much harder starting in January.

The outlines of this apparent deal are still pretty new. "The Washington Post" reporting this yesterday and no agreement signed yet. But it appears that what's happened is that the president and the incoming Mexican government are trying to work on an arrangement in which you're seeking asylum in the U.S., you claim that process while you're still on the Mexican side.

But what it appears in the Mexican government is not willing to do is this sort of other proposal that the Trump administration had been sort of trying to explore, the idea that -- this sort of safe third, it's called, this idea that if you were seeking asylum -- trying to seek asylum to the U.S., maybe since you were in Mexico --

[08:05:0] HENDERSON: You stay there.

(CROSSTALK)

TALEV: So, that is not an alternative the Mexican government is interested in and would certainly likely face legal challenge. We all expect this face legal challenge as well. There are a lot of humanitarian concerns about drug control areas by the murder, concerns about whether the actual spirit of asylum can still be followed in this manner.

So, I think this is evolving. We have to watch this --

HENDERSON: Ongoing, the president is declaring victory already, but we've seen him done that, do that before --

TALEV: Of course, but this is the new Mexican government, trying to figure out what is tactically the smartest way to try to work with President Trump, who they're going to have many disagreements with.

HENDERSON: Yes, yes.

Doesn't sound like -- Karoun, one of the things we heard from the president was the idea that he would shut down the government over border security, over money for his border wall. Where are we with this? In some ways, it sounds like deja vu all over again for this president.

KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CONGRESSIONAL REOPRTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: I was going to say, how many times have we heard him say I'm going to shut down the whole government over the wall?

The blowback of doing something like that, and doing something like that right before the holidays is fairly large. The risk of -- look, Congress is not actually going to want to do this. The Republicans of Congress don't want to shut down the government over the wall. Trump would have to take it upon themselves if they strike a deal to veto that entire budget deal to say no.

He could do it. We've known this president to be, you know, impulsive on other things. It's not impossible. But again, at this point, it might be a little bit of the boy who cried wolf and I don't want to tempt fate with this, but he kept saying this every single time, and it keeps actually being a very smooth, OK, we get another extension through.

HENDERSON: And then he complains again when it comes back and I'll shut it down.

DEMIRJIAN: Right.

HENDERSON: It is. We've seen this cycle before.

Catherine, we've, obviously, heard from the president this past week on Twitter, but also in that call that he made with troops. He seemed to be airing all sorts of grievances. There's a long list of folks he has attacked over this last week, John Roberts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Hillary Clinton.

My favorite on this list has got to be electromagnetic catapults. He prefers steam apparently.

What do you think is the president's mindset right now as he's about to come back to Washington after being on Mar-a-Lago for the last couple of days?

CATHERINE LUCEY, .WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Yes, clearly, he was in a fighting mood. And I think he was trying to push back on the deal -- some would say he's constantly in a fighting mood. And I think people who are saying, or sort of trying to push back on the idea that he's raging constantly would say that he's on a fighting mood.

He's dealing with the loss of the House and that's been I think a hard thing for the process, sort of the drip, drip, drip of seats day by day. I think the initial numbers looked better and he sort -- he continued to hear that news which does not please him. He's getting schooled on what the New Year is going to look like with the divided Congress, what that can mean in terms of investigations, frustration about Mueller.

So, he's coming back to a complicated Washington and it's only going to get harder for him.

HENDERSON: And we heard him this week, another issue that's complicated, the Khashoggi murder and his response. Here is what he had to say last week about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's all about America first. We're not going to give up hundreds of billions of dollars in orders and let Russia, China and everybody else have them. I'm not going to destroy the world economy, and I'm not going to destroy the economy for our country by being foolish with Saudi Arabia.

They have vehemently denied it. The CIA points it both ways. As I said maybe we should -- maybe he did, maybe he didn't. Maybe the world should be held accountable because the world is a vicious place. The world is a very, very vicious place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Michael, your outlet, "The Weekly Standard", very tough on this president, basically saying he's leaving out American values when he is thinking about foreign policy. What do we now know about the Trump doctrine that maybe we didn't before.

MICHAEL WARREN, SENIOR WRITER, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Well, not only leaving out American values but leaving out the truth in what happened. I mean, the CIA has concluded that this was a murder done at the behest of the Saudis and MBS.

Look, this is, of course, complicated. I think there are a lot of people looking for the United States to immediately abandon Saudi Arabia. It's a longstanding ally and I think a lot of Republicans sort of recognize that it is a complex relationship that, of course, this murder makes even more complicated.

But the problem is that the president comes at it from a perspective that is entirely materialistic and entirely about --

HENDERSON: Money and deals.

WARREN: -- these deals that were making, this issue of this weapons deal that the United States has with the Saudis, as if our entire foreign policy in the Middle East hinges on this deal.

But to the point that you raised about American values, you don't hear that at all from this president. This is actually nothing new. We know this about President Trump. I think for the first 18 months of his presidency, we haven't seen that sort of real-world applications of a viewpoint of foreign policy that is really a divergence from the last 60, 70 years of American foreign policy, which says that America stands for something bigger, more than just material --

[08:10:03] HENDERSON: It's the indispensable nation --

(CROSSTALK)

WARREN: More than just America first. That's right.

HENDERSON: Yes.

DEMIRJIAN: It's all coming to a head now also, because -- look, we were talking about this when we were doing the confirmation hearings for various State Department people, like human rights, human rights, fine. But it's never been actually a resident of the United States, and allied country who, you know, is taking him out basically in Soprano style that puts it in relief. And I think that you've got a level of disgust coming back from even Republican members of Congress with this decision that you really haven't seen them so visceral before and that's going to make a difference as to whether something is done to challenge Saudi Arabia, not rip the alliance, but challenge them over various policies like the Yemen war.

WARREN: That's right.

HENDERSON: Some interesting news that came out at the end of the week, on Friday. This climate change report that's really devastating, a portrait of what's going on and what lies ahead, one of the ways they talked about is that climate change could mean a devastating impact economically, basically something like a 10 percent hit by the end of the century. Is that a way you imagine that Trump and the Republicans might start to view the dangers of climate change through an economic lens and maybe there could be a change in the way they approach it?

LUCEY: It's certainly one argument, because other arguments have not been successful. Obviously, we've seen the president announce plans to withdraw from the Paris climate deal, express a lot of skepticism and really --

(CROSSTALK)

HENDERSON: (INAUDIBLE) regulations.

LUCEY: Yes, roll back relations, and really focus on trying to invest in coal and other industries. So, I think that's one argument you could pitch to them. But the short term, long term compilation here, and it's -- what you have to figure out, is there a way to make that pitch that it matters in the near future?

HENDERSON: We'll keep an eye on that.

And up next, Nancy Pelosi has a math problem. Can she reclaim the speaker's gavel?

But, first, what are you thankful for this holiday season? President Trump is thankful for, well, President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: For having a great family and for having made a tremendous difference in this country. I've made a tremendous difference in the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[08:16:17] BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT: I think Nancy Pelosi, when history is written, will go down as one of the most effective legislative leaders that we -- this country has ever seen. Nancy is not always the best on, you know, cable show or with a quick sound bite, but her skill, tenacity, toughness, vision is remarkable. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Nancy Pelosi intends to be speaker of the House, but on Friday, those intentions hit another speed bump when nine Democrats from the moderate Problem Solvers Caucus said they can't support her at this time because she has not made changes they say will help break gridlock in Congress. But the question facing Pelosi's opponents remains, if not her, then who?

They've struggled to field a serious challenger and suffered a major blow this week when their preferred candidate, Congressman Marcia Fudge of Ohio, cut a deal to head a voting rights subcommittee. She then threw her support behind Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn.

In a weekend letter to her Democratic college, Pelosi called for unity ahead of a caucus vote on Wednesday. I thank so many of you for a strong support you've given me for speaker. Respectful of all the views of members, I request that we all support the nominee of our caucus for speaker on the floor of the House. Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power. The letter is simply signed Nancy.

Karoun, at this point, she hasn't quite been able to get all the votes she needs. She hasn't been able to put this thing to bed. She's got 23 Democrats saying that they won't back her.

Why is this still a fight at this point?

DEMIRJIAN: Well, because there has been this group of lawmakers in the House, Democratic lawmakers that have kind of doubled down on this. You know, Nancy Pelosi, just no on Nancy and you don't necessarily have a solid backup option because Pelosi is very good at using honey to get people what they want to get them to back off, which seems to have happened with Fudge, or making threats when she needs to as well, which may have to happen in other areas, although she's gone with the sweet approach rather than the slap approach thus far.

But it's going to take some doing to be able to pick off everybody in that opposition camp, because there has been some members that have been saying no for a long time that have been in Congress, some members have campaigned I won't support Pelosi's nomination on the floor, or sometimes in other areas as well. So, really, this week is going to be --

HENDERSON: It's critical.

DEMIRJIAN: Because on Wednesday, we're going to see if she can actually break that opposition or at least winnow it so they can't really challenge the process.

HEDERSON: And she made some progress doing that. Here is Brian Higgins on his change of mind.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. BRIAN HIGGINS (D), NEW YORK: The issue is, after 16 years of the same leadership, we need a new direction. And that's what people voted for this November and I think that's what people are looking for the new Congress.

There's not an alternative right now. I'm a politician. My vote is my legislative tool. I use that to advance two very, very important public policy objectives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: So, Michael, she was able to sweeten the deal for Congressman Higgins there. How nervous do you think she is at this point?

WARREN: I don't think she's that nervous. The Higgins example is the perfect one of the rock and a hard place these Democrats are in.

But I do think it's interesting to note how much of the Democratic majority, not majority of the Democratic majority but enough, did campaign on not being an automatic vote or even a vote at all for Nancy Pelosi.

[08:20:01] So, this is an interesting dynamic. We've seen an element of it when Republicans were in charge of the House. What's interesting now is it's not the far left of the party that's really a problem for Pelosi in getting over the finish line here, but it's the moderates.

HENDERSON: Yes.

WARREN: And, you know, in places like Orange County, California, for instance, where Democrats run the table. They aren't necessarily enamored of the speaker to be from the northern part of the state.

So, Democrats have to be thinking about not what they're going to do in the next few weeks, but how are they going to sell that in two years, or four years or the Democratic majority?

HENDERSON: And does she remain beyond that.

WARREN: That's right.

HENDERSON: We had incoming Congresswoman Sharice Davids out of Kansas. Here's what she had to say about this battle.

I plan to vote for several younger and newer members for leadership roles in the House Democratic Caucus and I will also vote for Nancy Pelosi for speaker of the house. The new generation of leaders is growing and we won't be ignored. That last very important here.

TALEV: Yes. And I think some of this incoming class is sort of playing it right. I mean, you can't miss the irony in having a problem solvers caucus that has no solution.

(LAUGHTER) (CROSSTALK)

TALEV: Like, OK, Nancy Pelosi is going to need to figure out what to do now. But, like, OK, so you've got a couple of trends. You've got -- the Democratic Party taking over the House of Representatives. Seems like you would want someone who knows how to use the levers to execute that, with the investigations and all that stuff.

But Pelosi has a choice to make now. She's going to have a choice to make in January about how to groom the incoming generation of leadership. She is not going to be the House speaker forever and everyone up the ranks of leadership has gotten the message loud and clear, not just people approaching 80 should be in leadership.

So, who is she going to kind of bring into the fold? And it seems like some of the incoming members recognize an opportunity for Pelosi to skip over several generations.

WARREN: A lot of whom left the House after the last time because they couldn't run --

HENDERSON: Yes.

WARREN: Kirsten Gillibrand perfect example now in the Senate.

TALEV: In the Senate, that's right. But these are cycles in politics. They happen when men are in power and guess what? They have women are in power, too, go figure. But now, she has an opportunity and probably more pressure than ever before to begin the real work of --

HENDERSON: Grooming the next generation.

TALEV: The people who are going to come in after her. And if she's reading it like everyone else at the table is reading it, she has the opportunity to say maybe I'll skip the last 20 years and start looking ahead to some of these folks in their 30s and 40s.

HENDERSON: This is one of the youngest classes, I think average age is something like 45. So, those folks are looking to gain some power.

Next, can Democrats do this week in Mississippi what they did last year in Alabama?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:27:08] HENDERSON: President Trump is up early and tweeting this morning about embattled Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith. The Mississippi Republican is facing a tougher than expected run-off election on Tuesday. Trump tweeted Tuesday she is an outstanding person. The president will be in Mississippi tomorrow to help Hyde-Smith save her seat.

She's come under fire for her history of celebrating Confederate figures and jokes about voter suppression, and attending a public hanging. She apologized, sort of, in a last -- in a debate last week and she had this exchange yesterday with NBC News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Could you clarify and articulate what it is you're apologizing for?

HYDE-SMITH: If I hurt anybody's feelings -- if I hurt anybody's feelings, you know, we're just staying on the issues that are on people's mind. That is lower taxes, less regulations, you know, Second Amendment, all of those things. So, you know, any time I've said anything that somebody got offended, I want to apologize.

REPORTER: Do you know what it is that offended people? Can you acknowledge what that statement?

HYDE-SMITH: Yes. I just apologize for anything I could have possibly said. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Democrats say Hyde-Smith's comments were particularly troublesome in a state like Mississippi with its long history of lynchings in voter intimidation.

Democrat Mike Espy, who's African-American, wants to make that an issue. But Republicans say Espy's party affiliation is disqualifying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AD NARRATOR: How embarrassing is Cindy Hyde-Smith? Walmart said Hyde-Smith's recent comments clearly do not reflect the values of our company. We've worked hard to overcome the stereotypes that hurt our economy and cause us jobs.

Her words should not reflect Mississippi's values either.

AD NARRATOR: The Washington liberals have their candidate, Mike Espy, funneling tens of thousands into his campaign because Espy gives them one more vote to stop President Trump's agenda.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Michael, how much do you think these comments she's made, her affinity for Confederate figures, how much will that hurt her in Mississippi?

WARREN: I think it's probably taken a race that was pretty easy, Republican hold, and now has made it somewhat competitive, although I'm a little skeptical that the numbers are really there, and that's because rural whites, which make up the majority of the population in Mississippi have pretty much entirely moved into the Republican camp. When Mike Espy was elected to Congress, there were still a lot of white Democrats in Mississippi.

HENDERSON: Cindy Hyde-Smith used to be a Democrat. HENDERSON: Exactly. What is it about former Democrats who become

Republican senators? Trent Lott from Mississippi. They always get into things, making these comments and I think that reflects really this problematic past that Mississippi has.

That being said, the numbers just don't seem to add up.

[08:29:51] I think what makes it more competitive is it does give African-American voters in Mississippi who might not have come out for a run-off election a reason to come out.

(CROSSTALK)

WARREN: But you can see from both of those ads you just played what both parties are trying to do is get out some kind of middle of the road white vote to come out either to say --

NIA MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN HOST: Such as it exists in Mississippi --

(CROSSTALK)

WARREN: That's right -- which maybe what makes the difference in a marginal race like this, to either say this is not the old -- we're not the old Mississippi anymore or you don't really want a liberal in the Senate.

HENDERSON: Right. And Mississippi has the highest percentage of black citizens, 37 percent --

WARREN: Right.

HENDERSON: -- you said, Louisiana 32 percent during that first contest. 37 percent of the electorate was non-white. You got Espy winning 15 percent of the white vote in that last contest which again, speaks to how hard this is going to be for him to put together some sort of multiracial coalition.

KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, "WASHINGTON POST": Right. I mean the question -- I haven't followed Mississippi closely. But usually you need some sort of an operation in your party for moments like this.

You can actually capitalize on them. Not just with a commercial but with a, you know, ok -- you have seen the commercial, you've heard the comments. She hasn't really said this is wrong. She has just said if I hurt your feelings.

So now let's make -- you know, put everything into action and have it move. That exists more in a place like Georgia than it does in Mississippi. They just haven't -- the party hasn't put in, I believe --

WARREN: Just large urban area to --

DEMIRJIAN: Right. And --

WARREN: -- sort of operate --

DEMIRJIAN: Right. And it takes years to build that kind of infrastructure. And if the attitude has been well, there is not much of a Democratic Party of which to speak of. The prospects are slim in a national platform because the state is so red then that might be a deficit right now. If it existed, Espy could, you know, actually use his advantage.

(CROSSTALK)

HENDERSON: And the other thing is if you look at the Abrams and the Gillum race, what does that tell you about -- in terms of talking about racial issues, does that possibly alienate all whites?

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG: Well I think, you know, what Florida and Georgia showed us is that actually some of these races could be much closer than people have long assumed they would be.

People have been talking for years about, you know, Georgia is going to flip. It didn't but it came awfully close. Andrew Gillum, you know, for governor of Florida was -- that came pretty close to happening.

And so between those two races and the Jones (ph), I think Democrats see an opportunity. It's a numbers game, like all elections are and it's that sort of perennial question, which is do you work on the persuadables or do you work on turning out the people that you have?

And I've seen various models for this. AP did some modeling on this recently. But you know, if Espy is able to really galvanize black turnout, he needs a much smaller share of the white vote.

HENDERSON: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

HENDERSON: If he gets 40 percent of the -- you know, 40 percent of the electorate is black.

TALEV: He still needs about a quarter of the white vote though.

HENDERSON: Yes, yes.

TALEV: 15 percent is not going to cut it.

HENDERSON: Yes.

TALEV: And so you've seen him kind of try to walk this line of letting other people talk about that issue but then him trying to act like a statesman. And I think part of that is trying to get that magic number where you're --

(CROSSTALK)

TALEV: -- turning out black voters but keeping enough white voters in the fold to try to put together what would actually be, you know, pretty astonishing lesson --

HENDERSON: yes. And it hasn't happened since reconstruction.

Catherine -- what do we make of the President? The President obviously going there on Monday? What will we hear from him? Why do they feel like they need to go down there at this point?

CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Yes, he's going in tomorrow for two rallies. This is a big effort by the President. I mean I think what we know is they're leaving nothing to chance.

HENDERSON: Yes.

LUCEY: That he needs to protect his senate majority. He wants to send a message about Republicans, especially going into 2020. And a big issue is going to be, as we've been talking about, turnout. And these kind of 11th hour rallies can help boost that.

And I think it also, the President has just come off a really lengthy midterm rally blitz and he enjoys doing it.

HENDERSON: He likes being out there.

LUCEY: He likes getting out there. He likes rallying the base. And he took a lot of credit for, you know, Republican gains in the Senate and he wants to make sure that that sticks.

HENDERSON: And folks in Mississippi love this president so we'll see.

Up next, a friend of Roger Stone's may be ready to cooperate with Mueller but the long-time Trump associate insists he's still in the clear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL CAPUTO, RADIO HOST: We know the Mueller team is listening. We could hear the clicks on the line. What do you have to say to the Mueller team right now after this news breaks about Corsi today?

ROGER STONE, FORMER TRUMP AIDE: If the decision is made on the basis of actual evidence, the facts and truth then no charges will be brought against me.

[08:34:20] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HENDERSON: Another controversial figure in the President's orbit could be preparing to flip. Jerome Corsi, an associate of former Trump adviser Roger Stone, is in plea talks with special counsel Robert Mueller. The fringe conspiracy theorist has become an increasingly important figure in the Russia investigation and prosecutors want to know if Corsi was the link between Stone an WikiLeaks, possibly giving the Trump campaign advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks dump of stolen Democratic e-mails in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. The fact that Corsi may get a deal is a big sign that Mueller's team thinks he has more to share. Roger Stone says if he does that's news to him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STONE: The assertion that Jerry Corsi knew in advance that John Podesta's e-mails had been obtained and would be published would be news to me, because he never told me anything of the kind. Corsi, if he is going to be prosecuted, it's not because he lies but because he refuses to parrot what they want him to say.

[08:39:59] There is not one iota, one scintilla of proof that I knew about the nicking of John Podesta's e-mails in advance or that Julian Assange would publish them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Catherine -- could Jerry Corsi be the sort of missing link here, the person who could connect the dots for Mueller in terms of whether or not there was any contact and knowledge between WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign?

LUCEY: I mean that is the question, obviously. And we know that, you know, Mueller and company are looking at this WikiLeaks question -- what they knew, when they knew it. But, you know, I think as ever with Mueller's investigation, we kind of have to come back to the fact that he's always two if not 20 steps ahead of us.

So we just cannot see all the moving parts behind the scenes. You know, we're waiting to see, you know, what Corsi knew, when he knew it --

HENDERSON: Yes.

LUCEY: -- who he could implicate but there's a lot more that we just don't really have access to.

HENDERSON: And Karoun, in that clip we played of Stone, he doesn't sound nervous. He sounds like the Roger Stone we've all come to know in this town. How nervous should he be?

DEMIRJIAN: I mean look, I don't think that -- if Mueller's team is making a deal with Corsi, it can't really be to get that far afield from Roger Stone. And so, you know, you would assume that he would rather be rather nervous. But as we've seen, Stone just has this kind of penchant for standing up in front of cameras and talking as if he doesn't have a care in the world.

And if we could have all that kind of confidence with what he's facing, but no, it doesn't necessarily have to stop at Roger Stone. But Roger Stone could be next on Mueller's list to potentially make a deal if this is -- if Corsi actually has something to give him.

HENDERSON: Yes. And the President, obviously, turned in questions and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said maybe there could be more to come.

Oh, sorry. I'm going to read it. "It's not on the table." This is in terms of the Mueller interview on the table, whether or not it's on the table. Here is what Rudy Giuliani had to say. "It's not on the table but could be back on the table. We'll consider them and answer them, if necessary, relevant and legal. If it was something that would be helpful, relevant not a law school exam."

How worried is the White House about a subpoena for the President?

TALEV: I think they're worried about, in a broader sense what all of these revelations are going to add up to.

HENDERSON: Yes.

TALEV: And I think they're probably going to wait a few more months to find out, you know. It doesn't look like Mueller's done with his work and so, you know, you could be looking at the spring. You could be looking at certainly after the Democrats have taken over the House, after there is a parallel investigative structure set up in Congress, you know.

But what the President's lawyers have sought to do is kind of firewall the obstruction questions and stick to the questions that they thought was sort of more compelling that they would have to answer and see how far that got them.

I think there's just no way that this Corsi development is good news for Roger Stone or potentially for President Trump, but in terms of how significant it is, I think that, we are going to have to wait to see it play out a little bit more.

But it certainly could allow Mueller to explore this question that's been central all along, which is how did these e-mails get out and was it coordinated in any fashion? And if so, with whom? And just because Roger Stone says this on interview -- I mean look, Roger Stone, this is like for show. This is him engaging with the media to --

HENDERSON: -- which he loves.

TALEV: -- public relations --

(CROSSTALK)

TALEV: -- campaign is certainly different than what happens with your lawyers in an investigative sense when you're actually speaking to people who have (INAUDIBLE) to hold your statements to account.

HENDERSON: Michael -- you want to jump in.

WARREN: Yes. And I think that's what has got to have the White House the most concerned -- it's Roger Stone and what he knows, what he did. It always seemed to me that he's the center of the problem here with respect to the actual substance of the Mueller investigation, that actually it's a much weaker case against maybe President Trump himself or some of the actual principles in the campaign.

But it's the association with Roger Stone, you know, the original dirty tricks guy and the fact that nobody really knows what he knew, what he did. That has to be really just very concerning -- it's that unknown that we've been talking about.

President Trump is losing control of things in Washington. This is something, I think, the Corsi talks here as another example of how he's continuing to lose control of something he doesn't have control. We may see more from the President in terms of outbursts like we have before in those situations.

HENDERSON: Yes. Yes. And it's only -- as you said it's only going to get worse in terms of Congress flipping, Democrats looking at all sorts of things when the new Congress comes to town.

So yes -- rough roads ahead for this White House. We'll see.

Next, our reporters share a page from their notebooks including how the President is preparing or perhaps not preparing for his upcoming meeting with the Chinese president.

[08:44:56] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HENDERSON: One more time around the INSIDE POLITICS table where we ask our great reporters to share something from their notebooks and help get you out ahead of the big political news this week.

Margaret -- we're going to start with you.

TALEV: Well, Nia -- I'm going to be keeping an eye on what may be an emerging trend here. This is President Trump -- the Trump administration asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on cases before they have gone to the appellate courts. And the latest example we're seeing -- my colleagues at Bloomberg Law have written about this -- is the case of the President's transgender military ban which has been put on hold by three district courts. The Trump administration on the day after Thanksgiving asking the

Supreme Court to go ahead and agree to take a look at it.

[08:50:02] We need to look to see whether this is simply a matter of timing or whether this to some extent reflects the President's increasing confidence in the way that court looks. But this would allow to happen potentially by asking for the Supreme Court to pay attention now is to get this on the docket in time for the end of the court's current term by June.

HENDERSON: Ok. All right. We'll take a look at that. Keep looking at it.

You -- Michael.

WARREN: The bipartisan first step act -- this big criminal justice reform bill that the White House is pushing to get passed possibly in this lame duck session. There's actually a lot more Republican division over this bill than maybe first meets the eye. Tom Cotton, the Republican usually aligned with the President on most everything else, is the real big opponent of this bill, leading the charge. He and law enforcement groups that oppose the bill say it gives, in the current language, certain violent felons to be released early.

Mike Lee, another Republican who supports the bill says that's a distortion. They're going to be hammering this out over the next few weeks in conference to see what happens.

But I think there's three big reasons why Tom Cotton could win this fight, at least in the short term, and either stop a vote on it or really kill it in a vote. The first is that this bill only has six Republican co-sponsors. A previous bill last year, very similar, had 16. So the supporters are already sort of starting in a hole.

Second, it's not a real big priority for Mitch McConnell in this lame duck session. He wants to get more judicial appointments through. That's the kind of the theme of Mitch McConnel.

The last reason is it's President Trump himself. I mean he does support it right now but we know how the President can pull back from things, say things either privately or publicly that really hurts the bill among Republicans who are a little unsure about what to do on it.

And there are people in the White House and in the administration who really don't like this bill. They're going to be in his ear as well for the next three weeks.

HENDERSON: The clock is ticking on that one.

WARREN: Absolutely.

HENDERSON: We'll see.

Karoun.

DEMIRJIAN: Well, that's the Senate's picture right now. And in the House, everybody is looking at what's going to be happening here with Democrats taking over. Will Pelosi be speaker?

But there's also a question of what are Republicans going to do with these last few weeks that they have in its dying gasps (ph) for power, especially when it comes to investigations of things related to the Russia probe? There's been so much scrutiny on the FBI and the DOJ.

We have seen that over Thanksgiving the Judiciary Committee put out subpoenas for former FBI director Jim Comey and former attorney general Loretta Lynch. Subpoena that is going to be tougher for them to enforce in the limited time that remains.

And then also remember, Rod Rosenstein. There's still a lot of animus toward him from the GOP. People have even tried to file articles of impeachment against him. Do they take another whack at him?

It's not that any of these steps could actually affect the course of where we're going now. Everything's -- the field is laid.

We're going to January. Democrats are going to take over. They will never use their authority on these committees to defend those types of subpoenas or really pursue hard legal charges against these current and former officials but, but if these subpoenas are sent out, these fights are started, if these people don't show up on Capitol Hill, that gives Trump more talking points and the GOP some more argument points --

HENDERSON: Right.

DEMIRJIAN: -- as they head into the next two years when we will probably see more from Mueller. This will probably stay alive for some (INAUDIBLE) through the next election cycle, which we're already in. So perhaps --

(CROSSTALK)

HENDERSON: This is not going anywhere.

DEMIRJIAN: -- it's an interesting last few weeks of just, you know, throwing everything to see what will potentially stick in the future.

HENDERSON: All righty.

Catherine.

LUCEY: Well, I'm heading to Argentina in a couple of days because President Trump is going down for a meeting of the group of 20 industrialized nations. And the thing I'll be watching that he does -- the biggest thing on his agenda is an expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Obviously this comes as the trade conflict between the countries is escalating and there's a lot of interest in whether the two can reach some kind of agreement to sort of bring down the temperature.

HENDERSON: Yes.

LUCEY: It's not really clear at this point. A lot of experts seem to think, you know, this is going to be a tricky thing to do. But there are incentives on both sides that could bring them together.

President Trump talks about it a little bit this week and make clear that this is a again part of his sort of, you know, shoot from the hip foreign policy. But he said he doesn't need to prepare because he knows the ingredients. He knows the statistics and he said, you know, his gut has never been wrong.

HENDERSON: Yes.

LUCEY: So we're going to have to see how that goes.

HENDERSON: We'll see how that goes.

And I'll end with this. And so it begins, the Bill and Hillary Clinton tour, the first stops are in Canada next week, and then it's on to Texas. And then in the spring -- New York, Detroit and Philly among other cities through May.

Bill does an "Evening with the Clintons", the tour is sure to draw scrutiny and raise some questions. Among them, while the Clintons can certainly still draw headlines, can they draw big crowds?

And as the Democratic Party looks to 2020, is Hillary Clinton actually thinking about running again? Also, how awkward will this whole thing be as Democrats look to move on from the Clinton era and the MeToo movement reshapes the way people view the Clintons?

[08:55:00] In addition to the tour, there's a (INAUDIBLE) podcast, a docu series, and the upcoming 20th anniversary of Bill Clinton's impeachment which means even as Democrats look to the future the Clintons will still be taking up space on the stage even as many Democrats want them to go away.

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS. Again, thanks for sharing your Sunday morning.

Hope you can catch us weekdays as well, at noon Eastern.

Up next we've got "STATE OF THE UNION" with Dana Bash. Her guests -- the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff and Republican Senator Joni Ernst.

[08:55:35] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)