we'll be back at 7:25 with a live local news update. >> join us for "nbc bay area news" at 11:00 this afternoon. have a great friday, and thanks so much for starting your morning right here with us. good morning, breaking news. the president's $8 billion gamble, this morning president trump set to sign off on a border deal that stops the next shutdown, but with no money for his wall he ups the ante ready to get the money from taxpayers by declaring a national emergency. >> the precedent the president is setting here should be met with great unease and dismay. >> just ahead the once in a generation legal battle between congress and the white house that could land in the supreme court. we are live with the latest. split decision, reaction pours in after amazon cancels its plan to build a massive new headquarters in new york city. some are elated. >> the people united can and did

beat back the most powerful corporation in the world. >> but others are outraged over the loss of thousands of new jobs and billions in potential revenue. >> i don't understand it. i really don't. >> will amazon now take its business elsewhere? bizarre new twist, overnight two persons of interest questioned in the reported attack on jussie smollett, the actor himself also interviewed by police. are they any closer to answers? all that, plus breaking overnight, a dramatic scene caught on camera, a man carjacks a ups truck and holds the driver hostage. >> he's running, he's running! he's running! fighting for his life. >> on my wrist, and then it just started clawing along my face and then my legs. >> the jogger who killed a mountain lion with his bare hands shares his incredible story of survival. >> i really feel like i made all the right decisions.

and love blooms, did katy perry and orlando bloom get engaged on valentine's day. the overnight post from the music superstar posing with the actor and one very large ring that has people buzzing. today friday, february 15th, 2019. >> announcer: from nbc news, this is "today" with savannah guthrie and hoda kotb live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. hi, everybody, good morning. nice to have you with us on a friday morning. >> it is a very big news day. our top story. one crisis asserted another one started? >> we'll see. this morning the president will sign the deal passed by congress that avoids another government shutdown, but he also plans to declare a national emergency to pay for his border wall. some critics are calling it an abuse of power. we've got complete coverage on the move and the fallout. we'll start with nbc white house correspondent kristen welker. good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning to

you. in just a few minutes president trump is expected to declare a national emergency and will aim to secure $8 billion in funding for his border wall. it's a highly controversial move, even for many republicans. while the government will stay open, mr. trump is trading one political crisis for another. with the rose garden as his backdrop this morning, president trump is poised to announce $8 billion for his border wall by declaring a national emergency. he will effectively bypass congress to fund his key priority. the move will allow him to redirect federal funds from several pre-existing sources including the department of defense. it comes after congress signed a bipartisan deal overnight to keep the government open. >> the yay's are 300, the nay's are 128. the conference report is adopted. >> reporter: that spending bill did not include the amount of money the president wanted for the wall. house speaker nancy pelosi calling the president's emergency declaration an abuse

of power. >> we will not have an end run around the congress of the united states. >> earlier in the day, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell making it clear he backs the president. >> i've got to support the national emergency declaration. >> reporter: it's a rapid reversal for the republican leader who warned just last week -- >> the national emergencies that have been issued in the past have not been contentious. i'm pretty sure this one would be. >> reporter: the president's facing growing opposition within his own ranks. senator susan collins calling the president's move a mistake. senator marco rubio echoing that. >> i think it will be a terrible idea. i hope he doesn't do it. >> the white house framing it as a campaign promise kept despite this often repeated back and forth at trump rallies. >> and who's going to pay for the wall? mexico! who? mexico! >> some in the president's conservative base aren't satisfied. ann coulter tweeting national

emergency won't help. it's over if he signs this bill the white house is digging in amidst the backlash. insisting it is prepared for possible court challenges. it's a move mr. trump has dangled for days pointing to his predecessors. >> president obama, president clinton, president bush, they've declared many -- this is not unique. they've declared many national emergencies. many, many. >> but both president trump and vice president pence have spoken out against executive orders in the past railing against then president obama for using it on immigration. >> the whole concept of executive order, it's not the way the country's supposed to be run. you're just supposed to make a deal. >> signing an executive order, giving a speech, barn storming around the country defending that executive order is not leadership. >> kristen, a couple of questions. let's go to this whole notion of an emergency. as i understand it, this law is set up so in the case of an emergency where say our country is attacked or something, the president can act quickly, get money going to defend this

country. how does the white house justify this particular instance as an emergency? especially considering they've been in office for two years and for the first two years they actually had an all republican congress. how do they say now we have this emergency? >> reporter: that's the big question, savannah. they basically have to prove there's a crisis at the border. why is the president doing this now, for example, and not the first day he took office? past presidents have issued emergency declarations for a range of reasons, but as you point out, those measures have typically been used to respond to unforeseen crises like a natural disaster or an attack. a couple examples you pointed to. former president obama declared one over swine flu. former president george w. bush issued one after the september 11th attacks. one thing is certain, this is an issue that is going to be tied up in the courts so it's not really clear when this funding is going to come through. you already have states all across the country threatening

to sue as well as democrats on capitol hill. >> if this thing does get tangled in the courts will money be coming any time soon or is that so far down the road we may not see it for a long time? >> reporter: they might not see money for this until after the next election because the court battles are going to be so intense. for example, just look at the president's travel ban. he declared that in the very early days of his administration. that was ensnared in court challenges for over a year, and in fact, just recently last june the supreme court ultimately largely signed off on his travel ban, but again, it's a very clear example of how executive actions can get ensnared in court challenges. here's one thing we do know, this will almost undoubtedly go to the high court and where does it go from there, it is anyone's guess. >> kristen welker at the white house. nbc news will have live coverage of the president's remarks scheduled for 10:00 eastern time

this morning. an uproar over an explosive new claim tied to the russia investigation. andrew mccabe, the fbi's former acting director claiming the agency discussed a plan to remove president trump from office. nbc's chief white house correspondent hallie jackson has more on this story. hi, good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you. president trump is again slamming that claim in new tweet overnight as andrew mccabe's critics question his credibility. mccabe paints a grim portrait of the oval office in his new memoir and now members of congress on both sides of the aisle want to see him on capitol hill. new fallout from that explosive interview this morning with some lawmakers demanding to hear from the former deputy fbi director themselves. >> we're definitely going to speak to andrew mccabe and the whole crowd about what happened during the 2016 election. >> reporter: that reaction a response to mccabe's revelation that on the day after president trump fired james comey, mccabe

who then became the acting agency director ordered donald trump to be investigated to see whether the president obstructed justice among other things. mccabe's stated goal was to protect the team looking into russian election interference as he told "60 minutes". >> i wanted to make sure that our case was on solid ground and if somebody came in behind me and closed it and tried to walk away from it they would not be able to do that. >> mccabe describes the president as a liar, quote, if he were on the box at quantico, the fbi training center, he would break the lie detector machine, he writes. mccabe describes discussions at the department of justice about invoking the 25th amendment to remove the president from office and says deputy attorney general rod rosenstein talked seriously about wearing a wire. the justice department calls his

description inaccurate and says rosenstein was being sarcastic when he offered to wear a recording device. president trump blasted mccabe tweeting he's a disgrace to the fbi and our country. comments echoed by mike pence. sitting down with nbc's andrea mitchell. >> this president has been producing for the american people, and i couldn't be more proud to stand with him and the words of the writings of a disgraced fbi agent won't change that fact for the american people. >> and you've never heard of this before? >> i have never heard any discussion of the 25th amendment by members of this government. >> reporter: mccabe was fired by the fbi last year accused of lying about his interactions with the media. another excerpt from mccabe's book according to "the wall street journal" talks about former attorney general jeff sessions who according to mccabe once said the fbi was better off when you all only hired irishmen and added they were drunks but they could be trusted, not like all those new people with nose

rings and tattoos. the journal says a person close to sessions calls it laughable that he would say anything disparaging about law enforcement. sessions' replacement has now been confirmed by the senate. you're looking at bill barr getting sworn in. he now starts his first full day as the new attorney general. hoda, savannah, back to you. >> a new era. thank you. programming note, andrew mccabe will be here for a live interview tuesday morning on "today." craig joins the table. another big story we are covering. >> the retail giant amazon being cursed and celebrated this morning after a stunning reversal killing its plan to build a massive new headquarters in long island city. their decision coming after weeks of opposition from local political leaders. nbc's tom costello has the very latest. tom, good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you. as you know, the polls here in new york showed broad support for amazon bringing 25,000 jobs to long island city right across

the river from manhattan, but billions of dollars in tax incentives turned a lot of people off who said it simply wasn't worth the cost. >> once considered a prime location, new york city is no longer the future home of amazon's hq2. the retail giant canceled its plans to build a campus in long island queens, new york. >> the company abruptly did an about face. >> the decision to back out comes months after amazon nailed the city as one of two winning sites at the end of a long highly contested century. cities across the country entered a high stakes bidding war with one town in georgia offering amazon its own city. new york city's mayor who worked to get the deal done not hiding his disappointment in the company's abrupt decision to back out. >> there was no dialogue. there was no effort to work together. i don't understand it. >> reporter: the company

promised to bring 25,000 jobs to long island city in a deal fueled by state and city tax incentives. >> if i gave you $3 billion and you handed me back $27 billion, that's pretty much what this deal looked like. there are a lot of sweetheart deals over the years. bad deals given for stadiums and other businesses. this was a relatively well-crafted plan. >> reporter: but community leaders didn't see it that way fiercely opposing the use of public subsidies. democratic congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez celebrated amazon's decision to stay out of the district that borders hers. >> if we're willing to give away $3 billion for this deal, we could invest those $3 billion in our district, ourselves if we wanted to. we could hire out more teachers. we can fix our subways. we can put a lot of people to work with that money. >> reporter: some feared the headquarters would negatively impact traffic, housing and schools. not everyone opposed amazon's big move.

some supporters expressed outrage. >> this was a revolution for queen's economy. this could have been outrageously awesome for us. basically sacrificed our community on the altar of politics. >> reporter: others welcomed the news. >> amazon destroys small businesses. you want to have a city with life, which means street life, not big gleaming towers everywhere. you want this sense of community. >> reporter: this morning amazon says it has no plans to find a replacement for the new york headquarters. instead it will grow its new bases in virginia and nashville. >> so tom, what does this move by amazon, what does it do for new york as a destination for business? >> reporter: well, you know, it depends on who you talk to. the governor, governor cuomo had really felt this was critical to helping new york diversify away from real estate and financial services, but former mayor michael bloomberg, a very pro-business guy who liked the amazon deal, he also became concerned about the billions of dollars in tax incentives. at the end of the day, this is

still new york city. it's where the world does business. most experts say it's -- business will continue to come here, but the question is whether some might be turned away. >> tom costello, long island city for us, thank you. new this morning, iran's foreign minister is speaking out in an exclusive interview with nbc news, and delivering a message directly to president trump. nbc's chief foreign correspondent richard engel had the interview. good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning, savannah. i am now in munich for an annual security conference. vice president pence is expected here, and just a short while ago i sat down with the iranian foreign minister. iran is facing crushing sanctions after president trump pulled out of an iranian nuclear deal, and the president has been known for some unorthodox diplomacy. in two weeks president trump is expected to have a second

meeting with the north korean leader so i asked the iranian foreign minister if iran might be interested in doing something similar? his answer, they're not interested. >> president trump has said he's open to meeting one day with your president, the iranian president, potentially to renegotiate the iran deal. >> why should we negotiate a deal which we spent not just a couple of hours meeting but 13 years to negotiate, and we negotiated with the united states. why should we trust president trump that he would abide by his own signature? >> reporter: the iranian foreign minister also told me that he is concerned by increasing statements from trump administration officials and the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu that talk about aggression toward iran, potentially even war. >> all right, richard engel with the interview. thank you very much. let's turn our attention to mr. roker who's here with a first

check of the weather. >> good morning. thank you for getting your weather from us. boy, what a mess out west, especially southern california. you look at the flooding that's been going on, mudslides, debris flows, real problems. some homes have been destroyed. the good news is they're going to start to get a break today. let's show you. you can still see we've got this storm system coming in off the pacific northwest coast. more rain still coming into california, but much less, and in fact, as that system pushes in, a lower flood risk for california. rain and snow into the weekend. las vegas with over an inch of rain. they actually saw the first time they've had an inch of rain, this is the 14th time since the early 1930s. so they don't normally see that. what we are looking at, winter weather advisories for 18 million people from the plains to the midwest as this system from the california area makes

its way east. snow from wichita, kansas, on into lower parts of illinois and indiana. it will spread to the midwest by the evening, and then by saturday it moves off quickly. the good news is it doesn't have a lot of moisture available to it. it will bring its heaviest amount of snow back to the plains with anyone from six to nine inches of snow. as we move to the east, the snowfall amounts start to lighten up. we're going to get to your local forecast coming up in the next 30 seconds. good morning. i'm meteorologist kari hall. still wet weather across the bay area not going away, as of any time soon. we're still going to keep those rain chances in the forecast throughout the weekend.

rain moving through, even some low elevations. snow in the north bay, as well as mt. hamilton watching out as the cold air moves through. over the next couple of days our rain chances remain, highs in the low 50s and look at how hold e cold it will be in the early morning hours, low 30s. we'll get sunshine and dry weather early next week. our lat weather. i just have to say i love mr. melvin's jacket. >> you are so kind. >> look at that. it's like a fashion faceoff every day between you two. >> yeah. you look good. >> al roker. >> you've got to up it. >> up the game. pocket square, the whole thing. it's working. >> thank you. >> thanks project runway. >> look how cute they are. coming up, family affair with the brother of jeff bezos' girlfriend is saying in a new interview about the couple's relationship and that leak of their explicit text messages and photos who was behind it. the jogger involved in a life or death struggle when he was attacked by a mountain lion shares his unbelievable story of survival. but first this is "today" on nbc. just ahead, our heart smart series and carson this

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♪ i have... ♪ the russian river in guerneville is officially in the flood stage. the river crested at about 35 feet.just a couple of hours the russian river in guerneville officially at flood stage. the river crested at about 35 feet a couple of hours ago, sonoma sheriff's department is issuing an advisory for anyone living near low-lying areas. you got to move to higher ground. most of the homes in guerneville sit on stilts, as a way to avoid flood damage. the flooding is expected to be a problem for the majority of the day, since the river will not be out of the flood stage until 10:00 tonight. additional rain coming our way as well, right, kari? >> we're seeing it in waves. storm ranger another wave of it coming over the santa cruz mountains and spotty rain over

the north bay. it's about to move into the south bay over the next few minutes, and the waves of rain continue into the weekend, unfortunately. we will add up more of that going into the next couple of days. we will also watch out for the potential of flooding, more on that throughout the day. let's get an update on the commute from mike. >> kari, it's light. it's friday. we have a holiday monday or some schools have all week off next week so we have the lighter drive and that's better because it's still slick and closed, in fact, here for west highway 37 continuing the closure, folks are jamming up approaching atherton shy of 101. atherton is your alternate to get to the freeway 101 itself or 580 across the richmond to san rafael bridge, a little more traffic than you might expect over there. the bay bridge itself is moving smoothly, and again, watch those slick rhoades ways, even though there's less traffic on the roadway, you can go faster. watch the conditions. back to you. >> thank you very much. i'll be back with the local news update in half an hour. see you then.

i ended up hearing some pine needles rustle, like a stick break, and i turned around and just was pretty bummed out to see a mountain lion chasing after me. >> that's how that story started, ended with a fight for his life, the 31-year-old jogger was attacked by a mountain lion. it's an incredible story. he's going to share the entire thing with us just ahead. >> that lion picked the wrong runner, picked the wrong guy. >> it's an incredible story. we start with the president's plan to bypass lawmakers and declare a national emergency, which he will then

use to redirect $8 billion in taxpayer money to fund a border wall. the threat of lawsuits, it all comes after congress passed government spending bill on thursday. it provides further funding for border security, but not for the wall and not in the amount the president was seeking. william barr was sworn in on thursday for his second stint as u.s. attorney general. barr replaces acting attorney general matt whitaker, the senate voted 54-35 to confirm the 68-year-old, mostly along party lines. barr served adds attorney general under president george h.w. bush. he'll oversee robert mueller's ongoing investigation. a dramatic standoff in california came to an end overnight after police say a man holding a ups driver hostage was shot and killed by officers. the armed suspect and his accomplice hijacked a ups truck with the driver inside and led police on a chase through downtown san jose. they say earlier in the day, the gunman shot at them during a

separate pursuit. eventually, police stopped the ups truck and the female accomplice surrendered, but the gunman held the ups driver hostage for more than an hour. cameras capturing the driver at one point appearing to pray. the eventually the suspect released the hostage unharmed. later the suspect still holding a shotgun gets out of the truck, makes a run for it. ran into a parking lot, but was shot and killed by police. thankfully, no one else was injured. there are new developments overnight in the jussie smollett story. police say they're questioning two men seen on surveillance cameras the night of the reported attack on the empire star, and they've talked to him again as well. nbc's ron mott is in chicago with more on this story. hey, ron, good morning. >> hey, hoda, good morning to you. it's important to say that police are not calling these two men suspects but more than two weeks after their photos were released, investigators say they know they are two brothers from nigeria, and they have a connection to jussie smollett. >> chicago police say the two men captured in these grainy

security photos from the night of jussie smollett's reported hate crime attack are being held in custody for questioning. police are calling the two nigerian brothers people of interest but not suspects at this time. authorities have served multiple search warrants regarding the alleged attack. in a dramatic new twist, chicago police say both men are affiliated with smollett's show "empire" and one of the men had a role on the show. the potential break in the case comes a day after smollett described the incident to abc news. >> i see the attacker, masked and he said, this maga country [ bleep ] punches me right in the face, so i punched him back. >> smollett told policed men put a rope around his neck and poured liquid on him saying he has no doubt the men seen in the photos are the ones who attacked him. >> i don't have any doubt in my

mind that that's them, never did. >> reporter: police say the men were met wednesday by investigators after landing at o'hare airport. smollett also spoke to police thursday. his representative said it was to answer routine follow-up questions. police say they have seen no evidence of an sauassault in hundreds of hours of security tape they've seen. >> i want that video found so badly. number one, i want them to find the people who did it. number two, i want them to stop being able to say alleged attack. number three, i want them to see that i fought back, and i want a little gay boy who might watch this to see that i fought back. >> smollett told police he was on the phone with his manager during the attack, but investigators say he only handed over a photo of a heavily redacted call

>> announcer: this is an nbc news special report. here's savannah guthrie. >> good morning, everyone. we come on the air with the president about to speak from the rose garden of the white house and detail his decision to declare a national emergency at the southern border. why? to get money to pay for his long promised border wall. that's a shot of the oval office, the west wing of the white house. this move has been rumored for weeks and congress just passed a spending bill that will keep the government open. it would have closed today if not for this deal. it includes no new funds for the wall and that is the reason why the president is expected to walk out those doors in a few moments to declare a national emergency that would free him up to get the money from other parts of the government to the tune of $8 billion. but legal challenges are expected and this could definitely end up in the courts, perhaps the highest court in the land. let's go to peter alexander at the white house on duty standing by. what do we expect? >> reporter: good morning, savannah.

the president will end one fight and ignite a new one -- the fight over whether, in fact, there would be a government shutdown, that's over. the president signed this bipartisan border deal, but that constitutional clash he's igniting is whether the president can use his presidential powers as many of his allies suggested is a bad precedent. democrats have been outraged by his effort, as you noted, to find ways to build that wall with money that was outside of this border deal. part of this, as you know, will come from the declaration of a national emergency. others will come from the use of exec tiff actiutive action. the president will be using military construction funding and some money that was intended to continue the fight on drugs along the border. we will see the president just moments from now. it is worth noting in the front row is the united states attorney general just worn in yesterday, william barr. there will certainly be legal challenges here. the president has been warned

already by allies in and out of the white house that those are certain to come which means this is a fight that, if not immediately, will soon find its way to the supreme court. the president remaining defiant suggesting this is the promise that he campaigned on that he would build the wall and suggesting that with this effort he will be able to complete that promise coming up. seems unclear that's what's going to take place here. savannah? >> at least half the promise which brings me to chuck todd. this was a central campaign promise of the president to have a border wall. the other piece was that mexico was going to pay for it. now the president is looking for $8 billion from u.s. taxpayers. is this going to be a problem for him politically? >> i don't know if it's going to be one yet. i'm not trying to avoid the answer, but he has a washington problem, a party pro, a congress problem. he's not going to get much done as it is.

but he's making the calculation that if the courts stop him he can run against the courts. if democrats stop him, run against democrats. he clearly has decided this was a political emergency. not everybody inside his west wing believes the president is right that if he doesn't look like he's always fighting for the wall that somehow the base will abandon him, but the president has convinced himself of this. i think for now as far as the president is concerned, keeping his base together, this is actually probably as good as he can do today. i understand what he's trying to do. he does risk creating all sorts of problems for himself in washington which, down the road, could undermine him with swing voters. >> let's get to the legal issue as we keep an eye on the door. that shaky shot is there for a reason. this is the west wing, the door to the oval office. we expect the president and advisers to walk out any moment and make their way to the rose garden where he'll make a statement that there is a national emergency justified by a crisis at the southern border

is what the president is expected to argue. of course that will be up to legal challenge and that brings me to our justice correspondent pete williams. how might this play out from a legal perspective? >> the president has virtually unlimited authority under a 40-year-old law to declare almost anything a national emergency. it doesn't have to be a crisis. it doesn't have to be sudden. it doesn't have to be unforeseen. that's not where the legal challenge will be. his power there is virtually unrestricted. it's how he wants to get the money. then the question is, who gets to sue? they'll have to show some specific injury. they were going to get money and now they weren't. congress could block a national emergency. if it tries to do that he could veto it. savannah? >> there are a lot of different levels of chess to be played yet here. this is the president in the rose garden of the white house about to expect a national emergency, we expect. >> thank you very much, everybody. before we begin i would like to

just say that we have a large team of very talented people. in china, we have had a negotiation going on for about two days. it's going extremely well. who knows what that means because it only matters if we get it done, but we are very much working very closely with china and president xi who i respect a lot. very good relationship that we have. and we're a lot closer than we ever were in this country with having a real trade deal. we are covering everything, all of the points that people have been talking about for years that said couldn't be done whether it was theft or anything, anything. the unfairness. we have been losing on average $375 billion a year with china. a lot of people think it's $506 billion. some people think it's much more than that. we're going to be leveling the

playing field. the tariffs are hurting china very badly. they don't want them and frankly if we can make the deal it would be my honor to remove them. otherwise we are having many billions of dollars pouring into our treasury. we have never had that before with china. it's been very much of a one-way street. so that's happening. the relationship with china is very good. but i think they finally respect our country. they haven't respected us for a long time. not for a long time. the uk and the u.s., as you probably have been seeing and hearing, we are agreeing to go forward and preserve our trade agreement. you know all of the situation with respect to brexit and the complexity and the problems, but we have a very good trading relationship with uk and that's just been strengthened further. so with the uk, we are continuing our trade and we are going to actually be increasing

it very substantially as time goes by. we expect that the uk will be very, very substantially increased as it relates to trade with the united states. the relationship there also is very good. we have a lot of great announcements having to do with syria and our success with the eradication of the caliphate and that will be announced over the next 24 hours and many other things. a lot of positive things are going on. we're working on a -- a summit. you know all about the summit. it will be in vietnam, hanoi. we will be meeting at hanoi. i think a lot of you will be going, i suspect. i hope we have the same good luck as we had in the first summit. a lot was done in the first summit. no more rockets going up. no more missiles going up.

no more testing of nuclear. get back our remains, the remains of our great re-40 4hem the korean war and we got back our hostages. but we hope we are going to be very much equally as successful. i'm in no rush for speed. we just don't want testing. the sanctions, as you know, remain. everything is remaining. china has been helping us. russia has been helping us. and south korea, i think you can say has been -- we have been working very closely with south korea, with japan. but china, russia, on the border have really been at least partially living up to what they are supposed to be doing and that's okay, as per the united nations. so we will have a meeting on the 27th and 28th of february. and i think that will be a very successful one. i look forward to seeing chairman kim. we have also established a very

good relationship which has never happened between him or his family and the united states. they have really taken advantage of the united states. billions of dollars has been paid to them. and we won't let that happen, but we think that north korea and chairman kim have a tremendous potential as an economic force, economic power. their location between south korea and then russia and china, right smack in the middle is phenomenal. we think they have a great chance for tremendous economic prosperity in the future. i look forward to seeing chairman kim in vietnam. today, i'm announcing several critical actions that my administration is taking to confront a problem that we have right here at home. we fight wars that are 6,000 miles away, wars we never should

have been in, in many cases. but we don't control our own border. so we are going to confront the national security crisis on our southern border and we are going to do it one way or the other. we have to do it. not because it was a campaign promise, which it is. it was one of many, by the way. not my only one. we are rebuilding the military. our economy is thriving like never before. you look at other economies, they are doing terribly and we are doing phenomenally. the market is up tremendously today. not that that's anything because i'll go back in and they'll say, oh, the market went back down. the market is getting back to new highs that we created. we have all the records. we have every record. but we are getting close to that point again where we'll create new records. so our country is doing very well economically. we have done a lot. but one of the things i said i have to do and i want to do is border security. we have tremendous amounts of

drugs flowing in to our country. much of it coming from the southern border. when you look and when you listen to politicians, in particular certain democrats, they say it all comes through the port of entry. it's wrong. it's wrong. it's just a lie. it's all a lie. they say walls don't work. walls work 100%. whether it's el paso -- i really was smiling because the other night i was in el paso. we had a tremendous crowd. tremendous crowd. i asked the people, many of whom were from el paso, but they came from all over texas. i asked them, let me ask you as a crowd, when the wall went up, was it better? you were there, some of you. it was not only better it was like 100% better. you know what they did. but that's only one example. there are so many examples. in el paso, they have close to

2,000 murders right on the other side of the wall. and they had 23 murders. that's a lot of murders, but it's not close to 2,000 murders right on the other side of the wall in mexico. so everyone knows that walls work. there are better examples than el paso, frankly. you just take a look almost everywhere. take a look at israel. they're building another wall. their wall is 99.9% effective, they tell me. 99.9%. that's what it would be with us, too. the only weakness is they go to a wall and they go around the wall. they go around the wall and in. okay? that's what it is. very simple. and a big majority of the big drugs, the big drug loads don't go through ports of entry. they can't go through ports of entry. you can't take big loads because you have people. we have very capable people, the border patrol, law enforcement, looking. you can't take human traffic --

women and girls. you can't take them through ports of entry. you can't have them tied up in the back seat of a car, a truck or a van. they open the door, they look. they can't see three women with tape on their mouth or three women whose hands are tied. they go through areas where you have no wall. everybody knows that. nancy knows it. chuck knows it. they all know it. it's all a big lie. it's a big con game. you don't have to be very smart to know you put up a barrier, the people come in and that's it. they can't do anything, unless they walk left or right and find an area where there is no barrier and they come to the united states. welcome. we have detained more people. our border agents are doing such incredible work. our military has been incredible.

we put up barbed wire on top of certain old walls that were there. we fixed the wall and load it up with barbed wire. it's very successful. but our military has been fantastic. i want to thank them. it's very necessary. we have broken up two caravans that are on their way. they're just in the process of breaking up. we have another one we haven't been able to break up yet. we have been actually working with mexico much better than ever before. i want to thank the president. i want to thank mexico. they have their own problems. they have the largest number of murders they have ever had in their history. almost 40,000 murders. 40,000. they've got to straighten that out and i think they will. i want to thank the president. he's been helping us with these monstrous caravans that have been coming up. we had one that was up to over 15,000 people. it's largely broken up. others have gotten through. in tijuana you have a lot of people staying there.

if we didn't have the wall up and secured and strengthened, they would have walked right through. they would be -- welcome to the united states. one of the things we save just a tremendous amount on would be sending the military. if we had a wall, we don't need the military because we'd have a wall. so i'm going to be signing a national emergency and it's been signed many times before. it's been signed by other presidents from 1977 or so it gave the presidents the power. there's rarely been a problem. they sign it. nobody cares. i guess they weren't very exciting. but nobody cares. they signed it for far less important things in some cases, in many cases. we are talking about an invasion of our country with drugs, with human traffickers, with all

types of criminals and gangs. we have some of the greatest people i know. they have been with me from the beginning of my campaign, almost from the first week. the angel moms. unfortunately we have new angel moms. one incredible woman just showed me her daughter who we are talking about killed in the year of 18. i said, i haven't seen you before. she said, no, i'm new. i said, that's too bad. it's too bad. it's so sad. stand up just for a second. show how beautiful your girl was. thank you. i have such respect for these people. angel moms. angel dads. angel families. i have great respect for these people. these are great people. these are great people. they are fighting for their children that have been killed by people that were illegally in this country. and the press doesn't cover them.

they don't want to, incredibly. and they are not treated the way they should be. they're fighting for other people because they don't want what happened to their children or husband or anybody. we have one young lady whose husband -- please, stand up. your husband was just killed in maryland. incredible man just killed. beautiful children. won't be seeing their father again. these are brave people. these are people that they don't have to be here. they don't have to be doing this. they are doing it for other people. i want to thank all of you for being here. i really do. i want to thank you. incredible people. last year, 70,000 americans were killed at least -- i think the number is ridiculously low -- by drugs including meth and heroin,

cocaine, fentanyl. one of the things i did with president xi in china when i met him in argentina at a summit, before i even started talki ing about the trade -- it was a trade meeting. went very well. but before i talked about trade i talked about something more important. i said, listen, we have tremendous amounts of fentanyl coming into our country. kills tens of thousands of peop people, i think far more than anybody registers. i would love you to declare it a lethal drug and put it on the criminal list. their criminal list, a drug dealer gets a thing called the death penalty. our criminal list, a drug dealer gets a thing called -- how about a fine? when i asked president xi, i said do you have a drug problem?

no, no, no. i said you have 1.4 billion people. what do you mean you have no drug problem? no, we don't have a drug problem. i said, why? death penalty. we give death penalty to people that sell drugs. end of problem. what do we do? we set up a blue ribbon committees. lovely men and women that sit around a table, eat, dine and waste a lot of time. so if we want to get smart, we can get smart. you can end a drug problem. you can end it a lot faster than you think. president xi agreed to put fentanyl on his list of deadly, deadly drugs. it's a criminal penalty and the penalty is death. so that's frankly one of the things i'm most excited about in our trade deal.

want to know the truth, i think maybe there is no more important point. we are going to make billions of dollars with this trade deal. it's going to be great for us and great for china. their market is down close to 40%. our market is way up. we have picked up trillions of dollars of worth since my election. trillions. many trillions. and china has lost trillions of dollars. but i want it to be good for china and i want it to be good for the united states. so we'll see what happens. china is coming here next week, by the way. they are coming home, the traders and then china is coming here next week. i will be meeting with president xi after that maybe for some remaining deals, we'll make them directly, one on one ourselves. so we're going to be signing

today and registering national emergency. and it's a great thing to do because we have an invasion couof drugs, of gang, of people and it's unacceptable. by signing the national emergency something signed many times by other presidents, many, many times. president obama -- in fact, we may be using one of the national emergencies that he signed having to do with cartels, criminal cartels. it's a very good emergency he signed and we are going to use parts of it in our dealings on cartels. so that would be a second national emergency. but in that case it's already in place. and what we really want to do is simple. it's not like it's complicated. it's very simple. we want to stop drugs from coming into our country. we want to stop criminals and gangs from coming into our country. nobody has done the job that we have ever done. i mean, nobody has done the job

that we have done on the border. in a way, what i did by creating such a great economy and if the opposing party got in, this economy would be down the tubes. i hear a lot of people say, oh, well, but maybe the previous administration -- let me tell you. the previous administration, it was heading south and it was going fast. we would have been down the tubes. the regulations were strangling our country. unnecessary regulations. by creating such a strong economy, you just look at your televisions and see what's going on today, it's through the roof. what happens is more people want to come. so we have far more people trying to get into our country today than probably we have ever had before. and we have done an incredible job in stopping them. but it's a massive number of people. if we had the wall it would be very easy. we would make up for the cost of the wall just with the cost of

the fact that i would be able to have fewer people -- we wouldn't need all of this incredible talent, some of whom are sitting in the first row. you wouldn't need all of this incredible talent. we would get -- we would get thousands of law enforcement people including border patrol. you put them in different areas. you have them doing different things. law enforcement, border patrol. i want to thank law enforcement and i want to thank border patrol and i want to thank i.c.e. i.c.e. is abused by the press and by the democrats. by the way, we're going to be taking care of i.c.e. you know, we talk about the new bill. we are going to be taking care of i.c.e. they wanted to get rid of i.c.e. and the bill is the opposite of that. a lot of good things happened. so that's the story. we want to have a safe country.

i ran on a very simple slogan. make america great again. if you're going to have drugs pouring across the border. if you are going to have human traffickers pouring across the border in areas where we have no protection, in the bill by the way they didn't even fight us on most of the stuff. ports of entry, we have so much money don't know what to do with it. i don't know what to do with all the money they're giving us. it's crazy. $1.37 million, sounds like a lot, it's not so much although

we're put ting it to much bette use. in the past administrations they didn't do what they could have done. it would have been great. it would would have been great to do it earlier. i was a little new to the job, little new to the profession. we had a little disappointment. people that should have stepped up didn't step up. they didn't step up and they should have. it would have been easy. not that easy, but it would have been a lot easier. some people didn't step up. we're stepping up now. we have a chance to get close to $8 million. whether it's $8 million or $2 billion or $1.5 billion it's going to get done. we're in construction with wall in some of the most important areas. we've renovated a tremendous amount of wall, making it just as good as new. that's where a lot of money was

spent. we were restricted to renovating which is okay. we'll run out of areas to renovate soon. we need new wall. i want to thank everybody for being here. i want to thank in particular the angel mom and dads for being here. thank you. we have respect for you. the real country, the people that really love our country, they love you. i want you to know that. i know how hard you fight. i know how hard a fight you're having. i want to thank all the law enforcement for what you do. our country loves you and respects you greatly. we're giving you surplus. we're giving you surplus military equipment which a lot of people didn't like giving previous to this administration. h hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment. as we get it we send it down and

you have better protection. i appreciate you being here. the order is signed. i'll sign the final papers as soon as i get into the oval office. we will have a national emergency and we will then be sued and they will sue us in the 9th circuit even though it shouldn't be there. we'll possibly get a bad ruling. then we'll get another bad ruling. then we'll end up in the supreme court and hopefully we'll get a fair shake and we'll when in the supreme court just like the ban. they sued us in the 9th circuit. we lost. they sued us in the appellate division. then we went to the supreme court and we won. we have a ban. it's very helpful. without the ban, we would have a bigger problem. we have a ban on certain areas,

certain countries depending on what's going on in the world. we won. somebody said president trump lost on the ban. well, he was right i lost at the lower court. he didn't say we ultimately won at the united states supreme court. they didn't want to say that. they were saying how i lost. the person sitting right up here. donald trump lost on the ban. yeah, i did. then i lost a second time. you should have said that too. then it went to the supreme court and i won. didn't want to take it that far. we won on the ban and we won on other things too. probably easiest one to win is on declaring a national emergency because we're declaring it for virtual invasion purposes, drugs, traffickers and gangs. one of the things just to finish, we have removed thousands of ms-13 gang monsters, thousands.

they're out of this country. we take them out by the thousands. they are monsters. okay. do you have any questions? john? >> caller: you were prepared. mr. president -- >> you're saying i was prepared? >> caller: you were prepared for questions. >> i'm always prepared. >> caller: a lot of the money is money that's being reprogrammed in the d.o.d. budget. how can you guarantee to military families that none of the money reprogrammed to a wall will take away from other technology, other renovations, construction that is desperately needed? >> we have certain funds that are being used at the discretion

of generals, at the discretion of the military. some haven't been allocated yet. some of the generals think this is more important. i was speaking to a couple of them. they think this is far more important than what they were going to use it for. i won't go into details. if you think, i've got $700 billion for the military in year one. then last year $716 billion and we're rebuilding our military. we have a lot. under the previous administration our military was depleted, badly depleted. they weren't spending -- they had a much smaller amount of money. when i got $700 billion and then $716 billion and this year it's going to be pretty big too because there's few things more important than our military. i'm a big deficit believer and all that. before we start focusing on

certain things, we have to build up our military. it was very badly depleted. we're buying new jet fighters, missiles, defensive equipment. we'll soon have a military like we've never had before. when you think about the kind of numbers you're talking about, $700 billion, $716 billion, when i need $2 billion or $3 billion out of that for a wall, which is a very important instrument, very important for the military because of the drugs that pour in. as you know, we have specific rules and regulations where they have drugs and what you can do in order to stop drugs. that's part of it too. we're taking a lot of money from that realm. when you have this kind of money going into the military, this is a small amount we're asking for. go ahead.

abc, nbc. i like abc a little more, not much. abc. not much, pretty close. >> caller: mr. president what do you say to those including some of your republican allies you're violating the constitution with this move and setting a bad dprents that will be abused by democratic presidents in the future? >> not too many people have said that. the courts will determine that. i expect to be sued. i shouldn't be sued. very rarely do you get sued when you donation al emergency. other people say if you use it for this, what are you using it for? we got to get rid of drugs and people and gangs. it's an invasion. west virgin we have an vacation invasion ofd people coming into our country. i think we'll be very successful in court. i think it's clear. the people that say we create precedent, well, what do you

have 56 or a lot of times -- that's created precedent. you don't have a border, you don't have a country. we fight before i got here we fight all over the world to create borders for countries. we don't create a border for our own country. i think what will happen is sadly we'll be sued and sadly it will go through a process and happily we'll win i think. go ahead. let's go. let's hear it nbc. >> caller: thank you, mr. president. in the past when president obama tried to use executive action you said executive order is not the way the country is supposed to be run. you're supposed to go to congress and make a deal. will you concede you're unable to make a deal and the deal

you're ending up making is less than you could have had before the shutdown? >> i went through congress. i got almost $1.4 billion when i wasn't supposed to get one dollar. not one dollar. i got $1.4 billion. i'm not happy with it. i got billions and billions of dollars for other things. port of entries, the purchase of drug equipment, more than we were requesting. the primary fight was over the wall. we have so much i don't know what to do with it, we have so much money. on the wall they skimped. i was successful in that sense, but i want to do it faster. i could do the wall over a longer period of time. i didn't need to do this. i would rather do it much faster. i don't have to do it for the election. i've already done a lot of wall for the election. 2020. the only reason we're talking

about this is because of the election. they want to try to win an election which it looks like they're not going to be able to do. this is one of the ways they think they can win which is by obstruction and a lot of other nonsense. i want to get it done faster. that's all. okay. yes, ma'am go ahead. >> caller: thank you mr. president. i wanted to ask about china. do you feel that enough progress has been made in the talks to head off the increase in tariffs scheduled for march 1st? >> you're talking to the wrong person. i happen to like tariffs. we're taking in billions and billions of dollars in tariffs from china and our steel industry is an example. we taxed dumped steal. much comes from china at 25%. our steel industry is so vibrant now. they're building plants all over the united states.

it's a beautiful thing. from a defensive standpoint and any standpoint you need steel. our country cannot do without steel. i love tariffs, but i also love them to negotiate. right now china is paying us billions of dollars a year in tariffs. i haven't even started. here's the thing, if we make a deal, they won't have to pay. it will be a whole different story. we'll have a fair deal. there won't be intellectual property theft. no other president has done this. we didn't have a deal with china. the wto one of the worst trade deals ever made, probably worst than nafta. nafta was a total disaster for our country. now we made the usmca which is going to be a great deal.

by the way, the usmca from mexico, that's united states, mexico, canada, that's where the money is coming from -- not directly but indirectly for the wall. nobody wants to talk about that. we're saving billions and billions of dollars a year if congress approves that deal. they might not want to approve a deal just because they'll say one of the things i'm thinking of doing -- this has never been done before. no matter how good a deal i make with china, if they sell me beijing for one dollar, if they give me 50% of their land and every ship they built over the last two years which is a lot, and they give them to me free, the democrats would say what a lousy deal. that's a terrible deal. like zte, i got more than a billion dollars penalty in a short period of time. the democrats said you should have got more.

when i made that deal, i thought it was incredible. i got a billion dollar penalty. they had to pay over a billion dollars. i said what a deal. took me like a week. the democrats didn't even know there was a problem. i'm the one that find them, i'm the one that settled it. over a billion dollars. president xi called me and said it would be important to him if they could get a deal. we made a deal in a short period of time. the democrats went out and said, oh, they should have done better. so what i'm thinking of doing is getting chuck schumer, getting nancy pelosi, having them bring two or three of their brilliant representatives. we'll all go down together and we'll negotiate. i'll put them in the room and

let them speak up. any deal i make with china it will be better than any deal dreamt possible or i won't have a deal. any deal i make with china schumer is going to stand up and say it should have been better. it should have been better. you know what, that's not acceptable to me. so i'm thinking about doing something very different. i don't think it's ever been done. i don't want to be second guessed. that's not second guessed. it's called politics. sadly i probably do the same thing to them. any deal i make i'll bring schumer and pelosi. i'm going to say please join me on the deal. by the way, i see our new attorney general sitting in the front row. please stand up. such an easy job he's got. he's got the easiest job in government. thank you and congratulations. it was a great vote yesterday. yes, go ahead.

>> reporter: in your remarks you said you were too new to politics earlier in your administration when you would have plerefer this be done. is that an admission of how you might be changing on the job? >> i'm learning. don't forget it's not like a did this -- a senator came into my office and said i've been running for office 30 years. i won seven out of seven. i lost a couple when i was younger. i said i won one out of one. i never did politics before. i'm very disappointed at certain people, a particular one, for not having pushed this faster. >> reporter: are you referring to speaker ryan? >> let's not talk about it. what difference does it make? they should have pushed it faster and harder. they didn't. if they would have it would have been a little better. in the meantime i built a lot of wall.

i have a lot of money. i built a lot of wall. it would have been nice to have gotten done. i would like to see major immigration reform. maybe that's something we could all work on where we all get together and do major immigration reform, not just for a wall, barrier, port of entry, other things. we have a real problem. we have catch and release. you catch a criminal and you have to release them. we have so many other things. you have chain migration. a bad person comes in. brings 22 or 23 or 35 of his family members because he has his mother, grandmother, sister, cousin, uncle. they're all in. you know what happened on the west side highway. that young wise guy killed eight people and horribly injured -- nobody talks about that -- loss

of legs and arms. going 60 miles an hour he made a right turn into the park in new york. he had many people brought in because he was in the united states. it's called chain migration. then you have the lottery. it's a horror show. when countries put people in the lottery, they're not putting you in. they're putting some very bad people in the lottery. it's common sense. if i ran a country and had a lottery system of people going to the united states, i'm not going to put in my stars. i'm going to put in people i don't want. the lottery system is a disaster. i'm stuck with it. >> reporter: mr. president could you tell us to what degree some of the outside conservative voices helped to shape your views on this national emergency? >> sean hannity has been a terrific, terrific supporter of what i do, not of me. if i changed my views he

wouldn't be with me. rush limbaugh, i think he's a great guy. i could speak with three hours without a phone call. he's got one of the biggest audiences in the history of the world. this guy is unbelievable. please speak for three hours without taking calls. taking calls is easy. he goes for three hours and he has an audience that's fantastic. they don't decide policy. in fact, if i went opposite -- they have somebody -- ann coult coulter, i don't know her. i hardly know her. i haven't spoken to her in way over the year. the press loves saying ann coulter. if i did speak to her, she's probably very nice. i don't have the time. i like her for one reason. when they asked her right at the beginning who's going to win the election, she said donald trump. the two people that asked her

that question smiled. they said you're kidding, aren't you? nope, donald trump. i like her. but she's off the reservation, but anybody that knows her understands that. i haven't spoken to her. i don't follow her. i don't talk her. the press loves to bring up the name ann coulter. i think she's fine. i think she's good. i just don't speak to her. laura's been great, laura ingraham. tucker carlson. i have a couple people on cnn that have been gone. msnbc did a great report on me. i said where the hell did that come from? it was the only one in over a year. the crazy thing is i just had ras mus sen, 52%. my highest number. people get what i'm doing. jim acosta? >> reporter: thank you,

mr. president. could you comment on the disconnect we seem to have in the country where you are presenting information about what's happening at the border calling it an invasion talking about women with duct tape over their mouths, yes there's a lot of reporting, crime data and department of homeland security data that shows border crossings at a new record low -- >> that's because of us. >> reporter: it shows undocumented immigrants committing crime at lower level than native born americans. >> you don't believe that stat, do you? look at our federal -- >> reporter: i believe in facts and stats. what do you say to your critics who say you are creating a national emergency, that you're concocting a national emergency in order to get your wall?

>> i ask the angel moms. ask these incredible women who lost their daughters and sons. your question is political. you have an aye swren genda. you're cnn. you're fake news. you're wrong. take a look at our prison population. see how many of those are illegal aliens. it's a fake question. go ahead. >> reporter: can i ask a follow up? >> reporter: mr. president, to follow up on that unifying crime statistics, numbers from your own border control and government, show the amount of illegal immigrants are -- >> you have 26 people killed on the border a mile away from

where i went. >> reporter: i was there. i understand. that's not the question. >> do we forget about that? >> reporter: no. i'm asking you to clarify where you get your numbers. most of the dea crime reporting statistics show that drugs come through at the ports of entry that illegal immigration is down and the violence is down. what do you base your facts on? secondly -- >> no. you get one. sit down. >> reporter: could you please answer? >> sit down. i get my numbers from homeland security primarily and the numbers i have from homeland security are a disaster. you know what else is a disaster the numbers that come out of homeland security for the cost that we spend and the money we lose because of illegal immigration. billions and billions of dollars a month. it's unnecessary. >> reporter: your own government

stats are wrong? >> no. i use many stats. >> reporter: could you share those stats with us? >> you have stats far worse than what i use. i use many stats. i use homeland security. >> next question. >> reporter: just a quick follow up. >> no. >> reporter: thank you, mr. president. i want to bring you back to china. the white house put out a statement about the march 1st deadline. are you eyeing a possible extension, 30 days, 60 days? >> it's a very big deal. i guess you could say it's like the biggest deal ever made, trade with china. the usmca is right up there. it's very complicated. there are many, many points we're bringing up that nobody ever thought to bring up, but they're very important. we were on the wrong side of everyone of them. there's a possibility i will

extend the date. if i do that, if i see we're close to a deal or the deal is going in the right direction i would do that at the same tariffs we're charging now. >> reporter: let me ask you about the debt. it's gone from a shade of under $20 trillion. now it's a shade over $22 million and heading in the wrong direction. >> it's all about growth. >> reporter: growth only? >> before i focus on that -- you have to remember president obama put more debt on this country than every president in the history of our country combined. when i took over we had one man that put on more debt than any other presidentcombined. combine them all. you can't be talking about that. i talk about it because i consider it important. first i have to straighten out the military. the military was did he bleeple. if don't have a strong military,

you don't have to worry about debt. you have bigger problems. i had to straighten out the military. growth will straighten it out. you saw last month the trade deficit went way down. what's happening is growth. before i can focus too much on that, a very big ex pernpense i military. >> reporter: is growth the only answer? >> yes, ma'am, go ahead. >> reporter: thank you mr. president. on north korea back on the last summit you guys came out with a pretty general agreement. i was wondering what you thought has been accomplished since the last summit -- >> a lot. >> reporter: are we going to see anything con nuclearization? >> a lot has been accomplished. we're talking with them. we're dealing with them. when i came into office, i met

in the oval office with president obama. i sat in the beautiful chairs. we talked. it was supposed to be 15 minutes. it ended up being longer than that. i said what's the biggest problem? he said by far north korea. i don't want to speak for him. i believe he would have gone to war with north korea. i think he was ready to go to war. he told me he was so close to starting a big war with north korea. where are we now? no missiles. no rockets. no nuclear testing. we've learned a lot. much more importantly than all of it, much more important, much, much more important than that, we have a great relationship. i have a very good relationship with kim jong-un. i've done a job. in fact i think i can say this. prime minister abe of japan gave me the most beautiful copy of a

letter that he sent to the people who give out a thing called a nobel prize. he said i have nominated you or respectfully on behalf of japan i am asking them to give you the nobel peace prize. i said thank you. many other people feel that way too. i'll probably never get it. they gave it to obama. he didn't know what he got it for. he said oh, what did i get it for? with me i'll probably never get it. if you look at syria, i stopped the slaughter of perhaps 3 million people. nobody talks about that. russia and iran and syria were going to go in and perhaps destroy 3 million people in order to get 45,000 terrorists. i heard about it from a woman who had her parents and brother living there. she said please, please.

i said, no, it can't happen. what are you talking about? i come home and read a certain paper where the story was there that they were forming to go into -- to really do big destruction. i put out a statement that you better not do it. in all fairness to russia and iran and syria, they didn't attack or they're doing it surgically at least. saved a lot of people. we do a lot of good work. this administration does a tremendous job. we don't get credit for it. i think the people understand what we do. prime minister abe sent me the most beautiful five-page letter. nobo nobel prize. he sent it to them. you know why? he had rocket ships and missiles flying over japan. they had alarms going off. you know that.

now they feel good. they feel safe. i did that. it was a very tough dialogue at the beginning. fire and fury. total annihilation. my button is bigger than yours and my button works. remember that? you don't remember that. people said trump is crazy. you know what it ended up being? president trump talking to reporters. the news of the day happened about 45 minutes ago. the president saying he will in fact declare a national emergency to get up to $8 billion in money to fund a border wall along the southern border saying there's a quote, invasion happening. house speaker nancy pelosi and chuck schumer released a statement that the president's unlawful declaration over a crisis that does not exist does great violence to our constitution and makes america less stafe.

this is plainly a power grab from a disappointed president who is going outside the bounds of law who failed to get what he wanted to achieve. more coverage on msnbc, nbcnenbcnew nbcnews.com. hello, welcome back to "today" on this friday morning, it's the 15th of february. can i just comment on this monster crowd that is out here? it's clearly the start of a holiday weekend. >> this is a summer concert crowd. >> it certainly is. >> it's such a good crowd. >> a pre spring break crowd. >> there's so many to choose from, but i am looking for young

9-year-old locksme, hi honey, how are you? >> good. >> is this your birthday or around your birthday time? >> it's around my birthday. her sign says i skipped my birthday party to see you. she crawls into bed at 7:00 with her mom every morning to watch. and she wants one thing for her birthday ms. guthrie. she wants to take a selfie. >> you came to see me? can i have a hug? hi sweetie, happy birthday. what grade are you in? >> third grade. >> smile, guys. here's your picture. you all can get in it, too. >> thank you for coming. >> you all are in. >> when was your birthday? >> on sunday. >> on sunday. i'm so happy to meet you. >> i'm happy to meet you, too. >> okay, good. >> happy birthday, hi mom. thanks for coming. >> nice birthday gift. >> cutie. >> happy birthday. so we've been sharing the love all week. we've got one more great love

story to tell on this friday morning. natalie is going to introduce us to youtube stars, squirmy and grubs, a couple you will never forget, using tenderness and humor to break the stigma around disabilities. >> very cool. pop star julia michaels is here. she's got a brand new ep, it debuted at number one. it includes a very powerful track with selena gomez that julia's going to perform live for us today. and we've got another big name in music coming up on the third hour of "today," the legendary patti labelle will be here. >> wow. >> that's right to tell us all about her tv, we're seeing mostly queen latifah there. there's patti, to tell us about her tour, her tv show, and she's bringing pie. >> is she really? >> i love it. >> who knew ms. patti could cook. >> just a legend in the house. all right let us get a check of the weather. >> this young man came here, his

grand dad drove a bus with my dad, al roker senior. they were in the bronx together. what's your name? say hi to your grand dad for me. okay? very, very nice. let's check your weekend weather. see what we've got going on, and you'll see sierra snow for tomorrow, mountain snows and plain snows out in the west. wet weather in the mid-atlantic states. sunshine from the great lakes to the northeast, and as we look at sunday sunday, we're looking at midwest snows, more mid-mountain snows in the southwest, and rain in the southeast. looking beautiful in florida. is there really -- here's the question, is there really a ding dong texas? >> there's really a ding dong, texas. >> and you're from it? >> i'm from it. >> say hi to everybody in ding good morning. i'm meteorologist kari hall. waves of rain over the bay area linger into the morning as well as the afternoon. and we are not going to be done

with the rain as of yet. in fact, seeing some more heavy downpours potentially some thunderstorms as a cold front moves through. we'll also see some lower snow elevations from this evening into early tomorrow morning. as we look at our temperatures, it's still going to be cool, rain chances in the forecast through sunday. we will finally dry out, but the cool weather remains early next week. >> and that is your latest weather. savannah. okay, now to mr. geist, we love friday because we get a sneak peek at your sunday sit-down. you've got a good one this weekend. >> thank you for calling me mr. geist. i've been asking you for years to address me that way. >> after i heard from your lawyer i finally did it. >> ms. guthrie. >> i'm not there yet with her. my guest is liam hemsworth. he's best known for his recent marriage to miley cyrus and the youngest of the three brothers all starring in hollywood.

he's now trying his hand at come comedy. >> i'm so sorry. my driver was probably distracted by you. how are you? quite the darling, aren't you? >> we know you from the hunger games movies and independence day and all those kind of filmsment did that feel like a leap for you? it felt like a time to do something differently definitely. in my real life i'm not very serious. i just wanted to hold my own with people like adam and rebel who are comedians and extremely funny. >> liam hemsworth grew up the youngest of three actor brothers, chris and luke already were making names for themselves in hollywood while liam was cutting his teeth on australian television. >> i started sending tapes over to the states for different projects and one of them was for thor. you know how it ends obviously. >> liam lost the role of thor to his big brother chris, a twist of fate that pushed liam toward a different life changing movie. >> what's the first moment you go, okay, i've got work? here we go.

>> it was the last song, yeah. that was the first job i got. and it was like literally right at the end of my three-month visa. >> you can really sing? is there anything else i don't know about you? >> originally they cast another kid, and it doesn't work out with him. >> the 2010 disney teen drama paired liam with a co-star named miley cyrus. >> my agent calls me like whispering, he's like you're going to go to disney right now. it's not working out with the other guy. you've got to go in and read with miley. i come in and everyone starts clapping. we should have gone with you first. i'm like okay, good, great. >> that's a crazy story. >> yeah, yeah. >> there are so many pieces that could have gone different ways. >> it's sort of weird how it all comes together, and ten years later i'm here, married. >> liam and miley were married this past december in tennessee after nearly a decade together. >> we just try to keep as much of it private as we can. i feel really happy and really fortunate to be with such a great person. >> yeah, so they met on the set

of that movie on a job he wasn't supposed to have. he was hoping he was going to get the thor job, his brother chris hemsworth get that. all these twists of fate lead him to miley cyrus. >> no accidents. >> they grew up on this little island in australia, all going on to be big stars in hollywood. >> we're all going to phillip island now. if that's what's happening over there. >> it's magic. >> we're going to have much more on "sunday today." to listen to the entire unedited conversation and our library of other sit-downs. >> are you just bragging now. >> we're trying to get people to listen to the podcast. subscribe at apple podcast. >> willie, mr. geist, thank you. >> thank you ms. guthrie. >> thank you, thank you. up next, a young coue using the power of youtube to spread their love and to also break down stereotypes. natalie's going to join us to share their remarkable store are you. first this is "today" on nbc chblt

. life with love and humor, except shane has a form of muscular dystrophy and using a wheelchair. they discover people find the relationship to be pretty peculiar. seven monthsti ago they startedo blog about their daily life, and now millions are tuning in to watch. >> i'mo hannah. >> and i'm shane. this is a vlog about our lives. i have a disease. >> shane does have a disease called spinal muscular atrophy, which causesro his muscles to

detid deteriora deteriorate, but he and his girlfriend also have a popula youtube channel called squirmuly and grubs seen by millions. >> when you're dealing with a body type a disparity like ours >> body type disparity? what, because you'rey? a giant? >> it features their daily life as boyfriend and girlfriend in what they call an interabled relationship.bl >> hi. >> i'm a dead fish. >> it also features their incredible sense of humor with video titles like man with disability lifts cup for the first time in years. >> whoa. >> and girlfriend helps disabled boyfriend take shower, will he survive? > ooh, pretty view. who'svi in the tub? >> ittu affects my muscles, noty mind, not my heart, i can laugh and learn just the way anyone else does. love.d >> and love.

should have said vethat. that would have been better. >> and the love they share between them, l a disabled man d an able bodied woman is something they hope to normalize. >> people who look and see your relationships and you write about it andsh talk about it, ty assume that hannah is your nurse or just your caregiver or sometimes even your mother? >> yeah, i think that mistake that people make is really indicative of the stigmas that exist, because they see us out in spublic, and there's no way that we couldo be a couple that are in love. she must be a family member or a nurse or something like that. >> that's because they assume that you don't have the mental capacity to be my boyfriend. >> people do that all the time, they give her kids menus for me. >> kids menus. >> kids menus. and i'll order a beer, and they'll lookbe at hannah, like e we allowed to do this.

>> and to further destigmatize their relationship, shane and hannah often answer personal questions like how they cuddle when they go to bed. >> i'm the small spoon. hannah's the big spoon. we tried the other way. >> doesn't work. >> and sometimes they even have guest stars. >> welcome back to another episode of squirmy and grubs. >> we're here today with natalie morales from the "today" show interviewing her. >> it'swi easy to see what a grt team they make, especially making their guest stars comfortable. >> so we thought that our interview was over, and then natalie was kind of got in the band and like refused to leave us alone. so we're having a date now in a coffee shop, and look who's here with us. >> really uncomfortable. >> i'm a little bit of a third wheel. problem withhave a it. >> what's the future? what are you guys thinking long-term? >> eight to nine kids.

[ laughter ] >> no, hannah and i have talked about getting married and having a family someday.ve don't know when, maybe we'll do another special when that happens. >> and guys, shane has a new book coming out this spring. it's calledt strangers assume girlfriend is my nurse. and you know, they say their goal really with their vlog ask with all that they're doing is not to be inspirations to others but rather, you know, for people to see them as a normal couple and to normalize what they call interabled relationships. >> shane's certainly got a remarkable sense of humor. >> how'd they meet, nat? >> they met because shane was featured in ane documentary, an hannah saw it, and she just had to meet him. she reached out to him online. she kind of cyber stalked him. when she e-mailed him, what he loved about her was the fact that she wasn't focused at all on his disabilities, rather was just inat love with his humor. his sense of personality.

>> i can see why. >> it was love at first e-mail. >> that's a great story, nat. thank you. have ath great weekend. >> thank you, you too. all right, guys, just ahead. let me makeah my way, we've got special live performance here in studio 1a. check it out, grammy nominated singer, song writer, and awesome human being, julia michaels is here. she's going to ssing. she's got a number one. first this is "today." yeah, julia.>>

the citi concert series on "today" is proudly presented to you by citi. very excited to be back with grammy nominated singer song writer and our friend julia michaels. >> her 2017 went triple platinum. she's got a new song that's very personal to her. it's called "anxiety"me."

we are panic partners as we say. >> anxiety society. >> totally. you and i both talked a lot about just talking about anxiety helps. why did you write a song about it? >> it's something that i deal with every day on a daily basis, and something that i've always wanted to talk about and now i finally get to write about it and sing about it. >> you talked about being at the billboard awards and having one of the panic attacks but you were also talking about when things matter so much to you, it matters what the reaction is. you care that much, right? >> yeah. there's nothing that feels more amazing to me than when somebody's singing with me. it's just so special. >> it's good that -- she was such a prolific song writer for so long. i'm glad that your anxiety and panic didn't lead you to just becoming a song writer. was it hard to make the switch to get up here in front of everybody? >> every day it's a bit of a struggle. i love that i get to do what i do and connect with people all over the world. >> you really do connect. i was just saying sitting here looking at you, you can understand why people tell you their secrets.

it must turn you into such a great song writer. >> you have such an honest face. >> you're going on tour with pink? stop it. that is going to be a ball. when is that starting. >> it starts march 1st. we're routing our first headline shows in between. we'll be doing our own inner monologue tour as well. >> what are you going to sing for us this morning? >> i'm going to sing "anxiety." >> julia michaels take it away. ♪ ♪ my friends, they want to take me to the movies ♪ ♪ i tell them i'm 40eholding ha with my depression ♪ ♪ and when i think i've overcome it ♪ ♪ anxiety starts kicking in to teach it all a lesson ♪ ♪ oh, i try my best to be social ♪ ♪ i make all these plans with friends and hope they call and cancel ♪ ♪ then i overthink about the things i'm missing, now i'm

wishing i was with them ♪ ♪ feel like i'm always apologizing for feeling like i'm out of my mind ♪ ♪ when i'm doing just fine. my exes all say that i'm hard to deal with ♪ ♪ and i admit it, and i admit it ♪ ♪ but all my friends, they don't know what it's like, what's it's like ♪ ♪ they don't understand why i can't sleep through the night ♪ ♪ i've been told that i could take something to fix it ♪ ♪ i wish it, i wish it was as that simple ♪ ♪ but all my friends they don't know what it's like ♪ ♪ always wanted to be one of those people in the room that says something and everyone puts their hand up ♪ ♪ like if you're sad put your hand up ♪ ♪ if you hate someone put your hand up ♪ ♪ if you're scared put your hand up ♪ ♪ feel like i'm always apologizing for feeling ♪ ♪ like i'm out of my mind when i'm doing just fine ♪

♪ but my exes all say that i'm hard to deal with, and i admit it. it's true ♪ ♪ now all my friends, they don't know what it's like, what it's like ♪ ♪ they don't understand why i can't sleep through the night ♪ ♪ i've been told that i could take something to fix it, i wish it, i wish it was that simple ♪ but all my friends they don't know what it's like, ♪ ♪ i got all these thoughts running through my mind ♪ ♪ all the damn time, and i can't seem to shut it off ♪ ♪ i think i'm doing fine most of the time ♪ ♪ i think that i'm all right, but i can't seem to shut it off ♪ ♪ i got all these thoughts running through my mind ♪ ♪ all the damn time, and i can't seem to shut it off ♪ ♪ i think i'm doing fine most of the time ♪ ♪ i think that i'm all right,

but i can't seem to shut it off ♪ ♪ shut it, shut it off ♪ but all my friends they don't know what it's like, what it's like ♪ ♪ they don't understand why i can't sleep through the night ♪ ♪ i've been told that i could take something to fix it, damn i wish it, i wish it was that simple ♪ ♪ well, all my friends they don't know what it's like, what it's like. yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ what it's like, what it's like, oh, oh, yeah what it's like what it's like ♪ >> wow, how about that that is awesome. julia michaels, ladies and

gentlemenme gentlemenment. you're doing more than just fine. you're doing incredible. pick up the ep, thank you dan for that accompaniment. julia, you rock. we love you, too. we're back in a moment, but first this is "today" on nbc.

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you can find more stories you'll love, and there's only one place to find it. today.com/allday. >> you will meet the adorable new addition to natalie's family opi. she adopted a puppy. he is so cute, rescue puppy. >> you can sign up for our morning boost news letter. why not wake up to good news. >> more on today.com/allday. answers to your burning tax questions to clean up that confusion over those new tax laws that have a lot of americans getting much smaller

refunds and in some cases even tax bills. first, next hour, guys, patti labelle, are you kidding me? >> she's bringing pie, patti and pie. >> have a good weekend. i )m - the russian river in guerneville is officially in the good morning, 8:56. i'm marcus washington. the russian river in guerneville is officially in the flood stage. the river crested about 35 feet just a couple of hours ago. the sonoma sheriff's department is issuing an advisory for anyone living near low-lying areas to move to higher ground. most of the homes in guerneville sit on stilts as a way to avoid the flood damage.

the flooding is expected to be a problem for the majority of the day. happening now, a neighborhood in sausalito is on edge. the risk of mud slides still looms as more rain is falling. you can see -- actually, you probably saw firefighters rescuing susan gordon live on "today in the bay" yesterday morning. crews dug her out of the mud after her duplex slid down a hill on to an empty home. she is okay. four buildings are still red tagged. her gofundme page has been set up for gordon. so far, $20,000 has been raised. later today, fire crews will be back at that scene to continue damage assessment. and this weekend, a lot of people are planning to go to tahoe and this is new video from dutch flat in placer county. 80 is shut down due to the whiteout conditions. remember to bring those chains, extra supplies in case you get stuck. i'm marcus washington. more news in an hour. the bay arf

next week-- that )s bringing n-b-a star steh curry and former president obama together! plus---as your work week starts-- kari let )s us know when things will finally dry up. join us monday morning from 4:30 to 7.

> >> announcer: from nbc news, this is "today" live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. >> we made it to friday. >> made it to friday, happy friday. >> you made it too. >> we all made it, and we're here with sheinelle, carson, jill, our pal, dylan is out. craig is running off to catch a flight. >> ce. >> so we're so thrilled you guys -- >> the gang's all here. >> so we've all heard this incredible story out of colorado, this guy travis kauffman who literally escaped the jaws and claws of death. earlier this month he's running on a trail in colorado, and he hears pine needles being crunched, turns around, and there's a mouai