didn't come to that meeting empty handed. the russians came to the meeting and they wanted to repeal one of the most important pieces of human rights legislation out there, the magnitsky act. and they would have come with something to offer. we don't know what that is, that's what they're trying to get to the bottom of. >> i think that for your time. i'm sure we had to cut it short. bill browder author of "red notice." that wraps up this hour for me. thank you for watching. "deadline: white house" starts right now. hello, everyone. it's 4:00. i'm kasie hunt, filling in for my friend nicolle wallace. new this hour an exclusive to nbc news. what's been described as quote cryptic notes from paul manafort taken at that controversial trump tower meeting with russians in 2016. two sources briefed on the notes tell nbc news that those notes which were typed on a smartphone

include the word donations near a reference to the republican national committee. those notes have been turned over to the house and senate intelligence committees and to special council robert mueller. nbc news also confirms this afternoon that mueller is working together with the new york state attorney general schneiderman. they have been sharing evidence and discussing materials also involving manafort. president trump doesn't have the pardon power over state crimes and mueller working in coordination with schneiderman could give them additional leverage in encouraging manafort to cooperate. starting us off to discuss all of this this hour, white house bureau chief at "the washington post," philip rucker. intelligence and national security reporter for nbc news, ken dilanian. ken, i want to go first to you because this is your -- you're a great scoop with our colleague, carol lee. walk us through what's new and why it's important. >> two sources familiar with the

matter tell us that paul manafort who is then donald trump's campaign chairman was typing out notes on a smartphone during this infamous meeting in june 2016 in trump tower between a group of top trump aides and a russian lawyer and russian lobbyist. these notes have been turned over to the committees and also to robert mueller and in the notes are a cryptic reference to donations next to rnc for republican national committee. now, of course nobody knows 100% what that means but it's really piqued the interest of investigators who are concerned about and want to know whether there was any discussion whatsoever about potential contributions from the russians at the meeting or from any russians at all to the republicans in the trump campaign. why? because that's illegal. it's illegal for foreigners to donate to american campaigns and for them to accept foreign donations so that's piqued the curiosity of investigators. they want to know more about that. we have a statement from

manafort's spokesperson, jason moloney, saying that it's 100% false that there was any discussion of donations during this trump tower meeting. >> yeah, ken, i have that whole statement here. it says 100% false. mr. manafort provided the senate committee with facts and notes so this conjecture is pointless and wrong. phil rucker what does this say about where the investigations stand currently? >> well, there are a lot of things we don't know about this meeting and things that we don't know about what robert mueller and his team have found so far. but it does tell us that they're seizing on that meeting. this was the meeting that don jr. helped organize at trump tower and the meeting that president trump helped create a response to in the media this summer. we know that the president's actions to help shape that response is something that mueller and his teammate be looking at. so again, there are a lot of questions we still don't know. we don't know what that donation

line specifically meant. as ken was referring to. but it could be a reference to illegal activity. >> ken, can you describe a little bit what the notes would look like if the committee was reading through them? you point out they were on a smartphone. i take notes on my smartphone all the time and they can look like a collection of gibberish sometimes. i mean, how sure are investigators about the connection between the two things? >> they're not very sure at all, kasie, that's a great point. these have been described to me as cryptic one or two word notations. you know, perhaps by a man who's not very facile with taking notes on a smartphone. probably not as good as you. so they're trying to puzzle through what this -- what this actually means. and the other risk here of course is that according to both the russians and the trump campaign there was a discussion of donations at this meeting but it was about donations to the clinton campaign. because don't forget this meeting was take within a promise of incriminating information about hillary

clinton and according to both sides there wasn't really much that was offered but there was a discussion by the russians about this -- these sanctions and this magnitsky act situation and some people involved in that. who almost took some money out of russia and they were tying it to hillary clinton's campaign. it was nothing that the trump campaign did anything with. but if that came up, you know, that could be a reason that manafort noted donations. but that doesn't explain the rnc and that's -- that notation has congressional investigators interested. >> very interesting. i want to switch gears really quickly. i know this has come out, and nbc news has not confirmed this reporting yet. we are working on it but there's a new "wall street journal" story out that says lawyers for donald trump have met several times with robert mueller and they have made arguments that the president didn't obstruct justice when he fired jim comey and they have called his credibility into question. ken, what's your take on this news from "the wall street journal" and what does it mean?

>> i think this is pretty standard tactics by white collar defense attorneys when they know what a case is about. they're making a legal argument before charges are even brought. i mean, they know that mueller's investigating whether donald trump obstructed justice in part by firing james comey and there are other aspects of the conduct. what he said to james comey in private meeting, what he said to dan coats and mike rogers about, you know, the heads of the intelligence agencies about saying there was no collusion but this particular act of firing james comey is under scrutiny. they have made the argument, look, it was lawful to fire the fbi director and that's no doubt true and they're saying that james comey would not make a reliable witness. it is the kind of thing you'd expect high powered white collar defense attorneys to be doing. we have gotten some guidance that the mueller team is less interested in the obstruction angle as regards to the comey firing as opposed to the

collusion angle. >> your news would suggest that based on the notes you point out are. so i want to expand this conversation a little bit. i want to bring in former attorney general doug gant her and a former chief of staff to house speaker paul ryan and rick stengel. thank you all so much for joining me here. so i want to talk around the table a little bit, but i want to start with you, doug, as a former attorney general. can you explain this "wall street journal" story, what are donald trump's lawyers doing here with special counsel robert mueller? because it say anything to you calling comey's credibility into question here? >> i think that's the extension of what donald trump is doing, to call comey into question. i think at the end of this entire story months and months down the road the firing of director comey could potentially be the undoing of donald trump. what it did is it got him

rosenstein and bob mueller, beyond reproach, definitely political, definitely apolitical, don't like the press or the fact we're talking about different leaks right now. and so, you know, the obstruction of justice is a bit of a red herring. the real issue is the commingling of finances and bringing in schneiderman will be part of it going forward. >> on your point, attorney general schneiderman working here with special counsel robert mueller. phil, what do you think the significance of schneiderman's involvement here is? is he trying to put the squeeze on manafort? >> it seems they're beginning to put the squeeze on manafort and dig into his past businesses. we know he's had years of international consulting work with a number of countries much of it funded by russian oligarchs and i think there's an

effort here to try to document of that as they can including manafort's real estate transactions in new york and elsewhere and it seems like working with the attorney general in new york is a way to pressure manafort and try to make it clear to him that they have got goods on him and bring him into the conversation to share what he knows about trump. >> rick stengel, this meeting with the russians is a central focus here. you have worked inside the state department. and based on ken's new reporting, what is your sense f of, you know, the overall implications that they could have been talking about financial donations to the rnc, do the republican national committee in general, especially considering the timing? >> well, one thing to remember about this meeting and how russians work, they use everybody. these are all d-list players. these are not first class diplomats or business people. these are people who are -- you know, kind of don't know how the world operates which is why they can send e-mails saying i have

incriminating evidence against hillary clinton and another person who doesn't understand that says that's fantastic. i want to reiterate what phil was saying about paul manafort. it's interesting that this putting the squeeze on manafort. because what i'm about to say is speculation. i went to the ukraine three times while i was in the state department. manafort has worked in ukraine and with russian puppets for decades. if there's anybody who knows where all the bodies are buried in terms of real estate and payments it's paul manafort and if he starts singing, we'll learn a lot more. >> although the president of course has dismissed him as simply a low level aide who didn't -- >> his chairman. >> played a huge role. exactly. for republicans who are kind of watching this investigation unfold and there have been reports over the past week that the president has gotten angry on the phone with some senators about, you know, not doing enough to stand in the way of this russian investigation. behind the scenes what are people close to republicans in washington like paul ryan, how do they view this drip drip drip of news? do they want secretly another shoe to drop or --

>> nobody is waiting for another shoe to drop but what you have got is a situation in terms of speaker ryan and i think leader mcconnell their job is to get done the key legislative decisions and right now the focus is on taxes. they have debt limit, cr, money to give to texas and louisiana for the hurricane that's down there. those are the things they're focused on right now. in general though, i think as people have said by bringing in the attorney general of new york they bring in somebody who can put more pressure on paul manafort. but also who is a more political actor. >> right. >> that's a change for this whole situation because mr. mueller is somebody -- everybody says is beyond reproach. you start to get look at the other people who are very political in this it's a different situation. i don't know what gaesing to come of this. my view is mr. mueller will do what he needs to do. he is a man who's certainly his history, his reputation, stands

above -- or as high as anybody in this town. and i think most republicans are really content to say, let mueller do what he has to do. a lot of this ultimately is reading entrails right now and when you're reading entrails you ought to have all of them or sit back and let the guy sit back and -- >> come back -- were you trying to jump in there? >> yeah, i wanted to dovetail on a couple of things said about general schneiderman. i think it's important because he's not seen as political and he's gone after the trump administration, he got $25 million regarding the trump university, he's gone after the trump administration on immigration. on the environment. but what's critical here, many people think the reason they brought in general schneiderman is because trump can't pardon somebody if they're convicted of a crime, and what's lost in this is the martin act. that was passed in 19251 it's how spitzer became governor of

new york and it's a little used law but only that implies -- applies in new york that says if you have any deceitful practices that defy common honesty, and financial fraud you can be convicted. so now manafort has that hanging over his head as they're going to squeeze him very much and he'll start -- what the goal is to get him to start saying pretty quickly. >> thanks to ken dilanian and to doug gant her from maryland. i want to turn now to the story we have been covering earlier today to harvey where the death toll continues to climb in southeast texas. authorities in galveston county and beaumont have announced that at least six more people have been found bringing the total deaths to 32. and as the floodwaters recede in some areas the recovery process is slowly beginning in houston. the white house spent much of this afternoon's briefing discussing the long road ahead.

i want to go now to nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker. we just heard quite a bit from the white house briefing. can you give us the highlights? what did you learn that's new about where things stand with the storm? >> reporter: hi, there, kasie. homeland security adviser tom bossert said as many as 100,000 homes may have been affected. he didn't want to give specifics in terms of how much the government would need in terms of federal funding but he said that's a top priority for this administration to try to get federal funding once congress is back. the administration clearly taking an all hands on deck approach to dealing with the recovery efforts. mr. bossert also saying that gouging will not be tolerated so some very strong words from the briefing room just moments ago. he along with sarah huckabee sanders said president trump will be returning to the region over the weekend. take a listen. >> the president and the first

lady will be traveling both to texas and louisiana on saturday. the specific cities and locations are being finalized. hopefully we'll have that information for you later today. i believe as of right now tentatively he plans to be in the houston area of texas and possibly lake charles, louisiana. but again, you know, that may change a bit. >> and of course all of this comes, kasie, as the administration is considering what it is going to do with the daca program. that program that was enacted under former president obama that allows young people who were brought here as children to stay here to finish their education. there is a deadline of tuesday with a number of states threatening to bring suit against the trump administration if they don't reverse the daca program. sarah huckabee sanders saying that no decision has been made yet. mr. bossert got a number of questions about what happens to those who are here illegally who

may be impacted by the floods. we're really seeing the intersection of this natural disaster along with his very thorny policy issue. mr. boss serts was very clear, look, no one is going to starve. no one is going to be left out. at the same time, he said don't expect federal funding to be directed to anyone who is here and who is undocumented. so this continues to be front and center for this administration as so many people continue to suffer in texas, kasie. >> kristen welker, thank you. coming up, new scrutiny of both ivanka trump and jared kushner on the heels of the white house announcing it will end an obama era equal pay rule. her decision to support the change is raising some eyebrows. and this comes as a new report suggests jared's family business is in a lot of trouble. plus, vice president mike pence is in texas this afternoon doing something the president didn't do. meeting with storm victims. the latest on his visit up next.

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and we will be here every day until this city and this state and this region rebuild bigger and better than ever before. >> that was vice president mike pence this morning speaking in rock port, texas, where residents there were among the first to be impacted by hurricane harvey. i want to bring in to the conversation msnbc contributor senior politics reporter at today heidi przybyla. good to see you. but i want to start this conversation, phil, what a contrast between -- >> yeah. >> what we saw from president trump and mike pence today. >> huge contrast. when we saw trump in texas on tuesday, you know, he didn't go to the damaged area and that's partly by design because it would have been difficult to move the president into houston as the floods were ongoing. but he said very little about the people who were impacted. he talked mostly about the government officials and congratulated them on the good

work they had done and got up at the fire truck and held up the texas flag to his big crowd. but there wasn't a lot of empathy that he displayed during -- >> it was more of a campaign rally. >> exactly. >> and then pence is hugging people he prayed with people. he wore jeans, he moved twigs and logs and broke a sweat and showed he's connected to the people. >> they're very different people as you pointed out but in some ways you have to be a little careful here. the president was saying we're doing the job, getting it done. we're putting together the type of team and he made that point very well. did he do the compassion side, no he talked about -- we talked about that yesterday. that was helpful. but in the end this is a team exercise. and you either are successful or not successful net going this done because there's a whole lot of people. the coordination appears between the state, between the local, between the federal government and all of those has been very good. both in texas and louisiana. so i think there's a positive

thing to be said here. and that's -- you know, just as we do in football, you lose -- you blame the coach. but in this case the coach may get some credit for this because it's been a good operation. >> rick stengel, you're a professional communicator in many ways. >> in all ways. >> in all ways, but look, you know what kind of different -- what message did pence is send today that the president didn't? >> again, he conveyed the kind of empathy that a public servant is -- it was good. i was pleased to see he said it was my privilege to be able to be here with you today. the one area i'll take issue with and at the risk of being a skunk at the picnic, houston is going to build bigger and better than ever. part of the problem of harvey like katrina, these are man-made disasters because the thousands and thousands of buildings build on 100 year floodplains, these are problems of public officials and unregulated expansion that has made these areas vulnerable. to me it's not about building

bigger and better, but building to a 500 or 1,000 plan the way that amsterdam and other cities are threatened like this. >> you have to look at it -- if we look at new orleans it's under sea level. new orleans is protected by those dikes. >> the army corps of engineer built them to the low standard. >> i don't dispute that, but we have very big cities right now and you can't say we'll shut down houston or new orleans. >> i'm not saying that. you build it to protect the people. >> and hopefully we'll be learning from this as we hopefully learned from katrina because the biggest problem of katrina was those dikes as you said. they weren't up to -- did not protect the people of new orleans the way they had to. >> heidi przybyla, i want to bring you in here. the president did promise that hey, we'll rebuild this really fast as rick stengel points out. is he setting himself up for failure there? this promises to be a long and

drawn out process. >> in typical trump fashion he likes to make the big promises like he did on health care and everything is bigger and better and it will happen really fast, but in this case i think rick hits the nail on the head. the man-made part of this. is the trump administration and the public officials down there and everyone who will be involved in cleaning up this mess going to be willing to have the kind of uncomfortable discussions that frankly go against their ideology in some cases like this with the rapid development that took place there that allowed these developers to just go in and clean up and build across this prairie land and groups like propublica which by the way forecast this and warned about exactly this in houston. so if you want to address those problems which have to do specifically with regulations and having more regulations to prevent some of these developers from going in there willy-nilly and just building wherever they want, and then secondly, having the difficult conversations about the fact that these type

of heavy precipitation events are increasing in recent decades. this is something that our urban planners across the country and not just here but around the world are going to have to acknowledge and build around. so the question is the trump administration after we get through this period of mourning and yes words are important, in showing your empathy is important. but the really important thing is getting the policy right and that's something that you can't do overnight and rebuild it bigger and better and responsibly. >> how is this going to shape the debate in washington and that congress has to fund help for this. i can imagine this playing out in a pretty political fashion. >> certainly. we don't know how this would play out -- we were expecting september to be a huge month of fiscal deadlines and it will be. but we're hearing more and more there might be a debt ceiling, harvey relief bill. they might pass a short term cr deal with the border wall, you

know, in december when we can have a more fulsom debate. >> maybe we can get more unity out of this tragedy. everybody stay put. still ahead, ivanka trump has said many times that women's empowerment issues who ub a key focus of hers in the white house. but now she's backing the administration's move to end an obama era rule for equal pay. what she is saying about that move next. >> i know that just this past march you passed an equal pay legislation to promote transparency and to try to finally narrow that gender pay gap. that's a something we should all be looking at. from the first moment you met it was love at first touch and all you wanted to do was surround them in comfort and protection that's why only pampers swaddlers is the #1 choice of hospitals to wrap your baby in blanket-like softness and premium protection

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equal work and i will fight for this too right along side of him. >> that was ivanka trump at the republican national convention just last summer vowing to support equal pay. but now the trump administration with an okay from ivanka has taken action to stop a rule that would have required large companies to report employees' salaries broken down by race, gender and ethnicity. critics say it weakens the fight for equal pay which has been one of her signature issues. it comes during a busy week of headlines for her and her husband, jared kushner. kushner's family business owes millions of dollars and is struggling to get cash to pay back its loans. and of course there's another headline this week, "vanity fair" on how isolated jared and ivanka are in d.c. part of it reads, quote, they know they can never have their new york life back as it existed before donald trump started his campaign nor do they want to give up the power of their current positions in washington.

we were talking yesterday about a tweet from the president that may have been referring to that article in a magazine that he believes is now discredited. let's bring in a political reporter from the guardian who wrote about ivanka and that decision we talked about to roll back the policy on equal pay. with us also is "new york times" correspondent glenn thrush. you don't have your hat on, glenn. sabrina, can you explain a little bit we're in the weeds on regulations we quall pay -- with equal pay and the breakdowns. explain what the administration is doing. does this make ivanka trump a hypocrite? >> well, first and foremost this concerns an equal pay rule that the obama administration had announced in january of 2016. which in essence would have required companies with 100 employees or more to collect paid data broken down by race, ethnicity and gender and report that back to the federal

government so that they could glean more information on discriminatory practices as well as bring more accountability with respect to the enforcement of equal pay laws. so the trump administration is halting the implementation of that rule with the policing of ivanka trump who as you recall came into the white house saying they wanted to be an advocate for women in the workplace. she reached this decision after consulting with experts but they didn't really say how this would be burdensome on the government other than citing the volume of paperwork and some privacy concerns. nor did she put forward an alternative. i think it does undermine the emphasis she has placed on women's economic issues where she is yet to show substantive results other than pay lip service to the cause. >> so jared and ivanka have sort of gotten a lot of credit in the press for being the people who say that they're speaking up or if they, you know, disagreed with the president on charlottesville, for example, they were on vacation,

unavailable. in this case has ivanka trump said what she was going to do? >> there doesn't seem to be a record of tangible accomplishment on the issues. you know, certainly she's out there promoting them. she's spoken about them publicly. but what you have with jared and ivanka and especially with ivanka is these are the people that the left -- the progressives, the business leaders with more kind of socially liberal views, view as their conduit, but the problem is that they're not actually making an impact on the policy. remember, al gore went to meet with them to try to persuade them about the paris climate agreement and the president, you know, rejected that advice and moved along to get rid of the paris accord. >> glenn thrush, what's your sense that that "vanity fair" story -- you know we're not 100% that was the source of the tweet that the president put out, talking about old magazines but where's your sense of where they stand with the president and in the white house? do they still have -- have they ever had power? is the russia investigation

making it impossible for for jared kushner to focus on all he's supposed to be running so where does it stand? >> the president wouldn't be president if it wasn't for the old magazines let me say that. he's got as i recall, doesn't have a couple of phony "time" magazine covers up in some of his golf properties. so he likes old magazines. anyway, i think the -- i think the problem to transition abruptly from that, the -- look, the problem here is i think jared and ivanka have been viewed through this entirely distorted notion that they were going to be an outsized policy impact. but ivanka in particular, jared is a we see general aris, and ivanka trump is acting very, very much in the standard role of either first daughter or even a first lady. she provides her father with support and she's not going to buck him on anything substantive. you know, we recalled that during george w. bush's presidency his wife and

daughters and his mother in fact had various views on issues like choice than he did or so it was reported. so she is playing a very familiar role. i think the problem was they let the expectations get completely out of control. now jared kushner i think is in a somewhat different category. he's gotten much more into the mix of things and his role is extraordinarily ambiguous. i think the question is with john kelly as chief of staff, somebody who wants to cut off all the back channels, somebody who for instance has told both of these folks they need to communicate in the official way through him, does kelly want them in the white house? and does he have the authority to perhaps convince them to go back to their new york -- to the new york lives? i'm not certain how this is going to turn out but it's very clear they are getting less than they bargained for when they came to washington. >> heidi, can i bring you in on the jared kushner question? this "vanity fair" story that glenn was -- we were talking

about. kind of walks through the events leading up to that statement that the president put out and this goes back to the russia conversation we were having earlier in the show, leading up to that meeting that don jr. called with russians back in 2016. kind of details of how kushner was on the phone with his lawyers, perhaps frantically e-mailing, perhaps having a different, you know, set of motives than his brother-in-law. has the russia investigation and kushner's role in it kind of upset the apple cart here for his role in family trump? >> what we know is that this is pointing towards some kind of financial investigations, financial ties and for a long time we have looked at that meeting that he had with russian bankers and we thought well, was this potentially about the trump administration trying to do some kind of quid pro quo with sanctions? well, this introduces a second narrative that again we're being a bunch of dots are being thrown at us, that we can't -- you know, can't connect quite yet.

but the fact that his family business would be in such difficult financial situation the fact that we know now that they were seeking some kind of funding from foreign entities, these are all things that are highly suggestive. but not evidence of anything. the fact of the matter is that only bob mueller knows exactly where this is going, but what you see here is the tapestry of individual players who separately now are facing potentially incriminating situations including paul manafort and now including jared kushner who up until a couple of months or about a month ago we didn't think would play such a central role in this investigation now he may be central to the collusion investigation as well as potentially facing his own set of problems regarding what ever kind of financial arrangements were discussed if they were. >> we didn't get a chance to talk about the cash crunch the

kushner's family's companies are facing. thank you so much. we appreciate it. >> thank you. when we come back, president trump still strongly considering rescinding daca. the obama era program that protects dreamers but it could put him more at odds with a group whose support is already waning. where's gary? 'saved money on motorcycle insurance with geico. goin' up the country. later, gary'

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i am totally blind. and non-24 can throw my days and nights out of sync, keeping me from the things i love to do. talk to your doctor, and call 844-214-2424. we will immediately terminate president obama's two illegal executive amnesties in which he defied federal law and the constitution to give amnesty to approximately 5 million illegal immigrants. we are going to deal with daca with heart. the daca situation is a very, very -- it's a very difficult thing for me. because, you know, i love these kids. i love kids.

i have kids. >> you just heard donald trump first vowing to slash the obama era daca program when he was a candidate and then of course saying he loves kids, taking a softer stance. and while that may have prompted a sigh of relief among the roughly 1 million immigrants protected under the program there are new signs that he's changing his position. and it could put hit directly at odds with the top ceos who he's court and even members of his own staff. our panel is back here with us. glenn thrush, you asked about this at the briefing. what is the status at this point of the daca program and why has it bubbled back up right now and why might it be put off after having bubbled up? >> i think the official status, the official terminology is who knows? we have gotten kind of -- i mean, that's actually the official -- came out actually on a stamp. the -- we have gotten wildly conflicting versions of this

over the last six or seven days. what i'm hearing generally from my sources in the white house and the advocacy community wired to the white house is that some significant revision of daca is in the offing. interestingly fox news reported before the news conference said that they'd roll it back on friday. it would give people the folks who are in the country under daca the ability to stay for the length of their work and study permits. but that it would rescind them in the future. when i asked sarah sanders about that and i'm paraphrasing now, i know a lot better than fox does which was a little more cat or go cal than i thought. but the bottom line he's squeezed between the vise. it does seem to be sincerely to be something he's agonizing

over, but his base the build the wall people want to see action on this stuff and if he's not going to get the wall and at the moment it looks like a long shot that he's going to do that they're going to need to see action on something. i think if he gives them something weak on this he could face a political backlash from his own base. >> some of our new polling shows that daca is overwhelmingly supported by the public, 64-30%. it's probably the base of 30% that glenn is talking about who is supportive of getting rid of the program. >> and the political play is important, which glenn was just talking about because every time the president is up against the wall on something if he's feeling -- >> to pun intended. >> exactly. feeling heat on the russian probe or if his approval ratings are going down which they are right now, they're at historic lows and they have been for some time, he wants to throw some red meat to his base to keep them galvanized. it might be an incentive inside this white house to try to take

some significant action on daca even if it conflicts with sort of what's in the president's heart as his aides like to say. >> well, this goes contrary to what, you know, republicans after the 2012 election, paul ryan, your former boss, the vp on the ticket they felt like they lost because they couldn't win over hispanic voters. if he were to do this, what damage will it do to the republican brand? >> well, paul represents kind of the ronald reagan/jack kemp wing of the party. people who believe that you can work through these immigration issues and keep the nice at open place of opportunity for people throughout the world. our borders got to the point where they were so insecure that a number of republicans have gone the other way. and that's -- and that's a division within the republican party no doubt about it. having said that, i think what you have to look for here is how can you work through so that these people many of these kids were brought here when they were 2, 3, 4 years of age. >> right.

where are they going to go if this happens? >> well, in 2012 when i was editor of "time" and jose vargas, who came out an as undocumented worker, they are americans, except for a small statute that says they're here in an undocumented way. they were raised here, they went to school here, they work here. these are people who have 700,000 people who have jobs that are necessary jobs. i mean, this -- what i would say to the president, let's not make the decision based on the politics let's try to do the right thing. that would be kind of an amazing thing and to allow them to become american citizens. it's not an amnesty program. it would get them on the path to citizenship. that's the right thing to do. >> heidi przybyla, glenn thrush, thank you for joining us. glenn, if you come on with me again without your hat on i'm black balling you forever. >> okay. i will wear the hat. baseball cap though. >> all right, fine. when we come back, drain the swamp. it's president's second most

popular tag line behind maga of course but he may be helping to fill the swamp. the reporter who has that story joins us next. thank you so much. thank you! so we're a go? yes! we got a yes! what does that mean for purchasing? purchase. let's do this. got it. book the flights! hai! si! si! ya! ya! ya! what does that mean for us? we can get stuff. what's it mean for shipping? ship the goods. you're a go! you got the green light. that means go! oh, yeah. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we're gonna hit our launch date! (scream) thank you! goodbye! let us help with money and know-how,

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>> message received. as a candidate the outsider donald trump promised to drain the swamp of washington core rupgs and as president many believe his efforts have dramatically changed the rules of lobbying. with just a select few having direct contact with the trump hierarchy. the inner workings of this new d.c. dynamic on this week's cover of the new york times magazine. it's called how to get rich in trump's washington. part of the piece focuses on former campaign manager corey lewandowski success of course due to his close relationship to the president. i think what i bring is a level of understanding of the president's thought process only because i had the pri of being next to him for so long. joining me now that article's author. nick, it's good to see you. very much enjoyed your piece in the magazine this week. my main question here, though, is yes, corey lewandowski was close to the president. yes, there is this small cadd ray of people that have access

to the president, but can anybody trust any promise that is made if you are even a successful lobbyiest? >> well, i think what's changed about the rules of influence in trump's washington, casey, is that the case os is itself a business opportunity. the process inside the white house is so chaotic and so hard to follow for outsiders and insiders that it's actually given birth to a whole new class of people who essentially specialize in calming down corporations and countries that need help trying to figure out what's going on inside. and so in a sense -- >> a lobbiest shrink. >> it is. he's basically created thu the problems he's having in his own white house, he's created a whole new kind of business that was not always there in the same way in past white houses. and on top of that, the president himself is so tempest wous, he changes his mind a lot. he goes on twitter tie raids

that essentially people are hiring folks close to him to tell them how to stay out of the line of fire of twitter how witser, and also to figure out if he's really serious. who is the real power in the trump white house. people don't actually know. >> how is this going to work when they get to a real -- they're going to try to tackle tax reform, right. that's a classic washington issue and very traditional lobbying groups. is this model going to work for that? >> it's a great question. i tried to follow the narrative here for six months. when the administration started gs a few of these guys had basically made a bet that the white house would be the follow crumb of policy. locus of policy or the focus of policy i should say is moving over to the hill. and of course, it is kbourg all the traditional lobbyists. the real question is if you

don't have a president who can push a big vehicle like tax reform, can anyone get anything done, request lobbyists get any of their stuff into any of these bills? >> what's your view of corey lewandowski's place in the washington ecosystem? is his power is real. >> his access is real. he has a relationship with the president and he's able to sort of figure out his way into these situations to help out his clients. it's a great piece. everyone should go read it. the question i have is whether general kelly, john kelly, the new white house chief of staff is the biggest threat to this bigs model because he's trying to bring order to the policy process. there are now memos detailing how policy is supposed to be created, how it's debated internally. kelly has can you tell off a lot of the phone calls that come into the president. he's screening people before they have access to the president personally. and that's threatening the very business that these folks are doing. >> and very quickly, rick sentencing el, can any of these

lobbyists have any success if the agencies that are then supposed to implement the policy don't have anyone to do it. >> they have nobody to lobby. that's very funny. you know, what's happening is trump is not draining the swamp. he's making it more transparent, right. so the lobbyists, it's like i don't have any special expertise except i can get donald trump on the phone. there's nothing more corrupt than that. >> thank you so much. everybody shd go read that new york times cover story. we'll be back in just a minute. ♪ ♪ and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? ♪ ♪ well it's you girl, and you should know it. ♪ ♪ with each glance and every little movement you show it. ♪ ♪ you're gonna make it after all. ♪ it takes a long time to get to the top... ♪ you're gonna make it after all. ♪ but with america's best ♪ you're gonna make it after all. ♪ bumper-to-bumper limited ♪ you're gonna make it after all. ♪ warranty, the all-new volkswagen tiguan will be there every step ♪ ow!♪ of the way.

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get as close to the action as he can possibly be. he wants to see the people, see the devastation first happened and he'll do that saturday. >> reportedly been watching it very closely on tv. >> he loves tv. >> all right. well, thank you to philip rucker david hoppy and rick sentencing elfor being with us. "mtp daily" starts now. in for chuck todd. >> good show today. appreciate it. and if it is thursday, that trump tower meeting with russians comes roaring back. tonight, rescue and relief. >> just know we are with you and we will stay with you. >> as the massive cleanup begins, what happens to tens of thousands of people left homeless in harvey's path of destruction? plus, new exclusive reporting on the russia investigation. details on