and then move again to make sure we're awarded quality payments and not just quantity payments. so yeah, i think if we can do that, that's what john and i are trying to do. it's reasonable. it meets the philosophy. if you want to keep obamacare, keep it. if you want to change things and design something that fits your population and your state, you can. just within certain limits. >> all right, governor john kasich and john higen hooper, thank you both. >> you're welcome. >> that is all in for this evening. the rachel maddow show starts right now. >> thank you very much. have a good evening. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. rachel has the night off. we're following several stories including a new clue about the scope of the special counsel investigation and the resources open expertise being staped by robert mueller as his work proceeds. we're keeping an eye on developing stories, that reports

that the president could end the obamacare policy allowing dreamers brought to the u.s. as children to stay here legally. and we're watching what's happening on the ground in texas. there were two explosions at the chemical plant in houston. tonight there are more concerns that there will be more explosions. what officials are saying about the risk. the towns of port arthur and beaumont texas. and now beaumont has lost its water supply indefinitely. we begin with the latest reporting tonight about the trump russia investigation and new developments regarding that investigation into potential obstruction of justice by the president. senator grazly serves as the republican chairman of the senate judiciary committee. one of the three main committees investigating ties between the trump campaign and russia.

if you were watching this show last night, you'll remember that senator grassley announced to his twitter followers yesterday, just had a phone call from president trump and he assured me he's proethenol and i'm free to tell the people of iowa he's standing by his campaign president. why the president seemed so interested in corn all of the sudden remained unexplained. but that call from trump to the charnl of the committee investigating his eldest son came less than 24 hours after grassley's committee announced it had set a date to hear private testimony from donald trump jr. regarding that meeting that he helped arranged at trump tower last summer with the russians offering to provide the trump campaign with dirt on hillary clinton. that was the offer to which he famously replied, if it's what you say, i love it. now both the white house and senate grazly's office subsequently denied that either russia or the president's son were discussed on that call. but a look at the news reports

of conservative publications shows the skepticism with which those claims were greeted. that skepticism seems warranted because as we've seen before this is not out of character for this president. last week we learned that trump called two republican senators to vent his frustration with legislation that they were overseeing related to the russia probe. in one call trump reached out to republican senator bob corker to complain to him about a russia sanctions bill that corker had sponsored. trump also dialed up senate todd tillis from north carolina to complain to him about a bill he was working on that was designed to prevent trump from firing the special counsel, robert mueller. said one senior republican aide quoted in the piece, quote, it seems he's always focused on russia. we also know that these were not isolated calls. that report came just one report after the "the new york times" reported that donald trump had berated senate leader mitch

mcconnell in a phone call that quickly devolved into a profane shouting match between the republican president and senator. trump reportedly accused mcconnell op bung ling health care. but according to the report, he was more animated about what he intimated was the senate leader's refusal to protect him from investigations of russian interference in the 2016 election. that was a big deal. pressuring the republican leader to tamp down the senate investigations could amount to, wait for it, potential obstruction of justice which applies not only to fbi investigations but also efforts to quote influence, obstruct or impede congressional inquiries. this came after the bombshell news earlier this summer that special counsel robert mueller's investigation into russia's interference in the 2016 election had widened to including potential obstruction of justice. that investigation, the post reported, was launched days after trump fired fbi director

james comey on may 9th and days after the president came out and admitted in an interview with nbc's lester holt that russia had been on his mind when he made the decision to show comey the door. >> he made a recommendation but regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey. knowing there was no good time to do it. and in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made upsto story. >> so later coi many's side of the story would be revealed in testimony that transfixed washington as comey laid u out the numerous times the president pressured him to ease up on the investigation. >> i understood him to be saying that what he wanted me to do was drop any investigation connected to flynn's account of his conversations with the russians. why did he kick everybody out of the oval office.

why would you kick the attorney general, the president, the chief of staff out to talk to me if it was about something else? i mean this is the president of the united states with me alone saying i hope this. i took it as this is what he wants me to do. i didn't obey that but that's the way i took it. i don't think it's for me to say whether the confers i had with the president was an effort to obstruct. it took it as a disturbing thing, very concerning but that's a conclusion that the special counsel will work towards to understand the intention. >> obstruction of justice was the central focus of james comey's testimony that day. also the focus of a hearing the previous day when dan coats and mike rogers angers lawmakers by refusing to discuss reports that the president appealed to each of them individually urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election. so there are many reported

instances of donald trump bringing pressure on top public official to trop the russia investigation and many of those attempts have been well documented. we also know they're being investigated by the special counsel and multiple committee in congress. we know they're serious and now tonight we're learning how serious it's become taken by the president and his legal team. tonight "the wall street journal" is reporting that lawyers for donald trump have met with the special counsel to lay out their legal argument for why in their view the president did not obstruct justice. quoting from the piece, the president's lawyers have met several times with special counsel robert mueller in recent months and submitted memos arguing that the president didn't obstruct justice by firing former fbi chief james comey. one memo laid out the case that mr. trump has the inherent authority to hire and fire as he sees fit and therefore didn't obstruct justice when he fired mr. comey. another outlined why mr. comey

would make an unsuitable witness call him prone to exaggeration and unreliable in congressional testimony in the leak to the news immediate what. joining us now isnicolas, one of the reporters who broke to story. thank you for being here tonight. let's go through the legal arguments that the president's team is making as far as you know. is it limited only to the firing of james comey? because my understanding would be that's not the only element of obstruction of justice on the table. >> well the memo that was submitted to bob mueller involved just the firing of james comey and why that dpsh in their belief that wasn't obstruction of justice. they're making the case that the president has a constitutional authority as the head of the executive branch to staff the executive branch any quay he wants. they cited case law and making the argument essentially that a president can do this and there's really nothing to prohibit him and therefore the

obstruction of justice charge is invalid. but he went on to try to discredit comey saying he's really not a reliable witness, nobody they can count on. it's clear that obstruction of justice was on the minds of president trump's lawyers that were interested in doing away were scuttling the part of the investigation. >> i'm interested in the second piece, the part to try to discredit james comey. you had the memo used as the pretext to fire him. is it your reporting that they're going to drag in the rose rosenstein memo that there's smog wrong with james comey and it would make his untrustworthy as a witness? >> it sounds like they're arguing that comey isn't that believable or credible. they're saying that he exaggerates and saying that he's leaked material to the press, something that he shouldn't have done. so it's clear that they're trying to say or make the case that basing on on instruction charge on the basis of james

comey would be a foolish thing to do and nothing that would stand up. they have a client in president trump who is somebody who is upset and unhappy about this investigation, repeatedly dismisses it as a witch hunt, seei seeing it as a drag. and the lawyers are proactively trying to meet with mueller and trying to get this behind them. >> yeah. and he not only, you know, is unhappy with the investigation but he keeps telling people that. he keeps saying outloud he's angry about the investigation, wants to be protected to it, according to reporting in his conversations with mitch mcconnell. do you get the sense that the president's legal team is attempting to craft his defense taking into account the fact that he's admitted why he fired comey? are they just embracing that? >> i'm not sure they're dealing with that question, in particular. they're focused narrowly on whether the firing of james comey amounts to obstruction of

justice. they're looking at it from a broad constitutional perspective. i'm not sure they're sgegetting into the nuances of who said what when we're in the early stages of this. this there is no indication that mueller is embracing the argument. from what we see the obstruction investigation continues. it's not clear at all that they've accepted the rationale that the trump lawyers put forward. >> there's a lot of discussion about the tone and the way you approach a situation like that when your legal team is facing off against somebody like robert mueller. are they adversarial or taking a friendly tone toward the potential prosecutor here? >> that's an interesting question. president trump's tone has been dock bat tif, calling it a witch hunt, raising questions about conflicts of interest that muller's team might have, we're seeing something different from the trump lawyers.

they're much more respectful, differential to mueller. they say they want a relationship with him. they don't seem to be bringing up conflict of issues. they're trying to keep open a channel of communication. so we're sort of getting a more contentious vibe and tone from the white house and a much more collegial perspective coming from trump's lawyers. >> probably wise. peter nicolas, white house correspondent for "the wall street journal". thank you for being here. joining us now is barbara mcquade, msnbc contributor. barbara, thank you for being here. i want to pick up sort of where we left off with peter on the question of attempting to discredit james comey as a strategy to get out of the idea of obstruction. is that, in your view, a smart legal maneuver? >> well, you want to go after any element of the crime or any proof issues or evidentiary issues and that's one of them. but it seems to me a very uphill

battle to discredit james comey. there are a few things you can use if you want to portray his sharing of documents as leaks as the like. but if you look at his body of work, a jury or any fact finder is going to find him to be a highly credible person iep i'm not sure that particular argument is going to carry a lot of weight with robert mueller and his team. >> let's talk about the inherent power to pardon. that's what the trump team per "the wall street journal" reporting is hanging their hat on. is the trump team has the ability to fire whoever he want to fire. is that enough of an argument to get out of an obstruction of justice charge? >> i don't think so. i mean he does have the power to fire anyone he wants. even jim comey himself said i accept the fact that the president can fire me for me reason or no reason at all. but that doesn't mean that there's no obstruction of justice here. i think they're taking a narrow view of the obstruction. that was sort of just one example of a long litany of

things that might contribute to an obstruction case. there's the february 14th meeting where the president allegedly asked jim comey to let this thing go with flynn. there are similar requests to other leaders in the intelligence community. there is pressure on mitch mcconnell to protect me from this investigation. so i think mueller and his team are likely looking at the bigger picture of all of the examples of efforts too obstruct justice and the firing really is just but one example. and although the president has the pow tore do it, the fact that he did it could still be evidence that his goal was to obstruct justice. >> and i'm wondering if you know probably the toughest witness against donald trump might be donald trump. i go back to that lester holt interview where he explained in detail why he fired jim comey. is there any way to back out of that in. >> i don't think so. especially because we awe saw it in living color and on videotape. i think one thing that's

probative about that is he says it's the russia thing but just a few days earlier he had relied on the memos, the rosenstein memo to say it was because the way jim comey handle the clinton e-mail investigation. when you have those conflicting stories, that is what prosecutors refer to as consciousness of guilt. i came up with one story and i changed my story because the first story didn't look good. that in itself, the fact that the story e vochls could be evidence of what's going on in a person's mind. >> if you were bob mueller building a case, would it be the firing of jim comey that would be the central element in the obstruction or would it be the other things you mentioned, going to mitch mcconnell saying why wouldn't you protect me about that, the constant complaints about the investigation within reaching out to members of congress saying let's have a schat abwhat you want in your state. would all of those be elements tore firing? >> i think the firing is just one piece of evidence in this. i think it's the totality of the

circumstances. because the key element in obstruction of justice is the corrupt purpose, why was the person doing this thing. and if you can show all of these different efforts to try to persuade various people to stop this nftinvestigation, then youn build the case. looking at the firing allow is far too narrow. >> does there vb on the an underlying crime? meaning there was no underlying crime and you were trying to stop something politically embarrassing, is that obstruction? >> it is obstruction of the investigation. now the nib or any investigative body has to be a legitimate purpose for investigating. they may conclude at the end of their information that no crime was committed. but regardless if there was an effort to impede or obstruct the investigation itself, regardless of the ultimate outcome, that is obstruction of justice. >> barbara mcquade, thank you so much for joining us tonight. >> thanks, joy. lots more to come tonight,

including special counsel robert mueller partnering with another government agency. an expected policy shift from the administration when it comes to protecting dreamers and the latest developments on hurricane harvey, including that chemical plant in crosby, texas, on the ground conditions in beaumont and port arthur. much more to come. stay with us.

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so we've reached a point in this trump-russia investigation where we're beginning to see the contours of the strategy in the office of special counsel bob mueller. in a story posted late this evening, the daily beast reports that mueller has enlisted the

irs in his investigation. citing sources familiar with the probe the daily beast reports that the criminal investigations unit of the irs is helping the special counsel. that's the part of the irs that deals with financial crimes, tax evasion and money laundering. enlisting the irs gives the mueller information access to the president ears tax returns. the thing he's fought since the campaign to keep from becoming public. nns h nbc has not confirm the daily beast story but it makes sense that robert mueller is asking questions about the finances of the vary players in and around the white house and campaign. on the other side, as we've been talking about is the reporting from "the wall street journal" about the way that the lawyers for the president have been fighting the investigation. they've been telling the special counsel that the president can fire anyone he wants so therefore he cannot have committed obstruction of justice when he fired fbi director james comey. on top of that, they're

reportedly arguing that comey would make a terrible witness. joining us now is msnbc legal analyst, paul butler. always great to talk to you. so let's start with part one, bringing the irs office of criminal investigations into the case. what does that say to you as a former prosecutor? >> so, joy, special counsel mueller is putting together a justice league team of superhero investigators and prosecutors. yesterday we learned about the new york attorney general snyderman and today we're learning that the elite unit of the tax division is coming in to look at everybody's tax records. these are the big dogs of white collar prosecutions. they not only know how to follow the money, they know how to make a case and explain it to a jury in a way that makes it want to convict. so i always say we're a long way from charges being brought. but if there's a criminal case, if you're a defendant, the last

people you want going against you is ci, the criminal investigations unit of the tax division. >> let's talk about the president's pardon power and how broad his powers would be to protect potential witnesses against himself from prosecution, including for crimes that have been in the irs jurisdiction, things like money laundering and tax evasion. could donald trump potentially just pardon anyone who may be being looked at by the criminal division of the irs and get them out of contention to be witnesses against him in. >> he absolutely has that power. now, typically a president wouldn't pardon someone who is implicated in investigation against a president himself. but we know from trump's pardon of sheriff arpaio he doesn't follow the institutional norms of the justice department. if good government doesn't stop him from pardoning someone or fidelity to the constitution, he might pardon someone to try to save his own self. but i'm not sure that would be a

wise strategy because he only has the power to pardon for federal crimes, so there could still be the threat of a state prosecution. that may be why new york attorney general snyderman was brought in to kind of wave that threat over paul manafort. maybe the pardon of the sheriff was an attempt to send a signal to other people in the investigation, you know, be faithful, give me that loyalty pledge and i have your back. but the appointment of snyderman or the collaborating with snyderman suggests that's not going to be a winning strategy for the trump team. >> so does it become relevant that the things that we're talking about, particularly the people who seem to need money at some point during the last several years when that became important, paul manafort, jared kushner, is the fact that the meetings were in trump tower, the meetings with the russian banks folks were in new york city, does that become relevant to the investigation? >> absolutely.

at this very high level every issue is litigated to the end. and jurisdiction is always key. this is very obviously a federal matter. it's not as clear that it's a state case. and so there's going to be a vigorous contest if there's a state prosecution brought about whether the state properly has venue. and if so, what state is it, new york, is it washington, d.c. again, that's going to be a really interesting issue. >> and very quickly, if donald trump were to attempt to pardon someone to try to get them out of testifying against him, could that in and of itself be seen as obstruction? >> it could be seen as obstruction as evidence of obstruction in a criminal sense. there the statute requires corruptly trying to impede an investigation. it would look like he's trying to do that. moreover it could grounds of impeachment. obstruction of justice is a high crime or misdemeanor and it doesn't have to meet the

technical definition for the criminal statute. president trump if he uses his pardon pow tore get rid of people who may be witnesses, he not only faces criminal charges, he's got to be concerned of a potential impeachment proseergd. >> we're learning more more more. paul butler, appreciate talking to you. thank you. >> always a splepleasure. on day seven of hurricane harvey in texas, first came the raging flood waters. now some are facing a water shortage. more on that just ahead. ing, wh? i let go of all those feelings. because i am cured with harvoni. harvoni is a revolutionary treatment for the most common type of chronic hepatitis c. it's been prescribed to more than a quarter million people. and is proven to cure up to 99% of patients who have had no prior treatment with 12 weeks. certain patients can be cured with just 8 weeks of harvoni. before starting harvoni,

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tonight hurricane harvey has hit a new milestone. according to the university of wisconsin space science and engineering center, harvey is officially a 1,000-year flooding event. the flood zone is now the size of new jersey. across houston tonight the flood water is beginning to recede giving us a fuller picture of the devastation. and as the water recedes, it clears the way for rescue workers in houston to go door to door looking for anyone who may still be strand in their home. rescue workers have resorted to hacking through roof to get inside in the search of survivors. there's real concern tonight that the death toll could rise. the other big concern in houston is fuel. there are reports of gas shortages in part because of a major pipeline stretching from texas to the northeast which has been shut down because of harvey. today a local police department

advised residents that there is no gas available and recommended that quote citizens stay home and do not waste gas. in corpus christy mere where harry made landfall, vice president mike pence did something the president has yet to do. he toured the devastation and met with the victim ps. latest estimates suggests that harvey could cost $75 billion in terms of property and economic losses. fema has a disaster relief budget of $3.8 billion. which raises the question, where will the rest of the money come from. back in 2005 then indiana congressman mike pence launched something called operation offset which many the wake of katrina called for any disaster relief spending to be offset by cuts to the budget. so it's a teeny bit awkward to have the vice president there in texas today when in the past he's been the poster boy for refusing disaster aid unless

there are tough budget cuts to go along with it. corpus christi is in harvey's rearview mirror tonight. but port arthur and beaumont are not. this is the view from above, whole neighborhoods under water. port arthur 90 miles east of houston was virtually cut off, major roads swamped. last night we showed you the port arthur shelter at the bob bowers civic center which flooded. it went under water in 20 minutes flat. tonight officials say that the water is beginning to recede. nearby in beaumont, texas, the urgent need tonight is for running water after both of the city's main water pumps were knocked out by the flooding. that means no running water for the 118,000 residents. it's triggered a run at the stores. the military is working to get fresh water into beaumont in the hopes of avoiding a major public

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houston. that plant has been flooded ant without power on sunday when the backup generators for swamped. they lost the ability to keep thaer chemicals refrigerated. because of the chemicals that produce there, there's a risk of spontaneous chemical reaction if they're not kept cold. which means fire and explosion. last night before 1:00 in the morning local time the explosions came and the fire and a 30 to 40-foot plume of black smoke. but now tonight at this hour we're waiting for more explosions. more fire. this was the arkema mem call plant this morning. what you see burning there is the remains of one container of the chemicals. there are eight more on site. and the company fully expects all eight remaining container to explode and burn as well. a 1.5 mile radius around the plant remains evacuated and until the flood water recede,

there's little they can do but wait for the chemicals to explode and the chemical to burn off. this is the plant this evening a couple of hours ago. the fire is out for now but again we're waiting for eight more of the container to go. we're also waiting for some clarity on exactly what kind of danger is posed by the smoke from last night's chemical fire and the additional fires we're still expecting. this morning the head of the federal emergency management agency appeared to suggest that the moej was so dangerous that it was the reason for the entire evacuati evacuation. and the arkem officials sent mixed signals. >> we do what's called plume modelling and that's what we base the evacuations on. by all mean, yes, the plume is incredibly dang lows. >> you don't want to stand in smoke, do you? so the sheriff says it's like a campfire. it's hydrocarbons burning.

there's a lot of things made of hydrocarbons. >> the things burning there are no more dangerous than a campfire? >> i did not say that sir. >> people's health. >> you don't want to inhale smoke. that's plain and simple. >> are the fumes nontoxic or are you not sure. >> they're noxious. i don't know the composition of the smoke but it's certainly noxious. >> you're not going to say they're nontoxic, yes or no. because i think it's pretty important -- it's a pretty important --. >> the smoke is knnoxious. it's a relative thing. >> it's knox snoxious, it's smo. you don't want to breathe it in. in the middle of a disaster things are confusing, wires get crossed and today the epa tested the air in crosby, texas and reported there were no concerns regarding toxic materials. the head of fema said he would defer to the officials on the

ground. one thing that might held us get a little more specificity is if we knew exactly what was in the plant and how much of it there is. but that is information that you are not allowed to know in the state of texas. not since a massive fertilizer plant explosion in the town of west texas in 2013. after that ammonium nitrate blast which leveled a good chunk of the town and killed 15 people, texas made one change to its rules about chemical storage. what those chemicals were and where they were stored would no longer be public information. which means when things start exploding, like they are right now at the arkema plant, the people of texas are asked to trust the companies and state officials are telling them the truth about what's happening. and what the danger is. now if you lived near this arkema plant, would you trust the state officials and the same state officials whose only response to a previous chemical

explosion was to hide information from the public about what chemicals are spewing into the air. fortunate lit there are people trying to get that information, who are trying to fact check the authorities. last night rachel spoke with crown call roshter who wrote a series of articles last year about the dangers of texas's chemical kants. he asked arkema to hand over the latest chemicals at the pant and arkema said no. today say says they would give him that inventory. joining me is matt dempsey. thank you so much for being here this evening. and i guess i'll ask you the obvious question, has arkema handed over their chemical inventory to you? >> they handed over something. it with us not what i asked for. they give me a list of chemicals, just a straight list

of the names of the chemicals. i don't have anything about how much of each chemical, i don't have the chemical index code that i can use to research more about the chemicals, i don't know what kind of containers they are in and i don't knee where the chemicals are located on the facility. >> if you're somebody who real housewives here the arkema plant who is it that you're supposed to trust and believe to tell you that the air near your home is safe to believe when you're allowed to come back? >> that's a good question. the epa like you said has done some air testing and i they that's -- usually what happens is the fair marshal's office or local authorities will have set up some air monitoring after. i think it's good that the epa did. but honestly from the people i talked to at crosby today, there's a lot of concerns about what's in it, what's in the smoke, is the radius of that 1.5 miles far enough. there is rampant rumor mongering all over crosby about whether things are being done correctly or not. there's a lot of concern about

information not getting spread out to the public very much. >> and let's talk about that law. texas passed a law after the 2013 explosion that spewed chemicals into the air that said the public is not allowed to know what chemicals from if the plants near their homes. does that mean that even if health effects were to happen let's say a year down the road, could people then in a lawsuit potentially discover, through the discovery process what is in the air? >> i imagine they should be able to discover it in a court process. but honestly, in some court cases that we looked at when we were doing the series that you had talked about, there were cases where companies said they wouldn't provide it. they wouldn't provide specific information. in fact there was one case where a worker got pretty severely burned, my colleague susan carol wrote this piece, they sued and tried to get all sorts of information. nobody investigated it, very little investigations were done. the epa tried to do an

investigation, like did not get more far with the company involved. so honestly even when it causes health damages to the public or to individuals, it can still be difficult to get that information. and just to be clear, texas didn't pass a law. governor abbott, when he was attorney general, his auchs made a ruling changes, essentially like they sent out a letter to everybody saying that we're not going to -- a ruling saying we're not going to provide -- the state is no longer going to provide this information to the public. >> very quickly does that mean -- well have you seen any evidence of maybe second thoughts that maybe texas lawmakers might want to pass a law that changes that? >> i would be very -- i haven't seen any second thoughts. let's put it this way. after the he port incident, there was a dupont incident where four workers died. that did not inspire any massive changes in the right to know laws in the state of texas. our chemical series that you

mentioned inspired no change by the legislature at all on right to now laws in the state of texas. >> basically if you're a homeowner in texas and you live near a chemical plant, you have to take your chances and trust the company. interesting. matt dempsey -- >> well -- >> i'm sorry. >> governor abbott said in his campaign that people could drive around and ask chemical plants for what they want. >> there you go. that's a perfect solution. matt dempty, data reporter, thank you very much. >> thank you for having me on. >> the trump administration is signaling that the president is about to fulfill a campaign promise which would be devastating for some of the most vulnerable people in this country but at least he's really torn about it, right? more on that ahead. ♪

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donald trump has until tuesday to decide what to do about dacca, deferred action for childhood arrivals. that of course is the program that coaxed about 800,000 undocumenteddowshadows. people brought to the united statesen as children. but on tuesday the entire program could come to an end and that's because attorneys general from ten states have threatened to sue the president if he does not end dacca by then. but you know, guys, presidenting is hard and poor donald trump is apparently having a really tough time making his decision. at least that's what anonymous white house aids would like for us to believe.

the headline yesterday, trump at war with himself over dreamers. administration officials say he's conflicted between his instinci instinct to be tough on immigration and his personal feelings. at least we know a couple of reports from fox news, trump has apparently already decided to end daca as early as tomorrow. those spinning for the trump white house would like you to know he's not so heartless he's going to throw out all these young people right away. they'll reportedly get to stay in the united states and keep working until their work permits run out. then, well, they're on their own. joining us now is jose antonio varg vargas, a journalist who is also an undocumented immigrant himself and we should mention who is not eligible for the daca whether it began five years ago this month. he's also the ceo of an organization called define american. >> again, what's really at stake here is how do we define american in this country. >> yes. >> that's what's at stake.

our moral conscience is at stake, and the president -- look, i would like to believe that his heart, that he really is thinking through this. he's really thinking through the fact that, you know, if daca gets taken away, my friend told me that 10,000 students in about a dozen states in this country would lose their teachers. >> yeah. >> undocumented teachers, right? nurses. there's about 80 undocumented medical students across this country, right? there's of course undocumented firefighters, police officers, people serving in the military. so we would want people to serve in the military and then be afraid that they may get deported? >> well, let me ask you this question because if donald trump is doing this and he really has made the decision, who would he be -- what constituency would be he serving? >> actually, i brought this fact sheet. if you want to know everything about daca, please go to define american.com slash daca. we have here 73% of donald trump voters actually want trump to keep this. so we're talking about, what,

25% of people? >> right. of his supporters. >> of his supporters. >> he's down to about a third maybe of the electorate. >> who is the president really serving by this? $1.2 billion in revenue would be gone because these undocumented daca are working. >> there's a story that somebody sent to you. i'd love you to tell the audience. >> we're collecting people's stories. if you have daca, please share your story. this man from north carolina, a rural town, sent us a story. he said i was brought into this country at 3 years old despite the mental struggle of being undocumented, i was able to work my way through a private college without a single loan or government grant to study four years of mathematics. i earned private scholarships and worked overnight jobs to pay for my tuition.

today with daca, i work in the fraud department for a bank, preventing americans' money from being stole n through financial crimes. the lack of a document should not define me. there's so many daca people right now who are so worried and anxious. i think we have to know that we are more than pieces of paper. i think we have to know this is way more than about being legal. i mean president trump just pardoned joe arpaio. this is not about legality. this is about what does this country want to do to these young people? >> and let's not forget that the president is married to an immigrant, which is the ultimate irony. jose antonio vargas. please go to jose's writing on twitter and send your stories to him. we're going to talk more about this this weekend. thank you. appreciate, my friend. all right. we'll be right back.

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gold. he has a very particular aesthetic when if comes to historical objects. >> did you choose the colors? >> i did. >> gold? >> i did. i chose pretty much. but those chairs have been here for a long time. >> do you get to choose what paintings go in here? >> i do. some of them come with the office, like the picture of george washington. that's andrew jackson. they say his campaign and his whole thing was most like mine. that was interesting. that's the great andrew jackson. >> he chose the colors.

gold! so that was donald trump soon after he was inaugurated as the 45th president of the united states, giving his pals over at "fox & friends" a tour of the oval. trump showed off his big portrait of the man he calls the great andrew jackson, which he had tacked up in the oval office because donald trump just doesn't like andrew jackson. he like likes andrew jackson. >> jackson's life was devoted to one of very crucial principle. andrew jackson who a lot of people compare the campaign of trump with. he also served as commander of the tennessee militia. tough cookies. tough cookies. had andrew jackson been a little bit later, you wouldn't have the civil war. he was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. we have andrew jackson. andrew jackson. the great president andrew jackson. >> trump loves andrew jackson so much that he visited old hickory's house in march.

he laid a wreath on the tomb. andrew jackson is kind of like donald trump's spirit animal, which is important to remember when you consider the fact that andrew jackson's face is in the process of being removed from the front of the $20 bill for good. last year before president barack obama left office, he and his treasury secretary decided to boot jackson off the front of the $20 so they could put harriet tubman there instead. harriet tubman was an abolitionist during the civil war. she was a union army spy. she risked her lifetime and time again to help free enslaved people. she rescued dozens of enslaved african-americans by the underground railroad. she is a bona fide american hero. it would be a huge deal for this country to have someone like harriet tubman grace the $20. and yet today donald trump's treasury secretary dumped a big bucket of cold water on the whole thing. >> your predecessor supported the idea of removing andrew jackson from the $20 bill and

putting harriet tubman on. do you support that idea? >> let me just comment on, you know, ultimately we will be looking at this issue. it's not something that i'm focused on at the moment. but the number one issue why we change the currency is to stop counterfeiting. so the issues of why we change it will be primarily related to what we need to do for security purposes. >> but certainly there are cultural aspects as to decisions we make as to who's on what bills, right? >> again, people have been on the bills for a long period of time. this is something we'll consider. right now we've got a lot more important issues to focus on. >> mm-hmm. much more important issues to focus on. so in the last week, we have seen this administration focus on a whole host of things from pardoning joe arpaio to potentially ending daca, to defending the president's response to those violent pro-confederacy protests, and the latest, considering major tax cuts for corporations. even as a deadly hurricane continues to wreak havoc on a major american city. and in fact nothing has stopped

the trump administration from focusing on the things that they've wanted to do. they even found time to market hats. and yet today, the trump administration is too busy to say whether or not they're committed to taking andrew jackson off the $20 bill and putting harriet tubman on, something that would take almost no time at all to simply tell us. whether in their view harriet tubman has earned a place on the currency. perhaps if there was a harriet tubman hat that the re-election campaign could sell. that does it for us tonight. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. >> good evening, joy. let me translate. steve mnuchin for you, joy, on this matter. >> please do. >> his actual answer really meant, i had no idea that was even a thing. you mean they're going to change the $20? when were they going to tell me? and, oh, by the way, harriet tubman has absolutely no chance of appearing on anything i