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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  January 19, 2018 6:00pm-7:00pm PST

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do. we have to be on the right side of history. >> that's correct. i think they would be happy to sort of make the vote and take another run at it in 30 days. we'll see what happens in the next few hours. thanks for joining us. that is "all in" for this "the now. >> i know you had a couple fridays off around the birth of your child. >> i did. >> and maybe had a sense of things, you would be coming back to a normal workweek situation. i hope you didn't forget fridays are always insane. >> absolute buzz saw. >> yes, that's exactly right. >> every day. >> and anybody that thinks like the news week winds down and fridays are easy days, make take the day off. no, oppositeville. >> raging fire. >> have a good weekend, my friend. >> thanks. thanks for joining us this here. happy friday. nobody gets to have a normal friday anymore, not for the foreseeable future. if there is one thing we learned in the past year, right? if it's friday, go to work.
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[ laughter ] >> it is 9:00 on the east coast right now and that means three hours to the federal government shutting down. why exactly are they shutting down the government? that's a better question than it should be when we're this close to shutting down the government when nobody can answer why it's happening. never before in american history have we had a full government shutdown while the same party controlled the white house and house and senate but hey, why not try something completely unprecedented in american history every single day of the year for a full year? why not? this is what our lives are like now. history is no longer something from which we can extrapolate. all change. every day. try it. here is what we think is going to happen over the course of this evening. here is why everybody is going to be watching the news into the wee hours tonight. now as i said, it's just after
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9:00 p.m. on the east coast. in order to prevent the shutdown of the federal government, the senate has to pszass a bill tha funds the government by midnight. well, one hour from now at 10:00 p.m. eastern, they have scheduled a vote on that and nobody knows how that vote is going to go by our last informal count, it still looked like they might not even be close but here is the thing, just in the past few minutes, all of the senators on the democratic side have gone into an all hands on deck meeting. so far the democrats have not been willing to cross over and vote for the republicans bill because they have been clear from the beginning they will only move forward if there is protection for the d.r.e.a.m.e.r.s., the young people that came as kids protected by the daca program. the democrats are meeting at this second in the lbj room in the capitol. i've been in that room to do
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interviews. they set up interviews because it's fancy. hopefully it's inspiring them to some higher purpose. the democratic senators have been in there talking about what they will do for this vote that happens at 10:00 p.m. i think we'll ishave a democrat senator in front of us or in front of a camera in just a couple minutes, just as she's coming out of that meeting. hopefully, she'll be able to tell us what the democrats decided to do. that said, right now, that yes or no vote, that crucial vote is scheduled for the top of this hour and as far as i'm concerned, only frank thorp, only frank thorp, nbc news reporter could possibly tell us what is likely to happen. mr. thorp joins us now live from capitol hill. thank you for your time tonight. i'm not over stating your powers, am i? >> no, that's a lot to live up to. >> what's up? what's going on there as best
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you can tell. what should we be watching for over the course of the next hour? >> we're looking at whether or not more senate democrats will come out in support of this house c.r. there will be this vote at 10:00 and they need 60 votes to move forward to a final vote on this bill, and right now they don't have those votes. they are looking at a failed vote in this instance. you have four senate democrats who have come out and said they would vote for this measure, but that means they need at least nine more, and so they are in a situation here where they actually have been shuttling around. they have been having meetings, democrats are meeting now. the legislative affairs director has been shoveling between offices here. republicans are trying to meet. they are trying to figure out something they can get around that they can actually get to where they can keep this government open but as of right now, there is no plan b. i just ran into senate majority john cornen and asked him, what is plan b?
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he said i don't think we have a plan b right now. so right now, what we're looking at is a situation where if this vote goes down, conversations will have to start and if anybody wants to get anything done, there are questions of a lot of leadership aids have been saying those won't go anywhere. seriously, rachel, we're in a situation if this vote goes down at 10:00, there is no plan b. >> when the senate takes a vote, do they have to pass the same thing the house passed so there is a bill that can be reconciled between the chambers that the president can sign? >> well, so, this vote at 10:00 is going to be related to the house passed vote or c.r. but like i said, the senate procedurely if everybody agrees to coalesce around a bill, that could happen very quickly. it takes all 100 senators to do so. if this looks like the brink of a shutdown, if they get into
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tomorrow or sunday or monday and all of a sudden, they decide this is enough, they can all 100 senators agree let's have a vote now. government funding bill that will actually keep the doors open. keep the lights on here in the capit capitol. like i said, those conversations here go back and forth. it's like can we do a three-month c.r. two-month c.r. or a five-day c.r. to keep negotiations going on daca and what to do with the dre d.r.e.a.m.e.r.s. that will go nowhere. here is the thing, to vote could have happened last night and senator chuck schumer offered to do this vote last night to prove this vote would go down yesterday. and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell said no, no, no we want to have it tomorrow to put pressure on democrats so they would have the vote right up at the brink of a shutdown. the reality is, though, nothing changed. the vote count really hasn't
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changed. we haven't seen any democrats surprising going to vote yes. right now we're in the same situation we saw ourselves in 24 hours ago. >> frank thorp, nbc news capitol hill reporter and producer. i have a feeling this won't be the last time we speak with you this evening. thanks for joining us. let us know when you have any new dirt. >> will do, thanks. we'll bring into the conversation mazie, a democratic senator. she just left that meeting of all her fellow democratic senators and has been able to get on the air with us tonight live. senator, thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you, rachel. >> what can you tell us about this democrats meeting that you've just left? was decided? >> the caucus is still going on, so as far as i'm concerned, things have not been decided. where i am is where a lot of my colleagues are and that is without a protection for the d.r.e.a.m.e.r.s. and without
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funding for children's health and without funding for community health centers, without parody and support, et cetera. the house passed bill is going nowhere in the senate. >> what kind of discussions are happening among your fellow democratic season tonators? we heard from frank thorp there are four democratic senators planning on voting for this funding measure that would leave the total nine short in terms of how many votes they would need to keep the government open at midnight. what kinds of negotiations are happening among democrats now? >> let's start with the proposition that nobody wants the government shutdown. we should never have come to this point because there was bipartisan support for a daca or d.r.e.a.m.e.r. bill. the president said i will sign a bipartisan bill and when he was presented with one, he said no way. we have support for children's health. we have support for community health centers, so there was no
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reason for us to get to this point, and for the house to pass a bill that only has funding for the children's health center, they are pitting one group against another. it's like do you want your right arm cut off or left arm? we shouldn't cut off any arms. we should have gotten to this long before tonight. as you mentioned, rachel, the people in charge of both the house senate and the presidency, the republicans, they set the agenda. they have brought us to this pass. at this point, we should all act like adults. as far as i'm concerned, congress is a separate branch of government. for us to be waiting around to see where the president wants to go, it would be helpful if the president could tell us where the heck he is because he keeps changing his mind but short of that, we should do our jobs and take care of the d.r.e.a.m.e.r.s. and children's health and community health centers opioids and things there is agreement on and get on with it and send a bill to the white house and the president can sign
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it or not as he will. >> senator, you said there that nobody wants a shutdown. it does seem like, we don't know what will happen over the next two and a half, three hours but it does seem like that's where we're heading. do you have the sense there is a plan b or at least an after plan if we hit the shutdown at midnight, if there is no progress to be made tonight, what happens next? obviously the government starts to go through the process of shutting down. that's a painful and expensive process. when do things start up again to find a way to reopen it? >> this totally avoidable shutdown, if it happens, i would expect would be that there would be a sense of urgency on everyone's part to get on with it and end the shut down a.s.a.p. and address the concerns that we all agree upon. those are the measures that i just talked about. >> you sound like you've been taken over by a drum major. >> a lot going on here tonight.
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>> i know, everybody is working very late. thank you for joining us, for stepping out of the caucus. keep us apprised tonight, senator. >> thank you, aloha. >> stepping out of the on going democratic senators caucus right now. so think about what that means. as far as we know, they went into that lbj room, all senators at about 8:30 p.m. we spoke with her staff hoping to get her on the air if we get her on now they might have been done. what she told us now is she stepped out to give us that update but she's going back in. that caucus is still underway. what that means is that democrats right now at 11 1 minutes past 9:00 are deciding. this vote will happen at 10:00. very interesting point from frank thorp from the capitol hill reporter and producer. frank said this vote they are about to be taking tonight at 10:00, which is about, you know,
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should we or shouldn't we shut down the largest organization on earth in two hours? that very momentous vote is the exact same vote on the exact same terms that could have happened last night. that's what the democrats reportedly put forward. that's what senator chuck schumer offered last night. listen, you want to see where everybody? you want to make everybody get on the record to see exactly where we are? republicans said no because they wanted that vote to be closer to the shut down deadline. then over the course of today, nothing changed. so that's how we got to this absolute brink. we're going to stay on this, obviously, over the course of this evening. we expect the vote to be at 10:00. the democrats are still huddling. all eyes on them at this point. they are a lot of votes short of keeping the government open and as we reported, no plan b and no plan for what to do after the
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shut down goes into effect. there is not like oh, things are shutting down. now we meet in this other context and talk about this other list of things. everybody is just joining hands and jumping. that's no way to run a country. we'll be right back. do i use a toothpaste that whitens my teeth or one that's good for my teeth? i don't have to choose! from crest 3d white comes new whitening therapy. it's our best whitening technology. plus, it has a fortifying formula to protect your enamel. crest. healthy, beautiful smiles for life.
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as we continue to watch the u.s. capitol tonight as we hurdle toward a government shutdown that nobody can quite explain the reason. consider the year 1952, 1952 was the year that queen elizabeth became queen elizabeth in britain. that is when she assented to the thrown and became queen. 25 years later in 1977, they are
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celebrating the 25th anniversary of her becoming queen, celebrating her silver jubilee, britain decided to celebrate that anniversary of her rise to the thrown by giving her, drum roll, please, her own subway line. the jubilee line on the london tube was given to the queen basically as a present in 1977. they named it for the 25-year anniversary of her becoming queen. but then she just kept on ticking. in 2002 she had her 50-year anniversary. her golden jubilee. her 50 years in power, great britain invented a new chicken salad just for her, jubilee chicken. there apparently had been a coronation chicken for her back from the '50s. coronation chicken was basically just chicken with mayonnaises and curry. when they invented the new chicken salad for her for her
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jubilee chicken at her 50-year mark they updated the recipe. it was still chicken and mayonnaises but instead of curry had lime and ginger. for her golden jubilee, they threw her a large rock concert on the grounds of buckingham palace. a lot of other people appeared to enjoy that, if not her. they gave out picnic baskets including jubilee chicken sandwiches to the people that came to buckingham palace. the queen did not appear to dig the music but we did obtain two and a half seconds of videotape of the queen standing next to ozzie osborne. that's him. she kept on ticking after that. her 60-year anniversary, her diamond jubilee was in 2012. for that one, they gave her probably what she didn't want, yet, another concert. they also incidentally had a chef update the recipe for the jubilee chicken.
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once again, mayo and by the 60-year anniversary, by the diamond jubilee they were running out of nice things to do for her. we've done the fireworks. we've done paul mccartney, we've done the chicken recipe a million times remembrance, they did it. british mountaineers claimed a mountain and at the summit collectively held a tea party at the top of the mountain to celebrate the queen's 60 years in power. that's what the diamond jubilee was like. when she makes it to 70 years in power and time for her platinum jubilee, they have to fly her to the moon or something. they pulled out all the stops. there is only so many things you can do with chicken and mayo. here in the united states we
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don't have a thing to commemorate the power for an american president. even for, you know, revered presidents from centuries past. we don't celebrate the way they do in other countries. that's because in america, the presidency is a permanent thing. no one person is ever larger than the office it self-aaufoff goes away as long as we have this republic but does still feel like a big milestone for us as a country we're rolling up on the one-year mark for this remarkable new presidency. president donald trump was sworn in one year ago tomorrow. it does feel particularly lly settling to look at that in terms of how america was seen in the world with this president. gallop released the world poll how america and american leadership are viewed in 134 countries across the globe.
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one year into the trump presidency, the image is weaker worldwide than it has ever been before in the history of the gallop world poll. the previous low in terms of the previous worst view of american leadership, previous worst was a 34% approval rating for u.s. leadership under the presidency of george w. bush who you might remember was very unpopular globally in particular because of the iraq war. under this president, we have dropped through that floor. we have dropped four points below that previous low point. so that median approval of u.s. leadership across the world stands at a record low of only 30%. and it has been a drop. it dropped 18 points in one year since barack obama left office. in our hemisphere, it's worse than the rest of the world. the image of u.s. lead iership the other countries of north america and south america, the image of leadership has not only dropped to a new low, it has dropped by more than half just
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in one year since trump has been in office. in terms of global leadership the rest of the world no longer sees the united states as the top rated global power in the world. that title belongs quite comfortably to germany. we've been knocked down to below china and russia. at the same time, gallop released global numbers and separately found as he reaches the one-year mark in office, president trump has the lowest average rating of any elected american president ever over the course of his first year. there has never been an american president who is more disliked in his first year in office than this one has been. and that's true both around the world and here at home. so, you know, that's something, right? a time to be alive. and even though that record disapproval here at home has been true over the course of his entire first year in office, him hitting the one-year mark itself
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is proving to have some particularly cringe worthy elements. this year for the first time ever as you know tonight, we're expecting to celebrate the one-year mark of a new president's first year in office by shutting down the federal government. as the clock strikes midnight, we will hit 36 five days of trump and the federal government will shut down in that instant. and that's never happened before as a president hit the one-year mark. but beyond that, it's also never happened before while one party is in control, unified control of washington. the white house and house and senate. there has been meetings and negotiations and press statements and mutual public snacki snarking all day and the senate will be voting in less than an hour, less than 40 minutes from now. but as of right now, there is no clear sign tonight's midnight shutdown will be avoided. while the inauguration was a
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year ago tomorrow rchs, a year saturday, for a lot of americans, the images that stick with us are not just the pictures of president trump being sworn in, they are also these pictures. we knew heading into inaugural weekend there was a women's march called for the day after the inauguration in washington. we knew that. there was some inkling the marches might end up being big but honestly, nobody including the organizers expected more than a half million people would turn up in washington alone the day after the inauguration. nobody expected that that march and demonstration in washington alone would dwarf it from the previous day. what was even more overwhelming is that was not just d.c., not by a long shot. the d.c. protest as massive and overwhelming as it was was one of many and wasn't even the biggest. atlanta was massive.
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los angeles was absolutely massive. new york city was almost un unimagenbly big. chicago was huge. there were hundreds of these marches and almost all of them were bigger than people expected them to be. many of them were the largest ever held in those cities. the women's marges held a day after trump's inauguration a year ago, those turned out to be across the country, the biggest single day of street demonstrations in american history. well, this weekend, one year on as the government likely shuts down you will see women's mar marches in d.c. and new york and in los angeles and around the country. they won't be as big as they were the day after the inaugu l inaugurati inauguration, i don't think anything will be that big for a long time in this country. they are both really hitting the
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one-year mark in various kinds of strides. as we look towards the likely shut down and hit this one-year mark and as the president plans to go to mar-a-lago despite the shut down and women's march plans to hit the streets tomorrow, you should know, you should know there is one thing about this one-year mark that is really not ageing well and we got that story for you next. ♪ there are two types of people in the world. those who fear the future... and those who embrace it. the future is for the unafraid. ♪ all because of you ♪ ♪
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it is a sore spot for this administration to this day, i know, and i'm not poking at it because it bothers them or to be mean, i swear. it actually ends up being important for current news right now to know and to be real about the fact that the trump inauguration one year ago was not a very well attended inauguration. i know it bugs them for people to talk about that. they made that clear from day one. >> this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period both in person and around the globe. even "the new york times" printed a photograph showing that a misrepresentation of the crowd in the original tweet in their paper, which showed the full extent of the crowd and intensity that existed. >> i have had a full year to diagram that sentence, and i still cannot -- what is the thing? i know he says at the beginning,
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this is the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period and everybody swallows their tongues, what? what's the thing he says at the end? play that again. >> photography, photograph showing that a misrepresentation of the crowd in the pipe there showed the full extent of the support, depth and crowd and intensity that existed. >> photograph showing that a misrepresentation of the crowd in the original tweet in their paper, which showed the full extent of the support depth and crowd and intensity that existed. i still don't know, i still don't know what that is. but the thing about -- [ laughter ] >> the thing about this being the biggest inauguration ever, that was not true. if we're going to be honest and fair about this, i think it is worth considering that the reason it wasn't a very well-attended inauguration is
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because they didn't really try. there wasn't really much to this inauguration. there were only a hand full of balls. i think three inaugural balls compared to ten for the last obama inincoauguratioinaugurati. the parade was pack tors and stuff and i love tractors more than anybody else you know but there were empty stands in part because people didn't want to sit in the rain for hours and hours and hours and watch tractors. the musical acts who they booked were like d.j. drums and, you know, dancers and stuff. irish dancers and tap dancers. there is nothing wrong with that. it makes for a small inaugur inaugurati inauguration. the biggest ever was barack obama in 2009. that's these pictures. that makes sense. the country was unified against the out going administration even if you hadn't voted for barack obama, here was the nation's first african american president. ginormous, biggest ever. for the 2009 inauguration, they
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raised more money than ever. $53 million to pay but they spent it because it was huge. it was the biggest event ever in washington. one of the things we noted early on this past year about the trump inauguration is that even though it was comparatively modest, it just wasn't that am wisho -- ambitious and dwarfed by the protests against it the next day, despite that, despite the smallness of the trump inauguration, for that inauguration, they raised double the amount of money they raised for the biggest inauguration ever for barack obama in 2009 and that never really made sense at all. if your family saved up and set aside $40,000 to buy a new family car and your whole family is like wow, that is a lot of money to spend for a new car, we are going to get a really nice new car. we set aside $40,000.
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that's a really big deal for your family and then decided that you'd also set aside $80,000 for lunch. right? it doesn't make sense. that doesn't cost twice as much as that. why did the trump inaugural raise that extra money for that comparatively small event and where did the money go? they raised over $100 million. it was clear early on with the country fair entertainment and empty stands, they count have spent $100 million. they copped to that. early on starting last year, starting last january, a year ago they explained that any excess funds left over after the inauguration would be donated to charity. when there was no sign that happened in mashlg rch of last they announced it would be wrapped up and the excess funds would be donated to charity by late april. that didn't happen, either. by june facing continued
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questions, the head of the committee announced that nobody should worry what happened to the money. he announce in fact a full audit had been done of the inaugural committee spending. a full audit had been done by an outside independent entity. that said they refused to say who that auditor was and they refused to release the results of the audit. by september there was still no sign of where all that money went or who had it. the inaugural committee said they would make a full account of the funds and the charities would get all of their millions by november. that doesn't appear to have happened, either. when the hurricanes hit texas and caribbean, the head of trump's inaugural committee announced $3 million of the leftover money would be donated to hurricane relief. he named three charities. the red cross wouldn't say whether they got that donation and the third one was supposed to be the salvation army.
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salvation army told us today they are checking and will get back to us. until we hear from them, there is no conpfeirmation the paymen were made nor have they closed the inaugural committee. they are always closed by now nor have they accounted for any funds and nobody has have plausible scenario for what they did with what is likely to be many tens of millions of dollars and in any administration a pile of tens of millions of dollars sloshing around unaccounted for in the white house is not a good thing. in this white house, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. we've been trying to figure this out for months. we've contracted the chair of the presidential inaugural committee. a long-time friend of the president until michael wolff's fire and furry book came out, there was talk tom bara would replace kelly. tom is quoted as saying about
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president trump quote, he's not only crazy, he's stupid. mr. barrack denies he said that but you can imagine that might cause strain in their relationship. we gua regardless, he is the chair of the presidential inaugural committee and has not been able to give us explanation for what has gone wrong and why the committee hasn't wound down and why they can't make an account of where the money went with these dates that were supposedly going to come out. i should tell you tom barrack's office returned our calls and were nice but steadfastly refused tos questions about this money. we said who else can we call? inaugural funds are pretty straightforward. you raise money to pay for a specific thing that ends on one
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day. you wind up and pay and tell people what happened to the money and go away. usually it's really simple. this one we had to scramble to figure out who else can we call? there is no regular way to do this. this has never been a problem before. when we didn't get anywhere with mr. barrack, we called the treasurer. it's a much lower profile than tom barrack. he's not a well-known person. his name is doug ammerman. he's listed officially as the treasurer of the committee so ultimately he should be responsible for explaining what happened to the money that went into and came out of that giant fund. i don't know how doug ammerman ended up being the treasurer. the only other way he ever made government related news is when he was named as an unindicted
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conspirator involving the former employer. we wrote and called companies where he sits on the board to get in touch with him thinking that might be a way to reach him but he would not return our calls. he hasn't yet. we live in hope. the other person we tried contracting, the only person we could think of to contact about this is the deputy chairman of the inaugural committee. maybe he could explain what they did with the money. why they said it would be cleared up in january and then in april and september and november and still not been cleared up and nobody knows where the money is. we contacted the deputy chairman of the presidential inaugural committee to ask those questions and we didn't hear back from him, either. he has a pretty good excuse because the deputy chairman of the committee was rick gates who was currently under indictment by a special counsel robert mueller for a dozen felony charges related to money laundering among other things. as part of that litigation, he's
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been ordered by the court to not talk to the press or say anything in public about his case. and even though the stuff we want to ask him about is not technically about his case, at least we don't think it is. it is not surprising that rick gates didn't respond when we tried to ask him what happened to the unaccounted for tens of millions of dollars and we tried his lawyer and haven't heard back from the lawyer, although like i said, we live in hope. we've hit the one-year mark for the donald trump presidency. nobody is getting a cosubway li or chicken salad. we don't do that in this country. there is something poetic. and as we hit this one-year mark tonight at midnight, we have yet to resolve, we have barely scratched the surface at figuring out a major financial and potentially legal scandal about an unaccounted for giant
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slush fund that people around the president have been not telling the truth about for a year and are now refusing to answer any questions about. which means alongside all of the others, there is a significant trump administration follow the hundr money scandal that dates literally to the very first day he was president of the united states. joining us now is a reporter for "usa today." she's been able to follow this trail further than any other reporter that's worked on this story. thank you for being here tonight. appreciate it. >> happy to be here. >> as i explained what is going on here in terms of why there is questions about this stuff and what we don't know, does that basically jive with your reporting? is that your understanding of the situation? >> that's basically it. i have not been able to get any answers, either. mr. barrack's spokesperson is polite said they could not comment at this time when i asked them this week what
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happened to the surplus funds, you know, how much money is there left? so, yeah, pretty much a brick wall. >> we -- one of the things i think is difficult about this story is that it's hard to look at the inauguration which is what those funds were supposed to pay for and guess what was spent and left over. if there are tens of millions of dollars sloshing around somewhere inside the trump inaugural committee unaccounted for, it would be good to have a ballpark figure of what they might be. the only thing we've been able to try to compare is that big inaugural concert. one of the obama inaugurations had a very, very a-list celebrity gigantic concert they aired on hbo with a special. it was a-list talent. that was said to cost $5 million. there is one case, one on
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background comment from an inaugural pfigure who said thei concert cost them $25 million. five times as much as the obama one. that seems not credible. have you been able to track down any of those other comparisons or explanations for what stuff might have cost? >> no, no, that's one of the things. the $25 million figure emerged in an associated press story and one of the questions is whether you can compare the two concerts because the obama concert had tons of a-list acts and so it was very easy to get it on television and it appears there may have been some broadcast costs for this inauguration that added to the expense but again, we don't have any answers. and nor will we for awhile and, you know, the reason this is all so important is that this is the very first time that money was raised in the name of the president. i mean, this was the first
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opportunity for people who may not have supported the president during the campaign to show up and give money to him because it was a sure bet, right? he was elected, and a lot of big businesses gave huge checks. i think that's part of the reason they were able to raise so much money is that people, you know, tom barrack said to me the day of the inauguration, i speak to him in the capital and i said this was easier than campaign fundraising because everyone wanted to jump on board once he was elected. >> and of course, they got rid cap so that meant that the sky was the limit in terms of these donations. that makes me want to know what happened to that money. reporter at "usa today", i think if anybody figures this out, it will be you. thanks for helping us understand this. >> much more ahead tonight. we just got something in that could give us an idea how this
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senate shutdown vote will go. we're looking at 15 minutes we think million this crucial vote happens. we've got a live report next, stay with us. ♪ if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis,... ...isn't it time to let the real you shine through? maybe it's time for otezla (apremilast). otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable after just 4 months,... ...with reduced redness,... ...thickness, and scaliness of plaques. and the otezla prescribing information has...
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. t minus minutes before the government shutdown unless there is a bill to keep it funded before then. what happens tonight, anybody's guess. we're expecting the big vote to happen in a few minutes at the
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top of the hour. if you want to handicap how the vote will go, you're on your own. i do not bet but people are starting to read a lot into the fact that according to poll l politico.com, a members only meeting tomorrow morning on the topic of quote republicans continued refusal to work with democrats to keep the government open. so read into that what you will but i read that as democrats in the house not having very high expectations the government is about to get funded there by averting the shut down so everybody can go home for the weekend, not if they plan tomorrow why the shutdown happened. among the things that hang in the balance, obviously the jobs of hundreds of thousands of people who work for the federal government who are potentially about to be furloughed also crucial programs like the cdcs flu tracking program.
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the flu killed a lot of people. the fate of the dreamers, people brought by the daca program and also, there is something else you should know about. last fall children's health insurance program ran out. this is a noncontroversial program. it's a program that covers 9 million kids across the country. it was a totally bipartisan. it's seen as a bipartisan success story. but the program's funding ran out last fall. instead of reauthorizing the program right then and there. republicans passed a quick fix to fund it a few months longer. that quick fix is about to run out again tonight unless congress reauthorizes it, which they could have done by now. taking on chip as a stand alone matter would not be a controversial thing. instead they attached it to this
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short term bill. while that's happening, states have been scrambling to alert parents that their kids coverage could be cut off. in some cases, health insurance for kids and babies and pregnant women, insurance is going to be cut off as early as february. connecticut's program is alerting parents to schedule appointments for kids before the end of march when the connecticut health program is scheduled to end. there's a lot hanging in the balance right now, but watching this happen in washington sometimes makes it feel like a game. if you're a parent right now who has a kid who's being treated for an ongoing critical or terminal illness and you're facing potentially -- you know, medical bill that is will not just be hard for you to pay but that you can't pay and because of what's happening tonight your kids are going to lose their
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health insurance because congress is playing with this and they're playing with all the rest of it. what's happening tonight isn't just ridiculous, it's disgusting. the senate is expected to hold a vote at 10:00 p.m. eastern tonight on the short term bill passed by the house yesterday. it doesn't seem there are enough votes to pass the bill and prevent a shutdown. we're going to take a quick break and when we come back we'll be live for the duration. stay with us. some air fresheners are so overwhelming, they can...
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it's almost 10:00 p.m., do you know where the government of the most powerful country in the world is? yeah nobody does. casey hunt is nbc news capitol hill correspondent and she has a live report for us now a few minutes ahead of what we expect to be the big vote here. what can you tell us. >> reporter: democrats emerging from behind closed doors, they have been mete meeting to talk about what their options might be to avert a government shutdown they have come out of the meeting saying they have no intention of doing so. the option would have been a three-week continuing resolution to try and give them more time to negotiate. lindsey graham put out a statement a few minutes ago suggesting that option, february 8th. that was something republican leaders -- it was intended as a
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public signal that that's what republican leaders want to do. but democrats have decided it is not what they want to do. it is not good enough for them. i spoke to richard blumenthal. he said it looks like we are going to be unified and vote this down. i spoke to mark short, i asked him if he thought they were going to have a solution before midnight. he said if this vote goes down in a few minutes on the senate floor, he doesn't see that as a likely possibility. so at this point at this hour it looks like we are looking at a government shutdown of some period of time. we will know in the next two or so hours because funding does run out at midnight. that leaves an open question of how they might move to resolve it later on. democrats are planning a 10:00 a.m. meeting for planning. it's possible a temporary
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measure could start in the house, make its way back to the senate. but it's possible we could be looking at a longer term shutdown. we talked about this on our air today, people have been describing it as a base of the democratic party. i think it's broader than that. there are a few democrats in red states facing tough re-elections that's a problem for chuck schumer to keep the majority. but for most they are hearing from a broad base of supporters, people who have been activated by this president and want to see democrats show some back bo bone and take a stand. tomorrow is the one year anniversary of trump's inauguration. he was supposed to have a gala down at mar -a-lago, he called t off, cancelled it.
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this could be unpredictable, it typically is. it's historic in modern times for a party that controls the white house, house, and senate to see the government shutdown on their watch. >> it is. we have you split screen right now. we can see a few senators, a few people in there. we were told earlier to be voting in a minute. do you think they're going to hold the 10:00 p.m. vote according to your reporting, the way the democrats are talking about this this appears to be a fore gone conclusion? >> i'm going to ask my camera man if he can turn it around to see what they have on the air. you're seeing this, they have not started voting yet, it does not seem as you pointed out. i spoke to john cornyn a few minutes ago that he was expecting them to hold the vote. from where i sit there's no sign the plan has changed dramatically, i'm going to keep texting and talking to my
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sources. if you do see a major delay, if we get to 10:15, 10:30 and still nothing, that could be a suggestion there are still some last-minute things going on. but honestly the definitiveness that democrats came out of the meeting makes me feel like it's an tough thing at this point. >> that coupled with the whip count we were able to do it seems they were nowhere close to having the 60 votes they needed. krar thank you. much appreciated. msnbc is going to be live for it all tonight. so settle in, let the dog out now because you aren't going to want him-to-let him out in the next hour. we're expecting a vote on whether the government is going to shutdown at midnight. what we just heard, it looks like there's no plan bf