this sunday on the one-year this sunday on the one-year anniversary of donald trump's presidency a government shutdown. both sides blaming the other. >> this will be called the trump shutdown. >> they wanted the shutdown. >> president trump earned an "f" for leadership. >> we do some crazy things in washington, but this is utter madness! >> how did we get here, and what happens now? i'll ask the number two democrat in the senate, dick durbin, and republican senator, tom cotton, who have also feuded over what president trump allegedly said about immigrants from africa. and white house director of legislative affairs marc short. plus, our brand new nbc

news/"wall street journal" poll. where does president trump stand one year into his presidency, and the words supporters and opponents use to describe him. also -- hundreds of thousands of women march across the country protesting the president, many with an eye towards more women winning office this november. joining me for insight and analysis are "wall street journal" columnist peggy noonan, nbc news national correspondent peter alexander, former obama deputy campaign manager stephanie cutter and republican strategist al cardenas. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> good sunday morning and welcome to the one-year anniversary of the trump presidency. actually it's day two of year two. democrats are calling it the trump shutdown. republicans are calling it the schumer shutdown.

whatever you want to call it this is what happens when both sides think they are on the winning side of a political argument. or as the "washington post" dan balz put it this morning, we are here because we have a deal-making chief executive who can't make a deal, a divided republican party struggling to govern and a democratic party tethered to its anti-trump progressive base. democrats want a deal now to protect immigrants who were brought here illegally as children, the so-called d.r.e.a.m.ers. republican leaders are opposed to put a d.r.e.a.m.er deal in a short term spending deal which could keep the government open. all of this comes as the president hits his one-year anniversary mark and our brand new nbc/"wall street journal" poll shows the president's approval rating is at 39%, the lowest after a year, 57% disapproving. compared to where he was last february at the start of the administration, a little bit better, 44% approving and 48% disapproving. because this president inspires such passion we asked supporters

and opponents to describe them in their own words. here are the words supporters were most likely to use, positive, good, excellent, doing what he said he would do. it's very different from the words used by opponents of this president. embarrassing, disaster, chaotic, disappointing and hasn't delivered. changing the way washington works was one of candidate trump's signature campaign themes, but this weekend's shutdown shows that washington is working or not working just as it always has. >> negotiating with president trump is like negotiating with jell-o. >> one year to the day after president trump took office the federal government shut down and the finger-pointing started. >> good morning, and welcome to the trump shutdown. >> this will be called the trump shutdown. >> the trump shutdown is all yours. >> day one of the senate democrats government shutdown. >> what we're calling the schumer shutdown. >> schumer shutdown. >> both parties face political

risks. ten senate democrats are on the ballot in states mr. trump won, and they depend on proving they can make government work. four of those democrats and new alabama senator doug jones voted to keep the government open, but for the first time in nearly 40 years the government is shut down while one party controls both houses of congress and the white house, and opponents are quoting citizen trump back to president trump. >> i actually think the president would be blamed. if there is a shutdown, i think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the president of the united states. >> the problems start from the top, and they have to get solved from the top, and the president's the leader. >> a year after mr. trump took the oath of office promising to be a disrupter and change agent -- >> the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. >> the president finds himself in a deep hole. 57% of americans disapprove of the job he's doing, but it's the intensity of the disapproval that's so dramatic.

with a majority of americans strongly disapproving, including every age group except americans 50 to 64. mr. trump promised to be the art of the deal president. >> i'm a deal-maker. i believe that i can put both sides together. >> i will negotiate deals that nobody can negotiate like i do. >> but ratings of the president's ability to change washington are down a net 18 points from a year ago. his capacity to get things done down 24 points, and just 19% give mr. trump high ratings for having the right temperament for the job. >> get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out. he's fired. he's fired! >> a majority of americans also feel negatively about the president as a leader, as commander in chief and as a representative of america abroad. one potential bright spot for republicans, americans are the most satisfied with the economy that they have been in nearly two decades. the president is not getting the

credit though, but republican incumbents hope that optimism will protect them in november. >> it's the economy, stupid. did you ever hear that one? >> joining me now is the president's chief congressional negotiator these days marc short. marc, welcome back to "meet the press." you're becoming a very familiar face i think to folks this weekend. >> thanks for having me back, chuck. >> where's the president? i say this because we didn't see him yesterday. didn't make a single public appearance. one thing about candidate trump, as we pointed out there a lot, he seemed to be the guy who says he was going to make washington work differently. washington looks exactly the way it did before he got into yesterday. why was he yesterday and why wasn't he involved in this? >> the president was involved, he was speaking to leader mcconnell and ryan and leader mccarthy. >> republican, republican, republican, no schumer, no pelosi. >> he met with senator schumer on friday and that was well publicized and he spoke with secretary nielsen and met with secretary mattis to learn over 100,000 national guardsmen and

reservists whose training was cancelled this weekend, who have to pay their get here and their travel costs back home so the president is engaged in finding out what are the impacts of this. he's on the find trying to find a resolution to it and he had members over to the white house a week ago in a bipartisan bicameral fashion to get past this impasse. >> part of the issue seems to be that people come away from these meetings not sure what president trump stands for. let me -- here's mitch mcconnell just i think three days ago on the issue of daca and immigration. >> looking for something that president trump supports, and he's not yet indicated what measure he's willing to sign. as soon as we figure out what he is for, then i would be convinced that we were not just spinning our wheels. chuck schumer used jell-o. that's another way of saying jell-o, is it not?

>> as one of my colleagues said it seems a lot of senators know a lot about jell-o but the reality is where we've been in this process is the president put forward his proposal over about 11 months ago, sending it to congress. general kelly went to congress to say here's how we need to solve daca. the daca situation has been unresolved for decades and obama took actions into his own hands with an unconstitutional solution to the problem. we asked congress to fix it and sent our priorities in october, a long list. we then sent a refined list a few weeks ago. we've been absolutely consistent in what it is we're asking for. four criteria, one the daca population, border security and ending chain migration and the visa lottery program. i might be a naive optimism and i think we're making significant progress and we'll get a deal and there are champions like senator durbin who will be hailed as a hero helping for making this happen. here's where we are, the border issue, democrats are moving former. >> they are giving you the wall. >> right. >> full funding, 18 billion is what chuck agreed no. >> sometimes what democrats have done they will authorize it without appropriating it. which is a game here. democrats have voted to

authorize lots of money that never happens so we need to clarify that but we see progress. on our side they said they want the 690,000 daca population expanded. senator durbin made the case saying many people did not register and they should not be held harmful. we've been willing to expand that population and there's progress happening here which leads us to, chuck, why are we shutting down the government? >> i guess then the graham/durbin say they put this offer out here and chuck schumer saying, why not say, okay, seems like we have the parameters for a deal. democrats are willing. you guys are arguing over whether you'll appropriate it or not but it seems as if -- chuck schumer what he thought he had an agreement of that the president changed his mind a few hours later. i guess the question i have for you is, who is in charge of the president's position on immigration? because what -- look at lindsey graham. he calls them tuesday trump versus thursday trump. what's the difference here? >> president trump has been

crystal clear on what he wants and he's to the wavered. what lindsey graham and senator durbin offered to the president was to say, here, we've narrowed it down to the four areas, when they came over to the white house and presented them they were woefully insufficient inside the four arrows. we narrowed down the broader debate into a smaller one. well feel like we're making progress on the overall discussion and we think we'll get to a solution. what befuddles us is we're not going to pay millions of our troops serving around the world and we're not going to pay the border agents until what, we don't know what it is we're asking for. they said give us a shorter cr. tonight senate republicans are going to vote for a three-week cr and democrats are unwilling to give up the vote to keep the government open. >> one of the issues that democrats have they just don't believe that the oral promise they get from the president will be fulfilled because every time they think they have one, somebody with a stiffer spine on the immigration issue gets to the president. what do you say to that criticism? >> i don't think there's anybody with a stiffer spine than the president. i'll give you a different theory. when you look back over the last year and you see record tax relief, you see supreme court justice confirmed and more justices confirmed at the circuit court level than any

year in the american history, repeal of the individual mandate and all the things the administration has done and they are being held captive by a base in their party that's angry and they are responding to that base. this is not about policy, chuck. it's purely about politics. >> do you know the same argument could be said then on the issue of daca which is an 85%, you know, depending on the poll you want to look at, anywhere from 65% to 80% overall approval including among trump voters that the president's position on this is being held hostage by a small conservative base. >> we want to solve daca. we recognize these are people aged between 16 and 36 who have work permits. they wouldn't get the work permits unless they had a clean legal record. they're productive to our society. we want to solve that and not on a different page of that. >> all right. you're taking a very conciliatory tone this morning. want to play an ad that you guys unveiled last night. >> i wish i could have killed more [ bleep ] of those mother [ bleep ]. >> it's pure evil. build a wall, stop illegal

immigrants. democrats who stand in our way will will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants. >> tell me how that happens negotiations today. you're calling democrats accomplices to potential murderers. >> you know that ad is pronounced by an outside group and not those of us -- >> donald j. trump for president is an outside group. >> let me -- >> no, no, no. >> donald j. trump for president is an outside group. >> it's not done -- done from a political organization, not people working inside the white house, but let me talk about the basis of that ad. today what we have is over 2,500 people on a terror watch list trying to get into our country each and every day. each and -- each year. that's about seven per day, chuck, being apprehended or turned away. we want to solve the problem of immigration coming in, and the threat that it poses to our country. i think that's a natural debate we should be happening. we shouldn't just say let's do this at some other point in time. >> if you want to solve this problem, is that the way to treat political opponents here? >> chuck -- >> let me ask you this.

is that ad helpful to you today? >> i think it's helpful to continue to raise awareness -- >> the tone of that ad -- you find the tone of that ad hopeful. >> the data in that ad continues to remind people -- >> data, not tone. is the tone wrong? >> the data of the ad shows there are people coming across our border that pose threats to our country, yes. >> all right. marc short, i have to leave it there, and we've got you. we've got dick durbin and tom cotton. after the show is over will you solve this? >> i hope so. as many people have pointed out republicans who were all for a shutdown when president obama was in office are opposed to one now. but democrats, too, have had a change of heart. here's what three prominent democrats sounded like in 2013 when republicans were threatening to shut down the government over healthcare. >> you do not use the threat of shutting down government to try to advance your policy agenda. that's just not the way it works. >> you can say we're shutting down the government. we're not going to raise the debt ceiling until you pass immigration reform. it would be governmental chaos. >> but if we're talking about competency and accountability i have a question for the

republicans. we just went through a government shutdown of your creation. who is going to be held accountable for that? >> well, joining me now is one of those democrats you just heard, from the number two democrat in the united states senate. it's dick durbin of illinois. senator durbin, welcome back to "meet the press." >> it's good to be here. >> i know you guys are hopefully going to go solve this problem after the show is over, but let me ask you this. why -- why draw the line in the sand now? it seems like to the average american you guys are fighting over how long the window of negotiation on immigration should be. one month or five days. two weeks or three weeks. do you see how to the average american they are not quite sure why this is the line in the sand versus say a month from now? >> let me tell you the average american feels frustration that we haven't solved the problem and many problems that we face here in washington, but let's put it in context, chuck. you understand the republicans control the white house. the republicans control the senate. the house of representatives and through their nominees even the u.s. supreme court. what we're trying to do is find

a solution to a shutdown which we believe is a trump shutdown. you've heard it over and over. you played it early in your broadcast here, but the reason is pretty clear. when the president said on january 9th, and i was sitting right next to him, you send me a bill to solve the problem that he created on daca, i'll sign it. i'll take the political heat. within 48 hours lindsey graham, republican of south carolina and i presented that bill to him, he rejected it out of hand. this last friday when chuck schumer was invited to the white house, he sat down with the president over lunch. there were two other people in the room. they hammered out an agreement where chuck schumer made major concessions on one of the major issues, the president's wall. within two hours the white house called and said that deal is off. so if you wonder what kind of shutdown it is and who is to blame the president in both instances could have stepped forward to show leadership. >> what i don't understand is why the sense of urgency now versus three weeks? nobody likes the situation we're in, but explain to me why you --

frankly why not draw this line in the sand in three weeks? >> this is the fourth cr this fiscal year. for those who are not following the insides of washington politics, it means a failure to pass a budget for the united states of america. this has to come to an end, as well. there are people, even five republicans works voted against the cloture on the continuing resolution because they are sick of the continuing resolutions. you say why don't we wait another three weeks, four weeks? it has to come to an end, and it will if and when the president shows the leadership that we expect of him as president. >> i want to get some clarity on durbin/graham, graham/durbin. we'll call it durbin/graham because you're here. you say you handled all of this, all of the assets the president has but i want to get to chain migration and family migration. it seems to me the real dispute does it apply just to the daca population or does it apply to all immigration overall? are you at all open to having

larger changes to the immigration law in the daca negotiations? >> the president made it clear on the january 9th meeting, he agreed with us there should be two phases. let's deal with the problem which he created on september 5th by eliminating daca, deadline march 5th. just a few weeks away. let's sol that have problem now and not all the problems of immigration. and, yes, we did include a provision related to family reunification which breaks my heart. we have said -- >> only applying to this population. >> that's right. >> they say it should apply entire immigration system. >> you're going do have senator cotton wants to reduce legal immigration into the united states. i'm not one of those people. my mother was an immigrant to this country and i'm very proud to be serving in the senate under those circumstances, but what it comes down to is this. lindsey graham and i accepted the president's challenge, produced the bill he asked for. gave it to him 48 hours later, and the infamous white house meeting took place. >> let me ask you about that white house meeting. you've said you've not leaked the contents of that meeting. >> that's true. >> you amplified it though.

why did you do that? >> because the president denied it happened. i was in chicago. i woke up the next morning. the story was in "the washington post" the night before and the president tweeted it had didn't happen, and it did happen, chuck. >> i -- i -- i ask this because i played that ad that the trump campaign is playing. it's accusing democrats of being accomplices to crimes, to murders for some reason. not helpful to a negotiation obviously to do name-calling. this became personal for many of you, not helpful to this. do you regret that that became public? >> i'm sorry that it was said. i'm sorry that the president denied it, but for the longest time we've heard that the driving force behind the president's position on immigration is safety and terrorism. marc short said the same thing earlier. what we heard in the thursday meeting was much different. it really reflected something which i hope we will not continue to subscribe to in this country. we're a nation of immigrants. that's part of our values. we want to keep america safe. that's our first priority, but

let us not turn immigrants into criminals. let us not deport the d.r.e.a.m.ers. >> all right. what deal will you take to reopen the government? obviously i think you guys accept the idea that you can't actually vote on the daca bill as part of reopening the government. obviously it's my understanding you'll accept reopening the government as long as there's a separate commitment to vote on daca but give me what you'll accept. >> there's two possibilities. one is that the president steps up as he said in the january 1th meeting and says i embrace the following approach to dealing with daca and the d.r.e.a.mers. congress has met the challenge and here's what i'll stand by and we can include it and pass it quickly. the alternative is to have competing ideas. senator cotton and i have dramatically different ideas, competing ideas on the floor of the senate and then, this is critical, and then are brought up in the house. remember when we passed comprehensive immigration reform in the senate with an overwhelming bipartisan roll call and speaker boehner and the republicans refused to even consider it? >> you want stand-alone bills voted on in the senate, but it's

my understanding you don't want the house to vote on a stand-alone. >> no. the point we're getting to is we need to have clear assurance if we can pass a comprehensive or a bill in the senate that it will be taken up in the house and won't be ignored. the march 5th trump deadline on daca is looming, and we want to solve this problem long before. >> all right. i want to end with where we started. why was february 16th a non-starter for this but january 31st was okay? i don't understand the difference. what's the difference between 14 days here? >> the dynamic here, we called for a one-day extension, a three-day extension to put a looming deadline on this negotiation and bring this shutdown, this trump shutdown to an end as quickly as possible. now the republicans have come in instead of four weeks we'll take three weeks. what's -- what we need to have is a basic agreement on what we'll do in those three weeks, not just a calendar date. >> all right. senator dick durbin, i have to leave it there. honestly, doesn't sound like we're very close, are we? >> i'm more positive.

i really think there's conversations at every level, democrats and republicans. >> you think the government reopens before the end of business on monday? >> i won't make that prediction. i feel that there are positive conversations -- >> let me ask you this. if it doesn't open by the end of business monday do you think we're here for the long haul? >> we'll talk every minute of every day, and i wish the president would help us. at some point his leadership could make the difference. >> senator dick durbin, i'm going to leave it there. we'll be watching. thank you, sir. when we come back, we'll hear from a republican in the senate who seems more intent to keep the president's immigration promises more than the president himself, tom cotton of arkansas. to see my sister! ♪ ♪ sometimes the confidence to be spontaneous starts with financial stability. once i heard it i was shocked. i just thought, i have to go get it! ♪ ♪ it's our tree! ♪ ♪ see how a personalized financial strategy and access to j.p. morgan investment expertise can help you. chase. make more of what's yours.

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welcome back. one of the senate republicans who has taken a particularly tough stance on illegal immigration has been tom cotton of arkansas, and senator cotton joins me now. welcome back to "meet the press." >> good morning, chuck. good to be with you. >> what would you say of what kind of deal the president will accept? because there does seem to be the president -- tuesday trump i guess as lindsey graham likes to call him. you were in the larger meeting. he looked like he was willing to

essentially accept graham/durbin and then a lot of people say you got to him and you stiffened his spine, so can you explain the president's position because it doesn't seem to be clear, as mitch mcconnell has said. >> chuck, i don't think anyone got to donald trump. donald trump studied the proposal that dick durbin and lindsey graham put before him and realized it didn't address any of the key priorities. not only did it give legal protections to the people in the daca program and gave mass amnesty to the parents as well, the people who created the problem to begin with. didn't give -- >> no citizenship. they weren't going to get citizenship. >> legal status. but it's an amnesty no matter what you call. it didn't give money to build any new border barriers, only to repair past border barriers or do anything to stop chain migration. here's what the president and i and senate republicans have been clear on. we're willing to protect the population that's in the daca program. and if we do that, it will have negative consequences. first, it will lead to more illegal imxwrags with children.

that's why the security enforcement measures are so important. and second, it means that you will create an entire new population through chain migration bringing more people into this country not based on their skills and so forth and that's why we have to address chain migration. that's a narrow and focused package that should have the support of both parties. >> but your as you was saying to senator durbin it sounds like democrats are willing to accept everything you're talking about on -- on a smaller population, like let's deal with the daca and daca-related population on all of those issues, that's part one, and then there's a part two that you deal with the larger immigration law changes. that seems very reasonable. why do you find that unreasonable? >> first, let me just say that congress hasn't gotten part one right for decades so it's important that we focus on part one. but, second, the proposal that senator durbin and senator graham put forward doesn't do any of those said. it doesn't just give legal protections for the 700,000 americans in the daca program and to millions of other people to include the parents who brought the kids here on the

first place. sec, on hurt the, no new border construction, only repair of existing construction. >> that's already changed. that's already changed. chuck schumer on friday gave him full funding for the wall, 18 billion on the table. done. that's already changed. >> were you in that meeting? i wasn't in the meeting either. >> okay. >> it's hard for the president to negotiate -- it's hard for the president or for senate republicans to negotiate when the democrats sitting across the table don't get what they want. they run out and they misrepresent what was a good faith effort to listen and to build trust, claim that some ridiculous deal was made and then claim that the president walked away from that deal and the media buys it hook, line and sinker. the president and the senate republicans engaged on this issue have been consistent since september when the president ended president obama's unlawful program. the problem we have is for four and a half months the democrats have not been negotiating over these very real and very honest concerns. >> what i don't understand is

how do you not see it as progress that chuck schumer is even publicly saying you get full funding for the wall. louis gutierrez publicly saying you get funding for the wall. how is that not done? why is that not a done deal? they've already moved. the democrats say we've moved much farther. >> chuck, that's a good first step but devil is always in the details on immigration. it's a very complicated area of law. last week senator durbin and senator graham were saying you get funding for the wall. you don't get new funding, funding to repair existing and it's only one year. >> okay. that's an old offer. >> we've seen this time and time again in the immigration space, promises are made and not kept because we spend money on a year-to-year basis. second, you still have the problem of chain migration and of creating an entire new group of immigrants that will be able to bring millions of new immigrants to the country without regard to their skills or education level or ability to get a job and stand on their own two feet. we have to solve those two negative side effects of giving legal protections to the daca population. that's the parameters of the deal that we all agreed to a couple of tuesdays ago at the white house. >> do you think it's a fair stance that if you can't vote for a bill, the president shouldn't agree to it?

>> look, we all serve in co-equal branches, the house, the senate and president. we all make our independent decisions. i work with the president on this issue and work with senate and house republicans, i'm more than happy to sit down with any democrat as well. >> whatever the president eventually agrees to, will you support that bill hook, line and sinker? >> i can't make that commitment. i'll evaluate any deal on the basis of merit and what's best for the people of arkansas and our country. >> i've got to ask you about the infamous meeting ten days ago. did the president use a vulgarity? >> chuck, i'm not going to get into every word that was or was not said. i will say, as many people have said, kirstejen nielsen under oath, a lot of strong language was used, fair to say there was cursing behind closed doors. >> what i don't understand is in the first 48 hours if there was a controversy about whether it was said, you implied it wasn't said at all. you didn't -- and it made it seem as if you were accusing dick durbin of being a liar and

lindsey graham of being a liar. >> as far as i know lindsey graham hasn't spoken on the record about this, chuck. here's the point that senator durbin represented that president trump used repeatedly, repeatedly used vile, racist, hateful language. that's not the case. if he was, why didn't he slam anything and slam his paper up and get up and walk out? what trump and others in that meeting expressed was astonishment that senator durbin and senator graham would bring a proposal that wouldn't move us towards a skill-based system but towards a system where we're rewarding people based on where they come from, not who they are. the whole point of immigration reform is to judge people as individuals based on who they are and what they can contribute to society, not where they are from and who they are related to. >> but to go back to the issue of trust on both sides, you i prime -- you let it sort of hang out there that dick durbin and lindsey graham were misleading the public completely and only now are you admitting, well, yeah, there was vulgarity used. that isn't what you said a week ago or ten days ago at the time. why?

>> chuck, i've never denied that there wasn't strong language used in the meeting by lots of people. you know, i'm not a shrinking violet about these things. i've been in a command post overseas and i've heard salty language before. what i'm saying it's a gross misrepresentation. >> were you offended? lindsey graham appears to be offended. said he said his piece. were you offended by what the president said? >> >> i was not offended and nobody in the meeting expressed their offense. >> lindsey graham didn't make his peace? >> lindsey graham made a case about immigration policies, not about what the president was saying. >> he said he said his peace about what american ideals are about. did he do that or not? >> yes, he did and that's part of immigration policy because immigration policy is a part of who we are, who we're going to bring to the country to become new american citizens. >> senator tom cotton, senator from arkansas, i'm going to leave it there. i appreciate it. when we come back, are there any winners in the shutdown battle, and we'll look at the tough new poll numbers for the president and what they may mean for the president's party in november.

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welcome back. panelists, nbc news national correspondent peter alexander, "wall street journal" columnist peggy noonan and former obama manager stephanie cutter and republican strategist al cardenas. do i have any marks up here? i feel like i'm banging my head against the wall. peter, i want to start with you a little bit. >> yeah. >> tell me how the white house is reacting to this criticism. here's the president bragging about his negotiation skills. >> we need a leader that wrote "the art of the deal." i will negotiate deals that nobody can negotiate that only i can do. nobody can negotiate the things that i can do. i'm a deal-maker. i believe i can put both sides together. >> i actually believed that candidate trump was going to be the person that brings people in the room because he loves this stuff. where was he yesterday? >> i think people have been saying he's m.i.a. you heard marc short say he's

been in the residence until 2:00 in the afternoon yesterday. heavily involved. not engaged. made calls mostly to republicans. the meeting with chuck schumer backfired and republican operatives said to me they think this president is erratic and undisciplined and inconsistent which makes it tough for him to get engaged in a deal like this. >> yes. i think i would add, you know, looking at the history here of mr. trump meeting first in the public deal last week when he talked to everybody and he said make a deal. i can take the heat and then in the conversation with schumer, what i think we see is he's actually not good at making a deal. what he does is pull new york real estate moves on the american political scene. he's saying you know what, we've got a deal, it's so great, come back tomorrow, we'll going have champagne and sign it and they come back and it's sort of i was thinking overnight, i got three or four more things, they are not that big and everybody goes

you're jerking me around. >> right. >> so that's the part that i think is not working and maybe he's not so deeply involved at the moment because his particular talents don't apply here. >> you know, al, i was talking to some republicans on the hill, and they do believe that if this were the straight-up merits of this, that they have got the winning hand here. democrats, they are negotiating over the window of negotiating daca, but they are -- they know the wild card here is the president, that he could blink. >> well, listen. i think this is such an easy putt i'm just perplexed by why it doesn't happen. it's a winning hand for the president. allow him to continue the momentum he built after the passage of tax reform so a winning hand for the democrats because they showed that they got the republicans for the first time to agree on immigration reform that helped innocent people, a million people so why didn't they make this deal and why didn't they agree to the proposal that president schumer spoke about is beyond me politically.

for those who spoke upon principle on my side in, 2006 republicans did not want to vote on what the president proposed because they thought amnesty was a word at that time that was poisonous. and, number two, too many people would be coming to america when they thought we were soft. what's happened is there's 5 million illegal people here in america in 2006. now it's 12 million to 14 million. we failed to act and as a result of failure to act, failure to act was worse than passing a law, and so we haven't learned our lesson in 2018. >> stephanie, and i'm not asking you personally to defend this, but the democrats feel like it's hard publicly. how do you defend -- you saw the question i had to dick durbin. it looks to the average american watching that you shut down the government because you couldn't agree on a window to negotiate. >> i think -- let me say a couple of things, and i will defend it. i think what senator durbin said is what the american people believe, that you cannot negotiate with this president because it's like jell-o. he keeps moving the goal posts.

he makes a deal one day and reneges on it the next and what democrats are saying we'll agree to an extension and agree to some date certain in the future to figure this out but we want some assurances that we're going to figure it out. what's going to happen between now and then? we're not just going to keep kicking it down the road, and when comes to the d.r.e.a.m.er population, you know, chuck, you had mentioned when you came over here you felt like you were banging your head against a wall. what was startling to me is you have the white house representative marc short who is very good in doing these shows acting very conciliatory and wanting to make a deal and then defends an ad that's basically calling democrats murderers and likening the d.r.e.a.m.er population to people coming across the border to kill people. >> the president promised a bill of love. >> they are merging the two issues. i understand why they are getting it. i've been in politics for years. i get it. >> i don't understand it. >> it's not right. >> it's pete wilson 1994 california. >> you see the long-term damage. >> there is long-term damage.

>> there is huge long-term damage. we're not learning our lessons. we didn't learn them in 2006 on immigration reform, and we're killing my party now in this short-term deal because it's going to happen the same thing. we've got 50 million hispanics here now. we'll have 100 million in 20 years. what makes people think that this is good long-term policy for my party? >> bottom line is if -- if marc short was as conciliatory as he sounded and that there really is a deal to be made here, why did the president waste an entire day yesterday? i've served in the white house and i've been through shutdowns. both democrats and republicans should have been sitting in a room yesterday trying to hash this out. if they really cared about the harm to the american people of shutting down the government, they should have made yesterday work. >> but it's my impression, i must tell you, it looks to me like to some degree the democrats are overplaying their hand, and unfortunately, obscuring something historic. what's historic? democrats and republicans and capitol hill and the white house right now are willing to trade

changes in policy on daca for changes in policy on immigration on the wall. daca security which is kind of perfect and kind of where america is. you look at any of the polls. >> it seemed the obvious deal. right? >> you know, americans they don't like illegal immigration. they want it shut down. they don't real care how it's done. a wall, a drone, just shut it down. it's dangerous for the country. at the same time we have illegal immigrants here. we marry them. we're at school with them. we know them. nobody is going to throw them out. regularize it as best you can. that's kind of where the american people are. it's fabulous that republicans and democrats have almost this mind meld, and in the last minute it's getting screwed up by nonsense. >> this is why the most important sound bite you played from mitch mcconnell in the last several days saying we don't really know where the president stand on this. the president hasn't given republican leadership a sense of where he is on this. >> stephanie, i thought the democrats had the moral high

ground until they failed to agree to extend this process for a short period of time. at that point, i said, you know, this shutdown is political. it's not on merit. >> it is. >> let me remind you schumer went to the white house and offered a short-term extension and basically gave the president everything he wanted. the president agreed to it. schumer leaves the white house. by the time he gets back to the hill, the president has changed his mind. >> i think it's pretty clear to me democrats are from mars and republicans are from venus right here and they need a relationship book real, really badly here. let's pause in a moment. democrats believe taking a strong stance in defense of d.r.e.a.m.ers is good politics are they right? i want to get to al cardenas' point. that's next. wait until you see this. when i found out i had age-related macular degeneration, amd, i wanted to fight back. my doctor and i came up with a plan. it includes preservision. only preservision areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula recommended by the national eye institute to help reduce the risk of progression

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welcome back. data download time. the shutdown struggle is over daca. that's the program that protects children who were brought to the united states illegally by their parents and have essentially known no other country. so why are democrats willing to essentially shut down the government over this issue? well, last month's nbc news/"wall street journal" poll showed 62% of the country believed congress should continue to protect those who receive daca status, the so-called d.r.e.a.m.ers. and our latest polling on this issue also shows that hispanics favor democrats to control congress next year by a whopping 64% to 19%, and it's not just the polling. the 2018 mid-term map shows how

much daca could put the gop majority at risk. right now there are 52 republican-controlled districts where the hispanic population is higher than the national average, 17.8%. and in 21 of those districts, more than 30% of the population is hispanic. these are voters who take the daca issue to heart. they take it personally and may be motivated to get out to the polls in typically what's a lower turnout mid-term turnout year and ten of the 52 representatives in those districts are already bolting for the exits, either retiring completely or running for higher office. the 42 remaining incumbents do have a lot at stake in this current debate. so where are the places we're talking about? 44 of these 52 districts are in border states, 12 in california and 4 in arizona and 1 in new mexico and 22 in texas and 5 in florida. and yes, even as a floridian i do consider florida essentially a border state. but some of these districts are in places you may not expect, washington state, nevada, three

in colorado, georgia, pennsylvania and new york. so the democrats do indeed take back the house this november, it could be because they fought for daca issue and they won districts like this, republican-held districts with larger than average minority populations. and they are not just along the border. they are now more scattered around the country. when we come back, end game and a report from "nbc nightly news" anchor lester holt who is in north korea. >> announcer: coming up, end game brought to you by boeing, continuing our mission to connect, protect, explore and inspire. dad promised he would teach me how to surf on our trip. when you book a flight then add a hotel you can save. 3 waves later, i think it was the other way around... ♪ everything you need to go.

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>> announcer: end game brought to you by boeing, continuing our mission to connect, protect, b. continuing our mission to connect, protect, explore, and inspire. >> back now with end game, we're actually going to stick to the politics of this. stephanie, i want you -- i'm going to hit you here with the democratic base that in some ways it's 2020 politics that is drawing the line in the sand here about -- on daca. some of your former colleagues have a popular podcast called pod save america. john favro, all former white house folks. they were doing whip counts. it was those between fight club and those in the waffle house. and they put donley, hide camp, jones. how much is the base driving this outside?

do you think democrats in the senate would have us buy-in on this, would draw this line in the sand without that kind of activity? >> let's remember what this is about. this is about the dreamer population, more than 700,000 kids who came here through no fault of their own and basically have grown up as americans and are contributing to our country. democrats have been for fixing that problem for a long time, former president decades. most republicans have been, too. that's why it's an 80-plus supported issue. i think everybody understands, and i don't think anybody around this table would disagree, that if the compromise were put on the floor of the house and the senate, they would both pass that bill. drawing a line in the sand to get that done is not just a base exercise, it's the right thing to do. >> what does it do to those red state democrats? >> they voted the way they wanted to. >> is that healthy for them to be referred to as wafflers by fellow democrats? >> in some of those states maybe it would be. >> a positive here. the same base issue for the republicans, it does seem as if the president is more worried

about that base than thinking about the middle. >> well, all i know is that we did a reprogram after the '14 election and we have doubled down on the mistakes we agree in -- >> 12-13. >> excuse me. look, for the republican party, the president had already tested daca. the base seemed to be okay with it. now that things have changed to the point where this bill passiones apasses and it should, democrats are going to take all the credit and we're taking none. stupid politics. the second part that makes us stupid is the fact that no one in our party is saying, look, i'm not for this bill but i've got a lot of empathy for these million families. look, i can see why somebody would not have -- would not be for this policy. i don't understand it, but i can respect it. but there is no empathy. when i saw the secretary of homeland security in front of the senate saying she never met a dreamer and yet she's going to deport a million people, break up all these families, where is

the empathy in my party? people, the number one important thing in america when somebody is asking for a presidential candidate's support is, do you care about -- does he care about me? how do we tell 50 million people that we care about them when there is not a single word of empathy about the fate of these million people? >> can i say the trump base in my view would be very happy with a daca deal and an immigration wallen forcement thing. they'd be happy, but it's more than they'd be happy. the middle would be happy, centrists would be impressed. that's the way to play politics. it's odd. sometimes i think the president misunderstands his own base, doesn't really understand what it will like, what it will accept. may i say also, i do not think stephanie, that this shutdown would be happening if democrats in the u.s. senate did not feel that their own base was angry, restive, holding their feet to the fire.

and if they didn't think they could benefit because trump is so unpopular, he's high 30s. well, there is that -- >> yesterday was not about the shutdown. yesterday was about a year of -- more than a year, a whole presidential election. >> imagine if chuck schumer hadn't held his ground with all those people marching across the country. >> for a political reason, it's also the right thing to do. that's where democrats are coming down here. >> there is another issue, it may be part of trump's first year and the way he's changed washington. i would say the shutdown rhetoric has been defining the dnc down, as our friend mr. money han would say. peggy, i'd love you to tee off on this. lindsey graham calling tom cotton, tom cotton shooting back. oh, yeah, you weren't at the kit kiddy table in the debates. an official press called senators losers, legislators. nancy pelosi with the bowl of doggy doo. >> oh, my gosh, that was awful. >> the point is it's all awful

and it's the new normal. >> it is. look, as for the presidency, we just passed one year anniversary two days into the second year. i think what we are seeing up close every day, relentlessly, is a post-heroic presidency, a presidency for a post heroic era. people don't have illusions about how high and upstanding and rigorously upholding of values that the president is, and at the same time everybody in politics around him sees it. sees that it plays fairly well for him, that he is sometimes gross or abrupt or rude in his terminology, so they do it, too. it does lower everything. we are living through a cultural lowering. >> but you know they're lowering of expectations here, leadership is talking to an echo chamber while more and more americans are informed about politics. >> so is the president. >> and it's all sort of twitter snark in public.

>> it is. >> my colleague nbc anchor lester holt is in north korea whe -- south korea. it's a rare look inside kim jong-un's regime. it comes less than three weeks before the 0 he limb picks begins a few weeks in south korea which is why south korea is opening its doors a little to the west. earlier lester filed this report exclusively for us. take a listen. >> well, good morning, chuck. this is probably not the image you were expecting to see of north korea. that's probably one of the reasons we were invited to come here, because it is not what you would expect. a modern ski resort here about four hours outside the capital. we have come here to talk about the olympics, which of course will be held in south korea. but we've learned that here they will be training both athletes from the north and south, a product obviously of the recent talks, face to face talks between the countries. none of it masking of course the issues that remain over the nuclear program and no signs that north korea is willing to dial that back. and also, of course, the

crippling sanctions which have created such hardship. again, you see no signs of hardship here, but it has taken a toll in this country. we'll have reporting this week on nbc nightly news. but we'll send it back to you right now in washington. >> and that's what we all look forward to, much more of lester's reporting throughout the day. and be sure to watch lester live from the region after he has been around north korea tuesday on nbc nightly news. that's all we have for today. we're open every sunday. no shutdowns here. because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." alright, baby. i will be right back, ok? you going to be alright? (vo) i was born during the winter of '77. my dad said i cried for 3 days straight. i first met james when he moved here in the 5th grade. we fell in love and got married right after college.

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like stop worrying about your boss fast, like wow, you're already asleep fast. when life keeps you up... zzzquil helps you fall asleep in as little as 20 minutes. tonight washington is broken again. your politicians are failing you again. and you probably think it's the same old story, but it's not. we've never seen anything like this in modern times. the president is a republican, the house and the senate are republican, but the president seems to want to make a deal with a democrat, and the president's own inner circle doesn't trust him enough to let him. this is k.c., d.c. good evening. i'm kasie hunt broadcasting live tonight from the russell rotunda, the senate office buildingus