>> we are enforcing the laws passed by congress, and we are executive bran to protect our communities. >> we'll fact check the secretary of homeland security coming up. heart of the matter. former first lady laura bush delivers a condemnation of the parent-child separation policy, comparing it to the inattorneyment inattorney mentinternment of japanese-americans. >> what this administration has decided to do is separate children from their pents to send a message that if you cross the border with children, your children are going to be ripped away from you. that's traumatizing to the children who are innocent

victims, and it is contrary to our values in this country. and life-long trauma. doctors from the american academy of pediatrics call taking children from their parents sanctioned child abuse. >> this type of trauma can be long-lasting. and it's difficult to recover from thi it is a form of child abuse. and good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. president trump's policy of separating children from their parents is coming under fire from former first lady laura bush. a normally apolitical figure, unable to keep silent in the face of such suffering. in "the washington post" today, she writes --

>> the president's wife is also voicing concern about her husband's policy, releasing a statement saying -- >> but still seems to be suggesting that congress needs to address this problem, even though her husband could change it with a single phone call. the president is now calling on democrats to give the republican majority enough votes for a larger immigration bill. in essence, using the children as leverage to get money for the wall. today, homeland security secretary neilson tweeted first the administration does not have a policy of separating families at the border, but today denying that the trump policy is an intentional departure from bush and obama enforcement. >> there has been much outcry,

consternation, and frankly misinformation from many in the press andongress over the last few weeks that we at dhs are intentionally doing things that e unhumanitarian, that are cruel, immoral, and disgraceful. we areoing none those things. we are enforcing the laws passed by congress. it is important to note that these minors are very well taken care of. don't believe the press. they are very well taken care of. >> well, first of all, kristen welker is joining me now, nbc white house correspondent and nbc's jacob soberov at the border at the processing station, and with my here is bill crystal. they are not enforcing the laws, they are enforcing a policy announced by jeff sessions in may, rejected by both the bush and obama white houses. kristen? >> it's a really important

point, this was a policy announced by the attorney general, zero tolerance. what it means is that anyone who is crossing the border illegally is subject to prosecution, and if you are subject to prosecution, the attorney general says you could be separated from your child. that is why you're seeing these separations at the border. andrea, you raised the important point, which is that past administrations, when they have prosecuted people who have crossed the border illegally, have not chosen not to necessarily separate them, not to separate families. and yet this administration is saying, we are taking a zero tolerance approach to all of this. now, what is complicating their talking points about the fact that this is up to congress is the fact that the president, if you listen to lindsey gr who has the ability to change this policy with a single phone call. but you have the chief of staff, john kelly, in recent comments,

say thing is a deterrent. they are use thing to tryo deter people cross the border without legal and proper documentation. so this is becoming a growing political crisis, frankly, for this administration, those images that jacob has been showing us throughout the day, are ones that the president and sarah sanders will have to answer for today. >> now we have new numbers, jacob, from dhs, saying that the department now has 11,785 minors in its care as of today, 500 children were added to that number, that includes the number of 500 added in the last couple of weeks. you're at ground zero there. tell us what you saw when you went in. camera crewinside.ke pictures >> let's extrapolate that number. that would be 20,000 people at the rate they're going by august. 20,000 people, young,

unaccompanied minors, detained, separated by their parents. i want to stop for one second. let's go back to the picture. this is ground zero right here for falyation in the united states of america. inside that building, a little off to left, there are over 1100 people detained by the border patrol. in this sector, since the beginning of that policy was announced, over 1100 additional, separate children have been separated from their parents, taken away from their parents and put into the custody, part of that 11,000 and change number we just referred to. we were not allowed to bring cameras inside, but we did get handout photos and video from the department of homeland security and border ka troll. take a look at this. this is our tour. that's me on the left being guided by a member of the bor patrol. those are single adult males. they've always been in there. those changes have always been

in there. they were criticized during the obama administration, as well. what's different than today, more than before, children are being separated to deter people in coming into the country. it is not true when you hear the administration saying this is a democrat policy and something done before. none of that is accurate at all. all you have to do is walk into that buildin to confirm it with your own eyes. >> jeff sessions announced in may, not that long ago, this is the attorney general announcing a new policy. let's watch. >> i have put in place zero tolerance policy for illegal entry on our southwest border. if you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. it's that simple. if you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you.

and that child may be separated from you as required by law. >> so it's completely discretionary. jacob, i want to make one point that you were citing yesterday. i believe you said that there are four qualified, certified social workers for all those people that are in that separation facility. >> only four, andrea. yesterday, only four that were inside this facility. i want to correct something i said earlier. i said you could have a 2-year-old separated from a parent. the accurate age range is they separate children 4 and over. so still, i mean, whether it's a 2-year-old or 4-year-old, you could have a 4-year-old that is by themselves inside this building after their parents have been taken to court charged with a federal crime, awaiting for health and human services to pick them up. if one of those four social workers is not available to help them, feed them, do something, otherwise they would be sitting

by themselves or walking around with other young children, there's nobody to take care of them. if we're going to get to 20,000 young people by august, in the custody of health and human services, you ve ataffing crisis, something that border patrol said, the planning has not been well thought out. there are challenges that are happening logistically that are stressing not just the children, but the agents that are tasked with pulling off this policy. >> let's get to the politics of all this, bill crystal. it seems to me this was rushed th midterm strategy, rather than as an immigration strategy. and that they thought it would project toughness and build the wall and put pressure on democrats to agree to an immigration bill that would include money for the wall in order to get these kids out o custody. >> right, but what's striking to me is they doubled down this

moing. that is, president trump seemed from his tweets to be unhappy with this policy. maybe they can negotiate. but this morning, the attorney general gave a speech, the secretary of homeland security gave a speech, and trump tweeted, they both defended the theyidn't sa this isn unfortunate side effect of the policy and we're going to work on fixing it. they didn't say that. they doubled down in full defense of the policy, and president trump this morning eslated it , you know, if u're agast this policy, you're for crime and terrorism. >> and he misstated germany's situation. he said gemi jgermany -- >>erkel has an immigration

problem. what was t keys to president trump's campaign. mexi rapists and muslim ban. he won. and this i wre he's going. for me, this morning is very important. this is not a mistake. this is not unfortunate whe they're going to work it out. they may still getherebu r now, they are welcoming this fight and turning it into a much bigger fight. if you are on the side of the immigrantsyou are for unlimited immigration, letting criminals in, and then in effect saying since he's talking about merkel, i suppose he's talking about unlite immigration of var terrorist threat. so it's an astonishing eslation by the president. >> talk to me about laura bush. she did extraordinary work in afghistan, that was a bipartisan effort.

but sheaunched it for co-education in afghanistan during the war. but that is the major public policy besides literacy. but for her to come out with this kind of ant is extraordinary. >> yes. and obviously something her husband concurs in. for me, a republican senator, it's a 50-49 senate. republican senators and house members have to say this is unacceptable. we can have a broader debate, you can be hawkish in terms of different policy debates. but fix this thing now. if a couple of republican senators said that and said they would stop voting for president trump, in 30 house members said that and refused to vote for this bill they're trying to get the floor, that would be among them. right now, the trumpfe line , you see susan collins, one of the republican senators willing to be critical of trump, said well, we need to work on as a comprehensive settlement, and the feinstein

bill is too broad. you can fix the family ng whole debate withle other kinds of immigration policy. trump does not seem to be scared of the politics of this. i don't know, maybe he thinks immigration is the issue that won him the presidency, he thinking. and maybe he thinks he can win this debate. >> he's listening to steve miller. >> and steve bannon. >> and steve bannon, exactly. thank you so much, bill, kristen andjaco f continuing to be with us and keep us honest about it. this morning, the president of the american academy of pediatrics described the impact of the president's policy of the children inside these cages. >> i wento a shelter that was designed for very young children, an walked into the toddler room, and very different than when you normally see toddlers, they're usually running around and rambunctious. there were a number of very

quiet children. and there was one little girl who was just sobbing and wailing and beating her fists on the mat. i was told you couldn't comfort or hold a crying child. we all knew that this child was crying because he washe wanted mother. >> dr. julie litman joins me now. thank you very much for being with us, doctor. i want to point out the president is coming into the east room on an unrelated matter. we may take a bit of that and hear whether he talks about this. but what is the bottom line of the impact from yourdies and your colleagues about the imonh in this kind of situation and not knowing when they're going toheir parents again? >> well, i think what we know first and foremost is that highly stressful experiences, like separation from parents,

disrupt the delopnt o ch's brains. and place them at risk for short and long-term health problems. >> and how do you -- how do you assess the conditions that these kids are living under right now as seen by your colleague down there? >> well,hen i was inside the processing center myself, i can tell you i witnessed similar conditions, even without the separation piece, and i can tell you that they're only worse now. i saw myself cage-like structures, chain-link fences extending from the floor to the ceiling. children lying down on mats, and lights that were kept on 24-7, wh is incredibly disorienting to anyone, especially a child. >> what kind of advice, if any, do you know that dhs is

getting -- excuse me, hhs, health and human services getting in terms of treating the children compareto adults? and what if there are more than a thousand people there and only four certified social workers? >> well, i any first and foremost we have to remember that these experiences are highly stressful and they're taking away the buffer of a parent. so nothing can replace the love and support of that parent that has been stripped from that child. this policy is undeniably hal children. in the interim, we can attempt to provide comfort and as much normalization as possie. but until we end separation of children from their parents, we're causing harm to those children. we also know that family detention is not a substitute or a solution to family separation,

and detention is as harmful as any form of separation. we should not be detaining children and families, and we should absolutely not be separating children from their parents. >> doctor, thanks for joining us. continue talking to you and your colleagues. right now, the presides speaking in the east room. let's listen. >> il say it very straight, immigration is the fault and all of the problems that we're having, because we cannot get them to sig legislation. we cannot get them even to the negotiating table. and i say it very strongly, it's the democrat's fault. they're really obstructionists, and they are obstructing. the united states will not be a migrant camp, and it will not be a refugee holding facility. it won't be. you look at what's happening in

europe, you look at what's happening in other places, we can't allow that to happen to the united states. not on my watch. for the rest of the world, you look at everything that's taking place, pick up your newspapers this morning, and you see. we want safety and we want security for our country. if the democ would sit down instead of obstructing, we could have something done very quickly. good for the children, good for the country, good for the world. it could take place quickly. we could have an immigration bill, we could have child can separation. we're stuck with these horrible laws. they're horrible laws. what's happening is so sad. it's so sad. and it can be taken care of quickly, beautifully, and we'll have safety. this could really be something

very special. it could be something maybe even for the world to watch, just like they're watching our great economy, how it's soaring. they could watch this. we have the worstration laws in the entire world. nobody has such sad, such bad -- and actually in many cases, such horrible and tough. you see about child separation, you see what's going on there. but just remember, a country without boarders is not a country at all. we need boarders, we need security. we need safety. have to take care of our people. you take a look at the death and destruction that's been caused by people coming into this country without going through a process. we want a merit-based immigration system so that boeing and lockheed and all of

the people, grumen, all of the people here today, the heads of every company, so that you can hire people on a merit base. you know they're coming in, they're people that came on merit, not based on a lottery or people that snuck across the border. and they could be murderers and thieves, and so much else. so we want a safe country, and it starts with the boarders. and that's the way it is. now i would like to -- [ applause ] thank you. >> joining us now is jacob soberov. let's do a quick fact check. it is not the democrats, it's not congress. this is an enforcement action which the obama and bush white houses rejected as being too harsh and unnecessary, what they were calling a nuclear option, and it is something that lindsay

graham and others who support the president who say he could change with a phone call. but again, using it against the democrats and as bill crystal was just saying, doubling down on it a midterm election strategy. >>eplet' all say it together, there is no law that requires the federal government to separate children from their families if they have entered the united states illegally. that is a policy that has been put into place, and it has resulted in, in this border patrol station, 1100 children since april being taken away from their parents. it has resulted in little children waiting alone in this station. i sasome of them yesterday, waiting to get picked up by the department of health and human services, and taken to facilitiacross the country, one of a hundred, in 17 states where they have to wait to go through a process, to get into a foster care program or sponsorship program, because of a decision by the president of

the united states. he said it makes him sad. what is sad is that he doesn't understand that this is a policy that is 100% under his control and he could endt right now. >> kristen welker rejoining us from the white house. t clear he doesn't understand? how much leeway do we give the president for not understanding his own policy? or is it something being done deliberately? >> reporter: i think there's a deliberate element, andrea. what strikes me about what we are answering, the comments we just heard from president trump, the tweets throughout the morning, this is traditional donald trump. he's digging in, the pressure is mounting, around he's effectively saying i'm going to keep fighting. i'm going to keep fighting my way out of this political crisis. as you were saying before the president started speaking, andrea, this is also something that energizes his base. they like to see him fight and fight on these core issues. we heard steve bannon over the

weekend. of course, someone who was fired from this white house, but still someone who represents a hardline view when it comes to immigration policies say look, this is what we want to see from this president. and from this attorney general. so i do think there is an element to this that is very deliberate by the president politically. now, the question becomes, at any point does the political pressure outweigh this fight that he's waging, that's energizing his base. that's the unanswered question. we just learned that the briefing initially slated for was pushed back to 3:30. that's an indication that perhaps they want more time to prepare or perhaps we'll hear from a higher level official. so we'll try to drill down on who specifically is going to come to this podium. but i think it underscores this white house knows they have a real fight on their hands right now, andrea. >> now, the other thing that comes to mind, kristen, and jac jacob, is the children are being taken care of, don't believe the

press. jacob, what is your experience from your own eyes? >> reporter: the children in these facilities, everything they're going throu extraordinary enough. i just want to reiterate, donald trump is making the case for changing immigration policy. in this instance, the way the detainees are treated here, the processes through which they are going through have existed during previous administrations. but he's denying the fact that it's his policies that are subjugating the children in these facilities to the new emotional stress and trauma that setion creates. and frankly, that's the big issue. and everything else is a distraction. >> and kristen, there's also this meeting tomorrow where the president is meeting only the republicans. so this does not duplicate what

he memorably with dianne feinstein and others whe we thoughthere was an agreement of daca on live television. he's not meeting with democrats, and it's not something that requires a major immigration bill. the idea that they would agree on an immigration bill that would accomplish everything, including border security, the wall, the dreamers, and this separation policy, in an election year, is, you know, far-fetched to say the least. but he's not even having a bipartisan meeting, he's going tomorrow to meet with republicans. >> he's not having a bipartisan meeting, andrea. and you're right, this is a sign that the president is exclusively working with members of his own party. frankly on legislation that is already facing very steep hurdles there. two pieces of legislation that house speaker paul ryan is expected to introduce this weekend. one very conservative, one is more moderate, the president

muddled his message around whether he supports it on friday. the indication is that he would ultimately support it, and it would deal with this issue of children getting separated from their families to some extent. but there's also a sense that there would beo gguarantees, and it goes bk to this zero tolerance policy. so the legislation is still very much up in the air and uncertain and not a guarantee it would deal with the root of this problem. >> in fact, they refuse to deal with the feinstein legislation and other proposals that would deal with this problem. again, thanks to both of you. now, a growing number of religious leaders, even evangelicals who have in the past supported president trump, are imploring the white house to change this policy. joining me nowther martin, a jesuit priest. father, thank you very much for being with us. i've been following you on twitter. you have tried to set the record

straight in terms of the biblical verses that are being used by jeff sessions, sarah sanders and others to justify this policy. help explain for our viewers. >> well, he used romans 13, which says we should be obedient to civic authorities. but for st. paul and for jesus, god's law supersedes any unjust laws. an unjust law is no law at all. to use something that really has been used to justify slavery at different points and even nazi era laws i think is reprehensible. separating kids from their parents is not biblical, period. >> i want to play some of that jeff decisions for you in a moment, but first ask you with, you perhaps just heard the president just say the u.s. will not become a migrant camp. >> you know -- >> you subject yourself to prosecution if you violate the law. i would cite the apostle paul and his clear and wise command

in romans 13 to obey the laws of the government, because god has purpos.d the government for his >> i can say that it i very biblical to enforce the law. that is actually repeated a number of times throughout the bible. >> apologies, we played that tape for you so you can respond. that and the president's comments, if you will. >> yeah, i think those uses of scripture to justify what is sinful is obscene. there is no way that you can read the gospels and conclude that jesus wanted children ripped away from their parents. jesus also says in matthew 25, i was a stranger and you did not welcome me. the thrust of the old and new testaments on migrants and refugees, is to care for them, not to treat them like this. so it's really insane to use the bible to justify sin. >> and the president saying that he's not going to let america

become a migrant camp. this on just about the anniversary of the statue of liberty being delivered from france to us in the 19th century. >> exactly. as someone who worked with refugees for two years in east africa, if you say people deserve a safe place to live and don't give it to them, what's the pot? we are a nation of refugees and migrants and immigrants. it's a deeply cruel thing to do to turn away a family who is fleeing persecution and violence. it's un-christian and sinful. and i think in particular, this sort of separation from kids and their families, the lying about it, the putting of kids in cages, i think is reprehensible, and i think people in general need to say -- call it what it is, which is sin. >> and you said last night on twitter that it was evil. >> it is evil. we need to call it evil. it clearly does not proceed from god. it is an action that is causing

great trauma, physical suffering, anguish, despair, division in the country. st. paul said by their fruits you will know them, and it's clear to see what's happening here. it's also something that we see is cloaked in lies, which is another way of recognizing something that is evil. so it has all the hallmarks of evil. i don't know what more we can say. the only thing we can say is that people who participate in these things are also going to be judgedty harshly, i would think. >> this has precipitated some soul searching with journalists. we are finding that we can no longer stand quietly and just describe this policy without pointing out that this is being misrepresented, and it's very uncomfortable for a lot of people my generation of journalists to be saying the president misrepresented, he

misspoke, this is a lie, this is not true. but people have to speak out. >> they do. i would say to journalists with respect to yourself that what you are hearing is your conscience speaking and to listen to your conscience. the way i believe god works in the world is by raising these issues in our kons sheconscienc asking us to speak out and do something. >> this reminds me of your voice being such a clear voice of what i think was a tur poi during my youth of the civil rights movement, when the clergy from all denominations headed south, and joined hands with dr. king because it wasn't enough for the black clergy to be standing on that bridge in selma. it had to be their brothers and sisters from the north, as well. and from all over the country. >> these are our brothers and sisters. working with refugees myself, you see that these are human

beings. we're families with complex stories and they deserve our love. for nothing else, we should do it because jesus asks us to welcome the stranger and treat the marginalized with care. >> thank you so much for your wisdom today. >> my pleasure. and coming up, blurring lines. the supreme court weighs in on part season gerrymandering around the country. or does it? details next. stay with us. better things than rheumatoid arthritis. before you and your rheumatologist move to another treatment, ask if xeljanz xr is right for you. xeljanz xr is a once-daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. it can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma and other cancers have happened. don't start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. tears in the stomach or intestines,

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the supreme court today side stepping decisions in two major gerrymandering cases, allowing voter redirecting maps in wisconsin and maryland to stand for now. it is a blow to democrats in wisconsin. pete williams joins me now from the supreme court. so, there are other cases out there, they're still looking for a case, but i guess they don't want to get involved in this. >> reporter: well, for 50 years, andrea, the supreme court has struggled with this question, can redirecting become so partisan, can the party in power so disadvantage the other power that it becomes unconstitutional. the challengers hoped this would be the year they would succeed, but they didn't. the wisconsin case was brought by democrats challenging the way the republicans drew the boundaries for state legislative districts. and there the supreme court said it was a state-wide challenge.

that won't work. people that want to bring these challenges have to bring the challenges based on the districts they live in. the supreme court did say that the challengers can try again to overcome the legal obstacle of getting through the courthouse door showing they have a particular injury. they're going to try again. the other case came from maryland. this was just the opposite. this wasepublicans claiming that the 2krdemocrats drew a congressional district to permanently disenfranchise them. the supreme court, if it wanted to engage on this issue, if it found a test that it liked, probably would have gotten past these procedural hurdles, but it didn the challenge is this for the courts, the drawing of district lines has always been, thro our history, a political exercise. so the problem is, how much politics is too much? what's the test? and the supreme court just

hasn't found it. now, here's the rub -- one of the justices who has been most receptive to these claims is justice kennedy. and one big question is, is he going to retire at the end oh of this term? if he does, and if donald trump nominates and the senate confirms his replacement, i think for at least the next several years, it's going to be very difficult to succeed on one of these claims. and that's why the challengers were hope thing would be the year magic for them. >> briefly, the calendar tells us we're coming to the end of a session. the big cases to be heard, the muslim ban we've been waiting for. >> reporter: the police need a search warrant to track you, do you have to pay sales taxes on what you buy on the internet those wiare some of the big cas that we'll be back for.

>> pete williams at the supreme court. thank you so much, pete. special counsel robert mueller's year-long investigation into one aspect of president trump's conduct could be wrapping up soon. "the washington post" is reporting that if president trumpee agrees to an interview, the special counsel could finish the probe in about 90 days. mueller's investigation into what russia did and whether or not there was a link with the trump campaign, that will likely take a good deal longer. joining me now with all of this, co-author of that washington post author and joyce vance. robert, where do you think the mueller probe is? i know they've been very hard to track, but your best judgment from what you have written? >> based on my reporting, we

know that the mueller team is trying to wrap up its report on president trump's conduct while in office and possible obstruction of justice, and they would like to have the president sit down. with major giuliani keeps postponing week after week the decision on whether the president would sit down. that's going to have a consequence for when this report comes out, before or after the election. >> andch mcconnell now has added to the pressure, joining others and the republican leadership saying it's time to wrap it up. this doesn't even get to the issue of russia, what russia did, the hacking, whether there were any trump campaign people involved and all of theer related issues that could stem from whatever happens with michael cohen. joyce vance, there's a lot of loose ends out there, but we would not expect, given the i.g. report and the criticism of comey interfering with the

election, you're probably not going to hear from robert mueller until after labor day. >> there's a long standing policy in doj of doing everything that you can to minimize impact on election. so jim mey's 2016 conduct aside, i would think mueller's team will be very respectful of the policy. labor day would certainly be a pretty hard stop. and what they'll do is they'll do avoid doing anything that could influence the election. so that means action other than an indictment. they won't want public leaks about information of the trajectory of the investigation. that's why there's some pressure to get a report up to the hill in advance of those sort of deadlines, and in many ways, the president sort of owns the keys to his own cell in this regard. if he wants to wrap up the investigation, he can speed it along here. >> we could still have more indictments between now and the end of what is the likely

season, joyce, correct? >> i think that's right. we've seen some indication that mueller may be focusing on whether there were russians who were involved in trying to impact the investigation. we've seen the story over the weekend involving roger stone, michael caputo and a meeting they were involved in with a russian who offered assistance to the campaign, peddling information on hillary clinton in exchange for $2 million. caputo and stone allegedly rejected that deal, but mueller could be looking at the russians and their involvement and we could see indictments in any number of regards before he decides it's too close to the election. >> bob, caputo and stone now say that they forgot when they were testifying on the hill, they forgot that meeting had taken place, even though they say nothing happened as a result of it. but do you think that there is any chance that mueller would be wrapping everything up by late

this summer, early fall? >> oh, certainly not everything. the michael cohen situation hangs ohang s out there as a legal question, paul manafort's trial about to start this summer. you willee lawmakers, democrats especially, call for caputo and mr. stone to perhaps come back to capitol hill. there's a lot of frustration among some of these congressman that they didn't get the full story and want to learn more to correct the record, if necessary. >> and the other piece of this is peter strzok, prominently featured in the ig report and seized upon by the president and his supporters because of that infamous text between him and lisa page with whom he was romantically inlved. the fbi officials -- he was taken off of the mueller probe when mueller found out about that. but that's what they seized upon, saying it was bias, even

though the ig report says there was no bias that affected decisions. but now chris wray is going to be called to testify. so they're really going to go ter the fbi. you saw what trey gowdy said over the weekend to chris wallace. >> sure, there are a couple of pieces here. i'm sure peter strzok regrets those text messages. but the reality is, fbi agents, like everybody else, they have political beliefs. the inspector general looked through the entire course of his e-mailing a-- e-mails and concluded that entire course of e-mails and the decisions the fbi made in these investigations weren't unduly influenced by any agent's political leaning, whether it was peter strzok or agents in new york who had a very different view how the election should be -- the outcome should be. but, again, the forward leaning piece of the ig report is what

will be on display this afternoon, one would hope. and how the fbi takes steps to ensure that something like this happens again. >> and peter strzok saying he's willing to testify. any indication that the republican led committees will take him up on that? >> they might, because they see the president taking political aim at mr. strzok every day, it seems on twitter. and he's becoming quickly the issue, and so it would be better for all of us to hear from mr.stock as repomr. strzok. if the republicans are resting their whole case against the fbi and doj on these text messages, we should haesh more from the person who sent them. were these just personal statements or reflect the tilt of the probe? >> thank you so much, joyce, great to see you. and of course, our friend robert costa, as well coming up, the republican party at a crossroads.

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people scared of getting bad news. they've got to say what they're willing to say. from the electoral sense, people are running for cover.that'll, " mark sanford who lost his bid explaining why most republicans are afraid to criticize the president. perhaps. but saying that does not excuse republican leaders from ignoring what's happening to the children and their parents at the border. charlie sikes, contributing editor, political contributors. charlie, speak to me from wisconsin and how this is playing. clearly today in the east room, the president made a decision. they delayed that event and he came out swinging and again misstating the issue. claiming it is a law, claiming it is not a policy. putting it on the democrats. this is a mid-term election strategy. >> no question about it.

i think bill kristol had it right. he is comfortable going into the election with it and other republicans will be very reluctant to break with him now that he's made that decision. i think it is interesting. if you have a defensible policy, then defend the policy. don't obfuscate, lie about it and conceal it. which is what we've been having the last week or so. blaming it on the democrats, pretending it is not taking place. that indicates you have a tremendous amount of confusion about this. this has been squint the way the president has dealt with it. the muslim ban, juvenile daca. not well thought out and also not designed to treat people as individuals, rather than members of groups and we're seeing the downside of that policy right

now. >> and will heard yesterday on msnbc making it clear, this is a policy that is completely discretionary. let's watchful. >> of course. this is a policy that could be changed by this administration. this could be changed by the white house, by the people implementing this policy at the department of justice and health and human services. >> what we're seeing is that the president does believe his voice and his supporters being energized is going to carry the day. that he can claim that this is up to the democrats to fix. >> well, that's the strategy that he's using, that he's saying that he wants to put this squarely in the hands of the democrats. that the obama administration is to blame for this. it is clear that is not being bought and i think this administration realizes that because you have someone like melania trump who doesn't talk about policy coming out. and then you have the president

himself doubling down. he said that the united states will not be a might go ran camp and won't be an immigrant holding facility. while he is saying this is the democrats' fault, he is going back and saying immigrants are thieves. this mirrors his campaign language and he ran on a campaign that in some ways, people thought was demonizing immigrants. while they have a hand in the policy, they're saying immigrants deserve to be separated from their families. >> and charlie, where do you see the mid terms now from your perspective out there in wisconsin? >> yeah. >> well, again, we're a junk ball state here. that i think the key voters are those swing voters, the suburban voters who had traditionally been voting republican but really did not turn out for donald trump. so the question is, can he actually go beyond energizing the base? we keep talking about energizing

the base. keep in mind the entire republican party is not the base. these pictures coming out of texas are not helping republicans. they are not helping the president. and i think that a lot of other republicans have seen this over the last week or so to recognize that this immigration issue is slipping out of their control and the president is not throwing them a life line on this issue so far. >> and yamich, the president's schedule this week is focused on putting it back on congress. >> this is very true. he will be going to the capitol hill tomorrow, or this week, to talk on lawmakers to basically make the point that they should be acting more and they should be acting more quickly to try to fix this issue. in some ways, he is saying i have this policy but the democrats and the republicans can stop it. i think the problem with what will happen with president trump is that there are republicans now increasingly starting to

speak out. this is something we don't see that often but you have been sax from nebraska, susan collins, jeff flake. sometimes you see republicans about to retire talking about this president and criticizing him. in this way you have moderate republicans saying you should do something about it. and i should say, anthony scaramucci, who was only in the administration for a couple days, even he said the president can stop this if he wants to so there are republicans adding their voices to the echo of this. >> thank you so much. charlie sikes, always good to see from you wisconsin. more ahead. we'll be right back.

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p3 it's meat, cheese and nuts. i keep my protein interesting. oh yea, me too. i have cheese and uh these herbs.

p3 snacks. the more interesting way to get your protein.

and finally, you too came back to washington with a passionate plea for democrats and republicans to start coming together. bono telling the soldout crowd at the capital arena is that the greatest word in the english language is compromise. it is america and working together. nothing is more important. and he sang. one love, one blood, one life, you've got to do what you should. one life with each other. sisters, brothers, one life. but we're not the same. we get to carry each other. carry each other. one. that does it for us. remember, following the show online, on facebook, on twitter.

and be sure to tune in to nbc "nightly news." chris jansing is next. >> leave to it bono to find the right words. here in new york, is this who we are? kids in cages? some separated from their parents, a policy describe as cruel and immoral by a former first lady. the immigration situation in this country is hitting a boiling point. and shifting stories, the trump administration not just offering different reasons for its immigration policy. offering different versions. plus, communication breakdown. inside the communications team and what's being dubbed a slow moving shake-up. how already low morale is reportedly plummeting. we begin with the zero