families at the border. watch at 8:00 p.m. eastern. and lawrence o'donnell live from brownsville at 10:00 p.m. eastern. "deadline" with nicole wallace starts right now. ♪ hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in washington, d.c. we are just over an hour away from what's expected to be an explosive meeting between the president and congressional republicans, who are typically happy to follow donald trump on his misguided policy choices and to stay mostly silent on this unpresidential conduct, but who today, today, are finally trying to pump the brakes on his zero tolerance immigration policy, one that's left thousands of children suffering in detention centers along the border. trump's own party panicking in the face of the political blowback, underscored this morning by criticism from the wall street journal, hardly a message board for the resistance

which warns today, quote, trump officials are defending the policy as a deterrent to illegal entry, but surely they understand that separating parents from children is normally unacceptable and politically unsustainable. if mr. trump wants to lose the house and risk impeachment, keep giving democrats a daily picture of children stripped from their parents. trump is answering by digging in deeper and firing blame at anyone standing in his way, from democrats to the media to republicans who have offered up solutions. >> all we need is good legislation and we can have it taken care of. we have to get the democrats to go ahead work with us. what i'm asking congress to do is to give us a third option. the legal authority to detain and promptly remove families together as a unit. we have no wall, we have no border security. without a border, you don't have a country. the fake news media back there doesn't talk about that.

they're fake. they are helping -- they are helping these smugglers and these traffickers like nobody would believe. they know it. they know exactly what they're doing. and it should be stopped. >> and with the president firmly dug in on a policy of forcibly separating children from their parents at the border, it's time to draw the obvious parallel to what this moment may represent for this white house. there are clear parallels to the situation the trump administration finds itself in now, minus the natural disaster and president eager to right the ship. inescapable images that capture the nation's attention and overshadow other news. a slow response from the federal government, a deficient message

and deficient messengers. all suggesting that for trump this crisis will be more than just another stain on an administration tinged by incompetence. for trump, this crisis may be defining. joining us from the "washington post" phil rutger. matt miller, former chief spo spokesman for the justice department. do folks at the white house know how bad this is? >> well, they know how bad the media coverage has been. they certainly acknowledge that it's been a pretty difficult story for them publicly, but they're digging in and they're defending this, not only publicly but privately. i was over at the white house this morning talking to a few senior officials who said there's really very little unease inside that building about what's playing out. they feel like it's being mischaracterized. they feel like the facts are on

their side. secretary nielson yesterday had a lot of misleading and untrue facts. nevertheless, they feel confident in what the administration is doing and they feel like it's up to congress to try to fix this problem. in private, they're just simply echoing what president trump has been saying in public. >> it's stunning that they view this as a story. these are babies being ripped from the arms of their parents. this isn't a story. this is a humanitarian crisis along the border of their own creation. was there any reaction to laura bush and michelle obama and the wall street journal and republicans in congress all sort of failing to follow donald trump down the rabbit hole of his own delusions? >> you're right in that they see it as a story. they view a lot of these things as political public relations issues. is he winning, is he losing. because that's how the president sees so much of this stuff. he's watching the coverage. he's been upset with some of the

criticism. his son donald trump jr. cancelled on a fund-raiser that he was going to be having next week with george p. bush because of the tension between the bush family and the trump operation over this policy issue. and they're frustrated by the criticism out there. but again, they're digging in, they're doubling down. they feel like any time they're talking about immigration, it's a winning political issue for president trump, because it's what he campaigned on. and there are really firm beliefs inside the west wing that they need to follow through and continue enforcing this policy and make congress be the ones to change the law. >> you've got some great reporting about the dynamics between chief of staff kelly and secretary nielson. i want to first put up what the editorial pages look like this morning. this includes the wall street journa journal. stop breaking up families at the border from the new york post.

all the administrations bad excuses for his lousy immigration policy. "washington post," "new york times." do you think that there's a reality check coming? or do you think at the end of the day republicans bend to the president's will, as they often do? >> we haven't seen a standoff yet with an elected republican lawmaker who has a political future still at stake. we've seen it more with republican governors than we have with republicans on the hill, hogan and a few others have a little more distance. >> and they've taken action. they've pulled their national guard troops. >> yes. we've seen it from governors but not on the hill. on the hill, it's still the party of trump. people are making this hurricane katrina comparison a lot. one thing it forgets is that president trump had a hurricane ka tie katrina moment. it was puerto rico.

>> it's an excellent point. >> so disrespectful to the people there and the images that came out of there. >> it's an excellent point. the only parallel was their response. >> everyone is making this comparison. more the trump administration, we can't forget that this is a crisis but they've had another one already too. >> and matt miller, it's the perfect point and a perfect time to ask where are the grownups inside the white house? where are the people that can say basically what amy just said, that we didn't fix our last katrina and this one is, as we said, minus a president desperate to try to right the wrongs of the initial response and minus the actual storm? >> sometimes in administrations and campaigns and big companies, you can get in a bunker mentality where you feel that all the world is out to get you. in the "new york times" story today, this weird idea that the president is looking at other images of the kids playi ining

nintendo and think that it's all going well and that the other pictures are taken out of context. those are the photos released by the administration itself. they hit this rare trifecta here where they have the morality, the policy and the politics of this issue all wrong. it's obviously immoral. they've gotten the policy wrong, where you have these kids taken in a way where they have to build tent cities because they weren't prepared for it. t there are no plans to reunite them with their parents. they don't get it in the white house. whether they're delusional or just being

. >> aides have told him what he's doing is similar to what president obama did and suggests the news media is cherry picking images. this is not what obama did. this is a change in policy. president obama and president bush never did this. >> they never did this. and there are -- >> who's lying to donald trump? >> a lot of his staff. i'm guessing it's steven miller. he's number one on my list. there are signs of real dysfunction. it's the trump white house, so it's all dysfunction in my view. but there are signs of dysfunction within how they normally operate. two out of three americans oppose separating children from their parents. but 65% of republicans support it. what is odd to me is that trump is not defending the policy. normally what he would do is say, yeah, this is right, these kids should not be here. if their parents were worried

about them, they shouldn't have brought them to the united states. he's saying i don't want this to happen. it's the democrats' fault. normally he gains political strength by doubling down on a controversial position, because that's where his base is. right now, weirdly, he's running away from the position that his base holds, as are all these other republicans because they find it so distasteful and rightfully so. but the politics aren't working the way they should, how they normally do in the west wing. >> you gave us the word distasteful. let's watch jeff sessions trying to defend this last night. >> nazi germany, concentration camps, laura bush has weighed in, michelle obama, roslyn carter, all the first ladies going back to eleanor roosevelt. what's going on here? >> it's a real exaggeration, of course. in nazi germany they were keeping the jews from leaving the country. >> i'm not sure what he's trying

to say there. >> yeah. well, first of all, the joke about eleanor roosevelt, i don't really get. it's not something to joke about. when you have the attorney general having to differentiate your administration's family separation policy from hitler's family separation policy, that just speaks to what a problem the administration is in in terms of the public outcry to say nothing of the humanitarian crisis. it's such a different world when you go inside the doors of the white house right now, there's not that crisis atmosphere. surely they're trying to deal with how to manage this story and manage the implementation of this policy down at the border. but there's not a feeling this is a huge problem they need to deal with and it frankly feels different than some of the other crises this president's been through, and there have been many of them. >> when laura wye -- you got so

reporting inside the dynamic with john kelly and secretary nielson. take us inside what you're reporting. white house chief of staff john kelly advised nielson against doing the press conference yesterday. she placed blame for some of the heart wrenching images captured by the news media squarely on congress. i thought she did all the things she liked. she didn't tell the whole truth and she defended his immoral policy. why is he mad at her? >> he was mad at her before this. being tagged as a bushie kind of cuts both ways. there's ones he can get over it with and there's ones that he

doesn't. he has felt duped for having been saddled with her in the first place. that's what he's starting with. he has seen her as not tough enough on these immigration policies internally, not advocating for this zero tolerance policy. over the weekend we saw her tweets and then we saw her give a speech and come out into the briefing room at 5:00 yesterday. this was all a part of her -- i saw the performance yesterday as a classic audience of one briefing room turn. this was winning her bway back. i think the reviews were not so positive. john kelly's advice may have been right. she looked like the press rattled her a little bit. she was at times che s cheerfult times defensive. i don't think it helped explain or sell the policy. >> and the results speak for themselves. put up all the conservative papers today, which panned and

trashed the policy. let me ask you about just the dynamic. general kelly making jokes about -- this is also your reporting. kelly himself once believed he stood between trump and the chaos. he's told one person he may as well let the president do what he wants even if it leads to impeachment. at least this chapter in american history will come to a close. we've seen a window into his gallows humor. >> it's an incredibly fatalistic thing for the white house chief of staff to say. a lot of people thought that john kelly was going to be the person that would prevent donald trump from doing stupid things and he hasn't been able to do that. he's now throwing up his hand and saying i'm not even going to try anymore. think about what that means. it seems to me that if you're in that position where you're says,

you know what, i know the president is doing things he shouldn't do, i'm not even going to stop it anymore. it's time to leave the white house. >> you and i have had conversations about immigration specifically. it may simply be that the president is loving sort of being his own strategist. he's never replaced hope hicks. take us inside your understanding of the dynamic at this hour between chief of staff kelly and the president. >> nicole, i think it's actually all three of those things. certainly there's mission fatigue. some of the details in annie's story were striking about that. he has basically given up on this idea that he can control the access to and from the president and what documents he sees and who he talks to on the phone.

he's also very much in sync with the president. it was john kelly who was the secretary of homeland security who said in that interview last year that he was considering separating children from their parents as a form of deterrence to try to deter migrants from crossing the border illegal without documentation. kelly's influence inside the building is certainly waning and the president is calling a lot of his own shots. we saw him today addressing this independent business group. he wasn't talking a lot about businesses. he was talking about immigration and he was acting as his own sort of message strategist. he was also acting as the legislative affairs director, laying out what he wanted in legislation, in some cases contradicting what some of these aides have been saying for the last few days and trying to manage all of this himself with his own ideas. >> his own rapid response operation. usually you hire people to do that, but we get to watch him do

it himself. when we come back, we go to our correspondent at the border where every day 200 more children are taken into custody. also former u.s. attorneys who have served under both parties, the people responsible for prosecuting illegal immigration pen a sharp rebuke of the president's policy. one of them joining us here on the devastating news today that some of the children separated from their parents may never find their way back.

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where are the girls? >> i don't know.

i'm not familiar with those particular images. >> you're saying they are being well cared for. how can you make that claim if you don't know where they are? >> it's not that i don't know where they are. the vast majority of children are held by health and human services. >> sounds like you don't know where they are. took almost 24 hours to get an answer to what should be a simple question for the homeland security secretary. where are the girls? where are the young children who have been detained at the border? today a spokesperson says the department will release footage of girls and toddlers and their living conditions in detention, but it may take as long as two more days for us to get those images. joining us onset is chuck rosenberg. he's one of the 75 former u.s. attorneys who signed onto a letter calling for an immediate end to family separations. can you answer the question where and how are the girls?

>> reporter: no. nicole, you know, what we do know is that when they come into this facility and go out of this facility -- again, this is the epicenter. more than 1100 kids have been deported out of this sector since this policy began. they go to hhs. hhs won't let us in to speak with the girls or the toddlers. i spoke today with a high level official at hhs and asked them can we go in and see them or at least get some photographs? he offered me photographs from 2016 before the zero tolerance was put into place. i politely declined. we don't want those photos. we want to see the girls and toddlers. >> any information about the disconnect between their status of not knows where their are and how they are and what you're hearing on the ground?

>> reporter: why isn't hhs talking to dhs? they're supposed to be working together every single day. it's the agency that comes to this facility to pick up the children. yesterday in that press conference secretary nielson said she had toured detention facilities before. after some prodding today by our colleagues, she'd never been here, ever. this is the epicenter. this is the place where more than anywhere else children are being separated from their parents. how is she talking about what happens in there without have been be in there, without seeing the mylar blankets and the mats and the cages? >> can you truth squad this for us a little bit. it becomes jarring to watch the volume of lies that come out of washington. you're on the ground. what are we being most misled about? >> reporter: wow. that's a good question. frankly, what's happening here and why it's happening. i mean, it's pretty simple actually. the answer is president trump decided to put in place a policy

that separated children from their families. i just sad down with the chief of the sector of the border patrol here up in his office. the way he described to me what's going on inside there, he said, it's not that bad, kids are smiling and i talked with them about the world cup. it's like the disconnect between reality and what we're seeing here is extraordinary and it's most extraordinary when you hear it coming out of washington about why what's happening is actually happening. >> chuck rosenburg, jerg jacob e ability to say that because he's seen with his own eyes children on concrete floors under mylar blankets, children in cages. tell me about the letter you signed. every administration for decades has grappled with the complexities inherent in families illegally crossing our borders. until now every administration has chose a path that balanced the need for enforcement and

deterrence with humanity and compassion. that has clearly ended. talk about what you guys hope to accomplish by signing on in a bipartisan way to this letter. >> i think it's easy, nicole. this policy is morally indefensible. i don't want to get lost in the thicket of law and regulation and policy. it's morally indefensible. we are better than this. for decades we've acted better than this. this is not us. and so when they asked me to sign the letter -- >> you sure? >> yeah. i'm sure. this is not us. >> this isn't us now? >> different question. >> what's the answer? >> this has not been us. >> is this us now? >> this is us now. why did i sign? because this policy is normally indefensible. there's nothing inherently wrong with a zero tolerance policy. as a prosecutor for a long time, we do that on occasion. but you have to weigh the consequences of those policies. and the cost here in my view and

lots of my colleagues is way too high. >> in the view of chuck and lots of his colleagues, people who are democrats and republicans and laura bush, in the view of michelle obama, in the view of every former president who grappled with this policy, with this law, this is not a law. it is not the law to yank children from their parents. this is a policy choice made by donald trump. can you speak to whether or not this is still us? >> i don't believe it is. i don't believe that -- the majority of americans don't support this. i think that one benefit of this presidency is more people becoming aware of what's happening in the country and participating and rebelling against it. i don't believe that's what this country represents. i worked for president obama. we dealt with the problem in reverse. we dealt with children showing up without their parents.

>> right. escaping the violence. >> from many of the same countries in 2014. hhs had to take care of the children and dhs was dealing with enforcement. if hhs is not showing photos, this is a really terrible reason why they're not showing the photos. i find it really distressing they're telling jacob it's two more days before we can see the state that these girl are in. it's really, really distressing and not something we should see in america. i do believe most of us don't support it. >> jacob, let me come back to you about the scene on the ground. i worked for a governor. if there was one child, one child lost in that state's child protective services program, it was a state-wide, months-long, justifiable, political human tragedy. there are 11,000 children now

separated from their parents in america. where do you think this is heading? >> if you exdrap latrapolateext might be 20,000 children in that hhs program. if you extrapolate the numbers, but augu by august it's going to go to 20,000 children in that system. that is directly a result of this family separation policy. everybody should remember n this sector we're only at about 40% prosecutio prosecutions. they want to get to 100% prosecutio prosecutions. we're not even close to how many kids are going to be ripped away from their parents. >> phil rutger, is there any reality check happening at this white house? our eyes do not lie with the images we're seeing from the

border. >> just to reiterate one thing that jacob and others down there on the scene are trying to do, they're trying to see these facilities themselves. yesterday homeland security secretary nielson asked the people in that news briefing to have faith that the children are being taken care of, that the border agents -- that the conditions are good, that there's nothing awry there. yet we've seen no evidence of that. where are the girls? we've yet to see the girls. to ask the public to have faith that this administration is true to its word would be difficult because of the track record of this administration so far. they've not been truthful. but they've also not been particularly compassionate in how they're managing this crisis. there were not really any words of compassion from the secretary yesterday in her briefing. in fact, it happened a few hours after the audio recording came out of those girls wailing and crying. she acknowledged at the podium that he didn't know what we were talking about when he asked her

about that audio. they're not attuned to how much of a humanitarian crisis this is for a lot of people in the country. >> you guys wrote this letter. any plans to head down there or to help organize lawyers to go down there and help represent these people through the legal system? >> any sense is that there are a lot of good people who are doing exactly that. what we try to do is call attention to it in our own way. sometimes you feel like a lone voice in the wilderness. >> i know what you mean. >> lots and lots of good people are down there trying to help. >> okay. we'll let folks know how and what they can do. up next, the tragedy at the border is that rare instance in which some republicans are willing to stand up to the president. will they stand strong, though, then they come face to face later this afternoon or fold as they typically do? ♪ one second. barely enough time for this man to take a bite of turkey.

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separating especially very small children from their parents at the border is not something we should do. >> it's not american to do this. we're for families and children and for keeping them together. >> all of us are horrified at the images we're seeing. we're seeing little boys, little girls pulled away from their mothers and fathers. >> if they have a legitimate claim of asylum, you shouldn't be separating their kids from them. there's no excuse for that. >> i hope you're sitting for that. those were republicans. republicans lawmakers taking turns shouting to the world how much they object to what's going on at the border. but the real question, will any of them have the guts to raise those concerns with the president when he visits the hill in an hour? robert costa from the "washington post," quote, the president's visit to the house republican conference today will be revealing about the party as it barrels toward november. how far will some republicans go

to distance themselves from trump's border stance? complicating matters, politico reporting today that the president is threatening to shut down the government. remember, his party controls both chambers of the white house. trump fumed to senators and his own staff about the $1.6 billion the senate is planning to send him this fall. trump wants the full $25 billion up front and doesn't understand h why congress is going to supply him nunfunds in a piecemeal fashion. joining me, bill crystal, founder and editor of "the weekly standard" and former u.s. senator donna edwards. go. >> this threat he's going to shut down the government, he can't shut down the government. he can veto a spending bill in september. but it can be overridden.

with all due respect, mr. president, we're going to try to get you your $1.6 billion you requested for the wall. we're going to tell our members to vote to override your veto. you think that at some point members of congress would remember they actually are elected officials and they're not low level staff aides to trump. >> what explains their 15 minutes of courage this morning and what do you predict will happen in the meeting? we've got laura bush who compared them to the internment camps in this country. you've got really serious charges against the lack of a moral compass from this white house coming from highly regarded republicans who for decades have had some influence. you've got the wall street journal editorial. what moves them, if not this response? >> i mean, i hope it did move them some. they said some good things this

morning. i think they are gin whenuinely offended. >> they're not children, they're congressmen. >> i agree. that would be more easily done by the president and the attorney general ordering that as opposed to legislation. there are plenty of ways. we've all been in washington. there are plenty of ways for powerful members of congress to pressure the white house. there's all kinds of things the white house wants that mitch mcconnell and paul ryan and/ or hatch can tell the president. >> that takes courage. >> the other way to go would be to pass legislation. there's been some talk about

that. maybe we'll work with democrats to pass legislation that wouldn't do everything everything wants but would at least take us away from this terrible situation. it is unacceptable for them to tweet and go on tv and walk away and pretend they have nothing to say about this. any of us who have been in the executive branch and dealt with people on the hill like you, they have huge leverage. two republican senators can say i'm not voting for any of your nominees until you fix this. that's it. that's it. trump gets nothing through. in the house, 30 members can do a huge amount of damage to the president's agenda. they need to exercise some leverage. >> 32 human beings have to look at babies being taken from their parents' arms and say no more. this is not america.

color me skeptical. i'm not sure it happens this afternoon. >> well, and it doesn't have to be legislation. this is not law. it's policy. it's a policy of this administration. a handful of them can stand at a microphone right over on the triangle of the capital and say, mr. president, stop your policy. they haven't done it. part of the reason we haven't seen these pictures of girls and babies is because that would be completely unsustainable. the last time that we said where are the girls, we were asking about a terrorist organization in nigeria called boko haram and we're asking that today. >> one of the absurd things about what some of the republicans in congress are doing is they're treating this like there's some technical rule in the law that needs to be fixed and that will make this problem go away. family separation was the administration's intent. if they just prosecuted everyone for illegal entry, that's a

misdemeanor charge, they would accomplish just about the same number of prosecutions but they wouldn't have this child separation thing. they want to separate children from their parents. they want to use it as a deternd deterrent and negotiating leverage to get the border wall. >> on that point, i think it's true in this respect too. i've been very struck that trump hasn't defended the details of the policy. he pretended late last week he was very upset about this. he is engaged big time on twitter on immigration. how has he done so? in the most demagoguic and inflammatory way about ms-13, about the gangs, about they're destroying our culture, we're going to be like europe. the most inflammatory ways of raising immigration, which have literally nothing to do with thousands of little kids being

separated from their parents at the border. >> he used the word infested today. >> yeah. that they're infesting our country. >> i think it's an election strategy. >> is it a winning one? >> it's a winning one for his base. it is not a winning strategy for the rest of us. people are asking where is the america that we've known? the world is looking at us right now. i think that we've seen this over and over again where donald trump doesn't really care about the two-thirds who believe this policy is wrong. he cares about the one-third that's part of his base. >> i'm down with the 40% of this country loves it so nothing can change. that means that 60% doesn't. don't you think that 32 republicans can take some comfort in the fact that 60% of americans would be behind them if they opposed the president? >> they could make the president change this if they wabnted. i have to think the president

knows how this is playing. the problem is he never wants to back down on anything. he has this intrinsic flaw where he won't back down from anything no matter how it's playing. they're going to probably have to pass a law in congress. the problem is that opens up a pandora's box. in the meantime, more and more kids are being detained, more and more are being ripped away from their families. >> if you look at daca, they don't have a reliable partner in the president. up next, the former director of i.c.e. offers a chilling assessment of what's happening at the border. dear future us,

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even if you believe immigration should be halted entirely, we all should be able to agree that in the united

states of america, we will not intentionally separate children from their parents. we will not do that. we are better than that! we are so much better. we should be able to agree that we will not keep kids in internment camps indefinitely and hidden away from public view. what country is that! >> wow. that was democratic congressman elijah cummings this morning. in the next hour, the president will meet with house republicans on capitol hill as the border situation continues to get worse and the calls for something to be done get louder. jul jul julie joining us now. tell us about the risk for some of these kids of never being reunited with their parents.

>> that's right, nicole. i talked to john sandwig who was acting i.c.e. director in 2013 and 2014. he remembers the surge across the border at that time. very rarely some parents would have to be separated from their children for committing other crimes or other reasons, not at the extent we're seeing now. he does say that he saw permanent separation. there were cases where adults case can move through the system much more quickly, where a child's case is much slower. it's obviously not a priority of our judicial system to try to deport children, so it moves a lot slower. so you have these two very different courses moving at different rates. they have different numbers assigned to them. a parent could be deported pa e to their home country and not know how to access our legal system. you could be looking at a case of permanent separation. really no matter what side of the issue you're on, there's

something not to like about it for everyone. these children could end up becoming orphans of the united states. they could become a ward of the state. they could be taken into foster care. they could even become u.s. citizens. they would certainly need to be cared for. even when i went to ice now and tried to get them to contradict it, they said we do everything they can to try to pair them back together but they really couldn't guarantee there would be no permanent separations for this. >> as wrenching as your reporting is, it is the most logical outcome. if you deport someone who entered this country illegally without their child, how do you know where you're sent them, how do you know where they're going to live. i guess i want to ask you the opposite question. how would any of the children be reunited with their parents? >> right now i've seen these pieces of paper that they hand to the parents when they're

separated that says you will be charged, here's a 1-800 number you can call. you can be connected with a case manager. what's really difficult is it's not like they have a social security number or some way they can track them. the children are given a number separate from what the parents are given when they come in and sometimes the parents don't even know what the child's number is. i don't think i could have kept up with several digits as a young child. i think it's a pretty ridiculous system to think these children will somehow know how to get back in touch with their parents when they are the ones on the u.s. side. we have been to guatemala today, trying to talk to people who have been deported back to guatemala to do just that. this is why the former i.c.e. director said they would not separate cases. they did everything they could to try to keep them together,

especially because once you split the case up, it becomes really difficult to bring these two back together in this incredibly complicated and vast system. >> sounds next to impossible. system. >> sounds next to impossible. thank you for your reporting on this today and last two weeks. we're going to sneak in a break. we'll check in on capitol hill next. cod de-stress with some zen gardening. at least we don't have to worry about homeowners insurance. just call geico. geico helps with homeowners insurance? good to know. been doing it for years. that's really good to know. i should clean this up. i'll get the dustpan. behind the golf clubs. get to know geico. and see how easy homeowners and renters insurance can be. the nation's largest senior-living referral service. for the past five years, i've spoken with hundreds of families and visited senior-care communities around the country.

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nbc news congressional

correspondent casey hunt is standing by for us. the president will be up on capitol hill in the next hour. what are you hearing from members? do they plan to confront him, or is it going to be more what we usually see. >> reporter: i think that's the big question, nicole. it happened here on capitol hill when the president comes. it somehow feels like celebrity visits. in fact i'm told the president actually enjoys it when members of congress stays behind in the rooms to take selfies with him, which is not surprising considering who the president is. but i think that the tenor on this issue is dramatically different. and i think the question, and what i will be asking all my sources as this meeting is going on is whether or not anybody stands up and confronts the president over this. the tenor on this issue has been quite frankly completely different than any other issue than we have seen. this is one they are actually breaking from the president. now, on the house side there is course of a contichant of

freedom caucus members who stands with this president it seems no matter what. they are his defenders. he often can help the speaker by convincing them to quiet down a bit and get onboard with the bigger plan. but they're the ones in his corner on immigration now. it is not the main stream of the conference. and even the speaker did say last week this is not a policy he wants to see continue. now, he was not willing to blame the president. we all know this is a policy that the president put into place, that the president could revoke with a single phone call. and i do think that is really the big question here. is there anyone that could convince him to do that? i mean republicans here are convinced that if he goes forward with this policy, that this is not the solution to keeping the house. now, it may for the president be the solution for maintaining the intense support of his base, but if that divergence is sharp

enough, maybe we will see them stand up to him. but still on open question heading into this next hour. >> do you sense whether any of them wonder where the girls and the toddlers are? >> yes, absolutely. >> so why wouldn't they ask him where are the girls and the toddlers. >> i think it's a question they have the opportunity, whether there is one person willing to stand up. someone will have the be the first. this is of course a private meeting. like a club, we all know. i guess you could call it peer pressure. but i do think -- it's impossible to overstate, nicolle, kind of the emotion around this issue and how you can feel it here in the hallways and how it's different than people have felton other issues. just as you and i have been watching these heart breaking pictures and audio of these children crying. we're all human, and i think that has been deeply affecting

for a lot of people here. and i think some of what we only hear in private may spill out into the president's ears today. >> and are they -- and color me skeptical but deeply human because donald trump dehumanizes all sorts but is there any sense there's a legislative fix they're working on a plan b? >> so the only situation that seems like it could potentially move forward is something in the sena senate that could be narrow. they're working on a past pass spending bill. but democrats are saying right now donald trump is simply using these children. he's creating a vulnerable population, stoking emotion and fear and using them to then demand a larger outcome that does all these things he campaigned on, that ultimately builds the wall. and democrats are saying it's not going to benefit any of us

to fight over this legislation, that's going to make it worse for everybody. they're going to go behind closed doors and talk about two pieces of legislation. quite frankly anything that passed the house would be dead on arrival in the senate. >> i think kasie just described, a bargaining chip. >> well, the president has said that and certainly the people around him. he is using infant toddlers boys and girls as a bargaining chip to build a wall for a construction project. he doesn't see it that way, but if the american people continue to see this, there are vulnerable republicans in very tough districts who will not be able to go hominid those circumstances. >> maybe one of them will speak

up. if about 25 house republicans that i have not voted for a rule, which permits bills to come to the floor until the president changes his policy and resolves this, i would vote with the democrats on very rule, you know this, it would bring the house to a standstill. there are 25 republicans who don't just think of this as policy but really terrible policy, morally wrong policy. they could stop it. >> i have no idea what republicans will do. i know what would happen if president obama went up to talk to the democratic caucus about this. democrats would say, mr. president, you are killing us on this issue. you have to reverse course. you're killing us. you're going to kill us in the election. the problem is there's this strange cultive personally they have with donald trump where they're afraid to speak out.

>> kasie hunt, thank you so much for being there. my thanks to all. that does it deadline white house. mtp daily starts right now. if it's thursday, president trump is pushing the limits. >> right now the president is staking out an even more position on immigration and instead of trying to find a compromise solution to keep children from being separated from their parents at the border, he seems to be testing just how far he could drag the republican party with him on the issue of immigration. we've heard near unanimous agreement from gop members who have spoken publicly about this. the hard