my thanks to jonathan, alease jordan, and mike schmidt. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. we got a little silly there. "mpt daily" starts now. hi, chuck. >> i'm not sorry for the silly. it's like the curb works. also a beep could work too here. >> what was pence doing? i know the mess leaves not a lot of choices. >> you remember "mystery science theater 3000," i want the news on mute and somebody to come up with thought bubbles on pence. >> let's do it in our free time. >> that's a tv show. thank you, nicolle. if it's tuesday, the white house becomes the fight house. good evening, i'm chuck todd here in new york. i'm not on mute. welcome to "mpt daily." top republicans are shrugging

their shoulders after federal prosecutors determined that the president directed a pair of campaign felonies which basically defrauded voters. and believe it or not, that's not even close to our top story tonight. our top story is oval office battle royal involving the president and democratic leadership over a border wall and a government shutdown fight, televised for everyone to see, with a partial government shutdown looming in ten days. both sides publicly displayed, well, outright contempt for the other. it was sort of the first day what divided government's really going to look like and culminated with the president declaring he will be proud to shut down his own government if he doesn't get what he wants. >> you know what, we need border security. that's what we're going to be talking about, border security. if we don't have border security, we will shut down the government. >> one thing i think we can agree on is we shouldn't shut down the government because of a dispute. you want to shut it down. you keep talking about it. >> the last time chuck you shut it down and opened quickly. i don't want to do what you did. >> 20 times you have called for,

i will shut down the government if i don't get my will. you've said it. you've said it. >> i will take it. >> good. >> you know what i will say, yes, if we don't get what we want one way or another, through you, through the military, through anything you want to call it, i will shut down the government. i am proud -- >> we disagree. >> i am proud to shut down the government for border security, chuck. because the people of this country don't want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country. so i will take the mantel. i will be the one to shut it down. i'm not going to blame you for it. last time you shut it down, it didn't work. i will take the mantel of shutting down. i will shut it down for border security. >> we believe you shouldn't shut it down. >> what happens when you bring the boroughs to washington, d.c., that was queens versus brooklyn. i mentioned things were nasty. that wasn't half of it. at one point nancy pelosi told the president to turn off the cameras so they could talk in

private. and then came this -- >> i don't think we disagree so much. i also know nancy is in a situation where it's not easy for her to talk right now and i understand that. i fully understand that. we're going to have a good discussion and we're going to see what happens. but we have to have border security. >> mr. president, please don't characterize the strength that i bring to this meeting as the leader of the house democrats who just want a big victory. let me just say -- >> and that's why the country is doing so well. >> and another point the president made his pitch for the wall by reading some statistics off a card. which democrats later contended were false and according to house checkers, some of the president's stats were, let's shall we say, inflated. both sides also sniped at each other over the results of the midterms. >> the people of the republican party are losing their offices now because of the transition. people are not -- >> they gained in the senate.

nancy, did we win the senate? who won the senate. >> when the president brags he won north dakota and indiana, he's in real trouble. >> we did win. we did win north dakota and indiana. >> wow, the unmistakable message from both the democratic and republican leadership is they think a shutdown is a political winner for themselves. but that's not the message right now from the senate republican leadership. >> the president said he's willing to face full ownership of a government shutdown. how does that sit with you? >> i hope that's not where we end up. i understand it was a rather spirited meeting. we all watched. but i would still like to see a smooth ending here, and i haven't given up hope that's what we will have. >> that was a very emotional mitch mcconnell. trust me, that's a lot of emotion for him on this. i will speak with the top senate republican in just a few minutes to see where their stomach is on this. we begin with our panelist,

jonathan alter, msnbc analyst and an msnbc contributor and editor at "commentary" magazine. beth, what the heck was that? i say this, it felt like is this the first day that the president discovered its divided government? >> i was reminded at the time, this was actually about a year ago, it was january, he decided to bring in members of congress of both parties to negotiate immigration. >> great hour and a half of television. >> right in the middle of a time where everybody was questioning trump's sanity, one of the very things that keep popping up over and over, when we were in the thick of it. he decided to prove how sane he was. he brought people in, seemed to invite contributions from both sides and sounded kind of reasonable. he wandered off at one point saying he would have to accept the whole democratic proposal and then they walked him back. he thought he had to do the power of television to tell his story but he got owned as these folks who not as ever as good on

tv as he is, schumer and pelosi said they got him to own the shutdown. it's not a winner. it's a terrible disaster. president trump knowingly walked into this and accepted it. republicans cannot say -- they cannot cast it off on democrats now. he said it's his shutdown. >> there's a new poll out, 57% what a compromise to prevent the gridlock here. who is that pressure on more, trump or democrats? >> it's much more on trump. he's in a box here. we have a lot of history with shutdowns. they don't work for the person that is responsible for them because there's real pain in a shutdown. people don't get paid. they don't want -- >> there will be slightly less pain of this because -- >> the holiday. >> and it's only about half the government. >> certain agencies. >> but the public is very clear that they don't want shutdowns over policy. they don't care about the policy. by the way, the wall is dead. the election determined that. trump admitted today he doesn't have the votes in the house or

he would try to get it passed in the house. it's not going to happen. the mexicans are not paying for it, and the americans are not either. it's not happening. >> here's to me the problem the president has, it's republican controlled house and senate and yet he's begging the democrats for money. it's his own party denying him this. oh, by the way, the irony is the $1.6 billion that's in this budget for it was originally the ask. >> right. >> so he's also changing the rules in here. he's got to me no leverage here. he seems to have played it all away. >> for somebody who sold himself as a dealmaker and negotiator, i don't think any of us has ever seen a public negotiation as horrifically bad as this one. to say, i'm proud to own the failure of our -- i'm proud to own the inability to come to terms here, i own it. blame me. i'm the person responsible.

who -- >> he thinks that helped last time? >> who has ever done that before? even if you think it, you have to do sort of a kabuki play where it's like the last thing i want -- the last thing i want is a government shutdown because you're saying you don't have -- what my grandmother would call the street smarts to figure out how to sit down with two people and make a deal. and i think -- >> there's an explanation for this. you know the basketball metaphors better than i do. maybe it's little laimbeer, whoever it is, big, bulky loudmouth guy who when he's not fouling out -- >> i will give you credit, he was a loudmouth and he got fouled out. >> trump can only go right. as if he can nail down his base more, he only has one more move to the basket and is now blocked by two people. and it doesn't matter how much he reassures the right. that's yesterday's news nailing down the base. it's just not working for him anymore. >> here's the other thing, as we know about trump, he loves to

cause a crisis, get everybody upset, make everything sort of whack and then he'll come in and solve it at the last minute and take credit for it. that's what he's doing here too. even though we see a poll come out this morning from npr only 28% of american think beefing up border security is an immediate problem that needs to be solved now. the numbers are nowhere on his side. the election basically decided that anyway. but this is his play. this is what he does. he puts everything in crisis, runs in at the last minute. i own the problem but i then solved it. look how great i am. he thinks can he do this but it may not happen. this government could partially shut down and that is all on him and he didn't solve that problem. >> john, i'm also wondering, nancy pelosi goes back to the house democrats and sort of tells her version of events here and we've confirmed the words that she used, and i'm guessing the president is going to have a hard time not responding to this. so she reported the following to her democratic colleagues -- he must have saidt wall 30 times. then she said, i was trying to

be the mom. quote, it just goes to tell you, you get into a tinkle contest with a skunk, you get tinkle all over you. and then pelosi -- then went a little bit deeper, little more sensitive. it's like a manhood thing with him, as if manhood can be associated with him, she deadpanned, this wall thing. >> trump has not had let's say an equal level interlocutor since he became president. i don't think traditionally the speaker of the house or leader functioned that way. newt gingrich thought he and bill clinton were equals and when he got into a fight -- >> he realized he to go to the back of the plane. >> he got 110,000 votes in a district in florida and clinton got 43 million votes and that's a big difference. pelosi and schumer kind of have the same problem except that trump works through

intimidation, fear, sort of aggression. and if they're not scared of had im, sort of like what people say about voodoo, like if you don't believe in it -- >> you laugh at it. >> -- the person will not affect you, if you look at him and say you don't have the power to frighten me, buddy, i don't know where he goes because his entire public medium is i'm going to scare the bejesus out of you and you're going to do what i want. >> numbers matter here. the republicans control the house and senate. if he has a beef, it isn't with the democrats, it's the members of his own party. >> in the next few weeks, that will get repeated a lot. pelosi, she's a boss. >> this is a big moment for her. >> she completely nailed down her speakership with this. it will not be close, i don't think. >> if there was any doubts, her performance here probably calmed any of those waters. >> and she's going to be in his face all the time and he didn't really know how to deal with her. >> that assumes they want nancy

pelosi to be talking about a tinkle contest with a skunk. i have to imagine though other people who just kind of want washington to work, we're looking at this today thinking really? this is what we're getting? this is what we're going to have for the next two years? it was not a great display by anybody. i would agree with you, tactically the democrats won but it was not a pretty sight. >> i don't know, i am not a particular fan of the public performances of pelosi or schumer, but trump is like going at them and going at them, and schumer's going, just want to -- we don't want to shut the government down. >> we're just trying to figure this out. >> let's work this out. i think if they could maintain this tone, in other words all right, you're full of hot air, you blow and when we're ready to talk, maybe we can talk. we don't agree with you that much, this will drive him crazy. this is the one thing that hasn't had the experience of. when he went through the primaries and presidency, nobody

was -- nobody knew how to play him. >> meanwhile -- >> this can't be the way to play him. >> he's getting no reinforcements because pence is sitting there like lurch on the adams family. >> you're supposed to talk over the president? good luck with that. >> he was right in the middle of the shot. is now he had to sneak out of the room and, of course, that wasn't going to happen. he was stuck there like a mannequin. >> all of the hand ringing about how this is terrible for democracy, i don't agree with you. it's like question time in britain. >> i think it's healthy. >> it's great to see them engaging in a vigorous, even angry dialogue. it brings us into the process. trump was right about that, provides transparency. >> it all comes sort of with what's lurking in the background and you can't help but wonder if this is in the president's head too as he pushes back on nancy pelosi, which is mueller and the investigation that are inevitable coming and it is -- i

think this is the balance of democrats trying to figure out. >> so the president has a job, right, which is to be president of the united states, sign legislation sent to him by congress, negotiating. >> terrible compartmentalizer. >> that part of the job doesn't interest him very much. he likes to win something, so he likes to win kavanaugh, he likes to win and all of that. he's the big-picture person and he doesn't like this thing. the big picture is mueller. the big picture is this big investigation and he set himself up as kind of a victim aggressor, victim of mueller, aggressor against mueller. this is another way in which they can eat his lunch, if he continues to stay focused on this thing over there and you've got the democrats over here sort of like being good worker bees, doing investigations, writing legislation, passing it, trying to get things done, he's going

to look like he's off -- he's like a lear on the heat screaming into the wind. >> we should point the out apparently the president and nancy pelosi had another call since this meeting and she said it was constructive. he's been working the phones hard after this meeting. that to me is a tell he's nervous about how it played. >> oh, yeah. he another photo-op this afternoon that wasn't planned so he could sort of get the last word on the whole conversation. >> everything is fine, right? >> yep. but to john's point i would sim play s ply say you're right, it's hanging out there the whole time, the mueller thing, but at the same time she said we're here to do the work of the american people, we're here to present their needs. she said that a number of times. to me that was her saying we're to the here to rip you apart, mr. president. perhaps that's what she actually wants to do but her public is not that. we want to get things done and represent the people here. it was a good posture for her, not coming in with guns blazing.

>> i think we learned a lot, the president has not accepted the midterms. even if he maybe knows it, no, no, no, i didn't lose. look what i did at the senate. which i thought the chuck schumer shot on north dakota and indiana is no way to help republicans in the future. >> when obama loss the house in 2010 he called it a shellacking. if you're a smart politician, you have to do a post battle assessment. you have to figure out where you are. if you can't get to the truth of your political position, you have a lot less maneuvering room because you don't know where you are on the battlefield. >> by the way, if you don't acknowledge that, how do you get members of your party to carry more water for you? >> we had the incoming head of the national republican campaign committee this morning saying well, the election wasn't really about trump. >> it wasn't a realignment either. >> we didn't lose the suburbs. so you do have some evidence

that senior republicans have decided that they're going to be ostrich. playing ostrich. >> how is this person qualified to be the head of the nrcp? >> i have no idea but i think it is all they can bet on, what republicans bet on is trump's magical powers to control the debate because otherwise they're just -- >> how can they go the wrong way? he's the president! >> the president had the same expression when he used magical power, good luck with that. >> there were a lot of george h.w. bush when he died. one that wasn't used because it wasn't that tasteful when he talked about being in deep doo-doo, donald trump is in deep doo-doo. coming up, why when it comes to the mueller probe, republicans don't seem to care yet. ♪

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and tomorrow. because when you're with fidelity, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward. welcome back. president trump made clear today he's not afraid of a government shutdown. wasn't necessarily welcome news for some republicans, who spent weeks trying to steer the president away from it. republicans in congress are weary of a costly partial shutdown right before the holidays. but president trump sees a fight over his border wall as a potential political winner with his base. i'm joined now by louisiana senator john kennedy, member of the senate yu dishajudiciary committee among other committees he's on. good to see you, sir. i want to play you something that the president said not that long ago but after his infamous meeting today with nancy pelosi and chuck schumer. take a listen, and i want to get your reaction.

are you playing it, guys? >> i could have debated chuck schumer for a long period of time because he's saying it's your, it's your idea. then i said look, i don't mind. what do you guys think? i don't mind having the issue of border security on my side. if we have to close down the country over border security, i actually like that in terms of an issue. chuck's problem is that when we last closed down, it was his idea and honestly, he got killed. he doesn't want to own it. i said rather than us debating who's owning it, i will take it. i will take it because we're closing it down for border security and i think i win that every single time. >> all right, senator, do you agree with the president? >> i don't agree that we ought to shut government down.

i think we ought to surprise ourselves and do something intelligent and try to keep it open. but having said that, what i think doesn't really matter. i don't think the president is bluffing. if i were playing poker with him today, and i looked across the table and saw the facial expression i saw today and the mannerisms and i didn't have the cards, would i fold because i don't think he's bluffing. >> i understand that but what cards does he hold? here to me is the leverage problem he may have. the 1.6 billion that had been agreed to was a number that came from his budget and came from the senate appropriations committee. so it seems to me his issue is with republicans. not necessarily the democrats. . >> well, i guess this is going to sound naive, chuck, but i think the president holds the card of principle. he believes -- or let me just

put it this way, here's what i believe. i believe legal immigration is good for our country. i believe illegal immigration isn't. i believe walls work. they work in san diego and yuma and el paso and israel and militia and saudi arabia. i can keep going. and the illegal immigration is illegal, duh. i don't think some folks around here know that. it undermines legal immigration. and i think $5 billion can go a long way to stopping illegal immigration. now, here's where i disagree with the president, i don't agree with the president's bureaucrats that this wall barrier, fence, whatever you want to call it, is going to cost $25 million a mile. i think that's nonsense. i don't agree with him on that. but i think $5 billion can go much further if we get some people who know what they're doing in terms of building a barrier. >> i guess what i don't understand is if that was the

number, why didn't he ask for it in the beginning? this is what i'm trying to figure out. you're using the poker analogy. he's basically -- he's like adding cards to the deck that nobody else at the table thought were in the deck. >> i can't answer that one. you'll have to direct that one to the president. all i'm saying is we can debate whether a government shutdown is good policy, bad policy, good politics, bad politics but i'm looking at a man, and my assessment is i don't think he's bluffing and i'm prepared to stay here over the holidays. >> i'm curious, do you feel as if the election results should send a signal to the president, you know what, you're going to have to compromise a little bit more? >> chuck, i don't know how to answer that because i don't know what's in the president's head. i can just tell what you i believe. >> i was going to say what do you believe, yes. i want to know what you believe on this. >> sometimes you have got to go it alone and put the politics aside. i'm not naive.

politics is up here, obviously, but i think walls work. and i do believe our country is stronger for legal immigration. but i think illegal immigration undermines legal immigration. i'm not saying that all of the people who try to come into our country illegally are bad people. there's very good people. there's also some drug dealers and terrorists and members of gangs. but the point is we have a mechanism that we know can in part stop illegal immigration because we have seen walls work. we have seen them work in america. we have seen them work throughout the world. and i would hope we put aside the politics and say, you know, the president wants $5 billion, let's give him $5 billion let's talk to him about how he's going to spend the money, this $25 million a mile is a little too rich for me. but that's what i would do. >> why haven't you been able to do it? you had one party control of the white house, the house and the senate for the last two years,

and you don't have the votes. if you had the votes, you wouldn't need to negotiate with the democrats. so this is a republican party problem, is it not? >> not in the senate. we've got to have ten democrats on the senate. >> i understand, in the house. you seem to have a problem in the house. >> i can't comment on the house, but it doesn't -- the house can do what it wants but it doesn't matter if it doesn't pass the senate. we obviously have to get ten votes in the senate. i think some of my democratic colleagues are in perfectly good faith, they just don't think we need a wall. i think others -- others just s see it as a political issue and think they're winning on it politically and others who just don't want to do it because they don't like president trump, period, end of discussion. >> should the president actually offer something? if want to negotiate, you usually got to offer something if you want something else in return, especially if you've lost leverage, which he did in the elections. >> well, i think he will. i think he will.

>> what should that be? what would you be offering? >> you know, i'd sit down with my democratic friends and just talk frankly and try to size them up and see how serious i think they are. and see whether or not i think they're bluffing. there is a way out of this. it won't solve the problem but we can keep government from shutting down by just doing another cr if we can't resolve it. i'm not a big fan of continuing resolutions but the way we've been spending money around here, doing a continuum resolution to maintain the status quo would actually save some taxpayer money. >> you're probably hinting at what is the likely result, because usually these things go that way. you're on the judiciary committee. you're likely be hearing the nomination of the president's pick for attorney general bill barr. i'm just curious, he has an expensive view of executive power. one of your republican colleagues, rand paul, for him that might be a bridge too far in supporting him. where are you on mr. barr? are you inclined to support him,

or do you have any concerns? >> i don't know him. i'm going to do my job. i will ask him tough questions. i want to know what his feelings are about the mueller investigation. i think we ought to let mr. mueller finish. i'm not sure he's ever going to issue a report. i'm beginning to suspect that he's not. and that concerns me but we'll save that topic for another day. i want to know how expansive mr. barr's view of the executive privilege is. i'm going to do my job. i mean, if i think he's qualified, i'm going to support him. i won't if i think he isn't. i just don't know the man. >> there's a report he actually met with the president about being his personal attorney to replace john dowd in the mueller problem. is that enough to trigger a recusal in your head? >> no. i mean, some people around here think that as a lawyer, if you take the position of your client, that becomes your own personal position. and that's not been my experience.

lawyers' personal opinions about things don't matter. what matter is what your client thinks. i have seen a lot of my colleagues criticize judicial nominees. well, because you represented this client and this client told you to take this position. well, duh, that's how the practice of law works. clients don't come to you and give you a bunch of money and say no go do what you want. they say here's what i want, i'm paying you to try to get it done. >> john kennedy, republican from louisiana, thank you for coming on and sharing your view. always appreciate it. >> thank you, chuck. up ahead, big news about the border wall, even though it's not built yet, it's already working. (boy) nooooooo... (grandma) nooooooo... (dad) nooooooo... (dog) yessssss.... (vo) quick, the quicker picker upper! bounty picks up messes quicker and is two times more absorbent than the leading ordinary brand. (boy) hey look, i got it.

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welcome back tonight. i'm obsessed with big news, very, very big news. that migrant caravan we've all been hearing about is done, it's over, caput. on twitter president trump declared the migrants are going back where they came from or staying in mexico. the threat is over, according to president trump. now what do we need? the wall, of course. in this morning's tweet storm, the president said the migrants were unable to get through our newly built walls and makeshift walls and fences. then he goes on to say, the wall will get built. i know you're confused, so am i. furthermore, people do not realize how much of wall has already been built. let's try to recap this, the wall which needs to be built and is being built as we speak is already a complete success. got it?

we know this because the migrants who were coming here didn't get here and because they didn't get here, we need a wall to make sure that doesn't map because it's already not happening, thanks to the wall, which by the way is being built and needs to be built now. because as already said, it's totally working. was that cleared up? e was pregn, in-laws were coming, a little bit of water, it really- it rocked our world. i had no idea the amount of damage that water could do. we called usaa. and they greeted me as they always do. sergeant baker, how are you? they were on it. it was unbelievable. having insurance is something everyone needs, but having usaa- now that's a privilege. we're the baker's and we're usaa members for life. usaa. get your insurance quote today. our because of smoking.ital. but we still had to have a cigarette. had to. but then, we were like. what are we doing? the nicodermcq patch helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. nicodermcq. you know why, we know how.

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welcome back. robert mueller has accused paul manafort of lying to his investigators. we've known that for more than two weeks, but today we learned that manafort's own lawyers may not know if he lied to them as well. the former trump campaign chairman's legal team told a judge today it needs more time to learn what evidence led the special counsel to accuse manafort of lying, thus breaching his plea agreement. manafort's lawyers couldn't even say if they disagreed with the allegations that their client lied. they now leave, they have until january 7th to respond. with us now is congressman jim heinz, democrat from connecticut, member of the house intelligence committee.

and he joins me now. congressman, welcome back to the show. >> thanks, chuck. >> what do you make -- i'm going to ask you quickly about this manafort thing because what does that tell you about manafort's credibility here, his own lawyer -- even they don't know what he lied about or manafort doesn't know what mueller knows. does that make manafort just uncredible even more so on a ton of fronts? >> yes, look, i'm not sure you can get even more so incredible or uncredible than manafort already is. the guy has been lying about everything and that is part of what got him in such hot water. i think there's at least two areas here that are probably interesting to many of us. one, of course, is at least certainly on the congressional side where we care an awful lot about the contacts with russia are apparently lies about his contacts with constantine

clamenick. we need to know more there. yesterday another senior trump administration person lying about contacts with russia. and the whole question which is a legal thing about was he lying about the nature of the contacts he with the trump administration or donald trump while he was supposedly cooperating with the special counsel's office? >> let me ask you to react to something that angus king said to me on sunday, senator from maine, independent on the senate intel committee. i asked him about all of the things we learned over the last say 96 hours in the mueller problem and whether it's time for congress to act, here's what he said to me -- >> i don't think there's evidence yet available to the public where there would be more or less a consensus that this was an appropriate path. my concern is that if impeachment is moved forward on the evidence that we have now, at least a third of the country would think it was just

political revenge and a coup against the president. that wouldn't serve us well at all. the best way to solve a problem like this to me is elections. >> do you agree with the senator? there's a couple parts of that statement specifically, he said he doesn't believe there's enough evidence that we have now. do you agree with that aspect of it? do you think there is not yet enough evidence to start this impeachment process in the house or not? >> yeah, i sort of disagree with that part but agree with his conclusion. look, the bottom line is just as the mueller investigation should not be prematurely ended because it continues to surprise us with what comes out, most recently, of course, all of the action with michael cohen, manafort, persistent lying by these people about contacts with the russians, we have yet a lot to learn. because we have yet a lot to learn and because bob mueller is not done, it is premature right now for members of the congress to say clearly we've got enough

to move ahead with impeachment. now, the michael cohen pleading, of course, was the first moment in which the southern district of new york, not bob mueller but the southern district of new york directly implicated the president in a crime. but we have an awful lot more we need to learn and we need to let mueller finish his work before we start any particular progress towards impeachment. >> do you believe campaign finance crimes are not serious enough to investigate through the lens of impeachment? >> well, it depends. any violation of the law is something one could consider as being impeachable or not. but look, i think the southern district of new york in the cohen memorandum put it best, which is this was a fundamental and illegal way of influencing our elections. look, you be the judge, the american public should be the judge. would it compromise a presidential candidate if there were two women, not one but two women, out there saying this guy

had an affair with me? and running through -- you know, as the southern district of new york said, a lot of people chose to make phone calls and knock on doors. donald trump and his agent decided to cover up something that could have been really material to whether he got elected president. >> are you -- it sounds like you're not quite sure that rises to an impeachable offense. >> look, at the end of the day that is a political question. it's not a legal question. and senator king, i don't agree with him that the only remedy we should pursue is an election. the bottom line is the constitution puts forward the idea of impeachment i think once mueller finishes his work and we have a sense for all of the crimes, that's when the congress needs to have the conversation with itself about whether in the aggregate you have an impeachable series of offenses here. >> what do you want democratic leaders to do with the president on these budget negotiations, totally hold firm or would you encourage them to negotiate some? or do you think they should just

stick to their guns here? it's like if you don't want this 1.6, you shut down the government. >> remember, the 1.6 is 1.6 billion dollars more than any democrat -- and quite frankly anybody who understands how border security works, wants for the wall. and so we heard loud and clear from the president his approach to this. and, you know, no president, no member of congress, no senator should decide the way they're going to get their way in this institution is through ultimatums and trotting out the tool of a government shutdown. the point of this building and the people in it are to negotiate. the president says he's a deal maker. he's been saying that all of his life. then deal, negotiate. the idea and -- look, i remember the last shutdown, we spent a lot of times pointing fingers about whose fault that was. today the president of the united states said i'm doing it. that has a lot of republican senators and members of congress very nervous about who the american people are going to blame if the shutdown comes. so the answer is the president should be negotiating, not

threatening ultimatums that would ultimately hurt the american people. >> all right, congressman jim himes from connecticut, member of the house intel committee, thank you for coming on. appreciate it. up ahead, we're waiting for beto. a lot of us waiting for beto. fresh off his senate loss, does he control the calendar for the presidential race? that's next. it was here. i couldn't catch my breath. it was the last song of the night. it felt like my heart was skipping beats. they said i had afib. what's afib? i knew that meant i was at a greater risk of stroke. i needed answers. my doctor and i chose xarelto® to help keep me protected from a stroke. once-daily xarelto®, a latest-generation blood thinner significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people with afib not caused by a heart valve problem. warfarin interferes with at least 6 of your body's natural blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective, targeting just one critical factor.

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in tonight's 20/20 vision, we're waiting for beto. >> you gave me a fight and i thought it was he -- >> beto. >> in a period of absurd, the president al field is essentially frozen. donors and staffers are reportedly waiting to are a signal from a three-term soon to be congressman from el paso to make his final decision on running before they make their next move. >> as you can see, there's a ton of excitement. >> while beto o'rourke hasn't made up his mind about a possible presidential run in 2020, an early move on move on.org straw poll which backed obama in '08 showed o'rourke leading all democrats. bernie sanders who moved on to endorse in 2016 moved on to third. >> there are many good friends of mine, good people out there, who are thinking about running

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...fearless... ...and there's no looking back, because i am cured. talk to your doctor about mavyret. time now for "the lid." panelists back. jonathan, the manafort filing is stunning because it's either the lawyers aren't sure how much he lied, manafort isn't sure how much he lied, but whatever it is, they need more time to figure it out. what does mueller know that tells you, is manafort telling so many lies he can't keep track of which ones mueller's found out about? >> i think that's what the events of the last week have screamed. at a certain point, you know, oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive. you get caught up in your own lies. that's why our mothers always told us, tell the truth, it's

easier. so whether it's manafort or cohen or -- mueller's team is going to have them coming and going on a whole series of things and the republicans are not in a good position to say, perjury doesn't matter. because the last time we had impeachment, they said perjury is everything. >> john, how long can republicans do the shrug your shoulders bit? well, those are just campaign finance crimes. trying to xart attalize that. >> they can do it forever. the question when is the cost becomes too great and weighing relative costs. i think part of trump's political success with his hostile takeover of the republican party is that republicans, a lot of republicans are sitting here looking at this and saying, okay, look, we're all-in. we got nothing. if he goes down, we're going down anyway. if he goes down, we're all

finished, so we might as well ride this out with him as long as we can. and maybe, as i said earlier, his magical powers will somehow save him and save us. i think that's been going on pretty much the last two years. unless there's a flip or some giant revelation, i don't see anything that necessarily interrupts that entropy, which is just go along with it. >> i had a republican say, you can't win without him and you can't win with him. >> john's right, they're all-in at this point. however, he's taken a very big hit plit dlee. what happened in the midterm is bad. that magical possession that we were all pretty impressed by, certainly republicans were impressed with, has been much diluted at this point. there's a lot less good will for him. of course publicly right now nobody's going to sharply break with him. they're going to go along to t getting a along. there will be other ways to separate themselves. around khashoggi, they're separating themselves.

pursuing a much more aggressive course of action than he would. there's little ways that they can pull away. there's not going to be a moment where everybody says, i'm done with trump, let's move on. they can't. there will be incremental things we'll see. >> i think he'll have a big primary challenge. i don't know if it will be. john kasich, mitt romney. somebody will emerge -- >> how do you challenge him? from the left, from the right, from somewhere else? >> being a sleaze bag, basically. and somebody like mitt romney has a history of having stepped forward early on this, during the campaign. what else does he have to do in the senate except use it as a platform to try to do that? i think there are a lot of suburban women who voted democratic in the midterms. they're motivated by hatred, contempt for trump. they will go back into those republican presidential primaries and vote republican the way they did the last time for trump's challenger. >> i do want to play mitch mcconnell's response today. i also think that this guy is an -- you want to talk about a

guy i'd never play poker with? michael coh mitch mcconnell's a guy. friday night, federal prosecutors implicated the president in two crimes, do you have any concerns about that? stonefaced, mitch mcconnell, i don't have any observations about that. belichickian, like he likes to do, on to cincinnati! >> i think one of the conundra for the party, everyone who was trump-skeptical lost. that's who lost the 40 seats in the house. everybody who was in a district that felt ambiguous about trump. and where the politicians weren't quite sure what to do to maintain their independence, and nonetheless not to be unsupportive of the president. so the party itself, the remaining officials of the republican party, aringbly more trumpian than the party was in the last congress.

>> i would say this, watch gory gardner. >> mitt romney, replacing orrin hatch, who was a big trump suck-up. >> the 2020 senate republicans, corey gardner lives in suburbia. denver is one large suburb. if trump is being crushed by 20 points someone will run against him. i'm not saying they'll win the nomination but they will win some primaries. the idea of him cruising to coronation when he's way down in the polls, not likely. >> that's changed since the midterms. >> you brought up 2020. beth, i feel deja vu all over again when it comes to beto and obama. oh, obama's not going to run. oh, this. all of a sudden he shows a little bit and literally everybody was waiting for him to pick a decision. suddenly he was a co-front-runner. beto is a co-front-runner, isn't he? >> yes, and here's why. if any of you have been seeing democrats on the campaign trail, even baby steps they're taking into iowa and new hampshire, he

is the only one that people are really excited about. excitement matters. everybody is sick of eat your piece candidate. the difference is this moment for obama was 11 years ago. the world's changed a lot since then. >> it has, but beto, his first event in iowa is going to have 1,000 people at it. he doesn't get to have the living room. that's what happened to barack obama. same thing. he didn't get to have the living room event. >> there are only two candidates in the democratic party who will be able to sustain themselves through a bunch of primaries. beto o'rourke, michael bloomberg. you've got to have the money to keep going. >> how about that. >> tom tire, perhaps. otherwise you have to drop out before the primary. >> sorry, camel la. i get your point point. >> you've got to have the money to keep going. >> thank you very much. wonderful new york panel. (chime)

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