for three years, starting with the presidential campaign and rally after rally ever since, donald trump has been telling his supporters that he would build them a great big wall across the southern border the keep the people out that they want to keep out and that mexico would pay for it. and based on their eager chanting along, all of which is on tape, has you just heard, it's clear his supporters definitely understood and affirmed their leader, donald trump, the president of the united states, promised them that mexico would pay for his wall. of course, the majority of americans knew all along, that was not going to happen. past and present leaders made it clear mexico was going to do no such thing. now the inevitable has happened. after getting pressure from right wing media including fox radio hosts and news, gone beyond demanding american taxpayers pay for the wall. as of midnight plus one second, he and his political party have triggered a government shutdown

to try to force you, the american taxpayer, to pay for the trump wall. to be clear, a wall that was supposed to be paid for by mexico has resulted in a part s ial government shutdown. 420,000 employees work without pay over the holidays and additional 380,000 will be sent home, according to a fact sheet created by democratic staffers. this is now the third government shutdown this year, with total republican control of the white house, the house and the senate. and despite donald trump now trying to pass the blame off on democrats, here is what he said. just last week, during a meeting with democratic leaders that he decided to conduct live on the tv. >> and i am proud and i'll tell you, i'm 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 mantle. i will be the one to shut it down. i'm not going to blame you for it. the last time you shut it down, it didn't work. i'll take the mantle of shutting it down and shut it down for border security. >> joining me now, senior adviser at moveon.org and john harward and then david jolly no longer affiliated with the party. i want to go to david jolly. you're at the disadvantage not sitting with us here in the studios. i'll go to you first. donald trump, in principle frip agreed to sign off on what the senate passed. a clean continuing resolution to fund the government. and then suddenly, he changes his mind and what happened in between him supposedly agreeing to sign off and changing his mind, throwing everything into chaos is the following.

here are right wing media responding to the fact donald trump was going to sign a funding bill for the government without funding for the wall. take a listen. >> i think the not funding the wall will go down as one of the worst things to have happened to the administration. forget mueller. the wall has to be built. >> the president should veto this bill. this breaks promise with his supporters. >> it looks like a lot of people's worst fears may be realized and that the president is getting ready to cave on getting any money for the wall in the current budget. trump gets nothing and the democrats get everything including control of the house. >> trump will, it will just have been a joke presidency who scammed the american people, enraged, you know, amused the populists for a while but he'll have no legacy whatsoever. >> can you explain why members of the house of representatives, there's just an election, at

worst, two years to go if they're still in office, right, before they have to face voters again and in some of them, actually leaving. why don't they just pass the senate bill that was already agreed to before, ignore the talk radio people? they're the ones supposed to be in charge, not talk radio people. they're supposed to pass the senate bill and keep the government open. why don't they do that? >> the bill has funding for a wall of each one of those radio hosts you just played is profound, and so is the ignorance of the president of the united states. first, not only worried that the president is so influenced by three or four talk show hosts. that in itself should give us reason to worry but this whole narrative is one that the president has bumbled from the beginning. mexico is going to pay for it and a new nafta, it will be paid for. joy, the reality is at the beginning of this year, this administration, donald trump, asked for $1.6 billion for new fencing, new wall, 65 miles at the southwest border, the senate

provided it and the house provided it. a good politician would have declared victory and all of those radio show hosts would have said, hey, the president is building the wall. instead, because of his egg shell ego around midsummer, he said, it should be $5 billion, not 1.6 and now can't get the $5 billion and why he's in the position he's in. he's been a terrible politician on this issue. as simple as the message was at his campaign rallies, the reality is in executing, he could have declared victory already but screwed the entire thing up. >> that is something that i do not understand because democrats took a lot of heat from a lot of people in their base for agreeing at one point to a funding bill that would have given donald trump a fig leaf of saying, i'm building the wall. in exchange for da kachcca but because the base doesn't want dacca or mercy for people in the country undocumented, he gave up on that. mexico is not paying for it. supporters don't seem to care

he's telling them to pay for it. >> that's the thing. donald trump, he does not have the political power right now to shut down the government but he did it anyway and he has shown himself to be an awful negotiator. he can't even negotiate just anything right now and he had just a year ago, as you were talking about, 25 million for the wall, a deal i didn't agree with it but i understood they were trying to get dacca, a path to citizenship. he said no to that and before that, he said, i want a bipartisan bill of love when he took away on his own yun lunil l unilaterally, took the dacca policy and now in a situation where he's backed himself into a corner showing he's not a masterful negotiator and now he can't get out of it. and now on november 6th, everybody said, the majority of americans said, hey, we don't want this republican house anymore. you guys don't even know how to govern. we have 40 new people coming in,

democrats, and he's put himself into a horrible place. now hundreds of thousands of federal government workers that are going to walk the plank for this wall that is racist, bigoted, a failed policy, experts said the wall would not work and now stuck in a corner. >> the food and drug administration, important things, the department of homeland security and transportation, you'll have people at tsa having to work for free, the agriculture department, hud, all not working, john harwood. you had joe kennedy, a congressman from massachusetts tweet that it's not just a wall shutdown, the violence against women act is being allowed to expire. republicans just took a shellacking in the last midterm election. i, for the life of me, don't understand. this is an unpopular shutdown. he said he owns it. why don't they pass? and then override his veto? >> i don't think they could get

the votes to override the veto. the core problem here is the republican party has gotten itself to a place where it's appealing to a very small segment of the american people and the way it's appealing to them is appealing to anger and frustration and upset with the way the country schachanging, t economy is changing. it results in a set of incoherent demands that don't really hold together and not consistent with what the country wants. that's why you had a party that lost hugely in the house. nevertheless, they're trapped into an inability to admit that the wall will never be built, the mexico will never pay for the wall, and the president is trying to show them that he's fighting, knowing he's not going to get it and it's just an untenable situation for the country and as kareem was saying, that's why we're going to have a democratic house. and on the negotiating, the

president signaled to the senate republican leadership, you pass this bill, this continuing resolution and i will sign it and then once he gets heat from these conservative entertainers who make money off of rousing these same people who are not a broad enough coalition to govern the country, then he changes his mind and sends a tweet saying the leadership promised me i was going to have this wall. he talked to the leadership the day before. >> yes. none of it makes sense. it is a minority of the country. a small group of people. if you look at the polling, a relatively small group of people. the people who support the idea of shut down the government in order for the american taxpayer, not mexico, mexico has been clear they're not paying for this, period. so they're now shifting his base, doesn't seem to mind the bill is passed to them. 34% support shutting the government down to get the american people to pay for the

wall that mexico supposed to pay for. who do you blame? trump, 51% and 37% is democrats. this is not a popular policy but how does it make sense to you from a policy standpoint to try and you're not going to build a wall, it's not going to happen? why are we here? >> it has nothing to do with coherent or smart policy, everything to do with the personal politics and personality. right, donald trump goes from moment to moment and makes his decision according to what a small segment, not just of the republican party but the population over in general believes and we've seen that he's not that elected official that comes into office with a base and says i'm going to be the president for everybody. he's going to continue to cater to that very small segment of the population that really is immune to reason. they're based entirely in the emotion and this idea there's going to be a physical barrier that's not physically possible to construct across the entire

border and doesn't do anything to prevent illegal immigration. >> it has to be constructed through eminent domain, a lot of trump supporters along the southern border, their property would be seized by the federal government to expropriate it to string a wall across, a lot of them are finding this out. >> talk to john or will herd. they don't want it. >> they're in texas. >> david jolly will back me up on this. this is not only a trump problem. trump took the wheel of the car and hit the accelerator driving straight into that cul-de-sac a little bit faster but the republican party was headed there already. >> they absolutely were. can i play for you david jolly, lindsey graham who has become donald trump's best tie, right? every so often, he has it from him but a statement last night on fox news and this is what he was saying, telling him to actually double down and dig in on making americans pay for the border wall that he said mexico

was going to pay for. take a listen to lindsey graham. >> i think democrats hate trump so much, they want him to lose even though it would be good for the country to work with him on border security and if he doesn't break them now, it's going to be a terrible 2019. so mr. president, dig? >> if he doesn't break them? >> what does that mean? >> break them? who talks like that in modern american politics, if he doesn't break them? what is lindsey graham getting at? >> old lindsey graham would have said democrats are already working with the president on this issue. this is lindsey graham in cycle in 2020 in south carolina where one of his lost. this is political expedience. but to the last conversation, joy, we're in an interesting environment. i've lived through 25 shutdowns in one role or another associated with the congress. historically speaking, the

president generally always wins and congress comes out losing. it's flipped this time. i think donald trump loses the politics in the optics of this shutdown. i do think what might solve it is his own selfishness. he wants to get to mar-a-lago and as much as he doesn't care about conventional optics, the idea of golfing in palm beach while the government is shutdown, it would be bush 41 at the scanner and saying doing a good job at katrina. they can't have that happen. i think we may see them push towards maybe approving the six of the seven bills they've already arrived that by voice vote, reopen the government there and then homeland security for a week or two. >> let me correct you on this. we know mexico is not going to be broken. they're not going to be paid for. that's not going to happen. the base of the republican party seems not to mind that they're being asked to pay for it to the point where some decided to donate millions of dollars, over

$14 million in 48 hours, in less than 48 hours. >> to pay for themselves. >> he made a call, a political campaign text message that went out to his supporters asking that we're going to fund this wall ourselves. >> have you done your part? >> they want to float bonds. the idea, you know, you do grassroots organizing. >> sometimes. >> so the idea, we can't get mexico to pay, full stop. the taxpayer, through congress, ain't going to pay. so we'll pay for it ourselves and how does this? because all the democrats say, fine. that's your money, you pay for it. >> going towards a wasted effort because it's going to have taken more than $70 billion to build that wall. >> they've raised 0.1% of the money? >> i think the person running it is like a conspiracy theorist, it's all kind of crazy and out of control but it just tells you why donald trump is where he is with this because he's only

looking at that small base and they're all in. they're all enraged. i mean, it is just, it just shows you the bigotry and racism behind it but the thing about it is republicans are co-signing this and enabled donald trump. we are in this place because the republicans have not stood up against him. >> john harwood, they're going to shut down homeland security, the department of transportation, the commerce department, the interior department, stuff a lot of republicans care about, the agriculture department, hud, the department of justice and pay for the wall themselves? they're just going to raise a fund. >> shutting down the mueller probe? >> not the mueller probe, that will keep going but the idea that the answer is for donald trump's supporters to pony up the money themselves and somehow owns it, it doesn't even make sense to me at all. >> it's just something to fill the time. of course, they're not going to pay for the wall. of course, the wall is not going

to get built. essential employees are still going to work in some of the offices but the broader picture is republicans are not the, they're the anti-government party. so as a general matter, they don't mind all that much that government is disrupted. especially if it can show that the president is doing something but it's going to end and it's not going to help the republicans. when you look at the polling, very consistently, 60% or more of the american people have said we do not want this wall. >> they don't want it. >> we have to go, in the end, will there be any sort of a wall across the southern border? >> no, it's not practical or feasible and again, not funded. >> mexico ain't going to pay for it. david jolly, thank you for trying to explain to me the inexplicable. coming up, the resignation that rocked the world. why everyone is freaking out that general mattis is leaving. g this isn't just any moving day.

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click, call or visit a store today. we send a clear message to our friends. do not be afraid and any adversary, do not be foolish. >> the principle that our allies are our allies and adversaries are adversaries seems so simple but on that general principle,

general mattis and president trump never saw eye to eye. the first member of the trump administration to resign on principle, citing irreconcilable differences between his world view and donald trump's. msnbc political analyst and opinion writer for the "washington post." malcom nance and colonel jack jacobs, medal of honor recipient. i'll start with the ladies at the table and going to the gentlemen. i was talking at how much everyone i know was, a lot of things have happened in the trump administration that people have been able to roll off, they think it's odd, but this is really scaring people. >> it is, and i think when nancy pelosi said the same thing, people nodded at home. mattis provided stability. he provided reassure rans ance

allies. when he said to assassinate bashar al assad, he said, no, forget about it. he played multiple roles. he puts a yes man in there. goodness knows what's going to happen and i think at this point, we see pure undistilled trump. impulsive, weird, you feel for the first time that we have a commander chief not on our side. >> it is, and malcom nance, this is strange and the letter that general mattis, you know, released was pretty straightforward and pretty damning. it didn't contain praise for the president which he usually wants and requires and didn't contain a any, it was straightforward. my views on treating allies with respect and also being clear eyed about malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by

over four decades on those issues. because you have the right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours. he's saying donald trump is not clear eyed about who our allies and who our enemies are. that's pretty damning. >> it's extremely damning and general mattis maintains what we saw the warrior ethos. honor and country are the principle of everything he does. when they had that saddam-like talk when donald trump came into power, he didn't praise donald trump at the table. he praised the opportunity to serve the men and women of the armed forces. he did the same thing at the end of this letter and did not sign it respectfully or sincerely or anything, which shows you what he feels about donald trump. more importantly, he understands donald trump fundamentally does not believe in american power in our alliances that have been

established since world war ii, principal principally, the atlantic alliance of nato. he does not believe in it and donald trump and accolades like steve bannon. believe the world should be brought down to a series autocracies and should not maintain the power and alliances that nato and the atlantic alliance does and that's dangerous. >> a very specific note. this resignation by the secretary of defense comes after the trump administration for donald trump surprised everyone by announcing a complete withdrawal of our troops from syria, which for a lot of americans, may seem like a vague thing, but it's actually pretty big deal. can you explain what the repercussions could be of pulling our troops out of syria, of donald trump having declared victory over isis? >> what they could be or what they are, he's already received

praise from the likes of vladimir putin and hezbollah and iran for deciding to pull troops out of syria and his assertion he's going to pull at least half the troops out of afghanistan with the expectation they'll all go home has received praise from the taliban. trump is an isolationist. he does not want to project american power anywhere and of course, that's extremely dangerous for the country. we're in an arena in which there's a multitude of threats around the world, both to us and to our allies and any situation in which vladimir putin says you're doing a good job, you're doing the right thing, in the case, we're doing the wrong thing. these are dangerous times and extremely dangerous decisions for these dangerous times. terrible thing. >> and malcolm, back to you on this.

russia said the following. russian columnist said trump is god's gift that keeps on giving. trump implements russia's negative agenda by default. and credibility as a partererned ally on his own. russia can just relax and watch and root for trump, which putin does at every tv appearance. sarah huckabee sanders tried to claim that putin is not happy about these withdrawals but obviously, he is. >> no, donald trump, again, donald trump does not believe in what america has been and what we've done in the world since the end of world war ii. you know, we fought world war ii to end governments that had this type of hijeminy. we created the united nations and the atlantic alliance and the 28 nation that is comprise our ability not only to project strength, but to defend our own

nation without us having to pay every dollar. there's a little anecdote. donald trump talked to the prime minister of sweden a year or so ago and he didn't seem to understand that sweden was not in nato and the prime minister of sweden said, we're not in nato but participate with it. trump said, that's what i'd like the united states to do. he will destroy the national defense of the united states if he's allowed to continue this way. >> very quickly, colonel jack and come back to jennifer. there's also an announcement that turkey is delaying an offensive to go after the kurdish forces in syria. are the kurds essentially being abandoned here? >> yes, it's not the first time we've abandoned the kurds but we are abandoning the kurds and if e erdowan doesn't come.

it makes it not only easy but is guaranteed to, for success for both iran and russia in syria. very ba we're abandoning the kurds altogether. >> you've had people fired and forced out on scandals. this is the only one who's gone on principle. >> which tells you something about the people trump attaches to himself. one thing, this is a slap in the face of israel. donald trump likes to be the best friend of israel. he is putting iran on israel's doorstep. they're keeping up a brave face because he's done a lot for them but you cannot be pro israel and support this move. >> it's an extraordinary move and hopefully not just a distraction from the mueller problems. jennifer will be back in the next hour. thank you very much. the mueller investigation may be coming to an end very soon but may be the beginning of trump's legal troubles. more on that next. trump's legal troubles more on that next.

investigations threatening donald trump and why the wait may soon be over for robert mueller's russia report. s russi.

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this is a white house that feels like it's under siege. this is a white house that is paranoid about the mueller investigation. >> anybody that the president will appoint at this point i assume will be appointed for the purpose of shutting down or have an investigation. >> get your popcorn ready for 2019. robert mueller reportedly nearing the end of his investigation with russian

election interference. potential obstruction of justice, et cetera, et cetera, continue the report as soon as mid february but what comes with the findings all might depend who he hands them over to. currently, that would be acting attorney general matt whitaker, a trump loyalist who has rejected advice that he should recuse himself from the investigation. joining me now, david corn, barbara mcquaid and natasha. the gentlemen first, reversing it off sadie hawkins style. look at what we've got. we've got the mueller investigation which is russian influence, wikileaks, mideast influence on the campaign, manafort, trump tower-moscow and firing comey. that's mueller. >> and obstruction of justice. >> regarding firing comey and then the southern district of new york. you've got campaign conspiracy, inaugural funding, the super pac's funding and foreign lobby

and then you go to the other stuff like the maria butina and the nra stuff. tax payments, trump foundation that new york is investigating, the e mollmeclause. it's not clear what the main thing being investigated. >> we should say, that's all the time we have. there are so many hammers waiting to fall and corruption and dishonesty. trump has claimed again and again, he's the most ethical guy around and we have the trump organization and the trump foundation really not croin th s hairs. his long-term lawyer is going to jail. happened at the direction of donald trump. and then we have all the russia stuff where it's clear every day, i mean, it's already proven he betrayed america by engaging

in the conflict of interest in dealing with putin's office and the trump tower while campaigning a trump tower project to moscow and telling the american public, i stayed away from russia. he lied about his engagement with russia during the campaign and afterward. again and again, the only thing that's in his favor is that there's so much, it's hard to keep track of and each and every one of these scandals should be a super scandal in its own right but putt together, they don't all get their due. you lose track of that through line. >> that's the question for a lot of people, paul. because as a former prosecutor, does there have to be an overall big narrative? if you had to have one, you could say donald trump was willing to do anything to become president because he saw the marketing possibilities of running and maybe becoming president, building a trump tower, there was money at the end of the rainbow but does there have to be a story or can prosecutors go anywhere they want? >> they can. it used to be donald trump was being double teamed by the

investigation in the mueller situation and the southern district of new york. when you look at these now, federal and state, criminal and administrative investigations, he's being at least quadrupled team but exposure, two people both named donald trump. so donald trump jr., if he told the same lie to the senate intelligence committee that michael cohen told, i don't see how he doesn't get prosecuted just like michael cohen. for donald trump sr., it's about roger stone. roger stone has not been subpoenaed by the mueller grand jury which means he's a target likely to be prosecuted. if he's prosecuted and flipped like everyone else has flipped, papadopoulo papadopoulos, and said he was coordinated in the wikileaks e-mail that was damaging to

hillary clinton, that was released all these things, if donald trump sr. was that, he's a co-con speen sospirator and ie trump administration is a wrap. >> which of these various entities would indict the crime? the southern district of new york or mueller? who would that be? >> mueller would and probably will indict stone. mueller will follow the doj position that a sitting president can't be indicted but if the president is implicated in a conspiracy, already is with michael cohen, if implicated by mueller in a conspiracy with the 12 shouldn't that be enough? >> maybe not this senate. >> i know it's christmas time. >> i don't know, lindsey graham doesn't sound like any interest no matter what is found.

natasha bertron, can you fill us in on what we know about the roger stone is in at the moment? >> it's a pretty legally perilous situation for him right now. obviously, "the washington post" reported earlier this week that mueller has actually formally asked them for the official transcript which is the last step really before he has to go to the grand jury and present that as evidence perhaps that he lied to congress and his testimony. as i reported previously, he's had to update his testimony three times since september of 2017 when he first sat before the house intelligence committee to match new reporting that came out that showed he was not being completely forthcoming or honest about certain interactions he had with regard to wikileaks and perhaps certain intermediaries. now what i'm learning according to my sources on house intel is that they're particularly concerned about this supplemental statement that roger stone admitted weeks after he sat before the house panel, essentially telling them that

randy kredico was his back channel, how he confirmed that julian assange had e-mails pending publication to hillary clinton and house intel thinks he was not being truthful in that statement or at least not totally forthcoming. he said jerome corsi was involved in this as well, the right-wing conspiracy theorist and not just trying to confirm that wikileaks was going to release damaging e-mails but actively seeking them out. he was actively talking to jerome corsi and get to julian assange and the e-mails that are going to be allegedly published, you know, in the waiting days of the election. so that is a big omission and it could, you know, raise the questions about whether or not roger stone was using randy credico as a fall guy because he did speak to certain aspects of the plans that he had already announced so there's some witness intimidation going on

and ultimately, i think that that's going to be a big part of this is what was roger stone trying to cover up about his communications with jerome corsi and trying to get these e-mails and was he successful in learning about wikileaks plans because, of course, we know on the same day, minutes after this access hollywood tape dropped that showed, you know, trump making these vulgar comments about women, the e-mails about podesta were released. >> we have so much there. like a watergate on steroids with russians trying to get information on the democrats in order for donald trump to get the presidency. we now know the treasury records that russian agents sought u.s. treasury records on clinton and americans exchanging measures on unsecured g mail accounts. this is a mega-watergate and similar to what i asked paul butler, does robert mueller need to explain that in a one-off kind of storyline for this to

make sense to the average american? >> i think at the end of the day, he does. he isn't looking for stories. he's looking for crimes. looking for evidence he can use to charge crimes and hold people accountable for make decisions. that's his job but most prosecutors understand that the public has to be able to digest these things or the jury or in the case of the president, it's congress who has to be able to digest it. i think he's handed off pieces to the investigation to the southern district of new york, the eastern district of virginia and when it comes to the core of his investigation, russian interference in the election and any connection to the trump campaign, i think there he wants to make sense of it and be able to tell a story from a to z of what happened and for one, to satisfy himself and the american public that we figured out what russia was trying to do and not so much of a compelling story of americans like president trump but russians. what was their game plan? their scheme? were they successful and how can we protect america from having it happen again?

>> assuming that acting ag whitaker or maybe potentially soon to be ag bartel shut him down. keep the whole panel here and after the break, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to russia's legal troubles. when we come back, we'll remind you of the good old steel dossier. remember that? much more on that when we come back. that? much more on that when we come back ♪ spread a little love my-y way ♪ ♪ spread a little something to remember ♪ philadelphia cream cheese. made with fresh milk and real cream makes your recipes their holiday favourites. the holidays are made with philly.

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all right, with me. i want to talk about the steele dossier. there is piece that says the mueller investigations that produced public records that confirm pieces of the dossier and the general thrust of the reporting seems credible in light of what we know. you know a lot about the dossier. >> and the through-lines, the big points that he raised in his initial memo about being a connection with the trump world and russia is proven true. and there was an interesting elements that doesn't get a lot of attention. the russians for years have been dangling business deals s is it of trump as part of a plan to

cultivate him. so now we know yes, he did. he was working on a trump tower project in moscow and he was talking through michael cohen talk topping you putin eye office and it went through at least june. and you have to understand you can't be dumping on russia or putin or it won't go through. the project didn't happen. so dangling is the good word. it seemed to faeskts the waffec dealt with russia. >> and now lifting of sanctions on oligarch companies. and you now have the trump administration seeming to make good on what it is that russiament with aed in terms of lifting some sanctions. >> that is a little more complicat complicated. they were forcing him to sell some properties so sanctions could be lifted. but still the bottom line here is that trump has not come to

terms with what russia did. or with the intervention. and that to me is the big issue. the question is, okay, mr. trump, why did you say this wasn't happening during the campaign after you were briefed that it was happening. >> let's talk about just where this investigation is going to go, paul, because you have a.g. whitaker who did not recuse and who was advised that he should but didn't. and a new potential a.g. that will be put ford. he criticized an aspect of the mueller problem. he wrote a memo saying part of the probe is invalid. how can he be confirmed? >> that is a political decision. august he needs is the 60 votes and he will be in that position. and this is a huge story. 51 votes. so again, he has the republican

majority. if donald trump had fired robert mueller or rosenstein, that would be a huge story. the day that acting attorney general whitaker gets his first briefing from mueller about the investigation and the day william barr is confirmed, that is cutting off the investigation at its head, the same as firing mueller because the attorney general gets to supervise the investigation. if mueller wants to do something that the attorney general does not agree with, then mueller can't do it under the regulations. and so we know that both of these men auditioned for the job of attorney general by going on v or even worse writing a private memo to the justice department saying that the president can't be guilty of obstruction of justice for firing the fbi agent. there iss is a quasi legal theo

that hasjected by the supreme court. but if he does something like firing comey, that is not obstruction. i don't think any lawyer who is up-to-date thinks that, but again that is why these two men were hired by trump. sessions was fired because he didn' recused himself. trump won't make that mistake again. >> and that sounds like obstruction of justice. i wonder how could either of these two men get away with drowning the mueller investigation. couldn't they be guilty of

obstruction of justice? >> if they stop it for an improper purpose. and just the fact that they were asking these questions i think anxiouss the questions about whether they should be recused from overseeing the investigation. even if william barr is confirmed, i think if i were a member of the senate judiciary committee conducting those hearing, i'd ask very pointed questions. you have appeared to pre-judge the case. recusal requires two tracks. do you have a direct conflict like a family interest or a business interest in the matter under investigation. probably not. but the other is, is there an appearance of a conflict. and that is would a reasonable person wonder whether you can be objective in deciding this case. and i think that william barr by writing that memo has made it apparent that he cannot be objective. so he may be a fine attorney general for other matters, but i would ask the very pointed

question and maybe even demand that he promise to recuse himself if he is confirmed as attorney general for that reason. >> and before we go, let's said that one of these two men managed to i will can the mueller investigation. couldn't the southern district of new york or even the new york attorney general still go after all of these crimes if they were committed in new york? >> in theory, yes. certainly the attorney general could because the federal government -- the attorney general doesn't have power over sta state -- >> you can't pardon that. >> that's right. but if whitaker or barr makes one of these moves, we wouldn't hear about it under the law until after -- >> and a quick points. bill barr interviewed to be the president's defense lawyer in the russia investigation. and he not only did that bum he also gave the memo that he wrote about the obstruction of justice inquiry to white house lawyers at the same time that he gave it to rod rosenstein. so this conflict is bigger than

we think. >> this is madness. wow. thank you all very much. up next, more am joy oig. next,g

i will be be the one to shut it down. i won't blame you for it. the last time you shut it down, it didn't work. i will take the mantle of

shutting it down. it is up to the democrats. so it is really the democrats shutdown. >> nope, nope, nope, you already said you would take the mantle. welcome back to "a.m. joy." in about an hour, congress will reconvene as they try as to strike a deal to end the shutdown. his third of the year. but so far no one seems poised to back down. this all stems from donald trump and his inability to get funding for his beloved border wall. now hundreds of thousands of government employees will be forced to work with no pay over the holidays, part of a shutdown that just weeks ago trump said that he would be very proud to own. joining me by phone is steny hoyer. thank you very much, congressman. appreciate you being here. first question i have for you, why doesn't the house of representatives simply pass the senate's clean continuing resolution, it has already been passed, and just go home? >> that would be very simple, but unfortunately, the

republicans have adopted as you say three shots now this year. beginninged so in the first 14 years i was here, we had ten shutdown. the average was two days. and that was simply because trying to get agreement between the two houses and get it to the president. but this is a strategy that they have used to try to in effect take hostage the federal government saying if you don't agree with what i want, whether eliminating the affordable care act or in this case building the wall that we don't think makes sense, that we won't play. the republican senate passed a bill that they thought had the agreement of the president of the united states because pence told them that. the vice president told them that. they passed it over to us. democrats were united in preparing to vote for that bill. but unfortunately, the

republican leadership, the house, would not put it on the floor. the reason is in my opinion because the president had a tantrum about his wall 24 hours after agreeing to the legislation withdr legislation and withdrew his support and the republicans in the house said we won't agree to anything. >> but the reality is, congressman, if you include democrats, clearly there would be the votes i'm assuming to pass -- >> no doubt about it, you are right. >> and so just making the decision to give donald trump what he wants. do you have any confidence in the speaker of the house if he is not willing do what john boehner did which is just cut a deal and go home? >> you are absolutely correct. john boehner said look, we'll put it on the floord anyway. but i only got 87 republicans to support him.

and of courseccarthy, mr. ryan, both voted against opening up government. so here we are with the act to have gotten agreement and refusal to do so because of the president's change of positions. and we've shut down government. hopefully the negotiations that were provided for last night by the senate, a deal if you will, will prove fruitful. and it will prove fruitful in my opinion if they come to an agreement which simply takes the eight bills that are all republican bills and we are prepared to vote for and send them over. and it will beef up security a bit at the border. somewhat at the border. we could negotiate on that. but we think the wall is bad use of money and won't work. >> so that was one of my questions, why would democrats

vote for any wall funding since democrats oppose it on principal. why not just wait it out? why not wait until democrats take control of the house until congresswoman nancy pelosi is speaker of the house? i'm sure donald trump wants to go to mar-a-lago. >> it is unfair to the federal employees and unfair to all the people that deal with the federal government to a daieily basis wondering whether 9 government will be open next week. or for that matter everyone monday of theveryone -- even mob of thnday of this week. we could certainly wait them out. but the 1307b8 thing do is act as quickly as possible and the responsible thing to do is we have agreement on 97%, 98% of the deal. we don't agree with everything in the bills, but we're prepared

to vote for them. they aare republican bills. but we are prepared to vote for them. we agree with some, not others. but that is the process. the president needs to come to grips with that. >> congressman, we appreciate you taking the time to join us. have a happy holiday. >> joy, thank you very much. joining me now, jennifer rubin and john harwood and dana milba milbank. none of this makes sense to me. there is already a senate bill passed that funds the government. house of representatives if you add up the democrats and maybe 50 republicans could pass that same cr. paul ryan is leaving. he has nothing to lose by simply putting the bill on the floor and lettinging pelosi get the votes. i don't understand why we're

here. >> its a sad end for speaker ryan, but predictable. there is actually widespread agreement that there is really no division there. there is one other guy at the other end of pennsylvania avenue who has an issue. i think the best thing to do is get fox news to run old footage of the wall being built somewhere and saying mr. president, we got your wall, everybody can go home happy, he can go off to mar-a-lago and the government runs. so we basically have one man standing in a way of almost unanimous agreement. >> it actually doesn't make sense. >> what you have here is an unpopular congress joining with an unpopular republican doing the shutdown which is unupon po for an unpopular policy which is the walled. but it does make sense that on november 6, the people spoke and they decided to get rid of the

republican majority in the house. and so i think change is of a foa -- is afoot. and it is not surprising that paul ryan is leave aring in this way. he could have done this one last thing and been the adult in the room and gotten this through. but he decided not to. and now hundreds of thousands of federal employees have to pay for this. they are walking the plank. >> and john harwood, i follow your twitter religiously and you often wrestle with the polling and the sharp racial and gender dichotomy in the numbers. but in the case of republicans who clearly fear the republican base, it is obvious they do and they fear fox news, a lot are either already out or at best they have two more years, right? i truly don't understand why they are capitulating to a president whose approval rating is under 40% and why they don't just do their job, pas a pass a

clean bill to keep the government open because it would help their own popularity. >> i agree with you. it is not rational. but the president who is at 38% ors 40% or 40% in the polls is at 85% among the republicans. and if you go conservative ares, he is higher than that. and they are just not willing to defy either trump or that base. we saw that consistently when john boehner was speaker, a lot of speculation he was going to go out by putting an immigration reform bill on the floor because it would have majority support. he was not willing to do that. i remember talking toes who sai base, are you kidding me? paul ryan is not doing it now. and so what is especially confounding is that the president himself a week ago signaled what the end game was.

he sent out tweets saying that the wall is being built and it is really beautiful, you should see it, so much has been done. and the part that isn't done, if they don't give me the money, the military will do it. so the fantastical idea that it is happening and mayerry christmas. >> he literally could have just are said -- >> ann coulter and rush limbaugh and that group of people who called him on it and if not for them, we'd be out of here about that. >> and that is the sad thing about it. donald trump could have just continued to pretend that there was a beautiful steel slat thing, a water slide on it and was amazing. and he could have sold that to a lot of people. but instead, he walked back from his own public, you know, reality and now he is back in this position because of like

three talk radio hosts. >> he is weak and he is getting weaker by the moment and the fact that the russia investigation, the other investigations are closing in -- >> is that what this is about? >> yes. absolutely needs desperately to hold on to those people. if those people break with him, then he is toast. i think he is toast anyway. but i think the more that he is under siege, the more he lose voices of sanity around him, mattis and everybody else, the more comes out through michael cohen, through flynn, the more desperate he becomes to please those people. and it is not a situation in which fox news follows the white house. the white house follows fox news. >> they basically told him what do. >> and maybe democrats should go negotiate with rush limbaugh because apparently he checks with him. he is the principal here i guess. >> and the other peril here is that democrats i've already started to see a bit of criticism that particularly in

the senate that you might have a democratic leadership cave and i a okay, we'll give you a couple million for the wall in principle democrats oppose the idea of stringing a wall across the southern border. what incentive is there for democrats to give donald trump a penny? nancy pelosi position is you get nothing. >> there was an incentive previously to give something for border security if not for a wall or you can build -- put a window in a wall in some places a wall makes complete sense. but as soon as the president in the oval office on television said i'm taking credit for the shutdown, then he lost all leverage. i don't think that you will find that particular negotiating tactic in the art of the deal. jennifer is right, he is playing for this 37%, but they will be flying to grandma's house and they will see the tsa workers in the working for pay, working on a volunteer basis, they won't be so pleased with that, they are not pleased with the markets falling apart from all the chaos

that the president is causing. so i think that is the strategy. i just don't see what the end game is. >> and i'm very cynical explanation, as these people head out the door, their future livelihood depends upon keeping the far right happy. they are not going into the best law firm, they are not going out there to be spokesmen for apple or google. they are going into the fox news orbit or the far right set of lobbyists and activists. and it is those people that they have to keep happy because their future depends on them. >> it is a very good point. what happens if the market tanks? >> i think that the markets are the real curb on the president. ultimately he may sluff off a little bit of up and down in the markets, but if we have kin cone to have this red wave in the dow, that is something that the president will ultimately say

what will stop this. and he will look, well, negotiate with china, make a deal with china. okay, i'll did tho that. or open the government. i'll do that. i don't think the government shutdown is a big part of what happened in the market, but it is not nothing. >> saying you want to fighter the fed cha -- fire the fed compare is probably not helpful. >> he should him name teliminat rumors. >> and in your interview with steny hoyer, republicans are much lessare about government working. and so that is the one thing that puts pressure on democrats. >> except what happens if democrats give in and give donald trump even a dollar for the wall? >> it is problematic. they cannot give in. we just had november 6, an election on this, on keeping a check on this president.

on in the allowing things like that to happen. and the wall is just bad policy. we know that. >> immigration was a big part of it. >> so they can't do it. >> all right. coming up, madness and the mayhem that was 2018. and a look ahead to the new year. how much worse could it be? more on that next. worse could e more on that next.

>> all right. >> all right

president trump plunge is plunging the country into chaos. the stock market is down another 500 points. general mattis is stepping down and we know he has disagreements with the president on syria and the wall and now president trump is throwing a temper tantrum and creating the trump shutdown of the government. >> well, 2018 is ending with the third government shutdown of the year. worst week in the dow in a dek decade and resignation of jim mattis. and that was just in the last week. at the end -- as the end of 2018 approaches, the association press released its top ten stories of the year. but 2019 is already shaping up to be quite a year for the white house with a looming mueller investigation on the russia

probe possibly on the way and a new democratic controlled house with subpoena power come january. jennifer rue ben, john harwood, da dana milbank all back with me. let's go through the poll. the khashoggi killing which was so shocking for journalists all over the world. climate change which of course affected puerto rico, virgin islands, et cetera. california wildfires. and the cavanaugh hearings. i went to yale! not really. u.s. immigration. the midterm elections. mass shootings. the "me too" movement. the trump russia probe and the parkland school shooting. what among those things do you think really resonated in defining the year? >> i would like to think that the 2006 election defined the year and will define the future because it was the first time american people said enough, this is crackers. and they put in a check against the president. i think actually the issue which is surely going to carry over into next year which will

determine his fate is the mueller report and how bad it really is. i think what we've seen towards the end of this year is that there may be some republicans who are more willing to accept it than they otherwise would be. if this chaos continues, you know, you're more willing to believe a report that this guy committed a bunch of crimes, maybe we don't need him. the moment they decide that he is more trouble than he is worth is the moment his presidency is in jeopardy. so this chaos does have a counter -- does have a blowback fenkts. effect. so i think that democrats will grab his tax returns amd documeand documents and perhaps they will. but ultimately this is about what he did, what evidence of what he did and whether the american people likewise have said all right, enough. my most interesting poll of the year was recently americans favor indicting a sitting president. not impeaching, but indicting.

my contribution to the discussion would be indict trump organization. you can you can indict a corporation. it is not protected by the constitution so you chiefyou ac lot of the same aims. the money is going in and out trump organization. >> and that might be his breaking point because he does cherish his corporations. maybe he would dedepend hfend h. people want to treat donald trump as a normal president to the september that thextent tha. the search for a replacement of mattis is on top of mind. are we just going to have a more

or less normalcy in the amendment to replace the first secretary of defense in the history of united states to resign on principle? >> i don't think that you can call any of it normal. so i don't know where they will end up there. but i do think that the point that jennifer was making is correct. the break point in the trump administration was the election which put democrats in power. that is going to affect everything even what happens in the senate as they move to select a replacement. and i think in terms of looking back to those events in 2018, the one subset of the mueller probe that -- or category that stands out to me is that wrade michael cohen's office. i think that was the moment where all of a sudden we had a set of information available to prosecutors both in the southern district and robert mueller that is going to -- we'll look back and say that was where the thing

really got unlocked. >> the one person you probably didn't want to push away is the guy who knows everything about you. the thing that my friend from moveon.org, democrats are sort of focused already on, is projecting forward. you will now have nancy pelosi the most powerful moment and also who might lead the party in 2020. move on did an interesting poll. one of the results of the 2018 midterm is that couple of names really sort of shot to the forefront. stacey abrams, andrew gillum. none of which won. and now on the minds of everyone is beto o'rourke. who should be the 2020 nominee? don't know 29% which makes send. but look at beto, 15.6% now edging out joe biden. >> yeah, i think it says a lot.

i think it says that to me it says that actually it is wide open. i think that people have not made a decision. they are waiting, watching. for beto, he has proven himself to be this authentic candidate who really raised -- what, $70 million? he was on national news. he talked about race in a dwtha we don't usually see white people talk about. and he visited every county. rural counties, suburban counties, heavy latino, heavy african-american counties. so he is seen as the future of the party. but it is still wide open. people have not made a decision. i just wanted to say on that list that you read on, there are two things that really made a difference for me this year which is the separation of children at the southern border and he with saw some of the lowest approval numbers for donald trump during that time a month after.

and the miles per hours th same after the hurricane due to the response from the government. and it is things like that that i do believe that nancy pelosi and the democrat majority that is coming in, they will do oversight. they have subpoena power. they will look into these things that are critical that are important, that should matter to all of us. and do matter to people. >> i guess that is a question because democrats have to manage -- 2018 was about painful stories. whether mass shooting or the separation of children. do testimonies have to try to tackle toes thinhose things on level or just rein in the president? >> i'm not sure it is either. i think the democrats sluice is to do what they promised to do with health care, with policy for jobs. certainly investigate donald trump. but this shouldn't be about

screaming and yelling. you look at your a.p. list there, there was sort of natural disasters, manmade disasters and trump-made disasters. so i think we will see the chicken coming home to roost mostly in terms of the economy created by trade are wars and a whole straert variety of reason. that will undermine trump more than anything that the democrats will do. so in a way they need to not play his game and sit back and do the things that americans elected them to do. >> and there was so much in 2018 that was jarring and was important. i think the separation of children and what happened in puerto rico were two in my opinion as well the most affecting. but i have to play what i think was the moment, the single moment that was the most impactful of the year. that was the march for our lives, a young woman named emma gonzalez who was a student at

po parkland, and a moment that rich vett riveted the country. >> luke would never, mar keen would never, peter would never, alyssa would never, jamg aie wo never. it has been 6:20. the shooter has ceased shooting and will soon abandon his rifle. blend in with the students as they escape and walk flree for n hour before are arrest. fight for your lives before it is someone else's job. >> a lengthy moment of silence. that young woman understood how to use the medium better than i've seen almost any adult do. it was brilliant. truly brilliant. two of those kids are now headed to are harvard.

so i have to throw that out there. we're running out of time, but we'll ask for our christmas miracle to put bubble wrap around ruth bader ginsburg. she is recovering from cancer surgery and we wish her all the best. she is a strong woman. that is a tough lady. >> yes, she has had cancer now three times. she works out, i'm sure i couldn't do her workout every day. she is indomitable. and i think many people in the country are rooting for her. >> and a measure of how they are rooting for her that president trump himself tweeted out best wishes. >> which is a rare moment. >> notorious rbg. >> she is amazing. >> please keep doing the planks. >> and teach me. she is amazing.

whoo what a great panel. thank you all. happy holidays to all of you. coming up, the sad and sorry postscript, tale of good old house speaker paul ryan. the meeting of the executive finance committee is now in session. and... adjourned. business loans for eligible card members up to fifty thousand dollars, decided in as little as 60 seconds. the powerful backing of american express. don't do business without it.

take your razor, yup. up and down, never side to side, shaquem, you got it? come on stay focused. hard work baby, it gonna pay off.

by now you may have seen this video of a high school wrestler in new jersey having his dreads cut off before winning a where he is with link match. the referee who forced that stunt to decide between forfeiting the match or cutting off his hair has now been benched. the school says that the referee was enforcing head gear and hair length regulations and that the student was not influenced by any school officials in his decision to let his hair be can you tell. still the state athletic association recommended that the referee be prohibited from officiating any matches until their investigation is complete. multiple news outlets say the referee is alan maloney. maloney was accused of calling another ref a racial slur during a social gathering in 2016. nbc news called the number

listed for maloney but did not receive a response. and coming up next, we say our good-byes to departing house speaker paul ryan.

i leave here as convinced i was at the start that we face no challenge that can be overcome by putting pen to paper on good sound policy. by addressing head-on the problems of date. state of politics though is another question.

and frankly, that is one i don't have an answer for. i acknowledge plainly that my ambitions for entitlement reforms have outpaced the political reality and i consider this our greatest unfinished business. >> and his life long political dream, to guts the safety net programs while bending over baek war back cards for the wealthy. and an op-ed points out that it is simply a fitting end to paul ryan's disappointing hypocri hypocritical tenure that his final act is pa pit chew laew capitulating to donald trump. >> the president informed us that he will not sign the billing because of his concerns for border security. so we'll work with our members, we want to keep the government open, but we also want to see an agreement that protects the border. >> jennifer rubin is back with

me. i'm old enough to remember pip o tip o'neill. i cannot imagine tip o'neill saying i can't put anything on the floor because ronald reagan doesn't want to sign it. they are third in line to the white house. they are a powerful entity in and of themselves. this speaker says you know if my boss donald trump won't do it, i can't even put it on the floor? why is his ego? >> where is his ego, sdwroi. ryan's legacy is ultimately going to be stepping donald trump's sexism, racism and corruption. this man was once considered the future of the gop. >> he was running for president about that. >> today he is leaving washington a failure. thank you next. did you look at the op-eds, even

his home state papers are labeling him a political loser and failure and disappointment. >> i want to play a sound for you of paul ryan who tried to sort of get it out there that he disagreed with the style of donald trump. obviously he agreed with the substance. but here he is trying to artfully dance away from the things that donald trump has said that were offensive. >> i typically don't quote or comment on the tweet of the hour. i didn't see his interview. i decided aim not going to comment on the tweets of the day or the hour. i haven't seen them all. did he tweet about that? i don't read that stuff. all this stuff you see on a daily basis on twitter this, twitter that, forget about it. every morning i wake up in my office and i scroll twitter to see which tweets that i'll have to pretends that i did not see later on. >> that was actually the most accurate thing he ever said. >> this is the definition of

cowardi cowardice. he does not have the nerve to say when donald trump says something outrageous. this man is head of a country.h. president's words matter. republicans used to say that. so the notion that what he says doesn't matter is bizarre. besides which, it is not just what he says, it has been what he does. the child separation policy, running up the debt, pulling the rug out from under our ally, picking fights with you are our starting a trade war, these are all the things that republicans like paul ryan used to stand up for. but he is now a quivering little boy waiting for instructions from papa trump because he floos spine, he has no ability to differentiate position from donald trump. he sees perhaps his future with

the far right. and cesspool of talk radio. >> is that what he wants to be? >> who knows. i think at this point he is so far from whatever he used to believe, he probably doesn't even know what he believes. >> his ideological convictions are in tatters. >> are they know? they seem to have been privatizing social security and medicare and medicaid or getting rid of them and passing massive tax cuts for the very rich. he did the latter. >> and you know what, his tax bill which ryan calls his greatest achievement is considered one of the biggest special interest giveaways in modern -- >> a trillion dollar debt. >> and that used to be his own-sglf the debown- >> he would write budgets about the debt. he would write white papers. he would speak about the debt. we're in a debt crisis.

and he has left more debt than any speaker of the house. and he has gone along with it because he never had the nerve to say no. and he never had the nerve to say to nancy pelosi what can we come up with on a bipartisan waives that would actually help the country. he says why can't we get beyond politics? because he would not get beyond politics. >> and when they asked nancy pelosi what she thought about his farewell speech, she was like i didn't have time to watch it, i had other things to codo. >> john boehner was not a great speaker. people would assess that he couldn't wrarangle the freedom caucus. but this is after he brokered a deal to overt a shutdown. here is john boehner. >> i'm grateful to miss pelosi, mr. hoyer and others for all of the work that we've done

together. i hope these last five years we've done an awful lot of work together, probably more work done across the aisle over the last five years than in the 25 years that i've served in this institution. >> i can recall saying to friends that john boehner would have had more power in a way had he just said to his freedom caucus, whatever the -- the tea partiers, if you don't give me the votes, i'll ask that lady, i'll ask leader pelosi. so you either give me the votes or i'll get them from democrats. >> it is fudfunny, they are sti behind a made up rule named after a child molester. you'd think they would get smart enough to change the name of the rule. but they still enforce that. and that is the notion that it has to be a majority of your party before you put something on the floor. you know, what the speaker of the house is the only elected member of leadership in either body that is of the house, of the entire body. you have majority leaders,

minority leaders in the centsen. he is speaker of the house. he does not understand his job description. he thinks he is the leader of donald trump's core political base. >> it is a sense in which paul ryan has seemed to serve donald trump rather than lead anything let alone the house of representatives. >> and do i remember he wasn't -- it went from like donald trump to being like whatever you want. and the sad thing about ryan, he's only 48. what are his career perspectives now? >> i don't know. but it is bizarre. we think of the article one as an incredible powerful body. mitch mcconnell certainly wields his power with an babandon. but we wish him well. up next, a moral moment for the holidays. days

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human beings have died while this the custody of the department that you lead, and in preparation for today's hearing you didn't ascertain that number? but you don't know it today? >> i don't have an exact figure for you. >> do you have a rough idea? >> sir, what i can tell you. >> i am talking about people who have died in your custody. you don't have the number? >> i will get back to you with the number. >> okay. >> 2018 has been a year of moral challenge from donald trump's family separation policy at the border and housing migrant kids in detention catches to migrant families being tear gassed as they try to enter the u.s. to seek asylum from violence: what is ahead for 2019, joining us now the author of revive us again, mission and action in moral reorganizing. there are at the moment 2,816

migrant children separated from their parents. 161 children still in american custody. what does that say about us as a nation? >> it says in some sense, joy, we should have a -- we should be wishing america a mourning christmas instead of a merry christmas. that's not unlike the biblical christmas. when herod was on the throne, jesus was born. he was a liar, he was put on the throne, selected by a foreign government. he was arrogant, narcissistic, he overtaxed the poor. he had enablers. he built walls rather than relationships. he used his power to hurt people, children were dieing, women were crying. it was in the midst of that that jesus was born, a movement of hope, a movement of transformation, which would be the antithesis of herod.

jesus was born in poverty in the ghetto of nazareth. and people need to realize this is the very time that we need to be building a movement not of just resistance but of transformation. we should mourn to the point of having deep concern and deep consciousness and cha tension consciousness of this country. >> i want to play for you white house adviser steven miller who was on cnn on thursday. here he is talking about immigration. >> there is a surge of illegal immigration heading towards our country that presents a national crisis now. >> right now though -- >> not a year from now. right now. this president took an oath like every lawmaker in congress to defend the sentence of this country. how many more innocent people have to die in purr seat of an over -- agenda. >> calm down. we don't have to yell. these are important policy issues we are discussing the american people have right to

know where you the president and the white house stands. >> yeah. >> i guess a lot of people have trouble understanding how people can hold that view, right, and not feel any compassion when they see these children housed in detention camps. among evangelicals, president trump has a 70% approval rating. can you explain it. >> jesus was forced out of the country. steven is outlining the spirit of herod, i think herod still lives in spirit. in herod's time, when jesus was born, children were killed, children are dying. the first -- we have to remember that christmas was not twinkly. it was a battle in bethlehem. it was a ballots between right and wrong. it is still that battle. he is lying there, but he is lying to inflame people. and white evangelicals should be ashamed. not all. i don't call people white

evangelic evangelical, they just use the name. truth. while we are talking about a wall, 140 million are poor in this country. 60 million people work for less than living wage right now during christmas. many don't have health insurance and thousands die because of that. in his own state, 2 million white people are poor, joy. 46% of the people in tennessee are poor. 56% of the children. and he is defending a wall. he is defending a wall. we need a great mourning of consciousness in this country where poor people and people of faith and people of conscious say enough is enough. we have to, just like jesus came to bring hope in the midst of herod's time, we now have to have this movement of hope. and the poor people, the 140 million poor and low income people and people of conscious, we really hold the key to transformation in this country. would he have to change the moral narrative.

and right now, just like jesus came in the time of herod, right now it is time to build a movement, an antithesis to the mindset of herod. in many ways what we see with trump and his enablers is the mind-set of herod. and we need the holy mind-set of god that cares for the least of these, the broken and the sick, and recognize that this is the moment that a movement must be born, this is the moment we must stand up, this is the moment we must come together. and it ought to start right now in this christmas with having mourning christmas not a merry christmas, but a mourning christmas, because the bible says blessed are they that mourn. if he would mourn right, we will stand right, if we mourn right we will be able to movement right. >> you wrote a piece on this we will post to our social media. thank you very much, we appreciate it. thank you sir, and a merry christmas to you. >> thank you. god bless you. up next the latest on the government shutdown as congress

reconvenes just moments from now. after the break. (music throughout)

and the army taught me a lot about commitment. which i apply to my life and my work. at comcast we're commited to delivering the best experience possible, by being on time everytime. and if we are ever late, we'll give you a automatic twenty dollar credit. my name is antonio and i'm a technician at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. that is our show for today. we will be back tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern. al eggs wit is up next. from washington, d.c. >> you ditched me again. >> there is a lot of stuff to talk about, what