"deadline white house" starts right now. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. i'm elise jordan in for nick coal. donald trump visited troops in a combat zone. facing criticism at home and increasingly isolated trump along with the first lady made an unannounced three-hour trip to iraq. he delivered remarks to troops stationed there. reuters quoted him as saying the u.s. has no plans to pull troops out of iraq and that the military could use that country as a base if, quote, we wanted to do something in syria. and that's the backdrop to the trip. all this is happening just six days after secretary of defense james mattis quit evidently over differences of opinion regarding troop withdrawal in syria. and on that topic, trump told reporters he believes a lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking. all of this is happening at the tail end of a long holiday weekend, one the president spent

largely alone holed up in the white house tweeting out his grievances as the government remains partially shut down over funding over the border wall. joining us from the white house, nbc's hans nichols, kevin barron, ned price, former nfc spokesperson and sam stein, politics editor for the daily beast and noah rothman, for commentary magazine. ned, let's start out with you. are you surprised that donald trump finally made a trip to a combat zone, and can you talk a little bit about the preparations that go into this kind of trip? >> yeah, elise. i can't say i'm surprised and primarily for one reason. it's now nearly two years into the trump presidency. this is something that the past two presidents, presidents george w. bush, as you know, president barack obama, as i well know, did routinely. several times during their presidencies, much earlier in their presidencies. and certainly well before it

became a political liability for their administrations. but as you note, this is not something that is an easy under taking. it's a sophisticated feat to literally sneak the president out of the white house, all the way to andrews air force base, out of washington, d.c., and all the way to a conflict zone, whether it's afghanistan or iraq. i think today we saw the challenge of the modern era come into conflict with this longstanding practice of the president of the united states. it was on twitter this morning when an observer on british soil observed air force one flying overhead. it had a different call sign. it wasn't called air force one, but it was certainly heading east and only later did we learn it was to iraq. so i think this practice is coming into a conflict with modern technology, but it's something that is well overdue. it's something that president trump has been remiss in doing.

and finally he's done what should have been perfunctory within his administration. >> hans, what are you hearing from sources about the planning and donald trump's decision to finally take a trip that he had avoided up until this point in his presidency. >> well, as ned suggests, the planning for this is usually long term. it's likely the planning started even before the president made his decision on syria. in fact, the president had been hinting about this for some time. you remember that thanksgiving call with the troops that he made where he went through his whole series of issues. he made it clear he would be visiting in the near future. what we know from defense secretary mattis is that he has told the president not to go on occasion. now that was back when mattis and the president were still more on the same page, before mattis resigned over the president's decision to withdraw from syria. i think what's going to be interesting here in the coming hours is to see what all the president said.

we haven't heard the full extent of his remarks. i also think it's significant where he didn't go and who he didn't meet with. it doesn't look like he met with any officials in iraq. that is to say, iraqi political officials who were the hosts of the u.s. troops there. and he also didn't go to afghanistan, a war he inherited, then escalated, and now wants to withdraw some 7,000 troops. guys? >> kevin, do you think this means that donald trump may be moving closer to associating himself with these wars? he said back in november that he didn't feel the need to visit necessarily because he didn't want to -- he didn't want the association with what he viewed as failed missions. >> well, that's a good point. not just the visit but the -- him finally jumping in to syria policy and afghanistan policy in a way that we have not seen other than his -- perhaps his south asia policy speech september of last year. so, yes, it seems the president

is making a big mark by ousting james mattis, by ignoring pompeo, by ignoring the entire national security blob that thinks this is a bad idea to pull out of syria and to finally say what we heard him say on the campaign trail. look, i said these wars are bad wars. i said the u.s. shouldn't be there. they're forever wars. we should get other people in the region to take care of this for us. that's what we're seeing play out in the bolton years, the trump years, but i would stress also what hans said it worth noting about not going to baghdad, not going to afghanistan but also not going over to erbil and kurdistan, the capital which used to be a pro forma stop to pay their respects to the kurds and thank them for doing the fighting that america wants done to keep isis down so that americans don't have to do it themselves. they don't have to pay for it themselves. trump is having an interesting week to pull out of syria but highlight iraq which, there are thousands of troops.

and if the u.s. needs them, could send them in. to highlight an air base where they launch air strikes into iraq from shows that pulling us out of syria is bad. pulling out of syria means you're abandoning the ground forces you built there, the troops. but there's an enormous set of american firepower just over the border and in the region still ready to go. >> sam, i'd argue that any time a u.s. president goes to visit our men and women in combat -- in a combat zone, that's a good thing. he needs to understand their mission. he can help raise morale. do you think that this mission was about that? or was it about deflecting criticism over his draw down in syria? >> well, no, obviously the logistical planning of this is complicated and takes a lot of time. so unless he was planning these thing wells in advance, i don't know how much this has to do with the syria decision. the syria decision obviously complicates this. but he'd been getting an immense amount of criticism from people for not having visited troops in

a war zone. at some point in time he had to go, whether it was out of reluctance, logistical planning, strategic vision, i don't know. what's interesting is his own complicated history with the iraq war. he ran completely on this idea he opposed the war when he hasn't really but called it essentially a dumb worry that was not in america's geopolitical interests. maybe that's what was holding him back. the fact he didn't want to be associated with this mission. he didn't want to have to go there after calling that mission basically unnecessary and ridiculous. but what he did say reportedly when he got there is that we'll not be drawing down from iraq. the iraqi component of this mission would stay complete. so there is this weird pull and tug here with him in iraq where he -- either in it or not. you have to consider the trip in that context. >> noah, you've been critical of the administration's strategy or lack thereof in syria. does this give you any more

confidence that donald trump is going to do any better by confining it to outside of the syrian borders and attacking isis from iraq? >> i suppose i'm reassured by the fact the president at least entertains the notion we could reinsert troops into syria in the event we might need them. my fear is we'll need them sooner than later. over the first twoing pe inweeks month they made several attacks on targets. the strug cell ongoing but it's not the military struggle that concerns me. it's the political struggle. what we lack in this country and have for the better part of a century is to establish factors on the ground that allow us to leave and leave in a way that doesn't force us to go back into the battlefield. the president essentially adopting barack obama's strategy by outsourcing this role to foreign powers, to other strategic partners on the ground and that was a failed strategy. i don't know what doing it twice is going to achieve.

>> and at least with barack obama, he somewhat tried to explain the logic behind his thinking. with donald trump, there has been so little transparency. and we literally have had to fight to even know the numbers of where troops are deployed. hans, do you have any sense after hearing, you know, the first read out of donald trump's remarks today on this trip of what is the strategy going forward? >> well, the strategy is to have clear and limited objectives. he's just said this and we're getting a read out. clear limited objectives. and when those objectives are achieved to then declare victory and bring troops home. he is also saying that some of those 2,000 will be redeployed to iraq so they won't be coming home. they'll just be leaving syria. and i think that's a crucial distinction. when you look at the criticism of his syria decision, it's really twofold. one, they didn't follow the process and there wasn't the proper consultation here with officials on the national

security counsel from the department of defense with allies abroad. remember, many of them were completely blind sided about that. that's one form of criticism. and the other one is actually on the policy, on whether or not u.s. troops should or shouldn't be inside of syria. those two criticisms don't always align. sometimes they do. it's just this case you have a lot of people that want to stay in syria that also didn't like the idea that the way the policy was decided on this. so as we move forward, you need to make that point kevin was talking about, how crucial it is. the role of the kurds in all of this. they've been a great u.s. ally and the fight against isis. even though the president's visited iraq and said he isn't going to pull out there, the fate of the kurds in eastern syria is very much in the air. and president erdogan of turkey has indicated he wants to go in there and go after them. elise? >> kevin, it was reported yesterday that secretary mattis was at the pentagon working away on christmas day. how is his shifting from his

role at the pentagon at the start of the year going to change the united states and our alliances in this front? >> well, we don't know other than without a mattis, the military doesn't have the civilian leader out there being the protector of, you know, the status quo. protector of alliances. protector of things like this. like donald trump wants to change. we don't know what the new acting secretary shanahan is going to do about it. i think the pull out from syria is a couple things. it's not the obama doctrine. that was not to pull out and let regional forces doing the fighting for the united states. it was to fight limited wars, not the big large ground wars of the bush years because times have changed and so have public opinion and lessons have been learned. what was happening in syria was already the obama doctrine and already what trump said he wanted. the u.s. found a capable fighting force to do the fighting. what military commanders are worried about now is what effect it has everywhere else in the world the u.s. has the same deal

going on. in places like somalia and in all across africa. mali, chad, niger, indonesia and in afghanistan. these are all locations where there are very limited relatively operations training local forces the best they can, pennies on the dollar for americans relatively for the security that you get but this is supposed to be the way forward. so if the idea that trump is saying is that, look, we can do these targeted things but once the job is done, get out. the question is, are you ready to get out? in this case, it's not the fight on the ground. it's the politics of the future of syria and american interests in the region because now it's turkey and russia and iran who will decide that country's fate, not the united states of america. and even if there are troops across the border, why would they be sent in back to syria unless isis fully returns and starts to threaten iraq? otherwise, i don't see any reason why you'd see ground troops but you may still see american planes bombing the crap

out of that land. we just don't know yet. there's no strategic guidance or vision for america's military interventions abroad if it's going to be an ad hoc treatment like this. ned, donald trump did not meet with any iraqi officials today, which i guess that at least means that he didn't make a plea for money from the oil. but what does it mean in terms of our overall relationship that donald trump posed for a visit in the country and does not go out of his way to meet with any iraqis? >> well, it certainly says a lot. and it will spell a lot for our relationship going forward. what donald trump did by going to al assad air base was do the minimum. able to meet with our deployed men and women in uniform. able to give them a pep speech for about 20 minutes. it sounds like there may be another stop in europe before air force one returned to washington, d.c., later. but by not meet with the host government, what donald trump did was essentially reconfirm what not only baghdad but also

governments around the world suspect. that he sees no need for partnership. that what he sees is a transactional relationship. in this case, we have our troops on iraqi territory. our troops will do a job. the host government has limited say or partnership in this. i think going back to the previous discussion about the obama strategy versus this strategy. they are quite different. the obama strategy was partnerships. partnerships on the political level and partnerships on the military level. the military partnerships were predicated on this idea of training indigenous forces to do the job so that american forces wouldn't have to. it was a far cry from he removi our forces without any strategy, without any guidance going forward in a vision of america not as a beacon, but as a bunker. an america that would retreat and hope for the best. president obama's strategy was very different. president trump's strategy such

as it is given that we have not heard of full articulation of it is not likely to succeed. certainly not in syria and we just don't know what the future will hold for baghdad given that it now sounds like there will be an increased troop presence in iraq. >> and hopefully we'll hear soon an articulation of president trump's vision. hans nichols, kevin barron and ned, thank you. when we come back, before heading to iraq, the president spent much of the holiday alone in the white house stewing over everything from the government shutdown to the mueller investigation. could this be a preview of what we're in for in 2019? plus, the federal government has more explaining to do after another child detained at the border has died. and so far, the government is coming up short on answers. and on the very day he makes his first visit to a combat zone, a new report sheds light on how president trump was able to avoid the draft. and it fits a pattern.

it's a disgrace what's happening in our country. but other than that, i wish everybody a very merry christmas. >> those warm words and good tidings brought to you by an increasingly isolated donald trump. not only did he spend most of the holiday weekend literally alone, he's also becoming more consumed by the threats to his presidency. philip rucker called it you'ulee gloom. he heads into what promises to be a treacherous 2019. nearly every organization he has led in the past decade is under

investigation, including his private business, his family's charitable foundation, his 2016 presidential campaign and his inaugural committee. after democrats take over the house majority on january 3rd, they plan to probe alleged corruption throughout the administration as well as his personal finances. but there's also the more immediate worry at hand. the ongoing government shutdown seemingly manufactured by the president himself. on that topic, trump isn't bagging down. he's digging in. >> i can't tell you whether the government is going to be open. it's not going to be open until we have a wall, a ferngs whatever they'd like to call it. i'll call it whatever they want, but it's all the same thing. >> joining us from capitol hill, nbc's garrett haake and here at the table, emily jane fox from "vanity fair." garrett, tell us, what are you hearing? is donald trump more isolated as he's hunkering in and, quite frankly, watching more television at the white house? >> it certainly seemed that way

over the last couple days. i spent christmas eve and christmas day at the white house. and it was a strange environment there. granted every part of the federal government goes through a skeleton crew over the holidays. but the christmas scene at the white house was particularly strange. you had the president making that point to even tweet about how alone he was with his parenthetical "poor me" with his familial advisers, ivanka and jared kushner already in mar-a-lago on vacation, the first lady on the way back. and he's had these pop-up meetings he was tweeting about that we could never confirm. a meeting on north korea with a picture of himself at the resolute desk. we never got any background information on that from the white house. why is the president having the meeting on christmas eve about north korea, a threat he says is no longer a threat. talking about building 115 miles of border wall that is still, to this day, not been clarified by anyone in the white house where that would go, who is paying for

it. any of these details. it just seems like there's -- the president's twitter account operating in one silo and everything else happening in the federal government happening in the other over the last couple of days. >> here's a paragraph from a great story that maggie haberman and peter baker had in the times that at the midpoint of his term, mr. trump has grown more sure of his judgment and more cut off from anyone else's than at any point since taking office. he spends more time in front of a television often retreating to his residence out of concern he's being watched too closely. he reaches out to old associates complaining that few of the people around him were there at the beginning. does this mean that he is nostalgic for the past and is going to start bringing in the old kafcast of characters or is just more complaining? >> it sounds incredibly lonely. and we know -- >> it's sad to be alone on christmas eve. >> that, of course. yes, it is. we know the presidency can be isolating, obviously, but when

you don't have a trusted adviser, even friend set for that matter, when you literally are calling out on twitter that you're alone, like this seemed like a cry for help. there is something upsetting about it. and i have to imagine that what trump is experiencing is a sense of isolation that can, obviously, you know, be emotionally compounding. how that reflects on policy, i have no idea. he clearly seems to be not budging on the border wall issue, although a little bit here and there. he seems to be hankering for this fight on the shutdown. he seems a little more confident in his policies and his pronouncements. i think we have to attribute the fact that he's feeling free to ax his close cabinet members as part of that. there's this sense of empowerment and comfort with the job and this immense loneliness just being there by yourself watching tv every day. it's very bizarre. >> emily, you wrote a great book about the trump family. and have studied the role of

donald trump's children throughout his business and now his presidency. does this mean they have more power than ever as donald trump is more isolated? >> sure. this is the best time to be jared and ivanka. and it's always been a good time to be jared and ivanka. they've outlasted everybody in the white house. they've outlasted all of the original crew. the second casting. and now as we head into maybe if they are able to fill the third casting, they are still there. and i think the exit of general kelly chief of staff will be a big moment for jared and ivanka. this is someone behind the scenes there was a lot of head butting and having him gone and mick mulvaney will come in and take that job. this is not someone they've had really come up against in the last couple of months. so i think that is important. i thought it was interesting that jared and ivanka left for a few days to spend christmas in

palm beach. part of it, i think, is they would have gotten criticized for staying saying, as people typically do with them, they are playing government. what are they doing sticking around trying to fix this government shutdown? they shouldn't be there. they shouldn't be the ones to try and solve this. they have three young children. spend it in mar-a-lago with their other cousins. they come back to washington, i believe they'll be there today. >> i'm of the opposite opinion. jared is filling this power vacuum and having, you could call, a political moment. i worry about him legally still, but politically, he was shep herding this criminal justice reform bill. and he was on the point person team with mike pence and mick mulvaney to try to solve this government shutdown right before it happened which made it odd to me that he went to florida. if you are being the pin point person to resolve the government shutdown, perhaps you shouldn't go on a vacation during a government shutdown. >> there nowhere negotiations going on in this time. >> you still have to at least try. a normal white house would at

least present the option. >> jared kushner is running the middle east policy. donald trump has said. so why didn't he go on this iraq trip when he'd previously been with general dunn ford earlier but not a lot of flack for that. >> isn't he the only one that had been to iraq? >> he went in the famous flack jacket. what is your take on jared kushn kushner's influence. >> there are no negotiations. there is no resolution here. at least not until january 3. the president wants this standoff. and it doesn't seem like he has an end game. he may be more confident in his ability to govern but i question his judgment. i struggle to see how many acting directors. acting chief of staff. in january, we'll have an acting head of dod, doj, interior department. all of them are leaving for various circumstances but a lot of them have to do with the president and his conduct. he sent all these mixed signals about what he would and wouldn't sign and whether he would accept this much on the wall or that much on the wall.

it seems that he doesn't necessarily know what he's going to say one minute to the next. so if you don't have a strategy, how can you manage that strategy? how can you as a subordinate execute that strategy? jared is probably doing everything he can do today from florida. >> they probably know better than anybody when it's time to take a vacation, though i will say jared and ivanka have uncanny timing on their vacation. they left the first time that there was a showdown on health care. i believe they left the second time. they left during -- they were celebrating a jewish holiday during the paris climate change pullout. the list is very long and my memory is very bad right now but pretty much every time there's been a disaster, a major disaster in the administration -- >> that's a great job. it's great work if you can get it when things really get fiery you can just go on vacation. garrett, you mentioned briefly the new contract about the border wall that donald trump tweeted about.

and do you have any new insight on what that actually is and if it's more than donald trump tweet that isn't really grounded in any reality? >> this is the strangest thing. this tweet came out on new year's eve right as we were getting ready for "nightly news." and i didn't put it in our story because i couldn't explain it. the idea the president could just give out a contract. through what vetting process had this gone through? where would this wall go? how was it being paid for, and how much was it going to cost? those -- the white house couldn't answer any of those questions on christmas eve. the president mentioned this again in his oval office chat with reporters on christmas day. and he said it was going to go in texas. he was going to go for the groundbreaking. that construction would start next week. and still the white house couldn't answer any questions about where this would go or any of these other questions. it's fascinatingly mysterious here whether this is just something that's been made up out of whole cloth or whether it's being described

inaccurately like maybe this is something he's agreed to do with the pentagon or army corps of engineers or there's something else at play here. but it's another sign of the lack of structure, the lack of infrastructure, lack of systems around this white house. if, indeed, there's going to be 115 miles of new wall being built in texas, that would be a big win for president trump. and there is none of the machinery of government trumpeting that, backing it up, coming out with fact sheets telling people where it's going to be. it's the most bizarre thing. >> garrett haake, thank you. still ahead -- homland security secretary kirstjen nielsen is facing more scrutiny after yet another child held at the border has died. what she's saying about the death of an 8-year-old boy, next. i didn't like something having control over me. i wanted to stop. the thing is i didn't know how. chantix, along with support, helps you quit smoking. chantix reduced my urge to smoke

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you do not know how many human beings have died while in the custody of the department that you lead? and you, 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 number? >> sir, i'm -- >> i'm talking about people who have died in your custody. you don't have the number. >> i will get back to you with the number. >> that was the secretary of homeland security last week unable to identify the number of deaths among the migrants in u.s. custody. since then an 8-year-old child died on christmas eve marking the second death this month of a child detained by immigration officials. the cause of the boy's death is still unknown, but the u.s. customs and border protection would conduct secondary medical checks on children with a focus on those under 10 years old. joining us now, julia ainsley and joins vance, a former u.s. attorney. julia, kirstjen nielsen just released a statement in the past hour. what did she say about these horrible tragedies happening under her watch. >> unfortunately, it sounded

pretty routine and the line we've been getting all day from some of the political appointees in department of homeland security. they say on one hand their heart breaks but this is really the fault of bad court decisions and of congress. and they are wanting to force congress to act and to do some kind of immigration reform or to try to make it so that they don't have to go through a lot of the protections that are in place for children and asylum seekers. they think those are the magne s s bringing them here to make these dangerous journeys. but there's another story. we've been able to speak to some people on background. some people who are not political appointees who are saying this is an issue of capacity. these children are being held by customs and border protection far past the 72-hour rule. mainly because there's too much -- too many people already in i.c.e. so they're at capacity. that's the next place they're supposed to go. they are more equipped to handle people for longer. that's where they meet with

legal counsel and see medical professionals. and instead, they are kept at the border processing facilities. and this is the second death this month of a child in customs and border protection. this is something that we predicted based on our reporting and interviews with people on the ground at the border would happen when we started seeing these backups this summer during the policy of separating children. >> joyce, as a u.s. attorney, you challenged alabama's immigration laws. are there any lessons right now that are applicable as we face this current immigration crisis? >> i think there really are some takeaways. alabama's law was a different setting. alabama violated this notion that we have constitutionally that the federal government sets immigration policy. so we challenged that aspect of the law, but what we learned was that immigration policy is complex. and although we need to have smart restrictions on

immigration that protect our borders, we have to do it in a thoughtful way and a humane way. and the takeaway in alabama was this. when you went out in the community of undocumented people and talked to schoolchildren who were afraid to go to school because they didn't know if their mothers would be there when they got home, your heart broke a little every day when that happened. and i spoke with people who worked for the state who really believed in their mission but who told me we didn't understand that the law we passed would rip families apart. and that was never our intepnt. what our government has to do is take a step back from this policy of family separation and do the heavy lifting. take on the long-term task of coming up with immigration reform that's sensible but honest and kind that protects our borders but at the same time lets immigration continue to make this country great because immigration has always been sort of the engine, the fuel through the engine that's the american economic machine.

and we can't lose sight of that as part of this policy. >> sam, why did it take two deaths, two children dying, for the department of homeland security to acknowledge that they need to make a change in how they are processing migrant children? >> well, it's a great question. obviously, death is horrible. in some ways, i guess, galvanizing, but i'm not holding out any hope they make the types of changes that probably are needed. one thing is, of course, this is a resource matter. we need more judges to adjudicate asylum claims and we need medical personnel to get to these sites because these kids are clearly being held in conditions that are not medically sound. but i think more than just the legal and political elements, there are moral elements as well. these are human lives. these are kids being treated increasingly poorly to the point

where some of them are dying. and if we can't grasp the morality of this, i'm not sure that we're going to make a change that is -- meets the problem that's at hand. >> i can't speak to what happens here with this latest tragic, horrific death of an 8-year-old but we can understand what happened with the case of a 7-year-old girl who apparently had a pretty advanced bacterial infection, a sepsis infection and was medevac'd when she was received by homeland security officials. she wasn't warehoused to the point this bacterial infection became fatal. she contracted this and suffered this over the course of her journey which does lend to credence, all of us would have to admit, to the dhs position that this is a perilous journey and you make it at your own risk. >> i don't disagree but we can't just look at, say, this is only two kids who have died and one may have been not the dhs' fault. there are complications that happened below the surface. kids are being housed in conditions that medical

personnel say are not good. you're creating psychological trauma by the child separation policy. these are complications not just resulting in death but resulting in huge medical and psychological complications down the road. >> the entire process has just been marred by such blatant incompetency and we haven't seen all that much really change over the course of the summer. now the trump administration said oh, we're stopping child separations but there are children who have been permanently orphaned. where is ivanka trump, the coordinator, the lead for the white house when it comes to women and children's issues on this issue which she said was one of the worst periods of her life. >> well, she's on vacation. that's where ivanka trump is. and she hasn't been on vacation this entire time but i think action speaks louder than words and, frankly, she hasn't really spoken that much about this either. this is playbook number one for ivanka trump which is speak about the things that you do have control over in the administration. talk about the things, the small

things on the checklist you're able to check off, the roundtables you're able to hold. the events you're able to be in front of cameras. when it comes to issues like this where she knows she's unable to influence her father and change her father's mind, she is silent on them. it's difficult to see two children dying in custody. this is someone in the white house. her express purpose for being there was to be an advocate for women and children and families. and you can't be an advocate if you aren't advocating for anything. it's just difficult to -- >> the cruelty is the point of this policy. this is what the administration has said. they wanted it as a deterrent. that journey is perilous. and they want to highlight that it's perilous because they don't want people making it. but you can't have cruelty used as a deterrent and then wash your hands of the cruelty when it happens in your purview. i don't think you're allowed to have both. >> thank you for that great reporting and keep up your work talking about this tragedy. up next -- trump has always

cited bone spurs as the reason he was unable to serve in the military. it may shock you to hear it actually had more to do with his family's connections. that's according to a new report. ♪ voice-command navigation with waze wifi wireless charging 104 cubic feet of cargo room and seating for 8. now that's a sleigh. ford expedition. built for the holidays.

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one aspect of the conflict, by the way, that i will never, ever countenance is that we drafted the lowest income level of america, and the highest income level found a doctor that would say that they had a bone spur. that is wrong. that is wrong. if we're going to ask every american to serve, every american should serve. >> john mccain taking a not-so-veiled jab at president trump's exemption from serving in the vietnam war and new reporting by "the new york times" details that a podiatrist, dr. larry bronstein who rented his office from fred trump may be the possible explanation for that bone spur

diagnosis. writing, braunstein's daughters often they sa father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young mr. trump during the vietnam war as a favor to his father. what he got was access to fred trump, one daughter said. if there was anything wrong in the building, my dad would call and trump would take care of it immediately. that was the small favor that he got. joyce and the panel are back. emily, this comes on the heels of the story of donald trump's family taxes and the taxes they were able to successfully evade over a course of decades. does this story ring true to you? there hasn't been any paper corroboration of it, though. >> this is exactly in line with the kind of thing that being donald trump afforded you. your father bailed you out of everything. this is just one of a series of things that fred trump basically said, hey, will you do this for my son? this is something he did over the course of his career. he bailed him out financially, with favors like this, and this

is what being a powerful person in new york affords you. i think about this all the time. i think i've told you this before. what's remarkable to me when you hear instances like this and their reporting seems to be fairly consistent here. when you hear things where fred trump basically did everything to bail out his son, monetarily with favors like this. and then you think about the peril he's put his own children in. it is striking to me when you think about one father doing everything he could to make sure his children succeeded and were financially sound and their business was viable and then that son who benefited so much from his father putting his children in potential legal jeopardy, potentially squandering their business and their potential to take over the family business, it's a fascinating psychological thing that has to happen. >> that story, "the new york times" tax story, upset donald trump enough that he actually tweeted about it. do you see donald trump tweeting

about this story and becoming upset over his podiatrist gone wrong relationship? >> i kind dovof do. i can envision the president tweeting about anything. it's a failure of imagination not to imagine the president tweeting about something. as far as this story goes, john mccain is absolutely right in that comment about how these -- conscription exacerbates. $300 could buy you deferment for the civil war. when there's a conscripted army there's always going to be those who are wealthy enough to avoid conscription. and sometimes there are these efforts to reintroduce conscription as a means of addressing inequality so these rich kids sons who send other people off to war would have to fight it themselves. that's not what would happen. conscription exacerbated inequality and makes a fighting force which is not volunteer which the fighting force wants. it's a misguided effort and john mccain's words hopefully will resonate more now that he's

gone. >> joyce, this "new york times" story is a story about who goes off to war and the sons of the wealthy do a pretty good job usually of evading that. but i still think that the original "new york times" blockbuster story was the year-long investigation of donald trump's family and their taxes. could donald trump still face any liability for taxes for unpaid taxes, even after he leaves office? >> so the short answer is that there's a federal statute of limitations that runs for five years. it can run a lot longer if you are looking at conspiracy charges because the statute doesn't start until the conspiracy ends. but this notion of statute of limitation is the way the law cuts off your liability. and says if the government doesn't come after you within five years, then you can't be prosecuted. it looks like there's conduct that the trump family, perhaps trump himself engaged in that

would qualify. but it's awfully speculative to read the story and draw the conclusion he can be prosecuted. it would take a lot of hard work by prosecutors to put it together. it seems like there are people who are actively taking a look at that, and that way have prompted the president's comments to acting attorney general matt whitaker. we know he talked with whitaker about the cohen prosecution and said he wanted rogue prosecutors to stop what they were doing and be reined in. one has to wonder if that "new york times" story has also created a lot of anxiety in the president's mind about where prosecutors are headed. >> joyce vance, thanks for being with us. after the break, more on the president's surprise trip to visit with troops in iraq. your school. your job. your dreams. your problems. (indistinct shouting) but at the y, we create opportunities for everyone,

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back to that breaking news we've been following this hour. trump's unannounced three-hour visit to iraq. the first such trip of his presidency. here's what he said to reporters at al assad air base. >> did you have any concerns about coming here today? >> absolutely. when i heard what you had to go through. i mean, look, i had concerns for the institution of the presidency. not for myself personally. i had concerns for the first lady, i will tell you. but if you would have seen what we had to go through with the darkened plane with all windows

closed, with no lights on whatsoever, anywhere. pitch black. i've never seen it. i've been in many airplanes. all types and shapes and sizes. i've never seen anything like it. we're coming in and i know all of the things that were surrounding us for safety. so did i have a concern? yeah, i had a concern. but my bigger concern was maybe the people that were with me. certainly. all of them. except i think john bolton. he's a pretty tough guy. he can handle it. right, john? john can handle it. >> it took donald trump 706 days to visit a war zone. and sam, it sounds like he was pretty concerned about his safety. >> it seems legitimately like he was freaked out about his safety going there. i've never been on one of these trips. so i can't really comment with authority on it. but i've never seen a president speak in that type of personal fear like that before. and i'm a little bit -- yeah, i'm surprised by it, to be honest. >> i have been on a few of those trips. and it is very unnerving.

but it's surprising to see the president respond in that way, having watched other presidents. president bush would make a point of not wearing his flak jacket, just to show that he wasn't afraid and wasn't going out there with protective gear. and barack obama behaved much the same. but donald trump, he really was emphasizing his concern for his own safety and melania's safety. >> well, that's because everything is always about him. no other president has gone to a war zone and said i'm concerned for my safety. the president typically goes to a war zone and says tell me about what you're afraid of. tell me about the concerns that you have about your safety. i'm here to listen and to say to you we will do whatever you can -- we can to make this more safe for you. but president trump has the ability to make everything about him. and that's the only prism through which he sees. >> noah, your final thought. >> i'm sure that the president's premise -- presence here in this battlefield is a morale boost for these troops. but it must be tempered by the fact that he is telling them things they don't want to hear. he's saying your mission is

accomplished when they know it's not. he's saying that your efforts on the ground have secured the status of, for example, the kurds and the arabs who are fighting on our behalf when they know they're going to be left to die. they must know that this president is shifting a strategy in a way that will not benefit them, that will abandon the work that they've fought for on the ground, and that has to make them feel just a little bit less happy about the president's presence. >> well, dramatic foreign policy changes by tweet are not usually exactly settling to troops on the ground conducting the mission. but we'll be right back. mission. but we'll be right back. do you want to take the path or the shortcut? not too fast. (vo) you do more than protect parks when you share the love. you protect our future. get a new subaru, like the all new forester, and charities like the national park foundation can receive two hundred and fifty dollars from subaru. (avo) get zero percent during the subaru share the love event.

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i'm elyse in for nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts now with katy tur in for chuck todd. >> thank you, elyse. and if it's wednesday, president trump is between a rock and a hard place. good evening. i'm katy tur in new york in for chuck todd, and welcome to "mtp daily." and welcome to what is anything but a holiday news cycle. as the president faces a figurative war zone in washington, he made a surprise visit to a literal war zone in iraq. and promptly threw his generals under the bus on syria. today marks the president's first ever trip to an active war zone, and he did it after facing blistering criticism for not making such a trip earlier, as other presidents have. moments ago we started getting the first video and