and made plans. like families do. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. good morning. i'm mill isa ray berger. here's what's happening. outrage after president trump escalates the border fight and puts new blame on democrats. >> you've got a president who very much feels like his best strategy is to dig in. >> this is his issue, his shutdown. the issue is the wall. >> they're trying to make nancy pelosi the demon in all of this. >> he has no plan. he does not understand what the budget is. >> we're entering day nine of the shutdown. who will blink first and why? tis the season for democrats to say they're running in 2020. which contenders look the strongest?

we begin with a partial government shutdown over the word border wall in the second wall. new members of office give them a majority in the house and a chance to introduce legislation to end the shutdown. president trump holed up in the white house made no public appearances in the last 48 hours. instead, turning to twitter to fend off criticism of the shutdown and the death of a migrant child in u.s. custody, the second death this month. meanwhile, manhattan federal courts are extending civil cases -- suspending civil cases, new farm loans on hold. much new closures are taking effect. hallie jackson has more. >> multiple sources say he lowered his demand to $2.5 billion. down from $5 billion. not all the way down to the $1.3 democrats are offering. zero votes scheduled on capitol

hill. that leaves 800,000 federal workers wondering when they'll get paid. with pain starting to spread faster across shutdown nations. january 2nd is when smithsonian museums will close. democrats will take control of the house on january. january 11th is when most workers will get hit hard, missing a paycheck with no way of knowing when the next one will arrive. >> that is hallie jackson reporting. democrats reacting strongly to president trump's bored he will call tweets. he directed some of the messages to democrats. let's go now to capitol hill correspondent mike vaiqueiraviq >> we hadn't heard for a while, actually for days since the death of those two young individuals while in custody. then the president put out his

tweet. it was immediately greeted with outrage. among the people who reacted, from the washington suburbs of virginia. here's what he said late yesterday. >> i was disgusted. the first reaction to the death of a child in our custody ought to be empathy for the family and enormous distress that that happened at all. it's now the second such death. instead, our president, who apparently lacks any capacity for human empathy, decides to use the death of two children as a political tool. something to hit his opponents with. i think it's really yet another new low in a president filled with lows. >> as dawn breaks on sunday morning here in washington, congress is vacant. there's not a soul in the hallways of the capitol or the

adjacent office buildings. the president tweeted several times over the weekend and earlier leading up to this his plans to go to mar-a-lago didn't happen. he's now not going for new year's as well. i guess we can expect more tweets today. this standstill is going nowhere and as you reported, it's not expected to go anywhere until the new congress is convened on wednesday. mike, thank you. joining me now is julia manchester, reporter for the hill and reporter for politico. good morning to both of you. thank you for being with us. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> realistically, how can the shutdown actually last and are legislators giving you any hints at all? >> well, we're not really seeing any hints from the white house or legislators of any hint of compromise at this point. i think from the president's tweets yesterday about the children's death at the border,

we're not going to see any compromise. all hope was essentially lost yesterday with those tweets. i think when nancy pelosi and the democrats i don't mean in, in january and they -- come in, in january and could end up with a short-term fund you go solution until february, but that will depend how well that goes with the senate and with the white house. >> daniel, there haven't been any meetings between nancy pelosi and the president since that infamous december 11th meeting that was so awkward. has either side met with anybody from across the aisle since then? >> they haven't really done much in the last week or so since christmas. i think there are some staff level discussions going on. but you really have to resolve this with a meeting with trump schumer and pelosi. that's what everyone says. republicans won't vote for anything unless it has the public endorsement from president trump. so far he has not given any indicator that he's willing to do that. so that's really left a

standstill. as much as he's blaming democrats, he's not exactly picking up the phone and calling pelosi and saying, get back from hawaii from your vacation there, i want to meet. i'm working with the white house and you guys are -- have abandoned d.c. that's what the democrats are saying, that there's been no outreach. they're saying that it's very easy for them to blame republicans because trump himself said it's the trump shutdown. you really can't blame the other side when the president of the united states says he's willing to take the blame. >> it's not so easy to leave hawaii either. >> julia, what is the consensus among republicans. is there a level of frustration or do they agree with people like senator lindsey graham who said no wall money, no deal? >> i think it depends what kind of republican you talk to. i talked to some republicans behind -- behind closed doors who are essentially saying there is frustration that they're not able to reach a deal. however, when you look to some

republicans more in line with trump's base, you know, they do believe that this no wall, no deal is actually in their best interests. president trump campaigned on this promise of building a border wall since the early days of the 2016 campaign. when he backed off of that almost -- seemed to back off of that promise a couple weeks ago, we saw that conservative commentators, anne coulter, rush limbaugh, the host of fox and friends push back on that. he takes that personally and his base takes that personally because those same commentators are spreading president trump's message to them. i think it would depend what republican you talk to. but trump's base, you know, they're very much in line with this no wall, no deal. because they see any sort of compromise as just washington as normal. and then not being able to get what they want essentially. >> daniel, it seems like the public appetite for the wall is relatively low. take a look at this recent poll.

what sort of event would force one side or the other to make a compromise and who is likely to blink first? >> i think, once democrats take control on january 3rd of the house, then it becomes incumbent on them to reopen the government. it seems like they would try to force the senate to take whatever the house passes and ironically, if trump would be willing to make a deal now, he would get more border wall money. because they were talking about a figure of $1.6 billion. and if they hold off until next week, then we're looking at $1.3 billion. and only for border security. not actually building any wall. so that's kind of the situation we have where i think democrats feel like they acknowledge that trump won the 2016 election, but they say the american people spoke during the midterms and they voted for democrats. so democrats feel like they have

the public backing. >> julia, what do you think? >> you know, i would agree with daniel that democrats do feel they have the public backing on this. i would say that polling does suggest that president trump could be pushing away some swing or moderate voters two years away from 2020. he's pushing away the voters paying attention to this. however, as we've seen over and over again, trump feeds off what his base is saying. he used immigration since the beginning, like i said before, to rally to his base. it seems like he would care more about that at this point. it will be interesting to see how the conversation over immigration really evolves as we get closer to 2020 and as the campaigns begin to take off. >> the president suggested that even if he lost the clash overboarder construction, it's a strong campaign issue for 2020. is he right, daniel?

could this be a win-win for him either way? >> well, he's the ultimate political survivor. everyone writes him off and he keeps going. he's definitely going to use immigration as one of his landmark major issues. but as julia mentioned, there are a lot of suburban voters who they know federal employees or are federal employees turned off by this mess. republicans control every lever of government right now. they still do until january 3rd, yet they can't keep the government open. and i think there is some exhaustion with the immigration topic. some of the people they use to make their point on immigration, remember, that mollie tibbetts case in the midwest. the parents, there's a big "washington post" story that the parents brought in a -- a

refugee into their home. sometimes immigration is complicated. >> my thanks to you both. we'll see you later in the show. >> thank you. new scrutiny at the new jersey golf club. what an attorney represents five undocumented immigrants is saying. saying ♪ ♪ the greatest wish of all is one that brings us together. the final days of wish list are here. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. only at your lincoln dealer. allow you to take advantage of growth opportunities with a level of protection in down markets. so you can be less concerned about your retirement savings. talk with your advisor about shield℠ annuities from brighthouse financial, established by metlife.

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let's take a listen to that. >> you're saying that the trump organization, according to your clients, at least two of them, provided these women with the false documents? >> yes. her picture for her green card was taken inside of the golf club at the laundry. the next day she was taken to a small town next to the golf club to pick up those documents. they were working in his house and they were being managed directly by a woman who has direct contact with the first lady. >> is there anything that would suggest to you that the president himself knew of the immigration status of the people working at his golf club? >> we have no evidence that the president knew. >> joining me now is former federal prosecutor doug burns. good morning to you, doug. >> good morning. >> just herd from romero saying there was no evidence that the president knew. lits l let's listen to what michael collins said. >> nothing at the trump organization was ever done unless it was run through mr. trump.

>> okay. what are the legal implication if he knew what was going on and could he plead ignorance here? >> of course. the defense in these situations is always knowledge. i don't know in terms of a defense on the prosecution side knowledge if they can establish that particular people knew all about it. then obviously they could establish a liability. it has to be sorted out very, very clearly. again, i have two narratives legally. one advocate is going to say as this lawyer did say that they provided the documents to the people. the other side is going to say no, no, no. they stepped forward with documentation that was false and back and forth. the way i look at it, so many cases all these years, it depends how systemic, what type of numbers of people are you talking about, which is what investigators want to focus in on first and foremost. number two, as you put it very well, obviously, who knew what exactly about it.

>> the special counsel referred this case to the fbi, which is the same thing he did with michael cohen and the campaign finance violations. what does robert mueller's involvement tell you about what investigators may be probing? >> it's a good question. the question, of course, is -- goes to this core issue of what's within the scope properly of the special counsel. the fact of the matter is, the scope is quite broad if you look at the initial documents authorizing it. it says anything that arises out of their investigation of collusion, which implies that it can be other things, we don't need to go back to a ken star seminar, but we know he went far afield of the initial mandate. to answer your question, basically they've been pretty cautious and i commend them in the sense of farming it outside of the specific gambit of the special counsel when they feel that maybe a particular prosecutor's office should look at it, like with michael cohen. they sent it up here to the

southern district court. >> we've seen the president's foundation agree to dissolve -- could these findings be the end of the trump organization's properties if this is happening at other locations as well? >> it's hard to say. i mean, it's certainly possible. obviously, that's getting ahead of it. not to be a broken record, the reality is, this is the type of stuff that let's face it, you have the political discussion and it's fair, the president has come out with harsh rhetoric about immigration. people want to back him up on his heels. but in terms of the legal discussion, again, it's a long way down the road to have that type of situation where all of the properties would be shut down. >> fair enough. doug, there is a new report in "time" magazine that says paul manafort was millions of dollars in debt with a russian oligarch in 2016 and he quote owed us a lot of money and offering ways to pay it back, including

briefings on the election. if promises were made and donald trump did know, what would that mean for him legally? >> again, similar analysis. the start of it in 2010, the relationship with this individual, russian oligarch goes back to 2007. in fairness, as you said, he owed them money as of the period of time of the campaign. so to your point and your question, you know, look, if paul manafort were making certain promises about what could or couldn't be done in terms of the campaign and special dispensation for those he owed money to, that could be problematic. if terms of an interplay between the campaign and something owed to a russian oligarch. >> the russian intel officer was told to -- told them to quote, go dig a ditch, right? >> i saw that. we call that go pound sand. >> i think it was about the same

thing. why talk to reporter after that and what does this say about his credibility? >> well, no. i mean, you're right. it calls his credibility into question, definitely. how inconsistent is that. you tell the investigators, to use my term, go pound sand and go to the media and start talking about it, you're right. i think it's a mixed bag, honestly. you know, on the one hand, as i said, there's definitely problematic conceptual areas if paul manafort bass saying the campaign can do this or that or the other. >> thank you. >> my pleasure. ready to run. the democrats who commit to running in 2020. which contenders look the strongest?

now to a poll -- 59% of democrats and independents

surveyed in a poll say they would be excited about somebody entirely new. close behind is someone the opposite of new. joe biden at 53%. bernie sanders comes in third at 36%. we're back with our panel. julia manchester and daniel lit julia, that someone new versus joe biden, what does that illustrate to you? is this a generational thing? >> well, yes, it could be a generational thing. one thing i like to point out, i think all polling you're seeing right now is essentially about name recognition ahead of 2020. i was struck by a usa today article that came out, i believe, yesterday. they had philadelphia lawyer daniel berger who famously backed barack obama's campaign and hillary clinton's. he hasn't picked a candidate yet. he said call me back in 45 days. we have a little bit to go here. but i think there is a generational divide. we've seen some polling showing

beto o'rourke, bernie sanders in the top. they're all white men. we've seen the democratic party have come out with a lot of diversity candidates this year, historically, women and minorities. all about name recognition at this point. >> daniel, do you think there's an assumed front-runner or someone of such significance that would automatically dominate the field among democrats at this point? >> i think joe biden is seen as the heavyweight in the race because of his service with the obama administration and also the sense that he is a fighter. that he can take president trump and debate and he can throw back barbs at him. that's going to be very important. you don't want someone who doesn't have that skill. but there's a lot of quality candidates out there. i'd say other people in the top tier, camilla harris, expected to announce in the next couple of weeks.

elizabeth warren is seen as a front-runner. but it's so early yet. but i think someone who is -- can really fight against donald trump and has that personal credibility that hibllary clintn didn't have, that's going to be important. >> julia, what do you think and would hillary clinton ever jump back in? >> i think the chances are very low. >> all right. thank you so much to both of you. that is it for me. thank you for watching. coming up next. your business. (burke) parking splat. and we covered it.

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good morning everyone. coming up on the final edition of msnbc's your business, i look back at some of my favorite stories and moments from the last 12 years. remember our makeover of this tea company. we'll talk to a founder to find out what's happened since. we sit down with someone to look at what lies ahead for small business in 2019. we have that and much more coming up next on the series finale of your business. >> announcer: m