word coming down in the commercial break that president trump is headed to the border on thursday. that's going to wrap up this hour of msnbc live. i'll see you tomorrow morning on "today." andrea mitchell reports starts right now. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," the president threatens to declare a national emergency so he can use pentagon funds to build that wall, but with no compromise in sight, the shutdown moves into day 17. >> schumer, nancy pelosi and myself can solve this in 20 minutes if they want to. there's not going to be any bend right here. fallen star. kevin spacey appearing in a nantucket courtroom to face a sexual assault charge today for an incident that allegedly took place in the summer of 2016 as described by the young victim's

mother. >> kevin spacey bought him drink after drink after drink, and when my son was drunk spacey made his move and sexually assaulted him. and who's the boss? president trump contradicting -- contradicted by his own national security adviser who says that u.s. troops will not be leaving syria any time soon. >> we're going to be discussing the president's decision to withdraw, but to do so from northeast syria in a way that makes sure that isis is defeated and is not able to revive itself. ♪ good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington where no talks on the shutdown are scheduled. congress is not in session, and the president is not setting his intelligence briefing until 2:00 p.m. according to the white house schedule.

hundreds of thousands of federal workers may be asking where is the sense of urgency in this third week of a partial government shutdown. neither side is budging after weekend talks hosted by the vice president negotiating not with house and senate leaders, but only with their staff members. the president telling reporters sunday he may take the controversial step of declaring a national emergency to build his border wall if the deal with the democrats does not develop in the next couple of days. joining me now nbc white house correspondent kristen welker, casey hunt, michael steel, former spokesman to john boehner and former counsel to president obama. breaking news at the moment. the president is going to the border to see for himself on thursday. this is quite a high-profile event as sarah sanders has just tweeted, but no negotiations and no solution yet for hundreds of thousands of federal workers and all of the people who rely on the federal government. >> that's right, andrea.

let me just read sarah sanders' tweet so we hear the official announcement. president donald trump will travel to the board or meet with those on the front lines with the national security and humanitarian crisis. more details will be announced soon. it's not sure what format that will come in, andrea, because there's no press briefing scheduled for today. there are no events on the president's official schedule, public events. as you point out he will get a briefing, a presidential briefing later today. now the big question, is this move anything more than aimed at turning up the heat on democrats? president trump has been planning this for quite some time and clearly the optics will be powerful as the president visits the border, but as you point out, andrea, congress doesn't come back until tomorrow and there are no negotiations scheduled and the two sides can't even agree upon how the talks that have already unraveled have gone. president trump over the weekend saying they were productive and the democrats firing back saying

they weren't productive. so where do things stand? the president is demanding $5 billion for a border wall and he now says it can be steel instead of concrete. it's not clear if democrats are asking for that as a concession. they say a border wall is a non-starter and they say that his threat to potentially issue a national emergency and send troops to the border is also a nonstarter and something that will undoubtedly face legal challenge e and challenge andrea, and all of this as 800,000 federal workers are poised to not get paid. they're caught in the crosshairs and they'll turn up the heat and they'll try to pass some individual measures this week, but those measures will undoubtedly go nowhere because they're not going to pass the republican senate, andrea. >> and to casey, let's talk about the fact that there are negotiations going and the vice president intended as he may well be is completely undercut by the president's strategy of

pulling the rug out from under him. mitch mcconnell and let's play chuck schumer on sunday why would mitch mcconnell bring anything to the floor that is not signed off on, and how would you say, in blood? that's what you meant to say about mcconnell. >> leader mcconnell who is a good -- he's gotten the country out of some other shutdowns in the past is totally ducking. he was burnt because he stuck out his neck. it's up to leader mcconnell to step up to the plate here. i understand his reluctance, but there's greater good here. >> you and i have covered previous shutdowns. i've never seen the vice president of the united states negotiating with house and senate staff members. >> it's unbelievable, honestly, andrea. this is not how -- this is not how problems like this get solved. no one in that room was empowered to make any final decision about reopening the

government. chuck schumer made the right one i'm not going to put this on the floor until the president will sign it and they accused him of cow towing with the president. he would sign something to avert the shutdown and then the president embarrassed him, humiliated him, really, in public and now mitch mcconnell has said forget it. you guys figure it out. let me know when you all have decided that you'll sign something and i'll do it for you. it's interesting that shchumer s trying to push mcconnell, and it's pulling on the threads more, but my sense is that his absence from the table is a hindrance and that at some point senate republicans are really going to have to be involved to whatever the solution in this will be. >> there was this bizarre thing on friday where the president and the house leaders, the house republicans came into the rose garden, but mitch mcconnell wasn't told they would do that and he left and had gone back to the hill or whether or not he didn't want to be present.

>> yes. i mean, he's in an impossible position. you know, i've covered, you know, michael steel can attest to this as well as someone behind the scenes for these negotiations. i've covered mcconnell for a while. he's a man of few words in public and his few words carry weight and for him to have come out a week before the government was set to shut down and said that he was confidence and he had assurances from the president that he would move forward and normally, you can take that to the bank and then a day later it completely fell apart. >> michael steel, you've worked with republican speakers and leaders in the past. have you ever seen anything like this? >> no. senator mcconnell doesn't want to engage in this. no one wants to be charlie brown with the football here. there is no end in sight. in the past both the president and the hill are trying to appeal to reasonable people in the middle and they don't want to shut down the government and

neither side is doing that right now. both sides are playing to their base. the president to the border and the democrats in opposition of president trump and there's no incentive for either group to come together right now. look, senator mcconnell and senator schumer could come to an agreement and end the shutdown like that. >> it's done. this is not a hard problem and the question is finding a will to move something to the house and signed into law by president trump. >> we should point out that what the speaker did last week was to re-approve everything that the senate backed them that they're not going to take it up again without the president's say so. >> let's not lose sight of the fact that the house democrats is putting republican bills on the house. it's basically their first act to try to re-open government. that is not a small thing and many republicans, you can't even get them to admit, well, yeah. i would have voted for that if a republican speaker had put it on the floor, which is nancy

police. >> this is the level that he agreed to that he said he was going to sign prior to the shutdown beginning and then he walked away from it. who can trust him now? >> and bob bower, as former white house counsel, let's talk theoretically about this threat of declaring a national emergency. the president saying he can do this on the border which is arguable. it's not arguable, he can declare a national emergency, but arguable that it is actually a national emergency and also that that would enable him to go around congress and use unappropriated funds or appropriated and discretionary funds from the pentagon budget and have the pentagon build the wall using actually military forces to build the wall, not just the wire that they put down when they were sent to the border in december. how would this work legally? >> you raise an important point with the new legal team at the white house will work here and how it will show in the circumstances. you're quite right. the president can declare any emergency he wants and whether

that gives him legal authority on the basis of the declaration of the emergency to do what he's proposing to do here is an entirely different question, and i think congressman smith is quite right. he's going to face a legal challenge and as with the travel ban, everything that he has said on this subject is going to come back to haunt him. >> congressman adam smith who is the new chair on the services on the house side. >> correct. correct. everything that the president has said so far has undercut his position because of what he has said about the ingredients of this emergency and terrorists coming across the border and it's been refuted by his own state department or the influx of gangs or public health emergency and all of these claims have been shown not to be true and profoundly weakens his ability in the way that he claims that he can at least on an emergency basis and he can resort to other purposes and o unobligated funds.

>> on fox news sunday and he was challenging her claim about the 10,000 terrorists. let's take a quick look at that. >> we know that roughly nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists come into our country illegally and we know that our most vulnerable point of entry at our southern border -- >> i didn't know if you were going to use it, but i studied up on this. do you know where those 4,000 people are captured? >> airports. >> not always. >> that hasn't been any terrorist that they found coming across the border. >> it's by air, by land and by sea. it's all above. >> they're not coming across the southern border, sarah. they're coming and being stopped at airports. >> i'm not disagreeing with you that they're coming through airports. >> bob bower, if you go into court with that kind of case, i mean, he is not a lawyer to the best of my knowledge, but he is absolutely laying out the facts there and no government, you

know will go into court to make these claims. >> no, if he claims it is a national emergency and he goes into this with a severely impaired position because of all of these untruths and courts have been, for many, many years when faced with these declaration sensitive to presidential overreach and i think that's what he's going to face here. >> bob bower, michael steel, casey hunt, kristen welker, thank you very much for getting us started today and meanwhile, news of the supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg missing today's argument and this is the first time since she took the bench 25 years ago as she is recovering from cancer surgery on her lung. during two previous bouts of cancer the justice never failed to show up at the court, raising questions, was the procedure more serious than previously disclosed? what is her condition? nbc justice correspondent pete williams at the court today. what more can we add to this? >> reporter: nothing, andrea, to indicate that the surgery or

diagnosis was more serious than disclosed. as a matter of fact, at the time that justice ginsburg had her surgery on december 21st doctors saying the normal recovery time is four to six weeks and she's 86 and the recovery time is longer. you're right. she's made a point of never missing a day of oral argument when she was physically able to be here. the only time she's missed it is if she was recused from a case, but never for health reasons. she had her surgery on the 21st and released from the hospital on christmas day. she's been recovering from home and the court and the chief justice both said today that she will participate in the cases that are being argued this week. she will do so by reading the legal briefs and by reading the transcript of the oral arguments something other justices have done when they've not been able to physically be present in the court. so she'll still be voting on these cases. there will be six cases argued this week. i'm not clear if she'll be back

tomorrow or wednesday. this is the first day the court was back in session since its holiday break and more to the point, since her surgery on december 21st and of course, doctors found these cancerous lumps on her lung and removed a portion of one of her lung. they were actually detected when she went in after breaking three of her ribs when she fell here at the court on november 7th. that's when these lumps were detected and that's why the surgery was ordered. so she'll continue to recuperate and it's just not clear yet when she'll come back, andrea. >> we all know she has a prodigious work schedule working well into the wee hours of the morning going after these briefs. we know she works from home. >> we fknow from katie tur that she was reading on the plane on the way up to have her surgery. >> pete williams, thanks so much. thanks for that update. of course, the high-profile ruth bader ginsburg, and coming up,

first in the nation, iowans pack the house for elizabeth warren's first swing to the hawk eye state. who is heading there next? you'll find out on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. andra mitchell reports" on msnbc by rootmetrics and j.d. power. buy the latest galaxy phones, get galaxy s9 free. at humana, we believe great things are ahead of you when you start with healthy. and part of staying healthy means choosing the right medicare plan. humana can help. with original medicare, you're covered for hospital stays and doctor office visits when you're sick. but keep in mind you'll have to pay a deductible for each. a medicare supplement plan can cover your deductibles and co-insurance, but you may pay higher premiums than you do with other plans. and prescription drug coverage isn't included. but, with an all-in-one humana medicare advantage plan, you could get all that coverage plus part d prescription drug benefits. you get all this coverage for as low as a zero dollar monthly plan premium in

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we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. what are you thinking for 2020? >> never too early. it's always a good time to get a jump-start. i'm pretty excited and i like how we're stirring the buzz. i think it's really important

for a lot of the young voters, you know? the political process never seems to stop anymore. good and bad, but i'm glad to know that people are anxious about change and looking forward to hopefully what can go better. >> nbc's ally, where voters are gearing up and it's a year before the caucuses in the first week of february 2020. over the weekend senator elizabeth warren opening her presidential bid, energizing voters ahead of what is likely to be a long and crowded primary marked by ideological and generational divisions among democrats. joining me now is anita dunn under president obama and mike menly just back from iowa. you were covering warren. >> got off the plane two hours ago and came straight to the set. >> tell us about the vibe in iowa. people according to everything i've been reading, your posts as

well and your reporting. people are energized and excited. democrats want to get under way. they're not sick and tired of politics in iowa. one of the things we asked voters, is it too early to be talking about 2020 and to be coming to a campaign event. no. they're wanting to talk about who say better candidate to take on donald trump and there is a real urgency. i have to say in a debut weekend for senator warren, she had five events and drew nearly 3,000 people over the course of those events. this was not the first trip. it didn't feel like that. you can't underestimate by how much she benefited by having a campaign in 2018. they took selfies with people after the, vent and taking questions from reporters after every event and a real infrastructure in place that almost felt like the general election campaign. >> i was covering her when she campaigned for hillary clinton and there was office there and whether she would be on the

ticket and internal rivalries and she did not stop and talk to reporters and she was deliberately not trying to overshadow hillary clinton. it seems leak she's really gone out and doing her own thing, but partly trying to fix the mistakes early on. the dna issue and the whole -- her whole response to pocahontas and the president deriding her claim of the native american background and this was a question asked not by a reporter and -- it was by a civilian. this is what happened. >> when i first ran for public office the first time was in 2012, and the republicans honed in on this part of my history, and thought they could make a lot of hay out of it. a lot of racial slurs and a lot of ugly stuff that went on, and so my decision was i was going to put it all out there. >> was it a mistake, though?

because it energized trump and him slashing away at her on twitter? >> andryea, the democratic nomination will not be decided by things that happened in the fall of 2018. i think it is very significant that senator warren got out with such a strong start and an open field that she's going have some company before long and maybe as early as tomorrow, but she came out very strong with a strong message because at the end of the day democrats are looking into trump and some sort of fundamental sort of, i think this person can do it. i think she had a strong start to her campaign. >> a generational and ideological divide. >> you're my favorite whisperer, and we've gone through this before with joe biden going through tragic times and making decisions and a very close ally, and john carper from delaware

saying to "the new york times" and to our friend jonathan martin. he is the best one at beating trump hands down and longtime friend and former colleague on a scale of one to 10, that's probably about a 12 for us. >> we heard from the vice president himself just a month ago. he said i think i am the most qualified democrat in the race and as long as he feels that way, that will weigh heavily on his decision and we just talked about this last week, andrea and he had the time over the holidays to have that conversation with the family and he's back now and we expect one more gut check among his top aides and family again, but the decision may very well be to wait. biden has perhaps some favorites in the field that he's watching and he wants to see how they stand up to the glare of the spotlight and that will be part of how he evaluates his decision because as i understand t the conversations he's having are less how he stacks up against other democrats in the field and whether he's comfortable who will take on donald trump and

whether he thinks there is a generational issue. >> you have these young members of congress, anita, who are firing up the democratic base. >> there is a generational issue on the democratic party and i think you heard it in iowa and you heard it from everyone, the democratic party wants to win and if vice president biden decides to join this race, he won't be running on his resume. he'll be running on three, four decades of fighting for the middle class and whether you want to talk about it, hollowing out and whether you want to talk about it shrinking and struggling, his record and his understanding of that basic middle class in america is what he will run on. so i think that generational issues will get decided ideological, but at the end of the day democrats want to win and they want the candidate who can take on trump around the core values this democratic party has and looking at great candidates out there.

>> you certainly got enough choice and it's going to be -- >> something for everyone. >> something for everyone, indeed. >> thank you very much. good to see you. >> thank you. coming up, days in court. kevin spacey pleading not guilty to groping a young man in a nantucket restaurant. a live report in a court, next on "andrea mitchell" on msnbc. ,t on "andrea mitchell" on msnbc. your brain changes as you get older. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. about medicare and supplemental insurance. medicare is great, but it doesn't cover everything - only about 80% of your part b medicare costs, which means you may have to pay for the rest. that's where medicare supplement insurance comes in:

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embattled actor kevin spacey appearing this morning in a nantucket courtroom where he was arraigned on a felony sexual assault charge. this stems from an alleged incident with an 18-year-old man who accused the oscar-winning actor of groping him in a bar in 2016. spacey's court appearance comes more than a year after he was fired from his starring role in the netflix series "house of cards" due to previous sexual assault allegations. a spokesman said spacey was seeking treatment. spacey is pleading not guilty to today's criminal charge and if convicted he can face up to five years in prison. joining me is morgan radford, and the former u.s. attorney from the southern district of new york. >> morgan tell us what happened today and what are the

conditions the judge set? >> reporter: andry a we saw a flock of reporters here. all these people were waiting to see kevin spacey come in. his arraignment was at 11:00 a.m. and he came in slightly earlier and andrea, he was sitting there the entire time seemingly expressionless and the entire arraignment lasted three minutes and three things were accomplished. one, the judge ordered spacey not to have any contact with the accuser or the accuser's family and number two, there were some quibbling between the two lawyers over the preservation of data. kevin spacey's defense attorney wants to make sure that all of the data and electronic messaging that includes text messages and the alleged snapchat video are all preserved if in fact, this goes to trial because the defense attorney for kevin spacey said that that evidence would be likely exculpatory for his clients and he thinks it will help spacey and third and finally, we saw a date set for march and the judge said kevin spacey does not have to come back for the pre-trial

hearing in march which is interesting, andrea, because the judge had ordered him to come today. he'd asked the judge to allow him to skip today's arraignment so he didn't have to come citing the negative press around the case and the judge said he did have to show up on january 7th, but interestingly, he does not have to show up in march and finally, andrea, i have to say this is someone who has been watching this thing play out, the fact that he had no expression on his face i thought was interesting, notable and telling because this is a very different kevin spacey than we saw who was holed up in baltimore and been playing to the cameras and delivered pizza to the paparazzi and also dropped that bizarre video on twitter just around christmas where he effectively said he wasn't going to go down for charges that weren't his. he seems to be talking in these meta reasons and meta ways around the charges and does not directly address them and when given the opportunity today didn't say anything, andrea. >> in fact, as someone who has watched so many of these trials and participated in so many

trial, presumably he was advised by his defense lawyer to keep quiet. >> absolutely. that's the best thing he could have done for himself right now is act appropriately, act expressionless, not be the kevin spacey that he has been playing to the camera and to the public and this is a reminder of someone to those of us who have worked in the courts for so long know and the public, i think is learning more and more through these high-profile trials and cases is that when you're in court in front of a judge, it's a whole different world. there are rules, evidence, there's decorum and judges, for the most part whether it be state or federal judges are just not going to take the kind of shenanigans that i think many people in power including wealthy actors like kevin spacey are used to enjoying and they're just in a different universe and they have to play by the rules.

>> let's play a little bit of the very strange sort of "house of cards," he was in the character of "house of cards," of course, in that video that he released. >> despite all of the poppycock and the animosity and the headlines, the impeachment without a trial, despite everything, despite even my own death, i feel surprisingly good, and my confidence grows each day that soon enough you will know the full truth. wait a minute. now that i think of it you never actually saw me die, did you? >> very strange. morgan, was there also some audio released from the deposition which would indicate that a snapchat video sent by the young man to his girlfriend

after this alleged sex assault took place denied there was video of the alleged assault taking place, correct? >> we're not entirely sure, andrea, because remember, it was not only of what was said in the snapchat and just to remind our audience why we're here back in july of 2016. it's alleged that kevin spacey groped a young man who was a busboy. he was 18 years old and according to a criminal complaint he had his hands down the pants of this young boy for three minutes and that young boy was shaken up and went to his grandmother's house and tried to run for safety and he was bothered by that and during the assault he allegedly sent a snapchat to his girlfriend because he was so shaken up by the incident and it's more of the details that we're trying to understand in respect to the charges levied against mr. spacey, andrea. >> indeed.

thank you very much. we'll be right back -- in fact, the white house national security adviser john bolton had to say seemingly contradicting his boss. cara lee traveling in turkey joins us next right here. t righe has 20 grams of protein, along with 26 essential vitamins and minerals. boost® high protein. be up for life.

we hava i brief update now on one of robert mueller's cases in court. an ongoing feud between a

company owned by a putin ally or a kremlin operation accused of meddling in the 2016 election. what happened in court today? >> so, andrea, this has been an ongoing fight and it's a battle over discovery and a fire wall counsel to take a 20-minute explanation and to basically blow it down. you have an attorney who represents concord management, a company owned by putin's chef has been battling it out with the special counsel's office and been asking for a judge to get more discovery and get more evidence against concord management and one of the companies that you mentioned was involved in the 2016 effort of meddling in the u.s. election. that's what they've been accused of. mueller's team has battled back saying we have serious reasons why information should not be shared with the person called putin's chef. it's taken a turn for the

bizarre, you have eric talking about a nude selfie that was apparently uncovered by mueller's team as part of the evidence-gathering process and he quoted a very vulgar line from "animal house" which i cannot say on air. >> please don't. >> basically, andrea, saying you have to knock it off. you are undermining your defense and basically calling an end to things she's been reading about in the filings. >> thank you very much, tom winter, an unprecedentedly high-profile damage control mission is in turkey, and john bolton, taking the press and saying that the u.s. will not withdraw troops from syria until erdogan promises not to attack american allies in the fight, syrian kurds. it is an open question and the president now saying he never talked about an immediate withdrawal. >> we are pulling back in syria. we're going to be removing our

troops. i never said we're doing it that quickly, but we're decimating isis. >> but on december 19th, you may recall the president tweeted that he was withdrawing in weeks from syria, leading the next day to the resignation in protest by his defense secretary james mattis. joining me from ankara turkey, tara lee and the white house correspondent for the washington post and the pentagon and state department correspondent, as well. carol, this is an extraordinary trip. i know we have a bit of a satellite delay, but tell us why bolton thinks that we can count on erdogan to live up to its promises and how is bolton trying to say that the president is not going to withdraw and never said he would withdraw quickly when we all know he did? >> well, andryea, those are gret

questions and he's essentially taking the president's directives and explaining it to our allies and trying to clarify exactly what he meant. obviously, there's been some significant changes in from what the president said on december 19th until this place we are now in terms of not just the fact that they're keeping the u.s. troops in northern syria until president erdogan would agree that he would go in and attack the kurds until the u.s. left, but they're talking about keeping troops in southern syria, and it would not be the complete withdrawal that president trump had initially promised. what we've seen so far is that bolton was in israel trying to reassure the israelis that this wasn't going to up end the counter iran strategy and now he's in turkey where he will face a much tougher audience in president erdogan because he has dug in for years on the issue with the kurds with the u.s.

administrations and shows no signs of changing that, and it is unclear exactly what the u.s.' leverage here and bolton is expected to go into meetings tomorrow and try to figure out if they can come to some sort of jeel and the joint chiefs dunford will try to get them to a place where the u.s. can eventually withdraw because now they've played down the line that they're not going to withdraw unless they can come to some sort of agreement. >> this is the something that the president announced without confirming or fully explaining to his defense secretary and the secretary of state and the national security and there was disagreement and he tried to talk him out of it and he went ahead, precipitating the most significant resignation from this cabinet, upsetting allies all over europe and israel and now bolton is on this damage control mission, and it's kind of bizarre because news they're saying he never meant it. he never said it.

>> saying that the president never said something he said is not a great place to start in terms of leverage and to carol's point, bolton now will try to go in and negotiate some kind of an agreement with erdogan to not do the thing that american forces were there in northern syria in part to prevent which is, you know, as pompeo rather memorably said last week, a massacre of the kurds and just asking erdogan, hey, you know, pretty please, can you make sure that you don't do anything to harm our allies here without being able to offer erdogan a great deal that he wants if he's not going to get the thing the president promised him on december 14th which is that we were going to leave which is more than erdogan thought he would get and what he would like to expect now. >> we know john bolton was listening in on that phone call

and the phone call was because pompeo was afraid that the president was leading to withdrawal. if they keep the troops and he's keeping troops not where the isis fighters are, but where they want to fight against iran and that is a completely different mission and not what the president is claiming. >> and that was said apparently to reassure israel. he said it in jerusalem that we would keep a residual force in the southern part of the country, the jordanian border to make sure that they're keeping an eye on isis fighters through that area from iran or with iran's backing, and that's the thing that israel has been most concerned about and was horrified to hear that the president says that the u.s. troops will be withdrawn, because it sees the u.s. president there as a sign and symbolic, but important that the

united states feels the way thee does and netanyahu does that iran is making a move in syria and it threatens them. >> carol lee, as they continue this trip, he will stay behind to try to make things work and the military is uncompletely unprepared and they're getting rid of isis, this could take not just weeks and months. this could take a long time, far longer than the president had imagined. >> reporter: yeah, andrea, and they're sort of conceding that at this point saying that, another thing that they've said in the past several days is that the president said that the tushgs were going to come in and finish the job against isis in syria and now they're saying no, the u.s. will do that on its way out. there are various estimations of how long that could take and some say it's just a matter of weeks and even once they get to

that point, there's a whole other set of things that need to happen in order to bring the estimated 2,000 troops out of syria home and particularly as we were talking about earlier, the president's going to demand that president erdogan take a step that he is not willing to take for not just this administration, but the previous one. >> carol lee, thanks so much. thanks for your travels and your reporting here from washington. >> coming up, the impact on unpaid federal workers responding to the president's claims that they make adjustments to their finances to make ends meet. that's ahead. stay with us on msnbc.

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nbc's vaughn hillyard spoke to furloughed worker jeremiah martinez who said he's worried about putting food on the table for his family during the government shutdown. >> it's also not just an impact to the family because they see that their dad can't go to work. but they eat and it's hard to say it, it really is. it's a big impact. excuse me.

the feeling of uncertainty is hard. >> why is it hard? >> because you have to be strong for your kids. >> there are real people out there, vaughn. for this inside scoop with nbc's vaughn hillyard, let me introduce jeff mason for reuters who was talking to the president on the south grounds and bill crystal defending democracy together. vaughn, first to you. what jeff heard the president say yesterday is that he can relate to the plight of these workers. how is he relating to jeremiah martinez's plight? >> reporter: exactly, andrea. there are two points, two take aways i want to relay to you. one, over the course of last week we heard from federal workers is a desire for the deal

to be made between the democrats and white house. the supporters. to note yesterday the president's remarks saying they could, quote, make arrangements. that's where you heard jeremiah get emotional. the president in the same breath on friday said this could go object for months. we he have gerry my a. he applied for unemployment friday. it comes down to groceries, propane, it's cold in colorado, andrea. you have another worker, the likes of gerard, he represents the union. he's 60 years old. he said he's having a hard time with his younger workers coming to him asking, how do we cover things like crowns? they have several hundred dollars. and the other point i want to make with that, andrea, here, is when they're ultimately having that conversation, it comes down to the fact, andrea, that they don't know where this is going and what that impact is going to be, andrea. >> they're not alone. there are 800,000 who, some getting paid, some not getting paid.

some furloughed, some not. but, jeff mason, you were there with the president. there is a disconnect here. >> yeah. i mean, i think he was asked that question by our colleague kelly o'donnell. and his response was, yes, i can relate and i'm sure that the people who are on the receiving end will make adjustments. but what a justments are those if you don't get a paycheck and you have a mortgage to pay, you have to pay to get food on the table for your kids? it's heart breaking to see the people who are affected. as you rightly said, these are real people who are, you know, suffering the consequences of a political stalemate in washington. >> vaughn said mr. martinez hopes the house democrats and president trump can come to an agreement. there is a third-party here. the united states senate is part of our government, too. it is controlled by the republicans. mr. martinez has a republican senator in colorado, cory gardener. they have a say, too. i think trump is not interested in -- at some point maybe the pressure will get to him. for now he's happy to play to

his base, a shrinking base. nonetheless, a base on the wall. the house democrats are going to pass the appropriations bills. what about the republican senators? i really do think they are going to come under increasing pressure and be increasingly reminded they're not supposed to go there and duck out of the whole discussion, or rubber stamp whatever donald trump wants. the democrats, the house -- the house is going to pass these appropriations bills one by one. what is mitch mcconnell's position, we're not taking them up? they are kind of an equal part of the legislature and the legislature is an equal part of the government. aren't they supposed to give us a sense -- aren't they supposed to do something? >> bill crystal, you tweeted this weekend, i once worked for a republican president. he met with congress and staff. that was a most bizarre weekend -- >> you two have seen this, too. if you've been in the white house for something, maybe these rules are protocol, old-fashioned, the world will leave them all behind. it used to be the vice-president met with senators and congressmen and women. people like me, staffers met with other staffers. it was kind of amazing that

nancy pelosi, and also mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer, kevin mccarthy met with the vice-president, omb, him staffers. with all due respect to hill staffers, some of my best friends are hill staffers. >> that's the way it was set up. jeff, your reporting, they wanted him to be seen doing something. >> and add fog that, the president, when we were talking to him on the south lawn said, yes, i'm very involved, but only with the principals. so that sort of suggests that he doesn't see -- in this case didn't see the vice-president as one of the principals. >> jeff mason, thank you. bill crystal and, of course, vaughn hillyard in colorado. chilly colorado. we'll be right back. l be right . you should be mad your neighbor always wants to hang out. and you should be mad your smart fridge is unnecessarily complicated. but you're not mad, because you have e*trade which isn't complicated. their tools make trading quicker and simpler.

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but what's the fun in that? switch to cvs pharmacy. and follow me at mitchell reports. here here's ali velshi and stephanie ruhle. >> i'm ali velshi. >> and i'm stephanie ruhle. it is monday, january 7. let's get smarter. >> i may declare a national emergency dependent what's going to happen over the next few days. i think we're going to have some very serious talks come monday, tuesday, wednesday. schumer and nancy pelosi and myself can solve this in 20 minutes if they want to. if they don't want to, it's going to go on for a long time. there's not going to be any bend right here. >> they don't like concrete so we'll give them steel. steel is fine.