i know the line. of course, they don't. that could be one end of the spectrum. the other one is full-blown knowledge you are being carried as a source or asset operationally by foreign intelligence service. >> thank you at the last minute for joining us. the rachel maddow starts with joy reid in for rachel. >> rachel has the night off. she'll be back on monday. we'll begin tonight with the breaking news from "the new york times." here is the headline again, fbi opened inquiry into whether trump was secretory working on behalf of russia. quote, in the days after president trump fired james b. com comey, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president's behavior, they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of russia

against american interest. that's according to former officials. the story. co-- continues. counter intelligence incest g investigatiors had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. agents sought to determine whether mr. trump was knowingly working for russia or fallen under moscow's agents. fbi officials became suspicious with ties to russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation because they were uncertain how to proceed with such sensitivity and magnitude. the president's activities before and after mr. comey's firing in may of 2017, particularly two instances in which mr. trump tied the comey

dismissal to the russia investigation. helped prompt the counter intelligence as speblpect of th inquiry. one of these instances was a letter written by trump with the help of steven miller in the days before he fired comey outlining his reasons for doing so. the existence of that letter was previously reported by "the times" which noted then white house counsel don mcgahn intervened and stopped it from being sent. the second instance was this interview that the president did with lester holt two days after he fired comey in which he d discussed his reasoning for doing so. >> there is no good time to do it, by the way. >> because in your letter, you said i accepted their recommendation, so you had already made the decision. >> i was going to fire regardless of recommendation. he made a recommendation, he's highly respected, very good guy, very smart guy. the republicans like him, the

democrats like him. regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey knowing there was no good time to do it and in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story. >> when i decided to just do it i said to myself, i said, you know, this is a made up story. this bombshell report reporting law enforcement officials were so concerned by the president's behavior after he pyfired comey they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of russia against american interests. "the times" say this was a controversial decision, that it's not clear if the investigation continues, but that special counsel robert mueller did it, took it over when he was appointed in may. as "the times" reports, the criminal and counter

intelligence elements were coupled together into one investigation, former law enforcement officials said in interviews in recent weeks because if mr. trump ousted the head of the fbi to impede or even end the russia investigation, that was both the possible crime and national security concern. "the times" tonight reports getting access to the testimony of the top lawyer at the fbi at the time, fbi general counsel james baker. and then from mr. baker's house testimony, quote, not only would it have been issue of obstruction, it would hurt our about tility to figure out what russians had done and that's a threat to national security. in his testimony, portions were read to the "new york times." what a story. joining us now is michael schmidt. part of the three-person team breaking the story.

>> thanks for having me. >> give us a background. how lodng have you been working on it? >> in many ways for a year and a half because since mueller was appointed and comey fired, we've been trying to understand what the fbi and the justice department have been examining on the president. for much of that time, that means we focused on criminal obstruction. that sort of is the collective consequence, the public's understanding to this. there is a criminal obstruction investigation into the president but what we're bringing forth tonight, what we learned is that there was also this counter intelligence aspect of that investigation where they were looking directly at the president's ties to russia. what initially began here as what we all thought was just an obstruction investigation was much bigger and had larger national security issues and concerns to it because the folks at the fbi at the time saw this as a potential growth of russia's larger ma er meddling

the country, the general counsel at the time jim baker testifying on capitol hill, the firing of comey as the national security threat because it could be a way of trying to impede the fbi's ability to understand how russia meddled in the election, interfered in the election and help get donald trump elected. >> for many people that hear this story, it's a bombshell and congratulations on the scoop, the fbi seemed to have been the more of the agencies investigating during the 2016 campaign. they very famously essentially downplayed the idea and didn't even mention the fact that the donald trump campaign was under investigation during the campaign. is it your reporting that at some point after donald trump was elected, they came to see a national security threat inside the white house that they didn't see during the campaign?

>> i'm not sure if that notion is accurate. what is going on at the fbi in the months before the election is they had four trump associates under investigation looking at them. it was a counter intelligence investigation. they weren't sure what the real links were back to russia, what the real there was and they were not going to go public with that investigation. the problem the fbi runs into is that is seen with a backdrop of the clinton e-mail investigate, which they handled differently so they get accused of treating them differently proceeding with the counter intelligence investigation to figure out how much was there. they knew the decision to open an investigation into a candidate or into a president himself, trump, would have been an enormous deal and they needed to meet a particular threshold to do that. after the comey firing, they thought they had enough to do that, to move forward with that monumental decision, regardless of what comes out of the mueller

investigation, it is a historic moment that the fbi opened an investigation into whether the president of the united states was colluding with a foreign power, just in and of itself. >> that's extraordinarily as is two things in your reporting are the things that caused the fbi to really relax their reservations and go forward. two things that donald trump himself did, that the president of the united states did, talk a little bit about this first thing, which is the letter and this is the letter donald trump wanted to send to jim comey, sort of an exit letter to him. can you talk more about that? >> the weekend before comey fires, trump goes to his golf club in bedminster, new jersey, he's there with his kids and steven miller, his close aid and trump decides he's going to fire comey and he and kushner and miller coal up wi eer come up w trump will send to comey. trump goes back to washington and says i'm firing the fbi director and gives him the letter.

don mcgahn looks at it and says this is not a good idea to be sending. trump has references to the russia investigation and mcgahn thinks it's problematic. what happens in two days that follows is mcgahn has rod rosenstein and jeff sessions and attorney general at the time come over to the white house and rosenstein agrees to write a letter for the president. i'll come up with a letter for you. you don't need to mention russia. the letter from rosenstein comes back the following day. it says comey mishandled the clinton e-mail investigation and sort of a different reason than trump wanting -- why trump wants to get rid of comey and that is the letter that is sent but trump was irritated with ro rosenstein for not mentioning russia. trump ultimately when he sends his letter to comey says dear mr. comey, thank you for telling me three times i was not under investigation in the russia inquiry and what happens is the fbi finds out about that in the following days and perplexed why is it trump wanted to mention

russia in the letter? was it that was really driving that? the second thing is you were pointing out earlier were his comments to lester holt where he appears to say russia was on his mind when he fired comey. >> you have in here, it is extraordinary what we've been talking about in the obstruction of justice inquiry generally up to now has been about the firing of comey as a way to obstruct the fbi's investigation more broadly but the fbi came to see the potential obstruction in and of itself a national security concern. >> collect. that is the testimony that was given last year by the fbi general counsel at the time. he's basically saying look, there was this very important national security investigation that was going on, and to the and te extent trying to get rid of comey was trying to end the investigation, that could have national security were cases in and of its sell. that would hurt our ability to get to the bottom of this and figure out what did the russians do in trying to prevent it from

happening again and that was the broader national security concern. the interesting thing is we think of obstruction of justice as something that happens in the criminal context where someone is interfering with the witness or lying to investigators in a criminal investigation that's looking at one or several individuals. the difference here is that the potential obstruction could have been on a national security investigation, one that impacted the entire country. this is not just on a bank robbery. this is not just on a regular, you though, crime they were looking at. this was the attack on the election. >> absolutely. another piece at the end of the piece that's an extraordinary thing, a lot of us remember the oval office meeting donald trump inviting russian officials in after he fired mr. comey and that, too, became part of this inquiry. >> correct. they don't learn about that meeting until after it's disclosed sometime later. that is right after trump fires comey, he has the russian foreign minister and the russian

al ba ambassador into the oval office and says he relief aid lot of pressure on him in relation to the russia investigation and calls comey a nutjob and when this comes out, it further unnerves the fbi agents saying why did he have these foreign adversaries into the oval office? why would he be so willing to do this and tell them by firing comey, he alleviated pressure on himself. >> michael schmidt, one of three that broke this story tonight. congratulations, appreciate your time tonight. thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> responses are pouring in from this breaking news. we got this moments ago from sarah sanders. quote, this is absurd, she says, james comey was fired because he's a disgraced partisan hack and his deputy andrew mccabe in charge of the time is a known liar fired by the fbi unlike

president obama who let russia and other foreign adversaries push america around, president trump has actually been tough on trump. joining us is barbara mcquaid. thank you for joining us. that response from the white house does not address any of this, oddly enough. there a lot offed ed homonyms i. what stands out the most important thing from the standpoint of what robert mueller is looking into? >> the fbi does not open counter intelligence cases lightly and most certainly wouldn't open a case against the president of the united states lightly whatsoever. it would have been reviewed at the highest levels and handled very sensitively. the fact it was open is really pretty astonishing to me. you may remember that president trump repeatedly asked jim comey to make public the fact that he was not under investigation. i'm under a cloud. you need to say this publicly.

what jim comey said is i didn't want to make that assurance because if that changed, i would feel obligated to say so to the public. for a long time, he wasn't under investigation and that fact did not surprise me because it would be an extraordinary thing to name the president as the target of an investigation but to hear it was in fact the case makes me think not only was it based on things we know but that there must be other facts that we don't know that would have been the predication for opening that investigation. >> and i think that you've nailed it. i did ask about this and he said it's not quite true that the fbi was not looking aggressively at the campaign before but there was, you know, before the campaign, before the campaign was over, the fbi seemed to be the more kcautious agency. what triggers the fbi, their suspicions existed during the 2016 campaign as michael schmidt reported. there was concern about ties to

russia. what ties suspicions is donald trump, two things he does, a letter he writes to insist on including russia as part of the firing jim comey and the interview with lester holt. how extraordinary is that it's donald trump's own words essentially that caused the suspicions to increase? >> they were very reluctant to open the investigation and consider him to be a target of the investigation because there is concern that the government will be perceived in a way that is partisan and they want to do everything they can to stibck t facts and law and not be anyone's puppet in terms of being used for a political gain. at some point, you can't deny facts and the fbi has a responsibility to investigate something that's a threat to national security. the statements to lester holt, the letter and statement to the russians about the great relief, pressure being relieved once jim

comey was fired, probably stared them in the face and made them believe that they could not ignore those facts any longer but actually had a responsibility to protect the national security of the united states by investigating this fully. >> i think a lot of people have come to see the obstruction of justice inquiry and the inquiry as two parallel but distinct things. in your mind now, should we think about the obstruction of justice probe in light of what we're learning now as being really part and parcel that that, too, is a counter intelligence investigation? >> yeah, i think so. you know, i think that at least in the early stages of this, i thought president trump was seeking to protect mike flynn and maybe some others in his family because the investigation was getting too close and so his golfs to stand down on that investigation but if instead that was part of the counter

intelligence, trade craft, trying to throw the fbi off the scent might have been a very part of that threat to the national security and so i think they are more intertwined than before and post 9/11, the goal is to bring down the wall between criminal investigations and counter intelligence or terriceorisicorism investigatio. they no longer thing of it in black and white and some commentators like rudy giuliani and others talk about the wall and separation but in the modern era, that wall is gone and those investigations are intertwined so i think they see one big investigation rather than two separate investigations. >> you saw the response from the white house. but this inquiry, what is different is there is nobody else. this is not about paul manafort and no connection to anyone else. this is just donald trump, just his words and the letters he

wrote and interviews he gave. how much jeopardy is the president of the united states in tonight? >> well, again, it depends how these facts play out i don't know a lot changed but the one thing this raises is the fact that i think they are likely additional facts unknown to the public that cause the fbi to open the counter intelligence investigation into president trump for that reason i think that maybe the level of his jeopardy has gone up a notch. >> i don't think i ever heard the words associated with the president of the united states a major law enforcement agency is investigating with the president of the united states, working on behalf of russia against american interests. that's an extraordinary sentence to have associated with an american president. barbara mcquaid, thank you so much for your time tonight. >> thank you, joy. >> much more to come on this breaking story. in a moment, we'll talk live with one of the top members of the house intelligence

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story once again. quote, in the days after president trump fired james b. comey as fbi director, law enforce the officials became so concerned by the president's behavior they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of russia against american interests. according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation. that is a counter intelligence investigation opened by the fbi into whether the president himself was basically a russian asset. according to "the times" the question of whether the president of the united states obstructed justice by firing james comey was itself seen as national security concern, not just as a criminal matter. quote, if the president had fired mr. comey to stop the russia investigation, the action would have been a national security issue because it naturally would have you are the h the bu burro's effort to learn how moscow interfered in the 2016

election and whether any americans were involved according to james a. baker that served as general counsel until late 2017. quote, he privately testified in october before house investigators who were examining the fbi's handling of the full russia inquiry. that testimony has not been publicly released but in a portion of it read to "the times" james baker said quote not only would it be an issue of obstruction of the investigation, the obstruction would hurt our ability to figure out what the russians had done and that is what would be the threat to national security. joining us now is congressman jim heinz. so great to have you here tonight. >> good evening, joy. >> your reaction first to this reporting. >> well, it's extraordinary. i mean, this is one of those historical moments where, you know, we've been so accustomed

to 20 weeks of headlines in one day that we learned the fbi opened a counter intelligence investigation. i'm not hugely surprised and remember that day and this icy feeling of oh my god, this is how really awful stuff starts but remember the reason i'm not entirely surprised is what we've come to learn over the period of a year, year and a half rs the fbi would have known about a lot of that stuff, what do i mean? the don junior meeting where don junior is like give me dirt on clinic to to russians. the fact that paul manafort, that michael cohen that papadopoulos and michael flynn all lied, all lied about contacts with russia, that acolding to preacold ing -- according to press reports, they asked to set up private communication lines. some of that stuff, maybe all of

that stuff, the fbi knew when the president of the united states fired jim comey to take the pressure of the russia investigation off him and by the way, there may be stuff they knew and still know that we know nothing about. add that together as massively consequence as this fact is, it's not terribly surprising. >> a lot of this testimony or story hinges on the private testimony of james baker, the fbi general counsel he gave to house oversight. have you seen that testimony or is that testimony that you expect your committee to get hold of? >> i have not as a member of the intelligence committee seen that testimony. it was other committees in the congress. you know, i think we're still at a point, joy, where the answer is all the more important given what we learned from "the new york times", the answer here is

that we need both to preserve the mueller investigation and to make sure that every aspect of the mueller investigation becomes public, whatever is in there, if it exonerates the president or indicts the president, it needs to be made public. if you step away from your feelings about donald trump, a federal police force deciding to investigate the president of the united states, if you're on the left you say of course, donald trump deserves it and that's where the evidence lies but if you're part of the 30% of the american population that still believes the president, that this is a big witch hunt, you think of course, it's a deep state. the fbi and department of justice have run amuck. every aspect of the mueller investigation and everything that will be well-documented dell rati deliberations around the fbi for the purpose of the stability of our political system, the public is going to need and history is going to need to be able to

scrutinize and understand the decisions that were made. >> we know that the house intelligence committee is a different committee than run by republicans. can you see your way clear to talking to key people mentioned in the reporting privy to one of the two things that caused the fbi to ratchet up the inquiry. don mcgahn and rod rosenstein whose on his way out as deputy attorney general. >> of course we will and all of the house committees over sight judiciary, we're all way behind the mueller investigation because of course, under republican control, the intelligence committee on which i served, under the chairmenship of devin nunes became the defense attorney for the president of the united states. we're way behind with an investigation cut short in which

we didn't follow up on testimony. so i think, joy, the steps will be let's watch what mueller comes out with. mueller is focused on whether there is criminal activity. it's the role of the congress to look at criminal activity but to get the broader and bigger picture, what in fact was russia doing? are the flaws in our system that allow for a campaign to have multiple contacts with russia? why did they lie about it? we're behind but of course the house is under a democratic majority, it will for the first time start acting as a responsible check and balance on this out of control president and as we saw from sarah standards statement today, attacking barack obama of all things on this night, an out of control and unhinged white house. >> quite a response. i have to ask you and i understand it's important to determine what russia did to our election, a lot of americans

care deeply about that but there is never in my memory, i'm paying attention to politics for a long time, been a sentence like this written about an american president that a major law enforcement, the fbi seeing if the president was working with russia. there are a lot of americans there want to know whether or not in your view, sir, this constitutes grounds for an impeachment. this is a serious allegation to be investigated at this serious level. should there be an inquiry into whether or not these constitute high crimes and misdemeanors? >> joy, again, we got to wait for the facts to emerge. we can't make judgments based on articles in the new york times. what you said is true. just the fact of what we know happened happened is beyond extraordinary. that's the world we live in. i'm expecting a decoloration, of a national emergency around a

fake crisis that doesn't exist. with emergency powers, the president can do remarkable things. we're in a very different world. you ask about impeachment. here is my fear. the constitution of the united states provides for cases where the president committed high crimes and misdemeanors. americans need to grapple with i'm not sure given today's politics and the extent the president did everything he can and his people by the way and supporters in the congress of the united states, having done everything they can to delegitimize mueller and department of justice, i fear there may not be anything, anything that mueller could report that would cause enough republican senators to decide the president should be i'm peached and that is along with everything else we're talking about tonight a truly scary thought. >> indeed. as we go, i have to ask you,

from what you've known as of now, what you've learned about the president of the united states so far, do you trust donald trump with the national security of the united states? >> i absolutely do not. you know, i don't even know where to begin, right? you know, the national security of the united states has an awful lot to do with competent foreign policy. the president of the united states tweeted out we were taking everybody, all of our troops out of syria in 30 days. the secretary of state and national security advisor are saying something completely different. we don't have a foreign policy at this point consistent out of the white house. this president over the last two years demonstrated he has one concern and one concern only and that is how much of a big man he is and how respected and how much he wins as a person. it has nothing to do with the safety of the country and has nothing to do with the national security of the united states. it has to do whether he goes to bed that night feeling like he

won over crying chuck or nancy pelosi or what the networks are saying on tv. >> jim, a member of the house intelligence committee. thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you, joy. >> thank you. much more to come tonight. in a moment, we'll talk with the former assistant director of the fbi's counter intelligence division. and in a few hours, the shutdown will be the longest one in history. officially. we'll talk with a brand-new member of congress, so much to get to. stay with us. congress, so much o get to stay with us cial about insurance. but let's be honest. nobody likes dealing with insurance. see, esurance knows it's confusing. i literally have no idea what i'm getting. i don't know either. i'm just the spokesperson. but that's why they're making it simple - so that even actors, like us, can understand it. i'm not an actor. i'd love to tell you more but i only have thirty seconds. so here's a dramatic shot of their tagline so you'll remember it. when insurance is simple, it's surprisingly painless.

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we are about to get expert help painting a devastating picture of the eight days between when donald trump fired james comey in the appointment of robert mueller. that time included the fbi deciding to open a counter intelligence investigation into donald trump himself, to determine whether the president of the united states was secretly working on behalf of russia. quote, the decision to investigate mr. trump himself was an aggressive move by fbi officials who were confronting the chaotic aftermath of the firing of mr. comey and enduring the president's verbal assaults on the russia investigation as a witch hunt. quote, a debate was taking shape among a former law enforcement official outside the case over whether fbi investigators overreacted in opening the counter intelligence inquiry

during a period at the justice department. joining us now is frank, nbc contributor, national security contributor and assistant director of the counter intelligence deputy. frank, thank you for being here. >> thank you, joy. >> what jumps out to you given what you've done for a living in this reporting? >> so there is a couple of take aways here which it's important to talk about when this reporting says and what it doesn't say. what it says, if accurate, is that the special counsel inquiry or what turned into the special counsel investigation was not necessarily just figuring out the degree to which the russians influence the campaign but rather now we're faced with a worst-case scenario we've been talking about, which is the possibility that the president had somehow been co-opted and was in the pocket of the russians. so let's understand what that

means. it means that the fbi had at minimum, a threshold to open reasonable suspicion as a threshold but it then went to a special counsel, which likely means it went to a full investigation that threshold is specific and arctticulate facts someone is or may be an agent of a foreign power and would not have been done in a vacuum. that would have gone across the street to the department of justice and we know the d.o.j. said you know what? we need a special counsel increase. we're seeing what the real origin of this was. it doesn't say that they proved it. it doesn't say that that aspect of the case is still running. and we don't know whether it was a p.i., preliminary inquiry or a full. there is unanswered questions but it's sobering to think maybe

if this reporting is right that donald j. trump, that name was in the header, in the subject title of a counter intelligence investigation. >> you know, frank, there are several instances of things donald trump has done that have really raised the alarms and put people's hair on fire about what he's doing and why. mouthing russian talking points on the invasion of afghanistan by the soviet union and performance in the dealing with vladimir putin in general, but in this reporting in the "new york times", they point out one thing that donald trump did that caused the fbi to feel more confident and validated in taking what was an extraordinary step as you said in opening this preliminary inquiry into the president of the united states and that was the visit by russian officials who were let into the oval office shortly after the firing of mr. comey in which donald trump, there is a picture of it there, where there were not americans in the room i

guess that were monitoring what was being said in which he supposedly told these men from russia i just fired the head of the fbi. he was crazy. a real nutjob. according to a document summarizing the meeting. i faced great pressure because of russia that's taken off. what do you make of that? does that make you rethink that oval office heatimeeting? >> i keep pointing out, this is so much more than we're seeing. i want the american people to know because they will hear from the white house that this is part of a deep state. this is part of an fbi out of control but i want american people to understand that the fbi is privy to all kinds of intelligence, highly classified intelligence and if you're going to open a case as "the new york times" reports on the president of the united states, you are going to have more than just

unstable behavior and public behavior. you're going to have something that givers you at least a reasonable suspicion, if not specific facts. what does that mean without getting into actual classified? it means they have got intercepted communications. it means they are privy to how these russians were talking about the president or to the president. so when we hear that a case was opened on the president, based on my 25 years of experience in having run the counter intelligence division, i'm telling you there is more than just the crazy public behavior to this. >> wow. frank, former assistant director of the fbi's counter intelligence division. thank you for making time to be here tonight. thank you. >> thank you, joy. >> thank you. what a friday night. much more to get to, much more to get to when we come back. to, much more to get to when we come back don't keep track of regrets. i never count the wrinkles. and i don't add up the years. but what i do count on, is staying happy and healthy.

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discover prime originals like the emmy-winning the marvelous mrs. maisel... tom clancy's jack ryan... and the man in the high castle. all in the same place as your live tv. its all included with your amazon prime membership. that's how xfinity makes tv... simple. easy. awesome. today is day 21 of the government shutdown. members of congress were at work this week, however. democrats have been using the time to pass bills that would reopen the government. one piece at a time. on the menu this afternoon was the department of the interior and epa. every democrat in attendance voted i along with ten republican colleagues. that bill is doomed in the senate because mitch mcconnell said he'll not hold a vote on any bill that the president will not sign, which is to say any bill without money for donald trump's wall. the house also passed a bill

today that guarantees federal workers will receiver back pay once the shutdown ends. that will go straight to the president's desk and he's expected to sign it. when that money will get paid, however, is anyone's guess because for that to happen, the shutdown would have to end. meanwhile, much of the work we count on government to do is being dialled back and left undone. tonight, the fda is curtailing food inspections. cleanups at federal super fund sites have been suspended. work at federal immigration courts has stopped, making already terrible backlogs worse. funding for the entire federal court system is about to run out. and the federal reserve may not be able to forecast the economy. here is a terrifying headline for you, airline safety is eroding as shutdown drags on. the miami airport is shutting down an entire terminal because they don't have enough agents to staff it. shutdown threatens national security, fbi agent group warns.

joining us is jennifer wexton. she represents the tenth congressional district, a state with lots and lots of federal workers. she's a brand-new member of congress having beaten a republican. thanks for being here tonight. >> thank you, joy. >> we've heard about the protests all over the country. people who are saying they can't afford to get to work and asking to sleep in the parking lot so they can come to work if they are essential employees. >> we're outside of washington d.c. and have tens of thousands of workers that entinterface wi them daily and i'm getting hundreds of e-mails, phone calls, social media out reach from constituents who are worried about how to make ends meet. i've heard from constituents that don't know if they can make the mortgage payment or pay their child care or looking into

taking out loans from their credit union or asking for forbefo for student loans. >> what are your constituents asking you to do? donald trump claims the constituents you're talking about want a wall, too, and that's what they want you to do. is that what they are asking? >> my constituents aren't in favor of the wall but want us to sit down and come to an agreement and get the government open again. they are tired of being used as pawns being as used as bargaining chips in a political battle that has nothing to do with their day to day lives and jobs. >> and would you under any circumstances be willing to vote for money for a wall we should add mexico was supposed to pay for to reopen the government? >> we in the democratic caucus, we have passed what we're republican bills to reopen the government, you know. we passed the big spending bill

and broke it down and decoupled each department in case there was any hope of getting them passed one at a time to reopen various parts of the govrt aern and these bills that combine -- contain over $1 billion for border security, for smart border security, things like fencing in some areas, for things like sensors, for making sure that we have the right number of customs and border protection agents and things that are actually going to help stop contraband from coming into this country. >> speaker pelosi said, though, not any money for the wall, not any money for even beaded curtains. do you agree with her? >> well, you know, we need to be smart on border security. the people of the tenth district sent me here not just to represent them but also to spend the money wisely, their tax dollars. and spending billions of dollars on a wall that's not going to solve a problem is not a good use of our funds. so there are many other things that we can do that everybody

agrees are a much better way to stop contraband and illegal immigration from coming into our country, and i'd rather that we -- that we focus on those solutions, rather than giving in to donald trump's temper tantrum. >> re-donald trump hasn't exactly shown a lot of compassion towards the people who are really suffering and starting to suffer now that they're missing paychecks. what do you make of this guidance to federal workers that they should become dog walkers and personal shoppers and sell their belongings at a garage sale? >> you know, i have constituents who are doing just that. i mean, they shouldn't have to. some of whom are working every day to make ends meet. you know, i had a constituent who went to a restaurant to talk to the manager about getting a job waiting tables and was told, i'm not going to hire you because you'll be leaving in a few weeks. it's not like people can just get a job in retail or waiting tables or something like that to make ends meet, but a lot of these folks are security

professionals, you know, they are professionals in the federal government who took their jobs because they believe in the missions of the agencies that they serve and they deserve so much better than this and we need to give them better than this. >> yeah, indeed. congresswoman jennifer wexton of virginia, thank you so much. appreciate your time tonight. >> thank you, joy. still ahead tonight, a very different member of congress and the reason he's becoming such a problem for the republican party. we'll be right back. m for the rn party. we'll be right back. ♪ [ telephone ringing ] -whoa. [ indistinct talking ] -deductible? -definitely speaking insurance. -additional interest on umbrella policy? -can you translate? -damage minimization of civil commotion. -when insurance needs translating, get answers in plain english at progressiveanswers.com. ♪ -he wants you to sign karen's birthday card. it's a high honor.

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for many, many years now steve king has been the unrestrained id of the republican party. the iowa congressman says demeaning things about immigrants. retweets white nationalists and neo nazi groups and is cheered on by them. including once tweeting "culture and demographicings are our destiny. we can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies." congressman king has for the most part gone unrebuked by his own party for all of this, even as he has moved from the fringe closer to his party's mainstream. but apparently now the gop has decided steve king is keeping it a little too real after he told "the new york times," "white nationalist, white supremacist, western civilization, how did that language become offensive? why did i send in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?" you're saying the quiet part out loud again, congressman. i'm not exactly sure why this

time is different. quite a torrent of criticism from his fellow republicans, including support for his new 2020 primary challenger. tim scott, the senate's only black republican writes in "the washington post," "some in our party wonder why republicans are constantly accused of racism. it is because of our silence when things like this are said." so why does the republican party suddenly seem to be waking up to steve king. why now? and is it too late now that donald trump is in the white house and the gop has become more steve king's party than ever. joining us now is jason johnson, politics editor for theroot.com. great to have you with us. jason, i don't know where you were when steve king said the thing in cleveland where he said that subgroups have never -- >> yes. >> -- contributed anything to civilization, only, you know, western european union civilization. >> yes. >> that didn't cause a torrent of outrage. why now? >> because they just lost. it's the only reason republicans care. oh, we got shellacked in

november, now all of a sudden we care we have nationalists in our party. he is a white nationalist. that means he really doesn't believe that anyone who is not a white christian should have an active role in how the government, economy or education works. he's made that clear. his constituents have obviously re-elected him. he is not an outlier in the republican party. his views pretty much are in line with the president of the united states. he's not going to go anywhere because you have too many people in the party who agree with him. >> you know, one of the things i think people forget is that long before donald trump said he was going to build a wall that mexico is supposed to pay for, steve king wanted to build a wall for the exact same reason. i wonder if that has gone down the memory hole with the gop as well? >> well, all of it has. the guy has a long, long history of this. but, joy, what i find really important because we saw the president do this, i'm a nationalist as opposed to a globalist. steve king is like i'm a nationalist. all of this playing with linguistics is this way to

mainstream -- we know what you're talking about, right? you're not fooling anyone at this particular point, and i think it's important for anybody who is concerned about the health of this democracy, let alone people who live in iowa, has to recognize that white nationalists are basically terrorist sympathizers. the only way you can get rid of all the black and brown and tan people in this country is to treat them with violence, to refuse to give them an opportunity to participate in the american experiment. so anyone who says, well, i don't really remember what steve said, it's bad. ben shapiro coming out and saying this crosses a line. you've been letting him and people like him cross a line in the party for years and now you have to view it as a national security issue, not just a political damage issue. >> but i wonder, too, if once, you know, members of the republican party have opened up the door on steve kings whether or not then you can then push the door back closed. you have ron desantis who ran for governor, now the governor of florida, who ran on monkey it up. brian kemp, the suppression of

african-american voters. you have the newly elected senator or re-elected senator from mississippi who talked about going to a public hanging. it kind of goes on and on and ends in the white house with donald trump, charlottesville and on and on. can republicans shut the door again and not talk about all of the other people? >> well, they cannot talk about it, joy, but, again, once you put that hood on, it's hard to pull off. it fits really, really tight and it seems to help you with voters sometimes. look, the issue for the republican party is not getting rid of their bigots, right? democrats can't get rid of all of their bigots. the issue for the republican party is, how much are we going to allow our bigots to have influence on our policy? you can't do anything about steve king. i don't think he should be removed because obviously he reflects the attitude of his voters, but a man who is a white nationalist is fundamentally at odds with how america is supposed to operate. he should be removed from committees. can have an influence on policy. that is the line that republicans need to cross. all of this whether we talk about him, whether we primary him. they're just going to look for somebody who has the same nasty

belief system but knows how to say it in nicer terms. that's what republicans have been saying about trump for the last two years. >> it's all about manners. good manners. always great to talk to you. appreciate it. that does it for us tonight. i'll be back here tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern hosting my very own show, "a.m. joy," and, oh, do we have a lot to discuss. don't worry, rachel will be back here on monday. it's time for "the last word," my friend ali velshi in for lawrence tonight. >> i am quite comfortable saying being a white nationalist is a bad thing empirically. i'm quite comfortable saying being a white supremacist is a bad thing empirically and republicans should wash themselves of that bigot steve king. >> yeah, but also when he said you don't want to build your civilization with other people's babies that seemed to be pretty openly a nod to white nationalists. he said so much before. this is not new. why not? >> t