this is up. i'm david gura. if true, we heard that caveat over and over again this week, about what was described as a bombshell report from buzzfeed news. two federal law enforcement agents claimed president trump directed his attorney michael cohen to lie to congress about the moscow tower project. well, late last night, we got this statement from special counsel robert mueller. and i want to emphasize here how rare this is, unprecedented really, the special counsel has made a name for himself by remaining mostly silent, speaking only through court filings. with that said, here is the statement from peter carr, his spokesman, buzzfeed's description of specific statements to the special counsel's office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding michael cohen's congressional testimony are not accurate. well, the president's lawyer, rudy giuliani, has seized on

that one sentence, commending robert mueller for correcting the buzzfeed news story. as buzzfeed's news editor in chief doubles down. we stand by our reporting, he wrote. and the sources who informed it. and we urge the special counsel to make clear what he is disputing. well, it's unlikely robert mueller will say much more, you can bet the first question congress will ask michael cohen in a hearing on february 7, will be did the president instruct to you lie to congress. so that caveat, if true, morphs into what's true this morning. and the confusion is without question a help to the president, and his attorneys, who earlier this week appeared to admit for the first time there was collusion between the trump campaign and russia, in this cnn interview. >> you just misstated my position. i never said there was no collusion between the campaign. or between people in the campaign. >> yes, you have. >> i have not. i said the president of the united states. there is not a single bit of evidence the president of the united states, committed the only crime you could commit here, conspired with the

russians to hack the dnc. >> here with me for the hour, virginia, a los angeles times op-ed editor, and a contributing editorial writer for the new york times. and el joy williams, the host of sunday civics. and glenn kirschner, former prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst. our washington bureau, u.s. national security reporter ken delaney. i got a text last night, how do you sleep on nights like this. you look at the russia investigation, highs and low, we follow them all, riding the wave, how do you react to what happened in the last 24-36 hours. >> i said friday afternoon, i said just wait. something bad is going to happen. and i know everyone's trying to like throw buzzfeed under the bus but this happened with the steele dossier, no one remembers

that, everyone criticized them. and with this, the substance of the story, is actually still at play here. the fact that michael cohen said that donald trump actually asked him to lie about the trump deal, in november, let's not forget, that the special prosecutor said that basically michael cohen lied to congress, he admitted it, right, he is sentenced to it. it is just that the specifics here with robert mueller coming out and saying it, what worries me is it gives an opening to donald trump and his allies to basically impugn the credibility of not just buzzfeed but the entire media and we have seen this sustained attack on media as fake news and enemy of the american people. that's why it was deflating. everyone was waiting for it. we saw the whole week, this is the moment that donald trump goes down. and i'm drinking my tea like kermit, no, it will get bottomer, it will get bottomer. we will see what happens when the report is released and next week, we will forget this and move on because there will be a

new scandal. >> you have contacted peter carr time and time again asking for report and the most often repeated sentence is the special counsel's office declined to comment. given that, ken, tell us the import of this, the fact that the special counsel died to weigh in and as you parse the words, what they tell you about what they might have seen as wrong with this piece. >> it was a stunner, david, the fact that they weighed in. this is the first and only time they have weighed in substantively on a story in the news media. i got to say, in the beginning, this is a rather frankly poorly-worded statement, confusing, and in the beginning, i read it as a very, as a narrow technical dispute of one aspect of the story. but i've done some reporting david, and it turns out it is actually a full-throated denial of the entire thing, including the idea that michael cohen has told authorities that donald trump instructed him to lie. >> say that one more time. overnight, there was speculation, and maybe it was

targeted at one paragraph of documents of the special counsel. your sources are saying the veracity of the whole thing is in question. >> unfortunately, yes, that's right. and "the new york times" is reporting today that a source close to cohen says that he never told anyone that trump instructed him to lie. and ronan ferrell, a pulitzer prize winning reporter says publicly he was pitched to the story and spoke to a source close to the situation and says michael cohen didn't get those instructions. sadly the story is collapsing. and i think the reason, you know, there are many reasons, we all paid very close attention to the story, one of them is it is entirely plausible, because you know, in fact, michael cohen has said that donald trump instructed him to make secret payments, that turned out to be felonies. and so, michael cohen did lie to congress about the timing. but he said in court that he lied because he was aware that trump wanted this to be the story. he had an opportunity to get up in court and say that donald trump told him to lie. he didn't say that. and it appears that's not the

case. >> i want to ask you about the reaction that we saw to this reporting. more comment from congress people than one has seen here in the past a lot of people very eager to get out in front of this, to say there should be more hearings, this is a death knell, a pivot point, your reaction to that is correct the degree to which mostly democratic in congress latched on to this reporting. >> if any one of them were my clients, you know, if i was advising them, as i would advise everyone, is because things trickle, are trickling out, we're in a space where things trickle out, you get one nugget of information and people run with things. i would advise my client at that time if i was advising any of the candidates running for future office, or even congressional folks, to wait. they have a responsibility, and they have leadership in this, when they do oversight hearings. they have the ability to do those things then. and so i would advise, as tempting as it may be, right, to join the chorus of folks that are beating up and oouyou know,

let's be clear, the reason why we are in this and it is totally plausible is because the president lies and the people around him lie and because there is always this air about him, if you are always lying, there is always some story about you lying, so it is their responsibility. but i would advise people to wait. because you have power here. you can do it in hearings. in trying to get to the truth. and the more, and i agree with you, the more we take on these little tidbits of information, and not that i'm discouraging journalists from doing their job because i believe they should continue to do that but as elected leaders and folks, you zoo want to ooh lose your credibility with your constituents and with the people who sent you to congress and you have the power to do that through hearings. >> ken, let me ask you about what follow-up we might see here from the special counsel. when i was covering business and economics there was a joke that there had to be no easier job than a flack for apple and a handful of any other companies because you never had anything on the record. you would call for comment, and

they would never do so. you say this is an ambiguous statement from the special counsel's office. and now that he has waded into these water, and now that he has criticized, however directly, some reporting, doesn't mean we will see more coming from the special counsel. >> it's not clear. but i hope, david, that they have learned a lesson from this episode. which is, i don't want to get too deep into the weeds of how journalists do their jobs with the government, but at many government agencies, including intelligence agencies, public affairs officials and others will talk to reporters off the record and give them steerps about stories, especially if they think they're abouting to get something terribly wrong that's not in the best interest of the country. and that has not happened with robert mueller's office. they don't say anything about anything. and i think they had an opportunity here, they may have had an opportunity to stop, or to guide these reporters, in some way, or at least to warn them off, you know, when the government tells you something is not true, it doesn't mean you don't publish, if you think you're right, but it might mean you check further, you make sure

you understand how your sources know what they're telling you, and that hasn't happened in the case of robert mueller, and i hope maybe going forward, they will reconsider their strategy, and try to guide people to get it right in a little more precise manner. >> i'm struck, just looking at the piece, the initial buzzfeed piece, there was a line i was joking about a moment ago with ken in which the special counsel's office declined to comment and here we are, going through all of this and as ken saying, it could be something that was avoided. >> i was talking to eljoy about reaction to this and you heard from politicians including the junior senator from connecticut, now it is time for robert mueller to put his cards on the table. time is of the essence. you shouldn't wait any longer. >> you see the reaction to the story. things need to change two years into the administration. your reaction to that, the calls we had for the special counsel to speed up for lack of a better phrase. >> so first of all, having worked for bob mueller, i would not presume to tell him what to do or when to do it. >> got at his own pace. >> here is my concern. we have now seen, and this was reported and not refuted, a

counter-intelligence investigation open into the president of the united states for being a possible russian asset witting or unwitting. you know, i used to be in the military as well. military members take an oath to support and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. we can't jump the gun on what this counter-intelligence investigation may produce. but worst case scenario, we have a foreign and domestic threat melded into one potentially, in the oval office. i've heard some reporting about, you know, people at the pentagon are very ill at ease right now with good reason. so it does seem like we're at a point where, you know, i know bob mueller has a lot to do, every rock he picks up, he sees cockroaches scattering everywhere, and he has to follow every cockroach to where it's going for safe haven. so i'm sure he still has lots to do. but the american people, i think, need some resolution, and some sense of just how dire this is. >> image of that legal larvae.

virginia, let me turn to you. i was thinking back, as i read these reports as times when journalists have got continue wrong. i kbru up in chapel hill, i grew up in chapel hill, north carolina, there was the duke lacrosse scandal p. and what struck me, there were people in the candle who thought what was being reported was plausible and that fueled the narrative for some time. you look at what was reported by buzzfeed, there are elements of this that smacked of truth. seemed within the realm of possibility. indeed we have strand, michael rothfield from "the wall street journal" a few moments ago, we saw the reporting of the ivanka trump finaling the chaurp fding about the trump tower moscow. >> and we have the steele dossier. from the day it dropped, it is 70, 80% true and it is looking like closer to 90% plus true since then. it has only gained in

credibility. i think we should back up. we had a bombshell this morning. i didn't know that the request that had shown that not only small nuances of the piece wrong but possibly substantively wrong, the claim in the headline which is made with no, no hedging, president trump directed his attorney michael cohen to lie to congress about the moscow tower project. it's not like says pool. you know, it just happened. so this, if true, is very troubling, that the, if you pull on the osc's complaint, it's a tote lizing complaint about the piece. i will say, ken said, and that was an astonishing point by him, that he had extra information that said that's what the osc was saying, i will believe that when i see peter carr say what we meant is the whole piece is wrong. and i will believe that buzzfeed recognizes that they've made

many mistakes when they retract or correct a piece. for now, they're standing behind their reporting. and i do think, just as we need to let robert mueller stay in his lane, that, you know, mueller should, to the extent possible, let the media stay in their lane. because their best practices in the media, too, and that's not a request for a correction. if you've got that from someone, a hotelier, who said, well, you know, michael cohen said he stayed in this hotel, there are inaccuracies, there's no response to that. you don't owe that person any response. unless they say, this specific thing is wrong. >> the media is such an enemy of trump, and the enemy of the american people, that it wants to correct the record, and get the facts right. and robert mueller is such a deep state operative against it, that he actually came out and yesterday, people said optically it at least helped them. so maybe now robert mueller will be a magna hero. >> thanks for joining us. as virginia was highlighting, important news, sources telling ken delaney of the substance of

the buzzfeed news story may in fact be wrong. up next, a closer look at the announcement, and what it could be this afternoon from president trump. and one former president has taken up the role of pizza man in chief. george w. bush seen here delivering pizzas to secret service agents going without a paycheck, which posted this photo with the caption time for leaders on both sides to put politics aside, come together, and end the shutdown. we'll be right back. 'lwel be right back. i'm ken jacobus and i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. and last year, i earned $36,000 in cash back. which i used to offer health insurance to my employees. what's in your wallet? your digestive system has billions of bacteria, but life can throw them off balance. re-align yourself,

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welcome back. president trump is teasing a major announcement this afternoon about the government shutdown and border security. the details are still not clear. but the president has repeatedly suggested he could declare a state of emergency to build his wall and end the government shutdown. all of this comes after an nbc exclusive this week that the trump administration considering targeting migrant families for deportation and prosecutions, and a government report, inspector general, that the number of children taken away from their parents at the border is a much higher number than has been reported. i want to bring in nbc national security julia answerlee, who broke that story from the dhs and let's starts with this announcement. a lot of people are wondering if this is going to be when the president does, this when he declares a national emergency, if in fact he intends to do so, what is your reporting telling you what we in fact will hear from the president today. >> start with a caveat, who

knows what necessarily he will announce, he could change his mind between now and then. i know what has been under consideration by this administration. of course, we've heard the national emergency. and we reported last week thats there there was a plan to use the army corps of engineers to build the wall under a national emergency. they were thinking about asking asylum seekers to await in mexico while their asylum cases are adjudicated here. and the idea of trying to train medical personnel so you avoid things like you saw with the deaths of children in the hands of custom and border protection last month. what is different is i am trying to weigh what the president would announce that would address the humanitarian concerns of democrats but appeal for his base if he would negotiate on getting the wall funding. something like waiting for people to wait for asylum and now we don't need all of this wall. that's one way around. that how in the world would democrats come to the table if he is going to essentially lead

to refugee camps at our southern border in mexico. so it is difficult to see what announcement he could make that would appeal to both sides. i think democrats are still very much in the dark on what we're going to here at 3:00. definitely calling around my sources and if i hear anything more definite. we will let you know. but those are things that have been under consideration. again, it is really difficult to figure out what he could pick at this point to move the ball forward. >> glenn, julie got a document from a whistle blower via jeff merckly, the senator, and the senator has been honing in onning something. that is secretary kirstjen nielsen's truthfulness when it comes to the policy in place, this administration put in place. i will put up the tweet from june 17, 2018. secretary kirstjen nielsen saying we do not have a policy of separating families at the border. period. and now we learned senator merckly is asking the fbi open a perjury investigation into the homeland security secretary. in light of this, in light of the reporting that julia and my colleagues have done here indicating we don't mow know what the number is, the

government doesn't know of those who have been separated by this administration, where do you see things headed. >> i don't want to be accused as a former career prosecutor of seeing crimes around every corner. it doesn't mean that they're not being committed around every corner, but if we, you know, went about prosecuting all false misleading statements, whether to the american people, to congress, to constituents, we would do nothing else, as prosecutors. i also have a really hard time, i'm not an immigration policy expert. but i have a really hard time with the notion that our government, the united states government, is taking control of children. they may do it lawfully in the first instance, when they say we're required to take the child into custody, when the parent, together with the child, crosses the border illegally, i get that. at what point does the retention of that child, i'm going to use this word and i hope it is not hyperbolic, sort of become to look like a kidnapping, because

if you move somebody from one place to another without lawful authority, that's a kidnapping. if you retain a person, in a place, that you are not lawfully entitled to retain that person, that's also a kidnapping, and if we're going to take these children into custody, well, then, by god, we have a responsibility to house, feed, clothe, educate, give adequate medical care, you're in the place of a parent at that point, these are not inmates. i just, there's so many things to be really kevin concerned about with respect to the u.s. immigration policy. >> it reflects the trump administration's cruelty. the fact that they did not have a plan. the fact that they did not care. that reporting yesterday was amazing. it shows that the health and human services report shows that there are thousand, quote thousands of children, since 2017, who have been separated, that they have not tracked. so where are those kids? i'll go there, that u.s. the government has actually kidnapped these kids, because these kids are now separated from their parents, and we have a humanitarian crisis right now, not at the border, because there

is no border crisis, but the humanitarian crisis, actually engineered by the trump administration, and it was in 2018, when the judge said okay, you have to now reunify these 2700 kid, but going back to 2017, ourp government says by the way, we separated them, and we don't know where they are. so that's the crisis right now that's happening under our watch. and it is a moral crisis. and you know, it could be even a legal crisis. and the one positive here, if there is a positive to this horrific story is, that representative cummings, democrat, is now the chair of the house oversight committee, and guess what, he's been saying that he is going to get to the bottom of this immigration policy, and not only does this policy, but also throw this in there as welt, when we talk about capriciousness and cruelty, puerto rico, 3,000 people died and president trump allegedly said he won't give a single dollar to puerto rico. those are the real crises right up into and fantastic reporting by julia. >> prosecutors staying busy and

prosecutors on capitol hill staying busy as well. julia, thank you very much. the senate majority leader has been mostly missing when it comes to negotiating. with this tweet, strange that senate republicans didn't throw a going away party for mitch mcconnell before he retired. our panel goes on the hunt for mitch, next. we have poetry slam from samuel l. jackson on the shutdown this week. take a look. >> guess what. mexico ain't going to pay. no way jose. so cut it out. we ain't no suckers. cough up the money yourself, you cheap -- >> my turn, my turn. cheap -- >> my turn, my turn.

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i will shut down the government. >> okay. >> absolutely. and i am proud. >> we disagree. >> i am proud to shut down the government for border security, chuck. >> welcome back. that was president trump taking ownership of the partial government shutdown. now the longest in u.s. history. but democrats say the one prominent republican who could end the shutdown is nowhere to be found. >> he's not in the capitol.

not in the russell building. not in the floor of the senate. and 800,000 people don't have their paychecks. so where's mitch? >> where is mitch? where is senate majority leader mcconnell known as mr. fix it, why is he staying on the sidelines? the "washington post" reports mcconnell has left the shutdown public relations to other republicans, skipping news conferences and keeping a low profile. he maintains the position that he won't fracture the party and bring up a bill that president trump will not sign. well, sideline strategy he revealed on the senate floor, the first day of this government shutdown. >> no further votes will occur until the president and senate democrats have reached an agreement to resolve this. >> that's a pledge he followed through with on thursday, when he blocked another vote to reopen the government. as the shutdown drags into the fifth week, it is not just democrats trying to put pressure on the majority leader, the "washington post" captured furloughed federal workers pleading with senator mcconnell to get involved.

>> if i don't have it by the first of next month, i will be in big -- >> i can't even go to my family. mr. mcconnell, my family is working for the federal government. five people in my family is furloughed. >> joining me from louisville kenz, joseph kirth, a columnist from the journal. and the headline, mcconnell, stop sitting on your hands, end this government shutdown and the lead is a great one. i will read that. what in blue blazes is mitch mcconnell doing? the guy who is arguably the most skilled legislator in the history of the united states, at least henry clay, homespun suits is sitting out of the contentiousness of president trump's partial shutdown of the government. what is going on here? this is on one hand a literal question, where is senator mcconnell and on the other hand, it is a strategic question. >> it doesn't matter where he is physically, but the problem is

here is, he doesn't see any benefit for getting in right to this debate right now for his caucus. and that's what this largely is about, i think, is what does this mean for the republicans who are up for reelection? what does this mean for the people who he is responsible for getting re-elected, when they come up in 2020? and to go against trump right now, i don't think he sees any benefit. and for that reason, he's staying out of it. and that's too bad, because what we really need in this situation is somebody who can get in, who has never shown that they're really tied to any sort of issue, but they're able to say, okay, here's what we need to do, here's where we can go, here's the furthest that we can go with this and then key go to trump and say, this is all you're

going to get and he so far has not seen the benefit in that and i think it is too bad. >> we talked about republicans in congress abtd and kating their role to the president. the checks and balances aren't there before. how can the leader of the republican leadership do this? >> this is an example of being complicit in the destruction of our democracy and complicit in the ongoing efforts, not only from this administration, but from people's radio shows, and television networks, that they have no, the interest of the american people, overall, is not at the core. it is not what drives them. it is not what the focus of their leadership or their elected leadership is. and this is an example of that. they, he wasn't even, he wasn't in the room, i know the meeting was with, you know, with trump and the democrats at that time, but he wasn't in that room. he's not in the white house. he's not where, in his office, he's not negotiating on both sides. so to stand up in a place where

you are supposed to be leader, and say that i am going to give away my position here and make it between the democrats and the president, as if you have no role, as if you have no position, on the board, is, you know, it's criminal. and i think it is important for both democrats to highlight, but also republicans should highlight that, is that they are also looking for a leader, because it's not, you know, trump is not demonstrating that, right? and so for individual republicans, to also say, which i've seen all across news, you know, and tweets all over, they're looking for a leader, that says that we care about border security, it's not about this wall, it's about something else, so for mitch mcconnell to be able to walk into the white house and say to trump, if you really care about border security, here is where we are, because we've been at this much longer than you have, and they have, right? so he has left his position, and i guess gone on a cruise. >> i want to ask you, there is a

great point in joe's piece. joe, i will come back to you in a moment but you bring up the fact that mitch mcconnell has real expertise, vap, like it or not, he is a guy who knows the way congress is supposed to work and you have somebody on the sidelines who could and has brokered deals in the past that nobody thought possible. as joe points out. >> he is known as a great obstructionist and admirers of mcconnell as a strategist will tell you unlike harry reed who was cloak and dagger who they thought was a back stabber that mcconnell has a very frank style of this kind of obstructionism that he pulls off and i would say absence and silence are good obstructionist tactics. what is better, what is a stronger no than silence. he is gone. you can't find him. i mean the aoc, you know, walking around, trying to find him is, a great set piece. but he's getting something out of that silence and absence, too, which is letting this thing continue, without having to make a strong statement, and having his name on the shutdown, when as, you know, when as everyone

points out, he should be surfaced, as one of the authors of the shutdown. you know, some people have said, mcconnell and vladimir putin are the two people who could end the shutdown. >> ann coulter. >> and vice president, and deputy chief of staff. >> secretary of state limbaugh. >> exactly. >> rush limbaugh. >> but in any case, the people pulling the strings of the american people don't have our best interests at heart. i don't see, i mean, we have the crisis at the border, you know, the internment of children, separation of children, we have the asset in the white house, the russian asset in the white house and government workers being evictioned andsome sometimes, food stamp, starving, having food insecurity because of a shut down. this is a nation in trip am kreis list. >> joe, last question to you. how does this play to the young and women of your great commonwealth. we saw the video a few months back of having dinner, and

approached by folks in kentucky about what was happening with mcconnell, and are you seeing any outcry of his absence in kentucky? >> we've had a few protests outside at the office. one at the airport where air traffic controllers aren't being paid. but it is playing out just like it is in washington and everywhere else across the country. we're a very divided nation right now. the people who support the president, support what he is doing. they're blaming the democrats. the people who support the democrats, on this issue, are blaming trump. and that's where we are. you know, the real, the real tragedy about this whole thing is what this says about the health of our democracy. it used to be, it used to be that the senate and the houseworked together on legislation. sent it to the president to sign. and now, we don't have that. we've gone to our corners and we're just fighting. >> joseph from louisville, his column up on twitter and there is one more line that is so important. during the six years republicans held the senate during ronald rage pen's administration, they

voted to override reagan the patron saint of the gop, six different times. joseph, columnist for the louisville courier journal, joining us from louisville this morning, we appreciate it. and the commander in chief is heading to dover, delaware, to oversee the dignified transfer of four americans killed in syria. we will have coverage of that when we come back. erage of that when we come back. a wealth of perspective. ♪ a wealth of opportunities. that's the clarity you get from fidelity wealth management. straightforward advice, tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. fidelity wealth management. to help you grow and protect your wealth. stop fearing your alarm clock... with zzzquil pure zzzs. a drug-free blend of botanicals with melatonin that supports your natural sleep cycle so you can seize the morning.

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day of the partial government shutdown, the president of the united states scheduled to speak at 3:00 this afternoon, from the diplomatic room at the white house. we have some new reporting here at nbc news about an offer that democrats have made ahead of that speech. to add hundreds of millions of dollars in border security funding in spending bills that the house is going to consider next week. there is a caveat. and an important one. none of the money will be allocated for the border wall. i'm going to turn now to jeff bennet my colleague who covers the white house here at nbc news, and fill us in a little bit more here. as i mentioned, a lot of speculation on what the president might or might not say if he is going to declare a national emergency. how does this change or stand to change that conversation, if at all? >> hey, david, well, on the first point, we should say there is no indication that the president will go as far to declare a national emergency in that speech today. sources familiar tell me what he is going to do is put a new offer on the table to incentivize democrats. democrats, as part of their pressure campaign, to pressure

republicans, to vote on the bills they keep bringing to the floor to reopen the government, as you mentioned, they're going to add hundreds of millions of dollars more in border security funding. so specifically, $524 million, for, to repair ports of entry, along the border, and another $563 million, to hire more immigration judges. this is what a democratic aide tells me. as you mentioned, none of that money will be allocated toward the construction of a border fence, or a border wall. that would not meet the specific demand that president trump has thrown out there. so it would appear that this addition, of this additional money, would not break this shutdown standoff. what it really is, it's significant, but it is also a lot of political posturing, too. so we will have to see what if anything comes from the president's speech today. if he says anything that would call something to shake loose and break both sides to the table. >> i will get your reaction to this. what we have seen over the last

month, have been these two sides talking at or beyond each other. during the course of this. so you listen to what is being laid out there by jefr, that the democrats are going to add this to some spending bills, does that strike you as any sign of progress. we had a guest the last hour, the democrats have to be clear what they're willing to do in terms of funding and what they're willing to pay for and democrats like chuck schumer and nancy pelosi, they're for border security. >> it is an opportunity to distance themselves from the trump vision of border security and forces the democrats to finally stop punting immigration reform down another four years, eight years, 12 years, this is our progressive vision of im kbrags gration reform. they finally have to own it and be bold about it. this is an opportunity. and i still feel they still bunt it because they are waiting to see how this plays out in 2020.

key senate races. you know national security is a top three issue. i wish they would be a bit more bold. you have that really interesting moment, after the oval office address, wer tha address remember that, 14 years ago, two weeks ago, the american gothic painting and i'm like probably not the best messengers and the best message. that's an opportunity for democrats. but for trump, look, why won't he declare a national emergency? we were talking about this. he goes to his base, and i joked, but kind of not joking about president coulter, right? he looks to coulter, limbaugh, and hannity, and they said you better build this wall, or else. and you saw even yesterday, to distract attention from the latest buzzfeed report, what did he say? he went back to the classic. found at the border, middle eastern suspects, muslims. as a muslim, no muslim leaves their prayer rugs behind. we might be radical. we're not wasteful. but it just shows you, look, he will double down. he doubled down on the oval

office address, made up stats about violent crime and manufactured the border crisis. why does he relent? i think it will be one or two more missed paychecks and more of a reduction and ann coulter or limbaugh saying enough is enough. that's my take. >> here is what i think, and i fwrae agr agree with you progressives and democrats sort of taking over what immigration policy is, and what we need to do in order to fix it in this country, and i agree with you, it has been, we've been arguing it, based on a conservative logic of they're coming to take our job, they're taking to overrun the country. >> invading. >> and things of that nature. rather than taking control of the narrative and saying this is what border security is in our eyes. but also, this is how we fix the immigration problem that we have, in this country. it's a policy. it is of the courts. it is of funding. it is of the humanitarian crisis and the violence in those particular countries where we have people coming over.

what are they escaping? they're escaping things that we helped to create. right? so it is also that what our international policy is, in helping and providing aid that secures up countries so we don't have people fleeing in this massive way as well. >> before we go to break, a piece by bob gates in "the wall street journal" today, he notes the former defense secretary, he served eight presidents, and he makes the point, we should be going big at this point. it is a counter-intuitive argument. you can't get the government back open but if both sides come together and think big and maybe see some progress. is there any appetite to go big or try something along the lines of what the secretary is proposing? >> a little bit of unity would be a beautiful thing. of course, with mitch mcconnell, saying, and we've heard it today, i see no political upside to, for example, trying to reopen the government. i mean i just, it's so dishearstening, and what i have been saying, is that i hope, because we are now very near the

bottom of this ethical pit, in government, i'm hoping that this will cause some people to say, we need a resurgence of ethics in government, because if we don't see one, what are we going to do? keep digging ourselves further and further down? it would be nice if we could go big. >> but you're not -- >> i'm not wildly optimistic. >> thank you for that. >> that was nice. >> geoff bennet, thank you very much. at the white house. and up next, set to take to the streets, bringing resistance along with them, why the woman's march could hit a bump or two as trouble brews behind the scenes. i t in the background and she's watching too, saying [indistinct conversation] [friend] i've never seen that before. ♪ ♪ i have...

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thousands are expected the join the third annual women's march. the event kicked off in 2017 as millions took to the streets to protest donald trump's presidency. ali vitaly is in washington d.c. where people are already gathering this morning. let me ask you about what we've been reading about, difficulties with the organizers of the women's march. this has been organized over these last three years. to what degree is that dogging this event around the country

today? >> reporter: yeah, david, i think what you're seeing now is the fact that we are three years into this movement. you talk about in 2017 there were millions of people on the streets protesting both the election of donald trump and generally how women have been treated in politics for so long. what you're seeing now is that thousands of people are still expected to be here, but there is this mark of controversy over what's going on, questions about anti-semitism from some of the founding members of this women's march, so much so that lawmakers including debbie wasserman schultz wrote an op-ed because of claims of anti-semitism. i want to take you to what's important here on the ground. you're seeing some of the old hallmarks, the pink hats, signs about believe women and i think that's a really important thing when you think about why people are still doing marches like this. i know that we relegate the kavanaugh hearings back to 2018 and something that was relevant in the midterms but when we talk to some people here, they told us they booked their flights to come here after the kavanaugh

hearings thinking that it was still important to continue this movement in light of what they saw in 2018. it's not just about donald trump anymore. it's about a lot more than that, david. >> i was reading a column by michelle goldberg, a friend of the show, and she said maybe this was a moment more than a movement when you look at what happened in 2017. do you agree with that as you've even the evolution of that? >> single marches don't typically become annual events. it's just that the first march was so vgalvanizing and electrifying. the greatest single march in world history, gigantic march around the world, reminding ourselves tangibly that trump did not win the popular election and the popular support for him is negligible and reminding ourselves that it's women and also, you know, the word intersectional gets considered jargon but it's extremely important in what happened here

that the first year the women's march organizers were able to resolve -- i think they said they wanted a low ego, high impact march so they easily put aside identity differences and made a very inclusive platform but these things have surfaced since, disputes about people's approach to feminism, disputes about what comes first, your identity as a jew or a woman of color or your identity as a woman itself. it's been heartbreaking to see for those of us who loved the march and who really love the oer organizers. it's almost like the shutdown. there's been brinksmanship. people want friends of farrakhan to disavow him, like i'm going to make you give him up and until that gets done -- it's that same brinksmanship that's trumpish. >> i would disagree in terms of this not being a movement because it is. it's a movement because millions

of women not only marched on washington in 2017 but they also went back home and continued their activism. so tamika and linda and all of those who are part of the original march as well, they're organizers and have been in this movement before and continue to be. what we've seen is women have gone back, not only continuing policy in their home districts but run for office, are putting forth the agenda that the policy that's released today on the women's march. that is the real meat of the work and that's why it's a movement. >> they ran for office themselves. thank you all very much. the president said to make a major announcement again at 3:00 eastern time. will he lay down his trump card and declare a national emergency? the subject of discussion on "am joy," next. am joy," next i'm really into this car,

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i