new hampshire with other folks. i think that signals something. emily and dorian, thank you both. that is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening. >> i loved that segment and discussion. i felt like the discussion around the democratic field is mostly all just been like gee, there are a lot of people running. >> well, it's fascinating to watch with their record and reckon with the party that's moving in really interesting ways and agitating in really interesting ways and she's going to be on your program on wednesday night, if i'm not mistaken so i'm looking forward to hearing what she has to say. >> it was super helpful. for a long time we've known there is a conservative movement separate from the republican party and when the republican party is weak, in particular the conservative movement drives it. that is also true in a different way about the democratic party and various progressive movements until the country. >> totally agree. >> this democratic primary

process will be the first of that and that conversation you had there was the smartest thing i've yet seen. >> thank you, rachel. i have goose bumps. appreciate it. have great show. >> thank you. >> thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. >> all right. if you ever wanted to put the fbi out of business, one cheap and cheerful way to do that is organize a federal government shutdown that went on, i don't know, for some really long period of time like more than 30 days. one of the things that you endure regularly, if you work for an agency like the fbi is that they routinely do financial background checks on you. you get the basic idea of why they might do that, right? for example, you may have seen the kind of application you have to fill out to get a security clearance from the u.s. government. the sf-86 form is famous in the trump era because various senior trump administration officials have had problems of various kinds with security clearance

applications and sf-86s. but if you look at the forms, if you look at what you have to demonstrate and spell out to get a security clearance, they ask you about all sorts of things but one of the things that is really striking when you look at the questions they ask in the documentation you have to provide is it's a ton of financial stuff. a big part of the way they assess you in terms of whether some adversary or crook might be able to leverage something against you, part of the way they check that is to check your finances. if you're going to have access to sensitive national security or intelligence related information, they want to make sure you're not going to be s susceptible to bribery, literally selling your country for cash. if you're in debt up to your eyeballs and have financial burdens of any kind that might cause you real stress, that's a big red flag. so they stress test you

financially before you can get a security clearance and if you're an fbi agent, looking at the outset of your career while employed as an agent at the fbi, they will go back and frequently recheck that aspect of your life to make sure your financial situation has not changed to open you up to that pressure or leverage. given that reality, one easy peezy way to screw up the whole fbi, not even just the fbi. everybody involved in law enforcement and national security, intelligence work, if you want to take a part in the u.s. government, it's easy. start taking away paychecks from all of those people all at once. not just one paycheck, it would really help if it was multiple paychecks. let them go multiple pay periods with zero income while still requiring them to work every day. with that one genius move, you

can break the family finances of basically every single federal law enforcement and national security agent in the country. and think of all you could establish with just that one move. for one, you actually do risk national security by making all of those people potentially more susceptible to compromise, right? there is a reason why financial strain is a big red flag when it comes to security clearances, right? law enforcement and national security jobs. putting all of the people in this country and all of those jobs under serious financial strain all at once, it does systematically increase their potential susceptibility to compromise or corruption, and even better than that, in one fail swoop with just this one neat trick, you screw up all of their careers. you can create security clearance problems for all of them, all at once by putting them all under financial strain. and in so doing, you can in a

lasting way make the fbi and other federal law enforcement and national security agencies seem like risky and demoralizing places to work. make it harder from here to eternity for them to ever recruit the best talent in the air. right? i mean, that's going to happen every year that the fbi and other law enforcement and national security agencies are hiring from here on out. they will go to grad schools and colleges and seek talent from everywhere. they can all over the country and people with other options, you want to work for the fbi, might be a few months you don't get paid but you have to work every day. you starting to feel me? think about what this does to law enforcement and national security agaencies and their ability to hire the best especially if they want to hire people that have a proversed desire to be paid for going to work every day. last week we reported the new york field office of the fbi

started a food bank for agnlts and -- agents and families. the fbi's washington office started a canned food drive for its agents, as well. just like all the other hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers, these agents are heading into the second pay period of zero dollar paychecks. local reporting in washington d.c. indicating agents have been told if they roll on through a second pay period with more zero dollar paychecks, they will also this week lose their dental and vision coverage for themselves and their families. today is day 30 of the federal government shutdown, which means tomorrow we start month number two of hundreds of thousands of federal employees either being idled entirely or forced to work indefinitely without pay. apparently, republicans and the

white house agree that the president's demand for the building of a wall between us and mexico, that is the hill upon which all of this will die. so we precede not sure how long this will go on but we'll have the head of the national aclu joining us live in studio this hour. he'll be here live in studio for the interview. i'm looking forward to his prospective on this. today of course, is the federal holiday honoring the reverend dr. martin luther king junior. the king holiday was the occasion for the latest big presidential campaign announcement. a third u.s. senator has officially announced a run for the presidency in 2020, three dell cat ti democratic senators have thus far jumped in formally all three of them are women. first was elizabeth warren, second krirsten and now kamala

harris. i have something exciting to tell you about that. but first, let's talk for a second about this. this is footage, a little bit hard at first to tell what is going on here but footage of a young woman being arrested by mostly plain clothed police or security officers of some kind. this was shot at the main airport in moscow late last woke. and as you can tell from the footage, the woman looks a little bit out of it. like seeing somebody arrested like this is always a little bit unsettling in human terms. her demeanor and affect here was worrying after this arrest video surfaced a few days ago but as of this weekend, we can at least vouch for the fact this young woman is alive and she appears to be okay because reporters this weekend were also allowed to shoot footage of her inside a sort of cage, sort of box inside

a moscow courtroom. subtitles on this, you'll see subtitled in english. the subtitles have been supplied by radio for europe so this young woman in this clip here, she's speaking in russian but the subtitles tell us what she's saying in english and if you read along it makes the hair stand up in the back of your neck. [speaking foreign language] [speaking foreign language].

>> speaking from a russian courtroom, a district court in moscow this weekend. that court appearance follows her arrest at moscow's main airport on thursday of last week. what's going on with this story is this, this was february 8th of last year. you might recognize this guy. the guy who made this video and who you see hosting this video, it's alexa navalny. vladimir putin would not let him run against him for president of the russian federation. putin and his government lock up alexey navalny whenever they get a chance but february 8th last year he released this video and the video focused on footage and video footage and photographs that had been shot in the first

instance by anastasiya, that young woman arrested in the airport and in a cage in a moscow courtroom. her claim is she was hired to work as an escort on a yacht trip in august 2016. that ended up being a story of national significance because while she was on the yacht trip, she shot footage of her host russian oligarch oleg deripaska and deputy prime minister of russia, the other guy with him in these images. these are photos of the two men aboard the yacht. on the video footage, these two men can be seen and heard discussing the relationship between russia and the united states and again, this is august 2016. in the context of the u.s. presidential election. and again, this video, these pictures, they were shot by this young woman during the u.s. presidential campaign in august 2016. he dug them up and made his

video expo highlighting the footage last year in 2018 and we can date that release specifically because when he did that in february of last year, it basically broke the internet in russia. the russian government freaked out so badly about this expo say that he was running and that footage which it was based, it freaked them out so badly that deripaska and the russian government got a court in russia to block alexey's website. the russian government also took steps because of that, because of that footage of those two guys on the yacht, the russian government also took steps to try to ban all russian a accceso all of youtube and instagram. the yacht footage had initially been posted on instagram, the video was posted on youtube and the russian government looked and said the russian people will

no longer get access to youtube or instagram. they try that in reponce, it freaked them out so badly. nvavlny posted it. there is a russian government freakout in response. meanwhile, this young woman who shot the footage, the woman who said she was working as an escort for deripaska on the yacht and mate tde the recordin and posted them on her instagram, when this brolew up february of last year, she was in thailand where she was she involved in a sex seminar for russian-speaking tourists. i don't know. there is an international sex tourism trade in thailand like a lot of countries. people that participate in that sex trade in thailand sometimes do get arrest in that country. when anastasiya got arrested for

participation in the sex seminar, her treatment by thai authorities seemed to be inflected by the fact she had been the source and in someways the protagonist of this big expo that was driving the russian government crazy. she was arrested in february 2018, days after the navalny went public. the head of the security counsel arrived personally in thiailand he's also head of the russian spy service. the day he arrived, anastasiya vashukevich posted this video saying she's on her way from a defense facility to a thai prison in that video speaking russian, she begs russian journalists for help. she says quote i'm ready to give you the missing puzzle pieces, support them with video and

audio regarding the connections of our respected lawmaker, meaning russian lawmakers with trump, manafort and the rest. i know a lot. i'm waiting for your offers and waiting for you in a thai prison. she did end up in a thai prison and journalists did get in contact with her while she was in prison. journalists did go to the facility where she was being held in thailand to try to figure out what she was alleging and why she was asking for help. "the new york times" conducted an interview with her in thailand soon after that recording from the back of the police wagon in that interview she told "the times" she had a lot more information than she posted to instagram. she shade had more than 16 hours of audio recordings just from that trip on the yacht with oleg deripaska and russian deputy prime minister and said if america gives me protection, i will tell everything i know. as to what was on these alleged

reco recordings she said she had, they were discussing elections. deripaska had a plan about elections. she told the times that her documentation was not just about deripaska talking to the deputy prime minister. she said she also haddock menation about conversations she he had with three people that spoke english fluently and struck her as probably american. cnn ivan watson actually got into that thai prison to see her, as well, and although he was not able to get a camera crew, he was able to conduct an interview with her in person eye to eye and then he walked back outside the prison and turned on the cameras and able to immediately say what she had told him. >> for days, she and several russian friend haves been held at this jail in the capital of thailand where visitors are not allowed to bring cameras. i just came out of this detention center where i spoke

with anastasiya. it was loud and hot and chaotic and talking through the bars, she said she witnessed meetings between the russian billionaire oleg deripaska and at least three americans she refused to name. she claims they discussed plans to affect the u.s. elections but she wouldn't give any further information because she fears she could be deported back to russia. her claims might not hold much water if it wasn't for this. photos published on her instagram account of her alongside russian billionaire oleg deripaska. deripaska, a one-time business partner of former trump campaign manager paul manafort. he pleaded not guilty to money laundering and other alleged crimes discovered into the investigation into russian meddling. her posts showed deripaska on

board his private yacht meeting russia's prime minister. two powerful russian men over heard in one video discussing u.s. russian relations. >> so this young woman in jail in thailand, she's telling t"th new york times" and cnn that she's got this material in addition to the stuff that's already been turned into a giant expo say that's making the russian government go crazy about deripaska and the russian deputy prime minister, she said she has further photos, video recordings and audio recordings and her documented time on that yacht did happen around the time we know trump campaign chairman paul manafort was in contact through an intermediary. we know that through the court cases so what she was alleging about observing some contact between the trump campaign and russian government involving deripaska and manafort at least lines up in terms of the timing and what we learned about manafort's behavior. and she clearly was both afraid

and using what she claimed to be her access to this information to try to get herself out of jail. quote, i am ready to help with an investigation, if they help us get out of here. she managed to get another post on to instagram around the same time. if we go back to russia, we will die in russian prison or they will kill us. this is very serious, please, usa, help us not to die from russians. radio for europe published photos of this hand-written letter they smuggled out of prison to have a friend deliver to the u.s. embassy in bangkok. they said we ask for help and protection as quickly as possible because we have very important information for usa and we risk our life very much. we have photo, video and audio of russian crimes and i give them to usa if you help us.

that all happened back in february and early march. just under a year ago. and i don't know what, if anything, the u.s. government ever did to try to help her or respond to her or not, but nine months plus went by while she and her co-defendants sat in that thai prison. and as we have reported, last week, tuesday of last week, surprise move by a judge in thailand resulted in her and her co-defendants being released. upon learning they were quickly going to be released and then deported, a friend of her told "the washington post" that she quote was hoping to be deported somewhere other than russia. that did not work. her relatives told the bell, which is an independent news source in russia that the russian console in thailand assured her and her family back in russia that anastasiya would

be allowed to transit safely through moscow without being bothered and change plains in moscow and go home to her home. instead, she was in fact arrested at the main airport in moscow while she went limp and journalists wait in vein to try to talk to her. this weekend, we got this unsettling footage of her in court apologizing over and over and over again, apologizing to oleg deripaska. the russia correspondent reported today that he asked her several times at this court appearance if her arrest and her treatment was related to russia's interference in the election and her evidence about that. she refused to answer any questions about that. quote, after claiming she had evidence of russia interfering, she doesn't want to talk now for fear of deripaska and russian law. quote, i can't compromise myself anymore. criminal cases were fabricated against me in thailand, russia, that's enough for me.

quote, she promises there won't be more recordings, she won't answer when i ask about election interference. well, now today, alexey, the guy that made her famous in the first place when he posted her footage of deripaska and the prime minister on that yacht, the guy who initially made her famous, today, alexey navalny posted new recordings, audio that include the sound of two russian speaking lawyers who appear to be associated with deripaska and his business empire and in a phone call concerning the arrest of anastasiya in thailand, these two lawyers appear to be negotiating for or arranging for her to be charged with the most serious charges to stay in prison for a substantial amount of time instead of being

released after a couple days which would be the course for a normal situation like that. the empire says on the recording quote, what we are interested in is that these people be kept in jail. they should be charged. they should get a sentence which will put them in prison. the same court that deripaska used to block access to navalny's website in russia, he's now, according to navalny gone to the same court to block access to the recordings everywhere in russia, as well. it is navalny's reporting and accusation the lawyers you can hear on the recordings are lawyers who he believes to be associated with deripaska and deripaska's empire. if that's true, think about the universe of data here. right? he bankrolls paul manafort's pro-russian work in the soviet union when manafort comes from nowhere to become chairman for

the trump for president campaign, manafort tells an intermediary he would be happy to offer oleg private meetings on the campaign if he wants them and they allege manafort gave the same intermediary polling. deripaska ends up on a yacht with a nice young escort with a very active instagram account and the department uty prime mif russia. when it become as scandal, that young woman finds herself arrested and held for longer than other people get held for for the sort of thing for which she got arrested and there are now as of today recordings that implicate the companies in trying to ensure that young woman stayed in prison as long as possible after she was picked up. she went into prison claiming that she had lots more evidence including photos and audio

recordings and video recording that included deripaska not just talking to russia officials but people she believed were americans. she said she had a photo of at least one of the americans. she made these claims while explicitly asking for government help. it appears she never got that help. she now no longer wants to talk about these things. she was finally seen in open courtek weekend after being tr drag in a wheelchair, all she had to say is how sorry she is to daeripaska and how she doesnt want to upset him anymore and she doesn't want to take any more of this. she's supposed to be back in court in moscow tomorrow. tonight "the new york times" just broke the news when the trump administration moved last month to drop sanctions on companies owned by deripaska, a binding confidential document obtained exclusively by the times showed this trump administration deal for

deripaska contains provisions that free him from hundreds of millions of dollars of debt leaving him and hall lies with -- his allies with ownership of his company. of all the people in the world for the u.s. government, of all -- of all the people in the world, of all the people in the world for the u.s. government to be bending over backwards to shovel money to right now, why exactly is the trump administration going to these lengths for oleg deripaska? 70% of house republicans said the trump administration should not lift these sanctions on deripaska. 11 republican senators crossed the isle and sided with democrats to say the trump administration should not be lifting these sanctions on deripaska for the want of two more republican senate votes, this thing almost got stopped but because two more senate republicans wouldn't cross over and vote to lift the sanctions on deripaska, the trump

administration is about to gift him hundreds of millions of dollars. meanwhile, anastasiya will be back in court tomorrow, presumably still apologizing trying to save her life. ken vogel from "the new york times" joins us next. ken gevol from "the new york times" joins us next unlimited , unlimited , i get unlimited 1.5% cash back. it's so simple, i don't even have to think about it. so i think about mouthfeel. i don't think about the ink card. i think about nitrogen ice cream in supermarkets all over the world. i think about the details. fine, i obsess over the details. think about every part of your business except the one part that works without a thought. your ink card. chase ink business unlimited. chase ink business unlimited, with unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase. chase for business. make more of what's yours. yeah right. iand the earth is flat. ahhh!! treat your cough seriously with robitussin cf max. nothing lasts longer and treats more symptoms for your cough, cold and flu. robitussin. because it's never just a cough.

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reporter ken vogel has been all over the story and break a new scoop in the "new york times." here is the headline, russian oligarch and allies could benefit from sanctions deal document shows and the document from that headline turns out to be a doozy. here is the leak. when the trump administration announced it was lifting sanctions against a trio of companies controlled by an influential russian oligarch, it cast the move as tough on russia and on the oligarch arguing he had to make painful concessions to get the sanctions clilifted a binding confidential document signed by both sides suggests that the agreement negotiated with the companies may have been less punitive than advertised. quote, the deal contains provisions that free him from hundreds of millions of dollars in debt while leaving him and

his allies with majority ownership of his most important company. according to the documented. following the money always gets you the best stories. joining us now is ken vogel reporter at the "new york times." thanks for being here tonight. aprose dwr appreciate you making the time. >> pleasure. >> we've been following your reporting and as there has been this unusual political fight in a usual non-partisan fight where congress has thought about trying to stop the trump administration from lifting these sanctions. the argument the trump administration has marshalled is that yeah, you may want to be tough on russia, you may want to be tough on vladimir putin but these sanctions are actually, you don't understand them right. this mover actually is really tough on deripaska. his life is going to get worse when we do this. i feel like you've up ended that whole argument with that scoop. >> the under lying argument was

that the sanctions were causing unintended ripple effects for companies that defended on alum aluminum supply and sanctioned the company and they are companies in the united states and europe and jamaica. allied countries suffering is what the argument was, as for why they were lifting these sanctions. that begs the question why did you sanction these companies in the first place? do you not do your due diligence and created the prospect that critics are sort of advocating that either deripaska and company ies were able to out maneuver the treasury about wanting to avoid ripplefects or treasury and trump administration just simply caved in this instance and we don't know which is which and maybe treasury put itself in a corner

by sanctions the companies without doing due diligence but all three of those possibilities, the treasury caved and painted itself into a corner or that it was out maneuvered by deripaska look real bad for the trump administration. >> of course, there is a darker prospect the trump administration was trying to do a favor for deripaska here. it's weird because these sanctions only came into existence quite vent recently. how long did the sanctions go into effect against deripaska's companies? >> they were announced in april of last year and during the trump administration, but they never went into effect because deripaska's company quickly launched sophisticated highlighting some of the economic ripple effects and offering these various sort of aspects of corporate restructuring to get treasury back down and we learned in our reporting how many between

deripaska's high-prized lawyer in the united states and treasury department, independent buyers that made offers for shares that would have done what treasury actually stated its intent was, which is to make these companies that are so critical to the world economy truly independent and instead, he reseproceeded with the negotiation that got them something they wanted getting rid of the sanctions while really keeping in many ways the control of the company or at least the ownership of the company among deripaska and his very close allies and allies of the kremlin including this vtb bank, which is a state-owned bank in russia very close to vladimir putin. our calculations using this document that we obtained and previously available information suggests that vtb will control 24% of the holding company that owns them. you combine oleg deripaska's 45%

with 12% his families or allies own and you very quickly add up to the entire company owned by deripaska or people close to putin. >> the whole idea is we need to get control of this company away from the crekremlin and insteadt stays effectively in kremlin control and in control of the kremlin connected oligarch plus he benefits to the tunes of hundreds of millions of the dollars. i know it's a complex case but i feel like you've nailed it. thanks for helping us understand it. >> thanks for having me on to understand it. >> i will say that the thing that always gives these guys away, deep into ken vogel, mr. dara c deripaska's associate expressed dissatisfaction and says this is terrible, hurting us so much. your private expresses of satisfaction and gloating will

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today is day 30 of the shutdown, longest one in u.s. history by far. the federal government is shut down because the president says there is a terrible crisis at the southern u.s. border and requires building a gigantic wall between us and mexico. other people might not just think differently about that

proposed remedy. other people might define the crisis at the southern border differently, as well. attorney general jeff sessions publicly ordered a new u.s. government policy to take immigrant kids away from their parents at the southern border. he ordered that in april of 2018. and we think of family separations at the border as a crisis of 2018. but a new report from the inspector general for the department of health and human services reports the big surge in family separations and kids being taken away from parents didn't begin last year, it started the year before. quote, in the summer of 2017, prior to the formal announcement of the zero tolerance policy, o.r.r. staff and officials observed a steep increase in the number of children who had been separated from a parent or guardian by the department of homeland security. also quote, the total number of children separated from a parent of guardian by immigration authorities is unknown.

and quote, thousands of children may have been separated during an influx that began in 2017 before the accounting required by the court. health and human services faced challenges in identifying separated children. so with the announced policy from 2018, we have known about 2700 kids roughly who the government admitted to taking away from their parents. now it turns out that 2700 number only comes from when they started counting in the spring of 2018. now it might have been thousands more kids taken away from their parents in 2017. the report says the 2017 kids have likely been released from wherever they were being held but who knows. the inspector general's office doesn't know who the kids are or where they are or who they might be with. people that care about this story are exactly asking how exactly this happens in any country, let alone here and a letter post ded publicly today,

they told senator ronwyden, they have no idea. suggest it's 300 or so. wasn't tracked before 2018. we don't know. here we are in 2019 with a new inspector general report that says it isn't just the 2700 kids from last year, it's maybe thousands of others. nobody is really looking into it. the reason we know as much as we do about 2018 is because of the aclu, the civil liberties union took administration to court and the courts intervened to stop that official policy. the aclu's case is on pause because they are affected by the shutdown by attorneys with the aclu say they are not willing to wait for answers about how many kids were taken overall and where all of those kids might be. they tell us never mind the shutdown, they are ready to ask a court to intervene again now

as we learn now about thousands more kids who have been taken away from their parents by this administration. the national head of the aclu will join us here for the interview next. here for the interview next

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so are you unwilling sir to issue a written directive it is the policy to not separate the children from their mothers unless the child is in danger? >> i don't need to do that. >> so is your answer no? >> my answer is i don't need to do that. >> you don't need to do it. >> it was april 5th, 2017. we don't need a written policy telling separating kids -- we don't need to do that. this week we got a written report on how that worked out on the inspector general for the department of health and human services reports thousands of kids might have been taken from their parents in 2017 in addition to the 2700 plus kids who the government admits were taken from their families last

year in 2018. joining us is the executive director of the aclu that has been fighting administration on this issue in court. nice to see you. >> hello. happy martin luther king day. i have a dream, i still do. >> on the day like today, mlk day arriving at a peculiar moment in a debate and american civil life, we've never had a 30-day long shutdown before. it's about the president wanting to erect a wall between us and mexico. i feel like the family separation policy, taking these kids away from their parents electrified the country and brought the issue of humanity of immigrants to the floor the way nothing else has. >> lit it up. >> the aclu did more than anybody to stop the policy in it tracks and before there was an announced policy, it was thousands of other kids. >> thousands more. >> is there -- are the courts the right place to be fighting this? >> definitely. we got to reignite the public interest. part of what put the pressure on

trump to backtrack to resend the policy and put the pressure on the judge and with all due respect to the judge is only because of public response was as strong. folks from all walks of life, even laura bush saying this isn't the way to go. we need to reignite the public interest and that's there. now when they say there could have been a couple thousand young folks, children who were separated from their families before they told us the 2700, wait a minute, we've got to really pause. where are they? how many of them are there? they told us in december before our case was put aside because of the shutdown, the government said oops, we found another 149 kids we should have told you about. that's when we began to sketcra our heads. this is much bigger than any of us realized and we have to jump back in court and explore how do we unsuspend this case.

how do you show this because if you have thousands of kids separated from their families, we can't wait for a government shutdown. the harm and the damage is going on and this government shutdown could go on for months and thos cannot wait. so we've got to find a way to jump the queue. we got to find a way to make sure we get the public attention and the judge back in the saddle and really ride herd over the administration. this is absurd. it's unacceptable and it's ridiculo ridiculous. >> you talked about unsuspending your case. if you can hold on, we're going to take a quick break. i want to talk to you about that because this is one of the things a lot of us haven't wrapped our heads around yet, not only does the federal government shutdown make federal government workers work without pay and stop a lot of the aspects of the federal government from working, it also in some ways has shut down some of the fight against this administration. >> sure. >> i want to talk to you about that when we come back. anthony romero is executive director of the aclu. my interview with him continues right after this. pecially these.

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the judges are trying to figure out which cases they move on. they're not oall suspended. not all the courts have been closed. part of what we're trying to explore right now, how do we unsuspend our case, there's a level of exigency we have to be able to demonstrate. that's why collecting the facts, going back to the oig report. the oig report is critical. this is the watchdog within the department of homeland security. this is their own people. >> uh-huh. >> looking over their own shoulders saying, wait a minute here, maybe there are a couple thousand more before we even started telling you we started separating kids from their families. then when we get told there were another 149, they told us in december, oops-i-daisy, we found 149 kids who were separated. it just calls into question none of this data can be relied upon. >> and the government is being asked by the courts, you've been proceeding with these cases, the government is being sort of forced by the courts to pursue reunification to try to line these kids back up with the p t parents from who they were taken. >> reunited almost 2,500 kids have been reunited with their

families. >> that's through being forced through the courts to do it. >> only through the courts. only with the bludgeoning of the judge, in our case, where we forced them to reunite these kids, parent by parent, kid by kid. >> you talked about needing to get your case unsuspended before the shutdown. you said just before the break you think the shutdown could go on for months. >> you bet. >> why do you think so? >> this is an impossible stalemate. he's not going is not going to give him a dime for the wall. ridiculo ridiculous. she should have shut it down from the beginning like she did. here we are mired in the country's longest shutdown. and he's extorting money for a wall that his own party wouldn't give him money for. >> he had two years of complete control. >> two years. his republican buddies, mitch mcconnell didn't put anything forward for funding for the wall for two years. now because he's backed himself into the wall, his own wall, now he's saying, oh, i'll give this

temporary protective status and i'll give a little bit on the dreamers. it's too little, too late. it's completely anemic. both of those are policies he rescinded. he's going to give back a little bit of what he has already taken away. that's not a compromise. who's he kidding? he's got zero credibility on immigration. a man who gave us a muslim ban, rescinded daca, rescinded dps. shut down the asylum laws. did family separation. do we think that this man has actually had a cathartic moment, oh, i have an epiphany, i'm going to be better on immigration? come on. who's buying that? certainly not nancy pelosi, not any of us. >> anthony romero, executive director of the aclu. keep us apprised, my friend. >> you bet. take care. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. ay with us

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programming note, senator kamala harris announced today that she is running for president. she is the third u.s. senator, the third female u.s. senator, to announce that she is running for president. i'm going to have the first interview with her since her announcement right here wednesday night, 9:00 p.m. eastern. i know. right? that does it for us tonight. see you again tomorrow. it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> rachel, wednesday night at 10:00 p.m., i'm going to have the very first cable news highlights of the rachel maddow interview with senator harris when she appears on your show. >> yeah, no pressure, right? >> yeah. by the way, i have nothing prepared that night. i'm going to beit