other as investigations into the trump family and the trump organization ramp up, both of which mr. trump says cross a red line. >> it's called presidential harassment. and it's unfortunate. and it really does hurt our country. >> we are not going to be intimidated or threatened by the president to withhold any legislative advancement. triple threat. virginia democrats try to figure out the a way forward as the top three elected officials in the state are embattled over controversies involving race and sexual assault. >> i think they're trying to change. but they have a lot of stuff in their past that's coming out and now it's in the open. >> this definitely isn't anything to be proud of by any means. and zero tolerance. trump administration officials are hammered today at a hearing over untold numbers of migrant children still separated from their parents. this is not the crisis the president has been talking about

at the border. >> would you have advised the doj to implement the policy of zero policy? >> we never would have supported such a policy proposal. good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington where president trump and speaker nancy pelosi are facing off, battle lines being drawn between an increasingly embattled president and house democrats investigating his policies and his finances. president trump punching back this morning on twitter, in all caps, slamming the congressional oversight as presidential harassment, and again slamming house intelligence chair adam schiff before calling congressional democrats nuts. joining me now, nbc white house correspondent kristen walker, nbc's kasie hunt, paul charlton in phoenix, and security analyst

matt miller, former chief spokesman to attorney general eric holder. welcome, all. now you have career hhs officials, the people in charge of refugees and migration, saying they never would have recommended zero tolerance. we'll get to this in a later segment, but another group of career people like intelligence officials, who were the appointees of this president, of course, earlier pushing back against the president and his policies. kristen, this president certainly seems increasingly embattled and we saw it again on twitter today. you'll see him later today in a couple of photo ops. >> and we have a list of questions ready, andrea, we'll ask him what he heard from those hhs officials and of course that big story that you laid out at the top, the fact that democrats are defying the president, they're moving forward and making it very clear, as adam schiff, the chairman of the house intelligence committee, said, that he's not going to be intimidated by president trump. what was announced yesterday, andrea, that the president's

responding to really are the contours of this investigation that we're going to see play out in the house. and it's going to be sweeping, frankly. it's going to delve not only into the president's potential contacts with russia but also his personal finances. and of course that is what president trump has said would be a red line. remember, he was asked about this in the context of the mueller investigation by "the new york times" back in 2017. he said it's a red line to investigate his finances, goes beyond the scope of investigating potential russian collusion. so you see him making a very similar case today on twitter. as you point out, referring to it as presidential harassment and saying the dems and their committees are going nuts. we'll see the president when he announces a new women's global development and prosperity initiative, something his daughter ivanka trump has been working on. andrea, i know you've been doing a lot of reporting on it as well. we'll have a chance to ask him about all of of these big headlines, andrea. >> and of course nancy pelosi also striking back today, kasie,

you've been certainly hearing from a lot of democrats today and their reaction to the president. >> we have, andrea. and what you're finally seeing, after something of a delay related to that longest-in-history government shutdown, is this democratic house really getting into gear and starting what is going to be a methodical, strategic, despite the way the president wants to frame this, way of digging into the president's finances, his potential ties to russia in the case of the intelligence committee, and other matters. house speaker nancy pelosi was asked about this at a press conference just an hour or so ago. take a look at how she answered questions about investigations into the president's tax returns. >> i always think whatever the president says about us, he's projecting his own unruliness. he's a projector. and that's what it's about. we will not surrender our constitutional responsibility for oversight. >> those comment of course also coming in response to the

president's claims that he's being harassed by the democratic house. you, of course, andrea, remember well that when republicans held control of the house and democratic president barack obama was in the white house, there were plenty of investigations into an administration that of course has nowhere -- had nowhere near, if any, legal entanglements, indictments of former officials, et cetera, that this administration is dealing with. >> the president was saying, matt miller, that this was unprecedented. you were over at doj. there's something called fast and furious, i think that eric holder was grilled a few times. i covered the benghazi hearings and they went on for four years. the final installment was 11 hours. mike pompeo was a member of that committee. >> it is possible for congress to overreach in its investigations. you only have to look at the clinton administration. for all the investigating house

republicans did over six years, they never produced one single criminal charge, there was never a referral to the department of justice against anyone. whatever the president's personal criminal liability may be, and it appears to be great, six of his associates have already been indicted or pleaded guilty to crimes. you have had four cabinet members resigned in scandal, two sitting cabinet members continue to be enmeshed in scandal. the justice department will start an investigation into a plea deal that alex acosta, the labor secretary, signed off on that allowed a sex offender to get off with an extremely light sentence. that's not even to mention the policy scandals, one of which we're hearing about today, the child separation policy. so it's hard to even imagine how democrats could overreach, how they could go down a rabbit hole chafi chasing a scandal that doesn't exist, when there are so many real ones staring them in the

face. >> let's talk about this tax investigation at house ways and means. to paul charlton, the president is the only modern day president who has not released his tax returns. he says he can't while they're under audit, but anyone in his income bracket is under audit perpetually. he did not divest. he still is technically in charge of his company, the family is in charge of the company running it for him, and they had a lot of foreign investment. the tax and banking issues are profound. now house ways and means are going to investigate. you can understand why he's a little bit upset about crossing that inred line. >> you certainly can, andrea. and whatever it is congress decides to do in that regard, whatever upcoming legal fights we may see in that regard, here's something we can be certain of. special counsel bob mueller has almost certainly asked for and received those returns. and as part of his investigation we can be certain that when he writes that report, to the

extent that it's disclosed to the public, there's going to be information in that report that encompasses what he has seen and learned about those tax returns. that's going to be an important component here as we watch that investigation and as we look for that report when it comes out, and hopefully comes out to the public. >> and he may already, matt miller, have referred some of that to the southern district of new york. that could be part of the michael cohen continuing investigation, because the trump organization is headquartered in new york. the whole issue of deutsche bank, that the president during 2016 was trying to get a lot of money, a huge loan from deutsche bank, according to "the new york times," which was not approved by the top anranked people in t company. you never know what the sdny is looking at. >> that's exactly right. there's been a lot of debate and speculation over whether the mueller probe itself will come

to a close soon. joyce vance and i have a piece in "the washington post" on this today. you have two sdny investigations. you have pieces that have been referred to the department of justice. it seems inevitable that if mueller does close soon, there are other pieces, for example foreign influence peddling by the governments of the united arab emirates who have tried to seek favor with the trump administration going all the way back to the transition, that seems ripe for a criminal probe. whether the mueller probe ends or not, there are a number of criminal probes which have a long way to go, will certainly last until the end of his administration. that's not counting anything new that the house of representatives might uncover that turns into a criminal investigation. >> and the fact is that the house intelligence committee did not issue any subpoenas for so many people who were obvious potential witnesses and now that they are in charge, of course they're going to be issuing the subpoenas that devin nunes, who changed the whole character of

that committee, kasie, you know this so well, that committee has always been bipartisan. as the senate intelligence committee has been. and devin nunes changed all of that. so they never had access to subpoenas. they are going to be major players. that's why adam schiff is being attacked by the president. >> indeed it is, andrea. he also sees schiff, of course, on television, which as we know is a major way this president kind of gets a sense of what's going on here in washington. and you're absolutely right, that nunes really did fundamentally change the character of a committee that had historically been known for working together. as you know, even the original creation of these committees was not as a partisan enterprise. it was as the interests of the congress and the people of the united states being able to exercise that oversight. and we do know that adam schiff is going to expand to a certain extent the scope of what that committee is even looking at. you know, and so that clearly has gotten under the president's skin. we know that he doesn't -- if

he's not bothered by what you're doing, he's not going to bother to attack you. and clearly schiff is just the latest target here, andrea. >> and as we sit here today, william barr's confirmation is up at the senate judiciary committee. dianne feinstein said this today about what we expect to be the new attorney general. >> special counsel mueller must be allowed to finish, and other trump-related investigations and cases must also proceed without interference with the underlying facts and evidence shared with the congress and with the american people. this report must be made public. mr. barr would not commit to providing special counsel mueller's findings. and the final report to the congress. nor did he answer my letters. this is particularly concerning.

>> paul charlton, do you think the report in a redacted fashion will somehow be made public? and we don't really doubt that william barr is going to be confirmed, despite democrats' complaints. >> it looks very much, andrea, as though he will be confirmed. it seems there is some commitment to release parts of the report. the american public would benefit by seeing all of the report. andrea, i've sat across the table from the special counsel when i did my personal vetting to become u.s. attorney. this is a man who will not be intimidated by the acting attorney general, not by mr. barr when he becomes attorney general, and certainly not by the president of the united states. this is a man who led marines in combat, what wore the ranger tab on his shoulder. he will write a report that's fair and objective. whatever the outcome will be, we, the american public, should expect to see that report. >> thank you so much.

thank you paul charlton, matt miller miller, kristen welker, kasie hunt. go on get 'em, kasie, we know you'll be seeing the president. >> i'll be there. coming up, a live report from richmond coming up next. stay with us on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. hell reports" on msnbc.

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at comcast it's my job to constantly monitor our network, prevent problems, and to help provide the most reliable service possible. my name is tanya, i work at the network operations center for comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. the state of virginia has been thrown into chaos, as now

all three of the state's top democratic leaders have been marked by scandal. in a stunning turn of events, the state's attorney general, mark herring, is admitting to wearing blackface in the past, only days after governor ralph northam became embroiled in his own blackface controversy. and now the woman at the center of a sexual assault allegation aimed at lieutenant governor justin fairfax is breaking her silence. dr. vanessa tyson, a college professor, detailed an alleged 2004 sexual encounter with fairfax before he was married, saying, what began as consensual kissing turned quickly into sexual assault. fairfax denies the allegation saying in part, i cannot agree with a description of events that i know is not true. and just the last hour, on capitol hill, democratic presidential candidate senator kamala harris weighing in on tyson's claim. >> i think that the letter

written by the woman reads as a credible account. and i think there should be an investigation to get to the bottom of it and determine the facts. >> all three elected officials, all democrats, now clinging to power is the scandal sent shock waves through virginia's capital, and the rest of the commonwealth and the nation. joining me now, geoff bennett, mara gaye, and jonathan capehart, "washington post" opinion writer. "the washington post" editorial, that's the paper that's delivered on the doorstep of all virginians, tell us about that editorial. >> keep in mind, friday night this whole thing happened. there are lots of people calling for governor northam's resignation that night into saturday, definitely after his

disastrous press conference on saturday. but we as a board decided, let's sit back, let's watch, let's report, let's talk about what's happening. and sort of by yesterday it had become untenable. the governor's silence in all of this. we have not heard from him since that saturday press conference where his wife had to admonish him not to do the moonwalk after he admitted to doing blackface another time, not in that picture which he says now is not him. and so the fact that "the washington post" editorial board waited five days to say, governor northam, you must resign, i think the governor should take that into consideration as he decides what he's going to do. >> this is really complicated, but why make that decision and not call for the resignation of justin fairfax? and in fact "the washington

post" did not initially report on it because it did find corroboration for either of the allegations. >> correct. the way we discussed it is that these are two discrete situation. we did not want to have one impact the other, the other being whether or not governor northam should resign. we do talk about it, but that is another issue that we will come back to, i'm sure, at another time. >> geoff bennett in richmond, i guess the lieutenant governor is presiding today because the governor is still out of sight. >> you're right about that. justin fairfax is on the job as we speak, andrea, presiding over the proceedings of the state senate. governor northam has retained the services of an african-american-led pr firm, crisis firm. that suggests he's not going to resign anytime soon, that he will fight for his political survival. there's been talk of him doing something of an apology tour. democratic lawmakers say the

governor accepts full responsibility. what does that mean? they want to see from him perhaps a mea culpa in the form of actual policy, maybe it's more money for historically black colleges and universities. maybe it's policies for criminal justice reform. that sort of thing. that's playing out on not even a split screen, but a three-way screen with these triple scandals. then you have attorney general mark herring. the deal with him, i'm told, as long as governor northam stays on the job, the attorney general will stay on the job, because politically speaking, anyway, northam's position politically is worse than herring's as a result of that photo that we've all now seen that surfaced on friday. so all of that to say, even though you have these three scandals sending shock waves across the state, because all of them, the entire apparatus, the entire democratic apparatus leading the state right now, all of them are politically compromised, strangely, that actually ensures their fate in

the short term. there is less external pressure forcing them all out right now because in part the guy who's next in line to become governor should they all leave is a republican. so that is certainly informing the democrats' calculus here, andrea. >> and that republican, by the way, as you know very well, the speaker of the house of delegates, only became the speaker of the house by pulling a name out of a hat because it was a tie vote as to who was going to control the house. so whether democratic or republican was determined literally by a lottery, by pulling his name out of a hat, that's how random this whole deal witis. mara gaye, you must be thinking, what is happening in that state? "the new york post"'s cheeky tabloid says, "virginia is for losers" rather than their normal logo, "virginia is for lovers."

you're on "the new york times" editorial page. these are terrible choices. do you want someone in charge who would do blackface as recently as 1984, or someone who according to at least one allegation is a sexual assaulter? >> sure. this is, first of all, obviously extremely disappointing nationally, in terms of who is leading -- in positions of leadership in the country. i think it's very clear that sexual assault, racism, these are not partisan issues. this is not a democratic problem. this is not a republican problem. this is a national problem that we have. and i actually do think, though, that despite the fact that you have three discrete scandals in virginia, they've unfolded very

differently. there is an opportunity here to have a real conversation apart from politics about how to take responsibility, about leadership, and about really forgiveness and the way that people take responsibility for when they've made mistakes. governor northam, that press conference was absolutely disastrous. to say that you have taken responsibility one day and then the next day to get up and talk about how it wasn't you in the photo, as though he had called his friends the night before and said, hey, was it that time, was that me or was it a different time that i was in blackface? i mean, that is kind of pr 101 about how you don't do something. whereas i think that mark herring, his statement was -- i actually was so impressed by his statement, taking full responsibility for the one time he said that he wore blackface. of course there's nothing acceptable about blackface, it's horrible. but you know what, he said in his statement it was the most

painful, shameful moment in his life. and he talked about having to spend the past 40 years to make up for that and do so genuinely by taking responsibility publicly and by working toward racial justice. that's what you want to hear, because i will tell you right now there is not a single american who does not have some share in an inheritance we all have of our country's painful racial history. so the question is, what do we do about that, how do we ask for forgiveness, how do we forgive. and there's a real opportunity to have a conversation when someone comes forward and takes personal responsibility the way he did. i thought it showed immense public courage. >> the challenge, of course, is if the offenses are similar if not equal between mark herring and the governor, how do you press the governor to step down and say it's because he hasn't taken responsibility, but the attorney general has, and what

do you do about the lieutenant governor? it's a he said/she said. it's similar to kavanaugh just in the respect that there's no corroboration of either story, arguably. >> the offense is not just the blackface. the offense is what you do and how you respond once you've been confronted with a mistake that you've made. and, you know, stretching back to watergate, i don't have to tell any of you, sometimes the coverup is worse than the crime. and truly, you know, people make mistakes in public life. and i'm not talking about the sexual assault allegations here. i'm talking about the blackface. people make mistakes in public life. what you do when you're confronted with that really does matter. i mean, lots of people make mistakes. it's up to the people of virginia, certainly not me, to decide whether this is forgivable. and even -- mark herring even said that, i don't know if i'm even worthy of forgiveness. that's the right way to handle this. whether or not he survives is a

different conversation. but it would be really nice if instead of just piling on, we took an opportunity as a country to have a real conversation about all of our history, shared history on race. and we keep avoiding that conversation. and i think that's why this keeps happening. >> mara gay, such an important perspective, thank you very much. of course geoff bennett in richmond and jonathan capehart, thank you all. coming up. mission accomplished? president trump claiming isis is nearly 100% defeated. really? that does not comport with what the u.s. intelligence agencies and their leaders testified to only a week ago. we'll drill down on the disconnect, coming up. stay with us right here on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. smile dad. i take medication for

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the united states military, our coalition partners, and the syrian democratic forces have liberated virtually all of the territory previously held by isis in syria and iraq. it should be formally announced sometimes probably negativxt we that we will have 100% of the

caliphate. but i want to wait for the official word. i don't want to say it too early. >> president trump kind of blowing his own lead there, telling diplomats for more than 70 countries wednesday that isis has lost its base in syria and iraq. 100% of the caliphate? on tuesday the commander of u.s. central command issued this warning. >> the coalition's hard-won battlefield gains can only be secured by maintaining a vigilant offensive against a now largely dispersed and d disaggregated isis. we do have to keep pressure on this network. it is a resilient network. they have the capability of coming back together if we don't. >> and the general also said he had not gotten advance notice of the president's tweet announcing that withdrawal from syria that of course led to general mattis' resignation as defense secretary. the president also upset iraqi leaders just a few days ago by saying after withdrawing u.s. forces from syria the u.s. could

somehow continue fighting isis from bases in iraq, a big problem for that fragile iraqi government. what's going on here? joining me is the man who knows, retired navy admiral james stavridis, now msnbc's chief international security and diplomacy analyst. you can explain this. why would the president, on cbs with margaret brennan, say we're going to fight from iraq, without telling the iraqi government that that's going to be the game plan, which causes them enormous problems politically with the iranian influences in the country? >> it's just a huge mistake. what's really striking about it is the lack of factual basis for even making the call that, quote, the islamic state is defeated. it release the worst of the "mission accomplished" banner back in iraq. those wars are still sputtering along. we would all like to get out of syria and iraq. but it's not appropriate or

timely to do so. the islamic state is still highly dangerous, probably 15,000 fighters in the field. it's not just territory, andrea. they're very capable in cyberspace. >> it's interesting that they have that kind of capability given that we think of them as a guerilla force, hiding in, you know, bombed-out cities. now they've lost their headquarters in raqqah, it's true. there have been enormous gains. >> yes. >> the other argument is there are these fighters being held by our kurdish allies there who have now been completely abandoned. >> correct. >> by this administration, and are saying that they're going to release more than a thousand people from prisons. >> they are indeed. and what we ought to be looking at here, and thinking about, is islamic state 1.0, is a mechanized force. it has a capital, it has tons of territory. 2.0 is what's emerging.

and 2.0 will look a lot like al qaeda did, and that's very dangerous. they'll be dispersed, they'll be in cyber, they'll be maneuvering on the battlefield. 15 to 20,000 fighters, as the general told us. the voice we ought to pay attention here is general joe votel, a lifelong expert in this area. >> the problem with that is that the president doesn't believe his own experts, which we've seen with the intelligence community as well. i want to ask you about the navy, because we've all been grieving for the losses and concerned about the navy after the "fitzgerald" and the "mccain" were involved in collisions that were apparently the fault of the commanders, they removed the commanders, three-star and four-star, now pro publica doing an investigation, showing real problems with readiness, with the sailors just being overtired and not being properly trained. >> indeed. just a terrible pair of days for

the navy. we lost 17 sailors, seven of whom, by the way, were born outside the united states. this was quite striking to me, to see the number of sailors who had emigrated to the united states who gave their lives at sea. the problem, as you said, is a combination of factors. but i would put exhaustion, the overdrive of these ships at the top of the list. and i want to make one powerful point in favor of the navy here and that is account tability. the navy has released the four-star, the three-star, the two-star, the one-star, the commodore, and the ship's captains were fired. that's really accountability. but we've got so much work to do to get this right. >> it's real accountability, as you point out, it's unusual, obviously. but what about the recurring tours of duty and the time, the downtime in port for repairs, for training, for better readiness? >> you've got it. and think of it like a dimmer in the dining room at home.

we've got to turn that dimmer toward more rest, better equipment maintenance, a sense of giving the people a break from the mission. right now that dimmer is fired all the way to the left, and we're overdriving those ships. we've got to get it right. and part of this is also getting more ships into our navy so the burden can be spread a bit more equally on the ships in the fleet. >> thank you so very much, it's great to have you here in person. thanks, admiral. coming up, the separation crisis at the border. house democrats are hearing from government investigators with shocking revelations about just how many migrant children are still separated from their parents. a border crisis the white house will not acknowledge. the inside scoop, coming up next on "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us right here on msnbc. e on msnbc.

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do you believe that the administration's decision to enact a zero tolerance policy which resulted in the forcible separation of thousands of kids from their parents, was in the best interests of the children? >> i do not believe that separation of children from their parents is in the best interests of the child. >> so this problem is not over, even after they unify the filed with the family, right?

>> the consequences of separation for many children will be lifelong. >> it is so shocking that we do not know how many. i hope this hearing can get to some at least knowing what we need to know. >> newly empowered house democrats are holding the very first hearing on this trump administration child separation policy. in this first hearing they're learning, first of all, that there are a large number of children and that the policy actually started from a gao report, it started with potentially thousands of children who were separated even before it was announced in april. this has still not be acknowledged by the rest of the administration. this leaves an unknown number of children still separated and unaccounted for if fost in fost. nbc's jacob soboroff has been covering this across the country. he's on capitol hill today. charles sykes is editor in chief of "the bulwark" and heidi

przybyla. jacob, let's try to explain the difference between the april policy, and there are still some 100 children still not reunited with their parents, and what we know from this gao report, that this policy started long before it was announced. >> andrea, it's really remarkable what is happening in that hearing room right now. perhaps most remarkable because we've heard from commander jonathan white from the department of health and human services that we just simply do not know how many children were separated by the trump administration and whether or not they were ever reunited with their parents. we know from this hhs/oig report, the office of the inspector general, that potentially thousands is the number they put out, were separated before the implementation of the zero tolerance policy. we know those numbers pretty well, about 2,800 kids were separated. six of them are eligible still

today for reunification of their parents and are still in the custody of hhs. there are over 80 more that are in the custody of hhs that may not be reunited with their parents for a variety of factors. but the huge question is what happened that those thousands of kids that the office of inspector general report says were potentially separated as well. you heard the chairwoman from colorado who called the policy abhorrent. this is the first day of the first hearing by this democratic congress of what happened at the southern border and who is responsible for it. >> charlie sykes, i feel so much moral outrage over this. you're hearing from a dhs official who is honestly testifying that these children may never recover from the effects of this separation. what are people around the country saying? you just came from your home base of wisconsin. >> this can't be a partisan issue. this policy was a matter of choice. it was intended to be a

deterrent, using cruelty to children as a policy tool. and the consequences are going to be lifelong. and this is what congressional oversight looks like. this is a very good choice by the democrats, to highlight this, because it gets lost in all the rhetoric about the wall and open borders and all of this sort of thing, that in fact you have a man-made, administration-created, humanitarian nightmare that is not over. >> you've covered congress, you talk to these people all the time. diane degette from colorado doesn't do things lightly. she is going to really try to get to the bottom of this. as she told rachel maddow last night, they may never get to the bottom of this because they weren't keeping records before april. >> exactly. >> before a court ordered them to. >> to charlie's point, this is a massive scandal hiding in plain sight. this is why democrats are starting here with their congressional oversight.

like you said, there was a major, major breakdown between the agencies that collected these children through dhs and border patrol and then handed them off, apparently without any system for reuniting them or identifying them. then you have the question of what criteria was used to separate them. i watched part of the testimony, and there was no clear answer as to what constituted criminal activity on behalf of the parents. was it simply by virtue of crossing the border and therefore thousands of children were wrongfully separated from their parents who had done nothing more than just try to legally come to the border and surrender themselves for asylum? and then there's the question, why was this being done even before the zero tolerance policy was enacted? andrea, i was given a tip several months ago from a congressional office that said, there's something not right here, okay? the number of children classified as unaccompanied saw this massive spike month to month. and it is not in sync with

previous years. something very wrong is going on here. and what we now know is that those children came with their parents and they were being reclassified as unaccompanied. >> jacob, you've been all over this. i don't know how you keep your moral outrage in check. but it just -- i've interviewed doctors, as you have, who talk about -- pediatricians who talk about the lifelong effects of this kind of separation. we track parcels, amazon and ups track parcels better than they tracked people. >> that's exactly right, andrea. it's about a full accounting of what happened. i can only tell you what i saw. i went into the ursula processing center in mccowan and i saw those children put into cages or kennels or whatever you want to call them, separated from their parents. the thousands of potentially additional children that we didn't know about until this oig report is really where the focus should be right now. and the reality is we're

probably not going to get the answers from these hearings that are going on right now, and that is because this committee in particular has oversight of hhs but not over the department of homeland security. and commander white in the hearings today is saying he just doesn't have the information on who was separated. he knows where each and every one of the kids in his custody went to or were discharged to, but of those thousands of children, he has absolutely no idea which ones of them were separated in the first place. and that's the only way we're going to know ultimately the total number of kids ripped away from their parents as part of this zero tolerance policy. >> jacob, that's a really important point. the only way this will be resolved is if they have a special select committee across all sorts of boundaries of congressional turf and get to the bottom of it. let's just say, i know you're staying on it, heidi and jake, and charlie as well. thank you all very much. coming up, growing crisis, another crisis, this one south of the border, in venezuela.

embattled leader maduro not letting food and other aid reach his starving people over that bridge as millions have already fled their homeland. we'll have a live report, next, coming up. coming up.

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and breaking news from capitol hill, where the senate judiciary committee has just voted a party line vote to advance william barr's nomination as the next u.s. attorney general. he'll still need to be confirmed by the full senate, which is expected to happen very soon. and turning now to the growing crisis in venezuela, where president nicolas maduro is blocking desperately needed food and supplies from the u.s. to entering his country along the bridge, claiming that the humanitarian aid is part of a coup attempt by the u.s.-backed opposition leader, juan guido. nbc's gabe gutierrez is in colombia right on venezuelan border where the aid is being blocked. people are still trying to get out or get across to get food. gabe? >> reporter: hi, andrea. yes, this is the pedestrian bridge where about 50,000 people cross into venezuela every day. as i can step out of here, you can see behind me not all these are staying in venezuela, or planning to stay in venezuela. what many do is bring suitcases

and rolling suitcases and stock them up with supplies. they go over there for the day, some of them to work as well, then go back across the bridge to venezuela. but this is the city where aid organizations say that they plan to stockpile all that aid that is coming from the united states, and a stand-off is brewing in between the government of nicolas maduro and juan guido, who says that aid is desperately needed. as you mentioned, the maduro regime is blocking that aid from entering venezuela. the big question is what will happen to that aid? how will it get into the country, and what can be done? the u.s. has pledged $20 million in humanitarian aid. that's in addition to the $140 million that had already been allocated to the several south american countries that are handling the influx here from venezuela. earlier today, we went to a soup kitchen that handed out 3,000 meals for breakfast, another 5,000 for lunch. we spoke with several families who said it was a desperate

situation in venezuela, as you've been reporting over the past several days. one mother who talked to us broke down in tears as she said she desperately had to come and take her young children to colombia in order to get a better life. she broke down in tears when she begged the international community for help. she wanted to see the maduro regime toppled. she did not think that the guido government would do any better. others we have spoken with say they desperately need a change with with hyperinflation crippling the venezuelan economy. they say this issue needs to be addressed right away and this humanitarian aid that's being stockpiled here in this colombian border town must make its way into venezuela. they say they're hungry, desperate, and need help. andrea? >> such a desperate situation, but of course america's history, the u.s. history in that region has been so damaging over decades and decades. maduro is very cleverly playing

up the u.s. past to try to stop that aid and try to make it sound as though it's a coup attempt. obviously they are calling for regime change. how is this going to be resolved? is there a military possibility? >> reporter: well, that's the question that many people here are asking. some of the venezuelan migrants we spoke with would like to see some military component here, either from the u.s. or some of the surrounding countries, but right now the question -- that's the big question. we do not know how this aid will get into the country or if there's any end in sight. >> gabe, thanks for being down there. we'll be right back. ing down there. we'll be right back. so we improved everything. we used 50% fewer ingredients added one handed pumps and beat the top safety standards the new johnson's® choose gentle

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thanks for being with us. see you tomorrow. here's stephanie ruhle. >> thanks so much, andrea. hello, everyone. i'm stephanie ruhle. my partner ali velshi is off. it is thursday, february 7th. let's get smarter. virginia's three highest ranking officials now embroiled in their own individual political chaos. the governor and attorney general both admit they've worn blackface as the lieutenant governor faces an allegation of sexual assault. >> a letter written by the woman reads as a credible account, and i think there should be an investigation to get to the bottom of it and determine the facts. >> the media is asking me,