realm of possibilities they can leave. >> jim, thank you. jim kavanaugh, clint van zandt, kevin tibbles, shawn henry. thank you for helping me out with this coverage. i as a journalist don't like to be wrong. i very much pray that my reporting for the last 20 minutes has been wrong. this is from bill foster, united states representative, who said my office is aware of the situation and is monitoring it closely. thank you to all of the first responders who are on the scene right now. we have heard word from several schools in the area that they are beginning dismissals. they will do it on a interval basis. we're going to continue our coverage of this. nicolle wallace picks it up right now. hi, everyone. we are monitoring the worst kind of breaking news, if you can monitor, an active shooter situation in aurora, illinois. nbc news' kevin tibbles is in or chicago newsroom with the

latest. kevin? >> reporter: a suburban type of community about 30 miles west of the city and about the same time an hour and a half ago word started to come out from the pratt company there was an active shooter on the scene inside. we have had some unconfirmed reports of injuries, perhaps even deaths on the scene there. there are also reports and there are choppers in the air that the area has been absolutely swarmed by police and s.w.a.t. teams, local schools in the area were either on a soft or hard lockdown. kids not being allowed to leave. adults, parents not being allowed to come inside. it was announced by the town city of aurora there was an active shooter situation. what is interesting about this is that aurora being 30 miles west of the city isn't that far really away from o'hare airport, for example. that is where all of the warehousing, all of the small manufacturing, these sorts ever

businesses are all situated out there to take advantage of their location, not only the airport but the number of rail yards there. that's where you have these large factories like the pratt factory that would probably make it very difficult if there's someone in there that you want to find, as the police have been trying to do for the last little while. probably makes it very difficult to go in and find someone and do it safely when you know that there are at least one, if not more people, in there with a gun, nicolle. >> kevin, i understand police have confirmed at the time that the active shooter engaged this workplace, there were people inside. what kind of -- i know we don't have any confirmed numbers, but is there any reporting from local hospitals? any sightings of ambulances in the area? >> there are all kinds of ambulances in the area. we have not received any word from hospitals as to whether or not they have received any

wounded or any patients, for example. but they have all been put on notice by the authorities to be at the ready. and that is -- that's the way it stands with them right now. and at the same time as i mentioned earlier, the area has been absolutely swarmed with police. aurora is in one of the counties that is west of the city and that county, aurora is actually part of four larger counties, all of whom are involved in this investigation. >> kevin, can you confirm something ali velshi just said as he was handing off to us. he reported that some schools in the area would begin some dismissals of their students on a inter-val basis. has any sort of all clear been given in some parts of aurora? do you have any additional reporting or confirmation on that? >> i don't have any information as to whether or not an all clear has been given. i know, for example, some of the

schools, one of them in particular, a catholic school is in the same neighborhood and very close by, that school was on a hard lockdown. other schools several miles away, that could be taking place, students could be allowed to shuttle to their parents to go home. in the immediate area i have not heard any word either than the authorities staying stay home and do not go to this area and by all means do not try to go and sort of bird dog the police activity going on because as far as we're concerned right now, that police activity continues at this hour. >> let me give you something that just came in to us here in the newsroom, kevin, that the police have apprehended the suspect. we're awaiting some more information about who he is, why he did what he did. but that is just coming in to our newsroom here, the police have apprehended an active shooter.

let's reset for our viewers anyone who just joined us. a little bit in the 3:00 hour, east coast time, an active shooter situation was announced by the city of aurora. they sent out via tweet an alert that there was an active shooter near highland and archer streets. aurora police on the scene. we had information from our correspondents and local reports area schools were on soft or hard lockdowns. the active shooter engaged individuals working or who mapped to be at the henry pratt company. that is a company located at 401 south highland drive, aurora, a city in illinois, chicago, about 30 miles west of chicago. kevin, are you hearing what we're hearing, and do you have anything to add to reports that police have apprehended the

shooter? >> this is -- i mean, this is the information that we're receiving as it comes out piece by piece. it is interesting in hearing that when they say a suspect has been apprehended, i would assume that means someone has been arrested as opposed to what has hand so many times in the past, either a person has been shot or perhaps taken their own life in the situation like this. i guess we will wait further information from the authorities on the ground and authorities in aurora as to what has gone on there. again, the word speculation is at the front of everyone's mind when something like this takes place. but obviously, everyone is now thinking is this an employee? could this be the result of a domestic, some sort of thing, but at this point in time if someone had been apprehended, then at least we can say that there is not going to be any more damage done if this case.

>> kevin, we're so grateful to have you. we're going to let you work your sources and please hop back on with us with anything that you learn, any new developments. thank you for your time. >> thanks, nicolle. we're joined at the table by our friends john heilemann and kimberly atkins. john heilemann, i thought as we came on the air we would be talking about donald trump's news conference this morning in the rose garden, not just because it was an extraordinary display of the kind of instability now former republican senator bob corker talked about but because donald trump in that press conference declared a national emergency. and it wasn't -- it was about 24 hours ago that nancy pelosi talked about a different kind of president, perhaps in the future, using the power of a national emergency to declare one around the issue of gun violence. >> yes. there's a lot of ways to analyze what happened with trump today and we want to focus on this but you set the backdrop and one of

the ways to analyze it, we thought talk about it as political theater, as empty symbolism, as grotesque, as inappropriate as setting a bad precedent, as a million different things, but it set so much now in the context of this, however bad this turns out to be, another mass shooting, i'm looking at the statistics, 323 in 2018. 323 mat shootings in 2018, nearly one a day in america. i don't know what definitions -- i don't know how to define an emergency, but i'll tell you that if you listen to the experts who talk about what's happening on the southern border and look at the number of mass shootings in america, before you go to solutions or anything else, i think we can all look around and say this is an emergency. i spent my week last week in and part of this week in

minneapolis-st. paul with amy klobuchar announcing her campaign when she was there with beto o'rourke. a lot of people were going up saying is the border an emergency? do you think we're in the middle of an emergency or not? some people said yes but a lot more said that's not an emergency. an emergency is guns. an emergency is climate change. an emergency is the state of our schools. an emergency is health care in america. an emergency is the opioid crisis. a lot of people had a lot of things on their lists of what they thought in their lives and cities and communities were emergency, a lot of them, not all of them, a lot of them mentioned guns. this is the kind of thing when you think about this and think about what the president did today basically admitting what he was doing was a cheap, empty, meaningless political ploy, it makes your stomach churn. >> it really does. and if you look at the words that have been uttered, i

mentioned nancy pelosi's words yesterday, a little over 24 hours ago about what another kind of president might use an emergency declaration for, the state of the union was a week and three days ago and donald trump didn't have any words for the gun crisis in america. >> right, he didn't mention it at all. in past years in the obama administration it was almost uniformly mentioned when he gave andres to the nation, because these incidents have been far too common. and one unfortunate thing is when these things happen, the political response has also become very common and predictable. there will be a call for some gun control legislation, republicans will probably uniformly first say no, it's too soon. it's too soon after this event. and we hope this is not the case f. it does turn out to be fatal, then they will delay and then nothing will happen. we've seen that happen time and again. democrats are trying to push.

just this week there was a bill for universal background check that advanced out of the house judiciary committee and likely dead on arrival in the senate. there's a push to keep it afoot in the forefront but there hasn't been real substantive action in the year yesterday since the horrific parkland shooting of the worse high school shooting in this nation's history despite all of the groundswell of report from young people and people throughout the country, we've seen very little action. >> we're joined by phone right now by shawn henry, former assistant director of fbi and lucky for us, nbc news national security analyst. shawn, tell us what you sort of see and hear when you come on the air to help us navigate through what looks like a very sad situation. i want to just reset for anyone just joining us. we came on the air covering anabilityian

active shooter situation in aurora, illinois. the community was awarded via tweet by their city we have an active shooter incident, gave out the address. we've since learned since we've been on the air just a little over 11 minutes they happen rehended the shooter. shawn henry, what's your sense of what's hand here today in aurora? >> you know, nicolle, as i watch this, i'm looking at a number of officers, they appear to be tactical officers who entered the building but you will notice all of the ambulances are still about 100 yards away from the building. i think that even though they may have a shooter apprehended, the tactical response is going to include a thorough search of the building to ensure that there is a threat -- that there's no additional threat, that it's been removed or mitigated. so it appears to me when i saw the number of officers going in, it appeared to be 20 or so officers, they're doing a thorough search to make sure there are no accomplices in the building or individuals to pose

a threat to the first responders. they will do that type of analysis. the other piece here appears to be a quite a large-ranging facility, perhaps over a couple acres with multiple buildings. additionally, officers are going to want to search that. the key piece here is to ensure there's no threat to any of the officers, there's no threat to anybody on the inside and any of the emergency response people that are coming in to render medical assistance, that they also have no danger posed to them. >> shawn, you mentioned ambulances. while you were talking some information came in to our newsroom that two patients have been admitted to local hospitals. we don't have any information on their condition, but the hospitals have described themselves as being on high alert. i understand that, shawn, to mean they're ready to receive more patients if the situation sadly turns into one where more medical care is needed. but two patients at least. two patients confirmed admitted to a local hospital. >> yeah.

when you think about a facility as large as this, and just based on the visual images here nicolle, we don't have a lot of information, but you would expect there to be quite a large number of employees there. and emergency responders need to prepare for the worst. they need to ensure they have adequate equipment, appropriate staff on stand-by should the worst occur and there be mu multiple casualties or injuries there. i can tell you because we've been working in an environment over the last decade or so with active shooters, these municipalities working hand in hand. law enforcement people work with emergency responders, they bourque with twork with the hospital and state and local agencies all working together in a very collaborative way and they train for these type of incidents. when i hear the hospital providing that type of information, this is not the first time they've gone through this. it might not have been an actual incident but they've gone through this in training

multiple times before and it's just for this type of a situation so they can ensure that there's as effective as they can possibly be to help protect the citizens of aurora, nicolle. >> that comment shawn in and of itself is a stunning kmcommenta where we are, in the last decade, cities train for this. hospitals train for this. moms, schools train for active shooter drills when kids are as young as pre-k and nursery school. but it bears out. what you're saying is true, since we've been on the air, i've been handed more information made available to the public and press. presence mercy medical center that shared the information about two patients admitted there. we also have the reporting that hospital is not a trauma center, and we do not have any information about the two patients being treated there in terms of their condition. but talk about why the last

decade and beyond the obvious, these incidents are as john heilemann said a more than daily occurrence in america. mass shooting takes place just about every day. but talk about how that changed the way law enforcement and hospitals and schools and cities communicate with their -- the people they serve. >> we constantly adapt our response as first responders but as a community to the pending threats. i'm old enough to remember doing air raid drills and going under my desk when i was in grade school. after 9/11 we trained for terrorism and we had -- people had facilities and equipment to protect against a chemical attack and now with the advent of these types of attacks and proliferation, the number of incidents that we see, we're training for these so we can mitigate these threats and allow people to be safer. it is a sad state when i think equipment schools carrying long

guns where you have officers now patrolling schools and they've got to do that in order to provide a safe environment. but what does that do in terms of the culture within the schools, the environment that kids are exposed to? it's a sad state. unfortunately, it's where we are based on the risk and based on the current threat and officers are doing everything they can, communities ever training as highly as they can to try to ensure their citizens are safe. >> shawn, stay with us. we just got in from our affiliate in chicago, wmaq, an interview with an eyewitness. let watch that and we will all talk about it on the other side. >> we saw when they took them out the other officers, i don't know if they were from the city of aurora or north aurora -- >> when you say carried out, was he on a gurney or did they carry him physically? >> no, they carried him

physically. it was three over officers. they were bringing out their brother, yes, ma'am. somewhe >> can you tell me where you're located as relates to the henry pratt building. >> they're my neighbors. >> are you on the street where most of the police are parked there? >> yes, ma'am. we have lines of ambulances ready. we have the fire department. we were seeing s.w.a.t. teams walking up and down the street, the police, the state troopers are even here. we had all kinds of action going on. >> shawn henry, it's something you never want to hear. she was describing police officers, three of them, quote, bringing out their brother. it sounds like from this eyewitness account, this has not been confirmed by local law enforcement or by the hospital, but it sounds like this eyewitness is talking about police officers bringing out one of their brothers, which i understand to mean a police officer injured in this active

shooting. >> yes, tactical officers go into incredibly dangerous situation on a regular basis. they have the best equipment and best training but you can't always protect against every single threat. let's hope that, that officer is not injured critically. it's just perhaps a slight injury. but their goal -- when we have an active shooter, the goal of law enforcement is to neutralize the threat. officers are running towards the gunfire. their goal is to get to that threat and to neutralize it before that threat is able to injure innocent civilians inside that building. and you oftentimes, you do away -- certainly they train tactically to do that. there are certain maneuvers that they do but of on times they're running across open spaces. they're moving into areas quickly, training and history

and experience has taught us it's been speed and firepower, overwhelming use of the force that allows you the most quickly and effectively to neutralize that threat. unfortunately that exposes officers too often to a potential threat and could allow them to be injured here. let's hope that officer is not injured severely, nicolle. >> our hopes are aligned with yours, shawn henry. we're all going to continue to monitor events out of aurora, illinois for you. we also have breaking news in the mueller investigation and more headlines out of the white house today. don't go anywhere. we will sneak in a break. capital one is anything but typical. that's why we designed capital one cafes. you can get savings and checking accounts with no fees or minimums. and one of america's best savings rates. to top it off, you can open one from anywhere in 5 minutes. this isn't a typical bank. this is banking reimagined.

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and we're back with breaking news in the mueller investigation. we have learned that white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders is now a witness in that probe. sanders confirmed today she's met with robert mueller's investigators and testified in the investigation. after her conflicting statements at the podium about that false statement crafted on board air force one about the now-infamous trump tower meeting. many people thought this was only a matter of time. among other carnage from that incident has shattered any shred of credibility she had left at that point. we don't know what sanders has discussed with mueller's prosecutors and investigators or whether she herself faces any legal jeopardy. with us back at the table, kim atkins and john heilemann, also joined by former u.s. attorney joyce sands. i remember all of those people who were involved in the

crafting of the lie. mark corallo, somebody i have known throughout my time in politics, quit the trump legal time. he worked outside of the white house but he was a pr guy on the president's legal team. he had a similar rove for karl rove durl tinvestigation. >> scooter libby thing. he quit over a grand jury. >> he quit over what he viewed as an attempt to craft justice, in part -- >> unfortunately we have not been able to get him on television to talk about it. if you would solve that, that would be awesome. >> mark knows how to find us. but my point is to take people back in time to just how tortured the process was for the president's aides involved in crafting the statement. they all soon after that flight received invitations from robert mueller to be interviewed about the crafting of the statement. one of the flash points of the investigation, bringing us it

today's breaking news that sarah sanders met with mueller's team. >> when you think about it one of the things we struggle with on a daily, hourly basis in our business if you're covering the story is the metastatic quality of it. it's sprawling and toxic and it touches a lot of people. there are a lot of different storylines, sub themes and characters. when it's all over, some of these people we spent a lot of time on for a little while aren't going to matter. here's something that's going to matter in the end is that those days, the days when the efforts were made to concoct, fabricate a cover story around an incident hand when actual russians came to the united states and sat around table with actual trump campaign officials on the premise they were going to bring dirt about hillary clinton, the clearest, single incident we can point to of atented, ostensible collusion, coordination, conspiracy.

did we know about it? did we know it hand? and when it became public, the white house did a lot of stuff, a lot of shady stuff. >> they lied. >> to try to -- to lie, deflect. lie most directly but to create a cover-up around that incident. so whenever happened -- >> that was putin right before he got on the plane who created the lie. >> who had been meeting with putins hours before the g7 or nato meeting, i can't remember which, it's one of the most important -- the original event and then the attempt, direct obvious attempt to cover it up are going to be at the center of whatever bob mueller comes up with. the notion that sarah sanders has been struck into it strikes me as utterly unsurprising. whether she has legal vulnerability, i do not know. i think there's no one who was on air force one or on the other side of the phone helping to tell that lie, to tell that cover-up story, no one who is involved is not going to be

interviewed by mueller. >> if they have not already. >> if they haven't been there. >> joyce, we were talking a lot lately about the coordination of lies told about contacts with russians. we've spent a lot of this week analyzing mueller's, one of his top deputies, andrew weissmann's comments that we learned about in a transcript from a closed-door hearing, the contacts between trump's campaign officials and russians or russian associates, are the heart of the special counsel's investigation. it would seem on the other side of your investigation is the obstruction of justice investigation, which we haven't heard as much about lately but at the heart of that probe, a prosecutor involved in that prong of it might describe this trump tower meeting cover-up. the lies crafted aboard air force one as john heilemann just did, the heart of the obstruction probe. do you agree with that? >> i agree with that 100%. there would be no reason to craft lie around this meeting.

and for the president himself to dictate the cover-up story, unless something was going on in the meeting they didn't want to have come to light. it is as john heilemann says, completely unsurprising that sarah huckabee sanders has found herself at least a witness in this investigation. we don't know if she's a subject or target, and there's reason to believe she is. but as a prosecutor, i would want to question her and determine whether she was sent to the podium with the cover-up story as though it were truth, essentially sent out as a victim to peddle lies like so many others in this administration have been or if she was part of formulating the cover-up. it would be very important to know that because if she was involved in formulating the cover-up or heard conversation about creating a story, she's become a very important witness. then we have today the new attorney general, bill barr on the first day, the new gloss on this issue. barr as you will recall

infamously circulated a memo of his yoan accord before he was selected as the nominee that he didn't believe there was an obstruction crime here, that there couldn't be any prosecution in this area. so we have to see if he continues to stick to that belief now that he has access to all of the evidence >> joyce, let me ask you a followup question on that front, i imagine once he's been confirmed, he will be briefed on the furl scope of tfull scope o mueller probe. is he someone from your years of knowledge with people in and around him who could have his opinion changed once he has his arms around the facts? or do you think the words and sentiments conveyed in his memo that was widely circulated in senior doj and white house circles, do you think the dye is cast in terms of his world view on the obstruction case mueller is investigating? >> i don't know the new attorney general personally. i was a young prosecutor in birmingham on his first tour of

duty as the attorney general. he's now what we call a retread in the department of justice, serving in the same position for the second time. he was a good attorney general the first time. people who know him well say he's an institutionalist, which means he will weigh carefully the evidence that's put in front of him, listen to the people who have been working on the case, and take it all in balance. if he feels what chuck rosenberg always likes to call the gravitational pull, once you're in that main justice building, the kennedy building on pennsylvania avenue with its years of tradition and very serious focus of evaluating cases based solely on the facts and the law, he will listen to that carefully and make an independent decision based on the evidence that's available. >> here's hoping. i want to read sarah huckabee sanders' statement. she's out with this quote today. the president urged me, like he has everyone in the administration, to fully cooperate with the special counsel. i was happy to voluntarily sit

down with him. it's hard to read that without wondering if the president urged her, like he has everyone in the administration, to fully cooperate with the special counsel, if he did all of that urging before or after he typed his daily witch-hunt tweet. >> this is a witch-hunt, this is politicized, this is absolutely out of bounds. yes, this is not, i don't believe that is how the conversation went. >> she is the perfect spokesperson for him if she can put this out with a straight face. >> exactly. and we've already echoed this is not a surprise at all. robert mueller is going to go over this investigation with a fine-tooth comb because that's the kind of investigator he is. and because the stakes are so high, he obviously isn't going to leave any stone unturned so the fact that sarah huckabee sanders, whose job it was literally to be at the center of the messaging of what happened in that trump tower meeting, of course, she's going to be questioned. and he's going to compare her

responses to things she has said publicly in the past, to whatever information he has that we don't about her involvement. and we will know more about that when the investigation is done. >> we have been joined by a superstar by our white house correspondent fresh off a tour de force this morning in the white house rose garden. >> very sneaky, slippery and sly in the conversation. >> we're talking about the breaking news that sarah huckabee sanders is before robert mueller, also reporting the news about sarah sanders first reported by our friends over at cnn. we've also learned john kelly, former white house chief of staff, i guess not the current, not the first but middle chief of staff, also spoke with robert mueller. i want to ask you a question, i remember robert mueller's 49 questions for the president that were shared with the president's lawyers. sarah huckabee sanders' name i don't believe was in those questions. but there are or there were --

we don't know trump addressed them, but there were pointed questions about the crafting of the answer aboard air force one that ended up conveying to the media, not a crime in and of itself, a lie about the trump tower meeting. that statement crafted after the president met one on one, one of five meetings we know he had have weapon vladimir putin where the notes were ripped up. nobody knows what he talked about. after he had that meeting, got on air force one, was on the phone and press was there and put out a lie with response to press inquiries about the trump tower meeting. >> you're exactly right. what's striking as we cover sarah huckabee sanders over the course of the last couple of years is how careful she is trying to say this is what the president believes. this is the president's thinking on these things. the problem fundamentally for her comes when she's in the rooms when the engagement exists with the president in framing that language and what conversations she hears, aware of. obviously in the past hope hicks is one of the people. when strikes me when i'm at the

white house in the west wing is how there's only a limited number of people that are really in that inner circle that meet inside the oval office with the president. as relates to the national emergency declaration right now and conversations i have been having proiftly with aides when they're discussing what the president would do, sarah is always in that room. there's only a limited number of people in there as he makes those decisions. so it's certain she would have born witness to some of these conversations taking place and certainly would have been flying back with him and part of the conversation on that day. >> it's important to note that everything he tweets about these special counsel investigation we know to be under investigation by robert mueller, who has taken those tweets, paired them with actions, some we saw, some we did not. for example, around the wish to have robert mueller fired. they have the tweets. they have the testimony of the witnesses to that effort, that endeavor. and he is pasting together a picture. so like you're saying, sarah huckabee sanders could speak to

a pretty essential part of what robert mueller's looking at when he pairs public statements to the public tweets to the conduct behind the scenes. >> the truth is behind the scenes there's been evidence by cliff sims, one of the other aides who worked in sarah sanders' own office, what he's written about in his book that upset the president. there has been so much in-fighting back and forth. there are all of these different factions we witnessed existing there that you don't know when you put before sarah sanders what someone else says, hey, sarah, this is what someone else said you said in that conversation or here somewhere else you may have been at the time. she will say let me tell you exactly what happened and that's the following. that's one of the real fundamental challenges when you go to aides in this white house. >> you're keting a messen. feel free to pick up. >> i will say -- i have a message. it's about a different story i'm working on, which we will reveal later. the bottom line is there is a challenge for these guys, right, because they know we know from

other folks what the real truth is so often. they know robert mueller is talking to everybody and that will require them to speak. >> they also often go back to their offices and call and tell us the rule truth about their colleagues. thank god for that. after the break, donald trump stepping on undermining his own declaration of a national emergency. did he just invite or assist the legal challenges before he even signs the declaration? e declara? at panera, we treat soup differently. with vine ripened tomatoes, signature cheddar, simmered to perfection. with big flavors, not artificial ones. enjoy 100% clean soup today. panera. food as it should be. you might or joints.hing for your heart... enjoy 100% clean soup today. but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. if your moderate to severeor crohn's symptoms are holding you back,

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donald trump today snatching a potentially devastating legal defeat from the jaws of a crushing political defeat. and likely hobbling his own case for the national emergency he declared today. that national emergency for border wall funding breaking norms and potentially laws and costing the president support among republicans in congress and among many high-profile members of his base. that he gets his wall and to deliver on one of his signature campaign promises, he had to,

had to declare an emergency, right? >> i could do the wall over a longer period of time. i didn't need to do this. but i would rather do it much faster. and i don't have to do it for the election. i've already done a lot of wall for the election, 2020. and the only reason we're up here talking about this is because of the election. >> what? he says that out loud. if you're looking for halfway decent analysis of the legal mess trump made for himself this week by usurping the power of the purse from congress, trump gave us that too. . >> we will have a national emergency and we will then be sued, and they will sue us in the ninth circuit, even though it shouldn't be there, and we will possibly get a bad ruling, and then we'll get another bad ruling, and then we'll end up in the supreme court, and hopefully we will get a fair shake. >> and april afact aapril ra prd

trump tweeted about the amendment and he tossed it around as a possibility. here's some of the other bizarre moments of today's unhinged performance in the rose garden. >> you know i never did politics before. now i do politics. i use many stats. ? can you share the stats with us? >> you have stats that are far worse than the ones i use but i use many stats. i want to wish our attorney general great luck and speed and enjoy your life. rush limbaugh, i think he's a great guy. he's a guy that can speak for three hours without a phone call. try doing that some time. ann coulter, i don't know her. i hardly know her. i haven't spoken to her in way over a year. i like her. but she's off the reservation. you're cnn, you're fake news. you have an agenda. this administration does a tremendous job and we don't get credit for it. he had rocket ships and missiles flying over japan and they had alarms going off. you know that. now all of a sudden they feel good, they feel safe.

i did that. my button is bigger than yours and my button works, remember that? and people said trump is crazy. >> wait. because she said it better than i can. here's ann coulter. >> more than any other, other presidential mandate in the history of the nation, trump's mandate was to build a wall up. no one thought oh, look, he was governor of the biggest state in the union. he was -- he used to run the cia. he was reagan's vice president. he was, you know, he was fdr's. no, it was one thing, the promise he made every single day at every single speech. >> i understand. >> so forget the fact that he's digging his own grave. this is just -- it's the only national emergency is our president is an idiot. >> peter.

>> i was in the rose garden as this took place in the front row and basically watch back the clips over the course of the days -- >> give you ptsd. >> we're all dealing with something i think. here's the bottom line is this is remarkable for a reason, the one that actually matters in relation to the emergency. the president erased any doubt about his motivation for the national emergency saying i didn't need to do this, i just wanted to do it faster. already democrats pounced on this. the aclu, which is going to be challenging this declaration, is already using that in the first sentence of the release they posted today. the bottom line is national emergencies are not to be scheduled. you can't talk about national emergencies for a couple of months and then say we'll do it next tuesday in the rose garden. it's a national emergency. >> and in the rose garden say but no, it's not an emergency. >> that's the very point. the bottom line is within seconds of announcing that he was going to do this, he said i really didn't need to do this. i'm doing it because i want to move forward.

>> i want to push back on something you said, i don't think it doesn't matter that ann coulter called him an idiot and he acted like one. donald trump is aware enough of conversations about whether or not the 25th amendment gets battered around that he retweeted this morning from his twitter feed a comment from alan dershowitz about the amendment. >> when we talk about ann coulter, the bottom line, you saw laura ingraham, sean hannity and comments in recent days, the president addressed the relationship here. ann coulter is one the president can say i don't know ann coulter. the president has praised her in the past routinely. i can name three occasions he said something complimentary about her. but for all of those voices, there's not a lot of places for them to go. >> here's the power of ann coulter, and i never thought i would find myself in this position, but ann coulter saying the perfects is an idiot, he can be naked and not that i wish this on anybody, but he could be naked and the four of us could say for 60 straight minutes the

president is naked, 40% of the country would think the four of us are liars. he's not naked. he's fully dressed. ann coulter comes out and said he's buck bleep naked and they suddenly see him as naked because ann coulter has had a more intimate relationship, agrees with his base on more issues than he does. i think the break with ann coulter is a thing because her calling him an idiot has a lot more power than anybody anywhere else calling him an idiot. >> i don't know -- heartening to hear ann coulter say that the way he got cheers and spirits, somebody speaking the plain truth so clearly. but i don't know ann coulter has any political followers or overstates her power. she's a mirror. >> you read her books. >> i'm to the sure there's a lot of people in trump nation who if ann coulter decides to defect and become a trump hater they're not going to be ann coulter's leaving the president? i'm going with ann coulter. where i think it's important is this, in december ann coulter

single-handedly almost with the help of rush limbaugh and sean hannity threw the entire country into disarray. the president was ready to sign a deal. he was ready to make the deal, keep the government funded, et cetera, et cetera. do all of this stuff, and then ann coulter made a stink, and it mattered so much to donald trump that he derailed everything and threw us into the longest government shutdown in history. now, two months later he suffered all of that damage and at the end of all of it, he's not made her happy. she's calling him an idiot. and i think the biggest thing it says is what a loser. i mean, the only -- she was like the only person he wanted to make happy. he threw the country into disarray to basically her and rush limbaugh and sean hannity happy. at the end of all of this, they're not happy either. nancy pelosi kicked hiss ass in the shutdown, and now he's out there like begging for crumbs

and she's calling him an idiot on national television. how much worse can it get on this issue, this particular fight he's fought? he lost on every front. >> joyce, i follow katia and joyce conway continue gets my attention when they agree aggressively and vigor on something. within moments of one another, they both tweeted the first lines in the lawsuits against this emergency declaration will be the president's own comments today in the rose garden. is that the legal case against the emergency, that the person who declared the emergency said there was no emergency? >> i think peter became a hero for plaintiffs' lawyers across the country today when he asked the president that question. i literally could not believe the answer, because what lawyers have been bandying about, constitutional lawyers, the smart people that i don't include myself among but they've been having a conversation about the except of the executive power being the focus of this with courts giving great

deference to the president over his determination that something is a national emergency. and, of course, they would have argued that but not expected necessarily to win. now the president i think has put that into question, even though the data has always suggested that there's no national emergency here. crime is down, immigration is down. drugs don't come through the border like the president seems to think that they do. and now here we've got the president himself essentially saying, it's not a national emergency. and every lawyer will pick up on that. trump may think they're going to go to the ninth circuit, the most liberal circuit in the country. there will undoubtedly be cases there. but there's one case in progress on the texas border that's in the fifth circuit, one of the very conservative circuits that exists in the deep south, i expect that they will succeed there as well, and the president will have only himself to thank for their victory. >> they will lose likely legally. the republican party also died another death today. i texted joe scarborough and i

said i know we say it a million times, is this the death knell anything conservative? he said, i completely have given up how low republicans will go for this guy. this is a republican party that president barack obama issued an executive order that happened to also be about immigration. this is a vice president in mike pence who was among the loudest screamers. this was a party that made this such a political issue. this is a party that laid down today and begged donald trump to drive his choo-choo train over their dead bodies. >> this is a party who sues barack obama when he took executive action for obamacare subsidies and won on the issue it was executive overreach and that the power of the purse rests with the congress, not with the white house. there are a few republicans who are very uncomfortable about this and came out and said they wished the president would not do that, so it is not completely --

>> i counted one. john cornyn. >> beforehand, mitch mcconnell was among those people saying they shouldn't do this. this is a bad idea. i will support the president, declaring a national emergency. >> i counted one. were there more than john cornyn today? >> senator collins. >> rubio, collins, i think murkowski. >> who criticized him today? anybody? i saw one. >> congress is out today. >> in the country, one. >> but the point is, this is a big problem for them. this idea of this separation of powers, the idea of overreach, the rule of law, the overreach of the executive branch, has been a republican call over and over again throughout any democratic administration, and president trump is throwling that out of the window. i think he knows this is a loser for him legally. he's just using this as a political fight. the whole spiel about how he's going to lose and it's because it's political, i'm sure he's been informed, this is a

terrible thing to do. it's going to be challenged and you will likely lose, but he doesn't care. he's boxed in. he lost in the fight with nancy pelosi. he's boxed in and this is the only place he can go politically. >> if you're a republican and you want to be the president, you know, you're not 70 like most of them in the senate, you today read a book about what republicans used to sound like and talk like and act like, and you come out aggressively against this. you join neal katyal and george conway's legal argument against it. >> look, i think -- i would. you know, if i were a republican, an ambitious republican looking for the future, i'm not talking about the short-term future. i'm talking about republicans who might in some theoretical universe decide to challenge trump in 2020, but if you're looking down the road for life after trump, something they wouldn't fathom that there would be such a thing, one of the most incomprehensible things in the world, as an example, people who lied to house intel committee,

not considering in two years down the row, democratics could be in the lead and they could be tri tried. they find it impossible to focus their minds 24 months or six years forward that there's a world after donald trump. in that world, standing up to donald trump on this issue, exhibiting some kind of spine, some principle, and i'm not saying some of the old republican varates would do them great good in their long-term political futures, but you know, they have behaved in totally irrational ways for the last two years in term of their self-interest. >> i want to give you the last word. you know, every week is like 11 weeks long. this has been like the longest january/february of my life. but -- >> you're welcome to the come to the white house and join us. >> no, but we live and die by all your great reporting from there. what happens next?

>> well, there are different ways to view what happens next. you can view it in the short-term and in the long term. in the short term, this guy is a day trader. he's going to fight the next fight in the moment it occurs. when you're challenging him to the questions we witnessed in the rose garden, he's quickly trying to come up with some facts, some information, something he heard from a phone call and spews it. one about the illegal ports of entry, the president suggested it was a lie to suggest most drugs come through ports of entry. we know 90% of drugs come through ports of entry, but he has to fight back. when we suggested why are you declaring a national emergency now? he said blame paul ryan. in terms of what comes next, who knows what comes next. i think we saw the beginning of 2020. the president is all in. this is the way we're going to go. we're going to hang this up in the courts. the bottom line is he pushed aside the fight with congress to introduce a battle in the courts and he thinks rhetorically,

that's easier to deal with. the courts can't fight back the way these lawmakers could. >> what happens next legally? does this declaration go through and money -- i mean, do construction workers head to the border and start hammering with hammers and nails or does this get stopped? >> i know jared and the president looked at pictures and paint colors, but does this get stopped before anybody rolls into pickup? >> there's a grace period here. the president can actually spend some money under legislation that was passed in the waning days of the obama administration for fencing. but i think what really happens here is based on the statute that's involved in calling for a national emergency situation, and that permits congress to override the president's determination. i think we'll likely see that begin in the house. the senate will have to take a vote on it. the way that this law is written. and so we will actually have an on the record accounting for all of our elected officials, do

they believe in the rule of law? do they support the rule of law, or are they willing to throw the rule of law into the trash can and support this president? and that may be the compelling development as a result of what's happened this morning. >> you agree with that? >> i think she's exactly right. the whole point was to avoid this moment, and all of a sudden, this is the moment that's going to show up in their laps. the democrat said this is going to happen, the joint resolution of termination. republicans in the senate are going to have to vote on this. the president vetoes. they're all on the record. >> you'll watch it for us. we're so lucky to have you here. >> thanks for having me. >> we're going to sneak in a break. in a break. ♪ doctor dave. see ya. ♪ here's your order. ♪ hey.

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an update to the story we were following at the top of the hour. the shooting at a manufacturing plant in aurora, illinois. four police officers were injured, all in stable condition this hour. there have been civilian injuries. we don't know how many or how serious those are. the shooter, he's been apprehended and police will hold a news conference later this evening. the president on his way to mar-a-lago has been briefed on the shooting. peter alexander, before you go, you have breaking news. >> we were having the conversation that the house judiciary committee said it's going to investigate the president's national emergency declaration. >> see, you have to come back. we love it. thank you for being here. kim, john, joyce, thak all of you. that does it for our hour. mtp daily starts now. hi, chuck. >> hello, nicolle. peter is causing a lot of trouble here for this president. >> he's all purpose. he breaks the news, analyzes it, reports it. >> you've been the one-man band