that does it for me today. i'll be back tomorrow at 8:00 eastern time. thank you for watching. a.m. joy with joy reid starts right now. >> i will oppose president obama's effort to unilaterally fix a broken system granting amnesty to five illegal immigrants. this is wrong, irresponsible and will do damage to a broken immigration system. this is a tremendous presidential overreach. i will try to defund the effort to do it alone. we will challenge him in court and i will continue to work to repair a broken immigration system in a bipartisan fashion. what the president has chosen to do has done great damage to our nation. >> good morning. welcome to a.m. joy. that was lindsey graham in 2014. he all put put his hair on fire.

once donald trump ended his rambling, the hour long speech on friday, senator graham wasted no time going on twitter to pledge his absolute devotion to his president, his captain, praising trump's use of executive power to swipe taxpayer money to build the wall mexico was supposed to pay for. it didn't matter the president thwarted the constitution to render congress powerless, vowing to ignore the law that graham and a supermajority of senators just passed and trump just signed or that the president undercut his own rational for declaring a national emergency by becoming his own worse witness when it goes to court. >> 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. i don't have to do it for the election. i have done a lot of wall for

the election, 2020. the only reason we are you have here talking about this is because of the election. because they want to try to win an election, which it looks like they are not going to be able to do. this is one of the ways they think they can possibly win is by obstruction and a lot of other nonsense and i think that i just want to get it done faster. that's all. >> with democrats poised to use everything at their disposal to block trump's stunt, let's look at where things go from here. joining me is house majority whip, james clyburn of south carolina. congressman, how are you? good morning. >> good morning, thank you for having me. >> of course. lelt's talk about what congress can do. you have been around congress for a while. have you ever heard of a president declaring a national emergency to thwart obstruction in congress? >> absolutely not.

it is amazing to me that this president, by his own words, admit we do not have an emergency. what we have here is a disagreement between congress and the executive branch of government of exactly how to pay for border security. now the president promised us throughout the campaign he was going to build this big, beautiful wall and mexico would be paying for it. that's the promise he made. that's what people voted for. now, he's saying congress should pay for it. that's never been in the discussion by the president or anybody else running for congress. nobody running for congress ran on paying for a big, beautiful 30 foot wall. so, the president does not have an emergency. he has manufactured this crisis and now he's attempting to get

congress to agree with him to pay for something that he, himself, created and admitted yesterday that he did not have to do it and, quite frankly, he should not have done it. >> and the bill that was signed into law by the president not long before he declared the national emergency, anywhere in that bill, does it authorize the president of the united states to take money out of the defense department or any other agency to build a wall? >> absolutely not. congress has the power or the purse. we have told the president and everybody else how money should be spent. much of the money the president is talking about repurposing, money paid for defense of the country. paid to do what the president said he is trying to do for building the wall. he is taking the money away from the defense of the country, much of it in military construction to pay for a wall, which he

knows would be ineffective and he knows has never been authorized and should not be authorized. >> sir, what will congress do now asth majority whip, you aren the leadership team. what does the house of representatives do from here? >> i would hope the speaker of the house, nancy pelosi, will put together a resolution of disapproval. that, we can do. the votes are there to pass a resolution of disapproval and understand the legislation, the senate then would have to act on this resolution within 18 days of our having passed it. hopefully, the senate will agree. now, i don't hold on to hope they will. i certainly know if they were to agree with us, the president would veto it. i don't know why the legislation was written that way, if it is

on us to disapprove of what the president may say, why then we go back and the president gets a second bite out of the apple, so to speak. that's the way the resolution is written. we'll see what happens at that point. >> quickly, is there a possibility the house of republicans might sue the president as the republicans attempted to sue president obama when they didn't like the affordable care act or daca? >> that's a great possibility. i think speaker pelosi has spoken to that. the fact of the matter is, by the time you get back up there in a week and get a suit done, we'll be 15th in line because i think there must be four or five suits already. >> wow. congressman jim clyburn. thank you very much, sir. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> thank you. let's bring in our panel. paul butler, msnbc legal analyst. former white house senior

director. kareem jean ppierre from moveon.org. ellie editor at abovethelaw.com. rick wilson, author of "everything trump touches dies." quite a subtle title. paul, the national emergency act of 1996 stipulates when a president declares a national emergency, he has the discretion to issue it. the president has to notify congress and specify what he wishes to use. the president has to report to congress on emergency related expenditures every six months and issue updates if he invokes additional powers. the previous national emergencies that are still in effect were for the iranian hostage in 1979, 9/11 attacks of

2001 and the spread of nuclear weapons in north korea. this is not that. >> this is illegal. it is unconstitutional. the congressman is right. there's going to be a long line of people waiting to sue donald trump. this is like a jobs program for constitutional lawyers. there are so many legal issues. all it does is move the delay from congress to the court. it's going to take a long time for all of these issues to be resolved, up colluding wharincl crisis. it doesn't exist. when trump was confronted with the facts, he ignored them. he said most drugs come through legally. he said i don't believe it. he was told native born americans have more crimes. he said that's not true. it is true.

he is ignorant about facts. when he declares this national emergency, he unleashes these superpowers. >> ellie, if you could explain, how would a lawsuit play out? we have heard organizations are talking of suing the president over this, there could be the naclu lawsuit. you just heard congressman clyburn say it's poszable for congress to play out. who has standing to sue over this? >> lots of people. it's going to play out like the president said it would play out. he will be sued, he will lose. it will be appealed. he will lose again. it goes to the supreme court and professor butler said it right in terms of the president being ignorant. we have a supreme court stacked with judges that might be willfully ignorant of the president. we saw this all happen with the muslim ban. the key problem with the conservatives on the supreme

court with the muslim ban is they refuse to acknowledge the president was acting in bad faith. i know liberals want to look at the press conference, the disaster and say, oh, trump admitted there's no emergency. that's true, but the supreme court has a documented history of ignoring the fact that the president is lying and acting in bad faith and acting on his directives anyway. i do think that protect democracy is -- or the people already suing, they are representing el paso, the california attorney general, they are going to sue very quickly. there is a very, very, very good separation of power argument. the president cannot declare a national emergency because nancy pelosi gave him a wedgie. we don't know if they have the strength to stand-up to the president because they haven't in the past. >> we didn't need that visual

elie. to punish you, i'm going to play donald trump saying what you said, but he said it in song and verse. >> so, the order is signed. i'll sign the final papers as soon as i get into the oval office. 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 get a fair shake and win in the supreme court, just like the ban. >> just like the ban. the ban is the problem here. every argument they are going to make for why it is illegal, we all made for the ban and the ban should have been illegal. the supreme court ignored it and authorized it.

when talking to congressman clyburn, congress cannot just assume that the ports are going to bail them out. if there are any republican senators who do not want president who won the popular vote to declare a national emergency, go down to mar-a-lago, raise it. turn it into a sandbar to protect against the rising seas. if any republican doesn't want that future, vote against this national emergency and terminate it. >> let me go to rick wilson on this. this is the problem, rick. you know, lawrence made points that paul and elie made. it's very clear, lawrence tribe said article one section nine. article one is congress. no money shall be drawn from the treasure but in consequence of appropriations made by law. what part of no money don't you understand, mr. trump? mike lee from the wing we know

of being self-described constitutional conservative. his initial assessment is what trump announced is legal, whether or not it should be legal is a different matter. congress has been seeding far too much power to the executive branch for decades. use this as an opportunity to take that power back. there's cynicism whether he means that. when a bill is put on the floor, people like mike lee are going to hmm and haw and not vote for the resolution. >> you are right. we are going to see what we do with the republican caucus all the time. furrowed brows, hand wringing. they run to their couches because it's so shocking and appalling. they say off the record, i can't believe they did this thing, then go out on the floor in fear of a primary in 2020 and say, mr. president, i believe he is

doing this for the right reasons and the right thing. it is an unbelievable advocation of responsibilities. it's one more sign my party has evolved into media bashing and trump worshipping. there's nothing else there. everything we used to care about, the constitution, deficit, debt, security, alliance, the world, all of it is gone except what makes donald happy. >> rick, the other thing that appears to be gone is concern that the defense department, the money prappropriated was given r a good reason. we have been accustomed to hearing liberals say there should be cuts to the department of defense and conservatives saying, no, you cannot. having agreements between republicans and democrats that the pentagon should get more money. in this case, donald trump is planning to take money away from the military to do something

mexico is supposed to pay for. he's got 1.375 billi$1.375 bille appropriations bill. none of it is supposed to be for the wall. it's explicit. he's going to try to take 3.6 billion for military construction. another $2.5 billion from the drug interdiction program. then he's going to swipe $600 million from the treasury department drug forfeitture fund. are we to believe in the republican white house, defense department money doesn't matter? whatever that money was intended for isn't important? he's going to build a wall and put his name on it? >> it's another use of congress' power. congress designated that money for a reason. in a remark, he said it doesn't seem that important to me. i want to go back to the primary

culprit here. i'm so glad, at the beginning of the show, you blasted something from the national emergency act of 1976. that's the problem. it's a poorly worded law that basically says the president of the united states defines what a national emergency is and he defines it simply by declaring a national emergency. that's the problem. congress needs to remedy that. i am not confident the courts would overturn his actions. the courts confirm what the legislatures have done. they will look at the law. the law says, look, the president can do this. this law was passed in the post watergate era, enough to give congress more oversight. congress advocated that responsibility. there have been 59 of these national emergencies declared since the law. congress has never had a hearing or overturned one of them.

so, i think the remedy for this is not the courts that will go with what the law says. the remedy is congress. there, as a lot of folks have said, i'm not that hopeful, either. >> that's the problem. let me come to the table here. careen, if congress is -- i mean, congress is the most powerful entity in the united states constitution. at this point, one-half of the congress, it was both halves, are acting as agents of the president. they are acting as employees, basically. so, the courts are being stacked with agents of the president. >> yeah. >> what now? >> we are in trying times, for sure, joy. we are going to see two things. it's a divided government. nancy pelosi has the gavel, the speaker of the house. she will put forth a resolution and force republicans to go on record not just in the house, but the senate because it's a

resolution and national emergency and what it means. it will automatically, like she can't stop. mitch mcconnell can't stop. he has to put it on the floor. he's got to make those 22 republicans who are up for election in 2020 are going to have to vote on this. so, that's going to be key, i think, really key. you have purple state republicans who are worried about what is going on with this national emergency and what this president is doing. there's another point, too. it is the people. right? move on is hosting thousands of people that signed up in the last 12 hours. there are more than a hundred events coast-to-coast across the country on monday. people have to take to the streets. we can't allow this to happen. you know what is a national emergency? donald trump is a national emergency. there's not a national emergency. he wants a wall that the majority of people don't want.

he's trying to placate to a third of his base and the right wing media, who he is afraid of. they have bullied him into shutting down the government for 35 days, now this national emergency. it's going to be up to the house who has to put them all on the record, them being republicans and we have to take to the streets. >> you make a point. monday is presidents' day, which is interesting in the sense that donald trump, this is a long soundbyte but i want to play it. on the question of what is a president at this point? what does it mean to be president? right? it appears that as -- this is an original thought. donald trump is doing a television show and the television show is for an audience of about two people, sean hannity and ann coulter. he feels as long as they enjoy the show, he's being president. but, you can't make policy and take actual real tax money and

put it toward a television show because building a wall, it isn't possible. it wouldn't happen in the lifetime of his presidency if he had two terms. the imminent domain cases would take two years. there are echoes of authority. here we are attempting to get donald trump to accept reality. >> i'm asking you to clarify where you get your numbers, because most of the dea crime reporting statistics we see show drugs coming across and immigration is down. what do you base your facts on. >> let's go. >> secondly --

>> no, no, you get one. you get one. >> the second question is -- >> wait. >> sit down. sit down. you get one question. i get my numbers from a lot of sources like homeland security, primarily. the numbers i have from homeland security are a disaster. you know what else is a disaster? the numbers we have and the cost we spend and lose because of illegal immigration. billions and billions of dollars a month. billions and billions of dollars and it's unnecessary. >> your own government stats are wrong, are you saying? >> no, no, i have many stats. >> can you share with us? >> you have stats that are wrong. i use many stats, but i also use homeland security. >> donald trump thinks he is our boss.

you can tell a reporter to sit down and shut up. you can't. >> the broader athortarian attitude. he is inable to negotiate with congress, a co-equal branch. their powers came first. they determine how it is spent. he completely denies the authority of the fourth state, the media and their necessary function of being a transparent check on behalf of the american public. this is him -- this is why he loves kim jong-un. this is why he loves putin who has a similar tactic with how he treats media and fact checkers and anyone who questions his authority. the numbers of examples overseas are endless. this is the challenge we have in national security of having donald trump represent the united states like at the munich

security conference. he sent mike pence there to give a domestic speech about how north korea and iran are threats to the world. not bringing up his national emergency, a border crisis that involves raiding the department of defense budget. he would talk about that if that was a true threat we are facing. without the biggest delegation, go to the same conference to reassure allies the united states is working to fight for the values overseas of freedom of press, freedom of religion, maintaining alliances. that is what congress is stepping up to do. thank god we have members of congress that are willing to exercise their authority and will be held accountable as this moves forward. >> do the military contractors who that money was intended to go to, thought to be important,

do they have standing to sue? >> a court will decide. congress will have standing possibly to make legal claims. people whose homes are taken by the government -- >> imminent domain. >> private property. there will be a lot of suits there. we can talk lawsuits from contractors and lobbying. lobbying those republicans who know that this is illegal and unconstitutional. this is billions of dollars those military contractors are counting on spending for military projects. this is not a military project. congress has the power to appropriate money. they said these billions should go to armed services. when president trump removes that to build a wall, he's got to have a legal explanation and point to a specific law that authorizes this. that law does not exist. again, legal challenges, but political challenges. if congress wants to, they can shut this down. >> yeah. rick, there's a native american

tribe in arizona that's indicated they are not going down without a fight. they are not going to allow their land to be taken. all that's been done to the tribes, the government goes in to put a wall on their land. they have to look at a hideous wall for no reason. we are about to get an education what it looks like when imminent domain is visited upon private ranchers in arizona. is that where we are headed? >> with native americans, it continues. in imminent domain, the suits around those areas where the president is using imminent domain frivolously might be more successful. i agree, the ultimate remedy for this is congress. i mean, the primary culprit is the national securities law.

it needs to be amended. it needs to be changed. congress needs to take action. people need to get out there and protest this kind of thing. not only the fourth estate but the fifth estate saying these things are not going to be tolerated. >> i fear if the fate of this thing is in the hands of lindsey graham and susan collins and company, i'm not sure that's hopeful for a let of people. we'll see you back later in the show. thank you very much. coming up, things go from bad to worse for paul manafort. bad to worse for paul manafort guys do whatever it takes to deal with shave irritation.

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to be clear, mr. trump has no financial relationships with any russian oligarchs? >> that's what he said. that's what i said. that's what our position is. >> former chairman, paul manafort is facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison. robert mueller is recommending a sentence of 19-24 years in the virginia case where he was found guilty of tax and bank fraud. this comes days after a judge in a different case ruled that manafort violated the terms of the plea agreement lying multiple times to the special counsel. joining me is political analyst michael steele and author of

"house of trump house of putin." michael, can you think of a logical reason why paul manafort would take the chance of spending the rest of his life in prison by lying to the special counsel? >> the obvious thing on the table is a twofer. the expectation that at some point, he is going to get pardons, the ultimate forgiveness of his sins by the president. i think that's what animates him and motivates him the way we have seen. so, he can go in and lie. i think there is some degree of coordination with these gentlemen with the president in that, you know, we are going to go mess up, muddy up the waters as much as possible, make it harder for stuff to stick and on the other side of that, for that good service, you know, the president is willing to make a

pardon for them. there's no other reason. there's no other explanation beyond the two points for me. >> that sounds like mob loyalty, to be honest with you. at the end of the day, if donald trump pardons manafort, that doesn't have anything to do with the state of new york. the crimes were committed in the state of new york. some of the weird news stuff, the handing over of campaign data at the cigar bar inside of jared kushner's 666 fifth avenue. it sounds very mafia-like. your book, one of the reasons we wanted to have you on, your book is like a mob that surrounds donald trump. is that what this is? >> it is. one of the guys that looks stupid this week is senator richard burr, the republican chairman of the senate intelligence committee. he said there was no evidence, no direct evidence of collusion, but look at roger stone and paul

manafort. if you look at manafort, it goes way, way back to at least 2004-2005. when he was essentially a russian agent being paid, his firm paid $10 million a year to install a russian, a pro-russian, pro-putin in ukraine. they were successful. he delivered for putin. he continued to -- in many ways, that seems to be a dry run of what he did in 2016, putting another putin president in the white house. >> it's uncanny, michael. the judge in this case ruled that paul manafort lied about interactions and communications with a guy named konstantin

kilimnk. they said this is a problematic way to shield the russian conspirator and gives rise to questions where his loyalties lie. she's accusing him of working for a foreign government, loyal to a foreign country. >> she was clearly annoyed in addressing mr. manafort. i think you are going to see that reflected, ultimately, in the sentence. i think, also, going back to the first question, maybe a third piece of this is the ongoing business relationships that manafort and others have or want to have. i know, i suspect this is probably true a lot with donald trump as well. he still wants trump tower, moscow. at the end of the day, that's the crown jewel for him. it's not the presidency of the united states or leader of the free world. it's owning a hotel in moscow. >> yeah. >> that's the motivator. there are a lot of financial

interests. not so much political, but financial interests that drive a lot of these folks and how the families will be taken care of for their loyalty today in their future. >> can you talk about that, craig? that's a fascinating part of your book. donald trump is pursuing a quest for the tower that goes back to the '80s. what is this about? there are a lot of places you can build a trump condominium. why is he so focused and fix sated on russia? >> if you go to 1984, you can see a man name david with ties to the russian mafia met with donald trump. he came in and put down $6 million in cash, the equivalent of 15 million today and he bought five condos. that was essentially laundering money for the russian mafia. if you look at trump tower, over those years, i found 13 people who have had been in trump

tower, associated with the russian mafia. it's important to say they are a state actor. it's very unlike the italian-american mafia in this country. they report to putin. you can see manafort over the years, he laundered money through a company that was tied to a russian mobster who is a financial genius behind the russian mafia. there are nasty characters here. i think it's extraordinarily disturbing that the russian mafia, on and off for 35 years is using trump tower as a base of operations to run operations, gathering information there. they bailed him out. trump overexpanded into atlantic city, had six bankruptcies totaling $4 billion. when he came back, russian money played a huge, huge role in it. a firm was based in trump tower

and they partnered with russia, with trump again and again and put in money, much of which had been coming or been laundered through vehicles like the fl group an icelandic firm. >> do you think donald trump will -- let's start with paul manafort. do you think he's afraid of the russians? do you think he's scared of them? >> it's possible. there are two possible reasons. one, as michael steele said, he's protecting donald trump and playing for a pardon. as you say, he, again, can face prosecution and state jurisdictions. the russian mafia is serious. people have been dying over there. there have been a lot of unexplained deaths. >> let me play adam schiff, the chairman of the house intelligence committee, talking

about this lying and potential pardoning game. >> the motivation here is, if he told the truth about his relationship with someone affiliated with russian intelligence while he was the campaign chairman, that would be so damaging, effectively to trump, it would negate his chance of a pardon. that, to me, is quite telling. >> negate the chance of a pardon because it would be so bad for trump. being probed for whether or not he is an aid of foreign power and surrounded himself with all these people approached by russians. put all the list. look at all these people who have been approached by russians or lied. donald trump jr., jared kushner, ivanka trump, george papadopoulos, jeff sessions, michael flynn, it keeps going.

why is the republican party not concerned about this? >> so, let's separate then join. the separation is the faces you had up there is not the republican party. okay? those folks are -- had little dealings inside the party. someone like manafort was not a player in the party since the watergate area. >> cohen was a chairman. a finance chair. >> right. so -- >> and jeff sessions. >> the vast majority of the people are not the republican party. where you have a joining is around the idea of electing someone who is an outsider, donald trump. along with that came all this other stuff. to your question about why did they tolerate this, why did the party put up? inside, they are frustrated as hell. they are mad. they are frustrated. at the end of the day, it boils down to will donald trump rally a fight inside upcoming primary

for me that i don't want to have to deal with it. i don't have to have to answer to that. it goes to something we have talked about. the unwillingness to lose an election because you are standing on principle. you are standing on the foundational values of the party that go back many, many generations. all of that is now gone. >> yeah. >> for a lot of these folks, we are looking at the disposable politics of the republican party. we no longer need this. debt? we don't care about that because donald trump is president. spending? we don't care about that. >> national emergency. >> we're there. why? because the promise of what he offers, which is -- >> judges. >> judges, right. it's a bargain, by the way. the price you pay for that is going to be too great for the party long term. >> in your reporting, how owned is the party? i mean, the nra.

the russians have been very thorough about needling their way in, not just donald trump. you are talking the nra. it's very thorough. >> absolutely. a lot of the republican party got money from trump. it's been going on for years. tom was speaker of the house and flew off to moscow. there are russians who are citizens. i'm thinking of leonard who i gave $11 million to the republican senate campaign. that money goes to mitch mcconnell and lindsey graham. the nra has tens of millions of dollars and that money can be turned. >> if it goes to ronald reagan, haunting a few folks. thank you very much, appreciate it. coming up, a member of the house freshman class that had

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by the way, we are going to be taking care of i.c.e. we talked about the new bill. we are going take care of i.c.e. they want to get rid i.c.e. the bill is the opposite of that. >> some of the new freshmen lawmakers targeted by donald trump were among the first to challenge his declaration of a national emergency. new york congresswoman alexandria ya ocasio-cortez is joining joaquin castro to stop the declaration and my next guest issued a scathing denunciation saying the occupant of the white house is dangerous to our economy, democracy and humanity. joining me now is one of the new members of congress and the house oversight committee, massachusetts congresswoman ayanna pressley. >> thank you for having me. >> welcome to the show. we wanted to have you on for a long time. let's start by talking about this emergency declaration. what do you expect to happen in the house as a result? >> well, i'm thrilled to be an

original co-sponsor of the resolution to overturn this overreach, a complete abuse of authority. i'm in the massachusetts delegation and one of my favorite members of the rules committee jim mcgovern said this is tuesdayal vandalism and i agree with that. >> what about the underlying issue? even though you're in massachusetts, i found when you talk with supporters of this build a wall idea, they actually are more for it the farther they are away from the southern border. you have people who somehow, you know, become convinced that there's this invasion taking place thousands of miles away from where they are. how do you make an argument against that? >> it's easy to see why they're convinced when the occupant in the white house, i call him that not because i dishonor the office but he does. he does not honor the responsibility or grace befitting this. we went from a president who

sang amazing grace to a president who demonstrated little if any at all. the best advice i received in the midst of governing and law making it's easy to forget the plot and not to forget the plot and the plot is the american people. so what's guiding me in this is the impact on them. i know that a monument to hate is not going to keep us any safer. the occupant of this white house has been vilifying immigrants. people in my district like stephanie pa nay da from el salvador, a dreamer, her father is an asylum seeker and her mother a tps holder. her story does speaks to the intersectionality and complexity of what we need to address a larger issue when it comes to compassionate and comprehensive immigration reform. a wall will not make us any safer. in the massachusetts, a lot of people make this about the border communities but there is a trickle down impact.

i represent 53% of color, almost 40% foreign born and an increase of i.c.e. detainees by 50% and they are asylum seekers. they pose no risk or threat to us. these are children and families. and there has been an increase in the last two years we have 3,000 detainees in our federal facilities in the commonwealth of massachusetts. i took a no vote as did 19 other democrats in the house and five in the senate on this package because it emboldens what has been a rogue agency with any little, no accountability, no oversight, emboldened by racist policies. >> you are on the government reform committee. should the head of i.c.e. come before your committee and do you believe i.c.e. should take a budget cut? >> absolutely. that's why i voted no. we should not be emboldening this rogue agency. >> you think it should be eliminated. >> that is where we need to land ultimately. in the meantime not one more

dollar. we should be decreasing funding, not increasing funding. that's why i took the no vote. >> what would humane immigration policy look like in your view. >> it would not barter or pit one group against the other. something wholistic that provides a pathway to citizenship for tpc holders and daca recipients for dreamers and asylum seekers. >> do you think there will be accountability at some point? what a lot of people wonder is all of these children, more than 2700 children, we don't know how many because apparently the government has lost count, were taken from their parents, the government -- the trump administration is now saying we're not sure we can give them all back -- >> unconscionable. thanks to the leadership of our chairman elijah cummings on oversight i look forward to that

hearing and are trying to get to the bottom of this. it's unconscionable. the only national emergency is a humanitarian crisis and then also the crisis that was created by this federal shutdown which was completely avoidable. this has been a waste of taxpayer time and money. this is someone who ran on a platform of america first and seems by his definition that means holding the american worker and family and immigrant hostage. you know, best predictor of the future is the past and i think that i.c.e. and cbp have proven themselves to be untrustworthy. >> very quickly, i know we're out of time, there was also a vote in the house of representatives to defund the war in yemen and take the united states out of that conflict. yes. >> did you vote for that? >> absolutely. >> do you think that the united states is over extended in the middle east and should we get out of afghanistan and do less? >> yes. i think, you know, we are, again, begs a larger discussion

but i believe ultimately we should be reducing not only military intervention, but our military budget. there are many other things we need to address here in this nation and i am proud that in the midst of even a shutdown this class has continued to govern and we had the first hearings to tackle a real gun bill in eight years, first hearing on homelessness, the first hearing on voting rights specifically to make election day a federal holiday, so, you know, we're continuing to do the work of the american people. >> i think anyone would argue this is one of if not the most consequential freshmen class i've seen in a long time. >> unprecedented in every way, and i hope ultimately unprecedented change. >> absolutely. and incredibly diverse. we're impressed by it. thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. >> we would love to have you back. >> okay. >> thank you. more "am joy" after the break. >> thank you more "am joy" after the break. [knocking]

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and accessoriesphones for your mobile phone. like this device to increase volume on your cell phone. - ( phone ringing ) - get details on this state program visit right now or call during business hours. i want to do it faster. 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. >> welcome back to "am joy." donald trump has already undermined his argument for declaring a national emergency but not might not matter to his followers but he's pushing a lie about the border wall he promised mexico would pay for that a lot of wall already exists. >> i don't have to do it for the election. i have already done a lot of wall for the election 2020. >> trump also made a notable

tweak to his signature campaign catch phrase on monday during a maga rally in el paso and now has a new slogan, it's not build the wall but finish the wall. see, magic. the implication being, of course, that construction on trump's border wall has begun. >> today, we started a big, beautiful wall right on the rio grande. now, you really mean finish that wall because we've built a lot of it. finish that wall. >> none of that is true. however, the crowd appeared to be accepting their reeducation with enthusiasm. joining me dana mill bank, elie mystal and rick wilson. dana, you're a columnist in the business of persuasion. this is an interesting twist. i've been on with chris hayes a fair.

>> sounded like it's going to be the trump tower el paso or something like that. he did sort of acknowledge what had happened and said we've renovated all the wall there is and now we would like to renovate other walls. if you give him 47 minutes like he is it he's going to say a few things that are true. he did acknowledge what the situation was. >> yeah. ka karine, the challenge for the activism around this you mentioned in the last hour there will be activism from move on to oppose this, but the reality is there is not going to be a wall. >> yeah. >> the thing the protesters who will go out on monday are protesting a thing that donald trump wants to do that he cannot

do. it isn't going to happen. how do you deal with that reality? >> i think what we're doing on monday with the protest is the power grab, the unstugsal behavior of donald trump, the illegal behavior of donald trump and sending a message not just to donald trump but the republicans as well, and so that's what that is about. we have a president who thinks he's above the law and so we have to make that really clear. and people are still energized, right, still wanting to fight as we're going into 2020, as we're going into other elections that are coming up in 2019. i think it is really important. we have to make sure that we let them know that folks are paying attention. we're not sleeping. we are angry. we're going to let our voices be heard. that's one part of it. i think the reason why donald trump, this is working, is you have fox news who is spewing his propaganda, who is actually a voice for him that's pushing this information out. you have republicans who are not

stopping him, who are allowing him to do all of these awful, awful things and say these things an not letting him get away with it. it's not just him. he has two echo chambers that's helping him get to that. also, he's thinking even when he was at the conference yesterday, he's thinking 2020. he's thinking politics. finish the wall came from his campaign manager. >> yeah. he chanted it first and donald trump followed and corrected them. corrected the audience. they wanted to say build the wall, no, it's finish the wall. >> right. >> he's thinking he wants a fight and a lot of this for him is i want a fight and have this kind of finish the wall, the wall has to be the main thing in my campaign. >> above the law which brings me to elie. the thing about it, too, donald trump has taken a fictional

thing, a campaign slogan, his base is we want you to do it. you said it in your campaign and we want it to be real. and now he's about to go to court on it. >> we're fighting over a metaphor. >> right. >> and i don't understand why we're so obsessed with the idiots who believe in the metaphor. the 37 to 40% of people who believe whatever donald trump is going to say, they're gone. they're lost. they're zombies now. every day we try to figure out what's the cure for zombies. there is no cure. they're gone. we have to stop them from infecting everybody else. the way that we stop them from -- we stop this zombie disease from infecting everybody else is we have to stop amplifying the lies told by donald trump. he should never be put on live, only put on on a 30-second delay and there has to be somebody in like a box under him like if there were interpreting sign language to explain to people

that he is lying in real time. every time he lies. we have to -- that's the only way to kind of -- we have to cauterize the wound that is donald trump and his supporters and worry about the people who aren't infected yet. >> the problem with doing that, rick wilson, is that, you know, not only is this 30% or so of the adult population of the united states, these are people who vote, who manage to get the white house, they managed to take the white house, they are now essentially governing the united states, and they are not just being pulled around by donald trump in a wagon, they're being pulled around by people like ann coulter. trump is fighting these people too. trump is not just responding to fox news and doing what they tell him to do, he's also in an interlowcusion with them so they are making policy in this country. it's hard to ignore it when the policy is being made on fox news.

can i play donald trump talking about ann coulter and ann coulter talking back to him. >> ann coulter i don't know her, hardly know her, haven't spoken to her in way over a year. i like her. but she's off the reservation, but anybody that knows her understand that. >> so forget the fact that he's digging his own grave. this is just -- look, the only national urgency is that our president is an idiot. >> she tweeted please drop the line finish the wall. the reality donald trump can't pull off the thing chris hayes and i said he should do she won't let him get away with saying there's a wall. she wants a wall done. >> i think i join most of america saying that ann coulter's tears taste delicious. this is someone who, you know, this is someone who proved the point that donald trump is terrible negotiating with opponents and he's even worse negotiating with his allies. they put him in a box he can't

escape from and they understand their code -- ann coulter and her ilk they wanted an actual physical wall, 50 feet of concrete with lasers and robot alligators and never going to get it and thought that trump would somehow have this sort of trick that he would cause congress to bend to his will and it never was going to happen. he's gotten himself in a box where on his extreme right you have the koultsers, hannity, limbaugh, who have fed and percolated this belief in his audience that he's the greatest negotiator ever, and on the other hand you have their strong feeling that we've got to stop any brown person from coming north of the rio grande. and so they end up putting trump in this terrible position and he cannot extricate himself from it at all. >> do they want it badly enough to watch their fellow conservatives, ranchers in the -- in texas get their land seized? are they okay, the republican

base, with eminent domain? >> the republican base does not believe in the things that conservatives like me, maybe it's old fashioned, but i thought that part of being a conservative you didn't want the power of the state to impose overly on the rights of individuals including their property rights and the rule of law. but, in this case, these guys are ready to bulldoze a five mile wide strip from the pacific to the gulf of mexico for trump's wall, dam the consequences to private property owners along the border. >> and dana, i feel like that is the next fight we're going to have. most of the money that donald trump steals from these military construction projects are going to go to lawyers and eminent domain fights. he will be fighting people over their land and not be able to build a wall. >> if it gets that far. i think it's more likely a transfer from the military industrial complex to the legal industrial complex. probably never even gets that far. it is true we -- remember that old ke nard about trump

supporters took him seriously but not literally. they actually did take him literally and this is the problem he's going to come up against on the wall, also on the economy. they're going to say wait a minute, the coal jobs haven't come back, the steel jobs haven't come back. he can create an illusion that manufacturing is returning, but eventually people realize that. i think we're reaching that point. he's going to want to pivot to this new slogan that we keep america great again. but this is running smack dab be into his need to create a new crisis every moment. on the one hand we have crises and everybody is getting murdered and sold drugs to yet we have already made america great. >> right. exactly the wall needs to be built by national emergency but the wall is already built. you know well, need to keep america great again, but you're not getting your tax refund, as a matter of fact you probably owe. i have created a revolution in the coal industry, but the coal jobs are still going.

i mean, at a certain point donald trump's fiction and reality meet even if his supporter refuse to accept is it. >> he throws whatever he can out there and see what sticks. the confusion, governing and policy by confusion. this is something that donald trump has done for a really long time. this is the place he's the most comfortable at doing. look, he's living in an alternative universe and he's managed to bring along that one be third of the population to bring of his base i should say to bring along to believe in this crazy universe he's living in. there's something else he's doing. i think he did this yesterday with the press conference. he creates a show, he creates confusion and what are we not talking about? not talking about how much of a terrible negotiator he is, how much of a bad deal that he got, how he's not the art of the deal. that he's a con man. he's trying to also avoid those types of conversations as well, by throwing stuff and confusing

all of us. >> you know, i wonder, rick, how long it works, at a certain point do his supporters not realize they didn't get money back in their tax returns? do they not cerealty that's outside their window? are they willing to accept the reality on tv and if the fox news folks break from trump, who gets those people? is it trump or coulter? >> well, i think right now that the fox news people have been fed a pretty steady diet a long time of -- on fox which has a tone that helped set the stage for trump which is this apocalyptic muslims are coming, brown people are coming, run for the hills they will kill us all in a lot of this coverage, this very lured sort of coverage on the border, but i don't think fox can afford to truly break from trump. this is their business model now, symbiotic relationship between the two enterprises. trump needs them and they need trump. it's uncomfortable and it's

weird, but they're sort of stuck with each other at this point. i think the difficulty to navigate for this reality gap is that yes, coal mining is not coming back in this country, steel jobs are not coming back in this country. if they are coming back they're done by robot, not trump supporters. and sort of cruel nostalgia he's peddled to people, a world from the 1950s so perfect and everybody can work a high school education can get a job and pay for a family and vacation and retirement house didn't exist and never exists now. i don't think the time window is long enough to disillusion these people away from trump. part of what they are involved with in trump they've given up on the system, given up on america, and they just want an avatar for all their vengeances and resentments and their feuds with people they don't like. >> and elie, matt slap whose

wife worked for donald trump previewed the next thing these folks want, tomorrow will be the first day that the president will have a fully operational confirmed attorney general. let that sink in. mueller will be gone soon. the next demand from the right wing media people who run donald trump that he get mueller out. >> that's been the plan all along. the matt whitaker crazy era just helped to set the bar so low that barr can do trump's dirty work and get away with it. i guess i disagree with the thought that at some point, the trump base will realize they've been had because they haven't been had. they were never in it for the small government conservative principles of rick wilson or george well or the cato institute. they were in for the bigotry and sexism and the bigotry and sexism that trump keeps delivering and they will be in

it for bill barr to stop the investigation not because they have any conception or care about the rule of law but they know if barr stops the investigation then trump can keep delivering on the bigotry and sexism he has for two years. they're not, again, they're never coming back. >> for the party at the elite end the tax cuts for the super rich because he delivered on that. dana mill bank, careen jean-pierre, have a great saturday. we'll tell you how andrew mccabe's new book has donald trump completely on edge. that's next. nald trump completely on edge that's next. i think it will fit.

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i was speaking to the man who had just run for the presidency and won the election for the presidency and who might have done so with the aid of the government of russia, our most formidable adversary on the world stage and that was something that troubled me greatly. >> andrew mccabe is the latest former trump administration figure to release a tell al book. he took over the fbi when his boss jim comey was fired and immediately had concerns about the president. in his interview with cbs mccabe said he took steps to launch obstruction of justice and counterintelligence investigations soon after his initial meeting with trump. >> i was very concerned that i was able to put the russia case on absolutely solid ground in an

indelible fashion that were i removed quickly or reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace. >> joining me now, msnbc legal analyst paul butler and court tv anchor seema eyre. the show starts now. see ma, my friend, you now have the former acting director of the fbi saying not only what you just heard in the open but also from "the washington post" review of mccabe's book this, during an oval office briefing in july of 2017 trump refused to believe u.s. intelligence reports that north korea test fired an intercontinental missile. trump dismissed the launch as a hoax. mccabe writes. he thought north korea did not have the ability to launch missiles and he knew this because vladimir putin told him so. this is a man who has secret

meetings with vladimir putin and hides the transcripts, andrew mccabe and the fbi launched a counterintelligence investigation to see if he was a foreign power, at a certain point there's a preponderance of evidence that this person might have done something very wrong. you've been a skeptic but what do you think as the evidence accumulates? >> the evidence has accumulated and why i keep asking what i don't understand is why robert mueller hasn't started the indictment process? that is what i don't understand. also, and i'm going to bet that paul butler is going to agree with me today, that you have to look at andrew mccabe and look everything about him to assess his credibility. he was fired the day before his pension benefits were supposed to start. right. so you have to look at the motivation he has in saying all of this stuff against donald trump as well as jeff sessions.

now you also have to look at that i.g. report which points to four, four instances where andrew mccabe lacked candor when he was being interviewed by investigators. you have to look at all of that to assess this guy's credibility. >> wasn't there, paul, an aspect of punishment in getting -- that was what andrew mccabe alleged, donald trump decided to punish him by firing him and punish his wife. >> donald trump went off on his wife that he asked mccabe who mccabe voted for, all of these probably illegal, unethical to be sure comments from the president. the thing is, it's not just mccabe. it's also rod rosenstein. what we have, i don't know what's more scary, the fact that top-level officials are concerned that the president might be a double agent, or that top-level officials are concerned that the president does not have the intellectual capacity to hold office. here's the thing, we kind of already suspect this, many of

us, but we don't see the president every day, and now we have people who worked with the president every single day who -- and again for the director of the fbi he has access to a lot of secret information and he's got concerns that there might be a credible evidence to suggest that, again, either the president is a russian asset and we need to start an investigation to make sure that's not true, which by the way is the mueller investigation that's still going on, or again, that the president, the most powerful person in the world, is incompetent to hold office. >> paul, why is it still going on? >> don't these things take time? >> it's called the mueller investigation. >> come on, paul. enough. you a federal prosecutor. come on, why are we taking so long? if mueller starts the indictment process, right, trump's people can file an injunction based upon the department of justice guidelines and policy and then take it to the courts. this should not be taking this

long. and we can't rely on the 25th amendment because for that to be invoked we would need vice president pence and majority of the cabinet, which doesn't seem likely. i can't see vice president pence going against president trump. >> let's get a bit of a transfer to the part of the cbs interview about this very thing he brought up, seema, the question of whether or not the cabinet, the members of it, thought about invoki invoking 25th amendment. mccabe said discussions raised the issue and discussed with me in the context of thinking how many cabinet officials might support such an effort. cbs, rosen type was openly talking about whether there was a majority on the cabinet who would vote to remove the president in that's correct. counting votes are possible votes. the cabinet having discussions about removing this man for incompetence by 259th amendment

>> the department of justice has not denied it. the only thing they said rosenstein didn't have the authority to invoke the 25th amendment. the concern he has credible information based on his context with the president every day to think maybe i should be wearing a wire because this person might be compromised by the russians or again maybe we need to really think about if mentally the president is putting not just the nation, but the whole world at risk. the reason, seema, he has not been indicted yet, as you know, the doj employee handbook says a sitting president -- >> i don't want to hear about the handbook. it's a handbook. >> you sound like donald trump. you don't want to hear the truth. it's the law. >> it's a handbook. oh, it's not the law. no. you're wrong. paul, it's not the law. it is a handbook. like my handbook says hey, there's no smoking in the bathrooms of my office. it's a handbook. it is not the law. and like i said, if you want to

challenge the law, you take it to court. >> okay. that may happen because you're right, actually, i agree with you it's not the law, it is a regulation. all it says the sitting president can't be tried while he's in office. it actually doesn't mean that he's not indicted. mueller for all we know there could be a secret indictment in the d.c. courthouse waiting for the day that the president leaves the oval office. >> seema, could that be possible there might be a sealed indictment? because the mueller investigation is actually in the purview of the executive branch, which is different from a special -- an independent counsel like with ken starr. is it possible because he understands the sensitivities involved here he has sealed an indictment against donald trump? >> i think it's a great point that you're making and that i do agree, there could be a sealed indictment. i just think that if there was a sealed indictment there would be corresponding subpoenas and we

may have received that information by leak or otherwise. because as we all know, everybody who leaves the trump white house writes a book. >> yes. they do. >> i'm going to give paul the last word because he's sitting next to me on set. what's the next shoe to drop, the revelations about paul manafort with the secret passing meeting at the cigar club, what's next? >> the indictment of donald trump, jr. >> there you go, seema, donald trump will get indicted, just the younger one. >> okay. >> and then we'll bring you back to debate again. >> please. >> our favorite thing. seema and paul, thank you very much. next up another mass shooting puts a clear focus on the real actual national emergency in america. that's next. america. that's next. to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing it's best to make you everybody else...

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check in from afar with remote access, ♪ and have professional monitoring backing you up with xfinity home. demo in an xfinity store. call, or go online today. after declaring a national emergency, donald trump headed straight to mar-a-lago where we suspect he's hitting the links right now. kind of reminds me of something. >> we must stop the terrorists. i call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killings. thank you. now watch this drive.

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you want to talk about a national emergency? let's talk about today. the one-year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in america. that's a national emergency. why don't you declare that emergency, mr. president? i wish you would. >> thursday was the one year e anniversary of the mass shooting at a high school in parkland, florida, that killed 17 students and faculty and sparked a

moment. on friday within hours of trump's national declaration of a national emergency the country saw another mass shooting when a gunman killed five in aro ra, illinois. joining me is kai corber, a student at marriage marjory stoneman douglas and fred, whose daughter was killed in the shooting one year ago. thank you for being here. i will reit tar rate and renew my condolences over the shooting that shocked the country. we just met at the trayvon martin foundation, we happened to meet on my way out and i said to you then and will say now, that the students at parkland the activists that came out of parkland have been some of the most impressive people i've ever met. you have really made a difference and one of the differences you've made is that we've just had for the first time in decades, house tms that

have -- the judiciary house committee approved two bills that would expand federal background checks for firearm purchases. i think it's the first time in something like 20 years we've had anything move out of the house on gun reform so you guys did that. talk about why you guys have decided to stick with this activism one year on? >> you know, one thing i think is very important about the bipartisan background checks act of 2019 is the fact that they focused on the mental health aspect of gun violence something that was largely ignored. we -- with the onset of this movement we noticed that people mainly focused on be banning particular types of weapons, assault weapons, bump stocks and the sort, but i saw that as half of the equation. i thought it was absolutely absurd that we had to focus on, you know, what people were just thinking that assault weapons were the only issue when you read the headlines and they're tagged with lines like he was really stressed out, he was really angry, he was depressed.

i'm just tired of seeing that, you know, be written down as an excuse for why someone carried out an act of violence. that has top stop. so talk about my own activism, i started the societal reform corporation to put mental health curriculums into schools and, you know, we initially pushed for a mandatory mental health curriculum in schools directly, but like new york and virginia did, but that would have to be approved by the governor so that was a very difficult undertaking to go about with. we decided to go more directly toward the students and, you know, bring it to schools via afterschool programs. yeah, it was -- because we really realized that there was no one size fits all approach to meditation and mindfulness and mental health. every experience had to be tailored to the individual. i figured that introducing it by

clubs and afterschool programs would be the best way to reach students. when you reach people in a collaborative environment it's a taylor made situation. nothing better than a group activity to get people involved in mental health and think it's cool and destigmatizes it and makes it available to the average person. >> fred, you were at the state of the union speech and wrote about it, i shouldn't have been, and, you know, i think kai makes a point you have this combination of there always have been stresses in teenagers and young people and adults, people are stressed out and people are probably more stressed out these days than in a long time, but then people who are in that state have ready access to firearms. they're everywhere. they're ubiquitous. what do we do about it? you have in the state of florida a lot of opposition to doing anything on gun reform, but you

have people who are stressed and going through a lot as kai has said and have access to guns? >> well, couple things. number one, i'm so proud of the kids who have stepped up and have said, we need to grow up in this world and we want to be safe. i also want to also call out all of the parents out of parkland, myself and the others, who have put aside every bit of our lives to only focus on this. i think that's where it starts, doing something about it. it starts with a commitment by the kids and the grownups to say, enough is enough. we will not accept this any longer. it starts with people actually acknowledging that gun violence requires a gun. because what you do have is many who want to just look at this and call it violence. well, it's gun violence. we need to deal with the reality of that. we need to talk about mental health, but if we're going to,

we need to also have a serious discussion about what it's going to cost because it's a complicated, expensive problem and as a country we need to get behind it. i am so proud of what happened in the house this week. i'm so proud of those who committed to doing something about this. during this campaign cycle, used to saying a lot, we're going to fire those who will not do something about this issue and we will hire those who will. well that happened. when people get fired for not doing their job, everyone else around them notices and it's going to happen in the senate next. we'll pass common sense gun safety legislation in the house this term. it may hit a wall in the senate. and it will flip the senate if that happens. >> yeah. and one of the ways that that happens, obviously, kai, people come out and vote and start voting on these issues, on issues like this. there has been a study that was done by march for our lives,

that showed that there was a 10% increase in youth turnout in 2018 compared with the previous midterm election in 2014. so young people your able are starting to vote around these issues? >> yeah. we realize that voting is not something that, you know -- before people thought oh, you know, my parents vote. it had like this kind of stigma of old age attached to it. that's what people, you know, who are -- our elders do. we realized we're voting on issues that directly affect us. we're voting on issues that save lives. we realize that in order to save those lives we had to have people who stood up for our values and were willing to protect our generation and protect our future. we more saw voting as an investment in the security and tranquillity of our children's future and our future as going forward. so, you know, i think that, you know, with the onset of march

for our lives and my own efforts, it really showed a lot of young people hey, voting isn't just for our parents, it isn't just for my grand parents or people who are active in their community. it's for everybody. everyone's right according to their citizenship. we, you know, our activism reinvigorated america and gave everyone a new sense of political efficacy and i'm happy to see that. >> fred, at the same time, we still, you know, we just saw another mass shooting in illinois. there's a tracker for the number of school shootings. in according to this nbc is actually tracking this in 2018, 30 people were killed and 50 injured in eight school shootings on average a school shooting every 45 days. as dad who lost, you know, your precious daughter in one of these shootings, how -- i mean, i don't know how to get the country to stay focused on this?

how do we -- what do we do? >> so listen, joy, i think the country is focused on it. i heard you talked be about florida earlier. florida is a state, did vote for gun safety. when they elected nicky frooeds, commissioner of agriculture and consumer services, that was an election she won across the state. she was the only person who ran strong on a gun safety message and won. voters want this. our elected leaders may be a step behind because they may still be paying too much attention to a gun lobby that is getting less and less attention every single day. but voters want this. and how do we fix this? we keep on showing up at the polls and keep voting for it. we keep raising our voices. we keep using social media. the facts are we have a national emergency in this country right now and we do, it's called gun violence. 40,000 people per year while i am talking to you in this

interview, i am certain somebody is learning they're a victim of gun violence, somebody is burying a victim of gun violence and somebody is planning a funeral for a victim of gun violence. that is a national emergency. and we must keep on saying it and we must keep on forcing our legislators to react to it. >> kai and fred, the students and parents, really the parkland family, has really risen up and you guys are all national leaders on this issue. thank you both very much. >> thank you, joy. >> thank you. >> thank you so much. and coming up, will republicans be the sheep who follow donald trump off a cliff? we'll discuss next.

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so who's getting out first? i don't know but we're keeping this camera on. [laughing] i don't think it's a good idea. i think it'd be a terrible idea. i hope he doesn't do it. >> i hope think he should do that. i think it's a bad precedent. >> the real concern i have is the precedent that this then sets. >> i hate the idea of an emergency because i always worry about that abuse with future presidents. >> i think that's dubious from a constitutional perspective, and i hope that the president will not go that route. >> even before donald trump declared a national emergency to seize taxpayer funds for his border wall, members of his own

party warned him that it was a bad idea. now, back with me is rick wil n wilson. okay, rick, let me play you a few republicans who say this national emergency thing is the bee's knees. take a listen. >> i know the republicans have some unease about it, no matter what they say, because if the president can declare an emergency on something that he has created as an emergency, an illusion that he wants to convey, just think of what a president -- >> when you look at the president having to take these kinds of measures, it's because congress has failed this president and the american people. >> the president feels very strongly that we have a crisis at the border. i agree with him be. >> he's committed to finishing the job, and he'll use whatever constitution and statutory authority he has to do it. >> okay. the first clip was nancy pelosi saying, make my day. the next democrat coming in is going to declare a national emergency with our values,

something on gun that comes in is going to declarenational emergency. >> part of this, the republican party has been completely redefined with living in the immediate moment philosophy. they're living in the now. they're wanting to make sure donald trump doesn't tweet something mean about them or fox news doesn't put them on blast. unless they're say agtrump is the tauest, handsomest guy on e issue, they fear they'll get nuked. they're not wrong. this is a party that the has redefined itself about being the trump driven party. the guy could eat a live baby on the white house lawn and they would like finally. it's a revolutionary moment where the party collapses on itself this.

they have no philosophy, no underpinning values except for what makes trump happy. >> the thing is for that to work, i talked to michael steele about this, as well, we had this conversation in the break, that only works if you must stay elected. right? is it these folks don't any other ideas for career options? is it the worst thing in the world if you don't keep your job in i mean if you don't keep your seat in congress? if you say my values matter more to me than this seat, you wouldn't do any of this. >> well, sure. look, there are 40 folks last time that resigned approximately, a little more than that, 44, who left to got out of there. and a lot of those people were the ones who said i can't swallow this poison pill, i can't do this. i can't make myself get up in the morning and pretend donald trump is normal, sane or arguably safe to be around when unmedicated. this is a guy who they recognize the danger morally and

politically and left. the people still in the house, a lot of them i say the vast majority of them now fall into one of two camps, either true believers or pure tunists. that's a bad combination in politics as a general rule. it should have taught them something that 40 of their colleagues chose not to run again and they were replaced by 40 democrats and a lot of other folks went down in flames because they towed the line on trump and trumpism even in areas where it's political poison. he's had a great impact. the democrat coz not have paid aid donald trump enough money to have destroys the republican party more thoroughly in the house. >> rick wilson, author of "everything trump touches dies." rick wilson, we used to fight on twitter. >> years ago. >> take care. >> more am joy after the break. doing a break now? or not.

you know what? i'm not going to take a break. i'm going to decide not to take a break. there's something more important for me to do right now. there's a person in this room who happens to be having their 20th anniversary with this fine network. her name is julie pearl. we're embarrassing her by putting her on television. wave to the cameras, julie. congratulations on your 20 years. julie is so much fun. we always have great time when we come out to d.c., she's very welcoming to us. we love her. so happy anniversary, my friend. >> thank you. >> more "a.m. joy" after the break. >> thank you >> more "a.m. joy" after the break. staying at hampton for a work trip. when your flight gets in late, it's never too early for coffee. oh no no no. your new boss seems cool, but she might not be sweatpants cool.

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