a.m. joy will be back tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. up next, alex witt with the latest. >> have a lovely afternoon. we'll see you tomorrow morning. thank you so much. a today day to all of you. it's high noon in the east. 8:00 a.m. in the west. looming court battles and political unrest. the fallout from the president's national emergency. the master dealmaker left to spin the outcome, and democrats with a new direct warning today. in the hot seat, syrah sanders grilled by the special counsel. the one question she might have been forced to answer. plus -- >> the deputy attorney general was definitely very concerned about the e at that point in time. >> and that's not all. what else, the former acting fbi

director is saying about this bombshell 25th amendment conversation. alexandria ocasio cortez. some democrats colleagues have a very different take. developing this hour, a legal and constitutional battle brewing after the president declared a national emergency to build a border wall without congressional approval. the president now in mar-a-lago, but across the political spectrum, mounting criticism, some republican senators warning the president against taking this controversial decision, including republicans facing tough re-elections. hours after the president's announcement, one lawsuit was filed and legal challenges are expected from the american civil liberties union as well as the state of california. nbc's peter alexander posing this question to the president yesterday. >> will you concede that you were unable to make the deal that you had promised in the past and that the deal you're ending up with now from congress is less than what you could have

had before a 35-day shutdown? >> i went through congress, i made a deal, i got almost $1.4 billion when i wasn't supposed to get one dollar. i didn't need to do this, but i'd rather do it much faster. and i don't have to do it for the e rx. i've already done a lot of wall for the election. 2020. >> yeah, he didn't exactly answer peter's question, did he. house democrats are vowing to pass a resolution to condition dem the declaration. that will trigger a senate vote forcing republicans to take a position, but the president may veto it. >> he's taken the money away from the defense of the country, much of it in military construction to pay for some medieval wall. >> he ha monument to hate is no going to keep us any safer. >> nbc's kelly o'donnell is road tripping, down in west palm beach, florida, right near where the president is spending his

weekend. kelly, good day to you. this is fas far fr this is far from over, isn't it? >> reporter: it's just the beginning. we don't know yet which entities will be filing suit, which states, which organizations, so it will be a long and tangled legal process, but the white house is defending this action. they point out that the power of the national emergency has been used roughly 50-some times over the 40-year history of the law and that more than 30 of those instances remain in effect today. one of the things that struck me when we were in the rose garden yesterday with the president was kind of a statement that he made acknowledging that he was new to politics and was frustrated by some of those who sort of gave him direction in his first year, raising the question and certainly in my mind, and i the in many others who were following this, about his frustration that when republicans had full control of the house and the senate, although the senate you'd still need the 60 votes and they did

not have that supermajority, but they certainly controlled the house, why was there not more action taken to fund a border wall? the president hinted at that, so when i had a chance to talk to him, i asked him about that, because he seemed to be acknowledging that there was a missed opportunity. here's part of our exchange going back and forth, and let's see if you would agree with me about who he might have been referring to. >> i will tell you i'm very disappointed at certain people, particularly one for not having pushed this faster. >> are you referring to speaker ryan, sir? who? >> speaker ryan? >> let's not talk about it. >> okay. >> what difference does it make? but they should have pushed it faster. they should have pushed it harder. and they didn't. >> reporter: what difference does i would make? well, that is the president talking about paul ryan, now out of office, choosing not to run for re-election, and of course nancy pelosi is now the speaker. but it certainly seemed that he was expressing frustration at

republican leadership for not getting more accomplished on a border wall when they had greater control. the president hinting and yet when i asked him directly, are you talking about speaker ryan, he did not want to do a one-on-one name check with the former speaker. that to me was notable in part because it acknowledges that the president might have been able to get more earlier on, and our colleague peter alexander was getting at that issue as well, where the president had previously criticized barack obama for using national emergency powers, yet the president is using them himself. so it isn't a law to use a national emergency, but the questions legally will be does this qualify, is it an appropriate use of redirected money that lawmakers have intended for something else? in this case, it will be in part military construction budget where they'll take some of the wall. they'll take some of the wall money from forfeiture in drug cases where money goes to the

u.s. treasury and it might be used for other purposes but they want to use it for a border barrier. that's one of the things that came out of the rose garden wide-ranging conversation with the president. perhaps a little bit of looking back with some regret. alex? >> i think you're 100% right he was talking about paul ryan. you remember that call he made before the election encouraging the president to talk more about the economy instead of immigration because he saw the handwriting on the wall with house republicans losing seatings. you were right on, kelly. for more on the wall, scott joining us from one of the busiest land crossings in the entire world. i'm sure folks have a pretty strong feeling about what's going on here. how are they reacting? >> reporter: yeah, alex, it is a busy place, some 25 million people last year alone crossing this border by car, on foot, by bus. it is a very, very busy place

together the u.s. bureau of transportation statistics. some are people who live in tijuana and come over here sometimes every day whether it's for work or school or to do a little shopping. we talked with some of them this morning. if there is an emergency here, they're not seeing it. >> to be honest, i don't see any emergency. this morning when i woke up, i heard about it, but coming in, five minutes, we were in. it's no problem. >> if this would have been an emergency, i will definitely be behind everything he's trying to do, but i don't agree on that. i believe he should be spending our money somewhere else than here. >> reporter: that squares with some of the polling on this. these polls taken ahead of the compromised spending bill this week, but about two-thirds of americans surveyed said they did not agree with the idea of declaring a national emergency over the border. we should point out that where we are, san sysidro is a slice f

the border, but it is fortified upon fortified. there's a wall, there's a fence, there's a mote, koconcertina wi, but it's ports of entry where the vast amounts of ill lool drugs cross over and it's part like that this will get additional money under that spending bill. but for now, pretty much business as usual. >> scott cohen, thanks for update. joining me right now, congressman denny heck. good to see you as always. let's get to your sense of the president declaring a national emergency. what's your take on that and is there any part of what's going on at the border an emergency? >> so, i think there are a couple of things going on here,

actually, alex. i think the president is as it were trying to kill two birds with one stone, trying to save face and trying to change the subject. he's trying to save face because he got his head handed to him in these negotiations. he didn't get the wall. he got language prohibiting a wall, way less than what was on the table before. we increased investments in port of entry, personnel, technology, certain sensors, which was a good thing, but he didn't get bit wall. he's trying to change the subject because once again he didn't have a very good week. this was the week in whiching, frankly, the revelation by andrew mccabe that there were conversations about invoking the 21st amendment was revealed, former republican governor william weld announced that he will primary the president next year, and the one-year anniversary of the incredibly tragic shooting in parkland. all of these things he didn't want to talk about, so he was trying to change the subject. >> yeah. speaking of willy weld, he's got an 89% approval rating right now

within the republican party. that's something to very much consider, which he no doubt has as he considers primarying this president. the president could make a veto resolution condemning his decision, so does all this end of depending on what happens in the courts, what happens if the courts and perhaps even the supreme court ultimately rules in favor of the president? >> so, let's remind everybody, the constitutional language, which is operative here. this is found in article 1, the congressional branch, the 9th section, 7th cleause, which say no money shall be drawn from the treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law. once again, the president has either not read the constitution or skipped civics education. here's what's going to happen. there will be multiple lawsuits filed, already one or two have, and congress is likely to take up the resolution disapproving of his invocation of the national emergencies act. the court cases will undoubtedly lead to a stay in the

implementation of what it is that the president is proposing. and i remind you, we don't have the details on that. he is required by law to submit them to the committee of jurisdiction, the house arm e armed services committee on the house side, and we'll see exactly, which, as it were, military hospitals, he doesn't want to build, family barracks he doesn't want to build for our service members in lieu of constructing his wall, which was prohibited under the omnibus budget bill that was agreed to. the court cases will stay it. that will give congress an opportunity actually to tweak the language in the coming months either in the national defense authorization act or in the bills for next year. i will confidently predict not one mile of his wall under his supposed invocation of the national emergencies act will ever be built. >> okay. let's talk now about former deputy fbi director andrew mccabe, who of course he tells of conversations that were led by the deputy a.g. rod

rosenstein about invoking the 25th amendment after the president fired james comey. take a listen to this sound bite. >> the discussion of the 25th amendment was simply rod raised the issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort. >> rosenstein was actually openly talking about whether there was a majority of the cabinet who would vote to remove the president. >> that's correct. counting votes or possible votes. >> as with most everything, there are two ways to look at this, and what concerns you more of these two options, that unelected, justice department officials were considering overturning the result of an election or that these particular individuals, these officials, felt the need to even consider such a possibility? >> well, obviously, the latter, alex, because they have absolutely no authority legally or constitutionally to actually

implement in accordance with the former option. they or not ones who would ever vote. they're not the ones who frankly beyond their agency would ever have that discussion with their own agency director. look, this is sobering and it's unprecedented. we never hat thd this kind of conversation under president obama or president bush. indeed, i don't recall in my lifetime any high-ranking government officials having this serious conversation about invoking the 25th amendment. it brings to mind that anonymous "new york times" editorial column that was submitted by a high-ranking member of the white house or the administration about what it was on the minds of people who worked for president trump in which the -- the column in which he basically said there was a basic degree of unfitness to hold office and they were there in order to protect the american people from him. >> did you ever hear that the 25th amendment or that there would be talk about invoking that within the administration? never.

>> no. i never did. and frankly, i wasn't in the room, so it's still -- you know, absent a better understanding of the context of whether this was a joke or whether this was of a serious nature, i really don't know. >> okay. let's get to the chairman of the senate judiciary committee, richard burr, saying this investigation into the 2016 election found no evidence of collusion between trump and the -- russia and the trump campaign. the top democrat in that committee, senator mark warner, disagrees, but from your perspective within the house intel committee, what do you think? was senator burr's assessment something that was mainly political? is there even enough evidence to draw a conclusion on collusion? >> collusion is hiding in plain sight, alex. i don't know if i oud use this example with you before, but it's been commonly used of late. imagine you wake up in the morning and there is snow everywhere. your conclusion would be that it snowed last night. but the truth is you don't know that.

somebody could have come in with snow-making machines and laid that snow everywhere. collusion is hiding in plain sight. the trump in with snow making machines and laid that snow everywhere. the trump tower meeting was collusion. collusion is not a federal crime. it's a different standard than conspiracy. but collusion is an agreement, an arrangement to achieve a nefarious purpose or end. it's not a crime per se. collusioning is everywhere. romer stone's activities constituted collusion. he did commit collusion. people on his behalf certainly committed collusion. beyond that, there is ample evidence. there is yet to be determined whether or not there was criminal conspiracy to interfere the election. that's the purpose of the mueller investigation which we know is proceeding and which has yielded what, 119 criminal charges, 37 indictments and or plea deals and four sentences. so yeah, collusion is hiding in plain sight, alex. >> thank you for sorting it all

through it for us. good to see you as always. thank you. growing divide, amazon drops the big apple and it could cause a rift between alexandria ocasio-cortez and some other high profile new york democrats. ocasio-cortez and some other high profile new york democrats. ♪ your grace. your majesty. your king. a legacy of leaders, speeders and serpent feeders. the alfa romeo giulia, stelvio and c37.

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communities and they can have more say in this country. >> freshman congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez reacting to amazon's plans to scrap head nor new york city. joining me betsy woodruff and msnbc contributor. betsy, before i get to your reaction on aoc, i want to play what new york congresswoman carolyn maloney told me this morning. she represents the district where amazon planned to bring 25,000 jobs. listen to that. >> this was an opportunity to solidify the tax base of our city and certainly attract more jobs. now, you can be for a project and still work to improve it. i'm still trying. i was calling all my friends that were part of the opposition. they weren't calling me back, but we need to see if there's any way we can resurrect it.

it's a wonderful opportunity. >> betsy, as you compare the two the statements we heard from the two congresswoman women, what does this tell us about the democratic party? >> these questions how government is supposed to relate to some of the most powerful corporations that have ever existed are very much not settled. it's not a settled debate within the party. one of the reason progressives is including ocasio-cortez pushed back so hard against amazon coming to new york was because new york was going to give it a $3 billion tax abatement. amazon, the richest, perhaps the richest company in the united states didn't have to pay $3 billion but another similarly situated company would have had to pay in taxes because lawmakers in new york decided that they thought that type of payout ultimately would have been profitable. those kind of deals that local and state governments across the country often make with these extraordinarily powerful

corporations are not unusual but they're increasingly controversial because more and more people see these types of deals get made and think why is amazon getting $3 billion cut off its tax break when small businesses aren't getting comparable benefits. >> yeah. steph, i know that you wrote recently about alexandria ocasio-cortez and you say she is the democrats' trump. can you expand on that? >> we have certainly seen aoc garner this media attention in a way very similar to what we saw with donald trump several years ago. she has far more twitter followers than the average congress person. she's been making headlines and gaining recognition in the news and also on social media, more so than even many 2020 candidates hods have come forward already. kamala harris is still up there when it comes to media attention but it's remarkable how much attention a young freshman

congresswoman is able to achieve with her green new deal and now with amazon. these are big significant movements that she is really at the head of. and so i think it's interesting to watch how she wields that power, the power over social media and over news media and how she continues to grab our attention and make a difference in policies. >> interesting. okay, ladies, let's get to the president's emergency declaration. betsy, according to the post, white house attorneys warned trump that the risk of an emergency declaration failing in court is high but he still went for it. i mean, is this nothing but a political move? >> if you just go by his own words he said yesterday announcing the emergency declaration, you certainly would be on safe ground assuming that political concerns are the central driving factor here. and that's something that's going ironically is going to make it harder for him and his

lawyers to defend this move in court. historically, presidents make emergency declarations for a wide variety of reasons, often emergencies that aren't life or death situations. it is extremely unusual for a president to declare an emergency and then talk about how that declaration is going to affect his 2020 re-elect and to a stream of consciousness on the political impact of the decision that he's making and in addition to that, essentially to say repeatedly that the emergency for which he was declaring a declaration wasn't actually an emergency. he's making things harder for his lawyers every time he says anything about this. >> saying that he didn't have to do it this way. he just wants to get his wall done faster. there are recent polls out there, steph, that show a majority of americans do not support his decision. it even appears that his own base is split on this. let's take ann coulter, for

example. she's now calling him an idiot quite vo can i have russly. who is he trying to appeal to? >> i think of course, as is always the case when it comes to trump and his decisions to wade into these controversial policies and moves, is he's trying to apiece his base. he's trying to make good on his promise. he recognized that he was not going to getting the $5.7 billion that he requested for his border wall but he wanted to make sure his base knew that he was doing everything in his power to get the funding for the border wall and of course, he's admitted himself he knows that this is going to face legal challenge and it likely will not be upheld at least in the lower courts and possibly not the supreme court. he wants to prove to his base that he is going to keep his promise that he is going to get the money to build the border wall. his most recognizable campaign promise. but as you said, there are still many republicans who are not

supportive of this decision. i think especially looking ahead, something that republicans have said over and over again is they're afraid of the precedent this sets for future presidents and how democrats will be able to use this to invoke their own policy ideas whether that's over gun control issues or climate change. >> yeah. again, mitch mcconnell was very concerned about that but i guess now he's not. betsy, steph, thank you so so much. president trump's performance friday generated big headlines. you're going to hear what he said that made some link it to the 25th amendment talk. said that made some link it to the 25th amendment tal no more excuses with cologuard. we all make excuses for the things we don't want to do. but when it comes to colon cancer screening... i'm not doin' that. i eat plenty of kale.

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were unable to make the deal that you had promised in the past and that the deal you're ending up with now from congress is less than what you could have had before the shutdown? >> i went through congress. i got almost $1.4 billion when i was supposed to not get one dollar. i got 1.4 billion but i'm not happy with it. >> after declaring a national emergency the president in spin mode as he tried to rename the derivative as a victory over democrats. it is a far cry from the donald trump who sold himself to the

american public as a master dealmaker. joining me now is msnbc contributor tim o'brien. he wrote a biographical book about trump in 2005 and sued by the president over that, but with a welcome back to the broadcast. what did you make of the president's rose garden speech? >> i think it was classic trump. i don't think anybody should be surprised that he is trying to find paths around congressional legislation and trying to spin this as a victory because ultimately, i don't think his goal is to apiece his base. i think his goal is to apiece himself. at his core, he's a performance artist. i think the last thing he wants and the last thing he can tolerate is the notion that he lost, that he lost on the border negotiations, that he can't get the money he wants to fulfill a campaign pledge, and that he got

emasculated by two women, nancy pelosi to his left and ann coulter to his right. >> i want to get to an op-ed written by "the washington post" dana milbank in which he characterized the speech as bizarre and writing, when president barack obama attempt aid less aggressive use of executive power in 2014, republicans denounced him as a tyrant and dictator. mcconnell called him an imperial president and trump himself said obama could be impeached for it. many lawmakers warned trump not to usurp the separation of powers as senator john cornyn put it. trump ricocheted from topic to topic in the rose garden. he carried a speech to the lectern but mostly ignored it as he spun fantasies. tim, is this a person who just believes that normal rules do not apply when it comes to him? >> of course that's who he is. this isn't the first time he's delivered a speech like this. actually, it's the norm is a speech like this.

it's rather that he sticks to the teleprompter. most of the speeches that involve him sticking to prepared remarks are when his staff is trying to rein him in. usually when he feels the need to start evoking a stream of conscious narrative about his various successes or how he sees his presidency, it's because he's coming from a very defensive and insecure place. and that's where he is right now. this is a donald trump who recognizes that he has been cornered legislatively and politically and he's not sure what to do. >> getting back to what peter alexander was asking him which the president did not directly answer, we've got to mention that is trump had several chances to secure this deal. there were a couple of them. february, he was offered $25 billion over a decade. last summer he was offered $1.6 billion, more than what he got. did he underestimate democrats? what do you think happened here? was he overestimating his ability to pull this off?

>> remember last march when he had $25 billion on the table. he didn't have to think that much about democrats because he controlled his party controlled both houses of congress. did he have to deal with daca and finding a reasonable way to get democrats on board for that legislation. and he found a way there. but what he ultimately did was cave i think to conservative pundits and it really shows you how captive he is to the same forces that helped get him elected. that's too narrow of a studency for him to be a successful president. but he doesn't realize that. i think that speaks to actually his authentic history as a dealmaker which in the business world he was never regarded as a great dealmaker or someone who understood the strategic or policy components of getting things done. i think that was lost on the american public when he was running but it's becoming very painfully obvious now. >> the new yorker took on the president's spin over this whole

deal. and here's what the new yorker is saying "for the first two years of his presidency, he focused on priorities congressional republicans cared about, tax cuts, health care, judicial confirmations and forgot about the wall. at the end of last year, he suddenly realized he was about to lose control of congress and shut down the government in the hope somehow it would lead to a wall. it didn't. now he is revealing his fallback plan, pretend he succeeded. here's the question, instead of build the wall, it seems it's now finish the wall." do you trump is better at rebranding than he is at brokering deals? >> i think the thing he is the best at is survival. he's a spine maicer. i don't think he as we understand now he's processed -- i think "the wall street journal" had a wonderful story by mike bender on friday about the fact that trump, despite making the wall a core pledge of his campaign and something he's banging his presidency on

actually never had anyone over seeing that in the white house for him when he entered office and they never had a process in place up till about december and then he suddenly doubled down on it because he lost out on border negotiations. but you can't just put something like that on the table and not have the process behind it. >> here's my last question. has he evolved in any way whatsoever as a leader since being elected? >> i don't think so. i mean, to evolve, you know, adults evolve by being self-aware, reflective, humble and have certain measures of guilt. and none of those things applies to donald trump. >> okay. tim o'brien, good to see you. come see me again. thank you. what did she know and when did she it? breaking down why the special counsel wanted to talk to sarah sanders. but first, some deadly snowstorms paralyzing parts of the midwest. the missouri state highway patrol responded to at least 729

crashes since the snow started yesterday, that's just since yesterday. reports are three people have been killed, 60 more injured due to the snowy roads. let's get to jenessa webb. you've got details. it's bad out there. >> this was a coast to coast system, originally starteded in california and traveled across the east fairly quickly. you can see right now across kansas city to st. louis, we've picked up about 3.8 inches and the storm system continues to travel out towards the carolinas. kind of that wintry mix that's happening towards northern virginia. but this system is making its way offshore fairly quickly. our next storm system will impact 17 million here. winter weather advise rains winter storm warnings across the upper midwest into the central plains. you can see from our radar here as we track in this next system, impacts the midwest as we step into your sunday all the way into the monday afternoon. we'll be right back. he way into the monday afrnteoon. we'll be right back. we're all stressed.

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surprising new revelations today in the mueller investigation as white house press secretary sarah sanders says she was interviewed by the special counsel a move she claims was voluntary. joining me now is msnbc legal analyst cynthia alksne. is an interview with the special counsel, is it is ever voluntary? can you ever say no,cy don't want to talk to you? >> of course you can.

you can be say no and wait to be subpoenaed. absolutely you could say no. it's interesting, this opens up yet another branch in the investigation. they're trying to find out if the president directed people to lie because what sarah sanders said in the press conference on august 1st in 2017 was that the president did not dictate the statement regarding the trump tower meeting when in fact he did. so they want to know why did she say that? did someone tell her to say that? was she part of framing that. that's interesting. there's a bunch of other people who have the same problem. go ahead. >> i was going to say, we happen to have that queued up. let's play what sarah sanders said to your point. here it is. >> the statement that don junior issued is true. there's no inaccuracy in the statement. he certainly didn't dictate. >> the outside counsel did wega in saying yes, the president did dictate the statement. do you want to correct the record on your statement from august when you said he

certainly didn't dictate? >> once again, i'm not going to go into detail. >> so what i'm trying to figure out is is, wouldn't she know if the president dictated the statement? i mean she's the director of communications or the fact that he can be very erratic with his statements. does that give her a cover? >> right. so the special counsel wants to find out why she said that. did he say go out and tell them i didn't dictate it? that would be important to know. at the same time what was happening also was that his own lawyer, jay sekulow was going on "meet the press" saying the president had nothing to do with the statement. he was flying on a plane and it was don junior and his lawyers. that's also not true. there were a series of untruths about the cover-up of this hearing which leads us to what was so terrible happening at that meeting they felt the need to cover it up. but this isn't the only -- this isn't the only question that mueller is looking at about people directing him to lie.

for example, congressman cummings just is now investigating whether or not lawyers were lying about the cover-up regarding the michael cohen payments. this is a theme here to try to figure out how the cover-up worked and who was involved in it. >> so quickly my first question to you is whether or not she could have said i don't feel like being interviewed by you. it's my understanding the white house didn't want it to happen. ultimately, does the white house have the power to say we don't want you to ask these questions or we will not answer these particular questions? can that be done? >> it can be done -- there's a whole question about executive privilege but covering up criminal act or being involved in a criminal act is an exception to the executive privilege concept. and here, the smart thing to do is go ahead and answer the question which apparently she has. we'll see what her response was.

>> you smartly always answer my questions. stick around. i'm going to have you join glen kirschner in the next section. >> i'm a big fan of you two. see you then. >> an interview with the former acting fbi director reviving a discussion about the president's fitness for office. the parts of his speech yesterday that are spurring a 25th amendment debate. that's coming up as we said. also, in honor of black history month, nbc blk unveils the new series "she thrives." valencia d. clay is receiving praise for her mission to educate and inspire students. she says her work is her vessel for empowerment. read about the other outstanding women by going to msn msnbc.com/three thrives. goin c msnbc.com/three thrives. ♪ hoo

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issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort. >> rosenstein was actually openly talking about whether there was a majority of the cabinet who would vote to remove the president? >> that's correct. >> counting votes. or possible votes the deputy attorney general was definitely very concerned about the president, about his capacity and about his intent at that point in time. >> joining me now is democratic strategist aisha moody mills, republican strategist rick tyler, and republican strategist michael steele, former senior adviser for jeb bush. welcome to all three of you. ladies first here. your reaction to this? was it inappropriate for the deputy ag and the former acing fbi director to have a discussion that was in essence about overturning the will of

the voters? >> i think it's absolutely appropriate for everyone surrounding this president and for the american public to call into question his readiness for the job and his ability to do this job and whether he's acting in the interests of the people. more of us need to have that conversation. more of the people around him needed to have that conversation and weighing in and intervening where it's fathers. >> weigh in on this rick. if the deputy ag was very concerned about the president's capacity, do you think he was right to raise the idea of a 25th amendment? >> it's very concerning he was contemplating this but it's not what the 25th amendment is for. i worry a little bit about the deputy ag talking about the 25th amendment. let's be serious about this. it is for when the president is incapacitated in some way in general like if the president were to go into surgery or was suffered a stroke or something like this. besides, even if you get the half of the cabinet and the vice president to agree on the

amendment, you still then have to go to the congress and get two-thirds of the house and senate. it's a higher hurdle than impeachment. i don't know why they were discussing it in the first place. >> how about taking a look at yesterday and we'll start with you on this one, michael. there are several op eds who link the discussion about the president's capacity to his performance during this emergency declaration announcement. here are some of the most unusual moments from that announcement. take a listen. >> 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'll get a fair shake. i use many stats. >> could you share those stats with us. >> let me tell you, you have stats that are far worse than the ones i use. i use many stats. i want to wish our new attorney general great luck and speed and enjoy your speed. my button is bigger than yours and my button works. remember that you? don't remember that. people said trump is crazy. >> hmm. okay.

you first michael. do these op-eds have a point? >> that press conference was rambling, aggressive, pug nation, it was in.ways vicinity and trump. the problem was it was also somewhat looking in mooring to reality and it did actual damage to his case had, is argument that the emergency declaration and the transfer funds to build a wall is actually necessary when he replied to peter alexander and said northbound's peter alexander and said i could do this another way but this gets it done faster. he's undermining his own legal position. i think it raises questions about his judgment. >> lacking to mooring in reality, aisha, michael words right there, do you agree. >> was that is what was reflected in your mind at this is the press conference? >> absolutely. this is a president who the number one thing he cares about is making himself look good and not necessarily about the american people. that is what he did when he also said in that conference that the head of japan nominated him for a nobel peace prize.

he's self-aggrandizing having conversations that have nothing to do with this supposed state of emergency. with we all took away from the fact he doesn't know what he's talking about and certainly there's not a real emergency at the border. >> is it fair, rick, to characterize the president's remarks as making a case for the 25th amendment. you gave us a lesson what that's all about. >> is it fair for him to? >> as a result of yesterday how he spoke. he seems off kilter at times. >> it was a stream of unconsciousness. you could fill an entire newspaper with all the headlines he made. including lou am i going to working in president aib nominated him for a nobel peace prize. the congress needs to revisit this emergency declaration because the idea that that you could reallocate billion, this isn't $3 billion in abatement offered to amazon to move to new york. this is real $8 billion that our

representatives voted for to allocate to certain programs and projects particularly in the military that were taken away and put somewhere else unilaterally. i think that's a serious breach of the way our constitution and republic is supposed to work. >> any concerns, michael, all this talk about a 25th amendment feeds those deep state theories that are out there by trump supporters? >> absolutely. i think there are two separate issues. there's the question of competence and also the question of whether the president is in some form or fashion wittingly or unwittingly acting as an agent of a foreign power or powers. that's uncharted territory at this point. we're talking about stuff we haven't talked about since the days of benedict arnold or aaron burr or the plot of "homeland." it's not surprising there's a great deal of confusion what was discussed and how seriously in trying to come to grips with this. >> i appreciate the discussion with all three of you. aisha, rick and michael. he is a member of the powerful

house judiciary committee and raising tough questions regarding the national emergency. california congressman ted lieu here on "weekends with alex witt." ted lieu here on "weekends with alex witt." too little too late ♪ ♪ a sock-a-bam-boom ♪ who's in the room? ♪ love is dangerous ♪ but driving safe means you pay less ♪ ♪ switch and save ♪ yes, ma'am excuse me, miss. ♪ does this heart belong to you? ♪ ♪ would you like it anyway? [ scatting ] ♪ would you like it anyway? starts with looking buiat something old,nk and saying, "really?" so capital one is building something completely new. capital one cafes. inviting places with people here to help you, not sell you. and savings and checking accounts with no fees or minimums. because that's how it should be. you can open one from right here or anywhere in 5 minutes. seriously,

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i didn't need to do this. but i'd rather do it much faster. >> on the fast track, it's day two of the of so-called national emergency. and as the alleged crisis unfolds where is the commander in chief? last we saw president trump he

was heading today for his florida golf club while the debate over the emergency rages. >> i think there's serious dang to the president's case from his words. >> his patently illegal. it flies in the face of the rule of law. the checks and balances. >> there's no emergency. boom there goes that whole idea there's an emergency. >> in the russia probe, a federal judge accused paul manafort of lying. why all the alleged fabrications could cut to the heart of the russia investigation. >> we're all left to wonder why. why the lies continue. he has the goods regarding russian cooperation with the trump campaign. >> an it's "meet the press" secretary. sarah huckabee sanders talks to the special counsel but what was robert mueller getting at and what did the president tell her before the interview? a very good day to all of you here from msnbc headquarters in new york. welcome to weekends with alex

witt". developing this hour, another shut down averred. now a constitutional clash is brewing. mounting legal challenges are expected after the president declared a national knowledge bypass congress and build his border wall. the president now in mar-a-lago but hours after the president's announcement yesterday, one lawsuit was filed plus the american civil liberties union as well as the state of california are also vowing to sue. president trump refusing to accept defeat. >> will you concede that you were unable to make the deal that you had promised in the past and that the deal you're ending up with now from congress is less than what you could have had before the 35-day shutdown. >> i went through congress. i made a deal. i got almost $1.4 billion when i wasn't supposed to get one dollar, not one dollar. we will possibly get a bad rule acthen we'll get another bad ruling and then we'll end up in the supreme court. >> the house democrats are vowing to pass a resolutionings to condemn the declaration. that will trigger a senate vote,

forcing republicans to take a position. but the president may veto it. last hour, he spoke with representative denny hecht. he told me he wants to know specifically what the president wants to defund to build his border wall. >> he's trying to save face because he got his head handed to him in these negotiations. he's trying to change the subject because once again, he didn't have a very good week. once again, the has either not read the constitution or skipped civics education. not one mile of his wall under his supposed invocation of a national emergencies act will ever be built. >> nbc's kelly o'donnell joins from us west palm beach, florida, where the president is spending his weekend. kelly with, another welcome to the show. this is just the beginning of what appears to be a very long complicated tangled process. >> reporter: there will be different kinds of legal challenges brought by different entities that could argue that they were injured in some way. states could be involved.

the american civil liberties union involved, others who want to say this is the president circumventing the constitutional separation of the branches where the power of the purse, the power to spend the taxpayers' money belongs to congress, not the executive. that's one of the big arguments that you have among those who believe that the president is overreaching with his national emergency declaration. that is a power that has been on the books for about 40 years. its original intention was for the unforeseen disaster or crisis where it would be very difficult to in a hurry-up fashion try to appropriate money, things like a public health crisis, natural disaster, a terror attack. those sorts of things where the government would want resources right away. but the appropriations process would take too long. the president using it to say there is an invasion of drugs of undocumented individuals of human trafficking coming across the southern border. that's his argument. of course, we know it's also

been a campaign promise of his that mexico would pay for a wall. he's given up on that part, makes a case that somehow a new trade deal with mexico would somehow repay taxpayers. but this is the american taxpayer paying for this border barrier. congress gave 55 miles of new border barrier. the president wants more than 230 miles. so the executive branch, the trump administration is finding what they described to us behind the scenes as pots of money where they believe they can reprogram money that was authorized by lawmakers or forfeited to the u.s. treasury to pay for this. the president was asked a lot of questions and he may have actually hurt his own case in how he described his options here in the rose garden when we were among those who were asking the president questions. here's what he had to say about the timing of this declaration. >> i could do the wall over a

longer period of time. i didn't need to do this but i'd 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. >> reporter: so the president's acknowledgement that this could have been done in a longer term sort of undercuts directly the notion of it being an emergency. and that is something that we can expect the president's own words to make their way into these legal challenges even though the courts have given a president a lot of leeway about exercising this power to protect the country. what the president had to say may have hurt his own case. alex? >> kelly o'donnell, thank you for bringing it to us from west palm beach. joining me now representative ted lieu, democrat from california. with a welcome back to the broadcast, sir, as being a member of the judiciary committee, which is can requesting the white house counsel and administration officials to answer questions in the coming days about the

president's national emergency, what exactly do you want to know and how confident are you your committee's going to get either sufficient and or honest answers? >> thank you for your question. the house judiciary committee is opening an investigation into donald trump and his staff because we believe they're violating the constitution. under article 1 of the constitution, the house of representatives very specifically has the power of the purse. donald trump can't override that power simply by declaring a national emergency. we want to talk to his staff and request documents. and we also have subpoena power. we believe we will get the answers we want because they're acting in an unconstitutional manner. we want them toe set forth their justification for this fake national emergency. >> can you speak to the specs that the president said when he said he didn't have to declare a national emergency? but that he wanted to because it would get the wall built faster? is that going to be a prominent component of your investigation? >> i would love it if donald

trump got on tv a lot more and kept saying things because it hurts his legal case. it is not a national emergency when you wait two years to declare it and you tell the american people you didn't need to do it. if you listened to his press conference, he talks about the fact he's doing this for the 2020 election. that is not a national emergency if you're doing something for an election in 2020. i think he's going to lose in court and this is just another distraction. democrats want to talk about lowering drug prices and investing in infrastructure and getting rid of corruption. it's hard for us to do this when he constantly distracts the eastern people with issues that are not going to move america forward. >> we want to get to deputy fbi director andrew mccabe who had this to say about deputy ag rod rosenstein while discussing the 25th amendment after the president fired former fbi director james comey. here it is. >> a discussion of the 25th amendment was simply rod raised the issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking

about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort. >> i've talked to folks on both sides of this today. do you, sir, have any concerns that justice department officials were considering overturning is the results of an election or is that talk of the 25th amendment justified given how alarmed rod rosenstein and others were in the doj? >> i don't think andrew mccabe was saying anything different than what many people in america were saying and seeing because we're looking at the same facts. you had a president acting bizarrely toward russia, a president who fired james comey and went on tv and said it was because of the russia investigation. you had a president lying multiple times every day. so the 25th amendment is not a new idea. it's been a hash tag for a long time. i think mr. mccabe was expresses his views what a lot of us were thinking at the time.

>> you have endorsed democratic senator kamala harris for president from your home state of california. is it too early to endorse someone for president and do you have any reservations about her claims she was a progressive prosecutor? >> i have known kamala harris for many years. we worked on a lot of issues including bail reform which is an important component of criminal justice reform. she is progressive. she is brilliant. she is tough. she's exactly the person we need to unify us and lead us in 2020 and i think she has a very good chance at being the general election nominee. >> let's get to your take on amazon's decision to abandon plans for the new campus here in new york city. democratic leaders appear split on this, governor cuomo, and representative carolyn maloney criticizing congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez. do you think this is indicative though of a greater let's call it generational and policy rift within the party on progressive

issues? >> i think when you look at this issue, you had people locally who did not want the headquarters, and zon will simply go to another place in america. so there will be another building somewhere or buildings. it's not as if there's a loss to amazon. i think the people local little in new york didn't want this and the people should be honored for their wishes and that's exactly what happened in this case, and i think you can disagree on what happened, but both sides expresses their views and then amazon made a decision. >> representative ted lieu, he always appreciate you expressing your views. thank you. come see me again soon. >> thank you. >> new today, democratic hopefuls are hitting the road this weekend taking campaign mess actions directly to the masses. elizabeth warren is in south carolina talking about wiping out corruption. >> and let's start by changing the rules in washington. i have the biggest anti-corruption bill since

watergate. it is time to clean up that place. >> the aforementioned senator kamala harris also in south carolina sharing her thoughts on amazon's decision to withdraw from the deal for headquarters in new york city. >> obviously, it is critically important that we do everything we canning to support the creation of jobs in all communities. it is also an important consideration to think about what has been a challenge for decades which is the issue of gentrification and local communities being displaced. >> senator amy klobuchar in wisconsin addressing voting rights. she wants to overturn citizens united, use paper ballots as backup votes and one more thing. >> passing my bill who automatically register every kid in this country when they turn 18 to vote. that is what we're proposing. >> and senator cory booker was in new hampshire offering a word

of caution in running against the president. >> look, there are going to be people in this democratic primary who are going to want to us fight fire with fire. as a guy who ran a fire department, it's not a good strategy. just not really a good strategy. house fires in newark were not put out that way. >> well, the president is far from the first commander in chief to declare a national emergency. we're taking a look at why other presidents have done it and how this one measures up. measures p

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i will tell you, i'm very disappointed at certain people particularly one for not having pushed this faster. >> are you referring to speaker ryan, sir? >> who? >> speaker ryan? >> let's not talk about it. what difference does it make but they should have pushed it faster, they should have pushed it harder and they didn't. >> president trump there with our own white house correspondent kelly o'donnell. joining me now is john nickles is, national affairs correspondent at the nation, gabby orr from politico and peter baker from "the new york times" and political analyst. i'm going to start with you, peter, according to the brennan center for justice, presidents have declared 5 states of emergency going back to, let's see, 1976, 31 of which are still active today.

so this one being declared by the president yesterday officially, how is it different? >> well, most of these states of emergency or declarations of emergency are about foreign adversaries and freezing property, cutting off trade or exports, that kind of thing. in other words, if an illegitimate government takes over a country, we want to allow the dictatorship to seize assets in the united states, things like that. we asked the white house yesterday could they name a time when these emergency declarations were used to shift funds around the way the president talks about. they named two examples. both of them were in times of crisis, real crisis involving military action. one was right before the gulf war in 1990 when president george h.w. bush moved some military construction money around for military purposes and then again when his son george w. bush declared an emergency after 9/11 while we were in

afghanistan. and in both cases they were moving money around as a matter of expedience, not in opposition 0 congress. not only is this a use of this declaration to move manor around, congress specifically said we don't want you to spend it. that makes it unique. >> point well taken. gabby, we have recent polls which show a majority of americans are against the president's decision. we recently saw what appears to be a split actually within his own base within the gop. so why do it. >> that's a great question. if you look at the president's language from that press conference yesterday, he made it clear in saying he didn't need to do this but he is doing it because it's not only politically expedient for him to circumvent congress and pull these funds from other agencies or other projects under the defense department in order to sort of fund this pet project, but it's also something that he has been adamant about

fulfilling. it was a promise to his base. he sees this as an opportunity and perhaps the only option through which he can fulfill that will promise. and yet, as you pointed out in these polls we're seeing that a number of you know republican voters people who supported his candidacy in 2016, don't actually support this. it's vet spectacular to what we're seeing play out on capitol hill where you have senate republicans saying that this is an abuse of executive power, that they are worried about the precedent that this will set particularly if a democrat wins the white houses in 2020. so there is an idea logical divide over this issue particularly over what powers the president has to declare a national emergency and whether or not there's a rationale basis for him to declare a national emergency in order to gets the funds for a border wall. >> this was a promise the president made to his base that you point out that he also said mexico would be paying for this wall. were that the case, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

john, something you wrote, congress should apply is the same standards established by trump to trump. can you expand on that? >> sure. several years ago when barack obama was president, he used an executive order to extend a number of protections to immigrants. and particularly with concern for the dreamers. whether he did that in 2014, he did it because he was having trouble with congress. congress wasn't moving on an issue. and donald trump's reaction to that was to say that republicans must stop him. that they must act to prevent him from doing this and then in an interview with fox news, he suggested that the president's actions remember president obama's actions, on a relatively popular and i think many people wohl agree necessary initiative to stabilize concerns as regards deportations was certainly

impeachable. again, to repeat donald trump, citizen donald trump's statement that it was certainly impeachable. what i am suggesting is that at this point, when the president has taken a much more aggressive action, literally involving a lot of movement of money, that the congress has to take it as seriously as congress man lue just did. it may not get to an impeachment moment moment, but this is an assault on the constitution and it is very appropriate that the judiciary committee and frankly many republicans in congresses are he can pressing concern. >> i got to say i know exactly that fox interview which you're referencing here. and i'd even talked with my staff about this and one phrase of what that interview revealed by his own words, he said referring to obama, now he has to use executive action and this is a very, very dangerous thing that should be overridden easily by the supreme court. that is what donald trump said about this very action that he

is taking backing in 24014. it is quite remarkable when you put these two together. i do want to switch topics and get to playing what former fbi director andrew mccabe has said in this newly released interview about the discussions with deputy ag rod rosenstein relative to using the 25th anticipate. here's that. >> discussion of the 25th amendment was simply rod raised the issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort. >> rosen tine was rose /* rosen talking about whether there was a majority of cabinet who would vote to the remove the president. >> that's correct. counting votes or possible votes. >> i want to point out cbs released this clip after mccabe's spokesperson, melissa swartz, said that his words were taken out of context.

peter, why do you think mccabe is going on record with all this? is this all about selling books or do you think there's more to it? >> he does have books to sell. i think obviously the moore salacious content you can put in a book, the better it is. publishers want you to tell the full story. this is a particularly gripping scene he's describing in the aftermath of president trump firing james comey in may of 2017 just a few months after taking office and there was a lot of discussion in the broad ker public at that time about the president's behavior because it is so much different than we've seen in other presidents. now it's been two years in office. people have kind of gotten used to it. you played clips from his rose garden appearance yesterday. is he meandering and all over the map at times. that's the way he's been for two years now. the idea of a 25th amendment you know action has faded because people have kind you have gotten used to it and i think they've decided he is who he is.

the idea of a 25th amendment exercise does strike people as you said in the previous segment as a potentially you know overturning the will of the people and has to be used very sparingly. rick mentioned in one of your prior segments is to do. not only do you have to get vice president pence to agree to it and the majority of the cabinet but the president can appeal it to congress. unless the opponents to president can muster two-thirds votes, he'll stay back in office. it's not metropolitan for this situation. it's meant where there's no disagreement with about a president's capacity. >> the fact that you cover the white house, was there ever a moment do you think where anyone in the cabinet was actually entertaining any of this? >> not that i know of. that doesn't movie they weren't. i'm sure there are members of the cabinet who have watched his behavior and been concerned at times and sat in meetings and wondered about his capacity because he does at times seem to you know, drift around

intellectually and use numbers that aren't true and stick with facts that aren't facts. i think that you know, certainly there are concerns on the part of people who work for him about his capacity in that sense. i've never heard any solid reporting that there are members of the cabinet who are willing to go that far. >> okay, but john, this whole discussion about a 25th amendment, how much does this fan the narrative of deep state plot to take down the president? >> a little, but the fact of the matter is that i think we should do one thing and understand when mccabe and rosenstein were talking about this, this is appropriate. the lawyers particularly in the case of assistant attorney general in a moment of what is seen by. people as crisis or possible crisis, have a responsibility to discuss options. it is -- we don't know the how far it went. we don't know a lot of details. but that discussion of options

is not inappropriate. now, when you get to the 25th amendment itself, the 25th amendment has always, to my mind, been reasonably absurd construct because outside of a president being fully incapacitated, it's unlikely that it would be used. you certainly aren't going to use it for political purposes to overturn an election because you don't like a result because the people doing it are essentially the president's appointees. this is a footnote to a broader discussion. it points to the failure of congress during the president's first two years in office to practicene to do any kind of accountability. what you saw from congressman lue moments ago which is a suggestion that's changing. i think you'll hear much less that you can of a 25th amendment. >> last question to you, abby. current administration thinking. has the president weeded out

anyone who might think this way? >> this is exactly the point i was going to bring up. thank you for asking. i think it is important to point out as peter was saying we obviously don't have any reporting on the current cabinet and what their thinking might be. if you look back at the handful of officials who have left this president's cabinet, that includes former secretary of state rex tillerson, the former defense head, jim mattis, and including people who are still here who have had those sort of tense relationships with the president, people like homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen, there have absolutely been moments where you look at the language they've used, things they've said. my mind immediately goes to tillerson saying there were moments when the president asked him to do things that were unlawful and he had to repeatedly tell the president we can't do that. it's probably safe to assume at some point they did have you know, thoughts about what a 25th amendment would look like. but i don't think with the current cabinet that this

president has surrounded himself with that there's any chatter happening behind the scenes. i think he has weeded out the folks who may have otherwise considered that at one point or another. >> i will always considering having the three of you on. thank you so much, all of you so terrific. next, why a judge says paul manafort keeps lying and what it always means about a potential russian conspiracy. potential russian conspiracy ♪ ♪ ♪ your grace. your majesty. your king. a legacy of leaders, speeders and serpent feeders.

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call or visit a sentencing memo for paul manafort after he broke his plea deal concluding while they would not take a position on a sentence, the guideline calculations of at least 20 years was accurate. former fbi assist isn't director frank figliuzzi says manafort has substantial information hiding behind his loyalty. listen to him. >> looking more and more like manafort has such substantial information in his possession that if he let it out, it would not only bring him down, but bring down others. he has the goods regarding russian cooperation with the trump campaign, and likely knows the degree to which, if any, this president was aware of

russian quid pro quo deals involving aiding the campaign. >> wow. joining me now two former federal prosecutors glen kirs kirschner and cynthia alksne. do you agree with what frank was saying there? >> yes, and i was looking at one of the court filings and it has about 15 blacked out pages as they're discussing what manafort, what mueller is doing with manafort. so there's a lot we don't know. and what we have to hope is that mueller has found an end run around to get the evidence. gates was in many of the hearings and he may have provided some of it, and there's obviously a lot of super secret things going on in order to find out exactly. but we know from this judge that she did find that manafort and gates met with this russian operative and manafort gave him

the polling data, walked him through the polling data according to gates and explained it to him and all of that was in return for a peace deal having to do with ukraine. you're looking at a way for putin to make more money because it's a way to get the sanctions lifted. the question is who was the member of the conspiracy and manafort is the man with the answer. >> this recommendation, 20 years is essentially a life sentence for manafort because he's 69 years old. what does that tell you about the significance here? does age play into it? do they say he is 69 and that would put him to 89? is that part of the calculation? >> you know, i don't know that age plays into it, alex. this does kind of almost feel like a lifetime achievement award sentence for paul manafort because he has been running amok criminally speaking for it looks like a decade or more. and you know, it looks like bob mueller was determined not to

just get part of the truth from manafort but the whole truth from manafort. he plainly didn't get it. that's why i think one of the reasons they were so determined to litigate this issue you know to its conclusion in front of judge amy berman jackson. and i think it's an important finding that judge jackson, a federal judge, concluded during the course of his cooperation, manafort lied. and he lied about his relationship with kilimnik, a russian operative in essence, and i think frank and cynthia are right. this goes right to the core of russian collusion and conspiracy between the russians and the trump campaign and mueller was determined to get to the bottom of it. he already has gates and we know that gates was at the now infamous havana club cigar bar meeting with kilimnik and manafort. so the good news is, mueller has a realtime and hopefully fully accurate account of what happened during that meeting.

>> is it fair to assume that paul manafort, glen, lied banking on a presidential pardon? >> you know, a lot of people have been talking about a pardon for manafort. i think what we need to realize is a pardon would help manafort because it might enable him to avoid a lengthy prison term, but a pardon won't necessarily help trump. why do i say that? listen, manafort had been cooperating with the mueller investigation so you know that mueller's team interviewed him, wore him out, interview after interview, showing him documents and e-mails and text messages and business plans. and asked him questions about it. i can also strongly suspect, alex, they put him in the grand jury a number of times. all of that information is still available to the mueller team to be used in the future. even if manafort is pardoned. so a pardon i think might help

manafort but i don't think it would help trump. and because it won't help trump, that tells me trump is unlikely to extend one. >> good point. cynthia, i want to turn to the president's national emergency. he has made it clear he made this declaration for political reasons. he said he didn't need to do this. is he undercutting his own argument and if so, how does it affect a court case potentially? >> well, first of all, what we know is there's no emergency. so declaring a international emergency when there's no emergency affected the court case. his statement that essentially that there was no emergency so that he didn't have to do it but that he did it anyway to try to speed it up, that will be introduced in every court case. that is exhibit a. mostly what we have here is a political stunt that is the full employment act of 2019. this will be tied up in the courts till the next election

and then perhaps if there is a different president, the entire thing will be withdrawn. so i predict it's nothing more than a lawyer's boondoggle at this point. >> that's a wrap. that's a rather fun way to wrap. cynthia and glenn, thank you. the latest 2020 polling shows joe biden the clear favorite in the iowa caucuses right now. more than doubling kamala harris's numbers. today she is seeking support in another key state.coming up next. but first, as winter storm nadia moves east, parts of the midwest are bracing for more snow. janessa webb is joining us with more details. >> it's been a coast to coast storm that started in southern california and tracked across the midwest in portions of the upper midwest. right now, it's starting to fade out towards the carolinas dealing with heavier downpours even rain and snow mixture.

now, we are tracking our next current system that's already starting to affect 17 million people with winter weather advisories. also winter storm warnings in place. we could see accumulation up to 6 to 8 inches in parts of the dakotas. so what to expect, timing is everything. it makes its way across the plains into the midwest as we step into your sunday afternoon. this one is going to travel across the northeast causing that mixed bag of precipitation as we step into your monday. we'll be right back. as we step into your monday. we'll be right back.

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2020 presidential hopefuls are making rounds in south carolina ahead of the primaries. we have california senator kamala harris in west columbia today touring small businesses and set for a town hall. senator elizabeth warren is in greenville. let's go to ali vitale following senator harris today. i know this is supposed to start well about 10, 15 minutes ago. it was a little bit late previously, right? because it was so popular, people couldn't park. they had to push it back by an hour. what's going on today there? >> reporter: yeah, alex, the event should be i canning off in the next few minutes. if you hear talking on stage behind me, we're getting under way. senator harris is someone people have been looking at how she will do in places like south carolina. i was talking with one of her

aides about what's the game plan. she said this is the introductory phase. you're seeing her do a fair mix of retail politicking, meeting small business owners. we were at a barbecue restaurant yesterdayness charleston. she's making the rounds and doing town hall style events here. fielding questions from voters talking about gun control, health care and talking to reporters. white house news tends to trickle onto the campaign trail. yesterday, everyone was talking about that national emergency. here's what kamala harris had to say about that when we asked her yesterday. >> i think that this declaration of an emergency is completely unnecessary. it is playing politics with taxpayer resources. it is about creating a crisis of his own making because of the vanity project that he feels he needs to pursue. >> reporter: and alex, i was

interested in asking if senator share ris thought that was even something a president could do, declare a national emergency. she kind of doned the question and said this is going to be rightfully, she said,s in litigation to see if the president can do this. but of course, she circled back to this idea she believes this is a crisis of trump's own making. as you mentioned at the beginning, senator harris is not the only person here campaigning for 2020. senator elizabeth warren with is about 100 miles north in greenville making her anti-corruption pitch to voters. as i've been talking to voters they're interested in someone who can defeat trump and centered in someone who is authentic and feel like they've got a whole bunch of democratic candidates they can feel good about voting for them. it's a question of deciding who that is. >> all right, i thank you for the update. you were outside for senator amy klobuchar's announcement last sunday and looked like a snow woman. i'm glad for you you are inside today. a little bit easier.

ali, thank you. well, republicans from all parts of the country in an about face over the president's decision to khloe declare a national emergency. it was bad before it was good. details next. good. details next fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely. but allstate helps you. with drivewise. feedback that helps you drive safer. and that can lower your cost now that you know the truth... are you in good hands? but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. oh no. your new boss seems cool, but she might not be sweatpants cool. not quite ready to face the day? that's why we're here with free hot breakfast. book at hampton.com for our price match guarantee. hampton by hilton. book at hampton.com for our price match guarantee. stop fearing your alarm clock... with zzzquil pure zzzs. a drug-free blend of botanicals with melatonin

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. we will have a national emergency, and we will then be sued and they will sue us in the 9th circuit even though it should not be there and we will possibly get a bad ruling and then add bad ruling and then we will end up in the supreme court, and hopefully we will get a fair shake, and we will win in the supreme court. >> well, that is part of the president's free wheeling national emergency declaration yesterday. after wrapping that up, he went south to miz mar-a-lago resort. and let's bring in our panel. hey, guys, good to see you all. lauren, you first here. the president's base, will they see nernl si deck the emergencys a win despite the funding falling short and his promise to have mexico pay for the wall being kushd or non-existent,

face it? >> well, right now they see it as win. i think that his base sees him as a person who is fighting for what he promised them on the campaign trail which is the wall. what we should watch for is what happens in the courts. if this is dragging out and we are closer to 2020 and there has not been significant progress on the wall, i think that they may question, you know, whether or not the president is really getting done the things that he promised them. >> in terms of the courts, bill, we had the president saying yesterday that he did not need to declare an emergency, but he wanted to, because he wanted to get the wall built faster. and then he went to mar-a-lago, and is the president just undermining his own case that there is an emergency and that will be present and debated in court? >> absolutely. >> and this is to bill. >> sorry. >> i think that absolutely. i would say. and he is in the couple of ways, and number one, where is he today? there is a national emergency, and so let's play golf, and that

is sort of going to undercut the emergency. and the statement yesterday that i did not need to do this. i just did it because i wanted to have the wall built and the fastest way to get it done faster, and certainly undercuts it, but underall here, alex s a fundamental constitutional question which is the purse authority if you will or the spending authority of the united states congress and article i of the constitution gives it with few exceptions to the united states congress. i think that is the issue before the court. i believe that even this conservative roberts' court will stand up for the constitution and not for a politician with a pet project. >> and if you are looking at this though in perspective, julie, the president tried to justify the move pointing to emergency declarations of past presidents and what is your reponce to that? >> well, first and foremost,

real emergencies coming to mind like 9/11 for president george bush, but this president is pandering to one segment and one segment only, the talking heads that he talks to and his golf buddies, but they don't believe what he says and it is all done for the ratings. and now that we have a president embarking on a massive constitutional crisis to placate shawn hannity or rush limbaugh is absurd. and they try to compare it to when barack obama tried to help the dreamers is exactly what this president is doing on steroids. and the same people who he listens to on cable news who rally and ral lid against barack obama's every move when he tried to do something they considered to be the end run around congress are cheering him on and that is who he is pandering on, and it is not necessarily to anybody of any substance in the country, but it is purely to cable news audience that is minuscule to the rest of the

country. >> and it is interesting that we have republicans who are urging the president do not declare a national emergency, and in fact, here are some of them raising concerns on that very issue. take a listen. >> i don't think that he should do that, because i think it is a bad precedent. >> we have to be careful about endorsing broad uses of executive power. >> it is another erosion of congressional authority in this particular area. >> the real concern that i have is the precedent that this sets. >> i think that it's dubious from the constitutional perspective and i hope that the president will not go that route. >> weeks of this, these kinds of declarations and what you have the think, lauren? why did the president do it? >> he did it because he wanted to declare victory, but let me be very clear, he should not have done this. you know, i was one of the conservatives who had questions when president obama said that he had a pen and a phone. and it befuddles me that any

republican could look at this and say it is okay. this is not a national emergency at all. and frankly, it terrifies me for the precedent that it is going to set moving forward and because one day a democrat is going to be pack in the house, and when we have to deal with what they want to do with then. >> and bill, to that point, is this the type of the thing that the democrats are saying, okay, bring it on, because we can do this for gun control that we need a national emergency for or climate change, and those are the two pet issues, if you will, for the democrats. >> it is a moment of truth for the democratic and the republican party, alex. i do. and it is a moment of truth about whether you stand up for the constitution or you stand up for any politician. and one quick word of warning, most of the senators who have said before we don't want president trump to do this, but when push comes to shove they end up backing the president. this is a test for them to stand up. >> all right. guys, listen, i have to wrap it

up here. julie, lauren and bill, thank you very much. and now, it does not seem that the president cares up ahead. sglifrmgt

want more from your entertainment experience? just say teach me more. into your xfinice remote to discover all sorts of tips and tricks in x1. can i find my wifi password? just ask. [ ding ] show me my wifi password. hey now! [ ding ] you can even troubleshoot, learn new voice commands and much more. clean my daughter's room. [ ding ] oh, it won't do that. welp, someone should. just say "teach me more" into your voice remote and see how you can have an even better x1 experience. simple. easy. awesome. we have hit the top of the hour, and so i am out of time. i'm alex witt, and i will see you tomorrow. and now my good buddy kendis gibson, taking it over. >> hello, everybody. thank you, alex. democrats are promising an all-outs a su all-outlt