thanks to senator claire mccaskill, the rest of you just have first names, thank you all for watching. "mtp daily" starts right now. >> thank you, nicole. if it's thursday, we've got even more questions about what's really in the mueller report. ♪ good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington. we got a big show tonight.

i'll be joined onset by democratic senator michael bennet who's poised to run for president. his first opponent he has to face is cancer. this will be his first tv interview since going public with his diagnosis and we'll have that later in the show. we begin tonight with the firestorm ignited by news reported by the "new york times," then "the washington post" which a u.s. official confirmed to nbc news. and it's the following that some members of special counsel robert mueller's team believe the attorney general downplayed the evidence against the president on obstruction. this is how the evidence against mr. trump was characterized in all of these reports, which, by the way, are all based on anonymous sources. it was more damaging for the president than mr. barr explained. to the post, it was alarming and significant and to us here at nbc news, it was compelling. but, folks, we preached caution when barr told us when the

evidence meet. and we're going to preach caution as well. we still have not seen a single sentences from this report. in many ways, this is the consequence of barr's decision to clear the president, it's also a consequence of barr's decision to sit on summaries that apparently mueller's team reported prepared for this very issue, for a public release. the house judiciary committee chairman is now calling on the attorney general to release those summaries. and as we wait for something, we're left with a vacuum, and an arms race to fill it. president trump fils it with claims that he's been totally exonerated because bill barr did exonerate him on obstruction. and we're all debating the fallout from a report we have not seen a single complete sentence from. joining me know is one of the reporters who broke the story

for the washington report, and a security analyst here and greg brower is here, he's a former u.s. attorney. rosalynn, i'm going to start with you. how nervous are you that we're basing all of this on -- or people that don't want to go on the record. you know who they are. but we're in this situation in the same way that barr put us in there in the first place where we're all flying a little blind here? >> yeah. i think that's -- i think the way that you put that in your introduction about the vacuum that's being filled with a lot of people who have not read the report is a good way to put it. i feel confident that we're accurately describing the attitudes of some members of the mueller team, but i don't have a lot of confidence about exactly what's in that report and how

damning or not damning it is because we haven't seen it and that's just a weird place to be. >> i was going to say, the words you guys use were alarming k. you give us more. how did this source define "alarming". >> i wish i could give you more. what we know, there's this frustration among some members of the team about what's been happened in this time period, the hardening of public opinion about what's in a report that they spent a long time on. blood, sweat and tears. >> ken, why won't anybody go on the record? >> and it's even more dramatic than just they won't go on the record, we're getting this secondhand. we're getting this from people who spoke to those people. but the reason it's -- they won't go on the record is

because they work for the justice department, they're not allowed to talk to us. it's a sensitive matter. they were silent for two years in this investigation. it's amazing that we're even getting this much out of them. they're frustrated. but you're right, we don't know how far this frustration goes within the mueller team. we don't know what robert mueller's views are. nbc news has a little more of a beat further than what the post and the times said is that we're hearing frustration over the fact that the attorney general stepped in and cleared the president on obstruction. we're hearing that there may have been an intention to leave that open for congress or the public. remember, the attorney general said the mueller report does not make a call on whether there's a prosecutable case for obstruction. some people on the team felt like that's where it should stand. they didn't anticipate barr stepping in. >> we had this very conversation that it was probably mueller's intent never to make the decision knowing this was a decision that congress would have to make.

not anybody at the justice department. i think you and i had that conversation that would be the most obvious assumption. >> we did. and i would use your word, chuck, caution. we need to be very cautious. of course, we haven't seen the report. and the sourcing is a matter of debate here. but assuming what "the times" and others are reporting is true, it puts the department in a very bad spot. it creates daylight between the ag and the special counsel which i'm sure neither one of them wanted to see in this matter. this is a report that's as high profile and as important as it gets. at the end of the day, we all hope to have -- to be no daylight between the ag and special counsel. >> i think one of the frustrations all of us have as reporters is when the special counsel's office broke tradition and pushed back on the buzzfeed story that was wrong about the criminality issue regarding the

president ordering michael cohen to lie to congress, it made us all think, oh, does that mean all of the other stories are true, if mueller doesn't -- it created that -- and i have to admit, i'm sitting here going, okay, if mueller's team didn't like what was happening, why wait until now? >> well, right. and i think that dynamic you're describing is exactly the reason why they were so quiet for so long and exactly why the fact that they spoke out about that buzzfeed story was so significant because i think they understood too that they might be setting a new precedent. it's interesting to note there has been a statement today on the record from the spokeswoman for the attorney general disputing -- not disputing the reporting so much, but disputing the notion that the attorney general mischaracterized, is moving too slowly, failed to release something that could be easily released, there's been no

statement today from the special counsel's office. if they wished to either confirm or alternatively say this reporting is wrong, they have a very easy way to do that. and they have not chosen to do so. >> i'm glad you brought this up. because i found -- i found the decision by justice to put out a statement the most significant development of the day because it allowed all three news organizations to feel better about the reporting, right? they could have not said anything. but they did. and i want to read from it. because i think it gives away something here. here's the statement: given the extraordinary public interest in this matter, the attorney general decided to release the findings, and his conclusions immediately without attempting to summarize the report with the understanding that the report itself would be released after the redaction process. what i thought was interesting here, ken, is admitting in a clearer form here than they did in the memo that he's not

summarizing the report and, i'm sorry, and admitting that this is his conclusion. >> and this is the second time that he's alluded to that. he also put out a letter. >> but he worded the letter a lot differently -- >> this is more clear. the reason these guys are expressing this frustration is because barr substituted his judgment for the people who spent two years investigating obstruction. they're not talking about collusion. there's a lot more in the report about collusion -- >> russian government. we don't know there wasn't conspiracy with russians who didn't happen to conspire with employees of the trump campaign versus the government. there's a lot of wiggle room. >> we're reporting that the report is going to lay some of that out. that's not frustrating the mueller team. therg with the conclusion that bar expressed. they're frustrated on this obstruction issue. and it's a mismystery why mueller didn't make a call.

>> they're portraying as if barr merely released the report's bottom line findings. he made the call on obstruction. >> and that is confusing to all of us. i wish there was that second letter, it created conclusion, it's creating what we're seeing now with push back from the mueller team. i still haven't thought about this for a week-plus now. i can't figure out why bob mueller would abdicate -- we don't know -- >> do you think he -- he thought he was intending for barr to make this call? >> i can't imagine why. as we've discussed before, for the special counsel who's sole mission is to take these decisions away from the political appointees of justice, to say on the biggest decision, i'm going to punt to not only the politically appointed, trump appointed ag, but the guy who wrote the memo a year ago that caused him to catch so much flak

from democrats in congress. that doesn't make sense. >> rosalynn, do you take anything, were you surprised to find out that the fbi director hadn't read the mueller report. i would have thought to the investigation that especially mueller took over that began inside the fbi that he would have seen it? >> i don't know. i do think that every indication has been that the circle is extraordinarily small. that very, very few people have read this thing. you know, barr's one letter did indicate that the report comes in two pieces, one piece having to do with russian interference and the other piece having to do with obstruction of justice. he did not indicate there's a counter intelligence section of the report. it may be that that piece of it is not addressed in this report. i don't know. >> i've heard that theory that

it's actually could be ongoing. >> i think the counter intel part -- >> sorry, rosalynn. >> i thought as i've listened to people try to make sense of the mueller report, what might be in it, that the counter intel part of it, is overblown. i think we need to remember that the fbi is continuing, has continued and will continue to do counter intelligence investigations based upon leads that the mueller work may have generated. but the mueller report was not a counter intelligence investigation, it was a criminal investigation. >> important distinction there. thank you. nothing like the abyss of these vacuums that mr. barr and mr. mueller have created for all of us. coming up with these new reports on the mueller team's purported frustration, democrats are pushing harder for the full

report. plus the democratic presidential field keeps getting big. another has to put his 2020 plans on pause, not old. my exclusive interview with senator michael bennet and his cancer diagnosis and how it impacts his plans. that's ahead. you've had quite the career.

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by awesome experts store. it's a now there's one store that connects your life like never before store. the xfinity store is here. and it's simple, easy, awesome. barr is an agent of the president. he was put there for that purpose. and -- sessions was fired because he wouldn't protect the president personally. comey was fired because he wouldn't protect the president. and they found barr. that's his job. >> that was house judiciary committee chairman jerry nadler questioning the attorney general's handling of the mueller report. so that relationship is getting off to a great start. let's bring in tonight's panel, a washington correspondent for the "new york times," former democratic congressman from

maryland, and a former adviser to both jeb bush and john boehner. let's be honest, this is exactly i think what we all together was going to happen, we don't know the facts and we can debate whether we don't know if barr is right or wrong, we don't know if mueller is right or wrong. but barr did do this, he's created this vacuum, and it's been filled. >> even whatever fragments of the report come into the light of day, i think this narrative battle is going to continue. this is going to push all the way to election day, whatever the executive branch turns over will not be good enough for the democrats, they'll want to see the underlying files. and to the extent the exrekt branch says no, and the they will get the fight -- >> this feels like the email fights with clinton.

mueller report is going to be the, but her emails. >> barr created a vacuum and the president used it to seize the high ground. not morally or intellectually, but in terms of the narrative so they are fighting from a stronger position during these words to come. and the worst to come are not going to move much. >> i think what's happening here is that democrats have said and nadler said this really clearly, look, we're going to give you a chance to comply. we want to see what the redactions are. but we need to have the report and the underlying materials and that's about a constitutional responsibility. i think as long as democrats are on that ground, then they're on solid ground. >> we should remind people that the public, nothing has changed them. the mueller report did it clear president trump, 29% said yes in our poll, 40% said no and 31%

were unsure. and it's the 31 that this is all about. >> it's like hillary clinton's emails. they have their opinion one way or the other and it's not changing. >> which is why we need a report and not a summary, not somebody else's opinion of it. because only then will the public be able to see for themselves what's going on in the report. >> i have to say, giuliani's push back, and while his credibility at times can be hot and cold, the fact is, let me just read what he says here, he was able to look credible in this statement. if there was a significant difference, mueller would have corrected it as he did with the false buzzfeed report. this is from disgruntled mueller staffers who are rabid democratic supporters. it's yet another example of unethical behavior by mueller staff. it demonstrates that mueller had people who leaked as much as

comey. how many leaks proved to be false, most. the problem that democrats have been pushing against that statement, it is all anonymous people, all of us are admitting, it is people who are talking to people who have talked to reporters. we're playing two levels of telephone here. >> that's all true. the one thing that i think is not true in the statement -- >> most of it i said was untrue. >> the buzzfeed push back example, the fact that mueller didn't speak up when he did in that case -- >> what does that mean? >> it means he's choosing not to. in that case, rod rosenstein was pushing the special counsel's office to correct that report. they were basically ordering that statement to be put out in a situation in which the barr justice department does not want mueller to push back against barr's account of things, they're not ordering him, they're ordering him to shut up.

and so the different behavior, you can't conclude from that mueller is thinking something different than he was in the buzzfeed situation. >> if a staff of tens of people, some of whom may have been regulated democrats have told friends who told reporters that they were unhappy with the attorney general's conclusion, that's pretty much unprovable. you can't deny that. >> let's look at what we have. we have fewer than a hundred words that are not complete sentences, in a summary of a report that is almost 400 pages long. the american people need to and deserve to see the report. and i don't think barr is going to be able to stand in the way of that and so we will see what the redactions are. >> what if barr had waited until releasing the report to release his obstruction statement. we would be living with about two weeks of uncertainty that

mueller makes no conclusion, i'll have redactions later and left it at that, would we be at a better place? >> when we see the report or enough of it to understand, hopefully there will be some indication there about why mueller made this strange decision not to make a decision. and it could be that based on what mueller says there, barr is stepping in saying the justice department has to make a decision. if you're not going to do it, i'm going to do it, will look like a normal thing. if it looks like that he wanted the justice department to not put his thumb on the scale and congress to absorb this information and then barr thwarted mueller, then this is going to become trenched about ruining the nonpartisan -- >> i know what's coming. we're going to redo this statute again. this one didn't work, sorry neil. >> because it's congress's --

you know, it's congress's responsibility with respect to the president to make the judgment about whether he's culpable in any kind of criminal behavior. it is not the responsibility of bob barr or -- >> it's bill barr. >> i know. i know. >> by the way, understand i did it too a couple times on sunday. >> i think it's premature to say that this failed. mueller did not get fired. he was able to complete the investigation and once we see the report, it may be that people will be, wow, this really answered the question in a way that's satisfying, not just this bumper sticker, there was or was not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but what happened in 2016? what was the texture of it? >> the problem that trump lives in bumper sticker land. and we won't, but his people live in bumper sticker land. >> and to answer your questions, the two weeks gives the

president a great deal of momentum. whatever the report actually says this two weeks of crowing about complete exoneration, that makes a political difference given the high expectations for the announcement of the report. >> only today do democrats have something to call for now. >> i felt as if before, you're like congressional democrats didn't know what they needed to ask for released. now according to these reports, summaries that were intended for this release. give us the summaries. this does give democrats something to ask for. >> it does. and it also points them to things that they can ask for that may be underlying in the investigation. and i think -- with respect to 2016, it's actually important for congress to know what happened on the russian end of the investigation so that we can guard against it. >> it's interesting that the way rosalynn sor rosaly rosalynn sorted this out, it's going to feel as there's two reports. it's going to be an interesting

test for mr. barr, what gets redacted more. >> what did russia do in 2016? >> there will be some sources of methods -- >> that's also the most important for us to understand historically. the obstruction thing, the thing i'm going to be looking for that in addition to whatever small amounts we didn't know about just through reporting is why -- again, it goes back to why did mueller not make a call, was it too hard -- and my theory is, it has to do with these complicated constitutional issues, can a president when exercising his presidential authority, can that be touched by a congressional statute, if you can't charge a president with a crime as a president, is it appropriate to hold him accountable. >> everything we know about mueller is, he follows the rules, if he's not sure, he's going to have a interpretation of what the rules are.

very quickly, the white house is going to slow walk anything that congress asks for. in hindsight, was the obama white house too cooperative. watching the trump white house shut the door democrats in congress. >> the trump white house as an institution has a lack of respect for democratic norms for a long way -- >> small "d". >> that makes them immune to a ot of these things we would consider pressures. >> all it did was give phony headlines. >> it fuelled the fire. >> it turns out, they should have not been cooperative. i don't want that. that's apparently what the rules are. >> it's good to be shameless and ruthless? >> if you are shameless, then you don't feel, i guess, right? that's what it is, anyway. coming up, mie exclusive michael

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welcome back. tonight in 20/20 vision, add another democrat to the list of active presidential candidates. >> i'm going to run for president of the united states and we're going to make -- [ applause ] >> ohio congressman tim ryan made it official today pushing the number of major democratic candidates to 14 and there are still more to come. >> congressman, are you running for president? >> i'm getting close. >> california congressman eric swalwell is expected to announce very soon. and then of course there's joe biden, montana governor, former virginia governor, and california senator michael bennet. senator bennett just announced that he has prostate cancer. he's here for his first interview since that revelation. that's next.

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welcome back. colorado democratic senator and potential 2020 candidate michael bennet made an announcement last night but not exactly one we were expecting. he revealed that he was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. bennett is still committed to running for president if he's cancer free. michael bennet joins me now in his first tv interview. thanks for doing this. >> thanks for having me, chuck. >> how are you feeling? do you feel any different knowing this diagnosis? >> no but i feel overwhelmed at how lucky i am. we caught it early. and i got insurance, so -- on the point about feeling different, that is an important point. i feel fine. i feel perfectly fine. if i hadn't had that screening as part of a physical, i

wouldn't know that i had cancer. >> did you do this physical because it's your annual -- >> it was my annual physical and i went in and i felt fine -- i won't give you the details, but you got to get screened. >> and you talked about you -- you clearly called john kerry, democratic nominee, you clearly had a conversation with him. he went through this during his presidential campaign. >> i haven't talked to him. but i'm looking forward to talking to him. he was diagnosed after he was in the race. john kerry is a machine and he always has been. >> he's a fitness buff. >> he was 59 then. i'm 54 today. i think it's going to be fine. >> so your -- you get cancer free, you're 100% in.

>> yeah. i put my family through enough. >> i was just going to say, i don't want to get overly invasive about your family life here, but was this a -- this must -- you tell your family you want to run for president, you tell your family that i have cancer. >> it's pretty amazing. susan, my wife is unbelievable. and she's got her own career. and our daughters are 19, 18 and 14. and i called my daughter today and i said, how is it going? everybody has been pretty nice to me but it is a lot to put on your family. and i'm not a sociopath. i care about how they feel. i think they're committed to trying to make a difference here. >> there's -- i imagine any time anybody has one of these you hear the "c" word, it does sort of reorient you maybe ant what you want to do. did this -- does this focus you more to run?

>> so the best excuse for not running would be this. it gives me a -- >> it's your out. >> it's my free pass. and that's not how i felt. i felt like, you know what, this is something i really want to do. i think i've got something to contribute. we need to focus on what the country needs us to focus on which is the fact that incomes have not risen for 90% of americans over the last 40 years and that's where the focus needs to be in this campaign and we need to be disciplined about it or we could lose to donald trump. nobody needs to worry about me. we need to worry about the guy who's in the white house who spent his entire time as president, trying to take away insurance from tens of millions of people, who might not have the kinds of screening that i had. >> you said that one of the reasons you're reintroducing medicare is after going through

this, it reinforces your view on universal health care. i do think there's a dividing line in the democratic field which is is it obamacare, the infrastructure and you improve upon that or you say, wipe it clean, start from scratch, where are you? >> i think i'm more towards trying to use the framework that we have. but i don't feel like that has to be where we stop. look, i am for universal care. everybody in america should have health insurance. we need to spend less as a country and our families have to spend less on health care and we need to be more transparent and there's a whole bunch of stuff we need to do. i think we should stop talking about it as the affordable care act, this is america's health care system and how are we going to improve the system? and i happen to think we have a better shot of doing it without ripping out what we have root

and branch. i know there are people who disagree with me. obviously bernie has a different point of view. >> why you? at the end of the day when you run for president, you got to make the case of why do you think you're the person that can do it that maybe -- i'm not asking you to demean, but why -- >> i guess i would say a couple things. i've watched this feel roll out and a lot of these people are my friends. >> john hickenlooper, your former boss. >> and sometimes people say was he that bad a boss that you have to run against him for president. we're very different people. that's not the issue. i have -- look, what compels me is the idea that -- our job as americans is to provide more opportunity for the people coming after us. this economy is not working for most americans. it hasn't worked for most americans for 50 years. and the democracy cannot be sustained when there is no economic mobility, when no matter how hard you work -- >> you think our polarization is

driven by this economic inequality? >> i think it has a lot to do with it. and the destruction of your institutions has a lot to do with it. i think i've got the discipline to stay focused on that and to try -- not just a mess age on that, but a set of policies that could change the outcome for the american people. they are unwelcome to accept the idea that they have to live in an economy where nine out of ten americans cannot benefit when we have economic growth. >> i have gotten impression that the longer you stay in the senate, almost the anchgrier you've gotten. you thought being the son of a diplomat, you were raised to to believe how the united states senate should be. how do you get the public to

care about the process of the democracy. >> i think they need to care about this. because the senate, whether the senate is dysfunctional and a mess -- >> look at yesterday. you guys changed the rules. nobody cared anymore. we didn't even have -- i had to -- we had to fight to get it in our show. >> i don't know where to start here. we spent four months -- we're still spending time on $6 billion for the president's wall, that's how the greatest nation in the world is spending our time as a democracy. china used more concrete between 2011 and 2013 than we did in the 20th century. we've got to change the conversation that we're having and part of it is about fixing our institutions. even though no one cares about process, this is our mechanism for making decisions in a

democratic republic, in our exercise in self-governance, the decisions are made in institutions like the senate and when they're broken and corrupt as they are right now, that should be an invitation not to be repelled by that but an invitation to say how do we come together as americans and fix this? we have to fix it. if we cannot -- i'm telling you this, chuck, we can't sustain another ten years like the last ten years. we had a democratic president for a big part of that time, but he was disabled in the last six years at least in the legislature by the tyrants who mas ka raid as the freedom caucus. >> yesterday you apologized for going along with harry reid's idea. which a lot of people warned that once you go one now, there's other cynics who say mitch mcconnell was going to change the rules anyway. >> i hear a lot of people say that, that it was going to

happen anyway. you heard mcconnell yesterday saying this has been a game of preemptive retribution. that's my word, not his word. >> that is true. >> and it's what it's been. when he says i didn't allow merrick garland to go, which is the biggest foul by far that has happened in the last decade, and that's mitch mcconnell who did it, but he said the reason he did it was he knew if the shoe were on the other foot, the democrats would do it. that's the same as seeing we had to invoke the nuclear option because they would have done it. time and time again in your history, we have found ways to come together and preserve the decision-making of these institutions and we've allowed our failure to become a self-fulfilling prophesy. the kids in my hold school district who are complete ignored by all this cannot afford --

>> i want to ask you about john hickenlooper. why are you running against each other? >> yeah, but i don't think either of us thinks we're running against each other. >> don't you hurt each other a little bit? >> we probably hurt other on the margin. we got different approaches and experiences and as i've said to others, i think the largest obstacles that john hickenlooper are going to face in this race are not each other. and i look forward to it. >> the biggest thing you're contending with is your health, you look healthy, it sounds like you have a battle plan. good luck. >> thank you. i appreciate it. >> up ahead. why i'm obsessed with a disturbing trend that's putting the squeeze on both sides. tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies,

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welcome back. tonight i'm obsessed with the belief this country is going in the wrong direction. i, for one, think that's true. when it comes to using our smartphones. notice anything wrong with this video? it's shot in vertical orientation. vertical videos are a threat to this nation. videos are supposed to be

horizontal, people. wide screen, what have we been waiting for half our lives. please enjoy this collection of the greatest moments in vertical history. ♪ >> the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. >> it's one small step for man -- >> ask not what your country can do for you -- [ applause ] >> three, two, one. ♪ >> see. this is not how it's supposed to be, america. do you know how clos phobic it gets in here? control room, let's take a turn for the better. all right. thank you. so if you're shooting a video on

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with retirement planning and advice for what you need today and tomorrow. because when you're with fidelity, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward. . so the border will be open for at least a year? >> no. i didn't say that. we would start with the tariffs. >> time for "the lid." the panel is back. that sense of relief, maybe john cornyn, republicans at the border, i talked to some midwestern senators today who were also nervous about the border. they all breathed a sigh of relief for apparently 20 minutes. >> every time you think they're starting to communicate more effectively, every time. >> literally. >> if a wire story moved that

quickly, i would be on the internet right now. every time they look like they're getting better, something blows up. >> what i find more interesting about this border story, so yes, i found a quick ap story from john cornyn who happens to be in cycle. he is up for re-election. it is about him having a phone call with the president. expressing to him how catastrophic closing the border would be. it suddenly dawned on me. oh, wow! texas being a battle ground state, for senate or president or both, really means the president's border games are suddenly republican and political problems. >> they are. but what you see is that it is about the last person that the president talks to. he talks to cornyn. he changes his mind. i don't know here talked to the last 20 minutes or an hour and he changes his mind. >> today nancy pelosi announced that democrats, well, the party

line vote, are going to sue on the president's border declaration. this sets up a whole new set of things for the president to worry about. >> maybe it is all a plot to ma nip 38th avocado futures market. people are making a killing. >> east coast/west coast. not just texas. california and new mexico. all the economies could be wrecked. >> not just the border economies. some midwestern senators were saying, this is immediate impact. >> state like maryland that have auto parts. so that's a concern for the entire supply chain. >> is there a way republicans can push back without feeling t it? >> i think it is more about finding a way to keep him

consistent. he has broken every system and every mold you try to put around him. you can't govern a country if what you say at 3:00 p.m. isn't operative at 4:00 p.m. you can't operate the largest economy in the world on that standard, critical national security. and it makes it incredibly frustrating. particularly watching this stupidity of this back and forth. and then watching democrats start to embrace no border at all or tearing down existing border walls. >> what i don't get here, the president could be putting democrats in a bit of a box. this is a problem. a crisis that we're in the midst of because where do we put the asylum seekers. this is a moment where government needs to function and instead he's trying to make it less functional. >> the president has also create the crisis. for democrats right now, the most important thing is is the president going to follow

mandates of the congress? we're not building a border wall. we'll give you this money. you can do what you want and the president has made a different decision. for democrats, we're going to exercise our authority. >> he didn't completely create the crisis. >> we are totally deluged. there's no place to hold the sheer numbers. >> when you're not reviewing asylum seekers according to the law, then it does create a problem. >> but they are flooding the system in ways they never did before. >> it is not the president's imagination. >> there is a weird way in which it is created by him. people may be thinking, he will close the border tomorrow. i'd better get in today in the same way the obama era, when people thought gun control was coming after a mass shooting, gun sales went through roof. there is a get it while the getting is good which is perverse. >> so the rhetorical. we know he thinks the crisis,

the perception of a crisis helps him politically. he doesn't think it hurts him. >> okay. thank you very much. we'll be right back. some things are out of your control. like bedhead. hmmmm. ♪ rub-a-dub ducky... and then...there's national car rental. at national, i'm in total control. i can just skip the counter and choose any car in the aisle i like. so i can rent fast without getting a hair out of place. heeeeey. hey! ah, control. (vo) go national. go like a pro.

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all of you. how you live, what you love. that's what inspired us to create america's most advanced internet. internet that puts you in charge. that protects what's important. it handles everything,

and reaches everywhere. this is beyond wifi, this is xfi. simple. easy. awesome. xfinity, the future of awesome. a quick reminder before we go. our all new chuck todd cast is up and running as we speak. i hate using my name in a pun but it does work, right?

you can subscribe for free wherever you get your podcasts. the first episode is already up now so don't miss it. that's all we have for tonight. we'll be back tomorrow with more mtp daily. good evening. i'll see you -- that's my fear. >> as long as we all subscribe week going in the right direction. >> i would prefer mr. t. that's okay. >> mr. t. thank you, mr. t. the first night i'll be using it. donald trump has found himself on the wrong side of yes, two federal laws. first democrats invoking a federal tax law to force the irs to hand over trump's taxes. the congressman leading that fight joins us later. today, both parties voting to rebuke donald trump's military policy in yemen citing a different law. the war powers act. we have that story later tonight. it is important. we beginit