>> he is a decorated career marine, donald trump was hitting the beaches of studio 54, it is despicable. >> perhaps i have a hollywood fantasy version. i think of the person protecting him, the idea that you would insult that person, be anything other than indebted to them, happy. shows what a president we have. >> that does it for this hour. nicole wallace. thank you for watching. "mtp daily" starts now with my friend, katy tur in for chuck. >> nicole, didn't he call jeff sessions mr. magoo, made fun of his accent. >> made fun of bolton's mustache. i mean, he is a cruel dude. >> he is mean. >> nicole wallace. if it is monday, new separation

anxiety. good evening, i am katy tur in for chuck todd. welcome to "mtp daily." we begin with exclusive reporting from nbc news that president trump has for months, for months been eurging them to reinstate a large scale family separation policy at the border, according to three officials with knowledge of meetings at the white house. a major impediment to reinstating that policy which was an unmitigated political disaster for the white house last year is gone. secretary nielson is out at dhs. so is nearly everyone else at dhs. more on that in a moment. and secretary kirstjen nielson that resigned yesterday wasn't opposed to another round of family separations. "new york times" reports the president wanted her to close ports of entry, stop accepting asylum seekers too, but she refused. yet you could argue that she's the most aggressive homeland

security chief in the department's history to crackdown on immigration. but that apparently was not enough for the president. her dismissal comes as the administration is scrambling to address a surge of migrant families at the border as the president begins to ramp up his 2020 campaign with immigration as a major focus. but before we talk about the politics, which we will, don't worry, we should not lose sight how the agency designed to prevent another 9/11 style attack is an absolute mess under this president. when nielson leaves wednesday, there's no confirmed secretary at the agency, no confirmed cbp commissioner, no confirmed deputy secretary. the president is considering removing the acting deputy secretary, according to three administration officials. there's no confirmed head of ice. no confirmed inspector general. no confirmed fema administrator. and this afternoon, the head of

secret service, which operates under dhs resigned under pressure. to get into that, bring in julia ainsley, national security and justice reporter with nbc news. she broke the big story about the president's renewed push on family separations. jacob soboroff, he was on the family separation story pretty much before anyone else, and john sandwig from customs enforcement under president obama. julia, was kirstjen nielson dismissed because he wants more families separated? >> that's right. basically, katy, when the president saw numbers increase of undocumented immigrants coming across the border, he wanted strong policies to come out. what he had in his back pocket from the summer was policy of

separating families. she said no, you can't do that. didn't oppose it on moral grounds, on legal, logistical grounds. they didn't have space to hold people. if they were going to hold people in mass scale, they had to get around court decisions that say you have to reunify the family separated. the president would have to undo his own executive action that ended family separation last summer. for all these reasons she laid out, it didn't make sense. she went a number of other routes. she increased the number of border agents at the border to enforce border operations. we know she proposed legislation that would allow cbp to deport children more quickly. we know she was able to send more asylum seekers to mexico to wait. it is not like she was a soft liner on immigration by any stretch of the imagination. however, her predecessor is willing to go further than she was, and that's why we understand he was more

ingratiated with the white house than she was, and what led to her ousting yesterday. we understand that he sees a way around this. he thinks family separation should still be on the table as an option if you can get parents a choice between being detained with children long periods of time or separating. >> hold on. does that mean you get around the legal hurdles here? julia, you laid out reporting, bears repeating, federal court orders prohibit them from reinstating the policy, and it would be reversing his own executive order. does he believe giving parents the choice gets around those orders or does he want someone in charge that will break the law? >> reporter: i think whatever they do would be a suit. you could bring another class action lawsuit. i can tell you that the legal very small route they're trying to take here, and that this summer the judge overseeing the

case that said all of the children had to be reunified, he said okay, you can go ahead and hold children for longer than 20 days, in defiance of another order if it means reunifying them, it is what they had to do to match them with children before they were deported. we covered this up and down. the judge agreed to that for the purpose of reunification. now it seems the trump administration might be trying to use that logic to say look, the aclu is on board, the judge calling for family reunification was on board with this. let's hold families together and they have the choice between being apart or held indefinitely. it doesn't change the fact there's the other settlement carried on two decades, over two decades, says you can't hold children longer than 20 days. i think you would see two judges' decisions clashing together. it is not a path nielsen wanted

to take but one he is willing to explore. >> what family members or parents would choose to be separated from their kids? >> i can't believe we would get to the point we're forcing parents to make this kind of decision. you have to remember the same court case that came out there are still children separated from their parents. the policy was so cruel. the way it was implemented was poorly executed. we didn't know where the parents were, deputy knidn't know where children were. to return to it is appalling. look at the numbers at the border, it didn't have impact. there's no evidence it deterred any individuals from coming. we talked about this a lot on the show, there's a simple way of dealing with the problem. flood the zone with the rule of law. put in place resources to process cases quickly, don't cut off aid to central america where push factors are driving people to make the arduous journey north. i hope this reporting, that cooler heads prevail and the administration does what it should do, which is enforce

current laws. >> the president believes this is the most effective deterrents policy. basically the numbers for arrests for those crossing the border were basically unchanged between may and june of 2018 while the separation policy was in place. what did you see down there? >> it is absurd, katy, to think rebooting that family separation policy would be an effective deterrent. i was there inside the processing station that day, saw what it looks like to take mothers and fathers away from babies, put them on the floor under mylar blankets and watched on a watch tower. this is hand out footage from department of homeland security. president trump knows that family separation is not an effective deterrent. president trump knows that deterrence is not an effective

strategy in general. the only thing that happened out of family separations, more families, not that they stopped coming, they went to more dangerous, deadly locations to cross into the country. what was the result of that? death of two young children. >> john, what do you think of what's going on at the department of homeland security, we laid out in the open to the show all of the various openings that are at the department of homeland security. no acting or no confirmed directors of various parts of the agency. what does that do for effectiveness? >> it cuts off the agency at a time there's chaos at the border. we now lost the secretary. there's a cascading effect, not just the secretary, her senior staff are now in jeopardy of being lost. other reporting suggests general counsel will be gone and you're right, vacancies, we had the i.c.e. director. it is hard for agency leaders to

lead when career staff are wondering whether they have the favor of the president and how long they're going to be in that position. you couldn't imagine a worse time to do this than now when numbers are their highest. only thing i want to flag, we need to not lose sight of the fact that dhs is more than border security. there are critical responsibilities we aren't talking about, counterterrorism and cyber security as well. >> used to be that department of homeland security, pete williams was saying this on the air all day, when you went to department of homeland security, what you talked about was foreign terrorism. and now all you're talking about is immigration. >> immigration is a big part of the portfolio, obviously border security, but that's right. dhs plays a critical role in countser terrorism. kevin is sharp and experienced, coming from customs which plays a big role in the counterterrorism piece. let's not forget, disaster response and recovery. coming up on hurricane season again.

kopt thi couldn't think of a worse time to destabilize the department. i don't know if he understands how destabilizing it is when you take out three or four in those roles. >> jeff bennett caught up with senator ron johnson, asked him about all of the issues at dhs. here is what he said. >> i'm concerned. i'm concerned for the growing void of leadership within department of homeland security, and this is a department charged with trying to grapple with some of the most significant challenges facing the nation. so i'm concerned. >> julia, in your reporting, jacob, i will give you a follow-up as well, who is in charge when it comes to immigration policy, is it the president flying by the seat of his pants or going with his guts or is it someone like steve miller who now increasingly has his ear? >> reporter: it is increasingly the white house, out of the hands of people at dhs, people on the ground enforcing policies. it is happening more and more in rooms at the white house, steven

miller, jared kushner is playing an active role in immigration and who stays and goes at the department of homeland security. i don't think we should underestimate him and how important it is in the entire administration to have an allegiance with jared kushner. and the president himself. people remind me, steven miller is successful because the president agrees with him. he may not be an idealog, but he likes his policies. he likes that they're tough and resonate with the base. that's why he is there. it is not that he outmaneuvered nr everyone else, the president champions those policies. increasingly it is happening in a smaller and smaller circle, and if you're not part of that circle, disagree with it, say it can't be done, you find yourself on the outside. >> there's the idea the president can be manipulated by people that talked to him last. miller is an immigration hawk. the reality is donald trump was that anti-immigration from the day he started campaigning and talked about building the wall and mexicans coming over the border being rapists.

steven miller came to the campaign because the campaign was a soft landing for him or good place to spout views and grow aligned with the president who agreed with the same thing. jacob, at the time that the president rescinded this, he cited melania, ivanka, said he didn't like it. what is the message being sent now? >> squenltly by the way, katy, officials inside the trump administration and dhs said they very much regretted that the president signed the executive order. they felt they were close to the policy goals they're pushing today, which is number one, holding families in jail, in detention indefinitely until they get through pendency of immigration hearing. the idea of indefinite detention of migrant families. second to turn around immediately unaccompanied minor children immediately when they get here. there was a feeling within the administration, they communicated to us on the ground

that they regretted it got to that point. i want to say, you know better than anyone, the president out of his own mouth called mexicans rapists and criminals. you don't hear them talk about the number one source which is visa overstays, people largely from asia. he focuses on people with brown skin frankly coming from south of the border, and that's what he is obsessively fixated on. if this was looking at people coming into the country in an illegal manner, he wouldn't be talking about this at all frankly. >> everyone, thank you very much. ahead, new reporting when we're going to see the mueller report as the attorney general bill barr heads to the hill tomorrow. i bet you it will be the most interesting budget hearing we've seen in a while. plus, does president trump need an immigration crisis? what the border battle means for the president and 2020

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i didn't like the sight or feeling of families being separated. ivanka feels very strongly, my wife feels very strongly about it, i feel very strongly about it. i think anybody with a heart would feel very strongly about it. we don't like to see families separated. >> that was less than a year ago. welcome back. president trump condemned separating families, again, less than a year ago when forced to withdraw his zero tolerance policy in part because it was such a political disaster. and yet as we reported at the top of the show, he has been pushing to renew that very policy, a policy widely criticized by the american public and even congressional

republicans. let's bring in tonight's panel. gabe deben det ee, selena maxwell, and former clinton campaign adviser, susan del percio, msnbc analyst and republican strategist. last year when the policy was in full effect, approval, 28%. disapprove, 67%. why would the president go back to this? >> i haven't the slightest idea. i mean, seriously if you're looking toward re-election campaign, all he has done in the two plus years in office is try to keep his base, his core supporters. i don't know how you go from 30 to 35% and find another 8 to 12% of people with these kind of policies. it seems that this is his comfort zone. there's also one other thing. i think he uses it as an issue to divide. only chance is to leave people scared and divide them.

that's basically i think all he has going for him. >> should this have been expected? he has always, even since 2016, he wanted to be the toughest on immigration. and what we're seeing is numbers are spiking down there, and the president thinks how can i be tough on immigration, the border wall is not getting built, he can't get the funding he needs, tried to go around it, it is not happening as fast as he wants. what's the toughest thing i can do on immigration, and that is reinstating a policy he believes would keep people or at least he says he believes would keep people, reportedly, from coming over the border. >> that's when you have a president that doesn't understand policy, right? he is thinking of it as an emotional thing. i am implementing this, people are streaming in in my imagination, i'm doing this to be tough. i would say he is cruel. one of the things i keep thinking about, george takei, he

talked about his family and surviving japanese internment. one of the things he spit out to me, he said at least i was with my family during japanese internment. his point is this is crueller than japanese internment. i think in 2019 we really have to understand that the sight and image of a toddler drinking a bottle of milk in a cage on the floor, covered by a metal blanket is not something that any american should be okay with. i think polling shows that, but the resolution doesn't care about polling. he only cares about steven millers and those for example that agree with the steven millers. >> how are they going to react. here is how they reacted last year. >> announcing a policy that blew up in their face, should have brought us down, republicans and democrats, said i need your help to fix this. this is a problem. >> white house could change it in five minutes and they should. >> we're horrified. this has to stop.

>> so? >> so far what we have seen is republicans sounding a similar alarm, saying this would be a disaster, we shouldn't do this. the point they're making is this would be as you said earlier a political disaster for the president because they know the president at this point is thinking about this as a political fight. he likes fight. fight is the important term. >> do you think that wins for him? we're not talking about health care, we're talking about immigration once again. >> what we have among a lot of republicans on capitol hill is they're saying to each other, to others, we understand this is a human disaster, a moral disaster, an overall disaster. we have to refer to it as a political disaster to get the president to listen. unfortunately, that's true. >> polling says one thing. let me push back. polling while donald trump was campaigning in 2016 often told a similar story about reactions to various things he said. but he won. and he had large crowds coming to see him at rallies.

he didn't win popular vote but won the electoral college and people voted for him anyway. how much do these numbers actually matter when you look back at 2016 and everything we saw, everything he said, and he still won the white house in november. >> it's different than in 2016 in that now he is president and it gets held accountable. >> isn't that different for those that voted for him? >> i would say core people know. the trump triers we talk about, there -- >> are they going to look at this or the economy. >> they're going to look at the economy, the fact health care is still a mess, going to look as far as suburban women, going to look at temperament and his way in office, including border separation but many other things. they're going to remember there were good people on both sides. there will be a host of things. maybe the core 32, 35% stays with him, but trump triers and everybody else, i don't think it

is an issue that can unite enough people to get him over the line. >> what do the democrats do to der differentiate themselves? >> i don't think you have to pick. i think it shouldn't be a political question, it should be a moral question. these are children, putting them in cages in 2019. >> a lot of them are moral questions, i totally agree, but that's not the way politics ends up working when people go to the polls. >> maybe it should. maybe americans should look at the issues and say would i be okay with a policy that put my toddler in a cage where they're drinking milk on the floor. for trump triers, and i get the point, trump triers said racism is not a deal breaker for me. i can support this person regardless of things he said that offended other groups. while it is true there are people in the middle that may waffle on some questions, people of color aren't waffling on

these questions. i am hopeful democrats can talk about both of these. >> will they show up in enough numbers. >> i hope democrats can create a message to encourage turnout. i want to make the point that voter suppression in wisconsin was one of the reasons why that 10,000 vote margin is what it was. there were tens of thousands more black people who couldn't vote in that state because of those laws. >> we often talk about this as if the 2018 midterms didn't happen. understand trump wasn't top of the ballot, it was a different situation. democrats swamped republicans in places all over the country. >> can you take the midterms and project them onto 2020? >> of course not. not fully. what i'm saying is the idea that democrats wouldn't be able to talk about health care and also this enormous moral crisis going on, it is not true. this isn't how democrats work and not how human beings work. you're capable of talking about more than one thing and american people are smart enough to talk

about more than one thing. states like michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, democrats won statewide by large -- with pretty large energy compared to last time in 2016. again, i'm not saying democrats should be overly confident. simply that it is -- >> i am saying i saw a lot of people coming out saying morally the man is reprehensible. i don't agree with this policy, that policy, with what he says, i don't like him, i don't trust him. those people still ended up voting for him. you see dismal numbers and reaction to a president in stating a policy that's morally wrong, very easily arguable it is morally wrong, kids in cages, not okay. >> kids in cages. here's the point where i want to follow up. you know as well as i know, he doesn't mind showing kids in cages as much because of why? because those kids in cages aren't the same color as his trump supporters and people. to me, you say let's make it a

moral issue, he doesn't get to do it. >> what does that say about the state of the electorate. >> that's more of my point. you see the images, kids are not white. you turn the tv off and go on to the next thing, why is that the state of the country we're living in now and what does it say about us, right? we have to think about this in terms of a through line. this is not a new thing. i mentioned japanese internment, but there are a lot of historic examples that point to the fact that there are moments in american history where we treat different races of people cruelly and people that are alive in that moment tolerate it. and we should not do that in this moment. >> we look back and are horrified. what's going to happen in ten years from now? >> i will be horrified. i am now! >> what happens in 2020. you guys are not leaving. ahead, mayor pete buttigieg

gets emotional. his speech about struggling with his sexuality and his strong words for vice president mike pence. r what you love most.

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welcome back 2020 vision. >> when i was younger, i would

have done anything to not be gay. if you had offered me a pill to make me straight, i would have swallowed it before you had time to get me a sip of water. it was a hard thing to think about now. >> speaking in fronts of a political group, pete buttigieg got candid about his struggle with sexual orientation, took aim at mike pence who opposed same-sex marriage. >> if me being gay was a choice, it was a choice made far, far above my pay grade. that's the thing i wish mike pences of the world would understand. if you have a problem with who i am, your problem is not with me. your quarrel, sir, is with my creator. >> buttigieg hasn't announced but is gaining traction, something buttigieg told chuck he couldn't have predicted. >> i'm at surprised as anybody if you asked me two years ago what i would be doing in 2019, i don't think i would have said this. >> buttigieg is having a good

few weeks, generating a lot of buzz, bringing in a lot of cash, rising in the polls. as democrats look for a nominee to beat donald trump, will it be out with the old and in with the new? we are digging into the democrats' debate coming up. o t democrats' debate coming up. but allstate actually helps you drive safely... with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast... ...and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost. unfortunately, it can't do anything about that. now that you know the truth... are you in good hands? little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla.

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welcome back. right now, momentum is the name of the game for democratic presidential candidates. so who has got it? that depends what you're talking about. if momentum is fund-raising, senator bernie sanders is outpacing the field. name id, joe biden probably leads the way. what about beto o'rourke, filling rooms of all sizes in different states, or is momentum about media buzz. south bend mayor pete buttigieg seems to have a lot of columnists spilling ink. if it is about policy, elizabeth

warren and kamala harris are probably ahead of the pack. should i joke about the women being the ones with substance here? not to say any of the candidates has a monopoly on momentum measurements. kamala is bringing in crowds, so is beto, and jay inslee among candidates going heavy on policy as well. point being, at this stage it seems to be anyone's game. with me, two reporters who have been covering the democratic race for president up close. alley vitaly in las vegas, she heard three democratic candidates speak, and alex walled who hasn't picked up all his belongings and moved to iowa yet but certainly getting pretty close. alex, how do you measure momentum at this stage in april of 2019? >> well, momentum is about change, about expectations versus where you are now. i have to say of all candidates whose fund-raising numbers we

have seen so far, the only one that really surprised me, impressed me, pete buttigieg. more donors than kamala harris, for somebody that was totally unknown on the national stage, mayor of a pretty small city in indiana who has been getting a ton of buzz and attention, more people learn about him, the more they like him. my question is is it a fling or something they want to settle down with. i talked to donors that committed to other candidates but are giving to him because they like him at the moment. don't view him as a threat. once he climbs in polls and becomes a threat to bigger candidates, i think he will be in for negative coverage, things change, and it will be a whole new world. >> what do they like about him? >> he is fresh, young, new. old adage, democrats want to fall in love. he is different. we heard about all of the other candidates, they have been preparing to run for years. we know them. he came out of nowhere and has

this very compelling back story, biography, there are little nuggets you learn. he learned norwegian to read the entire collected works of a novelist he likes. he is a veteran. he's just an interesting character. i think right now, biography is what's selling to voters more than policies. they'll get to that point later. they want to learn who people are, what they're like, see the new options out there. >> what we see in polls and what i am sure you heard on the road, democrats want somebody electable. electability is the number one concern, top desire. what does electability mean to folks out there? >> it means one thing, means beating donald trump. alex made a great point. democrats like to fall in love, so i think the idea of i have seen a lot of voters jostle with

this in front of my face, i say who do you like in twoin2020, t say who can win against donald trump but who do i love. interesting thing, can those two things live in the same place. down the list of electability, there's party and ideological purism which voters like the idea of jay inslee who wants to combat climate change, paired with elizabeth warren who has all of the different policy proposals from health care to affordable housing. i think they'd like to find a candidate that's i did logically pure but can go against donald trump. i guess we have to wait and see if that's true. i see voters grapple with this in front of my face, the idea between the head and heart in the democratic primary. >> president obama is worried about the purity test that democrats might be putting themselves into. listen to how he phrased it. >> one of the things i do worry

about sometimes among progressives in the united states, maybe it is true here as well, is a certain kind of rigidity. then we sometimes create what's called a circular firing squad where you start shooting at your allies because one of them is straying from purity. >> what's he talking about specifically? >> he is talking about one name he didn't mention but i think we can read into it clearly, bernie sanders. and the influence that he has had on the entire democratic party since his run in 2016, not just him but his supporters. he is worried as others in the establishment of the party there's a drive to the left and litmus tests imposed on issues like medicare for all. if you don't support that, you're a bad democratic, bad

progressive and bad person, a corporate shill. we haven't gotten to that point in the race yet, everyone says they don't want to attack one another and stay positive, but that's what obama is worried about. he thinks triple will play them up against each other. some of them dovetail with issues donald trump can use in general election. bernie sanders raised issues about hillary clinton ties to wall street and corporations, that's what trump was getting at too when he called her crooked hillary. that's what obama is talking about. i'm not sure those people, sanders supporters are ones listening to obama since he's not their ideal of what the next democratic president should look like. >> we were on the trail together a lot, and kicking around this idea in meet the press daily editorial meeting about how much we can look into the past. the question is how does joe biden avoid becoming somebody like jeb bush, a candidate of

the past. how does pete buttigieg avoid being someone like marco rubio, someone seeming to not have enough experience, someone too young, and is bernie the person that will nail down the progressive left flank of the democratic base and will that be what propels him to the democratic primary, same way it propelled donald trump with the conservative base or the trump base of the republican party in 2016. >> so i've been wondering the same about bernie sanders the last several weeks when you see how the 2020 field is shaping up. you look at all of the candidates trying to split the moderate wing or 7 or 8 that must compete in iowa or new hampshire. the thing with bernie sanders, i have seen consistently at all rallies that i show up to for him, the people that go in new hampshire specifically, but across the board, people that loved him in 2016, are still

with him in 2020. for those voters, it is personal. they feel the 2016 was rigged in favor of clinton. that's a word we often associate with donald trump, but bernie sanders supporters feel that in a real way. i want to talk about the firing squad. alex says president obama may be talking bernie sanders, but i heard that firing squad mentioned from voters in relation to joe biden. you mention how he can avoid being the jeb of the field. it is hard to control the narrative when you're not in the race. so it is important for him to jump in and start to talk about himself. the rest of the field is doing it for him now. >> yeah, i have to tell you, fascinated by the idea of whether or not the entire field splits itself apart, and bernie hangs onto the base that will propel him. an interesting thought. thank you so much. ahead, new reporting on when we finally might see the mueller

report, plus democrats fire a new shot in the battle over the president's tax returns. tax ret. ♪ ♪ tax ret. applebee's bigger, bolder grill combos. now that's eatin good in the neighborhood.

before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn, marie could only imagine enjoying freshly squeezed orange juice. now no fruit is forbidden. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? to be clear, you believe democrats will never see the president's tax returns? >> no, never, nor should they. keep in mind, that's an issue that was already litigated during the election. voters knew the president could have given his tax returns, they knew he didn't, they elected him anyway, which is what drives the

democrats crazy. >> welcome back. that was acting chief of staff nick mulvaney, vowing they'll never see trump's tax returns. they set a deadline of wednesday to turn over six years of the president's returns. while congressional democrats try to get federal returns, new york lawmakers are trying to get the president's state tax returns. they just introduced a bill to permit the state's taxation and finance commissioner to release any state tax return requested by congress. and scrutiny over releasing tax returns is not limited to president trump. bernie sanders continues to face questions after only releasing a single year's worth during the last election cycle, after vowing six weeks ago he would release his taxes, quote, soon. here is what the vermont senator told nbc news over the weekend. >> why not release them today? >> they will be released very, very shortly, april 15th is

coming. we're going to do our taxes for this year and that will be -- >> 2016, 2017. >> they'll be there. >> with you calling on the president to release his taxes, why not do it now? >> not right this minute. you think i have them in my back pocket. >> soon, soon, soon. heard that a lot in 2016 from donald trump. see if bernie talks about an audit coming up and if he follows through. see you on the other side of this quick break. other side of this quick break an awful skin c. with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe eczema, or atopic dermatitis... ...you feel like you're itching all the time. and you never know how your skin will look. because deep within your skin... ...an overly sensitive immune system... ...could be the cause. so help heal your skin from within. with dupixent. dupixent is not a steroid,... ...and it continuously treats your eczema... ...even when you can't see it. at 16 weeks, nearly four times more patients

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to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing it's best to make you everybody else... ♪ ♪ means to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can fight and never stop. does this sound dismal? it isn't. ♪ ♪ it's the most wonderful life on earth. ♪ ♪ time now for the lid. attorney general bill barr will be on the hill tomorrow to testify before the appropriations committees. it's supposed to be routine hearings on the doj budget. but given that this will be barr's first appearance on the hill since he received robert mueller's report, it is very safe to say that he will face a lot of questions surrounding that report. the panel is back.

gabe, zerlina and susan. so, yeah, we're going to be talking a lot about what mueller found tomorrow and less about the doj's budget, correct? >> there is basically not even a shadow of a world in which all of the members of congress are like you know what? mr. attorney general, let's talk about the budget. he knows this too, and he is pretending of course this is going to be about the budget. i say we get about 30 seconds of that before we go into the detail. >> how closely should we be paying attention to this? >> we should be paying very close attention. >> why? >> he sent out a memo and set in motion that is not correct, at least based on leaked sources in "the washington post" and elsewhere saying what they actually put in the report, i'm talking about mueller's prosecutors is not what bill barr said. so we now have a conflict. and the only way to clear this up i think is for the congress at least in the first step to get this report, because we paid for it. i'd like to see it. i'm a taxpayer. >> is this just going to be democrats asking about this? or will we see some republicans getting curious? >> i think you'll see some republicans getting curious.

and they'll just want the basic reports. i don't think we'll ever see a fully unredacted report, no matter what we want. i think there will be things that even mueller himself will say we can't put this out there. but i think the thing that i'm looking at is how careful is barr. because now he is testifying before congress, and there has been a lot of questions about the memo he wrote. and he has to be very careful in how he words everything, because he could come very dangerously close to lying to congress if he is not exact. >> so he says he would release as much of the report as he could some time in the middle of april. congress goes on a two-week recess next week, i think. what happens if he releases it while congress son recess? >> well, congress being on recess means basically nothing at that point. obviously they could call emergency sessions if they had to. >> everyone keep their bags packed? they might be going back to d.c.? >> they all have the internet. they'll all be able to read,

this and if they have to, they'll fly back to washingtonment i think the more realistic thing that we should expect tomorrow instead about timing is people are going to press him on how he made the decisions on how to write this memo, as susan was saying, because no one is really satisfied by it. >> i'm curious what role rod rosenstein actually played in. he says it was the two of them. rod rosenstein built up quite a bit of credibility over the time he was overseeing the mueller investigation, although you could question it given his participation in the firing of james comey. i wonder how much rod rosenstein had his fingers on it. >> we're going to find out. >> that's a really interesting question, but also bill barr's own history in terms of william safire calling him cover-up general. we have a cover-up general in charge of this process with such great national security concerns involved? i think that anybody who has neurons that are firing and working can see -- >> is there any way barr will be trusted by the other side? >> i think there are some serious legal minds that do give

him that benefit of the doubt. but given his history, i personally did not. i thought this sort of looked like an orchestrated cover-up from the moment they put him there, because why of all the choices you pick the guy who sent an unsolicited memo to you saying the president could never obstruct justice. >> but then again, he could actually surprise us all. there is something about bill barr, and i'm not defending him. he is an institutionalist. i think if there was something so bad or of such concern, he would not be able to cover it up and he wouldn't cover it up. i think because he is part of that d.c. elite, he would actually like being part of the crowd that maybe ended upbringing it to light. >> i hope, i hope -- i hope you're right. >> i keep thinking back to when he was nominated formally by donald trump. the last thing he said was enjoy your life. i don't think that's happening right now with bill barr. as much as he would like people to think he is a d.c. institutionalist who is going to save the day, we're going find out tomorrow. >> we're also going to hear from

special counsel robert mueller. jerry nadler said he wants to hear from mueller himself. he wants to hear from mueller himself. is that the only way to bring closure to this in the minds of the american public is to hear bob mueller sit there and explain as much of his report as he believes he can? >> to an extent. but i also think it's a matter of if mueller can convince the committee heads that the stuff that they've retracted is appropriate. if mueller can do that and the committee chairs agree with it, that will probably be the best gift mueller can give to everybody to this country, you can trust what's coming out and the things that are being kept from you are for national security reasons. >> i would also like to see the summaries they prepared explicitly for the purpose of releasing them so we can see what was going on inside that investigation. so the idea that bill barr is i don't know what to do with any of this information when this -- it's not like this happened all in a random day that we couldn't

anticipate. they wrote summaries in the anticipation of the fact that the attorney general should release them. so we should the do. >> the reporting is out there. gabe, zerlina and susan, guys, thank you so much. happy monday. we will be right back.

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podcast do. not miss it. on a personal note, this is my last monday for a little while here at "meet the press daily." thank you to everybody at home for watching. thank you to the "meet the press" team for being so amazing. thank you to chuck todd for letting me keep your chair warm on mondays and give you a break. but don't worry, because ari melber is here and we'll be back with more "mtp daily" tomorrow. in the meantime, ari melber is back and has the 6:00 p.m. all sort. >> you know what i'm going to miss the most? >> our handoffs. >> what specifically about them? >> the awkwardness of them. >> what specifically about the awkwardness of them? >> the awkward turtleness of them? >> i'm giving you one more chance. >> you tumped me. i don't know. i've got baby brain. help me out. >> the awkward silences. >> oh. >> you know silence is rare on television. >> silence is golden. >> we're going to miss you, and we wish you really, really well,