hings simple, easy and awesome. "this weekend with alex witt." stay tuned for "up with david gura." this is "up." i'm david gura. this morning president trump's hardline immigration policy continues to evolve when it comes to immigrant detainees. the president said he's considering something a senior official said was off the table. >> we will bring them to sanctuary city areas, and let that particular area take care of it. >> president trump doubling down on that on twitter. another of the president's posts being criticized featuring these out-of-context comments.

>> some people did something? >> we're not going to show any more of that video because, again, it's so misleading because it gets graphic. overnight presidential candidates and some of the congresswoman's cleeolleagues s the president is putting her life at risk. plus, a woman tried to sneak in mar-a-lago with cell phones, thumb drive and no swimsuit. he's been charged with entering restricted property without permission. her role in a larger story. >> it does appear she may have had linked to the massage parlor lady offering to sell president trump chinese access to president trump through mar-a-lago. it is saturday, april 13th, and we're still waiting to see a copy of robert mueller's report. the attorney general promising it within a week as he alleged in testimony. there was spying on donald trump's presidential campaign. so he's moving forward with

investigating the investigators. can the rest ever us do that? >> if a cop stops me and says how fast was i going? how fast were you going? >> jackie allen is with me this morning. she write "the washington post's" "power up" newsletter and the former director of the national power security center and now a national security intelligence analyst. assistant professor of public policy at the harvard kennedy school and david corn to my right, your left, washington bureau chief for more jones and msnbc political analyst. so ends president trump's 116th week in office. it began with president trump praising the egyptian leader with doing a great job. a straight way to characterize a leader with authoritarian tendencies and criticized for human rights abuses. then president trump flexed his

own presidential power, decapitating the department of homeland security. on sunday department of homeland security secretary kirstjen was forced to resign. on monday head of secret service was out. on tuesday the acting deputy homeland security deputy. on wednesday, acting director of i.c.e., immigrations accustoms enforcement signaled his departure. and while they were cleaning out offices, one former acting cabinet secretary settled into his. u.s. senate confirmed david bruin ard as secretary of interior in a 61-41 vote despite allegations of ethical misconduct. president trump's picks to join the board of governors facing increasingly long odds. herman cain and steven war, who continues to make the case for his candidacy on cable television wracks up bad headline after bad headline after bad headline. that's the personal upheaval we have seen this week. and the battle over president

trump's tax returns intensified. steve mnuchin set the stage for a legal showdown after he refused to meet a house deadline to turn over the president's tax returns. and, yes, the mueller report is coming according to the attorney general william barr, who made two trips to capitol hill in which he roiled democrats saying he thinks spying did occur on the trump campaign. this was also a week of contradictions, particularly when it comes to the president's immigration policies. last friday president trump went to the border and he said this -- >> our country is full, our area is full, the sector is full. i can't take you anymore. i'm sorry. it can't happen. turn around. that's the way it is. >> almost a week later "the washington post" reporting administration officials considered bussing immigrant detainees to sanctuary cities targeting the president's political foes. white house officials pushed back on that. this was just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion, the white house said in a

statement. thought that matter was scheduled? cue the president via twitter -- >> we are indeed, he wrote, as reported giving strong consideration to placing immigrants in sanctuary cities only. here's what he said just hours later >> california certainly is always saying we want more people. and they want more people in their sanctuary cities. well, we'll give them more people. we will give them a lot. we can give them an unlimited supply. let's say if they're so happy. they're always saying they have open arms. let's see if they have open arms. >> wow, what a massive week this was. let's start with the department of homeland security. i called it a decapitation. so many leaders of that department now out, scuttled, moved around. your reaction to that, what that says to you. a lot of people expressing some concern we're seeing a kind of consolidation. >> what it tells me is the focus of power and influence and decision making on immigration policy and indeed everything that falls within dhs' purview

will be at the white house. these positions will now be occupied for a good, long time by acting officials who will be very limited in what initiatives they can undertake. and it suggests to me stephen miller and others at the white house who focus and immigration policies have driven policy and will drive policy. and that's not how it usually works. it moves congressional accountant. steven miller can't be called up or it will be difficult for congress to bring stephen miller up for testimony. the white house often makes that difficult. senate confirmed officials, that's parts of their job. it's their job to explain policy and it's going to take congress out of the mix here in i way i don't find encouraging. >> on this issue of sanctuary cities, this was a very transparent about-face. is it unlike what we have seen before to have members of the administration say one thing and the president saying another?

no. what makes this one different? >> i think what makes this really different here is just the blatant nature of the political retribution. as you pointed out, we've seen the president waffle on things and contradict his aides constantly throughout this entire administration. but i think what is really unique here is just, again, that this president is clearly trying to send a very pertinent message and disregard the law. there was a series of stories this week with the president being upset and firing administration officials because they presented legal obstacles and he wasn't happy with that. at the end of the day, exactly what you said, we're seeing the president shed people in a way that is consolidating power strictly to trump. so really what is left here is the president himself. he is the executive branch. >> and chiseling the presidency away to just the president. i said this is the 116th week.

does this week feel different? is it different from the ones where he have seen before? i suppose i can start every day ticking through the days. >> you could. every week i feel like we're up at 11:00 and then every once in a while it goes to 12 or 13. this week seemed to be that way on the immigration front. okay, no more adhering to the law no. more even pretending to go through the process. i will just take over and this is the direction autocrats move in. if everybody does what they want, they're happy with the norms and routines. if they don't they start decapitating and putting in loyalists and consolidating power. he's doing this on the one issue he cares about the most, immigration. i think we will talk about taxes later but eventually we're heading to i think a constitutional clash. when he's going to be faced with some constraint on his power, the supreme court ordering him to do this or that or congress saying can't go ahead with this

policy and he's going to say no. he's going to be like come and get me. how many troops do you have, congress? supreme court, do you have your own cops? we're moving in that direction. when we hit that point, i don't know, but this week keeps us on that course. >> davis described the common having an agency here -- and we will talk about congressman omar in a bit and the comments tweeted about her. where is congress? yes, i know they're on recess but as david describes what happened over the past week, you would expect more outrage with the members of his own party, what's happening here. we've seen none of it. >> maybe not more outrage from members of his own party. we've already seen members of his own party are pretty selective when they choose to voice their outrage. that it tends to be moments when -- to david's point, when these constitutional crisis have major political ramifications and that's when they play out. okay, this is our red line. this is the line we don't want

to cross. what i do think we're seeing is for a number of members of congress, they're speaking to a number of democratic members of congress, they're very vocally speaking out and saying we will find ways to check your power. we're not going allow you to do this. in particular nancy pelosi has been pretty vocal, understandably, because she is the one who has been targeted in much of this. but in calling out the president and saying, you know, your ideas of political retribution will not be tolerated. this is not the way the president behaves. this is not the kind of power the executive branch could have. the white house is not for political retribution no matter what richard nixon or donald trump tell us. this is the way we're seeing it play out. we're seeing a lot of outspokenness and a lot of condemnation from the democratic side on these issues, particularly around sanctuary cities. >> and we probably want to get into the nature of the

retribution. philip bump wrote about this in waulg. but when i read the reaction of the president of the sanctuary cities is how many mayors said fine, welcoming what the president is saying here and economic argument as well, how expensive it would be to implement a policy like this. bussing people all over the country, transportation structure required. i will leave one tweet here from mayor de blasio in new york -- one other thing i will add here, this doesn't address what they will face. >> cities are required not necessarily to control the national border, who comes in and out of a city, but what seems clear to me is you probably have a whole kbroup gr

in the executive branch writing memoranda to the file. i've been asked to do this or almost how people in government are government lawyers, whether it's department of homeland security, intelligence department, state department. if these people are people who are not going to break the law just because somebody told them to and they're going to document when they are asked to do things that are illegal, they will document when they're asked to do things unethical and there will be a record. that doesn't mean they can stop it necessarily in the moment but the record is there and when congress does become appropriately involved, that record will be unearthed. >> we talked about the witling away of the presidency. how worried are you about people there being a backstop to things like this? as you see the consolidation and those who might have considered serving the government for serving the government's sake? >> that worries me and it worry me more in the context of a second term. if we're talking about a moment in time or blip in history or step outside the norm, that's

one thing. if we're talking about something that's a long-term trend, that's something very different and that's something that would give me great concern. >> jackie, i want to ask you about the plasticity of this policy. i mention it's been evolving. this is something we haven't heard about but it was reported discussed back in february and rejected by folks within the department of homeland security. what do you make of that? how much this is evolving, how much the president has to evolve his own policy here? >> i think what we are seeing here really over the course of the last few weeks is not just this policy alone but the president throwing anything, spaghetti on the waufll strateg to see what exactly he can do to try to stop the spike in the number of families trying to cross the border into the united states. i think this policy stands out because again how the explicit political retribution nature of it. but there are a number of other policies that the president threw out this week as well, such as closing the border,

throwing additional tariffs at mexico, a number of things that could be detrimental to the economy overall. i think we will continue to see that as we get closer to the election. this president is -- wants to keep the headlines focused on immigration. this is something that he's going to be running on. he wants to stir up anti-immigrant sentiment. obviously, anti-islamic phobic sentiment as well. i mean, over the course of the last week, we've also have sort of forgotten about the mueller report. we're waiting for it but we have been focused on this purge at dhs and that's exactly what the president wants it to be. we saw him embrace his policy even after his aides said it wasn't true and that they had rejected it. we're going to continue to see that, rinse and repeat. >> let's come back in a moment. we have a lot to get to including a soft target at mar-a-lago, chinese woman

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comcast business. beyond fast. i'm david gura. president trump is ramping up his attacks on congresswoman ilhan omar. a man threatened her life in a phone call to her office and now she's being targeted by the president on twitter.

in a post pinned to his twitter page there's a list of statements she made taken out of context with graphic words about the until until terrorist attack. four words were ripped to the speech she gave last month to the muslim self-rights l.a. chapter. she addressed the treatment of muslims after 9/11. >> some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties. >> talking about the genesis of that group, the president and conservatives are seizing part of what she said out of context, even though "the washington post" points out former president george w. bush used similar language to describe the terrorists who attacked the u.s. on a speech he gave to december 14, 2001. >> and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. >> looking at the genesis of all of this, "the new york post"

went out congresswoman omar this week and on fox news the head of the council of islamic-american nation's florida chapter was asked to defend congresswoman omar. >> how about saying some savage terrorist killed 3,000 americans? >> because it goes without saying whoever did the horrific acts of 9/11 are savage, terrorist monsters and the presumption that a muss almost congresswoman especially or my muslim anyway is is itself an islam ib homotrope. >> nancy pelosi saying the president should not use 9/11 as a political attack. and bernie sanders weighed in saying the president is inciting violence. senator warren tweeted, calling president trump's attacks disgusting and dangerous. i bring in the editor of above the law.com and contributor to the nation. you saw "the new york post" this week and have been following this as well. plenty of people i think rightly

raising concern about what this will lead to, this attention, the selective editing of the speech she gave. your read of what's happened here and where things might be headed? >> i'm most disturbed by the institutional response to this. trump is a racist, bigot idiot that wants all brought people gone. that's how he got elected. let's put that aside and look at how they're responding to this bigotry. "the new york post" is trash, they're breitbart without the courage to be breitbart. people should stop pretending this is a legitimate paper. twitt twitter if i came after a country like trump is omar ill l ilhan, i would be in jail. so twitter needs to at some point stop the -- do what they can do to stop these bigoted,

violent threats against actual american congress people, right? the third thing, i thought warren's statement was good. i thought bernie sanders' statement was okay. but this goes to the democratic institutional response where you have a lot of people coming out and saying oh, we can't stand for this violence against congress person, but few are of them are coming out and saying, you know what, she's exactly right. you played the full clip and i thank you for that. what -- when you put her in her full context, what she said is some people did something and the rest of us got blamed. any person of color has lived that experience. any person of color has sat at home and seemed like a crime report on the local news and thought oh, my god, i hope they're not black. lord, i hope they're not black. we know if they're black the rest of our community gets painted with a broad brush. what omar said is exactly right about how her community was treated after 9/11 and i don't see why that's hard for democrats to come out and say. >> i want to get your read on this as well. there's something egregious the way it has been done over the

course of a week and four words are witness and insider radio thing, an cut up thing where she continues to say more and four words are played over and over again in that video. you have the president pinning this on twitter, it's indelible, there at the top of the feed. how much has this changed with the perspective we have against the president who engages in these kinds of tactics? >> i don't think we have any at all. this is who the president is and always has been. the president is quite eager to attack a sitting congresswoman in order to score political punches shouldn't surprise us. we also know she's a target of him in part because she is muslim, because she's black, because she's somali. and she's coming from an area that donald trump has targeted in his policies. the institution of the white house has targeted over and over again. this is not simply trump versus

ilhan or something like that. this is in fact the major power of the executive office, and the -- trump's agenda in opposition, and so much longer, bigger story. just one other thing too is that what i also find concerning is that we have seen hints of this before. historically we've seen this, we've seen it in recent history and i'm thinking of shirley sherod in these moments that are taken out of context, splashed across the media in various institutions, attacked. then rather than come circling the wagon and defending these individuals, we instead see the people that should be defending them, in this case the democratic party, actually distancing themselves or actually reacting inappropriately. in this case, this should be a lesson. shirley sherod, this should be a lesson. everyone needs to come to her defense, no matter what your personal beeves with her may be, but this is something that is

institutionally and just ethically not right. >> good for nancy pelosi weighing in. she said the other day i like to call in before i call out. david, i want to ask you lastly about the sense of the ecosystem in washington today. some blamed levitt here on dan crenshaw, congress retweeting something brewing in the water and some of these alt right circles before. talk about how that percolated up, how a speech was given to a chapter of a national group made its way not just to congressman crenshaw and to the president's desk and twitter >> there's something deeply profound here, every day we talk about the latest outrage and how to distinguish each from the other, it's becoming a bit of a challenge. but this is based on hatred, bigotry and it is well conceived. and this is now -- wore stie'rea year and a half out from the next election and this is all geared for political gain.

if we're starting the second inning and trump is putting targets on black muslim congress people for political benefit, where will this end up? the fact he can do this and still get 40% approve am rating and the republicans and democrats, but not a single republican saying anything about this, you talk about the ecosystem, you're right. fox news, republicans, breitbart, they all look for these instances. "the new york post," this is a completely manufactured events. it wasn't that she said something outrageous and they ex-employmented exploited it, which happens all the time, this is completely manufactured because they're looking to make up things to serve the agenda you mentioned, bigotry and hatred for political gain. if they can just make things up and a third of the country more believes them, we're in a very

difficult position. >> i just want to say, it's not just this week. there's one we move on and sort of forget about the previous week. just a few weeks ago when 50 muslim people were killed at a mosque in new zealand, the prime minister of new zealand called the president, the president called her and asked what he could do and she said police show prayer, love and sympathy to love and muslim people across the world so this doesn't happen again. he didn't do it. he didn't even call it an act of terrorism. there was vague prayers, thoughts and prayers for the people killed in new zealand. this is something we've seen over and over again and it's just going to ramp up. ilhan omar is going to be a consistent foil for the president going into 2020. up next, the mysterious and convoluted times of the mar-a-lago trespasser and connection to the massage parlor to the trump inaugurations and trump himself. urations and trump himself.

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. this is "up." i'm david gura. yujing zhang, the chinese woman accused of entering mar-a-lago by lying to an agent. she had four cell phones, laptop, hardware drive, thumb drive containing malware. she said her frint charles sent her there to an event that was promoted by cindy yang. yang used to own the massage parlor targeted by law officials lately. who is lee?

lee seems to be a operator and mixer who wants to hobnob to the rich and famous and who has long-standing ties to the chinese government and communist party objections of concern to counterintelligence experts. what is going on here is hard to know. this is prince charles as his alias. >> he uses a lot of different names and entities and businesses. a lot of groups add united nations to it. they have nothing to do with the united nations. the piece we put out yesterday, and it gets kind of complicated. i will teat out a liweet out a >> i just good it. >> thank you. >> you look at some of the things he incorporated in colorado and it turns out the registered addresses are empty lots or businesses that have nothing to do with charles lee and it turns out there are dozens, if not scores of companies, that are going the same thing. the question is what's going on,

but why is charles lee in particular in this case incorporating companies in colorado to phony addresses? who is he? he has these ties to the communist party through his organizations in the chinese government. she was discovered with this spying equipment. prosecutors said so far this is not an espionage case but if you talk to counterintelligence experts, they tell you mar-a-lago is like a great opportunity for spying. can you get in. can you bring in your malware. you can buy a ticket to a benefit and you can use people like charles lee and cindy zhang did this too to get access to the president of the united states and if you want to plant an idea in his ear about getting a picture to use back home to get contracts in china, that's easy to do. and if you want to do something worse in terms of spying, there's an opportunity for that. it's a really big, complicated scandal. of course republicans aren't talking about it but it is something democrats have asked

to investigate on the hill. >> it's an incredible piece. i want to ask you about the point david made there. this woman not charged with espionage, being treated like a national security matter. where do you see it going from here, as that tribal comes into focus david described >> it's a perfect trump scandal because of the drifters and fake mail on airs and they're also petty. i think what's happening now is the law enforcement is doing the right thing and moving slowly. they're starting to track her with the things they know they can get her on. now we will see if she wants to talk more and explain her connections. it does not look like she's at the top of this pyramid. it looks like she's a low-level cog in this o. maybe their going y are going tr her. >> she did pay $20,000 to a company associated with charles lee to get a package that included a trip to mar-a-lago for an event that was being

promoted by cindy zhang. there's all of these connections and real money going around. the operation itself may not be an espionage thing per se but any time you have something like this, believe me, the chinese or if it was a russian thing or english thing or israeli thing, they know. they're looking for opportunities and they can piggyback their way in. >> and i know you know, i particularly like this case, this is why the emoluments lawsuit matters so much. people don't understand, like you're not supposed to be able to take foreign money. this is exactly why. it's a way for trump as the president and trump as the organization to sell interest, to sell access to trump the president, and that's why this emoluments lawsuit is so important and needs to go forward and needs more attention. that's the only way you have a chance to stop it. >> this fertile ground of trump toushisms i think it's being called at mar-a-lago, being floated the pras to meet with

president xi should a deal be worked out. coming up left, the upheaval at the department of homeland security as president trump continues to rely on acting officials who do not need senate approval. approval i switched to chevy. i switched to chevy. we switched to chevy. we switched for value. for family. for power. it was time to upgrade. i switched from ram to chevy. see why people are switching to chevy. we love our chevy. i love my malibu. my colorado. my camaro. my traverse. why did we switch? just look at it. ♪

this is "up." i'm david gura. overnight the isis directing actor stepped down, the latest casualty of the trump administration's purge of

top-ranking officials of the department of homeland security. this was not what he expected. until last week he had been trump's pick to head i.c.e. permanently. the president said he wanted, quote, someone tougher in that role. vie helio's out and so is kirstjen nielsen. the president continues to downplay the shake-up at dhs. >> you seem to be cleaning out at dhs. what would you like to achieve? >> i never said i'm cleaning out. i don't know who came up with that expression. we have a lot of great people over there. >> this is a growing number of people from active leaders the president said he prefers. >> i like acting. gives me more flexibility, do you understand that? i like acting. >> msnbc political analyst 1 is back at the table with us. let's talk about the perils of so many acting leadership. he likes it because there's no senate confirmation.

what does this allow him to do and what recourse does the president have? >> it shifts in some ways the balance between the white house or executive department or agency in the white house. a person in an acting role is often unsure of their standing. they don't know if they're around a day, week, a month or never. as i sid earlier in the hour, it kind of pushes the influence in the direction of the white house, in the direction of white house staff that may want to execute and implement the president's agenda in a very aggressive, perhaps illegal way. so it changes that balance of power. inside the departments and agencies it has a particularly difficult and corrosive effect also. what do you say to your workforce if the president decides it's not important enough that i actually put forward a top candidate for this position, that we go through the senate confirmation process. uncertainty reigns, morale plummets. it's a challenge for a wch whore when you don't know who your

boss will be or prierlts will be. >> this was a great piece last week about the consequences of this politically in office, he said trump's policy marks another milestone in his and the gop to hostility in 1yer7b8 and hostility to immigration in particular and demographic change in general. what does this mean to you? >> this is the president gearing up for 2020, his main focus. "the washington post" reported the president was extremely frustrated when he got the numbers from dhs this past month that 103,000 -- >> and this is all he cares about. >> yes. exactly. these numbers would make him look back. despite the rhetoric and push for the border wall there was still a surge of families trying to come over. we spoke to a number of immigration and border experts

this week said in fact that's probably due to the confusing amount of rhetoric the president put out there. it's not helpful when he's throwing a million dollar policies out r out into the ether and in fact potentially has increased directly the amount of people trying to come over here. but it also i think sends a message if you're not trying to implement the president's policy, regardless of the legality of it, there will be consequences and you will be fired. >> dave, what's the message to other members of the cabinet, as fews they are at this point, permanent ones. kirstjen nielsen announcement was abrupt but not unforeseen. the latest in a long and growing conga line of senior officials leaving the trump administration. >> it's basically the mad king can come for you at any time if you don't do what he wants. and to expand on nick's point, there's a larger thing going on. a whole federal government policy making machinery has been hollowed out. i mean usually what happens, you

know, the president wants to do something, dhs talks to treasury, talks to congress, talks to state, working groups, people come up with options, what is legal, what we can do, what would serve the president or might not serve the president, be and then the president makes the final call. often a cabinet member might do it. this is how government worked until now. particularly on the national security front, they hallowed out the national security council. it's basically john bolton, steve miller and trump making a lot of decisions. they cut out the state department and pentagon and expertise is not being used. and so it already balls down to what trump wants, what he cares about. everything else kind of just floats there. angting, boss is acting. you don't know what to do if you're one, two levels down in these agencies. so we're basically looking at a political science experiment that what happens when a president comes in, doesn't give a damn about most things, and

just let things float along. we've been somewhat okay. but there's been no major crisis and certainly we're not making advances on policy issues where we need to. >> the last question to you, there's all of this reporting, jake tapper first reporting a part a dangle to the acting head of dhs if he were to do something to end up in prison, the president would pardon him. we talked about rhetorical pardons before. >> he campaigned, punch somebody, i will pay your legal fees. so the power of pardon is large and there's every opportunity to promise that. the reason why kirstjen nielsen, who is an international war criminal, what's fired is because she wasn't internationally war criminally enough for this administration. and it's really disturbing. i think to david's point, trump's refusal to roll with government in a regular way is actually theory siftance's greater strength. it's dangerous when he's this

incompetent about homeland security. since republicans suddenly this week want to remember 9/11. let's remember 9/11. let's remember why homeland security is there. homeland security is supposed to protect us from terrorist, not terrorize brown people. i promise you the next attack we're worried about is not coming from starving mothers from guatemala. so when he hollows out that agency, when his incompetence results in that agency not being able to work properly, that's actually a real danger to the rest of us, and i think that's where it all gets kind of tied in back to -- back to stephen miller and back to his 2020 strateg strategy. what he wants is these people to take hard-line instances against brown people and doing their job and protecting us from terrorists. >> and protecting our elections. remember, dhs is one of the lead agencies that is supposed to protect us from outside intervention in the election. something daytona doesn't seem to care about. >> nick rasmussen, thank you very much. nice to see you in new york. up next, mis-trises

surrounding julian assange, including his extradition to the united states and whatever happened to his oh, so famous cat. billions of mouths.

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to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. of. welcome back to "up." i want to give etch a chance to apologize to blake shelton. >> blake shelton, i'm cool with. but no, brad paisley, he's my -- i listen to a lot of country music. this woman next to me on the plane was great.

>> if you're awake this morning watching, thank you very much. this morning, julian assange faces extradition to the united states. he was dragged out of the ecuadoran embassy after the country's president called him a spoiled brat. he lived at the embassy for seven years. even had a cat there. the cat is now with assange's family according to a member of his legal team. the u.s. is charging assange with conspiracy to hack a computer a decade ago. during the run up to the election, donald trump mentioned wikileaks more than 150 times. now he's changing his tune. >> wikileaks, i love wikileaks. it tells you the inner heart. i know nothing about wikileaks. it's not my thing. >> his thing. this is a very narrow charge on

working with chelsea man to go use a password to get into the system. take a look. do you think this is still a chance this is a broader thing? >> this is what they're using to get him extradited. it's supposed to be the charge he's charged with when he gets here, although there is the possibility of adding on to that. he's been a key part of the mueller investigation. and when the report comes out, we may learn more. >> wikileaks, of course, was the tool that the russians used to get the emails out that they stole in this grand attack on our election. so he knows who gave him that. he had, you know, wikileaks had interactions with goosifer, the russian intelligence front which they said gave him stuff. they are actively involved and the u.s. intelligence community has called them a part of the russian operation.

i do it assange will tell us much. it's always possible that he may cut a deal. but there's a lot still to come out here and there's a lot of implications for the press. a lot of people are scared about this because he is what of a quasi publisher. you they got him for a very narrow charge. it's something i always tell my reporters, if you get involved in these situations, do nothing illegal. >> calling assange a journalist is like calling danny ocean a bank teller. he stole the documents and that's what they're getting on, not the publishing thing. that is as a person who needs the first amendment to be a thing, i'm not so much worried that these charges are going to have a chilling effect on journalism because what he did is so clearly across the line from publishing to stealing. >>. >> something he said was lizzy

borden was charged with killing something with an ax, that didn't have an effect on the lumber industry. let me ask you about the regard for julian assange. >> yeah. you have to give it up to the season's writers of america because they brought back a great villain and brought back a great hero, depending on which side of the aisle you're standing on or depending on the particular moment. so what is really interesting is that right now, it seems like we have donald trump and hillary clinton on the same side of the coin, both saying julian assange needs to come back and he needs to answer for a lot of these questions. so now all of a sudden he is public enemy number one. but we also know that when it's convenient, jewulian assange is used as a political tool. i don't know about the intricacies of the case, but in

terms of using wikileaks to distribute information and use it to politically harm, do political harm and spread and disseminate information, republicans were all too happy. donald trump was all too happy to do this through yoult the campaign. in fact, many of his campaign staffers, many republicans in the senate and in the house, mike pompeo was a fan until he wasn't. so we see this quite a bit. but now it seems to be there's this moment and this is why everyone's eyebrows should be raised. why is it now that all of a sudden everyone is on the side of julian assange is a bad guy. >> when they cheered him on, they were actually helping the russian operation. that's a thing that trump has escaped culpability for.

by supporting wikileaks and by saying there was no russian attack, he was giving cover to the russian attack and basically aiding and abetting it. >> what are the odds that we see julian assange here in the u.s. is in the. >> legal experts say this could take a number of years to get him over here. tbd. >> tbd. >> it's a two-year process. nine lives and a cap. >> one of the things we know is that trump has this habit of taking his friends and throwing them overboard and having his friends still be loyal to him despite that except for michael cohen. julian assange, lest's see what happens when trump says i don't even know a wikileaks. all right. tomorrow on "up," my guests including david jolly, katie fang. coming up next hour, senator

cory booker's campaign kicks off today, plus the fight brewing between donald trump's right hand man and his own son-in-law. and how the law and order campaign became the lawless president. w and order campaign became the lawless president. i'm missing out on our family outings because i can't find a bladder leakage product that fits. everything was too loose.

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this is "up." i'm david gura. we start this hour with the president versus the rule of

law. as president trump struggles to contain the humanitarian crisis on the southern border, he is testing the constraints of power on the oval office and there is new reporting president trump knows some of his direct directives are chasing the law. the president reportedly told now acting secretary david mcaleenan to close the southern border and he would protect him if he was charged. tell him we don't have the capacity, he said, if judges give you trouble say sorry, judge, i can't do it, we don't have the room. .after the president left the room, agents sought further advice from their leaders who told them, you have to follow the law. this week, the president

displayed open contempt with the rule of law. >> we have with bad laws. we have a judge that just ruled incredibly that he doesn't want people staying in mexico. figure that one out. no one can believe these decisions we're getting from the 9th circuit. it's a disgrace. we're bucking a court system that never, ever rules for us. >> "the washington post" says federal courts have ruled against trump policy 65 times. the supreme court has upheld trump policies like the travel ban. my colleague offers this summary, the right and the left are seeing two different trumps. liberals sense the rise of a tyrant and daring congress, the courts and political critics to stand in his way at their only peril. for the trump faithful, he has finally been freed to be a truly forceful leader.

with me for the our, gabe benedeti, nina, robbie and christina. robbie, let me start with you. a great piece that says president trump seems willing to steamroll through constraints that american presidents seem to have respected. have we moved beyond that? >> i don't think we've moved beyond anything vis-a-vis trump. i think we're looking at this through the lens of respecting this office and this institution and that respect doesn't exist for him. this is entirely political. this is someone who has employed undocumented workers on his

properties. and probably still does now. this is political. he needs this. there is a reason this fight has been going on ever since he's gotten in the white house. because he can't do things of substance. he needs this fight to be relevant. he needs this fight to continue to win his voters. if people go to the polls in two years and asked the question has this guy gotten anything done? the answer will be no. the question to has he fought for something, the answer will be overwhelmingly yes. >> christine, it's a crowded ring if you have the president in one corner trying to dominate the rule of law, he has 200 plus people in the house of representatives seemingly okay with all that he's doing. >> that has been my frustration and the democrats frustration for so long. you take respectable republicans who used to respect the law, used to respect the office of the presidency.

now about you have trump who does not understand the role of the executive office, he does not respect the role of the executive, and the nature in congress is worrisome because we know we have an equal lateral system where all three branches of government must operate in conjunction. the separation of powers lays that out explicitly. we have the republican party in congress just essentially saying, well, president trump, whatever you say, we're fine, right? and we know the talent pool is subpar, right, where people who have never served. and this is public service. they aren't just jobs. these are people taking a position to best represent the u.s. constitution and, unfortunately, the president surrounds himself with people who best represent him and his interests and here we are. ing. >> the first part of this administration, you have the president trying to do things that he wanted to do, foiled.

he can't do it. are we seeing something now where as i said in the lead there, it's not just trying something not knowing that it's illegal, but actively pushing against something that's illegal? >> yeah, absolutely, but i think everyone so far has been on point here which is he knows these things aren't going to go through and he knows we're going to have these conversations about them because he wants this to be a fight at all points. but listen, it's not just that he has matured in the office because that's clearly not the case, or that the dynamics on the ground have changed that much over the last three years. but democrats control the house now. senate republicans are increasingly making it clear, at least in terms of background quotes to people like us, they are maybe not thrilled with the way things are going, but in public, they're obviously not restraining the president at all. and he's just saying, listen, fine, let me get out there. i'm clearly running for re-election right now. conversations about the rule of law, he's made that abundantly clear. you have to think of this from a political personal perspective

from him. he wakes up in the morning and say what should i do? i don't really care what the barriers are here. >> front and center here is the story that jake tapper told on cnn, that the president was down on the border and he told the man that would become the acting secretary of homeland security, he could do something that would be illegal, but rest assured, he would pardon him if he was. where do you see the legal pushback to all of this? you. >> i'm going to be a little bit of a contrarian here. which is i don't want to be alarmist, but to me, this week it felt like something broke, a dam broke. it may not have been with trump. trump is who he's always been. but the people around him, the people that some of us still are hoping would hold up these institutions, right, at the end of the day, it's not about

trump. it's do the institutions hold. i see them enabling him, right? barr saying i'm not giving the unredacted report to congress. no, i'm not going on court to get the -- you want to do that, you go ahead. just not even giving a good reason. the secretary 069 treasuof the saying, nope, not giving up the tax returns even though the law is clear. you do have some people, i don't want to hold up nielsen as a bastion of lawfulness, but on the other hand, it seems like she at least said we can't close the border and boom, she's gone. then you have trump pushing the boundaries. he essentially offered a pardon as a bribe to get a public official to break the law. you can say he was joking, but you don't even joke about that. that is beyond lawless and it's an impeachable offense if he was

serious. i'm not going to say that's remotely going to happen in this world. but to me, something feels different. >> people have drawn these historic land logs, they've talked about a consolidation of the security state, again, holding up nielsen in any special way here. but there was something remarkable in the decapitation of that department this week. >> yes. and while she was willing to do a lot of what he wanted and she probably -- you know, she does seem to support his agenda, she wasn't willing to do this one last thing which, as we've all been talking about, he knows but he doesn't care. so there was someone who said no, we can't really do that. it's going to be a problem. the question is is he going to get someone in that position that's willing to do that? >> the answer is yes. >> the answer is yes. >> each time someone leaves, you

get someone who is less experienced and more loyal to the president. and may not need a senate confirmation. >> exactly. and more loyal to the president and not the institution and not the u.s. government. so that, to me, is the frightening thing. >> and this is one of the key ways washington has changed in the last few years. which is in an ideal world, the senate would say maybe we shouldn't have acting secretaries agency after agency after agency. yes, they understand that it's annoying to keep talking about norms in this sort of fluffy way, but the reality is there are real things and president trump likes to have all these acting secretaries because these are people that are completely beholden to him. >> and the other thing, this is a president who really commands

a base. i used to condemn the republicans in the past saying i think they're cowards. i think they are, but i see now why they're so cowardly. they know if they go up against this guy, they could lose their primary. it is a real thing. in many cases, they're having to make a choice between their own career and the country and that is a hard choice for any politician to make. >> can i push back on that? i've thought about that wondering why these men would want to sit on the federal reserve board of governors. there are those who will say it's a moral choice, as well. why is it so difficult for a politician to say maybe i don't need the headaches, fund-raising for the next time around. why do you think there is such spineless around the ranks of lawmakers? >> you're totally right. this is a moral choice. and i think public service has become untethered for moral

considerations in many regards. >> and maybe from politics. >> i think it's about winning. it's all about winning. and these folks want to keep their jobs. and what i woke up to in the midterms is this stark reality that i think they've been saying supposedly in polling or something that if they push back on this guy, they may not come back. we had a lot of people retire precisely because they did what we're talking about here, they pushed back on the president hard and they lost. >> this is sort of a question and a statement. i'm not a politician or a pollster here. even assuming that is true and we accept for the moment that we have to play this zero sum game or i get elected or i don't and putd my morals aside, if more than one of them took a stand together, i think about what we teach our kids about bullying. one alone cannot stand up. there is a whole book about it for kids. bonding together and strength in

numbers and if so many of them are whispering behind the scenes, why can't they unite on that and stand up to him? >> it's a great question. this is sort of my point. the voters are in charge at the end of the day. fy my point is voters aren't rewarding courage. it's fascinate to go me. it's scary but, like, voters in tennessee were probably not going to send bob corker back. >> we have republicans who are all in for a penny, in for a pound with trump. now we're seeing the destruction of the political party. coming up, week maybe days or hours away from seeing robert mueller's report. the attorney general committing to its release as he gets slammed for suggesting the trump campaign was spied on. r suggestp campaign was spied on. so, i started with the stats regarding my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis.

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this is "up." i'm david gura. there is unmakerble, undeniable synergy between president trump and attorney general barr. he sound an awful lot like the president. >> they spied on me. they spied on our campaign. >> the spying did occur, yes. i think spying did occur. i think spying on a political campaign is a big deal.

it's a big deal. >> later, the attorney general tried to walk back those comments somewhat. he used the words surveillance instead of spying, but the impact was immediate with president trump and fox news seizing on barr's comments before congress. the trump campaign is now selling t-shirts showing president trump as depicted in the portrait of the president spying on president trump. here is what we heard from lawmakers in the immediate aftermath of those remarks. >> the chief law enforcement officer of our country is going off the rails. >> i'm flabbergasted. when you start linking spying with law enforcement or the intelligence community, that sets off red flags everywhere. we are back, joined now by ken delaney, nbc news intelligence and national reporter. ken, let me start with you on the juance between spying and surveillance. the justice department is trying to walk this back a little bit here. it seems like what is emerging is a bill bar play book.

we had a summary that was not a summary. here we're here something as i see it similar. the attorney general saying one thing, corrective happening hours after some damage has been done. >> that is essential the darker interpret. rod rosenstein came out this week and said this is a tempest in a teapot. he just meant surveillance. but this is the second huge favor that the attorney general has done for the president. the first being that cursory summary of the mueller report absolving the president of all crimes, but not filling in the blanks here. as we've all heard by now, federal law enforcement officials do not speak like that about lawfully authorized surveillance. spying is illegal. spying, when we catch them here in the united states, we put them in prison. so the spying is not what we use

as a term of art when the fbi conducts surveillance on people. what barr's comments did do is play into this right wing meme. there are millions of people that believe this, that the mueller investigation was corrupt at its core, was conducted by a bunch of bias partisan fbi agents and justice department officials designed as the president put it as an illegal coup, an attempt to throw trump out of office. and bar did nothing, by the way. barr took the hill after trump made some of the most inflammatory comments can he has ever made by the investigation. i think there are some reasonable questions about what exactly the attorney general is up to here. >> where do we go from here, having him make those comments, giving us clarity about what investigation might take place. how damaging were those comments, as you see them? >> hugely damaging. look, again, barr is one of the people who is -- not that attorney generals don't have any

allegiance, but bar is taking it to an extreme, right? it's not beyond reasonable questions, i think. he did two things. he used the terminology of a right wing conspiracy theory. even if he sort of walked it back later, which he really didn't, he would not say when asked directly was the mueller investigation a witch-hunt, did you endorse that? he wouldn't say no. it took him a while. that was horrible. nearly schatz said, whoa, and he pointed out to him how inflammatory this was. so he's digging down on that. and he is, as the chief law enforcement officer overseeing this investigation that he says needs to be undertaking about the origins of the russia probe, he's prejudged it. he said, yeah, i think there was spying. you know, well, then why are you having an investigation?

i mean, he's doing exactly what he did with the open instruction probe where he came out ahead of time and said no, i can be objective. >> and it's not just that he is offering this up. it's that the trump team is taking it and running with it. i want to read out a text the trump team sent to its supporters. he said ag barr believes the obama admin illegally spied on the trump campaign. we need answers. they have seen this and they're running with it. >> and he is not going the correct it, barr. >> absolutely not. it's part of the game now for president trump and i just keep thinking back to 2016 when president clinton saw loretta lynch on a tarmac and that turned into the scandal of the

century. looking at that now, it's completely poignant. >> we also saw what happened to jeff sessions. the one thing that he did to to uphold the institution of his occupation was to say, i should possibly recuse myself because of xy and z. bar doesn't want that to happen, so his audition page was to say i'm going to write this unslited memo that no one has asking me for and when a 400 page comes out i'm going to write a two-page quickie summary. >> we promised this report in some form this week. in the end, the most important part of the report could be what isn't revealed to the public. what are you going to look for? >> obviously, the biggest question is why didn't robert mueller make a call on

obstruction of justice. what is the evidence on obstruction? what was intended for that? did he intend for congress to make that call? there's another aspect that i'm interested in. another thing barr did that got less attention was he suggested there was something improper or some question that he had about why the fbi and the justice department didn't warn trump that the russians were trying to infiltrate his campaign and that members of his campaign were under investigation. why did they treat him like part of the conspiracy instead of a crime victim? part of the answer, we know, because nbc nis warned they did warn the campaign. they warned both campaigns that the russians, the chinese and others would try to infiltrate your campaign. the question is what did donald trump do with that information? there is a line in barr's letter about there were multiple outreach by the trump campaign. clearly mueller found the trump campaign didn't embrace those, but did they report them? did they call the fbi?

is there a question of negligence here? did they allow themselves to become dupes and not allow authorities to know what was going on? there is a lot of wrongdoing short of crimes and that's what i'll be looking for. >> ken delaney is going to be with us next weekend. it's a feud that goes back decades. up in you next, they have been beefing since the 80s. jerry nadler has fought with donald trump about real estate. now the fight is over his presidency. who's idea was this? ♪ ♪

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on my challenge, by the ancient laws of combat, we have met at this chosen ground to settle for good law. who holds sway over the five points? >> their feud does not go back quite as far as was depicted there in the gangs of new york. but i think you get the point. donald trump and jerry nadler have been rivals since the 1980s. he's pushing for a full release of the mueller report and all of its details. >> congress has need of the entire report, including the

grand jury material, including everything and i presume we're going to get athe redacted repot within a week. if we don't get everything, we will issue the subpoena and go to court. >> but the battle is as much personal as it is political. trump recently referred to nadler as fat jerry adding, i've been battling nadler for years. the feud began when nadler got in the way of a trump inspired real estate project for the west side of manhattan, television city. that was in the district represented by nadler. the article goes on to say invited to see models of the projects, nadler at the time said he found the display grotesque and it smecemented ins mind a greedy man trying to take advantage of the system.

>> gabe, let me start with you. he's the opposite of trump, but he knows the terrain better than most. how important 1245 going to be? >> it's sort of funny. during the 2018 midterm elections, it was clear jerry nadler was probably going to take over the judiciary committee. he basically told his constituents, listen, i've been fighting trump for a long time. this goes back a while. but this is so interesting not necessarily because of that real estate project, but it's not clear to me that it's useful for jerry nadler to present this as a one-on-one fight. trump has to make these a political conversation. gu r but turning this into a one-on-one personal fight with fat jerry, which is, again, a mean, personal insult, this turns this into a politicized thing as opposed to a real legal investigation. and that's not you'll for

national ler if he nadler if he's trying to build a longer, legal case. >> how about the fact that he has this obsession with being a guy who had geriatric surgery in 2002. what do we learn from those that trump seems intimidated by? >> the thing is, he has long standing fused are so many people. i came home and i was telling my mom, this person is a jerk and this person is a jerk and at some point in time she's like, maybe you're the jerk. if everyone around you is terrible, maybe you need to have a self-reflection time. jerry nadler has been a public servant in new york city for over, say, three decades, so he knows that this is not just a man, but a family of grifters.

now he can zoom out and see this is a president not taking care of their dealings. this is a family enterprise and i think the frustration nadler has is being within the constraints of the judiciary. but all new yorkers know this is a grifter. all new yorkers know donald trump has been running a con on the american people for a long time. >> so the point about all new yorkers know, there are a lot of people who say donald trump is an odd man out in washington, d.c. let's play that out a little bit. to have somebody who is familiar with trump's history in that

way. >> i think it will be helpful. where trump is going to win this is exhaustion. when trump calls people names, he orders his attorney general to stone call, so me it's all part of a grand strategy to draw this out. the longer it is drawn out, people will be disappointed. when new information comes out, people will say all that hang ringing over this? that is what i worry about for nadler. this is going to take time. there are going to be a lot of insults. effectively, you have a campaign that was in communications with russian constraints. if this were any other campaign, any other time, today it's disappointing. and whenever we get this full report, whenever it comes out, i promise you it's probably going to show some sort of obstruction of justice, something like that. it will be disappointing and

that's the point. >> maybe the last question to you by the tough talk, we heard from jerry nadler talking to krn in the hallways of the capital, he wants to get this. we've seen the stonewalling already, though, the efforts from house democrats to get documents, to get information from the white house. you mentioned the treasury secretary refusing to give the tax returns to the house and ways committee. how does that background affect how he fights that? >> that's what's interesting here. we're talking about nadler versus trump. if i'm thinking about this like a prosecutor doing a case, who do i really need to figure out and really need to work with? it's the attorneys representing the defendant. i need to figure out how i can get them to compromise or give or not. nadler's opponent here, it's not so much -- it's the system. it's the fact that barr can right now say, nope, this is what i'm doing and under the

regulations, i'm allowed to do this. and nadler and schiff, they have played this very strategically. they're going to say, well, what did he give you snch ? at the end of the day, this will probably wind up in a court battle. up next, can cory booker shape his past position as a mayor to a future president? a mayor to a future president? so what does the dishwasher do? (vo) cascade platinum does the work for you. prewashing and removing stuck-on foods, the first time. (mom) wow! that's clean! (vo) cascade platinum. billions of problems. dry mouth? parched mouth? cotton mouth? there's a therabreath for you.

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cory booker is set to launch his presidential campaign today in the set where he launched his term as mayor. the latest poll has booker coming in at 3% right now while joe biden, bernie sander and pete buttigieg lead the pack. leah caldwell is with us in new york ahead of that rally. what do we know about what senator booker is going to say today, how he's going to distinguish himself from a crowded set of candidates? >> it's absolutely a crowded field. but we're in downtown newark, new jersey right now, not only

where cory booker calls home, but it's where he launched his political career. this hometown launch is supposed to be a party like atmosphere here today. we have music going at 9:30 in the morning, we have food trucks and we have some enthusiastic supporters including the justice for all t-shirts which are the theme for this campaign and this launch that he's doing and we're also here with chris. chris, are you a booker supporter? >> right now, i'm undecided. >> why are you here? >> i think it is important to go to different campaign events for other candidates to learn more about them before making a final decision. >> so chris is one of the first people here and he is a dedicated enthusiast to try to figure out if he wants to support booker. so booker is launching his two-week tour today. it's all about justice, justice for all and trying to make inroads in this crowded field, david. >> thank you great to see you. thanks to chris, as well, for

joining us on this saturday morning. that message, justice for all, you look at all of these lanes here, the road here to the nomination. how effective is he going to be at conveying that message? >> i'm a little unclear as to what the message is. so is this in the frame of anti-trump or, you know, he has to get through a primary. my larger question is, okay, great, a celebration in newark. is newark better off now than when he left it to become a senator? what happened with the money from zuckerberg? and what is the point of this campaign? if it is justice for all, what kind of justice is he speaking about? i'm fascinated with this particular candidate just because it's someone who studies say respectability politics, sometimes that pendulum can swing too far. and it's like, okay, respectable

to whom and for what? as he travels the country, if your message is love and justice, where is the possible? that's what i'm looking for. >> as you survey the field here, where does he fit. >>? you're alluding to the sugary sweetness of cory booker and as bet as he can tell, what is who he is. where does he stand when you look at all of these candidates right now? >> we're like ten months away from the first contest. so the thing i always remind people is i showed up to work for howard dean in february of 2003 for the 2004 election and joe lieberman was crushing everybody in the polls. so all this can change. >> all that said, what matters and what's important is breaking out from the back. this is why trump was so successful in 2016 was he stood out and he drove so much coverage that he left everybody else behind. i think the challenge for booker is how do i break out?

how do i distinguish myself? and i think to your point, you know, i'm going to be looking today for what is that thing that's different? what is that idea that he has that is distinct? he's young, he's the first openly gay candidate for president. these are the things that stand out. what is that thing for booker about who he is or what he's saying that will lift him out. how resonate is that going to be, what newark is today? how is that going to be as he moves to iowa and south carolina and nevada? >> you better hope it's extremely resonant because that's what he created his campaign around. >> when you talk to cory booker or you hear him out on the campaign trail, what he talks

about basically all the time is newark. he's not talking about his last four or five or six years in the u.s. senate. he talks about his years as mayor and the city councilman. the point he's trying to make is he's still of the people of new york. he still talks to his constituent these. he's still very much a member of that community. the story of new york is not necessarily a cut and dried story. there are a lot of problems. and to the new mayor who took over for him has taken himself in a different direction. if people dig into the story, there will be a lot of positive and a lot of negatives. it may be unclear, but he's still going to talk about it. coming up, we're going to talk about the collision course between steven miller and jared kushner as their disagreement spills out into public view. as spills out into public view. ♪ limu emu & doug

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kushner, miller is reportedly calling for tougher policies on the border while kushner has been working, as he so often does, on a softer bipartisan approach for months. when the tribe speaks, inhe teased the answer with talk with reporters saying yesterday about jared kushner's plan. well, we'll talk to you about it soon. i think very exciting, very important. let's talk about this dynamic. many players have fallen to the wayside. you have the president's son-in-law and the guy he's treating like one of them, you could say. it is a binary. strange dynamic between the two. why kushner is there saying he talk to 50 groups what they might find palatable. where on earth is this space for this softer plan that jared kushner is pioneering. >> it's strange in so many ways. strange that the president hired his own son-in-law.

strange he has this young man who kind of came out of nowhere and is driving all the policy and seems to be a bit of a svengali with the president. there's a space for kushner to get in. he is a survivor. any time you take on him or ivanka you lose. the other thing we can forget the president loves the chaos. i wouldn't be surprised if this is just a flare up and then they sort of settle things and they go on their way. as we were talking about earlier, the president is determined for this whole immigration issue to flare up constantly. that is his political strategy. and so it may be in his mind this is just act 17 of this drama and then next time we'll go on to something else. he'll fire somebody else or something like that. he's perfectly find with that. >> jared kushner has this wonderful veneer. he can take the hard-line approach but say jared is working on something else. >> this the season four of the

episode and ratings are flagging and let's bring back one of the original fights. >> adam is in the room right now. we can get him back. >> you're right. the idea is jared does represent something to a lot of people in washington this idea we had or they had early stages of the president he would be a moderating force. clearly that's not the case. this is a proxy for a much larger fight. because he was in some ways sort of a blank slate to a lot of republicans, there was this tug-of-war for a long time. but really there's not much evidence that kushner and miller will diverge all that much and certainly not in public when this comes to the forefront. at the end of the day the president will make a decision and put forth a policy and republicans will say this is a doesn't policy and some will not talk about it at all. democrats will say it will be terrible and then we'll talk about immigration for the next two years. there's no world in which trump

put forward a policy where democrats say and even some republicans say that's not a bad policy. >> you have steve miller but now taking on this role calling agencies making sure that the president thinks they should do. meddling with other agencies. it's steven miller unchanged. >> i mean there are definitely ethical violations going on in there. you know, i think more broadly, though, it goes back to what we were talking about in the first segment, steven miller doesn't care whether the policies he's putting forward is legal or not. that's where he and trump share this bond. >> many policies he's pioneered have been ones cut down. >> that's right. the court rulings you referred to. so, that's where that mind now comes in. the idea that jared kushner is sort of the savior of the rule of law here, talk about bizarre. this is the guy who count get a

security clearance and was overruled and has unimaginable conflict of interest and otherwise. but he's like kirstjen nielsen in this story in that maybe he understands that in order for something to actually get passed it has to fall within the bounds of law. it's a really low standard. that's what it comes back too. our standards at this point are solo that we're talking about jared kushner as the hero. >> there's an "alice in wonderland" quality here. >> you mentioned howard decean. howard dean gets tossed out because of a scream. kushner and miller gives the president some sort of racial ethnic, religious cover in the sense he has these two very prominence jewish individuals. he's constantly calling

democrats anti-semite. he can say well, you know, even though you say i'm a nationalist he can distance himself from charlottesville because he's can steven and jared. that's dangerous because as he meddles and pals around with white supremacists, white nationalists who are proud of that vein he can say no i have these two and they are upholding something different and it's not. >> what's your prescription for demonstrate at this point? the president is saying everyone is saying there's a crisis at the border. there is a humanitarian crisis. what do democrats say in reply to hat? how do they make the case this is something of the president's creation. he enabled this to happen by not having adequate judges. what are democrats saying? >> this is the quandry for

democrats. we have a moral obligation to speak out against the dehumanization of these people who are seeking to escape violence. on the other hand, we have to spend time as a party proving to people in this country, to voters we're looking out for them and their interest and not just fixated on these migrants. it's the quandry. he got to make time to do both but the president makes that really hard. >> thank you very much. up next, democratic presidential candidate cory booker sitting down with joy reid. that's coming up next on "am joy". we'll be right back. you.

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this is beyond wifi, this is xfi. simple. easy. awesome. xfinity, the future of awesome. thank you very much for watching. i'll be back tomorrow. "am joy" with joy reid starts right now. muslims who are really long time in this country have been told that there is a privilege, that there is a privilege we're given and it might be taken away. but no matter how much we have tried to be the best neighbor people have always worked on finding a way to not allow for every single civil liberty to be extended to us. >> good morning. welcome to "am joy".

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