somebody did for you. that does it for me. thank you for watching. i'll see you back here tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. eastern for a new live edition of "politicsnation." up next, "deadline: white house" with my friend and colleague, nicolle wallace. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in florida. we're on the road this afternoon when donald trump said he wanted to get tougher on immigration, many of us openly wondered what could possibly be tougher than separating families and putting children in cages. today we may have gotten our answer from the president's twitter feed, quote, due to the fact that democrats are unwilling to change our dangerous immigration laws we are indeed as reported giving strong considerations to placing illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities only. the radical left has an open borders, open arms policy so

this should make them happy. in just the last hour trump addressed the issue in front of reporters. >> we'll bring the illegals -- i call them the illegals. they came across the border illegally. we'll bring them to sanctuary city areas and let that particular area take care of it, whether it's a state or whatever it might be. california is saying we want more people, and they want more people in their sanctuary cities. we'll give them more people. we can give them a lot. we can give them an unlimited supply and let's see if they're so happy. they're always saying they have open arms. let's see if they have open arms. >> those comments a confirmation of a big scoop from "the washington post" last night which said, quote, trump administration officials have proposed transporting detained immigrants to sanctuary cities in twice in the past six months. nancy pelosi area was one they

wanted to target. according to dhs officials. the administration also considered releasing detainees in other democratic strong holds. trump's tweets today contradicting what had been the official response from the administration from that article from that very same piece, quote, a white house official and spokesman for dhs sent nearly identical statements indicating the proposal is no longer under suggestion. quote, this was a suggestion and was floated and rejected and ended any further discussion. to make matters worse that's not the only controversial plan being kicked around at the white house at the moment. new, exclusive reporting from nbc indicating that the administration, quote, discussed increasing the u.s. military's involvement in the border mission, including whether the military could be used to build tent city detention camps for migrants. according to three u.s. officials familiar with the conversation.

that's where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. annie carney, white house correspondent for "the new york times," chuck rosen who worked on the staff of robert mueller and james comey of the fbi, julie ainsley and the reverend al sharpton, host of "politicsnation" here on msnbc. and donny deutsche is in the house. boy, do we need him here today. let's start with the president wanting to use the military in a way that's so outside the norm, outside the main stream that it causes all of us to explain a term to our viewers. take us through what you and kortney are reporting today. >> that's right. so a term we can all use today, the act that keeps the military for enforcing domestic law. we can think of a lot of reasons

throughout human history about why you wouldn't want your military to be used in a way like a police force. they couldn't be used to interact with immigrants. but it has been floated at the white house in recent weeks the idea of using military to build tent cities to hold more migrants. and there's been some conversations about using them to run the detention camps which would be in violation of that law. however, it is somewhat legal -- or it is legal to use them in a construction purpose. they think this is a way they could get these places up and running more quickly than going through the typical procurement process where you have to get a contract and go through the bidding process. you can use people on the ground. we know there are thousands of troops on the border doing construction projects, putting wire over fencing and doing other things to secure the border. if you put them in the places where they are running the

camps, then you are in violation of that law. it's been said and we've seen over and over again as this administration tries to go tougher, the ideas, even though they're illegal, they're starting to stick. it's important we go over everything that comes up, even if it seems like it wouldn't stand up in a court of law. because we never know what the president might try. >> even though they're illegal, they're starting to stick. i have to ask you to under score that, because it's a remarkable statement, commentary of where we are in donald trump's hard line and seemingly questionable legal immigration policies. >> anyone connecting the dots on what we heard this week can make that assessment. earlier this week we know one of the reasons that kirstjen nielsen was pushed out as homeland security secretary because she said you can't reinstate family separation because you would go against court orders excels the

executive order that the president signed himself. the excellent reporting from "the washington post" about sanctuary cities. someone within the administration told nbc news, told jacob soboroff, you can't do that because it's so illegal. using troops to interact with immigrants, that's illegal. but we've seen the administration take steps already that are illegal. like trying to limit asylum seekers from claiming asylum if they enter the border illegally. that's something that they've tried before and it gets stopped in court. it doesn't seem to stop them from trying. maybe because they're looking to be tough on immigration they're not looking to be practical. they're pushing out people who are putting a check on what is practical and legal. that's why we saw the decapitation of the homeland security department this week. >> annie carney, "the new york times" quickly

matching that post story today. and reporting on secretary nielsen's role in all of that. take us through what you know. >> the story we just published online as i've been sitting here, describes a comment that the president made at the border on his visit to calexico last week, where he was chafing against secretary nielsen's advice that he can't shut the border because it could be considered illegal. he turned to her replacement in a private conversation and said just do it, if there's a problem with the legality i'll pardon you. we heard it from three different officials. everyone was stunned by this comment and there was some concern about was he joking, which is often the case with the president, that's how he talks, but the comment stunned a lot of people that he actually has backed off the threat to shut

the border but privately he's pushing his top aides to do so. and this was an issue he was upset with nielsen about that she wasn't willing to do it. >> we have spent 22 months talking about donald trump as a subject of the investigations into russian interference and whether or not he obstructed justice. one of the big issues was his use or questions about his use of pardons. here if p we look at pardons as a practice or tool, which you have just broken if i understand what you're reporting right now, a story that says he promised someone he would pardon someone if it was illegal. take us through again the reaction. did anyone in the room say i'm not going to break the law, mr. president, even with a pardon assured and guaranteed from you? >> it wasn't in a room. it was a private one on one conversation at the border. i think the way the conversation

was relayed was complete like stunned. so i think there was not any -- it's not really clear what happens here. because it's not clear what the legal issues are with shutting the border, it's not clear what he means by shut the border. it doesn't mean that anyone would end up in jail if they followed through and would need a pardon. but it speaks to how the president wants to skirt the legalities that stand in his way and speaks to how he likes these uni lateral powers of the presidency like pardons. and it shows how he's increasingly anxious about the images of asylum seekers coming over the borders. the numbers, from people i talked to at the white house, he's panicked about the situation. and this idea of invoking a pardon struck everyone as bizarre. >> bizarre and remarkable.

your byline is on this story. i was just handed a copy and i will read some of it for our viewers. trump's message to homeland security official, close the border despite an earlier promise of a delay. president trump urged kevin mcaleenan to close the southwestern border despite saying he was delaying a decision on that step for a year, according to three people briefed about the conversation. it was not clear what mr. trump met by his request or comment that he would pardon if he encountered any problems with the action. federal judges have blocked the administration's attempts to limit asylum seekers who enter the country, and it's not likely that mr. mcaleenan would have ended in jail. if he had followed the president's driktive. one of the people briefed on the conversation said it was unclear if mr. trump intended the comments as a joke. can you just underscore how

these sort of reactions came through to all of you. it was a one-on-one meeting as you were describing. but there has to be a sense that even people that share his philosophical views that the situation at the border is an emergency and he surrounded himself with people who are not necessarily focussed on the humanitarian tragedy at the border. even among those people, and he seems to have weeded everybody else out of the homeland security department, it seems you have three people briefed about this conversation and they're alarmed, and this is beyond the rule of law. >> i don't want to get into sourcing and who confirmed the story for us, but, yes, it's -- it was -- the comment was met with widespread alarm and wondering if he's joking. which again, a comment like this, i mean, this is a problem with trump all the time.

that's just how he talks. but i think it's indicative of him looking at a property and wanting to get around any of the legal obstacles that could stand in his way to fix it, because he thinks this is a real threat to him, this border issue and immigrants flooding into this country which relates to the sanctuary city story we were talking about, this is a small nugget in the bigger picture of how he's dealing with the issue. >> chuck rosenberg, this is a three-part -- it would seem three dominos have fallen in this story since late last night, "the washington post" reporting about his desire to release human beings into sanctuary city as some sort of pawn in his political battle of immigration. julia ainsley's superb reporting about how he wants to use the military in effect as human toy soldiers to carry out his

political goals on immigration. and now ann's reporting about dangling a pardon. we have talked about his lurches towards authoritarianism, these seem like three examples that have been brought to us by the times, the post, and nbc news in the last 12 hours, what's going on? >> i don't know precisely what's going on? but i can tell you this, historically pardons were an act of compassion and mercy. we have been talking for the last 22 months about pardons as an act of obstruction of justice and evidence of intent. now it seems, according to the times reporting and i can't wait to read it, that pardons are also a projection of presidential power in a policy-making role. and that's hard for me to comprehend.

it just doesn't fit with anything i ever knew about presidential authority or how presidents use pardons, as i said, for mercy and compassion. can i make one other point about sanctuary cities? >> please. >> so from a law enforcement perspective, i'm not an immigration expert but from a law enforcement perspective, it's often the case that our most vulnerable populations, right, include members of the immigrant communities. they come from countries like el salvador or honduras or guatemala where local police agencies aren't good and can't be trusted. criminals know that, and we don't want criminals preying on the most vulnerable people in society. so we need to encourage people to come forward to law enforcement as victims, witnesses, what they've seen. so the theory behind sanctuary

cities if you come forward, report yourself to someone in your city, you're not going to get turned into immigration and deported. i'm not making an argument per se for sanctuary cities, but i'm trying to explain why we need our immigrant community to be comfortable with law enforcement and to be willing to come forward. so the notion you would punish sanctuary cities for taking this approach strikes me as crazy. >> i don't want to rush through these three stories because they're under one topic and one bucket of mayhem created by the president. we've talked about sanctuary cities, pardons, but i want to get you on the record about pushing the laws of what the military is allowed to do legally. your thoughts? >> we were very careful of this had, particularly when i ran the dea. there are things the military can do to help, in terms of surveillance perhaps but we want to be careful in this country to

not have them -- the military directly involved in law enforcement. so this notion that we are pushing on the borders -- no pun intended -- on the boundaries of what is legal and illegal in this country deeply disturbs me. what i told the men and women in law enforcement with whom i worked is that you don't want to get close to the line. you don't want to see the line. you want to be far enough away from the line where you don't need to be pardoned for some official act that you've taken. that's just a crazy notion, nicole. so i don't know precisely what we've asked the military to do. i can tell you from a law enforcement perspective that we were very, very clear that there had to be a division in our labor and that law enforcement was not permitted into -- i'm sorry that the military was not permitted into a law enforcement role, at least not a traditional one. >> rev, i've heard you speak eloquently on some of these

stories, but if you could put them together as a window into donald trump's complete abdication of seeing the state as anything separate from his sort of personal political agenda, his personal ideological playing field on which to exercise pardons, use the military how he wants, punish cities that don't vote with him -- your thoughts on all of this today, rev? >> i think this is a stunning display of his flagrant disregard of the law and of his duties as president. let's remember now, we are within days of the mueller report being released, whatever they decide comes out. in the midst of all of this, he's going to talk about pardons. we're not talking about a regular president now.

we're talking about a president that's in the midst of multiple investigations where his misuse, potential misuse of pardons is a subject. why would he bring that up other than he does not regard the law as something he has to abide by, and to even suggest that -- and i agree with chuck. when pardons are supposed to be about mercy and compassion, not supposed to be about something that the president directed you to do illegally. we're talking about, i'm telling you to do something illegal and i'm going to pardon you. which means the law is not the law, it's what i decide. then to use migrants, some of whom are running from criminal behavior from threat, from all kinds of things done to them, to use them as political pawns to punish people that govern sanctuary cities or sanctuary areas, i'm going to punish them but then i'm going to use these

as pawns, as chips i can use to make a political statement. a columnist in dallas tweeted something that resonates with me. he said, it reminds me of when the freedom writers were writing in the south during the '60s around segregation and people in the south were saying we're going to get black families to move north as a vengeance to those coming out of the north during the freedom riots. this smells of the same theory and practice but what is so damaging nicole, it's coming from the president of the united states. there's nothing funny or joking about this. >> rev, i want to follow-up with you. we've been on the set together for days where he called african nations bleep hole countries, you've been on set after charlottesville, we talked about his language of immigrants and communities of colors. if you put these three pieces together, moving immigrants into

the communities and districts of his political enemies, it seems to be the height or the culmination of what we've now seen for many, many months, the dehumanization of people here illegally. jeb bush described them coming here as an act of love. donald trump moving his with white house and republican party so far to the left he had to purge the entire leadership of the department of homeland security. how do we get out of this place we're in, rev? >> we have to first bring to the american public we're talking about human beings, children and their parents. we're talking about using the military against the law and their oath as law enforcement here.

and at some point we've got to say, as dehumanizing as the president behaves, that is not what this country is supposed to stand for, nor is it what we allow even the president to do. i'm going to close down the border, it's illegal but i'll pardon you. i'll use my military as my law enforcement agents to pay back my political enemies. and i'm going to use babies as pawns in my particular politics. this is not what this country should stand for and the cities of this country, republican and democrat, shouldn't tolerate it. >> donny, go. >> you can sense from florida my head is going to explode, right? >> yeah. >> i want to pick up where the rev left off. i was so sad today and i want to talk not as a political guy. as a dad, an american, human.

nicole you used the word human a few times. i said to myself today, how could anybody, how could a president behave this way when we're talking about children -- give me 40 seconds for this -- because the only explanation is he's a sociopath. these are the traits, never recognize the right of others and see their behaviors as permissible, the victim is merely an instrument to be used, no remorse, shame or guilt, they don't see others around them as people only targets and opportunities. instead of friends they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. they're callous and have no lack of empathy. they're unable to feel the pain of their victims. and readily taking advantage of them. they believe they're all powerful, all knowing. no concern for others. he's talking about taking babies and nancy pelosi, you don't want illegals, here they are. all of us came from somewhere. my ancestors, people are fleeing to this country, they're not coming here going we're going to steal from people. they're trying to get away as being sex victims, enslaved just like my ancestors came to get away from hitler. we have to be out raged.

and combination of no sense of humanity, what is he capable of doing at the expense of humans for his own needs and to bend any law, any institution to get there is the scary formula that has brought out the worst times in history. and there starts to need to be fear and outrage and not just analysis. >> donny, i have to just give the disclaimer we can't diagnose him here, but i appreciate your thoughts. i share your fear and your outrage, ann, i want to give you the last word with your giant scoop. we appreciate it when a person

sits down and hits send on a story like that. any sense that offering someone a pardon who has sort of that last crew standing after this giant purge of 2019 at the department of homeland security has further destabilized what feels like a fluid and shaky management structure at whoever is left running dhs? >> that's a good question. i don't know if it does that. i think it shows what the president expects of nielsen's successor, i think it shows what her -- what she would bring up to him, you can't do that, i can't do that because it's illegal didn't really move him and is not the kind of answer he wants to hear and he'll think of a way to get around it. i think it puts the pressure on -- i trip over his last name, kevin -- can you help me out? >> i have for the last 20 minutes. >> i think it puts the pressure on him because like what do you do when the president is saying, don't worry about the law, i'll issue a pardon.

so i think it could be destabilizing to him and how he follows through and doesn't fall in the same trap that nielsen fell into. in some ways it's a thankless position in the administration as many are. dhs is also a huge agency that does many other things that the president doesn't care about. another issue is nielsen was speaking at a security conference in munich that he didn't understand what she was doing there, and why she wasn't on the sunday shows and at the border. it's almost a thankless job in this administration. the pressure is on him. >> it's an incredible scoop. we're glad to have you with or without the scoop but we're glad to have you with the story landing. when we come back, on the eve of the release of one of the most anticipated investigations in history, a moment when the attorney general can use all the credibility he can muster he trots out a conspiracy theory, how will that impact the climate of distrust in the mueller report.

and mayor pete goes toe to toe with the vice president on faith. and ivanka trump is good with numbers so said her dad who was thinking about putting her in charge of the world bank but was afraid of nepotism charges. all that coming up. searchers. pursuing life-changing cures in a country that fosters innovation here, they find breakthroughs... like a way to fight cancer by arming a patient's own t-cells... because it's not just about the next breakthrough... it's all the ones after that. plants capture co2. what if other kinds of plants captured it too? if these industrial plants had technology that captured carbon like trees

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between the american people and an obstruction of justice investigation so damming mueller's team insisted on stressing it didn't exonerate trump and the reality is so alarm to democrats on capitol hill that they've taken the steps of questioning barr's loyalties, democratic leadership writing a joint letter to barr that reads, quote, your testimony raises questions about your independence, appears to per pep chait a narrative designed to undermine the work of the special counsel and serves to continue the attacks on the justice department and the fbi. we reknew our request to work together prior to any release to ensure that congress receives all the report and the underlying evidence. joining the conversation betsy woodruff and rick stengel. betsy, let me start with you. a lot of questions about why barr said what he said. but today a realization setting in that even barr might miss

some of the credibility we squandered this week by peddling what robert costa said by peddling a line so far to the right of this investigation that the freedom caucus members were surprised to hear it. >> that's right. i can tell you there was significant anger and frustration within the fbi when barr made this spying comment because it essentially, you know, demonizes the work the bureau does to engage in its law enforcement mission. barr's comment frustrated people within the intelligence community who heard it as a way of trying to compare the work that they do with sort of cloak and dagger james bond movie type commentary. rod rosenstein, of course, has taken some heat over the last 24 to 48 hours for defending barr's basic approach to handling the mueller probe but there's a difference between the way he handled these accusations of

spying and the way barr did. a big part of rod rosenstein's legacy once he concludes his time as deputy attorney general is going to be the fact that he fought tooth and nail with republicans on capitol hill to keep them from getting all the materials that they wanted involving the mueller probe. the view in the justice department, of course, is that congressional republicans wanted those materials not necessarily just out of pure motives regarding oversight but also potentially to, in some way, hinder the investigations that were ongoing.

rosenstein, to my knowledge, i'm not aware of any time rosenstein used the word spying to describe judicially authorized surveillance the way that bill barr did. having barr be the person who's the new face of the justice department's management of the way the russia investigation finally closes up, shows that there's definitely going to be a change and potentially tougher relationships between fbi headquarters and main justice. >> chuck rosenberg, explain this to me. they are about to release the most politically charged report in recent doj history. if there's something this consequential that's come out of doj in recent months or years, i can't think of what it is. they're about to do that. they need all the credibility they can muster if they're going to redact a word. we know they're going to redact more than that. the sitting attorney general throws the deputy attorney general, who's out yesterday for reasons still a mystery for me, spinning as fast as he can for barr. it's his signature on the fisa reauthorizations that barr said amount to spying occurring on the trump campaign. what's going on? what's going through -- what is rod rosenstein doing? >> i can't imagine he's very happy right now, nicole.

remember bang when michael cohen had his home and office and hotel room searched by the fbi? we spoke on your show about why words matter so much, calling it a raid connotes one thing calling it a court authorized search warrant really connotes another. jim comey had it spot on the other day, this is court ordered surveillance. spying has a different connotation. i cannot, for the life of me, understand what the attorney general is trying to connote by calling it spying. maybe he made a mistake, maybe he misspoke, maybe it was reckless but maybe it was intentional. if it was that last thing, if it was intentional, that's deeply, deeply troubling to me. the fbi does not spy on americans. they receive authorizations from courts to conduct surveillance. by the way, nicolle, to your point it's the attorney general

of the united states who every morning in his office authorizes those warrants to go to the fisa court where they're reviewed by article 3 independent federal judges who then sign them. so this is a mystery to me. >> you know what, i just want to try to pin you down because i've been asking this question for three days now. and former national security and law enforcement officials tell me that spying isn't a word that law enforcement officials use amongst themselves, it's not a word cia officials used, it's a word they used to describe hostile adversaries, like the chinese spying on the president at mar-a-lago. we would never use the word spying. the only people that use that word are donald trump, devin nunes and sean hannity. so how did that word end up in his lexicon in talking about the origins of the russia investigation? >> you're not going to have a difficult time pinning me down on this, nicole, because i agree with you completely.

in all my years in law enforcement, many spent on the national side of law enforcement, i have never heard the term spying applied to what we do. we do, to reiterate, court authorized, court ordered, electronic surveillance or physical surveillance or execute search warrants with court permission. we do not spy. and so, whatever he might have been thinking, it sends a terrible message. and i know betsy's reporting is right. folks at the fbi, folks in the intelligence community are deeply troubled by this characterization of their work. i'd love to hear from the attorney general of the united states what he was thinking, because i cannot figure it out. >> julia ainsley, we don't know if he's still thinking about accusing american law enforcement, intelligence agencies of spying but we doe do know they're likely putting the

finishing touches on their black redactions, how's that going or the timing of what we're expected to see in the mueller report next week? >> well, nicolle, all bets are on next week. although i think friday is out, we've done salk lagss that william barr is a catholic so good friday might be out of the possibility of a time we will see it released. but he did say within a week. so reporters here are still here around the clock, waiting for something. it's just as tense, i would say actually even more tense, then when we were waiting to find out that mueller had concluded his report and would be bringing it to the justice department. it's so important to see what comes out because as chuck and others have pointed out, this ultimately does fall to -- does fall to william barr, because of the rewriting of the special counsel regulations after kenneth starr in the '90s put so much on william barr. and it seemed from his testimony this week that he would welcome

a court fight before he would voluntarily unredact anything he thinks falls into one of those four categories that he thinks needs to be redacted. he has underlined in the past that he's working with rod rosenstein as he goes through this and working with mueller's office. of course, working with rod rosenstein makes us throw up our hands because it's hard to figure out at this point where rod rosenstein stands. does he agree with barr that perhaps there was unauthorized surveillance or is he on the side of the rod rosenstein who signed the fisa documents in the first place? so a lot of questions, but our money is on next week for us to try to get this redacted version of the report, and then we'll see where the court fight goes after that. >> betsy let me give you the last word what we're likely to see on the obstruction of justice report, which would appear from the tea leaves we're able to leave, may be the most fullsome side of the report, there's a lot of interviews with

white staffers, reporting on the president's conduct, barr illuding to the fact that the president's reputation wouldn't be taken into consideration and he said in the past he would make decisions about privilege. any sense -- i've been told that laid out chronologically marshalling the evidence of obstruction which we know is there from barr's letter it could be devastating to this president. >> there shouldn't be anything classified when it comes to questions about obstruction of justice. because just the act of the president trying to tell the doj to hold its fire on particular

investigations should not fall under any sort of classification level. one of the biggest questions involving the obstruction of justice portion of the report is going to be how much we get from don mcghan, the former white house counsel. we know he cooperated extensively over numerous interview sessions with mueller's team, spoke for hours and hours with his investigators. coming up -- we will take you inside a 2020 squirmish that may tell us a lot about what candidate's ability to mix it up with the trump/pence ticket. heading into retirement you want to follow your passions

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mayor pete buttigieg will officially kick off his 2020

presidential campaign this weekend, and it looks like mayor pete's ability to engage the vice president in a debate about faith and equality may be helping to fuel a surge in early polls. in the latest iowa poll he's ranked third behind joe biden and bernie sanders. he's making his current splash in a debate with the vice president over an issue of gay rights and religion. pence weighed in on their clash this morning. >> i've known mayor pete for many years we worked closely together when i was governor and considered him a friend. and he knows i don't have a problem with him. >> he argues that your quarrel is with him as a gay man and that he says, i was born this way and this is the way god made me. that's not your belief? >> i think pete's quarrel's with the first amendment. >> how so? >> all of us in the country have the right to our religious beliefs. >> it's what the vice president does with that faith that mayor pete takes issue with.

as he told ellen degeneres. >> i'm not critical of his faith. i'm critical of bad policies. i don't have a problem with religion. i'm religious too. i have a problem with it being used as a base to harm people, especially in the lgbtq community. i'm not interested in feuding with the vice president. if he wanted to clear it up, he could come out and say it shouldn't be legal to discriminate against anybody in this country for who they are. that's all. joining the conversation kimberly atkins. rick stengel let me start with you, though, and ask you, we've been watching mayor pete, i made my admiration for some of his early moves around hot button polarizing issues in the press

clear. he seems to have baited the vice president into a debate that, in my view, he's winning. >> i think you're right about that, nicolle. the secret of presidential politics we don't vote for candidates based on their policy, we vote for candidates based on how they make us feel. part of mayor pete's draw is how he makes people feel about being an american. talking about religion in a way we talk about the constitution. martin luther king said the constitution is a promissory note that hasn't been fulfilled. pete is saying it's about how we feel. about our brothers and sisters, and we don't always act in that way. and that's how he's critical of the vice president not because of his religious beliefs but because of how he's acting on it. particularly with the democratic party when barack obama got the

nomination in 2016, it's the rhetoric they're using. and mayor pete is using a rhetoric that talks about the potential of america and makes people feel good about america and that's why he makes people feel good in the polls. >> he's also doing something unobvious. the obvious play would be to bat at the biggest, blondest pinata, which is donald trump. but he went forbe pence, which i think is interesting. what do you think? >> i think this is an amazing product. i'm going to call him a product, a brand for a second. when you look at the brand attributes, he's a road scholar, harvard, afghan vet, gay, religious, traditional in the way he lives his life and obviously brilliant. there's two paths for him and he's going to do both that i think is important as a candidate. he's the only one that has both of them. on the one hand this country is ready for a little nice.

there's such a vish chul meanness, division, but yet you need strength to beat donald trump. sometimes nice and strong don't go in the same sentence. what i see in this young man, because he's a vet, because of the way he carries himself, there is strength and confidence, but wrapped in the this i can argue with you and fight with you and do it in almost a laser like way but it's still two people talking and that's what this country is looking for. this guy has the right stuff. the fact he's at 9 or 11% already after a couple town halls. we know that's cumulative, the more you rise in the poll, the more attention you get, and those numbers go up. it's early on but if i'm looking at a shelf of candidates and looking at the detergent that is pete buttigieg, that's got some extra fabric softener in it, i'll tell you. >> we just put a poll up if you're in your car, it had biden, sanders, mayor pete in the top three spots but i want to ask you about the next two, kamala harris and elizabeth warren coming in.

they're not making as big of a splash, but it's my understanding they're making inroads, one can argue in meaningful ways in these battleground states, infrastructure, campaign fund-raising. what do you make on our take of this early snapshot? >> the key word in what you said is early. i keep reminding folks that this far out in previous presidential election cycles we were talking about people like rudy giuliani and scott walker and jeb bush. and we know how those turned out. so it is still very early. but at the same time, yes, i think it is certainly not in any way, time to call out or count out some of the other candidates, including senator harris and senator warren. you see a lot of energy around that. actually, it's interesting the more folks talk about mayor pete

buttigieg, the more others talk about he's talking on policy, he's saying the same things as senator harris or senator warren in a lot of ways and he's still getting much more attention. attention. there is a lot of energy for them at this point. i think that they are garnering the attention. they're taking different paths. senator warren is very policy focused. she's bringing out policies, specifics when she talks on the ground to people and trying to connect with voters that way. senator harris is trying to build a very inclusive round of support. she talks to people of different communities regardless of what state she's in, even when she's in new hampshire or iowa, which are not really -- diversity is not the first thing you think of when you think of those states. she's reaching out to them. they're using different ways to reach and garner that support. so i think it's still early, but you can't count anybody out yet. >> so much more to say about this bursting field of 2020

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we're back. mayor pete, i know he wowed you last week at your conference, but this idea of others who have chosen a different path, senators harris and warren taking more of a policy path than a ground game. what do you make of this early snapshot of the field? >> you know, i think that one of the things that mayor buttigieg has done that's very wise is by bringing this debate about the governor -- former governor, now vice president pence, reminds americans that there was the baker case that went all the way up in the courts about baker having the right to deny gays getting served by him was in indiana with pence on the side of the bias there. so we're not talking about someone that can now do an

interview and say i believe in everybody's rights when he fought against that case. because if you can fight that a baker has a right to say i'm not serving gays, next he'll say blacks, next he'll say browns. that is a very serious issue that i think mayor pete brought up that is going to resonate and come back and haunt the vice president. i also think that he has skills, i'm talking about the mayor now. i saw him at our convention at the national action network. he was dealing with hundreds of black activists, civil rights workers and browns and provision whites. when they came out they were polite. when he left they were standing and clapping. he worked the crowd. i never thought that he would be able to do so. so i think he has skills. i think kamala harris has done the same in other areas. i judge political figures and public figures by when you can go into areas that is not your regular area, it's not your

sweet spot, it's not your cheering crowd, and you get respected and in some cases enthusiasm. and i've seen the two of them do that. i know it's early, but sometime in a boxing match if you win the first three or four rounds you're at least ahead, even in a ten-round fight. >> he does something, to go back to what you both were saying, that i think america wants right now. donald trump as political scientists will say was the first declinist in american history to win the presidency. that is the first person to say america is getting worse, the american dream is over. that used to be the death knell of a candidate. now mayor pete and the others are speaking to our better angels of our nature. they're saying the future is better than the past. that will be a very compelling message to so many americans against that declinist vision of donald trump, which is a harsh vision. he's making america worse day by day. >> great point. >> we're going to sneak in a

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in the neighborhood. my thanks to kim, rick, the rev and donnie and to all of you for watching, thank you so much. that does it for our hour. cruel and unusual punishment. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. remember how president trump said a week ago he was going to get tougher on immigrants? since then he's decapitated the leadership of his department of homeland security for not implementing his hard line policies and now he's found another way to air his frustrations. this time embracing a plan to use migrants, detain migrants as pawns to retaliate against his political enemies. "the washington post" first reported the proposal noting