broadcast on a tuesday night. thank you so much for being here with us. good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. this morning, the white house war on oversight. the trump administration is reportedly planning to fight a subpoena for don mcgahn to testify before congress. a clash over security clearances is escalating. and we still haven't seen the president's tax returns. in the wake of the deadly easter sunday bombings in sri lanka, the death toll has risen to 350 people. and over 50 have reportedly been arrested. and the wait may soon be over. joe biden is expected to officially enter the 2020 race tomorrow. ♪

good morning, everybody. it is wednesday, april 24th. in the words of one house democrat, quote, it is like a curtain has fallen over the white house. as the trump administration enters a legal show downwith do lawmakers less than a week after the muellerdo report is release. three committees are facing threeit acts of defiance. overnight, president trump vowing to fight a subpoena of his former white house counsel, don mcgahn. this, after another armer offici former official, not to comply with an oversight committee subpoena. all while steve mnuchin is delaying the irs from complying with a deadline for the

president's tax returns. nancy pelosi said trump's actions are not just against a political party but in defiance of the constitution. >> we now see the administration engaged in stonewalling of the facts coming to the american people. article one of the legislative branch, spelled out in the constitution, the power of overnight over other branches of government. the right to know. >> hours after anonymous sources to told "washington post," the president himself went on the record, telling robert costa he believes additional testimony, it's unnecessary. i allowed my lawyers and all the people tors go and testify to mueller. and you know how i feel about that whole group of people who did the mueller report. i was to transparent. i fully understand that at the beginning, i had my choice. trump added of his decision to

allow his aides to testify as part of mueller's proebe. >> "new york times" reporting that " last year, that when mueller asked to interview don mcgahn, to the surprise of the office, they had no exception, without knowing the extent of what mr. mcgahn was going to tell investigators. and jerry nadler said, because the subpoena covered the topics that mcgahn talked about in the report, the moment for the white house to assert some privilege to prevent this testimony from being heard has long since passed. and the house oversight moving forward, holding an extrump official in contempt. after karl klein says the white house ordered him not to comply, through which jared kushner received access to the most

sensitive intelligence information,iv despite objectio to career administrators. in a letter dated monday, the deputy counsel says klein should not appear. kline's lawyer sent his own letter. he said, that he would jeopardize his own job if he defied the white house. elijah cummings, head of the oversight committee, said, it's a pattern. >> this administration has used every means necessary to block the congress from getting the information that we need to do our job. not only are they blocking witnesses from coming forward, they have not given us one document upon our request. and the treasury department has missed a second

congressional deadline to turn over six years of president trump's tax returns to congress. the house ways and means committee asked that the documents be turned over by april 10th. when that did not happen, the committee moved the deadline to april 23rd, yesterday. but instead of turning over tax returns, steve mnuchin wrote a letter to richard neal. the department cannot provide you with what you are asking. we expect to provide the committee with a final decision by may 6th. chairman neal responded saying he would be consulting with council about his next steps. he did not indicate if that would include a southbound ubpo lawsuit. joining me now for "the hill,"

nile stanich. let's talk about the authority of the president or lack thereof. does he have the authority to keep these aides from testifying, like don mcgahn, in front of congress? >> it's highly debatabldebatabl. some of the comments you have plaid reflect that. congress has a legitimate oversight rule here. the fact that the president is stop his aides from testifying is dubious. when someone like don mcgahn, executive privilege was not ate asserted when he spoke to mr. mueller. but now, it's asserted? you can't avoid that stance. >> let's talk about karl klein, involved in the clearances. his job is being threatened, per se, if he were to testify in front of congress, that his job

at the pentagon could be threatened. is this an overstep by the president? >>rs it will sound like it to vy many people. i don't think president trump particularly cares. he sees his relationship with employees of the administration, as a feudal lord whom they should pay homage. this will look like an oversight and step, and will play into the hands of people critical of the president, that he can behave in almost a mobster-like fashion. >> i have to imagine that when it gets to the level of threats, that your job is being thre threaten threatened, if you were to testify in front of congress, that has to be an issue that needs to be addressed going forward, especially when it comes from the president of the

united states. i'm going to talk to you, again, nile. in the webake of the bombin in sri lanka, the number of dead keeps rising. there'ss 359. an additional 18 suspects were also raised overnight. raising the number of people to 58. sri lanka's prime minister noted that several suspects are at large and may be armed with explosives. isis is showing images, declaring their loyalty to the terror group. but has produced no evidence. investigators believe the attacks were in retaliation for the recent christchurch mosque dealings that covered 50 people. new zealand officials say they are not able to confirm this connection.y

kim jong-un has arrived in russia ahead of his summit with vladimir putin. he told russian state-owned media that he is hoping for a successful and useful visit. he would like to discuss bilateral discussions failed. and joe biden could jump into the democratic primary field as soon as tomorrow. two sources close to biden confirmed to nbc news, that the former vice president plans to announce his run on thursday morning, with the release of an online video. he's going to travel to pittsburgh on monday, for an event at a local union falhall. then, he plans to go to iowa, new hampshire, south carolina and nevada. he will enter the race with a

huge fund-raising disadvantage. "the new york time "the new york times" writes that opposing his leading opponent,, bernie sanders who faces $26 million, biden will enter the raceil with zero dollars. he would have to raise $100,000 every day until christmas, to match sanders' fund-raising totals as of april. and larry hogan says he is considering a run in 2020, challenging president trump. he spoke about his potential bid while at new hampshire's mritds a politics and eggs. >>li a lot of people have been approaching me since my inauguration last january. people have asked me to give this consideration. owe it to those people to do just that. and that's what i'm doing. i'm listening. i'm coming to new hampshire.

listening to people is part of that process. i've been to ten states in the past few months. i have 16 more on my schedule. i said this before, i'm not going to launch a suicide mission. still ahead, the u.s. has file ed criminal charges agains drug company executives. we're going to talk to dani savolos. and wall street reached a closing eye. we'll talk about what's driving the markets. and a check of weather, when we come back. d a check of weather, when we come back

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executives, they've been formally criminally charged with illegally distributing tens of millions of unnecessary dosages of oxycodone and others across the country. prosecutors are alleging that rdc then convealed the red flag orders from the food and drug administration, reporting only about four of 8300 potentially suspicious orders over a four-year span under the direction of management as company profits soared. four, everybody. as part of the settlement, rdc has agreed to pay a $20 million fine which i imagine is a drop in the bucket for them. and will be aalthou allowed to continue to operate. both face a minimum of ten years in prison. joining me on set, nbc legal analyst danny cevallos. this is the first of its kind. it took prosecutors years in new york to get this thing

together. why has it been so difficult to hold these pharmaceutical companies accountable for a crisis that is plaguing this country and just killing thousands and thousands of people every year? >> because if opioids weren't so dangerous, they'd be the gre greatest product in the history of commerce. they're the kind of product for which there is infinite demand. the problem is -- >> because of its addictive nature. >> there's probably the most addictive, there's nothing more -- as a criminal attorney, it's more and more every day the scourge of the criminal justice system, defendants who are there bog of drug addiction and not because they're fundamentally evil people. but to answer your question, because this is a business, a huge business, a gigantic industry, the drug industry, the wholesalers and manufacturers

traditionally weren't part of the transaction that was illegal. not too long, these pill mills, the pharmacies could say, hey, a doctor wrote the script so what the heck. >> let's look at purdue pharma. you had those covering up about the addictive nature of these opioids. which has me scratching my head once again, the evidence has been there for quite some time, about the opioid crisis. about the amount of people losing their lives because of it. about the addictive nature of these opioids. and about how these executives and families are making so much money off of these opioids. and yet, they're not being held accountable. $20 million for a pharmaceutical company? that's not a big settlement? $270 million for purdue pharma? that's not even a big settlement for them. >> the controlled substance act requires these companies do a certain amount of due diligence. but the magic words is what we

call in the law willful blindness. look, we've got orders, the orders are from pharmacies. the prescriptions are written by doctors. but the controlled substance act requires more. it requires them to make sure they're not giving these drugs to pill mills. and to make sure their customers are following the law. the problem is, and reality in business, is if it makes you less money to police your customers, a lot of companies don't have incentive but now they do. >> they have innocecentive beca people are losing their lives. danny, i don't mean to me -- >> i'll go tell them. >> all right. let's check in with bill karins. >> the dallas-ft. worth area, it's been a tough night of sleeping. torrential rains and active storms for really the last couple hours-here's a close-up

view. here's dallas-ft. worth. now in hillsborough, a pretty good thunderstorm wednesday over top of you. maybe hail for you. flash flooding, five inches of rain north of dallas and northeast section of dallas county. here's a wider view of the entire region. the line of storms are starting to sag to the south a little bit. it has weakened. there's still lightning with it. eventually, this mess will make its way to austin, an antonio, houston. we have 10 million people under flash flood watches. that's because we've had two or three days of one thunderstorm action to another. this will shift to the south. later on this afternoon, conditions are ripe from lake charles, louisiana, all of the southern portions of texas. all the way back down to corpus christi by tonight. we should see 14 million at risk for seeing severe weather. we could see very large hail. isolated tornadoes with the

threat. as far as the forecast on the east coast, we're waiting for the rain to get here. it's going to take its sweet time. d.c., instead of, atlanta, florida looks good. northeast, a little chilly, 60s. we'll take it. then on thursday, eventually some of that rain from texas makes it into areas of the southeast. we give dallas and san antonio a break. then friday, just like last friday, up and down the east coast. showers and thunderstorms. doesn't look like severe weather like last weekend. but if you're traveling on the east coast on friday, be prepared for slowdowns on the roads and airport delays. that should clear out, yasmin, looking at a nice saturday. >> my 2 1/2-year-old has his first soccer lesson saturday. >> start 'em young. >> start them young. he's got his cleats, too. >> they make cleats for 2 year olds? >> they do, actually. s&p and record-closing highs as wall street celebrated strong quarterly profits from some of

the largest publicly traded companies such as coca-cola and twitter. more than 78% of the s&p companies that reported earnings surpassed expectations. yesterday's gains come just months after a sharp decline that led the s&p to its worse annual performance since 2008 but as u.s. and china talks are improving stocks are quickly turning around. still ahead, everybody, the interior department launches an investigation into potential ethic violations among members of its own staff. the details of that probe coming up next. a product of mastery. lease the 2019 es 350 for $389 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.

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and help keep you active and well-rested. because hey, tomorrow's coming up fast. nature's bounty. because you're better off healthy. welcome back. former trump campaign chair paul manafort has been transferred to a federal prison will he will serve the remainder of his 7 1/2-year sentence. manafort is being held in a high-security wing outside of scranton, pennsylvania, according to a spokesperson for the prison. he pled guilty and was convicted of multiple instances of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy last year. manafort is scheduled to be released on december 25th, 2024. and six of president trump's interior department appointees are under investigation for potentially violating federal ethics rules. the office of deputy inspector general is looking into whether senior officials had contact with former employees and

clients on department-related business. before taking the position, the six in question, including assistant secretary doug domenich. according to the campaign legal center that did not happen. in one instance, they allege that he held back-to-back meetings to discuss the office and the conservative think pack he previously worked for. the interior deputy has responded into it and still opened a probe into these allegations. still ahead, everybody, white house senior adviser and president trump's son-in-law jared kushner tries to dismiss russian interference as, quote, a couple of facebook ads but it was may more than just a couple. plus, as he ramps up, president trump urges officials

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you inspired us to natucreate internet that puts you in charge. that handles anything. that protects what's important. and reaches everywhere. this is beyond wifi. this is xfi. simple, easy, awesome. ♪ welcome back, everybody. i'm yasmin vossoughian. it is the bottom of the hour. let's start with the morning's top stories. in his first public comments since the release of mueller report senior white house adviser jared kushner downplayed russia's cybercampaign to disrupt the 2016 election. >> when you look at what russia did buying some facebook ads, and it's a terrible thing, but i

think the investigations and all of the speculation that's happened for the last two years has had a much harsher impact on democracy than a couple of facebook ads. if you look at the magnitude, i think the ensuing investigations have been way more harmful. >> a couple of facebook ads. so facebook reported russia-based operatives actually published around 80,000 posts. that could have reached about 126 million americans. trump campaign manager, brad parscall writing, the media has done more damage. and has already denouned russia's involvement. >> look, he's already denounced many times russia involvement. >> has he, though?

former secretary of homeland secretary kirstjen nielsen, her successor, acting secretary, kevin mcaleenan told nbc's lester holt, the policy is, quote, not worth it, from an enforcement perspective. mcaleenan did signal the inspection following the mueller report affirmation of russia's interference in the 2016 election. >> our agency is laser focused on election security. supporting state and local governments developing capabilities and protections as we leeds up to 2020. also looking very carefully at the foreign influence aspect of the cyberthreat. and how we can support that countereffort as well. >> do you see them still trying to interfere with foreign actors. >> trying to influence public opinion, influence elections.

>> while several democrats have voiced their support for proceedings following the release of the rmueller report. nancy pelosi stressed she's not there yet and neither are most democratic members. >> i don't see a big division in our caucus. there are some people more eager for impeachment. many more eager just to follow the investigation. >> is it a growing number of members who are -- >> i think it's growing -- well, you would think so, about how it is amplified. but i don't think it's a growing number. >> all right. so white house senior adviser jared kushner has revealed that he's preparing an immigration plant to present to president trump. speaking at the "time" 100 summit here in new york yesterday, kushner laid out the time line he would unveil that to the president. and the misconceptions he says some people have on his father-in-law's stance on immigration. >> i think we're at a time where

people are understanding this issue more than they ever have before. i do believe that the president's position on immigration has been maybe defined by his opponents by what he's against as opposed to what he's for. the president has been involved very much so. the teams working probably the end of this week and next week and again make changes. >> joining me live associate editor and white house column lift for the hill, once again, niall stanage. i'm asking as i was listening to jared kushner there, what is the president for? i think he's framed his own immigration debate and what he's against. he doesn't necessarily talk about what he's for, when it comes to immigration, except for the fact that he just wants to keep people out of this country. why is jared kushner, the president's son-in-law, involving himself in immigration abate that experts can not even settle on. he's obviously very ep trenntre

in the middle east process. wanting to come up with a plan there. not necessarily doing it successfully there. and now this move to want to talk and come up with an agreement on immigration. it's perplexing torsion say t i least. >> yeah, obviously, jared is someone who has identified with a slightly less hard line view within the house. people like myself who report on the white house knows that he is the one that tries to suggest that the president should appeal beyond the red cap-wearing maga base. the immigration as you point out, yasmin, is something that the president has gone full steam toward that base, has characterized his own approach very much by what he's against. so, i guess we'll see what he's for when jared kushner comie s with this plan. >> so what does that appeal even look like? what would kushner even want to

appeal beyond president trump's base? because we don't know about that, that's what we don't know. >> there's some suggestion that he wants some form of merit-based immigration policy but that can mean almost anything. of course, jared kushner in that "time" 100 interview there said he hadn't fallen out with steven miller over immigration. obviously, it's very difficult to not fall out over immigration and appeal to any middle ground. steven miller is the leading proponent of an extremely hard line view on immigration. >> we know steven miller had been in the president's ear for quite some time. you have the acting dhs secretary calls family separations not worth it which is not necessarily in line with what steven miller is supporting. is this a rebuke of the president? >> it's certainly a fascinating development. i'm not sure it's particularly great news for kevin mcaleenan

job security, particularly his predecessor kirstjen nielsen was pushed out as partly bought being trumpy enough or soft on immigration, generally. so these are fascinating remarks pointing to the downside of policy like family separations which mcaleenan sees as losing the public trust. that's a completely plausible argument. but not an argument that one has often used to hearing within the administration. >> niall stanage, thank you very much. have a good rest of your day. saudi arabia, everybody, has executed 37 people convicted of terrorism-related offenses yesterday. the majority of them belonging to the sunni muslim kingdom's shia minority. this brings the total number of executions in saudi arabia this year to 105. that's according to the saudi interior ministry and reprieve, a human rights group that tracks

the ministry in the kingdom. yesterday marked the largest mass execution since early 2016 when 27 people were put to death, also on terror-related charges. and president abdel fattah el sisi, extending the current term from four to six years. wow. the amendments also allow him to run for another term, as well as grant him extended powers over the judiciary and parliament. el sisi's current term was set to be his last. seems like that's not the case now. the constitutional changes come amid a growing authoritarian crackdown, since el sisi during a coup with his predecessor. human rights watch estimates

more than 60,000 people have been charged in egypt since 2017. still ahead, the president's war on media escalating as he bars members from the high-profile event. and then a ceo sits down just afters after he bashes the administration. that and another meeting and bill karins back with the forecast. e forecast oh! oh! oh! ♪ ozempic®! ♪ (announcer) people with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of once-weekly ozempic®.

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at adp we're designing a better way to work, so you can achieve what you're working for. you might or joints.hing for your heart... but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. welcome back, everybody. president trump is ramping up his feud with the media as his administration further isolates itself from the press, the trump administration has set a new record for the longest stretch of time without a formal press briefing. as of yesterday, it has been 43 days since president secretary sarah sanders held an official on-camera briefing. the longest span that any administration has gone since bill clinton's presidency.

meanwhile, president trump has reportedly ordered members of his staff and administration to boycott the annual correspondents' dinner this saturday. the move first expected from politico was expected from the president who already said he would not attend and has skipped the last two years. politico says that white house cabinet secretary bill mcginley who oversees the various agencies gathered the chiefs of staff of those agencies and issued the order from the president. the move allegedly is aimed at disrupting a weekend typically used to encourage camaraderie between the white house and the media. but it looks like that won't be happening. and president trump welcomed the ceo of twitter to the white house just hours after claiming unfair treatment by the company. the president and jack dorsey took part in a 30-minute closed-door meeting yesterday. according to a spokesperson, the conversation focused on, quote, the health of the public conversation on social media. and ways to respond to the opioid crisis. following the meeting, the president shared a photo of

himself and of dorsey in the oval office on, you guessed it, twitter. but ahead of that sitdown, trump sent a pair of tweets criticizing the company which i'm sure they likely saw. including one claiming his follower account would be higher if twitter were not, quote, playing their political games. in the conversation a large portion of the meeting involved trump campaigning about his follower counts, raising his concerns that twitter has been quietly or deliberately removing some of them. according to the post, dorsey reiterated that twitter has previously explained that accounts fluctuate as the company takes action to remove scam accounts. see, the president is already worried about the followers he has, bill. >> aren't we all? >> you saw some pretty dramatic pictures from -- >> i did, dallas love field. it looks like cars are under

water. >> yes. there have been reports of significant flash flooding. here's video showing the 60-mile-per-hour winds that blew through, with the lightning, yes, it's been a rough evening through much portions of texas. we continue to watch the ft. worth area in dallas. it's raining, so it's starting to improve. if anyone is heading out the door there will be some ponding on the roadways. some of those stronger storms with hillsborough heading towards corsicana. those storms will die and just like typical, this afternoon, they will fire back up, del rio, san antonio, austin, lake charles. this entire region has a chance for additional storms. it's been soggy in the south. much of the spring. everywhere with a blue dot is top-ten for anywhere on record, lake charles, little rock, charlotte, raleigh. you get the picture here. here's the rainfall forecast for the next few days. the soaking rain through texas are going to move all the way

through the east in the days ahead. the only good news, temperatures are mild where it's not raining. we'll be 86 in charlotte. new york city at 71. beautiful, minneapolis at 75. if it's not raining, at least it's pretty gorgeous the rest of the nation. >> i feel like you probably saw the shot last night. it was pretty incredible. >> 37 feet. >> come on, you gave it away. >> i didn't say what it was. i just said 37 feet. you have to see it to believe it. >> we've got the portland trail blazers and oklahoma city thunder last night in the playoff series. let's watch. >> literally a chance to send the thunder home. lillard, long way! it's good! >> can you believe that? >> that's called in the gym range. he's barely across half-court.

>> talk about not cracking under pressure. i mean that is incredible. that is damian lillard as many well know. 37 feet, as you saw, a three-pointer at the buzzer to win the game. 118-11 118-115. he scored 50 points right now. >> one of the trending things on twitter, his name is damian lillard. they say game time, it's dame time. >> portland is officially ousted the thunder. literally, when it comes time for contract negotiations for that guy, just take that -- >> he's already a max field player. don't worry about him. >> i was not worried. just giving -- still ahead, talks with the u.s. and china as officials try to hammer out a deal. and earnings season helps propel

the nasdaq and s&p to closing highs. details on whether the markets can keep up that momentum. and other stories driving your business day, coming up. ( ♪ ) only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. tylenol®. in your gut, you feel confident to take on anything. with benefiber, you'll feel the power of gut health confidence every day. benefiber is a 100% natural prebiotic fiber.

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welcome back, the s&p 500 and nasdaq rallied yesterday to record-closing highs as wall street celebrated strong quarterly profits from some of the biggest companies. joining us live from london this, giuliana, good morning to you, can we expect stocks to

keep up this momentum? >> good morning, yasmin. well, it looks like investors are pausing for breath this morning, but this comes as you said a record day for wall street. both the s&p and nas we also sa and consumer discretionary hit new highs. tech was boosted by a 16% surge in twitter shares after they reported a strong set of q1 results. today, investors are shifting their focus to the next wave of corporate earnings. we have caterpillar, boeing, facebook, tesla, microsoft, a number of others coming up today. fresh u.s./china headlines supporting sentiment. we have news the u.s. is sending a high level delegation to beijing next week to continue talks with china. both sides, of course, have met several times over the last year to try to hammer out a deal. we'll see if next week brings a conclusion. the market is looking for it. yasmin? >> julia, live from london, thank you so much. coming up, everybody, axios

has the look at the one big thing. on "morning joe," the white house escalating the legal showdown with house democrats. the latest on the trump administration defying multiple committees' demands for information as it looks to keep oversight efforts at bay. robert costa will have the latest reporting, along with kasie hunt. plus, republican senator mike lee will weigh in on the white house's refusal to cooperate. "morning joe" is moments away. pnc bank has technology to help make banking easier,

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axios' one big thing is sponsored by bp. >> welcome back. join ing us from washington, ce of axios, jim, good morning. >> good morning. >> talk to us about axios' one big thing. >> we're looking at the president's run out the clock strategy. you saw this yesterday, where he is telling staff not to cooperate with these congressional investigations. >> yeah. >> they're fighting subpoenas.

they're fighting efforts to get his tax returns. look for the strategy to unfold in every part of his legal operation, whether it is flowing from the mueller investigation, stuff that's happening on capitol hill, or stuff that's happening in new york. he has a long record of using the legal system to drag his feet. his staff feels like the longer that this is an issue, it kind of helps them as a political issue. the more they can push it off, the safer he is legally. what you've seen the last two days is what you're going to see between now and election day. >> i can't help but think, jim, though that this run out the clock strategy eventually is not going to be able to work. eventually, they'll have to deliver in some respects. >> well, probably parts of the investigation, but remember, if he wants to take it to court when trying to fight a subpoena, or if he wants to push it as far as the supreme court, if he is trying to deny access to any of his former current staff, they can push the limits. they can slow it down. ultimately, a lot of people

believe on some of these fronts he'll have to let people testify. they'll have to turn over some documentation. again, he doesn't usually play by the rules. if he thinks he can delay it as long as possible, that's what they'll do. you've seen him talk defiantly about this both on twitter and this interview with the "washington post" last night and inside the white house. >> what do you make of the situation with karl klein, where basically, the white house is threatening his job at the pentagon if he were x , in facto testify? that seems to me to be crossing a line. >> wouldn't be the first time they're crossing a line in terms of putting pressure on people not to testify. it is all about loyalty. the reason the president has been so worked up since the mueller report is he really convinced himself he had been exonerated. then he saw people who worked in the white house, people who worked for him, to him being disloyal, offering testimony that could be potential devastating for him. if not devastating, quite hurtful, which is why they want

don mcdpgahn and people from th pentagon, people from different parts of the white house to testify. i anticipate this would be the approach, whether at the pentagon or whether it is dealing with subpoenas or whether it is dealing with don mcgahn and executive privilege. >> let's talk about jared kushner. he's got mideast peace on his plate. >> yeah. >> which is a lot. now, he wants immigration reform on his plate. he plans to roll out a plan on that. what more do you have on this? >> yeah. he's going to put out a plan within the next week. he's been working on the opposite side of stephen miller, who has taken the hard line approach internally and says, let's build a wall and keep people on the southern border. kushner has been meeting with republicans and democrats. looks like he stitched together a package that will combine a lot of what stephen miller wants on the border but with stuff that republicans and a few democrats would like, which is allowing more high-skilled workers in from foreign

countries, allowing more folks into the guest worker program to help rest raaurants and the hot industry. look at the good parts of immigration, the parts needed for a vibrant economy and one that is, at some places, at full employment and in need of workers. he wants to stitch those together and do for immigration what he did for criminal justice reform and what he's trying to do with middle east peace. this probably has a better chance than middle east peace but not criminal reform. >> why does kushner think he is in a position to do this? >> he has power. senior adviser. his father-in-law is running the white house. for all the people that dislike the guy, he is a survivor. he and his wife continue to be two of the three most powerful people inside the white house. he has some relationships with democrats because he did work on criminal justice reform. i think his own politics, certainly in the past, have been much more centrist, in some areas, liberalme.

i think he hates being seen as a hard liner. he doesn't like the politics of stephen miller. i think his father-in-law is closer to stephen miller on this than him. certainly his heart and emotion is. >> let's talk about joe biden. we know tomorrow morning could be the big day he's going to be rolling out a campaign video and announcing his bid for 2020. we heard about the financial troubles that could be facing the former vice president. bernie sanders raised a heck of a lot more money than he has already. what other troubles could face biden? >> it's been a clunky rollouts. there's been leaks, he'll announce this day, that day. is he doing it in scranton, in philadelphia? the concern among democrats is, is he the right fit for this moment? you have a lot of democrats who raised money, who raised profile, who are probably much more fluent anda agile on socia media. yes, they might be too far to the left for the general population, but they probably

are closer to where the modern democratic party is. biden's entry into this is tougher today than we would have thought two months ago. >> you're joining "morning joe"? a bit. to viewers out there, you can sign up for the newsletter at signup.axios.com. that does it for me. i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts right now. we now see the administration engaged in sto stonewalling of the facts coming to the american people. article one of the legislative branch, spelled out in the constitution, the power of oversight over other branches of government. the right to show. >> in the words of one democrat, it is like a curtain has fallen over the white house. less than a week after the release of the redacted mueller report, three house committees are now facing three acts of defiance from the white house. new oversight and new overnight, presiden