subpoena and democrats inch toward impeachment by calling nixon whistleblower john dean to testify as part of the mueller hearings. welcome to a busy tuesday. we'll start with those protests under way in london. trump just finishing up a day of meetings including with outgoing prime minister theresa may in an attempt to shore up an increasingly fragile relationship with our closest ally. if he needs to move through london today, he will no doubt come across massive protests there in honor of his presence in the uk. also protesting today, house democrats who have given former trump white house adviser hope hicks until today to comply with the subpoena for documents related to her testimony to special counsel robert mueller. hicks today defying that subpoena and missing a deadline for those documents. the white house ordering hicks, as well as former white house lawyer annie donaldson to defy congress and join the stonewalling campaign.

house chairman jerry nadler responding today with this statement, quote, the president has no lawful basis for preventing these witnesses from complying with our request. we will continue to seek reasonable com dapgs -- accommodation on these and all discovery requests. the house also announcing its plan to vote next week to hold attorney general william barr and former white house counsel donald mcgahn on contempt and proceed with hearings from the mueller report tuesday. the twin announcements were the party's latest attempts to kick-start stalled investigations into accusations of malfeasance and force key witnesses resisting oversight demands into compliance. on the more aggressive posture from the democrats, steny hoyer, the number two democrat in the house issuing this statement, quote, this administration systematic refusal to provide

congress with answers and cooperate with congressional subpoenas is the biggest cover-up in american history. and congress has a responsibility to provide oversight on behalf of the american people. that is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. the host of saturday night politics here on msnbc shaking up saturday night, donny deutsch, sam stein politics editor for "daily beast" shaking up everything else. tim o'brien executive editor for bloomberg opinion and former u.s. attorney joyce vance is with us. former assistant director for counter-intelligence at the fbi frank figliuzzi joins us. sam stein, i read your report, this is my word, a bit of an insurrection against nancy pelosi and the leadership. what i want to ask you is if that is behind or contributing to what is definitely more aggressive posture, more leaning in today. >> so where we stand right now, there's a faction of house

democrats who favor impeachment, over 50, well over 50. still obviously not a majority. they have begun to start what is known as an organic whip process, trying to get other members on the fence to support going to impeachment proceedings, if you want to describe it as an insurrection. nancy pelosi has been saying we need to pump the break, saying it's politically imprudent to do so. there are tensions. house leadership generally knows they have to do something to tamp this down. occasionally they can let air out of the balloon, plus go to the white house and have a confrontation with trump. people seem to be relieved at that point. one of the things they are trying to do is shift the focus of these hearings away from a more process argument and more towards the substance of the mueller report. the problem is they are calling john dean. john dean, while he may be able to talk about the process of

impeachment and cover-ups in general was around nixon administration. the activists in this realm want to see happen is for them to call up people tangentially close to trump administration. may not be subject to executive privilege claims and bring them up to the hill. people mentioned in the mueller report like dmitry simes. >> chris christie, essential to the trump investigation, trump called cristie about firing mueller and he was sent out like a political hit man. >> there are different ways into this than going after don mcgahn and hope hicks of the world, who you know will say no. you can go to the next layer and try to get it from that. i don't know why john dean was the choice but they want to lay a foundation. that's the state of play. there are tensions. i don't want to overstate clearly the conference is behind pelosi.

you have members trying to encourage pro impeachment stances, it's getting more serious. >> you're having conversations on capitol hill, too, donny. tell us about them. >> let me talk about my point of view as far as this. i talked about it a lot. i think there's a simple solution, not binary choice of impeach or not impeach, a third land, branding lane. take the impeachment word away. the impeachment word ends in the senate. once again you basically, i think the democrats should own trump as a criminal and say basically we know that mueller found him guilty of obstruction and criminal act. he couldn't act because of doj guidelines, unindicted co-conspirator in new york. we're going to continue with trump criminal investigations. keep saying those word. brand it. you will eventually get to impeachment when public opinion is in your favor and when you think -- i don't think you'll ever get to this point with 20 senators. to me the answer is stop making an argument about impeachment. put that word to the side. make it the trump criminal

investigations. i do believe in the coming week or so you're going to start to hear words like that. >> they did that last session for benghazi. they created a select committee of lawmakers, removed it from the traditional committee process and had one investigative committee focused on benghazi. >> even if it's not one, have an overarching -- >> this is what's interesting to me about the benghazi committee. democrats at the time face a choice. do they participate in that enterprise. they decided ultimately to do so, have a seat at the table. i don't know if republicans would do so. to your point, i think it does put republicans on the defensive a little bit teen instantaneously. >> let him say he's not a crook like nixon. >> frank figliuzzi, i can't believe i'm about to say this. donny makes good opponents there. i'm just kidding. >> the show doesn't work if we agree. i want to push back on something. >> donny makes some good points but marshalling evidence with the goal of moving public

opinion is a different endeavor than marshalling evidence with the goal of criminal prosecution. i want to ask you where you see the intersection of john dean in the watergate era. i hear this in my interactions outside of work. is this watergate? i say it's so much worse than watergate, unindicted co-conspirator, robert mueller said if i could say he committed crimes i would. ten incidents of obstructive conduct. all the evidence, chris christie and cory lewandowski don't have a leg to stand on if they are called before congress. what does this look like if congress heads down this path, frank? >> so a couple of things. one is, shockingly, you're right, donny has made a great point. >> break glass. >> a strategy that says, look, we're being stymied from

impeachment because we simply can't call fact witnesses so we have a plan b makes sense to me if it plays out in the public eye on television screens, people get to see and hear the contents of the report and all that's been done wrong by this president. here is also what's wrong simultaneously with that. what upsets me the most is that is an administration and acquiescence that this white house has totally obstructed the oversight that congress needs to have. we're saying, okay, we're stymied, we've got another strategy, great. i'm worried about the long-term consequences of that. are we, in fact, watching the reshaping of our form of government from a time when we had three equal branches of government to a time we're moving toward an imperial presidency. five, ten years from now, nicolle, are we going to look back to the summer of 2019 and say that's when it started, when oversight started to erode and when we obtained an imperial

presidency. i think that's what's happening. >> i agree with this point. i think when you've got people like john yu, extremely polarizing and unpopular on the far right around legislative battles after 9/11 sounding the alarms, i think that's right. i think making the most of what you have, i agree this is the way to do it. the truth is hope hicks has defied a subpoena. donaldson defied a subpoena. this is normalized by accommodations to plan b and plan c, isn't it? >> every criminal defendant i investigated would have loved to have the power the president has here telling witnesses just don't comply with subpoenas. so this can't be the way our system works and yet trump continues to get away with it. the real challenge -- >> why? why? >> because there's no one there to hold him accountable. i think this is how he's operated throughout his life. he recognized the rules work because people self-enforce.

>> guys, all i'm saying. >> let's get everybody in. >> the choice is right. he spent 70 years pounding a hammer on anybody who walks through his front door and he got away with it. he was insulated by wealth and celebrity and presidency. he has these amazing three rings of fire keeping him from being accountable. >> that's amazing. explain more. >> most people go through life, if they make mistakes or break the law they course correct and reflect and grow and move on. donald trump had his father's wealth insulating him from all the problems surrounding him academically, professionally, including bankruptcies as he got older. he got celebrity around the apprentice, got the glow of celebrity mojo. >> literally and figuratively. >> now he has the most powerful office in the land to boggle the imagination on top of the other things that gives him constitutional privileges. he's probably one of the most lawless and unethical people to

occupy the presidency in the modern era but also massively insulated from the consequences of his own actions. >> i just want to say, this is where i see it as parallel tracks. i appreciate and agree with the branding effort, and i think you're probably right, but i think there are constitutional and legislative norms. if you read through the obstruction volume of the mueller report, these were flashing yellow lights like people like don mcgahn and annie donaldson, his three rings of fire, let him win. i said this before. republicans when they win, it's because they are brutal and ruthless. they were ready to impeach rod rosenstein, who was a fellow republican. democrats are interested in a branding effort. i just want to get back to the lawyers. are there real legal equities to letting -- not just letting, encouraging and directing everyone who worked in the white house to ignore subpoenas.

>> there are real equities that need to be protected. the first thing is those folks, annie donaldson, hope hicks, they don't have to listen to the president. they could decide almost john dean style to show up and turn over documents and to testify. the problem is this as you point out. the republicans have been willing to play a ruthless game here. i think about it the way someone thinks about it as a card game you play multiple hands. if you're so focused on winning one hand that you're willing to blow up the entire game to win, there's no game left to pensacol play. >> we're saying the same thing. right now, so you don't make it -- they already won two cases. the judge found for the democrats in two instances of trump not wanting to release. keep that up. i'm saying don't assign impeachment. it's a 20-month business plan. these are all part of the trump investigations. i'm not saying you should stand by and not let hope hicks testify. all i'm saying is don't put it

all under the impeachment umbrella. that allows them to play a game they are going to win and trump to take the narrative they are out to get me. let the narrative be trump saying i'm not a criminal, i'm not a criminal. it's not branding in lieu of but an overarching umbrella. i'm saying convict him in the court of public opinion. be more ruthless. don't leave it to the senate. convict him as a criminal now. >> internally house democrats are with you. they felt -- it's been six, seven weeks since the mueller report and the entire argument is semantics, is impeachment a politically viable idea, where are the votes. very few people are actually talking about the substance of the mueller report. obviously few people have read the mueller report. tactically what they are trying to do at this juncture is to educate the public to the extent they can about what is actually the substance of the report itself. my suspicious is that by calling john dean in, you can have a

more thorough comprehensive argument about what presidential powers and the abuse of them are. >> and you also put it on tv. >> they recognize that, too. i don't know if cable is going to go wall-to-wall on john dean, but you can see the predicate being laid for maybe a chris christie being called up. the one thing i would say is there are things that could push back against the president we haven't talked about. the one thing is the courts, in two cases they have, the other is congressional republicans. congressional republicans could for respect to the institution of congress be speaking more forcefully saying this is not a good precedent to set. though we disagree with inquiries, the president should comply with them. we've heard surprising little of anything, except justin amash, and the damage is not necessarily short-term but long-term and the institution of congress will suffer the consequences here. >> frank figliuzzi, i would bet

a dozen doughnuts every day for the rest of my life on this being true. if this were a democratic administration, republicans would have proceeded to impeachment. they would have done it after cohen sentencing memo revealed donald trump as unindicted co-conspirator, felon, campaign violation. they would have done it before mueller into but after the report came out. they would have figured out how to take those 10 incidents of obstruction, even the sentence fragment of barr's highly edited appearance that says does not exonerate and we would be in the middle of -- the show wouldn't be on. we would be sitting in impeachment hearings. >> it's always a helpful exercise to ask yourself to change the shoes. if i were on the other side, what would this look like. clearly we would be seeing gop heads explode on capitol hill if it were democrats resisting like

this. that's counter to the argument that we should kind of do things simultaneously or just pursue one avenue. the problem is that if we allow this to happen, lauer our government to literally be reshaped in terms of the powers of each branch, someday another party will be in power. on that day we should not expect that party to do the right thing. it is human nature to say i'll take the more powerful position here. if they didn't do it, i'll do it. that's why i continue to say, without trying to be overall dramatic, we could be watching the reshaping of our democratic principles. that's why we've got to have congress come out and say, look, what the president is doing isn't just a political battle over specific pieces of evidence, it's an outright rejection of oversight duties. therefore, he should be impeached for that alone. >> frank, i went back and read -- i always try to read a little bit of nixon history before i come on television and talk about impeachment.

ultimately not impeached. the conversations around impeachment, the first ones weren't even about watergate, high crimes and misdemeanors as it pertained to other conduct. if you look at the president's conduct, you could take the president's immigration policies, babies in vans for nine hours. such target rich if you want to look at evidence. i understand, and believe me as a former communicator, i appreciate and sympathize with the challenge to get air time, bandwidth on the public's weary and anxious attention span. it would seem there's nothing more urgent than peeling apart the public conduct, the conduct that at least robert mueller, who was unimpeachable, the vast majority of americans he skoont describe as noncriminal and scrutinize it any way they can figure out how to do. >> i think if you include mueller as a larger totality of the circumstances, take the

report plus, the report on steroids as you're saying and all the other reasons why this president has failed in his office, then you do have a body of evidence. the challenge of donny's approach, though, is the fact witnesses. the question is how many fact witnesses can really be allowed to show up. do people on the periphery, even the chris christies of the world, do they add to the body of evidence? do we need to take the report and enter it into evidence and say that's it? how do we get this before the american people and what constitutes sufficient evidence. >> i think it was sam talking about process. we've spent 18 minutes talking about process. when we have these conversations reminding people what mueller found it's a disservice, just do that for me for this hour. what did mueller find in volumes 1 and 2. >> the attorney general gave trump the ability to go out and tell the american people that the report found no collusion and no obstruction. that's not true. the report considered conspiracy, not collusion and

said there was not sufficient evidence of conspiracy to indict. then the report looked at obstruction. after relating at least 12 circumstances -- 12 instances of conduct where the president could have been indicted for obstruction of justice, bob mueller concluded that he could not say the president was not culpable of the crime of obstruction. he could not indict him because he didn't have jurisdiction. he strongly implied only congress did. he said, i cannot exonerate the president of the united states for having committed the crime of obstruction. >> because this whole conversation framed by your argument, i want to give you the last word. >> >> a legal question, can't the democrats go after whatever they need without calling it impeachment? aren't there other judicial avenues, ways, the same they are already doing in courts, 2-0, not to let up on the legal process but aren't there ways without calling it impeachment hearings to get what you need? that's what i'm saying.

>> i agree with you. impeachment is like indictment. >> impeachment gives lawmakers the court of law, heightens the investigative import of it. beyond that, as i was talking to lawmakers yesterday, if you start with the impeachment proceedings, you can go and say you're making a -- this whole thing is drawn up on whether there's a legislative purpose to the oversight hearing, which is sort of a made up thing anyway. you can say there's a legislative purpose in the legislative hearings if it's a formal article of impeachment. >> the justice department views commencement of impeachment as a stronger tool that would compel them to cooperate. >> maybe where grand jury material is concerned. but impeachment is just an indictment. you don't walk into your indictment one day and file an indictment, you investigate leading up to that. >> they will get stronger subpoena power, enhanced subpoena power. >> frankly a distinct without a difference. the legal standard whether or not there are judicial

proceedings moving foshrward. >> i like to do one last thing lightning round, do they impeach? >> i don't think they will. at least not successfully in the senate. >> of course not in the senate. do you think the house. >> i think the house should be on the hearings to begin with. the first thing they can do is push back in a robust and uncompromising way with the white house. >> my reporting they will start impeachment proceedings. >> trump impeachment proceedings, start them today. >> last word to you, frank. >> the level of obstruction will reach the point where the house will have little choice but to impeach. >> all right my thanks to joyce vance, frank figliuzzi, my partners for so maens of these days. after the break, donald trump's protest delusion as the war of words with the mayor of the city stretches into the second day. donald trump says fake news. we'll let you be the judge. mayor pete takes another turn on center stage and makes the most

of his moment again. we'll bring you the highlights and the unthinkable. ongoing tragedy the trump administration's child reunification efforts. reporting about children as young as five, we mentioned before, left in a van 39 hours waiting to be reunited with family. heartbreaking story of innocent victims of cruel immigration policy. all those stories coming up. imn policy all those stories coming up. at carvana, no matter what car you buy from us,

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[ "all these things that i've done" by the killers ] no, no, no. this way buddy. no! liam's heads for comforts is in the 80th percetile. oh that's cool. it's a lot of head. it's like you're the dad and i'm the mom and we're in a relationship and this is our baby. [ laughing ] well... it's exactly like that! exactly! and then i heard there are protests. i said where are the protests? i didn't see any protests. i did see a protest today, very small. a lot of it is fake news.

you saw the people waving american flag, your flag, tremendous spirit, great love, love, it was an alliance. i didn't see the protesters until a little while ago and it was a very, very small group of people put in for political reasons, so it was fake news. thank you. >> we looked for that guy. can he couldn't find them. he didn't see the protests so they are all fake news to him. donald trump's alternate reality is much less convincing when there's video proof to the exact opposite. chief foreign correspondent richard engel reported from london. >> there were thousands of people on the streets. they were protesting trump, not celebrating his arrival. so the fact that he can say these kind of things with a straight face when they are so contradictory to the facts that lots and lots-of-journalists saw is troubling. >> richard engel has seen it all. for him to call it troubling

means it's really, really is. despite widespread protests which are, indeed, lead, truppe criticized the london mayor sad east coast khan, he called a stone cold loser before "air force one" touched down. trump decided with a starlg case study in projection irony at its best. donald trump of all people saying this. >> he should be positive, not negative. he's a negative force not a positive force. if you look at what he said, he hurts the people of this great country. i think he should actually focus on his job. it would be a lot better if he did that. he could straighten out some of the problems he has and probably some of the problems he's caused. >> going to put that on a t-shirt for him. as trump parades around london, it's hard not to notice the state visit looks a whole lot like a family vacation/junket. his entourage includes all of his adult children, even the ones without any official role in his administration. "new york times" pointing out today the kennedys have, quote,

long occupied the american political culture as unofficial royal family. maybe that's what the trumps are going for. privately white house officials say some of the trump children, particularly those working in the white house, see themselves this way. one senior official who did not want to speak publicly about internal planning said mr. kushner and miss trump in particular had grown more emboldened to their request to be accommodated at official events. white house communications director, you can hardly -- go. >> one, the fact that all the kids came makes me think they believe there's not going to be a second term. right? you know i'm right, nicolle. >> the best tour of buckingham palace they will get. >> second term. so many trips left to go. this is the only state trip left for united kingdom. the kids are like we better do this now. the second thing i observed is

however much dysfunction in the american government and british government, theresa may is in her last week, the american people and british people give me hope. british people, second time trump has been here, we're good. we have baby trump balloon. they have a new trump as a school child balloon. they know how to do their protests. i feel the relationship between the people is strong. british people are able to look past our one leader and understand he doesn't represent all of america. i'm serious, it really does make me feel that -- it gives me some hope on both our sides of the atlantic, despite dysfunction at the top, people are participating in the democratic process. >> that's an incredible amount of optimism, jen. >> sorry. >> vitamin d hangover. >> the thing to remember when you watch trump inside all the pageantry, and he looks awkward in it.

he's a guy who would look awkward at a tailgate at yankee stadium much less buckingham palace. some deadly things behind this, eu on a knife's edge, britain's existential crisis with brexit. trump throws a bomb by advocati advocating. goes on the junket but on downing street with john bolton and photographed coming out of that building, presumably for a national security briefing. another reminder she's in wildly out of her depth. she doesn't belong at a meeting like that. the president has allowed jared kushner and ivanka to hitch along with this white house and get into situations and give them power they don't have the experience or intellect to carry off. i think that's another thing to remember when we're watching all of the pageantry around this that there's actually very serious issues at stake. >> i think it's repulsive.

i used to live in a building with jared and ivanka, they were very nice, pleasant young people. to see the smugness and entitlement on their faces, i find it -- the only word i can keep using is repulsive. talk about ivanka's lack of experience, we forget with jared coming off his latest winning immigration proposal along with his middle east peace proposal, he's been in a family business for six or seven years, so he's had no exposure to the world failing. failed with the observer, pretty much put them under under the saudis bailed them out. there's nobody home there in either of those places. a substantial any wall street firm would not have hired jared to do anything. the fact that they are there as a family is just gross. >> poker players say if you're sitting at a poker player and you don't know who the mark is, guess what, you're the mark. jared we know last year four foreign governments were

surveilling him because they thought he was vulnerable. >> target for blackmail. >> a target for blackmail because he lacked real experience in government, he was financially vulnerable and promoting his own financial self-interests. that's a reality. yet his access to all this hasn't lessened. >> what's interesting to me the president's allies on capitol hill, republican side are basically zombies, they march in lock step with this white house they can't count answer jared kushner, even immigration on the shutdown, they were like thank you but no thank you. why does the president sort of tolerate the weakest, weak sounding, weak in his knowledge, weak in his fortitude, appearance and presentation, which is so central, everyone tells me, to donald j. trump, why is he tolerated? >> maybe tim can answer that because jared is a family member. i will say this in defense of jared, it's not really defense, there was one domestic policy initiative that was a success. >> criminal justice reform. >> that was jared's.

that maybe says more about the rest of the adviser. >> also had bipartisan support. >> but he built it. >> might benefit from it someday. >> i do think it's my extrapolating and tim can support this, trump doesn't trust many people. he certainly did not come to washington with many inroads into republican establishment. when you come to the city where you need to staff federal beaurocracy of huge epic proportions and have to tackle all these monumental tasks, immigration reform, immigration, middle east peace, reorganizing government, they are handed to jared, a guy he trusts. >> even in his business they never had outsiders in. talked about it on the show. trump organization was 30, 40 people in a dusty office. don jr., eric, michael jackson cohen. he couldn't trust or delegate in a small real estate licensing firm. so do you think when he gets to foreign territory -- >> which is why he has a weak

team around him. >> jared is a repellant to bringing in top tier talent. >> he knows it's a threat to his own survival. one of the main reasons he got a lot of authority was because of ivanka. even among his own children donald trump did not give eric or don junior these kind of roles in the white house, and there's a reason for this but gave jared a pass. >> rex tillerson was on capitol hill giving testimony. one of the things he said was his job was untenable because the jared kushner was involved in hiring decisions. >> also on the other side of the qatari question. >> ultimately this seems like missing the forest for the trees a little bit. trump is his own man and creates his own problems. we kind of glossed over it but very weird for the president to start his trip abroad by insulting the mayor of the city where he's going a stone cold loser. >> not weird for trump.

>> when romney went abrodeur and made an offhand comment about security. >> the big opening, messed it up, handle himself on foreign soil, it went on for three weeks. >> those were the days. >> those were the days. all right. tim o'brien, thank you. >> thank you. >> always a good day when you are with us. when we come back mayor pete says it's okay if you're not for him because he's still for you. we'll bring you the highlights from buttigieg msnbc town hall. that's next. ghlights from buttigieg msnbc town hall that's next. as your life grows, so do your needs. ♪ and with bank of america and merrill, the benefits you get can grow, too. as a preferred rewards member, you can enjoy priority service and exclusive discounts... so your growing life can be more rewarding, too. ♪ what would you like the power to do? ♪

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>> you have a tremendous resume, one that speaks to your character andabilities. you're running in a field of exceptional candidates, particularly in the case of the women running like senators kamala harris and elizabeth warren. my question to you is why should women of america vote for you over our sisters who are kind of more qualified?

>> look, i admire so many of the people running. they are extraordinary. by the way, we ought to have a woman in the oval office right now. i'm still disappointed that didn't happen. [ applause ] >> the other thing that i want the women of america to know, because i've met a lot of women who say i like you, i like your message, i think you've got an appealing candidacy but i will not vote for a man this time is that i get it. whether you decide to be for me or not, i promise i'll be for you. >> that was democratic presidential contender mayor pete buttigieg at msnbc's town hall last night answering what seems to be the question in the heavily populated 2020 democratic primary, why you sfl joining, from action fund, advised campaigns on their get out the votes efforts.

we'll start with you, why him? >> what i left that with, sure he laid out his credentials but he didn't lay out a really persuasive argument as to why him. i think his final line was, i'm just something different. what could have been a great opportunity there for him to paint a clear picture, a persuasive argument for his candidacy fell flat for me. i think we'll be looking to him to really hold up that end of the energy around there should be a woman in the white house right now being something that doesn't work in his favor going forward. >> i think he doesn't have a great rational for his candidacy in terms of experience or accomplishments as the mayor of a relatively small town but he's extraordinarily talented. he may never have a great answer to that question and he may still continue to do very well because people really like the way he parries these questions and the way he dissects trump and dismisses him in a very

effective way. how persuasive that is to iowa caucusgoers, ultimately i'm not sure, but i think he'll continue to do well nationally because people find that really appealing. >> i interviewed him on saturday night politics, and he's so damn likable. beyond his resume, which is almost inhuman, a vet, rhodes scholar, harvard, goes on and on. the way he answers questions doesn't feel like a politician, even sometimes if he's doing a little bit of a dance, there's a genuineness. nicolle, at the end of the day, voters don't vote on issues, they vote on do i like the candidate, do i believe in the candidate. he has a lot of that with him. i think one of the people that's going to pop on the debate stage other than the top three or four, i think he's going to be one of those people. >> i'm surprised you didn't say you know who does say that, governor steve -- going through

the gravitas. for mayor pete, to answer your question, his position has been he's a generational change. i think he's literally the living embodiment of generational change. he's 37. i as a near 37-year-old think it's a little crazy but whatever. it is what it is. obviously there are some hurdles he has to clear. one of them is gender, one is race. to the extent he can, he's grappling with those issues now. the answer he gave last night seemed to be the most plausible answer to a question that was essentially you kind of suck compared to these women. >> a moment of him, let me show them both. this is him on al franken. >> al franken, should he have been pushed to resign by his fellow democratic caucus members. >> i think it was his decision to make. i think the way we basically held him to a higher standard than other people has been used against us.

>> do you think he should have been pushed to leave? >> again, it was his decision. >> i'm not asking you about his decision. should the other members of the democratic caucus starting at the top, chuck schumer down and pushed him out, a lot of pressure to leave, were they right or wrong? >> it's not a bad thing we hold ourselves to a higher standard. >> were they right to do that to push him out of the stenate because he did. >> i would not have applied that pressure at the time. >> that was dangerous. he said democrats should apply a lower standard with harassment of women. he saved himself at the end. he saved himself at the end saying that's not a bad thing we do that. that prompted a response from senator gillibrand, #metoo, sexual harassment, has been a leading issue for her.

every -- she's the one that sort of owns the franken resignation, although he decided on his own to do this. >> exactly. >> is it fair she owns it? it's not fair she owns it. he resigned. he could have stayed. there could have been a senate ethics investigation. he made a decision to leave. i understand he may try to come back to politics. he may have found hits path is a better way to have rehabilitation than if he stayed. he made that decision. every senator with the exception of amy klobuchar called on him to resign, who is now currently in the race. it's not just something that gillibrand did. she does seem to draw the fire as she does. >> it's of course not fair to senator gillibrand that she owns it. al franken owns it. al franking had eight women accuse him of unwanted touching or harassment. you can do with that what you may but it's incredibly short sighted to say this was a problem the democrats committed by forcing him out.

people forget this. al franken was a member of the senate judiciary committee. shortly after his resignation the senate judiciary committee considered brett cavana you supreme court nomination. can you imagine how it would have gone if al franken had been on the panel questioning about allegations against himself. it would have been a disaster. there is a benefit to having the moral high ground. sometimes it doesn't manifest itself instantaneously but recognize there's a benefit. >> also it's good to have moral high ground on its merits. >> the brutalness of one party versus the other. this is not so different than the impeachment argument because there's a play to win versus a play to do the right thing. i think at the end of the day the democrats did what they had to do. i think franken made the right call and he'll be back stronger than ever. i think we'll see another day of al franken. this is a no win. democrats lose the other way.

if they look the other way they lose. there's a weakness to, wait a second -- >> there's no weakness, that's a strength. >> no weakness at all. one thing about buttigieg's response. >> let me reframed before i get killed on social media. you know what, you're right. it was the wrong thing. >> thank you so much. the other thing about the response was he needed more information. eight women stepped forward. two of whom were while he was a senator. sorry about that. another was a congressional staffer. what additional information would buttigieg have needed in order to move forward. >> listen, i don't disagree with anything anyone said on the substance of this. let me give you ugly truth, there were men who saw that answer and nodded their head. >> not just men. >> not just men. >> there's prominent women -- female donors in the democratic

party. >> i agree with gillibrand. i'm just telling you, there were people has heard that. you understand why trump won? there are a whole bunch of people that see the world the way trump does. >> for sure. i hear it a lot. i'm not happy about it but i hear it a lot from democrats, women and men both, that they -- when you bring up gillibrand, the first thing -- >> the big thing about #metoo movement, the guy that got in trouble, matt damon, it's not one basket of deplorables there, it's all wrong. people got frustrated about al franken, other horrendous acts where people survived. >> chief among them -- we have to sneak in a break 6789 the hallmark of immigration policies, equal part cruel and carried out. the next story is a case in point. stay with us. the next story is a case in point. stay with us

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members of the trump administration zero tolerance policy continue to amaze. last july in the blistering texas heat, 37 children between the ages of 5 and 12 were taken to a border facility to be reunited with their parents but they were kept in vans for hours waiting to be processed. quote not until 39 hours did the last child step out of the van to be reunited. most spent 23 hours inside the vehicle. the incident happened last year. the horrific conditions are ongoing. more reporting details how migrant children coming to the border are finding themselves quote caught in a bureaucratic purgatory. stuck sleeping on concrete benches while the agency is close to exceeding its capacity. one of the journalists who wrote the extraordinary pieces of reporting. julia, take us through both.

>> well, nicole, it's easy to get numb to this because we heard so many horrible stories from the border and now especially dealing with vulnerable children. these stories really take us inside what happened last summer and the fact that that chaos continues. last summer we understand is that 37 children were on their ware. it was supposed to be a 30-minute ride to where they were staying to an i.c.e. detention center. some had been separated for months. they were under a court order to be reunited. when the children showed up, the contractors responsible for taking them off the van found there was no one at the i.c.e. facility to pair them with their parents. they were clocking out for the day and they didn't have the st staff ready. there were other vans in the parking lot from other facilities with children waiting in the july heat in texas to be

reunited. then flash forward to today. we have new data that over 1400 children have been in border patrol stations for over 72 hours. that's past the legal limit even for adults. >> it's past the limit for a dog. y i swear to god. you cannot leave a dog in a car without getting a ticket. what is happening? where are the ngos? where are the humanitarian groups? how do we not have eyes and ears on the treatment of children in the american government's hands? >> that's a good question. what we can can do, the media is try to dig into this and get the stats and tdocuments and thankfl for the whistle blowers. we are finding the children are being kept at border patrol stations that are jail cells. they were not built for children. children who are as young as infants and toddlers. there was a 1-year-old boy taken from his grandmother because

that's not considered parent. he's unaccompanied. he ran 105 degree fever, was kept at a border station for nine days before he was transferred to health and human services where he could have better care. that was a near death. we know of three other actual deaths. children who have died in border patrol custody. the reason for this backlog is not only the influx but the increased capacity. the fact that hhs, health and human services is at 97% capacity. they are unable to take in more children. they are waiting in these conditions. in some cases they can't get inside the border stations to sleep on the concrete bench. they are sleeping outside. >> what do they say when you call them with this reporting? >> it's interesting. there's a lot of finger pointing between agencies. in this case, the first case of last summer, the children going to i.c.e. they say that was a one circumstance. we weren't ready and kind of moved some things there so we can be better staffed. that was one incident.

one accident but a tragic incident at that. when it comes to today, cbp is saying we need hhs to take these children more rapidly. hhs says we're taking them as we get them but our hands are tied because congress hasn't given us more funding. there's a lot of finger pointing going around but in the end those who suffer are young and without medical care or place to sleep at night. >> i'm struck by the fact that no one is held harmless in the trump era. >> while trump and his team were putting together this cruel and inhumane mopolicy, they had no forethought of the trauma it would inflict on families and it shows these people would have experiences while they are fleeing such dire situations in their home countries and create add humanitarian crisis at our own borders. that is a station on this nation. >> can you imagine if your old

boss or your old boss knew this problem was going on. they would be fix this now. >> this is why white houses exist to fix these kind of problems. they created this. he created this. the good news is, we're not numb to it. a year ago this week is when they put out the audio of the wailing child. >> what would bush have said to you and what would obama said to you? >> we would all be on the border trying to deal with this. not to sugar coat either of thi their presidencies but children were a red line for both administratio administrations. children were never separated. >> children were never separated. it's an aids crisis. they are not prepared to treat them.

>> the cruelty is the point of the policy is that they said this is what they wanted. >> you're remarkable. thank you for this. we'll sneak in a break. we'll be right back. k in a break we'll be right back. whoa. travis in it made it. it's amazing. oh is that travis's app? it's pretty cool, isn't it? there's two of them. they're multiplying. no, guys, its me. see, i'm real. i'm real! he thinks he's real. geico. over 75 years of savings and service.

my thanks to you for watching. th that does it for us. mtp daily with chuck todd starts now. if it's tuesday, house democrats ratchet up their fight against the president. so do senate republicans. they are gearing up for a fight potentially to block his tariffs on mexico. despite the president's warning that they would be foolish to try to stop him. plus amid all the talk of impeachment on the left, the white house decides to stone wall congress yet