twitter that's where some of you had pointed out that i had moved kathleen from being the former governor the kansas to the former governor of texas, which i'm going to stand by for a little while longer. you can always find me on facebook, instagram, snapchat and linkedin. thanks for watching. deadline with nicole wallace starts right now. hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in washington, d.c. where today two men are in damage control mode over their ties to jeffrey epstein. the billionaire who is indicted yesterday on sex trafficking charges. donald trump doubling down today in such his secretary of labor. >> i can tell you that for 2 1/2 years he's been just an excellent secretary of labor. he's done a fantastic job. what happened 12 or 15 years ago with respect to when he was a u.s. attorney i think many miami -- is it miami? >> yes. >> you know, if you go back and

look at everybody else's decisions, whether it's a u.s. attorney or an assistant u.s. attorney or a judge, you go back 12 or 15 years ago or 20 years ago and look at their past decisions, i would think you'd probably find that they would wish they maybe did it a different way. i do hear that there were a lot of people involved in that decision, not just him. >> democrats, including the top democrat in the senate, chuck schumer, sending a very different tune or acosta calling for his resignation or firing. >> i am calling on secretary acosta to resign. it is now impossible for anyone to have confidence in secretary acosta's ability to lead the department of labor. if he refuses to resign, president trump should fire him. >> for his part, acosta is spinning for his reputation and quite possibly for his job. for a president who looks down upon bad press from any member

of his cabinet. acosta this morning tweeting a defense of the deal he struck with epstein in 2008. he wrote this, quote, the crimes committed by epstein are horrific and i'm pleased that new york prosecutors are moving forward with the case based on new evidence. but the evidence available more than a decade ago, federal prosecutors insisted that epstein go to jail, register as a sex offender, put the world on notice that he was a sexual predator. now, the new evidence and additional testimony is available, the new york prosecution offers an important opportunity to more fully bring him to justice. acosta offering no specifics about what evidence would have changed his decision 11 years ago to grant epstein a deal that is described this way in the miami herald. quote, facing a 53-page federal indictment, epstein could have ended up in federal prison for the rest of his life. but on the morning of a breakfast meeting, a deal was struck. an extraordinary plea agreement that would conceal the full extent of epstein's crimes. and the number of people

involved. not only would epstein serve just 13 months in the county jail, but the deal called a nonprosecution agreement, essentially shutdown an on going fbi probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in epstein's sex crimes. now that is what acosta is today trying to defend. that is what donald trump is now associated with. as well as headlines like this one from today's "washington post." quote. trump called epstein a terrific guy who enjoyed younger women before denying a relationship with him. that may explain trump's efforts to put time and distance between himself and epstein. >> well, i knew him like everybody in palm beach knew him. he was a fixture in palm beach. i had a falling out with him a long time ago. i don't think i spoke to him in 15 years. i wasn't a fan. >> ha is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. joining us from the washington

post, ashley parker. with us at the table, former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official chuck rosenberg. heidi, and forther democratic congresswoman donna edwards and former senior adviser to president george w. bush, and the author of the new book "the death of politics" pete wenger is here. chuck, i want to start with you. i don't know how to explain to anyone how all of the information that was available in that 53-page indictment that's described in the miami herald's fantastic body of reporting represents some sharp departure from what they would have found out in the southern district of new york. >> right. so if you look at the southern district of new york indictment, the charged conduct plays between 2002 and 2005. the nonprosecution agreement in the southern district of florida that you just mentioned, nicole, that was in 2007. so on the surface, on the face of it it seems really odd to me

because it seems that most of the information available to new york took place long before the southern district of florida resolved the case. and they resolved it in a really odd way. federal prosecutors are not shy about bringing charges against pedestrian files, which what epstein is. and not just allegedly. he pled guilty in florida to charges. >> he's an admitted convicted pedophile. >> you'd have to think that the fbi didn't know everything it knows now then. sure, new stuff comes in, more witnesses come forward, that happens. but the heart of the case was -- the heart of the case, what the southern district of florida had before they agreed to that nonprosecution agreement was already in place. >> why would this case be reopened by the southern district of new york if not some acknowledgement that the job

that now secretary acosta did was inadequate? >> so some context. for another federal district to open a chase kase that's been resolved elsewhere is highly unusual. not unheard of, but highly unusual. there's a degree or koty. and where a case is resolved appropriately, you would not see another prosecutor's office picking it up. what happened here was that the case was not appropriately resolved. and got bless the prosecutors in the southern district of new york. they have an entrepreneurial spirit. >> thank god. >> because they saw that justice was not done and they're going to do it. so it's not typical, it's highly unusual. there is that comity that i mentioned between various districts where something broke, justice wasn't dub, another u.s. attorney stepped in and is going

to see ha it's done properly have some now this extraordinary plea agreement, he was convicted of soliciting prostitution. you described him as a pedophile. do you think he'll be charged with the sex acts of underage women by the southern district of new york? >> the plea agreement was in state court. the resolution in florida was a nonfederal agreement. they said we're not touching this. what he has been charged in the southern district of new york is sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. >> with minors. >> with women between the ages of 14 and 16, so, yeah, with minors, you bet. very serious charges which will, if convicted, put him in jail for the rest his life. >> we had a tweet yesterday saying tonight donald trump has three friends in jail. i noticed the president's efforts distance himself from epstein but not the conduct. he described a fallingout 15 years ago. what is the white house frame of

mind today about acosta's handling of the case as chuck rosenberg was just describing highly questionable and justifiably receiving renewed scrutiny, including from prosecutors in the southern district of new york as well as his own associations and photos alongside jeffrey epstein? >> as of now our understanding is that the president remains loyal to acosta. but, people in the white house warn that as with most things with this president that can switch on a moment's notice. as you pointed out, the president does not like bad press. and so there is a sense that there may be a finite period where he is willing to tolerate these bad headlines that have dominated cable news, which is the venue is he most fascinated in by, you know, for all day today, it looks like into tomorrow at very least. although the flip side is there have been other embattled cabinet members for different reasons who if he has a real personal connection with people,

scott pruitt is an example, he will sort of tolerate months of bad headlines before he pulls the plug. there's a little bit of uncertainty. i will say that the president's chief of staff mick mulvaney is clashing with acosta for reasons that have nothing to do with this. he believes that acosta has not been forcefully or efficiently enough pressing the president's deregulation agenda, undoing some of the obama administration policies. and so if you have someone who's a little tenuous this might in terms of the palace intrigue and infighting give mulvaney or those who aren't huge fans of him an opportunity to push him out. it's worth noting the president is loyal now but he could go either way. sometimes when people are telling him to do something, you have 0 to fire him, will double down and entrench himself and that will give hip reason to keep him. or he might get fed up and become disgusted with what he learns about the case and let him go at some point. >> it would be a funny time to come up with a deregulation

crisis. let me read you some of the reporting from your great colleagues. your paper today under the headline trump called epstein a terrific guy who enjoyed younger girls before denying relationship with him reports this, quote, outside of trump's own words, there's clear evidence that the two men, epstein and trump, both members of the same high-flying societies in manhattan and palm beach, socialized together in the past. epstein visited trump's mar-a-lago club in palm beach and poised f posed for photos there. the epstein's address book leaked by an employee in 1999. what's the response to that. >>. >> well, the relationship does seem to have cooled slightly in recent years. but the truth is this is kind of standard behavior for this president, which is -- we don't have time to list all of the people with whom the president claims not to know.

including, for intastance, you mentioned paul manafort. the way the president talks about him you would think they were casual acquaintances who passed in a restaurant not the second manager of his 2016 presidential campaign. he speaks this way of michael wolf who spent six months sitting in the west wing in the early days of his administration. he's said this about a number of women who have accused him of sexual misconduct that be he's never met them or seen them before and then a photo surfaces with him right next to them. so the president denying a tlap seems to clearly exist and photos and past statements and behavior and social situations is sort of what he does when it becomes clear that now might be the moment to kind of try to publicly cut ties. but it doesn't mean that that relationship never existed. >> okay. so ashley parker, this is donald trump in the i hardly knew him defense. >> it's like manafort has nothing to do with our campaign.

but i tell ya, i feel a little badly about it. >> why did you hire comey? >> he did low level work. he did more public relations than he did law. see papadopoulos today. i don't know him. i don't know him. i saw him sitting in one picture at a table with me. i don't know him. i know nothing about wikileaks, it's not my thing. it's not my deal in life. >> it's not my deal, it's not my thing, i hardly knew him? who? jeffrey who? >> i hardly knew you, honey. today if you follow social media, you will find so many photographs of epstein and trump together in various kinds of social settings. but, again there are sort of mirrors what trump does. he completely distances himself. it's going to happen with acosta as well, it's just a matter of time before that happens where he says, you know what? if i just keep saying i don't

know you, then at least my public will believe that i don't know you. and, you know, this follows a pattern for donald trump. and i think that for the hill, for members to be calling for acosta's removal is appropriate, but i'm wondering where are all the republicans who repeatedly stood up in the face of international sex trafficking vote almost unanimously around legislation there and are absolutely silent when it comes to alex acosta? >> that's a perfect question for you. where are they? >> well, they're nowhere to be found. but they haven't been anywhere to be found with donald trump. remember the context of this secretary accost is is accused of no, sir prosecuting a sexual predator. the president is a sexual predator. shows you the moral world in which we live in. just he was credible accused of rape a couple weeks ago and it's

fallen off the radar screen. there are two dozen women who have accuse dollars him of sexual assault. we have a president who say sexual predator. the idea that he would be offended, morally or ethically troubled by anything that acosta did is not going to happen. and it is extraordinary both the silence of the republican party, i mean, this happened a while ago. when they decided to hitch their wagon to donald trump and said that there was nothing that he was going to do or say this taty were going to object to, they wrote their fate. and there's no bottom with him and so there's no bottom with them. and once upon a time this was a party that appointed itself as a party of family values. >> what a joke. >> yeah. a joke and hypocrisy and just an extraordinary offense. i mean, these are young girls who are being sexually assaulted and they don't care. and they're siding with rich,

powerful men against these kids. and the fact that they're not blinking twice is such an indictment. >> we jumped right to the politics, but let me say something about the victims. this is from the miami herald. this is from more of julie k. brown's reporting. she was with us yesterday. she's a reporter who fellow prosecutors graciously credited with bling some of these allegations to their attention. julia reported this was not a he said/she said situation, this was 50 something shes and one he. all the shes basically told the same story. retired palm beach police chief michael ryder who supervised the probe. julia also reporting that the damage that happens in this case is unconscionable, a former prosecutor. how in the world do you, the u.s. attorney, engage in a negotiation with a criminal defendant basically allowing the criminal defendant to write up the agreement? so my question for you, heidi,

do you expect the democrats to call palm beach pleas police chief michael ryder and the lawyers for the victims, bradley edwards is another name, to testify? do you expect congressional hearings in this case. >> they're looking into that literally as we speak. the most obvious places this would come from is the house and the oversight judicial committees, which they have their hands full right now. but this is something i've been talking to them about really for a couple of months. they have a lot of concern, for instance, about the department of justice's investigation into acosta's behavior because who's in charge of transparency around that? well, it's william barr. and so i could foresee a situation where they bring in not only the individuals that you mentioned, but maybe even some of the women. >> the victims. >> who haven't been heard from. victims. because, look, the horrible insidious thing about this was not just the sentencing that you really can't explain how you get from life in prison to some kind of a work study program, but how the women were hushed up. how they were not even made

aware of the nonprosecution agreement such that they were completely silenced in this. and so they have not even had a chance over all these years to tell their story. so if this happens, nicole, i don't have a da fintiefinitive to that, i would look to some of the women being called forward. that's when it's going to put pressure on trump. all those pictures you talked about and the history there will also come out as well. >> where does it happen in the justice department that acosta's conduct will be investigated and scrutinized? what is -- heidi makes an excellent point, that if william barr who had the audacity and the you know what's to lie about robert mueller's investigation, what hope do we the people have to seeing anything about what they learn about akooftacosta's disposition in this case? >> there's two places. the first is the office of professional responsibility. if it's attorney misconduct, if

an attorney did something wrong in his or her presentation to the court, misrepresented something to a defense attorney, violated some ethical rule, the office of professional responsibility would and should look at it. and it's a busy place. because they get lots of referrals. some of which turn out to be nothing at all and some of which turn out to be quite serious. the other place would be the office of inspector general. if a crime had been committed. or there was some other sort of significant misconduct. now, the office of inspector general almost always makes its reports public. the office of professional responsibility seldom does. >> yeah. >> and that's because many times attorneys who do something wrong haven't violated the law. they need to be represent manned, they need to be counseled, retrained, but we don't necessarily want to tell the entire story to the public if someone's going to remain employed. it's a sensitive balance. >> it's sensitive, but what seems -- i mean, the people around whom we should be

conducting ourselves with sensitivity would appear to me to be the 50 to 60 known victims of sexual -- alleged sexual assault. i just wonder, can you think of a single other case where sexual predator with 60 alleged victims had one day a week in county jail? >> absolutely not. and i -- >> i don't even think svus ever touched that. that doesn't exist in fiction. >> the legal word for it is insane. you just don't see this. but here's the thing about the victims. to heidi's point, incredibly important to hear from them p&l. but also incredibly important to be sensitive to them. testifying at a trial is a very hard thing for some victims to do. >> right. it retraumatizes victims. >> many in some cases. some of fine, but often some not. you want to be careful about calling them to testify publicly on numerous occasions and you would want to handle it sensitively. u.s. attorney's office also all have victim/witness

coordinators, counselors, people hor trained in working with victims helping them to prepare. and if these women are going testify and they might have to, i would want to see it done very carefully and as limited as possible. >> judicially. >> judicially. >> ashley parker, i can't help but just reflect upon for a second and i want to do this with you, of all that trump ushered in. jeffrey epstein is the villain accused of unthinkable and unconscionable conduct i think jeff berman in the southern district of new york described it aptly when he called it horrific and unimaginable crimes alleged against jeffrey epstein. but, again, we are leading our program with a story about a man who ran in donald trump's circles. is there any shame? is there any acknowledgement that he ran around way lot of lo low lifes.

>> keep in mind this is a president who boasted that he only surrounds himself with the best people. i think it's become quite clear that that is not the case. you did look at the people in president's orbit who are in jail. you can look at people like jeffrey epstein in the is not the case with the president yet, he hasn't really weighed in open this specifically, but oftentimes when we see someone in the president's orbit, a powerful man who has been accused of sexual misconduct, rape, sexual misbehavior, whatever it is by women, the president's impulse generally is to believe the man's claims of innocence. people say that comes from the president himself being accused by over a dozen women of sexual misbehavior and most recently rape. and, again, he hasn't said that about jeffrey epstein but it is one thing that's striking to your broader question, it's who is in the president's orbit and then when there is a controversy, who the president

most frequently chooses to belief. >> it's a great point and i was thinking yesterday about rob porter. i remember him in the same setting we showed in the oval office saying oh, god, you're going rescue thin poor man's life. never a public comment. we have no way of knowing if there was any private concern for the alleged victims of porter's physical assault against his two ex-wives. roy moore talked about how it was so long ago and on and open and on and on. do you feel any pressure building inside that white house to say something to condemn jeffrey epstein's conduct? >> that's a great question. we sort of don't know yet because a lot of questions that the president has been faced with have been towards acosta. what happened with your labor secretary? is how that going to be handled? but i do think in this world there is a chance that the president has been pretty clear at least his attorney to the trump organization to the "washington post" kind of said the president really severed

ties with jeffrey epstein dating back over a decade. i haven't had anything to do with him in 15 years. i don't know if that's true. but it does seem that the president is willing and eager to distance himself from jeffrey epstein. so there might be a world in which a condemnation of him and his behavior with not just these young women, but these teenagers and preteens. one of the victims said she was still in braces when this was happening. there is a chance that the white house would scould see that's ar him to issue a strong public condemnation. >> words i never thought i'd utter. the world waits for donald trump to condemn sex trafficker. next, attorney general willium barr says he's cool with mueller skipping testimony next week. also ahead, the president

defies the u.s. supreme court on the census. we'll go inside the legal contortions being done to accommodate donald trump's politically-motivated whims. and elizabeth warren rewrites the rules of the road, or at least the campaign trail, and it seems to be paying off. we'll go inside her big fundraising hall with a reporter fresh off the trail with her. stay with us. my sister and her kids. and the waldorf astoria beverly hills for me. can i get a..? thank you. book at hilton.com and get the hilton price match guarantee. if you have postmenopausal osteoporosis and a high risk for fracture now might not be the best time to ask yourself are my bones strong? life is full of make or break moments. that's why it's so important to help reduce your risk of fracture with prolia®. only prolia® is proven to help strengthen and protect bones from fracture with 1 shot every 6 months. do not take prolia® if you have low blood calcium, are pregnant, are allergic to it or take xgeva®

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house democrats getting themselves on a war footing this afternoon in a dramatic escalation in their obstruction fight with the white house. the house judiciary committee announcing today it will vote on

thursday to authorize subpoenas for 12 people. you might notice former national security adviser mike flynn, trump's son-in-law jared kushner, former chief of staff john kelly and ag jeff sessions. a that comes as they prepare to talk to the man behind the report itself, robert mueller. he is expected to appear on the hill a week from tomorrow. and although attorney general william barr insists it's mueller's choice to testify or not, he says if he change his mind that would be all right. >> i said all along that i had -- i would not object to be bob going up to testify. but after i said that, he indicated he was not interested in testifying. i was disappointed to see him subpoenaed because i don't think that serves any purpose dragging bob mueller up if he, in fact, is going to stick to the report. it seems to me the only reason for doing that is to create some kind of public spectacle.

and if bob decides that he doesn't want to be subject to that, then the department of justice would certainly back him. >> we have ken vogel. ken volg, we played you a clip of the world according to william barr and barr told us he wouldn't mind but nor he would mind if robert mueller didn't testify? isn't some of what he's going to be worried about, those letters he wrote to ag barr about his gross decision torsions of the actual substance and content and spirit of the mueller report? >> yeah, you would have to think that would be a primary target for democrats. republicans on the other hand, are hoping to get into other things that are not in the report. you know, they both kind of both sides kind of want to get him to talk about things that are outside the four corners the report, which of course is what he has said that he will focus exclusively on and will exclude any stuff outside of the report. so democrats want him to talk

about his dealings with barr and whether they think that barr was -- whether he thinks that barr sort of handled the situation properly. and then republicans want him o to -- get him to talk about the fisa abuse that led to the mueller investigation and why he didn't include exculpatory information about this manafort association and what role this ledger from ukraine of payments that manafort accepted played in the origins of the report or at least origins of the investigation as it pertains to manafort. so we're going to see a real push and pull. it will be interesting to see how mueller navigates this. >> chuck rosenberg, there's so much riding on this for the mueller team, for the president, for barr who i think will be revealed as having tried to cover up something. it will become clear why. but it seems like for mueller's

part, he could close his eyes and open up any page of that report and just start reading. it is the substance of the investigation that is so devastating for donald trump. the substance of the conspiracy investigation which on page after page proves collusion, which isn't a crime as you've told me for many, many months. and every page of the obstruction report we're reminded by donald trump and rude jewel and everyone still in the white house is at war now with don mcgahn. >> that's right. a couple of thoughts, nicole. first, if bob mueller says he's not going to go beyond the report, i would take him at his word. >> i would celebrate it. the report in and of itself is devastating. >> that takes me to my second point. the best questions to ask bob mueller would be the type of questions we prosecutors would ask on cross-examination. they would be leading questions, succinct, and they would lend themselves to only a yes or nor answer. as in i'm going to read a paragraph from your report, mur

mueller, please listen. i would read it and then say did i read that correctly? nd a would pick out the most devastating paragraphs and he would say, yes, you read that correctly. because he's done this many times. he's going to be careful. if the democrats are smart, and if they are judicious, they're going to have those types of succinct, leading questions and get mueller on the record to agree with them. >> to you, my friend, are they going to be succinct? are they going to be judicial? are they ready? >> that's the debate that's going on right now is how this needs to be choreographied. because the whole reason why this needs to be done in the first place is to rebut the misrepresentation that was made by his boss, by william barr. and so to chuck's point, you do need those succinct sound bites which dispute the main premise that barr put forward, which was no collusion and clearing him on obstruction. so you need to almost have a

choreography here of trump saying no collusion, no collusion flor obstruction, mr. mueller is accurate? and just by having those sound bites, you're going to correct a lot of misconceptions that are out there when you have news reports coming out that even many members of congress admit to not having read the whole report, you have a whole fast universe out there of, and i'll say it, fox news viewers, for instance, who may not even be aware of the worst things that are in the mueller report. may not even be aware of it. >> some of the worst things include trying to get his white house counsel to falsely dispute a "new york times" report calling friends like chris christie and others about his designs on firing mueller. there are things corroborated by two, three, four, five, six witnesses. there are contacts, there are 140 contacts with russians that are, while not criminal, are still unexplained by the trump team.

what would you advise your colleagues in the house do? >> i'm just going to stay straight up a think a traditional process of five minutes for each member back and forth, republicans, democrats, simply does not work. i think democrats need to orchestrate the rules which they can, they are the majority and they have the ability to set, you know, a 30-minute time ford yield their time to a professional counsel to ask questions. and i would urge them to do that because otherwise you don't tell a story. you don't paint a picture. you just have a lot of nonsense and confusion. and i think the american public at the end of the day and the traditional process will come out actually more confused than we started out. and as a last word, it's irresponsible for democrats and republicans not to have read the mueller report. take a weekend, sift through it, mark it up. >> listen to it. >> and read it. >> i want to go back in time with you kn.

i think our former colleagues describe the russian attack at a 9 ln/11. if you go back, democrats and republicans aggressively queried our former colleagues, then you have the 9/11 commission, democrats and republicans both asked the same sorts of questions. how far from anything normal is it that -- i'm sure ken vogel's description of what to expect is exactly right. republicans will walk in there with their lunatic fox inspired lune tick theories about the orange is the investigation. democrats will probably be less prepared than donna advises them to be. how far away are we from anything that resembles a true and honest and earnest fact-finding mission? >> we're in a different universe than we once were and i don't know when we'll get it back. the difference was in the 9/11 situation you had people in our administration trying to find the truth of things, the reality of things and that was what that effort was do.

here it's a different situation. a lot of the reason republicans haven't read the report is because they don't want to read what's in there. they don't want to see the truth because they don't want to break in their hermetically sealed world in the is what happens when you have a person with donald trump's corruptions, his ethical failures. he destroys everybody around him. he is like a black hole, there's a gravitational pull. bob barr is one example -- bill barr is one example. he was the person that i gave the benefit of the doubt to when he was appointed. but like so many people who are in donald trump's orbit, their integrity gets destroyed. so they have a vested interest not in the truth, they have a vested interest in defending donald trump no matter what. and since donald trump is at his core corrupt, he's a person without edgics, without a moral compass, that is going to be the result of all those who have decided that they're going to be sword and shield. >> it's an amazing place to

start. ken, let me give you the last word here and ask you about the story we started with, the escalation and subpoenas for what would appear to be a list of obstruction of justice witnesses, people who may have seen first hand donald trump's efforts to get sessions to recuse himself. any reporting on whether the white house is expected to respond any differently to those subpoenas than they have the others? >> yeah, it's hard to imagine that they would. there's a long and growing track record here of how they have tried to assert executive privilege to prevent folks from answering questions. many times questions that they've already answered. and in the case of don mcgahn's assistant for bob mueller's team, so much of the report and so much of that part of the obstruction inquiry was based on her notes yet here we have the white house fearful that she will provide information that will be condemning of the president and trying to prevent her from testifying. >> all right. ken vogel and pete, thank you both for spending time with us.

we're grateful. after the break, donald trump confronted an institution he didn't want to sole with his defiance for norm busting behavior. his latest target the u.s. supreme court. really, that story's next. e cou. really, that story's next. r wha. i'm still going for my best, even though i live with a higher risk of stroke due to afib not caused by a heart valve problem. so if there's a better treatment than warfarin, i'll go for that. eliquis. eliquis is proven to reduce stroke risk better than warfarin. plus has significantly less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis is fda-approved and has both. what's next? sharing my roots. don't stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. don't take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. while taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. eliquis may increase your bleeding risk

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there's norm busting and then there's norm busting. the president is refusing to take no for an answer from the supreme court this time. trump and his ag say they're finding a legal pathway to add the citizenship question to the 2020 census. >> we've been considering all the options and i've been in constant discussions with the president ever since the supreme court decision came down. and i think over the next day or two you'll see what approach we're taking. and i think it does provide a pathway forgetting the question on the census. >> barr getting in on the reality tv reveal strategy. last week it looked like the

trump administration's efforts to add the question were over. that's because the united states supreme court ruled that their reasoning for it was contrived. but despite that, the president pressed on forcing his own justice department to reverse course. the lawyers defending him were not as eager to keep up the fight. "new york times" wrote this, quote, barr acknowledged that the career justice department lawyers who had worked on the census question had little appetite to continue on the case. after mr. trump inserted himself into the process. we're going to reach a new decision and i can understand if they're interesting in not participating many this phase, barr said. doj aannoyanced a earlier it was replacing them. a nearly unheard of move. more reports note what could have been behind the replacement? it's strongly suggested that the career lawyers decided to quit a case that seemed to lack a legal basis and at most left them defending statements that could well turn out to be untrue. all this means in a short time we could be seeing something we've almost never seen in

american history, the president defying a supreme court order. joining our conversation just in time, reporter for the root, jason, what say you? >> imagine donald trump defying the supreme court. there's a couple things to this. i'm not a lawyer. but what struck me is, this is not o.j., this is not harvey weinstein. you don't just replace your legal team because you're not happy. they nope their job and know what they're responsible for. but the more critical thing is is this. it's the idea that the supreme court said your process is fine but your reasoning is the issue. and the reasoning most of the us believe is sort of racial animus, most of us believe there's a political motivation. if you have that this kind of citizenship question, it's not affecting voters but it can denies resource and blue districts tend to have more people who are noncitizens living there. if there's resources for disasters or school, the resources for environmental reasons, the federal government could use this question to deny access and deny money to districts. and that, that's a political decision that i don't think the

court could really go by. >> what's supposed to happen here, yuck u chuchuck? >> i'm not much of a lawyer. justice department lawyers have an obligation, if they can, to advance a reasonable argument on behalf of the statute or regulation. and so what must have happened, and it's informed speculation, is that the career lawyers in this case didn't believe they had a reasonable argument left. and that's troubling. now, maybe mr. barr and his team come up with another reasonable argument. we'll see. but the path seems to have ended at the supreme court decision. and the career lawyers appear to have said, we want off of this thing. and to your opening point, that's really unusual. >> it's really unusual and it's another place that would seem that for all of the opaque nature of the way barr does business, for all of the bad will that donald trump has toward every institution and norm, he's getting his way again. >> well, here we go.

he's destroyed article one. he's destroying article two. and there goes article three. when you have the courts. i mean, president trump and his attorney general see no harm whatsoever in going at the fundamental institutions of this government. the question is, how long congress is going to continue to allow that. and on this question in particular, it's about redrawing the lines and resources, but it's also about what our political representation is in congress. >> chuck, explain this. how is he going to get his way because the forms have already been printed? june 30th was the deadline. so -- >> he tramples in there like the federal -- >> whiteout? >> explain how this would work. does he do an executive order and then that gets ignored because it was already a supreme court ruling? i just don't know effectively how can he -- he breaks the law. >> how he wins at this late date. >> logistics don't seem to make

a lot of sense but neither does the law or the policy. i imagine they can postpone the count. i know it's required by the constitution in article one, but i don't think the constitution specifies precisely when it must occur, just that it has to occur every ten years. if the president has a -- i'm just making stuff up now, heidi, but i imagine if the president comes up with a legal rational that with stands scrutiny, they'd push the count off a little bit. >> a delay done. >> believable, another norm busted just here in the 4:00 hour. >> potentially. >> don't rely on my speculation. >> well, it's -- >> sorry to put you in that position. >> it's a good question. i mean, the what is defying the supreme corporate. the how is at this point unknowable. >> chuck, thank you for spending time with us. after the break, elizabeth warren is rewriting the rules of presidential campaigns and the results speak for themselves. we'll go inside warren's campaign of firsts next. maria ramirez?

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senator elizabeth warren taking a chance on her 2020 presidential campaign shunning conventional wisdom when it comes to add tidesing, fundraising and polling. that's according to new "politi" if her town hall in new hampshire yesterday was any indication, it's working. the crowd overflowed outside the venue, our next guest who was at the event said her performance with the crowds keeps getting better, too. garrett haake. you were there yesterday, tweeting about it. we were talk being biden so we didn't get to it, but talk about what you saw. >> talk about the money first because i think it is really important. warren basically set aside the traditional fundraising platform, she is not doing the who a circuit behind closed doors. a lot of people were holding their breath waiting for the number yesterday. the $19.1 would have been

impressive if she did it the old fashioned way and she didn't. >> so no bundlers. >> the standard no pacs, no corporate donors, but she's also not doing any traditional finance events. for example, biden does these but he has a pool reporter in the room. mayor pete does a lot of these events, beto has started to do some, he usually live streams them. all the candidates are trying to open up what has been a closed process. she's foregoing it entirely, saying if you want to send me money, send me a check, send me money through act blue. there is no event auto. you can't go to so some -- you can't buy an audience with her. >> you have to show up and earn it. now that we've seen this has worked, this is proof of concept for her. as we've talked about a lot before so much this have race a strength begetting strength. a lot of those big blunderers and donors will start sending her checks because now this is proof that what she is doing has gotten off the ground a little bit. as to the performance aspect of

this, i've covered her at these cattle call events, she usually comes on last because it's usually alphabetical and she wakes up the room. i've seen it with a variety of different crowds, whether it's union trade builders or activists in different groups. this is one of the first of her own events that i have seen and she's just really sharp. she knows her policy, she's very good comedic timing, the jokes are terribly corner, john mccain style corny jokes, but the timing is good. i mean, it's sort of an underrated skill in an era of digital everything for campaigning, but she's just good at the performative aspect on the trail. people who came at 4:30 in the afternoon on monday got something for showing up. >> so her crowds appear to be huge. what's going on in the room, are there more women than at some other -- what's the crowd? you made a comment that i was chuckling about, it was hard to figure out who a swalwell voter was, who is a warren voter >> it's a lot of women. it's the younger crowd than the

bernie sanders -- that's not true, it's a younger crowd than the biden events, it is roughly demographically similar to a bernie crowd, there is a lot of college students, younger people who are interested in her, there's definitely a lot of bernie pull away. i have met a lot of folks who were with bernie in 2016 and maybe they are still shopping warren but they're there to check it out. iowa, new hampshire are not exactly racially diverse, i would not say that the crowds are racially diverse. i would love to see her in south carolina and see if she can pull a more diverse crowd there. the polling has suggested that she can at least compared to mayor pete, beto, the other folks hanging on to the bottom of the top tier, but i haven't seen that in person yet. >> what do you think? >> the most impressive thing i've seen in this report, 384,000 individual donors. >> that's amazing. >> that is amazing. >> people don't understand they can give and they can give until they're maxed out. >> yes. at $28 a pop. that's like 90,000 more than the next closest person who is mayor pete who actually did very well. for her to be starting in that particular place and we are just

in the second quarter is a good sign. look, warren has been doing this the way we want candidates to do it, ideas first, policy first and letting that grow. i looked at her last weekend she was at the nea, talked to a lot of teachers, she goes down to essence, that has a dual impact on her campaign, one, you were standing in front of a black women who were important for any democratic nominee but also you spoke to teachers, that's women, african-americans, working class people throughout the entire country. she's hitting the right places and peaking at the right time. it's going to be interesting to see what happens when people see elizabeth warren as a front runner who has to be attacked, how she responds to that, but right now she has run probably the best campaign of any of the democrats thus far. >> do you agree? >> i do. i think she's already demonstrated that she can take a punch and keep on going, i think that's really important for a candidate. one of the things that i noticed about her is that an important part of the democratic base are black women and every single one of her policies she links something that connects to black women and you can see that play

out at essence fest, you saw it at the national action network. >> she the people. >> she the people. she really connects with those women. i think that's going to pay off hugely in south carolina and, remember, she doesn't have to win all of the black vote, but she's got to get her vote up enough so that she keeps the energy if she gets the nomination going into november. >> the other thing that seems to be -- go underreported a little bit, not by you, but by a lot of people, is that the attacks on trump are sharp, but they are not personal. meanwhile, she was the victim of some of the nastiest and most personal and inappropriate, frankly, attacks. i remember he was standing with native american code talkers and he talked about, oh, there's elizabeth warren we call her pocahontas. she has taken a punch from no less than donald trump and she is still standing and fighting. i think she has been one of the clearest voices on impeachment. >> because she's master of policy and she can twirl that wand in a way that he can't and be more cutting in a way because the people who she's trying to

speak to are actually -- there is a lot of potential there for crossover if you put her in that progressive category that we put bernie into in 2016. there was a lot of crossover, for instance, when it came to trade policy, when it came to trying to revive the midwest and industrial policy. so i think she will -- she could outsmart him in that sense, however, i don't think we can declare that she's going to be completely immune from that type of an attack when she's up on a debate stage and that's why these next debates are going to be so interesting to see how, you know, she handles it now that she's coming up and she's a real threat to bernie sanders, which opens anyone up once they startle vagt to that level to then becoming the piñata. >> once you rise. >> we've talked about her taking a punch. i really want to see if she can throw a punch. that's the thing. kamala harris proved she could come out and is willing to punch the biggest guy in the room. i have not seen that from elizabeth warren. her handling of trump on the

stump is to joke about him and write him off, but can she throw a punch that will translate to what democrats want to see. >> we are taking a break. we will be right back. see. >> we are taking a break we will be right back. same? new shell v-power nitro+ premium gasoline is engineered with four levels of defense against gunk, wear, corrosion and friction. that helps keep your engine running like new. so, maybe it's time to unthink what you think you think about premium fuel. shell v-power nitro+ premium gasoline... it's fuel for thought. let's see, aleve is than tylenol extra strength. and last longer with fewer pills. so why am i still thinking about this? i'll take aleve. aleve. proven better on pain. if your adventure... ...keeps turning into unexpected bathroom trips... you may have overactive bladder, or oab.

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crave while helping you manage your blood sugar. glucerna. everyday progress my thanks to garrett, heidi, jason and donna, most of all to you for watching. that does it for us, "mtp daily" with my friend kasie hunt in for chuck todd starts now. ♪ if it's tuesday, new pressure on a top trump official. top democrats are calling for the labor secretary to go, but president trump is standing by him. plus, house democrats step up their fight with the white house. readying new subpoenas in their obstruction of justice investigation, just days ahead of robert mueller's testimony. and president trump is determined to get that coro