crucial life line that's kept millions afloat during the pandemic. >> the panic mode has kicked in. my unemployment is not a heck of a lot, but it's gotten us by. >> congress is racing back to washington as the government is on the brink of shutting down tuesday if the spending package does not get signed. this morning, democrat and republican lawmakers slamming the president's resistance. >> in the midst of the most difficult moment in modern american history, it's insane -- is it really insane. this president has to finally do the right thing for the american people and stop worrying about his ego. >> i understand he wants to be remembered for advocating for big checks. but the danger is, he will be remembered for chaos and misery and erratic behavior if he allows this expire.

>> a good sunday to you. what is going on with this bill? is there any indication it's going to get signed any time soon? >> reporter: i hate to sound like a broken record standing here day after day with very little new information to add to the picture of this. the president and his aides at the white house refusing to say whether the president is actually going to sign this legislation or not. the most recent that we heard from the president was in a late night tweet last night where he once again called for these $2,000 payments that the president has been insisting on now since tuesday. without shedding any light on how he actually plans to get there. it's not like the president has been involved in any kind of negotiations that we know of. we haven't heard from steve mnuchin, who actually brokered the deal with members of congress. in fact, told them the president intended to sign this deal. he has been absent since the president threw this wrench into the negotiations.

we remain in the holding pattern as the ramifications continue to mount today. if anything, this seems to have united democrats and republicans in a rare holiday moment of bipartisansh bipartisanship, shaping a senei into a sense. >> if you want to make it $2,000 checks, negotiate that from the beginning. have the discussion after this bill is signed. right now, we're at a point where people are left out in the dark. to play this game, which is kind of like, i don't get the point, i don't understand what's being done, unless it's just to create chaos and show power and be upset because he lost the election. otherwise, i don't understand it. >> reporter: the other thing people don't understand is, it's not like the president is holding out here in hopes he will get something that is completely what he had delivered

in the first place and then some. as of today, even if the president were to sign that bill right now -- he is currently on the golf course. if he signed it, americans would still lose out on a week of that unemployment insurance because of the way it's written. as the days go by and we get closer to new year's, even more damaging affects from this, including the eviction moratorium for so many at risk of losing their homes taking affects at new year's. to fresh laundry try in flings. they have more freshness ingredients compared to bargain liquid detergent. they have 3 super powered ingredients that fight stink oxi boost febreze odor remover and concentrated detergent. try gain flings and smell the difference.

pardon that fade to black. we had audio problem. we have breaking news. joining me now, anna edgerton. we are back. let's talk about the options that congress has at this point. what do you think is going to happen? >> what we are looking at next week is the house coming back into session on monday. they were planning to come back into session to override trump's veto of the national defense authorization act, another piece of drama last week. they are planning to vote on a

measure that would increase that amount of checks to $2,000 from the $600 in the bill trump has on his desk. nancy pelosi has urged the president to go ahead and sign the bill he has and then after the fact they could pass another measure to up the amount in those checks for individuals without imperiling this other bill. >> what you are saying is the bill could have been signed and whatever back and forth tussling between $600 versus $2,000, that could have been handled in a simple amendment? >> exactly. not exactly an amendment. they will try to pass a new piece of legislation. strike the $600 from the bill that's been signed into law if president trump does decide to sign it. that will replace that with $2,000. that would be a simple way to get the president what he wants without imperiling the rest of

the legislation. we don't expect senate republicans to go along with that. they don't want $2,000 in the bill. >> is there a reason why not? are they not on board with the president? do you expect them to not get on board with the $2,000 relief check? maybe in the house but not the senate? >> i think that will be the case. it will pass in the house and not in the senate. i don't think mitch mcconnell, the senate majority leader, will put it on the floor. what we are seeing from republicans is there's increasing concern about the deficit now that we have an incoming democratic president. they want to keep the total amount of this relief measure below $1 trillion. if we were to have larger checks in this bill, that would push it above $1 trillion. if the president had participated in this negotiation from the beginning, he could have had $2,000 checks. it was something democrats wants. josh hawley, a republican senator said he wanted that. if it had been a part of the negotiation from the beginning, he could have had it.

after the fact, it's hard to go back in and reopen this package. >> anna, the perspective from you on if this $2,000 never happens, what happens overall to the covid relief bill in the end? >> best case scenario, the president would decide to sign it, even though some of the unemployment -- supplemental unemployment benefits have expired. the other thing that's wrapped up in this bill is government funding. regular appropriations for norme normal government operations. if we don't get the president signing the bill on his desk or another short-term spending bill, government funding is going to expire at midnight on december 28th, that's monday. there's a web of deadlines wrapped up in this legislation and serious consequences for the government and country if that bill is not signed. >> 100%. thank you so much for this conversation. it's a perfect segue into my next one. joining me susan delpercio

and don callaway and jonathan alter. let's get into this. don, to kind of reiterate what anna was saying as we read a quote from "the new york times" today, the consequences of such a delay are dire. some warn that any resolution at this point may be too late for families who will have lost their only life line shielding them from the brunt of the pandemic's economic toll. foreclosure, hunger, suicide said a senior policy analyst. there will be permanent things that happen to people that can't be fixed by a check in three weeks. holding this up has real life implications. do you think the president understands this? do you think he does? >> i don't know that he

understands it. he was the child of -- with a golden spoon in his mouth. i don't know if he understands it, if understanding comes from lived experience. he is aware of it. that brings us to what we have known from the beginning of this administration, that we probably have not wanted to collectively face as americans, that with this administration, when it comes to immigration policy or when it comes to kids in cages or whatever it may be, the cruelty is the point. i think that's a dire and terrible fact that we all have to face. there's no other explanation for it. certainly, he is aware of it. certainly, people who are better souls than he have told him the long-term and short-term ramifications of this. the cruelty is the point. he enjoys the abject cruelty he gets to mete out and the confusion on this country because we rejected him at the polling place. >> in terms of better souls of which you are speaking, democrats and republicans, they are urging the president to sign this bill and then argue for more stimulus checks.

why doesn't he just do that? by not signing this bill, the american people are the ones that are paying the price. what's his reasoning here? >> first of all, there's no reasoning. he is in crazy town holding the country hostage, destroying people's not just christmas but first part of the new year until the cavalry comes with joe biden. you have a large number of people who will be evicted, unemployment insurance is already run out over the weekend. people in small business are facing all kinds of challenges. he doesn't care. this idea that he is santa claus, he will give everybody $2,000, nancy pelosi, through mnuchin, asked for weeks, she pleaded, would you commit to direct payments to the suffering american people? the trump administration said no until just a few days ago when in order to get back into the

spotlight, that's all he cares about. i disagree with don a little bit. i don't think cruelty is the only point. attention is the only point for this m this man. he wants to be a master of disaster. >> that's a hell of a way to go out. susan, listening to the sound bites from senator toomey, what do you make of this? >> let's go back to what don and jonathan said. he is cruel. he likes attention. most and dangerous of all, he is unable to do the job through competence. this is a dereliction of duty. he doesn't care about democrat or republican. he wants to be out there doing what he thinks makes him look

strong, which is the shame of it all. he has no idea how ineffective it makes him. he doesn't care about what the republicans do. he thinks they have abandoned him by not participating in his crazy, delusional coup. what priority does he put on what the senators think? nothing. let's not give the senators a break here on this either. let's face it. the only reason they got a deal was because they realized how critical it was to get it done by the end of the year. this deal should have done in september. frankly, donald trump would have had a better chance of getting re-election if he pushed for the $2,000 in september or october. again, the senate didn't want to move. now they are gearing up for a biden administration, claiming to be fiscally responsible, which they have forgotten for i would tell you not just the laugh four years but probably the last 20 years. they also look ridiculous and cruel. i don't think therey're as

incompetent and clueless as the president. >> joe biden was slamming the president for holding this up. biden called this a down payment with more aid to come once he takes office. what makes him so sure that he is going to get another package passed? it took congress months to negotiate this bill. it hasn't even passed. it isn't being signed by the president. what will be different in the biden administration? >> 35 years of joe biden in a colleague, as a colleague of mitch mcconnell, of john cornyn and the relationships. he have to imagine that's what he thinks will be the fundamental difference. of course, differing philosophies. but that's what he thinks is an advantage. between him and prior administrations of either stripes who had a hard time. i do think that joe biden, even

with his new policy team and legislative affairs coming in, he believes that he and his relationships and his knowledge of the senate and the way things work will be able to get a package done. he is right that this is going to have to be a down payment if the president signs it. there's going to have to be a massive, massive relief package, including direct payment to the american people as well as infrastructure payments for the greater good if we're going to get out of this thing. that's going to have to happen within the first half of next year. >> jonathan, david has a new column in "the washington post." he writes, not to be alarmist, but we should recognize that the united states will be in the danger zone until the formal certification of joe biden's election victory on january 6th, because potential domestic and foreign turmoil could give president trump an excuse to cling to power. he mentioned michael flynn's suggestion that the president could invoke the insurrection act to use military capability and try to re-run the election in swing states.

are you concerned of what we will see from this president in the next week plus leading up to january 6th? >> i am concerned. although, i have confident in the u.s. military that they will not follow unlawful orders. the chairman of the joint chiefs has indicated that. i think the military, like our court system and our press, these institutions are holding firm, resisting this very dangerous autocrat who is like the madness of king george. we don't know what he will do. we do know what needs to be done with him. this is a suggestion that colin powell made. the military has the power to call former officers back into military service when they desire to do so. maybe late january or february, the u.s. military needs to call

general flynn back into military service and as colin powell recommends, court-martial him. he has been calling for insurrection by calling for martial law. we don't do that in this country. these banana republicans who have taken over the republican party, need to understand we don't live in a dictatorship where people declare martial law in order to claim power. we need to send a powerful message on that. i believe the house of representatives -- a number of members on the democratic side agree with this -- they need to censuseincensure those who -- [ no audio ]

we need to send messages this is not enough to just have a new president. we need to repair some of the damage that's been done to democracy. >> it's going to be a tall order. quickly, susan, i want to listen to something that congressman kinzinger said. >> i expect there will be chaos. i don't know about worried. i'm concerned to an extent about january 6, because if you convince people that congress can change a legitimate election and everything was stolen, there's a deep state/qanon theory driving this, which is that it's satanist pedophiles that run the government, you can see turning to violence. >> i'm concerned about january 6th. kwh y

you have the president calling people not to stand down but to stand aside. will he tell groups like the proud boys, who committed a great deal of violence and stabbings two weeks ago, to rise up? that concerns me. >> the president said, it will be wild. thank you guys. have a happy new year. see you on other side. now to the day's other breaking news. for the first time, we are hearing from police officers whose frantic efforts saved lives right before the christmas day explosion in downtown nashville. they were trying to get people out of apartment buildings when they feared the suspicious rv could explode at any time. the close call when that bomb actually went off and the emotions that took over. >> i feel very lucky to be alive. say hello to my family. i'm uninjured as well as other the other officers. i'm very grateful for the quick response from fellow officers

and everyone else. >> people are certainly grateful for him. we rarely see police officers pull back the curtain on the intensity of responding to dangerous calls like that. this briefing was pretty emotional. >> reporter: so emotional. this is the first time we got to hear from the officers who not only there as the explosion went off, but the officers who are credited with saving so many lives by leading that evacuation in the moments before. we got to hear them recount their experiences in more detail than i thought we were going to. from the moments where they arrived and heard the warning to the rush and race to evacuate people in the area, all the way up to the details of the song that was playing in the moments before the rv exploded. the song with the lyrics that read, when you are alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go downtown.

i want you to listen to a little chunk of that press conference. >> i hear god telling me to turn around and go check on the woman by herself on broadway. as i turned around, for me it felt like i took three steps and then the music stopped and as i'm walking back, i see orange. then i hear a loud boom. >> we are walking towards each other. i saw the biggest flames i have ever seen. the biggest explosion. i saw orange and then him. i saw him stumble. i felt it. i felt the heat, the wave. i don't know how i kept my footing. i kind of blinked and i couldn't see him for a second. i lost it. i took off in a sprint towards him.

like he said, i have never grabbed somebody so hard on any life. >> i got on the radio. couldn't get a response. from the blast, he had hearing loss. that's when amanda got on and said he was okay. i was trying to make sure all of our people were okay. >> reporter: really emotional press conference. we didn't get details or updates on the investigation, there were some details that we learned that we didn't know before. one in terms of the rv antd stru and the structure. the shades were down. another officer said there was a camera hanging off of the rv. he said he felt like he was being monitored as the time line was taking place. we know this started and they were there because they were responding to reports of shots fired. they said that based on the initial investigation as they were rushing people out and talking with people on the scene, they speculated that that sound could have come from the rv itself and that's what drew the officers there initially. very important and emotional

press conference. we got a few new nuggets as we wait for more details on this investigation. >> it's not lost on me the timing of the shift for the police officers. they look young. right? they were on a graveyard shift on christmas. to think of what they have all seen -- thank you my direct are f are -- director for putting that up. talk about getting seasoned in a flash. it's extraordinary. i was fighting back tears. thank you for bringing us that part of the news conference. the numbers tell a different story than you are seeing. this is la guardia, live right now. wow. look at that. the truth behind the real numbers, what you don't see here, is certainly scaring some doctors. we have a covid update next. tou, bacteria is left behind. try microban 24.

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now to the latest facts in the coronavirus pandemic. the u.s. surpassed 19 million cases and 332,000 deaths nationwide. between moderna and pfizer, almost 2 million americans have been given the first dose of the

vaccine. the health and human services assistant secretary says distribution is right on schedule. >> 20 million vaccinations distributed by the first week in january. we expect another 30 million in january and 50 million in february. we still expect that any american who wants a vaccine can be vaccinated by june. >> nations in the european union are getting their first doses of the vaccine today. officials hope the campaign to vaccinate health care workers and the elderly will send a message of unity. back in the u.s., the cdc has issued new guidance that people with underlying health conditions can receive the covid vaccine. that includes people with a weakened immune system, hiv positive and those who have an autoimmune disorder. a live look at la guardia airport. incredible how empty despite warnings from the cdc. aaa estimates 85 million people

will travel over the christmas and new year's holiday and millions by plane. americans breaking records for pandemic air travel this last week. megan fitzgerald is in los angeles with the story. >> reporter: the u.s. now surpassing 19 million cases of the coronavirus. adding more than a million new infections in less than a week. >> this is the worst stage of the pandemic. we have to get through this. the only way we will get through this is if we're all working hard to take precautions. >> reporter: americans don't seem to be listening. ignoring pleas to stay home. more than 8 million people flew for the holiday, marking the busiest travel period since the pandemic bebeggan. >> we have this third surge that's the worst. we don't know what this looks like yet. >> reporter: in the uk, where a more contagious strain is running rampant, travellers to the u.s. facing new restrictions

monday. they must show a negative test within three days of boarding their flight. in los angeles, where a person dies from covid every ten minutes, testing for the highly contagious strain in the uk has begun. fears that it may already be here and contributing to the surge. experts are hopeful that the vaccine, currently being administered worldwide, will work against mutations. >> i think it's more likely the current vaccines will be protective against a wide variety of different strains. >> reporter: a vaccine the world is counting on to finally end this pandemic. megan fitzgerald, nbc news, los angeles. nancy pelosi says the house is back in session tomorrow to vote on standlonstandalone bill. joining me now, congress wwoman

and physician. let me ask if you can make sense why the president is holding this up. do you believe it's about increasing the amount? is that all it is? >> first of all, it's great to see you. i don't know. i have never been able to get inside the president's head. i think there's one through line, which is that he mostly, in my opinion, thinks of himself. i think that perhaps he just wants to look like the guy who went to bat for everybody and got them $2,000 instead of $600 in a cash payment. i will tell you, i was hoping that on christmas he would come out and say, merry christmas, and sign this package and get the extra 1$1,400 in there. he didn't. there's a chance to do this, to save face and to deliver.

that is by us passing our bill tomorrow to add $1,400 and for him to sign the covid package which will get him what he wants and will get the people in my district, who desperately need cash, unemployment help, businesses who need support. we need a vaccine rollout that's more efficient than we have right now. >> i want to pick up on what you said when you said us, that group of which you are a part, the house of representatives. the standalone bill vote that speaker pelosi plans for tomorrow, might it be largely symbolic? it will likely pass the democrat controlled house. will it pass the gop controlled senate? >> that's always a question. i think the decision that the republicans are going to have to make is one where they have to look whether they will stand with their president, which they have done. so perhaps that will have influence. whether he had will respond to

the needs of the people in their district or whether they put an obsession with deficit and debt above the interests of the people they represent. i really would hope -- i hope that we will all rise to the occasion, democrats and republicans in the house and senate and the president will sign it if it has the extra money in it. >> can you give me a sense how critical getting relief to your constituents is right now, whether elderly, parents, children? what's happening there? >> this is critical. a little flash through history. may 15th is when we passed the heroes act. we have been negotiating since then to get some relief to the people in our districts. i hear from people who have lost their jobs. they desperately need the enhanced unemployment. you can't get by with state levels. frankly, it was keeping our

economy afloat. i hear from small businessowners who blew through the ppp money to support their workers. now they are hanging on by a thread if they are still open. they need help. the cash payments and not just that. about 10 million doses of coronavirus vaccine have been distributed around the country. you just said, not even 2 million made it into the arms. we need money from this covid relief package to get that vaccine to become vaccination, get it into the arms of people all over my district and the country. >> how surprised are you by the numbers, the astounding numbers? 19 million cases, 332,000 deaths. at what point will we see a more normal way of life? what's it going to take to decrease these numbers? >> these numbers are stunning. and heartbreaking. think about how long it took for us -- it was not long enough -- to get to the first million.

now we have added a million cases in about a week, i think. >> it has been about a million a week over the last six days. it's stunning. >> it is stunning. it makes me think we probably have this new variant here. what is heartbreaking for me as a doctor is that fundamentally, this disease still is by and large preventable. if we all did the right thing. we stayed home, we didn't gather indoors, we wore our masks, we limited contact with others. there's some people who have to go to work. i will bet the grocery store workers would appreciate it if we didn't go in every day potentially exposing them. if we all can just -- it's hard. i know we have covid fatigue. just muster this in the dark days when things are out of control as much as we can stay home and stay with our own families.

>> like i said, a million a week and over the last six days, another million. it's extraordinary. i'm glad to see you. thanks for staying on the job and staying vigilant and speaking with me. time is money for millions of unemployed americans and countless businesses. how stalled covid relief could have a lasting impact on the nation. austin goolsbee is joining me next. if you have postmenopausal osteoporosis

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breaking news. the federal government faces a potential shutdown tomorrow night in a standoff over the covid relief bill. millions are more concerned about the fate of their unemployment benefits. they expired last night after president trump failed to sign the legislation. at this hour, the president is at his golf club in florida. for more on what this means, austin goolsbee and professor at

the booth school of business. welcome. let's get into this. i'm curious the immediate impact of the president not signing this bill. who is being affected by the president allowing these programs to expire? >> everybody is being affected. can you believe that this is happening? it's crazy. after months, they actually agreed on a relief package. now the president is not lifting a finger to sign it. i mean, there are millions of people who lost their jobs with the pandemic crush on the economy, who have not been able to find new jobs. they have been surviving on those benefits. they won't get it. there are millions of people who are also -- we need the money for testing. the states need the money to roll out the vaccine. so it threatens to slow fighting the spread of the virus

directly. we have got millions of people who are facing eviction. on top of that, we've got the relief checks that were going to go out to all adults who make less than $150,000, $100,000 a year. it's really the majority of the country is being affected by the president not signing a bill that his own people negotiated. >> "the new york times" this morning, it may be too late for families who will have lost their only life line shielding them from the pandemic's economic toll. let's go to the small businesses. as you were ticking off the effects of this and who suffers, i'm thinking, okay, there are landlords, there are the local stores, from which people will not be able to buy their food. that's just the basic stuff, which is heartbreaking. talk about the small businesses

that will be affected by this. >> it's bonkers. we went through the ppp money designed to keep small businesses afloat. now we have a vaccine on the horizon. it's a matter of months. hopefully. before we can get control of the spread of the virus and go back to something like what we were doing before. we are just trying to prevent permanent damage while we are waiting this thing out. that was the whole point of the small business money in this rescue package. more money to go to small business so restaurants and cleaners and all of the companies that you deal with on a weekly basis in normal times don't cease to exist. i would say go bankrupt. but as you know, 90% of businesses that close, they don't even have the money to go through bankruptcy. they just shut the doors and that's the last you heard from them. that's going to happen if the president doesn't sign this. it makes no sense.

>> austin it sounds like this was much more than just a bill for covid relief. this was going to help the economy in this country as a whole. >> the entire economy is in jeopardy. as everyone knows, just look out the window. people are afraid. they are staying in their homes so they don't get their family members and friends sick and potentially kill them. while that happens, if you don't want permanent damage, then you have to be in the business of providing relief. we know that. we passed the c.a.r.e.s. act. congress tried to pass the heroes act. they are trying to provide that kind of relief that will prevent a meltdown of the economy. while we wait out the vaccine. i can't emphasize this enough. this was negotiated by the president's own people. they came to a compromise. now the president cannot be bothered. he is literally out golfing, not

signing this into affect, while millions of people and businesses are going to lose everything. why? to object to say he wanted $2,000, i know education has been in trouble done remotely. but if you take $1,400 plus $600, it still atd adds up to $2,000. if what he wanted was a $2,000 check, go talk to republicans and pass another $1,400. >> how about this? talk to your own treasury secretary who is negotiating this. there was speculation yesterday that president trump was not clued in to what was being negotiated by his treasure secretary, by republicans. mnuchin -- let me ask you about bloomberg, which reports u.s. holiday sales, to add another caveat, that they did beat the already low expectations for the

pandemic year. retail sales growing 3% over the extended 75-day holiday period. it was driven by online shopping. what do these numbers say to you about where the economy is? does that stat surprise you? >> maybe it surprised me a little. perhaps not that much. that tells me, this is the first recession we ever had that was caused by nothing having to do with the economy. it's not like there was a normal business cycle. this happened because of the virus. if you can get control of the virus, that number tells me that people want to go back to what they were doing. what we're trying to do is just prevent permanent damage until we can get control. i don't think the president wants to be there. he has made that clear in every possible way. here is a bill on his desk. he doesn't have to do anything

except sign it. it was negotiated by his own people. he doesn't want to be the president anymore. he is making that obvious. >> how could he want to come back in 2024? that's another conversation you and i can have. thank you, austin goolsbee. president trump's border wall, why it could be one of the biggest failures. what will president-elect biden do with the barrier? can he take it day on day one? will he do that? next. will he do that? next yo yo yo yo♪ start your day with secret. secret stops sweat 3x more than ordinary antiperspirants. with secret you're unstoppable. no sweat. try it and love it or get your money back. secret. ♪ all strength, no sweat

a new time line from president-elect joe biden how long it might take to tackle president trump's policies at the u.s./mexico border. biden said he would on day one reverse the program that returns asylum seekers to mexico. here is what he said a few days ago. >> the last thing we need is to say we're going to stop immediate immediately the access to asylum the way it's being run now and end up with 2 million people on our border. it's a matter of setting up the guardrails. it will get done and it will get done quickly. it's not going to be able to be done on day one. >> joining me now, victoria de fran chesco. she's an msnbc contributor and analyst and a good friend to us. it's good to see you. are you surprised by this? are you disappointed? do you think joe biden is

looking at this just from a very logical logistics standpoint? >> right. i'm not surprised as a professor of public policy. i know that policy is something that is very complicated. there are many levers involved in terms of regulation, in terms of the bureaucratic maneuvers involved, such as immigration judges. how can you hire hundreds of immigration judges in a matter of one or two days? you will need a couple of weeks. those are the type of policy intricacies that are going to be needed to undo the remain in mexico program. my hope it will be done with urgency because we are talking about a humanitarian crisis. the idea that it can be done on day one, something like this, just is not possible from a policy standpoint. >> what about the supreme court? it will take up the return to

mexico policy next year. looking at this conservative majority court as biden buys time, what kind of ruling could come from that? >> alex, i am not a betting woman. in looking at the looking at th conservative court, i don't think it's going to be necessarily friendly to more expansionary, more humanitarian-minded migration policy. that being said, one thing i do feel optimistic about in the new biden administration is that biden is going to consider the push and the pull factors. so people come to the united states because they seek refuge, because there's economic opportunity, and they're coming because in their home countries, they don't have that. so immigration isn't just about domestic policy in the u.s., it's also about our leaders engaging effectively with the leaders in latin america, in asia, in different sending countries in making the world a more stable place, enabling

these sending countries, say your central american countries, to be able to provide for people so they aren't seeking refuge in the record numbers we've been seeing. this is a key part we missed during the trump administration, is thinking about immigration through more concerted form of policy paradigm. >> what about border patrol, which you know says that 438 miles of wall have been constructed. but factcheck.org says 365 miles are just replacement fencing. biden said in august he would not build another foot of wall. what do you expect him to do with the 73 miles that were built? will they stay there? will they be torn down? >> they will likely stay there, because also remember, alex, the majority of the fencing that was put into place goes back to 2006, the secure fencing act. they added some fencing. but here's the thing, the majority of the fencing that was

built, the new 73 miles, is not in the high traffic area. the high traffic area is in the rio grande valley in central texas. but because a majority of that land is private property, they weren't able to build the wall there. so that 73 miles' worth of fence built in arizona and new mexico was public land already, so it's really kind of useless, and again, it goes back to the fact that walls don't keep people out when there is a pull and there is a push. this is really what we have to delve into with our immigration policy. you can build fences, you can put ladders up when it comes to building fences, but let's get to the reasons why people might migrate. >> i'll see you in the new year. we'll have lots more discussion with the new administration. thank you so much. there are economic tough times in america, and they have

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