let's go back to julia ainsley to refocus here now that we know that roger stone has left the courthouse there in washington. julia, take us through what we saw this morning. we know that roger stone has pleaded not guilty and it seems based on his past comments he plans to argue that if he did lie, he didn't do it on purpose. >> reporter: yeah, that's what he said publicly. i think that's what his defense will argue. we did see a much quieter roger stone today. over the past 72 hours he's been texting with reporters and on cable news and talking to report r reporters in front of his house and being the typical showman roger stone. today he was very quiet in court. he signed papers. he himself didn't even speak with the non-guilty plea. his lawyer did that on his behalf. he left without talking. a thing we'll see as this goes on is what roger stone does while this plays out, if he follows advice from his attorney and stays quieter and friday we'll see him again as he comes back to washington, d.c. i think we should pay close attention to the judge as to whether or not she does decide to

julia ainsley, kristen welker, appreciate that. you're looking at a live shot from our local affiliate of roger stone's house. we expect that given this court appearance is set for 11:00 eastern, which is an hour and 15 minutes from now, we expect we will see stone heading to the courthouse. we're going to keep an eye on that. we want to bring in now phil rucker, white house bureau chief for "the washington post." doug burn, former federal prosecutor. elliott williams, former deputy assistant general at the justice department. yamiche alconder, pbs "newshour." cynthia oxney is a former federal prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst. we have an army, a cast of thousands here for this breaking news day. ellie, i'm going to start with you first. there's a lot to unpack here. let's start with that relationship between roger stone and the trump campaign. there's a significant passage on page nine of this indictment that says on or about october 7th, 2016, so a month before the election, wikileaks, organization one, released the first set of

julia ainsley with this headline and story that just dropped in the last minute or so. julia reporting for nbc news that only six immigrants in in terrorism database stopped by cdp at southern border in the first half of 2018. this is obliterating the propaganda sarah sanders attempted to use on chris wallace of all people. let me read a little bit of what you're reporting and you take us through it, julia. u.s. country ups and border protection encountered only six immigrants on the u.s./mexico border the first half of fiscal year 2018 whose names were on a federal government list of known or suspected terrorists. that's according to cpb data obtained by nbc news. the low number contradicts statements by trump administration officials, including white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders, who said on friday cbp stopped nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists from crossing the southern border in fiscal year 2018. government agencies in charge of these numbers not dispute are or reporting i understand, julia. >> they're not disputing it but it's certainly not s

joining me now, nbc national security and justice reporter julia ainsley outside the courthouse. what a scene just behind you, just moments ago. msnbc political analyst peter baker. chief white house correspondent of "the new york times." former u.s. attorney barbara mcquade. and paul charlton, also a former u.s. attorney, joining us, and pete williams as well. pete, let's go to you first for your analysis outside the courthouse, then we'll talk to your colleagues about what just helped. >> reporter: sure, i'll tell you what the news is. the news is roger stone came and went without saying anything. >> exactly. >> reporter: perhaps he chose not to speak because there were protesters around and he realized he would have to shout them down which he almost had trouble doing last friday when he was arrested in florida. but the rest of it was as expected, andrea. it's an arraignment. these things are very, very brief. this one lasted less than 15 minutes. he arrived about eight minutes before it started, wearing a suit and tie. and in fact about half the hearing was spent with no one

julia ainsley for us. >>> there's another disruption at a british airport.it's heathrow airport. reports of a drone in the area. it's causing a lot of problems. >> for me, let's bring in nbc news chief global correspondent bill neely. what's the situation there? >> here we go again. at left that's what it looks like. heathrow is not only britain's largest and busiest airports, it's one of the busiest airports in the world. all departures from that airport have now been stopped. that is after reports of a drone being seen near one of the two runways. the northern runway and the metro police say as a precaution all departures have been halted. there is a second runway and aircraft are still arriving at the second runway, but this is obviously very serious. because it's just a couple of weeks since gatwick airport was shut for 36 hours. it affected more than is00,000 passengers. more than 1,000 flights. because of drone sightings, several drones. it was believed -- in an extraordinary development, the airport was closed. and yet nobody was found. the police are

julia ainsley, thank you so much. appreciate it. >> thank you. >>> ahead, everybody, alexandra ocasio-cortez is trolling the gop and already driving them crazy. but first, the russia probe. and a federal judge bob mueller today rebuking a critic of bob mueller. we'll be back in 30 seconds. keep it here. as well as all the things you want to do. because when you're ready for what comes next, the only direction is forward. our because of smoking.ital. but we still had to have a cigarette. had to. but then, we were like. what are we doing? the nicodermcq patch helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. nicodermcq. you know why, we know how. >>> welcome back, everybody. a federal judge sending a powerful message today. cut the attacks on bob mueller. it came after lawyers for a russian company charged in the mueller probe attacked the mueller team in profanity-laced court documents. at one point even quoting "animal house." the judge responding today, telling the lawyers to, quote, knock it off, that mueller is also gettin

our national security reporter, julia ainsley and our ari mel r melber. jeff, that first question to you, white house's aides reportedly concerned that the president did not flat out saying no. what's happening after those two reports? >> reporter: it is a great question. the other thing white house officials tell us that president trump has said all along that he wants to forge a better relationship with russia so their point is we should not be surprised by his approach and they are right to appoint, presidents do have the prerogative to forge better relationships with countries that were at one point and adversary. nixon did that with china and obama did that with cuba. when it comes to trump and russia, not only the president fully articulated, why he wants to have the better relationship, california has a bigger economy than russia does. when it comes to trump and russia, you now have or had fbi officials so unnerved and unsettled by the president's actions and behavior that they took the precedent steps to launch the investigation and they took the

julia ainsley jobs me. i want to get a fact check on sarah sanders. she was on fox news.he said 4,000 terrorists were picked up crossing the southern border. is that so? what is she talking about? >> so, chris, what she's doing here is likely rounding from this figure we've heard from the administration before. where they say that 10 terrorists or suspected terrorists are stopped by border p protection every day. they're taking that from is the number of people stopped at all ports, especially airports. these could be people on a no fly list. it doesn't mean they're arrested. it doesn't mean they're charged with terrorism. we haven't seen the number of terrorism charges since 9/11 be anywhere near 4,000 so she seems to be rounding and especially playing it off the border to make it seem these are people crossing to make the case for the president's wall. in fact, we're talking about airports where a wall wouldn't do anything. >> so misleading at best. let's talk about this razor wire or whatever you want to call it on top of the existing wall and the troop movement. what'

also with us justice reporter julia ainsley and former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense, also msnbc national security analyst, jeremy bash. and in birmingham, alabama, former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor joyce vance. it's great to have you to talk about a very momentous weekend in news. jeremy, i want to start with you and just from kind of a broad perspective, did this headline and news about the counterintelligence investigation, should it change how we view the mueller investigation overall? >> not really. it was always a counterintelligence and criminal investigation. the real question at the heart of the inquiry was what leverage does russia have over our president, financial leverage and ultimately physical rev ladies and gentlemen? and to help us answer the question, why do we have a foreign policy that seems to make no sense, why do we have a president that seemed so pro-putin? and this is the issue "the new york times" raises, what do we do as a constitutional matter if the commander in chief under article two of our constitution was responsible for forei

julia ainsley, nbc news security and justice reporter. was stationed outside court for today's proceedings. and chris legarian, "l.a. times," who has been detailed to d.c. especially to cover special counsel robert mueller. he managed to get a seat inside the courtroom today. so we have it all covered. chris, i'd like to begin with you. after this traveling roger stone show that even first-time viewers have come to know since just friday, even if you haven't seen the netflix documentary, what was his bearing and demeanor like in a federal courtroom that can serious you up really fast? >> inside the courtroom, it was unlike any setting we've seen roger stone in. he walked in very quietly. he said almost nothing. he was very subdued, and that's not how you expect to see roger stone. he's very bombastic, he's very loud, he's prone to say outrageous things. the only things we heard him say in court today were "yes, your honor" and that was about it. >> julia, i want to play for you more of what roger stone said to info wars today. we'll talk

i do want to bring in nbc news national security and justice reporter julia ainsley and california democrat congressman jimmy gomez who represents california's 34th district. that also includes the city of los angeles. thank you both very much. julia, let me begin with you. at the crux of the impasse over the shutdown is border security, and i wanted to quote something from a report you wrote. the department of homeland security has requested more u.s. troops to be deployed at the border to add 160 miles of cancer ti canc con -- why this request and why now in the midst of a government shutdown that has, in fact, impacted dhs operations? >> well, ayman, a short answer is that he doesn't have to go to congress to get this. he can go to dod and make this request, and in all likelihood it will go through just like the previous request to send the troops that have been down there for months now. they were supposed supposed to be coming home at the end of this month, but under this new request they would stay until september. we are paying close attention to what happens today. there should be a

joining me now is julia ainsley, national security and justice reporter. ieve that we expect these people to respond to emergencies, to patrol the borders. they are part of our national security. they are part of border patrol and drug interdiction and they're not exempted as being essential. >> that's the case admiral schultz is making in this video, which is unusual. we haven't seen other people from the armed forces or d.h.s. which has a similar mission come forward. his message to his workers, he doesn't explicitly name trump, he said this shutdown is unacceptable. it's a morale booster. it reminds everybody of what the coast guard does, which is not just patrolling the waters. they also patrol guantanamo bay, a major security, they interdict cocaine. cocaine is the biggest threat they pick up. a lot of people could forget all of those operations. that's really when the president says when he wants more border security. that's who is suffering, the people on that mission. >> the fact is the president did bring back state department funding last week bec

. >> julia ainsley, thank you. solid reporting, jeff bennett, thanks as always. michael steel is with me, former rnc chairman. mr. steel, i'll start with you. two questions. what do you think we're going to hear from the president tonight? what would you like to hear from president trump tonight? >> lies, lies and more damn lies is what we're going to hear. what i'd like to hear is the president give an honest assessment of our current situation, which is we're not in a crisis. this about getting something he wants that the congress is not willing to give him. so this is not called a national primetime speech from the president. it's required of him to get in a room and lessen his demands that are not going to be met and work on the compromise he's going to get to. you've got a situation where you've got the vice president of the united states trying to cover up a lie. the vice president knows that the president didn't speak to any of his former -- any former president who said oh, yeah we want you to build a wall. that didn't happen. so this idea of perpetuating

i want to bring in nbc's chief white house correspondent hallie jackson and julia ainsley, national security and justice reporter for nbc. what else did vice president pence tell you? >> a fair amount, steph in that interview that happened. i want to play a bit more because one of the things as you've noted we've seen over the last 48 hours has been this administration focusing on what they couple the humanitarian issues at the border and not just the security issues. and repeating that word that you had on that big wall, crisis, the vice president said that to me nine times in the course of eight minutes during our conversation. it is clear that the white house may be laying the groundwork for the president to declare a national emergency. the vice president says the president is considering that, looking at it, but no decision has been made. i think it's important to note here that the president seems incredibly resolved. the white house doesn't see wiggle room here. except on perhaps one point. the issue of the steel fence versus a concrete wall. there seems to be perhaps an opening for d

now, nbc white house correspondent kristen welker, nbc national security and justice reporter julia ainsley and msnbc political analyst robert costa. national political reporter at "the washington post" and moderate raor for "washington w on pbs. this is a high stakes pr bid, an oval office speech that's not his normal metier, if you will, it's not the live rally, free-association kind of event. this will be scripted, teleprompted. what do they think the appeal will be? >> this is an appeal to the president's base, to the american people, to try to take his case to them to show that he's fighting for that signature campaign promise to get that border wall built. now, as you point out, andrea, this is a pr push. and a lot of his allies, frankly, are saying why is this coming so late into this government shutdown? we're now in week three. we've now reached an historic mark, it's now the second longest shutdown in u.s. history. why wait so long to do this? is it too little, too late? to your point at the top, what specifically are we going to hear from president trump tonight? we know he's goi

with us to talk about it tonight, julia ainsley, nbc news national security and justice reporter. julia, you'll never say this, so i will. you have broken aspects of this story within the last 72 hours. few people know it better than you and the question is, what stood out to you in the president's presentation and wording that he really should be flagged on that we should flag our viewers on? >> i think what's interesting is the fact that trump actually pif pivoted tonight in some ways. his administration and he, himself, has been doubling down on the terrorism threat coming across the southern border. as you know, nbc fact checked that and started to walk a lot of that back. we saw vice president mike pence tell hallie jackson earlier today, if you can believe that was all in one day, that it was a terrorist, it was special interest aliens. tonight we actually didn't hear those numbers. we didn't hear a lot of terrorism. instead, the president made an appeal to a humanitarian tone. he wanted to say that it's really in order to save women and children who are coming across the bor

>> joining me now, our corresponde correspondent, hans nichols and kelly o'donell and julia ainsley and our fbi agent, jeff wringle. hans, to you, the white house is not budgeting. congress is not budgeting. this bill that's going to be brought to the senate is widely expected to fail. is there a plan b? >> katy, if you want to understand the shutdown. take a look at the negotiations on where the state of the union is going to be held. the white house sent pelosi a firm and direct letter saying they plan to go and they accepted the offer and invitation and the president, donald trump, plans to give the state of the union address next tuesday from the united states house of representatives. they are clear on that. now, we have not heard a full response from speaker pelosi. i think kellyanne conway may have a little bit more there. that gives you a sense of how off track negotiations are for reopening the government. we heard from kellyanne conway here at the white house, she seems to suggest this proposal coming out of the house and again we don't have all the details. it is a non sta-st

let's go to nbc's julia ainsley. she covers intelligence and the justice department. you heard the president there talking about the "times" report. how does that square, what the president just said, how does that square with what the "times" actually reported. explain to viewers and listeners what was in this "post" report that we did not know before. >> okay. so these two together really give us a lot of context. there's reasons why phones were just buzzing this weekend over both of these stories. it puts the president in a different realm for the first time. we've known for over a year now, he's the subject -- or there is a criminal investigation being run by robert mueller. this now makes him the subject of a counterintelligence investigation. that's very different, craig. i want to explain why. a counterintelligence investigation doesn't always end with criminal charges. sometimes, it can last for a decade, as the fbi gathers more evidence of players in a particular scheme, from a foreign government who is trying to use certain people to infiltrate our governmen

has been doing it better than anybody else all week long, justice security reporter, our friend julia ainsleymadame, how about a reality check? >> we love a good fact check. we can fact check this easily. i went through some of the fact checks dhs has given us on projects at the border. there are three projects right now they are using 2017 funding to do. none of those do a single mile of new construction. that would be in el paso, el centro and san diego. all of this is repair. there is wall there. sometimes it might not be as high, sometimes falling down. they are tearing it down and replacing it with new wall or sometimes they're building a secondary fence. one wall might be hi enough so that a car can't get through, but pedestrians can get over so they build a secondary fence. again, not one mile of new wall. i think that's pretty easy to fact check right there. >> why would he do it? >> answer that, why does this happen? is trump just depending on the fact that you don't exist and people like you who can fact check these things very easily from public record, right, this isn't secret dee

. >> mimi and clint, stand by, because julia ainsley is joining us from the newsroom with a new filinge mueller team. and this involves detailing what kind of evidence they have or they seized against roger stone. julia? >> that's right, andrea. the way the prosecution is describing this, again, these are prosecutors from mueller's office in federal court, they just filed this today in the roger stone case. they say that the discovery, meaning the materials that they have seized, much of which came from the seizure, the search and seizure on friday when stone was arrested, they say that it is voluminous and complex. they say it is containing multiple hard drives with several terabytes of information, apple cloud accounts, bank and financial records, and the contents of numerous physical devices like cellphones, computers, hard drives. they say it spans several years. so we already knew that mueller's team had been seizing upon texts and e-mails that roger stone had used when he was corresponding when his intermediaries to wikileaks, like his colleagues randy credico. but at this point

julia ainsley i believe is still with me as well. julia, what more do we know about the connection between roger stone and paul manafort? >> we don't want to be too speculative when we talk about who these senior officials might be in the campaign who talked to roger stone. but it's clear that, you know, there was a very small circle who would be at that high level. manafort is one of them. or steve bannon could be another. there was a smaller circle of people who would have been managing it at that point. ken is absolutely right, they go so far back, they had a political consulting firm together. these two were behind the scenes, pulling levers. i think roger stone would admit his sort dark arts of politics, he's said that before. so this is a long relationship. and it's important to realize that that relationship could have been at play in some things we're seeing in this indictment, particularly when donald trump wanted to know what was coming next from wikileaks. people in trump's orbit knew about roger stone but very few knew him

julia ainsley joining us as well. julia, you've been watching all of this as well as the paul manafort brief hearing, and now he will proceed to sentencing because he will not be given further credit, he will not be charged with the other crimes that had been set aside, but focusing on roger stone, your takeaway from this really very descriptive indictment. >> matt's takeaway is absolutely right, he's adamant that he's not going to cooperate. he's said that for some time. two nights ago on fox news he said he didn't want to testify because he didn't want to bear false witness. he said michael cohen, trump's personal attorney and long time fixer cooperated and he lied about trump. he's associating cooperation with lying about the president. and so this is part of the trickery he does, of kind of these dark arts, where it's hard to see exactly how that could be possible. but another thing that i think is worth pointing out, while we don't see in this indictment that wikileaks -- that the trump campaign or roger stone kn

so we'll see what that has to say. >> julia ainsley, phil rucker, philip la mmirlamir, thank you much. joining me now, congressman on capitol hill. right now, i'm under the impression that house intel has all the democrats named to the committee, but you don't have all of the republicans named to the committee. is that correct? >> that's absolutely correct. and it should be of no surprise to anyone that they are dragging their feet. they do not want this committee to start its work and at some point, we're going to lose our patience and have to do something more dramatic if they don't actually appoint their members and allow the committee to organize and get started. >> so what can't you do until they appoint their members. >> we can't really do anything. because we have been appointed by our caucus. we can do down and look at documents within the committee, but we really cannot do any work. subpoenas can not be issued, to my knowledge. there is no path forward us to reinstitute the investigation until they organize on their side. >> what does that mean for getting somebody like micha

let's bring in national security reporter for nbc news julia ainsley, who can speak to this reporting. julia, it's a pretty staggering story, not just because jared kushner got the clearance and was overruled but because 30 other people may be walking around the white house having not passed the initial test but getting that waiver from mr. klein. >> let's think about who else might have gotten through. i've been speaking to people from former administrations about how they handled this process. they said in the obama administration, for example, having that fbi approval was one layer and that oftentimes this office of personnel would want to go beyond that to make sure someone was fit to receive the information that they were getting. now we're hearing that that's reversed, that the fbi layer is only just one recommendation that can be overruled and with kushner and with 30 others they were. why kushner is so important is because we've known for some time and we've reported before that his contacts often during the campaign with the united arab emirates, with qatar, turkey, china and

here toake sense of both reports, justice reporter julia ainsley. ad to have you here. you figure this stuff out of course. what is new wre. s this if ib fib investigation from the robert mueller investigation? >> reporter: that's a great question, for anyone following the mueller information. they're familr with one word, collusion that's whether or not the trump campaign clued with the russian government to influence the 2016 election. this report movers beyond the election, into the white house and whether or not the president acted on behalf of russia if his work as president. >> that would be a national secuty concern. that's why it triggered a counterintelligence investigation at the fbi. what is not clear is how far that continued. it could be they handed it over to robert mueller. we know this was opened before mueller was assigned special counsel. >> how about the things, the meetings the president had wit vladimir putin and him not legislate evidence or notes or readouts from thoseo meetings to either his staff or the congress at all. today the president saidk

joining me is julia ainsley. >> these students are less fortunate.they separated was because of the interest of medical or security of interest of the child. >> was there any reason that this is happening of this policy or this practice dates back even further? >> based on my reporting, katy, yes, there were separations under the obama administration but it was different. it was very serious crimes and the numbers don't seem to be as high. other thing to point out is that we know that beginning of the trump administration, february of 2017, they were already talking about separation as a deterrent and they started a pi program in el paso of what would become zero tolerance. >> that almost made me cry as well. thank you so much. >> thanks, caskatie. >> up next, does iowa still have steve kings back. ? ♪ saved you a seat. this round's on me. hey, can you spot me? come on in! find your place, today, with silver sneakers... included with many medicare plans. call the number on the screen now or visit getsilversneakers.com >>> the house ethics committee i

news white house correspondent jeff bennett, nbc news national security and justice reporter, julia ainsley, politico's senior writer, jake sherman. julia, i want to start with you because we have been going through every single one of the president's and his mergs administration's claims about what is happening at the southern border. you've been doing so meticulously. tonight, what are you going to be watching out for the president, in terms of what he says and how he might be misleading people into supporting his wall? >> katy, i'm going to be looking at how he describes these people who he wants to paint as terrorists. we've heard the administration get squishy on these labels. at first on friday, we heard sarah huckabee sanders say there were 4,000 known or suspected terrorists who cross over the southern border. then we fact checked that and found that in the first half of the year, only six on terrorist databases crossed over the southern border. then we heard mike pence today say 3,000 special interest ra aliens crossed over the southern border in 2018. that means something totally

the president said it and julia ainsley corrected them on tv. this idea that people mystique just doesn't ring true because the administration has known for days that that 3,755 number is not correct. i suppose once you know it's not correct and you have been correct and keep on saying it, i guess that qualifies as a lie. i want to bring in national security analyst clint watts, a former fbi special agent and a senior fellow at the foreign policy research institute. great to see both of you guys. thank you for being here. there is an issue we haven't touched yet. that is that the president is apparently considering the idea of declaring a national emergency which would give him certain powers he otherwise wouldn't have. we don't finish that's true and he is going to do it, but give us a sense of what this means. >> the relevant case is calls youngstown sheet and two. that sounds wonky, but harry truman tried to seize the steel mills claiming a national security. the supreme court 6-3 struck him down and said you can't do that. there are three ca

i want to bring in nbc's geoff bennett at the white house and nbc's julia ainsley who covered justice and national security. walk us through it and what exactly it means. >> he was tweeting about h 1 b visas. here's the thing people should know. president trump signed an executive order in the spring of 2017 to tighten the rules for tech firms that bring in foreign workers to fill needs not met by american workers. that order instructed agencies to recommend changes so that these h 1 b visas are granted only to immigrants who have masters or higher level degrees. here's the tweet. the changes are soon coming that will bring both simplicity and certainty to your stay. hires s an here's the deal. the program is not intended to be a permanent path to citizenship. is the president floating this as a potential offer in the job going shutdown negotiation? that's not clear. the president, as you mentioned, killed what had been the only real negotiation on the hill. that was to expand the scope of any agreement by including protections for dreamers. something that might possibly entice democr

the president was asked about our recording this morning, myself and julia ainsley obtaining this photo what you look out there is designed by a preserve yovious administration. the whole reason we are calling it a prototype is that the trump administration asked for it to be built. this is the one that he decided on and can be cut right through with a saw by home depot. >> was that delivered? was it vandalize or were they experiencing it? >> you are being sassy. >> it is a good question. >> reporter: the president and the administration ordered the board of patrol as special forces groups from the army and the marine core to do whatever they could it was assessable as you can see here. >> jacob, good to have you as well. jacob soboroff for us in hidalgo, texas. stay with us, more on president trump after this. ask your doctor about entyvio®, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio® works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract, and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. infusion and serious allergic re

let's get those new details from nbc news national security and justice reporter julia ainsley.rt with that. thousands more migrant kids being separated from their parents. where are they? >> that's the best question to ask about this. we learned yesterday from health and human services watchdog their inspector general they interviewed staff that believe there were thousands of children separated before the policy last summer and the children came to them already separated and then went to sponsors, relatives, nonrelatives, and they can't be sure they were reunited with their parents because only the children represented in a lawsuit after zero tolerance were under a court order to be reunited. the government never had a plan for reuniting in the first place. the only children reuniting were those done so under a court order. >> what more are you learning from the 2017 draft of what became the administration's family separation policy? >> so stephanie, i would encourage everyone to go online and look at the piece. you can go through the draft and look at the comments from two hi

tonight our nbc news colleague julia ainsley reports that according to two sources trump administration lawyers are already meeting to figure out if the president can, in fact, do this. earlier on this network long time republican commentator charlie sikes raised the alarm precisely about this. >> this idea that he might invoke a national emergency powers, this should be a fire bell in the night in terms of constitutional division of power. >> as for the democrats while they continue to insist the president will get no money for the wall house speaker nancy pelosi seemed to hint, at least, on movement on some of her party's demands. >> did you make a dollar figure for what the president wants or what you all want from him? >> how do you define progress in a meeting? when you have a better understanding of each other's position? when you eliminate some possibilities? if that's a judgment, then we made some progress. >> so there's that. remember, as these talks continue there are some 800,000 federal workers left in limbo. 80% of these folks work outside washington. their next scheduled p

. >> well, today, our colleague here, julia ainsley reported, "u.s. customs and border protection encountered only six immigrants on the u.s./mexico border in the first half of fiscal year 2018 whose names were on a federal government list of known or suspected terrorists according to cbp data obtained by nbc news." six of them. while we learned today that the administration is taking steps to ensure that the shutdown will not affect the ability of the irs to process tax refunds, we are just days away from the next payday for many of the 800,000 federal workers who will not see their checks. the president was asked about those workers this weekend. >> pay their bills -- >> but here now is the reality for so many families that just don't have the ability to miss a pay period. our colleague, vaughn hillyard, spoke to one federal worker out in colorado. >> it's also not just an impact to the family because they -- they see that their dad can't go to work, but they -- and it's hard to see it. it really is. it's a big impact. excuse me. the feeling of unce

. >> julia ainsley is outside that courthouse. jeff bennett is at the white house. julia, what we expect to see today is quick. and prosecution and defense attorneys, what they're saying about this. >> reporter: yeah. we shouldn't expect to see a lot. roger stone has already said he doesn't plan on pleading guilty. that would be rare at this stage at an arraignment hearing, but roger stone is saying he's innocent. that the prosecution is overblowing this. the prosecution is saying that roger stone lied to congress about his communication with wikileaks, and the trump campaign. and they're going further and saying he witness tampered and obstructed justice by going to his business associate and saying prepare to die even threatening to take his dog away in order to keep him from telling the truth about this. of course, roger stone is someone who does not shy away from the limelight. he's been out many times since his arrest on friday. we might expect to see him today. that's very unusual to see a defendant come before cameras themselves, but roger stone is not your us

joining me now is jacob soboroff at the border in texas, who along with reporter julia ainsley obtainedt photograph. jacob, we see that section of law, it's steel, i guess, and there are slats. tell me about its ability to be penetrated. >> this is the exact type of wall or fencing or slats or whatever you want to call it, andrea, that president trump has selected and has said the democrats have agreed to, to put along the southern border. we have known for quite some time that dhs, the trump administration, has tested eight different types of border/barrier wall fencing in the san diego area. all eight of those were breached, tested by the border patrol's tactical unit. but we haven't seen pictures of that until today. nbc has exclusively obtained that image of the steel barrier that was sawed through with what the report says is a quick saw, something that you could pick up at home depot. it's sort of a household tool or common tool used by people to deal with, you know, materials like steel or other types of building materials. and the president did say today nothing is impenetrable.

border, more than a year ago, longer ago, according to nbc national security and justice reporter julia ainsley, even before jeff sessions' zero tolerance policy was put in place. what's going on here? >> that's right, andrea. we just got this report a few hours ago that says that thousands of children were separated before zero tolerance went into place, an uptick in 2017. this did not occur previously under the obama administration, as trump has tried to say. it's unclear why they were all separated. we asked today what the criminality was of their parents. was it simply that they were crossing illegally or was there something more? they said frankly hhs had very little information about what the parents did to cause this separati separation. as journalists we want more specifics. the most important thing, andrea, is we don't know where these children went. unlike the children represented under zero tolerance, they're not represented as part of a lawsuit. frankly this large number wasn't known. these children could have been put off to sponsors, to relatives, to non-relatives, and not reunite

but i want to bring in correspondent julia ainsley.r reporting -- give me the democratic or the white house side on where they think this proposal is going to land? the democrats have said they have not been consulted. this is a proposal only basically being passed between donald trump and other republicans. what is the word from where you sit? >> reporter: it s,

national reporter julia ainsley, as well. who came up with this proposal? who was involved in putting it together? >> yeah. well, joy, the vice president, we understand, along with jared kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, have been hashing out a dieal te last couple of days on capitol hill, which now calls for, we understand, the president offering democrats three years of protections for these so-called dreamers in exchange for the $5.7 billion he has been demanding all along for this border wall that he wants. democrats, however, based on the initial reporting of what we expect the president to say in about 15 minutes from now, have really pre-judged all of this. they've said democrats have already rejected this kind of thing out of hand, and that taken together, or taken separately, it is a non-starter. because the president still wants this $5.7 billion for this border wall, they say that's a non-negotiatable, too. again, they say it is wrong on the policy. they don't see it as a viable policy solution. they've also made the point a

we saw julia ainsley's great reporting that there is not a terrorist threat across the southern border. there were a small number of people, i think six in the first six months of last year, who were terrorist suspects or on a terrorist watch list encountered at the southern border. less came on the northern border. you are seeing people pushing back as what they see as a mountain of lies from the white house and inside this agency. this mountain of lies is in some ways the central premise of the trump presidency, just as it is the central premise of the trump campaign. remember it was in his announcement remarks he was announcing he was running for president, when he came down the escalator talking about rapists who came across the border and later changed that to terrorists. but it's always the central core to his message there are dangerous people across the southern border. they may be criminals and terrorists and you need me to protect you. that is the demagogue's core message at heart. the threat changes in his description but it's always a threat that he describes and one thing

joining me now is nbc's kelly o'donnell at the white house, garrett haake on coapitol hill and julia ainsley. kelly, it's been almost two hours. >> reporter: in the last few seconds i noticed the sound of some of my colleagues running toward what we refer to as the west wing position. it appears that's the camera shot right there. that may or may not be a sign that there is movement. what we expect at that location is that democrats would be willing to come out and give us their take on what's happened in the meeting with the president. that's the guidance we were given by top aides to speaker pelosi of a likelihood, not a firm yes, but a likelihood she would want and the other democrats with her would want to talk about their meeting. pushing two hours is notable. i thought we would have concrete sort of readout from the meeting. we don't have that yet. we also anticipate just based on movements around the white house here in terms of some of the technology that gets in place when the president has an interest in speaking we think there's a possibility that he would also choose to come befo

but i want to bring in correspondent julia ainsley. what is your reporting -- give me the democratic or the white house side on where they think this proposal is going to land? the democrats have said they have not been consulted. this is a proposal only basically being passed between donald trump and other republicans. what is the word from where you sit? >> reporter: it seems, joy, this might be, today, just one iteration and a blip that we don't even remember at the end of this long shutdown because the sides still seem dug in and they won't offer much more today. the democrats are receptive to -- there is one thing i want to keep people on and drill down and that is temporary protected status, because that made the president walk away from a deal similar to this a year ago when they said, mr. president, we could talk about partial funding for the wall and more rights for dreamers than he's offering now and when he mentioned temporary status protection and letting people stay longer from the countries, these are finite people allowe

julia ainsley live at the courthouse in d.c. peter, we know the president wants the thing to be over as soon as possible. can we take matt whitaker's word for it? we have been hearing at least from team trump that this thing has been wrapping up for over a year. >> yes, this was significant, though, obviously, because for the first time we were hearing publicly from a government official. and in this case from matt whitaker, someone overseeing the mueller probe. to be clear, since last december, nbc news has been reporting that robert mueller could wrap up his investigation, put out a confidential report about it as early as mid-february. that was according to government officials and other individuals who were familiar with the investigation. and other series of signals that give us indications this could be wrapping up right now. the fact that michael flynn is being moved towards the sentencing phase. the indictment of roger stone. and rod rosenstein. the fact he's leaving the justice department after william barr is confirmed