the ranking member. >> no one stonewalled. the department of justice, and department of commerce are cooperating with the committee's investigation about the citizenship question on the 2020 census. the administration has produced to the committee 14,000 pages from the commerce department, 17,000 pages from the justice department, and secretary ross voluntarily testified for over six hours this spring. witnessesministration have voluntarily participated in day long transcribed interviews, providing information for the investigation. in fact, the committee is expected to conduct another transcribed interview this month. in all that testimony, six hours with the secretary and all the transcribed interviews, all of it undercuts the conspiracy theories about the administration's decision to have the citizenship question on the census. we have no testimony, none to support allegations about shadowy political operatives, senior white house officials conspiring to use the census for improper purposes. the real question is simple. why don't the democrats want to know how many citizens are in this country? judge alito said this. no one di

contrary to his testimony before the congress, the commerce department conjured up the voting rights rationale to hide these interactions. we first asked for documents from the department of commerce and department of justice when we were in the minority in april and may of 2018. both departments ignored us. when i became chairman i renewed these requests on behalf of the committee and since then the administration has engaged in a purposeful effort to obstruct our investigation. and i do not use the word obstruct lightly. the departments have refused to provide key unredacted documents that we need to understand the truth about why they really made this ecision. instead, they produced thousands of pages that were largely unresponsive, heavily redacted or publicly already available. when they let us interview witnesses, they ordered the witnesses not to answer more than 500 of our questions. secretary ross even refused my request to meet with them to work it out. as a result, on april 2, more than three months ago, after a bipartisan vote, the committee subpoenaed the documents includ

i am here by ordering every department and agency in the federal government to provide the department of commerce with all requested records regarding the number of citizens and noncitizens in our country. they must furnish all legally accessible records in their possession immediately. we will utilize these vast federal databases to gain a full, complete and accurate count of the noncitizen population, including databases maintained by the department of homeland security and the social security administration. we have great knowledge in many of our agencies. we will leave no stone unturned. the census bureau projected that using previously available records it could determine citizenship for 90% of our population or more. with today's executive order which eliminates long standing obstacles to data sharing, we're aiming to count everyone. ultimately this will allow us to have an even more complete count of citizens than through asking the single question alone. it will be, we think, far more accurate. the venn suss bureau can use this information along with information collected through the ques

trump is now expected to ask the commerce department to seek the citizenship data through other means. democrats were fearful the president would instead try to defy a recent supreme court decision against the administration's push to add the question to the census. >> this will be a real test of john roberts and the supreme court, whether they stand for rule of law or are always looking for an excuse to move the country rightward. we'll see. >> reporter: earlier in the week, top administration officials were hinting the president was gearing up for a battle over the citizenship question. >> i think over the next day or two, you'll see what approach we're taking. it does provide a pathway for getting the question on the census. >> reporter: the trump administration's crackdown on the undocumented is also expected to play out this weekend, as i.c.e. agents are preparing to conduct raids in ten u.s. cities, starting as soon as sunday. the operation is expected to target families, striking fear in immigrant communities across the country. >> families belong together. every person in amer

the census. instead, he's going to do what the department of commerce originally recommended, go through existingfrom social security, irs, u.s. citizenship and immigration services, the state department, other aspects, elements of the u.s. government and get this information separately from a formal question. they wanted a formal question on the 2020 census. they're not going to get it. dana, what do you think? >> the fact that the president said explicitly, at least once, "i'm not backing down" and tried to fill in the blanks on that in every way, shape, or form, bill barr helped him giving the legal argument. >> he really is backing down, though. >> masked the fact that he is backing down. he doesn't have a choice, legally. he ran up against too many brick walls with regard to judges that are, you know, went from the federal bench underneath the supreme court to not just the united states supreme court, but the chief justice, writing as you said earlier, that it was contrived. the whole idea of putting the census question there. and the idea that he went into the rose garden and gave a politic

entirely appropriate to include citizenship questions on the census, it nevertheless held that the commerce department did not adequately explain its decisions for doing so on the 2020 census. because as the supreme court recognized, the defect in the commerce department's decision was curable with a better record, the president asked me to work with secretary ross to determine whether there remained a viable path for including a citizenship question on the census. i did so. in my view the government has ample justification to inquire about citizenship status on the census and could plainly provide rationales for doing so that would satisfy the supreme court. therefore, there is no question that a new decision to add the question would ultimately survive legal review. the problem is that any new decision would be subject to immediate challenge as a new claim in the three ongoing district court cases. in addition, there are injunctions currently in place that forbid adding the question. there is simply no way to litigate these issues and obtain relief from the current injunctions in time to implement a

the congress. what you see from a commerce department. if the commerce department actually operates.at has of this authority. the president is now going around the courts, around the congress. >> no he's not. >> to fire up his political base with this kind of bigotry. >> he's actually doing something in the executive branch, which he runs. >> it something that he promised and is working on it he's kind of laid it out pretty clear, it's a simple question and it's a question that somehow -- how was that any worse than asking your gender, right? that could be scary. >> or your sexual orientation. >> or your race, for example. i guess that's racist. >> that's in the constitution. >> l '5 is a strict constructionist now. >> you guys are suddenly -- >> animals are great. we have to go. we have to go. >> all right. >> happy anniversary. "special report" is up next. >> this is a fox news alert, i'm chris wallace in for bret baier. president trump has decided not to use the census to ask whether or not people living in this country are u.s. citizens. instead, he is issuing an executive order

do you expect him to face any challenges going through the commerce department? doing it this way could bring up potentially other challenges. not like what we have now, when the government -- when people were complaining about this, when the states first brought the lawsuit and so many civil rights groups were worried about it, it had to do with the fact that it was going to be done on the census, and there could be people who were recent immigrants or hispanics would be discouraged from answering. it's so important to get an accurate count. we have several legal actions in lower courts in california, in new york, in maryland that involve the census document itself. >> joining, thank you. >> thank you. >> the freshmen versus the most powerful woman in congress. alexandria ocasio-cortez now trying to explain comments suggesting speaker nancy pelosi has been targeting women of color in the house for criticism. what's really happening there behind the scenes? we'll look into that. >>> a stunning twist in the case of wealthy sex offender jeffrey epstein, his lawyers

the census. what is your reaction to this complete 180 degree flip by the department of justice and the department of commerce? >> chaos and confusion continues to reign, emanated from the president. and he continues to think that he can do whatever he wants, and force his various departments, including the commerce department and the department of justice to bend to his will regardless of the supreme court decision on the census case. so once again we see the spectacle of the president acting like he's the dictator of our country, and you had your previous guest talking about how he acknowledged that there is a humanitarian crisis at the border but they're doing everything they can to change that, at the same time you have the president saying that these people are living in better conditions than they ever had in the countries that they live in. so where is the incentive for improving the situation at the border. you have a president that runs amok and i have to say, the picture of all of the people, children locked up behind the cages, and the tanks rolling in for the trump show for the fourth of july, is

the president ordered the situation to be turned over to the commerce department. this comes after the supreme court ruled against the administration's effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. >> thank you very much, everyone. are you a citizen of the united states of america? can't answer that question. that's after spending billions of dollars. they used to be a time when you could answer questions like that very easily. they used to be a time when you can declare i am a citizen of the united states. thethey are trying to erase existence of a very important word and a very important thing, citizenship. they are even coming after the pledge of allegiance in minnesota. i'm proud to be a citizen, you are proud to be a citizen. the only people who are not proud to be citizens are the ones who are fighting us all the way about the word citizen. today, i'm here to say we are not backing down on our effort to determine the citizenship status of the u.s. population. i stand before you to outline new steps my administration is taking to ensure that citizens

the bottom line is, the department of justice and the department of commerce are cooperating with the investigation in the reinstitution of the citizenship question in the 2020 census. the administration has produced a total of 31,000 of pages of documents to the committee, 14,000 pages from the commerce department, and 17,000 pages from the justice department. the committee had heard testimony from six witnesses with more interviews expected this month. secretary ross himself testified for over six hours about his decision to reinstate the citizenship question on the census. what the real issue we should be debating is why the democrats are afraid to ask how many -- let's remember, just one month ago the supreme court ruled asking a citizenship question on the census is constitutional . since the supreme court ruling, the president has said a citizenship question won't be in the 2020 census. to put away doubt on the 2020 census and all future censuses, i introduced a bill last night to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. my bill is intended to put away all doubt about aski

department. the president will be linking those records. the commerce department tests the possibility of lirnlging the records in the 1990, 2000 and 2010 census. those were just tests. now that will be put into use. democrats say whatever happens, there will be a challenge. >> we are printing the forms. we fully expect the census to go forward. the president's effort to put the citizenship question on the census will be defeated in court. reporter: the president talking about citizenship. the president joke being what the court's say he can and cannot do. president trump: do you believe, are you a citizen of the united states of america? sir, you can't ask that question. why? because the court said you can't. we have three very unfriendly courts. the judges don't like us too much, i guess. reporter: the executive order he just signed would make the court proceedings moot. conservative voices say they have been muted on social media. the president saying he's going to get social media companies to try to be more transparent how their filter works. the p

i am hereby ordering every department and agency in the federal government to provide the department of commercel requested records regarding the number of citizens and non-citizens in our country. they must furnish all legally accessible records in their possession immediately. we will utilize these vast federal data bases to gain a full, complete and accurate count of the non-citizen population, including data bases maintained by the department of homeland security and the social security administration. we have great knowledge in many of our agencies. we will leave no stone unturned. the census bureau projected that using previously available records, it could determine citizenship for 90% of our population or more. with today's executive order, which eliminates long-standing obstacles to data sharing, we are aiming to count everyone. ultimately this will allow us to have an even more complete count of citizens than through asking the single question alone. it will be, we think, far more accurate. the census bureau can use this information along with information collected through the question

i think the justice department realized that after the supreme court ruling we couldn't offer for the commerceartment to offer another explanation after the story wilbur ross offered was not persuasive, not believable. anything else now commerce does is we still haven't decided why yet. so that was foreclosed and it only -- which is that the government repeatedly told courts including the supreme court that all this had to get wrapped up by the end of june because that's when the printing started. so to come back and say with that the in hand, maybe we have a little more wiggle room, perhaps was a tough sell. >> i think it may surprise many people to know that the census counts everybody, the entire population. not just citizens, not just people who can vote. it counts children, for example, and perhaps the president didn't realize that himself. it certainly would be a legitimate thing to find out how many noncitizens there are, but the census bureau already does this through two means. first of all, it sends out every year something called the american community survey to a random selection o

the bottom line is, the department of justice and the department of commerce are cooperating with the investigation in the reinstitution of the citizenship question in the 2020 census. the administration has produced a total of 31,000 of pages of documents to the committee, 14,000 pages from the commerce department, and 17,000 pages from the justice department. the committee had heard testimony from six witnesses with more interviews expected this month. secretary ross himself testified for over six hours about his decision to reinstate the citizenship question on the census. what the real issue we should be debating is why the democrats are afraid to ask how many -- let's remember, just one month ago the supreme court ruled asking a citizenship question on the census is constitutional . since the supreme court ruling, the president has said a citizenship question won't be in the 2020 census. to put away doubt on the 2020 census and all future censuses, i introduced a bill last night to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. my bill is intended to put away all doubt about aski

of the federal governments to hand over to the commerce department everything that they know, all of the data they have on undocumented people here in the united states so that the commerce department can essentially try to cobble together an accurate count of what they say is the undocumented people in the country. that is the president's aim, he is saying in all of this, but the big headline out of all of this is that the president is dropping the quest that he has been on for months now to add the citizenship question to the 2020 census. his administration went to the supreme court and handed a defeat there and then in recent days the people like the attorney general william barr thought they could find another way to approach the question in the census, and have it tested in the court, but all of that was dropped as the president says he will try to gather all of this data on the undocumented by other means. this is what he day, i will be executive order to put this very plan in effect immediately. i am hereby ordering every department and federa

is saying the justice department and commerce departments are evaluating options when it comes to thesus question -- a citizenship question in the u.s. census, saying the doj was asked to reevaluate all available options on the census. of course, president trump has continue toey will fight to include that citizenship question in the u.s. census after the u.s. supreme court put the plan on hold. now we are hearing the doj has been asked to reevaluate all available options. we will get you more on this as soon as we get it, but for now, let's turn back to the markets. u.s. stocks rising to yet another record, and bonds rallying at the same time. treasury yields sinking to the lowest level in more than two 1.90 5%.st below usually stocks and bonds would move in opposite directions, so the question is -- which market is right. the largest dedicated asia investment specialist in the united states, always great to have you. we continue to see these moves in the bond and equity markets rallying at the same time. is this all because of fed puts here? >> a think there's a combination of thing

the commerce department will count the number of citizens in other way. on it so there's no other way. i guess he can go up to the microphones. the official announcement will be at 5:00 d.c. time this afternoon. you know how that goes. the president does things on his own time. if he changes his mind, he will let us know. we're expecting to hear from the president minutes from now when reporters will likely ask him about that and the other big topics of the day and maybe get him to weigh-in on twitter, which is down. updates coming. fox weather alert. more on tropical storm berry which is taking aim at louisiana. it's over texas and all of louisiana in the way. the louisiana governor declaring a state of merge and urning people to get out if they can. rick leventhal is in the big easy. i hear it's been wait for days right now. >> it's dry right how but expecting more rain. that's a huge concern. the governor said this is the first time in the history of the city of new orleans for a hurricane to make a landfall while the mississippi is at flood stage and

but he's got another opportunity to have the commerce department go through existing government data to determine how many citizens are in the united states. are there any, susan hennessey, legal problem with this other alternative way to determine citizenship in the united states that the president, we believe will announce? >> no, it's something that he's saying they should do and administrative records match. there's nothing that presents the united states government from determining who is a citizen of the united states. they can't use census information to do that. and people who are watching, you know, should be aware that no matter what, they can fill out the census without being concerned about the census bureau sharing from with other parts of the united states government sharing that with the immigration enforcement. it's actually so plainly within his authority that it was already happening. so all of this litigation that's been done on top of it was all against the backdrop of the census bureau saying that they were already going to perform this function, which opens the q

despite reports his administration had dropped the any news ofeated the commerce department abandoning the question as fake and insisted the administration is considering all options. iran is warning europe it must do more to protect the 2015 u.k. deal. enrichment will move to the next level sunday. comments backs pressure to back the deal since the u.s. pulled out last year. iran has reached low-level limits. and is moving toward weapons grade material soon. >> we will take the next step. if you want to express regret, do it now. our advice to europe and the u.s. is to go back to the negotiating table. to respecting the resolutions of the un security council. all of us can abide by the nuclear deal. >> global meadows, 24 hours a day -- news, 24 hours a day. this is bloomberg. >> u.s. and chinese officials set to resume trade talks in the coming weeks. >> i don't know precisely when. they are on the phone. schedulinge face-to-face meetings. lots of communications. china's bring in our correspondent selina wang. what is the significance of this? what do we know? >> it provides detail ho

you're not going to get extra money from the defense department, the commerce department and the gsa and state department. and yet it appears that we're violating that. the purpose of the foreign emoluments clause was to guarantee the independence of the president so he would be zealously devoted today the american people, not to the united arab emirates or saudi arabia or turkey or somebody else who comes and decides to spend 50 or $100,000 at the hotel. so i guess what i'm troubled about is we have a sense of urgency about getting to the bottom of this. the chairman of the committee sent on april 12th, 2019, to emily mu emily murphy the administrator of gsa a letter asking about a whole lot of stuff we haven't gotten back yet. for example, all documents referring or relating to mayzar's usallp relating to the post office. why? because when the president acting as a businessman made his deal for the old post office mayzar's had to present all of the documents reflecting the financial condition of his company. and where he's getting his money from, who he's doing his business with and

entirely appropriate to include citizenship questions on the census, it nevertheless held that the commerce department adequately explain its decisions for doing so on the 2020 census. because, as the supreme court default wasthe curable with a better record, the president asked me to work with secretary ross to determine whether there remained a viable path for including a citizenship question on the census. i did so. in my view, the government has ample justification to inquire andt citizenship status could plainly provide rationales for doing so that would satisfy the supreme court. therefore, there is no question a new decision to add the question would ultimately survive legal review. any newlem is that decision would be subject to immediate challenge as a new claim in the three ongoing district court cases. in addition, there are injunctions currently in place that forbid adding the question. there are -- is simply no way to toigate these issues implement any new decision without jeopardizing our ability to carry out the census. to do.e are not going we are not going to jeopardize our ability to

the 2020 census. going on for a long time. i have asked the department of commerce and the department of justice to do whatever is necessary to bring this most vital of questions and this very important case to a successful

was the president unaware his own department of justice and commerce department were going to make thisecision to back off? >> the blame is being laid pretty squarely at the feet of the commerce department at the moment. it's not clear if the white house was fully briefed or wilbur ross was going to say the questionnaires were being printed which made it clear they weren't waiting for justification. when i spoke to people in the administration two days ago the feeling was commerce had messed this up beyond repair and we've got to move on. the president saw some media coverage about that and made it clear he wants to go ahead. i think the

gather information and ordered other federal agencies to turnover their citizenship data to the commerce department. as pointed out, the administration could use this information to draw districts based on citizenship rather than total population over the next redistricting cycle in 2021. as a result, political power could be shifted to whiter and more republican areas with fewer immigrants. alabama has sued to exclude undocumented immigrants from counting in political appointments. we'll go to our guest, emily larsson. get to your reaction. i'm curious about the president really going back and forth. it's a full-on change of course to add the citizenship question to the 2020 census. the question is, are they going to be able to work around it? >> i think trump is definitely visibly frustrated in the rose garden. this is something he wanted. the supreme court knocking this down is a major goal to his goals. i think there will be some ways for different agencies to compile information and share it. there are agencies planning to do something along the same lines before this was announced yesterday.

suppliers can go to the commerce department, ask for exceptions, ask whether they can apply other kinds of components and the company needs to make its communication equipment and handset. it is not clear how permissive the commerce department will be in granting those licenses but the assumption, based on what trump said, is that they will begin to allow them in greater numbers. shery: the initial reaction we was a little bit tongue in cheek, coming from their twitter account, saying you turn, donald trump allows the purchasing of technology. really interesting, the account itself, the official truth and fact about huawei. on aompany has been campaign to reverse the attacks from the trump administration. do we know how much this ban has hurt them, where they stand? peter: you are right, this company was very secretive or years. the founders almost never gave interviews. you have seen them come out like never before trying to make the case that they provide good communications equipment, they are not a security risk. we have seen this pr offensive from them that is unprecedented in the

supreme court delivered a temporary blow to the trump administration by refusing to allow the commerce department to include that controversial citizenship question on the 2020 census. >> these delays would have prevented us from completing the census on time. it's deeregrtable, but it from collecting the needed information. >> reporter: tetermines how many seats a state gets in the u.s. house of representatives. the president's opponents have argued including that question on citizenships could make immigrants afraid to respond undercounting the number of people who live in those communities. while the president may claim victory, they describe it as a defeat for him. bottom line, the president is basically directing his administration to take steps that they already have the ability to do, just to take them more effectively. >> thank you. >>> this evening federal authorities are preparing to begin a nationwide round up of 2,000 undocumented immigrants on sunday. as nbc's gabe gutierrez reports, the move is prompting waves of fear. two senior homeland security officials ll immigration and custom

from that fht and instead directing federal agencies to give records they already have to the commerce department to try to more heaccurately determine t count >> we will defend the right of the american people to know the full facts about theopulation, size of citizens and noncitizens in america >> reporter: it comes two weeks after the supreme deurt vered a temporary blow to the trumstp admition by refusing to allow the commerce department to include that controversial citizenship question on the 2020 census. >> these delays would have prevented us from completing the census on time it's deeply regrettable, but it will not stop us from collecting the needed information >> reporter: the census determines how many seats a state gets in the u.s. house of presentatives. the president's opponents have argued including that question on citizenship could make immigrants too afraid toon resp under counting the number of people who live in those communities. >>> and, frances, the aclu says while president trump is claiming victory here, they are describing this as notng short of a total and humiliating

supreme court delivered a temporary blow to the trump administration by refusing to allow the commerce department to include that controversial citizenship question on the 2020 census. >> these delays would have prevm completing the census on time it's deeply regrettable, but it wiot from collecting the needed information >> reporter: the census determines how many seats a state gets in the u.s. house of representatives. the president's opponents have argued including that question on citizenship could make immigrants too afraid to respond, under counting the number of people who live in those communities. >>> and, frances, the aclu says while president trump is claiming victory here, they are describing this as nothing short of a total and humiliating defeat for his administration. back to you. >> all right, hallie, thank you. >> severe turbulence sent passengers flight in a flight from vancouver to australia. steve patterson has more >> reporter: passengers say it struck without warning >> it must have dropped a hundred feet or something because everyone went up to the ceiling. >> reporter: sud

the 2020 census. i have asked the department of commerce and the department of justice to do whatever is necessary to bring this most vital of questions and this very important case to a successful conclusion. usa, usa, usa. jill, the president has lost his battle for the time being because the census questionnaires are now being printed. >> yeah, that's what's so interesting about this tweet from him tonight. the department of commerce, the trump administration admitted defeat. they were overruled here, the supreme court decided that their argument was just not legitimate, not sufficient. and the census department is now printing those surveys that are going to be mailed to every household across this country. yet the president refused to admit defeat, insisting there that he's going to direct the commerce department, he's going to direct doj to do something, anything to put that question on a questionnaire that is already being printed. there's no evidence at all that doj or commerce have taken any steps to try and go along with his will, but he still wants to try to spin to the american people, he

the citizenship data that he wants. here is how he put it. >> i am hereby ordering every department and agency in the federal government to provide the department of commerce with all requested records regarding the number of citizens and noncitizens in our country. they must furnish all legally accessible records in their possession immediately. >> now the problem is according to expert, trump's executive order mirrors what the federal government already does and is able to do when it comes to that kind of data. trump also blamed those who opposed him in his census fight launching some pointed attacks on democrats. >> are you a citizen of the united states of america? oh, gee, i'm sorry, i just can't answer that question, and that's after spending billions and billions of dollars. there used to be a time when you could answer questions like that very easily. there used to be a time when you could proudly declare i am a citizen of the united states. now they're trying to erase the very existence of a very important word and a very important thing, citizenship. far left democrats in our country are determined to conceal the number of illegal aliens in our m

from that fight and itead directing federal agencies to give records they already have to the commerce department to try to more accurately determine the count. >> we will defend the right of the american people to know the full facts about the population, size of tizens and noncitizens in america. >> reporter: it comes two weeks after the supreme court delivered a temporary blow to the trump administration by refusing to allow the commerce department to include that controversial citizenship question 2020 census. >> these delays would have prevented us from c completing theensus on time. it's deeply regrettable, but it will not stop us from collecting the needed information. >> reporter: the sensus determines how manyeats a state gets in the u.s. house es of representat the president's opponents have argued including that question on citizenships could make immigrants afraid to respond undercounting the number of people who live in those communities. clhile the president may m victory, they describe it as a defeat for him. bottom line, the president is basically directing his administration to t

products and services, provided that there is no national security issues or problems so the commerce department has already offered a number of general services licenses for some sales to huawei. on the other hand, i think commerce will probably go back after the president decision and take another look. maybe open it up, there's a lot of technology services. you can really find on general markets and we don't think have any national security applications, and i think there's a good chance the commerce department and secretary will open the door on that and grit new licenses pray. chris: let me interrupt, there are a number of senate republicans who are concerned about the idea of opening the door and to some degree lifting the band, i want to take a look at what some of them have said. >> huawei is a communist party controlled say surveillance agency failed as a telecommunications company for. >> of our allies decide to trust huawei they are deciding to trust the chinese government with their data. chris: republican senator marco rubio tweeted this after the president's announcement this weeke

the president saying he will direct the commerce department to collect the information. jonathan: well, it is not the census, is it? it is saying we inll look at the rmation we have and extrapolate the figure. but there is only one census. atou are witnessing is live-scr this is a loss.sident. his account of what happemed at the su court is rather baffling. it sounds like they had this roaring victory, when in reality they lost. even the conservatives threw up their hands and said you have not created a plausible rationale. could've won the cas defensively done that. -- if they had simply done that. it wasn't a victory. when he says we had a rit to ask that question, that is the problem. you had a majority of the supreme court say you can put the questions on what you did not do the basics you need to do. this is rather improvisational, e are getting used to in the white house. instead of saying, look, we st, there will not be a question, the president is saying we will mine all the question whave an get a figure. that is not going to get them a good figure. ere is one c

in the presidents executive order is that he orders the completion of the records into the departments cooperate with the commerce department to give them this information. that means if all that information comes out by a year from now basically, we will know how many citizen and bob citizens primarily aliens but they are not citizens or permanent legal residence it's not just about illegal aliens. there are all kinds of foreign students, embassy staff and others accounte are counted in s and represented in congress. very few people even know that. it wasn't a waste of time for secretary ross to do what he did. it opened up a trial of information that the bureaucrats knew about, but the political and know about. it is probably accidental death they gave them the information. so, we all ought to be very thankful to secretary ross for what he's done. the other thing in the executive order notes the case that' caset open the question of whether states could redistrict state legislative district based on total population of voter populations that you could guarantee that there would be litigated in the disinformatio

i'm hereby ordering every department and agency in the federal government to provide the department of commerce with all requested records regarding the number of citizens and non-citizens in our country. >> the president vouing to leave no stone unturned but today he didn't just throw that red meat to the base. there was a social media summit and new details of raids targeting undocumented immigrants. why such a flurry of headlines on red peat issues process li it comes as roberts mueller of the mueller investigation is about to make american history, about to testify before the entire world, a testimony president trump wants to drown out and distract from what mueller says again and again and perhaps elaborate on in front of the whole world. >> if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. >> well, he didn't say so. and the president does not want people to hear that. not at all. so instead he has thrown more at the wall today, holding the so-called social media summit but the only guests were right-wing extremisten a conspiracy theorists c

the president ordered the executive order for the commerce department to basically be a clearing house for all the records in the federal agencies. he said records including the social security records even records related to the department of homeland security to determine how many citizens are in the united states, and the president says this will give an accurate count of about 90% accuracy how many citizens are here. president trump: we will utilize these vast federal databases to gain a full, complete, and accurate count of the non- citizen population including databases maintained by the department of homeland security, and the social security administration. we have great knowledge in many of our agencies. we will leave no stone unturned. reporter: and the president ordered this to be done immediately and now the linkage of the records was tested in the 1990 census, the 2000 census and the 2010 census. now it's going to be put into practice and the president saying democrats just want to block the citizens question for political purposes. president trump: far left democrats in o

congress delegated that authority to the commerce department. there is a big problem with the president trying to reach in through some sort of executive action and dictate what happens, and then of course, as we've all said, there is a big problem here in terms of trying to find what is that new adequate or valid or legal rationale that we haven't heard before? you know, where has it been hiding all this time? >> yeah, and some people going so far as to say this could amount to a constitutional crisis. fantastic conversation. kicking off this very important conversation, kelly o'donnell, philip rucker, jessica levenson, thank you for your insights. nbc news has learned that i.c.e. raids expected to start sunday will target approximately 2,000 families across the country. the operation could target the same ten cities including chicago, los angeles, miami, and new york. the focus is immigrants flagged for deportation. "the new york times" reports that during so-called collateral deportations, i.c.e. agents might detain immigrants who happen to be

the commerce department said it was moving forward without the citizenship question and the presidentmmerce dropping its quest to put the question on the census is fake. we are absolutely moving forward as we must because of the importance of the answer to this question. then in a conference call between a federal judge and justice department official the judge asked what exactly was going on after the president's tweet. a justice department attorney said the tweet this morning was the first i had heard of the president's position on this issue. i don't have a deeper understanding of what that means at this juncture other than what the president tweeted. as you can imagine i'm doing my absolute best to figure out what's going on. that judge has given officials until 2:00 tomorrow afternoon whether to drop the issue or lay out the path forward and the legal reasoning on this case. back to you. >> jon: rich edson at the white house. >> alicia: let's bring in vince, the editorial director for the daily caller, thank you for being here, appreciate it. first let's talk about some of this c

nbc news has learned the president will direct the commerce department to seek answers to the citizenship question through other means not through a question in the census. opponents adding to a question in the census say it would reduce the response rates from immigrants, both who are here legally and illegally. the trump administration has already sowed such strong seeds of distrust in our government that regardless of whether or not a citizenship question appears on the next census, it's possible that an in immigrant communities people may be too scared to participate. but that's not all. immigration and customs enforcement, i.c.e. officers are scheduled to begin raids on sunday to arrest roughly 2,000 recently arrived families in ten major cities across the united states. according to "the new york times" "the raids will include collateral deportations. on that note, i want to bring in nbc news white house correspondent kelly o'donnell at the white house. kelly, in the white house, they are talking about this announcement that the president is going to make. is he going to be dealing

supreme court shot down the notion of adding that question slamming the kmer commerce department's reasoning saying it must demand something other than the explanation offered. so then on tuesday when you had had the commerce secretary capitulate announcing the sense qu census would not include this question. however, the next day, the third of july, the president sent lawyers scrambling when he tweeted he was not dropping the request to add this citizenship question. that brings us to the president and today. >> i just spoke with the attorney general. we have a number of different avenues we can use all of them or one. we're doing very well in that issue. we're spending 15 to $20 billion on a census. we're doing everything. we're finding out everything about everybody. think of it, 15 to $20 billion and you're not allowed to ask them are you a citizen? and by the way, if you look at the history of our country, it's almost always been asked. so we're fighting very hard against the system that is a very difficult system. but we'll make a decision. the attorney general is working oen th on tha