All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. In just one hour the president will address the nation, giving you rare grant of primetime air time from all the networks and then there will be a response from the Democratic National committee leaders, nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer. This as the president looks for any possible way out of the impasse hes painted his way am to. Youll remember he made promise of a big buteautiful and a prome that was ridiculous on its face that mexico would pay for the wall. It was immediately apparent mexico was not going to pay for it. Two years of unified republican governance and the republicpartt prioritize giving him money to do it or building the wall. And here we are on the 18th day of a shutdown. Hes cornered between a promise, rush limbaugh, anne coulter and supporters on the other. And he is losing. An escape President Trump has trapped himself in. National security and justice reporter who has been relentlessly Fact Checking on the dire claims about the border. What are you looking for tonight . They have been throwing a lot of dodgy and false statistics around. Reporter weal all be Fact Checking relentlessly. Im interested to see how hes going to try to build himself as credible in any means as a source who can tell us why he needs this border wall and willing to continue a Government Shutdown or call for a National Emergency to funtd this. As you know the numbers have been fact checked when it comes to terrorists. Only six in early 2018 only six immigrants known or suspected terrorists caught coming across the border in early 2018. Thats far below the 4,000 number that had been thrown out by this administration and i wonder if hes going to pivot away from the terrorism angle. Weve heard its needed the humanitarian reasons. Ha thats hard to buy as it would force people into more desolate journeys that have led to child deaths. And is he going to make the argument drugs. More come through legal ports of entree and the mail. So if he tries to make the uj estion this will stop the opioid epidem, thats also a hard argument to make. Unless we get jaw dropping news, well see the president trying to explain to the American People why the wall is so important its worth dragging out the shutdown. Thank you so much. Joining me is chuck todd, host of mtv daily. I understand you had an offtherecord lunch at the white house. I would say it the best way to put it without violating the offtherecord mindset and this is their way of trying to preview the argument theyre going to make tonight, see if they can have influence in how we frame tonight. I like to get that transparent. Number one is that they had they have to do tonight in order to calm Congressional Republicans down. They do seem to be concerned about that. There was an acknowledge they hadnt made itter given the air cover, if you twiel republicans taking a beating on the congressional side of the aisle. I went 32 assuming assuming we o get a hint in how were getting out of this and i came away with oh, theyre not interested in getting out of it. Theres not going to be an announcement of im declaring a National Emergency. He seems to be more about making a case to keep republicans on his side. I mean the Congressional Republicans. Because theyre about to all leave him and i think they know that. Thats interesting and important insight. Theres two ways of looking at this and one is theyre leaning to this tactically because they want to talk about this and not other things. Theyre picking this fight affirmatively. The other thing is theyve ad hawk stumbled their way out. Which of those dwo do you think it is . Its more of the latter. Look, the president believes immigration is always a winner for him, period. If you bring him a poll, hell say yeah, they told me the wall was unpopular and i won anyway. He believes theres a silent majority with him on the wall. He believes its democrats who dont understand the importance of the immigration issue and he really does believe if he can make his case that it will be the democrats who get punished for the shutdown, not the republicans. But he hasnt really been able to i will be curious to see if he any better at it tonight is why you have to shut down the government to have this debate. That is the part of this that they say they need it, they lose leverage if they dont. But to me if youre threatening a National Emergency, you created more lever frj yourself. Play negotiator. At the end of the day, then why are you keeping the government shut . Good question. Appreciate it. Good to see you, sir. Joining me now is former president ial candidate, tim kane. Youre precoff the floor where they successfully blocked on what would have been the first bill for consideration in this new senate. You had this to say earlier. The enist should vote on nothing else until we vote to reopen the government, period. Its squeezing the finances of so many americans. As leaders we cant just whistle past the graveyard of this crisis. In fact it is still going on, chris. Theres about 14 of us speaking up until the president s speech and the point were making is exactly the point chris just made. Why shut down the entire government, punishing more than 800,000 federal employees who are all going to miss a paycheck friday, punishing citizens, hurting our countrys reputation to have a border and security debate. You want to keep government open and we can have that debate and democrats have shown repeatedly as recently as last february that were willing to deal and put significant Border Security moneys on the table. But what we dont want to do is pay for the president s broken promise of a wall that mexico was going to pay for. We just want Border Security to be done right. The Biggest Group of folks without document cans are those who come in on legal visas and over stay. You can build a million foot wall and its not going to stop that. And apprehensions are at a 45year low. This is a manufactured crisis about the wall but the president shouldnt be punishing everybody else because of his idiotic promise that hes broken to get mexico to build a wall for him. The first two years of the Trump Administration which had republican majorities in both houses. Can was there any motion by Mitch Mcconnell to pass a wall bill . He evaded the filibuster. Its a funding question i think they could have got in under reconciliation . Thats a great question. They used reconciliation to try to destroy obamacare, that was their priority. I learned something valuable. I was part of a Bipartisan Team that really presented to the president a bipartisan proposal last february. Border security done right and in the amount the president asked dung right to protect dreamers and the president blew up the deal. Well, he asked for both halves of it. What i concluded is hes not interested in the wall, Border Security. Hes interested in a talking point to rally his base. So he has shown no interest in like sitting down and actually doing a negotiation and finding a path forward, even when we offered him 25 billion inboarder security over 10 years, he blew up the deal. And heres a talking point about the policy to punish all the employees. Can you good faith negotiate the answer is its very hard to. Its been very difficult to do any kind of negotiation because its unclear whether the president will stick. We thought he was going to accept the deal in february and he blew it up. We ehad a deal in december or so we thought. It and President Trump blew it up. And all were asking our Senate Colleagues oo do is vote for exactly what you voted for three weeks ago and it shows how afraid they are of the president that theyre hiding under the desk. Thank you very much. Joining me is former republican straltgist, steve schmidt. Aing is issal person to tell you what the heck the thing is that government is now shut down over. Do you understand what that is . Of course not. Its an absurdity. And the entire premise that trump is going to address the nation to persuade the country of something is an absurdity in and of itself. Hes persuaded nobody about anything from the moment he became president of the United States. Hes trying to insight intensity among his base, trying to hold republicans together. Now we saw Republican Party in this last election that lashed itself to the mast of the s. S. Trump, went down to the bottom of the sea floor, Speaker Pelosi now runs the house. When you look at the map for 2020, that map is not anned a ven tajs map for Senate Republicans and it seems they now are lashing them selves to the mast of the s. S. Trump. Real pain is about to be felt in the economy by these wurksers who many of them are working hard, protecting the American People. At a danger level, we have a president who will go on tv tonight and lie and lie and lie some more. This is a manufactured crisis. Hes setting up a precedence. Claim powers that have never been exercised by a president and all the while doing it with the scapegoating of minority populations. Its a dangerous moment. As dangerous as it is stupid. National emergency talk which is being floated. Some argue a border crisis to free up the border wall will allow republicans to open the government without looking like they cave. And i saw other reporting indicating House Republicans want him to do that because it would take that off them and allow everybody to save face. Well, again people that have embraced the illiberalism of the trump era. This is a small r republican form of government. Were a madisonian democracy. The president is not the maximum leader. Hes not a king, hes not an emperor and when we look around the world, where are the places that we see leaders declaring National Emergencies to u surp power from other institutions . Turkey with erdogan, russia with putin, saudi arabia. You dont see this in healthy liberal democracies and so the entire premise of this National Emergency is dubious to say the least. It will almost certainly be hammered into the grounds of federal court. But the idea that the president of the United States would manufacture out this crisis. We saw in the election that this division that was invading america through the southern border, the socalled caravan which he deployed active duty elements to the border and his pr stunt all the sudden the republicans lose and the danger of the caravan dissipates. We never hear about it again. This is about his ability to go to his rallies, like the wizard in the wiz rbd of oz and say look, my faithful friends, i have given you the magical trump wall. Nobody has seen it. Try to solve a problem that does not exist. Illegal immigration comes from visa over stays and people arriving at airports. And so what he needs to be able to do is politically save face. In the entire premise of this argument, this shutdown is this should never have been a debate if you take trump at his word about american taxpayer dollars in the first place because he promised the American People to my ears that mexicans would pay for the wall. This is about the paceos not the dollars. Trump said no dollars would be used for the construction of the wall. The mexicans would pay for it. They would pay for it in paceo the reality is there are no pesos because from the first moment he mention trksd it was nothing other than a con. Its a con just like trump university, its a con just like his business career. Its a con just like Everything Else having to do with this man is a con. And we will get the con from the oval offices tonight. Thank you very much. We have a lot to talk about before the president s Oval Office Address, including the actual humanitarian crisis. Plus a prespeech fact check with the one and only Rachel Maddow. But first there is other really good news tonight. Smoking gun evidence of collusion between Paul Manafort the suspected intelligence officer. All that and more ahead. All that and more ahead. When i say, drivers who switched from geico to esurance saved an average of 412, you probably wont believe me. But you can believe this, real esurance employee nancy abraham. Look her up online. Esurance, its surprisingly painless. With the chase ink business unlimited card, i get unlimited 1. 5 cash back. Its so simple, i dont even have to think about it. So i think about mouthfeel. 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Thats why we have 2hour appointment windows, including nights and weekends. So you can do more of what you love. My name is tito, and im a techhouse manager at comcast. Were working to make things simple, easy and awesome. An accidental but explosive disclosure courtesy of Paul Manaforts lawyers showing a possible Straight Line between a Campaign Manager and in other words collusion. Youll remember the special counsel filed a Court Document in december alleging that manafort had violated his cooperation agreement, that he had instead of cooperating repeatedly lied to mueller s team. That was heavily redacted. And today manaforts defense team responded with their own document and while much of that was redacted, they missed a few parts. They failed to effectively redact a few key points. Manafort shared polling data with related to the campaign. Kilimnik whos believed to be a russian intelligence asset whos been indicted and fled to russia. To help figure out whats going on, im joined by political enterprise and investigations reporter for the washington post. Crazy the way we got this information today. Have you ever had Something Like this happen . A few months ago when they told us julian asauchg had been indicted in an Unrelated Court daulkument. But this is an odd way to learn this type of information. And because it came from Paul Manaforts lawyers, it was prevented in the least objectionable way poslk and yet still stunning. What were learning from this is the Mueller Team Says Manafort lied about two discrete things and one is polling data. He gives kilimnik polling data while hes Campaign Manager of trump . A little unclear definitely during the president ial campaign. We dont know whether it was during the time period when he was chairman. We edo know he was in contact with kilminik throughout that time period, including an inperson meeting in august. We also know they corresponded about the Russian Oligarch seeing Paul Manaforts new job and maybe getting a private briefing on the election. But why would Paul Manafort be giving polling to kilminik . I dont know. Is it connected to this idea of giving a private briefings . The spokeswoman has said those briefings never occurred. They never said they received nothing. A big question is what is he do with that data . And we just dont know yet. And another thing is the meeting in madrid. We dont know when the madrid meeting happened. Is that correct . Well, Paul Manaforts spokesman told me just this evening that one piece of information he could give about this filing is that meeting happened in january or february of 2017. So apparently after the ewlekz. Nevertheless it was clearly a topic theyre asking about. Sglrsz well, it appears it has something to do with a quote ukrainian peace deal. The idea that Michael Cohen pass to Michael Flynn or his office, some plan to lift sanctions on the russians. If hes meeting in madrid to do that, thats interesting . And we dont know if its connected to the madrid. He lied about madrid, peace and polling data. What we have been told today is a huge new piece of information. Yeah. Also again why is he lying even after hes cooperating with them and we should note the contention from manaforts team is not that those things didnt happen. Theyre just saying he forgot, basically. Thats exactly right. Theyre definitely saying yes, yes all those things did happen. He just forgot about them. His memory was fuzzy and after being shown documents he was immediately forthcoming about them. Ive been to madrid once. Back to tonights Oval Office Address, donald trump may be inventing a National Security crisis but there is a humanitarian crisis one being exacerbate as women and children come to seek asylum. The daily beast canceled a trip because of the Government Shutdown. They were supposed to use that tripe figure out how to better deal with it. And people applying for asylum has mostly served to create demand for illegal human smugglers. Here with me is two people who actually understand whats happening at the border. Founder of the group border angels and newly eelected to represent el paso. You live in the largest binational community, right on the border. What do you see from your perspective . Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. You know el paso is one of the safest communities in the nation. We have been for about 15 years. We have a wall. We were safe before a wall was constructed. And youre right. The challenge that we are facing and there is a challenge right now on our southern border, it is chaos that has been created by this administration. This administration has decided to use cruelty as a Public Policy as a way to deter immigrants from seeking asylum in the United States and its that cruelty that we are having to deal with, cruelty that means agents are preventing Asylum Seekers from coming across. So many are making more treacherous journeys to look for place wheres they can go around the wall or find other ways into the United States. It is chaos created by the president. Youve worked with folks on the border for years. Where are things over the course of your career looking at folks coming across t the dangers they faced, the degree to which the area is secure or not. Well, as ive mentioned before i was born and raised in san diego. Ive been in the border region all my life and the border has never been safer. You have undocumented migration at alltime lows in my lifetime. There is an international cries and that is at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. Because you have a man that has dehumanized children, taken them from their parents, put the children in cages, tear gassed the children and last month two died. That is because of Donald Trumps hate rhetoric. Hes unqualified for being where he is and his words of hate are now causing the deaths of children. There is no crisis. Undocumented midragz is at lows. Yes, you see the caravan people who have every right to flee violence and theyre try doing it the right way and apply for asylum. But the Border Patrol is blocking that under the orders. And walking them back into mexico. Thats against the law. Its something the whole world is watching. Its shameful. San diego is the biggest border region along the entire u. S. Mexican border. 11,000 people have died because of that wall. And its horrific what donald trump is spreading with his hate words and actions. Theres a real change in the competition of folks being apprehended. Many more families and children. We saw the deaths of two children ill equipped to deal with what theyre facing. Respond to an argument the president may make tonight that a wall would be humanitarian because it would deter these families from even making the journey. Thats what hes saying and just like in san diego, el paso has a wall. In fact where felipe was apprehended, there is a wall. I think what folks dont understand and you dont really quite get it unless you see it and thankfully there have been congressional delegations that have come to el paso, three in the last month and so theyve been able to see for themselves that border wall doesnt go straight through the u. S. mexico border line. Its actually further away from the rio grand and it is on u. S. Soil. So you have folks south of that who are walking up and stepping foot on u. S. Soil, essentially running into the arms of federal Law Enforcement in order to ask for asylum protekdss. So a wall doesnt prevent migration. A wall doesnt prevent drugs. What a wall does do, however, is it distracts us and takes our eyes off of the real solution. During the congressional delegation visits we had in december and just a couple days ago what members of congress were able to see was that we have a federal agency that has known for four years that it American Families coming to seek asylum, something very different than what we saw five, six, a decade ago, which was mexican males looking for work and trying to avoid capture. We have had for the last four years, central American Families looking for Border Patrol in order to seek refuge in america. But the agency, dhs, has essentially. Their strategy has been to ignore this reality. We are not equipped. Our agents are not trained. The infrastructure is not available to deal with this change in migration. Just to follow up on this. Your point here is that an old model in which folks were ati t tempting to evade so they could get in, in an unauthorized fashion, thats not the issue. These folks are not trying evade security. Theyre seeking out american custom and Border Patrol, seek out american officials specifically to ask them to petition for asylum and no amount of security answers that problem. Thats exactly right. A wall doesnt doctors that. A wall doesnt give our Border Patrol agents the training they need, whether it be insuring they are certified emts or access to personnel or access to more humane temporary holdings. Thank you both for your time. Thank you. In about half an hour every major tvr network, including this one will show Donald TrumpsFirst Oval Office address as president. He plans to talk about immigration at the southern border, something he cant talk about without lying. Which former president s told President Trump they want to build a wall. Theyve said thats not the case. I know the president has said that was his impression from previous president s. I know ive seen clips of previous president s talking about the importance of Border Security, the importance of addressing the issue of illegal imgragsz. Thats different from telling the president though, right . Honestly the American People want us to address this issue. And president obama asked it the Major Tv Networks on his speech in imgragsz in 2014 and they said no. President trump has asked for less than 10 minutes of air time and democratic lieders have been given the same time. Msnbc and nbc news will air their response. The Oval Office Addresses a very specific genre and its different usually than what its being marshalled for tonight. Have Home Field Advantage and were sitting next to a former Communications Director in the white house is not inkaungs kwengsal. Within the Home Field Advantage your choice of venus is critical. Theres a Briefing Room at the Old Executive Office building. Theres the treaty room. Theres the east room, the press Briefing Room but then theres the oval office. Can anyone remember the last time the opposing party asked for Response Time following an Oval Office Address which we usually associate with president kennedy, president johnson. I will not seek and shall not accept another term for president. Nixons resignation. On and on. When he came back to the white house. Massive sort of crisis of the imagination that happen as a means of addressing it as opposed to ive got a policy agenda i would like to pursue. And listen, i think we put the obama 2014 speech in the category of addresses where time was requested but not granted. George w. Bush gave an address about imgragsz and did a whole lot of haggling with this network to get it on the air. It interfere would all sorts of programming and that was a speech which had, that time bipartisan support from make me sound 100 years old. From the late senator kennedy and mccain. He wasnt the it only one to be rebuffed. Donald trump has never said anything about imgragmigration wasnt overtly partisan, completely false or illegal. Everything he says is false and its all political. As someone who works in the white house. Youve only got a few bullets in the chamber. You cant come back next week and say it. If something hugely momentous happens i cant tell how desperate they are. Whats your read on why theyre doing this now . I think they live in a constant state of desperation and exacperation. And theres that inlot of people around to spread the president s desperation. Its laid bear. If someone loved him, theyd get him a pet. They dont get a better version behind closed doors for the most part. So theres lot of desperate need to have this issue go their way because i dont know how the shutdown ends. And the it constant reporting from last night. The gist of it was they knew an Oval Office Address was a thing. Saw it on west wing. But they decided to roll it out on this. The last big shutdown were bumping up against one of the shutdowns between clinton and gring rch. This made you older than me. I love you. As 1994 gave way to 1995. Its a historical fact for thericered. I remember the invention of fire. It was clinton verses gingric gingrich it was a classic battle. It was an argument over funding and priorities. The talks, the spes fisty of what clinton wanted, what the republicans gave him, how he settled in the end, that was interesting. What the government is being shut down over is wholly unclear. 5. 7 billion but no one knows what the is. If he make as case about National Security tonight, the d democrats who run the committee of National Security will be within their rights to pull up the heads of the fbi and cia and say are there any terrorists on the southern border and ounder oath they will have to say no. And there were some that came from the northern border. Hubs offer, not terrorists. But there were jihadist activity that they monitored in canada. They do not and did not monitor the southern border for terrorists. You know why . There arent any. If youre surprised theyre going to go out and do this with a straight face, yhavent been paying attention. And president s of different parties tend to move Public Opinion on big issues and make a case. Obamacare. Theres no expectation that hes going to be talking to the median voter and persuade the unpersuadable. And someone told me after the mattis debacle, still being felt from turkey to washington d. C. , that hes terrified of his base. He lives in fear of two men one embodying the base, rush limbaugh, and the other robert mueller. 23rrs and right now for this hour lord knows how the world will change when i come on. Theres like six news stories. This is existing as it the car sinks into the lake. Theres a gap here right now. The first major mueller story, beyond what we learned today allegedly about mr. Manafort, thats when it becomes interesting. Thank you both. As we await the president s first ever major address, we have things you should keep in mind while you listen to the speech. She joins me next. She joins me next. baby crying hold on, im comin hold on, im comin hold on dont you worry, im comin here we come, hold on were about to save you im comin, yeah hold on dont you worry, im comin billions of problems. Morning breath . Garlic breath . Stinky breath . Theres a therabreath for you. Therabreath fresh breath oral rinse instantly fights all types of bad breath and works for 24 hours. So you can. Breathe easy. Theres therabreath at walmart. Do you want the same tools and seamless experience across web and tablet . Yes . Great then youre ready for power e trade. The platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. Sweet e trade. The original place to invest online. When it comes to managing your type 2 diabetes, what matters to you . Step up to the stage here. 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And in this case weve gone two years without the president doing this this far. He doesnt have much of a history of formal speeches of any kind, even though hes been president for two years. And i dont know what to i dont know if this is going to be a normal speech. There is such thing as a normal Oval Office Address. I dont know if thats this or a shock and awe political move. Weve seen him move between donald trump rally and off the cuff and occasionally a normal speech. Like someone wrote that and it got run through the prompter and it means nothing. And often after he does that, he will rebut it himself. They told me to say that but. To me the crucial thing and most important thing to understand about this debate, about the wall, is it is not a real policy. Its not like cutting the Corporate Tax rate or a pointing conservative judges. It was never part of any republican agenda before donald trump. The wall was just a thing he said on the campaign trail over and over again and the reason why he started saying it is he used it as a kind of memory trick. One of the president s early aids telling the New York Times that trumps quote political advisors landed on the idea of a border wall as a new monic device of sorts a way someone who didnt like the read and sure enough it was right there on day one i would build a great wall and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me and ill build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border and i will have mexico pay for that wall. There it is. Day one. An america under threat of invaders. His pledge to hold the invaders at pay. Again it was not an actual policy to build a real physical barrier and get mexico to pay for it. It morph under morphed into an applause line. Listen to what he told the New York Times editorial wall. If my speeches ever get a little off, i just go we will build a wall. You know if it gets boring and people are living i say lets build a wall. And hes right it worked every single time. Build the wall, build the wall. Build the wall, build the wall. We will. Oh, well build it. Well build it. Whos going to pay for it . The president understood how important the wall was as a totem for his campaign and immediately understood the trouble he faced once that symbolism ran up against the reality of governing. A transcript was leaked to the washington post. The fact is were both in a little bit of a political bind because i have to have mexico pay for the wall. I have to. Ive been talking about it for a two year period. Talking to the mexican president that hes screwed. Of course mexico was never going to pay for the wall. Because none of it was ever real. The president s own party who controlled congress didnt want to pay for the wall either. They could have passed the funding but they didnt because you cannot fund an applause line. Now with House Democrats standing in his way, hes holding the government hostage as a way to force his wall into being. I think that leads to what the actual drama ois tonight from the president from the oval office. If thats a what this comes from, this was birthed as an effort to get the president to remember to talk about immigration without writing on his hands, is tonight just a new stage for him to do what hes been doing as an applause line for years or are they going big like this because theyre signifying something new is going to happen . Theyre about to change this whole idea into something they actually want to pursue as real policy, rather than beating it for effect . I think youll be able to tell and fairly quickly whether he tries to make persuasive arguments to some sort of real plan associate would all the rhetoric or does he keep saying the same untrue and fantastical reality things hes been saying all along. I watching for. Does he keep lying about this thing . And if so, how . Because the lies that hes been telling about it show that its never intended to be a real thing. If he stops lying about it and actually starts trying to persuade people about it with truthful, rational arguments to the point at hand, that will be something new and so therefore, i think its important to watch the kinds of lies he usually tells there is two categories, the first ones are ones totally ration rational, things that would appear to make sense if they were based in truth, which they are not. The first type of lies he tends to tell about the border and the wall are lies that are at least rationally related to the wall, things that might make sense if based in truth, but they are not. The first category of lies he likes to tell, i call them rational but false threat inflation. So these are lies like there is terrorists streaming across the southern border. Thats one assertion administration tripled down on. Terrorists are streaming into the country by the thousands in the southern border. Nbc news said the number of suspected terrorists caught at the southern border from fall 2017 to fall 2018 is just six. That said, this is the kind of thing if youre a member of the Trump Administration and you say this thing about mass numbers of terrorists coming over the border, you say it over and over again, it might sound convincing enough to persuade somebody that didnt know better that yes, a huge border wall would make sense but the assertion itself is false. Another rational but false threat inflation lies is their assertion drugs are pouring into the country and a border wall once built would stop drugs from continuing to pour into the country. If you ask the dea, they will tell you the vast majority of drugs come through routes other than illegal crossings, they come through other forms of smuggling including through the mail from china. A big border wall stretching the length to the u. S. Mexico border wouldnt change that. The same thing with trumps assertions immigrants bring crime and disease with them across the southern border. That would be a rational argue the maybe if it werent false. Crime rates among native born americans are higher than immigrants. Mexico has higher rates of vaccination than the United States does now. Again, falsely inflating that threat as they have done on all those points, thats a rational way to sc arkascare people into. These are the ones that i think are going to make tonight almost a surreal experience if he keeps going there because these are the falsehoods, these arent the ones that might be rationally persuasive if true. The thing that really sets the wall stuff apart is what i call his magical nonsense. Its the stuff that betrays the fact that this really was all just invented to make people laugh and applaud at his rallies and now as chris says, they are trying to reverse engineer it into something that makes sense and doesnt. These are the assertions you have to make when youre trying to convince your neighbor that not only do unicorns exist but you have one and they do, too, and the unicorns are best friends that play games all day long, cant you see them. The lies like the wall has already been built. Is he going to say that tonight . This is perhaps one of trumps favorite lies in pursuit of building the wall and arguing the need for a Government Shutdown over it because the wall being built, construction is underway. Last month he repeated this lie eight times in one single day. Its completely nonsensical, right . We need to build a wall, the wall is already built. But he tells this lie because it makes the idea of a border wall a live issue. It gives people the sense you still need to be engaged in the drama and fighting over the border wall because its real. How real . Its already being built. Thats how you know that this fight over funding for the wall, this Government Shutdown is not actually for a real thing. You cant have an end to the world fight about needing money to build the wall while also arguing the wall is already built. Its magical nonsense. And in fact, how does it make sense to have an end of the world fight about needing american taxpayer money to build the wall when mexico is paying for the wall . Even know, during the shut down overboarder wall funding, the president is claiming mexico is paying for the wall so u. S. Taxpayers must pay for the wall. Or the government gets it . We need to fund this wall that mexico is funding . I mean, this is the magical nonsense part that will be interesting to see if he goes to tonight. All right . There are these continued varied assertions about what this phantom wall that may or may not have already been built, what it looks like. Is the wall concrete . Steel . See through steel as the president asserted this past month. The magical nonsense part of this is we have to shut down the government because the democrats refuse to pay for the concrete wall or see through steel that is built and mexico paid for so we dont have to pay for it. That nonsense stuff is how he tried to conduct the argument, which i think gives lie to chris thesis this was never intended to be a real policy in the first place. Will we get more magical nonsense, fictional applause line stuff or more of the made up threat inflation that isnt magic and isnt true . Or might he change tactic . If he gives up all of those lies, then he may actually be trying to get a wall built. Maybe. Well see. If he sticks with this fiction, though, i think we know this is the same Campaign Stunt this time in a nice room in the white house instead of an airplane hanger in front of people in red hats. The contradictory nature makes this a bizarre and frustrating news event to cover because when you say to people why is the government shut down, there is no clear answer because the president keeps changing with the object at the core of the wall mythology is. We need a wall. I heard the president argue the wall is built. I dont need mexico will pay for it and i dont need congress and i can built it myself and i can have the d. O. D. , department of defense build it. There is a real actual Government Shutdown over this that again, there is ani c issu that has to be reached that the Government Shutdown has to end. He ended up in this position tonight giving this Oval Office Address out of sort of desperation while the people that work for the federal government arent getting paid. The president asserted casually he would be happy if the shutdown went for years and that sounds like crazy talk, again, thats nonsensical talk, like the u. S. Government being shut down for years is something inconceivable both in terms of the negative impact on the country but a reality that congress would allow that to happen, but does he know thats nonsensical . Does he know steel isnt see through . Does he know mexico isnt paying for the wall and paying for the wall . Ive been wrestling with this question so why the second producer that worked on that brought to me the New York Times interview i found fascinating, the transcript of him calling up the mexican president saying buddy, im screwed here. Significa suggests he isnt in on the con. We never should have seen that. Crazy and rare that kind of call gets leaked. A call between foreign leaders, the transcript gets leaked to the press. Nuts and no expectation nobody is listening to that than the person on the line and staffers. The fact he says that he realizes day one wow, ive written a check i cannot possibly cash. I read that transcript again today, too, and the mexican president is saying mr. President , you know mexico will never pay for the wall that is never going to happen and the initial response from trump is you cannot tell the press that. You cannot tell the press that. Like help me maintain this. Keep the nonsense going. The question, i mean, maybe the way out of this is that democrats can come up with away or makes more sense, republicans allow trump to declare that he won and he got the money and the wall is being built. Just let him have his unicorn. Just say its true when its not. He can campaign on it all he wants. Im not sure it matters. I think if there is an out he basically uses d. O. D. Money to instruct them to build fencing on the very small sliver of the border that is d. O. D. Property. They never do it. Right. They have to start doing it, that they will that is the most natural out here. The most natural out is emperors new clothes where the wall gets built and the government has to reopen because it was never really a wall to begin with. Nonof that is true but we agree to say it so the issue goes away and the government can reopen. Rachel, its been great to have you here on all in come by any time. Its a strange news day but nice to be here with you, my friend. Were less than two minutes from this president s prime time address and so the Rachel Maddow show starts now. I want to thank all of you at home for joining us. Happy to have you with us. Let me give you a sense how the next hour will go. President trumps first prime time address from the oval office will start momentarily. We expect it to be short, under ten minutes and nancy pelosi and the Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer will give a rebuttal on behalf of the democratic party. That should follow quickly after the president s speech. After that, well have expert help sorting out the claims made in the various speeches and hear from freshman congresswoman alexandria cortez who will join us and we also tonight will be talking about the tons of news