Mccabes forthcoming book is called the threat, that details his decision to launch the inquiry after the day of the firing. Mccabe describes his First Encounter with trump on the day he took over at the bureau. After comeys departure, quote, the president said, people are really happy about the fact that the directors gone, and its just remarkable what people are saying. Have you seen that . In that interview mccabe recounted his concerns about trump and the need to protect the larger investigation. I was speaking to the man who had just run for the presidency and won the election for the presidency and who might have done so with the aid of the government of russia, our most formidable adversary. That was something that troubled me greatly. I was concerned that i was able to put the russia case on absolutely solid ground in an indelible fashion that were i removed quickly or reassigned or fired that the case could not be closed or vanished in the night without a trace. I wanted to make sure that our case was on solid ground. And if somebody came in behind me and closed it and tried to walk away from it, they would not be able to do that without creating a record of why they made that decision. Scott pelley of 60 minutes reveal what had mccabe told him about conversations during those eight days, again, may 2017 among Top Justice Department officials about trump and his fitness for office. There were meetings at the Justice Department in which it was discussed whether the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th amendment. The highest levels of american Law Enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president. Pelley added that mccabe confirmed a New York Times report last year about such conversations and that the Deputy Attorney general Rob Rosenstein suggested wearing a wire in meetings with mr. Trump. Rosensteins Office Issued the following response, quote, the Deputy Attorney general never authorized any recording that mr. Mccabe reference as he has stated. There is no basis to invoke the 25th amendment. Andrew mccabe also writes about his discussions with rosenstein about protecting the russia investigation writ large. In a conversation on may 12th of 2017, mccabe says he told him i feel strongly that the investigation will be best served by having a special counsel. Robert mueller, of course, was appointed five days later on may 17th and the world changed for donald trump and many others. Mccabes thoughts on trumps leadership and personality are evident in this book. He writes, quote, people do not appreciate how far we have fallen from normal standards of president ial accountability. Every day brings a new low with the president exposing himself as a deliberate liar wholl say whatever he pleases to get whatever he wants. If he were on the box at quantico, the fbi polygraph, he would break the machine. Trump attacked mccabe repeatedly for months and while also raising questions about the credibility of federal Law Enforcement, mccabe was fired last year on the eve of his retirement for not being forthcoming with officials about his disclosures to the media. Tonight trump responded to mccabes revelations with this quote, he was a big part of the crooked hillary scandal and a puppet for leakin james comey. Mccabe is a disgrace to the fbi and a disgrace to our count. All of this unfolded on the same day of william barr. Barr was sworn in the Oval Office Late this afternoon which means hell now be overseeing the mueller investigation. Lets bring in our lead off pooh panel, peter baker for the New York Times, clint watts, a former fbi special agent and author of messing with the enemy, Barbara Mcquaid, former u. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of michigan and matthew miller, former chief spokesman for the Justice Department. Clint, i would like to begin with you given your fbi experience, do the extreme maeshs, tra fracas going on, does that read true to form to you . Yes. It is interesting how many ways they explored to deal with the situation. Do we do a special counsel . Yes or no . Do we pursue the 25th amendment, yes or no. Do we take memos . Do we wear a wire . There is something going on in those days after comey was fired where they were that concerned that they needed to do something quickly. Something that you have not seen before. What i also find interesting is these two individuals, rosenstein and mccabe, were put in unprecedented situations. We are going to evaluate this here tonight and well see a lot of news stories about this. But think about being those two individuals, rosenstein thinks maybe he got set up to be the fall guy for getting rid of comey and at the same time, mccabe watching his boss get fired and they have been rooking into it for months and seeing him come in and say on tv, well, i did this because of russia. What else are you to think . You are put in an unprecedented situation. I am curious of what the Mueller Report if we get to see what it will show about those days were like. Forgive the inane tv question but how does it make you feel . These are your people at the fbi and the men and women you work with. You can see the kind of urgency in mccabes eyes as he speaks. Yeah. It must have been a shocking turn of events where everyone is trying to figure out whats the appropriate thing to do. I have a very small time to respond. There are other bizarre things that happened. An unsecured phone call from the president don trump. Highly unusual. You are wondering who else is listening to my phone call right now. The president called me on an unsecured line. Everything is abnormal. To think the stress that these people are under the organization with the president who does not know what hes doing or does know what hes doing for bad purposes. It is really remarkable. All right, to our other former fed, how real does it read to you of this perceived urgency to lock down, clamp down and protect the integrity of the investigation. I think that part of the story rings very true. The firing of james comey really rattled the fbi, contrary to President Trumps statements, the people i know in the fbi very much admired jim comey, so that was a startling turn of events. It also makes me wonder what else andy mccabe and others knew about this investigation that is not known to the public. Of course, they had access to foreign intelligence and surveillance and other information from the intelligence community. Thats not known to the public, sometimes we refer to these books like andy mccabe has written as tellall books. But when you work for the fbi or an organization like that, its really more of a tell some book because youre not permitted to disclose classified information even in your book and they are subject to review by the fbi. They were startled of what was known publicly and it is quite likely that they know more facts that caused them to be more startling. Thats a great point. The expression tip of the iceberg comes to mind. Matt miller in the same vein, you are a communications guy. That rosenstein statement, talk about a tough spot, was notable for what it did not say. The nixon era phrase nondenial denial with a tip to ben bradlee does come to mind. It denied a bunch of things that were not alleged. What andy mccabe said in his interview today and what the New York Times reported a couple of months ago was not that Rod Rosenstein was authorized to wear wires or that he believes today the 25th amendment was appropriate. It was he discussed it in that meeting. I think the spot rosenstein is in, im confused why hes still continuing to have this fight over that conversation. Hes by all accounts in his last day of the Justice Department that hes going to be gone soon. But i think what we really get from those eight days is this tension between the fbi and the Justice Department and the Deputy Attorney general who in some way was cracking a bit under pressure. He had seen himself be used by the president i think a little bit naive by him to write this memo but he to some extent knew why the president was firing comey and let himself be used. He saw his reputation really tattered. He saw himself being attacked by people and he didnt know what to do to restore his reputation. I think ultimately the thing he did was to decide to appoint the special counsel. That helped rebuild him but during that period, you see the tension between the fbi and the Justice Department and the new Political Leadership and the career people at the Justice Department. You also see a Deputy Attorney general who was straining under the pressure and trying to figure out what he should do going forward. Which brings us to you, peter baker. No love lost between mr. Mccabe and President Trump. Trump fired him 26 hours before his retirement kicked in. That was not a love letter on twitter. Yet, what is going to be like when the president has to endure this book tour hasnt started yet. It kicks off sunday night on 60 minutes. Hes going on a number of broadcast on this network for starters. The president is trying to undercut mccabes credibility from the start. He called him disgraced on twitter today and what hes referring to is the predicate for mccabe being fired was a finds by the Justice Department that he wasnt fully candid with investigators looking into leaks of information to reporters prior to the 2016 elections. So because in effect he was fired for not being fully honest, his own credibility is at issue. I think you will hear a lot about that from the president in the coming days. Hes also focused on the fact that mr. Mccabes wife ran for office and in virginia ran for the state or maybe state senate as a democrat and received hundreds of thousands of dollars in Campaign Contribution from Terry Mcauliffe who is a former governor for virginia and a friend of the clintons. In his mind this is a biased person. What mccabe is doing is having a chance to tell the story on his own terms and people can judge him and iself. Theyll watch him on this network and take their cone measure of him remember than just read what i said about him on the newspaper on twitter. I have to ask you of this other vignette that emerged from the book in a book review. This is Jeff Sessions over at the fbi talking about the bureau. The fbi was better off when you all only hired irishmen. Sessions said in one diatribe about the bureaus workforce, they were drunks but they could be trusted, not like all these new people with nose rings and tattoos. Who knows what they are doing. Peter, how do we process that little vignette . It is obviously a pretty stark and colorful scene. I dont know about the context. Its hard to portray the people who were involved in this particular scenario as people with nose rings and so forth. Comey and mccabe, all the people who were involved in the investigation are longtime veterans of the bureau, very Straight Arrow types or at least thats the perception they had in their careers prior to all this. White shirts and suits and ties and knotted up to the top. These are not young characters like that. These are traditional fbi agents. Now, again, the trump people will make them out to be biased individuals but the people who have known them for many years talk about their long careers and professional investigations. I think whatever sessions meant by that could not apply to them. Barb, i have to ask you, whats the chance the new real attorney general, mr. Barr, has an 8 00 a. M. Staff meeting in a soundproof skiff at doj tomorrow where hes going to be sharing the keys to the kingdom, everything that is known thus far about this president on this matter, how is that going to work because thats going to instill him with certain knowledge thatll make this continually interesting. Thats a safe bet that one of his first orders of business is to get a full briefing on whats going on in this case. No doubt that the public knows a fair amount about the case, but there is likely exponentially more evidence that Robert Mueller has uncovered. I think it would be part of his responsibility to find out what is going on in this investigation and what is Robert Muellers plan, making sure they have a good working relationship and how theyre going to go forward and so no doubt william barr has a lot on his plate as he begins his new job as the attorney general. But this, im sure, will be among his top priorities. Clint, not for nothing, barr and mueller have been friends for decades, attending weddings of each others kids, that kind of thing. What happens did muellers life get any more confusing or easier with the raising of the right hand of the attorney . It is about competence. Theyll trust in each others abilities. I dont know if it got easier. Maybe the pathway forward, there will be some sort of structure thats laid out between the two of them. This is the way the investigation will go. These are the decisions that will be made. The entire whitaker period was just a lame duck attorney general situation where nothing was really going to move forward. I think weve seen that with the investigation. I am hoping that well get clarity and decisiveness and we get some sort of certainty to the public that will be carried through properly. Matt miller, what do you think matt schlapp is talking about tonight in this tweet that broke globally, matt schlapp happens to be married to one of the leading comp advisers to thiS White House. Mueller will be gone soon. Why do you think he would say a thing like that . It is a tough couple days on twitter for white house spouses. Yesterday you saw the spouse of the White House Communications director seeming to link the arrival of the new attorney general with the end of the mueller investigation. I guess the best spin you can put on that is that hes reacting to public reports, Matt Whitaker among others saying mueller appears to be at the end. I dont believe thats what bill barr is there i dont think hes there to end the mueller robe or clamp down any appropriate way. Thats why the president hired him. The president was aware of the memo he had written and the aggressive stance he had taken that he believed the special counsel was pursuing and thats why he got the job. I think hell be mistaken in his interpretation but i do think there are questions about whether barr is going to allow the release of muellers final report to him or some version of that report that he then writes for the public. If he gets into a fight with the white house where the white house wants to take aggressive views of their powers, thats a place where barr pledges to congress to be transparent are going to come up in opposition to his longstanding views of president ial power and, you know, well have to see how that shakes out. Peter, i never try to ask you to express a judgment. Do you have any sense that the investigation has entered any kind of new phase . Did anything change effectively today or this week . Well, the difference between bill barr and Matt Whitaker in terms of overseeing the investigation probably are not terribly significant. Once the management of this left Rod Rosensteins hands, i think thats the bigger change. Bill barr presumably has more authority and more clout in making a decision like the one we are talking about right now. I think bob muellers office had been aware of the sort of damocles thats been hanging over them quite a while. I imagine rushing to get whatever they can and taking some sort of precautions or plan b in case they find the plug pulled on their operation. Our thanks to our group. Peter baker, clint watts, Barbara Mcquaid and matt miller. Thank you all. Coming up well have the latest on the other big news of this day. That funding deal that prevents another shutdown. Two reporters right now in the thick of it will join us tonight. Later why some very smart people are asking out loud whether Paul Manafort could be a russian agent. If you were watching us last night, you witnessed this moment and what it all could mean for donald trump as the 11th hour is just getting starting on this consequential thursday night. I have a just had an opportunity to speak with President Trump and he, i would say to all my colleagues, has indicated hes prepared to sign the bill and hell be issuing a National Emergency declaration at the same time. I have indicated to him that i am going to support the National Emergency declaration. Emergency declaration sounds like a great idea. The Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell turned some heads on the hill today when you heard him say that trump would sign the agreement and, oh, by the way, hes going to declare a National Emergency to fund his border wall. Both the senate and the house have passed the funding bill. The president is going to sign it. We learned torrent he plans to hold an event tomorrow morning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern time in the rose garden on the topic of border security. Our friend, peter baker, reports tonight, quote, the Emergency Declaration combined with 1 the 1. 375 billion in the spending measure dedicated to fencing and other reprogrammed funds would allow the president to put together about 8 billion for barri barriers along t barriers along the border. According to an administration official, more than the 5. 7 billion he had been seeking from congress. Trump intends to declare the National Emergency. Pelosi says she may file a legal challenge accusing the president of making an end run around congress. Thats obvious enough. She also says a president with different values might offer a much different Emergency Declaration. I know republicans have some unease about it no matter what they say because if the president can declare an emergency on something that he created as an emergency or an illusion of what he wants to convey, just think what have a president with different values can present to the american people. You want to talk about a National Emergency, lets talk about today, the oneyear anniversary of the epidemic of gun violence in america. Thats a National Emergency. Why wont you declare that pledge, mr. President . I wish you would. With us tonight, a White House Correspondent for the Washington Post and kelsey snell, a congressional reporter for npr. Ta lou, id like to read you something from your newspaper. Senate majority leader mcconnell was on the phone on this nerveracking day. We thought he was good to go all morning and then suddenly its like everything is off the rails said one senior republican aide, so is the chance that somebody got him on the phone, is that how much of a razors edge we are on here . Yeah, that story of my colleague conveys how impulsive this president is. You have multiple people trying to get the president on the phone and theyre the last person that speaks to him before he makes the final decision. You heard these negotiations going on today even after the bill had been negotiated or democrats and republicans ironed out all the details that they wanted and they did not know whether or not the president was on board. He heard some people on talk radio or some of his conservative allies that were saying that the bill was not conservative as it should be. And he was starting to wobble. Thats why the Senate Majority had to get the president on the phone, give him some assurances, that he himself would support the National Emergency declaration, something that he had been opposed to in the past in order to get the president to sign this bill to make sure we do not have another shutdown. This was a harrowing day in congressional negotiations with the president really poised to blow everything up at the final minute. But the democrats and republicans were able to make sure that the president was on board with what they had put together. And it looks like well avoid the Government Shutdown but we will have that National Emergency declaration which could be a political crisis of its own. Kelsey, over to you, we did our checking and it looks like the first recorded talk of a National Emergency that we can find was january 4th, so that would make this a kind of slow rolling National Emergency. Was there eye rolling among republicans that you could sense today who just cant own this intellectually and they cant be honest about it. They really would like nothing to do with this . Not just eye rolling. There was some real concern from a number of republicans that i talked to. We have been asking them about this for weeks since the beginning of january. As you mentioned and many of them were warning from the jump that they did not think that declaring a National Emergency was the right way to handle this. Now, a lot of them, even the most for vent opponents to the concept were a little cautious today. They largely were saying things like we need to see exactly how the president is going to structure this or what powers hes going to call on. There were people like senate er senator rand paul who says there are separations of powers in the constitution for a reason. And allow be somebody to declare a National Emergency about anything at all means that those lines start to get blurred. It was something that he was particularly concerned about and he wasnt alone. I talked to over a dozen republican senators today who one or two said they can see a way how this is okay. The rest were not comfortable with this concept. Both of our guests agreed to stay with us. Well sneak in a break here. When we come back, well have tolu take on the comments of ann coulter today about that, that is at least a partial border barrier on our southwest border. That and more when we come back. We are back with to lew olorunni olorunnipa. As promised i want to read you the words from ann coulter today. Lets talk about the president s right flank. National emergency wont help. It is over if he signs this bill. In the second tweet she writes, theres no coming back from this. No emergency or president ial powers will allow him to build the wall ever. After he signs this bill, trump has just agreed to fully open borders. So tolu, the question is how does he handle the base with talk like that out there . The white house is sensitive to some of the conservative pundits and talk show hosts that are out there. Some are being vocal like ann coulter, and some of them are holding their fire even though in the past they talked negatively about this bill. The white house is working to make sure they do not have headlines from the conservative base and the media. There are Others Holding their fire saying they are going to wait for the president to declare the National Emergency and give him some space to ma thufr on this because the president cares a lot about what is happening in the conservative e ecosphere. This is what led to the 35day shutdown that we had last month. This is something that the white house was sensitive to. It is not clear that the president has this conservative group on his side, so far theyre willing to wait and hold the fire and see what theyre going to do. A lot of them are not happy with the bill. There is some pieces of the bill, there is some legislative texts that immigration live restrictionists are not happy with it. Not only the dollar amount is not having enough to build a wall but also some rules and some restrictions that the democrats put in that make it very difficult for the president to carry out his immigration agenda so as some of those headlines get written and some of those stories get flushed out, you can see the president starting to fume over some of the things that are in the bill and pushing his National Emergency further in trying to build the wall faster because of the restrictions in this bill. I know you dont just cover republicans but i want to continue in this vain. Charlie sykes was among those reminding us today that there is always tweets and that had us looking back to when he said this about barack obama. Republics must not allow president obama to subvert the constitution of the u. S. For his own benefit. Charlie sykes went on today saying this will haunt republicans and conservatives for decades. It is not only the subversion thing. It is the article one problem of appropriations that you dont have to be a constitutional scholar to understand. Yeah that, is something that i heard not always on the record but a lot today. Republicans are really worried about the idea that congress is supposed to say how the government spends money. The white house makes requests. It goes to every single year in the budget. The white house goes to the agency and asks them what they need and sends a request to congress. Congress is the body that decides what money gets spent. How it gets spent, and it is back and forth between the white house and congress but at the end of the day Congress Holds the purse springss. That article one power is the biggest thing Congress Holds to making sure it runs and have checks and balances and losing those checks and balances through an Emergency Declaration may seem like it is a finite thing but there are a lot of republicans that i talked to, democrats too, who worry that it isnt finite and starts a ball rolling that they cant stop. Kelsey, in 30 seconds of brilliance, when the president announces this tomorrow, is it stillborn . Does it run right up against an immediate legal challenge . Will we ever see it happen, in other words . Well, California Attorney general says hes ready to file a lawsuit right away and there are other people preparing for it. I expect there will be lawsuits immediately and it will be whether or not there will be an injunction going along from that prevents the president enforcing it. We appreciate you taking time out from your busy beats today to talk to us. To lew ole run nole run nip pa kelsey snell. Thank you both very much. Coming up for us, why more people are wondering out loud about whether some in the president s circle may be working under the sway of that man when we continue. danny let me get this straight. After a long day of hard work. You have to do more work . vo automatically sort your expenses and save over 40 hours a month. danny every day youre nearly fried to a crisp, professionally vo you earned it, were here to make sure you get it. Quickbooks. Backing you. I really think it is beyond a doubt in my mind that manafort conspired with the russians. It is still a question of who is he protecting by lying if anyone and why . Manafort had become a de facto russian agent himself so in some respects when the Trump Campaign and even the candidate himself conspired with manafort in a Trump Presidency like sanctions relief like undermining nato in effect trump was conspireing with a russian agent. Two people there. Soberminded people both former feds who know a lot about the russia investigation on this very broadcast during this very hour last night. They were reacting to the conclusion of that federal judge that Paul Manafort lied to prosecutors. After agreeing to cooperate potentially adding years to his prison sentence. The obvious question is why manafort lied and whether its a part of the connection between donald trump, his campaign and the russians. John brennan offered his theory on this Network Earlier today. If he werent the sitting president of the United States, would you think hes a russian asset or agent or unwitting russian agent . There are individuals that the russians have been able to manipulate and exploit because individuals are concerned of what the russians might expose that could embarrassed and discredit them and hurt them. And those are individuals who arent assets or agents, witting or unwitting. They are ones who cooperate and collude because of the potential damage that the russians can do if the russians decide to come out against them. Lets talk to malcolm nance from Homeland Security with 35 years working in the feel. Hes also the author of the plot to destroy democracy how putin and his spies are undermining america and dismantling the west which makes him something of an expert on this topic. Do you view this as established fact, this question about mr. Manafort . Oh, i do think that that is established fact. I have a new book coming up and a chapter is called the agent. He is a russian asset because he has been under contract for promoscow governments in the ukraine since 2003 at the earliest. He has been working in their interest including as were finding out during the 2016 campaign when he brought himself got brought on to the Trump Campaign he was working for the russian oligarchy including promising to give them briefings about the Trump Campaign. We understand now that the special counsel is focusing in on a meeting that he had at a cigar bar in Jared Kushners fifth avenue he may have had a clandestine meeting where he might have passed on possibly information from the Trump Campaign. This makes him an agent of a foreign power. I dont mean trade representative. I mean in an intelligence asset who may have been openingly, wittingly or unwittingly manipulated as john brennan said earlier because he owed a debt or because he was being coerced into doing it or willingly did it under contract. This is from the washington pos post. Inevitably the book includes disturbing new detail about trumps subservience to russian president Vladimir Putin. Trump refused to believe u. S. Intelligence reports that north korea had test fired an int Intercontinental Ballistic Missile that kim jongun called a fourth of july gift to the arrogant americans. Trump dismissed the Missile Launch as a hoax. Mccabe writes, he thought that north korea did not have the capability to lunch such missiles. He said he knew this because Vladimir Putin had told him so. What do we make of that, malcolm nance . You know, we oh, man. They have silenced malcolm nance. See that . See how it works . We lost our satellite connection to malcolm. Nothing more sinister to that. However, lets take a break and come back, well try to reestablish. We have reestablished communications with our friend, malcolm than. You were saying . First off, every agent understands the phrase lost the link, right . Occasionally sat com goes down. About donald trump first, u. S. Intelligence is brilliant, brilliant at determining Ballistic Missile launches, their capability, where theyre taking off from from the moment of boost to impact, we have 100 tracking of these things. We have the ability since we created Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles the act to determine what is and what is not right down to the pop rivet. The fact that donald trump will believe Vladimir Putin just speaks to that slavish devotion he has to the exkgb office. That has to be adjudicated through the special counsel and god knows we just hope that the president of the United States is not fully under the sway of the russian leader and is just misguided. I doubt it, but we should hope. I am going to toss in a topic from out of left field. It was mentioned earlier on the broadcast, the controversy over vaccinating our children. Over the past 24 hours, a former National Security aide in the Obama Administration said on cnn that she would not be surprised that this too has fallen under the umbrella of the \russian bots and russian efforts to foment division in our country, that theres nothing really that they wouldnt get their hands on to foment something that would drag me apart from you and other people in our lives. Is it plausible to you . Its not only plausible, its true, and i know everything in my world apparently comes out to russia, russia, russia, but in this case, we have seen enormous effort, not in the United States, but in western europe by russian influence news media, sputnik, russia today and their subsidiaries and followers in eastern and western europe pushing the antivax campaign. The antivaccination campaign. These are efforts which started way back in the 50s, 60s and 70s round standing the russians understand when you have a Healthy Society and a thinking society, you will stand up to any adverse condition and any adverse opponent from, you know, from an opposite side. But when your society is sick and ignorant and believing in all the tropes and memes which have no basis in scientific fact like antivaccination, you weaken that society. You know, a lot of people say, well, you know, russia is a rich nation now. It is operating close to the west. It is not a rich nation. It is a very poor nation. But what they have is they still have all the systems and resources of the former soviet union in creating this disinformation bubble, which creates the disreality that we are dealing with now and antivaccination is just one of them. Powerful words from our guest malcolm nance tonight. Malcolm, thank you, as always, for coming on the broadcast. My pleasure. And for joining us tonight. We want to get in another story that took place today. If you were watching local news here in the new york city area tonight, this is what you saw at 6 00 eastern time. Almost three months to the day after Governor Cuomo and mayor de blasio announced the blockbuster amazon deal to much fanfare, that Company Abruptly did an aboutface. For good reason it is the lead story tonight here in new york city where the city has pulled off the once unthinkable, they have scared off the Biggest Company on the planet. To be candid, a good many of us were surprised that amazon was willing to expose its employees to new yorks decrepit subway, crumbling infrastructure and housing challenges, but amazon chose to come to new york and promised to deliver, though maybe not overnight, 25,000 jobs with them. And those jobs all those people would further generate. New york offered 3 billion in incentives and some real estate well refer to as prime, and then the opposition went to work, and today they won. Amazon has pulled out, and now a festival of secondguessing will make new york politics even more toxic. And thats hard to do. Heres how nbc news correspondent tom costello reported the story tonight. Reporter tonight, the worlds Biggest Company is saying no thanks to the worlds financial capital. Amazon had announced it would bring 25,000 jobs to new yorks Long Island City as part of its hq2 initiative, splitting 50,000 jobs with northern virginia. But almost immediately it faced stiff opposition. Amazon has got to go. Reporter opposed to the potential impact on traffic, housing, schools and the financial agreement amazon struck with the city and state. Now three months later, the company is pulling the plug on its new york plans. It shows that Everyday Americans still have the power to organize and fight for their communities and they can have more say in this country than the richest man in the world. Reporter amazon blames politicians who will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project. Among locals, both regret and relief. This is basically amazon picking up their toys and leaving the sandbox. This was a revolution for queens economy. This could have been something outrageously awesome for us. Reporter amazons cancelled order means a loss of 25,000 jobs and billions of dollars in economic impact. I think the protesters are going to realize long term that while they won the battle, they lost the war. Reporter tonight, new york mayor bill de blasio says you got to be tough to make it here in new york. He says amazon had an opportunity here but it chose to walk away and throw that opportunity away. For its part, amazon says it is not restarting the discussions about where hq2 will go. Northern virginia will still get the bulk of those 25,000 jobs. Nashville will also get some. Brian . Tom costello reporting the story for us tonight. Tom, thanks. And coming up, the results are in. What the president s doctor had to say about the president s health when the 11th hour continues. clients voice remember that degree you got in taxation . danny of course you dont because you didnt your job isnt doing hard work. Its making them do hard work. And getting paid for it. vo snap and sort your expenses to save over 4,600 at tax time. Quickbooks. Backing you. Last thing before we go here tonight is the president s health. Today we learned more about his physical exam a week ago, and in some areas his stats match up with that of a college athlete. At 63, weighing in at 243 pounds with a resting heart rate of 70 and a bp of 118 80, those are numbers a lot of people would love to have. And yet to go with all of the other firsts weve been covering during the era of this presidency, the coverage of the president s results has been peppered by doubts, expressed publicly and openly, even by some experts questioning everything from his basic height and weight and beyond. And there is reason for this. First, there was the trump personal physician here in new york. Remember this guy . Dr. Harold bornstein who famously declared trump, quote, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. Which, of course, was not only patently false, but the doctor later said that trump himself had dictated the statement. Then there was the overthetop assessment of the president S White House doctor, an active duty admiral, which was perhaps, to use a medical term, ebullience on steroids. The president s Overall Health is excellent. His cardiac performance during his physical exam was very good. He continues to enjoy the longterm benefit that come from a lifetime of abstinence from tobacco and alcohol. I feel very confident that he has a very strong and a very probable possibility of making it completely through his presidency with no serious medical issues. So bottom line, the president has gained a few pounds, theyve upped his statin dosage but its very important for someone to say what the doctor said, the president is in very good health. That is our broadcast for this thursday night. Thank you so much for being here with us and good night from nbc news headquarters in new york. The president is going to declare a National Emergency but it doesnt look like an emergency. Beto orourke will be with me in a few minutes as we bring you a special edition covering all we keep talking about this border like its one thing. Like its one place. Like its a national crisis. This is a tremendous crisis at the border. Reporter but its 2,000 miles, Pacific Ocean to the gulf mx co. Desert, mountains, tarmland, cities. Concrete, scrub grass and a whole lot of sand and one long river. How exactly are you going to build a wall on this . To comp remend the border, you got to see it and its overwhelming vastness, the people on both sides