Im ali velshi. Day 903 of the Trump Administration, and the president makes a sudden retreat in his lengthy battle to put a question about citizenship on the 2020 census. This reversal came just days before i. C. E. Agents are expected to follow through with trumps orders to round up thousands of undocumented people for deportation. Early this morning there was reporting the president might have been ready to announce an executive order to add that Citizenship Question to the census, but this evening in a rose garden appearance with commerce secretary wilbur ross and attorney general bill barr, trump told the nation he was abandon that go effort. He tried to make it sound like a change in direction. We are pursuing a new option to assure a complete and timely count of the noncitizen population. I am he or she 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. Trump made todays announcement after running into several legal road blocks. After he spoke, he asked his attorney general to back him up, which barr did. Thank you, mr. President. Congratulations on todays executive order. The Supreme Court correctly recognized that it would be 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. 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. As a practical matter, the Supreme Courts decision closed all paths to adding the question to the 2020 census. Put simply, the embedment was a logistic cal. A fearbased message that seemed particularly the lord to his base. Are you a citizen of the United States of america . Oh, gee, im sorry, i just cant answer that question. And thats after spending billions and billions of dollars. There used to be a time where you could answer questions like that very easily. There used to be a time where you could proudly declare i am a citizen of the United States. Now theyre trying to erase the very existence of a very important word and a very important thing, citizenship. Farleft democrats in our country are determined to conceal the number of illegal aliens in our midst. They probably know the number is it far greater, much higher than anyone would have ever believed before, maybe thats why they fight so hard. This is part of a broader leftwing effort to erode the rights of the american citizen and is very unfair to our country. Keep in mind that the government already collects citizenship data through whats known as American Community survey. Samples approximately 2 of households every year. As nbcs Pete Williams explains, that information is combined with data from other government agencies. The census counts everybody, the entire population, not just citizens. It certainly would be a legitimate thing to find out how many noncitizens there are, but the senses bureau already does this through two means. According to the most recent data in that survey, the number of noncitizens in the u. S. Is 22. 5 million. Administration critics have expressed concern a Citizenship Question would discourage some u. S. Residents, especially immigrants, from responding to the census. Today one House Democrat said even without the question the debate is already working to trumps advantage. The president has no interest in real data about citizenship. The president and his people understood that if they threatened a Citizenship Question on the census, that would create fear in immigrant communities. Its been out there long enough that at least part of the objective has been achieved. As the president backs down on one front, hes gearing up on another. The New York Times was first to report nationwide raids to arrest thousands of members of undocumented families that will begin on sunday. The times reports the immigration and customs forefront operation will take place, quote, over multiple days and will include collateral deportations. In those deportations, the authorities might detain immigrants who happen to be on the scene, even though they werent targets of the raids. When possible, family members who are arrested together will be held in Family Detention Centers in texas and pennsylvania. But because theres space limitations, some might end up staying in hotel rooms. I. C. E. s goal is to deport the families as quickly as possible. They were targeting at least 2,000 immigrants whove been ordered deported. The operation is expected to take place in at least ten major cities. Two Homeland Security officials confirmed to nbc news the raids will begin this weekend. The ten cities are atlanta, baltimore, chicago, denver, houston, los angeles, miami, new orleans, new york, and san francisco. Today the acting director of u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spoke out in support of this weekends raids. The men and women of i. C. E. Are committed to doing their job and fulfilling that mission which includes deporting those who have gone all the way through the due process and gotten a removal order but not obeyed it, of which there are about a Million People in this country. Now, in her weekly meeting, House Speaker nancy pelosi criticized the raids but she was less specific about how to stop them. These families are hardworking members of our communities and our country. This brutal action will terrorize children and tear families apart. Will you appeal to the president , though, to put off these raids. Im going to appeal to the people of faith, the faithbased organizations to appeal to the president. I think that they put him in office and they had a better voice for this. Here for our leadoff discussion on a thursday night, franco or done yez, White House Correspondent for npr, michael steele, and former u. S. Attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. Welcome to all of you. Franco, lets start with you. This executive order that the president has put forth tonight actually changes nothing materially. Right. Thats absolutely right. I mean, they basically instructed the federal government to do what the federal governments already doing, which is rather humorous. But thats trump, but that was the point. The point was to really go through the motions, stir up a lot of dust around this, feign hurt and anger and charging ahead and then wind up exactly where you knew you were going to be two weeks ago or at least the day the Supreme Court came out with its decision. Having barr come out and sort of give the legal matter on all of this, sort of the cherry on top. But ali, this was all pretty much sort of the setup for what will come possibly this weekend, even though from what im hearing, a lot of the i. C. E. Officials are not happy about these raids. Theres a level of coordination. Theyre a little skiddish about it and exactly where theyre going. If you have a Million People, you know who they are, then why havent we been doing this all along. There are a lot of questions like that that have been coming out tonight. And the administration, again, has got folks chasing a lot of bright, shiny objects down many rabbit holes. And thats typically what trump will do in this situation. Joyce vance, this is the second time we have seen President Trump could want on his attorney general to do cleanup work for him. The arrangement the attorney general used was interesting. He said it was a logistical challenge, not a legal challenge, and any effort to get the Citizenship Question would have prevailed but for the fact it has other courts and other challenges to go through. But the governments argument was therchd they needed a Supreme Court decision. This would have been instituted on day one of the Trump Administration. Its a strange argument to make. It really is. And they did run into logistical problems, but the real problem here, ali, is that what the government, what doj and the white house didnt want to see move forward was discovery into the original motivation for adding the Citizenship Question to the census because there is this newly discovered evidence that there were republican operatives who had determined that this was the data that they would need to gerrymander districts, particularly on the southern border to disenfranchise hispanic and nonwhite democratic boarders. So by conceding voters, so by conceding this issue, they really shut down any further inquiry into those bad motivates f motives for adding the question to the census. Heres what the mayor of miami said about the planned i. C. E. Raids this weekend. The federal government hasnt communicated with our government. They havent told us what the parameters are, they havent asked us to support what theyre doing or given us any information on who theyre targeting, how theyre targeting them. Franco, the last time the the president promised these raids, the problem was the president had communicated things that i. C. E. Agents dont necessarily want communicated, particularly when there are people on target lists. We appear to have done the same thing again. We listed the states and cities and the target number of people. Whats your sense . Whats your understanding . What have you learned about how these raids are going to go down . Typically you dont alert people before you go and arrest them. What were learning is that there is a lot of politics involved with this. If you talk to advocates and those who work with immigrants, they feel this is directly an effort to put fear and concern in this. But the Administration Says they are going after people who have already been ordered to leave, final orders of removal. You play the cootch nelly clip where he talks about there being a million Illegal Immigrants in the country whove been ordered to leave and have not left and they say its time to go. But this is a very interesting time. In the past these type of raids have happened, but those usually target people who have criminal histories, violent offenders. In this case theyre going after families in many cases, and thats a much different approach. Michael, franco makes an interesting point, that the message continues to be one of fear, that you should fear these people, fear the fact that there is a Citizenship Question. A departure from the history of the Republican Party but its not a departure from Donald Trumps rhetoric. Lets listen back at some of what hes had to say. Hillary clinton is going to destroy your Social Security and medicare. She even wants to give your benefits to Illegal Immigrants and youve seen that all over. If Hillary Clinton were to be elected, it would create an unprecedented and protracted constitutional crisis. Hillary clinton wants a 550 increase in Syrian Refugees coming into the country. Theyll be pouring into the country. Thats above obamas unbelievable thousands and thousands coming in. Weve got to stop the drugs from pouring into this country and poisoning our youth and plenty of others. And its a tremendous epidemic like weve never had before. This american carnage stops right here and stops right now. [ applause ] that last one, michael, was from his inauguration. This has been a steady and consistent theme for donald trump which clearly works with his base. But for the Republican Party that wants to expand its base, what does this do . Were beyond the idea of expanding the base, especially with hispanics. How do you talk to someone in the Hispanic Community while they have a relatively, a friend, or colleague theyve known for a long time who suddenly gets caught up in this weekends raids and is no longer here . How do you have that conversation with someone whose family was trying to emigrate here because of political and other economic pressures at home but their children are now sitting in cages along the border . So, you know, if you got a secret conversation that you want to have, have it, good luck. I just dont see it playing out that way. Yes, you know, donald trump got a sizable chunk of the hispanic vote in 2016, but that was before all of this. And so how all of this goes down in the Hispanic Community, particularly if he goes through with the raids this weekend and carries forward the meme we heard in the sound bites. These are people who are going to bring disease and they are taking your jobs, taking something from you, theyre a threat to your community. How do you then wrap around on the back end in the height of a political campaign, ali, and say i need your vote . Joyce, im an immigrant to this country. In fact, im an immigrant to the last country that i came i went to as well. To me, the association with immigrants and lawlessness is troubling. But to the extent that donald trump has created that impression amongst people, how do democrats push back on that without falling victim to what he continues to say about being fans of open borders and, in fact, encouraging lawlessness by not wanting to round up people whove been scheduled for deportation . Trump has driven this litany that immigrants, and particularly brownskinned hispanic immigrants who come across the southern border are criminals, that they carry disease, that theyre undesirable. And its important, i think, for democrats just to take a foundational stand that immigration is what has made this country great, that we were all, most of us, immigrants, or had family that were immigrants at one point or another, and that the entire point of america was to open immigrants with open arms. The real pearil here for the president , this will turn and hurt him at some point, is hes using i. C. E. , which is a Law Enforcement agency for political purposes, not for Law Enforcement purposes. Because these people that i. C. E. Will go out after this weekend are people who have permanent removal orders. They are largely people who are living lawfully inside of our borders but for the fact that they lack Legal Immigration status. And this forces i. C. E. , which is an agency with limited resources, to focus on this lawabiding population as opposed to using their resources to go after people who are here illegally and who are also engaged in criminal conduct. I know where the i. C. E. Agents would rather be and it would be focusing on criminals. Sooner or later that failure of priorities in this administration will come home when we see someone who is here illegal engaged in criminal activity, not sought after because theyre going after lowrisk people. To the extent you commented on the idea that this is meant whether its a Citizenship Question or its the signaling of these raids, it is all meant to send a signal to anybody who is in the United States undocumented that we are coming for you. Despite the setback on the Citizenship Question today, is donald trump succeeding on this front . Hes certainly Building Support making up his base. This was an issue President Trump ran on in 2016, and he largely credits for carrying him to the white house. On the flip side, democrats are also using this issue to kind of bolster their base. All the Democratic Candidates as we hardeard in the debates are largely talking on this issue, saying theyre going to cut back on enforcement. So this is an issue that is going back and forth, both sides are really using it to build support among their base, and its really becoming an issue were going to hear about. Thanks to the three of you. Still ahead, there are a dozen more people tonight who could now be called to testify on the Mueller Report, and that news has caught the attention of someone in the oval office. Plus, how democrats are preparing behind the scenes for Robert Muellers own testimony now just days away. Later, new numbers that should catch the attentions of the democratic frontrunner. Who today took on what he calls the trump doctrine . The 11th hour just Getting Started on a thursday night. Little things can be a big deal. Thats why theres otezla. Otezla is not an injection or a cream. Its a pill that treats differently. 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They include current and former highranking Trump Administration officials like michael flynn, jared kushner, john kelly, and jeff sessions. President trump was, of course, not happy, writing on twitter now the democrats have asked to see 12 more people who have already spent hours with Robert Mueller, and spent a fortune on lawyers in so doing. How many bites at the apple do they get before working on border loopholes and asylum . They also want to interview the highly conflicted and compromised mueller again. He said he was done after his last nineminute speech and had nothing more to say outside of the no collusion, no obstruction report. Muellers testimony before the House Judiciary Committee is now just six days away. The Associated Press reports on the preparations writing quote a democratic aide said Staff Members have been watching old videos of mueller testifying as fbi director during the administrations of president bush and barack obama. Theyre looking to see how hell act, the aide said, and they noticed he gives minimal commentary when asked questions. Politico reporter Heather Capital gainle reports that House Speaker nancy pelosi told democrats in a closeddoor meeting today she wants a level of calmness and no drama in the mueller presentation. With us for more tonight, eric tucker, reporter for the Associated Press. What can you tell us about how lawmakers are preparing for this conversation with Robert Mueller, and what their bestcase scenario is . So i think theres no reason to not take Robert Mueller at his word, that he intends to hol closely to his 448page report and that he will not stray beyond it. Assuming that he, of course, add heres to that pledge, democrats are fafcing a challenge because their goal is for him to reveal more. Thats not likely to happen. That said, one favorable optic the democrats could get is if mueller simply reads aloud for the American Public in front of cameras for everyone to see some of the more damaging, harmful commentary from the report, some of the more powerful evidence. I think that actually could be fairly helpful for the democrats. Those are two possible outcomes, one in which they get him to say things that you havent heard before that could be incendiary, that could speak to how he was thinking and what he thought of donald trump and his actions. The other one could be just to get him to read from the report. I guess every member of congress is thinking now what question they can put to him in their limited typically to elicit the most effective response. I know this isnt your job, but you do ask questions for a living, as i do. What do you think that question is . What series of questions could get Robert Mueller to Say Something that he seems intent on not saying . There is at least one question that i think was on everyones mind when mueller had his press conference at the Justice Department, and that is if donald trump were anyone other than the president , would you have recommended diagnostic him . Another way of saying that is, but for the Justice Department legal opinions that say you cant charge a sitting president , would you have, in fact, recommended charging him . I think a lot of americans who are watching this press conference thought that in so many words he was effectively saying, yes, i did identify criminal conduct that i would have moved forward on, but i could not. And i actually dont expect that he will go in that direction, but i have to imagine that that is on the minds of democrats because any sort of sliver in that direction would be a terrific coup for democrats. Or they could use the corollary, that bill barr and donald trump kept saying no collusion and no obstruction and they could ask him to clarify that or simply, do you even agree with those words . Thats right. Now, the flip side, of course, is that if im a republican, i want mueller to state many times over and repeat very loudly what he did not find, and namely, a criminal conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and the kremlin, because thats a fact for the president and the republicans. Of course, mueller in no circumstances will not say i found no collusion because thats not a legal term and the report takes great pains to say thats not what we were looking for. In fairness to republicans, i think mueller was pretty clear that the evidence did not add up to a criminal conspiracy. So i would imagine republicans want him to say that. Donald trump goes after muellers character a lot. That is a high bar, even for republicans. Will they tried to impugn his integrate . I dont know how effective that would be. That said, there are sort of grounds on which you could challenge the investigation itself. One of the things i think thachlgtd caught the president s attention and some of the attention of republicans in congress is the makeup of muellers team. Many of the members, or at least more than a handful contributed to democratic politicians. If im a republican, i might want to ask mueller why did you pick certain people . Some of the people on the team have reputations as being very aggressive. So there are ways in which you could kind of attack or kind of pick at the foundations of the investigation without going to mueller himself. I think thats a tough targets, especially given that, of course, he was a republican appointee as fbi director. Thank you for your reporting. Eric tucker of the Associated Press. Coming up, our wall street journal poll shows a pac emerging at the top of the democratic primary field. Whos in . Whos out . When the 11th hour comes back. Bloom, there it is bloom, there it is this bloomified menu starts at 13. 99. And its gonna blow your bloomin mind i like to plan my activities before i take trip, so by the time i get there i can just enjoy the ride. With tripadvisor, its easy to discover over 100,000 bookable things to do, from walking tours in rome to Wine Tastings in tuscany, and if you like what you see, you can book it with ease. Just another way tripadvisor helps you make your trip a masterpiece. Hoo read reviews, check hotel prices, book things to do. Tripadvisor. American Foreign Policy, i think, has to be purposeful and inspiring. Based on clear goals, driven by sound strategies, not by twitter tantrums. The challenge of following this disastrous presidency will not just be to restore our reputation and credibility. It will be to enact a forwardlooking Foreign Policy for the world as we find it today. Former Vice President joe biden today outlined his plan to turn around american Foreign Policy. His remarks came as a new nbc poll shows him comfortably hanging on to his frontrunner stalkers polling atmosphe the a. Elizabeth warren in second place with 19 . Kamala harris and Bernie Sanders are tied for third at 13 . The polls are on par with the top money raisers in the race. Politico puts it this way. The top tier of the democratic president ial primary is now reshaped around five candidates. The latest fundraising numbers prove it. Joe biden, pete buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren have raised about 100 million in the past three months combined. With us tonight to talk about all of it, beth buoy, senior politics editor, and eliza collins, politics reporter covering the 2020 campaign for the wall street journal. Welcome to both of you. Eliza, what do you make of these numbers . These numbers you think hit it on the head. With these numbers and this money that is coming in the fundraising, we have a very clear top tier. Now, were looking we see sanders and harris are tied. We see warren rising. We see biden does not have as strong of a lead. So its not super clear how the top five stack up. But it is very clear that there is a top five. And the other, you know, almost 20 candidates are not even coming close. Kind of remarkable. Buttigieg is still half of where harris and sanders are, beth. But what happens to the other 20 or whatever . At some point theyre not cracking 2 . Right. A couple of things. Were going to see them all release their fundraising numbers. Weve gotten the top tier as eliza mentioned. Without question, we heard from all now we have a lot of other people who have not revealed their numbers yet because, frankly, were not expecting them to look so good. Sitting senators like Kirsten Gillibrand and amy klobuchar. The governor of washington state, jay inslee, the mayor of new york city, bill de blasio, probably not going to show any great shakes in their fundraising. Thats why we havent seen that yet. Well get those by monday. The next big step is the next debate, which is being held by cnn at the end of july. Again, we will see two nights, all the candidates on stage together. And really thats the last chance that any of these sort of lowerlevel folks have. To make an impact. To make an impact. Think about it. This poll you described came after our nbc news debate, and all those people stood in front of many, many millions of people to make their case and nobody moved in the polling. It does appear this fivecandidate top tier is where its going to be. Its been there for a while and its where its going to be for a while. However, eliza, 12 of voters say their mind is definitely made up. Which means a lot of voters havent made their minds up. A whole lot of voters still dont know how to pronounce Pete Buttigiegs name. So there is still perhaps some opportunity for some of these folks, or is there . If youre running at 2 or lower right now, is it likely that any of these folks have a chance . I say that with the caveat that i think thats where donald trump was running around this time before the last election. That is true, but donald trump did quickly start to rise once we saw him on the debate stage with the other republicans. It is not likely that someone polling at 2 is going to suddenly surge, but it is possible. 12 is a very low number of people who have made up their mind, but i think what were starting to see and this poll showed is people looking at who their second choice is. They might like joe biden first, but then second theyre looking at Kamala Harris. And so theyre not necessarily looking at someone polling at 2 . And that is not good news for these people polling very low. The poll did find that Julian Castro and cory booker, who are polling sort of in those very low Single Digits are people that voters want to know more about. So that does bode well for them, especially in terms of getting in front of them people, another debate night. Its going to be hard to go from 2 to suddenly up to 25 , especially when you dont have the money. Were going to start seeing people invest in tv ads soon. Thats where you get really tv ads are expensive, so you need money to be able to continue on and you need to keep hitting these polling and donor thresholds to be on the next debate stage in september. So its possible, but not likely. Lets talk, beth, about joe biden. He laid out his Foreign Policy strategy. You know that kind of stuff. I love listening to it does not rank high for most meshes. Hes trying to tie himself to the Obama Administration in which there were some Foreign Policy movements and some successes. Is that a way to separate him from the pack . I think he wanted to get away from this infighting hes had with some of the other democrats and kind of get the race back to where he had hoped it would be the entire way, which is looking away from them, looking straight at trump and taking the fight to trump. He clearly has identified Foreign Policy as a weakness for the president. He talked about President Trumps relationship with kim jongun and how hes, you know, really mangled a lot of alliances that this country has been in for many decades. He feels like he can be on with an equal Playing Field with the president of the United States when he talks about Foreign Policy. You make the point its not always going to be the best thing to yolk himself to. There were things in the Obama Administration people are critical of, including some democrats. The red line in syria, for example, what was done in libya. He was supposed to be the chief tan in the white house, so hes going to be held to accountant for things that didnt go well in terms of Foreign Policy, but he feels like hes on safe ground. He spend many decades in the senate, head of the Foreign Relations committee, he has relationships with world leaders, so he feels this is a good place to take this battle directly to trump. Eliza and beth, stay with me. Another democrat may will b looking to hit the incumbent where it hurts. The 11th hour continues after this break. When you shop for your home at wayfair, you get more than Free Shipping. You get everything you need for your home at a great price, the way it works best for you, ill take that. Wait honey, no. When you want it. You get a delivery experience you can always count on. You get your perfect find at a price to match, on your own schedule. You get fast and Free Shipping on the things that make your home feel like you. Thats what you get when youve got wayfair. 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The guy has now got to start distracting people from the fact that he made all these promises that i believe he had no intention of fulfilling, and he has failed to perform on every level by which we should measure a president of the United States. Not to mention failed as a commander in chief. There she is talking about donald trump, senator Kamala Harris perform in the first democratic debate raised her profile in the 2020 democratic primary, most notable was this, her exchange with joe biden. She took him to task over his defense of working with segregationists and opposing School Bussing as a senator. One new poll today found those comments dont seem to have hurt joe biden all that much. Hes polling at 35 in South Carolina where more than half the primary voters are expected to be black. Back again, beth buoy and eliza collins. Eliza, you talked to voters in South Carolina. Not only is joe biden holding well amongst them, they dont seem to be all that troubled by his references to segregationists or the issue that Kamala Harris brought up about bussing. Exactly. So i was in South Carolina before the bussing comments at the debate, but after he said he worked well with segregationists in the senate. Basically voters said, yes, he misspoke, but they understood the point he was trying to make, which was that he could work with anybody. They basically feel like thats joe biden being joe biden. Sometimes he misspeaks, but he has a long record. He was the Vice President to the first black president and that earns him a lot of credit with these voters. They may feel uncomfortable, but they can forgive him for another. In South Carolina i talked to one voter out of a dozen who was even remotely concerned about his comment. Were seeing that in the polling that it just really doesnt seem to sway these voters. They might not like the exact comment or thought harris did well in the debate, but theyre still stigcking with joe biden. Kamala harris did well in the debate. Most people who watched the debate think so. She had a moment. And she used joe biden as the foil. But really many people took that to read, wow, i could take someone on and maybe that someone is donald trump. In other words, her gain didnt entirely seem to be joe bidens loss. Right. I mean, she definitely had a moment. She definitely looked like she could take the fight to somebody on the stage and somebody whos like a big figure, in this case, joe biden was that figure on that stage. So thats true. But looking at our poll, ali, shes not breaking through particularly with black voters. We have biden at 46 among black voters. Harris at 17 , almost 30 points back. She still has to make the case. One of the premises of her candidacy is democratic voters in particular in the country at large would be excited potentially to vote for a black person for president. Does he do better barack obama was president . And eliza made that point that the fact that he was Barack ObamasVice President is a very big factor for a lot of africanamerican voters. And yes, Kamala Harris does need to build up her name recognition, no doubt about that but she stood on the stage in front of 15 Million People and was introduced to a whole lot of people who havent seen her before. She is getting to the point where People Democratic voters are going to have familiarity with her. She still has to make the sale. Eliza collins and beth buoy. For those of you who like me or dont, beth fouhy was responsible. She was my first boss in the business. The luck was minimum. The latest on the speaker versus versus the squad. A house divided when the 11th hour continues. Award winning interface. Award winning design. 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They took offenserequested m members, an offensive tweet that came out of one of the members offices, that referenced our new dems, essentially, as segregationist. Our members took offense at that, i addressed that. How they are interpreting and carrying it another place is up to them, but im not going to be discussing it any further. Pelosi is referring to a tweet linking socalled new southern democrats to segregationists of the past. That tweet was later deleted. This afternoon, the new york congresswoman tried to clear things up. Were not talking about just progressives. Its singling out four individuals. Is she racist . No, no, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Julie hirshfielddavis sums it up like this. Add months of simmering tensions over the green new deal, impeachment and defunding immigration enforcement, sprinkle in a doll lop of social mediafueled sniping and a dash of racial resentment, it adding up to a feud between nancy pelosi and four freshmen congre congresswoman, known as the squad, that doesnt seem to be going away any time soon. Here for more on this, donna edwards, former democratic member of congress from maryland, now a Washington Post columnist. Donna, you are about the most perfect person to talk to about this, as a woman of color, who was in that caucus, who served with nancy pelosi. You have a perspective on this, and im anxious to hear it. Are either of these sides making a mistake or are we making too much of this . I think there are a lot of mistakes that can go around. First of all, i didnt just serve with nancy pelosi, i served under her as part of her leadership team. I saw her and worked with her up close. And so i think she takes really seriously protecting her members, protecting the majority, and she was in a position where she held the gavel and she lost the gavel. She doesnt want to do that again. At the same time, these four members have come in and theyve brought great energy to the party. They have a lot to say. They may be a little bit impatient, but ive watched them work in their committees. Ive seen them handle testimony and witnesses. They do their homework. They work really hard. And i think that theres a learning curve that takes place when you come into congress, and especially the way that some of these members came in, i mean, i came in having defeated a somewhat wellliked in some quarters, longtime incumbent, and its a rocky road at first, so, i really do understand that. And i think tempers need to kind of simmer a little bit. There needs to be a conversat n conversation. But they need each other. The squad needs pelosi to be successful in the congress and pelosi needs the squad, because, despite what she said, there are 7 million followers out there, theyre real. Theres about 7 million among the four of them, and that brings a level of energy that can bring an outside strategy that i think pelosi and moderates and the democrats actually need going into this election cycle. To be the speaker of the house, you have to have 200plus members. Is it unusual that there are more than a handful, we look at the tea party, that was more than a handful of people that just didnt agree with republican congressional leadership. Is it normal and manageable, or do we is it desirable that this doesnt happen or is this healthy . Well, first of all, i think its healthy, and i dont that whats happening among democrats is really the same as republicans, because you take these progressive members and the progressive caucus, they all they do share values among democrats, so, its not quite the same thing. But i think its important for progressives to try to push the needle a little bit and the natural response is for the leader, even though shes a progressive, to protect the moderates and to moderate that, as well. And so i think theyre all playing their roles. This is really important for us as democrats. And some of these debates on poll sill apolicy and strategy are really important with how we go forward and win together. This is what senator Lindsey Graham had to say on fox news tonight. Lets listen. If you cross aoc and the fab four, youre going to get a primary, and if you vote with them, youre going to lose in the general election. So, the biggest beneficiary of this will be the Republican Party. Do you believe that to be true . No, i dont. Lindsey graham doesnt know a thing about the democratic party, and so lets just dismiss that out of hand. I think its really important for these four members and for progressives, which are the largest caucus in the among democrats, to have a voice, to push policy, but understand that we also have the responsibility and they have the responsibility to protect those moderates and to protect their majority. And by protecting their majority, they get to serve on committees and get legislation done and they serve their constituents. Donna, pleasure to see you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Donna edwards. More 11th hour after the quick break. All Money Managers might seem the same, but some give their clients cookie cutter portfolios. Fisher investments tailors portfolios to your goals and needs. Some only call when they have something to sell. Fisher calls regularly so you stay informed. 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Last thing before we go tonight. A couple of quick programming notes. Ahead of Robert Muellers testimony on the hill next wednesday, join my colleague ari m melber for an msnbc special, the Mueller Report what you need to know. As for me, ill be back here tomorrow at both 1 00 p. M. And 3 00 p. M. Eastern. Brian will be back with you tomorrow to close out the week. Thats our broadcast for tonight. Thank you for being with us. And good night from nbc news headquarters in new york. Weve got a big show tonight, lots going on. Im very pleased to say california senator Kamala Harris is here tonight. She obviously had a huge night at the first democratic debate. I have not had a chance to speak with her since that debate, but shes going to be here live here in studio with me in just a few minutes. Im very excited about that. And just as a preface to that, i know you know how i feel about spending too much time on polls and all that horse race stuff, fundraising, all the rest of that stuff, this early on in the campaign. You have know that is not my favorite thing to spend lots of time talking about this early on, but because Kamala Harris is here tonight, i do want to point out a couple of really inin