bennett is known as being quiet -- i mean, soft-spoken. he's a quietly confident person who does not need to yell to make his point. and to see him out there with no notes, to see him out there with no staff, to see him speaking from the heart like that in a way that absolutely blew up, all the more powerful because of his -- because of his personality. because of his quietness. >> and that's what makes it the hollywood moment. it is the mr. smith moment. because he is, as you put it, mild-mannered. when you were talking about it. and soft-spoken. it wasn't a person anybody expected this from. let me give you one more technical detail about this that was fascinating for me and that is that when a senator rises to speak there is a microphone that is attached to their desk and they pull it right out. it looks leek a pen. it looks like a black pen like this and they pull it right out and they drop it -- they actually tend to just drop it right in the pocket of the suit coat. right? that's what ted cruz's microphone, that's where it is before michael bennett starts speaking. michael bennett jumped up without even grabbing his microphone. and that did two things. number one, he wasn't wired to the desk. it allowed him to move around as if this was clarence darrow in the courtroom. and it really added a level of drama that i've never seen a senator able to convey because of the physical movement. the other thing, that's why you're hearing his voice dip off at certain points. because he's moving away from that microphone. >> because the mike is sitting -- the mike is in a static position and he's moving around. >> yeah. and then the other part of it is this. most senators if they get up and forget to pick up the microphone, you don't really hear them at first. which is to say michael bennett's really, really loud. and he's not anywhere near the microphone. so i'm telling you, it was ten times louder. >> perfect. i cannot wait to see you do this. >> it was extraordinary. one other thing. we have faye smith tonight, rachel. she wasn't on this show last night, but people saw her because i showed video of her at mitch mcconnell's office. she's a federal krarktd who's been unable to pay her bills. and she's worried about being evicted. and she reached our audience last night like no one i've ever seen. i was getting phone calls and texts from people wanting to hp her, wanting to know what's happened to her. so faye smith is now going to join us as a guest tonight and she's got a lot to tell us about what's happened since she went to mitch mcconnell's office yesterday. >> that's amazing. well done, my friend. >> thank you, rachel. >> thanks, lawrence. >> thank you. well, nancy pelosi said no to donald trump again today, and so tonight a defeated president finds himself alone in a hell of his own creation, a government shutdown which he thought was going to make him look strong but makes him look weaker every day, with his polling numbers getting worse all the time and with republicans defecting from the trump sinking ship every day every time there's a vote. nancy pelosi beat donald trump once again today, and this time, this time nancy pelosi beat donald trump in the united states senate. the senate took up a spending bill which nancy pelosi had passed through the house of representatives which would reopen the government for a few weeks, and it won a majority vote including six republican votes. those were six republican senate votes for what nancy pelosi wants and against, six votes against what donald trump wants. senators mitt romney, lamar alexander, susan collins, lisa murkowski, johnny isaacson, cory gardner, all republicans, all cast their votes in favor of their federal government worker constituents, the government workers in their states who are suffering, and they cast those votes against donald trump. the vote was 52-44. and when president trump's vote came to a vote it actually came to a vote first in the united states senate today. all those republicans who voted for the pelosi bill after the trump bill, they voted for the trump bill. but two republicans voted against the trump bill. and so the vote on the trump bill was 50-47. each bill needed 60 votes to pass. and now the the republican senate leader and the democratic leader chuck schumer are discussing what happens next, and no one knows what happens next. least of all president trump. president trump says he will support whatever. whatever chuck schumer and mitch mcconnell agree on. but donald trump said that the last time that chuck schumer and mitch mcconnell agreed on a spending bill which they then passed through the united states senate unanimously in december. and after they did that and after donald trump promised that he was going to sign it, he changed his mind. after they passed the bill. donald trump said he was now opposed to it. and so today reporters pressed the president on exactly what he would be willing to accept. >> temporary spending without money for the wall? just to reopen -- >> i wouldn't be happy with it. i wouldn't be happy. but we have a lot of alternatives. >> wouldn't be happy with it? wouldn't be happy with it? he didn't say he would veto it. that's what he's supposed to say if he's going to veto it. with a normal president wouldn't be happy with it means he wouldn't sign it. but this is donald trump, so no one has any idea what he means. here is one of the alternatives for reopening the government, whatever that means, that the president suggested today and that no one understood. >> one of the ideas suggested is they open it, they pay sort of a prorated down payment for the wall. >> hmm? well, here's nancy pelosi's masterful response to whatever that was. >> that is not a reasonable agreement between the senators. >> do you know what he's talking about, what size down payment he's asking for? >> i don't know if he knows what he's talking about. do you? >> what about a prorated down payment? >> i don't know what that means. >> you cannot go wrong with the american public saying you do not know what donald trump means. no one does most of the time. that donald trump has the worst cabinet in history and the worst white house staff in history is beyond dispute. the most incompetent staff and cabinet in history. what is now sadly beyond dispute is that donald trump has the cruellest white house staff and the cruellest cabinet in history. this is a truly vicious form of cruelty. it's the kind of cruelty that is so oblivious to the way real people live that there's no limit to how much harm they can do to those people because of that obliviousness. i have shown you on this program the president's top economic adviser saying on video that he believed the government shutdown was like giving federal workers vacations. he said that with a smile, filled with the cruelty of the oblivious man. it was commerce secretary wilbur ross's turn today. wilbur ross is a billionaire who is possibly the most corrupt and certainly the most incompetent commerce secretary in history. and he said he can't understand why government workers are going to homeless shelters to get food because they should just take care of themselves by getting loans. wilbur ross doesn't know that when you're not wilbur ross you can't get bank loans standly. he doesn't know what it is to be denied credit. and the credit union in his own department, the commerce department credit union, is charging 9% on personal loans if, if you can qualify for one. if anyone working in the commerce department or anyone else in the federal government were to ask wilbur ross how much of a loan should i get for how long, he has no idea. nancy pelosi said this about wilbur ross's suggestion that 800,000 federal government workers should do what he's always been able to do when his businesses hit a bump in the cash flow, just pick up a phone and get a loan. >> i mean, is this the let them eat cake kind of attitude or call your father for money? this is character building for you, it's all going to end up very well, just as long as you don't get your paychecks. >> joining our discussion now, jason johnson, politics editor at theroot.com and msnbc contributor. and adam gentleson, the former deputy chief of staff to senator harry reid. adam, i want to begin with you with what you saw in the senate today. we saw six republicans cross over to the democrats on a bill that did not include any funding for the wall. as this proceeds, that six could easily double and then it could easily triple. >> this was an important vote because while the top line was that both bills failed, beneath the surface there was some significant movement, and six republicans defecting to the democratic side, obviously it didn't get you to a point where the bill can pass, but that's the kind of movement that starts to trigger big momentum shifts among senators. and senators look at that vote and they see the democratic side gaining momentum. so chuck schumer emerged much stronger from this vote today than he was before it and mcconnell's position has been significantly weakened. mcconnell may want to be getting weaker because he may be wanting to show trump that he can't hold the line much longer. but the bottom line was that today was a good vote for democrats and chuck schumer emerged from that bill much stronger than he was before he went into it. >> yeah. and jason, that's one of those things that everyone working in the senate knows and i think a lot of the press knows but people out there tend not to, that you can lose a vote in the senate like mitch mcconnell, you can come up on the short end of a vote and be glad that you did because you're actually trying to teach a lesson to the unreasonable people on your side, which in mitch mcconnell's case includes donald trump. and so what you didn't see today was anybody attacking those six republican senators for going across the aisle. there's no indication that they're paying any price, even with donald trump. >> yeah, lawrence. what we're getting to here is we're past the performance art part of these wall negotiations and now we're going to get? actual work done. nobody wants to be the 60th vote, but everybody's happy to be 57, 58, or 59th. and that's what we're about to head to. these first six senators -- and you look at them. you've got, you know, susan collins from maine who knows she's going to be challenged. lisa murkowski, who knows she might be challenged. isakson from georgia where he's got the super bowl coming in a week and he doesn't want that mess. he doesn't want a potential walkout at atlanta hartsfield jackson. you have a lot of different senators, sometimes from red states, sometimes from blue states, who are saying hey, look, we need to get this done. they're providing the cover. and really what i'm sure mitch mcconnell has explained to the president right now is like look, i can only hold this line but for so long. i can only put the gandolf stand down and say "you shall not pass." at some point i'm going to be overcome by these senators. if you don't want to get embarrassed, you're going to have to come up with some kind of deal we can both work through. i think that will happen by this weekend, and i suspect probably by the first week of february this might be over. >> i want to read what chuck schumer's office issued tonight, minority leader's office issued this statement. this is about that weird prorated thing, whatever that's supposed to mean. but the president said just to lay down the markers on it, the statement is "senator schumer and senate democrats have made clear to leader mcconnell and republicans that they will not support funding for the wall, prorated or otherwise." and so adam jentleson, chuck schumer is echoing nancy pelosi's no. it is a unified no. it is a flawlessly repeated no on the wall. and there's nothing else they say about the wall. donald trump has been moving and changing what he's been saying about the wall every single day, both how much money he wants or whether it is a wall or how much wall there will be, how see-through the steel spikes will be or whatever it is, but from nancy pelosi, chuck schumer, it's simply the word no. >> that's right. and it's impossible to overstate how important it is that they've been able to maintain that unity both within their own caucuses on each side of the capital and then together and having them issue statements, you know, basically echoing each other. it's just enormously important. and what they've done is they've sort of taken any sort of sense of dems in disarray that media love to focus on, any sort of drama on the democratic side out of the picture. there hasn't been any. there's nothing for the press to cover. which has allowed all the focus to be squarely on trump, squarely on his changing position, his weak position, and it's been buttressed by polls showing the public overwhelmingly blames trump and supports the democratic position. so that the unity has been enormously important and huge credit goes to both speaker pelosi and leader schumer for being able to hold that line. >> and now there's a group of bipartisan senators who are reportedly working on another version of the pelosi bill which is a funding the government for three weeks with no wall. and that includes people like lindsey graham, who's a little bit surprising to see on that list on the republican side. i want to go back to what seemed like the conclusion of a drama yesterday, but the real final moment was today when the president issued his own verbal surrender on this. and that is the whole state of the union where nancy pelosi finally had to put it in writing to the president yesterday, saying absolutely not, you're not coming here, we're not going to do the concurrent resolution that luz to come here to do your state of the union. forget, it it's over. that seemed to get through to him. because listen to what the president said today and how full his surrender to nancy pelosi is on this after pretending to his followers that he was simply going to bully his way right into the building, grab a microphone that night and give the speech anyway. let's listen to what president trump had to say about it today. >> well, it's really no choice. i mean, i would have done it in a different location, but i think that would be very disrespectful to the state of the union, to pick some other place. i could have done it. i could have gone to a big auditorium and gotten 25,000 people in one day, and you've been there many times. but i think that would be very disrespectful to the state of the union. so what she said i thought was actually reasonable. we'll have the state of the union when the shutdown is over. >> jason. what she said i thought was actually reasonable. the word "surrender" doesn't appear anywhere there, but that's what i heard. >> yeah, yeah. speaker pelosi is from baltimore and she laid this down and donald trump backed up. he was -- the fact that he had the sergeant of arms there and she told the sergeant of arms no. the president of the united states is facing something that really in two years he has not faced from congress because he hasn't had a democratic congress before. trump has lost in the courts. trump has lost in the polls. trump has lost in elections he's endorsed. he's never lost a legislative battle before. he's never lost a symbolic legislative battle. and that's what's happened here. he's not going to get his wall. he's not going to give the state of the union when he wants to give the state of the union. and at the end of the day i don't think he's going to get much money even for homeland security or any sort of border security he wants. >> jason johnson, adam jentleson, thank you very much for starting us off tonight. really appreciate it. and when we come back, faye smith will join us. you saw her on this program last night on video at mitch mcconnell's office crying as she tried to explain what the government shutdown means to her and how she might be evicted from her home. and the breaking point in the united states senate today was a thing of beauty to behold. one of the most extraordinary speeches i have ever seen in the senate. it was a moment of heartfelt eloquence and outrage. but first tonight, air traffic controllers and airline pilots, flight attendants say they cannot calculate the risk of flying during the government shutdown. if you're flying this weekend, on super bowl weekend, you have to listen to this. even though you're not going to want to listen to this. that's coming up. and saying, "really?" so capital one is building something completely new. capital one cafes. inviting places with people here to help you, not sell you. and savings and checking accounts with no fees or minimums. because that's how it should be. you can open one from right here or anywhere in 5 minutes. seriously, 5 minutes... this is 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"like the air traffic controllers and pilots unions i'm very concerned about threats to safety caused by the shutdown. our air traffic controllers deserve to be paid. the traveling public and the american people deserve better. this shutdown must end. and there's this from sarah nelson of the flight attendants association. >> not only are we aviation's first responders, we are the last line of defense. and we are going to work today understanding that the layers of security that need to be there, the layers of security that were put in place after 9/11 when the tsa was created are not there. this is about our safety and security and our jobs and our entire country's economic stability. no one will get out of this unscathed if we do not stop this shutdown. >> the government shutdown, the tsa announced that unpaid tsa officers who refused to work hit a record high last weekend, and now air traffic controllers, pilots and flight attendants are warning travelers they cannot guarantee their safety saying "we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break." and when that system breaks, people die. the "washington post" reports that unpaid air traffic controllers are waiting tables and driving for uber in the time left over from their ten-hour shifts, tracking the position and speed of aircraft to prevent collisions. joining our discussion now is trish gilbert, executive vice president of the national air traffic controllers association. she was on air traffic control for 21 years. and sara nelson, the president of the association of flight attendants. she has been a flight attendant for 23 years. trish gilbert, i flew a couple of weekends ago p and immediately tweeted my thanks to the air traffic controllers when we miraculously took off on time and landed early. and there wasn't much attention then to what was going on in air traffic. i was very concerned about it. where are we now and what is it like trying to -- for air traffic controllers trying to do their full work shifts, concentrate on that air traffic while they're worrying about how they pay the rent? >> so you know, we're 34 days in, much too long already. it's unreasonable and it's reckless. air traffic controllers' main job is to prevent planes from hitting each other. >> yes. >> that is giving them turns, giving them climbs and descents to miss other planes. they need to be focused on doing that job 100% of the time. they shouldn't be driving for uber before their shift. they shouldn't be waiting tables. they should be getting rested. fatigue matters. the stress matters. they're not sleeping at night now because they're worried about not just the paycheck they've missed and the next one they're going to miss tomorrow but how long is this going to go on. are they going to have to sell their house? are they going to have to sell cars? are they going to have to keep their children out of college? what are they -- they don't have any idea when they're going to get their life back. their life is on hold and they're making day-to-day decisions for something that they did not ask to be a part of. they're political pawns in a reckless game of chicken. and they need to be pulled out of that game. they need to be able to do their job and do it with 100% of the people that are furloughed that need to be there to support them, quality assurance specialists, training specialists, air space and procedures people. those are key people to get us ready for the super bowl and extra traffic we're going to have flying in and out of atlanta. we're already looking at delaying the planning for the daytona 500 and the nascar circuit. the fly-ins. all that stuff is signature by the wayside on top of the lack of maintenance on equipment because we are on a fix policy at faa. that's unacceptable and it's reckless. it needs to end soon. >> sara nelson, what's the awareness of your passengers these days? a couple of weeks ago i didn't detect anybody was concerned about this but i suspect by now it's finally registered with the passengers that there is a new strange kind of risk involved in air travel. >> people are asking and the crews are asking, we're actually getting requests to our union. we're getting tons of mail to our union asking is it safe to fly? just listen to -- >> sara, when you say that, you're saying flying professionals, flight attendants, are saying is it safe to fly? >> yes, they are. they are asking that question. listen to what trish just said. okay? the job of an air traffic controller, highly stressful job, highly trained job. they have to get it right 100% of the time. flight attendants are aviation's first responders, but we're also aviation's last line of defense. and we know when we come to work that we're coming to work in a system that has a whole set of layers of security. and safety. and when you pull away those layers, you're making it -- you're entering risk into the situation. and flight attendants are very aware of that. we count on all these other people to do a ton of work behind us so that we can take off and get people from point a to point b safely. and we're very concerned because the people who come to work and keep us safe, and we really have to recognize what these air traffic controllers are doing. they are coming to work now, we're going on 35 days on the shutdown. it's unprecedented. it's more than twice the time any shutdown in history has occurred. and there's a reason for that. because there's incredible risk for our country when we're doing this. and they are coming to work under the stressful situation because they know very well if they don't come the airplanes stay on the ground. and maybe we will avoid casualty by doing that and loss of life, but we are going to have massive, catastrophic economic pressure on this country. there will be massive job loss. and no one will get away unscathed. so these people coming to work are doing it for all of us and they're working very hard to keep us safe and they're make sure that it stays safe, but in order to keep it safe they're probably going to have to cut down the capacity that's out there. and in the meantime we've gots people who are totally stressed coming to work. and my members are very aware of that and they're asking questions about it. and the traveling public is asking questions about it too. >> and trish, what's your quick answer to your friends and loved ones who ask you is it safe to fly now? >> sara had it right on the head. we're going to adjust capacity. because we do have a 30-year low in fully certified air traffic controllers. so we're already working the overtime. and we haven't been hiring since the shutdown started. so we're losing people coming in the front door and we have 20% and 45% in the new york area but 20% nationwide eligible to retire. and they are frustrated and looking at retiring before they were ready to. so that would leave us at a situation where we couldn't staff our towers and our radar rooms across the country, which means planes will stay on the ground if we can't put them safely in the air. >> trish gilbert, sara nelson, thank you both for joining us tonight. really important information. thank you. and when we come back, the woman who went to mitch mcconnell's office yesterday to try to tell him about her fears of the government shutdown and how she might be evicted. faye smith will join us. great news, liberty mutual customizes- uh uh - i deliver the news around here. ♪ sources say liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. over to you, logo. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ carla is living with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of her body. she's also taking prescription ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor, which is for postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive her2- metastatic breast cancer as the 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the senate sometimes do, from the least likely source. you could follow news in politics attentively and not know that democrat michael bennett, the senior senator from colorado, has been serving in the senate since 2009. he is one of many mild-mannered senators who do not go out of where way to seek attention. he's the kind of senator who you think might not even have a breaking point. but that breaking point came today on the 34th day of the government shutdown that has left 800,000 federal workers unpaid. his breaking point came when texas senator ted cruz expressed his concern for some of the first responders who are not being paid. senator ted cruz is the single most disliked senator in the body by democrats and republicans for many reasons, including the fact that ted cruz himself personally caused a government shutdown in 2013 at a time when 14 counties in colorado had suffered a state of emergency from flooding. and no republican senators or democratic senators supported that shutdown. that was a ted cruz shutdown. when ted cruz finished speaking, senator bennett was so agitated that he jumped up from his seat without grabbing the microphone if his desk but being unwired by that microphone on the senator's desk allowed him to pace the floor. and when you listen to him now, know that usually when a senator doesn't pick up that microphone the microphone isn't really capable of picking up the senator's voice. but michael bennett took us back to the days in the senate when no one ever needed a microphone. he reached into his soul and delivered a thing of beauty. perfection. something everyone who was lucky enough to be on the senate floor today at that moment will remember for the rest of their lives. the outraged passion of the gentleman from colorado. >> these crocodile tears that the senator from texas is crying for first responders are too hard for me to take. they're too hard for me to take. because when you -- when the senator from texas shut this government down in 2013, my state was flooded. it was under water! people were killed! people's houses were destroyed! their small businesses were ruined forever! and because of the senator from texas this government was shut down. for politics. that he surfed to a second place finish in the iowa caucuses. but were of no help to the first responders, to the teachers, to the students whose schools were closed when the federal government, it was shut down because of the junior senator from texas. now, it's his business, not my business, why he supports a president who wants to erect a medieval barrier on the border of texas. who wants to use eminent domain to build that wall. who wants to declare an unconstitutional emergency to build that wall. that's the business of the senator from texas. i can assure you that in colorado if a president said he was going to use eminent domain to erect a barrier across the state of colorado, across the rocky mountains of colorado, he was going to steal the property of our farmers and ranchers to build his medieval wall, there wouldn't be an elected leader from our state that would support that idea. which comes to my final point. how ludicrous it is that this government is shut down over a promise the president of the united states couldn't keep! and that america is not interested in having him keep. this idea that he was going to build a medieval wall across the southern border of texas, take it from the farmers and ranchers that were there, and have the mexicans pay for it isn't true! that's why we're here. because he's now saying the taxpayers have to pay for it. that's not what he said during his campaign. >> he wasn't finished. watch now. watch michael bennet as his feelings about ted cruz surge and he has to hold himself back from making this even more personal than it already is. >> over and over and over and over again he said mexico would pay for the wall. over and over again. that was at -- i was going to talk about what he said about the junior senator's father but i'm going to let that alone. it was after that. >> donald trump said about ted cruz's father that rafael cruz was involved in the assassination of president john fitzgerald kennedy. ted cruz was briefly outraged by that but has since then actually brought his wife and his children to the trump white house and forced his children to shake the hand of the man who said their grandfather was involved in the assassination of president kennedy. since i left the staff of the united states senate i have never once wished i was back on the senate floor. until today. when michael bennet rose to speak. after this break, one of the people senator bennet was speaking for, faye smith, will join us. she went to mitch mcconnell's office to tell him that she might be evicted because of this government shutdown. faye smith will join us next. i used to book my hotel room on those travel sites but there was always a catch. like somehow you wind up getting less. 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breast cancer. i have three little kids. i can't have cancer. so we decided to travel to cancer treatment centers of america. dr. fernandez was wonderful. he said it was up to me to do what's best. it's about giving her options, where amy has all the information to make a decision that's best for her. we left on day one feeling like we're gonna beat this and this is the place that's gonna help us do it... that feeling is priceless. learn more at cancercenter.com. appointments available now. the most important voice on this program last night was not mine and it was not one of our guests. it was a woman you saw only on video at mitch mcconnell's office hoping to explain to the majority leader what was at stake for her in the shutdown. here is what she said. >> i'm here today to see mitch mcconnell though him i'm on a second chance program. i counted on my rent paid on time. i have no more money coming in. i'm a guard at smithsonian institute and i need my rent paid and i have nothing and i need to know when is he going to open things back up? because i am about to be evicted. if i don't have my rent in by the 1st of next month through the second chance program i will be evicted. >> and joining us now is faye smith. faye smith, thank you very much for joining us. i know a lot has been happening and a lot's happened for you since that was on television last night. i can tell you that i was getting phone calls during the show, texts during the show from friends of mine who wanted to help you when they saw your situation. what has developed for you since last night? >> thank you for having me this evening. you go through stages with this government shutdown and this furlough thing. and right now my stage is happiness. my happiness is because i've had so much outreach of love from everyone. lord, everybody has donated to me, have been there for me, have helped me. and i love you all so much. i wish i could just hug everybody. i have my rent paid now. i have my rent paid for up to two months now. thanks to all of you. and i also have a new special friend, mr. d.l. hughley. he called me today and reached out to me with his wife. and they all have blessed me. so i would like to say thank you for him. thank you. >> well, as you know, i spoke to you this afternoon. i told you that d.l. was calling me last night during the commercial breaks right here and texting me and he wanted to get in touch with you and i was very glad to be able to put you together. and he told me last night he wanted to help you in whatever way you needed. you also have a go fund me page. but you're just one, faye. you're just one of the workers. you're actually one of the contractors. so you're never going to get the back pay. >> never. >> as a contractor. and there's more contractors like you than there are government workers, over a million. talk to us about your friends and others who you know are in this situation who haven't had that moment to get our attention and therefore this direct help that you've been able to get. >> oh, we just -- i just pray for my sisters in the unions, pray for my co-workers, because so many of them have children with daycare. they can't get them to daycare. they have medicine. i have one particular friend, she's a diabetic and she can't get her medicine. another one that has her mom and her children living with her. and everybody depends on that one check. it has devastated everybody that i know. i have a sister. she has daughters. five people in one family furloughed. come on. five people in one family. >> faye, what would you say to president trump if you had a minute? >> president trump, no disrespect. miss nancy is not going to give you that wall. mr. trump, you need to stop holding us hostage. that's what you're dog. you need to go back to work. you're worried about the wall. you better worry about what's going on right here. i'm from southeast benin road. little girl from southeast benin road. crossing guard at one time called me mama faye. i know what the kids are like out here. they love their family. and we need to get back to work because you know what? you're worried about the wall there. these children right here that's going on and they can't provide for their family, it's going to be -- it's going to be something else here. i'm not saying but i'm saying that we hurt. we're angry. we're frustrated. we need work. all i know is work. i've worked hard all my life. i have two daughters and two grandchildren that i've always wanted to help with them, not support them because my daughters support her family. but i help them. and i can't even help them. i have a granddaughter in second year in college. i have a grandson talking about graduating this year. i can't even help. come on. i need you to look around us. don't let what's going on in these other lands and your wall and all this. you need to look right here in washington. you show more love to putin. young kim? show us some love. stop it. let us go back to work. miss nancy already told you. she's not going to give you the money for the wall. i think miss nancy is awesome. i don't like being out of work. but guess what? i know she's going to help us. and i know what she's doing she's doing it for a reason. because everybody can't be a yes man. she's not a yes man. she is a -- ooh. i love her. i love her. >> we'll leave it there, faye. faye smith. thank you very, very much for joining us tonight. and i'm so glad that d.l. hughley and others have come -- >> yes. >> -- to help you. really glad you could join us tonight. i'm glad things are better for you tonight. >> great. thank you so much. thank you, thank you, thank you. >> thank you, faye. and we are joined now by sam stein, politics editor of the daily beast. he's also an msnbc political analyst. and jason johnson is back with us. sam, first to you. your reaction to faye smith. she was really the face of this suffering. i think she brought it through to people last night in a way that they'd never seen before. >> well, yeah. i mean, there's thousands, tens of thousands of stories that are emerging just like this. and it's not isolated as initially suspected in the washington, d.c. beltway area. it's across the country. and what we're seeing is that lawmakers are beginning to hear from their constituents. those constituents are showing up at town halls. they're showing up at congress. they're showing up at food banks. it's becoming a major local news story. it's becoming a major national news story. it's beginning to move the needle a little bit. the "washington post" today just came out a little while ago, noted that within the republican senate caucus there is angst. it's expressed privately. but it's there. at how this is playing out. and there's a real desire for it to come to a conclusion. we're beginning to see breaks in the ranks partly because these people are beginning to speak up about the suffering they're enduring. >> jason johnson, whenever there's a standoff like this in the united states senate, the thing you want to know is which leader asked for the meeting? and we have a report tonight indicating that after the votes today it was mitch mcconnell who asked chuck schumer for the meeting. which is a very good sign for chuck schumer. >> right. if you're the guy asking for hen, then you're the guy who's probably going to be ready to negotiate. but i think the bigger issue here, we have to understand how cruel this is and how disturbing it is that it's not the pain of people like miss smith that's finally moved this administration, it's their embarrassment and their realization that they have faced real opposition. i had a student -- i've been tweeth about this today. had i a student come into my office today. this is a 20-year-old kid who's battling cancer. okay? and has to deal with food stamps in order to get her tuition paid because so many things are backed up by the federal government. this has an impact on my students. this has an impact -- i know several people who are contractors. and these stories of pain and suffering, that didn't move mitch mcconnell. that didn't move ted cruz. what moved them was the realization that we're just never going to get the votes. so i'm still disgusted that we have a senate that we have one part of our house -- we have one part of congress that didn't care about the american people. they only cared about the fact that they couldn't get their power move done in time and now they're going to have to negotiate. >> we have reporting from the "washington post" now, breaking news actually at this hour, that the republican senate is really coming apart over this shutdown. they are reporting republican senators clashed with each other and confronted vice president pence inside a private luncheon on thursday as anger hit a boiling point over the longest government shutdown in history. this is your fault, senator ron johnson told majority leader mitch mcconnell at one point according to two republicans who attended the lunch and witnessed the exchange. and sam stein, i've been at he those lunches on the democratic side. they rarely get heated. but when they do, it's always because the room knows that they are on a sinking ship. >> yeah. and for a variety of reasons. one, the first one is that they all took a vote before the end of the year to open the the gove to keep the government running and keep the spending at current levels. so they're all on record saying they're fine with the resolution democrats want but now they're being asked to go against that very vote to support the president who said he would gladly own the shutdown to support a policy that's not really well liked by the american republican. all the while, poll numbers show they're on the losing side of the battle and trump's own public opinion polls are plummeting as well. so they're not done. they're not, they may not be politics but they're not politically done. they look at this and recognize they're in a very difficult situation. they want to get out of it. >> and we've seen presidential candidates announcing these days. this is the spot on the calendar where senators decide if they're running two years from now and some who might have decided that they are. this week and especially after today's luncheon on the republican side, and mitch mcconnell himself could easily be sitting there saying why do i want to be elected back into this body two years from now, especially if we're elected into a minority? >> well, yes. this isn't so much fun if i'm not in charge and that's why some of these republicans will be looking at i. the weakness of this presidency and the weakness of the policy positions that he puts these republicans in will make it hard for them not just in 2020 but it increase the number of democrats who will be running against him. i was talking to my uber driver today, and we were having this conversation. look, my wife is furloughed right now. this is turning people into voters. my kids are angry about this and deciding to register to vote. this won't be the ted cruz shutdown that people forget with in a year and a half. the financial consequences of this, assuming it doesn't mess up the economy if i fall, they're going to have real concerns about this. heaven forbid they try this again. it is not like trump won't lie to again if he doesn't get what he wants on some other issue. >> and we saw, for all we know, mitch mcconnell wanted them to split. mitt romney, susan collins, others, they've paid no price. there isn't any angry trump tweeting at them for the way they voted today. >> no. remarkably, he didn't go after them. he tried to high flight other vote for his legislation even though it performed worse than the vote. that is telling in its own right. and yeah, this is a political problem for the republican party that they're beginning to realize. i'm not totally sold it will last until november. the possibility is that it really exists and we could end up in another government shutdown situation in a few weeks. that's why the democratic demand has shifted. it is no longer that we won't fund the wall. it is now, we will no longer be taken hostage so i wouldn't be surprised if democratic lawmakers in the next couple days say you have to make an assurance that we won't just find ourselves on the same cliff two or three months from now. >> and representing the area where the super bowl will be played, and one of the busiest airports in the world, and he voted against the president today. we now have, we're going to hear more of this. the dangers of air travel now. you have air traffic controllers, pilots, flight attendants saying it is no longer safe and we can no longer even calculate what the risk is. that's something will reach republican senators beyond just him. >> and lawrence, that hits on two different levels. .to the atlanta mayor yesterday. you've got cities now trying to come up with ways trying to provide temporary loans to tsa agents to manage what will happen next week. delta airlines is losing $2 million a week. so isaacson is not the only person getting hit by angry constituents, this coalition cannot hold the center cannot hold on this coalition and that's why i think mitch mcconnell is trying to cut a deal. he would rather cut a deal now and save face than lose to republicans who provide 60 votes for a democratic bill and a house bill. >> thank you both for joining us. really appreciate it. when we come back, a very special last word about an inspiring story about immigration in america. to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing it's best to make you everybody else... ♪ ♪ means to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can fight and never stop. does this sound dismal? it isn't. ♪ ♪ it's the most wonderful life on earth. ♪ ♪ (boy) got it. it's the most wonderful life on earth. (dad) it's slippery. (boy) nooooooo... (grandma) nooooooo... (dad) nooooooo... (dog) yessssss.... (vo) quick, the quicker picker upper! bounty picks up messes quicker and is two times more absorbent than the leading ordinary brand. (boy) hey look, i got it. bounty, the quicker picker upper. [sneezing] ♪ you don't want to cancel your plans. [sneezing] cancel your cold. the 1-pill power of new advil multi-symptom cold & flu knocks out your worst symptoms. cancel your cold, not your plans. new advil multi-symptom cold & flu. that strip mall sushi, well,t i'm a bit unpredictable. let's redecorate. whatsyamatter tanya, i thought you loved being spontaneous? i do. and if you've got the wrong home insurance coverage, i might break the bank too. so get allstate, and be better protected from mayhem, like me. time for the last word. anthony started as an intern at nbc news and he joined the team created this show eight years ago. it is a better show because anthony reyes was there at the creation. when he left the last word, he went to work in the treasury department at the obama administration and then in the california senate for senator kevin de leon who was then the leader of the senate. he is one of the countless inspiring stories of immigration. he he was born in the dominican republic and came to this country as a child. his grand mother is another one of those inspiring immigration stories. she was born in the dominican republic 94 years ago. tomorrow and saturday, anthony and his family will say their farewells to his grandmother at her wake and funeral in brooklyn. she leaves 22 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren, and this country is lucky to have them here with us helping this country live up to its ideal of greatness. that's tonight's last word. "the 11th hour" with brian williams starts now. after two failed senate votes, mcconnell and schumer try to make a deal and the president on the losing end says he has alternatives if they don't include wall funding. as we approach day 35 of the shutdown, federal workers who never dreamed they would need to rely on a food bank are about to miss a second pay period. plus, a subpoena for michael cohn, the man who needed guilty to them and we'll learn about paul manafort, what he has been accused of withholding from the guilty that's tomorrow. all of it as the "the 11th hour gets under way on a thursday night. good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 735 of the trump administration. at the conclusion of this hour, it will be day 35 of the longest ever government shutdown. nearly 1 million federal workers will miss another paycheck. that means a full month with no income. and look at these pictures and remember what this is not. this is not federal aid from fema. this is not disaster relief after a hurricane or a tornado or a fire. this is a food bank, charity in

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