good day. i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. the humanitarian crisis on the border. it is the challenge that americans say they want solved more than any other problem. and now president biden is making his most dramatic move yet to deal with illegal immigration. will today's executive action come too late to reverse the political damage that has been years in the making? plus details about the president's son, including claims he was smoking crack every 15 minutes emerging on day one of the federal trial. the defense is using the opening statement to argue that hunter biden was in deep denial and may not have considered himself a drug addict. outside the courtroom, a dramatic altercation between hunter biden's wife and a former trump white house aide. a group of senate republicans refusing to do their jobs and using baseless conspiracy theories around donald trump's conviction as an excuse. how could that impact what has been one of the least productive congresses in american history? we have got a lot to get to. we begin with president biden taking dramatic executive action today to effectively shut down the southern border, trying to address whatconsistently been one of voters' top concerns and a political liability that plagued his administration from day one. new details just released an hour ago after the president signed the action outlining a plan to temporarily shut down the border when illegal crossings top 2500 a day. daily crossings are averaging more than 4,000 a day, according to dhs. the move comes after republicans in congress blocked two separate efforts to deal with the border over the past year and a half. including a bill with major concessions to the gop. but one which they rejected, claiming in part that the president already had the power to fix the problem. joining me now, nbc's aaron gilchrist covering the white house. matt dowd, and maria teresa kumar of voter latino and an msnbc contributor. aaron, explain how this is going to work and how quickly we might see the impact. >> reporter: well, chris, effectively this order is now in place. as we understand it, president biden signed the executive order this morning, and so these new rules are now in place at the u.s. border with mexico. and the goal here as we understand it from senior administration officials is to prevent migrants who approached the border, cross the border unlawfully from getting asylum here in the united states. and as we see this go into effect, the plan is that if daily encounters reach 2500 a day, people trying to cross into the united states at -- not at a port of entry, then that would trigger this rule and the average as we understand it is about 4,000. effectively this rule could be used as of today to keep people from being able to get into the united states, to seek asylum. there are some carveouts, some exceptions to this rule, fairly decent list of them that people will be able to reference, a credible fear and that would trigger a different sort of investigation. as we understand as well, this rule is a temporary one. this would be temporary so if the border encounters dip down to 1500 daily over a sustained period of time, seven days as we understand it, then the order would go away, that shutdown would end until there comes a point in time where that number gets back up to 2500 encounters a day. >> not surprisingly, the response from republicans has been very fast. the trump campaign said this morning, this is about, quote, amnesty for migrants, not border security. i also want to play what we heard from some republican senators. >> this is the most -- one of the most cynical things that i have ever seen a politician attempt to do five months before an election. >> why did you wait until now if you were serious about doing it? the simple answer is he's not serious about securing the border. >> joe biden, this is too little, this is too late and the american public knows it is too late. this stunt is not going to save your political life. >> so where do you see this fight going, and does this change the equation much at all, matt? >> well, i first would like to remind your listeners and your viewers that it is the same republicans that killed a bipartisan border bill that could have actually done something about this much earlier in the process that biden proposed and i think he genuinely, before he did an executive order, i think he genuinely wanted something done through congress, but because donald trump said don't do anything, because i want it to be a political issue, those republican senators didn't do anything and now they're accusing joe biden of politics after they followed donald trump's lead in this. to me, if you look at this, i'll let go the humanitarian and compassionate part of this and look at it from a political standpoint. joe biden did not need to win the border issue against donald trump. what joe biden needs to do is demonstrate to the public that he is at least competent and trying to do something, and i think he both reminds voters that he tried to do something, republicans killed it on the border and, two, he says the only thing left i could do was this, i tried the other legislative route, he wouldn't do it. i think that's what he wants to do, not win the issue, but neutralize it to a degree. >> it is not just republicans versus democrats, within those parties there are big differences, sometimes on what they think should be done. for example, democratic senator alex padilla said this order isn't a good solution and in his words, an incomplete strategy. according to axios, a number of senators are in purple states, in tough races, who are invited today. and who did not show up. jon tester, tammy baldwin, jacky rosen, bob casey. is there a way to bring even the democrats together on this. give me your take on the big picture here, maria. >> so, chris, i met with the president a few weeks ago when this was on the table and it was because he has a forced hand. the republicans denied two pieces of legislation that were bipartisan that could have addressed more fundamental issues. i think that going in there is a reason why tester cannot show up because he is in a no-win situation. if he talks about immigration, he wants to be able to pivot instead to the economy and awhat is happening in montana. and ditto for the majority of the folks you listed. i do think that what we're seeing at the border is the lack of real investment in latin america in the last 45 years. if americans want to fix the issue at the border, they have to be comfortable with the hard decisions of how are we working closely with our southern neighbors. i would also encourage the administration to continue talking about the other executive actions that are on the table, because while this is going to be an issue for folks come november, if you're looking at individuals in arizona, individuals in nevada, what they're going to care about is what kind of relief are there on the table and available for those individuals that have been here for decades, who have american voters who are american citizens. that's what they're looking for. but at the end of the day, when you look at this overall, it is an imperfect solution, absolutely. do the republicans have to come to the table to solve the fundamental issues of why people are streaming across the border? they must. i think we can all agree by the time someone packed their bags and traveled thousands of miles to the southern border, that is not american immigration policy. that's a broken system. >> let me go to the key political question that absolutely is here when we're looking at june and an election year, which is there are warning signs flashing, trump has been gaining with latino voters, does this help or hurt joe biden? >> so, chris, i'm glad you asked that question. we have been scratching our heads trying to figure out where this mass defection is, because it has not showed up in any of the polling we have conducted. we surveyed over 2,000 latino voters in key battleground states and in those key battleground states, trump was actually losing to joe biden 39 to 59. so very well within joe biden's margin of error of victory last time around. what we found that was really interesting to us, chris, was not that folks were defecting to trump, it is that the moment you added a third party candidate like an rfk, you actually saw a drop in biden's polls by close to 15%. so in a place like nevada, what biden has to do is talk about the economy, but, again, also talk about what kind of economic and relief is he going to offer to the citizens -- to the children and to the parents of american citizens. that is where the equation changes. it is less about the southern border, but very much to the person who is sitting at the dinner table who has lived in this country for decades saying what kind of relief and protection are you going to offer my loved one. >> it is also, matt, the messaging out there on the border from joe biden, from republicans, that there is this massive crime wave, that everybody who is coming over is some sort of criminal, all of these things that have no basis in fact. but polls have shown that illegal immigration is very much on the minds of u.s. voters and nbc news found it is tied with inflation and the cost of living as the top concern among registered voters. we took that poll six weeks ago. there was another cnbc poll from march that showed trump with a 30-point advantage on that issue over president biden. so, you know, we heard it from one of the republican senators, is this too little too late? >> well, you know, i'll remind people, i'm the chief strategist in 2004 and the number one issue in 2004 when george bush ran for re-election was the economy. we didn't talk about the economy, but 5% of the time because we knew we had a disadvantage of it. we talked about national security and international relations where we had a big advantage on. i think going back to what i said earlier, i think all joe biden needs to do, he needs to show he's doing something on this, and neutralize, he doesn't need to win it, neutralize it. what joe biden wants to talk about in my view is the number three issue on that list, threats to democracy and broadly speaking in freedom. he needs to neutralize the issues that donald trump has an advantage on, and then talk about the issue he has an advantage on, which i believe is the most fundamental threat in america today, which is to our democracy. that's how you do it. if you think -- if he has a campaign that thinks he's going to win on the border or win on immigration, that's a full's errand. he needs to neutralize and talk about the issue he has an advantage on. >> there will be people who are watching to see what impact this executive order has. and to that end, we have been reporting, of course, and you well know that mexico has a new president. how confident is the white house that mexico will be a partner in this? >> well, to this point, chris, our reporting is consistent with the notion that the mexicans were not blind sided by the executive action that we're seeing today. we know that president biden met with the current president of mexico at the end of april and the conversations have been going on between their teams, really for months now, about a number of issues. the migrant issue has been top of that list. and so to the extent that mexico has been cooperative up to this point, the administration decided to roll this out publicly today as opposed to last week before the elections in mexico because they feel as though the person who will be coming in after the current president is sort of aligned with the current president, and would be someone that the administration can continue to work with. we did ask senior administration officials earlier today what would happen if the number of people who are returned to mexico were to get much higher and we didn't really get a direct response to that. it is yet to be seen whether mexico will say hold on, now you're turning back way too many people, more than mexico can handle and if that might change the dynamic between the two countries around this issue, chris. >> aaron gilchrist and maria theresa kumar, thank you, both. coming up, we'll bring you president biden's remarks live from the white house about that executive action on the border and we'll talk to the mayor of border town, yuma, arizona, republican douglas nichols. in 90 seconds, we'll go live to hunter biden's trial in delaware for the latest en this morning's opening arguments including what our reporter describes as a dramatic scene unfolding during a break in the trial. we'll explain next. a break in the trial we'll explain next (restaurant noise) [announcer] introducing allison's plaque psoriasis. she thinks her flaky gray patches are all people see. otezla is the #1 prescribed pill to treat plaque psoriasis. allison! over here! otezla can help you get clearer skin and reduce itching and flaking. with no routine blood tests required. doctors have been prescribing otezla for over a decade. otezla is also approved to treat psoriatic arthritis. don't use otezla if you're allergic to it. serious allergic reactions can happen. otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. some people taking otezla had depression, suicidal thoughts or weight loss. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. ♪♪ [announcer] with clearer skin girls' day out is a good day out. live in the moment. ask your doctor about otezla. 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(vo) switch to the partner businesses rely on. just hours in and it is already been an incredibly dramatic and deeply personal start to hunter biden's trial. with his mother, first lady jill biden again in the courtroom, and with many jurors taking notes. based off photos of the firearm biden purchased, the speed motor, the box of ammunition, all of it the prosecution argues illegal because he lied on a federal gun form. this is very much a story, too, of addiction, of his romantic relationship with halle biden who is expected to take the stand and describe her own crack use and how hunter biden got her to use drugs. the prosecution says it will be embarrassing. and beyond what's in the official court record, a truly startling moment when hunter biden's current wife confronted a former trump staffer who was there. nbc's mike memoli reports from outside the courthouse in wilmington. also with us, former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst barbara mcquaid. mike, let's start with what sounds like an emotionally charged confrontation in the courtroom hallway. what happened? >> reporter: yeah, chris, we know what a sensitive moment this is for the entire biden family, the show of support that his extended family is making by being present in the court every day. but it was a moment captured outside of the court during a break in the proceedings by our colleague that is getting at tense here. melissa cohen biden confronted garrett ziegler, a former aide in the trump administration and called him a piece of you know what comes next, she said it was inappropriate for him to be attending this trial. he's been attending it over the course of last two days. there is a back story here. mr. ziegler is part of a group he co-founded that helped publish a searchable database of the infamous hunter biden laptop, hunter biden has filed suit against mr. ziegler and they have been on one another's radar for some time, leading to this confrontation today. now, we should note that our colleague spoke to mr. ziegler after this confrontation and said it is prudent for him to be there and said he said he respects the constitution. >> so, even aside from that, you can't ignore the tabloid aspect of this trial. it was hallie biden who found the gun at the center of this and threw it away. the defense attorney today seemed to try to put some of the brain on hallie biden. tell us what unfolded in the terms of the defense story today. >> reporter: yeah, during the course of the opening statements, we saw the prosecutors lay out some of the evidence they're going to introduce including the testimony they expect from hallie biden, who biden's own use of drugs while she was romantically involved with hunter biden. when abbe lowell, the defense attorney had his chance to deliver his opening statements, he tried to lay out the chain of custody for the gun that hunter biden purchased. he tried to over the course of explaining that timeline prove that -- at least create some reasonable doubt about whether or not hunter was addicted to drugs, using drugs at the time. so he noted that there had been some cocaine residue that was found on the weapon after it was discovered, and mr. lowell suggested based on the fact that it was in a locked box in the car, that hunter biden had been using, that hallie, when she recovered the gun, may have been responsible for the cocaine residue being put on it. this is something that will be litigated over the course of the coming weeks here. and it speaks to why the family is so concerned about this moment. the president, the first lady are looking at this as parents, but also as grandparents and, of course, hallie biden was with the first family last week when they visited the grave site of beau biden, who passed away nine years ago last week. also there were hallie biden and beau biden's children. >> so, let me start there, if i can, barbara. whether or not it was hunter biden, hallie biden, whoever may have left cocaine residue on the gun that prosecutors say was there, does that get us to what the heart of this case is? >> well, i think we learned today in the opening statements of the defense what the argument is going to be about. it doesn't seem that they're going to dispute the fact that hunter biden did buy this gun, that he filled out the form, that he filled it out the way they say he did. those facts i think are not going to be in dispute and the law prohibits someone from buying and possessing a gun if they are using drugs. the question says, are you addicted to drugs? and if hunter biden himself did not believe that he was at that moment addicted to drugs because he was in recovery, or his substance of choice at the moment was alcohol, and he truthfully answered no, then the prosecution will fail to meet their burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. all of these things are interesting. hearing hunter biden's voice himself narrating his own book about his addiction is certainly going to be persuasive evidence for the prosecution that he was an addict and he knew he was an addict. it all comes down to his state of mind on that day. and it is a wise strategy for the defense because proving what is in someone's mind is a hard thing for a prosecutor to do. >> you could say hunter biden was the star witness at his own trial today because they did play the excerpts from his own biography. there are certainly embarrassing and tabloid aspects to this trial. but also that relationship is an integral part of the story. how does the defense help jurors separate what is relevant from what is just talkable? >> well, if you're the defense, one of your goals is to simply disrupt the prosecution's case and proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt. in some ways, the more you can entangle other people, the mor