The eve of highly congressional testimony. This standoff is happening now between Matt Whitaker and the Congressional Panel hes scheduled to face tomorrow afternoon. Whitaker drew this line in the sand saying he will not show up unless hes assured he will not be subpoena should he avoid answering certain questions. Not only that, but whitaker has put the Committee Chairman there nadler on the clock saying he wants that assurance in writing tonight no later than 6 00 p. M. All of this is happening as the president s permanent pick william barr just cleared a big hurdle of his own. So we start with laura jared, our justice reporter whos all over this breaking news. Take us inside this standoff and what is going on . Were really in a limbo mode at this point with a will he or wont he will show up tomorrow. That 6 00 p. M. Deadline now ticking away that whitaker has imposed for the house judiciary committee, the chairman jerry nadler to let him know whether or not hes willing to withdraw that subpoena that was sort of preemptively issued earlier today for his testimony as we know nadler wanted to have that subpoena in his back pocket in case whitaker tried to avoid questions on executive privilege grounds. Whitaker now saying thats not fair. This is a breach of the agreement. I was willing to come voluntarily, but i will not discuss my Confidential Communications with the president , which is something democrats have really keyed on and part of the reason they were so highly anticipating this testimony from whitaker could really be their last shot at him as bill barr is now on track to get confirmed as early as next week. This was their chance to question whitaker about his oversight of the special counsels probe, about his communications with President Trump, how he got the job, why he chose not to recuse himself from overseeing the mueller probe. They wanted to question him on all of those issues but hes saying that his conversations with the president are protected privilege, that past administrations have recognized that and so hes not willing to discuss that. He says that this would really turn into a public spectacle and while hes happy to entertain questions about the oversight hes not willing to go there, brooke. Thank you very much for the reporting. Harry littman is with me. Harry, so, you have whitaker saying, all right, if you dont tell me or give me this assurance by 6 00 tonight im not showing up tomorrow. Can you run us through possible scenarios . Yes. Nadler had said he wanted to hear from him by wednesday, so whitaker he had given him the 48 hours. Theyre playing a game of poker here. Scenario one as it might have been 15 years ago when they got along better, very quick negotiated compromise, perhaps whitaker talks about some things and some others. Hard to see theres time for that. Scenario two, he shows up and just asserts executive privilege about all the things they want to know. Hard to see that happening, scenario three, it gets put off but as laura said, next week hes not the acting attorney general any more and you could still subpoena him. The republicans in the last Congress Sort of broke the rules and even if hes a line attorney some where they could try to bring him in but the air is let out of the tires at that point. The republicans on the Committee Say we dont need to know that any more. This last minute gambit which was put in for a long time may actually keep him from testifying. What does this tell you about what whitakers plans for tomorrow were . There were all these thoughts about might he cite executive privilege here and there. What does this tell you about him . They never were to answer the questions that nadler and the committee and the American People most want to hear. They were always going to assert executive privilege there and even though nadler brandishes a subpoena, that would be a long time legal battle. Would he have said the other things, im not sure. The other thing it says is, and the supposedly hes nervous, sweating, not doing a very good job, knows hes going to get whip sawed on the committee. He dont want to be there tomorrow. He may very well not be. Hang with me. Ive got more questions for you. After two years of republican control in washington, President Trump is getting a preview of what his next two years could be like with the democrats running the house. Trumps policies, his staff, his finances all under the microscope during multiple hearings over the course of the next two days. This morning the president trotted out one of his favorite attacks on twitter saying the hearings are president ial harassment. There are a whole list of questions we dont know the answer to about foreign interference in the election, foreign influence over this administration and garden variety corruption, interference with the justice, obstruction of justice, abuse of power and we have to track all of that down. We cant allow the administration to stonewall us. We came in and we mean business. Chris cillizza, so chris, break down whats going on . Look, brooke, the truth of the matter is on november 8th of last year, it should have been very clear to donald trump what was coming down the pike. This is what divided government looks like going all the way back to bill clinton with a republican house. Oversight investigations central to what House Democrats had always planned when they took over the majority, i think he is just realizing it now. What are they looking at . Theres probably more but lets go through some of the big ones. Ill start over here becaus this is the one that most people think about. Trumps tax returns. He was in the 2016 campaign the only major Party President ial candidate to release zero of his tax returns. Hes currently the only president in the modern era since watergate to release zero of his tax returns. He said its under audit and he could do it but hes not going to. There is a way through the ways and Means Committee run by richard neil, he has some access to those returns allegedly. Theyll be a legal fight. Thats one. Trumps finances. This deals with the Trump International hotels, putting his name on things, what he owes people. These two are tied in many ways because we dont know what his debts look like, we dont know what investments he has really because we dont have a detailed analysis. Whatever he says about how his personal wealth statements tell more of a story than those tax returns, they dont. The russia probe. So, yes, obviously Robert Mueller is continuing his investigation, but there will be an element of this, particularly once the report ends, its going to leave some avenues that you can potentially go down and ask questions about. Thats another one where i think theyll go to. These two, security clearances. Youll remember, brooke, donald trump took away former cia head John Brennans security clearance because he was overly critical of donald trump. Democrats want to look into, can you do that . Can a president do that just because someone is critical of you . Is that fair grounds . Family separations obviously still an issue. Donald trumps destination insist they didnt change policy. The facts disagree. Regardless we had a number of children Young Children separated from families for sometimes months on end. All of this is going to come under the purview of the house. Theyre going to be strategic. Thats one thing thats important. Nancy pelosi is urging strategy especially as it relates to trumps tax returns. Do not put the cart before the horse. Make sure youve got everything in a row so it is unassailable when the investigation begins so it doesnt look partisan, number one, and it has the best chance of succeeding, number two. Its so different the reactions from these freshman members of congress and to juxtapose that with Speaker Pelosi where shes saying lets slow our roll. Congressional lawmakers are still grilling Trump Administration officials about the president s controversial zerotolerance policy. The program separated thousands of children from their parents at the u. S. mexico border. Many of them still have not been reunited with their families. Todays hearing comes after an Inspector General report said more children were separated than the government had reported. So today, members of the house subcommittee wanted to hear from health and Human Services secretary alex aczar but he declined to appear angering democrats. The departments efforts to reunite families was a major flash point. Does anyone know how many are still separated from their parents . Nobody knows. I want to be very clear. Children in our custody, children who were in o. R. R. Custody in the 26th of june we have laboriously worked to i understand. Because hhs did not receive from dhs any list or aniny indication of the complete set of separated children. I just feel like whats been happening is more than irresponsible and sloppy but i really think that what were talking about is state sponsored child abuse and i would go as far as to say kidnapping. Commander white also said, if had been asked about if he had been asked about the trump policy he would have rejected it. Would you have devised dhs to implement the policy of zero tolerance if they had asked . Neither i nor any career person would ever have supported such a policy proposal. I do not believe that separation of children from their parents is in the best interest of the child, but i am i did not participate in the discussions regarding the policy. Thank you. Lawmakers plan to question when he comes to testify about the budget. Now, the special counsel Robert Muellers probe appears to be winding down, interest in the president s other associations particularly as it relates to his finances appear to be on fire. The red line that trump had talked about in a New York Times interview he warned, no one should delve into his or his familys personal finance beyond the special counsel investigation. Mueller was looking at your finances and your familys finances unrelated to russia. Is that a red line . Would that be a breach of what his actual i would say, yeah. I would say yes. Harry littman is back with me and so, harry, the cnn poll out today, nine out of ten american think the Mueller Report should be made public in a climate where so many people cant even agree on the color of the sky. Right. That nine out of ten american are saying it should be public, what does that tell you . Its sort of like nine out of ten would like an early winter. Its not very controversial and not simply because Everyone Wants to see it, but, look, its a surpassing national priority. This is like 911, the warren commission. Weve got to know what happened here quite apart from your feelings about trump and if you want to see him in jail, any of that stuff. What the heck happened with the election 2016 . We got to know. Lastly, you know, the president s anger today, he said, you know, in the back and forth with the New York Times that his personal finances would be crossing this red line and now you have not only the special counsel investigation, you have the federal prosecutors investigating, you have congressional committees investigating all involving his finances and he really cant do anything about it. There never was a red line. Theres no such thing and he does now have a 360degree kind of focus on it. Its not simply that its fitting the same way it was in whitewater where they went back to arkansas. Because of his own actions, theyre tied together. His personal finances and the possible influence from russia are sort of one in the same as youre finding out more and more every month. So it would be all the more untenable that you could somehow leave that part of the story out. Harry, thank you. Happening right now, its being billed as a fight over the president s mysterious tax returns. Democrats are holding their first hearings right now and expected to put a big old spotlight on this issue that the president has long refused to make public. But where actually, physically are those tax returns . Are they actually in a safe . Behind lock and key . Cnn has these fascinating new details surrounding these questions. Another shutdown is quote unquote, too hot to handle. One of her freshman colleagues introducing her Green New Deal. Find out whats in it. Tary famy and it really shows. With all that usaa offers why go with anybody else . We know their rates are good, we know that theyre always going to take care of us. It was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. It was funny because when we would call another insurance company, hey would say oh we cant beat usaa were the webber family. Were the tenneys were the hayles, and were usaa members for life. Get your usaa Auto Insurance quote today. Were back. Im brooke baldwin. Hard to believe were talking about the pobltd of yet another Government Shutdown when funding is set to run out in just eight days and even though the president insists the negotiations are under way by a Bipartisan Committee should include money for his border wall, House Speaker nancy pelosi says shes pretty confident there will not be another shutdown saying republicans will not go down that road again. Speaker pelosi telling politico, quote, i have a club that i started. Its called the too hot to handle club and this is a too hot to handle issue. Heather cagle is a reporter who interviewed the speaker for politico, so heather, what a quote. Good to have you on. Is the too hot to handle a continuation of the golf clap . Is this just total trump trolling . I think that what weve seen the past few weeks since Speaker Pelosi won the speaker vote, shes really gotten her groove back, you know what i mean . The clap at the state of the union. She even suggested postponing the state of the union. She surprised trump with that and then the too hot to handle club, i think she has really resettled into her role as speaker and not just speaker but like the de facto leader of the party antitrump resistance and shes really enjoying it. If pelosis got her groove back and feeling so confidence, why is that . Does she just know she has the leverage because of the way the whole shutdown ended very recently, you think . I think, you know, she just came through the toughest leadership battle that shes ever faced. Shes been atop the Democratic Caucus for more than 16 years now and theres a group of a dozen plus democrats who wanted to try to overthrow her late last year and they didnt succeed and she came back out on top and shes stronger than ever. Not only that, when shes in the room with the president , she feels like the adult in the room and you can really see that and she has been here hes much more inexperienced than she has. Shes been through this rodeo with several other president s. She knows how it works. Weve seen that confidence come through especially with someone like trump. You also talked to her about how shes handling the investigations into the president and into his campaign. Shes really distancing herself from the freshman members of Congress Strategy where they want to immediately pounce on this president and things like tax returns, for example. You said that this is classic pelosi. Heather, what do you mean by that . I mean, she is very methodical in what she does. Ive been covering her for three years now. She thinks of a plan. Shes always two steps ahead of her opposition and she never deviates from that step plan. She goes stepbystep to make it happen. We saw it with the speakership race and other things like that. Her thinking and leaderships thinking is they dont want the first message coming out of the new Democratic House to be theyre all over trump. They want to impeach him and things like that. They want to show the people that elected them that were here to work for you and get stuff done. Shes very careful in the investigations and also making sure that theyre putting stuff on the floor that people can see and saying, look, were not going to overreach here. Well take our time and do our due diligence. Just lastly, it was noteworthy when she said she praised for trump, quote, all the time. And im just also wondering what has she said about her viral golf clap. She was asked about that yesterday. She said someone said madam speaker, do you realize you went viral . Well, you know, it wasnt sarcastic. It was very sincere but even the way that she answered that question, you could see there was a little bit of sarcasm there. Its another example of her just really relishing the role she has and the platform she has now. Yep. Shes enjoying it. You can see the confidence. Nancys got her groove back. Heather, thank you. Thank you. She is the new congresswoman whos caught both the left and the right by storm and now congresswoman alexandria ocasiocortez is releasing her Green New Deal to combat Climate Change. Heres whats in it. The former starbuck ceo whos made Many Democrats angry about a possible independent run just gave a policy speech and said hed be happy to pay more in taxes. Well be right back. thunderclap if your day doesnt unfold as predicted. Unfold this. New neutrogena® makeup remover single. And remove 99 of makeup. 100 rain or shine. Neutrogena®. And back pain made it hard to sleep and get up on time. 100 rain or shine. Then i found aleve pm. The only one to combine a safe sleep aid, plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. Im back. Aleve pm for a better am. Their medicare options. Before theyre on medicare. Come on in. Youre turning 65 soon . Yep. And youre retiring at 67 . Thats the plan well, youve come to the right place. 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