Ill do anything to protect mr. Trump. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Weve tied the record for the longest Government Shutdown and things are getting desperate. Both for the people getting harmed by the shutdown and for the Political Party that is tide itself to this insane undertaking by the president. The pain is real and intensifying every day for thousands of americans and republican know its problem. They have seen things like this playing out in their local states. The u. S. Coast guard sent a letter with tips on how to make money including dog walking and baby sitting. Have a garage sale. Things of that nature that this is michigan in january. We just had a pretty big snow. Ivall red ea reached out to my creditors but if theyre not getting paid and im not getting any money so i can pay them, either way im losing. I say put the border wall for a future discussion when youre doing budget talks for later on. With people not getting their paychecks, not spending money, we just want to make sure that food and nutrition is available to everybody who needs it. We know youve had federal workers call to see what they need do. The partial Government Shutdown is becoming life and death for a family in anderson county. My husband is a Homeland Security government employee. The government is shut down. He is the sole income for this house and he is not getting paid. I need his income. Reporter hes getting question from some so desperate worried they cant fill their gas tanks. They asked if its league tool sleep in the car. Rr saying im a veteran, i fought for this country and for you to tell me if american citizens that youre not going to pay me, im very upset. All of that is crecanating increased political pressure on a Republican Party desperate to end the shutdown and too cowardly to cross the president on this signature idea that, by the way, they all know is dumb. You know they think its dumb because from the moment he announced he would build a wall, this is what they said. The tragedy of this though is theres not going to be a wall built and mexicos not going to pay for it. Im not going to try to get into the mind of donald trump because i dont think theres a whole lot of space there. I think hes a kook. I think hes crazy, unfit for office. Im a republican and hes not. Hes not a conservative republican. Hes an opportunist. Lindsey graham famously tweeted if we nominate trump, we will get destroyed and deserve it. Then when republicans had unified control of the house, the senate and they could have passed 5. 6 billion for the wall if they wanted to, they decided not to do it. But now here they are with air Traffic Controllers not getting paychecks, the president spouting off about wheels and not even clear what hes demanding. This is where i ask the democrats to come back to washington and to vote for money for the wall, the barrier, whatever you want to call it, its okay with me. They can name it whatever they can name it peaches. I dont care what they name it. So republicans are now so trapped by how manifestly dumb this whole thing is that theyre begging donald trump to do something even dumber. Today that very same Lindsey Graham tweeting again quote mr. President , declare a National Emergency now. Build a wall now. Weve entered a frankly pathetic phrase in which theyre clammoring to give away their power in congress because they cannot admit the emperor has no clothes. His bill passed yesterday in the senate and today in the house. First lets start with that, senator. Does that mean that goes to the president s desk now to be signed . It does, chris. This was a bill that we introduced in the senate. It passed the senate yesterday. It passed the house today. On its way to the president s devrg. Desk. Senator mcconnell said before we pass this the senate, President Trump said he would sign it but thats exactly what the president s people told Mitch Mcconnell a couple of weeks ago about the bill to extend the continuing resolution through february 28th. So lets hope the president signs it. This is the shameful now milestone where were about to break the largest, longest shutdown in u. S. History and as you said i saw a lot of these pay stubs from federal employees today with big zeros on them. The bills theyre getting dont have zeros. Theyre for mortgages and all sorts of other payments. I hope the president will sign it and provide at least some certainty in a very difficult time for so many people. So where are things now . My understanding is the house has passed a series of bills. Theres some to open a few departments, some to open the irs to deal with refunds and those are all sitting on Mitch Mcconnells desk met forically. Thats right. And hes essentially been awall through this whole discussion. He know as shutdown is a really stupid idea, a waste of taxpayer money, knows its hurting millions of americans and yet he refuses to hold a vote on the two bills that house passed more than a week ago no that would reopen the government and as you know those bills were picked by the house because Senate Republicans had already supported them in different ways, right . One by a voice vote, the other by a vote of 937. The other in the Appropriations Committee on a bipartisan basis. So right now mcconnells obvious question, why arent you passing bills that youve already supported . And the answer is he wants to do the president s bidding. Look, if you look that package that the white house is proposing right now. Fiver. 7 billion. Some is fencing, some is technology, some is more staff. The actual details arent really the wall and in another context, this would be perfectly uncontroversial and bipartisan and democrats arent doing it because they hate the president. Thats not the case. We want to reopen the government. We dont think any president should hold the country hosturg for any demand. We should reopen the government and weve always said were lap happy to have that conversation. We provided the level of funding the president actually asked for in his budget this year, which was 1. 6 billion. The president submitts a budge toot congress, correct . Correct. That budget, which is made mulvaney, presumably the president but who knows. He comes and said this is what i want and they ask for 1. 6 billion for Border Security. Exactly right. They did not ask for 5. 6 billion to build a wall . No, thats exactly right. I guess the president s folks want itting norred because he totally changed his own budget. That was passed in the senate Appropriations Committee. We did add language that it should be restricted to existing barriers and that was supported by the republican senators on the Appropriations Committee. I think this is key because it has gotten lost. There is an appropriations process and lots of it nonkaunlt ruvrlgs. This number of people some stuff you fight over, some you agree on. On this issue they didnt start with an early ask saying we need 5. 6 billion for the wall until this last second turn around at the behest of anne coulter thats exactly right. And now at the very last minute they came back with this request and it is important to point out that it in the end is 30 billion because what the president will do is threat an shut down the government every year until he geets 30 billion. You dont just fund a Capital Investment for one year. You dont do a highway for one year and stop building. I am watching this from afar and it just looks screwed. I just dont understand. He is clearly backed them into this alleyway. Theres no way out. Theyre desperate to extricate him somehow. Someones going to send in a helicopter to pluck them out of the situation. Or not and the government is closed for another month. Look, what ive been focusinged on and whats in our power is to put more pressure on Mitch Mcconnell and republican senators to do their to play their role, to take their responsibilities as a separate co equal branch of government and pass these bills theyve already supported. My goodness, i think a lot of our republican senators are going to feel the heat at home. Weve already got four or five republican senator whose publicly said they agree we need to reopen the government first. We will keep asking for unanimous consent to reopen the bills. Thats going to get harder and harder as the stories pour in from around the country. Thank you very much. Thank you. One of her columns was Lindsey Graham is depressed and doesnt know what to do. The arc of Lindsey Graham is remarkable when you look at the clip talk about the guys a cook and will get destroyed. And now all caps take unilateral executive power away from us in congress which i serve and have for decades so you can save all of us from this ridiculous situation. And these are the people who call themselves constitutional conservatives. Who want the most conservative judges on the court who are going to constrict the executive branch, right . I guess not. You saw a momentary, at least, back pedal on the emergency declaration. You heard the president today say well, im not going to do it too fast. That ruins the argument. But he back tracked. Why . One reason i think is hes beginning to hear from senators and congressman, and a few governors in those states that would have money taken from them. Desantos. Dont take money from florida. Cornyn and cruz, dont take money from texas. We need that from rebuilding after the hurricanes we had. Its taking real money from people who need it to give to this project they know they dont need. And as soon as you make it real, they cant be in favor of that either. So i think theyre left back where they were before, which is do your job, vote on these bills. Maybe trump will agree, maybe he wont and see if the senate and house override. Thats in the constitution. Thats the way this is supposed to work. Heres what Lindsey Graham said today. Everyone pfrs trying to come up with a way out of this. Lets just pass what we agree to before this whole thing started . This is what Lindsey Graham had to say today. The National Emergency idea is one way to try to get the wall built. Its got its own problems. Just pick. And so i dont know how this is going to end. Its not a movie. Its real and also youre not watching it, youre writing it. You can do something about it. Right. This is the thing interesting to me which is weve been waiting for the last two years for the moment republicans in congress will turn on donald trump. And we thought it would be the first couple of unprecedented moments and then it didnt happen and everyone got cynical about the fact theres no political incentive to turn on trump. Its almost as if in these past 21 days the president has been begging Congressional Republicans to turn on him. Hes put them in such a politically precarious sifrpuation and so far theyve mostly held their ground. But if this goes on for another month, this could be the moment that if not politically advantageous anymore to stay loyal to donald trump. I wonder what you think of that because its amazing how durable that 40 is. Weve its been through lots of things. Praising neonazis that murd rbdered a woman for instance, tearing children away from their parents at the border and it stayed in that 40 . Is this the places where that starts to break down or not . I think it does and for a simple reason. Suddenly its their jobs, their income. The people working at the irs in missouri. If it was about somebody elses child, who give as dam. But this is bouts me and my family. When youre talking about their constituents. Red states, blue states, wherever you have it that cant pay their bills, who cant get what they need from the government, then the equation does change and i think thats when Mitch Mcconnell starts hearing from the senators. I got this irs senator in my district. There are 5,000 people not getting paychecks this week. Ive got a Homeland Security office in my district or my state. Another thousand people arent getting paid. Thats when the rubber hits the road i think. You spoke to this is its always the cases that doesnt effect trump. Hes where hes always been. Its like all the sudden theres a high pitch noise in the room and everyones like oh, my god and theres one person who cant hear it. And trumps like i dont hear anything. And that is what were looking at here. Trump can care less. When he said ill keep it closed for a month or a year, i think he weirdly meant it. Its the hill hes chosen to die on. The one he signalled he would die on when he made the wall a center piece of his campaign. But youve got at the beginning of this hour which is that you showed that republicans in congress have always thought this was a dumb idea. And they came around to it only out of partisan loyalty, partisan necessity. But this is ultimately about trumps relationship to his base, not about his relationship to his party and certainly not about law makers relationship to their constituents. And the question is how separable all those relationships are. The abiding theory is, as Benjamin Franklin said, we mustang together or surely we will hang separately. Well see if that holds as we keep going. Thank you both. Next taking issue with steve kings words but not his wall. How republicans are starting to denounce racesh remarks from the Iowa Republican as they simultaneously shut down the government to achieve steve kings number one policy goal. Show of hands, whos a future comcast Business Customer here . I think we all are. Yeah, definitely. Sign us up. Yes. Two hands. Two hands. Yay. Double hands. Get fast reliable internet and add voice for a low price. Just one more way we go beyond for your business. And now you can also enter for a chance to win 10,000 from comcast business toget your year off to a fast start. Theres a new 10,000 winner every day in january. Go online now and enter for a chance to win. Comcast business. Beyond fast. Tonight republicans are attempting to distance themselves and their party, even though racist remarks of steve king, at the same time the it president and Senate Republicans keep the government shut down until they get steve kings signature policy idea, a border wall of mexico. And king wondered out loud, white supremacist, White Nationalist, how did that become offensive . What . He defended his support for quote western civilization values and called himself an american nationalist. Steve kings history of bigotry and racism has gone largely ignored by his colleagues in congress. But this time there seemsed to be a lot of hang ringing. From South Carolina senator, tim scott, the one black republican member of the senate caucus. He wrote an oped saying quote some in our party wonder why republicans are constantly accused of racism. Its because of our silence when things like this are said. And remember the Republican Party shut down of the government is over steve kings signature policy idea, building a wall. In fact he called it the king wall on the house floor in 2006. Im going toing do the 2 00 drill on the king wall. I say we need a few other things on top of the wall and one is to put a little bit of wire on top to provide additional incentive to go over the top and we could truify it to be a discouragement to fool around. We do that with livestock all the time. Do that with livestock. Assistant professor at Harvard Kennedy school. And National Reporter for washington post. I thought of the title of your book today as i read the oped from tim scott in the washington post. I thought it was basically saying look, this is the kind of reason people associate us with terrible ideas. Absolutely. And it was trying to get at the heart of a problem that plagues the Republican Party. Calling out racesism is not hard, difficult. In fact republicans, when its been safe has been adept at calling out racism. The problem is that again pretty easy to call out but policy is something entirely different. And so with tim scott it was a good attempt and a laudable attempt but it completely side stepped the issue of policy. You know, steve kings policies are in effect. So theyre mainstream. He has a place in the oval office. And i think that is the issue that we should be focusing on right now. Its also notable. And you have done great reporting on steve king. There are sort of steve king theres like a steve king a valid racist explosions every six months or so and then we get a little version of this but this is not the first and probably wont be the last. It seems like theres a little more momentum this time but i personally havent asked if they would denounce king and they refuse to do so. You have been one of the reporters going to members of congress, to the Republican Congressional Committee when hes running for reelection saying put your money where your mouth is. I dont get a response. I mean before the elections, did denounce king but only after a poll showed that king might actually lose. Of course he didnt. Which is why hes still there. You know, its also notable to me that this is a you said his policy this someone whose policy views are a seamless garment of our to use a phrase from the catholic church. But you have his views of the superiority of what he calls western civilization and his defense of literally the term white supremacist and those views have taken over the Republican Party. I think people who have those views say how can you call us a racist . But you know, steve king is part of the reason. Exactly. If it looks like duck and quacks like a duck, then it might be a duck. So part of what were dealing here is that theres been the system saying and i com