Mr. Trump. All in starts 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 tied itself to this insane undertaking by the president. The pain is real and intensifying every day r for thousands of americans. And republicans unlike President Trump, know a problem. They have scenes like this playing on local news in their home states. The u. S. Coast guard sent a letter to furloughed workers with tips on how to make money including dog walking and baby sitting. Have a garage sail. This is michigan and january, we just had a pretty big snow. Ive reached out to my creditors and everything, but still, if theyre not getting paid and im not getting any money so i can pay them, either way, im losing. I say put the wall, take one for future discussion when when you start to do budget talks for lateren. With people not getting their check, not spending money. So many are affected by this. We want to make sure that food and nutrition is available to everybody who needs it. Its great. We know you guys have had some federal workers see what they needed to do. The Government Shutdown is becoming a matter of 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 insulin. The Union President says hes getting questions now some so desperate theyve asked to sleep overnight in the parking lot because theyre worried they cant fill their gas tanks. They said is it legal to sleep in the car. They said i cant afford to commute. Im a veteran. Fought for this country. For you to tell me as tn american citizen youre not going to pay me, im very upset. Creating increased political pressure on a Republican Party desperate to end the shutdown, but crucially, too cowardly to cross president on this signature idea that by the way, they know is dumb. You know that they think its dumb because from the moment that donald trump rode down an escalator and announced hed build a wall, this is what they said. The tragedy is that there isnt going to be a wall built and mexico isnt going to pay for it. Y 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, crazy, unfit for office. Im a republican, hes not, hes not a conservative republican, hes an an tunist. Graham tweeted if we nominate truch, well get destroyed and deserve it. They had the white house, the senate and could have passed 556 billion for the wall, they decided not to do it. But now, here they are with air Traffic Controllers not getting paychecks. The president spouting off about wheels at every turn and not clear what hes demanding. This is where i asked the democrats to come paback to washington and to vote for money for the wall. The barrier. Whatever you want to call it. Its okay. 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 dwen, quote, mr. President , declare a National Emergency now. Build a wall now. Weve entered a frankly pathetic phase in which republicans are clambering to give away their power in congress to the president because they cannot admit the emperor has no clothes. Joining me now, chris van hollen, democratic from maryland. His bill to provide pay in the senate and the house. Does that mean that goes the president s desk now to be signed . Is. It does, chris. This was a bill that senator cardin and i sbrooused in the senate. Pased the senate yesterday. It passed the house today. Its on the way to the president s desk now. Heres the catcher. You know senator mcconnell said that before we pass this in the senate, President Trump said he would sign it, but thats what the president s people told Mitch Mcconnell a number of weeks ago about the bill to extend the continuing resolution through february 8th. So lets hope the president signs it. This is the shameful now you know 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 bills for mortgages and all r sort os of other payments do. I hope the president will sign it. It will 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 all week. Theyre sitting there. Some to open a few departments. Some to open the whole government except for the dhs. Some to open the irs to deal with refunds. Theyre all just sitting on Mitch Mcconnells desk metaphorically . Thats right. Senator mcconnell has been awol throughout this whole discussion. He knows that a shutdown is a really stupid idea. He knows its a waste of tax pare money. He knows its hurting millions of americans and yet, he refuses to hold a vote on the two bills that the house pass more than a week ago now that would reopen the government and as you know, those bills were picked by the white 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 proep raapprop committee. Right now, mcconnell has the obvious question. Why arent you passing bills youve already supported and the answer is he wants to do the president s bidding. I saw a conservative journalist made this point today. I want ed to get you to respond. If you look at the package of what the white house is proposing now, some of its fencing, some extra beds at the wod border, some technology, more staff. The actual details arent really the law so to speak, what the president calls it that 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. Weapon dont think any president should be holding the country and 800,000 federal employees hostage for any kind of demand. We should open the government and discuss the best approach to Border Security. Were happy to have that conversation. In a Senate Appropriations committee, we provided the level of funding the president asked for in his budget this year. 1. 6 billion. This is an important point. The president submits a budget to congress, correct . Correct. That budget, which is made by Mick Mulvaney presumably with the question in the white house, he comes an says this is what my priority is, what i want and they ask for 1. 6 building, 1. 6 billion for Border Security. Not to build a wall. No, thats right. This point has been overlooked because i guess the president s folks want it ignored because he totally changed his own budget. Now that was pass nd the Senate Appropriations committee. We did add some language that money for walls and barriers should be restricted to existing barriers and that chris was supported by the republican senators on the appropriations committee. I think this is key for people to understand because it has gotten lost. There is an appropriations process. From all kinds of stuff. Lots noncontroversial. The white house says this number of f people. Some stuff you agree on. On this issue, they didnt start with an early ask saying we need 5. 6 million for the wall until this last second turn around at the behest of ann coulter. No but thats exactly right. They asked for 1. 6 billion and now at the very last minute in december, they came back with this request and it is also important to point out that it really in the end is is of course 30 billion because you know what the president will do is is threaten to shutdown the government every year until he get to 30. The other thing, you dont just fund Capital Investment for a year. You can do a highway for one year, then just stop building it. So whats the way out . 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 someone. Someone is going to send in a homter to pluck him out of this situation, or not and the government is closed for another month. Yeah, look. What i have been focused on is whats within our power right now. Whats within 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 coequal branch of government and pass these bills theyve supported. Now Mitch Mcconnell can can keep saying the president doesnt support it, but my goodness, i think a lot of our republican senators are going to feel the heat at home. Weve got four, five republican senators who publicly said they agree we got to reopen the government first. Well keep asking for indianapolis consent to bring up those bills. We said it yesterday. Mcconnell shut it down, but thats going to get harder and harder as these stories pour in from around the country. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now jennifer roomen. One titled Lindsey Graham is depressed and doesnt know what to do, can we help. Jennifer, the arc of graham is remarkable. When you look at the clip, the guy is a kook and will get destroyed and now desperately all caps tweeting please take unilateral executive power from us in congress which i serve and have r for decades so you can save all of us from this ridiculous situation. And these are the people who call themselves constitutional conservativ conservatives. Who want the most conservative judges on the court who can going to restrict the executive branch, right . I guess not. You know, one thing that was interesting today and i think things did change is you saw a momentary back pedal on the emergency declaration. You heard the president today say well, im not going to do it too fast. That ruins the emergenfact its emergency. He backtracked. One reason i think is hes beginning to hear from senators and congressmen but mostly senators and a few governors in those states that would have money taken from them. So ron desantis, marco rubio, dont take money from florida. Cornyn and cruz in texas. We need that for rebuilding after the hurricanes we had. Its taking real money from people who actually need it to give it for this project they know they dont need. And stoons as soon as you make it real about their constituencies, they cant be in favor of that either. So i think the left back where they were before, which is do your job. Vote on these bills. Maybe trump will veto them, maybe he wont then see if the senate and house override. Thats in the constitution. Thats way this was supposed to work. Heres what Lindsey Graham said today and i think what jennifer said just nailed it. Everyones trying to come up with way out of this. Particularly on the republican side. For republicans, lets just pass what we all agreed to. The National Emergency was an idea. This is what graham said 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 movies going to end. Senator, its not a movie. Its real and also youre not watching it. Youre writing it. Like you can do something about it. Yeah. This is the dhing thats interesting to me. Which was that we have been waiting for the last two years for the moment that republicans in congress will turn on donald trump. Right . And early on in his presidency, we thought that it would be the first couple of unprecedented moments or kind of eruptions and it didnt happen and then everyone kind of got cynical about the fact that theres just no political incentive for republicans to turn on trump. Its almost as if in these past 21 days the president has been begging Congressional Republicans to turn on him. He has put them in such a politically precarious situation and so far they mostly held their ground. Kind of been good soldiers, but if this goes on, this could be the moment that you know its not politically advantageous anymore for republicans to stay loyal to donald trump. Yeah and i think jennifer, i wonder what you think of that because you know its amazing how durable that 40 is. Its been through lot of things. Praising neo nazis that murdered a woman for instance. Tearing children away from the parents of the boarder. Its stay ng this 40 . Is that the place where this starts to break down . I think it does and for a simple reason. Suddenly, its their jobs. Their income. Its the people working at the irs facility in missouri. Oh gosh if it was about someone elses child at theed board e, who gives a damn, but this is about me and my family so its come home to roost. When youre talking about their constituents, red state, blue states, where f you have it who cant pay their bills who are getting foreclosed on their mortgages, who cant get what they need from the government, then the equation does change then i think thats when mcconnell starts hearing from these senators. Listen, we got to pass some of these. I got this irs senator in my district. There are 5,000 people who arent getting checks this week. Ive got another. A Homeland Security office in my district or my state. Another thousand people arent getting paid. So thats when the rubber hits the road i think. But you sort of spoke to this. Its always the case that what affect a, doesnt affect trump. Hes where hes always been. A bunch of people walking around, theres like a high pitched noise in the room and everyones like oh my god and one person who cant hear it and everyones just like oh god make it stop. It gets louder and louder and trumps like i dont hear anything. That is what were looking at here. Trump could care less. When he said a month or a year, i think he weirdly kind of meant it. Right because this is the hill that he signalled he would die on three years ago when he started running for president and made the wall a a center piece of his campaign. You got at it at the fincke of this hour. Which is that you show ed that republicans in kopg have always thought this was a dumb idea. Yes. And they came around to it only out of partisan loyal thety, necessaity. But this is ultimately about trumps relationship to his base. Not about his relationship to his party. And certainly not about lawmakers relationships to their constituents. The question now is how separable. The abiding theory is first two years is we must hang together or surely we will all hang separately. Thats been the guiding logic for the republican caucus. Well see if it holds. Thank you both. Next, takie ining issue with steef kings words, but not the wall. 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King wondered out loud, white sh nationalist, western civilization, how did that language become offensive . Wait, what . King took to the house floor to insist hes not racist then defended his support for quote western civilization values and called himself an american nationalist. The history as gone largely ignored by his republican colleagues in congress. This time, there seems to be quite a bit after hangering from members of his party rmt perhaps most thoughtful coming from tim scott, the one black republican member of the senate caucus. He wrote an oped today 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. As they slapped him on the wrist, the Republican Party shutdown is over his idea. Building a wall. They call it the king wall of 200 2006. We nood to do a few other things on top of the wall. One to be to put a little wire to prevent people from climbing over the top. We could e liclectrify this. It would be a discouragement for them to be fooling around with it. We do that with livestock all the time. Joining me now, assistant prof sor, and christopher, a National Reporter for washington post. I thought of the title of your book today as i read of the op