Im chris hayes. In just a little bit, President Trump will be touching down in el paso, texas. Thats the city that he lied about in the state of the union not even a week ago, falsely claiming it used to have extremely high rates of violent crime. And there hell hold a rally to deliver the same old sthik he has been doing for months. During which time he has managed to torpedo his approval ratings, do a faceplant, and convince people in the middle that the democrats are better on immigration. So now with only three days to go until another deal or another shutdown, trump is going back to the border. This weekend, blessedly, for once, a rare moment of complete, total clarity and candor about what this entire standoff is all about. Rather than the fake statistics, rather than the lies, rather than the lurid, gross, madeup stories stolen from movies about women with tape over their mouths, the president just came out and said what its about, what its always been about. What its about for steve king. What its about for steve bannon. What its about for Stephen Miller. And what its about for President Trump. What its about for his base. This is what the president tweeted on sunday morning. Gallup poll, open borders will potentially attract 42 million Latin Americans. This would be a disaster for the u. S. We need the wall now. Not criminals. Not illegal immigrants. Not human traffickers. Not drug dealers. No. Latin americans. Thats the problem to the president. Latin americans. And that is the reason that you cannot really negotiate with the president , because the fundamental thing that he doesnt like, that his base doesnt like is that these people, Latin Americans, as the president calls them, are in the country. I mean, heres the president s former chief strategist, steve bannon, back in march of 2016. Isnt the beating heart of this problem right now, the real beating heart of it, of what weve got to get sorted here is not ilLegal Immigration. As horrific as that is, and its horrific, dont we have a problem weve looked the other way on this Legal Immigration thats kind of overwhelmed the country . Thats it . Thats what its always been about. And now were getting closer to yet another shutdown for exactly the same reason as before. The president made a promise that mexico would pay for a ridiculous, unpopular border wall that theyre not going to pay for. And he will shut down the government if he doesnt get the money for it. Nothing has changed. And only days before the next deadline, its unclear were any closer to a deal. Joining me now, julia ainsley, Nbc News National Security and justice reporter and victoria del francesco with the university of texas lbj school of Public Affairs and an msnbc political analyst. Julia, let me start with you. Where are things right now in the negotiations . They dont look good. It seems in the last 48 hours that the prospects of trying to reach a deal by the friday deadline have become even more dim. And its weird, chris, because the debate has really changed. We used to talk about the wall. Now it seems that democrats are willing to give at least a much smaller fraction of money for some kind of Border Security package. And instead, the debate is over beds, for i. C. E. Detention space on the interior. Lets be really clear about what that is. That is not for immigrants who are crossing the border illegally. If you were worried about those 42 million Latin AmericansPresident Trump is talking about, thats not what this is. These are people on the interior of the country, often people who have lived in the United States for a long period of time, some visa overstays, people who are arrested and then theyre held in i. C. E. Custody before they are deported. And in this case, democrats want to cap the number of beds, in other words, limit the amount of space they have to hold people in i. C. E. Detention to just a little over 16,000. Because they want to limit the president s ability to put people in that i. C. E. Detention and to deport them if theyre noncriminal. Right. And they think that by putting that cap on it, hell have to focus on the hard criminals, like president obama did at the end of his presidency. Victoria, what do you make of the president sort of coming out and saying what he said about, first of all, the open borders stuff, the sort of nonsense, and the number is not really right or impossible to project, but what do you make of that in its centrality, what the president is doing down on the border tonight, what hes doing in the last shutdown and maybe in this next one . Its about the red meat, chris. In terms of going to his base, hes in a safe space, hes in a rally, and hes saying to his base, look, i havent forgotten about you, im here, were going to build the wall. These democrats who know theyre trying to get in the way, but were ultimately going to do it. But whats so frustrating, you know, from an understanding of immigration, is that when he talks about all of these 42 million Latin Americans coming over, is he completely ignores the fact that immigration is about push and pull factors. And that the United States has some very healthy pull factors, especially in terms of employment on both ends of the economic spectrum in terms of our hightech industry and in terms of our low tech. In terms of farm workers needed to pick our fruits and vegetables. Folks needed in our construction industry. And the everify solution, one that would be very lowcost and very easy to implement is completely absent from this discussion. But its a lot easier for President Trump to villainize the 42 million Latin Americans and persons of latin american descent, of which i am one, than actually delve down into the real issues of immigration push and pull factor. Julia, so when you talk about the border funding package, right, so theyre down to Something Like less than 2 billion. Its unclear how theyre going to massage the fencing or nonfencing. Republicans are claiming that democrats have sprung this on them, the bed cap at the last second, but having reported a bit on it and you have as well, it has been something that democrats have been talking about throughout this entire process. Yes. Theyve actually even been talking about this during the 2016 campaign. I remember reporting on i. C. E. Raids, some democrats were really critical of even obamas plans to raid it. At one point, he was the deporter in chief before he set up these priorities. And even with those priorities in place, Hillary Clinton used to criticize the mass arrest of immigrants who would make them feel unsafe in their communities and force them underground and not have them cooperate with Law Enforcement. So this idea has actually been put in place for a long time. This hasnt been sprung on them at the last minute. The one thing i will point out, though, is that democrats right now, what theyre trying to do is use the power of the purse, because they dont have the power of the white house. When they had president obama in the white house, he could reprioritize. And he said that i. C. E. Should only go after the most serious criminals. And weve seen a shift. Since 2016 to the last fiscal year, when you go back and look at the data, the number of noncriminal immigrants in i. C. E. Detention has risen. It still only makes up a little over 10 of those people, but even the criminals arent as serious. Theyre not people who pose National Security threats. The number one conviction or charge of people in i. C. E. Detention who are about to be deported is a dui. Under that, it could be a nonviolent Traffic Offense or simply entering the country again illegally. So all of this is to say, no, this is not new from democrats, but this is in trying to use the power of the purse to try to force those priorities when theyre not in the position in the white house to do that through an executive action or, you know, god forbid, pass legislation on all of this. Victoria, what do you think the rhetorical effect of the president s arguments about this, and hes back today again in el paso, has been on peoples understanding of the issues, of the politics of immigration more broadly . Right, well, hes simplifying the issue of immigration. And hes also confusing immigration and ilLegal Immigration with the refugee and asylum system. So the caravans have been in the news over the past couple of months because we have seen large numbers of caravans coming to our southern border, but these are folk who coming to seek asylum, to apply for the asylum process. Theyre not coming over here to sneak over illegally. In some instances, we do see that, because folks are so desperate. They see the wait times going into six, seven, eight months, where they might wager a cross, across the border. But these are folks that are in a totally different category than the,hombres. They want to come over and make their case. Its very easy for President Trump to say, theyre all illegal immigrants, all illegals, but the devil is in the details and theyre all asylum seekers. At this moment, beto orourke is having a counterrally in el paso, where theyre putting an antiwall demonstration together. Its a city thats been extremely opposed on the whole to Donald Trumps immigration agenda, to his rhetoric about the border. Thats true of elected officials there ive spoken, the current member of congress, beto orourke, who used to represent, the mayor, and so forth. Thank you both, really appreciate it. Joining me now, former democratic senator from missouri, claire mccaskill. She is now an nbc news and msnbc political analyst. Its great to have you here. Okay. First question is, given what happened when you were in the United States senate with the daca deal, which was that the president sat there and said, you bring me a deal, im going to sign it, im not going to say i dont like this, i dont like that, then he ripped it up, can you make a deal with this president , first, as a just broad question . Well, i think he wants to make a deal, because theres a couple of things we know he is fixated on. Crowd size and his polling numbers. And he knows his polling numbers took a deep dive because of all of the chaos around his shutdown. So i think he wants to avoid another shutdown. So i think he stepped back, and i think Mitch Mcconnell said, let us get this. I think theyre close to a deal. I know theyre meeting again tonight. The question is, if the Democrats Press this issue, which i dont disagree with, weve got to make sure the messaging is very clear. No one is opposed to putting syrias criminals in prison. What were opposed to is finding a grandfather, because youre doing a sweep, who 20 years ago whos overstayed a visa, lived in this country for 25 years and 20 years ago he had a dwi. We should not be spending money keeping him in prison. We should be focusing on the hardened criminals. Weve got to make sure that messaging is clear, because up to now, the messaging has been very clear, mexico is not paying for the wall and hes lying about the facts. And its interesting you bring that up, because one thing i think is a funny version in these discussions is that it is extremely, staggeringly expensive per bed, per person in this system. 800 though 1,000, like, beyond what you would pay for the ritz carlton. And so the question is, like, should we pay the money for your, you know, the example of your grandfather or all kinds of other people 1,000 a day to pt them in these facilities, does that make sense as a use of the public purse . Especially when you realize, chris, the needs we have. Ive been down to the border. I have talked to identify go ive gone on night patrol with Border Patrol agents. They were using night vision goggles that had duct tape on them. They need more technology and personnel in the ports of entry. Thats where the drugs are coming through. Not in the places between the ports of entry. And most importantly, more judges, so we can facilitate these asylum claims in a quick manner so we do not have people waiting around for months and sometimes years to have their claims heard. Its interesting you just said that, because i generally have heard democrats, the sort of general democratic message, and its been the case since ive been covering immigration policy since the Mccain Kennedy bill back in 2006, is, yes on Border Security, its important to secure the border and also these other things. And what thats led to is a real increase in the money, the dollars, and the labor force and the technology and all the stuff thats down at the border. Is there a point at which you have to sort of start attacking that rhetoric headon about this crisis and about the security problem down at the border . Well, i think thats what betos doing tonight. And i think its great that hes doing this. I know what trumps going to be worried about. The president is going to be worried about crowd size tonight. Thats the only thing hes going to be worried about. Hes going to be furiously and frantically asking everybody, how big is his crowd, how big is our crowd . Thats what hes worried about. The issue here is, the resources are needed, but theyre misplacing the resources. This is about priorities. We do want to get the fentanyl coming in this country. I want you to know, the department of homeland security, under thain own staffing models, have woefully understaffed the ports of entry. And they have positions to fill that are funded and they havent even filled them. So the notion that we need all these many more agents between the points of entry when they havent even addressed the most dangerous part of the system is really frustrating. What is your sense of your former colleagues in the Democratic Caucus in the United States senate, particularly, where they are politically or what their stomach says a this moment . Because there was a lot of unity in the first fight. The president claimed credit for it in advance, which took a little bit of the load off democrats in both houses. Where do you think theyre at, how theyre thinking about what the red lines are in terms of this negotiation . Well, i like it that both dick durbin and john terran tes in the room. This is, you know, a little bit of a yin and yang in the Democratic Party. This is why well hopefully be successful in 2020, because we can welcome everyone into our party, regardless where they are in the spectrum. Center, a little left of center, very left of center. And im hoping that they will get the deal done. Because i do think, i would rather the congress agree on a deal and the president refuse to take it. Right. If something bads going to happen, than us having this deal fall apart at the 11th hour. So hopefully theyll get this figured out tonight and can move forward before friday. And then, who knows, whether the president takes it thats the thing. Intalked to barbara lee, who was on this program just a few days ago ago on the first day of the conference committee, and who knows . They can work out a deal and its totally unpredictable if the president decides to rip it up, as hes done now three or four times on this very issue. Hell have to call Laura Ingraham and find out if its okay. Hell have to call, you know, bannon and Stephen Miller will have to decide if its okay. If its not, then hes going to be forced to declare an emergency and then we do have a constitutional crisis that will obviously be in the courts for some period of time. Senator claire mccaskill, a great pleasure to have you on this program. Im really glad you made some time. Come by anytime. You bet. All right. We talk about the border so often in our political conversations, as if it is some place, but its a place the way the east coast is a place. The southern border is 2,000 miles from the pacific ocean, the gulf of mexico, desert and mountains and farmland and cities and towns and rivers and concrete, scrub grass and sand. To truly comprehend it, youve got to see it for all its vastness, which is what we are going to try to do this week. At this moment, we right now have correspondents driving the entire 1,933 miles of the u. S. mexico border. And on thursday night, ill be live in el paso, texas, for a special report on the reality along that expanse. All in america live at the border right here at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on thursday night. I hope youll join us for what i think will be a pretty epic show. Still to come, new reporting on how the National Enquirer got ahold of those jeff bezos texts and what the president might have known about the process. Ill talk to one of the reporters who broke that story in just two minutes. Reporters who broke that story in just two minutes. indistinguishable muttering that was awful. 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Orourke said, lied about