Pardon me. The president reportedly promises pardons to aide whose break the law and help him build that wall before he has to face the voters next year and explain a broken promise. Would it be appropriate for a member of this administration to break the law to accelerate the construction of the border wall . Peter, i dont think that any of us in this administration would ever feel its appropriate to break the law. Run silent, run deep. New photos show north korea may be building a submarine capable of launching Nuclear Tipped Missiles. The biggest threat yet to the u. S. , despite the president s fondness for chairman kim. When they have submarines that can wander the Pacific Ocean that can get closer to for example guam or hawaii, that puts their missiles, talk in clear tipped missiles in range of u. S. Forces and hubs. Good day everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington with new reaction as joe biden solidifies a doubledigit lead over the next best contender in two new polls released today. That puts to rest an earlier poll this week showing him in third place, clearly an outlier. Todays polls do not give billionaire activist tom steyer the boost he needs to qualify for next weeks debate. One stage, ten candidates and the long anticipated matchup between biden and withelizabeth warren. Joining me is steve kornacki, joel payne, director modia director for Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign, msnbc contributor jeremy peters, political reporter at the New York Times and nbc news correspondent heidi p pryzbola. What did you see in todays polls and what it means for the debate . Its a big crunch on the democratic side. Various categories, the entire democratic field. The xs, those are the candidates who dropped out. The ones in dark shade are candidates who had not coming into today qualified for the next debate in september. Coming into today, only ten candidates had qualified. What that meant, they hit a doan why are threshold, raised donations from at least 130,000 people and critically they had hit the polling threshold. These candidates have done it. The suspense coming in to today, it was around these two candidates, Tulsi Gabbert and tom steyer, both hit the donor threshold. Tom steyer had hit that 2 mark in three polls. Tulsi gabbert in two. Steyer needed one, gabbert needed two more and two new polls coming out this morning, so suspense, would either of them, would both of them qualify, and then cause this to be a twonight debate in september again. First poll that came out this morning, usa today suffolk, biden as you mentioned clearly in first, warren, sanders, but what you see, these are all the candidates 2 and above. You dont see Tulsi Gabberts name, you dont see tom steyers name. Given she was two polls short the fact that gabbert didnt make 2 effectively that eliminated her. No september debate for Tulsi Gabbert. The second poll quinnipiac by not hitting in the first, stye her to do it in this poll. All candidates 2 or better, steyer did not hit the threshold in that either so therefore unless im looking at the clock, its noon right now, the official deadline for this thing is 11 59 p. M. East coast time tonight. Unless theres a new poll nobody is talking about, it comes out in that time that has steyer at 2 , that will be it. Those ten candidates as we said it will be a single night of debati debating. Everyone is going to get a shot at everyone else, that is a dynamic we have not yet seen on the democratic side but looks like we will see in september. And joel, this really does indicate joe biden out in front. We even have an apology in effect from the monmouth poll, a credible poll but says they clearly had an outlier on monday when they came out with that poll that said that he was basically at a virtual tie or coming in third. Its clear they wrote the Monmouth University poll published monday is an outlier. This is a product of the uncertainty that is inherent in the polling process. I would point out its august. August polls are notoriously bad polls. People are not paying attention. Yes. A number of, you know, with such a small sample in that monmouth poll, with a handful of people, someone could slip. Tom steyer with Something Like eight people changing in one of these polls could qualify for the debate stage. I think the sample size and the margin of error was always the part off the charts. That was completely off the charts and pretty remarkable the polling director had to come out and say that. Its interesting. I thought that the most fascinating part of that poll was not what happened at the top with those three who we know are sanders, warren and biden, its what happened at the bottom, and its what steve just talked about. Now youve got a one night debate and i think that this really, really is going to be a challenge for the former Vice President , because no longer can he just focus on one of the frontrunners. Hes got to focus on all of them and thats a lot of pressure on him, its a lot of oncoming. Im sure the biden folks feel like theyre ready. Were looking at a completely different discussion that will be had in two weeks as opposed to the one you could have had a split field again. You can imagine that Bernie Sanders is going to go after him, clearly they feel that they have some of the same, even though they dont share an ideology, they share sort of a demographic in a lot of other ways in terms of the labor support and others. Quickly, also Tulsi Gabbert is not there, which is good news for Kamala Harris because she landed some pretty significant blows on Kamala Harris last time as well. So interesting things happen at the bottom of those polls also heidi, well see joe biden and elizabeth warren. That is the first time where were going to see someone who is as sharply focused as warren and tough as a debater againhat watch, andrea. What weve seen is essentially sanders, but now that warren is on the same debate stage as biden, i do think that the gloves could come off, and especially as we look and we drill down into these polls in iowa, we see how well warren is starting to do, if she can knock him off or even come close in iowa, that is one of the number one ways that the other candidates can really destroy this veneer of electability and that joe biden is so far ahead from everyone else. Were already startling to see rumblings of that in the polling in terms of enthusiasm levels for warren, who has higher enthusiasm levels than biden. Shes got very big crowds and she also has a really impressive ground game this early in nevada, in iowa, which in iowa and caucus state, thats exactly what you need. Jere jeremy, the other thing thats so interesting is the quinnipiac poll the head to heads with President Trump, where not just joe biden, but all of the candidates are way ahead in any kind of matchup, but joe biden 5438 against President Trump, Bernie Sanders 5339. These are enormous gaps with the incumbent president. Whats more, andrea, these numbers by and large track with what republicans are seeing privately in their own surveys. They know hes in big trouble. The Republican National committee, the trump campaign, individual republican congressional districts, where theyre looking at this. I spoke with somebody the other day who had alexandria ocasiocortez running even in a district in the south, thats incredible, not a democratic leaning district, this is an evenly split district. President trump is in a lot of trouble, and theres really nothing hes doing to help himself. Hes in a lot of trouble but can i add because i have this ptsd from 2016 where we looked at the National Polls and assumed that hillary had this huge lead. Electoral. That each time we are tempted to look at the polls we remind ourselves we have to look at a handful of state level polls including michigan, wisconsin, iowa, ohio, places like that. Pennsylvania. Still closer. The National Polls are distorted by california and by new york, by the large states with the huge populations. Steve kornacki, lets talk about the warning signs perhaps for Kamala Harris. She has an opportunity now on the debate stage and all of us have pointed out without Tulsi Gabbert, she may not face those kinds of challenges, but still shes not showing the kind of support in these polls that one would have thought she would. Its fascinating, too. Pardon me, we are here at the end of the summer. Use the quinnipiac poll as an example. Two things, you mentioned Kamala Harris, also this biden number, look how far apart they are right now, 32 for biden, Kamala Harris back at 7 . Weve seen this in a few different polls and think back to just two months ago, that first democratic debate here on nbc, you had that showdown, Kamala Harris went after joe biden, seemed to catch him flat footed. Remember, there were polls that came out in the week or two after that debate this had biden support crash into the low 20s, Kamala Harris surging close to 20 . That happened in the course of the summer, yet here we are at the end of the summer, she has regressed, biden surged back into a lead in this thing in the low 30s. Theyre back where they started basically. I think it showed you Kamala Harris obviously in sort of that rehearsed moment she pulled off on the debate stage, she did herself some good. She was not able to follow up on that and again, as you guys were talking about there a minute ago, i think that second debate and Tulsi Gabbert and that exchange might have knocked her back a little bit. What about the one percenters . Are we going to see other people dropping out . Youre not going to see tom steyer dropping out because shes pouring a ton of money into some of the early states. Hes not going anymowhere. Youll see soul searching with gillibrand, michael bennet, the one percenters. The one percenters or the lower percenters in the debate who qualified, those are where youre going to see most likely people taking shots at some of the frontrunners so people like castro, klobuchar, yang. Yang probably not, but you know, beto. Thats not her m. O. You have to make some sound here. Its kind of like if you dont make any sound, if youre in the middle of the forest, no one hears you, are you making a sounds . a little bit of that kind of situation. I think her sound will be against the president. Possibly. But not against fellow democrats. This is her opportunity. Shes gone out of her way to make the case shes minnesota nice. I think you get to a problem with the context of these debates. The issue has always been they do not provide a lot of new information and even though were down to ten candidates on that stage right now, its still going to be another debate with ten people where they have a minute to respond. And the format we dont know exactly the format but one hopes its not the kind of format in the last debate where it was, they were really cut off and not given a chance to finish their thoughts. Speaking of finishing our thoughts well leave it there for now, steve kornacki, joelpe. Coming up, border wall blitz. President trump rushing to build his signature structure along the southern border. What murky moves has he reportedly taken to make that dream a real isnt it youre watching Andrea Mitchell reports. 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Joining me now is nbc news correspondent juliaencely, Charlie Sykes and msnbc contributor Michael Steele, former Senior Adviser to jeb bush and former spokesman for House Speaker john boehner. Michael steele, seems to me as a republican, Property Rights are an article of faith. Property rights are sacred, Eminent Domain is a sacrilege. He had control of congress the first two years of his first term and didnt take that opportunity to dot right thing to get the wall built if he wanted to build a wall by passing legislation through congress and hes now trying to ram this through executive actions because he failed to act when he had the opportunity. I hope and expect all of those people getting these instructions remember, hes only in a position to issue pardons if he wins. Charlie, the whole issue of mexico building the wall, that was a nonstarter that poisoned the relationship with mexico in all sorts of ways. Mexico has been pressured to do a lot of things, including accepting migrant and asylum applicants on their side of the border and such, but theyre not going to pay for the wall. No, theyre not going to pay for the wall. Hes been telling his supporters hes been building a new wall. You have a lie built on top of a lie and a trifecta of awfulness. The president saying take the land, ignore the law, and i will pardon you. So weve had this long debate about the resilience of our institutions. When you have a president who has profound contempt for the institutional norms and for the rule of law, and this story which i think is quite plausible, gives you a sense of what he is prepared to do unless other institutions stand up and push back, but this story, which you think about the president of the United States telling people, go ahead, break the law. I will pardon you if i get reelected, what right now is the constitutional institutional block check on that kind of power . This is something that this is kind of feels like a wakeup moment about what we have done with the presidency predating trump but what were going to have to deal with and live with. Julia, you have reporting you broke that the president is also moving money that had already been appropriated for fema, for disaster relief, weve got the hurricane season, puerto rico and all the rest, and moving that to the border. Yes, thats right. So in addition to building more detention space for i. C. E. , they want to hold 20 50,000 immigrants in i. C. E. Detention space, more than the 42,000 appropriated by congress. Theyre pulling from all over dhs, Cyber Security, tsa, fema. Then they are dipping into specifically Femas Disaster Relief Fund to fund 155 million for temporary Court Hearing locations along the border and that is precisely for the immigrants that you just talked about sent back to mexico to wait for their asylum hearing. Usually when you have to pull on emergency funding and notify congress and not go through the usual routes, youll know this better than anyone, you have to show its because youre protecting the United States, that there could be damage to property or National Security risk. This is actually because of a policy that this administration put in place, that is why they are dipping into this 155 million. So again, they get in this place where its really hard to justify, and you can read through these documents where they have to justify each line, and they say well, absent any catastrophic events. What is the fema relief fund for, except for catastrophic events . To take money from Cyber Security and tsa, seems to me that those are two accounts that are underfunded as it is, or under, you know, recognized. Thats why we have to nuke the hurricanes. We dont have the fema money to deal with it. There are guardrails, of course. We have the Justice Department and we know that the Justice Department and william barr, the attorney general, the agency that you cover yes. That institution is going to protect us from any constitutional violations of the emoluments clause, for instance, Michael Steele. What about the Christmas Party that the attorney general is going to have at the trump hotel