About drama. We also know that you can avoid drama by getting an annual checkup. So go, know, and take control of your health. It could save your life. Cigna. Together, all the way. States. Cant happen that way anymore. That was the president as he and the first lady walked into Easter Church services today. He had a tweet saying need wall. And this one concluding with no more daca deal. President spending the holiday at his club in palm beach. But according to the Washington Post the president s Chief Of Staff and supposed moderating force in the west wing john kelly did not travel with him and Senior AdviserSteven Miller did. Want to welcome in the panel. Here in new york, business and politics reporter for the Wall Street Journal shelby holiday. Editor at large for reason magazine, matt welch. In d. C. Writer for the Atlantic Molly and betsy woodruff. Thank you for being with us on this Easter Sunday night. Betsy, you and the news. I think the president were not clear what prompted the tweets
this morning and might have been seeing something on fox fews about folks making way to the mexican border. He sends off the series of tweets and says no more daca deal f. Youre a democrat or if youre a republican in washington, thinking theres a compromise to be worked on here, whats your reaction to this tonight . Its certainly a reaction of pessimism for democrats. The tweets and miller for years back to his time on capitol hill under then senator Jeff Sessions is one that people are coming to the United States because they want to get daca, theres scant if any proof that daca was a driver of illegal immigration. However, that line is something that Stephen Miller and folks in his broader cohort have been pushing for years, that daca was
the reason for all sorts of bad things that happened at the border, that have happened over the years since the policy was put in place. So, the president seems to be tweeting and talking in a way that suggests or indicates that Stephen Miller is ascend ant within his inner circle. Its interesting, too, shelby, because weve seen the president with this issue on dak a weve seen conflicting signals the laviolette several months. He was at the meeting talking about were going to get this deal done. He said he seize this, sometimes he sees this as an issue of drying to do the right thing morally by these folks. Right. Now you get this, i think this does raise the question what betsy was saying there about Stephen Miller maybe having his ear on this. Even if the president at least partly is inclined to get to a deal on this, can he ever actually sign off on it with Stephen Miller and with folks on the right who have that sort of view of this . Right. Well, thats a major question. The president has said that he wants a deal, now hes saying absolutely not. There are questions about how much he even understands daca at this point, as we heard him in that sound bite say people are
coming in to take advantage of daca. As my colleague at the Wall Street Journal said you cant take advantage of daca if youre coming in now or in the future. It is unclear if the president really understands this policy and i also think it is worth noting there have been potential deals in the past that he has said no to because they didnt do enough for family migration, they didnt do enough for the diversity visa lottery program. So, people have sort of tried to meet him in the middle and it is unclear where hed be willing to he hasnt put down any markers as to where he would be willing to accept a deal. It makes negotiating with the president like that really hard because nobody knows what hes willing to take. And so meanwhile the whole issue just kind of sits here. Its unresolved. The status of these kids and others potentially in limbo, matt. Its going through the court system a little bit. Some sense maybe something will happen politically, maybe not now based on this. Is this going to sort of sit there . The administration also you have tru sending signals saying, hey, even if we dont get this changed were not going to do anything. Is this going to sit unresolved
for the Foreteeseeable Future . Until the courts resolve, yes. President trump keeps trying to pin it on democrats every single time. Democrats didnt deal its on them. Theres a little bit of panic behind that. Any time you poll this question to support daca or support the notion of kids who came here ill littlely should or should not be deported were talking twothirds to 80 of americans who say dont deport those kids. When we start seeing those kids get deported whether its people who have signed up for daca program which is Something Like 800,000, or the much Larger Population i think its more like 1. 8 million of kids who are here illegally who are under 18, once we start seeing that footage of them getting deported, its not democrats who are going to be blamed. I do not think. It is going to be donald trump because he made the proactive decision to kick daca back to congress with the sixmonth d deadline and that passed in march. It is going to be on him. We are seeing some panic in his voice as he does this. That said its his decision. If he clearly thinks the politician on his base or some level are going to be good for huh him. Within his base, this is the defining issue trump ran on in addition to Everything Else he said. At the same time all of this is playing after the Trump Administration has been accelerating plans for a wall, spanning the border with mexico, on friday officials announced they have funding to build or replace 100 miles of fencing. Pentagon chief spokesperson confirming the president spoke with defense secretary jim mattis about the possibilities of using Defense Department funds for the wall. And during a speech in cleveland, the president seemed to compare the u. S. mexico border to another global hot spot. Look at korea. We have a border at korea. We have a wall of soldiers. We dont get paid very much for this, do we . You look at that. Nobody comes through. But our own border, we dont take care of it. Think of it. We spend billions of dollars in other countries maintaining their borders and we cant maintain our borders in our own country. Is there something a little bit wrong with that . And julia, whats so interesting about that, were playing that from the president in ohio, a rally he had a couple days ago, that is trump speaking to his base. Thats trump like he was in all the republican primary rallies he was, General Election rallies. That is him speaking to his base. The rhetoric there youre hearing on the border on mexico, on immigration, its same rhetoric during the campaign. The difference is hes been president more than a year. Right, this is the problem weve had since he became president , how to differentiate between the overt political messaging and the reality of what he wants to do policy wise. So, is he really calling for a Demilitarized Zone with absolutely no movement back and forth at the u. S. mexico border . Hard to say because on one hand its just a political rally. Hes talking to his base. Hes also the commander in chief. I think a lot of this is unfortunately political messaging in the same way the Citizenship Question were seeing now on the 2020 census. I think a lot of this is little lobs across the white house fence to the base. And i think, you know, the president knows the 2018 election is coming up and i think some kind of daca deal might not play well with that riled up base thats still really, really approves of him. Let me talk about the politics of this, though, from a slightly different direction, too. Matt just said, too, from trumps standpoint, this idea and republican standpoint, this idea you would then have if this expires, if theres been enforcement, if there is then deportations, from a Public Relations standpoint that could be terrible for trump, be terrible for the republicans. I am reminded a couple months ago when was tied in with Government Funding it was the democrats who ended up getting nervous in that situation. They felt while there was broad public December Think for the dreamers, it start today look like democrats were prioritizing
the dreamers over Government Funding and democrats then backed down a little bit. I wonder, betsy, maybe ill throw this to you. If this thing goes into limbo for the next few months where theres no deal on daca, trumps not moving toward a deal, but were also not getting deportations. Is there any Political Risk there for democrats just in terms of the more they talk about this at the expense of talking about jobs or, you know, social security, any of their traditional bread and butter issues, that that issue what are they prioritizing here comes into play . The Priority Question puts democrats between a rock and a hard place. The reality is that their base for the most part is very doggedly supportive of the daca program and, in fact, i remember in 2014 when i covered that Midterm Election season, one of the problems for democrats was that they hadnt been able to get comprehensive Immigration Reform passed. At that point the president hadnt taken all the steps he would end up taking to try to protect some undocumented immigrants. And as a result, many hispanic voters just decided to stay home. And, in fact, there was at least
one Activist Group that was encouraging its members not to vote for democrats because they thought democrats hadnt fought hard enough and, of course, the caving that we saw from Chuck Schumer when democrats tried to use a Government Shutdown legislation to save daca but then failed, thats something that frustrates their base at the same time for democrats to win over the votes in that blue wall, for them to win back the blue wall, pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, even look, minnesota is no longer on lock for democrats. They have to talk about some of the more traditionally blue collar issues that republicans talked about successfully in 2016. Its a really tough spot for them to be in and i imagine that Congressman Ellis on might have one or two thoughts about it. Its ape dicey situation for them. Im going to ask him about that as soon as we get him out here. But, shelby, i am interested, how did sort of split the is there a way politically to split the difference . Because as betsy is saying there in terms of the democratic base, in terms of, you know, latino voters, latino activists in particular, this is the issue. Right. Right now, and on the other hand, you talk about some of those voters out there who traditionally voted democrat, flipped to trump, who maybe want to see a democrat get up there and say, take a harder line on the border. Is there any way you can span that divide . Its hard when you have a president also who is changing his mind in, like i said, sort of making it impossible to negotiate. But i think one issue that the democrats really struggle with is theyre not united. We saw i went back during what we call the Chuck Schumer debacle, some democrats were sort of floating the idea that it would be great to give the president his wall, take the daca deal, move on. And other democrats said absolutely not, no way. Because there is a lack of unity, its not just where they can find common ground. Its theyre just on completely different ends of this issue and its unclear if they can all theyve done a really good job sticking together the past year. On this particular issue, this is not an instance where they have stuff together and its really hurt them. And the other sort of flareup on this front politically this week, matt, was over this question of the
census. The census is going to be taken in 2020. The Trump Administration is going to put back into the census the question about immigration status. Folks in this country lawfully. There is a backlash from activists groups on the left, some on the right as well. This is one where i am very curious to see what the polling is on this because i can imagine there are objections, there are concerns that have been raised about is this going to intimidate folks into not answering the question, getting an inaccurate count, all sorts of implications for that. I can imagine that resonating with people. I can imagine people out there saying, shouldnt we know how many citizens are in this country . If you polled the question, should congress be reapportioned every ten years based On Total Population, including illegal immigrants, you get a whole lot of people saying no, and yet that is the constitution and legal fact in the United States. This is part of the reason why republicans have been asking and been agitating for this to happen for a long time. David vitter, former senator for
louisiana, chris kobak, notorious Secretary Of State in kansas who has been going after the illusion of illegal immigrant voter fraud for a long time, they have backed this a long time. The question being put on the census a long time particularly because they know, or they hope it would lead to a lower Response Rate among illegal immigrants. There by, making that redrawing exercise more favorable for states that dont have illegal immigrant populations because on some level it sort of feels wrong. We shouldnt do this. Well, thats what we have been doing. Redraw the maps based On Total Population regardless of voting rights. Its been that way for a long time. So, Commerce Secretary wilbur ross when he defended this thing, he had a very i think insincere claim that, well, we dont have good data to support that will say larger nonResponse Rates. Theres been six former directors of the Census Bureau who are ringing the alarm, bipartisan both parties appointed saying this is obviously going to affect Response Rates in a negative way. So, this is smash mouth politics right now. Republicans are trying to get a better outcome in 2020 based on this, knowing, i think, this is going to reduce, suppress or depress turnout among illegal immigrant residents. That is coming up in two years from now. We have a lot coming up on this show. Just getting started. A chill at the outset of spring, the u. S. And russia take turns sending home each others diplomats. Later deputy majority whip, tom cole, one of the tonight republicans, well talk about new reports about the desire for fresh blood in the republican leadership. And as we go to break, very few white house staffers got the send off that hope hicks did this week. Our producers tried to make it up to those who have come and gone without such fanfare. Youre watching kasie d. C. Thank you to secretary shulkin. General h. R. Mcmaster. I wish Rex Tillerson well. Gary cohn, the president of goldman sachs. Hope hicks. Director comey. The greatest businessman in the world. Carl icahn. General mike flynn. Sean spicer, he is a wonderful human being. I like mr. Bannon. Ask reince is really a star. Secretary price. Im really at a point where were close to having the cabinet and other things that i want. I just bought a house. Oh very nice. Now im turning into my dad. I text in full sentences. I refer to every child as chief. This hat was free. What am i supposed to do, not wear it . Next thing you know, im telling strangers defense wins championships. Well, it does. Right . Why is the door open . Are we trying to air condition the whole neighborhood . At least i bundled home and auto on an internet website, progressive. Com. Progressive cant save you from becoming your parents, but we can save you money when you bundle home and auto. I mean, why would i replace this . Its not broken. I mean, why would i replace this . Hello. Hi. Hows it going . Alright, how ya doing . Welcome so, this is the allnew chevy traverse. What do ya think . This looks better than 99 of the suvs out there. Its very modern. Sleek. Maybe the most impressive part of the allnew traverse. Is whats on the inside. gasp surprise what are you doing here . Ive missed you guys i havent seen you guys in so long gasp whats happening . we flew her out. Its a family car, we had to put your family in it yeah, it gets 7 thumbs up
this right here, video showing the first of the two planes carrying them and their families back home. This is all part of a diplomatic game of chicken between russia and the United States over the poisoning of an exrussian spy on british soil. This week the Trump Administration decided to kick out 60 russian diplomats, also shuttering the countrys seattle consulate. The u. S. Joined the u. K. , nato and 25 other countries that also expelled russian diplomats. Russia, meanwhile, now in the process of kicking out 150 western diplomats in response. Nbcs Savannah Guthrie spoke with russias ambassador to the United States who explained why russia took that action. If anybody slap your cheek, your face, what will be reaction from your side . You will think, not you will think, you will try to do and you will retaliate. It goes without saying. W