The biggest story youll be hearing about today is president obamas address announcing his plan to take executive action on Immigration Reform. Msnbcs live coverage of that address begins at 7 45 p. M. Eastern. Well have much more starting right now on morning joe live edition from d. C. This is an extraordinarily difficult situation. More than 230 truck loads of snow removed from south buffalo. Youre going to see peoples
houses are going to be demolished from this snow. Its so heavy. Alone its 200, 300 pounds on a roof. Maybe thousands of pounds. The snow is coming down so much right now that i dont see us getting out of here for another day if that. Maybe even two days. Good morning. Its thursday, november 20th. Welcome to morning joe. With us on set in washington, we have the New York Times reporter and msnbc contributor Jeremy Peters, White House Correspondent for the wall street journal, carol lee, columnist alan hunt and on capitol hill, the host and managing editor of news 1 now, Rowland Martin and joe and me here in d. C. Well start with the snow in new york. Incredible snow totals in buffalo new york with more snow on the way. Forecasters expect another three feet in parts of the region in addition to the five feet that has already fallen this week. The weather has already claimed seven lives and now the National Guard is on hand to assist in this state of emergency. The Buffalo Bills are now offering 10 an hour and free tickets to sundays game for people who help shovel out the stadium. Well talk to Governor Andrew Cuomo about this. Lets go to bill karins who is tracking this epic storm. This is historic in this region and were watching round two. Where it sets up will be critical to those people that have struggled for the last two or three days. This aerial drone video is incredible. What caught my attention is when an email came out that says each and every hours has the equivalent of two f150 pickup trucks on the roof right now and another three feet of snow will be like adding another pickup truck to every single home and
thats why they are worried about structures and roofs collapsing. Let me show you the radar here. The band set up off lake erie. The snow towns, the ones that were concerned with are just south of buffalo. Its not a large area. Right now we have set up this snow band just south of there. If it stays there, those areas werent hit as hard. It would be okay. We can deal with it. Thats what well be staring at all day long as that heavy snow band and if it shifts north like we expect later this morning, it will be right over those hard hit areas. You know, bill, i cant look at these pictures and not remember back when i lived in upstate new york back in the late 70s. And the blizzard of 1978 was historic. The snowfall just kept coming. But they got more snowfall in one day yesterday than they get in an entire season. Where did this come from . What caused this . Were having mid januarytype
cold in the middle of snowflake. Typically the great lakes are known for their lakeeffect events but usually its not this cold and of course its early in the winter season so the lakes were Still Holding a lot of that warmth from the summer and the fall. We had this incredible temperature difference between the warm water in the lake and very extreme cold so we had vertical the air was rising so fast vertically it just produced four to six inches an hour. With todays snow well only get two to three inches an hour but with pictures that you see now from two days ago, we had four to six inches of snow an hour. Thats incredible rates. Thats why a lot of people have never seen anything like this. Its unbelievable. Jump back in if theres anything new to report. Bill, thank you very much. Okay. To the other big story in washington Jeremy Peters says it was like a pinball machine in capitol hill. You couldnt write the quotes boehner wants to get them out
of town as fast as possible and they are on planes tonight and theyll be gone by the time the president makes his announcement. We were there. President obama will announce executive action tonight to shield as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. The president says the moves comes after a failure of congress to approve a comprehensive reform bill. What im going to be laying out is things i can do with my Lawful Authority as president to make the system work better even as i continue to work with congress and encourage them to get a bipartisan comprehensive bill that can solve the entire problem. Reportedly about 4 Million People who have lived on u. S. Soil at least five years and without a criminal record can apply for work papers. About a million more can avoid deportation through other means. The people who qualify wont get access to Government Healthcare including obamacare. Frustrating many activists. A new nbc wall street journal
poll show 57 support for pathway to citizenship and numbers flip when americans are asked whether executive action is the right approach. In fact, the president doubted his own Legal Authority just last year. Young people who have basically grown up here are americans that we should welcome. Were not going to have them operate under a cloud, under a shadow. If we start broadening that essentially i would be ignoring the law in a way that i think would be very difficult to defend legally so thats not an option and i do get a little worried that advocates of Immigration Reform start losing heart and immediately think somehow theres an out here. If congress doesnt act, well just have the president sign something and that will take care of it and we wont have to worry about it. Its quite a change. Whats happened in the year from the time the president said this would be unconstitutional . He thought he would get a bill passed in the last congress and he didnt is what happened. Did the constitution change . I dont agree with his analysis back then. I think hes on pretty solid legal ground. I sure do. Judge richard pozner, his son wrote a piece a couple weeks ago and he said this isnt a paragraph. Hes doing what all of his predecessors did. Hes not deporting 5 million immigrants. This is just officially recognizing current law and, joe, Congress Tomorrow can come in and overturn this. Next president on day one, january 20th, can rescind this. The Washington Post says that frustration with congress doesnt give the president the right to shred the constitution. Obviously the white house lawyers while publicly may be laughing this off have to be
concerned about a legal challenge. For sure. And mostly because you have the president out there saying that what you guys just showed that what he was he couldnt do this. If you look back at what he was trying to do then versus trying to do now is hes trying to work different audiences. At that time when he said those things, he was trying to hold off advocates who some say argue he went too far on that end. Now he has waited a year. He and Speaker Boehner had secret talks for a year where they thought they would get something done and he cant. His legal team has gone over this and combed over this. Its not going to stop lawsuits from happening. And well talk about whether its going to succeed or not a little bit. Jeremy, you sense some conservatives like matt lewis have said the president is baiting republicans. He wants talk of impeachment and
talk of lawsuits and talk of shutdowns. And hes getting it. Hes getting to talk about that. I think that is the problem on the right right now. How do they harness this energy. Does it become this galvanizing, energizing event like obamacare was. Or does the Republican Party pull itself apart over this. Whats likely to happen is this is all going to roll over into a debate over the budget in the beginning of next year. And this is when republicans are going to finally take control of congress for the First Time Since 2007. Will the new conference be defined by this infighting over immigration. We dont know. Lets bring in a different dynamic. Joining us from the republican governors conference in florida. Kasie hunt, you caught up with several governors yesterday to ask about the president s moves on immigration. Lets take a look at this. This is a president who talked years ago about the audacity of hope. Its audacity of a power grab. I dont think a government shut down is in the cards. After the election the president wants to grant amnesty and go around congress. If he wants to change the law, the way to do this is to pass a bill in the house and senate and not ignore the law and ignore the constitution. Okay. Kasie hunt, fill us in. You gave us a taste of what they have to say. Reporter that is just a taste, mika. There was a lot of outrage i would say here at the Republican Governors Association after it was announced. It quickly became the talk of this conference. Rick perry says its likely that texas will sue the federal government over this. I think jeremy touched on the idea that there may be multiple lawsuits. You have to remember that this conference is set in the context of the upcoming 2016 fight. You have a half dozen people here who are likely to run for president in 2016. This debate we were talking
about it in context of just this immediate budget fight. Think about how thiS Immigration executive order is going to play over the course of the next year. I asked governor Chris Christie whether or not he would run on a platform of overturning this . Would he get out there and say, hey, im going to roll this back. He claimed it was too hypothetical. Think about that in context of a republican primary. Are republican primary voters stand to say candidates wont roll this back . Once you get to a general election, that becomes a real problem. It seems to me the white house is very keen on that. Casey, thank you. So what do you think before we go to rowland . I think Justice Roberts, chief Justice Roberts, is going to have the final say in this like he did with Affordable Care act and i thought the most interesting part of that was when Justice Roberts said, wait a second, there was an election and if you dont want the Affordable Care act,
republicans, theres another election coming up. Were not going to do your bidding for you. I think you have the same case here in reverse. This time youre going to have Roberts Court saying wait a second, the president said this was unconstitutional. It does expand the president s powers in a way that were uncomfortable with perhaps enforcement for irs statutes in the future, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There was an election. There was a campaign. The majority of americans are against this. Democrats were afraid to run on it. So now for the president to unilaterally decide to do this on his own, i think just sort of i think will be concerning to the court and i think the same conservatives that were condemning the Roberts Court for looking at the political realities actually may find a friend in him this time. Perhaps that will take a couple years probably, joe, before it works its way through. Im hearing that from conservatives. When truman took over the steel
mills, that was, like, two months. The Supreme Court turned it around. I think it will take longer than that. You may be right on this. I do think that the argument some make there was an election and people voted one way and therefore the president shouldnt do something. When george bush did the surge in 2007, nobody said theres an abuse of power and voters in 2006 were against the iraq war. Its different with a commander in chief, isnt it . To be sure. Its more clear cut. I also think going back to jeremys point that the dream of democrats is that steve king of iowa will become the voice. Hes having a president ial forum. Let us also say that is the dream of left wing journalists across america as well. Exactly. Lets bring in rowland. Can you sympathize with conservatives who say that this
strikes them as antidemocratic that you have a congress that was elected, a congress that ran against this sort of Immigration Reform, and we just had elections. It was a bit of a landslide for the republicans and now you have a president thats going to legalize 5 million Illegal Immigrants with a stroke of a pen. While were in the middle of the debate. Not like what reagan and bush did which were cleanup operations. While were in the middle of the debate and using this also as a threat. Do you see any justification for that concern . I understand the point theyre making. Heres the thing that kills me when it comes to inside the beltway politics. There was a Midterm Election but there was a president ial election and hes been elected twice so the Midterm Elections somehow doesnt negate the president ial elections that took place in 2012. And so he also look, he got
the popular vote versus congressional races, u. S. Senate races. One of the problems of the president is he made the mistake of hoping for a bill and he makes these Public Comments and so now he has to counter his own argument and thats crazy. Second of all, hes the other question he has to ask. Why 5 million . Why that number . Why not six, why not seven, why not eight . And the white house has to provide lawyers to explain how they arrive at this conclusion. Its not a question of poll numbers. Theyre going to have to make a case beyond simply his president ial address and if it throws into limbo because al said it what happens in two years . New president. It might get pulled back and then what . I think roland you also bring up a great question. Arbitrary number. Where did it come from . Why not 7 million . Why not 10 million . Why not hand out guest worker permits to everybody coming across the border. Lets bring in jim. There was a president ial election but the president didnt run on this in the president ial election. Its like he was against gay marriage until he knew he would never run for president again. He waited until the very end. In this case, he waited until after the mid terms because he didnt want to hurt democrats. Again, youre going to have a president signing something he knows the American People are against, that he Knows Congress is against, im just wondering if the republicans may not be standing on as weak of ground as they usually do when they set their hair on fire. Its such a fascinating power play on his part. Obviously could have done it earlier but waited for purely political reasons to punt until after the election. His calculation is simple. He believes the country is ungovernable right now. Zero middle ground between him and republicans and this forces action. Theres a small percentage he loses in court but it forces something. He gets part of what he wants on Immigration Reform for this specific segment of people or he forces congress to actually pass a law to undo it or modify it or make other changes that he thinks will lead to the solution thats closer to his ideal on Immigration Reform. Basically he said the hell with it. I wont compromise with republicans. Ill do a partisan act and you saw jeremy is talking about it. You know what republican reaction is going to be. I think it defines the next two years and makes it impossible to get anything done in washington. The president would say its virtually impossible to get anything done to begin with. Such a defeatist attitude. It really is. The president really has said im not going to be able to make washington work for the last two years. I understand the power play. I understand his frustration. I understand his frustration in dealing with congress because
time and time again john boehner has not been able to do what Mitch Mcconnell has been able to do. John boehner makes a promise and he cant keep the promise because of an unruly caucus. I was talking to people very close to the speaker yesterday. They have a lot more control now than theyve had. In fact, they were smiling about their broad margin and said good luck trouble makers because you will be on the backbench and nobody is going to hear you. The president , has he poisoned the well for the last two years . The one important thing about all of this is that he comple completely boxed himself in. He promised to do this by the end of the summer. He walked back from that. Hes now promised to do it by the end of the year. His whole reputation is tied up in setting red lines and then not following through and if youre the white house, the last thing you wanted to do is once again set a red line and not followthrough when you are already a lame duck. Thats the white houses thinking by the way. He cant break his word. I understand for conservatives but if you talk to those close to the president theyll say he cant draw another red line and ignore it. Hes already a lame duck. Everyone is turning attention away from the white house in a matter of months and if he were to set a red line and then not followthrough with it, hes weakened even further than the election left him. I can tell you too, al hunt, the one thing i told people in the house when they came to the house if you think being obedient 100 to the speaker and leadership is going to get them to Pay Attention to you, you dont know how this place works. George h. W. Bush was seen as weak by a lot of people in congress because he was so kind and so nice and invited so many people in and it did him no good. George w. Bush learned that lesson. I wonder if barack obama is not laying down a marker here an