Well dig into that. Trouble brewing. How the Government Shutdown is hurting american breweries, including one oklahoma business with a half Million Dollars worth of beer it cant sell. Well get to that story in just a moment. We start with President Trumps primetime appeal. Nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer will be delivering the democratic response. Talks are at a standstill. Officials are manufacturing an emergency to win money. Legal issue is one big problem, another issue, the political problem. Members of his own party dont seem keen on this new fight. Lets start with our nbc reporters. Jeff, well start with you. What can we expect to hear from the president tonight . What does he hope to accomplish with this primetime address . Reporter President Trump is going to attempt to make the case direct to the American People that there is an imminent threat brewing along the border that is best addressed, best solved by a steel barrier. Hes going to make the case from the oval office for the first time. Hes going to try to commandeer all of the historical residence, all of the symbolic might that office lends to boost his political approach that so far has failed in getting democrats to cave to his 5 billion demand for this wall and other Border Security measures. This pr blitz comes at a Pivotal Point in the live of this shutdown. Tonight the president has this speech. Tomorrow, the first house vote is going to happen. Thats when democrats are going to bring bills to the floor to reopen the government as they try to Pressure Senate republicans. Thursday we know the president heads to the border and then friday, friday january 11th, thats the day you have those affected 800,000 federal workers, theyre going to miss their first paycheck. Then saturday, this shutdown will go into the history books if it lasts that long as the longest shutdown ever. The last person to hold that dubious distinction was president clinton in the 1990s. The Vice President made the rounds this morning. He talked to our Hallie Jackson. She asked him to account for President Trumps statement that his predecessors, former president s, told him they support a border wall when none of the president s actually said that. Take a look. Which former president told President Trump he should have built a wall . All their representatives have denied that was the case. I know the president has said that that was his impression from previous administrations. Previous president s. I know ive seen clips of previous president s talking about the importance of Border Security, importance of addressing the issue of illegal immigration. Reporter as the Vice President there tries to clean up the president s statement, i think that actually underscores one of the challenges that President Trump faces tonight. Because hes spent so many of the last several years exploiting immigration, attacking undocumented immigrants, he faces a ton of skepticism of americans who arent already in his camp that this is actually a National Security issue and not a political issue. Jeff, thank you. Julia, lets go back to that question i posed at the beginning of the broadcast here a few minutes ago. The administration continues to call this a crisis. There is some new reporting, your reporting that suggests otherwise, tell us about it. Reporter thats right. The number we kept hearing since about friday morning when Sarah Huckabee sanders came out, theyve been saying that 4,000 known or suspected terrorists came into the country in the fiscal year 2018. We now know that only six nonu. S. Citizens or residents were caught coming through the southern border in the first half of 2018. We dont have the data past that. Based on those projections, it would be hard to see how you would go from six to 4,000. This fact checks a lot of what the administration has been using to underpin their argument that there needs to be a wall and that there needs to be a National Emergency in order to get that wall if congress doesnt approve the funding. Julia ainsley, thank you. Solid reporting, jeff bennett, thanks as always. Michael steel is with me, former rnc chairman. Mr. Steel, ill start with you. Two questions. What do you think were going to hear from the president tonight . What would you like to hear from President Trump tonight . Lies, lies and more damn lies is what were going to hear. What id like to hear is the president give an honest assessment of our Current Situation, which is were not in a crisis. This about getting something he wants that the congress is not willing to give him. So this is not called a national primetime speech from the president. Its required of him to get in a room and lessen his demands that are not going to be met and work on the compromise hes going to get to. Youve got a situation where youve got the Vice President of the United States trying to cover up a lie. The Vice President knows that the president didnt speak to any of his former any former president who said oh, yeah we want you to build a wall. That didnt happen. So this idea of perpetuating lies makes this argument that the president is going to make tonight that much more difficult for the American People to take in and get on his side. Because theres no caravan emergency. Theres no emergency now. And so thats the truth of the situation. And the president , unfortunately, will not tell us that tonight. Word in the last 30 minutes, michael, that nancy pelosi, the incoming speaker of the house, and Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority leader, offering their response. What do we make of that . Well, i think, again, the key negotiators are responding to the president s pitch to the nation. I think its wholly appropriate. I think it speaks to the seriousness with which the democrats are taking this. They want to be in the conversation and present the counterargument, the facts as they see it. And, again, for the American People to assess exactly what is the Current Situation on the border and what are the options that had been presented to and available to this president , starting with the legislation that was passed by republicans and democrats in the senate will be manifest, whatever the democrats put on the table tonight. I think thats where we the people watching this will have a better chance to see what is the better state of getting this resolve. That state is not going to be good because the president is right now caught in a political corner of his own making. He doesnt know how to get out of it. Philip rutger, let me flash your new article for our viewers at home. Trump aides Lay Foundation for emergency order to build wall saying border is in crisis. If the president doesnt get his way, is this a go . If it becomes a legal fight, how long could that last . Its a good question, craig. Certainly the president and others in the administration, including Vice President pence are beginning to build the case towards a National Emergency. That doesnt mean he will necessarily declare one tonight in his address. But talking about the crisis at the border, framing it in terms of a Security Threat to the country, talking about these terrorists coming in, even though those numbers are dubious, as Julia Ainsley was just explaining, is all part of building case that this is a crisis situation and the president could ultimately decide, perhaps, later this week, perhaps even next week to declare a National Emergency. Its something we know hes thinking about doing. Vice president pence told us yesterday that the White House Counsels Office are reviewing options and trying to think through what a legal strategy might look like. If trump were to make this declaration it would certainly draw political blowback from capitol hill from house democrats, but perhaps more consquencon consquenchally, court battles. Never mind that thing Eminent Domain that few people seem to want to talk about. According to another article, the law that gives him this authority requires him to use money already allocated to the military. Quote, the result is that the administration could have to claw back money from projects congress has debated and funded. I cant imagine congress, republican or democrat, would like that, especially if it were in his or her district. I think thats right, craig. I mean, if trump were to do this National Emergency declaration it would open up a can of worms, including that. The Court Challenges could be messy for the president. I was talking to bob bauer who said that President Trump has been so inconsistent about the wall and trying to defend the reasoning behind why it needs to be built. All of that would become exposed in a legal challenge and would really crippleth the administrations credibility. If he cant get democrats on board, he wants to show his conservative base hes fighting and willing to take it all the way to a court challenge. Michael, the administration continues to hammer these false stats about threats coming across the southern border. Sarah sanders, she got hammered sunday on one of them. Heres another one that was offered by the Vice President during all three of his morning show interviews. It has to do with the threat from special interest aliens. Take a listen. 3,000 special interest individuals, more than 3,000 special interest aliens were apprehended on our southern border. On the southern border, last year alone, 3,000 special interest aliens were apprehended trying to come into our country. All right. Dhs quotes nonu. S. Person flagged based on a analysis of travel patterns. Dhs has never indicated the special interest alien designation means more than that. How does he overcome his truth deficit tonight . He doesnt. Thats the part thats so frustrating here. I mean the lies are so obvious and so plain in your face. Yet hes going to come before the cameras with this, you know, straight faced serious concern telling us that, you know, with were being overrun at the border by these special interest aliens. Who, in fact, could be your cousin who happened to have a travel pattern that flagged the border patrol. It could be your uncle whose name is one thats, you know, synonymous to other names in the system. A lot of people get caught in that net are not prosecuted. Theyre not pulled aside and detained forever and day or put at guantanamo. So this, again, shows the fallacy of all this. We do not have an emergency on our border. We just dont. This is the president making this up. Because if we had such an emergency, why now . Why didnt you do this six months ago . Why didnt you do this in the First Quarter of 2018 . And the fact is this is political gamesmanship. The president has to save face with the base who have already told him if you do not deliver this wall, the rest of your presidency will be threatened. Thats the plain and simple truth. Thank you both. Lets get back to the breaking news. Federal prosecutors in new york city have charged Natalia Veselnitskaya with obstruction. The attorney, you may remember, was also the person that met with candidate trumps inner circle, including don jr. Im joined on the phone by nbc Investigative Reporter tom winter. Richard engel also joins me from london. He has interviewed this woman. On the phone, danny cevellos. So, craig, the bottom line on this, is this relates to a filing that she made in statements she made in court as part of her legal representation. Basically she said, no, i went through this Legal Process and was able to get certain documents and they show a whole series of facts that disputes what the government had pursued what federal prosecutors in new york had pursued in a civil case. This is all tied to a much larger Money Laundering and the m a whole host of other charges that were brought. This specificallyeralti relates assertions she had made in Court Documents. It turns out the information she put in Court Documents and the things she said and the documents she provided were actually drafted by the senior prosecutor in russia. In fact, they were not her own work, that, in fact, the claims that were contrary to what prosecutors filed here in new york were all supplied by a senior russian government prosecuting official. Thats what shes charged with specifically today. And this has no relation, whatsoever, to that 2016 meeting that you referenced. She was in town, supposedly, for to deal with Legal Proceedings and then thats when that meeting occurred at the trump tower that had donald trump jr. , Paul Manafort and other people that were also in there. But todays charges are more specific to something wholly unrelated to that. Youve interviewed her, what context can you give us . We also discussed specifically this case. We broke this story in april. I can give a little bit more context. So in 2016, when she was in new york attending that famous trump tower meeting with don jr. , jared kushner, Paul Manafort and others, she was also there helping one of her clients who was in new york being charged with Money Laundering. That was an old case and she was acting as a shadow counsel, providing legal advice. She couldnt actually represent him in court, but she was there helping in his legal defense. In that case, in that Money Laundering case, the u. S. Justice department asked the russian government to provide financial records. It asked to provide details so it could help pursue its charges of Money Laundering against her client. What we uncovered was an exchange of emails in which she was exchanging drafts of the official russian government response to the u. S. Justice departments request for information. In some stages it looked like it was dictating what the russian government response should be. At the time, she never disclosed she was helping the russian government craft its official response. She was supposedly there just as a legal advisor. And it shows how deep her connections were to the russian government. How deep her connections were to the individuals very close to the kremlin. So while it is not specifically related to the meeting at trump tower, it shows that the woman who was there meeting with Top Trump Campaign Officials was in new york, involved in a case, and helping to draft information that the russian government sent to the u. S. Justice department which would be obstruction of justice. Thats today, what the Southern District of new york charged her with. Danny, how significant of a Legal Development is this . Its very significant. Because even though these charges are on their face unrelated to the trump tower meeting, do not be surprised, now that shes been charged and indicted, if you see the next steps being a cooperation agreement. Because now that the government has an indictment against her, they can dangle in front of her the incentive to make her case go as smoothly as possible, give her the softest landing if she cooperated and tells the mueller team or government of what went on in that trump tower meeting or anything else anyone in the Justice Department wants to know about donald trump or people in his coterie. This is a very significant Legal Development, even though we do not see the names trump on this indictment, look for the Justice Department to do as it frequently does, use this as a lever to get information that it wants. Thank you. Shutdown impact. How this Government Shutdown is actually hurting the president s ability to fulfill his own campaign promises. Plus the contenders, senator Elizabeth Warren being compared to Hillary Clinton. Ill talk to a columnist who argues that warren has something clinton does not. And the president in primetime, tonights big speech sparking criticism of the major tv networks. Whats behind the backlash. Net. Whats behind the backlash uggis. But those days are over. Now, i take metamucil every day. It naturally traps and removes the waste that weighs me down, take the metamucil two week challenge and lighten up. Just take metamucil every day for two weeks. Are you ready for the challenge . Get started at metamucil. Com. Moving . 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