Pushed into military action against iran by your advisers . I have two groups of people. I have doves and hawks. Some serious hawks. Yeah. Who won the weekend . Which candidate scored standout moments in South Carolina as they cram for the first democratic president ial debate . Two weeks and big deportation begins. That threat coming directly from President Trump after he delayed nationwide i. C. E. Raids to deport thousands of undocumented immigrants in ten major u. S. Cities. Those raids were expected to take place today, but the president reversed his plan in a saturday tweet just hours before the wave of roundups were set to begin. The change of heart coming after House Speaker nancy pelosi personally called trump urging him to back off those raids. Trump agreed, but on one condition, that congress now has two weeks to work out an asylum deal and come up with a solution for the southern border. Otherwise, the mass deportations are back on. Joining me, nbcs ron allen who is outside of the white house for us this sunday. This stunning reversal by the president has earned praise, but also criticism within his base. How has he responded today . Reporter hes saying essentially the same thing today. He started tweeting saying the democrats have two weeks to solve what he calls a simple problem. The tweet says i want to give democrats every last chance to quickly negotiate simple changes to as lie succumbylum and looph. This important part of this is this simple change to asylum and loopholes. Its not that simple. Its a very fundamental change in the countrys asylum laws that the president is pushing for. Right now the president can come to the country, come into this country and claim asylum and stay here while their cases are heard. That can take months, years. They want that process, the administration does reduced to a short period of time. They want to create a system where they cant get into the country until theyre granted asylum. They argue a significant number of these cases thats the loophole. Thats what he was referring to when he said congress can close this in 15 minutes. Unclear Congress Wants to do that. The Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to the stopping of the raids by saying thank you to the president but also saying time is needed to come up with comprehensive Immigration Reform which comes up with a whole range of Things Congress hasnt been able to deal with for the better part of a decade now. The other thing is the emerging reports from the border about conditions in some of the facility facilities run by the United States there, conditions that advocates say, where places lack food, water, shelter, basic sanitation. The president was asked about this. Here is what he had to say do chuck todd on meet the press. The democrats arent even approving giving us money. Where is the money . Democrats are holding up the humanitarian aid. If the democrats would change the asylum laws and loopholes which they refuse to do because they think its good politics, everything would be solved immediately, but they refuse to do it. They refuse to do it. Reporter simple solution, but, of course, nothing is simple here in washington. Congress is going to discuss, debate, argue about these funding bills for humanitarian aid in the week ahead. Unclear whether theyll make progress and meet the twoweek deadline. Ron allen giving us a full rundown live from the white house, thank you very much. Lets bring in our panel, victoria defrancesco, professor at the lbj school of Public Affairs at the university of texas as well as daniel alonzo, former federal prosecutor and raul reyes, msnbc contributor. Victoria, lets talk about motive for a moment. Do you think the president relented because of concerns raised by democrats or because the political damage the raids could have inflicted on his own agenda . I think its a couple of reason, morgan. First of all, theres the issue of capacity. When were talking rounding up of undocumented persons from across the country, hundreds of thousands, where are we going to put them . Where are we going to provide them shelter as we see were already in the midst of a crisis in sheltering the folks that are already in detention. Theres the capacity piece. I also see the political piece. He can say, oh, i kind of tried bipartisanship in giving a hand to nancy pelosi and saying here is two weeks to do it. When it doesnt happen because not only is it less than two weeks, but we also have a campaign in the background. Nothing is going to happen, he can come back and say, see, i tried to give you some space and the democrats failed against. I think its political. I think its also logistical, and i dont know what is in Donald Trumps heart of hearts. Maybe hes seeing the truth is that this human addity, this face of humanity cant be dealt with in such harsh and sincere conditions. Victoria, you talk about the timeline. Daniel, i want to turn to you. Vice president pence says this deal should take 15 minutes. Can this take two weeks . Is two weeks even a realistic deadline . Youre not talking to an immigration lawyer, but a former federal prosecutors. No way, thats way too short. There are all sorts of issues as to asylum, humanitarian crisis, separation of families which is incredibly distasteful and enforcement of immigration laws. When i was with the Justice Department we enforced immigration laws, with different policies, but we enforced them. Rah rule, this is a community where theres already a lot of confusion and concern about the shift in immigration policy. Does this create anymore anxiety . Its created confusion, even terror among many immigrant communities. Wh when we talk about the undocumented population, the Trump Administration is talking about potentially going after 2,000 people with final orders of deportation. When we look at the larger undocumented population, you have 5 million u. S. Citizen children who have an undocumented parent. About 4 million u. S. Citizen children who live with someone undocumented. What would happen to those children . One potential legal hurdle is this could violate the president s own executive order against family separations. As you mentioned, asylum our asylum process is very complicated and for good reasonment under u. S. Statutory law, physical presence in the United States is required for asylum. Its not part of our domestic law, part of the u. N. High commission on refugees, 1967 refugee protocol. The idea that any congress could upend this and reform it in two weeks is completely unbelievable, ludicrous. And meanwhile the president is using cruelty and fear as a political weapon to terrorize these communities. Which is asking. You make an important point when you say its not just the thousands who might be affected directly, but the millions who may be affected indirectly. Victoria, we heard some of the conditions that ron allen mentioned a moment ago. Lets listen to what Vice President pence had to say about the dangerous conditions there. No american should approve of this mass influx of people coming across our border. I was at the Detention Center in knowing gal less. It was a heartbreaking scene. These are people exploited by human traffickers. Congress has to acted. It sounds like pence is punting to congress here. But then lets check this out. This week a team of doctors and lawyers traveled to the border facilities and described overcrowding and filthy conditions for hundreds of children, many of them without toothbrushes or even soap. Victoria, how much of a crisis is that . It is a huge crisis, morgan. Its a crisis that has not halted since we saw the family separation months and months and months ago. It has fallen a bit out of the news cycle, but the fact is that folks still keep coming over and they keep getting crammed into these facilities that are not prepared to house them in the conditions that we deserve to provide these folks as a United States of america. The Bigger Picture here is President Trump likes to blame congress for a lot of things. But at the same time, he has been very able at using rule changes within the executive branch to make significant tweaks to our immigration system. One very significant tweak that he could make that would help depopulate these Detention Centers and process folks more rapidly while still keeping to the letter of our asylum law is to provide more judges down at the border. That is one thing he has skirted around consistently in terms of lets follow the law of asylum cases and process them accordingly because its not as sexy as saying lets prosecute these people, lets cram them in, lets deport them. A very simple fix could have a huge impact on these folks suffering in these Detention Centers. Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. Still ahead, a spotlight on South Carolina. President ial hopefuls make big pushes in the palmetto state. The question is is it enough before this weeks first debate . Disturbing police posts. 72 Philadelphia Police officers pulled off the beat because of offensive online posts. Is there enough evidence to prosecute . Well ask the citys District Attorney next. Next. Nce with usa has been excellent. They really appreciate the military family and it really shows. With all that usaa offers why go with anybody else . We know their rates are good, we know that theyre always going to take care of us. 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The race for the white house reaching a new fever pitch this weekend. 22 Democratic Candidates making their case in the palmetto state, perfecting their message at the South CarolinaDemocratic Convention and hoping to prove why they are the best choice for president. Our own garrett haik watched all these events unfold. From the perspective of the voters and the energy you saw, which candidate came out on top . Reporter morgan, it is tough to break through when youve got that many candidates in one place at one time over a very long day. I think from the folks i talked to in the room, the candidates who made the strongest impressions are the ones that came with the tightest message and the best sense of the theater it took to grab attention in that room. It started with Kamala Harris who came into the room with a drum line backing her up and gave a very tight speech. When she talked a lot about her background as a prosecutor, able to go after predators, she applied that to donald trump, gave people an idea of what she would look like as the nominee. Elizabeth warren, likewise, always performs extremely well in these multicandidate forums. She came with a very tight message. A lot of her talking points down pat. It felt like a debate practicing session for Elizabeth Warren. Beto orourke he forego the stage entirely, set up and gave a mini version of one of his town halls in the round, brought a lot of energy. Of course, Vice President joe biden, his enormous support from the community in South Carolina, he remains the most wellknown quantity there. The last speaker of the day. Plenty of butts stayed in seats making sure they could stick around to hear the former Vice President who has this reservoir of good will in South Carolina. It seems like it might terry him a long way. Garrett, we talked about biden, buttigieg, harris. Did any of the lower tier candidates, those polling at 1 or even less, have a kind of breakthrough moment . A couple of the 1 candidates had a good day. Just being on the ticket, on the billing with some of these bigger candidates means they get a little more exposure. I was struck both jay inslee, the governor of washington state, who has a good resume, focused almost entirely on Climate Change in his campaign more broadly, he was annual to talk about some of the other issues that animated his campaign. Andrew yang, somebody nobody heart of before the start of this Campaign Continues to turn heads at events like this. Garrett haake live from the palmetto state, thanks so much. Lets bring in isha moody mills and former adviser to jeb bush, michael steele. Was there aa breakout winner this weekend . Theres not going to be a winner yet. I think we saw a lot of energy. The truth is joe biden has good will. There are other people who are exciting. Kamala harris coming out with a drum line is no small thing. Very exciting. You got 25 of the vote thats going to be africanamericans. A lot of people connected to hbcus. People loved the drum line. Elizabeth warren and her plans continue to rile people up. I dont think we saw someone breaking out, breaking through, but i do think it was good Energy Leading into the debate when theyre actually going to be able to go at each other as opposed to smile at each other. Was there a winner in terms of who stood out in terms of that energy . I dont think so. I dont think one person had the energy. Here is one thing i think was interesting. I think biden was able to make this trip and not at all have to deal with the week that preceded the trip around his comments and controversy around the segregationists he seemed to be a bit charmed by. You think he broke through the negative press . Yeah. I think it just kind of oh it was as if it hadnt happened, as if folks in South Carolina didnt realize this was what nationally we were talking about. I dont know how that bodes for cory booker who has actually been the person leading the conversation there. But i thought that was Something Interesting for us to watch when it comes to black folks and how they feel about joe biden in the south. Michael, i want to turn to you, based on at aisha just said, that joe biden was able to bounce back from that very bad last week. Do you think he was able to break through that criticism . Yes. I actually agree 100 . I think this was a very good event for the former Vice President. I think it was a reminder that the insidethebeltway twitter battles and back and forth that we get obsessed with, get focused on, dont mean much to everyday People Living their lives looking for new leadership. I thought biden was the big winner. I thought the two losers to an extent were cory booker for being unable to say to the Vice President s face, saying the criticisms. I thought that looked weak. I thought Bernie Sanders came up looking badly. Obsessed with divisions in the party, not focused on the big picture, not focused on defeating trump. Bringing the party together. So booker and sanders not weekend winners in your book. What about a primary preview, michael . Did this weekend give you any indication of what issues will be front and center in the 2020 primary . I think the Biggest Issue is and who will remain who is the best candidate to defeat drum. This is a marathon. This is going to be a long contest. Right now if im looking to put money on who will be the democratic nominee, the strongest nominee to defeat the president its probably the former Vice President joe biden. Aisha, is there a leading issue that gives us an indication of what well be focusing on . The issue is we need to take back our america, the peoples america. Thats going to be the resonating issue. Its either going to be donald trump and his only a few people he thinks are cool that are frankly white sprem sifts that can be in his camp and theyre america. We need to get rid of this president , not just because this is about no trump, no trump. Its about no trump because hes destructive, because hes a horrible president. Certainly he is volatile and not representative of the values of the country. I think thats going to be the leading issue beyond the Economic Issues or the health care, et cetera. Its going to be a constant tone of who do we who are we . Lets remember who we are . The democrats are the party of the people and we need to get back to that. That message actually sounds very similar to what Bernie Sanders message was, in terms of clamping down on the divisiveness. If you agree with michael, why do you think that didnt work . I think Bernie Sanders had a lot of issues. It was fine when he was him and Hillary Clinton and he seemed to be the only person that was thoughtful and progressive because it was just the two of them. Now theres a whole field of people who are a