Good evening, im chuck todd here in washington where in just over four hours, President Trump will speak to a joint session of congress for the first time in the Historic House chamber. President will be addressing a deeply divided nation and a deeply divided chamber tonight. So welcome to a special edition of mtp daily as we gear up for this big night in american politics. Questions are swirling around three crucial areas, the substance, the credibility of messenger, and the symbolism surrounding the night. On substance, there remains serious questions about the health care, tax reform, budget, russia, north korea, immigration. Where we got some potentially big news out of the white house today, more on that in label the. The white house briefed reporters today including myself, and a few others at nbc news ahead of tonights address. Some was off the record. Somef it wasnt. A lot is already out tre as there was confusion about what was onnd what was off and what was background. So let me just lay out what we know. According to to the white house, the president may issue a call for an immigration bill in his speech tonight a big comprehensive bipartisan immigration bill. What could be a major shift. White house says mr. Trump is open to legal status for undocumented immigrants who havent committed serious crime. Those individuals will not need to leave the country to get legal, possibly even citizenship both if the president does say this tonight, that hes open to a pathway for legal status for millions of undocumented immigrants. That would be a major shift considering the different identity on the issue of immigration. But again, this seemed to be a slightly, sort of i dont to want say off the cuff, but maybe calling it audible. All of thats a big if tonight. White house does say the president s address will focus on some other issues including Economic Issues at the hell get his what is described quote an americafirst agenda. Which includes trade and infrastructure reform. But hes not expected to offer much in the way of specifics on the thorny issue of repealing and replacing obamacare. Told the speech will end on an optimistic tone with a call for uni unity. Something that the white house believes was overlooked in his inauguration speech. In addition to issues of substance, there are renewed questions of white house credibility and flurry of fact checks calls for conflicts of interest, and of course controversial claims. So today, President Trump offered a rare acknowledgment of his administration shortcomings when it comes to messaging. But i give myself an a plus, okay, effort, but thats, you know, results are more important. In terms of messaging, i would give myself a c or c plus. Why . So my messaging isnt good. I get an a in terms what have ive actually done. In terms of messaging, c or c plus. And lastly, there are questions tonight of symbolic importance, will President Trump address the issue of antisemitism or the recent shooting in kansas where an indian man was killed as a possible hate crime. And how will democrats treat the president tonight . Will it be symbolic protests or outright disruption . Joining me now, rand paul of kentucky. He recently is calling for a full obama carrey peel and says he wont for any republican plan he considers obamacarelike. Senator paul, always a pleasure, sir. Thank you. Let me ask it in the 30,000 foot way for you. Do you think the time is right for a comprehensive, bipartisan bill right now . Do you think the political environment is there for it to happen in this president could make it happen . You know, i think there is room for movement on immigration. Ive always said it would be better done if we did aittle bit of it at a time. Most of the distrust on a part of conservatives is that even going back to reagan whenever we legalized people who came in illegally we were promised Border Security and the Border Security never came. And so conservatives are very distrustful of the process. So i think if you look at Border Security first, and then if you look like youre making progress, i think you could do other things. Im open on the dreamers, i would let the dreamers have a legal status, but i would count them against new people coming again. So for example, if youre waiting in mexico city, and you want to come here and youre a dreamer and youre already here, id give preference to the dreamers, but id count them against the numbers so what we would be doing is internally immigrating people who are already here. What is border enforcement mean though . You always hear that. And theres no agreed upon metric. For instance, its simply a more aggressive i. C. E. Which the public is now seeing. Is that enough for you . I think what you have to have, and the message needs to be sent very loud and clear that we are a welcoming country, if you come in legally, if you come in illegally, theres no tolerance. Zero tolerance that everyone will be sent back as soon as they cross in. They will be entry addicted within the first 100 feet of coming and immediately sent back. Were not going to send them to massachusetts. Were not ing to send them to alaska. Were ing to say, absolutely no illegal immigration, but the government has to prove that they can do that because conservatives have promised that in the past and never fulfilled it. If they promise that, look, im somebody whos very open to more legal immigration. Im for expanding the migrant workers. Expanding the h 1 b visas. Im pro immigration, but the government needs to prove that it can handle illegal immigration. Speaking of promises, promises made and kept. Lets go to obamacare. The president gave you initial credit when he said hey, you cant do repeal without having the replace ready to go. But you also have teamed up with two other senators to say, hey, what were seeing right now, coming out of the house even is not a full repeal, so youre not interested in any of it. Is there any Health Care Plan that isnt going to have some portion of it that could be classified as obamacare . Well, we promised the electorate we plan 2010, we took over the house, not for partial repeal. We took over the senate in 2014, we promised complete repeal, we won the white house on the complete repeal, so, the starting and ending point for republicans, and where we have previously been unified is complete repeal. Now complete repeal does not include refundable tax credits which are basically the government giving you money back that you did not pay in taxes. That is simply subsidies by another name. It would be a permanent entitlement program, and it sort of its, you know, a democrat idea dressed up in republican clothing. So im not for that. And i wont vote for that. And i think they know me at my word that i will vote no, but ive always joined by the House Freedom cause ku, 40 members, and at least three or four in the senate who are saying hey, wait a minute, why dont we just vote for repeal and lets do replacement separately. You know, its interesting, phil clyne, in the washington examiner, ote tolng about this issue itself about how far republicans willing to go on obamacare . He said democrats are willing to risk political defeat to deliver on something they believed in. So do republicans believe anything theyve been saying . Do they think obamacare is an abomination that kills jobs, drives up cost, or runs the quality of coverage . If they do, they have a duty to follow through on the promises to which they owe their majorities. No matter the political risks. Is that where you are . What i would say is im for both complete repeal and replace same day. And the replacement would fix a lot of the problems. I have a great deal of sympathy. I worked as opposition for 20 years. I have a great deal of the working class who struggle to get health care. And so what i would do is the 11 Million People that are in the individual market or the main problem is, i would let every one of them join an association and get Group Insurance. Group insurance will be cheaper, and Group Insurance will protect you against preexisting conditions. Thats a solution. Not more government handouts, we dont have any money to give people, were out of money up here. We have a 20 trillion debt we borrow a Million Dollars a minute what do you do with the medicaid what do you do with the folks that got covered on medicaid expansion. First question is how do you pay for what president obama gave them . He gave them a false hope. And he gave the country a false promise because it was dishonest accounting, there is no money to pay for it. But the way i would help those individuals, is i would let every indivual join an association to so instead of buying insurance by yourself under my plan, no one would be left buying insurance by themselves. Everybody would join an association, and what if the association had a Million People what if youre unemployed. What association are you joining if you dont have a job or what association is it that association of people looking for Health Insurance . How did that work . I think you forget that we do have a baseline for those who are not able to take care of themselves. And thats called medicaid. And we still would have that. We also have for the unemployed, there are different transitional products that you can get cobra and different insurance replacements that you get until you work again. But under my plan, the 11 Million People who are in the individual market who worry about getting sick, would be covered, they would not have a problem with preexisting conditions, and they would get a better price. Obamacare did the opposite. It made insurance too expensive, nobody wanted to buy it, and it led to a death spiral for the insurance companies. Weve got to fix that with complete repeal and replace it with the marketplace and with market reforms that will help everybody get insurance at a cheaper price. Now look, no one had said that youre somebody that panders, because if you wanted to pander on this, your own state is viewed as a Success Story when it comes to obamacare. In fact, your states former governor is going to be giving the address tonight. Why where are you on ky connect . Does it work or not work . I wouldnt exactly agree with that. Obamacare is basically medicaid expansion. Some say about 16 Million People got insurance and 14 million of them got medicaid. So if you tell me that hey, youre going to be governor of kentucky and well offer free cars to people and everybody can have a car, could i set up a website to offer everybody free car, free house, Free College Education . Its easy to offer stuff thats free. Its irresponsible. So our governor was irresponsible, president obama was irresponsible, and were left with a 20 trillion debt because they just kicked the can up to washington and said, print up more money for it. That is not a responsible way to run your country. The final question here, is it fair to the tax payers for noninsured people to take care of in an emergency room and eventually that cost get passed on to us and higher insurance rates . Theres a wide variety of ways you can take care of people. Very sick people, i think, who insurance cannot buy insurance. I think we can take care of them through government programs, but we need to make sure that its 5 of the public and not 50 of the public. So what you need is you need an expanding, growing economy where most people get their insurance through employment and employment is expanding. Right now we grow at about 1 . For every percentage point of growth that you increase growth, you add about a million jobs. If you grow at 3 instead of 1 , thats 2 Million People who are getting real insurance and have real employment and will be developing real selfworth. There are a lot of answers to this, some of it include the government, but we dont want everybody to be on the government take because then theres not enough people left to pay for all of those services. All right. Senator rand paul, republican from kentucky, appreciate you coming on and sharing your views. Always a pleasure. Thanks. Coming up, ill talk with senator Bernie Sanders about what progressives will be watching for tonight. Stay tuned. Sir theres been a breach. We need your password so we can lock down the system. My password . Yes, sir, we need your password. The password that i use . Yes, sir, your password. Theres been another breach sir right. Okay. Iha. Temyjob1. Ihatemyjob1 . Wanna get away . Now you can with southwest fares as low as 59 dollars oneway. Yes to low fares with nothing to hide. Thats transfarency. Sfx clap, clap, ding but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. Thats why i have the spark cash card from capital one. With it, i earn unlimited 2 cash back on all of my purchasing. And that unlimited 2 cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business. Which adds fuel to my bottom line. Whats in your wallet . Welcome back. Bringing guests to a president ial address to congress is now is a time honored tradition, not just by president s these days. Everyone. And tonights guests lists certainly highlights the strong partisan divide on immigration. Among President Trumps guests are three americans whose family members were killed by imgraduates living in the United States illegally. On the left, at least four democratic lawmakers have invited dreamers who are part of the Obama Era Program which exempts people illegally brought in as children from deportation. While the president has expressed support for dreamers, he has not yet said if he supports daca, as we said, you may hear more about the agenda tonight. So stay with us. Red lobsters lobsterfest is back with 9 lobster dishes. Try succulent new lobster mix match or see how sweet a lobster lovers dream can be. Theres something for everyone and everyones invited. So come in soon. Founder and editor of the weekly standard. And maria, are you the founder founding president. Founding president. Whoa. Shes a president. Thats what i said. Title immediately. 12 years. Bill crystal, youre a republican member of congress, youve been hammered at town halls, what do you want to hear from President Trump tonight . Thats a good question. I think you probably want to sense its like a sense they have a legislative strategy. People around usually been in government before, what do we do first . What do we make here . Where do we get the bipartisan bill maybe in the first year . If we cant, whats popular and what can we shove aside . What doesnt have a sense, they just dont think anyone in the Trump White House really thinking this way. Whos the josh bolton, whos the dick darrman whos thinking about that. Sequencing. Maria, imagining a sequencing that was infrastructure first. And to give people jobs. Thats what folks wanted. They wanted President Trump to come in and talk about jobs and job creation and not double down on social issues. When somebody wants to lead with tonight. He wants to lead with his focus on jobs and keeping jobs in the United States. Go back and look at schumers kwoeks after the election. Well, if hes going to propose infrastructure bill. Were going to find ways to work with them. Thats why so many men were getting hammered. Theres always going to be people unhappy with what you do. The problem is if you dont have a thing to say, i made this. I did this thing. Hes ginn them very little to grasp on to. You might not like x over here, but y. Why people say you know what, may not be the guy for me. Hes promised me a job. And by the way the base strategy of the first month. Now look, look bill, tonight, it has been i would say all weekend and including the seniorest most administrative official in the white house. They are really trying to have a positive attitude, optimistic outlook. They have said the words unity a lot. We heard it before the inauguration, i believed it before the inaugural speech, turned out it wasnt as unifying as it could have been. I do think tonight they seem more serious about trying to sound more optimistic. I think thats nice and sounding good is good. But you could save jobs. Thats easy. 4. 7 unemployment. Thats easy to know exactly the people who dont have jobs and canton, ohio, no one can snap his fingers in fairness there are people underemployed. Thats a tough problem to deal with. I agree, but one thing you can do is try to make things more bite sized. Comprehensive does not work well. You can imagine doing bite sized things that will be impressive. Which would give them something to talk about. If youre a republican member of congress. I talked to mike, george bushs primary speech writer because you know, we are hearing its going to be a more positive speech. And what he said i thought was interesting, the two big speeches from trump are convention and inauguration. Both very dark speeches. Which is things are terrible. Im the only one who could say that. Things are good, the need for donald j. Trump only man on earth who can take us from this terrible place to. That it goes against brand for him to give a speech that is one of the things hell double down on the military and making you safer and this is yo you chose me. Then the republicans can use that as red meat and say wait a second, you dont believe in a border country. Thats tough. And i do think it backs on who he wants to cut off a lot of this program to feed the military is the for the poor, for folks that are the most vulnerable. That supposedly also his constituents. I want to go to health care here. I have time with the speaker of the house this morning. That was very much on the record, and where he is on health care, and obviously some of us got some time with folks that are associated with the president at the white house in a evwed the speech. Whats interesting, bill, is and when i first met bill crystal, he was faxing me letters at the hotline trying to stop hillarycare. It was a long time ago. Exactly, curling papers. Been doing the Health Care Wars forever. Its made a good comeback by the way. Test interesting, i got the sense theyre trying to be on the same page. Theyre barely on the same page. Replacing