Would Keep Congress under strict budget caps. Paul saying he isnt voting for more debt. If you were against president obamas deficits and now youre for the republican deficits, isnt that the very definition of hypocrisy . Dont you the remember when republicans howelled to high heaven that president obama was spending us into the gutter, spending us into a oblivion. Now republicans are doing the same thing. So where does that senate bill go from here . Joining us now from the capital is nbc news capitol hill correspondent garrett haake. Very long night for you and everyone else there. A long night and what will be a busy morning as this bill now goes over to the house of representatives. This was supposed to be the easy part. The senate ultimately passing this bill with more than 70 votes. But some six or seven hours after it could have been done if not for rand pauls protest on the issue of debt and deficits. Thats going to continue to be a problem for this bill as it now goes over to the house, the Freedom Caucus, the most conservative members of the house dont like this bill for the same reason. They say the 300 billion with a b dollars of additional spending its going to authorize over next two years is too much. Its too expensive. Its not necessary. They wont vote for it. That means this bill will need democratic support in the house of representatives and its not guaranteed to get that. Nancy pelosi the democratic leader has said she wont vote for it because whats not in it. In this case democrats are upset theres no immigration provision in this bill whatsoever. Nothing to deal with the dreamers. Democrats had made that a hard line for a budget deal or anything to fund the government. They did it once before in the previous shutdown. They have flirted with the idea of making it a hard line again at this point although its not clear that the Democratic Party has a united position on what to do about this bill whether they will vote for it or against it. It seems like at least some dras are liable to come across and vote with republicans to move this bill forward and keep the government open. And one last piece of business in the senate tonight that might give democrats in both chambers and across the country some hope for this, just before adjourning for the night, Mitch Mcconnell set up the vehicle for what will be a big busy immigration debate in the senate next week. Setting up a possible start of that debate for 5 30 on monday. You have to set the pieces in motion a long way in advance in the senate. Mitch mcconnell did so tonight holding up his end of the bargain for Senate Democrats. Well see if that influences how his house colleagues treat this bill when it moves over there sometime in the next few hours. Garrett, lets take a step back to last few hours depending on where you are on the board, i think that rand paul, senator of kentucky is either a hero or a villain tonight. Yeah, thats right. This morning, sorry, long night. Youre telling me. Look, conservatives will look at rand paul as somebody who has held the line on what was for a very long time conservative orthodoxy that the debt was a big problem and than spending against the deficit was something that republicans should fight back against. You played some of that in the sound bite leading into this segment, this idea for paw to say if we fought this when barack obama did it, why are we suddenly okay with it when its a republican president and a Republican Controlled Congress saying let us continue to spend in this way regardless, he didnt win this argument tonight. He brought this back into the forefront for a party that is largely turned away from this as a driving issue under trump. At the end of the day, the vote was the same. This still passed the senate. Did he force the conversation here a little bit. Much to the bipartisan irritation of his colleagues who wanted to vote some time ago so they could fly home for the weekend. Is in any indication there was any activity from the white house trying to influence things today . We know there were some conversations between the white house, the majority leader and rand paul early in the day. We know that the president has supported this bill. We know that the president had urged its passage. But theres also a certain element of the senate trying to stand up for its own prerogatives here that any single senator has the right to slow this process down. They often cant stop things. They certainly cant create legislation on their own but theres something of a proud tradition in the senate if a single senator wants to take up his or her right to use the time allotted to them in debate to do exactly what paul did tonight, theyre going to do that. Even senators like Mitch Mcconnell who were probably annoyed to be here this late and having to fight this out and having to deal tomorrow tomorrow and the next day and november with the political repercussions of another Government Shutdown respect the fact that thats this institutions role and his pauls prerogative gum up the works as much as he wants as a senator. He could have spoken more. Youve probably been speaking to a lot of people, senators themselves. What do you think is behind his decision to cut that short . I think after a certain point, its hard to see what further point he could he have made. If youre doing this to draw attention towing this issue, forcing a shutdown draws a lot of attention but to continue to talk about it at 2 30 in the morning, the 2 30 a. M. Speech isnt going to get aired on tv any more than the 10 00 p. M. Speech is. It may be part of a media strategy that after a certain point there are diminishing returns to keeping this argument going well into the wie hours. You have been mentioning that this was supposed to be the easy part. And it turned out to be the opposite of that. Given what senator paul has gone through, how do you think that that will influence a vote in the house . Well, look, there are a lot of the conservatives who agree with him, a lot of folks in the Freedom Caucus in particular and other more conservative bastions of the House Republican whos dont want to see this bill done because of what because of the spending issues. Theres this underlying current here in how the house is dealing with this. There are a lot of people who will vote no on this bill and hope yes. Even some of those fiscal hawks on the Republican Party want to see the military continue to be funded. They want to see the government continue to be funded. Its very hard to get any of your other priorities done when you have shut down the government. So there are people who hold their nose and vote against this bill and hope their colleagues in bother parties are willing to get over their same actions that they have and vote to pass it because none of this an immigration bill doesnt get done, funding the military doesnt get done. If this deal doesnt pass. For these larger issues to be debated in both houses. Garrett headache, thank you very much. You bet. Joining us for more is Nbc News National Political reporter jonathan allen. Lets expand a little bit on what garrett was just talking about, being specific about the points of this bill and what is the holdup for both democrats and republicans . Good morning, melissa. The holdup for republicans is beak what rand paul has been talking about all day today which is a belief that republicans were supposed to get into office and limit spending rather than increase it. The holdup for democrats is not so much about whats in the bill but whats not in the bill. And we heard nancy pelosi, i was going to say yesterday but now its two days ago with her marathon speech on the house floor eight hours in defense of the dreamers. For a lot of the democrats in the house, its not the only thing they dont love about this bill but for a lot of dras in the house in particular, they are worried that the dreamers wont have a fix beak that there wont be some sort of law to follow this one that allows for people who were brought to the country illegally as children to stay here without fear of deportation. Senator paul ryan has been emphatic. He did say promising really that to get over this hurdle first, he promised that he will address daca. Are democrats buying that . They are in the senate. The Senate Democrats are buyinging what majority leader Mitch Mcconnell has said which is that hes going to set up a process to do immigration bill to deal with the Daca Recipients and the set of dreamers as garrett just reported, senator mcconnell started to move toward that in the senate. The House Democrats do not have faith in what senator mcconnell is doing and have put pressure on speaker ryan to try to get him to make a similar promise to what mcconnell has. So they are hopeful what mcconnell is doing will yield what they want and ryan has said that he will bring an immigration bill to the floor so long as its something that President Trump supports and thats really the crux of it at this point for a lot of those democrats is they dont believe necessarily that thats a good thing because they dont agree with what President Trump would like in exchange for protecting those dreamers which is the 25 billion for the border wall and some of them are okay with that but more important to them is curtailing the diversity Lobby Program and limiting the number of people that immigrants can bring in from their own families into the u. S. Jonathan allen, stand by because we want to go to raul reyes joining us at this Early Morning hour at this point. Attorney, columnist and nbc news. Com contributor. Lets expand on a couple things. Thank you for joining us. My pleasure, good morning. Good morning to you. Lets expand on that. What do you think about the promise that the dreamers, the daca act will in fact be addressed after this vote is prupbly passed in the later hours in the house . And also, what do you make of some of the senators having to make very difficult decisions such as ted cruz who would normally not vote for more spending but here he is in texas and Disaster Relief is included in a lot of this. And those two things believe it or not are rather enter twined. Right, i think that for or democrats and progressives who have been nervous about whether Mitch Mcconnell was actually going to keep his promise that he would bring forth and allow the debate to go forward on daca and fate of the dreamers this is obviously a step in the right direction. The big question is going to be what the parameters of any type of deal that would allow these young people presumably to stay in the country, the length latetive fix, whats it going to look like. On the left you want what they want. S is a very narrow film for the dreamers that would most likely have to include some type of Border Security but not the wall. Orthopedic, most republicans are now the Trump Administration has to a certain degree successfully shifted the conversation to ip clue Legal Immigration channels. So theyre going to want much more as jonathan mentioned in exchange for that. So theres a lot of uncertainty as to how its going to play out. I do think though its an important step that at least after so long of daca being kicked down the road and you know, being passed like a hot football that it is on the calendar to be debated and these parameters to be worked out. Thats great. And i would like to point out one other thing about this whole what were seeing tonight this shutdown. You have to remember, aside from people in washington who having to stay up late and try and figure this all out and People Like Us in the media keeping up with it, i think theres a lot of people out there who just regular american who are just exasperated by the whole thing. Granted rand paul might have his reasons why he did this and he can point to certain principles but i think when this, how this shutdown differs from the last one we had just a few weeks ago is that its a little more complicated to explain it. It involves some procedural moves and gets into theoretical issues. In my view, the more complicated something is to explain to the general public youre already at a disadvantage. At least the last time the democrat coz say were fighting for the dreamers. This time it was much more muded and complicated. Im not sure how that is going to play with the general public which has a low opinion of washington and lawmakers to begin with. So theres that. I think he may have won, made his point as a tactical in the tactical sense but i think its just caused nothing but heartburn for the party because it makes the gop leadership look so dysfunctional. Although this is not all the Republican Leadership it is one man exercising power that he does lawfully have. It makes the whoa party come across as not having their act together since they control all the houses of government. So i think thats just its important to remember how the general public is going to look at this essentially when we keep going right down to the end people get very frustrated with that and say why can washington not get this their act together especially in a week when were seeing so many gyrations in the stock market. Raul reyes, we have to leave it there. Im melissa rehberger. Keep it right here for continuing coverage of the second Government Shutdown of the year. The Rachel Maddow show continues after this break. You know whats awesome . Gigspeed internet. You know whats not awesome . When only certain people can get it. Lets fix that. Lets give this guy gig really . And these kids, and these guys, him, ah. Oh hello. That lady, these houses yes, yes and yes. And dont forget about them. Uh huh, sure. Still yes xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. Now you can get it, too. Welcome to the party. On november 14th, 1995, so midway through bill clintons first term, the government shut down. November 95, they closed down the monuments. They furloughed government workers shut down went on for five days and then less than a month later, deja vu all over again. Good evening. Just in time for the holidays, the president and congress teamed up to present the nation with a little equivalent of a hole in the christmas stocking. The government shut down again because the two sides cannot agree on a sevenyear plan to balance the budget. Like a recurring bad dream more than a quarter million federal workers reported to work only to be sent home again for the second time in a month and once again National Tourist attractions normally swarming with visitors were like ghost towns and everyone was playing the blame game. Did you see the banner on the bottom of the screen for that news report . Can we put it back up there. Shut down roman ii. Looks like shutdown 11. It happened again. Weeks after congress reopen the government they ran out of money again and shut it down all over again. This has happened before. Yes, tonight with the Government Shutdown as of right now, we are living through a remarkably stupid second scoop of Government Shutdown this evening as we speak. But it isnt the first time, not even the second time weve had a twoscoop shutdown. 1984, reagan was president. Reagan had a republican controlled senate, a democratic house, a partisan impasse led to the government shutting down on a monday then on wednesday it reopened. Then on thursday they shut it back down again. At least they didnt do it at midnight like we do. The New York Times reports from that 1984 burst of idiocy that government workers were sent home in the middle of the workday on thursday for the second shutdown. Everybody had to pack their lunches and go home for the afternoon. By friday though they were welcome back at their desks because the second scoop that have shut down in 1984 they ended in less than a day. So feels absolutely bizarre that were having a second shutdown in a couple of weeks. But we have seen this before. Like love birds and like pants these things do sometimes come in pairs. It still feels acutely ridiculous. Joining me now is michael beschloss. You get time and a half for doing live history after midnight tonight. Thanks a million. Its so rare i get to say good morning, rachel. I guess i get to this morning. Yeah, exactly. You can say good morning. Hard to fied out which it is. So historically, are there are there way more, have, there been way more Government Shutdowns than we think just because we dont remember most of them because a lot of them are ephemeral and pointless . Yeah, there have been a lot of times in American History when the president and the congress do not agree on funding the budget and there is a gap. But the question really arises why have we seen this so much especially in the last 30, 40 years or so. What happened was 1980, jimmy carter was president. His second attorney general was a guy named ben sililetti. He handed down a ruling which is if there is a funding gap even if brief youre going to violate the law if you keep agencies open. Youve got to furlough employees. Thats xwr we began to see these things in the 1980s. The other development that made a big difference was tv in the house and senate. Came to the house in 79. Came to the senate in 1986. That made it almost a theater for someone like Newt Gingrich you were talking about at the time of the clinton shutdown or rand paul this morning to go on in his case the senate floor and make a big speech in favor of his views on taxes and spending saying that the Senate Republicans should be more like deficit hawks. So whats the if thats the transmit mode in terms of why a show boating member of the house or a show boating senator might want to get in front of the cameras and make a case and shut down the government to get attention for their cause what, about the receive mode . Its my sense the public generally hates a shut down. When a shutdown happens they want blame they want a bad guy, not a hero. Yeah, its a sign of government dysfunction and you know, rumor has it that we americans have an election about nine months from this week. And i think one of the things that voters will say in november is, who is responsible for government not doing what it should, one of the ways that they will answer that question is to look back to the shutdowns and say who was to blame. In terms of whats evolving over the course of now this very Early Morning with the Government Shutdown, one of the things were watching for is to see if this effort in the senate by senator paul and him as a oneman band bringing about the hut down. Whether that might radicalize the house. People expected there there would be a harder time in the house getting this funding bill passed even before all of this happened. Is it likely, is there historical precedent for somebody taking a stand like this and it radicalizing other members of their party . If you look at this in history, theres a way that you can look at in that actually speaks very well for rand paul which is this is someone who said the Republican Party stands for low deficits and if possible, a balanced budget. You know, if a martian came to earth in the year 2018 and heard some of these speeches from Senate Republicans that martian would have a hard time realizing that the republicans traditionally were the party of the balanced budget. So it very well could be that by making this case on the senate floor, you may it may give power to members of the house to sort of come out and say, gee, hes absolutely right. We should go back to our roots. Had they all not just voted for the 1. 5 trillion tax cut. Small exception. Michael beschloss president ial historian, thank you very much for your time tonight. Well be right back. Bowling. You got this, jimmy you know whats easy . Building your website with godaddy. Pick a domain name. Choose a design. You can build a website in under an hour. Now thats a strike get your domain today and get a free trial of gocentral. Build a better website in under an hour. I love you. Rob porter as white house staff secretary would normally need we think a top secret sensitive compartmented information clearance. Which it has a lot of words in it because its supposed to be incontinual dat tim dating. We now know he was not able to get a permanent security clearance of any kind. We now know thats because of what his exwives told fbi special agents who contacted him as part of the background collect for porter. Porters exwives say they both told the fbi about their allegations that he was violent toward hem in their marriages supporting evidence reportedly included this a protective order obtained against portner virginia in 2010 plus photographs plus what his second wife says was another contact with local police who she called to their home because of his behavior. A third woman who was also involved with porter though not married to him is reportedly working for the Trump Administration. He shaent been named publicly but multiple news outlegs described her going to White House Counsel Don Mcgahn directly to discuss she is concerns about porter. Her own concerns about porter and what she knew about his ep wives and their accusations against him, as well. We should note that rob porter denies the allegations and calls them simply not true. This is not just a salacious and dark story about the departure of yet another high level Trump White House employee. This is also a security story that matters to all of us because this is a security story about how donald trump is running this government. White house employees dont get handed security clearances as perks, right in the fbi has to clear you for one. After this rigorous background check process. And there are all sorts of ways to fail that process. It doesnt mean youre a criminal. Some of them are dramatic. You can fail the fbi background collect for security clearance because you have undisclosed foreign kaks youve been trying to cover up or lie about. Those would screw up your chance for a clearance because you could be in cahoots or in who can to some Foreign Government or some Foreign Government knows something about their contacts you feel you cant be straight about and they can use that is to blackmail you. Thats the stuff we worry about Jared Kushner not disclosing his foreign ties. It could be more pedestrian stuff. You could be in a lot of the debt being deeply indebted is not a crime. But it might prevent you from getting a security clearance because that might give some Foreign Intelligence Service a way to get at you. If you were in a lot of the debt they could conceivably offer you a lot of information to hand over information you shouldnt and you might be more vulnerable to that kind of approach than if you werent in a lot of debt. It could be something in your past or something . Your personal life you dont want people to know whether or not it is a criminal act. And so white house staff secretary rob porter with credible corroborated allegation afc Domestic Violence against him and Police Records to back it up, he doesnt get a clearance. Now, once the fbi makes that determination that hes not going to get a clearance because of those reasons, they reportedly alert the white house to that fact. Now, we know separately that White House Council don mcgahn was also alerted to the problem here. But the white House Counsel and the white house chief of staff don mcgahn and john kelly apparently sat on that information and did nothing about it. They certainly did nothing to get rob porter out of that job or away from classified information that he was explicitly not cleared to see. When President Trump decided to ignore the fact that Jared Kushner couldnt get a security clearance, presumably that decision was made on the basis of the president thinking he knows everything to know about Jared Kushner and the president felt comfortable and he cleared kushner to see everything. With rob porter the president had no idea that there was any sort of problem with him. And yet, he put him in this job. He allowed hip to continue in this job where he saw and handled every single piece of information that crossed the president s desk including classified materials. Did the president not know, did the president not know that rob porter couldnt get a security clearance in did the president think that he had one . The white house chief of staff and white House Counsel knew that rob porter couldnt get a security clearance and knew why. White house tonight is putting out word that the president will he no idea. So thats legally important. Who cleared this young man to see all this stuff that you need a top secret security clearance to see. Who cleared him to do it . Fbi did not grant him a clearance. Did not provide information to the white house that said edeserves a clearance. Who cleared him to see all this stuff . It is disturbing unprecedented enough this president decided to have blind faith in his soninlaw and give him access toes secured information. With this porter situation, this is a problem in the white house for the highest level classified information that weve got. This is a systemic problem. If the president didnt know there was a problem with there guys clearance, that means somebody provided that guy with classified information without him being cleared to see it and without the president waiving the clearance process. Isnt that illegal . Joining us now is congressman sean Patrick Maloney. Democrat from new york. He once served in the job rob porter held till yesterday. Its good to have you with us tonight thank you. Good to be with you. Am i right thinking being the staff secretary means you routinely handle classified information. Spot on. Theres not a day that goes by that there are not a stack of red folders marked top secret. Top secret is where you start. They go up to levels that are themselves classified. Theres a burn bag under the deck of the staff secretary because when you discard materials it will be collected by a special team and insin rated that night. I dont think people understand. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, they dont give memos to the president. They give them to the staff secretary and the secretary manages those doubts as they go to the oval office. You see everything. In terms of mr. Porter, it has emerged as parts of this story about his personal difficulties that that much information was conveyed to the fbi and that information was conveyed to the white house. Even aside from the story about these domestic violations against him, how unusual is it that somebody would be in the staff secretary position without a permanent security clearance of any kind with just an interim clearance . That blows my mind. Let me give you one example. When i was going through this background check, the fbi sent agencies from uruguay from their office there to the small peruvian village where i did social work with the jech utes between college and law school. They take this stuff seriously going through every address, every person you lived with, every contact and ask you key taed questions going back to whether he i was 18 years old. So the notion that you would allow somebody to work this entire time with no security clearance is nuts. If i may, normally you start and its anity rative process. They um you can do the job and doing it quick while youre on job. Thats normal. In this case we know they knew as early as january 2017 right up front that this guy had issues in his background. Wife beneath credible allegations of itted that have permanently disqualified him from holding this job. So why they even gave him an initial clearance is beyond me because they must have known he would never have cleared the full background collect. As far as i understand how the security clearance world works, theres the fbi background check process. If youre in the military or some other part of the National Security world you may get your clearance through some other agency but whether he youre just a civilian like rob porter was and youre working for the white house its actually the white house who grants you your clearance based on this background check information from the fbi. Therefore its the president s decision whether or not to disregard the fbis advice and clear somebody anyway. Is that the way it works . Yes, in an extraordinary case and maybe wed expect that from the Trump White House. If the president didnt do this, its nobody elses call. The chief of staff i cant imagine the chief of staff making this call without inforing the president. And there is no way youre going to convince me that somebody said were going to let the staff secretary to the president do the job without a security clearance and not tell the chief of staff. Chief of staff was up to his neck in this im sure and he and the white House Counsel would have been the first people to review this. It blows my mind they would take unto themselves to let a staff secretary work without a security clearance. Theres going to be an fbi security report that should come out. We ought to know what the fbi told the white House Counsel and chief of staffer and anwhen they said about it. If this, if the president never made the call to waive basically waive the process and clear this young man despite the fbis counter indications, if the president believed he was operating with a security clearance and thats why he could see the stuff, if somebody put classified information in this young mans hands, would the fbi investigate that on their own initiative . Would there be a congressional inquiry . Who looks into that . Ive written to the chairman of the Oversight Committee in the house, chairman gowdy to ask for an investigation of this. Thats what he this committee exists for. We know theyre concerned in the Republican Party for handling classified information because we were lectured about it throughout 2016. We ought to get to the box this. Can i back up . Youre right to ask ultimately whether someone broke the law in extending classified information to someone not cleared by the president to see it and who faced their background collect. But can we also just point out that they knew that they had a person in the sensitive position who was credibly accusesed of beating his not his wife but both of his exwives that those people had come forward that there were Police Reports and they made the decision to keep that person on the job. Knowing those allegations and knowing he couldnt have a security clearance. What the hell is going on . What does that say about the value system of this white housen an of these officials . And that would be terrible and then you add even if you didnt have to add on to it as we must the fact that you then have someone who is eminently blackmailable seeing our nations top secrets and then as you point out, you may be breaking the law in the process because remember, the fbi would be have asked him about these allegations and id like to know what he rob porter said to the fbi and thats why we need to see the investigative report. Sean Patrick Maloney represents the state of new york, served as staff secretary underened president bill clinton. Invaluable perspective given your experience here. My pleasure. Much more ahead tonight including yeah, another Government Shutdown before you go to bed. Sorry. Stay with us. Cleaning floors with a mop and bucket is a hassle, meaning you probably dont clean as often as youd like. For a quick and convenient clean, try Swiffer Wetjet. Theres no heavy bucket, or mop to wring out, because the absorb and Lock Technology traps dirt and liquid inside the pad. Its safe to use on all finished surfaces tile, laminate and hardwood. And it prevents streaks and hazing better than a micro fiber strip mop, giving you a thorough clean the first time. For a convenient clean, try Swiffer Wetjet with a money back guarantee. Brand power. Helping you buy better. The Third Largest employer in the world is the chinese army. With just over 2 million people. Coming in at number two is the walmart army with about 2. 3 million employees. But the largest employer on planet earth is the United States department of defense, with more than 3 million employees. Its the largest Single Organization on earth. With all those workers and all those many agencies within it, all part of the gigantic u. S. Department of defense they have a lot to keep track of at the pentagon. But last year in september it made for particularly bracing headlines when the director of one Pentagon Agency said quote i have got murderers who have access to classified information, i have rapists. I have pedophiles, i have people involved in child porn. I have all these things at the interim clearance level, and im pulling their clearances on a weekly basis. January of this year, nbc news obtained a report from the Defense Department showing that 165 contractors to the department of defense had had interim security clearances revoked because of Illicit Activity of some kind, things like questionable Financial Transactions or being influenced by a Foreign Government or, one person who got an interim security clearance clearance in 2015 was discovered in 2017 to have been found guilty of raping a child. He was found guilty of raping a child before he ever applied for that clearance. Think of that. Guilty, on record, as guilty of child rape, nevertheless sailing right through to an interim security clearance. Seems like getting an interim security clearance isnt that hard. For the past several months, democrats in the house Oversight Committee have been trying to get answers about the machinery of security clearances inside the Defense Department and beyond. The top democrat on that committee is elijah cummings. He wrote to the republican chair of the Committee Last month. Quote, i have asked you repeatedly to join me in investigating critical failings in our nations security clearance processes and trouble og irirregularities with the clearances of senior aide to donald trump. Today in light of the news going on right now, congressman cummings sent the chairman another letter this time asking again for an investigation into the white houses practices around security clearances and now particularly asking for information about former senior aide staff secretary rob porter. Quote, if you had agreed to any of our requests for information on these matters the white house would have had to answer questions. Who was aware of that information and how mr. Porter was allowed to remain in his position . Instead, because of your multiple refusals we did not find out about any of these issues until they were reported in press. Mr. Porter, the white house staff secretary announced he was stepping down yesterday after allegations of abuse from his two former wives. He denies those allegations. But the white house reportedly knew about them for months and knew they were stopping him from getting a permanent security clearance and they kept him on, handling the flow of documents to the president including super sensitive material while there were active concerns he was a potential target for blackmail and that he was unsuitable for the kind of clearance that would allow him to see that material. White house maintains tonight that the president had no idea about any of these concerns about rob porter thus raising the question of who exactly cleared rob porter to see that acrossified information and whether or not the president ever formally waived the clearance process so that he could see those documents without criminally mishandling classified information. Joining us, congressman connolly. I appreciate you being with us tonight. I know it is a busy night in washington. Actually not much going on right now. So its great to be with you, rachel. Let me ask you about the shutdown situation tonight. We were just told that members of congress and the house have been advised maybe there will be a vote between 3 00 a. M. And 6 00 a. M. Depending on rand pauls mood . Yes. That was a notice sent out by the majority whip, Steve Scalise to his members, we got a copy of it, saying be prepared to vote sometime between 3 00 and 6 00 possibly. At that point we expect that a government funding bill will pass and the government will be reopened after a few hours of being shut. Is that your expectation . Thats certainly my expectation and hope. But a word of caution. The republicans in the house do not have the votes to pass that bill. We think they need 60, maybe 70 democrats. Given the mood of the Democratic Caucus with respect to the dreamer issue and the amount of Additional Debt being added by this budget agreement, im not at all sure that those 60 or 70 votes are going to be there. Is it your sense that either your party or the Republican Party is whipping votes right now trying to line up the numbers that they will need for that predawn vote . Actually in our party the minority whip is whipping against the bill. Do you know how you are going to vote . I am going to vote yes. I think its wrong to shutdown government. I think the linkage between the dreamers whom i fully support and keeping the government open and functioning isnt there. I think it is a mistake strategically to link the two. Congressman, let me ask you about this other matter that is roiling washington now, and obviously a source of great consternation on capitol hill, these revelations about the staff secretary. A very highranking white house aide, somebody who had access to every piece of paper that crossed the president s desk. Its now emerging not only that there were credible Domestic Violence allegations against rob porter, that the white house was aware of while he was in this senior role, allegations he denies, but also those allegations were sufficient to deny him a security clearance. As a member of the Oversight Committee what exactly are your concerns here . What do you think should happen next . One of the biggest concerns i have rachel is a deliberate conspiracy, if you can put it that way, between the republicans in the house, especially on our committee, and the white house to make sure nothing is investigated, nothing is pursued. No subpoenas are issued. Now, we are now chaired by trey dowdy who was the torqua motta of benghazi. His hand got tired of writing subpoenas. He got millions of pages of documents, millions of dollars of taxpayer money that was spent to found nothing that ultimately went nowhere. They claimed to be worried about the possible compromise of Hillary Clintons materials with classified material. Sheer we now have a known wife abuser, violent abuse as the secretary of the white house staff given some kind of clearance status protected and harbored. We wrote the white house, as you pointed out earlier, in june, asking for information about security clearances that were provided to people like Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner who had issues that had been flagged. We wrote in october about interim security clearances that you just covered being granted to people of highly questionable character. We then followed up those missives asking the chairman of the committee to issue subpoenas seasons we got no white house response. Crickets can, nothing. On vacation, doesnt care, or isnt interested. And now this. This is a very serious business. We need to get to the bottom of this. We not only need to have had mr. Porters testimony, we need john kelly under oath exing himself. We need hope hicks who was reportedly dating him. And maybe the white House Counsel who apparently was given some of this information several weeks ago. We dont know what he did with it. But theres a lot here going on and this is in the oval office of the white house. Congressman, thank you both for the update in terms of tonights shutdown, and also on this story. Thank you rachel. Any time. Well be right back. Stay with us. Timing is everything. On monday of this week, the House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously to release a democratic memo. Democratic memo that rebuts republican claims that the fbi and the Justice Department abused their powers when they got a surveillance warrant for former Trump Campaign aide carter page. Once they sent it they agreed to vote it out of committee. That memo went to the white house. That starts a clock ticking. The president has five days to review the memo and determine whether or not he will block its release to the public. That clock started ticking monday night. Tuesday chief of staff john kelly said the president had the memo on his desk but hadnt yet read it because quote its lengthy. Its ten pages. But that fiveday countdown clock had been ticking since the day before. What if he doesnt get to the end by the end of five days . Its ten pages long. There is concern the president will block the memo or redact it beyond the brink of meaning. Looks like we shall see. The wall street journal is reporting that the white house is inclined to approve the release of the memo. That decision they say is likely come tomorrow, friday. Theyre reportedly haggling over which parts to redact. You think about the timing here. You know how things get crazy on friday nights. Well, tomorrow, we could have the Government Shutdown. The Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics and the democratic memo unleashed and all the other nonsense that always happens on fridays now. Timing is everything. So hey, a historic night. You were here for it. Our second Government Shutdown of 2018. The second government shut down ever with the same Party Controlling the white house and both houses of congress. Shutdown is still in effect. As of right now the delaying tactics that senator rand paul has used to delay them all tonight means not only is the government shut down but we are all working late. Lawrence odonnell is up next, live. 2018 shutdown number two. You were here. Get the tshirt. Thanks, rachel. The second Government Shutdown of the Trump Presidency is now entering its second hour. Youre looking at live coverage of the senate floor where a procedural vote there it is. I knew there was live coverage of the senate floor. A procedure vote on the bill to end the Government Shutdown is expected at any minute now. Senate rules allowed any senator to block that vote until 1 00 a. M. And only an unreasonable senator pulling a hollow stunt would do that. That, of course, meant rand paw blocked the vote for what he knew would be only a few hours, just long enough to create a Government Shutdown which might not last until sunrise
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