Slide. Not one people. Other than the president s video which was put out tonight in which the president said he hoped this shutdown will not last long. The expectation is, were in this thing now for probably the next 48 hours or so. We heard from senator Lindsey Graham who said he just got off the been to the president at some point between we think maybe 10 00, 11 15 or so. Ill let garrett go through what he had to say. Did he deliver a message to the president on the airways, which we can assume he delivered over the airways as well. Dig in. Dont back down. Talking about how theres room between 1. 6 billion and 5 billion. Im told the president is insistent that he wants more than 1. 6 billion. Anything less than that, or that number, will be seen as basically a washout at this point. Democrats, of course, do not want to give the president kind of money. It is a tbd. And theyll be there tomorrow talking this through. Lots of question marks as the president remains here in washington tonight. He will not be heading to maralago as he usually does over the holidays. And the first lady and barron trump have made their plans known to fly down. Thats at one end of this. Now to the capitol we go. Garrett, a very sparsely populated u. S. Capitol. I think the phrase is, theyve all been given time away to the capitol, but subject to the call of the chair. Thats right. Nobody is coming back until they know they have a deal that the president will support. And thats the big thing here. Both houses of congress have passed something in the last two days. And leadership in both houses have learned the hard way what can and cannot be done. The house passed a bill with 5 million for the wall, relatively comfortably, proving nancy pelosi wrong, proving that republicans did have the votes to pass that in the house. That bill went less than nowhere in the senate. We learned it doesnt have 50 votes in the senate. Earlier today, the president was talking about using the socalled Nuclear Option to lower the threshold to 50 votes on legislative business. That was never going to happen in the first place. But it took a little bit of wheeling and dealing to get this to 4747, as the case turned out to be, so that mike pence could break a tie and continue discussions. Those will be ongoing, but its tough to see how they get fruitful. Democrats just dont feel a lot of pressure here. Pelosi will take control of the gavel of the speaker of the house the first week of january. The math is such that this cant move through the Senate Without democratic help. But the reality is, republicans are left holding the bag. The president controls the white house, and republicans still control both chambers in the congress. And for the president to be saying that 1. 6 billion, which was on offer a week ago, isnt enough, he wants more than that. That was never what he requested during the entire appropriations process up to this point. Would it proenl make democratic lawmakers pull their hair out. Either way, its not going to happen, despite the advice of folks like Lindsey Graham telling the president to dig in. And then he has to win this fight. Republicans dont have a plan to long term win this fight. Their plan got them this far, but its totally unclear how they think they can win this, other than just hope the democrats give up and decide to cut a deal. Always fun when a neighboring correspondent starts talking in a loud voice when youre trying to speak to us. Garrett and halle, thank you both for the latenight update. Were joined by peter baker, chief correspondent for the New York Times who is staying up with us. I want to begin with a tweet put up by jennifer jacobs. Trump has discussed about firing jerome powell, after this weeks rate increase and months of stock market losses. Advisers say they dont know if he will go through with it, but he wants to. Peter, this is one of those where do you want to begin . Here we are covering the third shutdown of the trump presidency. And president s never discuss the fed or chairs of the fed, powell replaced janet yellen. This president has been all over the fed, trying to blame fed and rate hikes for part of the market troubles. And i suppose we should take this for what it is. The word never probably has to be retired when it comes to this presidency. Things that used to be things that used to be considered out of bounds or off the reservation are perfectly acceptable to this president. The idea, as you say, of trying to publicly even threaten the Federal Reserve was once unthinkable, now its part of the course. And hes at war with his own people, with powell, who he appointed as chair of the Federal Reserve. Hes at war with jim mattis, who is leaving now, saying that we clearly dont share the same values. Hes at war, to some extent, with his own republicans on capitol hill, with the decision to withdraw troops from afghanistan. And were seeing two different sides of the republican fissure, with graham telling him dont cave in, and the other republicans who voted to open the government until february and deal with it then. So, its really quite a remarkable situation for the end of the year. Not a lot of peace, love, and joy. And the president tweeted out a video shot in the white house, complete with threatening video of wouldbe immigrants coming into the United States. Also complete with the president s new definition of the fortification hes looking to build on our southern border. Its very dangerous out there. Drugs are pouring in. Human trafficking, so many different problems, including gangs like ms13. We dont want them in the United States. We dont want them in our country. The only thing thats going to stop that is great border security. With a wall, or a slat fence, or whatever you want to call it. Peter, i guess its going to be a slat fence, and we focus the attention of our viewers and whats missing there. Whats missing are the presence of reporters and questions. Any give and take. These are videos produced and pushed out that exist as his take on the subject. Exactly right. Social media gives him a chance to get his message out without having to worry about the media calling into question or asking him what his options might be. He didnt choose to engage earlier when he did appear before reporters, signing a bill on criminal justice. And the criminal justice bill is a stark reminder of the cost of this kind of fight. For the first time in his presidency, he had a bipartisan victory today, almost going unnoticed because of the fights hes having. A true bipartisan bill signed into law. Peter, our thanks for staying up for us, as we pass into the third Government Shutdown of this presidency. Stay with us for the very latest on this shutdown. Thank you for being with us. For us, good night from nbc news headquarters in new york. Rachel maddow will begin after a quick break. [darrells wife] uh, honey, isnt that the dogs towel . [dog sfx] hey, mi towel, su towel. More gain scent plus oxi boost and febreze makes gain flings our best gain ever. Gain. Seriously good scent. Let us start with a simple thing. Let us start with a News Development thats almost pure in its simplicity and straightforwardness and Crystal Clear implications for what should happen and what likely will happen next. I find this comforting, as a news story, this is kind of perfect. Like a pecan pie is perfect or a sunrise. Today, this news story has been my order in the midst of chaos. Ready to becalm yourself with me right now . Right now, the white house chief of staff is john kelly. Hes the second white house chief of staff in less than two years. He replaced the first one, Reince Priebus, but now mr. Kelly has been fired just as Reince Priebus was and so now a third white house chief of staff will be coming in soon, john kelly is expected to leave his post in january. When he initially took over his job, he came over from the department of Homeland Security where trump had appointed him to be Homeland Security secretary, when he came over to be chief of staff, he brought with him a young staffer who worked with him very closely at Homeland Security. His name is zach fuentes and zach fuentes is 36 years old. And when john kelly left Homeland Security, became the new white house chief of staff, he brought zach fuentes with him and gave zach fuentes a really good job. Mr. Fuentes became Deputy White House chief of staff, which sounds like a big deal. That is a big job in its own right. But because of the way zach fuentes got the deputy chief of staff job, because of his Close Association with john kelly, now that john kelly has been fired there is a widespread expectation that deputy chief of staff zach fuentes will also have to go, too. This is a placid news story. Its almost normal. Even when the scandal part kicks in its still kind of a normal scandal. Its at least a very knowable, very simple scandal. According to the New York Times today, even though there have been these widespread expectations that zach fuentes would leave the administration when kelly does, mr. Fuentes has been working on an alternate plan. Quote, mr. Fuentes told colleagues that after his mentor john kelly left his job as chief of staff at the end of the year, he would, quote, hide out at the Eisenhower Executive Office building adjacent to the white house for six months. Why would the Deputy White House chief of staff want to hide at the Eisenhower Executive Office building and specifically for six months . The timing is crucial. According to the times, mr. Fuentes wanted to hide out for six months, quote, remaining on the payroll, in a nebulous role. Meaning he wouldnt have much work to do but then, quote, in july after his six months of hiding out he would hit his 15year benchmark for his service in the coast guard because while mr. Fuentes has been serving as Deputy White House chief of staff he also has been an active duty coast guard officer and if this plan of his works, if he could successfully hide out and stay on the payroll even if he didnt have a job for six more months after john kelly leaves in january, that would put zach fuentes on track to hit the 15year mark at the coast guard and that would allow him to, quote, take advantage of an Early Retirement Program at the coast guard. And it might have worked. He might have been able to burrow into the paneling and stay for six months with nobody noticing that his boss was gone and he was no longer doing anything if he could just hit that 15year benchmark, essentially into the retirement at the coast guard, he could retire at the age of 37, boom, right . Excellent. Just one problem with this plan. Quote, the program, referred to as temporary Early Retirement Authority, had lapsed for coast guard officers at the end of the 2018 fiscal year, which totally screws up this plan, right . Its one thing if hes going to burrow in, but now he would have to do that for five years. That would be harder. So, put yourself in mr. Fuentes shoes. If this was your scam, if this was your plan, what would you do when confronted with the terrible fly in the ointment, that that Early Retirement Program is gone. Here is what mr. Fuentes did. Quote, Administration Officials say mr. Fuentes discussed the Early Retirement Program with officials at the department of Homeland Security. In november, department of Homeland Security officials began pressing congress to reinstate the Retirement Program. And again, it almost worked. Just this past month the coast guard packaged together a package of small tweaks and changes that they hoped would quietly pass through Congress Without any controversy. Little technical matters, little fixes, put colons in there that should be semicolons, we have to clean that up before its official law. But when it came to the Early Retirement Program, the justification why the coast guard needed to revive and reinstate that program was, quote, the need for parity with other armed forces. We need to stay equal, we cant let this lapse. The proposed extension came with what appeared to be a sense of urgency. Quote, they also told the policy writers there might be an immediate need for the Early Retirement Authority and that it would be used at most for ten individuals. Well, one guy named zach and a few others. I dont know if theres a few others. Maybe just him. Apparently, this didnt raise any red flags at all with the republicancontrolled congress. Quote, representative Bill Schuster of pennsylvania, the retiring chairman of the Infrastructure Committee accepted the requested changes and this week introduced legislation that would codify them into law. Psych that means he got the Retirement Program extended. This means zach is going to get to retire at 37. All he has to do is hide under a desk for six months without anybody noticing hes on the payroll, and then hell get to retire. It was on track. Bill schuster. Totally going to work until somebody narced out zach and so now, thanks to the New York Times reporters meddling, its fallen apart. House lawmakers were preparing to push the package through the chamber on wednesday but, confronted with questions about the early retirement extension, they decided to pull just that provision to ensure that the rest of the technical changes could become law. Perhaps my favorite part of all of this is the bull pucky supposed argument about why this change at the coast guard was no big deal and the coast guard needed to extend this program right away just for a few officers, just as a technical matter. The argument that they would need to do that, that they needed to have parity with the other arms services, with the other services in the military, apparently nobody in congressman schusters office nor congressman schuster himself, nobody googled that, nobody fact checked that argument. Because the coast guard reinstating that sweet Early Retirement Program turns out would not give them parity with the other services. The u. S. Army, in fact, ended that exact same program last year. And got a bunch of headlines for it. So when somebody snuck in and said, mm, coast guard needs to do this to match up with the army is doing, im sure that sounded good in theory, but literally just google it. Just google it. Google army Early Retirement Program and this is what pops up. Literally, yeah, the army just got rid of that. But apparently congressman schusters office didnt google it. Wasnt bothered. Didnt see anything wrong with this at all. So, bottom line, this story in the New York Times, this scoop from the times, is that the White House Deputy chief of staff may have been involved in a hamfisted county clerk embezzlement style scheme to change u. S. Law and the policies of the u. S. Coast guard just for a minute, just for him specifically to give himself a sweet early retirement plan. And he almost did it, except now he has been caught. And this is what counts for beauty right now in American National politics because you can tell this kind of corruption story, you wouldnt even need the length of an afterschool special. This one you can just tell as a paid Public Service announcement, in your civics textbook, when you get to the chapter on public corruption, subsection selfdealing, this could be a shaded sidebar. Its pocket sized. We even know how this ends. I dont know in this white house if trying to pull off a scam like this amounts to a firing offense. Its possible, in this white house, this is one of the things you do to prove yourself. This is how you get your bones and then you can move up once you pulled up a scam like this. But the Democratic Party is about to take over congress, which means republican congressman Bill Schusters House Committee which implicated itself in this scam by almost letting it happen, that committee is is now the transportation and Infrastructure Committee, wont be headed up by schuster, it will be headed up by a democratic pit bull named peter di fazio who we contacted today. We have not heard back from him but we will let you know if we do. But if what happened is a pocketsized platonic ideal of corruption and selfdealing from the White House Deputy chief of staff, presumably this will be a matter of investigation under that committee when it gets its new leadership in a couple of weeks. Presumably they will investigate it and fix it and if theres a crime here they will make a criminal referral for prosecution. So, this is how i relax now. This is what counts as my happy place. Its like a relaxing, comforting turn in the news these days. You know how people upload little gifs of hedgehogs eating kernels of corn, this is the equivalent. Just zone out and think about this for a while. Oh, garden variety potential criminal corruption at the highest levels of the white house staff. Ah. That feels like a place of rest right now, which is tel