Well, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 809 of this Trump Administration. The president is shaking up the top ranks of the nations immigration and security leadership. Within the past 24 hours donald trump has forced out the secretary of Homeland Security and the director of the u. S. Secret service, a man who happens to be a 35year vet on of the marine corp and retired two star general. And there are reports tonight there may be more to come. New york times reports the latest moves appeared, quote, quote, it appeared to be a housecleaning of officials associated with john kelly, the president s former chief of staff and his first homeland Kirstjen Nielsen she will be forever associated with the separation of Migrant Children from their parents at our border. She will be forever associated with the separation of Migrant Children from their parents at our border. Trump ended the separation policy officially in june with an executive order. Last night donald trump announced nielsens departure on twitter. This morning she said she still supports the president. I assure the president s goal of securing the border. I will continue to address all efforts the humanitarian crisis at the border. Her tenure was marked by several clashes with trump who reportedly held her responsible for not reducing the number of undocumented migrants. Shell be replaced by on an acting basis by the current customs and Border Protection commissioner. He comes to the job just days after the president signaled he wanted to, quote, go in a tougher direction on immigration if thats possible. This weekend trump summed up his policy with these words. This is our new statement. The system is full. Cant take you anymore. Whether its asylum, whether its anything you wanted, illegal immigration. Cant take you anymore. We cant take you. Our country is full. What can you do . Our country is full. Cant come in. Im sorry. Its very simple. The reasons for the removal of the director of the u. S. Secret service, randolph allese are less clear. He sent a message today saying that weeks ago he was alerted of a coming transition in leadership. However, again the New York Times reporting tonight according to two officials, quote, the president had soured on mr. Alles a while ago even making fun of his looks, calling him dumbo because of his ears. His departure comes after security procedures around the president come under scrutiny after a Chinese National was arrested at maralago with multiple electronics devices. The staffing purge also coincides with the rise of trump senior aide Stephen Miller, who according to many has been the one pressing for tougher Administration Policies and has been pressing for a more aggressive crackdown at the border. Politico reports it this way. Quote, miller has been telephoning midlevel officials at several federal departments and agencies to demand they do more to stem the influx of immigrants. All of this has highlighted trumps reliance on acting top officials in his administration. Some of whom hold positions that usually require Senate Confirmation. Earlier this year the president explained why he was in no hurry to make permanent appointments. I sort of like acting, gives me more flexibility. Do you understand that . I like acting. With that, lets bring in our leadoff panel on a monday night. Phil rucker here in new york, pulitzer prizewinning White House Bureau chief for the Washington Post. Nancy cook, and franko gordono covering immigration and foreign affairs. Good evening and welcome to you all. Phil, were very happy to have you on home turf for this brief shining moment. What just happened today, and i note that, yes, were talking about what happened today. We likely will not be by tomorrow night. There likely will be a further move in this purge by tomorrow. Whats happening is pretty extraordinary. The president is completely cleaning house in the department of Homeland Security, and this is not just an agency that oversees immigration policy. This agency created after the terror attacks of 9 11 is designed to keep our country safe, prevent cyberattacks and future terrorist attacks and right now there is instability throughout the department. People dont know where therell be fire next, who theyll be reporting to. And the president is acting out and making these changes because hes so frustrated with whats happening at the border, the influx of migrants at the border, the crossings. It is intour ate into hes looking for somebody to blame and tonight thats kerjsten nielsen, thats the secret service. And tomorrow it could be new people. Id like to read you too different quotes. One from just within the last 24 hours and the other from the Washington Post almost a year ago. This is about the president s treatment of his now former dhs secretary. The president called ms. Nielsen at home early in the morning to demand she take action to stop migrants from entering the country to do things that were clearly illegal, such as blocking all migrants from seeking asylum. Trump has fumed at nielsen telling her to close the border and growing impatient at her explanations why thats not possible. He has also blamed her at times for not securing enough money to finish the border wall even though she was not party to the spending deal struck by senior white house aides. Franco, lets point out the obvious. Number one this is exculpatory towards nielsen. The outgoing cabinet secretary who knows enough about how the world works and developed some friendships in the news media. Having said that who is this president going to find who was willing to do that kind of thing if she wasnt . Its really going to be hard to find that person. I mean all my sources on the left and right are saying, look, you cannot just put a new face in dhs and expect the world to change. The reality is congress hasnt acted and are unlikely to act without serious concessions, without legalization or some type of asylum rule changes. And the fact is the law is the law. What we found, what trump realized is after his kind of honeymoon period after the first year when human smugglers were trying to figure out kind of how the things work under the Trump Administration. They soon learned the asylum rules are still the asylum rules. You cannot hold children for more than a month and they started coming back. And you saw the illegal crossings creep up at about the same time that nielsen came in. And frankly it was bad timing for her and its going to be bad timing for the next person. Nancy, other than being a political cartoonist dream, lets talk about mr. Miller. And let me ask you just how vast is his portfolio right now . Well, his portfolio is quite large. He really is the architect of the administrations immigration policy. And in an administration where theres often a lot of back biting he is someone whos managed to have huge staying power, hes operated under the radar, he has stayed in the good graces of ivanka trump and jared kushner. And, you know, no matter what happens, he never really becomes the face of the crisis. Kerjsten nielsen, for instance, took all of the blame for separating children and parents when that policy was under way even though that was something Stephen Miller really advocated for. And hes someone that continues to play under the radar and had a huge role in this huge leadership shakeup at dhs. He is someone whos urging the president to do what he considers fulfilling the Campaign Promises that trump made in 2016, and he views part of that as this housecleaning at dhs. Franco, let me go back to you because i note you spoke with an obama era enforcement lawyer, lets say, in this area. Give us a reality check. By how much has policy changed compared to the original initiatives in the Obama Administration . Yeah, i mean absolutely. I talked to obamas enforcement lawyer earlier today who was just telling me, look, trump wants different changes. You pointed out in the intro nielsen was pushing back on efforts to do illegal things. The reality is those things have been tried. Obama tried to do the vast majority of things that trump is trying to do, short of family separation policy. President obama detained families for over a year. You know, there were children in Detention Centers for a year until the courts stopped it and said, no, no, no you can only do 20 days. Obama also tried to prevent immigrants from being released on bond. The courts again said, no. Obama tried to keep children, imMigrant Children in hhs shelters for a longer time until they could be processed. That also was enjoined. These are things on the law, unless congress is going to act and theres no sign they will, were going to continue to see this problem over and over and over again. Franco, i know you dont deal in the world of opinion. But whats your guess as to why there werent raised protests . Where were the raised voices back then . Was it just a liberal complicit news media . What was it . That is very difficult question to ask. There were certainly immigration lawyers that i spoke to, a lot who were very vocal and very outspoken. But youre right, there was a challenge because obviously Latino Advocacy groups were very much aligned with the Obama Administration, and there were challenges that they faced politically that they did not want to confront obama. Obama also provided some relief for, you know, the latino advocacies when he passed or when he pushed the dream act pardon me, not the dream president obama anot the dream act but daca, the release of undocumented kids to come into the country and remain legally. So there was kind of like well take what we can get, but well be a little bit quiet on some of these other issues. Phil, to go back to a point you made about Homeland Security, i want to play for you a little bit from both chairs, house and senate, Homeland Security committees. This speaks to the real business at hand. Its impossible to work in my estimation for President Trump on immigration. He has a mindset that is absolutely unimaginable as it relates to immigration. Im concerned of a growing void of leadership within the department of Homeland Security, and this is a department that is charged with really trying to grapple with some of the most significant challenges facing this nation. And phil, you open the door to this. This is behemoth. This was created, built piece by piece during the 43 presidency as a result of 9 11. When you have a Cabinet Department you have corresponding committees in congress. We saw that there. Pretty soon youre talking about a serious charge to keep the American People safe. When does this when do we get shocked out of our existence this may be just a cable news story we talk about . This is among one of the more serious branches of our government. It is, brian. And thankfully theres not been a crisis to face this president. Weve not had a terror attack on our soil, weve not had a major hack since the russian interference accompany in the 2016 election and that could happen at any point now, and the department is point now, and the department is simply not equipped with so much leadership change and turn over. And dhs has been a place for stability and competence in government for the last two administrations. You think about tom ridge, the first dhs secretary, jay johnson and the Obama Administration, and these were Public Servants who kept their heads down and did the work and managed that big bureaucracy and were competent. And now you see President Trump trying to politicize this department to make it a tool for his Reelection Campaign effectively by pursuing this immigration agenda that he and Stephen Miller are pushing inside the white house. And clearly it is alarming members in congress. Senator grassley was speaking out to my colleague tonight warning President Trump against firing other officials at the department of Homeland Security. And nancy cooke, lets turn to the u. S. Secret service. Heres a gentleman, 35 years in his beloved marine corp. Retires with two stars on his shoulders, a veteran of the iraq war. And what do you get for that . Reports tonight that the president made fun of his ears. Walk us through this process. Well, its kind of extraordinary that the head of the secret service, their whole mission really is to keep the president and his family safe, and this president has a very large family. So there are secret service agents, you know, with each one of his children, his wife. You know, its just a huge burden on the secret service. These people are working around the clock, weekends, nights to protect the whole extended family, and, you know, the president was making fun of the way that the head of the secret service looked, the way his ears were on his face, behind his back. And that was mostly because this man was appointed by general john kelly. The president has ill feelings towards kelly still and, you know, was just swept up in it. And this was really part of this dhs purge is about the president s frustration with the migrant crossings at the border and the fact he hasnt been able to stem those and hasnt ben able to do things he wants to do even if theyre considered illegal. But part of it is just a personal vendetta. He does not like kelly, and what happened today was a sweep of administration of kelly allies and the secret service was among them. Our thanks to philip rucker, nancy cooke, franco ordonez. We really appreciate you guys starting usa off our first hour of the week. And coming up for us, we are just hours away from the attorney general appearing before congress. The man we havent heard speak since the Mueller Report. The man who now controls the release and the contents of the Mueller Report. And later, millions of americans dont yet know his name, millions more have given up trying to pronounce it, but something he said yesterday may cement his position on the political map. The 11th hour just Getting Started on this monday night. You know reliable support when you have it, and that dependability is what we want to give our customers. At comcast, its my job to constantly monitor our network. Prevent problems, and to help provide the most Reliable Service possible. My name is tanya, i work in the Network Operations center for comcast. We are working to make things simple, easy and awesome. Attorney general barr heads to capitol hill first thing tomorrow morning for his first public hearing since Robert Mueller completed his investigation. Barr, heres the important part, will be testifying before a House Appropriations subcommittee about the budget of his department. But to repeat, this is subcommittee of the appropriations committee, but it might as well be the Judiciary Committee for the questions we expect he will be asked about the Mueller Report. Because this attorney general is the man right now standing between said Mueller Report and we, the people. So expect it to come up once or twice in questioning. Theres also reason to expect Robert Mueller himself testifying before the powerful house Judiciary Committee. We dont know when, but we do know that the democratic chairman and the Top Republican agree on the need for mueller to come testify. First things first tomorrow morning we get to hear from the a. G. Himself. Here with a preview tonight clint watts, former member of the joint Terrorism Task force. Now a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy research institute. And back with us a former federal prosecutor from the u. S. Attorneys office in washington. Gentlemen, welcome to you both. And clint, just as a primer here we are living both in a tv and internet age. There will be questions and members of the subcommittee tomorrow who will want their moment. Do you think the attorney general can very effectively shut it down and give a blanket statement that says you can ask me any which way you want, i aint going to talk about it until its released. I think he can probably do that. And im somewhat sympathetic to him having done a redaction process before, it does take a long time to do that. You want to make sure you get it right because weve seen several mistakes in recent trials now where some things have slipped out. Maybe theres this wikileaks connection in the southern trial. So they dont want to make those mistakes. The other part is the classified info. Weve already heard some senators, i think senator kenny said people could die. If some of this information slips out. I think he could move around quickly and say were almost done as it is. I told you in midapril. No one wants members of the tome team endangered doing their jobs, especially overseas. So glen, walk me through this redaction process. Is it our belief that mueller and rosenstein are still of counsel standing by around for this effort going on being led by the attorney general . This is muellers work product, after all. And theres been