And is raising some new ethics concerns. And in less than 25 hours, we will know how big the next democratic debate stage will be. Well take a deep dive into what will be a do or die moment in the president ial race. The 11th hour on a tuesday night starts right now. Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Im Steve Kornacki in for brian williams, who has the night off. Day 950 of the trump administration. And the president is furiously battling the perception of a white house with no strategy and no direction. Trump made no public appearances today, but we did hear from him quite a bit on social media as he jumped from one topic to another on his twitter feed, underscoring what the Los Angeles Times describes as quote the scattershot focus that defines his stream of consciousness presidency. Among the things on trumps mind, quote i have gotten to know president ball sin narrow well in our dealings with brazil, hes working very hard on the amazon fires in all respects doing a great job for the people of brazil. And no bedbugs at doral. The radical left democrats upon hearing that the perfectly located for the next g7 Doral National miami was under consideration for the next g7 spread that false and nasty rumor. The g7 was a Great Success for the usa and all lame stream Media Coverage bore no relationship to what actually happened. And this, wow, yet another big storm heading to puerto rico, will it ever end, Congress Approved 92 billion for puerto rico last year an alltime record. In reality, Congress Approved less than half that. Less than 14 billion reached the island by the end of may. The federal reserve, the president continues on twitter, loves watching our manufacturers struggle with their exports to the benefit of other parts of the world, has anyone looked at what almost all other countries are doing to take advantage of the good old usa . All that on top of what we heard from the president over the past ten days. Greenland, i dont know, it got released somehow. Its something we talked about. Denmark essentially owns it, and strategically for the United States it would be nice. The fake news, of which many of you are members, is trying to convince the public to have a recession. Lets have a recession. I am the chosen one. Somebody had to do it. So im taking on china. I have confidence that in the end, kim jongun, who ive gotten to know very well, will do the right thing. China called last night, our top trade people, and said, lets get back to the table. So well be getting pack to the table. I have good feelings about iran. I have good feelings that it will work. It would be better to have russia inside the tent than outside the tent. Do we live either way . Yes, we live either way. Is it politically popular foe mr. To say that . Possibly not. I do nothing for politics. Meanwhile at home, there are new signs that trumps trade war is taking its toll on one of his key voting blocs. The New York Times quote American Farmers have become Collateral Damage in a trade war that mr. Trump began to help manufacturers and other companies that he believes have been hurt by chinas unfair trade practices. More than a year into the trade dispute, sales of american soybeans, pork, wheat, and other Agricultural Products to china have dried up. Farm bankruptcy filings in the year through june were up 13 from 2018, and loan delinquency rates are on the rise. Earlier on this network, the head of the National Farmers union described members fears. More and more farmers are coming to understand that, listen, what this president is doing is harming our reputation. And its literally going to take us decades to get some of these we may never get some of these markets back. Amid all of this, theres other news involving the president. The Washington Post reports that attorney general bill barr has booked a 30,000 Christmas Party at trumps d. C. Hotel. The paper also reports on trumps new directive to fast track a border wall, and he wants it black, and he wants it by election day. Quote trump is so eager to complete hundreds of miles of border fence ahead of the 2020 president ial election that he has directed aides to fast track billions of dollars worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private land, and disregard environmental rules, according to current and former officials involved with the project. He also has told worried subordinates he will pardon them of any potential wrongdoing should they have to break laws to get the barriers built quickly. Here for our leadoff discussion on a tuesday night, robert costa, national plit ka reporter for the Washington Post, moderator of Washington Week on pbs. E. B. Stoddard, columnist and associate editor at real clear politics. Thanks to all of you for being with us. Robert, let me start with you. Its not your story, your paper is reporting, though, we just quoted from it, the president apparently feeling some urgency to show tangible progress on this border wall by election day 2020. Obviously the signature promise of his 2016 campaign. Behind the scenes, how big a concern is that for trump, that so little progress has been made in 2 1 2 years as president . Inside the white house tonight, theyre bracing for a fall where the u. S. Mca trade deal may not even be brought to the floor for a vote, where a china trade deal may be long away on the horizon. So theyre trying to look at executive authority as a way to try to galvanize that republican base, the president s core voters for 2020. And thats why theyre going to put an emphasis this fall as the Washington Post reports tonight on what the wall is up to, where the progress has been made by using executive authority. E. B. , you talk about bedbugs, brazil, puerto rico, in terms of twitter. That was how the president was communicating tonight. He was sort of all over the place. Is there a strategy here . Is there a broader strategy that unites all of his pronouncements, all of his action in this. I think robert is right that they are desperate to show some kind of progress on whatever they can. He will return to the immigration issue, no question, because hes been trying to act on that through executive orders recently about food stamps and flu shots and all sorts of things to limit what is provided to families at detention centers. I expect a lot more on immigration. This wall thing is fascinating though, because the Washington Post did not put the impeachable offenses that this story reports on into the headline. He is directing lawbreaking and dangling pardons and thats an impeachable offense. The interesting thing about this story is that don trump jr. Tweeted a video yesterday. They are trying to convince their supporters a new wall has been built. It says, the wall is finally being built. Theyre frustrated all the new wall is refurbished preexisting fencing. Theyre trying to convince people that there actually is new border fencing because they feel that the voters are getting restless about this. And donald trump admits in this in this reporting shows he thinks its going to be seen as a defeat and embarrassment. Theyre desperate to show new wall. The storys not surprising but directing lawbreaking and dangling pardons to do it is going to be a huge problem for him. Karen, again, the other big story here, the president on twitter tonight making some headlines. But the last few days in public at the g7 summit over in france, the headlines, of course, were largely made by the president. Im curious, so much attention to what he said, again, on various topics over there. The g7 itself, this is an institution that goes back decades. Has it been changed by President Trump . I think that they certainly that was the case with the first two meetings that he attended where there were big blowups, there was a lot of concern that they couldnt go on. I think this time president macron of france basically just decided from the beginning that he was going to avoid any chance of conflict. There would be no communique. There would be no big meeting on climate change. There was a smaller meeting on the last day that trump didnt attend. That was the subject that had blown him up before. And i think he went out of his way to flatter President Trump. Everyone was just sort of committed ahead of time that they would not allow anything to explode at the meeting. And that they would smile and go about their business. Not expect any big deliverables. And hopefully get out of it unscathed. Robert, we also mentioned there at the top the condition, the sort of reality for American Farmers a year or so into this trade war with china. Given the importance of sort of the agricultural rural constituency for a lot of republican politicians, not just the president in 2020, for a lot of folks in his party who have been going with him on this trade war, at least not standing up publicly and opposing him on it, how much latitude does the president have with his party, how much farther can he go without getting something tangible from china . The question of whats tangible, your word, is really whats up for debate inside of the Republican Party. When im talking to top lawmakers inside of the house of representatives and the senate, they say they encourage, broadly speaking, the president s trade war. They want to have a confrontation with china. But would they accept a watereddown deal that maybe had china agree to some soybean agreements, some purchases of different ayear, early 2020, something that wasnt wide in scope or hardline against china . Theres a lot of appetite for that among my republican sources who say, a watereddown china deal would jump start the market, would reassure farmers, they dont need to have some kind of grand china deal on trade. A. B. , you were mentioning the issues raised by the president s reported comments on the wall. Theres also the president in the last couple of days saying publicly hed like to have the g7 at trump doral next year. Also news tonight that his attorney general, william barr, is going to be having a 30,000 Christmas Party there. Apparently they are saying they have clearance, barr does, from the dojs ethics officials on this. But still, pearns there, i imagine, could raise some questions for some folks. You know, i was surprised to see senator rubio, who has stood up to the president now and then when he does the wrong thing, i guess hes from florida, and hes supportive of this for miami. But this is another potential probably definite violation of the emoluments clause of the constitution that the president took an oath to defend. And hes just you know, hes not shy about this. He wants to promote his businesses, play golf at his resorts, do business there, and many business dozen business at the trump hotel. Bill barr might do it because its convenient, its near the department of justice. But this is the thing you work hard to avoid doing so even the appearance doesnt raise these kinds of questions. Speaking of that, the president just on twitter tonight is back at it saying, basically, hed like to have the g7 at trump doral next year. What are the prospects of that actually happening . I think as far as the president s concerned, its a done deal. And you saw even though he and his press conference yesterday said, you know, were thinking very seriously about it, weve looked at a lot of other places and they just are not good enough. The white house then came out and tweeted its own confirmation that thats where it was going to be. Today you saw a lot of people, including those who have planned the previous summit g7 summits that have been held in this country saying, wait a minute, it may have all the hotel rooms, it may have the ballrooms, it may have the golf courses and the restaurants as the president explained, but its located very close to miami airport, it is in a neighborhood that is largely warehouses, places that would be very difficult to secure. Previously theyve closed down the airport. Youve got seven, used to be eight, seven leaders of the world meeting there, and most of their cabinets involved. And so in previous for previous summits, theyve closed down the airports. Theyve cleared all the surrounding area. And thats just very, very difficult to do around doral. The president also had on twitter tonight, he had 2020 on his mind. He attacked this might be potentially interesting here. He attacked Elizabeth Warren, democratic president ial candidate, he said they do stories so big on elizabeth poke hon mass warrens crowd sizes adding many more people than are actually there, yet my crowds which are far bigger get no coverage at all, fake news. Robert costa, i guess what im curious about, the president s decision to go after Elizabeth Warren. Obviously hes been attacking joe biden quite a bit lately. Does that say anything about how the white house, how this president is viewing the democratic race . It means hes taking her candidacy seriously. I remember as a reporter back in 2015, traveling with President Trump, he paid close attention to all of his republican rivals, their crowd size, hed talk about his crowd size. It was not so much policy debate, it was about asserting himself as someone whod draw huge crowds. When he see a democratic contender dwraug thousands, over 10,000 in places, that is something that perks the head of this president. Someone who pays attention to celebrity populism, crowds, as much as he does to political issues. A. B. , just given the reality of american politics, Democratic Party politics today, if youre Elizabeth Warren, youre trying to win the democratic president ial nomination, getting attacked by President Trump might actually help you in this moment . Absolutely, that he sees her as a potential threat. He also took the bait and started tweeting about the three stooges, he calls them, the people running against him. Hes upset about joe walsh. I think that was joe walshs goal by the end of this week, former congressman running against the president in the primary, to get him to start barking at him on twitter. So hes taking the bait. This is exactly after a friday when he tanked the markets in a chaotic, turbulent, and largely negative g7 where he was really doing the marketing of Vladimir Putin. What republicans do not want him to be focused on, other peoples crowd size. They want him to be focused on policy and assuring farmers and everything else. So the tweets today were extra special. Okay. A. B. Stoddard, robert costa, karen deyoung, thank you. The government tries to shore up its defenses against election databases russians compromised in 2016. Will it make a difference in 2020 . Later, Congress Moves forward obtaining President Trumps tax returns. The 11th hour just Getting Started on a tuesday night. Ts and if you make the switch youll see what we mean. Tide purclean, because its made with plants. Tide purclean, gets stains out his pants. Tide purclean, it has nothing to hide. Its made with plants and has the cleaning strength of tide. The first plantbased detergent with the cleaning power of tide. A. B. Stoddard, robert costa, the 11th hour just getting er, the 11th hour just getting its been a long time since andrew dusted off his dancing shoes. Luckily denture breath will be the least of his worries. Because he uses polident 4 in 1 cleaning system to kill 99. 99 of odor causing bacteria. Polident. Clean. Fresh. And confident. The Intelligence Community is launching a new effort to combat russian interference in u. S. Elections. This time the department of Homeland Security is warning the kremlin may turn to ransomware in 2020. Reuters were first to report the u. S. Government plans to launch a program in roughly one month that narrowly focuses on protecting Voter Registration databases and systems ahead of the 2020 president ial election. Ransomware attacks hold Computer Systems hostage until payment is made. A Technology Official telling reuters quote a preelection undetected attack could tamper with voter lists creating huge confusion and delays, disenfranchisement, at large could compromise the validity of the election. Officials say this new dhs program will run parallel with local, state, and private sector efforts to try to keep Russian Hackers out of american voting software. Attacks that were attempted back in 2016. Here with us to talk more about it, frank feglusi, former fbi assistant director for counterintelligence. Clint watts, former fbi special agent, distinguished Research Fellow at the Foreign PolicyResearch Institute and author of messing with the enemy surviving in a social media world of hackers, terrorists, russians, and fake news. Clint, speaking of the russians, potentially, according to this reporting, anyone else who has some desire to interfere perhaps with american elections, ransomware is a potential avenue for doing so. Describe exactly how that would work and what could be done to stop that. Yeah, there are two parts. If you remember back when we looks at the end of the Mueller Report, the first part people were worried about was changing votes. Be actually getting in, changing the Voting System so that the count came out different. Thats actually much more difficult to do. What the russians did last time around and what could be even worse t