At least one body has been found buried in the snow. And today would have been Brittany Maynards 30th birthday, and her family released a new video that she made before she died. But first, president obama is finally ready to announce how he will use executive action to provide work permits to millions of undocumented immigrants. Outrage owned the day. Prunes seem to be gearing up for war. Ted cruz is calling him a monarch. Get a grip. They all say that the president is overstepping his authority. Steps that i can take to start fixing our broken immigration system. He does not want to go down as the deporter in chief. The president seems to be fed up. Washington has allowed the problem to fester for too long. Doing what he has to do. Creating a very big political firestorm. Why couldnt he wait to see what this new congress does . Weve given them time, 510 days to be exact. For a lame duck, president obama sure is ruffling a whole lot of feathers. Its height of arrogance. Stop making threats and respect the constitution. Get a grip. Many of those Tea Party Types are saying shut down the government. You dont govern through executive order. You govern through shut downs and impeachment. I think the congress should ready the lawyers. The president doesnt get to make it up himself. He should be working with congress to do nothing together. Were now less than 24 hours away from the official beginning of the immigration showdown. Hi, everybody. Tomorrow night im going to be announcing hire from the white house some steps that i can take to start fixing our broken immigration system. What im going to do is announce things i can do to make the system better even as i work with congress to encourage them to get a bipartisan comprehensive bill that can solve the entire problem. President obamas announcement tomorrow night could allow work permits to be issued to almost half of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country today. Republican outrage continues to mount. This is something i struggled with throughout my presidency. The problem is that im the president of the united states. Im not the emperor of the united states. My job is to execute laws that are passed. And congress right now has not changed what i consider to be a broken immigration system. So he was telling people a year ago, hey, chill. Im not an emperor. I cant do it. What he didnt say was, i dont care about any of that. The only thing thats stopping me is an election coming up. And when the election is over, thats when ill do it. Im not going to do that before that because ill hurt my party and maybe me. He should have just told them to be patient until wait until after the election because he doesnt believe hes not an emperor. He is an emperor and hes going to prove it whenever he does this. The spoken for the republican speaker of the house john boehner said if Emperor Obama ignores the American People and announces an amnesty plan that he himself said over and over again extends his authority. In an oped ted cruz said it is lawless, it is unconstitutional, he is defiant and angry at the American People. If we acts by executive dictate, president obama will not be acting as president. He will be acting as a monarch. Ted cruz then gave Republican Senate leader Mitch Mcconnell his marching orders. If the president announces lets see. If the president announces executive amnesty, the new Senate Majority leader who takes over in january should announce that the 114th congress will not confirm a single nominee, executive or judicial, outside of Vital National security positions, so long as the illegal amnesty persists. Additionally, the new congress should exercise the power of the purse bypassing individual Appropriations Bills authorizing critical functions of government and attaching riders to strip the authority from the president to grant amnesty. Tonight, president obama invited eight Democratic Senators and 11 Democratic House members to dinner to discuss his immigration plan. When asked why republicans were not invited, White House Press secretary josh earn nest said this. Sadly, if it were only dinner that was required to get republicans to act in bipartisan fashion, then we would have passed bipartisan compromise Immigration Reform legislation quite some time ago. Joining me now, robert costa, National Political reporter for the Washington Post and henry fernandez, a senior fellow at the center for american progress. Henry fernandez, what is your understanding of the president s Legal Authority that you expect him to cite tomorrow night . It will be interesting to see what the president says. He certainly has very broad Legal Authority, lawrence. This is something thats been done by a number of president s, certainly all 11 president s going back to eisenhower have used executive action on immigration. So he has broad Legal Authority. Under the theory of prosecutorial discretion, which all executive officers have, and he can move aggressively to create legal opportunities for millions of people who are currently undocumented. Were currently deporting 1,000 people a day. This is something that has to stop. Its tearing families apart. Unfortunately, congress hasnt acted. Actually the senate did act, but the house hasnt acted. And so hes taking steps that he has clear Legal Authority to do so. And we look forward to this being a bold move by the president to make a real difference for families that are is really suffering. I havent heard a democrat able to cite an elected democrat in washington able to cite the Legal Authority for the president. I did have an Immigration Law expert on here showing some of the Legal Authority the president has, but i also have not heard a single republican cite what they believe is the legal basis for their objection. What is their legal citation that says the president does not have authority to do this . There are a lot of lawyers in congress, but its really not a legal argument theyre making. Its a broad constitutional one. They think the president is operate, creating law without constitutional authority. Hes doing it around congress and thats irritated them. Its infuriated them. The 1986 Immigration Reform law, the legal precedent established first by john lennon in his legal case and others have have shown that there is this prosecutorial discretion, there is this power that the president , through the attorney general has about deferred action. There are these citations that i can offer that ive learned on this show from the legal experts. I havent heard one word from republicans other than unconstitutional. But when you stand in front of the Supreme Court and you say unconstitutional, you have have got to cite statutes and precedents that indicate its unconstitutional. Wheym hearing from allies of mcconnell and Speaker Boehner is that theyre going to use the courts. Theyre not sure of the arguments to use so theyre going to have a lawsuit gep the president , sue the administration. But henry fernandez, the other reaction here, ted cruz has an interesting inconsistency in his statement. He says its completely unconstitutional, its lawless and then his final line is, they should attach riders to certain bills, quote, to strip the authority from the president to grant amnesty. So in his final line he has granted to the president the authority. This is Harvard Law School student ted cruz. Butt other thing they can do, if they really believe the authority isnt there, they can immediately in january pass legislation that specifies that the authority is not there and specifically remove this kind of prosecutorial discretion, which does now exist in the law. It wouldnt pass the senate and it would be vetoed by the senate. But they could also take a more serious step which is they could pass comprehensive Immigration Reform. I think its pretty clear that if the senate bill was given an up or down bill it would happen. Its never going to happen. I dont disagree that thats not going to happen. My point is simply that here, we have a situation where the house has created this problem, and to say its unconstitutional is really, i think, pushing the bounds of just serious discussion. We actually had the federal society, which is kind of the hallmark of conservative lawyerdom had a dolphins last week and they brought together a series of conservative lawyers to talk about just this issue. And they all agreed that he had broad discretion to do exactly this. Robert costa, your last word on this. I would just say the republicans are in a difficult position right now. Theyre not sure if theyre going to be able to have their agenda they want early in the year, tax reform, trade agreements. Theyre boxed into now a fight over government funding. And ted cruz talking about holding up nominations, using a series of spending bills puts the leadership in a tough position. Completely changes whatever their agenda was going to be. Thank you very much both for joining me tonight. At the Republican Governor Association today, scott walker and rick perry suggested the pocket of suing president obama over his immigration executive order. I wouldnt push a shutdown. I think you go to court. You would go to the court . I think theres a compelling argument. The incoming governor of texas who, by the way, is going to be a fabulous governor, his Job Description over the last six years when he was asked what do you do, he said i go to the office, i sue obama, and i go home. So you think texas will have the authority to challenge this executive orderer . I do. I want to show republican governor john kasichs reaction, which is completely different to everything weve heard from republicans today. Lets listen to this. The issue of citizenship ive heard lots of voices on it. Im not closed to it. You know why . Because everyone in this country has to feel as if they have an opportunity. I know what they did. I know they jumped the line. I dont like it. Theres a lot of people who have gone through legally who have not jumped the line who are bitter about this. But at the end of the day, it may be necessary. Im open to it, i will tell you that. Im hope to it. Casey, can a republican governor at that meeting get away with saying im open to it . At this meeting lawrence, sure. Now, if he wants to run for president in 2016, im not sure it would survive the gauntlet of the republican primary. Kasichs answer was really striking because it was so different from every other republican governor on the stage. I interviewed three of them today, and i pressed all of them after they discussed their opposition to this executive order on what they would do with the millions of people who are here illegally. Theres something that has to be done and they all do acknowledge that its a problem, but they cant come up with a policy prescription. All they say is we need to secure the border. As we look made to 2016, thats really going to be the tough spot that some of these potential candidates are in. Chris christie was also asked today whether or not he would overturn this executive order if he were to get elected president. He refused to answer, because he said it was a hypothetical. But i think the first person that you might ask about this subject on the republican side is actually mitt romney. And he learned the hard way about what the primary process can do on this issue to set you up badly for the general election. Did anyone explain to Chris Christie that every question asked today was a hypothetical . Im not sure that will get you far for governor christie. But he was pressed. I asked him one question, others asked him several. He wouldnt say whether or not he was supportive of a path to legalization. Again, he says thats something that would only come if he were to declare his candidacy. And that hes still the sitting governor of new jersey. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. Thanks, lawrence. Good to see you. Coming up, the woman who had this wall of snow come into her house will join me to talk about the intense deadly winter snow thats buried homes and cars in upstate new york. And drones have been spotted by commercial Airline Pilots near new yorks Kennedy Airport flight path. This is a very dangerous situation for anyone landing, taking off at jfk. And in the rewrite tonight, i have once again found a perfectly legitimate, contemporary, news of the day reason to run what could be my favorite political sound bite of all time. Fool me once, shame on shame on you. Fool me cant get fooled again. I promise you, it is going to be completely justified. That video has actually earned its place in tonights rewrite. This is not just a gratuitous reachback to try to fit it into the show. You be the judge. Let us be lovers, well marry our fortunes together ive got some real estate here in my bag it took me four days to hitchhike from saginaw ive come to look for america which means its time for the volkswagen signthendrive event. For practically just your signature, you could drive home for the holidays in a germanengineered volkswagen. Like the sporty, advanced new jetta. And the 2015 motor trend car of the year allnew golf. If youre wishing for a new volkswagen this season. Just about all you need is a finely tuned. Pen. Hurry in and get zero due at signing, zero down, zero deposit, and zero first months payment on select new volkswagen models. And now for the bad news. The world is headed for a chocolate shortage. People are now consuming 70,000 more tons of cocoa annually than are being produced. And by 2020, the deficit will grow to 1 million tons per year. Demand for chocolate is growing in asia and theres more of a demand for dark chocolate, of course, which takes more cocoa to make than milk chocolate. Ghana and ivory coast are suffering through dry weather and some crops have been hit by a fungus outbreak. So, you know, it looks like were just going to have to share. Up next, i just got off a phone from a friend of mine in buffalo. The deadly snowstorm is beyond anything people up there has ever seen before. Early this morn, a 46yearold man was found dead buried under snow in an automobile 20 miles east of buffalo. A state of emergency remains in effect tonight in western new york where a massive storm left parts of buffalo buried under nearly sick feet of snow. The National Weather service says the next round of lakeeffect snow is passing through upstate new york tonight, possibly bringing an additional two feet of snow to erie county by tomorrow evening. Right now, members of the National Guard are coordinating with local and state officials to help with the response. There have been seven deaths related to the storm. Today, Governor Andrew Cuomo said all occupants of Passenger Vehicles stuck on the new york state throughway have been evacuated. And he urged people to stay indoors. Major snowstorms are, of course, common in buffalo, but these last two days have left people there shocked. I saw buffalo, west seneca, its slammed. They got three to four feet. To come down this fast in this short of time its nothing like ive seen. Its happened before, but never this deep. This is kind of crazy. Four feet of snow is insane. In one day. But to not even be technically called a blizzard. It wasnt even a blizzard. Weve seen lakeeffect snow but its rare how it set up, just stood there and said hey, here you go, western new york, enjoy. Joining me now from new york is nbc news correspondent. Sarah, do we have any idea how many people are trapped in their homes at this point . Well, good evening, lawrence. We dont have an exact number but we can illustrate how many people are trapped inside their homes. Im standing several feet above a side street. A neighborhood street where you can see these homes just feet of snow backed on the roof. Just a few minutes ago, we met two people with groceries in their hands. They were taking food to their elderly aunt. The only people who can access this road who are not on foot are snowmobilers. Take a look at this speed limit sign behind me. That will give you just an idea of just how deep this snow on this street is. And then you come down, you caulk down several feet here and now you are actually on the roads. This gives you an idea of why authorities are cautioning people to stay indoors and stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary. Theyre describing this as a threepart storm. Part one was that huge up to six feet of snowstorm in the area. Now were moving into phase two. Thats up to two feet of snow overnight. Phase three, they say, is going to come over the weekend when the temperatures warm and we have potential flooding. So people here dealing with a long week of inclement weather, a long week of dangerous conditions for them. Were joined now by phone from a resident. Were showing what appears to be your front door where, i guess, the door opened and your house filled with snow. Tell us about that. Thats actually my backdoor. The french doors that have you see, the snow fell off the roof and joined the six feet of snow on the ground and the door just couldnt take the pressure. They just blew right in. Are you trapped in the house now, or can you get out . We do have access to get out on to, you know were fully surrounded by feet of snow, but if we were to open the garage door, we would be able to crawl out. And are you aware, have you been in contact with your neighbors by phone . How many people in your neighborhood are in your situation . Its all around us. The firefighters that came actually had to walk a couple are we clear . What do you need now besides warm weather to warm whats outside and snow removal . Just to make sure everyone is safe. Its very dangerous. And i understand today is you