It is sunday, august 18th and the President Trump administrations immigration proposals are drawing criticism and accusations of hypocrisy. Poor immigrants will be denied permanent legal status if they are deemed likely to use government benefit programs. Really . Because i know of at least one immigrant lady who lives in really nice Public Housing and pretty much only works on christmas. With me this morning, tim obrian, the executive educator of broloomberg. Joining us, the author of a good provider is one who lives. That book is scheduled to be published on tuesday of this week. Jason is with us because he wrote one of those Stephen Miller profiles i mentioned at the top of the show. I want to begin with the trump administrations efforts to limit the number of immigrants coming to the u. S. Ken cuccinelli is the acting director of citizenship and immigration services. We certainly expect people of any income to be able to stand on their own two feet, and so if people are not able to be selfsufficient, then this negative factor is going to bear very heavily against them in a decision about whether theyll be able to become a legal permanent resident. This weekend Bloomberg News is reporting that for months Stephen Miller, has been spearheading an effort to block undocumented immigrants from enrolling in Public Schools but he cant seem to find his way around a Supreme Court ruling that guarantees access to an education. He has influence on virtually every element of immigration policy. He has guided a series of policy changes to critics likened to building an invisible wall. Let me start there if i could. I want to dig into the relationship that the president has with Stephen Miller. We focus on the big stories, we focus on the physical wall. Help us understand the context of all that Stephen Miller has been able to accomplish without regular scrutiny, without the public eye. Most of the coverage recently has been on the border disputes and the purges inside the department of homeland security, but out of view the trump administration, often with Stephen Millers guidance, has been prom you will gating dozens, scores of rules and regulations that make it harder in many cases for legal immigrants to enter the country. Your piece is about Stephen Miller but also what gave rise to him, in which he came of age. Talk about that and whats happened to the Republican Party. I think theres been a lot of focus on his personality, his often abrasive statements, but Stephen Miller is the product of a Larger Movement thats been operating for several decades and has been abetted by some large changes in political context arranging from 9 11 to outsourcing which has reduced support among business interests for immigration in the United States to demographics, the rise of immigration across the south, the heart of the gop. Miller is often the face of the movement but its a much broader phenomenon. Hes been pushing for restrictionism. You look at the Republican Party. There was sympathy for immigrants. There was for a time thought that you could get immigrants to vote republican, they could be brought into the fold. That was the case under president reagan, president george h. W. Bush and president bush. Whats changed in help us understand the way the Republican Party has moved toward restrictionism . I wrote a book called the pursuit of the American Dream so i thought about this in the context of black immigrants who at one point seemed ripe for the picking for the Republican Party. Theres been a nativist undercurrent for the party which has tapped into the antiblack white supremacist roots of this nation. So as the Republican Party moves in that direction, as Lyndon Baynes Johnson said, if you can convince the poorest white man that hes better than the negro and now you can insert immigrants or mexican you can pick his pockets all day long. Theres the scenario that you do not have, not because of our tax policies or trade policies or the highest levels of the government, if you dont have the life that you want or the job that you need or the health care that you should have or the education that should be promised to you, its not because of our policies as republicans, its because of these immigrants working in powellt poultry factors or black americans working in someplace not even in your own state. We constantly talk about the economics of a trump voter and the economics of the Republican Party and the economics of anxiety but were constantly ignoring the racial animus that is the foundation of most of the policy thats been promulgated for the last 15 to 30 years in that party. You eenumerate how many influence Stephen Miller has, from the words that the president uses to the regulations he prom you will gaits. You chart his origin story from santa monica to your alma mater to duke, to washington d. C. Where he worked for Michele Bachmann and Jeff Sessions. Help us understand how he came into the trump fold, how this relationship came about between him and the persisteand the pree United States. He worked for Jeff Sessions in the senate. Senator sessions is one of the most adamant opponents of immigration and donald trump used to talk to breitbart when miller was talking to breitbart as well. Miller told his friends he wished trump would run for president , and as soon as he did miller started working behind the scenes on the campaign and formally joined him. Tim, how were the president s beliefs on this matter . Theres been reporting about the Trump Organization and its use of immigrant labor. How closely held are the president s beliefs when it comes to immigration . How easily could he be swayed about what Stephen Miller was espousing and these restrictionist policies that he was bringing to the president . I think hes very easily swayed because he doesnt hold any policy very close to the vest or close to his heart. Hes not in any of this for policy. He can be inflammatory. He campaigns on these things but hes never been a student of the finer points of any policy including immigration. Ais you note, hes hypocritical. He runs hotels and golf courses that are dependent on migrant labor and his businesses wouldnt thrive without that. Two of his three wives were immigrants. His inlaws are the benefits of chain migration which Stephen Miller has railed against. You have all these things in his own background that do not make him a fervent antiimmigrationist but he is a fervent poll um cyst about immigration. Stephen miller animates the president s policy on this and i think Stephen Miller is driving the car when it comes to this, not trump. Who taught him how to drive the car . Think of the role he has here. Hes espousing these views but i dont believe hes a lawyer but hes trying to craft a lot of policy proposals within the government. You look at the muslim travel ban for example. That was something where they threw it at the wall and saw what stick. It was something he pioneered and tried to work on. How has he developed this shaping policy not having a legal background . Im struck by the moment that he has become a survivor in the trump administration. In another administration he would be one of half a dozen, a dozen aides and he would be trying to push his agenda against other folks. As tim was mentioning, the president doesnt seem to have heartfelt beliefs on this issue, although he understands it as core to his political identity and what got him elected. But every time he gets into an escalated mode, even miller seems nervous that the president might stray from this agenda. What hes managed to do is engineer a situation where he can surround the president with people that are of the restrictionist mindset at those very key moments. When we saw that there might be a year or so ago a deal perhaps on the dreamers, all of a sudden the president reverses himself almost within the course of 24 hours. Miller has proven to be a very skilled bureaucratic player. I think he picked some of that up from his time in the senate but also some of it is understanding hes not a typical capitol hill player. I think capitol hill players tend to be consensus builders, tend to be trying to cut a deal, especially at the staff level. He is someone whos managed to use social media, use some of the more fringe figures to influence the system in a way that makes sure that his agenda goes forward and perhaps more importantly the agenda of others who oppose him. Can i just say, this is the first time that i might slightly disagree. Please, go ahead. I do think that trump possesses this machiavellian idea. I think that he can be swayed, but when it comes to this issue, if we look at the last 40 years of knowing donald j. Trump, we do know that he is actually a White Nationalist. We do know that he thinks certain ethnic groups are better than others. We do know that he thinks that whites are smarter than blacks, latinos, asians and everyone else. When it comes to immigration, this is the one issue where he does have a core because fundamentally he sees european immigrants as better than the others who would be infestations, who would be browner, blacker immigrants coming in to destroy what he feels is his country and his city. Hes a racist and hes an antiimmigrant absolutist, but he doesnt know how to wed that to policy the way that miller has and i think thats whats dangerous here about Stephen Miller. How much of that is him, is Stephen Miller . You talked to conservatives on immigration and looked at immigration about changing green card rules and he said its not entirely symbolic but mostly symbolic. How much of this is Stephen Miller having a mastery of whats symbolic or a cruel or dra i dont even kn how much of it is his own making . I think he works at two levels, the symbolic level. There was a famous incident in the White House Briefing room where he talked about why the statue of liberty should not be a symbol of welcome to immigrants. Hes definitely working working at the symbolic level bullt whas interesting about him is he works quite granularly as well and that public charge rule that tim was just talking about is a perfect example. I think the quote from mark was that the movement had shared principles for many years and stephen knew how to operationalize them. Thank you very much for the piece and joining us. Much more ahead including the latest polling from nbc news and the wall street journal on the president , on 2020 and on gun policy. First, clashes breaking out between right wing agitators and antifa protestors and the president thinking of naming antifa an organization of terror. The protest in portland happening as there are rallies around the country after recent shootings in el paso and dayton. A mother taking on the era is going to join us next. When the Second Amendment was ratified, they were talking about muskets. Were not talking about muskets. Were talking about assault rifles. Were talking about weapons of mass destruction that can kill people. N kill people Award Winning interface. Award winning design. Award winning engine. The volvo xc90. Our most awarded luxury suv. If you have moderate to thsevere rheumatoid arthritis, month after month, the clock is ticking on irreversible joint damage. Ongoing pain and stiffness are signs of joint erosion. 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Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. I decided that i wanted to go for Electrical Engineering and you need to go to college for that. If i didnt have internet in the home i would have to give up more time with my kids. Which is the main reason i left the military. Everybody wants more for their kids, but i feel like with my kids, they measurably get more than i ever got. And i get to do that. I get to provide that for them. There were clashes yesterday in portland, oregon between right wing demonstrators and counterprotesters. There were 13 arrests in total and i want to get an update now from my colleague Steve Patterson who joins us this morning from portland, oregon. I saw your reporting yesterday was all of this was unfolding. There was a lot of movement between the parts. Help us understand what happened yesterday and the degree to which Law Enforcement was able to keep these protests separate as much as they could and under control. Reporter yeah, david, this was essentially a planned and promoted clash between these two factions on the far left and the far right for weeks. This could have devolved easily into a street brawl but it just didnt. So you have the third faction, police and city officials claiming victory because they essentially averted a crisis. As you mentioned, mostly able to keep those two groups separated without using a whole lot of force. You have to think about what they were up against. You have these far right agitators coming in from all over the pacific northwest. As they told us in person, theyre there for the explicit purpose to goad and prod and taunt the left into a street fight. Then here in portland you have more anonymous people clad in all black, the antifa movement, ready to oblige the right with a fight of their own meeting together. When youre in these crowds, the sense of tension yesterday morning was palpable. When youre in a good crowd you hear chanting, songs, speakers. These crowds were literally milling about, basically essentially looking for each other, looking for a street fight. But as the day goes on, it got clearer and clearer that that zone of impact got smaller because police were able to keep an upper hand on it by keeping those two groups as we mentioned separated. As you said, 13 arrests, 6 injuries but by and large when you look at the overall whole situation and how it ended, this was largely a peaceful affair, david. Steve patterson reporting from portland, oregon, thank you for getting up early to join us. There are protests taking place across the country this weekend focused on gun control and gun policy. Marches are planned in all 50 states aimed at pressuring the senate to pass legislation and to back red flag laws in states across the country. Mrs. Beagle shulman has been part of that movement and she joins us now. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you for having me. I want to ask you how your work dovetails. You have a foundation in your sons memory. How does that dovetail with this march or movement to affect change. A lot of people look at the historic might of the nra and wonder what the other side is like. How do you interface it between the two . Help us understand that. Well, reasonable gun safety is not a partisan issue. Its ridiculous. Reasonable gun safety is common sense and this is what i say all the time. We really need the right and the left to move to the middle. This is all about the safety of all of us. We have the right to be safe. We the people have the right to be safe. The fact that the right wants to hold their position and the left wants to hold their position, what are they doing . Theyre supposed to be working for the people of the United States. Theyre not doing their job. President trump, senator mcconnell, they need to do their job. They need to do whats good for everyone. If you ask anyone, do you want to be safe, do you want your children to be safe, your grandchildren, your friends, your coworkers, give me one person who says no. Thats their job. Their job is to keep us safe. That was scotts job. Scotts job was to keep his students safe and thats what he did. If this red flag law was enact federally on february 13th, my son, my son scott, would be here today. The other 16 innocent lives that were taken would be here today because that active shooter would not have even had the chance to step into that school. I found covering gun policy that if you have a oneonone conversation with someone there is bound to be more agreement. There are things that folks of all backgrounds and beliefs agree upon. When you look at what youre seeing from Senate Leadership in this case, yes, its august, theyre in process but you see an unwillingness to engage with this issue by Senate Leadership. What engenders optimism in you . We talk about the unfortunate cycle of all of this. Youve lived through that. You feel like things are regrettably the same after these tragedies take place. What fwigives you optimism that there are going to be policy changes as a result . The peopl