Divisiveness. Robert conservatives see it differently. Blaming the republican establishment, not the white house. The republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election. That is a brutal fact. Mitch mcconnell and paul ryan do not want Donald Trumps agenda to be implemented. It is obvious. Its obvious as night follows day. Robert will the president s alliance with democrat spark a rebellion . And the president opens the door to an immigration bill. Just days after the administration announced it would phase out the program protecting young, undocumented immigrants. We will talk policy and politics with Yamiche Alcindor of the new york times, Michael Scherer , nancy cordes of cbs news, and jeff zeleny of cnn. Celebrating 50 yea is washi funding is provided by we have all been affected by cancer, someway, somehow. The Cancer Institute is pursuing breakthroughs every day, like identifying genetic mutations for therapies and teaching your immune system to attack cancerous cells, by using information in new ways. We are cracking the cancer code. Their leadership is instinctive. They understand the challenges of today. And research the technologies of tomorrow. Some call them veterans. We call them part of our team. Additional funding is provided by newmans own foundation, donating all profits from Food Products to charity and nourishing the common good. The ethics and excellence in journalism foundation. Committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. The corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station, from viewers like you. Thank you. Once again, live from washington, robert costa. Robert good evening. President trump Welcome Congress back with a curveball, aligning with democrats on a threepart agreement to bundle Hurricane Relief with a shortterm extension to fund the government and lift the debt limit. It happened inside of the oval office where Mitch Mcconnell and paul ryan sat sidebyside with democratic leaders. The president through the usual playbook out the window. The senate and house approved the multibilliondollar package. It marked a significant victory for the president. Trump is calling this a bipartisan moment than americans want. There wasnt any compromise in the middle. Instead, he caught the gop offguard and embrace to the democrats. Michael, what drove the president to go in this direction . Michael he has been frustrated. You read his twitter, at Republican Leaders inability to get things done. He saw the ability to create competition between democrats and republicans and by making this deal where he accepts the democrats terms and bragging about his relationship with nancy and chuck people he spent months excoriating on twitter and elsewhere. He has put a challenge in front of the Republican Leadership to get their act together to pass his platform. The most interesting part, it is a double win. He gets to do this victory dance. The conservatives have largely not blamed him for this. He gave away negotiating leverage in december that will mean more government spending, a different compromise with daca. And conservatives, instead of blaming the president for doing something that would not have been allowed in their philosophy, are blaming their leaders. Without a doubt it is the most mysterious movie is made. It is something no one was expecting. I am told even his own cabinet was not expecting this. The treasury secretary was talking about the argument for a longerterm deal. The president said we are siding with the democratic plan. I think the shortest answer, he wanted to win. He wanted a shortterm win to show he is in charge. The sugar rush high of the press coverage. Talking to someone the next day, he called nancy pelosi and other leaders and he was raving about the press coverage. I look so good, he said you look good on my channels. He was taking this. Where does this go from here . It is why covering this administration, there is not a script for it. He liked this. I was watching him on friday afternoon walking to marine one. A bounce in his step like we have not seen for a while. This was one of his best weeks. We have to consider the possibility the main driver for him making this deal was president ial in patients. Nancy pelosi recounted how the conversation went down. She said it was back and forth for a long time. They were in the white house and the president finally said, ok, the democrats want three months. Republicans want 18 months. Republicans dont have the votes. It lets to three months. This is someone who is well known for a short Attention Span and someone who, jeff, you have been watching him, was fixated on hurricane prep and relief. He had a lot more detail when it came to Hurricane Relief then he has on other issues that have been facing the white house and congress lately. It is possible he wanted to wrap up the conversation and get back to the hurricane. I ran into Yamiche Alcindor. Lawmakers got stuff done. The debt ceiling is extended. The budget is extended. And they got Hurricane Relief. Is washington working . Yamiche it is accredited incredible with this president who has faced criticism, this is a week where washington is functioning in the way it is supposed to appear in the debt ceiling should not be a continual crisis, but the idea you have things functioning is why you see that pet in his step. I go back to the idea, i think of darrell isa, who told me republicans have been told they need to up their game. He will not be in our corner, he is a neutral arbitrator where if we go to the white house, we should not think he is going to take the side of the republicans because he is a republican. That changes the game for a lot of leaders and the fact there are people blaming the Republican Leadership rather than the president tells me he understands his stance and he is the one leading the Republican Party now and he has the leverage when he is talking to Mitch Mcconnell and paul ryan. He can say this is what i want and you have to do it. I think, though, the reason it got good coverage and we are giving praise is it was different. We have seen eight months of no action. It is setting up a very hectic and of the year. We have been on capitol hill, a lot of holidays doing deals and stuff. This is where it is going to come down in december. Again, the next day the president said, this is signaling a new government style. That is yet to be seen. The base does not blame him. They do not this week. We will see if it lasts. Once the coverage moves beyond the actual substance, some conservatives will have some buyers remorse. It could backfire because democrats will have more leverage. What it highlights is something nancy said, trump, when he came to office, he was told the house and senate had it under control. We are going to do obama care repeal. They are going to take care of it. We are going to get this done. None of it when anywhere. The president realizes there is no functioning republican majority. He was in a meeting in one side said we could sign this today and the other side said we can work on this and negotiate. If republicans cant get their act together and say here is how we are going to do this, he is saying to the country, im going to move away from you. That puts pressure on them. It was not just the deal, the president made other gestures to democrats. He championed the senator in north dakota and he was working with Chuck Schumer on a possible deal to get rid of the debt ceiling extension process entirely. Republicans have to be watching this. Nancy pelosi, would you mind tweeting to the dreamers and tell them not to worry that they will be deported . He was like, done. That raised some eyebrows. I asked pelosi, does this signal a renaissance in your relationship with the president . She said that would assume there was a relationship before that is being reborn. She said the reality is, all of these leaders are savvy, sometimes your opponents on other issues can be your wing man on areas of agreement and you have got to be open to that. She was not ready to embrace this notion suddenly they are going to get things done. What about paul ryan . He is under siege. There is talk of a rebellion, although it probably will not happen. Where does he go from here . Ryan is facing pressure. He has to figure out a plan for how the next couple of months are going to go and shore up his base. What can we get done . When i was on capitol hill watching mark meadows and other members hold court as if they were the speaker of the house, and maybe think this is not the way this is supposed to function. Paul ryan has to be frustrated when they say we might come out with our own plan. Can the speaker count on the president to follow through . Yamiche i think donald trump has been clear he wants to get this done. Can he count on the president . As someone who is so impulsive and wants to get a deal done, if tax reform looks Like Health Care, i can imagine the president will say lets go with the deal we can get done. Maybe. The tax reform is harder. It hasnt been done. I am skeptical given the other crises, Hurricane Irma this weekend, might be worse than harvey. Theres a lot for this government to deal with. Im skeptical of tax reform. Now there is a new possibility, senator schumer, his new partner. Will the republicans rebel on this . 90 republicans in the house voted against this. What if they reach a Critical Mass against a deal . What if republicans missed understanding President Trump, michael . That Chuck Schumer and nancy pallone nancy pelosi recognized . Michael he operates in the moment. He will change from day to day based on who he is talking to. He doesnt see a problem with that. That is the way he has been. They came in with a deal, republicans did not have a deal. Trump was willing to make the jump. The difference im not optimistic about tax reform, but the difference is that tax reform is a sliding scale. You can move the numbers to get more votes. You could not do that with obama care. It was a black and white issue. And so theres a lot of places for negotiation and if ryan and mcconnell cant come up with the votes, that is the signal to get something done on the rhone, to bring the rates really low, the president says we will change the numbers and i will talk to my friend chuck. Are we seeing a new coalition on capitol hill . Mainstream democrats and republicans not having the Freedom Caucus and the fringes dictate where everything goes . Nancy they would like that. They are eager to Work Together on issues Like Health Care and tax reform. Paul ryan reiterated they are going strictly in the republican direction when it comes to tax reform. They are not going to work on a bipartisan deal. His definition is i think some democrats might like our plan. Thats it. They experienced a failure on that front when they tried to go that way with health care. They think they can get it done this time. It is not clear because you talk about tax reform and youre going to lower individual rates, corporate rates, youre going to cut a hole in the revenue. How are you going to make it up . Republicans will be very concerned about that. Robert was the president listening to . We heard steve bannon. He had advised the president to work with democrats. Is he talking to the president . Jeff i have no doubt they are communicating. The president is not listening to members of his team, his cabinet. The treasury secretary is a key negotiator. He cut him off at the knees. The president is operating on his own instinct. All president s learn on the job. After seven months, he has seen what doesnt work and he wants to take the reins a little bit. He wanted to mix it up and he likes the outcome in the short term. Again, this does not solve all of the challenges before him. Never mind russia. Robert a big issue that will be a consequence of all of these forces, the president says he wants to work with the democrats on a new immigration plan to protect 800,000 undocumented young people from deportation. Jeff sessions announced the administration will phase out the deferred action for Childhood Arrivals Program over six months. That is how much time the president is giving congress to create an alternative or has threatened to take action himself. Michael, we are looking at a president who seems to want to make a deal to protect these people, working with the democrats. Is that what we should expect in december . Michael i think so. He gave them leverage with the deal over the debt ceiling. The president has been consistent that he does not, he sees the childhood Arrival Group has a Distinct Group from the other illegal immigration problem. He did have a problem with the fact it was put through in an executive order. This is a twofer. He has released a the program and he gets to play the moderating bipartisan hero here, at least so far through tweets. He has made clear the people who are here under daca dont have to worry. Robert they do a little bit. Everyone i have talked to is worried. When the democrats had their press conference talking with nancy pelosi about how they wanted to push for daca, i interviewed a young grow who was crying because she is a young daca recipient who is a student in college and she says even as the deal is being brokered, her life and her familys life hangs in the balance. They are under stress. The thing that goes back to me as a reporter, this has been going on 16 years. There was the dream act and in 2001 when it was introduced, he said i would never have thought we would still be trying to figure out how to deal with this. Congress is trying to do in six months when they could not do in 16 years. While this sounds like a Critical Mass, i am skeptical of these parties are going to come together and broker a deal. Robert the Republican Leadership, ryan, mcconnell, they seem to be willing to move in the direction of approving a daca fix. Nancy paul ryan said they hope they can find a consensus. Which is different and confidence. The dream act. The challenge is on the right, there is discomfort with the notion of pushing through the dream act by itself because many republicans will argue if you do that, you are encouraging more people to bring their Young Children to this country illegally. They say it has to be combined with Border Security measures. What are those measures . Democrats would go along with some of them. If you are talking about billions of dollars in while funding, that is a nonstarter. Robert what is going to be the deal . If the president is going to be a dealmaker, he will have to cut a deal. If the democrats dont want a physical wall they dont. These proposals for the wall have come in. It is a fence more than a wall. The experts are saying a concrete wall is not feasible. We have seen the president s flexibility. He wants to cut a deal. There may be a piece of a wall. Whatever. He will call little while and he will call it a victory. He could claim victory on something and move on. His base seems to follow along with him. We will see how far that goes. You could have a debate about building materials. How much concrete is ok. Democrats say Border Security, fine. There is room to maneuver. They just will have to fight over whether they are calling it a wall. Democrats have used the dream act to ask for comprehensive reform including other people. Democrats say they still want that and it is their parents. That is a big part of the deal. Robert we have to leave it there. I want to tell you about a new program premiering tonight, third rail, asking hard questions many people are debating among their friends and family. The host Carlos Watson joins us from new york and tonight you debate the question, is truth overrated . With all the talk about fake news, do americans see the truth as relevant . Good to be with you. That is a terrific question. More americans are worried the truth is relative. In the poll we did, almost double the number of people feel like they are lied to some of the time versus 30 years ago. We have seen a surge. Part of that is the critique President Trump has lied more than other politicians. Its a big reason the third rail wanted to dive in. Robert you are inviting the audience to be part of the debate. Carlos we are getting really great guests like Malcolm Gladwell to jump into the arena and more importantly we are allowing the audience to weigh in. People are talking about this at home, debating it, sometimes in frustrated ways and we want to provide a forum online or in studio to get a chance to share their voice. We hope it is a big part of the reason third rail with ozy becomes a staple. Robert i will be watching. It premieres tonight on pbs. Check your local listings. That is it for us. Our conversation will continue on the Washington Week extra and what donald trump said about his meeting with a russian attorney. You can find it later tonight at pbs. Org. A thanks to everyone who joined me on my Facebook Live chat. That was fun. You can watch it again on the facebook page. We want to send our thoughts to those in the path of irma and those in texas still recovering from harvey. Stay safe. I am robert costa. See you next time. Funding is provided by their leadership is instinctive. They understand the challenges of today. And research the technologies of tomorrow. Some call them veterans. We call them part of our team. Additional funding is provided by the Cancer Institute. Newmans own foundation, donating all profits from Food Products to charity and nursing the common good. The ethics and excellence in journalism foundation. Committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. The corporation for broke public broadcasting and contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Ruben martinez los angeles, from the early 20th century all the way until today, is a city defined by immigrants arriving here in wave after wave. Were a city of immigrants. Its all coming in a human migration, a human journey, ultimately. Thats how food gets around the world. We carry it with us in our stomachs and our bodies and in our culture. Those kinds of journeys, those kinds of migrations, are very