Border. Why doesnt he show his birth certificate . And the eulogy for john mccain. The intolerance for abuse of power. All in starts now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. The most incendiary claim was that there is dirt exposing the president to blackmail. It turns out there was a whole vault full of dirt on donald j. Trump. Not in russia. In the u. S. We dont know all the contents, we dont know who has seen them or who could be holding it as leverage over the president. We do know that the president wanted to get his hands on all of it. In 2016 according to the times, the president and then lawyer Michael Cohen hatched a plan to buy an entire trove of damaging trump stories collected by the National Enquirer and its Parent Company all the way back to the 1980s. That whole trove was reportedly kept in a safe by the publisher, david pecker, as the Associated Press reported last week. This goes well beyond the documented efforts before the election to cover up his alleged affairs with Stormy Daniels and Karen Mcdougal of cohen pleaded guilty to related Campaign Finance violations, federal felonies last week and he testified under oath in that plea that he broke the law at the president s direction. It is the first were learning of what was reportedly a broader effort to hide negative stories about the president from American Voters at the absolute height of the campaign. And it sheds new light on that secret audio tape of cohen and the president which was made last month which seemed to have something to do with the hush money identified Karen Mcdougal. Now it is clear, cohen and the president were talking about buying up the whole vault of trump dirt, all of it from david pecker, referred to as our friend david. I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend david, you know, so that im going to do that right away. Ive actually come up give it to me. And ive spoken to Allen Weisselberg with how to set the whole thing up with funning. So what are we going to do . Yes. All the stuff. You never know where hes going to be. Maybe he gets hit by a truck. Correct. So im all over that. Its all the stuff, all the stuff, that pecker is that to have buried during the campaign and the years before. The times is reporting that in 2016 he kept his staff from going back through old trump files before he became Company Chairman in 1999. The president s concern as he says with pecker on that tape, maybe he gets hit by a truck. Both pecker and the other person mentioned on the tape. Allen weisselberg have been granted some gref immunity by federal prosecutors in new york on compel their testimony. We dont know what kind of dirt the National Enquirer may have collected over the many years as a tabloid fixture. It mostly holds old stories about his marital woes, rumors that he cheats at golf and affairs. There was an agreement signed earlier in the campaign buying the rights to, and i quote it, information regarding Donald Trumps ill lemming it mat child. The claim that the president fathered a child out of wedlock has not been substantiated. The president never went through with the plans to buy the safe and now we dont know where all that trump dirt ended up. The ap reported it was removed from the safe in the moments before the inauguration but it is unclear whether they were destroyed or simply moved to a more secret location. We do know that prosecutors, a fact that they noted last week, and this is important. According to the New York Times. Their investigation did not end with cohens guilty plea. To help understand the president s relationship and exposure to blackmail, im joined by the author of its even worse than you think, and msnbc contributor, natasha, as someone who covered the president for decades in his previous life, he was always sort of inextricably bound one the press in sending secrets about his foes and keeping his own secrets out of the paper. Oh, yes. Donald was mr. Fake news. And much of his persona is based on fake news. And as he himself has that, has gotten politicians to do his bidding, theyve done favors for him, preferring the the missing manhattan sewage. 24 million gallons a day when he needed that for a deal to the mysterious transfer to his friend and helicopter provider, joes drug case, from ohio, to the courtroom of his sister, federal judge maryanne trump berry. So the thing i wonder about here, blackmail is at the center of the steele dossier. The center of the investigations that happened when people apply for security clearance. It is geared as a security threat. And what is revealed in this is that the idea is not at all far. If he. In fact it already exists. Right. The idea is that this potentially the most blackmailable president in the United States history. The fact that the National Enquirer had decades of information about his affairs, his children about, even melania, speaks a lot about his life and the shady things did he through his career. Most of which, perhaps all of which, he never even faced real consequences for. But i think that this substantiates two big things in the dossier. The first is that Michael Cohen was the president s fixer in all things related to russia. So just as he was the fixer in all things related to burying stories about trumps Extramarital Affairs, he was also, according to the dossier, his fixer in burying the story of the Trump Campaigns conspiracy with russia to win the election. He was alleged to have paid off the hackers and to kind of clean the whole thing up at the end of the election. The other thing weve learned if this story unfolding is that trump is a little more skittish about his Extramarital Affairs becoming public than many of us have been led to believe. So theres always been this theory that perhaps the president wouldnt really care if news came out that prostitutes peeed on a bed in moscow because he hated president obama and he wanted to defile the bed he slept in. And no one was sure his base would care. Now we know about trump has gone to Great Lengths to hide these details about his personal life. And it makes you wonder if those salacious details are true, what lengths has the president gone to to keep the russians from exposing it as well . Let me note lanny davis has deny that had Michael Cohen went to prague to clean things up, as is alleged. Hes been pretty strenuous on that. So that is the current position of cohens spokesperson. But david, that point is a really good one. There is this sense, heres a guy where all of this stuff is priced in. Hes in the public eye. He had some of the most famous Extramarital Affairs in new york history, as a 13 or 14yearold, i knew all about his marital life growing up in new york city. It was on the front page of the tabloids. But this goes to the lengths they were willing to go to to suppress it and what lengths they would go to. Lets remember that donald actively pursued the wives of a number of people he did business with. He would invite women to their office and then get husbands on the phone to talk about their dalliances as part of his rather unusual seduction technique. And some of those women are very concerned about what may come out of that vault and it is almost certain, if we had a complete record of donalds dalliances and his payoffs to keep them quiet workers turn up abortions. That would raise real Serious Problems with a portion of his base who are absolutely adamant about that issue. I want to be clear, that is speculation on your part. You dont have anything to substantiate that. No. There are women whose names i know who are not willing to come forward because it would be difficult. I want to be clear. That may be true but i have no way to assess that claim. Right. But what is clear here, natasha, is also that this investigation and i thought this was one of the most important parts of it. There was a question, was this built up to get Michael Cohen, and no, its ongoing. Right. And i think that a really smart thing prosecutors in the Southern District of new york did, they kind of vacuumed up Allen Weisselberg in all of this. So in an effort to get his role and committing the Campaign Finance violations, by paying off the National Enquirer, they got the president s long time cfo of the Trump Organization to testify against him. And that is evidenced that he will continue to be useful throughout this investigation. And of course, Allen Weisselberg, weve all said it, he knows where all the bodies are buried. So this is just beginning as long as he is in the picture. Also, Michael Cohen and david pecker knowing what is in the vault. That has to at some level upset the president because he wanted it locked down and it is not. Thanks. For more on the president s legal exposure and where prosecutors may be heading, let me start on that last point that natasha and i were discussing. The times detail that that investigation, that part of it about the payments, the Campaign Finance felonies Michael Cohen has pleaded to and implicated the president. Its huge. The speculation never made a lot of sense to me that they brought in weisselberg and pecker and were only debriefing them about cohen in the context of the cohen deal. Its not how prosecutors work. When they got weisselberg and pecker in the grand jury, they surely would have wanted to know everything. Even if some of what they were finding out would have to do with the Mueller Probe and not their own, thats also their standard business. There after to pass on to mueller. So i think it is very important to confirm it and it stands to reason based on practice. We know why they both needed immune. After all, theyre both pretty big fish. It would have been implausible to think they would have received it only to tell stories about Michael Cohen. Do you agree with that, paul . I do. We know that federal prosecutors think anybody who was involved in this scheme to pay hush money committed a federal crime. Thats what Michael Cohen pled guilty to. It implicates President Donald Trump by cant be charged while hes in office. Other people have exposure and they were given immunity including weisselberg and pecker. Who else would know about it . Could only President Trump have known . Probably not. So i think the target now, other people who were high level officials in the Campaign Including don jr. , ivanka, and jared kushner. If it was more than individual payments, a dine of transfer everything you have, that might have been a bigger deal involving more people, a larger undertaking than the oneoffs than we had understood them to be. Theres another story i want to get your reaction to. Thats how this white house is preparing for the oncoming legal onslaught. They are saying that the president isnt prepared for the gathering legal storm. He tweeted yesterday, four of the five deputies are out of. There you have Rudolph Giuliani running things, who is not, whatever you think of him, a top flight practiced like white collar defense attorney. Do you think they are underprepared based on what you can tell for what is coming . Hugely. This isnt speculation. A, they dont have the horses but they have the wrong kind of horses. With the exception of emmett flood who may now be moving over to white House Counsel. That would complicate his task. But from the start the lawyer has been very unconventional and mostly pr based. They desperately need the kind of washington lawyer with credibility and prudence and caution. They have zero of it and they dont have the staff. And remember, if it is a matter of going mano y mano with mueller, his troops are very strong. They are truly unprepared and thats just on the trump level. The onslaught of general investigations, if the congress is to turn, would occupy a white House Counsel if there were five times as many lawyers as they now have. I think thats right. I agree that the president is outmanned. So at this point in the investigation, bill clinton had about 60 lawyers working in the white House Counsels office. So trump doesnt have anywhere near that number. Im going to disagree a little bit with harry. At the end of the day, trump isnt especially worried about what mueller will do. Because what mueller cant do is to charge trump with a crime. Then trumps fate would be in the hands of a jury of his peers. But in fact, trumps hands or trumps fate is in the hands of republicans in the senate. So if the house changes, if it turns, he is likely to be impeached by the house but it is the senate who would make the judgment about whether to remove him from office. To that extent, Rudolph Giuliani might be working with them. He might be persuading that base. And rudy has been clear on it. He said this. This isnt a legal gambit. This is essentially and fundamentally a political one. I think, harry, too, when you watch paul manafort, he is doing all this stuff for decades and getting away with it. And there is some part of it thats like, youre getting me now . Ive been doing it since 2006. Nobody cared. And i have to wonder if the president is thinking that. You can tell from the conversation, not their first rodeo. It is not the kind of thing that was novel to them. And you wonder how much the president s lack of preparation has to do with his assumption that he will skate as he has thus far. Right. So a couple things. First, the actual deal that natasha outlined. It is not until after the payment and in the thick of the campaign. It is only then that trump and cohen begin to think, ohoh this will be an ongoing thing, unlike the impugnity ive had. Now im a political figure. Briefly to pauls point. And the congressional investigation should they come. Yes, there will be an investigation aspect but a lot of constitutional law coming up, and legal terms, even if it is with congress. I agree. Really rich stuff. And at the end of the day, it is interesting politically and criminally. This is about national security. So what todays headlines make me wonder if the president is willing to do this for the National Enquirer to pay off the National Enquirer, what is he willing to do with the russians . Thank you for your time. After the break, the president claims he has no plans to fire Jeff Sessions, at least before the midterms. New details on the personal feud with the attorney general in two minutes. This wifi is fast. I know i know i know i know when did brian move back in . Brians back . He doesnt get my room. Hes only going to be here for like a week. Like a month, tops. Oh boy. Wifi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. In many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40s. The president is moments away from stepping into the room of supporters in evansville, indiana, at a rally that has connected him to Middle America. People outside the beltway, outside the corridor. Thats one story of donald trump. The other story is the new york heir who doesnt like people because they have southern as accents and degrees from what he call sub par colleges. Including Jeff Sessions. During the president s quest to turn senators against ag, he has been grifg that he doesnt have the ivy league pedigree that he prefers, that he cant stand his southern accent, and he talks like he has marbles in his mouth. Joining me now, the former congressman from oklahoma. And the staff writer of the atlantic who has covered trump for quite some time. Ill start with you. This is the heart of it. The great populist voice of the forgotten american outside the bubble of elite new york is obsessed with ivy league pedigree, with the new york time, with every single trope that you could imagine. Thats right. His sweaty, desperate, courting of the elites that he rails against on the stump. He desperately wants the New York Times to love him. He wants the billionaires on wall street to love him. This is what he is all about. The other defining aspect of the Trump Campaign and Trump Presidency has been this sort of barely veiled contempt he has for everybody who is willing to work with him or for him. Or even frankly vote for him. When he said that coshoot someone on fifth avenue and they would support him, that was not a compliment for his base. That was a compliment for himself. That was look at you idiots and what youre willing to put up with. It is as if your willingness to vote for him or cozy up to him makes him respect you less. I think thats something really central to his persona and his psyche. What do you think . This idea, the southern accent is an iconic part of american politics. For a while it was, thats jimmy carter and bill clinton and thats the way they could win. It sends all kinds of signals, particularly a white southern accent sends signals about where youre from. It is part of the fight. And the president making fun of Jeff Sessions southern accent is beyond caricature. If barack obama did that, they would have impeached him. Whats weird is i never really thought that everybody who voted for donald trump was part of a basket of deplorables but it appears that he thinks so. No one has a lower opinion of them. Thats right. But whats really shocking is he has made these comments about particularly the university of alabama, the accents of people in alabama. And yet those people are voting for him. They support him still. And thats really hard to imagine the psychology here of the people who he despises, apparently. And they love him for it. And i dont understand that. Mckay, this is part of the escalating war on sessions. And there was an interesting piece today. Embetween mcgahn and sessions, what were seeing set up is a lame duck purge. If you get rid of them after the election is over, you have this window of time in which youre accountability free. You still have a Republican Congress no matter what where you can get away with a lot. You wonder, today emto bloomberg, hell keep them until election. It does correspond with something ive heard from a lot of republicans. There is a growing sense that republicans will lose the house and theyre bracing for it. Right . We saw axios reporter that there is a spread sheet created of all the areas they fear democrats will investigate in the Trump Presidency if they take back the house. I think that there is a sense that trump could be, i dont know what it would be. I dont have inside reporting on it but theres a expense there would be a brief window of opportunity. If trump will do certain things or try to get rid of certain people, theres a ticking clock here. He has to do it before the next session of congress. It is like shooting the moon after you get the queen of spades in hearts. Youre down no matter what. You might as well go for it. I think thats true but i think theres another factor. I think he wants to not have part of the midterms be about the fact that he is trying to kill the investigation. And if he moved now to get rid of sessions, thats what it would be. Trying to kill the investigation. Theres kind of a bond villain thing happening where he is turning to the camera to tell us that sessions is only around because he doesnt want to fire him before the midterms. He is giving away what is going on. And the same thing with mcgahn yesterday. It will happen after the midterms is a weird strategy. He is not even telegraphing it. He is almost straight up saying it. And that has been a feature of the strategy for a long time. It is one of the reasons he was saying that a lot of these people this his base continued to ally themselves with him regardless of what he says. They think he is being straightforward with them. In reality, often the things hes being straightforward about are really bad things. And they have to drill down. I hope the president spares the people his thoughts on the university of indiana. Im sure he thinks it is absolutely third rate. Thank you both. Ahead, the president s birther origins, questioning the citizenship of americans and revoking their passports. That important story next. man managing my type 2 diabetes wasnt my top priority. Until i held her. I found my tresiba® reason. Now im doing more to lower my a1c. I take tresiba® once a day. Tresiba® controls blood sugar for 24 hours for powerful a1c reduction. woman wed been counting down to his retirement. It was our tresiba® reason. He needs insulin to control his high blood sugar and, at his age, hes at greater risk for low blood sugar. Tresiba® releases slow and steady and works all day and night like the bodys insulin. vo tresiba® is a longacting insulin used to control high blood sugar in adults with diabetes. 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Lojust use priceline. Ls on travel . You can save up to 60 on hotels. Thats like 120 a night back in your pocket. Go to priceline to get deals you wont find anywhere else. I would like to have him show his birth certificate. And can i be honest with you . I hope he can. If he cant, if he cant, if he wasnt born in this country, which is a real possibility. Im not saying it happen. I am saying it is a real possibility. Much greater than i thought two or three weeks ago, then has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics. Donald trump launched his modern political career by questioning the citizenship of our first black president. Thats what made him a hit. Now it appears to be policy. The Washington Post is reporting that the u. S. Is denying passports to americans along the border and in some cases, passport applicants with official u. S. Birth certificates are being jailed in Immigration Detention Centers and entered into deportation proceedings. Americans. The government argues some midwives and doctors along the border previously provided u. S. Birth certificates to babies actually born in mexico. And the paper notes that george w. Bush and part of the Obama Administration sometimes denied passports in those circumstances, but that largely ended after a 2009 settlement. The Washington Post reports that it is happening again. In growing numbers. And detailed several cases including a man, an army veteran and former Border Patrol cadet. I served my country, i fought for my country. Here the help me understand whats going on, you have clients that have been denied passports. The first question i always ask with immigration stories, is this something entirely new . Is it something that was happening before but on a smaller scale . How should we understand whats happening . Yes. It was happening on a smaller scale under the Obama Administration. But there has been a dramatic uptake in the last, i would say last year and a half. Especially what ive seen in my office in houston, texas. And along the border. Just as a general rule, as an immigration lawyer, weve been seeing more u. S. Citizens being detained and having to prove their citizenship either based on a derivative or a passport issue. In this case, the clients, these are u. S. Citizens with u. S. Birth certificates who are being forced to produce documentation. Who is saying its not valid . Thats right. They do have a list of these fraudulent midwives that they reference. In the settlement they said they wouldnt summarily use it for a passport and that was true in 2009 but not so much now. They do require Copious Amounts of documentation to get your passport. You cannot just use your state issued birth certificate anymore if you have this fraudulent midwife on it. They require a lot more documentation than, say, someone born in Middle America in nebraska. I want to be clear. The issue is that the subset of midwives and in one case, an obstetrician, there was some evidence that they had in some cases, forged documents of someone born in the u. S. Who was actually born in mexico. But all of them are having their citizenship de facto invalidated. Thats right. Theyre lumping them all together. And thats what the sellment was meant not to do. Even if the midwife was not convicted or did not confess, they are on that list that they cross referenced with these birth certificates. So yes. You are having to prove it even though you may have been legitimate but others are not. So they are saying, this is total fake news. They dont use the phrase but thats what theyre saying. The state departments domestic passports, there is no surge in denials or revocations related to midwives cases. I know you read that rebuttal. What do you think . I think the state department can say whatever they want. But ultimately, i know what i see in my office and i know whats happening down here in texas and it completely contradicts what the state department is saying. Someone can say we dont serve coke here but then you walk up and see someone with a coke. This department of state trying to save face but its not working. I know what i see when i walk through the doors of my office. And they may say it is the lowest. The percentages they gave were 2017 compared to 2016. They dont give you the total amount of cases so it is relative. Numbers mean nothing without relevant activity. It doesnt mean anything. Unless you know the exact number of cases. I want to be clear. It seems there is something similar with zero tolerance and child separation. The incidents are already there. They had possibility, the ability to separate children before. What im hearing from you, your perception as a front line lawyer taking these cases, is that someone is hitting a lever to jack up the number of questionings of this citizenship. Yes. I agree with that statement. I also think theres more going on at the border. When people are detained, when were talking about u. S. Citizens being detained and put in removal proceedings, it is done upon their entry into the United States and their passport is being questioned. Guess who triggers that questioning . That flag . Thats the department of state. So if they had an issue with it to begin with, why did they issue it . Instead of detaining them and causing this upheaval in their life and then being tunneled threat of deportation proceedings. If an immigration judge, there is another issue, is it even the proper forum . Why not a federal judge . Thats the whole point. One more thing before i close the segment. When we cover child separation and zero tolerance, he this denied it was happening for weeks. So consider that when they read it. Thanks for joining me. The senate race in texas is closer than most people expected with the polls tightening partly because the democrat is giving ted cruz a run for his money. He is attracting National Attention and the donation thats go with that and the video talking about the nfl player controversy has gone viral. Viewed more than 44 million times. So texans have started to taunt him online attempting to use the National Attention against him claiming that he is for some reason afraid on debate cruz. From a mug shot 20 years ago that was dismissed, and this question of him and his hard rock band. He appears to be wearing a dress but it does make him sort of look like a rock star. So returning the favor with cruz. Heres cruz playing adam in adam and eve. Showing beto orourke in a rock band is fair game, then this is fair game. But of course, theres more. Thats thing two. So senator ted cruz and his challenger beto orourke in the midst some of scuffling. And ted cruz seems to think the picture of him in a rock band would hurt him. What about that ted cruz basketball archive . When he was running for president , he told a crowd of hoosiers an inspirational tale about the basketball ring. You know, the amazing thing is, that basketball ring here in indiana, it is the same height as it is in new york city and every other place in this country. And there is nothing that hoosiers cannot do. What are you talking about . There are things ted cruz cannot do. As an actual basketball player is so conspicuous that even ted cruz has posted a video of himself badly playing basketball. Which brings us to the other viral sensation. When they decided to do something with that video. While beto orourke is going viral, senator ted cruz has gone viral with this. I just find my tempo with my left hand jump me jump me jump me that boy is up to something i think i need some robitussin way too many questions you must think i trust you i do not know nothing i think somethings coming with an hour ago, senator john mccains casket was met by secretary jim mattis outside of washington, d. C. Senator mccain will lie in state in the u. S. Capitol tomorrow. On saturday at the national cathedral, hell be eulogized by formerer president s george w. Bush and barack obama. Notably the current president wasnt invited. Today at a service of the North Phoenix Baptist Church before a crowd of more than 3,000 people, it was Vice President joe bidens turn to talk about his long time friend, john mccain. Wasnt about politics with john. Quo disagree on substance. It was the underlying values that animated everything john did. Everything he was could have. We could come to a different conclusion. But were he to part company with you, if you lacked the basic values of decency, respect, knowing that this project is bigger than yourself. Johns story is the american story. Thats not hyperbole. It sounds like the american story. Ground in respect and decency, basic fairness. The intolerance for the abuse of power. Many of you have traveled the world. Look how the rest of the world looks at us. They look at us as naive. Were so fair, so decent. Were the naive americans. Thats who we are. Thats who john was. And he could not stand the abuse of power. Migraine with botox®. What if you had fewer headaches and migraines a month . Botox® prevents headaches and migraines before they even start. Botox® is for adults with chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more. Botox® injections take about 15 mins. In your Doctors Office and are covered by most insurance. Effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. 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Hillary clinton favored by similar odds as house democrats. And we all know what happened that november. So perhaps it is worth taking a step back and looking ty at what the foreseeable future looks like if republicans maintain both sides of congress. Let me start with you. One thing that seems clear to me as you think about the president and the investigation is, if he wins, if they retain both houses, that has to be a message to trump, i think, he could get away with probably whatever he wants to do. Absolutely. I think one of the prevailing themes of a Republican Controlled Congress in the age of trump has been this notion that their hands are somehow tied as if congress does not have a great deal of authority when it comes to oversight. They could subpoena, of course, witnesses and documents that they wanted. They could launch a separate investigation given the president s own attorney, implicating him in a crime. They could push for his tax returns, for ethics violations in the white house and the trump cabinet. The list goes on and on. So i think if republicans retain control of congress, you not only would see more of the same but perhaps have the president be even more emboldened because he has continued to push the boundaries with few ramifications. He could fire mueller or Jeff Sessions. I think the message, jim, would be do whatever you want. Because what are they going to do . He would know he has a Republican Congress for the next few years. Better to do it earlier rather than later, right . Absolutely. It would be bar the door for whatever he wants. With aid from the leaders. The way the senate operates, they will just continue to run rough shod over democrats. You will also get House Speaker jim jordan. People dont think about this because there is an expectation that democrats will take the house. But remember. Thats not a foregone conclusion. Jim jordan could be the next speaker of the house and a house under jim jordan would be like, five different committees investigating Hillary Clintons emails. Yes. And i think while the president has shown himself fundamentally incapable of governing and only had the tax bill sent to his house by republicans, there is a very real probability republicans could corral the votes to finally repeal obamacare. They could, of course, go after Government Program like medicare, medicaid, Social Security, and dont forget, of course, in the senate, the potential for the judiciary. Where youve had republicans packing the courts with trumps very conservative judicial nominees and of course, the very real prospects if he had his second term and republicans remain in control of the senate, that he would fill more vacancies on the Supreme Court which would be his most lasting legacy. Sabrina mentioned this and i thought this was such a tipoff that the governor gets to appoint someone to fill out two years of senator mccains term. Senate republicans say they would like governor doug ducey who would support legislation and repeal obamacare. They will come for it again first thing if they keep control of congress. Wait a minute. Lets be clear. Do they go for more tax cuts for the wealthy first of all . Or do they go for another attempt to repeal obamacare . Who knows . Maybe theyll combine they will. But it is coming. As sure as were talking. Your point with a tax cut, they will go for another tax cut package too, dont you think . Absolutely. Just tonight trump is talking about using executive action to do away with the Capital Gains tax. They are just salivating at the opportunity. They know they blew at this time last time. They know it is not polling very well and they are desperate to make themselves whole by giving more tax cuts for the wealthy and some crumbs to the middle class. Theres another part of this. And sabrina, you touched on this. The president attempting to block pay raises. It was about the economy or about the budget. For budgetary reasons, they blow this massive hole in the deficit. And that is the predicate. What is it looking like . I think youll see a push for austerity, particularly cut Social Security and medicare if they retain control with the justification being the budget deficit. Absolutely. And weve known republicans have been willing to go after domestic spending. Particularly some of these Government Programs that have provided relief and benefits to the poorest of americans. I also think it is worth mentioning immigration. A lot of republicans have coalesced to reduce even legal immigration. Funding the border wall. Thats another important piece to remember. All right. Thank you for making time. Thank you. Before i go, remember to check out our latest podcast, why is this happening . All things brexit. If you like it, make sure to rate and also review if you like it. Thats all in for this evening. Tonight the president calls Robert Muellers probe illegal and wont say in a bloomberg interview if attorney general Jeff Sessions will last beyond the midterm elections. Plus an indiana rally tonight donald trump suggests he might have to get involved and get in there if the Justice Department and fbi. And despite all this he began the day by calling the white house a smooth running machine. But all signs suggest otherwise. The 11th hour on a thursday night begins now. Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Im ali velshi in for brian williams. Day 588 of the trump administration, and after a busy morning of trashing the media and the russia investigation on twitter, President Trump decided to go after the department of justice and the fbi during his rally tonight in indiana. Our Justice Department an
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