Im concerned with the growing void of leadership within the department of Homeland Security. This is a department charged with trying to grappling with some of the things in this nation. President trump prepares to take more extreme measures including reinstating the policy of separating children from their families. When people think of little kids, they think there has to be a line in this country. We know at the aclu not every one agrees with our views on immigration but i think virtually every one agrees taking a little child away is something we cannot do in this country. Good day. Attorney general welcome barr has just wrapped up his testimony promising to release the Mueller Report. He will not say how much he will cut out. Telling a House Sub Committee his team is working with the special counsel to keep from public view grand jury material, intelligence sources and methods. Issues affecting ongoing prosecutions and material that he says could embarrass individual who is have not been charged with any crimes. Barr punted a key question on persistent conclusion we have been hearing from the white house. Its very puzzling to me that the 400 pages could have been reviewed and the president states that this report is a complete and total exoneration. Whos factually accurate . Its hard to have that discussion without the contents of the report. Thats why im suggesting we wait until the report is out. Im glad to talk to people after that and im already scheduled to testify about that. Joining me now pete williams, kristen welker, jeff bennett on capitol hil capitol hill, Elliot Williams and msnbc contributor ruth marcus. Pete, you tracked the whole hearing. This is the first time william barr has been testifying since the Mueller Report was released and a lot of questions still remain. He would say hes legal he required to make the categories of these four redactions because of the rules on grand jury secrecy. The rule that says you cant disclose intelligence sources and methods. It could be harmful to ongoing investigations to release information about them. Information havent individual who is havent been charged, he says thats Justice Department policy that is in regulation and has the force of law. He did say the report hell send to congress will be color coded so you can tell when you see a redaction why it was redacted. Which of those four categories it goes into. A couple other things he disclosed, we heard and he formally stated it that the fact that Robert Mueller would not reach a conclusion about obstruction of justice does not surprise them when they received the Mueller Report because he had told them that would be his finding earlier. Today barr confirmed they met with mueller march 5th when they first heard that. We were told they were surprised that is what he was going to do. Barr said he offered to let mule r s mueller see his letter and review it and mueller declined. He said he did not discuss that letter with anybody at the white house. He said he put this letter out because he didnt think the public would tolerate not knowing what bottom line conclusions are while the government is going through the process of getting it ready for release. He says he did not release the mueller teams summaries, these were section by section summaries that muellers lawyer prepared because he said every page had a marker at the top an bottom that says it contains grand jury information. He needed muellers people to tell him what has to be redacted. He said hes reviewing all aspects of the Mueller Investigation including the Counter Intelligence parts. Republicans in congress have been critical of that. He said if he sees anything that merits an investigation, hell look into it. Barr said hes under no obligation to release anything. He made the point that is correct, that the special counsel rules dont call for any public lease of anything at all and they were drafted as a reaction to what people viewed as the excesses of the ken starr investigation on white water. He said everything hes doing is beyond what hes required to do. A lot of confusion about the obstruction issue. Do you feel we have a better understanding now to what some people on the mueller team may have talked about after going back to their original offices and the fact he said today that the special counsel is intimately involved. Involved in the redactions as they proceeds and decide whing is redacted. Only they can tell what the redaction should be. If its a whole page, barr wouldnt know if thats something somebody said or something someone said to the grand jury. Muellers people are the only one who can make the redactions. The reporting in the last week or so that mueller team members were very upset by the way he characterized their conclusions. They are involved now in the process of redacting the report for release. They werent involved in drafting the letter. Thats what they object to. Theres some confusion and some concern about, kristen welk welker, about what the white house was told or not told. I want to play barrs answers on that and explain. See the report before you leased your sum rimarizing lett. Has the white house seen it since then . Have they been briefed on the contents beyond what was in your summarizing letter to the judiciary committee. Ive said what im going to say about the report today. I issued three letters about it. Kristen, because hes not going to say anymore, thats let to a lot of confusion, if you will, online on what the white house knew in advance. Reporter rightfully so. Here is what we know at this point. The white house was very clear at the time that bar leased that initial summary. It has not seen the contents of Mueller Report. Is that still the case. Thats still the question. Its an open question because i spoke with white house officials earlier today and they declined to comment on this. We still dont know if the white house has been briefed over the last 24 hours. What i can also tell you is i did speak with the president s outside counsel who said they have not seen the Mueller Report. They have not been briefed on the Mueller Report. That is one thing we can say. About whether the white house has been briefed on the broader contents, it doesnt seem as though anyone is giving a definitive answer. The hearing has wrapped up. The first round, at least. We expect to hear from the chair of the appropriations committee. I think democrats had their most burning questions answered. They might not be satisfactory answers but they got them nonetheless. All of that grand justify testimony is a nonstarter. That will be blablg eblakd blac. He could explain those redactions where he couldnt. Two weeks starting next week will be a way for easter break. Their response, the ability to respond in mass will be pampered if this comes out while members are on break. I thought what was notable, the attorney general who she views as a respected attorney, she says in no way is a neutral voice in any of this. He has effort to distill the Mueller Report from 300 plus pages to a four place summary over the course of a weekend. We know Mueller Investigation is a 22month pursuit. She says that is more suspicious than impressive. He opinion doesnt matter in the scheme of themes. What really matters is where Jeffrey Nadler falls and lindsey graham. Lindsey graham is holding a press conference as we speak. Nad h nadler is holding the subpoenas in his back pocket. The white house is unmoved by the threats. They dont think the subpoenas will hold up in court. The attorney general has been clear about what he will and wont release. He is making a responsible argument. They are trying to put it back on democrats to say what the attorney general said today was manager less than fully transparent. Theres some classified material can be provided to the relevant people but only those which committee chairs. Lets play a bit more of the hearing. The first pass of this will produce a report that makes these redactions based on these four categoriecategories. Thats something i hope will be available to the public. Im fwlglad to talk to chairman nadler and chairman graham if they need more information. He also said the mueller team did not plyay a role in craftin that original letter he sent. Right. I think a couple of things here. In response to questions about that letter that he sent and why the mueller team people are speaking out, have spoken out about their dissatisfaction with that letter. He said i guess they wanted more released. Thats completely disingenuous comment. To say he used as much as the special counsels language as he could have is not accurate. He quoted a few partial sentences as we talked about before. This idea we have confirmation from barr that the mueller team did prepare the summaries that we read about in the press. Hes saying he did release those because each page was stamped with may contain material. Thats a precautionary stamp. I feel like whats going on here is barr is hiding behind 6e. Its a very important rule. Its rule that prosecutors and the Justice Department take seriously but its not an inflexible rule. For him to say because something had a stamp on it, which we can fully assume was prepared with the knowledge that it would be released, certainly to congress and possibly publicly. To say that stamp prohibited him from releases the summaries is him hiding behind that rule. While you were speaking the president of egypt arrived. The president will meet with him in the oval office. We can talk that later. Elliot when we talk about 6e, the grand jury rule. The attorney general or mueller or whoever is advising him at this stage could go to the judge and say lets release the grand jury material. That is one of the options. They could. These rules arent impenetrable. Whats tricky is this language that might embarrass individuals. Sdplp that that is a regulation. You dont want people who have not been charged to have Bad Information not getting out. This is separate from the grand jury rule. Look at what comey did to hillary clinton. What we know is that it does not exonerate the president line . Clearly we know there is information that is negative about the president. Is some of that will be redacted or taken out because it might be embarrassing to the president. Its so loosey goosey, thats what im concerned about. I would hope they treat the grand jury material with the proper legal secrecy. When you start getting into is it embarrassing or not, its a much more trickier ground. He didnt give clear answers on it today. The way those quotations, 40 words or whatever placed in quotation marks, some incomplete sentences, youre a journalist. Youre also a harvard trained lawyer. Theres a lot of cherry picking is the suspicion going on here. There are questions about whether theres cherry picking or whether hes using the stamp of may contain grand jury material to not get the summaries out. What did or didnt he tell the white house about this. All of that is pretty short term frustration. It can be safely and fairly turned over. Perhaps with Court Approval in the case of 6e or is it being used or are we going to have an effort to get as much to the public as we can. The attorney generals testimony today where he said im not going to go to the Court Suggests the possibility well get this multicolored report thats lots of colors and less information than we ought to be getting. They said we were deliberating and now the public cant see it. You dont have a means of knowing what went into the decision to hide. Its a strong word. When somebody keeps that out under the deliberative process, you can go back to a court and ask them to give you that. We need to figure out a mechanism that will effectively and quickly get us to a point where were not turning over information thats unfair to turn over or that unfairly maligns people who have been through what should be a secret process but information that the public has a real need to know. You stay. Well be talking more about that, if you dont mind. While we were talking just know, william barr had been stone calling. Thanks so much. coming up, spring cleaning. Mounting questions and concern after that purge of the department of Homeland Security. What do these vacancies mean for National Security . Andrea mitchell reports continues. Ecurity . Andrea mitchell reports continues. Causing a lack of sharpness, or even trouble with recall. Thankfully, the breakthrough in prevagen helps your brain and actually improves memory. The secret is an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. The latest inisnt just a store. Ty its a save more with a new kind of Wireless Network store. Its a look what your wifi can do now store. A get your questions answered by awesome experts store. Its a now theres one store that connects your life like never before store. The xfinity store is here. And its simple, easy, awesome. Less than 24 hours after Kirsten Nielsen resigned, another casualty of President Trumps effort to get tougher on security from his standpoint. More shakeups are still expected this is sparking concern from within the president s own party as Top Republicans are warning the white house against this unprecedented number of key vacancies. Chuck grassley saying the president has to have some stability with number one issue hes made for his campaign throughout his two and a half year of his candidacy. Hes pulling the rug out from the very people trying to help him accomplish the goal. You have too long a title. Too many jobs. Julia, lets talk about homeland. Youre over there at doj. Who is going on with this incredible shake up as a day from now Kirstjen Nielsen will be gone. Clearly forced to resign. Reporter it seems this administration is trying a number of policies that didnt go the way they expected it to. They are trying to see if a staff shake up will give them the numbers they want to see. Since january we have seen numbers over 13year highs when you look at families who are crossing the border and seeking asylum. Those people have to have more protections than other populations. That means more of a strain on the border. The way this administration is handled that has been by cutting off aid to central america, shutting down the government over the wall and asylum policies of turning immigrants back and that was done by a court order last night. All of those policies hitting a wall, so to speak, and the numbers keep going on. Were seeing a shakeup. With nielsen out. There are other shakeups expected. A lot of people feel like they are taking cover. There could be shakeups in the Legal Department. A number of places where its seen the people are being too soft. Theyre not soft by a lot of standards. They said they would deport children more quickly. One thing she did say is to reinstate the family separation policy. Thats one of the reasons she was ousted. They want a total make over to try to two forward with tougher policies and people who will not say no to this white house. Theres been a number of republicans who have been critical of this as well. Should the white house be paying more attention to their party . Yes. This is going after a few months watching them in 17 and 18. He got them into a shutdown jam. He got them to a National Emergency declaration they perceived as unconstitutional. We went on the this were going to evisrate obama care by a court ruling. Were going to be the party of health care. Then were not going to be the party of health care. Their majorities are in peril. Mitch mcconnell knows this. You see people speaking up about their concerns. Not only about shutting the border but then looking at this, all of these vacancies. Making us incredible bli vulnerable. Not only with the issue of the border but the issue of terrorism. They are alarmed. They are putting it in terms like they do. Like they are concerned and they know the president is frustrated. These are words we heard a lot of how much push back is successful remains to be seen. The president believes he governs from the gut and he has a better handle on this than people who are long standing bureaucrats and have policy expertise. This is why he thinks a purge will be effective. He will put new people in that wont say no. Whether or not Chuck Grassley can persuade him, we dont know yet. One of the things the president seems to be so critical of nielsen on is when she would tell him thats the law. Thats what judges have decided. Hes angry at her because she cant judge what a judge has decided. He wassing aggravated at jef sessions and angry at the white House Counsel for telling him what the law was. Its a repeated pattern where the president takes issue with the lawyers in his orbit and the people at Homeland Department of security and so on. A big problem here is that we just think, in america, of immigration as a National Security concern and not one related to labor or commerce or any of the other matters. Thats how we set it up. Were seeing the effects of the Trump Presidency on immigration and to some extent the casualties are secretary nielesn for not being sinister enough. Thats the crazy part is that she didnt separate enough children from enough families. When she denied it was happening, when you could see it before your eyes. The thing that alarms me most is when the president said the other day, what we need to do is get rid of the judges. Hes been on unhappy with the asylum system which requires you to have a hearing before a judge. Its a tough standard. Most people dont secure asylum. His commitment to the rule of law has been open the question. Hes been frustrated about how the rule of law affects his ability to implement his immigration procedures. That is a piece of what this purge is about. Its been well vote against your emergency. Youll ve toe veto it and we wo over ride it. When hes talking about getting rid of judge, you could be setting yourself up for a legal and maybe a political showdown. Hold those thoughts. Woo well take a quick break. were expecting to hear from the president any moment. Well get the tape and play it back. Hot seat. Treasury secretary grilled over the president s tax returns. Youll watching Andrea Mitchell reports on msnbc. Mitchell reports on msnbc i landed. I saw my leg did not look right. I was just finishing a ride. I felt this awful pain in my chest. I had a pe blood clot in my lung. I was scared. I had a dvt blood clot. Having one really puts you in danger of having another. My doctor and i chose xarelto®. Xarelto®. To help keep me protected. Xarelto® is a latestgeneration blood thinner thats proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt or pe blood clots from happening again. In clinical studies, almost 98 of patients on xarelto® did not experience another dvt or pe. Dont stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor, as this may increase risk of blood clots. While taking, you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop. Xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. It may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. Get help right away for unexpected bleeding or unusual bruising. Do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. Before starting, tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures and any kidney or liver problems. Learn all you can. To help protect yourself from another dvt or pe. Ask your doctor about xarelto®. To learn more about cost and how janssen can help, visit xarelto. Com. How janssen can help, we really pride ourselvesglass, on making it easy to get your windshield fixed. With safelite, you can see exactly when well be there. Saving you time for what you love most. Kids whoa kids vo safelite repair, safelite replace i was tired of having my calls dropped, and then id heard that i could get apple music if i switched over and i said, boom vo the best network is even better with apple music on us. Plus save big when you switch. Only on verizon. People wake. And smile, when they see the sun. Not that one. This one. It makes knowing when to take your prescriptions clear as day. Up to fifty percent of people dont take them properly. So at cvs pharmacy we got up early and built a system that helps calculate each persons ideal schedule. Its great for doctors. And caregivers. At cvs pharmacy, were just trying to help more people have more mornings. Tto harrison, the wine tcollection. Were just trying to help more people to craig, this rock. The redwoods to the redheads. The rainbows to the proud. I leave these things to my heirs, all 39 million of you, on one condition. That you do everything in your power to preserve and protect them. With love, california. Treasury secretary Steve Munchin is facing tough questions from democrats over their fight to get a hold of President Trumps tax returns. They have been in touch with white house lawyers about the potential release of the president s tax returns despite a law set to limit political involvement. Our Legal Department had conversations prior to receiving the letter with the white house general counsel. Did they brief you as to the contents of that communication . They have not briefed me to the contents of that communication. I believe that was purely informational. You believe what was purely informational . I believe the communication between our Legal Department and the white house general counsel was informational that we had read in the press that were expecting this. This escalating battle has mu put him at the center of an unprecedented legal battle between the treasury which overseas the irs and the former treasure secretary Larry Summers telling lawrence o donell that the law bars all treasury secretaries from intervening with the irs. Its the essence of the integrity of the tax system that politically appointed officials not be involved in these matters. Wouldnt have ever occurred to me and wouldnt have occurred to the treasury secretaries who i served under and the treasure secretary i served with to become involved in an individual taxpayer matter. Much less an individual taxpayer matter involving the president of the United States. Larry summers bringing a new perspective to this saying its completely barred for the treasury secretary intervening. Here is the oval office with the president sitting with egypts president being asked questions. Cleaning house at dhs, what would you like to achieve . I dont know who came up with that expression. We have bad laws. We have a judge that ruled he doesnt want people staying in mexico. Figure that one out. Nobody can believe these decisions were getting from the 9th circuit. Its a disgrace. Were fighting the bad laws, the bad things that are coming out of congress. You have a Democrat Congress that is obstructing. You talk about obstruction. The greatest obstruction anyone has ever seen. All they have to do is spend 20 minutes and they can fix this whole problem. We have the voworst laws of any country anywhere in the world. Whether its catch and release or any one of them. I could sit who are and name them. If you get rid of catch and rechase, chain migration, visa lottery. You have to fix the asylum situation. Its ridiculous. You have people coming in claiming asylum. They are read wling what the lar gaves the gives them. Some of these people are not people you want in our country. Were building a lot of wall. Its being belt. Some you have saw that last week. We had a great presentation of gnaw streta new stretch. Were being having strong on the border. Were bucking a court system that never ever rules for us. Were bucking really bad things with the democrats in congress not willing to act. They want to have open borders, which means they want to have crime. They want to have drugs pouring in. They dont want to act. We have the close up the borders. Were doing it but i could do it much faster if they would act. Its a terrible thing. The democrats in congress what theyre doing and the obstruction, they dont want to fix it. We have to fix it. They want to have millions of people pouring into our country. They dont want know who they are. These are people coming into our country with criminal records. We have murders coming in. We have drug lords coming in. We have gangs coming in. Were stopping them. If we dont stop them, i. C. E. Is throwing them out. Were getting them out. Our job could be so much easier. I think kevin will do a fantastic job. I think he will do a fantastic job. Were not doing anything very big as far as what we need. Theres no better term. Theres no better name. We want Homeland Security. Thats what were going to get. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Obama separated the children, by the way. Just so you understand. President obama separated the children. Those cages that were shown. I think they were very inappropriate. They were built by president obamas administration, not by trump. President obama had child separation. Take a look. The press knows it. You know it. We all know it. Im the one that stopped it. President obama had child separation. Ill tell you something. Once you dont have it, thats why you see many more people coming. Theyre coming like its a picnic. Lets go to disney land. President obama separated children. They had child separation. I changed it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Wroo were not looking to do that. When you dont do it, it brings a lot more people to the border. President obama had the law. We changed the law. I think the press should accurately report it but they wont. Thank you very much. F its a great honor to be with the president. Just to make it clear, we are reporting exactly what the president said. We just carried it. Jeff mason was asking the first question in there and joins us now as well. Jeff, sorting this out. On immigration he said hes not doing a purge. He said president obama started the separation of children and he invade against the judges. Thats my summary, so far. Thats a good summary. My first question to him was it sountd sounds like youre doing House Cleaning at dhs. What do you want to achieve there . He objected to that. He said i dont know who came up with that. Theres a lot of good people at the department of Homeland Security. Obviously, what we have seen is thats what is he doing from the to levels. In terms of immigration policy, we asked about childhood separation and he gave an interesting answer and a bit of a contradictory answer. He said its very important that people understand that policy existed under president obama and he had been the one to stop it. He said he did not want to continue it. He said twice, that having that policy in place kept more people from coming across the border. Hes not necessarily condemning the policy fully because he is mf emphasizing the fact, in his view, it was effective. You were with i. C. E. During the Obama Administration. Do you want to fact check us on whether the Obama Administration creating the cages and the separation of children. Im pretty confidence the Obama Administration did not. Just a spoiler alert. The thing that is most difficult to hear here is not only did he identify the deterrents point today but its been reported it was a deliberate strategy to deter fepeople from coming to t United States by taking their children away from them. It was a horrible rational choice but a choice they made. The idea this was some obama era thing, its just a lie. Its factually untrue. Certainly the Obama Administration, we took a lot of criticism for removing the number of people in each of the years but never a specific intent to deter people from coming to the yiet united state taking their kids away. This whole policy has been inhuman and its now crashing and isnt working the way the president wanted to and hes starting the fire his entire staff and decapitate the Homeland Security apparatus. Its a shame. Hes not firing people not because its inhuman and thousands of kids might spend as many as two years before being reunited, if then. Because they failed at being inhumane enough. Now were in disney land. The disney land line. Julia is still with us at justice. Any additional Fact Checking there from the president s comments . Reporter i want to double down on two things. One is we know from our reporting very close to the president this for months he did talk about reinstating family separation. It might have looked different than it did before. This time we heard they would do a choice where the parent would choose whether or not to stay in for long detention with their child or to be separated to allow that child to go into the care of hhs and possibly be taken in by a relative or sponsor. Maybe there was a different way they were going to do it but we know he was pushing for this. We know he thought this was one of his best options for det deterring Asylum Seekers and its just kind of a complicated way to go right now. Its one of things Kirstjen Nielsen raised with him. The last thing i would say about the Obama Administration is under the Obama Administration and every administration up until the summer of 2017, not just 2018, but the summer of 2017 under the Trump Administration, children were only separated from an adult crossing the border, if it was determined that the childs safety was in danger. They did this if the parent was a criminal or had some other felony conviction or they needed to be charged for a felony. Not simply for entering the United States illegally. That started under the Trump Administration in 2017 as a Pilot Program and it became policy to do that across the border in may and june of 2018. That does not change. I have to fact check that. The other thing is they keep talking about going against or reversing the flores practice. Thats a court ruling. That says kids cant be kept more than 20 days apart from their family. This is the problem as julia is reporting and backed up by other reporting since sunday is nielsen resulted in the fact she wouldnt back up the legality of the family separation policy, which he wants to return to. It might be amended or tweaked to provide this choice. Thats what he wants to return to. Hes demanding new officials at the dhs find a way around the decision and do something that is going to bend the law or break the law. Were back where we started with senators on the record like senator blunt and cornyn saying im not sure you can get a different result with different people. The president seemed angry about the way this is being cast . Yeah. I think he feels its not fair despite the reporting that julia just shared to put all the blame on his administration for that policy of separating families. I think, in general, what sometimes the world sees as chaos, the president doesnt see as chaos in terms of whats going on with dhs and his administration. He never feels like hes getting fair press coverage. He lashed out about that and he lashed out about the courts. He said these are courts that never side with us and again, democrats and congress for, in his view, passing or supporting laws that put him and his policies at a disadvantage and put the country at a disadvantage in terms of what he would like to achieve on immigration. He had control of both houses up until this midterm, up until this january. Kristen welker, the vacancies in this administration are now just epidemic. Not just in homeland but other departments as well. He said publicly, i like acting because i have more flexibility because he doesnt have to worry about a congressional confirmation hearing. Reporter thats right. Youre talking about roughly ten top official posts that now have acting or that are not filled. That is creating some concern. I can tell you within dhs but within other areas of the Trump Administration. Officials who are privately saying, look, this has the potential to undercut our ability to carry out our responsibles responsibilities. Trump denying the fact hes cleaning house. We know hes gotten rid of a number of top tier positions. Dhs secretary as well as the director of the secret service. They are bracing for more departures within dhs. Thanks for rushing out from your Oval Office Photo op thanks to all. Coming up, its election day in israel. Voters heading to the polls and benjamin mnetanyahu fights to keep his job. A live report is next. His job a live report is next. gasp singsong budget meeting sweet. If you compare last quarter to this quarter. Various mmm. Its no wonder everything seems a little better with the creamy taste of philly, made with fresh milk and real cream. Stroke and Heart Disease . Well, if you dont have symptoms, doctors usually wont order them because, often, Insurance Companies wont pay for them. And thats unfortunate, as 4 out of 5 people who have a stroke, their first symptom is a stroke. And 80 percent of all strokes and Heart Disease are preventable. Thats why life line screening has made preventive screening quick, easy and affordable. So you can take control of your own health. If youre over 40, call to schedule an appointment for five painless screenings that go beyond annual checkups. Life line screening uses Ultrasound Technology to literally look inside your arteries for dangerous plaque that builds up as you age. And if you call us today, our screening package is only 149 an over 50 savings. But more importantly, we just might catch something before it really costs you. Life line screening. The power of prevention. Call now to learn more. Billions of problems. Morning breath . Garlic breath . Stinky breath . Theres a therabreath for you. Therabreath fresh breath oral rinse instantly fights all types of bad breath and works for 24 hours. So you can. Breathe easy. Theres therabreath at walmart. Its election day in israel, a campaign where President Trump was all but Benjamin Netanyahus running mate, moving the u. S. Embassy to jerusalem, withdrawing from the iran nuclear deal, endorsing israels annexation of the golan heights, declaring irans military arm a Terror Organization only yesterday. Even if reelected, netanyahu faces a Court Hearing this summer on whether he should be indicted on corruption charges. His challenger is a former chief of israels armed forces. If netanyahu remains prime minister, he will become israels longest serving leader under israels complex parliamentary system. The outcome if close could take two months to decide who has the political strength to actually form a government. Nbcs chief global correspondent bill neely is watching all the action in tel aviv. The polls havent even closed yet, but there could be closer than previous elections with netanyahu. Bill . Reporter thats for sure. All the polls are suggesting with just two hours left to vote that this is the closest election in at least a decade, and certainly for Benjamin Netanyahu, hes in the fight of his life. And just an hour ago, he released a video telling his supporters, look, youve got to get out and vote. This is an emergency. Hes claiming that the turnout for him is 20 less than that for benny gantz. He saying if you dont vote, we will lose. It seemed like more than electioneering, gantz has never run a Political Campaign before, has no political experience, no Foreign Policy experience, is circumstantial according to the polls polling is certainly according to the polls polling very well. And he doesnt have Foreign Policy experience, but hes a military guy. He has more strength as a centrist left person than previous challengers to netanyahu. Reporter thats right. And netanyahus always run on this idea of, look, im mr. Security. Well, benny gantz is mr. Security. 64, you know, blueeyed son of a holocaust survivor. A here we. A man who use today to take orders from Benjamin Netanyahu. But hes straight out of central casting and has convinced a lot of israelis that they would be safe in his hands. Ands not just him because at his side hes got two other former chiefs of staff. So its three mr. Securities against Benjamin Netanyahu who, remember, as you say, is facing corruption allegations. And many israelis are really fed up with him. Heres an interesting paradox, though. 60 of israelis according to the polls would really rather see someone else than Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet in those same polls, those same israelis say they think mr. Netanyahu is going to win. As you say, the trump effect very, very important here. He is running almost as netanyahus rungmate. Bill neely, thump and well be all watching for those results, and well be right back. Results, and well be right back start sales. Build attendance for an event. Help people find their way. Fastsigns designed new directional signage. And got them back on track. Get started at fastsigns. Com. Rheumatoid arthritis or Psoriatic Arthritis. When considering another treatment, ask about xeljanz xr a oncedaily pill for adults with moderate to severe Rheumatoid Arthritis or active Psoriatic Arthritis for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. It can reduce pain, swelling, and significantly improve physical function. Xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened. As have tears in the stomach or intestines, serious allergic reactions, low blood cell counts, higher liver tests and cholesterol levels. Dont start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. Your doctor should perform blood tests before and while taking xeljanz xr, and monitor certain liver tests. Tell your doctor if youve been somewhere fungal infections are common and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. Dont let another morning go by without asking your doctor about xeljanz xr ill be back tomorrow. Here is ali velshi. Have yourself a great afternoon. Im ali velshi. Im stephanie ruhle. Tuesday, april 9th. Moments ago donald trump defended the shake yum at the department of Homeland Security. Heres the exchange. I never said im cleaning house. Who came up with that. We have great people. We have bad laws, we have a judge that just ruled incredibly that he doesnt want people staying in mexico. Figure that one out. Nobody can believe these decisions were getting from the ninth circuit. Its a disgrace. So were fighting the bat laws, the bad the bad things that are coming out of congress. You have a Democrat Congress thats obstr