saying the feds didn t have a good enough reason to include a census citizenship question, trump orders the d.o.j. to get it back in. neal katyal helps us make sense of it as the 11th hour gets under way on a wednesday night. good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. i m ali velshi in for brian williams. day 895 of the trump administration. there could not be a more stark split screen on the eve of the nation s 243rd birthday. on the left preparations for trump s july 4th salute to america are under way on the national mall in washington, d.c. a celebration featuring tanks, military flyovers, and a speech from the commander in chief taking place as his administration is in the throes of a full-blown humanitarian crisis on the right of your screen on the nation s southern border. the president has promised our
it into that, and we hope too that we never see the spectacle of our military force being on display as a show of force to our own people. politico reports there s concern about white house aides about their ability to pull off what trump expects to see. reporter nancy cook, who joins me in a moment, writes white house and the republican national committee have spent the last week scrambling to distribute vip tickets. white house officials and allies are wringing their hands over the risk of the hastily arranged event morphing into trump s inauguration 2.0 in which the size of the crowd and the ensuing media coverage do not meet the president s own outsized expectations for the event. they started this too late and everyone has plans already, says dan eberhart, a republican donor. once again, this is all happening as critics are slamming the administration for
from the justice department said the first i m hearing of these tweets that i m reading off of twitter. and you know, i don t know what s going on. so clearly, the justice department s kind of out of the loop and the commerce department s out of the loop and the president s off on his own quixotic campaign. but i suspect what s going to happen at the end, ali, is that the justice department lawyers are going to reassert themselves and say, look, this is what we told the supreme court about june 30th, we said even last week on tuesday in a filing on june 25th. and yeah, two days later the supreme court ruled against us. but boy, it will destroy our credibility with the federal judiciary if we go back on our word now. i mean, when i sat in that chair, the government s top lawyer for litigation, the thing i was most concerned about was protecting the credibility that prior generations of government servants had built up with the federal courts. and right now president trump is threatening
the new york times also quotes reports some retired and active-duty military officers and privately even some defense department personnel said the participation of the military in president trump s salute to america appears to politicize the armed forces on a day when the nation traditionally toasts its independence in a non-partisan environment. earlier on this network the mayor of washington, d.c. expressed her apprehensions about tomorrow night. this has been a non-partisan fun, family event where people come from all walks of life, from all points of this region and the world to celebrate the fireworks. so we hope that the president will stick to that and not turn it into that, and we hope too that we never see the spectacle of our military force being on display as a show of force to our own people. politico reports there s
the president s off on his own quixotic campaign. but i suspect what s going to happen at the end, ali, is that the justice department lawyers are going to reassert themselves and say, look, this is what we told the supreme court about june 30th, we said even last week on tuesday in a filing on june 25th. and yeah, two days later the supreme court ruled against us. but boy, it will destroy our credibility with the federal judiciary if we go back on our word now. i mean, when i sat in that chair, the government s top lawyer for litigation, the thing i was most concerned about was protecting the credibility that prior generations of government servants had built up with the federal courts. and right now president trump is threatening to torch whatever credibility the justice department has left because of what he s doing. and that will be a huge, huge error for the country and for him. so let me ask you something. the justice department lawyers either pull back on this or they