encounters and much more. cnn this morning continues right now. under no circumstances you are promising america tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody? except for day one. except for? except for day one. meaning in. i want to close the border and i want to drill that s he says you are not going to be a dictator, are you? no, no, no, other than day one. we are kpoes closing the border and drilling, drilling, drilling. after that i am not a dictator, okay? good morning, everyone. i m poppy harlow with phil mattingly in new york. that was donald trump last night saying the quiet part outloud when he was put on the spot. for trump rhetoric on the campaign trail sparked a frenzy of headlines this week about what he might do if he becomes president again. he danced around the question about abusing power. his ally ckash patel is talking about punishing enemies if there is a new trump term. this is a man who holds a senior rol
it as appropriate to break the law. we swore allegiance to the constitution. let s bring in roberta costa, national political reporter for the washington post and msnbc political analyst. robert, thanks for being with us this morning. i want to start with the post report. basically saying the president wants to complete hundreds of miles of border wall. and he doesn t mind what it takes in order to get that done, as long as he is able to fast track it. what do you make of that reporting and subsequently of the chief of staff for the vice president denying it? president trump, stymied by congress, continues to look to executive authority as a way to make an overture to his political base ahead of the 2020 election. the border wall was one of his signature pledges, and he wants to follow through as much as possible. for internal discussions as the post reports, he s talking through about how to pursue that objective as quickly as possible ahead of his re-election.
which is interesting. you mentioned his base. is that all about his supporters? the president just afraid they will leave him if he doesn t construct this wall? or is this really about winning? it s also about fighting congress. he has looked to congress for funds for months. but now that it is a divided congress, with the democrats controlling the house and the republicans controlling the senate, very little is expected to get done other than maybe the usmca deal. but a border discussion seems to be far away when you talk to most top people on capitol hill on both parties. you see this administration scrambling. you say he is scrambling also with congress. but there is another piece i want to focus on, one that says administration officials have stopped trying to talk him out of demands and the u.s. army core of engineers is instructed
out weigh a subpoena from congress. now that lawmakers know these records do exist, what happens next? well, it s possible for there to be some kind of compromise. it doesn t have to be all or nothing, said the judges. it is possible that some portions of the records could be released or all of them, or none. what we do know is for the trump organization, the family, the administration, it is a waiting game. they want to push this back as far as possible to get through the next year and a half without those records being public. you are saying the family wants to have this waiting game and push it back even a year and a half. give me a sense of the timeline. what is the earliest the government could get their hands on a record like this? i m not sur the court fight could progress for months and months and months. they take a long time. there is this question of how urgent the democrats feel on the hill. how aggressive they re willing to be. you have heard a lot of complaints fr
the only one that s won in a red state, if we can t win michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, if we can t make a difference in those areas even that voted obama, obama, trump, it s going to be that much harder to win this election. so certainly think that s one of the reasons why i m in it. i m in some respects a single-issue voter, and that s making sure that donald trump isn t re-elected come next year. so the producers are telling me we have to go, but i have to get in one personal question here. why have you been so quick to rule out a senate run? you know the importance that of the chamber of congress. so why not consider it? yeah, i said long before i even got into this that i wasn t going to run for senate. we will have good candidates here and i ll do everything that i can to make sure that they win. i mean, part of it is i ve served my whole time as an executive. part of it is i wish we were talking about places like also north dakota, indiana, missouri where we no longer