What actions should the Border Patrol take to keep young migrants safe . Im Frances Rivera at nbc headquarters in new york. Heres whats happening. We begin with new reaction from democrats on day eight of the partial Government Shutdown and the detail of how low the president was willing to go to end his own shutdown. Nbc news learned trump backed off on his original demand of 5 billion for the wall, revising that figure down to 2. 5 billion. Democrats rejected that figure a week ago and are doing so again today. Were not going to allow the American People to be held hostage that 5 billion or somewhere south of that ransom note in order to build a ridiculous border wall thats not going to make anyone safe. If he wants to see us increase Border Security, well go there, well do this. But were not going to use seventh Century Technology for a 21st century problem just because in the middle of a Campaign Speech he thought he would say build a wall. Homeland security secretary Kirstjen Niel
through the trump organization, and involving the russian government. there s an awful lot of evidence to suggest that even before the efforts to influence the election, that the russian government had enormous influence and control over donald trump because of his financial dependence upon them. but that additional information certainly enhances all of that and supports further the conclusions that i expect we will see at some point out of mueller s investigation. let s look ahead at 2019, greg. you ve got the president facing this triple threat right now. you have got the new york attorney general, you ve got the southern district of new york, special counsel. how does he go about managing that and surviving it, if at all? it s going to be challenging for him, there s no doubt about it, based upon what we ve seen reported publicly to this point. traditionally what i think a president would do would be to continually reassure the
federal prosecutor greg clemons. you have the president s lawyer rudy giuliani making these assertions here. what evidence could there be as far as the president and rudy giuliani basing these claims on, and could these do more harm legally to the president? with respect to the text messages, frances? right. i m not sure what is being mentioned there by the president. there doesn t seem to be any basis for alleging that there are these mysteriously missing text messages at this point. that matter had been the subject of a very professional, very thorough report by the doj office of inspector general that was released some months ago. i simply don t know what to make of this latest allegation. it s also, on the side you have rudy giuliani who goes back and forth, sending mixed signals with his messaging. in an interview with the hill he said he believed the investigation should end soon.
suggest that a sitting president cannot be indicted. so that complicates significantly the president s status, and the issue of whether he could be or should be interviewed by the special counsel. and where do you see it going, especially with rudy giuliani and the kind of mixed messaging, how will that affect this investigation? it s hard ben, i apologize, ben. thank you, frances. i agree with greg, i don t think it s going to affect the mueller investigation s certainly not the ability of the investigation to move forward. it will move forward regardless of what rudy giuliani says or does and regardless of whether or not the president submits to an interview. his comments are typical of the modern day rudy giuliani. incomprehensible and inconsistent. i believe that was the same interview in which he reopened the possibility of submitting to
american people that he is that he has done nothing wrong, if that s his belief, and that he has he has told his people to cooperate fully with the investigation, and that he himself is committed to cooperating fully with the investigation. but that of course is exactly the opposite of what we ve seen so far. so i would expect we see we will see more of the same from the president, criticizing the prosecutor, criticizing the fbi, and trying to deflect as best he can the attention that should be aimed at him, because the investigation is aimed at him and his campaign and his businesses, instead of just, again, committing to cooperating as best he can. very quickly, ben, which investigation poses the biggest threat? i really think it s the combination. you ve got the michael cohen, the southern district of new york investigation. you have the mueller investigation. but i would add to the mix, you