not true like claims that el paso was once considered one of our nation s most dangerous cities. false. claims that el paso only became safe. immediately upon its building with a powerful barrier in place. false. the president is lying to you to get his border wall. president trump wrapped a meeting with white house aids on border wall funding. he will head to el paso s border wall funding. we kick off our coverage from texas. president trump heading to el paso for the first campaign rally for the year.
not a good security situation. he said an optics question. not the perfect time to have a celebration which the state of the union tends to be. back to you. joe johns, thank you very much. let s discuss with the white house correspondent for reuters and white house economic policy reporter for the washington post. thank you for coming on. jeff, you spent time in the white house here. this is a remarkable back down for the president. i wonder on the shutdown. he has his chief of staff asking agency leaders looking into the effects of a shutdown if it continues into march. are you seeing bending of the will of the president on the shutdown itself? on border wall funding? yes and no. i agree with the first point. i think it was sort of a remarkable backdown. that reflects the fact that speaker pelosi has something president trump wants. that s space. the space in the house chamber to give the address which is
the administration or about to leave the administration with his character, his integrity, his reputation still solidly intact. i would argue that mattis might be in that category too just because you re right there in terms of the trend. he leaves with his reputation intact because he has really been the bull work and the buffer of this investigation. now the president didn t go there in terms of trying to fire anybody, but part of that is because he was getting a message from the department of justice and from rosen stain stein that he was going to stand strong. but i do think you re starting to see a trend here starting with mattis as well as some of these administration officials leaving and actually being willing to send a message to the american people that all is not well, and to share with the american people what their experiences have been in terms of that departure letter. coming up on morning joe on border wall funding eight house republicans broke ranks with the
believes it is the one party in this negotiation which has been compromising. that hasn t changed since before christmas eve when mike pence came up here and offered chuck schumer a cut in the administration s request for a border wall funding from $5 billion to just over $2 billion. schumer said no deal then. there is evidence then as there is today that it was not schumer but nancy pelosi was calling the shots, and here is wide. she can only afford to lose 22 votes in her bid to become speaker, which will happen in a little while from now. we believe she will lose anywhere from 16 to 17, perhaps fewer. she doesn t want to take any chance of losing more by alienating the left. a new crop of democratic socialists who may not vote for her for speaker if she shows the slightest sign on, rising with the president on border wall funding. instead, they are offering a new deal to end the partial government shutdown. there is a way to do this, and the president can do it immediately. we
swipe at claire mccaskill, the senator from missouri. yeah, well, that was something that i guess got a lot of criticism just because it was a taxpayer funded speech but he s making clear that part of what he s going to do is not only sell his agenda but try to go out and begin campaigning against some of these red state democrats. he thinks that the problem really is the democrats even though what happened with health care and what is likely to happen potentially with tax reform is that they can t get the votes within their own party. and yet, he s going to try and assign blame to the dras. part of the question will be whether he also goes after continues to go after some members of his own party like jeff flake, but to get to the previous question about what to expect over the next several weeks, i actually think this hurricane harvey funding is going to make things a little bit easier because the president is the one threatening to blow up the process by insisting on