get a paycheck today. this is a pay stub from an air traffic controller working without pay. he s receiving zero dollars this week. after the breakdown in talks with congressional leaders president trump is reportedly moving closer to declaring a national emergency to bypass congress and use unspent federal funds from hurricane disasters natural disasters to build his border wall. a wall he once said mexico would pay for. the administration is looking at diverting billions in disaster relief to make it happen. so money meant for places devastated by hurricanes including puerto rico could be used for the wall. who will pay for it? hurricane victims. there you go. clear your calendars for february 7 when michael cohen, president trump s former lawyer, now a convicted felon will testify before congress. the president claims he s not worried. really? joining us now, white house
i think the question is, as these hardship stories of federal workers accumulate in the coming days and weeks, who does that increase the pressure on? federal workers are, you know, a largely liberal bl orokblock, a question is do they put the pressure on nancy pelosi and say, this has to come to an end, we really feel the crunch here. or do they back her and say we can t pay ransom to a terrorist. democrats and the president are waiting to see here. i think the thing that democrats didn t expect was that the president can be sort of a madman on these sorts of things. he s simply not going to bend. i don t think it s clear if he declares a national emergency that he ll reopen the government. if he declares a national emergency, he doesn t have to reopen the government. i just want to remind people. 800,000 federal workers who don t get a paycheck today.
democrats will want to see what am i going to get against donald trump? it going to be a big defining question. how do you decide to take him on? we ll see a lot of candidates in a few weeks. it was about this time that barack obama announced, then senator obama, announced he was running for president. still ahead, standing in solidarity with thousands of federal workers who will not see a paycheck today. congressman rose from new york joins us next. one hour pickup order?
rest of the blank. we are monitoring news from that. we want to bring in a republican operative and liz smith, democratic strategist. i know you had a chance to listen to the white house secretary briefing where josh earnest acknowledged he believed, the white house believed director james comey wasn t trying to influence the outcome of the election. they are not trying to defend decision-making, acknowledge that comey is in a tough spot. in your view should the white house have defended comey s decision-making process more? well, josh earned his paycheck today. he really has a tough needle to thread there. i think the tone was appropriate. he did defend comey s integrity and push back on insinuations
administration for trying to inflict as they say, the most amount of harm. you know, republicans really did want to inflict harm. that was their objective. that was their leverage, that if they could get federal employees furloughed they could strip this country of bawl care, delay it, defund it. i don t know what they want today. it s a little bit ironic that you find house members who are complaining now because maybe they won t get hot water in the house gym. there are young people, older americans out there working, cleaning federal office buildings. they re not doing those jobs today because they re home and waiting for a paycheck. and they re going to suffer irreparable financial harm from this because they don t have a paycheck today. i think they re the party that should be called the party