Im Yasmin Vossoughian alongside nbc News White House correspondent jeff bennett. Well start with the fight over the Trump Administrations stonewalling of democratic investigations escalating. The white house has directed former counsel don mcgahn to defy a congressional subpoena to testify before the House Judiciary Committee this morning. In a letter to chairman Jerrold Nadler, white House Counsel said the Justice Department has quote advised me that mr. Mcgahn is absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony with respect to matters occurring during his service as a Senior Adviser to the president. He went on to say the president has directed mr. Mcgahn not to appear. A lawyer for mcgahn said the former white House Counsel would respect the president s instruction and not appear today. Chairman Jerrold Nadler says the committee will still meet this morning adding mr. Mcgahn is expected to appear as legally require and if he did not testify quote the first thing were going to do, well have to hold mcgahn in contempt. President trump was asked by reporter yesterday why he instructed mcgahn to defy the subpoena. Heres what he had to say. President , why are you asking don mcgahn to defy a congressional subpoena. As i understand that they are doing it for the office of the presidency. Its an important precedent and the attorneys say that they are not doing that for me, they are doing that for the office of the president. Were talking about the future. Several Top Democrats are urging House Speaker nancy pelosi to move forward with an pea impeachment proceedings. Let me clear if don mcgahn doesnt testify its time to open an impeachment inquiry. The president has engaged in an on going to impede the truth. No one is above the law including the president of the United States and we expect mr. Mcgahn to come before the committee and testify. According to nbc news during a Leadership Meeting in House SpeakerNancy Pelosis office last night, several democrats all argued for launching an impeachment inquiry if mcgahn fails to testify. Impeachment was raised in a separate weekly meeting last night among Democratic Leaders and committee chairs. Pelosi who is wary about calls to open impeachment proceedings reportedly told her members we always said one thing will lead to another as we get information. We still have unexholocausted avenues here. Tore more on this later on this morning David Ciciline will join morning joe. Trumps speech last night touched on several topics cluing the Mueller Investigation and that his 2016 campaign was spied on. If you look what we went through with this phoney deal, phony witch00 is a disgrace. Now they are blaming each other. Do you see. They are all turning on each other. Its his fault. No, its his fault. Now we caught them. They were spying. They were spying on our campaign. Ill tell you what. If that ever happened to the other side, this thing would have been over two years ago, and you know it would have been treason. They would have called it treason and thats what it is. Its treason. It should never be allowed to happen to another president again. Ever. Ever. Ever. You reclaimed your destiny. You defended your dignity. And you took back your country. Well have a great new attorney general who is going to give it a very fair look. Very fair look. All right. Michigan republican congressman is not backing down from his impeachment call for President Trump. He pushed back on his critics saying there were no underlying crimes unearthed in the mueller report. He laid out his reasoning for why hes come out so strongly against trumps innocence in a barrage of tweets yesterday. Heres what he had to say about it last night. The proceedings is a process. What do you mean by that . Its a process. Not like the resolution is just drawn up overnight. Its a process. You have to come to the right conclusions about how to draft something. You would like to see them start something . I think its appropriate to do so. President trump is not keeping quiet about the republicans congressman rebuke about him either. Take a look. Ive known him. Hes against trump from the beginning. He probably wants to run for some other office. Hes been a loser for a long time. Rarely votes for republicans. And, you know, personally i think hes not much. All right. Lets talk more about this joining us from washington Senior Writer at roll call. Good morning to you. Thanks for joining us. Talk about the gop leadership and. How they are reacting to the chaos surrounding amashs impeachment calls. I think that the reaction has generally been certainly from kevin mccarthy, the House Republican leader, and others to sort of dismiss the congressman from michigans recent announcement and even going beyond that. Theres reporting from last night that the House Freedom caucus of which amash had been or maybe still is a member, its unclear how often he he actually shows up. Wld be conservative members of the house who are probably the most aligned with donald trump and so, you know, he sort of is on an island but long been on an island. Theres nothing particularly unusual. If you talked to anybody about who would be the first House Republican to Say Something in favor of impeachment, amash would probably have been on the top of everybodys list. Lets go back to don mcgahn. Weve seen what will happen here before when attorney general bill barr was supposed to show up before the House Committee and he didnt show and they left an empty seat behind the desk. Is that what we should expect today . It sure sounds it will be an empty chair situation again. And this is just going to become the next front in whats becoming more and more of a legal battle between the house and the Trump Administration. You know, theyve gotten some favorable views from the courts in terms of the house, and i dont know where exactly the court is going to come down. Mcgahn is a private citizen, so there could be that argument made, but, obviously, there is the executive privilege case that could be made. Well talk to you again in a little bit. Thank you. Lets switch gears here. Another migrant child has died while in the custody of u. S. Customs and protection. The fifth death since yesterday. Yesterday a 16yearold guatemalan boy died after being found unresponsive. On sunday the boy who at the time was the Rio Grande Valley center said he wasnt feeling well. He was diagnosed with flu. He was not taken to a hospital for treatment. Before heading to his rally President Trump blamed the matter on democrats. You look at the border, and if you look at the fact that the democrats are really making it very, very dangerous for people by not approving simple, quick, 15 minute legislation, we could have it all worked out, it would being a great for people, great for lives, great for safety, and the borders are a dangerous place. Its only made that way because the democrats will not approve any legislation. I mean they dont want to approve anything. Its making the border very dangerous. [ inaudible ] were working very hard. The Border Patrol people and all of Law Enforcement is working very hard. Honestly what should happen is the democrats should sit down and make change so that we can protect people on the border. Okay. Still ahead a federal judge rules against President Trump in the fight over i had financial records. What it means for democrats seeking those documents. Plus tornadoes and funnel clouds spotted in several states after a Severe Weather warning. Meteorologist bill karins will have the very latest on that coming up next. N that coming up next oh oh oh ozempic® announcer people with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of onceweekly ozempic®. In a study with ozempic®, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than seven and maintained it. Oh under seven . And you may lose weight. In the same oneyear study, adults lost on average up to 12 pounds. Oh up to 12 pounds . A twoyear study showed that ozempic® does not increase the risk of major cardiovascular events like heart attack, stroke, or death. Oh no increased risk . Oh, oh, oh, ozempic® ozempic® should not be the first medicine for treating diabetes, or for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. Do not share needles or pens. Dont reuse needles. Do not take ozempic® if you have a personal or Family History of medullary thyroid cancer, multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if you are allergic to ozempic®. 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This time around. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Experience the entertainment you love on x1. Access netflix, prime video, youtube and more, all with the sound of your voice. Click, call or visit a store today. Severe weather across the central u. S. Has people picking up the pieces after a day of powerful storms that left many with homes severely damaged. Twisters and funnel clouds were spotted after dozens of counties across texas and oklahoma were under the most Severe WeatherTornado Warning yesterday. Fortunately there are no reports of injuries, but heavy rain and tornado threats continue for the region today. Lets get a check on your weather now with nbc meteorologist bill karins. Good morning. Just looking at some of the latest information and the flooding is incredible right now in northwestern oklahoma. Looks like we made it through the night at least so far. No reports of any injuries. No reports of any fatalities which is amazing considering how dangerous of a set up it was last night. 19 reports of tornadoes out there. A couple of them were pretty big. The one near magnum was pretty large and. Missed the town by half a mile. It hit some of the houses on the outskirts but didnt go through the downtown area. Let me catch you up where were at now. Were not done. We still have a couple of tornado watches up here as this squall line continues through. We havent had any new turns reported in about the last two to three hours. Thats good. All the problems right now, theres water rescues ongoing, evacuations ongoing from homes because of flooding. Just water issues. Weve had four to six inches of rain overnight from Oklahoma City to tulsa. This area of northern oklahoma is by far the worse. 14 Million People are in this Flash Flood Watch and includes much of oklahoma, missouri and illinois because were not done with the rainfall yet. That flash flood emergency for tulsa will continue to 5 45 this morning local time. Heres a look at the close up. Radar. We still have this squall line thats just now going through Oklahoma City. Its already had three rounds of storms. This is the fourth for some areas. This one has some strong gusty winds with it. More the water issues were dealing with. Im hearing some schools are closing because theres so many highways and roads closed and flooded throughout this region they want to keep everybody at home or as many people possible. This has to go back over the top of tulsa. I was looking at a little creek called the bird creek north of tulsa, snakes down north of the city. That just broke its record crest by two feet. Its up to 24 the feet. The old record was 22 feet. Those records go back to the 1940s. So this is a pretty rare flood event for areas of northwestern oklahoma. At daylight once it gets nice enough we can get the helicopters up to show you well have water every where. Were not done yet. 17 Million People at risk for additional threat. The tornado threat isnt as bad today as yesterday but we have isolated tornadoes from springfield to st. Louis, columbia to little rock. As dangerous as it was and damaging no injuries or fatalities. Thats the good news. Rough couple of days. A lot of clean up to be done. Democrats have won an early legal battle with the president. The federal judge decided not to block a request over president s financial records. Trumps lawyer argue the subpoena was unconstitutional because it wasnt tied to any specific legislation. Attorneys for the Oversight Committee said the Financial Disclosures will serve to prove existing disclosure and ethic laws. The ruling means they must comply with the subpoena for eight years of trumps financial records. President trump criticized the judge, calling the ruling crazy and said hes going to appeal. We disagree with that ruling. Its crazy. Because you look at it, this never happened to any other president. They are trying to get a redo. As far as the financials are concerned we think its the wrong totally the wrong decision by, obviously, an bap appointed judge. He was a recently obama appointed judge. Joining us here on set msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos. How big of a win was this yesterdays decision for the house Oversight Committee . Super big. This is a District Court opinion. It will be appealed. Beautifully written opinion. Difficult to overturn on appeal. The gist of it is this. Congress power to investigate is very broad. Its almost as important as its power to legislate. But its not unlimited. Congress cant infringe on the duties of the executive branch. Cant engaging Law Enforcement. But those are very minor restraints on congress power. As long as there is a facially proper legislative purpose, the courts will not second guess even the motives of the Congress Folks in issuing these subpoenas or seeking this information. Was this ruling based on that law from 1924 saying that members of congress can demand to see the taxes of any citizen of the United States . It goes back to the constitution, goes back to the power granted to congress to conduct investigations. As lone as those investigations are for a potential legislative purpose, they dont need be for a current or actual legislative purpose. In other words, as long as congress can articulate some kind of legislative purpose they get the presumption of reasonableness. In the law presumptions are incredibly powerful things. In my closing arguments when you talk about the presumption of innocence, presumption essentially means you have to root for the party who benefits from the presumption. You want them to win like a fan. In that situation, in this situation where congress has that legislative presumption of reasonableness, they will usually win. We just saw the president say his attorneys will appeal this thing. This is one of the things where the legal strategy is the same as the political strategy. The Trump Administration, the trump team are trying to run out the clock here. Sure. Probably beyond the 2020 election. What comes next sound legal strategy. Legally they know when it comes to issues of the constitution, Appellate Courts including the Supreme Court are more likely to take a fresh look at the issue and maybe not give the deference to the lower courts. Its a smart legal strategy and as you pointed out its a smart political strategy because the longer they delay, the longer it takes to brief these issues and present them and argue them to an Appellate Court then the more likely we get to a new congress and subpoenas have a shelf life in congress. They last only as long as that existing congress. Its not assured the house Oversight Committee will see eight years of the president ials financial records. Nothing is assured in this administration. I need a tshirt that says that. Danny cevallos, thanks so much. Still ahead an nbc news exclusive. Theres new evidence to suggest russias campaign to meddle goes far deeper than election interference. We have some good news. Lots of weddings here. A quick congratulations right there to one of our producers. Thats a gorgeous picture. He got marri