transparent,pen, we did challenge obama, but you know what? obama had a heart. he had a soul. he had a heart. he had a center. he had convictions. and we could speak to those. >> i will say, as just a final thought there, that all of the people saying, where were you when barack obama was doing family detention, you, congressman gutierrez, a lot of people were there challenging him on this. you're someone who has been extremely consistent about this. thank you for joining me tonight. >> thank you, chris. keep telling us what's going on. >> thanks, congressman. i want to. mention, our most recent episode of why is this happening talks about what happened in puerto rico, where luis gutierrez has been doing a lot of work, both before and after the storm. i encourage you to check it out, along with our conversation with an aclu lawyer about their suit against the trump administration over family separation. they're both available wherever you get your podcasts. that is "all in" for this evening. tonight, a stunning about face from president trump after falsely blaming democrats after falsely saying only congress

could fix the problem. the president signs a piece of paper ending his own policy of separating children from parents at the border. but tonight at a rally in duluth he goes back and promises toughness on the board e. >> in washington the criminal investigation goes on. this evening new details on the trump tower meeting with the russians, the reporter who broke the story is our guest tonight. the 11th hour begins now. good evening once again from new york. day 517 of the trump administration. it saw the president cave in the face of a hue mantarian and publicity disaster of his own making. here was the scene this afternoon. the president in the oval office flanked by his loyal vice president and secretary of homeland security.

the president casts himself in an almost heroic role of ending a policy he started. >> we're signing an executive order, i consider to be a very important executive order. it's about keeping families together while at the same time being sure that we have a very powerful, very strong border. i didn't like the sight or the feeling of families being separated. it's a problem that's gone on for many years, as you know,

through many administrations, and we're working very hard on immigration. it's been left out in the cold. i think the word compassion comes into it, but it's still equally as tough, if not tougher. >> tonight an hhs spokesperson told nbc news they received no

new ordered on how to handle the roughly 2300 children already detained. put more directly, they're at this -- there is no mechanism to reunite parents and children while they await court hearings. it reached a crest last night when we learned that young migrant children were being held inside so-called tender age facilities in undisclosed facilities in south texas. it was inevitable that photos and images would eventually emerge of young children in such places. tonight "the new york times" obtained at least this picture from inside a shelter in brownsville, texas, the image shows a toddler playing on the floor. the only evidence of an adult presence are the nearby shoes with sanitary covers on them. according to the person who took the photo, the girl was separated from her relatives for about a month as part of this family's separation policy. just last night the local news network in new york city, new york one shot this video of children confirmed by the new york governor to be from the southern border heading into a foster agency shelter new york city.

we've learned that separated children have been dispatched to 14 different states. again, with no mechanism to match them back to their parents, and remember where we've been as this crisis has grown over the past several days, president trump and his administration have refused to acknowledge this was a problem of their own creation. and a problem that could be stopped quickly. >> i say it's very strongly the democrats' fault. they're obstructionists. >> congress and the courts created this problem, and congress alone can fix it. >> people said look, you ripped the families apart even though it is the law, it's heartless. >> that's the law, and it's what the democrats gave us. we're willing to change it today if they want to get in and negotiate. >> why doesn't the president pick up the phone and pick up the policy? he said he hates it. >> i think the president is trying to find a long-term fix. why don't we have congress change the laws? no, congress would fix this tomorrow. you can't do it through an executive order. >> the title of the executive order the president signed today was important to this white house to keep the focus on congress. the word separation was misspelled and has since been corrected.

typos happen, but typically not on executive orders. michael sheer of the washington post points out tonight that for trump what mattered most in addressing the family crisis was looking strong. the projection of strength has always been the central pillar of trump's politics. the reason of his constant drive to conflict and. and immigration has always been his favorite arena for flexing his rhetorical muscles. and in deed tonight, in minnesota, president trump wasted no time returning to his favorite subject. >> by the way, today i signed an executive order. we're going to keep families together, but the border is going to be just as tough as it's been. so we've already started the wall. san diego and lots of different places. the media never talks about the american victims of illegal immigration. i know them well. i know so many of them. i campaigned with them. what's happened to their children? what's happened to their husbands? what's happened to their wives?

the media doesn't talk about the american families permanently separated from their loved ones, because democrat policies release violent criminals into our communities. >> quick point of fact. the wall hasn't been started. just repair work on existing sections. let's bring in our lead off panel on a wednesday night. we welcome back katty kay. ben stain, anita kumar, and joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecuter. anita, you have covered this issue and this man both for a long time. how monumental was what we witnessed today? >> oh, it was definitely -- it was definitely a turning point

in this entire issue. i mean, we have heard for days that -- weeks that he would not budge on this issue. and we heard him say, and you played the clip of him saying i can't do this by executive order. and then we saw him do it. it struck me how many times on the campaign trail and in conversation he talks about how president obama did things by executive order that he shouldn't have done. that he relied on it too much. and then here he is doing the same thing. you know, president obama did rely on executive orders when congress wouldn't agree on something or wouldn't act. and now president trump has found he's in the same position. >> sam, i'm going to read you the work of josh daus si. trump surprised his aides by ordering them to write an executive order and saying he wanted to sign it before leaving for minnesota. his car is visible. they pushed back arguing that an executive order could not be written to comply with the legal limits on child detentions.

an argument trump championed publicly prompting a debate among the president and his aides. kelly urged the president to continue pressing congress to pass a law, and argued that signing an order would not solve the problem. mcgahn continued to question the legality of the executive order according to officials. many aides including importantly ivanka trump and kellyanne conway urged the president to end the separations. eventually after a number of meetings, ideas and drafts, mcgahn said the final product could be legal. sam, does the tipping point or tipping person matter? >> not really. i think in the end trump is so impulsive that it might have just been an episode on "fox and friends" that could have done the trick. the debate internally is what matters.

i think the legal -- what we set up going forward is potentially a system in which we're talking about indefinite detention of families. it could be an illegal act. it says you cannot hold a child for 20 days after a period. trump may say we want to keep the family unit together but detain them together. the child is with the parent, but we could go against the other decision. that could set up a difficult, bitter, problematic political fight. but i've talked to a bunch of immigration advocates including people on the hill. they're worried by taking this

act and doing this executive order today, trump may have taken the spotlight off himself, but the importance of the issue won't go away because of the new executive order being in effect. >> and congress will, of course, rush in and act immediately. >> well known expeditiously act in congress. this is a huge problem. we have the house which is considering two broader pieces of immigration. the senate has three or four options. no one has called us around one. we've seen for decades that congress isn't able to move on immigration reform even in light of these humanitarian disasters. i don't see any will on the hill to address this. we could end up debating this for weeks if not months to come. >> katty kay, you heard the president not, red meat crowd, top of minnesota talking about almost a glancing mention of how we signed the executive order today but the border is going to be just as tough as ever. talk about the dueling trumps, if you will. >> i'm not sure there really are dueling trumps. i think the president was dragged into having to reverse himself on this very one issue of separating parents from their children when they cross into the country. but when you listen to him throughout the course of the day, his gut is still hard line on this. when he talked about not wanting

to be weak, wanting to be strong, actually, i would like to be strong even if that's unpalatable to people. that's where the president is. it's just that he had so many republicans come to him from suburban districts he said this is killing us with numbers. this is going to make the midterms even harder. he had his wife and daughter and kellyanne conway saying it has to stop. he changed his position. i think he changed his position. he was dragged into changing his position. his instinct is still to be tough on the issue. >> listening to you today, joyce, i heard this in a new

light when you said simply the administration had started deciding to prosecute misdemeanors and that set a chain of reactions including family separation. the question to you as a former u.s. attorney, how do you fix this now? how does the word filter down to all the border check points? and it does nothing to address wrongs that have been committed. >> the action taken inside of doj that led to this was a relatively recent order by jeff sessions that prosecuters should use a zero tolerance policy in prosecuting first-time misdemeanor offenses. in other words, people who entered the united states

unlawfully for the first time. and it was their arrest and their introduction into the criminal system that triggered their separation from their children who could not accompany them to jail. the attorney general could fix that at any point in time today simply by revoking the zero tolerance order and telling prosecuters you no longer have to prosecute all these misdemeanor cases. you can return to using your discretion. but he explicitly didn't do that today. the attorney general was up on the hill announcing that the zero tolerance policy would continue, and so that seems to be a little bit at odds with this goal of reunifying families and children unless that reunification will happen in semi permanent prison camps. which looks like that will be the form that family separation 2.0 will take in this country.

>> anita, it's not impossible to imagine a president flying back to andrews after duluth realizing that a lot of the coverage includes the word caved. perhaps lashing out on social media. what do you anticipate him dng tomorrow? >> right. well, i'm sure there will be some messages on twitter first thing in the morning before we all wake up. you know, he is not going to like the coverage, but he clearly didn't like the coverage in the last few days. right? he's the one that saw these videos, these pictures, these sounds of children crying. and he didn't like it at all. and obviously republicans on capitol hill were telling him to please do something. he's not going to like the coverage this evening, and so we'll see what he does. it was very telling tonight that he went back to that same rhetoric. he wanted to appear tough. i think the reason he didn't get rid of the zero tolerance policy is because he wants to seem tough still. he's saying we don't have to separate families, but i'm still going to keep on with this policy. >> just a point of maybe personal privilege. we talked about trump wanting to appear tough and strong. i don't get why separating children from parents is an act of toughness or strength. in fact, it's a weakness. it's picking on the most vulnerable people possible. so maybe i'm getting ahead of myself a little bit over my skis, but i think the framing is all wrong on that. that's all. >> katty kay, part of your job is portraying our country to a global audience, and in turn, hearing what our allies, at least i think most of them are

still there, are talking about us. what can you report from that front? >> look, this story has been on the front pages of britain and europe over the last few days. the prime minister was pushed into having to make a response and criticized the policy after unflattering newspaper headlines asking why she was being silent on this. the canadians have responded. the mexicans have responded at a time when the united states, ironically, is pulling out of the u.n. counsel on human rights. there are children being separated from their parents on american soil. it doesn't look good for america to be in this position, and after a couple of weeks in which we've had a battering of america's alliances with some of its longest-standing allies, this doesn't help. this doesn't help america's reputation in the world.

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borders. let everybody come in. democrats don't care about the impact of uncontrolled migration on your communities, your schools, your hospitals. your jobs or your safety. democrats put illegal immigrants before they put american citizens. what the hell is going on? >> there was plenty of strong language on immigration at that rally tonight in duluth, minnesota with just a passing mention of the thousands of children who have been taken from their parents. this crisis on the border is resonating in every corner of our country. watching all this unfold proved too much for a veteran republican political staffer who we have come to know very well on this broadcast. on twitter today steve schmidt announced today i renounce my membership in the republican party. it's fully the party of trump.

here to talk about it tonight, connie schultz, a long-time veteran of the cleveland plain dealer, now a nationally syndicated columnist, and editor at the nevada independent, welcome to you both. connie, the great and sensible state of ohio has given this country eight american presidents on its own. this last time it went for donald trump. i'm counting on you to tell me where, if at all, public opinion has migrated on this president

during this crisis. >> well, brian, i'm on the receiving end of a lot of reader mail from trump supporters every week. much of it unhappy with me. i'm seeing a change in the last couple of weeks. i think that a growing number of trump supporters, particularly women, have been unhappy with who he is as president. they weren't going to apologize for their vote. this is giving them the chance to break free. you and i both have children. most of your viewers watching love a child. i would do anything to save the life of my children. i would do anything to save the life of my seven grandchildren. that makes me as ordinary of millions of americans in this country. he is not being tough. he is being a bully. he's being heartless and inhumane. and this separation issue is not over with the executive order because there are thousands of children right now who are away from their parents. their parents have no idea where they are. some of these children are so

young. and can we please have a shoutout to the journalism that brought about the shift. it's been especially the images. the photograph of the toddler screaming as her mother was searched and the audio of children screaming has made a huge difference in this country. i couldn't be prouder to be a journalist right now. the thing i keep thinking about with john morrison and the interview with the washington post. they're confiscating everything from the people when they come over. they're taking the shoe laces out of the children's sneakers. they're taking their wedding rings and toys and any special blankets. this is an attempt to continue the donald trump policy of treating them as something other than human so in the way he talked about them tonight, listen to that language. we must pay attention. he is talking about children. he is making them seem like a menace, like an infestation of our country.

think about what that language must mean. i believe this is what the women in particular are responding to. >> john rollston from the standpoint of things in nevada, same question. >> he didn't call us great and sensible. you meant to say that, didn't you? >> absolutely with a possible exception of some of the casinos behind you. >> exactly right. and those lined up in the slot machines. but seriously, listen, i think that connie is right in the journalism here is what caused

this. and someone needs to give a shoutout to jacob soef rov. i think his reporting really start third down ball rolling. you pointed out, brian, the fact that there was that typo in the executive order. and it's easy to make fun of typos. we've all made them. here i think it's emblematic of what this was and maybe in some ways of the trump administration careering back and forth, responding to what he sees on "fox and friends." what public opinion might or might not be. what steven miller is whispering in his ear. people out here in nevada, people in ohio, people in new york, they see this, brian, except what trump is banking on is he can go to a rally in duluth, or as he's going to come to one here in nevada on saturday to raise money for dean heller who is embattled and has had more positions on immigration than he's had on health care which is really saying something. he thinks if he can just get that crowd whipped up, that if he can keep his base as everyone talks about it, riled up about immigration which is a divisive and emotional issue, that might be enough. it was enough for him to win the presidency. might it be enough for republicans to get the rural and white vote up enough to hold on to the house and senate? that's the political calculation

here, brian. it's in great contrast in my opinion to the haphazard slap dash whim of the moment way that trump and his administration conduct themselves. >> all right. lightning round here, gang. >> connie, go ahead. >> i want to say i think these rallies -- these are about his neediness. how much attention must you still get when you're president of the united states? he needs to hear those people chanting and cheering for vile things he's saying. this is about trump needing this to feel like somebody is on his side. >> does this stick when we come to the end of 2017 considering all we don't yet know, does this issue stick? >> you know, it's so hard to tell. our capacity for astonishment is only matched by our short attention span. i don't even know if this will be an issue tomorrow. but i'm not so sure connie is right. i think trump doesn't know he's losing, doesn't know he doesn't look strong on this. i think he is fuelled by delusions on a lot of these issues, and i think he's going to try to take this issue to the wall and to other things. he thinks are quote, unquote, strong issues. is this going to be a big deal? i think it will be in states

like nevada with big hispanic populations where the democrats need to get that vote out and republicans hope not as many hispanics turn out as white voters turn out. >> thank you both for the point about journalism. considering the fact that we're fake news, this has been a wonderful outing for journalism and journalists. and let's not forget the people supplying them with tips that lead to the stories across the country. we'll do this again. thank you both so much. as we speak, president trump has landed back at andrew's from duluth, minnesota. air force one taxiing to a stop. coming up, new details on the infamous trump tower meeting involving don junior, a russian lawyer and they were told dirt on hillary clinton, when we continue.

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the pretext of the meeting was hey, we have information and there was small talk. it was sort of nonsensical and garbled. it went onto a story about russian adoption and how we could possibly help. that's when we shut it down. >> my son is a wonderful young man. he took a meeting with a russian lawyer. most people would have taken that meeting. it's called opposition research. the press made a very big deal over something that really a lot of people would do. >> to refresh memories, the meeting june 9, 2016. trump tower in new york blocks from here involved donald trump

junior paul manafort and several russians including a lawyer linked to the kremlin. the president's eldest son took the meeting at the height of the campaign after he was promised it would yield damaging rmatioabout hillary clinton and ithought to be a key part of the mueller investigation. we have new incites into what went on the at the meeting and what don junior said from julia loffe, the co-author of "junior, the real story of donald trump jun junior." according to a person there after some pleasantries about the view of central park, don got straight to it. so, i believe you have some information for us, he asked. she says the russian lawyer brought up several other topics but not hillary clinton. so can you show us how this money goes to hillary two remember him asking. according to one of the participants don began to realize he wasn't going to be handed what he was hoping for. the light just went out in his eyes, the participant told me recently. he was totally disinterested.

well, here to talk about all of it, julia loffe. and joyce vance remains with us. julia, for those who don't know your life, i'll reduce you to one sentence when i remind everyone born in moscow which these days is all the rage. moved here at age 7. went to princeton. most of your adult life has been as a journalist and author. you tackle this topic as your first new piece in gq. what is what you've learned about don junior, the meeting, trump tower. what does it say about the trump effort overall to you? >> i think of what i gathered

from it was i think donald trump junior was trying to be as helpful as he could to his father to have his father notice him, to kind of show some love and some pride in his son. from what i've heard, it's hard for don junior to get so he took this meeting. we learned from the saudis, israelis, and he took this meeting trying to help his father. he kept trying to bring it back to hillary, dirt on hillary or hillary clinton in some what, and whatnteresting to me is that one of the participants i talked to said they came away feeling sorry for donald trump junior. one of the congressional investigators felt sorry for them.

this person who is such an angry, defiant kind of angry troll on the internet defending his father evokes such kind of condescending sympathy from people he encounters. >> michael, you come away from julia's article realizing the way limited importance of the meeting was long ago eclipsed by the meetings' importance to one robert mueller. >> right. >> if you get my drift. >> absolutely. and don junior now finds himself he may have been disinterested when the meeting wasn't delivering the goods he wanted but now he finds himself under the lights, and what i think is -- what julia said is interesting. the idea he's an object of pity. there's something almost pathetic that he was trying to help his father out and it didn't work out.

in the sound bites you played earlier, they illustrated the way people around trump keep talking about the meeting in a narrow sense. we sat down and realized the russian lawyer came with a bill of goods. it was bogus. they didn't have the goods. we were disinterested and left. my eyes glazed over, i didn't care. you have to zoom out and remember what did the e-mail say setting up this meeting? what is possibly the most interesting line that has been recorded on paper or in pixels in this entire investigation? this is part of the russian government's effort to help your father become elected president of the united states. this idea that donald trump says well, it's opposition research. anyone would take it.

i mean, come on. that's a jaw-dropping line. any responsible citizen would call authorities or not take the meeting. so maybe there's pity for the guy in the moment. i would say in the big picture, that is the key fact here. it's not exactly what happened in the room. it's the understanding that that's what was happening. >> i also think michael, as always, is right. but i think that it's also

interesting that even the people who are trying to help the trump campaign with dirt provided by the russian government, even though -- he was their kind of handoff point, and even they came away from this meeting as like, poor guy. you know? like when the russians are trying to help you, they're trying to give you opposition research, and the people around donald trump junior are like, how did he not call the authorities j or wow, he's really kind of pathetic. >> and joyce on that point and the point michael made, remind us how unnormal it is. like you invited who to trump tower based on the predicate of what? >> the first thing that should have happened when the offer for this meeting was made is that someone on the campaign staff should have picked up the phone and called the fbi. it's illegal to accept or solicit donations from a foreign country in connection with an election, and if donald trump junior didn't know that at this point, although he should have, paul manafort, an experienced campaigner certainly was aware of it. >> wow.

new developments tonight concerning michael cohen.

the president's one-time personal attorney. federal authorities have subpoenaed the publisher of the national inquirer for records relating to the $150,000 payment to karen mcdougal who alleges she had an affair with donald trump. david pecker is a friend of both trump and cohen. also an official from the republican national committee reports michael cohen resigned from the rnc. in his letter cohen cited his need to spend more time with his investigation. "the wall street journal" reports he also threw in this parting nugget. i cannot personally support a zero tolerance immigration policy that permits thousands of innocent children being separated from their parents as the son of a polish holocaust survivor. the images and sounds of this are heart wrenching. while i strongly support measures that support our porous borders, children should never

be used as bargaining chips. michael, what are we to make of this public torture of michael cohen who if you believe some of the reporting is just waiting for a charging document. >> i don't know. i wish i knew. it's incredibly strange. there are a lot of things happening with michael -- first of all, michael cohen like rudy giuliani -- like, trump's lawyers are the spin off series of their own. there was side characters that dominated the news for weeks on end. cohen is one of them. we're trying to figure out what's going on with him. i don't know the answer. he seems to be trying to do several things at once. my best guest, he's been sending signals he's resentful of his legal bills and thinks president trump should be paying them. is he trying to criticize trump and suggest he can cause trump problems? i could use a little help over here and maybe you don't want me

fueling the negative headlines about your policies? it -- maybe you -- like the equivalent of a hush payment would be snow and ice? at the same time he's invoking what is a heart felt family history, and any holocaust survivor with look at this in an interesting way. is he trying to portray himself as a victim? what's his end game? is he prepared to flip against the president? is that in the works? i don't think we know, and i think the bottom line with michael cohen is he just doesn't seem to be a guy with a clear game plan. he doesn't seem to be a guy, frankly, who knows how to take care of himself very well. i think he's winging it and it's a mess. >> julia, if i gave you 60 seconds to make a synopsis of michael cohen's dealings. >> tangled and far too extensive? his resignation, i'm amazed someone under criminal

investigation has a position liket to resign from. it's amazing the positions people can hold onto these days. >> all right. i'll take that. and joyce, what's behind this subpoena to the head of the publication national inquirer, and what, if anything, since i'm always asking you a form of this question, what does it tell us about the investigation, late in the game, middle of the game, or nothing at all? >> still in progress, as far as the investigation goes. this subpoena makes it look like folks are serious in determining whether or not campaign finance violations were committed, and trump was given aid by the publisher here as well as by others in his campaign in the form of these in kind contributions. >> thank you all for our

conversations tonight. julia, good luck to you. we'll read wherever you go. >> thank you. >> a look at what happens to hundreds of families who have already been separated. we're going to go live to texas when we come back.

as we reported earlier this evening, an official from hhs told nbc news they haven't received orders on how to carry out the new executive order. they add there are new current plans to reunite the almost 2300 children already separated from their parents in custody. also in the last 24 hours we've gotten our first glimpse of these instantly branded by the president's critics as khaki miniature trump towers. they are tents housing detainees along the texas border.

with us tonight from there from mcallen texas, gabe gutierrez. we've been watching you for days working double and triple shifts. m told you on the "today" show in seven hours. thank you for staying with us tonight. you can confirm what we're reporting, that there is no mechanism to review night the families. we ask because we found out there's over 200 kids in new york state. state. a michigan lawyer said they have 54 children there. some of them at a younger age. they don't know their own names. they're too young to speak. >> reporter: that's right. they're spread throughout the country in at least 17 states. bill de blasio, you mentioned, saying more than 200 in new york state. you read that statement from an hhs spokesperson today. there was no plan a short time after that.

we got a direct stramt that a director of communication saying essentially that spokesperson that we got that statement from had misspoken. that the agency is, quote, awaiting further guidance on the matter and that reunification is ultimately the goal here. but basically, what that states is that there's no plan here. it is a situation where many people are flying by the seat of their pants. that's the sentiment if we're getting from immigration activists on the ground in mcallen, texas.

it would be very difficult to reunite these families. especially some of the younger children. we were outside one of those so-called tenner age shelters today. we spoke with one immigration activist who. that these chin, younger than 10 years old, they're being housed there. some of them would be impossible to get information to be reunited with family members. a congressman who toured that facility said he saw children younger than a year old, just infants being taken care of in that facility. so yes, as you mentioned. more than 200 kids in new york state. 2,000 kids really separated from their parents over the last several weeks. now the question will be, how will they be reunited? and what will this mean for the judicial system? earlier tonight to rachel maddow show, the department of defense confirming it was sending more, military defense, military attorneys in order to prosecute some of these outstanding cases. a few days ago we were in one of those immigration criminal proceedings, rather, in

brownsville, texas, in mcallen, texas, there were dozen of these immigrants that are prosecuted daily in these. soot of questions. the immigratadvocates we've spoken of are very skeptical that this will be able to be irnld out any time soon. >> and one of the few things we can count on that you and i know as sure as the sun coming up tomorrow. if they ever put out the call to volunteers for parents to come care for these kids, to change them, rock with them, care for them, they would be inundated. we've got people dropping their lives willing to help. we don't know where they are. if the need is there. if there's allowed to be tactile contact from civilians. even good hearted people who just want to help. >> reporter: that's right. we've been asking to get inside these shelters and it has been very difficult getting any information. jacob has been as well for the last several days, asking for journalists to go in and film what's going on there. even to be able to witness some of these conditions. the information we're getting is very limited. and in these tender age

shelters, very difficult to get information about where the rest of them are. houston's mayor yesterday, basically saying that he was against one of these shelters being created in his city as well. but certainly, brian, yes. a huge outpouring of support for these migrant children. what has been most difficult to come sbi information with how they're being treated. >> gabe gutierrez who spent part of his day in mexico and part of it in the u.s. thank you for your time tonight. get some rest. we appreciate your coverage over these past several days. coming up for us, homeland security secretary kirsten neilsen said what the degrees today couldn't be done. today she holds the proof that she was wrong about that.

last thing before we go, a reminder that whatever happened today in the oval office did not change the reality or the future of the families that have now entered thiminal justice system. where adults and children are separated and processed. that can also mean group court appearances before immigration judges whose court roo this one, have become inunit a as of late with this new so-called zero tolerance policy. we want to repeat a moment from lawrence o'donnell's live broadcast from the border just last night. this is an interview with a gentleman named jonathan ryan who runs a legal services organization. he spoke about what it is like to watch as little kids are called before the court. in many cases, without an attorney present to in effect plead their cases. >> i myself have sat in court the seen children with their little feet dangling from the respondent's chair. little glitter shoes and a dress

and a judge leaning over his bench in order to see her so as to speak with her. all they can discuss is what is your name? that is a pretty dress. nevertheless, there is a lot of money being spent by our government in the sole design of deporting each and every one of these. >> so we have that image to think about. and this image from today. a strange kind of keep sake given to the homeland security by the president. after putting her reputation on the lien by insisting over and over again that only congress could fix this policy of separating families was started by the president, she now owns the pen that the president used to end the policy having nothing to do with congress. she said it couldn't be done. now she's the owner of the very instrument that did just that. that's our broadcast this wednesday. thank you soery much for being

here. good night from nbc news headquarters in new york. in minnesota, the president held a rally just hours after signing an executive order to keep families together at the border, but spent only a small portion of the event talking about immigration. plus new questions this morning about the impact of the president's executive order and what it means for children who have already been separated from their families and amid legal troubles, michael cohen resigns from his post from the rnc and takes a shot at trump's separation policy in the process.