your family during the holiday, be with them at work. that's does it for us on msnbc live. catch me later on "nbc nightly news." heading over to the white house. >> good morning to you. greg melvin here in new york city. we're following breaking news right now. a little whiplash on wall street. the market is taking another tumble this morning. this one, though, coming a day after the dow's biggest one-point point gain ever. >> too early to say if we're bottoming but a lot of repair work needs to be done to the market itself. president trump back at the white house after that unannounced trip to iraq, giving at times partisan speech to troops while calling on middle east nations to take more responsibilities for their futures. >> we're not the suckers of the world. we're no longer the suckers, folks. and people aren't looking at us as suckers. >> and no end in sight. day six of the government

shutdown and lawmakers are returning to capitol hill today. but the president not budging on his demands for border wall funding. we'll get to that in a moment. we start with breaking news. the wild ride that is happening on wall street now. let's look at the markets right now as you can see, down. new york stock exchange down almost 400. dow almost 2 percentage points, s&p down. they were down believe it or not a lot more. the sharp drop coming after a record-breaking wednesday with the tech-heavy nasdaq rose sharply after companies like amazon and apple saw a post-christmas bounce, if you will. cnbc's leslie picker follows the markets very closely for cnbc. leslie, where are we now? and what do we know about the impetus responsible here for this latest drop? >> hi, craig, that's right. some of the red you're seeing on the screen is just pressure related to yesterday's rise. investors taking some money off

the table, crystalizing those gains as we get towards the end of the year. but also in terms of headlines, the worried de jure du jour of the moment is the trade war that's continue between the u.s. and china. reuters reporting president donald trump is considering an executive order that would ban american companies from using equipment built by chinese companies huawei and zte. reuters citing three people familiar with the matter in its report and, of course, investors pay attention to all of these trade-related headlines as it relates to the tension between the two countries, specifically what that means for global growth that they're, of course, buying companies and stocks that would be exposed to that kind of worry. >> is this a sign of what we can expect in 2019? >> it certainly is. you do start to see a lot of this volatility play out towards the end of the year as people try and rebalance their portfolios by that december 31

date, which is really important for a lot of mutual funds and asset managers but the contours of the market will remain, there's less lick quiddiquidity fed continues to raise interest rates. it appears the problems won't get solves any time soon. so this type of massive market swing something we should skbeblt expect to see through next year. >> leslie picker, thank you. let me bring in chief financial correspondent or axios, named felix salmon. thank you for your time, sir. the last time we saw a thousand points up yesterday, 500 down today, two days ago another wild swing or day before that when the markets were open. 2008/2009 if i'm not mistaken when we saw this kind of volatility in the markets. the financial crisis of 2008/2009. how worried should we be?

>> let me tell you when the last time actually was, it was in february of this year we had 2,000 point down days on the dow in 2018 in february, and it had so little effect on anything but we've all forgotten about that. this kind of volatility is actually much more common than you might think. we remember the big down days in 2008 during the financial crisis because there was a financial crisis. when there's no financial crisis, the volatility seems like a big deal when it's happening but give it a couple of months and we have all forgotten about it. >> felix, it sounds like you're saying perhaps we shouldn't be as concerned as some are? >> i think we shouldn't be concerned at all. i think in many ways it's reassuring we have volatility in the stock market precisely because no one really knows what's happening with the border economy, geo politics. the world is an incredibly unstable place.

equities in general, stocks in general, pretty unstable things. we had unusually low volatility for most of 2017 in the first -- large chunk of this year. so might view of this is really what we're doing is we're kind of going back to normal. >> correction, the beginning of what? >> the correction is the level of the stock market. in terms of the volatility, what we're seeing is just the markets not being entirely sure where stocks should be valued. you can understand why they wouldn't be sure about that. and you can expect stocks to bounce around and fluctuate as your previous guest said for another few months, and that's okay and that's normal and that's what stocks do. >> as we're having this conversation, the market continues to drop just a bit. felix, how much of this do you also think is a consequence of a number of -- especially well-known companies, being overvalued for an extended

period of time? >> oh, absolutely. i think if you look at the leader of the volatility, the stocks which went up 7% or 8% yesterday and down again today, it's the ones where the valuations have super extended it, stocks like amazon and facebook, where people were giving them these insanely high valuations on the basis of hope and animal spirits and all of those kinds of things could evaporate extremely quickly. what they didn't have what those sort of deep fundamentals of like you can be sure that it will make huge amounts of profit for the next three or four decades that will stabilize the stock. >> felix salmon, axios' chief financial correspondent. felix, thank you very much for that. congressman ryan castello, a republican from pennsylvania is with me and so is steve israel, democrat from new york. cnbc's brian sullivan just a few hours ago on "morning joe"

talking about some of the other factors that could be driving this market whiplash that we are seeing. take a listen. >> well, all was quiet politically yesterday and many people i talked to said that may have something to do with it. the president made the trip overseas, no tweets, ma nunchen didn't send out any purpose see mails and the market could do what it wanted to do. there was no talk of border walls or federal government shutdowns. it was just leave it alone and maybe we'll see what happens. >> what does this say about the relationship between the white house and these volatile markets, congressman? >> i'm a little reluctant to tie one day's political news to market reactions, especially this close to the end of the year where i think historically you do see some of these fluctuations. i will say though the treasury secretary's phone calls the other day probably did lead to

some adverse reaction in the stock market. but i don't want to venture too far down that path. >> congressman, there is a tendency to associate the health of the market with the health of our overall economy. what say you, congressman israel? do you believe that the fundamentals of our economy are still in fact quite strong? >> well, look, stocks, they do find their value ultimately but they also reflect volatility and they are reflecting volatility in our politics. they're reflecting a fundamental volatility in our markets. they're reflecting a concern about trade and tariffs, a president who tweets and secretary of treasury who makes ill-advised phone calls. and so the market should settle down but it is going to be -- it looks like it's going to be a very bumpy landing. the consequences technically for the market remain to be seen. but if you have a 401(k), craig,

and you're depending on those stock values to fuel your retirement account, you're living in the middle class, this is a perilous time. >> troublesome indeed. as we have been having this conversation, we've seen the markets tick down a bit. so perhaps we should stop talking about it for just a smidge. >> costello's fault! >> congressman, don't go anywhere, i want you to come back. our other big story of the day, president trump back in washington after the surprise trip to iraq after defending his decision to withdraw forces from syria. also spent some time criticizing democrats in front of the troops. and new clues about a mystery case involving special counsel robert mueller that is now reaching the supreme court. first though, "time" magazine looking back at 2018 with its top photos of the year. and this picture is of that historic june 12th summit in singapore between president trump and north korea's kim jong-un who he previously

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washington basking in the glow of his visit to iraq. his first as commander in chief to a war zone. he praised the troops and also praised the job they've done, even though he's been extremely critical about america's involvement in foreign wars in the past. the president, as you might recall, has already announced that u.s. troops will be leaving

syria and his plan that's could cut afghanistan troop levels in half or pull them out all together. so whone of the big questions about this trip is how the president who show support for the troops serving in iraq, even if he didn't necessarily believe in the mission. here's what president trump had to say. >> under my administration we're winning now. we're not planning to lose slowly like they've been doing for 19 years. we're fighting in areas where we shouldn't be fighting, and spending hundreds of billions of dollars doing it. we w5u79 to fight where it's meaningful, which is basically what you're just saying and you understand that better than anybody. we want to fight for the meaningful things. >> nbc's hans nichols is at the white house for us. hans, what more do we know about that visit at this point? >> we know it was short. we know it was about three hours. it left political scars in iraq

by not meeting with the prime minister, and we do have some clarity on what the president's path forward is in the counterisis fight in the middle east. he wants to keep troops in iraq, there are 5,000 troops in iraq. and he made it clear he wants to withdraw from syria and also gave us an explanation on the time line for their withdrawal. >> there will be a strong, deliberate and orderly withdrawal of u.s. forces from syria, very deliberate, very orderly, while maintaining the u.s. presence in iraq to prevent an isis resurgence and to protect u.s. interests and also to always watch very closely over any potential reformation of isis, and also to watch over iran. we'll be watching. >> we still don't have a lot of clarity how the president plans to withdraw those 7,000 troops from afghanistan. remember, he didn't visit

afghanistan. his one trip was to iraq. western iraq, didn't make it to the capital, which could have complicated his potential meeting and make it unlikely he would have a meeting with the political leaders there. >> hans, there's been a fair amount of attention paid by a lot of folks to perhaps the president reviewing the identity of a navy s.e.a.l. on his visit. what more do we know about that? >> so the general rule is that anyone that's in the special forces or special operations community, you can't show their faces. we all know this because if you ever deploy with them, there are strict rules about putting their photographs out into public, especially when they were deployed. having said that, there are a lot of exceptions. you will recall we saw some of the faces of those guys that were in neejar when they were filming a documentary beforehand. it's not a firm and fast rule. the men were gathering around, trying to get their picture taken with him and he put that

picture on a very public plat form. it was clear they were navy s.e.a.l.s and team five, which everybody knows is serving in iraq. which is generally a violation off the op-sec, operational security. that said he can declassify what he wants and it's not a firm and fast rule of never showing faces when they're deployed in a war zone. craig? >> hans nichols for us. thank you for that, sir. let's bring in phil rucker, white house bureau chief of "the washington post." and an army retired officer who served as director of iraq for the national security council during both the bush and obama administrations. good to have you as well, doug. doug's currently a senior national security fellow with the new america foundation. mr. rucker, i will start with you. you says this is a significant moment for president trump. why? >> well, craig, it's the first time he's visited a combat zone in his presidency. and that's a big moment. he's been wanting to do this for

a few months now. there have been some challenges in getting him there but he's there. he's actually playing the role of commander in chief and interacting with these troops. you know, there are a lot of things that can be criticized about this trip, including some of the falsehoods that the president made in his speech. but he did go there and he interacted with those troops and it comes at a time of peril for his presidency back home. so it was a moment where he could escape some of that temporarily and be the commander in chief. >> douglas, the president in that speech, he seemed to really sum up his view of u.s. military policy. this is what i would contend was perhaps the thesis of president trump's speech. >> america shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. if they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay

a price and sometimes that is also a monetary price. so we're not the suckers of the world. we're no longer the suckers, folks. and people aren't looking at us as suckers. >> douglas, fair to say that the president's world view could be characterized as isolationist? >> certainly he has a different view of how military power is used and the quid pro quo that comes from that. previous presidents tend to see the united states as acting in its interest, even when it helps out others in their countries. this president has a different take on that. >> douglas, it also seems at times that the president wants to have the biggest, most dynamic military in the history of the world, the shiniest, most expensive weapons in the history of the world, but he doesn't want to use them anywhere in the world. >> well, in his defense, i think he would say he would want to

use them for ex-essential threats that he wants them to protect the united states at its borders against invasion, the type of traditional threats we think about and not use them all over the world on more peripheral interests. that has not been the majority opinion in washington the last several decades, but it doesn't mean that's not a legitimate point of view, although arguable. >> president trump, as you heard there also, name-dropped turkey and saudi arabia as two countries that would help rebuild syria. any reason to believe that's true, douglas? >> the turks don't have any money to rebuild syria. they have their own financial crisis. that's not to say they may not have a military role, although their view of the kurds inside syria, seeing them as an exception of the pka terrorists in their own country, makes that role problematic. the saudis certainly have money. if he can convince them to spend it in syria, i wish him luck with that.

that's not been their moato immediatous operandi as of late. >> phil, do we believe the president is as committed to iraq as he sounded? >> he certainly sounded committed to it. he said he's not pulling back the troops and in fact he made an argument iraq would be a bulwark in the middle east in terms of keeping an eye on iran but potentially a staging ground to re-enter syria if needed, if isis were to re-emerge strong in syria after u.s. troops leave that country. clearly he's spelling out a longterm commitment to having a military presence in iraq, which is, of course, in conflict with his overall theme of the world not being the policemen -- or the united states not being the world's policemen anymore and withdrawing from some of these foreign wars. one thing he did not talk much about during his visit to iraq is the situation in afghanistan. we know from just reporting the president has given -- made a

decision last week to withdraw about half of the u.s. troops in afghanistan. that has not been finalized, it's not been announced, it's not begun yet but look for that to happen in the next few weeks, i think. >> douglas, this is a bit of what phil was just talking about with regards to president trump and his plan to perhaps keep troops in iraq as a hedge. this is what he told reporters. >> will you pull troops out of iraq as well? >> no plans at all. in fact, we can use this as a base if we wanted to do something interior. >> does it work that way, douglas? can you grab those troops in iraq and send them into syria if and when you need them? >> you can have some assets in iraq that could be used in syria. i think the larger point the president is making is the right one, that iraq now is one of our better allies in the region and it makes sense to base our strategies around them, keep a troop presence there, continue

to train the iraqis and work with them. i think the president said all of the right things about iraq. i wish he had gone to baghdad and met with the political leadership there, though i suspect the secret service and security concerns had something to do with that. that said, he said all of the right things about iraq. let's see if we can get -- and he did give an invitation, we're understanding, for the iraqi prime minister to come for a state visit. if and when that happens, we can see this lockdown a little better. >> phil rucker, how surprised were you the president seemed to spend so much time talking about domestic politics in front of that military audience? >> not surprised. i mean, it's unusual for a president to be so political in a military environment but this particular president is political in every environment. we've seen him bring up his campaign themes, talk about his campaign opponents again and again and again, ain a lot of official capacities including

now as commander in chief at a war zone overseas. it's not surprising because donald trump is so political, but it is unusual to see a president act that way. >> phil i rucker, douglas ol vant, big thank you to both of you gentlemen. coming up, lawmakers back on capitol hill today trying to come up with a way to reopen the government on day six of the partial shutdown. will this wrap up before the new year starts? first though, more of "time" magazines top photos of 2018. this one offering a unique view of prince harry and america's princess, meghan markle, departmenting windsor castle after their wedding on may 19th. you're watching msnbc. atching m. in baltimore, a community sees new life rise from ruin.

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i don't know if you folks are aware of what's happening, we want to have strong borders in the united states. democrats don't want us to have strong borders. only for one reason, you know why? because i want it. >> president trump breaking protocol, getting political during that surprise visit with troops in iraq. he continues to blame democrats for the partial government shutdown, now in day six. when asked by reporters how long the shutdown is going to last, the president replied, quote,

whatever it takes to get his border wall. the senate is officially back in session later this afternoon. it's not expected many of those members will attend, basically assuring there won't be any kind of breakthrough. msnbc's mike viqueira is on capitol hill for us. mike, do we know whether there's any negotiating going on perhaps behind the scenes in an effort to end this thing? >> there could be. i mean, the nature behind the scenes is sometimes, sometimes not always, means we're not aware of what's going on. craig, i think a sense this is getting baked in, this is going to last at least until january 3rd, the constitutionally mandated day and start of the new congress when democrats take over the house of representatives outside of the chamber of the house where i'm standing right now, it's just me, some tourists, few die-hard reporters and ghost of christmas past that are in this chamber here. in the meantime the 800,000 federal workers who are directly affected by this furlough just saw a tweet or a letter from the office of personnel management.

it's ironic because this is the administration talking. it says feds, talking about employees, here are sample letters you may use as a guide when working with your creditors during this furlough. if you need legal advice, police consult with your personal attorney. a gs-10, we looked this up, makes between $48,000 and $60,000 a year. unlikely a gs-10 will have a personal attorney on retainer. one of the simple letters they say you write to your landlords or creditors -- i'm a federal employee who's recently been furloughed due to lack of funding in my agency. because of this my income has been severely cut and i'm unable to pay the entire cost of my mortgage, along with other expenses. so helpful guidance there from the administration as folks are out of work or at least not being paid during this shutdown. again, some 800,000 directly affected federal employees. meanwhile, we've heard from a republican senator, senator bill

cassidy, republican from louisiana, who appeared just a few hours ago on fox. >> it shouldn't be hard to get to where the president wants to be. democrats voted for $25 billion for border security earlier this year. in 2006, obama voted for border security. it's not as if this is a foreign concept. >> okay, we're still at the talking point stage here, obviously. senator cassidy is not a member of leadership, he's not directly involved in these negotiations. you mentioned the senate will be in 4:00 in washington. expect it to be very quick. it is not expected it to be pro forma session, but there's business on the calendar but we don't expect anything of substance to happen. same with the house, in and out at 4:00. things are on hold until next week it appears, craig. >> going back to the tweet that opn sent out, that was actually the first time i have seen that tweet. what we don't know, of course, is whether a landlord would

respond to that favorably for someone. that's something that i think has gotten lost in all of this, that there are people who are actually trying to figure out how they're going to make ends meet. >> right. so if your landlord is let's say mr. potter in bedford falls, it's unlikely he's going to feel sympathy for you as you beseech him to give you a break. hey, the rent might be a little late, the mortgage payment might be a little late this month because of the government shutdown. it's quite possible out of the goodness of someone's heart they're going to give people a break knowing it's likely pay will be made up when the congress does act and government finally reopens. but again, it's kind of ironic. the opm, of course, falls under the executive branch which, of course, is run by the white house and ultimately president trump. >> mike viqueira for us on the hill, thank you. back with us ryan costello, republican from pennsylvania and former democratic congressman from new york, steve israel, former chairman of the democratic congressional campaign committee as well.

congressman costello, let me start with you. a lot of blame going around. as someone who prides himself on fighting for bipartisan solutions to complex problems, how do you see this? >> well, this is the president's shutdown. he said it was going to be his shutdown. the senate voted 100-0 to pass a clean cr and send it to the house. sean hannity and a few other people screamed fire. the president then fell in line behind sean hannity. we in the house vote ed, and i voted for it, for an additional $5 billion and about $8 billion on disaster relief on top of the clean cr. democrats were not willing to go along because they didn't want any more wall funding in there. we sent it to the senate. i don't think there was any reasonable expectation the senate would take that bill up and vote for the wall funding because you need eight democrats in the senate. so the fact we're in shutdown now is foreseeable and i don't see a scenario where the government opens back up until the new congress is sworn in.

>> here's the thing congressman costello, when the new congress gets sworn in and they're able to fashion some sort of compromise, we don't know that they're going to be able to pass a compromise that's veto proof. >> oh, i agree with you. you're totally on point there. look, the vote that's going to prevail here i think is the senate clean cr. i don't see how democrats -- the democratic house is not going to put more money into border security, i don't think. i'm not a democrat. i won't be in the house then. but very difficult for me to predict that they would. and i don't think the senate is going to get beyond where they were with the clean cr before. listen, rule number one in negotiation is don't negotiate against yourself. the president had nancy and chuck in the oval office and he negotiated against himself, and now he's in a corner and i'm not sure how he backs himself out of that corner. >> it would seem as if the president moved the goal posts. it would also seem as if the president changed his definition of what a wall is.

jake sherman is with me now. jake, you and your playbook colleagues, you wrote today in part on where we stand, the players involved are increasingly convinced that this will not get solved until january at the earliest. the president's allies say he's standing pat and privately the gop leadership does not believe it will get a deal until the new congress. what might that deal look like, jake sherman, do we know? >> i'm with congressman costello on this, it will look something like a clean cr with no additional wall funding. the president is standing pat but i guess what we should have said is his leverage continues to decrease as time gets closer to january 3rd. i personally think this shutdown could go weeks into the new congress because i, like congressman costello, do not believe there's going to be much overlap between the democratic house and the republican senate and president trump. i think that president trump is going to have to cave at some

point and accept a number lower than $2 billion, probably closer to $1.6 billion or $1.3 billion for border security, not for wall funding. again, i don't see that happening on january 3rd. i think we're going to get into the middle of january towards the state of the union before this gets solved. >> congressman israel, shortly after returning to the white house from his surprise overseas trip, president trump doing what the president is inclined to do, he tweeted. and this was his tweet -- have the democrats finally realized that we desperately need border security and the wall on a southern border. need to stop drugs, human trafficking, gang members and criminals from coming into our democrats. do the dems realize most of the people not getting paid are democrats? the president also went on to say that the dems don't want the wall primarily because he wants the wall. pointed out in the past view and some of your democratic brethren

have in fact supported this idea of a border wall. what's different this time, congressman israel? >> well, look, this is a presidential shutdown over semantics. this is a presidential shutdown of the government over how do you define border security? by the way, craig, democrats and republicans and the congress gave this administration $1.7 billion for enhanced border security. the administration has spent 6% of it. why? because they're not interested in a solution, they're interested in sound bites. this is administration that is catering to its base, that is trying to throw red meat to its base. it doesn't really want a compromise. it doesn't really want something called enhanced border security. it's painted itself into a corner and the corner is surrounded by this great big wall. now ultimately final point on this, ultimately, i agree with the congressman, i agree with jake, we're looking at another several weeks before this is resolved. you know how it's going to be

resolved? with a thesaurus. somebody has to figure out how do you define a wall without calling it a wall? does a steel slat count as a wall? maybe it will be a beaded curtain some people are talking about. whatever it is, democrat support, increased border security. the question is does this massive wall do the trick? most experts say it doesn't. let's get border security without getting hung up on what is the definition of a wall. >> if this shutdown does continue well into the new, close to the state of the union, will there be any political price to pay, or will folks forget about this three-week shutdown around the holidays? >> i tend to be on the train of shutdowns actually don't real palestine much politically. if you look back historically, esspecial lie espotentially recent shutdowns, after they gained seats when they shut down the government, it's not a motivating issue like some issues are on capitol hill.

so i'm personally skeptical. i know there are a lot of people who believe there is going to be a huge political impact for something of this nature. but listen, troops are getting paid, the pentagon is funded, the defense department is funded. this is 25% of the government, small sliver. there might be some people who are angry but they're going to get back pay. i know it's very difficult in the interim, during the shutdown. but personally i do not believe a party plays a huge price for something of this nature. >> i have said in the past, if you want people to really care about a shutdown, stop the mail and stop social security checks. that's when folks take to the streets. 4 jake, thank you. congressman kocostello, thank y. congressman israel, i want to make sure people go to the hill and read your op-ed. it caught our attention because you aptly point out a lot of folks seem to have forgotten president trump did insist mexico would be paying for the wall. no one seems to talk about that anymore. but congressman, thank you. thank you all, gentlemen.

coming up, the department of homeland security now promising changes to protect migrant children after a second child died while in custody of customs and border protection. new reaction from the dhs secretary. first, more of "time" magazine's top photos of the year. this is olympic gold medalist aly raisman confronting larry nassar at his sentencing. he, of course, is the former u.s.a. team gymnastics doctor who is in prison for the rest of his life after pleading guilty to sexual assault charges. raisman, meanwhile, has become an advocate for survivors, arguably the face of survival. you're watching msnbc. u're watc. voice-command navigation with waze wifi wireless charging 104 cubic feet of cargo room and seating for 8. now that's a sleigh. ford expedition. built for the holidays. (hurry!) it's the final days to get zero percent financing

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and we're usaa members for life. ♪ get your usaa auto insurance quote today. children while in u.s. customs and border patrol custody are prompting calls for an investigation and forcing changes at the agency. now homeland security secretary kyrstin nielsen is set to travel to the u.s./mexico border this week to personally review her department's care of migrant children. that coming amid outrage following a guatemalan boy's death on christmas eve. that 8-year-old was the second young migrant to die in the agents' custody this month alone. nielsen said in part -- at my direction all children and border patrol custody have been given a thorough medical screening. moving forward, all children will receive a more thorough hands-on assessment at the

earliest possible time, post apprehension, whether or not the accompanying adult has asked for one. nbc's national security and justice reporter julia ainsley joins me live now from washington. secretary nielsen heading down to the border any day now to assess what's going on, and there's expected to be a surge in medical assistance following these two deaths. does dhs have the capability of carrying out medical checks they're promising? >> craig, i dug into that yesterday to find out what exactly those medical checks will entail and i was told by an official it will be an interview with the child and parent and then they will ask about medical history. but it doesn't sound like there's going to be anything resembling if you actually went to a doctor and had your vitals taken. they also have to ask the parent in a lot of times, communicating with the child about symptoms is difficult. any pediatrician would tell you that. but a lot of times these parents have come through such a grueling time, they don't know if their child is tired or

exhibiting something serious. it still could be they need to go farther here and they need resources. right now they asked the coast guard to come in and assess the resources. they may get additional help from the department of defense or health and human services. but right now it's not clear how far they're going to go and it's also clear by the fact wei had the second death the precautions put into place after the first death earlier this month didn't go far enough. they didn't in this case eliminate the risk. >> ironic that the coast guard is being asked to come in and help when 42,000 coast guard members are asked to work without pay now during the temporary shutdown. i know that because my brother-in-law is a member of the coast guard. i digress, you have been following the situation closer than most, julia. what's the fix here? what's the solution, if there is one? >> i think we can go back and look at how things have been done in the past. up until this month, there had been no child deaths in customs and border protection for over a

decade. looks like that was changed. we started reporting earlier this year back in june during the family separation policy that there was more of a backup of children and customs and border protection. no immigrant, no matter their age, is supposed to stay there longer than 72 hours. but because there wasn't enough room at i.c.e. and they were being forced to taye routes into places that are not given easy access to i.c.e. facilities, there was a backup. we knew at that point there was already concern from people on the ground this was going to lead to health problems because they aren't able to be cared for there and they aren't able to get the right resources. to me it seems like they need to expand the system so people can get to the places where they get care earlier and it could also be to have medical professionals who can do more than a screening or an interview at some of these remote places. again, they're going to some of these remote places in a lot of cases because there's a big back log for people trying to enter legally, through the legal ports of entry. >> julia ainsley for us in

washington helping us make some sense of this. julia, thank you. >> thanks, craig. coming up -- new clues in a mystery case tide to special counsel robert mueller. we're shedding some light on what this case could be all about. jill winebanks is going to join me. before that more of "time" magazine's top photos of 2018. this incredible picture from thousand oaks, california, was taken on november 9th showing a resident running from his home with literally just the clothes on his back. not even shoes. those wildfires erupted in the state last month forcing an estimated 160,000 people to evacuate. ng about myself. but believe me... i'm not your average consumer. that's why i switched to liberty mutual. they customized my car insurance, so i only pay for what i need. and as a man... uh... or a woman... with very specific needs that i can't tell you about- say cheese. mr. landry? oh no. hi mr. landry!

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this morning, we are getting new clues and clarity about the mystery court case unfolding in washington. it involves special counsel robert mueller and an unidentified foreign state-owned company. and the company is fighting a grand jury subpoena and taking the fight all of the way to the supreme court. last week, a lower court ordered the company to comply. chief justice john roberts pressed pause on the case one week while the supreme court decides whether to get more

involved and now the federal government who sought the subpoena has until monday at noon to respond. joined now by former assistant watergate prosecutor and msnbc contributor jill winebank is with me. what stands out to you about this case? >> the thing that stands out the most is the secrecy. we don't have any evidence of who the country is, who the corporation is, with what exactly the subpoena requested. we know that it is a grand jury subpoena. there is one scant piece of evidence that it may be the mueller team that is the one who subpoenaed it, but it is based on overheard conversation in the clerk's office by cnn and i know that no one at msnbc heard that conversation, and so we don't really know for sure what it is. when you compare that to the

grand jury subpoena in the watergate case which is a public document and we ended up having public hearings about it both in the court of appeals that upheld our right to have the subpoena, and then eventually the supreme court, but also public hearings about missing parts of the documents that we were supposed to get. so you have to ask why is this secret, and what is the sovereign immunity that is making this so secret? a what country is it? >> rare, jill, for a country to fight so hard against a subpoena, and what could that signal? >> they are saying according to what i have read, it is a burdensome subpoena which means broad in the context, but look at it that the court said no, it isn't, and you have to comply. it is not burden system, and sovereign immunity does not apply. and so we have two courts, the district court and the court of appeals who have said, no, you have to comply. the hold that has been put on it by justice roberts is only a

temporary stay. it holds off the penalties that are accruing because of noncompliance. it doesn't mean how the supreme court will rule ultimately on the merits oof it, if they even agree to take up the case. they have not even decided to hear the case. so it could be that the court of appeals is the final word on this, and that the penalties will accrue, and that the government which ever country it is from will have to do it. one of the reasons that i don't believe it is russia is because russia has a history of just thumbing the nose at us, and ignoring everything. so i don't believe it is them. >> jill, wine-banks, trying to make sense of this, and thank you very much. >> thank you, craig. and coming up, president trump's poll numbers have him looking vulnerable, but democrats eyeing a potential run against him in 2020 are off to a surprisingly slow start in some of the early key contest state,

and why are some of the biggest names been absent from iowa and new hampshire? we will look at that. first, more "time" magazine's top photos of 2018. you remember this one from st. paul, minnesota, mike. it is a daredevil raccoon that captivated the city, the int internet and the country by climbing one of the city's tallest buildings on june 12th, and made it to the top, and the animal control officials trapped, feed and relocated the raccoon. it lived to tell the story are. stay watching msnbc. ching msnb. gentle means everything,

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that's it. i'm done. i will see you tomorrow morning on "today." and more coming up with you. >> just a 14-hour day for oyou. >> you can relate though. >> yes. get some rest, my friend and well deserved. i'm eamon mohoudini in with you. and now a serious slide marking the ending of a year in trading. and a surprise trip to the kcome bat zone from the presidet as he decided to talk about america's role in the world. >> the united states cannot continue to be the policeman of the world. we don't want to do that. we want to protect our country. >> and still shutdown over