>> robert mueller wants answers. p fightre's a leaders on capitol hill. i'm robert costa. welcome to "washington week." it.y lawyers are working on i'm working on it. i write the answers. >> the president say he has prepared answers for robert mueller as he escalates his attacks against the special counsel. >> no indication that the mueller investigation will not be allowed to finish. and it should be allowed to finish. >> and acting attorney general matthew whitaker faces tough questions. us, house democrats confront a leadership tussle. >> i have overwhelming support in my s caucus to beaker of the house. a sometimes you just need fferent voice. sometimes you just need a different kind of a vision. >> we discuss the president's looming decisions on the mueller probe. his team and the new congress. next. ♪[music]

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moderator robert. >> good evening.ci this s counsel is once again front and center in president trump's washington, with the president and his lawyers writing answers for robert mueller. amid news reports of possible indictments coming prettyoon. joining me tonight, jonathan swan, national political reporter for axiosal viviana, white house reporter for the wall street journae, jonathan lemhite house reporter for the associated press. and seung min kim, white house reporter for the washington post and a cnn political analyst. here's wha the president told reporters inside the oval office today. >> i w asked a series of questions. i answered them very easily. very easily. you have to always be careful when you answer questio with ople that probably have bad intentions. there shod have never been any mueller investigation because there was never anything done wrong. there was norollusion.

neas been. you would have known about it a long time ago if there was. t's the scope of the questions that the president is actually prepared to answer here?t >> we've seen today is the return of the special counsel, who has been working behind the enes for months but publicly tamped down ahead of the midtermsio these que, a series of negotiations between the white rsuse lawnd special counsel, focus on the question of collusion during the campaign. they don't want the obstruction to be part of this. these questio are focused on collusion. the president spent a few days this w ok goir the answers with his lawyers. it has been at the forefront of mind. there is concern, as you just said, other apoies haven publicly that they think indictments could be coming for them. the president has been frustrated at the criticism of his newcting attorney general, matt whitaker. and it burst into lmoht thursday ing with a rather remarkable tweet storm, h first public comments about the special counsel in a while.

today, in the oval office, asked about where it stand, he suggested that he was involved, not just attorneys, in preparing his answehough they have not yet been submitted to robert mueller. >> it's interesting to hear how ngch he wanted to take credit today for wri the answers and insisting that he was the one who answered the questions. acally, we have it on good authority that it was his lawyers who took control of that heocess and president obviously was consulted on that. but obviously in the last two days, the president had gotten back from paris a couple days ago, and robert mueller is clearly on his mind. yesterday he came out swinging on thursday. he said that the entire investigation is a complete mess. he once again accused mueller of being bia and being favorable to democrats. he said he worked forbama for eight years. again, not true. he w actually -- the senate actually extended his term during t obama administration for another two years, but he had aually been appointed

under president bush. robert mueller, a registered republican. a number of things to keemi in here. but the president very frustrated, again, with this investigation, clearly wanting to see it end sooner than later. as far as where the investigation for mueller stands, there are two tracks we have to consider. the fefst is,e the presidency. and the second is during tprhe idency. president trump's lawyers really pushing back on any kind of cooperation tha involves answering questions that involve anything that happened during the presidency. but they are willing to play ball ait little with things that happened during the campaign. these are the twoobracks. ously the mueller team wanting more answers about t firing of former f.b.i. director, jim comey. and a number o other thing that have happened since the president took office. but they're starting with the pre-presidency period first. >> jonathan, is there anything that's goi to stop the president and his lawyers from submitting these written answers nt this point? the presi says he's writing

them. but could there be a snag along the way? >> i mean, with president trump, there always could b but, you know, i spoke to ait source direct knowledge of the situation today. they were very confident that they were going to be submitted imminently. i think one t to kind of pull back a little bit, this really is literal moment of truth for the -- for trump. he has spent his entire public life, decades, facing scant if any consequences forin saying that are untrue. it's very clear from his public behavior that he understands the stakes. he understands what would happen if he lied to the special counsel. and even thoug hs not conferring this in words, just the simple act of putting this letter out, sending ts letter to mueller, is trump conferring legitimacy un the special counsel and onlying, in act if -- ackctwledging, in if not in words, that this is a really important and serious investigation and that it

behooves people who are powerful to cooperate with it. the very actf submitting it, even though, yes, it's true that it sound like from giuliani's public comments, that they are not playing ball onti obstr, that it is an acknowledgment and acquiescence to mueller. >> you think about senator jeff flake retiring from arizona. he wants to have legislation come to a vote in the upper chamber to protect the mueller is that happening at all? >> well, i mean, as the president has rampedp his rhetoric against the special counsel, in recent days it'sly reggravated the situation on capitol hill on many fronts. you mentioned jeff flake. in his twilight hours as a h senatos taking that bold stand that so many of his kriltics wanted -- wanted him to take and vowing to block a litany of judges, about 20 in the judiciary committee. many more waiting on the floor to be confirmed, thate sayse will block and do whatever he can until he gets a vote on that pspecial counseltection bill that he believes can pass the senate. he's telling mcconnell, all i

want is a vote. but remember what mitch mcconnell, the senate majority leader, reay loves his top priority is transforming thery judic for flake to push at that is really getting under mcconnell's nerves. flake is one situation. there's other factors as well. g obviously this is go be an issue with the confirmation of a new attorney general inco the ng weeks. >> who is it gonna be? >> your guess is as good as ours. for now, there's a short list in mind. perhaps beginning to interview soon. it's a bit interesting. we've asked a lot of republican senators if they've hadoncerns out the acting attorney general's comments, matt whitaker, a his earlier comments disparaging the mueller probe. they said those comments werhe made whe was a private citizen. weaver okay -- we're okay for now. but the permanent attorney general, whoever that person, when they're nominated, i almost every senate republican we've talked to says that person

will almost surely have to make a public commitment that he or she will not interfere with the mueller probe if they want to get confirmed. >> has the acting a.g. made that commission? >> he did say he told senator graham that he would let the mueller probe continue. he has received criticism from both sides of the aisle. this is part of the things, one of the many factors behind the scenes that sort of aggravated ntthe presihis week, that he thought it would be more of a glide path forhis choice. he's been taken aback by the problems with it.aw and we in his tweets yesterday where he said that come under criticism for not being senate confirmed. the president said, well, neither is robert mueller, the special counsel, not noting that you don't have to be confied for that position and that robert mueller has previously been confirmedor other positions. michael cohen's presence was something else f thatstrated the president, feeling that he might be talking to the special

counsel, his former attorney who knows a lot about the inner workings ofhe trump organization and campaign. to this point, the white house is standing behind whitaker but sentiment growing that his time in this job may be relatively short, that there's presidentto get the to pick a more permanent post. >> you mentioned earlier the names of julian assange, thepi cocy theorist on the right, wikileaks, julian assange, roger stone, aongtime trump advisor. there's so many names as part of this process who could be facing indictments. that's the talk. how much are those possibilities hovering over this white house?d >> it'initely hovering over. the question is, how much do they know, and how damaging could it be to president or any of the members of the inner circle of his campaign? but certainly the president has come out and kind of tried to downplay the knowledge of a number of these people, especially roger stohe, where come out and said, well, he actually really didn't know anything and i'm not that close with him. he's done that now with

cohen w a number of -- with a number of different people who have gotten so clo the mueller investigation that it seems like they could be talking. obviously any ofin this -- a you know, the president is someone who is very --ve bel in scet si, non-- secrecy,no isclosure agreements and this is how he basically operated in his life before the presidency. for his allies to be talking to investigators, it's very unsettling. >> what do you make of t house judiciary committee deciding to bring up former f.b.i. director jim comey to testify in a few weeks, former attorney general loretta lynch to talk about the e-mail investigation? does this show that republicans are trying to kick back amid all this talk about robert mueller? >> well, they kept their focus on that chapter of the 2016 campaign for some time. but remember, they're going out of power in the houseit judiciay coe in a few weeks. by january 3, it will be democrats who conol i that committee. and they have a whole list of

questions going to complecely other dons in terms of investigating the president. i do want to point out the new -- the likely incoming new chairman of the senate judiciary committee is going to be lindsay graham of south carolina, once a trump enemy, now aseery c ally who has indicated that those exact issues will be matters tha he would be more than happy to investigate, should he become chairman. >> has he become trump's warrior in the senate? is graham in the senate? >> he's already shown he's goine to be quite defender for the president. i think you can definitely expect he's going to be a very vocal ally in the next congress as democrats in the house will be very aggressive in terms of their oversightnd investigations and lindsay graham also has a political imperative. he's up in 2020. always is facing a challenge from the right. >> all these battlegrounds, senator graham and president trump versus house democrats, al as robert mueller does his work. i want to turn to some breaking news tonight about journalist

jamal khashoggi. the cia has determined tt mohammad bin salman ordered thes a nation of khashoggi.th washington post broke the story that the c.i.a. looked into a phone call between te' crown pri brother, who also serves as the saudi ambassador to the u.s. and khashoggi. jonathan, you talked to your sources at the w how do we expect president trump to react to this development? the c.i.a. is tying it directly to the crown prince. >> i don't know how trump is going to react to it yet but i think it'very, very important to, as we see these official denials from the saudis -- >> let's see that real quick. so the saudis have offdeially ed it. i'm going to come back to jonathan. the saudi foreign ministry and the brother have tweeted, the last contact i had with mr. khashoggi was via text in 2017. i never talked to him by phone never suggested he go to turkey for any rain. i asked the u.s. government to release any information

regarding this claim. >> i have a text message from what is t mtsage, monday, the 8th of october. tes shows you how credible he is. it includes you this line. i assure you that the reports that jamal khashoggi went missing in istanbul or that the authorit ds haveained him or killed him are absolutely false and baseless. that's what he told me and i've published this, text exchange. and now he's saying it's false. so you need to put that through the filte-- so here'he challenge for trump. trump has invested so much in mbs. trump wants to -- trump would tlove nothing moren to be able to go back to doing business with the saudis, keep puttin jobs into america, let the saudis chop off five people's heads and blame these rogue, you know -->> t's all transactional? >> 100% transactionaks when trump tbout this privately with aides, he says, oh, you know, it's one guy. ok at the chinese, look at all these other guys around the world.

it's a tough world. all these other dictators. >> you all were on your phones talkine to sources befhe show. what are you hearing? >> at this point, jonathan is right. i mean, the president has not, at least at air time, has not coented on this. he has indeed invested so much in mbs and saudi, as the bulwark inas the middle against iran and so on, making these arms deal. >> but the c.i.a. has spoken up. >> they have. there have been moments before w the f.b.i., when the president did not agree with or t like conclusion that agency came up with. >> i remember helsinki. you were someone invol hd. >> i me been. the president has not been shy in denouncing his own agencies. we'll see if it happens here. >> vivian, you covered the pentagon, foreign affairs. what do you make of it? >> obviously his hands are tied at the moment, because of the fact he invested so much in mbs, unknown wheny an he came to power last year. he put a lot of power into his

n-in-law, jared kushner's hands in terms of managing that relationship. part of ias supposed to be a legacy relationship in the sense of turning things around from the obama administration. you know, getting close with riyadh again instead of iran, which had, you know -- the saudis had been angry over the iran nuclear deal. all of these things at play, plus the fact that he, you know, really touted this historic hitler deal with the saudis which he said -- historic military deal with the saudis, which he said were all about jobs. now he's got to step back and say, well, you know, we're going to have to put our foot down at some point. >> we'll keep an eye o all this. it's breaking news. the reason we kp asking about who is talking to the president is because it's a fluid time right now inside this white house. the president has made no secret about his plans to shake upis team. a name at the top of the list in the cabinet, per many reports, homeland security secretary kirstjen nielson. neilson's expected departure raises questions also about the

job securitych oief of staff john kelly, who bought her i the white house. we've seen a shake-up pretty soon at.s. is kelly on his way out? >> we've felt that kirstjen nielson has been on her w out for some time. the president in private has made no secret of the fact that he is displeased with her job performance, which the vast majority of her ptfolio is immigration and what's going on at the border. she oi it's important to out that neilson, she is constrained undermmration law, with certain things that she can do, but under the administration, there was a family -- the zeroer tce policy earlier this year. you know, separate from dhs, president did dispatch troops to the border to try to clamp down on security. but regardless of all that, the president is clearly displeased th what sheas done. >> why? >> because for the president, she just hasn't gone far enough and the president doesn't understand that part of things. we know that she has indicated that she wants to stay on until

at least december 6, which wld be her one-year tenure on the job. and find it interesting, earlier today in the oval office, where he was, asku know, he mentioned that he was pleased with almost all of my cabinet and their performance. ond standing right behind him was kirstjen nie >> what a scene. jonathan, vic vice president pes chief of staff, is he coming in soon as chief of staff? >> it's not too b soon,ause trump has been talking to him about the job for months now actually. d inny normal universe, what trump has said to nickpr ately, according to multiple people who are in a position to know, he's basically offered him theob. when trump offers you a job, it's not a normal job offer. he doehis sort of loose, oh, i want you to do this. then the conversation continues. and there's never a finality to it. the problem for nick ithere is a very aggressive internal backlash against him.en

and trump to get unsettled when he hears from lots of hople telling not to do something. >> what's the reason for the backlash? >> there's a lot of people in there who simply don't like him. it's really that simple. >> now, some people say,th oh, is inside baseball. but personnel with this administration can be pol a sense. it's a revealing way to see this administration and what's really driving agenda. trump's you saw this week, the first lady even got involved in national security personnel.. >> rig and ousted deputy security advisor. >> that's right. >> one of john bton's top deputies. we saw jeff sessions, the target of the president's ire for so long. but of course was very successfulor movingrd with the trump agenda, in the department of justice, even as he drew the president's wrath forecusing himself from the russian probe. certainly john kelly, his fate remains uncertain, despite that proclamation that he'd serve untilas 2020. that one that was not really

taken seriously, either inside or outside the west wing. his departure, we've all written, john kelly is onis way out. he's still in this position. but that could change at a moment's notice. certainly, if neilson were to leave, there is some suggestion that kelly may go out too, because the two are so tightly aligned. if he were to leave, that next chief of staff would play a significant role in the next few months or yea of the trump administration. we saw at least for a time kellw was st successful, sort of organizing the paper process in the building, moving legislation and stuff. he certainly lost some of the sway over the president. the next chief of staff could perhaps begint. >> perhaps. or the president alone, you've been traveling with him, a president alone in the world, is he also alone sometes in the west wing? >> he's definitely stated numerous times that he thinks he's a spokesperson and would like to call the shots for himself and not have to answer

to other people in the white house. >> who is his main confidant these days? >> certainly hisgh dr is somebody he's always kept close to him. as far as the main confidant, it changes every couple of weeks that people fall in and out of favor with this president pretty quickly. we have to understand that john kelly came into a prettyhaotic situation, where it was a new administration. they were kind of just getting their seaegs, and he was supposed to, as this retired fourtar general, instill some discipline into this white house. some things changed but of course things loosened up again over the coue of time. but what we're talking about is no ordinary personnel matter. e chief of staffs so significant and basically handles the daily issues of this white house. >> let's turn to capitol hl. this week, senators and house republicans chose their party leadership there were few surprises. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell and minority leader chuck schumer were re-elected to

two year terms. republicans elected kevin mccarthy b an overwhelming vote. and house democrat leader nancy pelosi is hoping to be speaker of the house. but there is a rebel group of house democrats, at least 17 strong, and today pelosi m with one of them, ohio represent fudge, who is considering a runr for spe pelosi,y far the front-runner. but there's a lot of grumbling i going onn the democratic ranks. >> exactly. it's interesting. i think the senate and capitol hill generally is that nancy pelosi will somehow find the votes,ohatever she has do to get to 2018o become speaker again. clearly right now she does not have them. we have about 20 members of the democratic caucus and incoming members as well who have vowed to oppe her ohe floor. that's clearly not enough. but there is a lot she can do with, yo know, handing out

valuable assignments on ways and means or energy and commerce or promising to cree new panels like we've seen with the climate change issue, wtnot. and we've seen, you know, various factions within themo atic caucus use that to their leverage, to gainin more uence within the caucus, the congressional progressive caucus, major block among the house democratic ranks. i met with pelosi and got promises from her that their members will play a more prominent role in these very powerful committee and in influencing legislation, which is a big deal for them. the congressional blackcu c another major influential bloc, is split, because as you tked about with marcia fudge considering candidacy. >> marcia fudge, she doesn't have the congressional black caucus as seung min kim was saying, totally with her. pelosi has done a pretty good b of consolidating power. >> that's right. i'm certainly going to defer t youext.

she still would be, as you said, she doesn't have this locked up yet. she would still be the favorite. she is someone who hasd survi power struggles before. and one that -- it's interesting to s a lot of republicans almost rally to her support, in part because i think theyheeel that is a useful foil. we talked to people inside the white house. the president certainly does have some respect for nancy pelosi. they have been able to work some deals together. but i think there's also aio recogn that she is someone who they can easily sort of run against,n easy foil for them. >> can they really cut deals? what should we know about the new minority leader, kevin mccarthy >> kevin mccarthy, no one would call him a policy-wog, least of all himself. he is a political animal. he is like nate silver reading loe polls, looking at the statesing at the maps, getting on the phone. he's a hustler. he has great relationships, all the soft skills.

he knows what every member needs, what they want. >> is he going to try to build back tarty? >> he is a much better politician than paul ryan, in the pure sense of, you know, glad handing, knowing what people need, what people want, having a feel for the caucus. what will that amount to? i actually don't know, because i don't think they're going to geg anytone in this new configuration. >> we'll see.as inucture, prescription drugs. we'll save that for next week. we have to leave it there night. thanks, everybody, for being here. i really appreciate it.io our convers will continue on the "washington week" podcast. you can find that on our website, fridays after p.m., also on f yourorite podcast app. i'm robert costa. have a great weekend! we'll see you next time. ♪[music]

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