robert: the white house denies a report that the prgsident his lawyer to lie. but russia-related questio pilep. i'm robert costa. welcome to "washington week." on >> this is "washineek." funding is provided by -- i was able to turn the aircraft around and the mission around and was able to save two men's lives that night. >> my first job helped me to grow up pretty quickly. >> in 2001 iigd up for the air force. two days later, 911 happened -- 9/11 happened. b >>abel , a language program

at teaches reeg-life conversations in a new language, su as spanish, french, german, italian and more. babe 's 10 to 15-minute lessons are available as an app or online. more information at babel.com. >> funding is provided by koo and patricia yuen, through yuen foundation. the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station fro viewers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, moderatorobt costa. robert: good evening. the government shutdown has no end sight and the chance are only mounting for the trump administration. the latest is a buzzfeed news report that claims president trump directed his former personal attorney to lie to congress about pla to build a trump tower in moscow.

friday, buzzfeed posted an update that "a spokesperson for the special counsel is now disputing that buzzfeed new reports." the white house also called it falls and i are dick allows. michael cohen has admitted to lying to the f.b.i. in -- and congress and has been cooperating with special counseo rt mueller. he's also preparing to testify before congress next month, just egeks beforening a three-year prison sentence.or that r comes less than a week after michael schmidt and his colagues at the "new york times" broke the story that the f.b.i. haerd launched a cou intelligence investigation into ired ent frump after he f f.b.i. director james comey. joining me tonight is michael in my opinion, a pulitzernn prize-g washington correspondent for the times. kelly o'donnell, white house correspondent for nbc news. laura jarrett, justice department corresponnt for cnn and jake sherman, senior write

at politico and co-editor of "playbook." many news organizations are still work only this story but it raises questions about whether president trump obstructed justice. michael, it's a difficult story. the spial counsel was coming out tonight breaking news saying it's not accu yrate. wh look at this story as a veteran investigative r morter, whters here? michael: first of all, for these reporters, this is the worst nightmare, to have someone like the specialouel, who never talks, comingout and saying this isn't correct. the reason why in story mattered somple is balls the obstruction case against tene pres is very difficult. because a lot of the decisionsh made are intertwined with executive power. this was him telling someone to lie. that's a much leaner -- obstruction case. he doesn't have the right to do that. t did have right to fire

his f.b.i. director. so that's why within minutes hours of that story coming out last night, you saw the house democrats and even some of the nate talking about impeachment. they knew it was a clean case and now itooks like it doesn't exist. robert: what's the key issue to yo with the trump tower prospect with regard to the ecial counsel flfings? michael: the whole issue is could the trump tower issuexp start toin a lot of trump's behavior on the campaign? is that truly why he wanted to embrace russia? he just wanted to build a tow there. he never thought he would win and that's why -- that's the wht i will thing, mystery of trump. you have to remember, the republican candidate before him ran russia is our greatest threat and he ran as i russias our best friend and we've never understood the intelligence pitellectual undings of that and maybe the towerid pr an information.

robert: laura, what's the legal peril facing the president at this moment? laura: in the beginning when everybody was ting to vet and it trying to figure out if true anyone could corroborate it, the issue was, as mike pointedut, this is felony, serious, the president cannot obruct jumps but sur borning perjury. eryone recognized that but no one corroborated it no. one matched it. none of our outlets, at least they saw, could provide anything to starkte and it part of it, the backbone that left anyone thinking is it there? the in information that the special counsel has -- had evidence. but no one saw that and at least one of the reporterth sai

hadn't steen it. so it lift with us a lot of questis today that ultimately the special counsel are saying are not true. robert: the white house jumped onn, defying -- defia. also rudy giuliani. what was it like at theest wing? >> it was sbevens and later than we expected. the initial response was aat re anti-cohen message, don't believe him, therefore anything else doesn't hold. it was strike that it took so long for them to address the underlying issue, d the president instruct anyone to lie to congress? ed now they h refuted that. now with in special counsel putting out atatement that says the reporting is not accurate, this is difficult for every reporter in washington. this is not good day for media and it will be a gift to the president to revert t fake news and some of his claims andxp

wouldt they will trumpet that. if there are aspects of the story that are strew -- true, that could easily be lost in the fact that it is so rare for the ecial counsel's team to comment. it's a very challenging day. there's also this concern that i think there are many people who are anxious that there will be a big smoking-gun moment, when will that come? and this reporting, with the supporting documentation, could it have been there? going beneath the words of michael cohen, could there be digital fingerprints on this that would point at the president and those close to him? now we really don't kno so the volleyed gets filled with a lot of conversation, talk, and spulation andow we don't really know where we are. robert: so a lot of questions about this buzzfeed story but the questions about the presidenuc and obson are not going away.

they came up this week at the nominations for attorney general william barr. here's a conversation with the senator from. minneso >> in your memo, you talked psout the comby decision and obstruction of j you wrote on page one that a president purpose sueding a personal to comment perjurybe woul obstruction is that right? >> yes. well, any person who per swaileds another to -- >> ok. you also said that a president or any person convincing a witness to change testimony tr would be otion is that right? >> yes. robert: jake, the barr nomination. what did you make of the hearin? this w >> i think he surprised a few people. i think he was much morerc ul in defending the mueller probe than some would expect and i think he's going to probably sail to confirmation and senate republicans have

bigger numbers and along with gger numbers, confirmations go a lot easier but i do think that people were caught off guard and that is an important thing to keep in mind here as the vote gets closer the floor. robert: when you talk about the barr hearings. kelly was talking about the digital fingerprints, the evidence we're a looking for. that could come in the mueller report. what did we learn about that mueller report from barr? >> the conventional wisdom in washington t was thare was going to be a report. mueller will give his report to congress. well, we sort of knew about that, if you hadtued the regulations but the public got a lesson on that this week as barr tried tower questions about this. mueller is supposed to send a port to the attorney general and then the attorney general can decide what goes to congress

but the attorney general can be very limited in what they can do because of the way evidence comes in, whether it's classified and the democrats on the him want this would commitment, they wanted barr to say yes, i'll giv you the unredacted exeel to do whatever you want with. know mueller has arranged with e personal oversaying the justice department. i can't make those commitments to you and think you'll see some very senior democra use that as a deny execution not to vote for br. robert: are democrats talking about impeachment more? >> yes, they are and ion't see a scenario in which they could avoid impeachment one way other the other over the next couple of years. so far speaker pelosi has said impeachment needs to beis bipa, needs to come from

members of both parties. as she's antagonized more and more by president tru, her patience night grow thin. i actually think from a congressional point of view, impeachment is one of the least damaging -- it's very damaging but investigations from the oversight a government reform committee, the judiciary committee, the intelligence committee, i those areredibly gaging to the president --ma ng to the president to -- too and those will go on and take months on end. robert: the "washington post" broke th story, the president os gone to great lengths to conceal detai his conversations with russian president vladimir putin, including con vis indicating the notes of his own interpreters. greg miller reported there is no record of president trump's face-to-face meetings with the

russian leader at five locations over the past two years. laura, what are the questions einside of the intellige community and department of stice about te president's role with russia, with putin? leo: why? why are you con --ra l why are you concealing these communications. kell y ann connie -- conwa his senior advisor has said leaks were a real issue at the time. that raises the question, you don't have anyone close to you that has a clasped intelligence briefing that you trust to receive these communications? that's a real problem and i think it raises queions about what exactly is going on there and why. we'll wait to see what more comes out ofer that but o reporting from the "new york times" and others suggest that mueller is intested in nose meetings with putin and so there's more there. kelly: inning what is hard to sometimes put into decade convention and this is a president who likes to use the

force ofer hisnality and relationships to deal with these world leadersnd he seems to find it a new sans to deal with some -- nuisance to deal with some of the rules. which would be value to his state department in the right setting, --o other parts of the government. he seems to view it as the one-on-one of two presidents and not see that there's a real need and a history for smaring that information more broadly. there were les that were a concern and this does raise questions because it always seems to come back to rthsia. president would say if i have neatings with other worlds meetings, no one seems to be that interested but when it's putin, people zero in on it. if he could embrace the fact that there's a purpose for those kinds of reports and briefing of his own senior officials,

programs that would tamp down some of the speculation that swirling around him. robert: laura's point about the sbefpblet matters smuch. is he breaking the enormous or is there sething else at play? >> the president combains -- lains a lot on russia but he continues to do things that raise questions through his own actions. this thing a.m. the end of last year where he's talking about how the ussr went into afghanistan and why they went into afghanistan, a very narrow issue in terms of world histor. ning up directly with the kremlin on such a thing. thedent is not a student of history and going forward th that. his behavior in helsinki and we could cite all these other things. heontinues to do this to himself. you inherited this counter

intelligence investigation looking into the president's ties to russia, you still have anymore office doing thingkes, lihe greg miller report in the post, destroying or taking y.e documents awa if you're mueller do you just say ok, i'm going to close up blem and say there's no p here if he continues to do that? robert: the attorney general normalee -- normal knee, bill barr, has said he's going to allow muller to continue only. cnnreeported theretty close friends and that surprised the president. >> which is bizarre because barr was pretty straightforward with the president about how he knew bill mueller. you see ethat in that 19-page missive and als his opening statement. previews this idea of its need for the country and an airing that everything that hammed is sort of ruired here, given how big the stakes are b d

apparenting the hearing, the president is bristling at the fact that he's so glowing about bob mueller. again, he was mueller's boss when he waseadinghe criminal justice department. how he didn't knowhese two men didn't know each other is mystifying. he did not like the optics of the chum yinks. >> the thing about barr's testimony and what he was sayinw is thatknow a lot of what donald trump wants in an attorney general. he wants someone who's loyal to him more than anything else. puts his priorities first, is sosort of a pl lawyer to him. if you're the president and that's your view s and y barr testifying, you have to say where's the guy from the memo that i was sold on? bill barr came across as a man. of justi spent all this time in the justice department. says i'm going to do theight thing. the president had to say that's not what i wanted. e ert: but he signaled in

memo to the "new york times," bill barr that he in recent years had some conservative views, trump-friendly julls. -- views. >> a very paper statement he gave to us about how uranium one was much more ofn issue than collusion or cob -- obstruction that was being looked at. that's not the person you saw testifying the other day. kelly: the -- president thoughts you had me atni u one. robert: the senators don't have to deal with the sh i-questions. there's also the partial government shutdown that soo enters week five and the dramatic developmentsth i battle between the president and congressional democrats. first, speaker pelosi asked the presido postpone the state of the union because of security issues. 24 hours later, he denialed the question for pelosi and others to visit afghanistan and nato

leaders in europe. speaker pelosi said she was prepared to fly commercial until she alleged the perspective leaked her planned trip. >> weer't going to go because we had a report from afghanistan that the president outing our terrorism had made the scene on the ground much more dangerous. robe: there's the shutdown and then there's the relationship that's dominatingashington. speaker pelosi, president trump. stalemate? a >> the president is getting used to, getting accustomed to theha factt congress is not on his side, that the house is not on his sid's ad a congress for two years that's mostly bowed to all of his desires and wishes, although sometimes dragged kicking and screaming. i think that -- listen, let'ss lay t out. the president can do what he did. he can say tt pelos cannot use military transport. the speaker has enormousway over all of the president's priorities. pelosi isn appropriator,

somebody who understands the bu congressionaet process and how to use it to maximum impact to starve the president of any achievements going into the 2020 election. those are facts. the other fact is that the two sides are not speaking at the moment. robert: didn't vice president pence go to the capitol on thursday? he went to speak to mitch mcconnell. they're in e same party. democrats control the house. there are no talks at the moment. not the -- the president is going to come out and make a statement tomorrow afternoon about the shutdown, he says, in which he's expected to lay out some patheways to getting this solved. robert: what does that mean? >> i don't know and i n sure he knows because he's been so vastly misguided by his ades, it's scary and very bad for the president that he's beenle m to believe things that if you

had even ementary knowledge of politics, you would know the reven pssident d not have more leverage when a democratic house too ove he's a political notice and we know it. roicht what are you heari about the saturdays announcement? kelly: i don't expect to heard t wo be a national emergency. because i think the trajectory of opinions going to the president and the circumstances politically have been moving away from them because he recognizes if it gets tied new a court battle, it creates a pheer of presidency that could be use leds by future presidents in ways they don't wan and it doesn't really solve the problem. also aprohm rators in the republican sides don't want to see money pulled away from flings already designated. at least from the officials i've talked to i have not gotten any sort of a flicker that the national emergency is likely for this saturday announcement. havingaid that, they

absolutely say the president has that power, retains thatower, thinks about that power. is there a way to jolt democrats to negotiate? democrats have not wanted to si across thble from the president. the president hasn't wanted to hear what they have to say. it's really been cold. robert: we'll see if nod rat republicans in the senate are going to crack. like senate lamar zeand alexander, senator porter of ohio. could they push mcconnell? kelly: they're more govern nabs times of republicans and people up for re-election in 2020. they wouldto lov see some action but they don't have sway over the house democrats. it's not two sides but a myriad of sides. mitchell mcconnell can see where this isn't going and he plays his game behind -- and i meanwhile that in the legislative way, not in a

pejorative way, behind the he doesn't cave the camera. at the moment he knows there's a deal to be had, he will be present. right now can the president offer something to the democrats that would get them to negotiate? bert: would it be challenged in the federal ourts if th president leaned in that direction? >> i think it would at leastet challenged. how a court rules on it is up in the air but it is almost sermon -- immediately democrats will hop on that. but i think the larger points is, in whington w focus on who's up and who's down politically. ere are hundreds of thousands of federal workers who aren't getting paid. robert: even d.o.j. is havingre issues, c? >> even the f.b.i. is facing a situation where workers a resorting to food banks. robert: the f.b.i. has food banks? >> i certain districts there are food banks being set up for f.b.i. members who are making

$35,000 a year and don't know when a pay check is coming. that is aur national sy issue. is other issue is they're also asking for d.o.j. for opinions about outside employment. they're getting to a point where they don't know how long this is going to go on and certain either i said rules d.o.j. has to sign off on outside employment. robert: what about the mueller issue? does it continue even with the shutdown? >> yeah, but i think the issue is what it's done r the favorability numbers for the president and the fact we saw the unfavorability numbers be higher in terms of non-college-educated white males and that'snt the presi base. that is so crucial to him. robert: there's a poll that shows his popularity dippi below 40%. >> the mote around his

presidency is the support of his base and if he were to lose that, if there's momentum against him in the house on could get him into a lot of troubleable? is this shutdown really hurting him politically? robert: what blakse breaks it open? >> i don't know but i spoke to a senior spokes person who said if you look at the polling, no one is blaming us yet. everyone is blaming republicans and the president. the deal iclear. some daca protections for a wall. it's t same deep that congress has punted on for the last two years, ver clear. robert: we'll have to leave it there. kelly, we're going to get to you webcast. our conversation will continue on that "washington week" dcast. find i on your favorite a.m. or watch it on your website.

i'm robert -- robert costa. have a great weekend and thanks for joining us. ♪ >> corporate funding is provided by -- >> i was able to turn the aircraft around and the mission arnd and was able to save two men's lives that night. >> my first job helped me to grow up prettyuickly. >> in 2001 i signed up for the air force.o days later, 9/11 happened.

>> babel, a language program that teaches real life conversations in a new language, such as spanish, french, german, italian and more. babe 's 10 to 15-minute lessons are available as an app or online. more information on babel.com. >> funding is provided by -- koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning performed by the national ctioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you're watching pbs.

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