robert: the mueller report shines a bright lht on the president's conduct. i'm robert costa. president trump claims victory and continues to attack the mueller report calling it crazy, but democrats say, hold on. >> the special couple made clear he did not exonerate the president and the congress has to hold the presidente. accoun >> the attorney germ and special counsel are called to testify as a new political battle begins. we cover it all, next. announcer: this is "washington week." funding is provided by --

>> kevin. >> kevin. >> kevin. >> advice for life. life well planned. learn more at raymondjames.com. >> babbel, a language program l that teaches rfe conversations in a new language such as spanish, french, german, italian and more. babbel's 10 to 15-minute lesns are available as an app or online. more information on babbel.com. announcer: additional funding is ovided by -- koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, commied to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewe like you. thank you. once again, from washington, moderator robert costa. robert: good evening, the

release of robert mueller's 448-page report margd the end the special investigation but also the start of a political war. mr. muell's volume on russian's efforts were extensive showing how first and business executives sought to boost the campaign but they did not accomplish that they conspired with russia. mr. mueller provided a portrait the president operates. they were under oath. president ain, the is portrayed as angry and pushing his advisers to the brink of obstructing justice or to lie. attorney germ barr called the president's reaction furious. >> the president was frustrated and angered by his pleff that the investigation was undermining hisde prey.

robert: the president told don mcdepaun that mueller had to go and engaged the justice dertment but mueller writes that other requests >> unsuccessful because other people around the president declined. it demands more scrutiny and more testimony. >> whether these contacts were sufficiently ecit were to rise, they were dishonest, unethical, immoral and should be condemned. robert: kaitlan collins for crmp c nmp. is, yamiche c alcindor,l hulse from the "new york times" and josh dawsey from the washington

post. a vivid portrait. it shows the president trying to get his advisers to act on his behalf and they said no. is this how the president operates? kaitlan: it seems related to the mueller report and happens on me many reports. d any kind of decision the president tweeting additions. there is this run-around going around behind the scenes and the president is trying t g people, change his mind. so the president is seeing this and going so angry and how it is being covered in cab news and going angry. he is seeing how his staff sees him behind the scenes and the very different picture and how they talk about him publicly. >> one of the chief perpetrators

was don mcgahn. and don mcgahn in his extensive interviews, 30 hours or so, inh hiened written notes described the president trying to fire department officials and go around avenues andry at e turn was trying to take this probe and trying to get i off. and jeff sessions unrecues himself. and don mcdepaun is the star witness. or all of the details, the cover, the schemes, the lies and the testimony of don mcgahn are would he he together and the president is frustrated with don mcgahn was he is showing the president. robert: the president is fuming on twitter, but mcgahn is a

complicated figure. >> he is aawyer who plays in a rock band andmp aacshed musiciannd biggest accomplishment with the judges. he has worked with the president to develop theams judicial list of the supreme court nominees that wa beneficial to the president. and worked with mitch mccobble tout dozens and dozens of people on the supreme court. at the same time, you could look at him two ways, one, his olympicing of the president and refusal to dohat the president have ordered. two,he delivered what is going to be the biggest legacy of the trump era. rebert: talked about mcgahn saving thedent and that was within of the main questions

we were asking. why didn't mr. mueller come to different conclusion onct obstn. the "washington post" said it was complicated, d.o.j. practice that a sitting president can't be accused of a crime. obstruct ent didn't justice but at the same time, what does it say about his presidency. >> what the report is about the idea that someone could m consir king, he is giving these orders and people are calling him crazy saying i'm not going to follow thathrgh. and how hard it was to get tge be elected president and he feels people think he is not legitimate. when ys read t report, his staff is saying, a lot of his decisionsre not legitimate. that has to be infuriating and a

lot of people have gathered over the last couple of years, the president has these ideas about things he wants to do than a a lot of them aren't legal. the staffto don't wane caught up in doing a lot of illegal things. robert: wh makes this difference. the "new york times" and "washington post," b nmp n and bob woodward, here,s i the president's own aidco on the describing how he was governing this country and how he was trying to effect this probe. it fs harder the president to say, fake news, no way and people saying it under oath. kaitlan: he is so mad at don ck depan and he was part of the reason, notes he took and recollections he had during the recollecof the special

counsel but he helped the president avoid an obstruction of justice charge. when a lot of the information in here that is damning president came from a wideh. gi robert: why didn't mr. muscle irdemand the president sit down? we are talking about tits. doesn't get to the president's intent. >> when we see mr. mueller on capitol hill, there will be a lot of questions. he decided he didn't want to wae the time and i'm not going to waste the time to get the president to testify. in other ways, he left bread crumbs in the report for congress saying, it's your job to investigate som of these things, but didn't come out and declare that. so think people want to hear from him on the hill and get an

explanation. robert: he said in the report that the president's were calledate but would have it too much of a delay. >> they kept thinking mueller team team was going to say you have to come innor flew and never did. the prosecutors can never sayhe why president was doing something. there are a lot of holes. we don't know what the president's intent here. robert: whatut a the political costs of lying? you have allhese instances throughout the report, the white house press secretary, president trump talking about don junior's meeting, germ aflynn, the pervasive lies, even if it doesn't riseo t the level of obstruction of justice.ah >> s sanders was doubling down that we know now wasn't

true. she was hearing in personal contact with all sorts of f.b.i. agents were telling her that they were not happy with james comey. she told the special couple and on tv today. robert: why is that, is that because the whole culture of loyalty is she under pressure? >> i think they want tkeep eir jobs. and they are continuing to lie while not having any political problems with that. there were issues with the midterm, thatas largely on health to talk about care. 2020 will be a completely different story. maybe people will look at this report and the president is trying to get him to lie. i was talking toti a democ consultant, is he going to get

away with , and the answer is yes. robert: how does the white house defend that? >> the president didn't dictate that miss lding. she was told thate did not done that. and she later learned that the president's attorney to the special counsel that he actually dictated the statement. that is the stateme she is getting bad information and fascinating what you bring about and see the president get away with lying. that is an epidemic and trump and can get awah w. as far as the lying goes, it stems fromhe top. president trump says the lies, makes the staff extend the lies and sarah sanders -- >> the psident accusing the people who testified under oath thathee told to lie and

accused them of lying. >> the president encouraged his firms to cooperate. he angry today. cobb and saying we are not go t go raise executive privilege. >> former and current officials and for 10, 20, 30 hours. and they brought in notes. neyer exerted privilege. once a different team of lawyers, rudy giuliani, they took an aggressive posture. a lot of these key interviews were done. the theory is will cooperate extensively and hope the president geleed quickly and we have nothing to hide. at the end,y t didn't exert privilege. the president and his tm told them go in and tell the truth y and are seeing blowback what do. hite house said to >> i will say in the report.

in the instances on the report where the president's words are at odds, the report finds that the weight of the evidence is usually with the other person. they do not pleeven the president when he ex erts that. robt i reser time. democrats have called on attorney general barr and special counseler mue to testify, they want to probe. and many say he seemed to beec prng the president. house judiciary committee jerry nadler issued a subpoena to barr for the unredacted report. late friday, the justice department pushed back and said they did all that was necessary to do. the question goes to house democrats, howo you handle a report that does president recommend criminal charges but raises many questions? >> nancy pelosi is in a tough. sp congress has talked about and

robert mueller said congress has the authorick to c this president and look at his behavior and really protect the integrity of the constitution. nancy pelosi has peoplen her party that are running for president and the question is whether or not you wan to have 2020 to be about these fights and testimonies on the hill or movehi past and move past the idea of bringing in people and take that case to the american people and say we ar going to use this people w 689are going to say the president is corrupt. if you didn't read the report and this is something you need to know about or do you bring in people. what i'm hearing from democrats, they are not interested a long continuous conversation about the mueller repor robert: what about attorney generand barr they are not happy with his summary and press

conference before the report is released. >> the president's outside legal team looked a it. that was an interesting thing. no a lot of democrats were calling for the president's eyimpeachment. were caug for bill barr to be fired or resigned which will not do. the president is comparing him to jeff sessions. the president is pleased. >> i think the democrats expected barr to be siding with the president but never expected to be as bad as they considered it to be. he willn have a uncomfortable time. with the democrats when heie test they are four yous. robert: what could they do? >> they could complain and embarrass tim. nk setting the narrative in

washington is very important in these stories. anbary helped the president. the report coming out is starting t reverse that narrative. they areurus. they think he acted improperly. >> iyou watch barr's press utnference before the report came the defenses he gave of the president mir order the president's defineses. no crdination or conspiracy. he said no collusion, over and over. he said the presidentad noncorrupt kept. thpresident was mad at the investigation. what explains that is either barr feels that way after looking at the report, he seesp noncor intent or has a broad pansive view of expansive power and the president has the

right to d all of these things and the public should not be able to repudiate him for that essentially and h seems comfortable in the role of defending the presidentt alm as his own personal lawyer. >> one of the things that barr said at that a.m. press confer they cool ask informed questions and that has to be flagged or. had they seen the report, that presserould have been different. he said robert mueller didn't make the. congress is mentioned so many times it is clear that mueller saw the real for congress in obstruction of justice anbar didn't have to make that in hi letter talking about the report. robert: are republicans totally with this president? we saw former massachusetts

governor william weld is running. any other cracks that are with him? >> it depds on who you ask. many of them have i sai is problematic to see this culture in dishonesty. but they have been very quick to say they are no collusion and no obstruction. senator romney was talking about the report. he was saying, he was the most f critical . he found it sickening but he toed party line and said no ob truction. one se things that they come acrossci cring that behavior but didn't say there shouldn't be some questions. >> rob portman called it and bold statement.

they are hanging in the president. they have used the excuse, we have to review the report. there is no eagerness on the senate side. robert: you covered the house as well, immeefment, is it happening or not in the house? >> i don't think so. i thi what they will do is continue to investigate, have witnesses and get into that cuble. robert: why not. haupted by what what happened in the 1990's. >> what happened with bill clinton in 1998. they said it will be distracting from heaanh care. keep the focus on this. once you turn it into a an impeachment proce, the republicans are saying he is being persecuted. and speaker pelosi said she doesn't want to do this without

bipartisan support. >> the oth side you will see aferocious effort what they see bad conduct and to turn the on on a lot of the democrats and folks who are calling for collusion, aomdam schiffnts, f.b.i. lip, the president and his team seem me emboldened than ever before to turnhe narrative to investigate the investigators. robert: mr. meller's mandate to investigate russian interference. he showed that russia carried to provoke and amplify social discord andipt into great detail how the russians used rfare. and by 2016 showed support for president trump and disparage

hillary clinton and released information through wikileaks. mr. mueller wrote that the investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired. let me step back and we focused on the obstruction. there is an enormous volume on russian interference. is this u.s. government and a president who has been skeptical of russian sbrerns do they address it? >> it's hard to say. attorney germ barr said there were efforts the russian government to interfere. they had a sweeping way of interfering with the 2016 election. i was standing a few feet at 11:00. the first thing i read was that ne, russia interfered with the election.

apart from this argument, we are americans and we have a foreign government interfered andse ing up in houston, texas, where they h one side for one thing and possibly, i'm behind the scenes there are out als that will figur that 2020 is different. it's hard to say because it looks as though t president doesn't want to be seen as an illegitimate presint and i think it will guide where he thinks about this. >> barr's press conference gave endorsement. and that is not whatea you from president trump. he was saying the real crimes miwere ced by the hillary clinton campaign and when you read the report, it makes clear how they hacked to get the emails from hillary clinton to

embarrass her and try to help her chances oni w the election. that is concerning. because as senator rubio has said, it can be republicans on the other side of e target next time and no one wants them interferhem. >> the president doesn't like to talk about this. there is bipartisan concern about this. senator mcconnell talks about this. they will find a way to do something to limit this. but you are fhting the last war. there will be a new whole new way to interfere. think both sides realize outside the president this is a serious issue. >> i talked to the president's rst homeland security adviser and he said the reading of the report was scary and not prepared to handle it. three, four administrations have been dealing with this. and no one has taken it seriously and should be a wakeup

call. >> and used it as a way to blame president obama. robert: thanks everyone. and our conversation will continue every friday starting at 8:308 p.m. eastern. have a happy holiday weekend. announcer: corporate funding is provid by --

>> babbel, a language progra that teaches real life conversations in a new language such as spanish, french, gman, italian and more. babbel's 10 to 15-minute lessons are available as a online. more information on babbel.com. announcer: financial services firm, raymond james. additional funding is provided by -- koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cuural differences in our communities. the corporation fopublic broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.on national capg institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org.] >> you're watching pbs.

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