we've got a very big live interview tonight. former attorney general eric holder is here with me in studio tonight. this will be his first live tv interview since the election. eric holder obviously has a role in history as the tenure as the nation's first african-american attorney general. one who made very significant changes and very significant decisions in american law enforcement and justice while he was in the obama cabinet. now that he has been succeeded in office by a man who, let's be honest, is the human antonym of eric holder, eric holder has been outspoken in private life about defending his and president obama's legacy on justice issues. he's also been outspoken about president trump and the trump

administration from time to time, when the spirit moves him. for example this picture was posted on twitter by former attorney general eric holder last week after president trump made false public statements about how president obama handled his responsibilities as president when it came to fallen service members and their families. the former attorney general posted that picture and then stated on twitter, "stop the damn lying. you're the president. i went to dover air base with 44," meaning with president obama, "and saw him comfort the families of both the fallen military and d.e.a." so former attorney general eric holder has not disappeared from public view by any stretch of the imagination. he has been willing to speak his piece when he is motivated to do so. but he's been a very interesting sort of question mark in terms of the ongoing legacy of the obama administration, moving forward type the trump p era.

and i mean that in one very specific way. going all the way back to early january, when president obama was still president, when donald trump had been elected but not yet sworn in as president. president obama and eric holder, who are fast friends, they have a very close personal relationship. they let it be known in early january, even before the trump inauguration, they had a project they were going to do together during the trump administration. and that joint work, that project the two of them together, that work has now started. on the one-year anniversary of the election, which is coming up a couple weeks from now on november 8th, barack obama and eric holder are going to be together on that anniversary working on this new plan that they think is the most important thing they can be doing right now in politics. so eric holder is here tonight to talk about that plan he was working on with former president obama. plus i'm going to try to get him to talk about all sorts of things going on in the news that

i have wanted him to weigh in on ever since he left office. so very excited. that's the interview tonight, former attorney general eric holder here in studio with me for his first live television interview since the election. before we bring on the former attorney general, though, we do have some breaking news that i want to start with tonight. part of this was probroken by n news tonight. part of it was broken by voice of america. we have nbc news's national security and military reporter standing by. but what this is about is the deadliest combat incident since president trump has been in office, the loss of four u.s. army special operations soldiers in niger on october 4th. now, our understanding of this story and the loss of these soldiers has evolved on sort of two parallel tracks since we first learned about the ambush that claimed these soldiers' lives. there's been these two tracks. domestically it has been strange to the point of perplexing and is now a major story of the trump presidency that the

president spent 12 days after these combat casualties occurred, 12 days after we now know a national security council statement was drafted for him to issue about those deaths, it took him 12 days to even answer questions about why he hadn't acknowledged publicly in any way that those deaths had happened. the president's refusal to discuss the loss of these soldiers or the circumstances in which they were killed has now stretched beyond the initial 12 days to almost three weeks as he continues to refuse direct questions on the subject. >> did you authorize the incident in niger? >> thank you all very much. >> can you tell the public what happened in niger? >> mr. president, any questions on the ambush? >> thank you. >> do you regret that myeshia -- >> is there anything you'd like

to say to myeshia johnson? >> thank you. >> last questions the president walked away from, those where the reporter mentioned myeshia johnson, those questions reflected the emotionally difficult terrain the president has steered the national conversation to rather than talking about what happened in niger. he's not just refusing to discuss the niger ambush and the four soldiers that were lost, he's chosen instead to volunteer false information about how he and other presidents have contacted military families when service members have been killed in action. today the widow of sergeant la david johnson, who was killed in the ambush, she appeared on abc news "this morning" and gave a remarkably moving testimony as to what she has been through and she and her family has been through. but not incidentally she also this morning became the third person to corroborate consistently the nature of the condolence phone call that president trump made to her and

her family last week after he faced almost two weeks of questions about why he hadn't said anything about those military deaths. myeshia johnson confirmed that what had been previously described by a family friend and congresswoman frederica wilson has become a major target of the president and chief of staff for her role in this matter, myeshia johnson today, sergeant la david johnson's widow, confirmed today that what the congressman said was true. the president did make remarks in his condolence call that were perceived to be hurtful and insensitive by sergeant johnson's family and by mrs. johnson herself, including what she described today as the president clearly not being familiar with her husband's name. president trump still will not discuss the soldiers who were lost or publicly acknowledge their deaths or talk about what happened to them in niger. but after those remarks in that abc interview this morning

from sergeant johnson's widow the president did take time on twitter to angrily tweet his denial of the grieving widow's account of their conversation. so it is still emotionally inconceivable that we are now having more than a week-long discussion about the president mishandling his communications with gold star families and making untrue remarks about those interactions and about how other presidents handled those interactions. it is still impossible to get your head around they are screwing that up, too. but while that continued for another day today, stretching that into its second week, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, marine corps general joseph dunford, made himself available to the pentagon press corps today to actually deliver some information about what happened to these four soldiers in niger. between his prepared remarks and the very lengthy list of questions he took from the sharp pentagon press corps today, general dunford spoke to the press about this matter today for nearly an hour and he did advance our understanding about

what happened. at a time when even senior u.s. senators from both parties are admitting that they had no idea that the u.s. had troops in niger, general dunford clarified today that not only are there something like 800 u.s. troops serving in niger right now, there are more u.s. troops serving in niger right now than in any other country in western africa. if senior u.s. senators with national security responsibilities like lindsey graham and chuck schumer didn't know that we had any troops in niger let alone more than any other country in that part of the world, you could guess that the american public had no idea of that either. but general dunford made that clear today. he also gave a painful but at least to my mind considerate and at least -- painful but i would say -- painful but considerate and careful response to a particularly troubling issue that has been raised personally by sergeant la david johnson's widow.

we have seen these images of her embracing her husband's casket, both upon it being returned to the united states and at his funeral this weekend in florida. myeshia johnson explained today that abc that part of her has doubts that her husband is even in that casket because she says she was denied permission not just to see his face but to see any part of his body. >> i want to know why it took them 48 hours to find my husband. why couldn't i see my husband? every time i asked to see my husband they wouldn't let me. they wouldn't show me a finger, a hand. i know my husband's body from head to toe and they won't let me see anything. >> myeshia johnson was not only married to sergeant la david johnson and is the mother of his children, they were also childhood sweethearts. she first met him when she was 6 years old. so she knows of what she speaks. general dunford was asked why

is it she has not been able to see her husband's body if she wants to. and he had to answer that -- and again, i think he tried to answer it as sensitively and with as much emotional reticence as you can have around this incredibly fraught and personal issue. he suggested that while protocol might sometimes suggest that family members would be cautioned against looking at their loved ones' remains in a case like this he said ultimately it is up to the family and so the implication of general dunford's remarks today is that if sergeant johnson's widow wants to see she should be allowed to see. very difficult issue. general dunford also explained today that the pentagon timeline for the incident includes the add yet unexplained fact that it appears the soldiers who were ambushed on october 4th, they didn't -- they don't appear to have placed a call for help, a call for backup, until an hour after the attack started. we don't exactly know what that means but we know it's the subject of investigation.

general dunford also explained today for the first time that an american remotely piloted vehicle, ease pas he put it, an american drone, hadn't been assigned as surveillance overwatch for the green berets' operation that day but once the u.s. military was aware this firefight was under way and this patrol was in trouble an american drone that was overhead and nearby for some other purpose was retasked to go fly over the scene of this firefight. according to general dunford, that drone was there within minutes. so that was all concrete and new information from the chairman of the joint heefz of staff today, who again spent almost an hour with the pentagon press corps taking lots and lots of specific questions, and offering what seemed to be as much information as he could give, even as many of his responses basically was just him asking for patience on the part of reporters until the pentagon and the fbi investigation can get further along. in terms of fleshing out the facts of what happened. so in terms of the story obviously there's this

continuing drama and consternation around the president's continued reticence to talk about this and his emotionally distressing and false remarks around the issue of condolences to military families. that is part of this story. that is happening domestically. at the pentagon today we've got general dunford explaining what can be explained until the investigation goes further along. but then there's a third track, which is reporting. and as general dunford was finishing up his remarks today at the pentagon the story of what happened in niger started to break in a whole new direction. and the first information came from voice of america news and then later on from nbc news this evening. what voice of america was able to break late this afternoon was thanks to their french language broadcasting service in west africa. journalists at the french language version of voice of america, they were able to interview the mayor of the town where the ambush took place where these american soldiers died. they interviewed the mayor of tonguo tonguo, which is the name

of the town nearest to where this ambush happened. the mayor's name is almou has n hassane according to voa and he's given voa an explanation as to how this attack happened. you can see from his explanation, his village set up the u.s. soldiers. "the attackers, the bandits, the terrorists have never lacked accomplices among the local populations." he describes a scenario in which residents of his village intentionally delayed the soldiers while the ambush was being set up by these militant groups. the mayor said that the village chief, the tribal chief in that village has now been arrested on suspicion of having been involved in setting up the soldiers. that report about the tribal chief from that village getting arrested, that was confirmed in the national assembly in niger today, when they debated extending a state of emergency in the part of niger where this attack happened. voice of america also interviewed the head of a newspaper in niger's capital city who says he's been briefed

on the ambush by niger's defense minister. his explanation was this. "it turns out this village was a little contaminated by hostile forces. the american unit stayed a little longer than expected because apparently people were aware something was going on," meaning the american forces were purposely delayed in order to give the attackers time to set up the ambush. according to the newspaper source and other local sources, "while the soldiers were still in the village a fake terror attack was staged nearby. the soldiers rushed to the scene, whereupon 50 or more assailants with vehicles and moetd sooik lz opened fire with kalashnikovs and heavy weapons." so that account based on sources including the mayor of the town where the ambush happened leads to this reporting from voa. villagers suspected of luring green berets into niger ambush. so that breaks voice of america this afternoon. then this evening nbc news national security and military reporter courtney cuby along with karen lee and ken dlanian

breaks the pentagon side of this story. they're sourcing their report to three u.s. officials who have been briefed on the matter. courtney cuby and her colleagues report this. "an emerging theory among u.s. military investigators is that the army special forces soldiers ambushed in niger were set up by terrorists who were tipped off in advance about a meeting in a village sympathetic to local isis affiliates. the american green berets and support soldiers had requested a meeting with elders of a village seen as supportive of the islamic state. investigators are leaning toward a conclusion that local militants used the meeting in the village of tongo tongo to have a sneak attack. villagers tried to delay the troops while they tried to leave the village. militants attacked them with small arms and machine gun fire. soldiers dismounted from their vehicles and began returning fire. they were soon facing mortars and rocket propelled grenades. the soldiers then got back in their trucks and retreated about a mile before they were ambushed

again. "the attackers had trapped the americans in a kill zone where they could envelop them in fire." the two separate ambush sites could explain why sergeant la david johnson's body was found more than a mile from the coordinates where the other dead and injured troops were evacuated by helicopter. so we'd had earlier reporting that this ambush was the ruflt a massive intelligence failure on the part of the u.s. military. that is now being investigated both by the military and by the fbi. these new reports suggest some of the specifics about where that failure might have turned fatal. there is a lot that is hard to get our heads around about this ambush and the loss of these four soldiers. i mean, regardless of the oddities and failures of this particular administration, it's strange overall that leading senators with defense responsibilities don't know about u.s. troops serving in

danger in a particular country. 800 u.s. troops in niger, more than any other nation in western africa. separate and apart from anything specific in this administration. it also remains a weird thing that the pentagon's africa command, africom, is headquartered in stuttgart, which is not in africa. i mean, regardless of this administration, preceding anything specific about this presidency, there are hard things to get your head around in terms of american responsibilities and expectations here. it remains hard to get your head around the thing that this deployment technically is probably legally justified by the 9/11 attacks. that's probably the legal authority under way this deployment is happening. right? the 9/11 attacks, which actually had more to do with germany than they did with niger in terms of where they were planned and launched from. so there's a lot that has nothing to do with the trump administration, that is hard to get your head around around this deployment and this attack and this grievous loss.

but then you add on top of that the particularities of this administration, which hasn't bothered to appoint a director at the national security council with responsibility for africa, which hasn't bothered to appoint an assistant secretary of state for africa, which just inexplicably last month angered and infuriated the neighboring nation of chad by adding them to the president's travel ban despite chad being our most experienced battle-hardened military ally in the region against boko haram and other militant groups associated with isis and al qaeda and all the rest of it. and of course at the apex of military responsibility here we still have a commander in chief who will not discuss this incident. even today. will not talk about is it. thanks to this new reporting from voice of america and nbc news, we at least do have our first disturbing key insight into how that day may have unfolded and why. joining us now is courtney kube, nbc's national security and military reporter who's the lead reporter on this scoop tonight.

courtney, thank you for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> can you tell us where this story came from? obviously you can't reveal sources that you're not naming in your piece. but when you describe this as a theory that investigators are leaning toward, how hard are they leaning on that and do we know the basis for them doing so? >> so it's been a rumor, candidly, since a couple of days after the attack and after sergeant johnson's body was found. there had been rumors that there was just something fishy here. and whether it was that they were lured to this meeting and it was a setup or the elders or the villagers or whomever it was, the thing -- the sticking point that u.s. military and defense officials who i spoke with and intelligence officials, the sticking point was always how is it possible that this large number of militants were able to mass without the u.s. knowing? and so i think they started from there and moved on. and then just in the past two or three days officials who we've

spoken with have started calling in the more prevailing theory, that there was something here the u.s. -- these soldiers were set up for. we don't know the extent yet. we don't know if it was villagers or just the elders or exactly what. but that's something that is still under investigation here, rachel. >> soldiers in far-flung parts of the world, particularly when they are far from support services and search and rescue resources and things like that, we know that their lives in many ways depend on both intelligence but also copacetic working relationships with local forces and support forces. we've heard this previously described as a massive intelligence failure on the part of the u.s. it certainly seems like they walked into something blind that there ought to have been some intel about, there ought to have been some way to have some foresight about. do we know anything about the way the pentagon and the fbi are pursuing the investigation into that part of it? >> so we know that -- right now

they still believe this was some sort of an isis affiliate. one they're looking at is isis g.s., which stands for isis greater sahel. they are trying to make a name for themselves and become an actual isis affiliate. that of course is still under investigation, exactly who was behind this. one thing that is clear that defense officials do not deny, is that this was an isis-sympathetic area. that means there were fighters there, there were villagers there who weth they actually believed in the isis ideology or they are doing what they have to do to survive, remember, this is a very tribal area. so much of what these guys -- these villagers may have been doing, it could have been nothing more than an allegiance to the area and a sense of how to survive. we just don't know. that's something that's still under investigation. the fbi -- we forget that, you know, this is a u.s. military mission. but the fbi often does help with investigations like this. think of what they're good at. they're good at getting the bad guy, finding out who the bad

guy-s and that's one of the main reasons they're involved in this. they also have some sort of role in forensics here. i don't really know the extent of it. but that's one -- those are two of the areas the fbi investigators are helping with. >> courtney kube, nbc national security and military reporter, lead reporter on this scoop tonight, nbc news. courtney, thanks for helping us understand it. really appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> former attorney general eric holder joins us live for the interview in just a moment. stay with us. except for one of us. i write them a poem instead. and one for each of you too. thats actually yours. that one. yeah. regardless, we're stuck with the bill. to many, words are the most valuable currency. last i checked, stores don't take "words." some do. not everyone can be that poetic voice of a generation. i know right? such a burden. the bank of america mobile banking app. the fast, secure and simple way to send money.

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it was 2010. i was in alaska. lisa murkowski was an incumbent senator who'd lost the primary for her own seat and then went on to win it anyway by running

as a write-in candidate in the general election, which is nuts for a senate race. and in the middle of that nuttiness i went up to alaska to cover that race. and there unexpectedly on the street in anchorage, that's where i learned that any political conversation with a stranger at any point might suddenly veer into untrue nonsense about eric holder. you just have to be ready for it at any time. >> good luck, you guys. >> thank you. >> eric holder -- we disagree with that. >> she what? >> wrote in to confirm eric holder. >> why are you against is that? >> he's the most anti-gun attorney general this country has ever had. >> what's he done against guns? >> what hasn't he done against guns? let's ask that question. let's look at what his voting record before-hand -- >> eric holder wasn't an elected official. >> no, just -- all i'm asking is look at what his record is with obama, then. look at what he's -- >> what's he done on guns that you're upset about, though?

just so -- >> i honestly, i'm not -- i don't know enough about that to answer that truthfully. >> can i just ask why are you upset about eric holder? >> because he's anti-gun. >> what has he done that's anti-gun? >> i don't have all the facts but i know he's anti-gun. >> there's no specific thing he's done that you guys are upset about? >> look at his press releases. >> i will. but what press release? about what? >> anything -- >> that was in alaska in 2010. eric holder, the nation's first african-american attorney general, had only been serving in that role since the previous year, but by 2010 he was already the object of ornate fantasies by people who really were invested in hating him, even for things he hadn't done. eric holder served as attorney general from 2009 to 2015, whereupon the republican-controlled senate finally consented to swear in loretta lynch as his successor. eric holidayer served for 12 years in the justice

department's public integrity unit before becoming a superior court judge in d.c. then becoming the u.s. attorney in d.c., then becoming the deputy attorney general, and then becoming attorney general. since leaving office as a.g. he has returned to private practice to the law firm covington and burling. tonight he's here for his first live tv interview since president trump was sworn into office. mr. attorney general, thank you for being here. >> it's good to be here. >> have you seen that clip before? >> i have seen that clip. i saved it. i saw it on youtube and it's in one of my watch later save -- i watch it every now and again. >> i wonder if now that you are no longer the lightning rod that you once were, do you miss that at all? do you get any sort of perverse satisfaction from the inco-ate hatred you attracted? >> no, not really. actually, it was snag kiomethin kind of baffled me. i never quite understood -- like that piece you showed, what was the nature of -- and the depth of the negative feelings that i generated in people on the other side. i never quite understood that.

>> in your time as attorney general, all those years, it didn't become more clear? >> no. never really did. i said things in support of the program of the president, but there seemed to be a special animus that political washington and then, you know, people like that had for me. and you know, i'm not totally sure what that was all about. >> there have been -- by the time you were sworn in there had been 82 attorneys general. >> yes. 81. i was the 82nd. >> 82nd. so 80 of them, 79 of them, had been white men. >> right. >> alberto gonzalez had a term as attorney general that didn't end well. janet reno was the only woman who had served as attorney general before you. and you're the first african-american man to serve. the only vitriol that i've seen directed at a public official that was so divorced from that public official's record other than to a president was against janet reno. and my theory about that has always been that the nation's

top law enforcement officer is someone whoef oakes a different kind of emotional reaction out of particularly a paranoid slice of the public and it's therefore just a hard place to be first, to break any sort of barrier. >> i mean, the attorney general sits at the conjunction of law and policy and the justice department is in so many parts of so many people's lives. you know, from national security things to civil rights, voting, that you are a presence in a way that other cabinet members are not. that is at least one of the reasons why perhaps, you know, i could engender those kinds of negative feelings. most people saw me as a representative of the obama administration. and for some. and i'm not saying this is for all. but for some i think there were probably some racial issues. >> in terms of the justice department as a national security agency, which in many ways it is, i've always wondered

if it fits the line of national security policy making in the sense that it's less partisan than other types of domestic policy, what i mean by that is in my job i'm often looking back into -- sometime in the last couple generations looking for historic a.m. context for things that aare happening now. if the public security officials are -- i often have to look up what their partisan affiliation is because in the national security environment it's just often not that important. and there's a certain continuity and inner shah in national security policy that transcends partisan wins. is that also true at justice? >> yes. and justice department officials have gotten in trouble, attorneys general have got nen trouble when they've forgotten the justice department is really different from other cabinet agencies. i remember senator leahy said to me during the confirmation, you're not the secretary of justice, you're the attorney general of the united states, and there has to be a wall

between the justice department and the white house, even though you're a part of the administration. put up kind of an interesting thing between me and the president who i was a friend with. there were certain things we couldn't discuss. certain things we didn't discuss. but i think that's an appropriate way for an attorney general to think of himself or herself and it's an appropriate way for the justice department to be run. >> is there more discontinuity between the justice department under jeff sessions and the justice department under president obama than there has been between previous administrations? >> i'm looking from the outside but it sure seems that way to me. there have been statements that this attorney general has made. attorney general sessions has made. the interactions he's had with the white house that are inconsistent with the way in which i conducted myself as attorney general and frankly the way in which my predecessors, many of my predecessors, conducted themselves. certainly the berating that he reportedly took by the president

is totally inconsistent with my experience. and again, i think inconsistent with all the previous attorneys general that i'm aware of. >> is that just a matter of personality and washington personal drama or do you think that there is a national consequence or risk associated with that strange thing that we saw unfold with the president berating his attorney general? >> i think that actually worries me because i think it betrays a lack of understanding on the part of the president about what the role of the attorney general has to be. you can't go at the a.g. in that way. if you truly understand the independent role that he should play within the administration. there are going to be things that an attorney general's going to do that a president is not going to agree with. and a president really is going to suck it up and say the a.j. has the responsibility to enforce the laws, he's got national security responsibilities, and he is an independent actor in the way that other cabinet officials are not. >> unless the president doesn't

treat him that way. >> unless the president doesn't treat him in that way. and history has shown us that when that wall is too low that's when justice departments get in trouble. during the nixon years. during the bush years. when you have white house contacts with the justice department in channels that are not approved. >> what's the corrector for that when it goes bad? >> resignations, investigations, public outcries. you know, there are really no formal things -- ultimately i suppose impeachment of an attorney general, something along those lines. but it really is a question of having a vibrant press focused on these issues and the american people keeping track of what's going on between d.o.j. and the white house. >> stay right there. we'll be right back with former attorney general eric holder. ♪ mr. wise man... you wish to know how to protect your sterling credit score. my credit is off to a good start, but i worry my information was hacked, which kinda freaks me out.

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back again with us for the interview is former attorney general eric holder. thank you again for doing this. you mentioned a moment ago that there were boundaries between you and the president in terms of things that you ought not talk about. >> mm-hmm. >> where were those boundaries tested the most between you and president obama? where was it most difficult to keep the appropriate amount of distance? >> well, see, that's the thing. it wasn't difficult with barack obama. he's a lot of things, and among them he's a really good lawyer who understands the value of having an independent justice department. now there, were things that i would want to share with him because i knew he was going to

be reading about them in the newspapers the next day, monday or something like that. the doma decision, for instance, the decision not to defend doma i made. i thought this is one he can't read about in the newspapers. so i on a sunday at a super bowl party i told him this is where we were going to go. this is a decision i had made. and he said to me, i'm really glad -- i didn't know how to approach you because this is where i wanted my justice department to be. i didn't think it was appropriate to share that with you, but i'm glad you made that decision. >> so you present td to him as a fait accompli and he said i'm glad, i wanted to suggest to you to do this but didn't feel it was appropriate. >> exactly. that is an example of the kind of relationship that should exist between an attorney general and a president. there are a whole range of law enforcement issues that i never shared with him where an indictment was going to be brought and he would simply -- and people in the white house would simply read about it in the newspapers the next day. >> when president obama has -- excuse me, when president trump

has publicly and repeatedly expressed anger toward his attorney general, specifically for having recused himself on matters related to the campaign including the russia investigation, those public expressions of the president to me seem unprecedented because anybody facing investigation expressing regret over somebody not being in a position to move the investigation one way or another just seems strange, but how did that strike you? >> unprecedented, unwise, sxuan ultimately not helpful to the president. to be argued that it betrays a mindset of concern and might be said to evince some consciousness of guilt or some concern that those who are acting independently might do something to him that is negative in the nature and that if his appointed attorney general was still in charge he might not be in as bad a position. so that is -- i'm sure his

lawyers would have been apoplectic about having that kind of interaction between the president and the attorney general. >> what about these recent reports that the president has apparently been meeting with potential nominees for u.s. attorney positions? you were a u.s. attorney in d.c., the d.c. u.s. attorney is one of the people who president obama -- president trump, excuse me, reportedly met with before he nominated her. >> unprecedented. the way it was done in the obama administration and the clinton administration as well and i think in the bush administrations, the highest-level person you that spoke to as an incoming attorney general -- as an incoming u.s. attorney was in fact the attorney general. that was it. nobody went to talk to the white house. >> and why is that? why was it structured that way? >> to again ensure that independence. so a u.s. attorney would understand that your boss is the attorney general of the united states, you're not supposed to have any contacts -- a u.s. attorney is not supposed to have any contacts with the white house except through the justice department. and the choices that at least

have been reported of the people he spoke to are interesting. two u.s. attorneys in new york. u.s. attorney in washington, d.c. and the u.s. attorney in florida who's got -- where mar-a-lago is. and that gives me some concern that he's decided to have these ints raxs with united states attorneys who might possibly be in a position to get at him. >> and what's the correction? >> to hopefully have good people in these positions who will in spite of the fact they've had these meetings with the president will understand what the nature of their jobs is. >> that's the correction? the hope they're good people? >> yeah. i don't think there's anything that is, you know, legally inappropriate with what the president did. but with so many of the things that he does, it's just not the way things are done. it is not the tradition -- traditional way in which things are done within the justice department, that zealously,

jealously guards its independence. >> do those norms and mores and to a certain extent rules that were previously seen as inviolate, which we can tell because they weren't violated before, this should those things be codified and sort of hardened in a way we never expected to have to do? this president is testing the bounds of what's acceptable behavior and changing the rules by his behavior. >> i think that might be one of the inevitable and perhaps positive things that comes out of this. you know, to put on paper certain things that in the past we just did by tradition, by good practice. we have seen that if you have a president who's made the determination that he's not going to be beholden to tradition and to, you know, tried and true practices that maybe we have to put on paper the u.s. attorney candidates meet only with the attorney general. and you can put that in in some form or fashion in the rules within the justice department.

>> those guidelines that were always well understood, they maybe have to become hard fences. we'll be right back with former attorney general eric holder. today, the new new york is ready for take-off. we're invested in creating the world's first state-of-the-art drone testing facility in central new york and the mohawk valley, which marks the start of our nation's first 50-mile unmanned flight corridor. and allows us to attract the world's top drone talent. all across new york state, we're building the new new york. to grow your business with us in new york state,

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gerrymandering to the extent that we can. then you know, i'll see. i'm not, you know, saying no at this point. but that's not the -- not the focus of what i'm concentrating on now. >> you're not working on the redistricting project because it's part of a larger project in terms of you getting back into public life in an electoral way? >> no. i think -- and i'm not being hyperbolic here. i think our democracy is under attack. if you look at gerrymandering and the way in which we have a system where politicians are picking their voters as opposed to citizens picking their representatives. if you look at the way in which these voter suppression laws have been passed. we're coming to be a country that is inconsistent with our founding ideals and the notion of one man one vote is really under attack. and so i'm bound and determined to do all i can to reverse that which has happened especially over the last decade. >> i think you and president obama surprised a lot of people in early january when you announced you were going to be working on this project together on redistricting.

in part because redistricting and gerrymandering is an old political problem. it's not novel. and each party has used it to their own advantage in different ways at different times and people have sort of been better or worse at it in different parts of the countries and in different eras. are you and president obama working on this because you want democrats to compete better at this time at the old project of redistricting and gerrymandering, or are you trying to eliminate it in general in a good government kind of way? ? i'll say a couple of things. first princeton did a study and said what republicans did in 2011 twhe drew the lines was the worst partisan gerrymandering of the last 50 years. what we are engaged in, and this sounds kind of inconsistent, is a partisan attempt at good government p. all i want to have done in 2021 after the census is that the lines be drawn in a fair way and make this hay battle between republican ideas, democratic ideas, liberal ideas, progressive ideas, and conservative ideas. if that is the case, if that is the contest we have, i think

democrats will do just fine. but what i do not want to have happen is for this to be a successful effort and then have democrats in 2021 do what republicans did in 2011. that is not what this project is all about. >> so you feel like republicans kind of ran the table on this during the obama administration when they did their red map project in 2010, that set them up in a way that tilted the playing field. >> yeah. >> what you want is to tilt it back and fix the system? >> yeah. tilt it back but get it to just fair. not tilt it back to sfafr democrats, just get it to a place where the lines are drawn in such a way that people truly have a choice, have more competitive districts at the congressional level, to have representation at the state level that's consistent with the wishes of the voters. . if you look at wisconsin, for instance, it's about a 50-50 state. republicans control 2/3 of the state assembly. and when you control for everything else it's really just a function of the way in which the lines were drawn in 2011. >> so i know that in this project you're working on ballot

initiatives in some places where they're going to try to do non-partisan redistricting. you're working on obviously public consciousness and awareness around these things. you're working on litigation strategy. you're also working on supporting individual democratic candidates in state legislatures whose election will be key in terms of what control of redistricting would look like there. that's a comprehensive strategy that i feel like does get at all the different elements that makes this sort of make or break this as a strategy. what i don't get is why this effort is going to succeed. i feel like i've heard so much democratic hot air on we've got to work on the states, we've got to work on redistricting. i feel like there's been so many projects launched that were going to do this that never really seemed to. why is yours going to have traction? >> i think ours is organized, first off. it is also the only thing that is within the democratic party that has sole responsibility, this whole notion of redistricting. i think the other reality is we're in the trump era. i think people have seen over

the past decade what partisan gerrymandering on the republican side has meant. where you have state legislatures that pass these crazy gun laws, these anti-choice laws, these voerter suppression laws. that are not necessarily supported by the people in those states. we have seen a dysfunctional congress where people come to congress, especially on the republican side, because of gerrymandering you're in a safe seat and you're more worried about being challenged by a person on the right. you're worried about being primaried as opposed to the general election. and that means that you have dysfunction in washington because people don't necessarily have to talk to one another. they don't have to compromise. in fact, that's a bad thing for someone who is in a gerrymandered district. so i think that dissatisfaction with the dysfunction, the concern about what trump -- the trump administration has been doing, and the way in which this thing is constructed within the party. and the support frankly we have gotten and -- . >> raising more than $10 million

in the first half of the year. >> and having a former president of the united states support this. i think this can be successful. >> i have one last question for you. lu stay rig will you stay right there? >> sure. >> we'll be right back with eric holder, the former attorney general. i love you, couch. you give us comfort. and we give you bare feet, backsweat,

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we're back with former attorney general eric holder. again, general holder, thank you for being here.

last question for you. you have known robert mueller for a long time. you knew james comey for a very long time. you know a lot of the people who have become prime movers and central characters in the russia investigation going forward. do you have confidence that the russia investigation will end conclusively with us knowing what happened and with some sort of justice being done? >> well, i have confidence that there will be a conclusive investigation done by bob mueller. the question ultimately becomes what does he do with the investigation that he completes. does he bring indictments? does he do a report like ken starr did and send it to the house? i'm not sure what happens there and how much of what he does will be able to be shared. he'll be using a grand jury. and there are rules that prevent the sharing of what happens in front of a grand jury to a general public though you can get a court to say that's okay. my hope would be that he would do a thorough investigation, decide on whatever avenue is appropriate. but at the end of the day share that information with the american people. the american people deserve to

know what happened with regard to russia, whether it was collusion collusion, who was involved. i think we deserve that. >> are you confident that, a, he has the resources he needs to get the job done? and b, that he's proceeding in a way that is actually digging up what there is to dig up? i ask that in part because it's unclear to me whether or not, for example, the cia under mike pompeo is being fulsome with the fbi investigators, whether the justice department under attorney general sessions is being as cooperative as they can be. do you think he has all the resources that he needs, all the tools he needs? >> based on the hiring decisions he's made i know a great number of those people. he's got an a-team surrounding him. i also know bob mueller. he's an ex-marine. he's a guy who focused on what the aim of a project is and doesn't get deterred, doesn't --

he's resistant to pressure. i'm confident they'll do a thorough investigation and a fair investigation. people should understand that. this is a guy who was a republican appointee in the first bush administration, an assistant attorney general. this can't be characterized as some sort of partisan witch hunt. he's going to do a job and find -- make a determination based on the facts and on the law. >> having been on the sharp end of congressional investigations during your time as a.g. do you also have faith in the congressional investigations happening now on russia? >> i've got to tell you my faith in the congressional investigations is waning. i think i had some degree of hope about what they were doing, especially on the senate side. i still have some degree of hope that warner and burr might do a good job. but the house is just a mish mosh. you've got nunes who was recused and not recused doing his own investigation. i think to the extent congress is going to do anything meaningful it will probably have to come out of the senate. >> former attorney general eric holder, now back in private life but working on this very public campaign with president obama on democratic redistricting, which

sounds very technical but you make a good case for its centrality. >> i'm going to make it sexy. >> let the record show. mr. attorney general, thank you very much for your time. >> glad to be here. >> that does it for us tonight. we will see you again now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. isn't the headline to say we'll make it sexy? >> the word sexy was used but you know me, i blotted it out as soon as it happened and couldn't hear anything else. >> i noticed that. thank you, rachel. >> thank you, lawrence. well, this morning the widow spoke. and an interview flawlessly by george steph nop louse, meyisha johnson spoke about her husband sergeant la david johnson who was killed in action in niger. last week when congresswoman frederica wilson quoted the president as saying he knew he