i wonder who he is talking to. maybe it was the call with the president. i don't know. >> looks like he's having fun. >> he sure does. my thanks to evan, alicia, betsy. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. see you back here monday at 4:00 p.m. ♪ welcome back to our continuing coverage on the strike in syria. 8:00 p.m. on the east coast, 5:00 p.m. out west and 3:00 a.m. in syria. we'll bring you all of the latest in our extended coverage. the country there reeling after the u.s./french/british strikes, an attack in response to assad's use of chemical weapons on his own civilians. this is a message to syria and its sponsors, iran and putin. there's been a failed attempt at a u.n. resolution condemning the attack. there are new reports of putin's disinformation campaign escalating. on capitol hill there is support but some raising questions about

whether the president needs explicit congressional authority for actions like this. a larger question that donald trump stoked even amidst what people said is a reasonable strike, and that is whether it is a mission accomplished. if so, what was the mission? i will be joined live in studio in new york by the top democrat on the house foreign relations committee. we begin right now to give you the latest on these air strikes. reaction from several pleern countries. saudi arabia expressing support for the action. uae says it does support the actions led by the u.s., but the key is finding a political solution and a basis to solve the entire crisis in the war-torn country. meanwhile, egypt basically expressing concern about these strikes and saying it could have a negative impact on the safety of the people inside syria. now back to what actually happened. more than 100 missiles aimed at three different chemical weapons storage and research facilities near damascus and homes.

vice president mike pence speaking about the mission today and saying these air strikes deal with syria's chemical weapons and dealt a major blow to the program. >> we believe that we significantly degraded their program. we believe that we significantly degraded their ability to produce chemical weapons. but this was also about re-establishing what we call a deterrent framework, working with our allies, as president trump reached out to the united kingdom and france. >> also tough rhetoric aimed at syrian president bashar al assad in this emergency meeting at the u.n. security council. this is something that russia triggered and u.n. ambassador nikki haley said she had a clear message to syria. if you use chemical weapons again, the u.s. will act. >> i spoke to the president this morning, and he said if the syrian regime uses this

poisonous gas again the united states is locked and loaded. when our president draws a red line, our president enforces the red line. >> our team of reporters have been working overtime all weekend covering the story. nbc aunls nichols live at the pentagon. hans, i will begin as we often do with the unfair question. has anything changed at this hour from the pentagon's point of view of assessing what's been done and where they're headed. >> reporter: not that they shared with us, ari. they continue to do their battle-damage assessment. they want to know exactly what they hit, what objectives they met. the initial objectives on that, they do think they had a fair amount of success and they think they achieved what they wanted to. number one, all of their missiles landed on target, none were shot down or failed. they learned syrian were not

able to stop them. they didn't have any casualties for the fixed-wing aircraft they had. they think they knocked back, degraded the chemical weapon capability. listen to how general mackenzie put it. >> we believe that by hitting bars in particular we attacked the heart of the syrian chemical weapons program. i'm not saying they won't be able to reconstitute it. i'm not saying it is going to continue. this has dealt them a serious blow. >> now, ari, when we talk about next steps, everyone at the pentagon stresses they always reserve the right to escalate. they've been explicit about that, especially with assad. they say the next move is in assad's court. if he uses chemical weapons again, they've all but vowed to strike yet again. ari. >> jeff, when you look at the reception here, we've been reporting this all day, in a presidency that is known to have a lot of critics and to make a lot of mistakes, if we're being blunt, this is a day that seems

to have gone reasonably well with -- and i've had them in our coverage tonight -- with people who are normally critical of donald trump, saying this worked. and yet it seems that too little words, "mission accomplished" on the messaging front are the one thing he struggled with. any thinking, any reporting you can suggest about the building behind you and how they feel about his choice to say that? >> what is so choice of his use of that phrase is usually when the president tweets things and you ask senior administration officials or regular white house officials about it they won't give you a read on what they're thinking. they say some version of the tweet speaks for itself. senior administration officials and military leaders back the president up on this. the spokesman at the pentagon said, in fact, the mission was a success. we heard from nikki haley echo the comments, even from vice president mike pence. what we have seen today take

shape is a rhetorical pressure campaign best captured by nikki haley saying the u.s. is locked and loaded and could take further action if need be. in this instance apart from a reflexive criticism the president seems to be getting from democrats who suggest he should have gotten prior congressional authorization ahead of this attack, your point is spot on that by and large republicans are backing him without reservation and the fact that he appears to be showing resolve on this issue is well accepted. still, republicans and democrats say they want to see a well articulated, coherent strategy for months to come. >> jeff bennett, hans nichols, thank you. president trump has been met with some criticism but some assessments say it worked. a number of democrats say the president still should have consulted congress. the ranking democrat in the

house foreign affairs unit released a statement saying, quote, the administration wants to come to congress with a clear end to push for the end of the violence and a future for the country in which assad has no role in regime change. the president must come to congress for military action. republican john mccain saying the air strike worked but adding a comprehensive strategy is still needed. i turn now to that very ranking democrat, congressman elliot angle. thanks for being here on a saturday night. >> thank you for having me. >> seems like you are saying this may have worked for what it was but doesn't have a mission and needs authorization. barack obama as president also did a lot of strikes without authorization. same standard? >> same standard. first of all, the strike yesterday was fine. i think what assad has done to his own people is just

horrendous. i think it sent a well deserved message to him. but if this is going to involve things to come, i think that the president needs to come to congress. congress has been sort of aced out of the whole situation for many, many years now. successive administrations have been using authorization for the use of military force dating back to 2001 and 2002. that should not be left to stand. >> i just want to be clear for viewers. that was the same foreign policy and legal architecture that the obama administration used. you oppose that as well? >> yes. the obama administration tried to put on the table a new aumf. the one from 2001 and 2002 was obviously after 9/11. >> yes. >> we have moved along. >> he sought an update which is

more than this president did. he took the position that they could use these very old post 9/11 authorizations of force to hit other new countries. i guess the question here is if you did authorize a new operation against syria could that have the unintended consequence of making it seem like you are declaring war on bashar al assad or is that what you want to do? >> i think unfortunately bashar al assad, whether he has these chemical weapons or not, is essentially on the way to winning this war. >> you think assad is winning? >> oh, i know assad is winning. >> when donald trump tweets "mission accomplished" what does that tell you? >> that's to slap assad on the wrist and say we won't tolerate his killing his people with gas and things like that. he's killing people more than 500,000, 600,000 syrians have been murdered. civilians have been slaughtered.

i deal with syrian-american groups all the time. they tell me what's happening on the ground is just horrific. while i think it is good to strike to tell him that this is unacceptable so he'll kill people with other methods. that's really not more acceptable. in order to have a coherent plan, i think the president needs to come to congress and congress needs to give him the authorization. >> that's the biggest story, i think, right now. but the other story that would be big if we hadn't begun bombing another country is what looks like a complete and total meltdown in the white house over donald trump's long-time lawyer michael cohen having his office raided and being under criminal investigation according to the feds. i don't think it's sunk in for people. i was reading the filing that the doj released to the court on friday against michael cohen. it paints the picture of someone who, according to the feds, isn't really a lawyer, doesn't really have a lot of clients and

does a lot of stuff for one person -- donald trump -- and, by the way, is maybe breaking the law. that's what comes through in the filing. it is devastating. in your view, if the president responds to this heat on michael cohen by trying to remove rod rosenstein is that an element of obstruction? >> it could be looked at it as. that would be a horrific thing. i have taken the position from day one that mr. mueller should be allowed to conduct his investigation and so should mr. rosen stein. any attempt to obstruct that or change that, i think the way many people would interpret that is obstruction of justice. >> would you interpret it that w way? >> i think possibly. they should be left alone to do their job. >> final question. you and i have talked about these issues before. the founders in their wisdom or in their ignorance made the pardon power unreviewable.

does that mean donald trump could stop this by pardoning michael cohen and that would be fine in your view? >> i don't know if it would be just fine. i think he might take the view that he could. i think it would be lunging into one crisis after another, but that's what we have been seeing for the past few years. >> should he get away with it if he does that? there are indications he's moving toward something, whether that's pushing against the prosecutors is one way to do it or pardoning. on friday he issued his first obstruction pardon for a white house aide from a different administration. >> again, i think the president should not fire anyone. i don't think he should interfere with it. he should let it play out, whether it's mr. mueller or mr. rosenstein. >> congressman, i appreciate you making time -- i know this is a busy time for you and saturday night, but an important time. thank you for being here. >> thank you. pleasure to be here. >> appreciate it. we have two more special guests given the news. i want to bring in former

counselor to presidents, a special middle east coordinator under bill clinton and former ambassador. dennis ross. i'm joined by former chief of staff at the cia and the pentagon jeremy bash. ambassador ross, you spent a good deal of time around issues in the middle east and israel, so you are familiar with situations that are vexing and difficult and one option looks worse than the next. that's been a theme of some of the expert who is have spoken tonight about what can be done in syria beyond targeted attacks. i wonder, your assessment -- since this is the first time we are hearing from you tonight -- on this operation tactically and whether there is a mission or not in a larger sense. >> i think you used the operative word. tactically, this was a success. we identified a small number of targets that were related to the development of chemical weapons within syria. we were able to strike and

destroy those particular targets. they are not the sum total of all the chemical weapons capabilities or agents within syria, but they represent part of an infrastructure that lends itself to syria being able to produce chemical weapons. so from that narrow tactical standpoint, this mission was successful. it doesn't change the balance of power in syria. it doesn't make a political process more likely. it doesn't change the character of iran's presence and expanding presence in syria including close to the israeli border. it doesn't deal with the factors that might lead to a political process within syria or that might reduce some of the risk of a conflict between the israelis, iranians, shia militias and hezbollah. from the larger standpoint, this is a kind of one-off approach designed principally not just to deal and send a message on chemical weapons. the truth is the real -- the real target of this is -- are

the russians. to convince the russians that since the president has made it clear he wants to get out of syria, the last thing assad should be doing is taking steps that invite us to act militarily. i do believe one other mission that was probably pursued here was to convince the russians that they have to control assad and they certainly have the means to do so when it comes to the use of chemical weapons. >> do you give the trump administration credit then for standing up to russia in this way if, in your view, that was the right thing to do. >> it was necessary to respond to the use of chemical weapons, not simply because of the importance within syria but the message it sends more generally that chemical weapons cannot be treated like any other weapon. there will be other dictators like assad who may have internal problems. they shouldn't think using chemical weapons is a get out of jail free card and they can use it with impunity. >> let me press on that. for viewers -- you know,

sometimes people wonder about that. you say that like it's axiomatic. >> yeah. >> there is criticism of western powers as well that our policies result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people including civilians, including collateral damage. why, from your perspective -- you say as an obvious premise -- why are chemical weapons held out in the international legal community as so specially horrific if all of the other things going on also result in terrible loss of life? >> especially in syria what you are saying is completely true. we have more than half a million dead. a very, very tiny percentage of that is a function of chemical weapons. having said that, chemical weapons have been outlawed since world war i. we are going back a hundred years. when you take a weapon that's been outlawed and suddenly say it's okay, you can use it, especially given the character of it. small amounts of it can kill

very large numbers of people. you're dealing with horrific weapons. you don't want to somehow erode the prohibitions against their use. that's the real reason. that would be the main point i would make about why you single out chemical weapons or biological weapons or nuclear weapons. >> mm-hmm. your thoughts on any of the abo above? >> i agree chemical weapons are particularly heinous, particularly horrendous in terms of affecting innocent human life. but they are an aggravating factor. the underlying criminal, unlawful activity is assad waged war on his own people. i was struck, ari, and i love dennis's perspective on this, is why the administration selected such a narrow approach to this mission. there is a phrase in the pentagon when i worked there which is don't waste a crisis. i think the administration could have expanded the target set to degrade assad's war-making machine against his own people

with the political objective of trying to change the balance of power and sending a stronger signal to russia that, hey, we need to have a political diplomatic dynamic that erodes assad's power and ultimately gets him out of the way. >> hmm. ambassador? >> i think the administration was driven by concerns about escalation with the russians. they went to great pains to strike those targets where the russians and even the iranians weren't nearby. i think this was a very deep concern within the pentagon was not to create a possible exchange with the russians or put the russians in a position where they might retaliate, number one. number two, i think they were highly sensitive to the iranians, worried the iranians might respond using shia militias against american presidents in syria which is about 2,000 personnel. and a larger presence in iraq of about 5,000. i suspect that's what drove the administration. do i think it would have been smart to try to hit some of the

command control sites within syria which gets much more at the basics and the underpinnings of assad's power? absolutely. >> right. >> i do think what was driving the administration was make a statement about chemical weapons, increase the prospect of deterring assad's use and basically the russians constraining him so they won't use chemical weapons. there was not a larger purpose here. there was a narrow tactical purpose. it doesn't relate to the larger questions and the larger character of the conflict within syria. >> jeremy, on the point about trump and russia, you have been critical of many of his actions and statements. it has become commonplace to say the one thing donald trump won't do on twitter is criticize russia and is that suspicious. let me read for your benefit and the viewers donald trump saying russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at syria. get ready, russia. they will be coming. nice, new and smart. you shouldn't be partners with a gas killing animal who kills his people and enjoys it,

exclamation mark. one can quibble with the twitter rhetorical style of donald trump. we all know it well by this point. are you, jeremy bash, as a critic, willing to acknowledge and credit him with doing something many people said he'd never do? >> yes. i think the statement last night at 9:01 p.m. also made clear that russia is acting in a way that enables the assad regime and the president's rhetoric was direct. the issue isn't the rhetoric but the action. at some point we have to say to russia there will be consequences for harboring assad, for allowing him to wage war on his own people. i think we need to ratchet up the pressure across the board on russia and the main policy approach for the trump administration since they got into office with regard to syria has been to pull back, allow assad to stay in power and let russia work its will. we are seeing the disastrous consequences of that with this chemical weapons attack last weekend as well as many others

that have been perpetrated over the past 12 months. >> jeremy and dennis, thank you both. coming up, how is russia responding to the u.s.-led air strike? vladimir putin unhappy. what does that mean for the rest of us? i'm thrilled to tell you live in studio in new york we have one of the foremost authorities on all things putin -- journalist and author massa gessin. do you think it's going to surprise your daughter? absolutely. wait, is mom here yet? where's mom? she's in this car. what the heck? whoa. yo, whose car is this? this is the all-new chevy traverse. this is beautiful. it has apple carplay compatibility. do those apps look familiar? ohhhhh. do you want to hit this button? there's a hidden compartment. uhh, whoa. mom, when i'm older can you buy me this car? i wanna buy me this car. you won't find relief here. congestion and pressure? go to the pharmacy counter for powerful claritin-d.

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welcome back to our special coverage. saturday night. russia and syria making clear they have nothing but contempt for the u.s. air strikes. earlier today the u.n. security council rejected an attempt by russia to get a resolution condemning the assault. as i mentioned u.s. led with france and uk involved. this, of course, came as other harsh words from moscow came including vladimir putin calling the strike aggression against a sovereign state. bashar al assad also defiant after the attack and the washington post reports a twitter account maintained by assad's office wrote, the honorable cannot be humiliated. to go deeper into this and the russian mystery around it, i want to bring in masha gessen, the author "the future is history, how totalitarianism reclaimed russia." masha is a known expert to our audience as a putin explainer, even if you are more than that and that's not the only thing

you want to do with your life. >> he gives me fodder. >> plenty of fodder. you are a very interesting thinker and a very independent thinker. that makes you someone who doesn't play for a team. you sometimes bedevil people because although you are critical of putin you also disagree with some of the american presumptions about him and what's going on. let's begin with the conventional wisdom that putin controls trump. that's what many people think, right or not, and that trump can't stand up to putin as i was discussing with some other experts which seems to be to some degree detonated by him standing up to putin this weekend. how do you explain it? >> i don't think it requires an explanation. we have seen russian-american relationships deteriorate consistently. we have seen two major expulsions of diplomats from

both countries, the closure of consulates. at this point russian/american relations before the syria strikes and before trump calling out putin on twitter were at their lowest point since the cold war. this is something we don't think about because we are interested in the russian collusion story which is interesting and important, but it ignores the fact that we are also watching this deterioration. >> so when people hear you say that, they may think, well, i thought donald trump will criticize everyone but putin. >> that's not true. if you thought that then you're really not following what donald trump is really saying. you know, i think there are a lot of factors here. one important one is that we tend to overestimate both putin and trump. because it is comforting to think that whoever is running the world and whoever is running these two major powers is more highly organized and more

strategic than we know them to be. with trump that's difficult to maintain. >> is that your view that as human beings we don't like the idea that the people controlling the nukes are disorganized? >> of course. we don't like the idea of even on a broader, more philosophical scale the idea that humanity just stumbles into its darkest hour. we like to think of villains, it being thought out. if it's going to be terrible it should at least make sense. >> do you think accidental horror at a human level is somehow -- feels worse than deliberate horror? >> absolutely. accidental horror feels preventable. it feels so much more deeply regrettable than something that was carried out according to plan. >> yeah. that makes sense. i see that when people ask us about political events in the news. there is a real frustration -- i see this across ideology.

there is a frustration with things that have spun out of control or are accidental. in that there seems to be almost an extra injustice. of course world affairs and interstate conflict are typified by that. >> we would like to think someone is driving the bus. if the bus is going to go off a cliff at least someone was driving it. the idea that we are on a mountain road with no one behind the wheel is terrifying. i think that's where we are. >> when you look at russia's way of dealing with these attacks, general mccaffery, a four-star general who knows about this, was giving us a mini education on the fact that in this russia has the operational capacity to engage with these bombings. it just completely declined to do so. that's the geo-strategic capacity they have. as a student of putin and a critic of putin, how do you explain that choice by someone

who talks a lot of smack, who is out there going to the u.n. today, failed. who intervened in crimea. >> occupied crimea. >> yeah. i'm not choosing that word above and beyond any other. and who, according to the bob mueller indictment sent a lot of russians to criminally meddle in this election. yet today he sees this. how do you explain him not engaging the missiles? >> i think the best case scenario for putin on an immediate level is to rhetorically have a big war, but physically not have too many people come back in coffins. >> hmm. >> that heightens the mobilization his regime depends on. it depends on the sense of mobilization, the sense of purpose more now than last week. since the ruble collapsed as a result of american sanctions introduced last friday the economic squeeze will make people more anxious, more

doubtful. the best way to respond to anxiety is to get people mobilized around a big war. rhetorically russia is fighting a big war. there was one television channel that preempted its programming before the strikes to show war movies. today all the television channels preempted regular programming to report on syria 24/7. this is something russia has had a series of disasters -- >> what is their prism for the attack on syria if it doesn't involve russian action? >> oh, no, no. the war in syria is a russian-american conflict in the russian imagination. >> it is depicted as such. >> and it has been for years. the americans have attacked us. they have framed us. now here the chemical attack goes hand in hand with the poisoning of the spy in britain. in both cases russia was framed to justify what russians consider to be aggression. rhetorically they are fighting a big war. if you can minimize the physical and human losses from that while

still having the benefits from fighting a big war which you can do if you control the media if there is no independent information coming in you have the best of both worlds. >> masha gessen, you have given us plenty to think about including things people don't like to think about. thank you very much for being here. >> thank you for having me. after the break, president trump following in the footsteps of george w. bush with the old saying, mission accomplished. we'll be right back. [fbi agent] you're a brave man, mr. stevens. your testimony will save lives. mr. stevens? this is your new name. this is your new house. and a perfectly inconspicuous suv. you must become invisible. [hero] i'll take my chances.

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president trump says, quote, mission accomplished. that's reminding a lot of people of another president who echoed those words in the middle east. john allen writes trump's saturday morning declaration was widely seen as both premature and myopic. a literal echo of george bush landing on an aircraft carrier and announcing the u.s. mission in iraq was accomplished 15 years ago. john allen joins me now. well, what happened? why take what people have said was at least a tactically effective operation and add these famed bush words to it? >> well, you know, one thing i can tell you about president trump and most folks know this

intuitively is he likes to overstate how well he's done things. it's served him well in the business world and it's been a central element of his political persona. i don't know if he was trying to taunt george w. bush in some way as if this missile strike on syria was somehow tantamount to the iraq war. i can tell you when george w. bush said mission accomplished aboard the aircraft carrier 15 years ago and, you know, we have 5,000 troops still left in iraq, at least at that point he had essentially toppled a dictator. that's not the scope of what you are looking at with regard to these strikes in syria. president trump struck syria a year ago. his general policy in that region has been pretty continuous with president obama except the difference of strikes. what we have seen is without the strikes and with the strikes, neither one has deterred assad. very limited mission here. >> why do you think he came up

with the phrase which is so linked to bush? >> i'm not sure if he's trolling bush or not. the psychology of that is probably beyond mine to understand. mission accomplished is something that people tend to use, you know. i think trump would like people to see him as a commander in chief. >> i think the issue is donald trump in politics has proven to be reliant on other people's phrases. in other words, i just think it's what he does. america first, a famous isolationist phrase from lindbergh. make america great again was literally reagan's campaign slogan. it wasn't obscure. he just grabbed it. you know, the musician drake has been criticized for using ghost writers and famously told his critics, hey, this is for all of you who say i don't write enough calling out the fact he reject it is criticism of using ghost writers. donald trump is very blatant about using ghost writers.

he's not hiding it. i wonder if mission accomplished is just another day of taking another president's phrase. >> that's a very astute observation. he's definitely someone who is good at coopting other people's stuff, doesn't have a lot of original stuff. his original stuff that works -- little marco rubio or lying cruz. that's not that genius. maybe he thought mission accomplished sounded good. >> what about -- hold on. let's be fair. i was being critical. what about cheating obama? that was -- very high level clever stuff there. >> yeah. you know, look, if you think president trump's way of talking about president obama is a sign of poetry like drake or eminem or the other creative lyrical geniuses of our time, i'm not going to argue with you. >> well, look, the argument continues. i think you make a fair point that other than an adjective or

adverb here or there he's not an original prose stylist. we have mostly been serious tonight looking at serious issues. to me though -- and i like to keep it real with the audience -- it is hard to understand how you would invoke mission accomplished in the middle east unless you are in the habit of plagiarizing other people's words that you don't think about it. >> presumably because he doesn't understand what it means. >> correct. >> basically he just didn't get it from back then. nobody would think to coopt bush's thing which was heavily criticized at the time. the bigger the mission the less you need to say it was accomplished. franklin roosevelt, the day after d-day asked the nation to pray with him. >> yeah. that's well put. wasn't it teddy roosevelt who said walk softly but carry a big tweet? >> and if you supply the pictures, i'll supply the war. the rough riders -- >> the feeling i have around the

country is people want this segment to end. that's my fault more than yours. thank you very much. we are going to turn to another important story. james comey taking on donald trump in a war of words next. experience the 2018 lexus nx and the nx hybrid with a class leading 31mpg combined estimate. lease the 2018 nx 300 and nx 300 all wheel drive for these terms. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.

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we'll bring out the dogs. mush! (dogs barking) the old one's just fine! we'll do anything, seriously anything, to help our customers. thanks. ally. do it right. welcome back. these u.s.-led coalition air strikes on syria are, of course, the big story tonight. there is another major thing rattling the white house. that's former fbi director james

comey basically calling out donald trump for everything under the sun. trump is in the crosshairs following this abc interview as well as excerpts from the momentous book "a higher loyalty." >> honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but i don't know whether the current president of the united states was with prostitutes peeing on each other in 2013 in moscow. it's possible but i don't know. >> the commander in chief and his top aides weighing in saying james comey is a proven leaker and a liar. he is untruthful slime ball. it was my great honor to fire james comey. the press secretary said this -- >> comey will forever be known as a disgraced partisan hack that broke his sacred trust with the president of the united states. the dedicated agents of the fbi, and the american people he vowed to faithfully serve. one of the president's greatest achievements will go down as firing director james comey. >> snap. i am joined by former federal

prosecutor joyce vance and jeremy bash joins the conversation. we have spoken about many aspects already. james comey did serve his country honorably for a long time. he did provide testimony under oath which the president declines to do so far in the mueller probe. there are many obvious contrasts here. in the chlip i played and the book tour which is a for-profit event, it seems to many that he has decided to focus in on some of the most salacious and pointless allegations. if he doesn't know if the, quote, pee tape exists doesn't he have a better way to deal with the questions than to say as the former fbi director, it's possible? >> so i haven't read the book yet. i feel like i have to issue that caveat before discussing the portions of the book that we have seen. but it seems to me that the point former director comey is

making is the point that we have discussed as you point out a lot, having these sorts of questions about a president are very, very disturbing. we don't know if we can rely on the president of the united states to tell the truth or not. maybe he is. maybe he isn't. for a president to permit his credibility to be diminished to that level is, i believe, the problem that the former director points out here. >> i think you put that very well and very measured. i would continue to press you as is part of my job. is he out of line given his role as the former fbi director who was in the room for these important conversations holding forth on something that, by his own estimation, he has no idea whether it is true. it is a highly salacious thing. it is equally -- if not more possible that it is a disinformation tactic from russia rather than a thing that happened. and here we are, as you say, the

entire book isn't out for the general public to read at this hour. but this is what he's leading with in these television interviews. >> sure. i don't mean to be an apologist for james comey. i think we'll read the book and judge for ourselves. we have seen personal shots he takes at the president. many people find that to be surprising. at the end of the day, i suppose we'll have to read the book in its entirety and determine whether he has sort of lowered himself to the level of the president or tried to raise the discourse by talking about leadership lessons. >> jeremy? >> yeah. comey held himself out as a paragon of rectitude. it served him well. it's infused his narrative with a lot of credibility. i'm less troubled with the fact that he sprinkles in some of his interviews or the book which i haven't read either, joyce, with some color, some sort of descriptions of what he saw,

descriptions of the president or discussing some of the more crazy things. i think his point is this is not normal. we are not in a normal period of our history. anyone who tries to normalize these allegations associated with the president is undermining american democracy. i think comey has a broader, more important point. if people think he's not the paragon of rectitude he portrayed himself to be, so be it. take the evidence he's putting on the public record and judge it for yourself. >> the other thing that's happening that's real, that's not words, that is not a book, joyce, is that donald trump in the midst of all of this issued his first major pardon for obstruction of justice by a white house aide. i would submit absent the other big important things that would be the very biggest story all weekend. let me play for you what valerie plane said about it. >> the message being sent is you can commit perjury and i will

pardon you if it protects me and i deem that you are loyal to me. i think the message is very damaging to our democracy and the rule of law. you fear that is exactly what donald trump is saying, using a pardon of a bush aide convicted of obstruction and perjury, who never served a day in prison and already was commuted, but out of the blue going further with this pardon on friday to say something to people who work for him, who might have decisions to make in the open criminal probes? >> there's no other reason to issue this pardon. there's no other way to read it than as a message to people who are under indictment who could testify against the president. scooter libby was convicted of lying to the fbi and of obstruction to justice. this pardon comes out of the blue ten years after that conviction. conveniently timed for the week that the search warrant is executed on michael cohen's offices and residences. you know, pat fitzgerald, the

former u.s. attorney in chicago who was the special prosecutor who indicted scooter libby, issued a statement, and he acknowledged that the president has the right to issue a pardon, but it doesn't change the facts. and that's absolutely true here. the facts are the facts. people who obstruct justice should be convicted. they should be accountable for their conduct. for this president to send such a strong signal to people that he'll take care of them if they lie to the fbi, if they obstruct an investigation, it's a rule of law violation. it's amazing to me that, you know, although he can technically get away with it because he has the right to do it, people on the hill should be up in arms as much as former doj employees have been very vocal for the last couple of days protesting this move. >> yeah, it was quite extraordinary and quite extreme for something to happen there on friday, and i don't think we've heard the last of it. >> absolutely. >> thank you both for being part of our special coverage. i also want to flag a programming note.

you talk about james comey. well, how did he get here? there is a new edition of headliners, james comey, airing tomorrow 9:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. and we will be right back. feel the clarity of non-drowsy claritin and relief from symptoms caused by over 200 allergens. like those from buddy. because stuffed animals are clearly no substitute for real ones. feel the clarity and live claritin clear. so lionel, what does 24/5 mean to you?rade well, it means i can trade after the market closes. it's true.

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thanks for watching our ongoing special coverage of the strikes in syria. i'm ari melber. you can stay with us with updates throughout the night and breaking news whenever it happens. also if you want to find me, the beat airs every week night at 6:00 p.m. eastern. this monday i'll be joined by stormy daniels' attorney, michael avenatti. it is the day that trump lawyer michael cohen may plead the fifth. have a good night. right, mom? righttt. safe driving bonus checks. only from allstate. switching to allstate is worth it.

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