11:00 a.m. eastern tomorrow and again at 3:00 p.m. tomorrow. "deadline white house" with nicole wallace starts right now. it's 4:00 in new york. less than two weeks after calling north korean leader kim jong-un very honorable in the hopes of achieving the goal of a denuclearized korean peninsula, donald trump completely withdrew the united states from the iran deal, which while far from perfect, many believed it was helping to delay or avoid a nuclear arms race in the middle east. president trump also revealed that his newly confirmed secretary of state mike pompeo is on route to north korea right now to negotiate a deal with north korea to give up their nuclear program and to try to secure the release of three americans detained in that country. >> secretary pompeo is right now going to north korea. he will be there very shortly, in a matter of probably an hour. he's got meetings set up.

we have our meetings scheduled. we have our meetings set. the location is picked, the time and the date, everything is picked. we look forward to have a very great success. >> in announcing his intention to abandon the iran deal and reinstate the highest levels of economic sanctions, the president also warned that he will come after nations who aid iran in their pursuit of a nuclear weapon. >> the fact is this was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made. it didn't bring calm. it didn't bring peace. and it never will. america will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail. we will not allow american cities to be threatened with destruction. and we will not allow a rejgime that chants "death to america" to gain access to the most deadly weapons on earth. today's action sends a critical

message. the united states no longer makes empty threats. >> in a moment, we'll be joined by former secretary of state john kerry, one of the chief architects of the deal. until then, we want to bring you the latest reporting on the fallout from the president's decision. the "new york times" reporting that mr. trump's announcement, while long anticipated and widely telegraphed, plunges america's relations with european allies into deep uncertainty. they have committed to staying in the deal, raising the prospect of diplomatic and economic clashes as the united states reim poses sanctions on iran. joining me now to discuss, some of the best reporters and friends of the show. from the "new york times," peter baker. and with us elise jordan, a former aide in the bush white

house and state department. sam stein, politics editor for "the daily beast." and steve schmidt. peter baker, let me start with you. you and your colleagues have been on this all day ahead of the announcement. the last story i read on this, you've included the joint statement from president macron of france, prime minister theresa may of britain and angela merkel of germany urging iran to continue to meet its own obligations under the deal despite the america withdrawal. you quote them, we encourage iran to show restraint in response to the decision by the u.s. it sounds like we have a real policy dispute and split now with some of our closest allies. thanch >> we have a big schism with the biggest allies we have in europe on one of the most important

issues to them and the united states. they're saying that they're still in this deal just because president trump has gotten out and they want to find a way to salvage it with iran. despite the statement, it's going to be hard for europe to do. american sanctions will force european banks, european companies to pull out of iran. they have a choice between doing business with the united states or iran, they're going to pick the united states, of course, in their economic interests. while they're not happy about it and they're obviously going to protest it, in the end they're not going to be able to block what president trump is doing right now. the question becomes, what happens with russia and china, both of whom were also party to this deal and do not plan to follow along with president trump. they're not really as vulnerable to american sanctions. will they step in and fill that void in iran that europe will end up leaving. >> the president not standing behind the podium when he revealed that within an hour or so, according to him, his newly

confirmed secretary of state will be landing in north korea to continue to work toward talks, laying the groundwork for what would be historic talks with north korea about giving up their nuclear program. is it the unanimous view of all of the trump officials that you're covering that pulling out of the iran deal, breaking the word of the last president certainly strengthens the president's hand? is there anyone who worries that might not be the case? >> no, that's not the unanimous view, although it is more of a consensus view. the argument has been for weeks by all sorts of veteran diplomats and analysts that if you get out of the iran deal, you weaken your hand for the north korea deal because it tells the north koreans why should they make an agreement with somebody who doesn't keep their agreements from administration to administration. john bolton is saying this

actually strengthens their hand because it shows north korea we will not accept weak deals. the question is whether there's any kind of deal north korea could agree to that would meet the higher bar that donald trump set today. they actually have nuclear weapons unlike iran, which only had a program. it's hard to imagine that they couldn't look at this and see a cautionary tale. but they are coming to the table and we're going to hear soon about when that meeting will be and we'll learn soon enough, i suppose, whether or not this iran deal today will impact that dynamic. >> i want to bring you in and ask you to add any of your reporting to peter's reporting today. specifically on this question of, once again, whether that was planned or not, the president's comments on north korea, on mike pompeo being within an hour of

being in north korea, it was not included in the scripted remarks. whether he planned to say that or not, it is certainly even just in republican foreign policy circles, it is debatable whether or not the gaddafi example and now the iran example strengthen or weaken the president's hand in dealing with north korea. >> it's certainly a significant tell that he couldn't resist stepping away from the podium but still talking about north korea. west wing aides we've been talking to say that's where his focus is right now. he believes that some sort of deal with kim jong-un, that is sort of the ticket, replacing what he thought middle east peace could be. that that will be something that he could achieve that none of his predecessors could. there's been some chatter as a

noble pea nobel peace prize. this is another moment where it underscores how this president wants to sort of send the normal order of things upheaval. whether it was pulling out of the paris climate agreement -- he had a multiday charm offensive from macron and merkel at the white house about both tariffs and the iran deal. yes, they got a temporary extension on the tariffs, but that reprieve could end. certainly now he ignored them on this. he is feeling like he's forging forward with his gut, he's trying to keep his campaign promises. he has surrounded himself with far more hawkish national security advisors, bolton and pompeo. this >> obviously one of his other obsessions -- and we don't know what all the president's motives are, but i've also had some

sources who say that he views a win on north korea as something that could help him tremendously in the midterms. ma marry that with his obsession of undoing whatever obama was for and you have a pretty pathological picture of foreign policy making. we have something from obama's statement today. there are few issues more important to the security of the united states than the potential spread of nuclear weapons or the potential for even more destructive war in the middle east. that is why today's announcement is so misguided, walking away from the jcpoa turns our back on america's closest allies and an agreement that our country's leading diplomats, scientists and intelligence professionals negotiated. in a democracy there will also be changes from one administration to the next, but the consistent flouting of agreements that our country is a party to risks eroding america's credibility and puts us at odds

with the world's greater powers. i think the distinction is trump is voluntarily giving up things around which there was consensus as opposed to a war that, as it went on, caused our allies -- both the iraq and afghanistan starts with a pretty broad coalition. this seems to be the willful breaking up with our closest allies. >> this is what i'm having trouble grappling with. with your boss george w. bush, there was a foreign policy doctrine. with trump, there doesn't seem to be an actual doctrine beyond if obama was for it, i am therefore against it. that's why you have things like a sort of ambitious pursuit of

diplomacy in north korea happening at the same time you are retreating from arguably the most intricate diplomatic break through of the obama years. these two things don't coexist in an idealogical cohesion. he had an opportunity to pull out of the iran nuclear deal at sel several occasions prior to this. why now? arguably it's a worse time to do it now because he's in those negotiations with north korea, but he did it anyway. the only thing that changed is that hr mcmaster is not there and john bolton is. >> and pompeo is tech tear of sta -- secretary of state and tillerson is not. >> it seems pretty clear to me they didn't think through the next steps that come after this. we'll see how grave those steps will be. >> he also cited israeli intelligence as one of his proof

points in his prepared remarks today that the iranians were essentially cheating on the deal. the two figures who are ascendant in the president's foreign policy inner circle, they are historically very close allies of israel, very trusting of israeli intelligence. >> also i would add that our own american officials such as defense secretary jim mattis and also mike pompeo, the secretary of state emerged too. i think that we are going to look back on today as the most isolationist move made by a u.s. president in the postworld war ii order. i think this is a very huge move in terms of the united states literally going at it alone. you pointed out iraq, you pointed out afghanistan. there was multilateral support for those interventions, the aftermath notwithstanding. but this, we are truly just giving the middle finger to our

closest allies. >> let me pull the lens back a little bit and ask you to add to elise's point the experience of traveling to europe and refusing to affirm our commitment to nato, the very public rebuke of the paris accord, which a similar coalition lobbied the president to not pull out but try to improve if there were things we couldn't live with. can you add those two examples? >> of course. with donald trump's unilateral abrogation of this international agreement he has achieved a remarkable result of giving the high ground on issues of national trust and credibility to the islamic republic of iran, the world's number one leading exporter of terror, over the united states of america, isolating us from our allies on of all days v.e. day, the

anniversary of the end of world war ii where the united states in cooperation with its great allies saved the world from tyran tyranny. so we look at his pulling out of this. what he has shown is that the word of the united states in an international agreement means nothing. secondly, the breaker of this agreement is not iran, who has been compliant with it, but in fact our country, the united states of america. and lastly, this moves the world closer to war in this region. this is what foreign policy looks like when it's concocted in the fever swamps of fox news and the alternate reality of sinclair broadcasting and the alternate reality of talk radio. almost everything that the president represented was

materially false. what a competent and responsible president would have done -- and i understand that there are many people who think that the deal did not go far enough. it didn't include the iranian's ballistic missile program, it didn't include iran's export and funding of terror in the destabilization of the middle east. i think those are legitimate criticisms. a competent president would have said i don't like this deal, i have my eyes on the iranians. we're going to be insistent that there be tough verification and enforcement. there's no problem with this. but he has isolated the united states. of course, every time he goes to europe and he equivocates on our obligations under the article 5 provisions of nato, he sends a message to vladimir putin to go ahead,test us, make a move in the baltics. vladimir putin, if he's feeling gutsy on any day, looking at this president's equivocations

and the degree to which he has asundered the alliances that are so essential to this country, does he make a move? we don't know. but the world got a lot more more dangerous today because of the incompetence of this president whose only foreign policy philosophy seems to be to nullify the obama presidency. if barack obama was for it, he's against it. and he's against it even if it means he makes american national security weaker. >> peter, on the role that pompeo played, you write on friday mr. pompeo called his counterparts in europe to tell them that mr. trump was planning to withdraw but that he was trying to win a two week reprieve for the united states and europe to continue negotiating. mr. pompeo suggested that he favored a so-called soft withdrawal in which trump would pull out of the deal but hold off on reimposing some of the sanctions. this has to go down as pompeo's

first policy failure as secretary of state. that is not what we got today. >> that's right. it indicates the limits of his influence. it's interesting too because pompeo is considered to be a hawk. he's not thought of as the moderate that rex tillerson was seen as. yet in his role as secretary of state, he's obviously taken upon the traditional position of the state department, of the chief diplomat to seek more diplomatic solutions to things rather than potentially blow up alliances. his role now as the diplomat is to try to see if he could work something out with the europeans. there have been months of talks with the europeans. brian hook, the state department's policy planning director, to look for a way to avoid a complete rupture over this, to find ways to address the criticisms, the ballistic missiles, the terrorism in the region and so on, particularly the sunset clauses that made parts of the agreement expire in

10-20 years. he came up with some areas of compromise with europe. president trump didn't want to do that. he decided to go not just for a soft exit, not just for some sort of a side agreement, but for the full withdrawal. >> this is very trumpian. what i think peter just described and what the reporting seems to bear out is that there was a less extreme option on the table and he didn't take it. we've also seen on full display, the curtain was pulled back on this but none other than rudy giuliani, who's in the middle of a mosh pit of chaos around the president's legal questions about his relationship with a porn star. had a piece of paper, pretended it was the iran deal and spit on it. that was our high minded diplomatic preview of the president's foreign policy. can you talk about all the high road and low road and all the president's impulses that steve just laid out for us and how our

allies have to adjust to this incredibly unconventional and unpresidential politician. >> most of his impulses are going unchecked. there's very few people around him who could stand up to him and say you should do this differently. there has yet to be that person in the room. james mattis, defense secretary, has at times been able to soften him or convince him. we know a year ago when they were talking about what to do in afghanistan, there was a grouping of tillerson and mattis and others who were able to convince the president to change his mind and maintain a true presence there. those moments don't happen very often. this is a president who is going to more times than not not just go with what he wants to but do it in the most extreme way possible. it's a crass move that really would have been unthinkable under a previous president. it's almost a debus statiasing

government role. >> and it's this volume business. we went back and watched and sort of caught that off the cuff north korea moment, which wasn't the plan, but could end up being the most consequential thing -- >> i mean, it's all built on drama. even this announcement teased in a tweet that it was coming is built on drama. >> during melania's event. >> that was mean, i thought. if we think this moment was dramatic, i hate to break the news, but the forthcoming moments with respect to the iran deal are going to be far more dramatic. the most logical next steps are going to be that iran will not allow inspectors in to one of it sites. at that point in time, they will have unfortunately the moral high ground because we took the precipitating action. it becomes a little bit scary and uncomfortable to wonder what

the president does at that juncture. >> pompeo at his confirmation hearing said that iran still was adhering to the deal, and yet the united states pulled out anyway. >> that was just a couple weeks ago. that is one of the things we're going to ask former secretary of state john kerry, who joins us now by phone. your reaction to the announcement of a full withdrawal from the iran deal that you and president obama i believe would describe as one of the most significant foreign policy achievements of the obama presidency. >> it's not a question of it being an achievement of obama's presidency or my tenure as secretary. it's an agreement by which the international community, seven countries, entered into an agreement which was ratified by the security council of the united nations, which is accepted under international law as an agreement to prevent iran

from being able to get a nuclear weapon. what the president has done by withdrawing unilaterally is placed the united states in breach of this agreement. he has literally taken a situation where there was no crisis and created crisis by transferring to iran sanctions that were meant with respect to the nuclear agreement itself. now, we all agree that there are problems with iran in terms of yemen, in terms of its influence in other countries, hiezbollah, its missiles. those are legitimate problems. every one of those we kept in the agreement. we have sanctions for missiles, we have sanctions for arms embargo. we raised those in the obama administration. the fact is that what the president has done is unilaterally broken a multilateral agreement that was working to prevent iran from

having a nuclear weapon. in effect, it's a strange diplomacy when you do the ultimatums before you've actually done the diplomacy. this administration hasn't even talked to the iranians. >> you have, though. let me ask you about some reporting and the president's response to what's been reported about your involvement. it's been reported that you sat down at the united nations with the foreign minister to discuss ways of preserving the pact. it was the second time in two months that the two of you met. i want to ask you about the president's tweets attacking that, but i'd also like to ask you to respond to the yiccritic that you were doing the same thing that you accused the trump transition members of doing when they got involved in policy making. you're being accused of hypocrisy there.

>> there's none whatsoever, none whatsoever. until today, until this afternoon, the policy of the united states of america was to be in the iran agreement. until today, our nation remained one of the guiding forces within that agreement and only today did the policy change. by the way, my conversations with these people are the normal conversations that i assure you every former secretary of state has with leaders in other countries with people that we know as we try to educate ourselves and make sure we're up to date on what's happening in the world. these are normal conversations. all i did was suggest to them, look, you guys really ought to try to keep the agreement. i hope you'll keep the agreement and continue to keep the agreement. that is still my hope. this is a multilateral agreement. there are seven countries that signed this agreement. the germans, the british, the french, the chinese, the

russians, i believe, want to try to keep the agreement. we have to wait and see what happens here. the president pulled out of paris, but most countries in the world are continuing to work to implement paris. in fact, in the united states mayors and governors are working to implement paris. are they working against the united states? i don't think so. we have to be realistic about this. the real issue here is this isolates the united states. this takes something that might have possibly taken place 15 years from now and puts it into tomorrow. it moves the crisis time. it creates confrontation. it's lates t-- it isolates the states. if we had to go to war with iran, do you think europe is going to be with us? do you think these other countries are going to support us at the united nations?

i think what the president's done is isolate us, make it much more difficult. let me give you an example. if your house was on fire today, would you not put out the fire because you're afraid it might light on fire again in 14 years? of course not. that's what the president's done. the president has lit the fire today. we'll see what happens. >> he announced -- >> this has to be the last question. i told them i only had five minutes. >> he announced today that his brand new secretary of state is about to land in north korea to engage in talks about that country's nuclear program. do you believe that the actions he took today in unilaterally withdrawing from the iran deal strengthened or weakened secretary pompeo's hand in north korea? >> i think we have to see what happens in the next few days before you kind of draw that kind of judgment. i'm very glad the secretary is

going to bring americans back to the united states. i think that's always good for everybody in our country. we all welcome that. but i think it's very, very questionable where we're going to be with respect to that negotiation given what has happened here because you're going to have that as a country where we know even less about where things are in the disma dismantling of their program as we did in iran. it's going to be very complicated negotiations. i wish them well and i hope that works. but i would suspect it's going to get more complicated. what this decision by president trump has done is open up an opportunity for both china and russia to play a role now in the region that is supersized compared to where they were already. i hear i think the russians are on their way even now, some representatives are heading to iran to have conversations about the way forward.

so this will not be well received. it's not a question of iran. that's not the only place there's a problem. our allies have signed onto an agreement which the united states has now unilaterally broken. we are in breach of the agreement. there is a serious question now about what will unfold as a result. for the united states to forego diplomacy -- you could keep the agreement, you could keep them from doing anything with respect to the agreement and you could go after the issues of the missiles, of the other behavior of hezbollah, of yemen, all of those things are legitimate concerns that we need to go after. but do you think you're stronger going after them after you've pulled out of the agreement when it's going to be more difficult for a leader of iran to actually negotiate? or are you stronger by saying we're going to stay in this agreement but you guys have x

amount of time to deal with these other issues? that's diplomacy. >> i think you just answered my question. we're very grateful for your time. >> thanks so much. >> ironically he drew the same conclusion you did, elise jordan. took him a little longer, but he made the same point that this isolated the united states of america. >> well, it did. the sad part is donald trump doesn't even know what he wants. he doesn't know what he's accusing iran of doing in violation of the existing agreement that he just ripped up. he doesn't know what the next step is. that's what's most upsetting, there's nothing that's going to come in the absence of this agreement much like the trans pacific partnership example. what has filled that void as china has benefitted? they certainly have come up with their own trade agreement for the region.

but the united states just seems to have inaction. >> i think he gave a very full some defense of his meeting at the u.n. it was stated u.s. policy to be in the deal. >> he wasn't explicitly undermining u.s. policy. he was trying to solidify it. >> former presidents do interact with other -- >> i understand the criticism from trump and trump's people that you are the commander in chief, you are trying to do a negotiation, it's not helpful when a former secretary of state is having these types of conversations. i'm dismissive of that. that being said, kerry is within his right to say these conversations are important to have. this is sew l what's wrong with me talking? i'm not as totally -- there is a possibility that out of this

chaos maybe something can be pulled. the iranian economy is in a really dire strait right now. >> but they dig in. they've done this before. >> that's the problem with the moral high ground being lost. you don't have the coalition to bring them to the table anymore. the hope i think from the trump administration is that they can potentially put such crippling sanctions unilaterally on iran coupled with their poor economy. the obvious counter argument is that it's easier and safe to keep the existing deal in place while you have those negotiations. >> we are now joined by former director of the cia brennan who joins us from -- looks like you just got off an airplane, sir. we're grateful to have you. >> that's right, nicole. >> we've been talking about the

twin headlines of the president pulling out, unilateral withdrawal from the iran deal, as well as the news that it's not clear he intended to make about the brand new secretary of state mike pompeo being on route and potential hi evly even on t ground at this hour in noshlrth korea to try to further the president's goal of a denuclearized north korea. does pulling out of the iran deal strengthen or weaken the administration's hand in trying to convince another leader of a rogue nation who we don't want to have nuclear weapons to give theirs up? >> i can't understand how it helps in any way the ongoing discussions with north korea and the efforts to try to denuclearize the peninsula. it totally undercuts the credibility of america's word in terms of engaging in these types of agreements because mr. trump has, i think very foolishly and blindly pursued a campaign

promise about trashing the nuclear deal. that view was built upon very flawed understanding of that ararngment. i applaud the efforts to try to continue to have discussions with the north koreans, but he has hurt the prospects for peace and successful diplomacy by basically discarding something that was hard fought and well supported by our allies as well as by the members of the national security council of the united nations. i just don't understand the logic here, nor do i understand what he's trying to accomplish by disregarding the iranian nuclear deal. >> wican you decipher any -- wh would you pull out of a deal that would help slow or avoid a

nuclear arms race in the mideast. have you been able to sort of figure out what this administration's policy is? is there a consistent policy on the pursuit of nuclear weapons from countries that threaten this country? >> i think there is consistent incoherence in the policy, which certainly unnerves our allies and partners. look at the group of folks coming to washington to try to convince mr. trump not to pull out of the deal, from britain, from france, from germany. i really don't understand it. also, this is not just foolish. this is dangerous. mr. trump has repeatedly misrepresented the facts of the nuclear deal with iran. he's basically lied to the american people and lied to the world about what that deal entailed. i've just read the statement from former president obama that laid out clearly the facts of the deal, what that deal provided to us, what type of assurances we have that iran is

not going to pursue this. with a wave of the hand, mr. trump has basically sent a very bad signal to iran, to north korea, to our allies stwoeas we to russia and china in terms of can they count on something that washington agrees to when administrations change. this is fundamentally wrong from the standpoint of the united states being able to fulfill its responsibilities. i don't know when people -- those in the republican party to continue to apologize and make excuses for mr. trump, when they're going to come to their senses. this is a dangerous, dangerous act. it's not just statements or tweets. this is an action that puts at risk our national security as well as the stability and security of the middle east as best it can happen. >> let me read the part of the former president obama's statement. he put out a statement today that says walking away from the jcpoa turns our back on

america's closest allies and an agreement that our country's leading diplomats, scientists and intelligence professionals negotiated. in a democracy there will also be changes in policies from one administration to the next, but the consistent flouting of agreements that our country is party to risks eroding america's credibility and puts us at odds with the world's major powers. how do you see our european allies now after being rebuffed and really rebuked by this president on the paris accord and his reluctance to affirm our commitment to article 5, now in the iran deal? how do they regroup? is the deal salvageable without america's participation? >> well, i think the european partners to this agreement will continue to honor it. at least they have the common sense as well as the foresight to make sure that iran does not feel as though the world

community, the international community is abandoning it. i think they'll continue to try to work with u.s. diplomats, work with people within the administration who are much more wise about these issues. i mean, jim mattis, our secretary of defense, who knows the area very well and was considered to be a hard liner on iran, he advocated for the continuation of this deal. unfortunately you have hard liners within the administration who are undermining the positions of those who have a much more sensible and a much more informed view of events in that region. mr. trump continues to have his ignorance of the facts or willful disregard of them. again, just to follow through on these campaign promises that really were very flawed. >> we are always grateful to have you as a colleague, but especially today. msnbc's senior national security contributor john brennan.

thank you so much. bob mueller says no to rudy.

a crushing blow in robert mueller's russia investigation as trump and his legal team are scrambling for a new strategy around a potential interview with the special counsel. mueller has rejected trump's offer to submit answers in writing instead of meeting face to face with investigators. trump's attorney rudy giuliani telling nbc news today that the legal team plans to submit a new offer to mueller within two weeks, but tells the "wall street journal" they hope to decide by may 17th whether trump should testify at all. of course, refusing an interview would likely lead to a legal slowdo

showdown between trump and mueller. we are all so excited that you're in the building. it's great to have you here. >> you're so nice to have me. thanks. >> let me ask you about rudy's latest move. >> so the only person who was surprised by the fact that bob mueller didn't want to submit a written take home test to the president was rudy giuliani. no one really expected this was how it would play out, not because mueller is being difficult, not because he wants to put the president in a perjury trial, but because as a serious prosecutor, you have obligations to build the evidence in the case. this an instance where mueller apparently feels strongly he needs an in-person interview and the law will likely support that. >> there's plenty of evidence. the things that are written for him have no relationship to the things in his own brain. he reads a speech and within 45 minutes he attacks it on twitter. there's no example you can point to where anything that's been written for him by anyone else

even hews remotely closely. >> twitter. >> he is so prone to going on long tangents, uninterrupted and deviating into topics unknown. yes, it's a truly risky proposition for donald trump to sit down with bob mueller. i think that's why so many of his aides have been using the press to dissuade him of that idea. >> there was a "wall street journal" article they were doing practice sessions. >> you're ahead of me. mr. trump's lawyers were only able to walk him through two questions in a four-hour practice session. >> i'm not surprised, honestly. i feel like that was not surprising at all, because he tends to ramble on a little bit and lose track. it also leads me to the suspicion that the next offer rudy will make will be for multiple choice questions.

you can choose four answers to each question. >> fill in the blank after that. >> despite his rather lengthy history of giving depositions, mr. trump, one of his -- >> lengthy in every way. >> one of his aides told me once who was against sitting down for the interview, said that if he sat down for one of these in 30 seconds he'd perjure himself twice. he would not be able to stick to the facts. he would not show any discipline even in that setting. >> i have a question. rudy said something on sunday that i just kind of befuddled me. he essentially said that it is impossible for someone to go through a testimony under oath and not perjure himself or herself, that there are just a myriad of different ways you can be tripped up on technicalities. does he have a point? >> trump lawyer rudy giuliani believes very different things than u.s. attorney rudy giuliani

believed. that's absolutely untrue. he knows it. this is special concern because the president of the united states has a demonstrated history of having trouble with the truth. bill clinton sat down and met with the special prosecutor and he ran into a host of problems in that situation, but he was willing to sit down and do it. it's not implicitly a perjury trial every time a subject, target, whatever you want to call the president at this point, sits down with prosecutors. every other employee in the federal government, if i has an assistant u.s. attorney had ever refused to sit down and talk to investigators, i would have been fired. there's no reason the plt can't -- president can't be held to that same standard. >> you and i worked in a white house under investigation, the valerie plame investigation.

there was a tweet from the "new york times" maggie haberman. she tweeted one person close to the white house sums up trump legal strategy right now as two teams. there's the trump/rudy team and then there's the lawyers. i've heard something along those lines too that trump and rudy are running the stormy fog machine mayhem much to the consternation of emmett flood. >> it's a one flew over the cuckoo's nest. let's just look ahead and broaden this. i think it's clear as day where all of this is going. because he's a serial liar does not explicate him from having to testify before the special counsel. he can do it voluntarily or

under subpoena. if he refuses the subpoena, then we have to test a proposition in the supreme court of this country. that is, is the president of the united states above the law? for all of our history, the case has been that the answer to that question is no, the president is not above the law. the office, the institution, the presidency is bigger than the man. it's a coequal branch of government between the legislative, the executive and the judicial. so if it goes to the supreme court and the supreme court orders donald trump to testify and he refuses, then we have a lawless president, a lawless administration and we're head long into a constitutional crisis. if the supreme court somehow ruled that the president is above the law, then that means the rule of law in the united states of america is no longer supreme. and the country that we knew, the united states, is no longer

such. it's something more akin to trumpistan where donald trump is above the law and his wins are supreme. that would be a tragedy for the constitutional republic that's endured since 1787. >> i agree 100%. we have to stand up for the rule of law at this point in our country's history, but that's going to require frankly a political act. republicans on the hill will have to finally have the country over party moment that we've all been waiting for the what steve's talking about happens. >> i'm not holding my breath. tig triggered by comey, wha does it say about how worried donald trump is about questions of comey's firing? or is it? this farmer's morning starts in outer space. where satellites feed infrared images of his land into a system built with ai. he uses watson to analyze his data with millions of weather forecasts from the cloud,

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and thanks to these xfi pods, the signal reaches down here, too. so sophie, i have an xfi password, and it's "daditude". simple. easy. awesome. xfinity. the future of awesome. could comey be lying? you're right he could be lying, george. >> i know james comey. i know the president. sorry, jim. you're a liar. a disgraceful liar. the president -- couldn't we accept a situation in which they're telling us basically we believe comey who is now a pathological liar as opposed to donald trump, the answer is no. the special counsel so far seems to think that comey is moses, and i happen to think comey is judas. >> your par know wa is showing,

rudy giuliani. this sustained attack on jim comey, the accounts of trump's actions in the early days of his presidency appear essential to robert mueller's probe. why does the firing of jim comey and the different accounts people may tell freak out the president so much? >> jim comey may have used bad judgment in conducting and concluding the clinton investigation, but one thing jim comey isn't is a liar. he has a strong reputation for truthfulness. he has memos that he wrote contemporaneously, before the investigation developed. there was no way he could have known how to spin the memos when he wrote them. what jim comey represents is the truth. and he's always been truthful about his conduct, whether it portrays him in a good or bad light. comey is pretty much told the truth about what happens. that's frightening to the president's legal team. >> sam, you cannot argue with the fact that comey is on an

island professionally and politically. >> yeah. >> and so there's no motive at this point for him. in the accounts we're given -- were given at the time they took place. and there's a long pattern of projection. usually when trump or a soul mate like rudy calls someone a liar, it's because the president is the liar. what do you make of the fact that they're so triggered? >> think fear the obstruction case is a lot stronger than the collusion case, i would guess, that they might wiggle out of the collusion case by pushing it off to aides down the line. but they feel like they could wall off trump on the collusion front, but they clearly cannot on the obstruction front because trump is a primary protagonist in the firing of comey. it feels like they're being

overt. >> you have great reporting about how the president feels about rudy's performance. >> he was glad rudy giuliani is out there as his attack dog. he felt like that was missing on his legal team. he's less happy with how it's gone. he has been telling people he's frustrated with how rudy giuliani has muddied the waters with the cohen payment, suggested there are other women who might come forward. he's even frustrated with sean hannity when rudy giuliani sat down with him and hannity suggested -- was taken by surprise with rudy's giuliani and said you funneled it through a law firm, and he said yeah, we funneled. trump got mad and said there's illegal connotations. look, rudy at this moment according to our reporting is not in any risk of being fired, but the president has talked to people about maybe he needs to cut down some of the appearances or change how he's doing it. he shouldn't be out there before he has finished doing his homework which rudy giuliani keeps saying he means to do but hasn't quite read up on the case

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steve, i want to get your thoughts on why men like jim comey and bob mueller trigger this president so much. >> well, they trigger him because donald trump feels corners. like an animal in the corner, he's lashing out. it's sad watching the former america's mayor debase himself with a smear campaign, but what's most amazing is his ineptitude. it's the worst defense performance in the history of the world. i mean, he literally makes joe peshi look like thurgood

marshall. >> they do make -- i think trump by the end will miss michael cohen with his lawyer again. >> thank you so everyone here. that does it for our hour. i'm nicole wallace. mtp daily starts right now. >> hi, anicole. if it is tuesday, let's break a deal. tonight, the u.s. violates the iran nuclear deal. >> this was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made. >> so what's next? >> america will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail. >> plus it's election day. what the primary races across the country mean for democrats' chances to win back control of the senate. and will west virginia republicans heed the president's warning and abandon blankenship. or end up with more problems? >> this is akin