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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  September 21, 2018 9:00pm-10:00pm PDT

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it is friday, that means the news have gone nuts again. i feel that there is nothing predipr predictable of america's news cycle anymore other than the fact that every friday night, the coo-coo pops out of the clock. we are waiting for two big stories over the course of tonight. i will tell you that we have been expecting to cover developments of both of these stories not only covover the coe of the evening tonight. republicans are issuing a threat and a deadline aimed at christine blasey ford, she came
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forward of brett kavanaugh attempted to rape her in mon montgomery county, maryland. her lawyer needsed to respond t them by 10:00 this evening. those republicans would plan to go ahead with the vote and without hearing from dr. ford at all, they would schedule a kavanaugh' nomination. dr. ford responded to the you will -- ultimatum. republicans in the senate had initially demanded that dr. ford had to appear before them to testify on monday or bust. that was the only chance they're going to give her to give testimonies to this systcommitt. they have no budge.
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they're saying when she can testify instead of monday. that's all they're willing to give her either in terms of time or the chance to prover this very serious allegations she's making. when dr. ford came forward, both in her initial letter to die san feinstein office and the interview she did with the washington post last week, a key part of the story she brought forward, a key part that she had to tell was she had essentially corroborated witnesses. she could name people from the time of the incident who had awareness of the party of which the incident allegedly happened. those people may be able to corroborate details of her recollection. she named somebody that was in the room at the time she says the assault happened. in addition to that crucially, she says there are a number of people where she confided in of the alleged assault after it
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happened. she told about the attempted rape before brett kavanaugh was nominated to the supreme court. that's key to this case. kavanaugh is not on trial and no criminal charges have been brought against him. the senate have not decided whether or not they're going to put him in jail. they're deciding whether or not they'll put him on the supreme court what they ne court. what they need to decide is if he's credible for confirmation. kavanaugh denies ever doing this and dr. ford claims he did obviously do it. she did name a number of people who she told after the fact before he was named as a nominee of the supreme court. she named this assailant who was
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there of the actual incident. she names other people that could be able to corroborate details. there would be a full independent investigation of her claims, first, before senators on the committee holds any sort of hearings on this matter and an investigation be done by the fbi. the fbi's role in doing a background check on senate confirmable nominees. background check gets reopened all the time in the face of new information and new allegations. for some reason for reasons they have not yet been able to articulate. the white house and senate republicans insisting in this case that must not happen here. the fbi must not be allowed to look into this matter. republicans senator chuck grassley, the chairman of the committee insisted that only the committee itself should be allowed to investigate this claim specifically his own
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staff. of course, have publicly committed shems themselves to tt that they'll do anything necessarily to confirm brett kavanaugh to the supreme court. because they're insisting that only the republican-led committee can do the investigation here with their own staff members, according to senator grassley tonight, ford's lawyer requested that okay, if it is just the committee looking into this, can there at least be testimonies from these additional corroborating witnesses? can these corroborating witnesses who dr. ford identified, could they be at least allowed to testify, too? they'll be measuring his denials against her claims. she says her claim is bolstered by corroborating witnesses that can back her up. senate republicans said no. they are refusing from any other witnesses. in a letter sent to dr. ford's
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attorneys tonight and made public by grassley's office. the committee does not take requests from other witnesses. you said dr. ford wants the chance to tell her story in public and under oath. this is the opportunity that we have given her. we don't need to subpoena additional witnesses to do that. so that's the word tonight from senate republicans. that's how they want to handle this. they'll allow her to the on wednesday alone and no witnesses allowed. it will be her verses judge kavanaugh, period. there is the deadline, the deadline from senator grassley. if she says no to those terms or if she and her lawyer do not respond by 10:00 p.m. eastern tonight, senator grassley is telling her fine, you are out, we'll vote on it on monday morning unless we hear from you by 10:00 tonight.
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i am providing notice of a vote to occur on monday in the event that dr. ford attorney do not respond of dr. ford do not testify. we can't continue to delie aay we are unwilling to accommodate your unreasonable demands. so, that's happening right now. this is the new precedent that we are setting for americans who may have important information to bring forward of senate confirmable of lifetime nominee. we are unwilling to accommodate your commands, take it or leave it unless we hear from you by 10:00 p.m. we are waiting to see how this is going to resolve. if you want to know why republicans may be sort of seeming a little desperate on this right now, trying to end this as fast as possible, we need to stop talking about this has to be over, if you are looking for a little insight
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into why they are just going right into the end here. the polling here may be helpful for understanding that. it seems clear from the polling that they are probably running out of time on this just as a political manner. from a public perspective, it looks like brett kavanaugh is quite over cooked and getting closer and closer to burnt all the time. usa today has a new poll out today on kavanaugh and it shows that kavanaugh's public support continues to absolute plummet to historically unseen levels. you can see the headlines there at usa today. brett kavanaugh faces unprecedented opposition to supreme court confirmation. they're right, no supreme court nominee have ever been confirmed with as much public opposition as brett kavanaugh has right now with the little public support as kavanaugh has right now. the new usa poll, brett
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kavanaugh is under water by nine points and 31% of americans want him confirmed and 40% of americans who want him not to be confirmed. that makes him the most unpopular supreme court nominee ever in the history of the usa today. he's minus 9 overall. he's minus 20 with women. that includes all women. if you look just at political independence, people are not registered in either party, he's minus 19 with independence. that's what we have seen in this and other major polls. not only kavanaugh's public support is at a historic lows b but it seems to be dropping. tick-tock, i know it is friday night. you may want to keep the news on for the course of the evening because of what we are expecting
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presu presu p p p p presumably by the end of this hour. if you have been watching the show this week, this is something we have been watching percolating all week since monday night. the white house put forward this order announcing president trump directed a number of documents related to the russia investigation be declassified and released to the public. this has been a sort of running theme since the russia investigation since last year. they demand that the justice department and the fbi hand over law enforcement documents and communications from the investigation from this open, ongoing investigation into the president and the campaign of the elections. these demands that documents and communications of ongoing investigations open up to the public. these demands serve a couple of purposes. i mean first it is just a p.r. level and a level of public
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impressions and making these demands help the white house create a story line particularly in the conservative media that makes it look like law enforcement is doing something suspicious here. that the people who are involved in the russia investigation have done something may be wrong or they have done something they are trying to hide, otherwise, why would they just hand overall these documents from their open investigation. #releasethememo, what are they hiding? something must be wrong. they must have done something bad. these demands for law enforcement sensitive and investitive materials from an ongoing investigation, it is bluntly and plainly on his face when they get this stuff, it provides information to the president's defense team and other witnesses and potential subts subject to the investigation and any criminal defendant would kill to this, right? if you knew prosecutors are
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looking and poke around and may have something into you, you would kill or die - that's gold. for the president's defense and other legal teams caught up in this investigation, i am sure it is handy that the white house and the congressional republicans keep on forcing antonio t into the public eye from inside that ongoing investigation. >> there is one other level of which those demands function, you have seen this for months now. it is not subtle. it is clear from the beginnings that these demands and they hand over sensitive and classified materials. it is obvious since they started doing this that part of the aim when they make those demands is that is they are hoping law enforcement officials would say no. this is how we got impeachment articles drawn up against deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. this is how we got the first
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call from congress or not just from the white house, jeff sessions should be fired or ip peached or otherwise be removed from office. these demands allow the president and pro-trump republicans and congress to pound their chests and say look at these terrible officials tat fbi or the justice department, they're not handing over these do you means we demanded. that's outrageous, they must be hiding something. that's outrageous of these officials. these officials are disobeying over sights from congress. these are documents that really should not be made public. what if handing those documents would jeopardize national security and put sources lives at risk and jeopardize law enforcement and intelligence collections that are crucial to
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keep the country safe. what if it is sensitive material f s from law enforcement information. law enforcement don't just open ongoing investigation. there is a reason this stuff is kept closed. and they know that, right? the idea of demanding do you means that really can't be handed over, the biggest idea there is to either force resignation and protests from law enforcement officials and intelligent officials who knows they have to refuse those demands or just as well maybe those officials don't resign in protests or maybe they stay in their jobs but they say no and they refuse those demands and create a pretext from the president to fire those officials for not following his orders or not going along with their over sight demands. when the president issues those
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orders all these official documents related to the russia investigation. adam schiff warns that last dynamics was what's going on here. some of these materials i have been informed by the fbi justice department that they'll consider releasing those materials of a red line that must be crossed. releasing those documents would compromise sources and methods. >> john mclaughlin, former cia director, he's been making the same argument as schiff has. this is his op-ed today in the washington post. if the president over rides his professional staff and insist on unreda unredacted declassification, it would force some officials to consider resignation. john mclaughlin was more blunt
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on twitter. this would qualify the president's most serious assault on the justice system yet. former cia director, wrong on so many levels if he forces all the way through, it ought to be a resignation issue for someone in justice, period. then he ends with this question. maybe trump's intention? right? maybe that's the idea. people say no, he gets to fire him. or they say no, i will resign and protest, great, we have been looking forward to replace. here is how it is unfolded. monday night, trump gives the order to declassify all these stuff. on tuesday, the president said online that he was basically very excited about these declassifications. he said they would prove that really bad things are happening with the fbi. that was tuesday. wednesday, the president admitted he did not read any of these documents that ordered to
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be classified. even though he had not read any of these stuff, the reason he ordered it to be declassified anyway because he heard from people who he trust. these are documents should be declassified. the complete list of people who he heard from or trust on this issue and advised him to order the declassification, the list was made up of people who host the television show on the fox channel, i kid you not. that's who advising him on this manner. we have been waiting for this stuff to come out. internal communications among fbi and justice department officials related to the russia investigation and fbi interviews of the start of the investigation of russia. the portion of the justice department already said can't be safely unredacted. the president insisted regardless, just do it and
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unredact all of it. we have been waiting the see if there is resignation in protests or refusal from the justice department or the fbi. we have been waiting to see if the president may use those refusa refusals as a pretext for firing senior justice officials who wants out of the way anyway. well, today, the president said never mind. the president today withdrew his demands of all these documents get declassified and instead says he would not push it anymore. he hopes the inspector general would look into it. the president arrived at this decision today that he was going to cave and no longer demands of the documentations. rosenstein went to the white house explained to the president of the dangerousness of what he's doing trying to make it public.
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the point of these declassification show down set up by fox news hosts, the whole point was to force a confrontation with rod rosenstein. to push rosenstein into saying no. to push him into saying no, refusing the president's demands so the president could fire him in response. when rosenstein went to the white house to talk about him, the president to have blinked. rosenstein told him you can't let this stuff out and the script, i think they thought he's going to follow fox news and standing up and said, oh, you are fired and instead the president said, okay, i will withdraw my request. if the president is looking for a pretext to fire rosenstein and oversees the mueller's investigation. he could have install somebody else in that job to make the mueller's investigation to go away.
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if that's the goal here, the gambette would not work. the president does not have that to go ahead and without plan. that was this morning and then this happened. hours after the president climbed down on the declassification thing. the new york times decided to do this. "rod rosenstein suggested secretly recording trump and z discussed the 25th amendment." he discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th amendment and removing trump to be unfit. this article from michael schmidt, and some of the
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president's closest advisers from fox. this is it, forget all the efforts coming up that tried to fire rosenstein and all efforts that failed to create a pretext to fire rosenstein, you can't fire him now mr. president. he oversees the mueller investigation, if you want to get rid of him, you got to get rid of rosenstein. here is your way to do it and cite this piece and fire him now. rosenstein was going to wire you or wire himself or other initials going into spy on you on the white house. rosenstein was going to order the cabinet to use the 24th amendment to oust you in office? he was? but, both nbc news and the washington post have published their own version of the story which fundamentally contradict the whole point of the new york
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times. rosenstein seriously opposed wearing a wire as part of a serious plot to prove the president's incompetent and get him out of office. the times said there are sources for that information and people who are briefed on the fact that rosenstein have said that to other officials and sources who are briefed on a memo that another fbi officials fired andrew mccabe wrote about this proposal from rosenstein. those are their sources. nbc news in the washington post however say as of this afternoon each of these news organizations have a source that was in the room when rosenstein made the proposal and their source was in the room says that when this happened, rosenstein was quite obviously being sarcastic. that's the nbc headline. rosenstein joked about secretly recording trump, the justice
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department officials say, you can see the sub headline there, the actual quote, "well, what do you want me to do, andy? wear a wire?" that sarcastic quote attributed to rosenstein. the new york times does not have a source when he was in the room when rosenstein said it. they provided president trump this headline and this fully cooked and baked new york times approved headline inviting the president to fire rosenstein and there by end the mueller's investigation on the basis of rosenstein's reportedly said he wanted to do to get the president out of office. never mind the fact that people in the room said he was apparently kidding. so i said we are waiting for a few shoes to drop tonight. if the president does fire rosenstein, it is not exactly clear what would immediately happen to the over sight of the
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mueller's investigation. we'll talk about that with some people who understand how that works. if the president fires rosenste rosenstein, we expect one thing to happen outside of the justice department. we expect nationwide widespread street protests in short order. much more ahead tonight, stay with us. us.es and 75. -trash can, turn on the tv. -my pleasure. -ice dispenser, find me a dog sitter. -okay. -and make ice. -pizza delivered. -what's happened to my son? -i think that's just what people are like now. i mean, with progressive, you can quote your insurance on just about any device. even on social media. he'll be fine. -[ laughs ] -will he? -i don't know.
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paul manafort has put a plea deal but how much does he know. headlines with katy tur on msnbc. i told you we'll be watching for breaking news over the course of this evening and over the course of this hour, we now have that. as i mentioned at the top of the show, senate republicans have told attorneys for dr. christine blasey ford they have until 10:00 p.m. tonight to accept the terms that senate republicans were offering for her to testify at if judiciary with no other witnesses other than brett kavanaugh on wednesday next week. she had 10:00 to respond or they'll proceed without hearing from her at all and they'll take a vote on brett kavanaugh on
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monday morning without hearing on this allegation. we have a response which we knew would come in at this hour. can i have the second page of it, please. >> we got a response from dr. blasey ford's attorney, would you like to hear with me? i am assuming there are no swear words. we are responding to your e-mail, we are stunned that the judiciary committee noticed brett kavanaugh's vote for monday morning in the midst of our ongoing discussions under which dr. christine ford can testify before the committee. you did so well before the 10:00 p.m. deadline and arbitrarily imposed of the deadline. your cavalier treatment of a sexually assault survivor who's been doing her best to cooperate with the committee is
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inappropriate. yesterday we had what i thought was a productive dialogue from dr. ford find susceptible to testify before the committee. rather than continuing that dialogue, senator grassley conveyed a counter proposal through the media and insisting she appeared on a hearing on a date that i told you it was not feasible to her. you rejek you rejekt you rejekted a number of proposal that was unfavorable to dr. ford. mark judge is the person who dr. ford has named as the acolleged coassailant in this attack. mark judge who was a classmate of brett kavanaugh was in the room and helping to participate in the attack when it allegedly
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happened. you rejekt you rejected dr. ford. it would be fruitless to reveal each of those statements that's clear regarding to the assurances senator grassley has made, you have been pressuring dr. ford to agree to the conditions that you find add add -- adventagious to the nominee. when we urge you to include them, you rejected that request out right. you took a full day to consider our proposal, you demanded a spon response to your proposal this evening. e-mail sent at 4:01 p.m. we advised you that dr. ford is
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meeting with the fbi about the death threats she's been receiving. we would need time to confirm her and allowing her to the time she needs to take it or leave it demand, you sent us an e-mail at 5:p.m. which you again gave it to the media first and that we accepted the hearing by 10:00 p.m. tonight. i learned that senator grassley have scheduled the committee's vote on brett kavanaugh on wednesday. she has already been forced out of her home and continues to be subjected to harassment and hate mails and death threats. our modest request that she be given additional day to make her decision and it is signed by attorney representing christine blasey ford. they're asking one additional day to make the decision.
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you are learning this and reading this as i am reading this. we are going to see what we can do to figure out what the response is this going to be either from the judicial committee or anything further coming from dr. ford's side from her legal representation, this is just in, we'll be right back. s own immune system, thanks to medicine that didn't exist until now. and today can save your life. ♪ ♪
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the new york times published this controversial article this afternoon of rod rosenstein at a
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meeting last year suggested to other justice department and fbi officials that he could secretly record president trump inside the white house. the times also reported that rosenstein has discussed eninvoking the 25th amendment to remove the president from office. rod rosenstein put out an initial statement and response to that article saying the article was not true and it claims has no basis in reality and he said quote "based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th amendment." that was earlier today. now rosenstein released a new statement, second statement responding to that story. it is a single sentence that i will read it to you now. i never pursued or authorized recording the president and any suggestion that i have.
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this news continues to break just within the last couple of minutes, the washington post has said that statement, the one that i just read to you where rosenstein says i never pursued or authorized recording the president, i never advocated for the removal of the president. the washington post has new reporting of that. that statement from rosenstein came after white house officials pressure the justice department to issue a more force full denial of the times reporting. the president asked advisers on friday if he should fire rosenstein and some of those around trump sought to sway him not to make any decisions on friday night. joining us now is chuck rosenberg and our justice official. it is nice to have you here tonight. thank you for being here tonight. >> my pleasure, rachel, thank you for having me. >> this is a developing story.
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we are watching the confrontation/impasse of the senate of the confirmation hearing of brett kavanaugh, whether the senate will hear allegations from a woman who said he sexually assaulted her when he was a teenager. now into tonight of the development of the story of rod rosenstein. what's your reaction of that based level reporting that rosenstein according to the "times" suggested that he may wore a wire to the white house and/or the cabinet organized to remove the president. >> i have been thinking about this a lot since the story broke. i think i have and i hope i have narrowed it down to two plausible explanations. the first is in healthier organizations and the organization and msnbc tech company and engineering firms to
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the department of justice and the fbi when you have a difficult problem, when you have something that's really perplexing, you bring all your people together and you encourage them to speak openly and freely and put all of your ideas on the table. that means from the mundane to the thoughtful and to the crazy. talk it through and hopefully by the end of the day you eliminate the crazy and you select something else. is it possible that they talked about this and eliminated as a possibility. it is possible. i think the more likely explanation however is that it was just plain, old sarcasm. remember at this time james comey has been fired. i can't imagine and it occurred to them they would do something absolutely unprecedented. why the deputy jongeneral and s him into talk to the president.
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it does not make sense to me and maki making rosenstein a witness in that case, once he wear as wis , he's a witness. >> this was said by rosenstein and by both news organization reports that as you say and suggested there that when rosenstein made comments about wearing a wire into the white house, he was clearly being scholastic. the new york times reporting this was a serious proposal that mr. rosenstein may want to pursue. other news says he was just kidding. the other reason that was so controversial is playing from the president's back and forth with the conservative media that they have been trying to come up with some great public pretexts
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for firing rosenstein for quite some time. it appears that the new york times sort of handling him that by putting words in rosenstein's mouth that's controversial. what do you make of that side of the story? >> that worries me, rachel. there is a certain irony here. the president speaks repeatedly of the fake news and tell americans sadly to distrust the news particularly, organs like the new york times and perhaps when it benefits him and when he needs to cite to it, suddenly, it worries me very much and i think what mr. rosenstein put out tonight that he thursdauthor
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recording the president -- it was a crazy idea which they all took off the table. i hope he does not fire rosenstein. i have had my disagreements with mr. rosenstein and i said some publicly on your show. right now he's doing us a signatu service standing between the white house and bob mueller. >> there would be a serious reaction of the law enforcement intelligent committee? >> i think there would be a dramatic reaction. i think folks know that bob mueller is a fine and decent and honest and thorough special counsel and the men and women working for him are sticking to the facts and the laws. dpeting rid getting rid of rosenstein would bring us one step closer to either eliminating special counsel or circumcising it and
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that would make it difficult for bob mueller and his team to do his job. >> chuck rosenberg, thank you for being with us on a friday night. >> thank you, rachel. a little bit of a whiplash introducing news night, more to come. stay with us. stay with us ♪ come to my window. ohhh.
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we are following two fast developing big stories tonight. it is one of those fridays. there is a stand you have in the senate over the senate's confirmation for brett kavanaugh nominated to the supreme court. as we reported moments ago, the senate republicans, the senate republican chairman of the judiciary committee, chuck grassley, issued a 10:00 p.m. eastern time deadline to attorney representing christine blasey ford telling her that essentially they needed to respond by 10:00 p.m. eastern as to whether or not she would aseed to senate republican
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demands of the circumstances they want her to testify next week on wednesday, no other witnesses besides her and brett kavanaugh. if she either did not respond by 10:00 p.m. tonight or rejected any of those terms, they said they were going to forget this whole issue, not pursue this allegation at all and just hold a vote monday morning on brett kavanaugh without hearing from dr. ford. we now had a response from christine blasey ford's attorney asking for one more day for her to consider her decisions. although no response although we are watching for it on the rest of the committee. the other story pertains to rod rosenstein oversees the muller investigation, he has come under withering criticisms from president trump and the media which has increasing existing
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told donald trump that he must fire rosenstein to try to undo rosenstein over sight of the mueller's investigation. the new york times reported that rosenstein in meetings with other officials and fbi officials suggested wearing a wire into the white house to report the president and suggested with members of members of the cabinets to remove president trump from office. this reporting is contested. both nbc news and the washington post citing a source who were in the meeting when rosenstein said this, saying it was clear that rosenstein made me, do you want me to wear a wire comment ingest. he was being sarcastic. rosenstein himself put out a statement tonight he never authorized and suggest in doing that and he does not believe the 25th amendment should be used to remove the president.
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this all comes as a washington post reported moments ago that the president should be asking advisers tonight if she should fire rosenstein. it is all happening at once. joining us now is ben wittas. thank you for joining us as we try to stay up with the breaking news. >> it is hard to keep up with it. >> let me ask you about brett kavanaugh. the situation that we are in right now is not unprecedented in the sense that there has been other nominees where sensitive, serious allegations have risen late in the confirmation process. what do you think about what's happening right now with this impasse between christine blasey ford's attorney and how do you think this will resolve? >> well, i see one way is not
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acceptable is not to actually investigate the allegations which is what the chairman at this point is threatening to do. his terms includes you show up on monday or we are going to have al vote and we won't talk to any of the other possible witnesses. now, i can see a lot of room for arguments along the edges of what the appropriate process is. if you are interested in learning the truth, would involve voting without investigating or hearing from the two principles without hearing from anybody else who may know what happened or something about what happened. i say this hesitantly but i honestly can't see any signs of good faith here.
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in terms of brett kavanaugh's nomination overall. you suggested that he should consider withdrawing from consideration. we are starting to see in senators that susan collins making remarks that she disagreed with senator grassley approach that monday is the only day that dr. ford could come in. we are seeing softening around the edges of people predicting how it is going to end. do you think judge kavanaugh consider withdrawing? >> i assume he'll not. like most people in the circumstance would want to defend his reputation and most people don't walk away from it.
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i assume he'll not follow my advice. i want to be clear of what that advice was. it was not to walk away but to walk away if he can't defend himself in a fashion that factually and completely convincing without attacking her it is ha . it is hard for me to imagine the circumstances which he can do that effectively. if he can do that, he certainly should. if he can't do that, i think it is better for him and better for her and better for the institution of the court not to have somebody confirmed with a big asterick by his name that tens of millions of people will scratch their heads when they
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see his name. >> ben, do you believe that rosenstein's job is in jeopardy tonight and if the president does act to remove rosenstein, what do you think the response would be within the legal community in the justice department? >> yes, let me, chuck rosenberg said a lot of things that i would say in response to this so i can be brief. rosenstein's job have been impa impa imparrel every month. there has been a number of days where i thought that's happening. i don't think it is likely to happen tonight but i have no basis for that. it is a kind of gut instinct. i think the story puts him in a difficult position and his in amendment
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in -- inability to deny it. he does not deny that he had a conversation or multiple conversations about the 25th amendment and he did not deny that at least the subject of wearing a wire came up. and that does put him in a difficult position with respect to the president. i continue to think that the president is something of a barking dog that does not bite very much about these things with the exception of james comey. he skrould done it yesterdcould before or the week before. he has not done it because he does not have a lot of guts about this.
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it is a terrible idea and he should not do it. rosenstein for all my differences with him is playing an important role right now and one we should all value as a society. i continue to hope that the president will continue to lack the guts and actually do this thing that he keeps threatening both with rosenstein and with sessions and everyday he does not do is is a good day of the functioning of law. ben wittes. thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you >> more ahead, stay with us.
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there are three large coal arboret ash dumps right near by sutten lake. t well, today floodwaters breached the dam at sutten lake. it flooded one of the three coal lash dumps. they say they can't rule out
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that coal ash may be escaping from the flooded dump and now washing into the river. can't rule it out. open question. we have some footage that may answer duke energy's opened question. this was shot region that this appears to be coal ash pouring into the cape fear river in north carolina. coal ash is toxic not just to people but to all life forms and they were able to rescue that baby turtle. here on the way to downtown wilmington you can actually see this oily film on the water. it's floating down north carolina, towards the banks of wilmington, north carolina, which is about 9 miles away. i do not what is going to wash up in wilmington, by monday. watch this space. now it's time for the "last word" with lawrence o'donnell. we're here at what was the 10:00 p.m. deadline to tell the judiciary committee what she was going to do next week.