questions about obstruction of justice off the table and off the wall behind me, but does it also decrease the odds of there being a sitdown interview? [ inaudible question ] >> we haven't even talked about it. >> safe to say his lawyers have talked about it and they looked back at the interviews president trump has given. along with my colleague, lester holt and more recently with the daily caller. exhibit a, why the president won't sit down with robert muler and his team and it's not just the on the record trump that is causing problems. if you look at the legal record, under oath trump does not perform much better. >> the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing, but the truth? i do. >> do you remember discussing the content of the article with him? >> no. >> mr. sader? >> no. i don't remember. >> how did you prepare for the case? >> i would say virtually nothing. >> if he were sitting in the room right now i really wouldn't know what he looked like.

i don't have my glasses. i didn't bring my glasses. >> constitutional style warns the easy part could get a lot more difficult if president trump believes these questions are really just about whether he personally colluded with the russians. he has not been paying attention to the developments in this investigation. joining me now is philip bump, a national correspondent for "the washington post," based here in new york, and michael singleton is a contributing host and republican political consultant and watergate prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst. philip, let me start with you and get a reaction to where we are. the questions have been done and it will be tendered later this week, where does it stand as you see it? >> it seems a lot of what mueller has done looking at russia and manafort, all of that stuff is in the past and he's

been waiting as you pointed out for months now for donald trump to present his side of the story so it seems like we may finally be at a point when he gets some of those answers and the post reported that he's following this track looking at roger stone, the longtime confidant of trump's and looking at the connections between stone and the cryptic tweets right before the dump of wikileaks. it seems at this point in time the question about what donald trump knew and when, we might be getting some answers on that, but then there are at least one other parallel track and potentially more parallel tracks that mueller is still pushing forward on as well. is a written question they'll cut it for robert mueller. it's not going to completely cut it and i can imagine a situation where the questions can be very helpful. you have to look at it in the context that robert mueller has four cooperating witnesses right now that are real insiders. you've got manafort, who is the campaign manager.

you've got cohen who is the personal lawyer. you've got gates who is the assistant to the campaign manager and continued on after manafort left and you've got michael cohen. so i can imagine a situation where i can come up with some questions based on what these four witnesses are delling me that can really put donald trump in the soup just by requiring him to answer those questions. so we don't know what those are, but where i see -- the real track here is the flipside of the russian indictment where the 13 russian intelligence agents were indicted for conspiracy, for hacking into the democratic national committee, stealing documents and then working with the staging and release of those documents. now where the american side of this comes in at least with the staging and release of the documents. we know that roger stone was intimately involved in

conversations with lucifer 2.0, that he says he was talking to julian assange. of course, now he says he wasn't. >> right. >> and so, who else in america was talking to julian assange and guccifer 2.0 in 2016? no one and roger stone is a key confidant of donald trump. so we know that there's that part of it. we know that there's that meeting at trump tower, and more importantly, we know things happened before that meeting that related to that june 4th email where goldstone wrote to donald junior saying that the russian government is supporting your father's campaign and that we have certain documents to bring to you. now we don't know what happened. we know there were other phone calls in between. >> true. >> we know there were other emails in between. robert mueller knows all of this because he has paul manafort who is laying all of this out. so what's really going on now is that they're putting together a case. they're putting together an indictment on a number of people. it's not going to be just roger

stone. it's going to be much more far reaching and it's going to be the american side of that russian indictment that's already been handed down. >> christina, i imagine you've had an undergraduate or two that has been wear behanding in a paper -- he has not handed it in yet, but having completed his assignment. what do you make of an attitude. >> he reminds me of an undergraduate that never did the studying and never did the test and read the back of the book, she's an interesting character that did the thing that i liked. what's so interesting now is all of these pieces of the puzzle and then you have this one person who speaks just to satisfy himself. he always says what he wishes were true or he's always sort of -- he's a compulsive liar in this particular way where he likes to announce to himself, i think he wishes what he said were true. now you have all of the pieces of the story where people are trying to be accurate and you have one person inserting himself with these answers. it will be interesting to see

how much the lawyers can intervene and they don't want him to ever speak to anybody live in a room with lawyers because his relationship to the truth is so strange anyway because he's like a bad undergraduate making it up as he goes along and it's a nightmare. >> he's a dog ate my homework kind of guy. >> totally. >> what's going on as your fridays roll around. there will be some indictments handed out. >> what's your sense of where things are? >> what i would like to see is how does the president react? say, for example, if donald trump jr. is one of the individuals that is indicted in the next week or two, i'm not certain, you think about midterms and how poorly the republican party performed not only at the house, butt across the state the president has to think how do i continue with my policy platform moving forward and on the senate sidings with mitch mcconnell, you have to ask do you hold the president

accountable? if you do, when? do you wait when the poll numbers begin to dee cress with republican voters? or the party at large, and we cannot continue to go with this guy off the cliff because it extends beyond 2020. there are questions that are lingering that the party will have to answer and i'm waiting to see how the president is going to react, and if you look at his history thus far he typically does not react very well when he's in a corner. you talk about some of your undergrad students. know when you don't know something and do something about it. donald trump does not do that. >> don't go to the spark notes or cliff notes. >> right. >> i want to turn to another story that could be problem attic for the president. the development surrounding the murder of jamal khashoggi and that they believe that the saudi crown pins ordered that assassination. the president weighed in on that assessment yesterday. >> i spoke with our cia director

and he's very knowledgeable and been studying this very closely and we'll be having a very full report over the next two days, probably monday or tuesday. >> do they know if mbs is behind it? >> they haven't assessed it. it's a premature report. >> the paper has been out front from the beginning by necessity in part. i want to get your reaction on what the president said there. he talked to the cia director on the plane as he made his way to california, but he hasn't gotten the full assessment and we'll get more information this week. he has seemed remarkably behind the curve. >> well, he's presented himself -- >> correct. >> we're seeing a pattern that we've seen before with others including vladimir putin where donald trump does not want to hold to account with people whom he has a close personal relationship and the fact that he is unwilling at this point in time, obviously, we must take with a grain of salt the evidence that turkey is presenting against saudi arabia,

there's no question what they presented. the cia agrees with turkey as assessment and mbs is responsible for this and he's been following the crown prince of saudi arabia that donald trump is unwilling to continuously, not just there, but continuously over the course of the past several weeks and months say that anyone at any position in saudi arabia is responsible for making the determination that this act should take place and then seeing it forward is just sort of a remarkable indictment of president trump's willingness to embrace the truth when he feels it undercuts something he cares deeply about. in this case, he cares deeply about jobs. it is not clear why he's defending mbs. he points that saudi arabia has this military aid deal and he's overstating that and it's not clear why, as with vladimir putin, it is not clear, but we've seen this pattern before and it's sort of not surprising.

>> does it have to do where jermichael, how he approaches contrition and how he approaches to be wrong about something. is it as simple as that that he's not saying more about muhammad bin salman the crown prince of saudi arabia. he gave the crown prince somehow called into question. >> i think we would all agree and admit that the president has difficulty with saying hey, i messed up. i made the wrong decision. look at north korea, it's another example where every single individual, intelligence analyst that north korea will not stop their weapons program. the president still believes them. you look at saudi arabia and the cia has come out and said we know for a fact that the crown prince was behind this. the president, i'm not really sure. i have to wait and see. it's unbelievable to me that the president of the united states and we continue to have these conversations don't even believe his own institutions? he doesn't. >> so much about law and order

about this administration. here we have another clear example. >> you've got him on tape. you've got the murder on tape. you've got people on tape saying it was done for the boss, mbs. there couldn't be a clearer picture that's coming out here, and it's just like the russian investigation. because it involves him either personally or has some personal stake in it, he just has to lie or make up facts. >> he identifies with these strong men. i truly believe in many, many ways he sees himself in many of these individuals which is why he finds it difficult to check them. >> he called erdogan yesterday a strong man and i wonder if the transcript had it as two separate words. >> the story of the financialization logic and this is the danger of saying we want a person who is a businessman. he has no ethical or civic logics in his mind, right? the only issue is economic self-interest. so if there's going to be money coming from saudi arabia, then that's the end of it. we don't want to lose that mono

pep there's only an economic logic. there's no political, ethical, civic logic to any of his thinking so if the russians are giving you money and if they're investing in his hotels and if they're investing in certain -- there's no larger logic of maybe we actually have ideas or values that exceed the economic. he never thinks beyond. >> and it's also a historical perspective and this is a president who has zero historical perspective. he has no idea -- >> he goes to the world war i celebration and he doesn't go to the most important events that day. if you gave this guy a basic standard, historical test that you give to a tenth grader and if he would flunk with flying colors, he's not got a clue. if you asked him about watergate and he's saying it relates to a hotel. >> that's why it is very, very important. we should know if the president has some type of financial interest to saudi arabia. i truly do believe that because we'll never know why he make the decisions that he does unless we

see the taxes and we're not going to see them and until we do i don't think we'll ever be certain that he'll take the positions that he has so far. >> we'll see coming up with that. natural disaster after natural disaster, president trump's reaction tends to be some version of this. >> nobody's ever seen anything like this. >> one of the wettest we've ever seen from the stand point of water. the stand point of water. . you've got a good record and liberty mutual won't hold a grudge by raising your rates over one mistake. you hear that, karen? liberty mutual doesn't hold grudges. how mature of them! for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. liberty mutual insurance. liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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welcome back to "up." california is going through the deadliest wildfire in that state's history. the death toll from the camp fire near sacramento now stands at 76. president trump was in california yesterday visiting the state and surveying the damage from the fire. nbc's scott cohn joins me now from paradise, california. tell us about the president's visit. he went to three or four sites within the state and what's your sense of his takeaway from his visit to california. >> reporter: well, he spent about two hours in this part of the state surveying some of the damage from the camp fire which is really just breathtaking when you take a look at it and then he met with first responders and met with the governor and the governor-elect. he did not meet with any of the evacuees, any of the victims here. we had spent the day yesterday at an evacuation center, a shelter. there are about six of those and they are full and people do not know what they're going to do with their lives after this.

the sense that we got there was kind of a lot of indifference. people knew that he was in town. they weren't necessarily telling him to stay away, but at the same time they wanted to get on with their lives so we spoke to one evacuee who just wanted to get over and take a shuttle bus over to where fema was to see if she could get to a trailer to get back to her property, but couldn't because the shuttles weren't running because the president was in town and the roads were closed. it's always a little bit of an imbalance when the president comes to a disaster site of not disrupting things and showing some concern and showing that he cares. certainly that message was delivered, but there was no interaction whatsoever between president trump and the real victims here. >> scott, thank you very much for the update. scott cohn joining us from california. as scott said, president trump surveying that damage yesterday. while this may be a different natural disaster for the president, we have seen a common

thread after natural disasters. >> nobody's ever seen anything like this. >> the largest one in recorded history in the atlantic ocean coming out of the atlantic. >> it's almost the entire size of the gulf. nobody's seen that before. >> one of the wettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water. >> nobody's seen anything like this. this is really incredible. nobody would have ever thought this could have happened. so the federal government is behind you. >> you join us at the table. we see how things have eroded and i didn't think that was a universal truth. ? your reaction to what he had to say and how does he approach these disasters. >> you have to give the president some credit because normally on the weekends he'd probably be golf,ing right? not meeting with the victims speaks volumes. the need to rake the floor of the forest and how dirty the forest is and fire blaming if

that's even a thing, but that's just nothing new. i still remember coming to the 2016 election and him going to california and actually saying there is no drought when there has been a drought in california for the last six years and that almost half of california residents actually live in dangerously dry areas and so what we're seeing now is absolutely a climate crisis and obviously the president is denying it because he's interested in appearing like a great leader. what he's really doing is gaslighting, truly, california, in the literal sense of the metaphor, truly. >> and you had jerry brown, the governor of the state saying what's important is after the president leaves what happens after ward and gaslighting and focusing on what has actually happened there. i want your reaction to what happened there, as well and how he engages with what happened. you bring up the finish raking technique while he was there yesterday. he's a journey man forester. >> i keep waiting for him to

talk about the nice marble flooring to clean it all up. this is perpetually, this is what you have when you have a president who is a sociopath. he's unable to express empathy. he describes it as the biggest ever, the wettest ever which is actually because what he's doing without knowing it is he's describing climate change. yes. this has never happened. these are all somewhat unprecedented because things are getting worse and it's a national and international global crisis, and so because he has no sense of history and he only cares about market forces and trying to make sure that coal and other fossil fuels are still developed, because he's incapable of empathy and the props that exist around him he sort of doesn't understand that he's supposed to think about this in terms of the human cost of what this is. my husband went to college in the chico area and i've been to paradise and it's heartbreaking and we have friends that lost their home, but there's no way he can see the human toll. it's always -- it's always this television show in which things

are happening and he's the star of it because we have a sociopath for president and that's a huge problem. >> weigh in on that. i'm curious about you talk about props and people around him, you have to watch what jerry brown was doing and ask questions about climate change. >> you could tell the folks who were standing around him were in a very awkward position and probably thinking to themselves what in the world is going on here? i think the president is okay with being uninformed. i think this is someone who truly is unmolested from facts of truth. seriously. and he doesn't really care. he wings it as he goes on and for a long time, we as a country have sort of had the expectation that our president has some type of decorum and that our president is methodical, curiosity and all of those things that you expect of a good leader. a decent leader. the president does not exhibit any of those things and so we wonder why there is so much chaos, but when you're winging it, david, what can you expect. >> philip, on the issue of

climate change, as i read in today, they've changed at all and it's a uniform shallowness to that issue and we go back to what he was asked on the plane on air force one and he was saying that he and jerry brown have more in common on this issue than they do and not elaborating on that and it's a reluctance of the inability to go into any depth on this. >> this is fascinating and he's held every possible position over the course of his history. he signed a letter in 2008 saying we have to take action and have clean energy because that was the popular, pro-business thing to do while he was running for president and held every sort of position on it. it was clear to the point he just made, and he has no interest in trying to hold the companies to account, and he has expressed no interest in doing that as consistently deferred. >> it is a factor not the factor, as he sees it. >> exactly. that's the new cop-out line on

it. yes, the world is getting warmer and it's a total cop-out line and i almost used another word for that. i lived in california and i know a lot of people that live there, this is affecting not just paradise, chico and southern california, but the inequality across the state. "the new york times" showed how the smoke is covering the state. i have friends in san francisco, y we were worried about air quality. we have little kids when they go outside, you to to limit the amount of time they're out there and canceling programs for the kids. one out of every eight americans live in california and the most striking thing that donald trump said yesterday as far as i'm concern side that this was a bad thing. hopefully we'll never see another one as bad as this again and the policies that he is pushing are precisely ones that will make things consistently this bad, the worst fires in california have been something like nine out of the ten and i don't know the number off the top of my head since he's been

president because things are so dry in california and because climate change and the president did a report on climate change and one of the key factors and one of the key things that we know will happen are wildfires. >> as christine said things are change and that is climate change. >> coming up, she deserves this victory. she will win. that is president trump talking about a candidate who won 85.5% of the vote in the last election. president trump's faint praise for nancy pelosi.t praise for nancy pelosi ♪ ♪ ♪ the united states postal service makes more holiday deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country.

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>> welcome back to "up." i'm david gura. >> do you eat anything besides fruits and vegetable sfs. >> never. >> maybe after, i may join in. >> all right. sure. >> i love it. >> beautiful. >> nancy pelosi in a fight to reclaim the spot in the speaker of the house in the run-up to the midterms. she was president trump's favorite foils. take a listen. >> they want to enact the radical agenda of nancy pelosi. the ms-13 lover nancy pelosi. >> they are all pelosi democrats. weak on crime. >> can you imagine?

speaker of the house nancy pelosi? i don't think so. >> since the midterms the president has been changing his tune. >> i would help nancy pelosi if she needs some votes. upon i will perform a wonderful service for her. i like her. can you believe her? i like nancy pelosi. she's tough and she's smart, but she deserves to be speaker. >> those comments as the president dished out praise for two other democrats on twitter saying andrew gillum will be a strong democrat warrior long into the future and she will have a terrific political future. what's behind this shift in tone? i'll turn to you first. >> what do you make of it? >> yeah. >> is it reverence for someone who would be a great opponent? does he want to have that? is he setting her up? >> how do you see him positioning himself here or positioning her? >> in the case of nancy pelosi, she's the perfect punching bag,

right? she is a woman so he's profiting on the sixism and the unconscious bias of all of us against women in leadership positions. nancy comes off as elitist even though she's passed more policies and more reforms for working class, regular americans than any other politician of this generation, but at the same time she's the perfect villain and that's yet republicans ran basically an anti-pelosi campaign in the midterms instead of talking about the actual policies that they were passing or doing. >> she writes, the politics of this and she's getting votes for nancy pelosi. how does tom feel when he's waking up in new york this morning? >> i don't know. will he be providing votes for nancy pelosi? >> i think this is a two-pronged approach strategy. remember in 2010 with steele, the fire pelosi bus that was very, very effective and nancy pelosi has talked about republicans love anything that

rallies against pelosi. that's one approach. the second approach is there were members that were recently elected who ran on, i will vote for someone else -- >> i think we have a wall behind me. i don't know if we can get it. some of the new members are on it. these are folks who said they oppose her candidacy and i will point out marcia fudge who met with her and she's a six-term -- >> now you have donald trump's fan i want nancy pelosi to be speaker of the house and these folks ran on i will vote for someone else rather than pelosi. >> there are those in the progressive wing of the party who i assume have some policy grounds on which they're planting their opposition? what is it? help us understand as the opposing case against nancy pelosi? >> one of them is the fact that there is a new, progressive arm of the democratic party that was just elected to congress that

sees sort of generally speaking, the face of the old democratic party where nancy pelosi and they wanted to sweep that to the side and there are policy issues and there are folks pushing for progressive policies and would rather see her not there, and there are people who see nancy pelosi who are politically unpopular and do not want to have a politically unpopular, and once you're speaker of the house and you are on target and if you look at speaker, the whole time because you take all of the fire and that's what you do, right? not to dismiss the argument entirely, but whoever becomes speaker of the house, the same thing will happen and donald trump will run against them in 2020, and it's safe to say at this point in time -- >> to lisa's point thshgs is, th the entirety of her career has gotten the ondone.

democrats did well and she's the leader of the democratic party. she's incredibly effective. we wouldn't have health care and the aca without nancy pelosi with the ability to get that through. we're fundamentally for donald trump when he likes her. he knows how to say her name. i don't think it's any more complicated. he knows how to say her name. it would be complicated for him to learn another new name, but i also do think and this is a california issue, actually, there's a huge amount -- the largest state in the nation, and there is a huge wave of political talent in the state that's been stymied, right? because dianne feinstein and nancy pelosi and these talented folks and they are a certain generation and i do think there's a new generation of leadership wanting to come up and a talent that had to wait in line while the folks in their late '70s are occupying center stage, at the same time he has real progressive chops and this may not be the hill that progressives in congress want to

die on and they want to think about something long term and there is a generation aldine amick for the generation of leaders and we're seeing it in conversation with the progressives. >> stick with msnbc, later, my colleague joy reed has andrew gillum and stacey abrams, they will sit down with a.m. joy at 10:00 a.m. eastern time right here on msnbc. regrets? surprisingly, he has a few. president trump admitting to a mistake during what's turned out to be a tumultuous week with his relationship with the u.s. military. k with his relationship with the u.s. military the greatest wish of all... is one that brings us together. the lincoln wish list event is here. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with $0 down, $0 due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. only at your lincoln dealer.

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welcome back to "up." i'm david gura. president trump now says he reg res n regrets not visiting arlington national cemetery. it's been a tough week for the president vis-a-vis with the military he commands. he is suggesting the more than 5,000 troops he's sent to the u.s.-mexico border will remain there amid calls to send them home for the thanksgiving day holiday, president trump said they are there for the long run. >> how long, mr. president? >> as long as necessary. >> they built great fencing, a very powerful fence, a different kind of a fence and very powerful. the fence is fully manned. nobody gets through. >> my colleague, julia ainsley visited the border and wrote about what she saw there, quote,

wearing uniforms branded with badges from deployments in syria, afghanistan and iraq, ten american soldiers dangled their legs off a concrete ledge, spitting out sunflower shells and tobacco juice as they waited the better part of a thursday morning wait for example a forklift to arrive. president trump is scheduled to head to his florida club to spend time with his friends and family there. today marks his 667th day in office and while he's visited his own properties, some 210 times, he has yet to go to a combat zone. my panel back with me. philip, let me start with you. the president fielding questions on the south lawn of the white house saying they'll be there as long as necessary. therein lies the rub and the definition of that is elusive, shall we say. >> it is important to say that where most of the troops are deployed on the central and the people are headed to the west

coast and they're not stopping any of these invasions as donald trump likes to call it. so, yes, it's pretty obvious to everyone because donald trump saw a potential boost to the midterms and part of the reason he says they'll be there indefinitely is because he can't say they'll come back right away because that makes it obvious that that's what was happening. the most ironic part of the way that his relationship with the military has evolved particularly in the past week or two is the fact that he positioned himself as being so pro-veteran on the campaign trail in part because he had to clean up the mess that he made with john mccain very early on and that was a point on which he seized on veteran issues as being important and he claimed that he was going to be the most pro-military and the most pro-veteran and it called that into question. >> a week ago and i guess, a week and a day when he was supposed to speak in france and

the white house said it was impossible for him to go there. that's what started this. give me your take on the week that was. >> it's unbelievable. we got press reports that he was angry how terrible that would look. we are being governed by a political sociopath and he doesn't see other human beings as pem. he se he sees them as political props. he's not thinking about their lives and the fact they don't get to go home for thanksgiving. there's an idea of the troops and it doesn't really matter, and it sends that profound lack of empathy by the way he views the caravan and it's political and racial performance art and he wants to perform border security and he'll demonize this set of bodies and move these other set of bodies around, but there's no sense that these are human beings with lives and futures who are trying to do the best they can and they're being moved around by this man who can

only see his own liefr as the tru meaningful existence around him and everyone there is to serve him, obey or do something that pleases him and their humanity is nothing he can fully see and even in veterans who he fetisheses, but can't do anything to care for them. >> he hasn't been to a combat zone yet and there was a big piece in "the new york times" about the relationship he has with the military. one reason that he's not visited troops in war zones is that he does not want american troops there in the first place. to visit would validate missions he does not truly believe in. how do you react to that? >> he is outrageous. he is the commander in chief under the u.s. constitution he is supposed to be in charge of our military. if we have military in afghanistan or other parts of the world, he's just as responsible. he is the ultimate responsible person for those troops being there. if he doesn't think they should

be there, then he should take them out, but he shouldn't betraying to say because he doesn't necessarily agree with it then he's not going to visit and this whole thing with the troops on the border, $200 million for a political stunt, just so he could use it during the midterms to sort of make people afraid of a bunch of people who are looking for asylum in the united states who are afraid of where they were in el salvador trying to leave their country to get political asylum in the iz asylum in the united states is totally outrageous. people are outraged that they're spending $200 million on this cheap political stunt, it's not cheap. this is not something any president has ever done before and people really ought to take him to task for it, and the congress ought to take him to task for it and just put up a big board showing how much money, how much expense this has cost the taxpayers for his own

political stunt. >> we will come back here in just a moment. just moments ago, president trump hinting toward who may be the next to depart the west wing and we'll have more details in clips of his interview with fox news coming up next on msnbc. x news coming up next on msnbc whether you do well or not. fisher investments fees are structured so we do better when you do better. maybe that's why most of our clients come from other money managers. fisher investments. clearly better money management. ♪ spread a little love today ♪ spread a little love my-y way ♪ ♪ spread a little something to remember ♪ philadelphia cream cheese. made with fresh milk and real cream makes your recipes their holiday favourites. the holidays are made with philly.

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welcome back to "up." i'm david gura. we have new news out of the white house this morning as we monitor the russia investigation. president trump's legal team plans to submit answers to the special counsel by thanksgiving. that is according to a source familiar with the matter. just in this hour, a wide-ranging interview on fox news where the president addressed his mood and reports of a cabinet shake-up. he also talked about matthew whitaker. the controversial acting attorney general who has expressed criticism about robert mueller's investigation. let's take a listen. >> i did not know he took views on the mueller investigation as such. >> when you found that out? >> i don't think it had any effect. if you look at those statements those statements can be viewed either way. >> there is no collusion -- >> chris, i'll tell you what. >> he said you can starve the investigation. >> what do you do when a person is right? thera no collusion. >> philip, we have learned more about matthew whitaker from the

southern district of iowa and what he has done since and part of that resume, a good chunk of it was stumping for or speaking in praise of president trump's policies and your reaction to what you heard there? >> the person is asking us to believe that a person went on fox news and said things that agree with his position on the mueller is extremely hard to be that that's the case. i will point to a consideration that president trump had this week where he was asked about whether or not -- i forget what the exact wording of the question was, but it was broadly about matt whitaker, and trump's response was that sessions had to go because the mueller investigation was a fraud. >> it was all about the because. >> when he thinks of matt whitaker, he thinks of the russia investigation. why? anyone on earth would assume that, yes, that was the link. >> it's part of his pattern. that's what he did with brett

kavanaugh. he wasn't on the list to be on the supreme court until he found out that brett kavanaugh had all these positions against indicting the president, against investigating the president, all of the things that would appeal to donald trump to keep him out of jail. the same thing with matt whitaker. i mean, he is just looking for patsies that will basically keep him out of prison. >> you have been reading the transcript. of course we have been watching. we have been on tv with you fine folks. but you said there was a question during the course of this interview about the odds here that president trump would sit down for an interview with robert mueller, that there would be this face to face. what did the president have to say? >> the president responded he didn't do odds. the interviewer said you used to run a casino. >> your reaction to all of this? i mean, how long -- we'll play some more odds games here. how long do you think matt whitaker will be in this job? do you see the pressure on the

administration? >> well, that was amazing when he was like i don't know him. i have never met him. i was dead at the time. i don't know. he backed off of it very oddly at the beginning. i wondered because i think you can stay in for up to 200 days as the law kind of lays this out, right, before appointing a permanent ag. but i think what's -- he's such a bad criminal sometimes, our president. like so he's so bad at sort of just simply saying -- i mean, he always announces what he's going to do, so he's clearly attracted for matt whitaker for the reasons he's denying. that makes it hard for him to stay in office because it is so transparent what he's trying to do with him. if matt whitaker makes any moves to do what he's suggested, he's got to look. >> this interview will be driving the day. let's listen to one more piece of it here. chris wallace talking about john kelly's future in the administration. >> we get along well.

there is certain things i love what he does, and there is certain things that i don't like that he does and that aren't his strength. it's not that he doesn't do -- he works so hard. he's doing an excellent job in many ways. there is a couple of things where it's not his strength. >> the follow-up is such as? but there you have him talking about john kelly. >> i mean, this is a storm that you can't weather. so many folks come into this administration with the idea that they will be able to get the president on the proper track. and i understand it and i respect that. but it is impossible. the president lacks discipline. he doesn't have foresight. for example, as a political operative, i would not have advised him to give that interview. why do you continue to give interviews when you think about what's at stake legally? he continues to put himself at jeopardy because of his inability to become a disciplined and structured individual. that is not good.

so, look, john kelly was supposed to be the guy that rights the ship, the guy that brings in order and discipline. unfortunately he failed. i'm not certain that anyone that comes into the administration after he is gone will be able to do what he would like for an individual to do, which is to run the white house the way he thinks it should be won. >> my last question to you is just about the prospect of this perjury trap. we heard about it again from the president in the oval office. in light of what he just said, we have this body of interviews that the president has given. are we assigning too much importance to this sit-down interview? >> yeah, we are, absolutely. it doesn't make any difference at this point. you also have that sit-down interview with mcgahn. he laid out everything that trump was saying during that whole period of time when he came into office and up to the point that mcgahn left. what more do you need? he's a more reliable witness than donald trump. donald trump will go in there and he'll be wishing and washing

all over the place without giving a straight answer. mcgahn laid it out for him. so in terms of this whole obstruction, that's just the tail wagging the dog in the sense that they're not going to bring an obstruction case unless they prove the underlying crime, which is the conspiracy relating to the break-in at the democratic national committee. >> full circle. thank you very much. my thanks to liz as well who joined us this hour. coming up joy reed sitting down with andrew gillum and stacey abrams live. those interviews will take place in just a few minutes. we'll be right back. when you book at hilton.com,

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xfinity mobile. it's simple. easy. awesome. click, call or visit a store today. well, that does it for me. we're going to have much more on that interview the president of the united states just did with fox news concluding just a few moments ago throughout the day right here. coming up, those important interviews as well with andrew gillum and stacey abrams as well. thanks so much for watching. a.m. joy with my friend and colleague joy reed starts right now. >> we wanted to make sure that every single vote, including those that were overvotes, undervotes, as long as it was a legally cast vote, we wanted those to be counted. and now that we are rounding that process out, rj and i wanted to take a moment to congratulate mr. desantis on becoming the next governor of the great state of florida.

all i have to say is stay tuned. there will be more to come. this fight for florida continues. good morning. and welcome to "a.m. joy." stay tuned. that is the teaser from andrew gillum, signaling he is not done with politics after officially conceding his campaign for governor yesterday evening. the contest was one of the hardest fought races for governor this year, including what many heard as racist dog whistled aimed at gillum's candidacy. gillum stood on the brink of becoming florida's first black governor, trailing desantis by 34,000 votes out of more than eight million cast. for many democrats it was a shocking loss in a midterm electi