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and if we go by a certain standard we won't be able to have allies with almost any country. >> the president's choice not to visit troops in harm's way, wishing them a happy thanksgiving by phone. >> the nation's doing well economically, better than anybody in the world, with a hot nation of the world. >> it is a hot nation and a hot world on this saturday, november 24th, 2018 as the president and the federal government fight over a new report on climate change. stephen colbert reminds us of this -- >> climate change, mr. president? >> no, no. i have a strong opinion. i want great climate. [ laughter ] >> you want learned grammar. i want new president. >> welcome to "up" with the hour. a democratic strategist and former clinton campaign staffer and a republican strategist and msnbc political analyst, and

also a u.s. editor for "financials time" and a legal analyst with us. start with the good-bye gift house republicans have given to president trump on their way out as they prepare to turn over control of the house to democrats. sending subpoenas to former fbi director james comey and former attorney general loretta lynch advising them they will have to answer questioned in a closed door session into e-mails by hillary clinton's e-mails. despite the department of justice's inspector general in a lengthy report back in june clearing james comey of any political bias in his decision-making. the former fbi director continues to say he does not want to answer questions in a private setting. he is calls for a little sunlight. tweeting this -- i will resist a closed door thing because i've seen enough of their selective leaking and distortion. let's have a hearing and invite everyone to see. i should say timing of this is

curious. the subpoena is coming days after the "new york times" published this report. trump told the white house counsel in the spring he wanted to order the justice department to prosecute two of his political adversaries. hillary clinton and james comey. as we near the end of 2018, president trump and his gop allies still cannot shake 2016. joel, turn to you first. plenty saying this is all about politics. any optimism on your part this would eveal anything new in this investigation or purely politics? >> a think purely politics but the first opportunity to see how democrats will treat these next two years. it's obvious to me the president wants to bait democrats into a fight about this. i actually think he thinks the numbers are good for him. i think he thinks that the public has questions just about fairness in law enforcement. the president we know has taken a sledgehammer to public trust and public belief in our institutions like the fbi, the

justice department, et cetera. i think this is part of a longer term campaign for the president to discredit those institutions and ity he thi think he thinks win. curious to see how nancy pelosi and the democrats respond to it. >> aren't many days left in this congress. in january things change on capitol hill. will that gambit work? >> it's a political stump and probably an audition tape for many republican congress members who may be looking for a place in the trump administration. they will use it to their advantage. i say it in jest but there's truth in that because we know there's going to be a lot of people leaving. and we know that donald trump likes to see people on tv. so -- it may be someone's looking for a job, but it really is -- it's a shame, actually, that this is how the republicans choose to go out. and i do hope that the democrats show up the republicans in doing some very fair, thorough investigations where necessary. and it would be a stark contrast

to this. >> and as this is happening in parallel you have the democrats setting up was going to happen in the new congress. we're getting a new sense of who's targets will be. the "washington post" saying 12 targets they're going after all of these investigative committees. does this matter? in other words, as we look ahead, does it matter to look behind or to what's happening on the republican side with so few days left? >> i don't know. democrats have done an admirable job, something i complained about for years, of focusing on policies that matter in the campaign. sort of fascinating to watch. i've wondered forever. what are the democrats about? what is the thing they are for? it's interesting they're having these fights saying look, we will focus on health care. seems to be a focus. not getting lost in the shuffle of might be over who gets investigated and when. comey and lynch going before congress, to me, seems like -- one way of managing the inevitable. there is going to be a report from justice at some point about the trump administration, and so how much damage can you do to

these institutions on your way out? that seems to be the goal here. >> lisa, dealing with subpoenas here. help me understand procedurally what happens. the import of using them. why the republicans are making the case this has to happen behind closed doors? isn't going to happen in a public session. a lawyer for james comey saying it goes against rules of the house, what the house stands for, being as transparent as possible as often as possible. your reaction? mechanism by which they're doing this? called for these two to testify for a long time? >> and apparently they volunteered to testify in the past, too. why so late and does comey have recourse? short answer. a tough legal battle. subpoenaed you don't have optionality. i want to testify this way or that way. this administration or that administration. congress has extremely broad subpoena powers and jared nadler, incomie ining chair of committee will want to keep it that way. no one wants to mess with what's coming. >> if i can ask you a question. >> please. >> what about delaying it by ten

days? that's the trick. >> all it takes? >> delay it by ten days, they'll be going home for their holiday break. so is that a possibility? >> i think comey's lawyer in part and i take him at his word about wanting sunlight also wants to run out the clock. if comey refuses to testify, this is just hypothetical. the house judiciary committee has to vote on contempt. goes to the house, to the u.s. attorney and the district of columbia would have to find it. a lot of technical steps and easily imagine that not happening between now and congress' last day. anyway, from a legal matter, tough for comey to fight. from a political matter, just seems to me republicans want to achieve equivalency going into 2019 and say, hey, america, investigations come and go. nothing to pay attention to. >> by the way, i think the point is what are we not talking jab not talking about donald trump jr. or jerome corsi or roger stone. that's the point. they want to throw sand in the eye of the referee out there so that as people are thinking

about this we muddy the waters up. we make people -- create doubt in people's minds about, who are really the bad guys? on the democratic or republican side? aren't these still the same people going after trump for all of these years? i think that's the whole idea here. to create enough doubt within the public discourse so that people ultimately don't believe whatever comes out that's going to be negative about the trump administration. >> you bring up trump/corsi. never a good thing "new york times" refers to conspiracy theorist. identified in the paper today. help us understand his role in this. tied into roger stone. jerome corsi, 70-something years old did not have an official link to the trump campaign but was communicating with roger stone. he among this group of affiliat affiliates that expect to be indicted by robert mueller. >> i kind of can't believe these people exist. take roger stone alone. beyond credulity as a figure. this person who goes back to the

nixon administration, and almost seems like he didn't know what he was getting himself into, having such a delightful time for three, four years slowly leaking things and slowly at the center of attention. almost seems it didn't occur to him what he was doing might be illegal. so, no. i can't lay out exactly where jerome corsi fits into this, because as many times a as i attach string to a wall and connect pictures none of it makes sense because none of these people make sense. >> and on his point, roger stone might have tweeted this, about his friend corsi. my friend dr. corsi has been under tremendous amount of pressure and beginning to affect him profoundly. asked over and over to say things he simply does not believe occurred. turn our attention to roger stones the way he's batting off criticism? >> stone is cruising one of his great skill sets.

deflecting, parsing language and of course what he complained about a group of feds pressuring him to say a certain thing actually probably is a group of seasoned prosecutors holding him to his prior statements. identifyi ining discrepancies. that's how prosecutions work, and corsi entering a plea deal is not good for roger stone and anyone who wants to keep the truth of the russia investigation under wraps. piece by piece, glimpses we're getting we're seeing prosecutors build a case. has to go through characters. >> and they are. capital characters. >> david runian characters. >> and when you see corsi or roger stone or anyone else even the president for that matter discussing this investigation, they have no idea. that's the most amazing part of this.

that there are no leaks from mueller. his case will be as crazy as this is all leaking out, mueller's case will be methodical and sensical and will follow just the trail of wherever it leads. whether it's criminal wrongdoing or not. it will just end up fwhebeing t way. that's how prosecutors make their cases. >> one of my favorite things about this. john oliver his show talks about stupid watergate. this is stupid watergate, guys. these characters and people you're talking about are people in the power center of the president of the united states. these are people who have access to the president. who are influencing thought. roger stone, corsi, freely associates of the president. that should be maddening to anybody watching from home, that these people have that much access to power. >> i also think that it's important to point out that wikileaks is an institution almost without a precedent. it was five or six years ago, they were still thought of as a

press freedom organization. right? got an award from the economist for the work they were doing in bringing light to information that it was actually really important to see and so you know, are they a media organization? are they an intelligence organization? is it just julian assange? any communications with wikileaks seem to go to julian assange. it's entirely plausible they thought, oh, what fun. here's a guy trapped in an embassy. let's play with him a while without understanding what was at stake, how he got the information, what the import of it was. a group of people used to operating in a new york media environment and not as you point out in a prosecutorial environment. >> and point out tension that lies why julian assange might be prosecuted. and president trump dismissing climate change days before his administration drops a massive warning about it. the huge price tag for the u.s. economy is nothing more to change. how the white house is already down it playing that report.

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welcome back to "up." i'm david gura. facts be damned. president trump continues to say there is a debate over climate change. all right. this is what that looks like. one hand, this tweet from the president in which he conflates climate with the weather. whatever happened to global warming, he jokes? on the other hand, there is this. a brand new report on climate change released a few hours ago

filled with sobering warnings about what's happening. what could be happening. what could happen in the future. the whole thing some 1,600 pages produced die 13 federal agencies and the report says damage from climate change is expected to reduce the size of the american economy by 10% by the end of the century. annual losses of many u.s. states. turn to you first. second installment of these 1,600 pages. first one came out during the administration under president obama. how important is this among those still denying the existence of this thing happening? how compelling is that argument and that's the import? >> for a long time, if you move beyond the argument of, is it happening, and is it man-made? the next argument we're having right now is, what will be the cost to the economy? if we mitigate climate change and what's the cost if we don't? the problem is these estimations

are imprecise. i get frustrated with the modeling, something a nobel prize was won for. modeling implies a level of precision. pay this much extra for carbon then we'll see this much less damage. we just don't know, is the problem. so what this does, i think very well, is look at the worst-case scenario and point out that the worst-case scenario is happening right now. so if the conversation has been, okay. we want to avoid this, but how do we do it while maintaining our beautiful capitalist economy and ensuring growth? this is pointing out, we're doing great harm to our beautiful capitalist economy right now. and capital that we've slowly accumulating over the last 6,000 years of human civilization is at risk right now, and will not be easily replaced. so i think that report is incredibly important, because it points out that we are looking at a worst-case scenario and it is not modeled in the future.

it is happening today. >> because we had our first remark of the day, i'm going to drink. you can't at home, i know. susan, turn to you, though. bringing up a focus on the worst-case scenario. what the white house's line of defense is. lindsay walters, the report is largely based on the most extreme scenario contradicting trends by assuming despite strong economic growth it would increase greenhouse gas emissions limited technology and a rapidly expanding population. brandon points out much of this is happening now. you have a white house once again weighing on the science as an equal. the president does this all the time. he knows scientists have feelings about things that equate with what scientists have studied and believed. >> the big problem facing us now is the president said when we got out of the president -- i care about pittsburgh. not paris. this reports shows you need -- if you care about pittsburgh, action needs to be taken. and let's also not forget.

this report is basically, was required by law to come out. this is not something the administration was, like, just kind of getting out there, because it should. it's required to, and they dropped it on a friday of the a holiday weekend. this is something they don't want to deal with and a president who doesn't believe in science and equates weather and climate, there's nowhere to go on policy, because he's not going to go down any direction, even if it is economic, where he seems to want to put a lot of his eggs in a basket. >> no policy regulations in this document, lisa. what's the utility of it? what difference will it make to the president, to the white house, to the government as a whole as it looks at this issue. i have a legal possibility. there's a case that the supreme court just took a look at. federal court case, 21 young people suing the government, brought in the obama administration, claiming a constitutional right to a decent climate, and the trump administration as its done in several other cases ran it up to the supreme court said this can't possibly go forward. the court said, no.

it can't. keep going. powerful evidence for plaintiffs. at the rate we're doing, you can almost imagine personal injury lawyers lining up to sue the government saying, where are you? why aren't you helping us? a tough case legally but interesting to see it bubbling up in the court system. will the judiciary lend a helping hand when the executive branch won't? >> talk about worst-case scenarios. models has a median case and a worst case. the likelihood of the worst case is 5% to 10%. i feel those are intolerable odds. 5% to 10% that will have catastrophic loss of human life and the cost will be too great for us to bear. so i think what's scary about that report is, it does seem like the farther we march into the future without changing anything, the more it looks like we're headed towards the worst-case scenario. >> we're already there. we're already at catastrophic human loss of life. right? look what happened with these wildfires overish the last month. and by the way, this is not

something that just affects the elites on the coast. okay? this is something as you said, it affects pittsburgh. it affects iowa. it affects the gulf coast when you talk about hurricanes. it affects tornado alley, which cuts right through the heart of trump country. this is something that republicans should be, from just a political standpoint, front and center concerned about, because this is affecting their electorate and their base probably more than anybody. and by the way, also, a number of people who are in the path of a lot of these terrible -- the weather implications because of all of this that we're dealing with aren't actually able to defend themselves, because we don't have the right infrastructure. we're not ready as a country to deal with this. there are so many problems that are stacked on top of each other, and it would be great if the president and his administration would line up behind a real solution. >> this president has yet to do anything looking forward. looking towards the future. it's always about him and how does it help me today. he won't even look towards tomorrow. so i don't know how he looks

to -- >> lastly. >> this is too bad to complain about trump. i think this report should sas this is on us at the city level, state level. >> that's where the responsibility will fall. no doubt. >> what the cities did when he pulled out of the paris accord. cities and states across country said, we will abide by these rules. we will implement it, because it is on us. >> i disagree. if you have a president actively saying don't believe this, that's a problem. you're not going to be -- it's going to be intransdent because you won't come up with a solution. >> see if the courts rectify that. hoping for it. >> lastly? >> on the list of problem, a problem. things i wish to achieve, convincing trump believes in climate change, it's low. i don't see it happening and we don't have the time to say, oh, we wish we had a different president. the issue of the report. >> doesn't have time to read -- >> about 1,599 longer than ning he reads. >> the message from the president as he throws support

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welcome back to "up." i'm david gura.

journalist jamal hkhashoggi is dead but president trump makes it clear the united states relationship with saudi arabia is not. the president could not be more clear there is a price tag for the united states to look the other way. >> they're investing billions of dollars. their buying equipment from us. and remember this. they don't have to buy from us. they can buy it from russia and from china. >> well, the price tag according to the president is $450 billion. $110 billion in weapons. but wait. there's more. the president says it will create hundreds of thousands of jobs. >> we have hundreds of thousands of jobs. do people really want me to give up hundreds of thousands of jobs? >> wait. there is still more. the president also says because of this good relationship oil is cheap, which means gas prices are cheaper, which he says is like a tax cut for americans. >> we want low oil prices, and

saudi arabia is really done a good job in that respect. they pumped out a lot more oil than was going to be pumped out when i called them about four weeks ago. >> wait. there are caveats. many. those numbers the president cites are not even real numbers according to the associated press only an agreement on $14.5 billion worth of weapons purchases so far and nothing backs up that $450 billion number the president cited and continues to cite. the state department meanwhile disputes the president's jobs numbers estimating there could be tens of thousands summer not hundreds and it isn't accurate to give saudi arabia credit for low gas prices. only one of them. and brought you on because i saw a tweet you fired off about this earlier in the week and got you riled up. start with oil prices and what the president said about that mounting his case for going

against the intelligence committee. >> the fact opec including saudi arabia and russia cut prices because the u.s. was producing so emergency. a piece in the "wall street journal" shows almost the entire decline in oil prices comes from ramped um u.s. production. you said, we're number one in the world. also 12 million barrels a day. in a position we've not been in since larger producer than saudi arabia and russia and have the most oil in the ground of any country on the planet. so it's us. it's not them. they have recently upped their output as has russia but this is largely a function of what's happening in the united states. the fracking revolution is working. >> brandon? >> he is write about one thing. low oil is a tax cut. it is. yellin used the same language. the problem in the last ten years, the last five years, something fundamental changed in the way oil affects our economy. k4 is because we have all of those fraccers in west texas and north dakota, fracking is incredibly responsive to the price of oil. which means when the price of

oil goes up you get tons of business investment. you can see those in the gdp numbers. so when we got a drop in business investment in 2015-2016 caused a mini recession, something the netanyahu pointed out. >> 26 ot05 in 2016, what happen? fracking stopped. >> low price of oil cuts business investment in the u.s. e we are an oil-producing country now much more than a consumer country as far as price of oil goes. >> go ahead. >> sorry. i was going to say, think about the implications of this, though. okay. what does this tell you? it tells you this president has essentially created open season on this type of behavior around the world. he has given a free pass to despots, to dictators around the world. if you're duterte in the philippines, erdogan in turkey. gosh, he's been more aggressive on this than president trump. how can you -- and putin.

how in the world do you think the united states will hold you accountable for any of this type of behavior? the future? they're not. you'll go to them with a checkbook, a blank check and they'll let you get away with it under the trump presidency. i think this is a crisis-like situation we're in with this president in terms of essentially giving away the store just related to the situation. by the way, if you're -- the whole idea of not being able to hold these countries accountable. that reflects such a weakness, okay? a weakness in policy. and a weakness in response from this white house and this presidency. the guy who's supposed to be master of the deal, art of the deal, give me a break. >> and we may learn something new when the democrats take control of the house . and what they know about the murder of khashoggi and what

role president trump's financing is involved in why he's reacting this way. i want to ask you, karen, as prospects for this congressional investigation. the publisher of or paper had a powerful piece wednesday of this week and wrote it fualling to congress to put america first. we've seen from strong support of both republicans and democrats this is not a partisan or political interest, it is an american interest. what do you want to see congress do in the new year? >> absolutely. i think it's extremely important to remember this is not just, you know, having a sort of democratic agenda or a partisan agenda. this is a bipartisan response. senator bob corker is had a strong rebuke to this statement that trump gave saying it was like he was running p.r. for the saudi regime. as far as what i hope, you know, we need to see with the world,

what the world frankly needs to see, first of all, adam schiff signaled that they can take a look at the cia's evidence, and look at what helped them lead to the conclusion that mohammed bin salman specifically was responsible for this murder, ordering this murder. they can also take a look at perhaps trump's conflict of interest, business interests that might be a factor in why he's so sort of almost irrationally going along, potentially going along with their cover-up. there's a lot that, you know, at the very least we can bring to light as far as how the cia came to the conclusion, again, that crown prince mohammed been salman was behind jamal khashoggi's murder. >> are you surprised? listened to the press, read the tweets he's thanking saudi arabia for the oil prices and plans to travel to argentina end of the month, g20 and meet with

the procrown prince of saudi arabia? look how he's embracing this leader, are you still surprised? >> i think it just seems like there's something else going on. i mean, i think that -- in a lot of ways, and, again, i think trump's rhetoric is about, we need to preserve the relationship with saudi arabia. and, again, a absolutely we do and we will, but it's about why this president has thrown all of his cards behind mohammed bin salman who, again, has risen to power just in the last two or so years. what is it in mohammed bin salman's track record that deserves such unconditional support and loyalty? and it makes -- it's understandable as to why there are so many people who are wondering, okay, why? what is it this prince has done

that deserves this? frankly, between most likely ordering the murder of a "washington post" writer, grinding yemen into the dust with their war. kidnapping a prime minister, breaking off diplomatic relations with canada over tweets. for any sort of basic casual observer, this is a prince that is frankly reckless and dangerous. so it's a question of, like, why mohammed bin salman what has he done for us to basically be acting as his, you know, servant, frankly, p.r. firm? >> and an op-ed in the "washington post" by jamal khashoggi's daughters. this is a promise his light will never fade. his legacy preserved within us. them talking about closure. how do you see closure when it comes to this now? >> i just want to say to those daughters, thank you for speaking out and reminding us

who your father was, and i think you know, jamal might be gone but his story is not over. his ideas aren't over. as far as closure, his story, it's not just his story. his story is one about the situation in the wider arab world and about the fight for freedom of expression, and so it's still difficult right now to not feel there's any closure but i don't think that's what we're searching for. we're searching for justice and for -- for a safer world so there aren't more jamal khashoggis in the sense of people being silenced in this gruesome way, i think. so -- i think -- an interesting question. i think it's just, his story is not over and maybe there won't be full, full closure especially because we were robbed of any body to be able to give a proper burial. but i think we are not going to

stop until we, we have a -- that we realize that the people who are responsible for this won't get away with it, and -- you know -- that we can continue his story and the ideas that he gave his life for. >> karen, thank you very much. >> i think that's -- thank you so much. >> joining us from the "washington post." thousands of american troops spent this holiday week away from their families. one visit they haven't seen in two years. the president. he's steering clear of combat zones. will anything change? that's coming up next on "up." ♪ hi. this is peggy. (vo) you do more than rescue pets when you share the love. you build families. get a new subaru, like the all new forester, and charities like the aspca can receive two hundred and fifty dollars from subaru. (avo) get zero percent during

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is there anybody back there more senior than us? [ cheers and applause ] i bring a message on behalf of america. we thank you for your service. we're proud of you. >> that was 15 years ago when president george w. bush surprised troops in iraq for thanksgiving. 60 american troops killed there in that month alone and the president's whirlwind trip kept under wraps until the very last minute. sworn to secrecy. he snuck out of his ranch and flew in the base with lights out. an opportunity to boost morale during the holidays. >> very inspiring today to have him here. we're grateful. i think these soldiers appreciate him showing up. >> the very first, he would come

out here on his thanksgiving toy away from his family to be with us. >> president h.w. bush and president obama all visited trooped in war zones. president trump has spent 217 at certainly properties. more than 60 at campaign rally but has yet to travel to a combat zone. susan, start with you. we spoke earlier last week about this and the prospects of him maybe dobb thing this. he ended up calling the troops by phone. he didn't do it. what prevent him from doing this? >> i don't think he cares. he didn't show the ability to honor our dead on veterans day and doesn't care to honor those serving or country. he looks at them who people who serve him and he basically insulted them again doing a crazy infomercial on thanksgiving with the troops in this -- the whole thing was

absurd. if he can't put himself out to visit our troops, how can we expect us to follow him? a feckless leader. someone who just won't put themselves -- it angers me so because he uses our troops for props that we saw what he did at the border. >> how did you react to susan pointing out how strange that scene was, when he did a teleconference. a moment he asking someone serving in the military, what's better for the aircraft carriers, it was like, a bizarre moment. to say the least. >> yeah. no. the tele -- the contrast between -- it's weird. i agree, but a broader issue, which is we just went through a list of presidents who have done this and in that list of presidents were two presidents who deferred military service. one in the national guard. one to go to oxford. in a time when there was a mandatory draft. and then became president. and so i think that these trips are all about optics.

i'm not -- as exorcised that donald trump is failing to do the right optical thing, to have the right backdrop. i do think it's important to show some solidarity when sending people abroad but of the many sins of this presidency, the fact he's failed to go abroad to be with troops and have the right backdrop for thanksgiving is one of the least for me, and the third could have joined that group. president trump didn't serve or -- as well. do psychoanalysis. why were they compelled and he wasn't? >> i have a theory if i can jump in. >> please. >> forget war zones. this is president who wants to be in his comfort zone's we know from the days in office those zones of comfort include gilded chairs laden rooms at his resorts. obviously the golf course and occasional signing ceremonies in the white house where he has the sharpie with the giant

signature. beyond that, this is not a guy whose calendar is replete with a lot of activities. >> hates to travel. right about the comfort zone. truly hates to travel. >> exercising his prerogative as leader of the free world to sit tight, watch cable news. i'm not advocating that as a position presidents should take but it helps us understand why he might feel it's within the confines of his presidency just to sit around. >> comes down to fear and sacrifice. you know, i go back to a, the gentleman escapes me. went to the democratic national committee. >> qikhan, talking what have yo sacrificed? he can't even sacrifice a golf weekend at one of his resorts to visit our troops. that's disgusting. some say he's afraid of going to these combat zones. it's reflected in how he deals with our military leaders.

people like bill mcraven, like john mccain. mattis, who he routinely talks around and talks about. he doesn't respect service because he has no concept of it. how in the world can you respect something that you have no idea. how do you have any idea what it means to go and run willingly and give your life or give a couple months of your life or a couple tours of duty? he has no concept of that, so how can we expect him to feel differently. >> between the war on words between the president and the chief justice. how this could come back to haunt the administration well into the new year.

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welcome back to "up." i need a hammer, gavel for this next part. o, yea, next on the docket is the case of president donelty j. trump versus chief justice john roberts. earlier this week, the chief justice took issue with president trump's criticism of, quote, obama judges, blocking several border and immigration orders in the 9th circuit. he defended the judges saying they are dedicated to giving those that appear are before

them equal treatment. that reply led to more attacks against them and now the bar association says there could be severe damage done. your sense of that? this has been an extraordinary back and forth between the head of one branch and another. just that in and of itself is remarkable. do you see there being damage done already? >> oh, i'm worried. i think when you encourage society, american society, to disregard judges as politicians in robes, when you start partisan reactions, strong partisan reactions to decisions that don't go your way and you fume like a totalitarian government leader, judges have reason to worry. what i think is missing in president trump's analysis is noticing that there are judges, including judges he's appointed who have not ruled his way. in the recent media access case. the first judge who ruled in the asylum matter in 2017 was a george w. bush appointee as is justice roberts. so be careful to disregard the fact that judges, with when they

ascend to the bench may put ideology behind them and try to do what's right. i'm not saying this isn't political. politically elected people nominate judges, appoint judges, so obviously there's political elements to it. but judges really take, by and large, this edict seriously. no matter what their ideology is, they're pretty committed to the fair rule of law. and having a president come at them may have the unintended effect, one can only hope, of stiffening their spines and doing what's right and upholding something that i think if we started to see it disappear, mens would be extremely worried. >> it's a perilous thing to tangle with this president. in the past, it hasn't work out all that well. justice john roberts has weighed in, but he's not going to weigh in time and time again. was it a mistake for him to do this? >> so i think what's fascinating about john roberts is he cares to care about the legitimacy of his court. you can see that in his

decisions, as with well. it's completely indefensible to go after the judiciary in the way that donald trumps has. he seems to relish a fight, so this is another fun one for him. but at the same time, he's not -- one of the things about donald trump is that he says the quiet part out loud. he's not wrong that there are obama judges and trump judges. we just went at it hammer and tongs as a country to see who got to, you know, put another justice on the supreme court. of course the selection of judges is completely politicized and has only gotten more political over the course of the last 20 years. so i mean, he's -- i don't know if he should be in trouble for pointing out the thing which we all know to be true which is we're constantly fighting in the senate over whose judges get to sit for life. >> compared to the alternatives, do we want judge toes run for office? >> no. >> there's a bigger thing here. and that is showing leadership. i think what got chief justice roberts to react was seeing what

the president said, looking at his past behavior, the way he's trying to tear down one of our pillars of democracy, our justice system, and that was leadership. and that was someone who is vested in it in our judicial system. now it's time for republican leaders to also step up when they see things happening, when it be saudi arabia, whether it's stepping up to the plate and actually going forward with your branch of government. i he mean, you're the united states senate. act like the senate. don't acquiesce to the president. now the house has lost, but this is a time that all of our politicians, i mean, you talk about politicians putting in judges, our politicians should act like leaders. >> but, you know, i want to pick up on something that brendan said talking about roberts here. and i'm curious to you particularly as an attorney, is justice roberts going to start to take on this moderate position or more moderate position? we all know he's a solid conservative. but is he going to start to, you

know, pivot to the middle given the fact that he is concerned about the legitimacy of his court and he is concerned -- >> that's easy. he's now the swing justice. kennedy as left. he's in the center. all eyes are on him to see if he'll do what he did for the aca. >> thank you all very much for joining me this hour here in new york. up next, the republicans entering their final few weeks as the majority party in the house. how they're making every day count.

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welcome back to "up." i'm david gura. tick tock, lawmakers return to washington next week for a lame republican, but house republicans are doing what they can to make these final days count. they just subpoenaed former fbi director james comey and loretta lynch to testify in closed session about the 2016 campaign. coming just days after we learned more about president trump's interests in having james comey and hillary clinton investigated. comey says he's going to fight the subpoena, calling for a public hearing, telling republicans enough selective leaking. the hearings are scheduled to take place during the first week of december. what's the likelihood that that is going to happen? >> the chairman is holding these hearings, his power evaporates. this is like the last gasps