tv MTP Daily MSNBC December 10, 2018 2:00pm-3:01pm PST
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maintain and preserve the truth in this country right now. >> you think we can do it? i mean you laid out all the structural impediments to winning. >> there's a guy named mueller who's the president of that. >> and i still believe in those three words, we the people. >> my thanks to kimberley atkins and michael. that does it for our hour. >> it is good to be back and it is good to see you. >> good to see you, my friend. i'm going to race back to my office and watch you. >> please do. it's going to be exciting. if it's monday where there's smock, there may be fire. good evening i'm katie tur in new york in for chuck tod and welcome to mtp daily. we begin with the growing legal peril for individual one after
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federal prosecutors disclosed that the president directed a pair of campaign felonies that basically defrauded voters. that's one. two, his personal lawyer and fixer was talking about a deal with the russian government that included political synergy, a deal which he lied about to congressional investigators and he said he lied for the president. and three, his campaign chief lied about among other things his contact with someone tied to russian intelligence. there's also now an enormous body of public evidence demonstrating the trump orbit's eagerness to team up with russia earlier in the campaign. not to mention the pervasive culture of lying and corruption that has been uncovered by prosecutors more generally. as "the washington post" notes, we now know that russians interacted with at least 14 -- that number's at 14 now -- trump associates during the campaign and the transition. that includes some family members. the president's lawyer lied to investigators about his
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interactions. his national security advisor lied to investigators about his interactions. and one of his campaign advisers lied to investigators about his interactions. it is a strange and perhaps eerie thing when federal prosecutors are building a meticulous case of criminal activity around the president and the president's denialing can't be bothered with a simple spell check. guys, with repeat developments there are so many questions about where this investigation is headed, what kind of case or cases could implicate the president and how the president is going to respond to it all. to help us unpack everything i'm joined by "the washington post" intelligence and national security reporter shane harris, the pentagon's former top russia expert and msnbc national security analyst, evelyn farkas, and a former federal prosecutor who's worked under bob mueller,
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glen kershner, you have the filings from last friday, the president's denials. where do you think it goes from here, glen? >> i actually watched nicole wallace interview of comey last night certainly through a different lens. i've read jim comey's book. we've all heard him testify previously. when he started talking about that first briefing with president-elect trump at trump tower where he and other members of our intelligence communities laid out for the president that russia had interfered in our elections and they were probably going to do it again i think any president learning or any president-elect learning that information should immediately have said, oh, my goodness, how did this happen?
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we must investigate. we must prevent it from happening again. now, according to former director comey donald trump had none of those reactions. instead he said how can we spin this for our own pr purposes so we are not damaged. that's a sign that from day one he was compromised, and i think that is quite troubling. >> what do you think of the denials, evelyn? the president today with his multiple tweets talking about a smocking gun when he really means a smoking gun. he's getting more belligerent when it comes to his denials. he's been denying collusion all along, but it seems like he's taking the facts presented to him by prosecutors and completely ignoring them in order to serve his own purposes. does he believe that people don't know up from down? >> maybe.
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i think i would align myself here with glenn. he's not behaved from day one as if he's innocent and none of the people around him have behaved that way either. and, you know, knowing russia the way i know urussia, when ths story first started to come out i thought clearly the russians are trying to weaken our democracy and influence our elections. that was not a question. and i thought, well, it's possible that the trump -- people around president trump and maybe even the president himself would have taken the assistance. now, whether they would have taken it wittingly knowing that it was illegal or not was an open question in my mind. but the more they stall, the more they cover-up, the more i think that actually they were involved knowingly and that that's why they're working so hard to cover it up. because if it was an accident, if it was a misunderstanding, by now, you know, at least some of them would have come clean. >> let's get into that a little bit more for a moment, evelyn. in the comey filing -- in the
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mueller-cohen filing from friday, they say in and around 2015 cohen spoke to a russian national who claimed to be a trusted person in the russian federation who could offer the campaign, quote, political synergy and synergy on a government level. is that how vladimir putin's government would first try to broach the topic of colluding? would they dangle it in that way? >> sure, and they were doing it with multiple other trump people. they were not targeting just one person, i think to make sure that they were effective they tried multiple people. the other thing to know about the russian government, you know, they have multiple security agencies working their targets. so the u.s. targets are being targeted by different security agencies and we know from the dnc hack for example that both the military intelligence unit and the foreign intelligence unit were targeting us. they were kind of competing. so certainly they would do that, and they would hope that somebody would bite. it looks like multiple people
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bit. >> what would political synergy be, shane? >> well, it's interesting. the political synergy could be in the most extreme instance i suppose would be at what's at the heart of this investigation, which would be collusion. was there some effort that the russian government was making to disrupt our elections and they made the trump campaign privy to it? we don't have any proof of that. that's obviously been a big question. when i hear synergy i think of that period during the transition when michael flynn was on the phone with the russian ambassador and trying to align the expectations that they had how russia would respond to sanctions we had just put on them with the incoming trump administration. there's still a lot around that conversation. i presume michael flynn shared one of his 19 interview sessions with the special counsel. if you add up all these interactions and the reporting that's been going on for two years before this, what we see
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are there's multiple efforts by the russian government to penetrate the trump campaign. what that ultimately ended up -- and whether there was this collusion or synergy we don't know, but in any other campaign you could imagine if people saw this kind of connection they would have called the fbi or tried to put a stop to it. and there's no evidence that in any of these interactions that were going on for much longer than we understood before, that the trump camp pain ever said no or tried to turn these people away. and reporters are trying to find out who exactly spoke to russians or had interactions during the trump campaign. we've been getting more information about that as time has gone on. first it was just about sessions and flynn and some people involved in the transition. it's broadened out. last year it was nine people. today according to "the washington post" latest reporting it's 14 different people. and this doesn't just include
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flynn and sessions who we already knew about but seder, papadopoulos, manafort, page, gordon, roger stone, michael kaputo, rick gates but also a new name we've heard and that's ivanka trump, shane. >> and we've seen that materializing as well. it sounds like homicide a scatter shot kind of approach when you lay out these 14 people going on on here. but it matches up with what the intelligence community understands about aspects of the russian interference campaign which was there was a central mission which gets handed out by putin and various arms of the security apparatus start carrying that out. it's one of the reasons the intelligence officials i've talked to think there were two separate hackers inside the dnc network. one looking for information for espionage purposes. what looks like a scatter shot kind of approach it's actually
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not coordinated but does reflect this idea there's multiple lines trying to make inroads, and they've clearly touched on a lot of people. >> glen, it seems clear to me mueller's investigation is very much about the question of collusion, not just about obstruction. >> yeah, it is. and i think the word synergy is going to become important, katie, but in a whole different way because there's so much synergy developing sort of between and among the many misdeeds of trump and his closest associates and family members. whether it's now his apparent involvement in campaign finance violations together with michael cohen to help give him an unfair advantage in the election. whether it is the ongoing relationship, business relationship that we now learned about through michael cohen's guilty plea where he was continuing to try to work with the russians to build trump tower in moskow, whether it's the cover-up of the president asking comey to layoff flynn,
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then firing comey over the russia thing, there is synergy among all of these things that i think becomes more and more ominous by the day for the president and his family members and close associates. >> there's synergy among the russia investigation. certainly whether there's collusion and obstruction or one or the other. but there's also another threat here that has nothing to do with either one, and that hais potentially nothing to do with either one, and that is some overlap involved. michael cohen and what he was trying to do just cam pape finance and trying to hush stormy daniels and kaeren mcdougal with those hush money payments. sdny is making it clear they believe that is campaign finance violation and michael cohen's effort to defraud the voters. but they also make a point of saying he was directed to do so -- and they take this as fact, directed to do so by individual one.
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that is the president. why not just specifically go in and say the president has defrauded the american public? why not be more blatant? >> well, they actually did say that. and they really stake their reputation on it by putting it in that publicly filed sentencing memo. i've done hundreds of those memos in my 30 years as a prosecutor, and you want to make sure that you can back up an assertion like that that you make in paperwork, you file with the court. beyond just the word of one witness, particularly a witness like michael cohen. so, you know, and i don't think the president can be heard to say that the southern district of new york consists of 200 angry democrat prosecutors the way he always levels attacks against the mueller team. this is separate office that has now concluded and announced that the president colluded with michael cohen to gain unfair advantage in the election. >> so does that mean they're saying that donald trump committed a crime, explicitly? and if they are saying that is
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adam schiff right to say that donald trump could be facing jail time? >> they are saying that, and i think adam schiff is right. i mean, if a candidate engages in illegal conduct to steal an election whether by campaign finance violations or colluding with foreign countries to undermine our free and fair elections, i don't think the president can then hold up as a shield the very position that he stole and say you can't prosecute me for it. that seems to be an incongruity that the american public shouldn't have to live with. >> shane, evelyn, and glenn, everyone thank you very much. and one last thing we should note when it comes to russia infiltration of american politics, maria butina, which now expected to plead guilty in federal court as early as tomorrow. it is unclear, however, if she's cooperating with investigators. we'll be right back.
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even pet hair, with ease, and now for cleaning surfaces above the floor, it comes with a built in shark handheld. one dock, two sharks. the shark ion robot cleaning system. welcome back. if president trump does face mounting legal troubles from the mueller probe it's still not clear of the political toll the investigation is taking on his administration. and democrats who take control of the house next month say impeaching the president is not at the top of their to-do list. >> i think we have to wait until we get the mueller report to provide some guidance. >> so you think you need to wait for more evidence until you say this meet the standard of an impeachable offense. your colleague has said in his new book this meet the standard. >> i think we need to wait. >> i haven't heard that the first item is -- the first item
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is actually going to be about cleaning up congress and passing reforms to campaign finance to restore the american people's faith in this institution. >> let's bring in tonight's panel. gabe, national correspondent for the new york magazine. susan, republican strategist and msnbc political analyst. currently the director of progressive programming for sirius xm. there's a legal threat we just talked about and also the political threat. the president seem tuesds to be shrugging this off. much as he did during the campaign when he was trying to shrug off controversy. is it going to work this time? >> no, it won't work. when he says no collusion or nothing's there, mueller has not
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presented his case. we have other court filings, other things have been referred to the southern district, et cetera, but we have not heard mueller's case. and that's where the rubber hits the road, if you will. until then we can talk about what mueller is doing based on the bread crumb, but we have no idea. what's interesting about the impeachment is do they go by on the new york southern district court on the election charge, which is felony charge? if they wanted to go after that via impeachment, they should probably wait until it's all done so they have the case -- it's all laid out for them that way, and then move forward or wait for even mueller because they may have something even more substantial to go after. >> listen, the democratic leadership, and particularly the folks taking over these investigatory committees have been very clear about the fact they have no intention of impeaching anytime soon because what they want to do is build a case. they've said this on the record
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repeatedly is we don't want to tear the country apart, and they're pretty confident even if they succeed in getting an impeachment vote in the house it's going to fail in the senate. >> what kind of case can they build that's going to convince republican voters that it's not as the president calls it a witch hunt? >> when we talk about impeachment we talk about investigate. we have to investigatecru in the administration, some of donald trump's behavior that may arise, but i think it's too soon to say we need to impeach the president. and the second step, you need 67 votes. so trying to get to 67 -- but i think that in terms of this conversation what we really need to do is hold folks accountable in this administration. they haven't been held accountable at all. they've basically been just having a free-for-all for the last two years and now we have a check on them. >> what are the political perils, though, of holding them
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accountable? and i say this knowing full well that that's what our government's supposed to do so i don't need the angry tweets from people telling me that i'm an idiot, but what are the political perils in this day and age of hauling campaign official, white house official, family member, et cetera, in before congress every week? >> there's always a risk that you appear that you're overreaching. but i don't think that in this particular case that's a huge risk because there is a lot of misbehavior. there are a lot of things that can be investigated and should be investigated. there's ramp rnt corruption, some of those federal agencies where people are using taxpayer money for phone booths and private security. so that's a waste of taxpayer money. so if you're saying we are investigating to ensure your tax money is not going to scott pruitt's body guards, who in the epa needs body guards? i think if you're explaining to
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the american people we're conducting this investigation for this specific reason to save you money, that then becomes less of a partisan conversation. >> but at the same time you have republicans like -- and not that particular argument but republicans like rand paul saying when it comes to campaign finance violations that everybody would be subject to those violations -- >> no, no. >> but you do have that, and there is a segment of the population who will say, oh, yeah, paperwork's really -- >> in saying, well, this always works, it's working for trump. he keeps playing to his base and it works. what's the standard we're talking about here? he's still in office, that's true but he's less popular than ever. the republican party is shrinking especially when you look at the house. and when you have democrats out there now leading the house and able to make this case in a more forceful way, they can push back on that argument. you know who does, the southern district of new york.
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>> i think you've got to go back to two things, one someone like chuck rosenberg will say just because you try to rob a bank and you're not successful in robbing a bank doesn't mean you didn't commit a crime. the crime is still there. and two, the reason i push back on all of this because i remember vividly being a reporter on the 2016 campaign trail and hearing people say what sounded -- things pretty absurd on television and everyone going of course, no one's going to buy that and hearing a completely different thing when i was on the road. so i think the conversation to be had is one of, well, what does break through and what's the fundamental strategy? >> here's the problem i think for republicans and actually looking at the bigger picture, they don't know what's going to come out on the president through the mueller investigation. that's what they're afraid of. so the political side of this, the democrats should do thorough and complete investigations. i think that's the right thing
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to do because both parties, whoever is in charge should do that. but they should not do the grandstanding that the republicans did. the republicans went way too far and tried to make too much political hay. >> are you talking about newt gingrich in the '90s -- >> no, i'm talking about benghazi hearings, how many do you need? surely the first dozen was enough. but the point is they can go about their business and wait until mueller lays out his case and then really deliver it in a way that won't be as divisive. because if there is something there, we don't know, republicans will start moving away because that's -- >> that's an interesting strategy. does it include staying away from cable news and talking about it as well? they have been doing it to a degree, yes, but after the filing -- >> with the democratic conference coming in, the new
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comers, you have two different types of people storming the house, if you will. you have people who beat incumbents in primaries and challenged them on the left. and then you also have a lot of people who won in general elections in swing districts by being moderates. so you have a lot of new people yelling for a lot of different things and that's where playing to which constituency do you want on cable tv. >> but at the end of the day i think democrats will be able to talk about policy and but i think really the big point here is democrats know they need to build a national case so absolutely they'll be an cable tv and they've been pretty open about that. but i think one of the big differences between now and we had this conversation between now or a similar one is at that time trump didn't have four or five campaign associates in jail already. >> that's a pretty good point. and not dozens of people around him who have been accused of lying and been caught in those
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lies. wow, leaving me almost speechless. >> that's what i'm hear for. stay with us. ahead the west wing drama unfolding inside the white house. john kelly is leaving, and so is his expected replacement. so who will be the next chief of staff? ♪ ♪ 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. from capital one.nd i switched to the spark cash cardt. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. and last year, i earned $36,000 in cash back.
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french president emmanuel macron is facing the biggest threat to his political career. after weeks of so-called yellow jacket protests marked by violence. today macron announced a raise in the country's minimum wage and tax relief measures during an address to the nation. macron initially faced backlash against gas tax hikes. but that evolved into a broader rebellion against his presidency. president trump did not make things easier for his french counterpart. he sent multiple tweets over the weekend mocking france over the 2015 paris climate accord which the u.s. is leaving. he tweeted the paris climate accord is not working out so well for paris. protests and riots all over france. later he added, very sad day and night in paris. maybe it's time to end the ridiculous and extremely expensive paris agreement and return money back to the people in the form of lower taxes. that drew a rebuke from the french foreign minister who told the lci tv station that we don't
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take part in american debates, let us live our own national life. i'm joined now from paris by christopher dickey, msnbc contributor. at the heart of it, these protests were they just about the gas tax, and if broader, why are folks so unhappy about president macron's presidency? >> well, there are a lot of reasons, but the gas tax issue is behind us now. all the things that had to do with the french cars, their beloved automobiles, all of that was done away with more than a week ago. so right now the question is why do they hate macron so much, as you asked. and part of it is personal style. a lot of it is the sense that he is now the president of the rich and for the rich. and the french really don't like the rich. there is a kind of a vindictive
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quality to french society that says if you are rich then you are making me poor. and that is very active now in this yellow vest movement. >> that is true. there's a lot of resentment especially to those who own apartments or flats along and they say it belongs just to foreigners who are wealthy or other french from money, so there's definitely a lot of built-up resentment there. is it enough for macron to say i'm going to raise minimum wage? >> no, i'm afraid it's not going to be enough. we'll see this coming saturday whether it is. he's basically got a three fold strategy. one is very tough police crack down. i'm sure you saw the videos from last saturday. i was out on the street the whole time. basically the police protected the art de triomphe behind me and very effectively but they
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pushed these people who break things, the vandals if you will, down into my neighborhood among other neighborhoods where they did a lot of damage. we'll see if they can do better control this time. so far they've booked 4,000 people during four saturdays of protests. the other part of this strategy is to address the fundamental issues for really the lowest pay levels of society by lowering their taxes, by taking away taxes that were being put on retirees, by raising the minimum wage, and by making overtime something that won't be taxed and by encouraging -- also encouraging employers to give a christmas bonus. all of those are nice things. maybe it will deflate the movement somewhat, but we'll see on next saturday. >> how much of this is about the paris climate accords as the president here in america is trying oo make it out to be? >> look, it started out that
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way. basically what macron did was to say that on january 1 there would be yet another tax on fuel. diesel fuel and gasoline that the french use on their cars. and this caused a huge amount of resentment. and they also had to have their cars inspected, very tough inspections that would mean for a lot of people paying hundreds of euros or more or having to get a new car. and that created a lot of resentment. but the movement long ago got to be much bigger than that or at least much more aggressive than that. and it's calling from everything from the resignation of macron to withdrawal from nato to you you name it, whatever you can come up with sitting down talking with the guys outside of roadblocks. and there's nobody to negotiate with. there is no leader of this movement. it's like the occupy wall street movement was back in 2011 but much more aggressive and very
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french. so who do you talk to end it? it's not like dealing with labor unions where you'll get an agreement by the officials who are in charge of the union, which we had just a couple of days ago with the truckers. no, no. this is something that's like an amoeba. it sort of moves around and you can't get a grip on it. >> when the dissatisfaction spreads and there's no clear leader it's hard to find one thing that will get them to stop. and ahead, democrats take control of the house next month. how will they handle the barrage of new mueller developments? hi.i just wanted to tell you that chevy won a j.d.power dependability award for its midsize car-the chevy malibu. i forgot. chevy also won a j.d. power dependability award for its light-duty truck the chevy silverado. oh, and since the chevy equinox and traverse also won chevy is the only brand to earn the j.d. power dependability award across cars, trucks and suvs-three years in a row. phew. third time's the charm...
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welcome back. court filings show president trump as a key figure in the russia investigation just as house democrats will assume investigative powers in a few weeks. i'm joined now by virginia democratic congressman jerry conally, a member of the house oversight committee. congressman, thank you very much
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for being here. i was just having a discussion with my panel about how much the democrats are going to focus on this. so why don't i ask a democrat himself? how much of the mueller investigation and the things that we are learning so far about donald trump, specifically about the campaign finance violations since you're on the ov oversight committee, do you plan on investigating and how aggressively? >> well, obviously this is going to be a shared responsibility with other committees. intelligence, judiciary, and oversight. it's impossible to say how much we're going to do and when so long as the mueller report is still not out and obviously there are other shoes to fall here. i will say this, katie, friday's filings by both the special prosecutor and the southern district of new york, frankly, move us into flashing red territory for donald trump. we can't ignore the fact that the department of justice
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through two different prosecutors said that individual one, president trump, coordinated and directed an illegal activity. >> and when you say that, you mean the campaign financial violation? >> that's right. that's right. and that doesn't even address obstruction of justice or collusion. but now we have a crime for which mr. cohen will be sentenced that was directed and coordinated by individual one. >> do you believe that's an impeachable offense? >> absolutely. whether or not we proceed to impeachment, that's a political question. but it seems to me all of us have to understand the gravity of what happened friday. we take an oath to uphold the constitution of the united states, and therefore we have a sacred obligation to the country to respect the process of impeachment and use it very sparingly and very judiciously. but when we're faced with the kind of evidence we got friday i think we have to start to look
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at question more seriously than in the past. >> let's unpack that for a moment. you just said you believe it's an impeachable offense, but you're not sure whether you would impeach him for that offense or bring up articles of impeachment for that. how can something be impeachable if you're not going to impeach him for it? >> well, i'm not prejudging whether he gets to impeachment. what i said was it's a political process. it's not just a legal process. and so we want to see what else robert mueller has and how he stitches this together. and when he elaborates on the role of individual one, because remember friday was about cohen and manafort. does he opine as to the understanding and willfulness of mr. trump's actions? because going to a violation of campaign financial law does require a willful violation of the law. you've got to understand what you're doing and do it anyhow.
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and that piece we don't know yet. >> how much more do house democrats need in terms of building a case to impeach this president, if you were to pursue that? >> i think as i said we've got campaign financial violations, then there's obstruction of justice, which i think has been occurring in front of our faces right out in the open. and then there's the whole thing, the murky thing about collusion with russians. we know there were 14 different officials in the trump administration or campaign who had contacts with the russians. almost all of them to a person who lied about it. we want to know a lot more about that. and mueller really hasn't shown us that yet. >> if you say it's a political process, impeachment, if that's the case with this current senate, you're not going to get it through that senate. he's not going to get impeached. they won't convict him with the republicans as they stand. so if it's just a political process here, what's the point
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of even pursuing it? >> well, katie, i didn't say it's just a political process. i said it's also a political process. for example, when ronald reagan was in the white house i can remember tom foley, then speaker of the house saying point-blank we weren't going to impeach ronald reagan. even though certainly reagan's knowledge of involvement in iran contra absolutely was an impeachable offense. so political decisions get made on whether you drop the hammer or not, whether it's politically sustainable, what the costs are to the country at the time, and you can get through a trial in the senate that unlike the house requires two thirds votes. >> how difficult is this for democrats, this question of where the line is for this president, politically speaking? >> i think it's a very difficult question if you're being diligent about your obligations constitutionally as a member of the house. and frankly, for most of us
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democrats this is something we gid not want to happen now. we want to take that oath on january 3rd and restore oversight of the executive branch and repair the damage done to the legislative branch by the republicans for the last eight years. the last thing in the world we wanted at this time was this kind of filing that occurred friday because i think as i said it moves us into that flashing red territory. we would prefer not to be right now. >> interesting. congressman jerry connolly, thank you very much for being here. and ahead, who could be the next white house chief of staff? we're going to show you the short list. it's a miracle he survived. [ gasps ] i got your back. based on an inspirational true story. they knocked me down, but i've created a world where i can heal. hey, hey. lookin' good. welcome to marwen. ♪ i got dreams in my head and they won't go ♪ welcome to healing... you need to face those jerks who beat you up. welcome to hope. i have my friends, and they can't take that away from me.
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welcome back. more on the ever present white house staff drama, which today is white house chief of staff drama. on saturday the president announced that the current chief of staff john kelly will leave by year end. then on sunday the apparent front run door take his place, the chief of staff nick ayers couldn't come toon a agreement from a source familiar with those conversations and now he is expect today leave at year end, too. now some of the top contenders are signaling a lack of interest in the job. freedom caucus mark meadows is reportedly not interested, although he put out a statement today saying it would be an honor to serve. the president of the new york yankees, randy levine, says no one has spoken to him about it
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and he's happy being a yankee. treasury secretary steve mnuchin is said to be less than thrilled on being on the short list, and so is budget white house director nick mulvaney. no word on matt whitaker or when the president's deputy campaign chief david fossey, although a little earlier he's been waved off that as a former chief of staff replacement. in the meantime there's more mtp daily right after this. good. for the mundane. the awe-inspiring. the heart racing. the heart breaking. that's what life is all about... showing up. unless migraine steals your chance to say "i am here." that's why, we created aimovig.. a preventive treatment for migraine in adults.
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doesn't want to stay. that would be embarrassing for any presidency. why would nick ayers not to wor for this president? he's been in the vp's office. >> he probably doesn't want a future of legal bills and all that entails. it doesn't mean that he would be involved in anything untoward as chief of staff, but certainly he's going to be -- need a lawyer to be questioned about what he's observing. that's just like a burden a 36-year-old would probably not want. >> and there are a lot of layers. part of it is like let's ask rex tillerson who wouldn't want this job. everyone who works for trump and departs gets that barrage. but he's an interesting proxy for the establishment of the republican party. listen, what he's seeing is what you're hearing from a lot of
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republicans who are not that closely associated with the white house. they don't like the trajectory of this thing. they're basically saying, i don't want to be that closely associated. >> why aren't we seeing more people like that? >> we just don't know their names at this point, there aren't that many left. >> there's some high profile left that haven't made any moves. >> a lot of them a lot more loyal to the president. nick ayers, not to say that he's been disloyal specifically, but he's known as a rising star, he's been in pence world for a long time. >> if things are starting to look really bad, and people are starting to get worried, why ma maintain that loyalty? >> i have no idea. i've had this same question. actually sense charlottesville, like really, guys, you're going to get up and go to work? i think i've always had that question. i do think people like to be in close proximity to power.
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so the reason why they stay is because that gives them access to the president of the united states, and all that office entails. and so, they want to be next to the power. but the democrats have a different view. you want people who are close -- >> interesting. there are a lot of folks out there being considered for this chief of staff job, or at least we think they're being considered. mark meadows, randy lavigne of the yankees. you can see up here on the screen here, matt whitaker. david bossy is an interesting choice. he was part of the campaign. but our own jeff bennett was waved off him earlier today. >> someone else who hasn't been mentioned, and only in the trump universe would this potentially work, was kellyanne conway. she was campaign manager, she knows how to handle trump. she's been in the white house for two years. so she's seen the operations.
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i know people are going to go bezerk on twitter, but she's exactly what the president needs, someone that can do the political stuff and give him the gossip every day, and it just could work for him under this time. >> i think one thing we're going see, no matter what, listen, far be it from me to make predictions what is going to happen, the president could be tweeting about who his next chief of staff is, but he likes us talking about this and not about mueller. so i wouldn't be surprised for this show to be going on for a bit longer. there have been people who said to the president, you don't really need a chief of staff. so maybe he's just going to drag this out for a while. >> look at that list. it was six middle age white guys. i mean, i think if he's going to bring in potential diversity, that makes diversity something.
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>> what's his face, excuse my brain fart, i was on an early morning flight this morning from a foreign country. chris christie, that's today's what's his face in my mind, was being talked about in my mind for a chief of staff job. his name keeps getting floated for anything. >> he's been in public office and handled a variety of different things in an executive capacity, so he could be a good chief of staff, but i don't think anybody could be a good chief of staff with trump, because he doesn't listen. so even if chris christie got into the role and set up some sort of organizational structure, it doesn't matter because the president will do what he wants. >> ndidn't sarah huckabee sandes announce she was leaving? >> the days are blurring. >> we're going to look this up. someone is already telling me. gabe, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> you can go out there and do
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but there's one thing about 2019 we know for sure, you just saw it there, the color. pantone, the company that does those color guide fan things is out with its 2019 color of the year. and ladies and gentlemen, i give you, there it is again, living coral. so 2019, don't you think pantone describes it as an animating and life affirming coral hue, with a golden understone that energizes and enlivens, with a softer edge. the company also describes living coral as sociable and spirited. and symbolizing our innate need for optimism. sounds pretty good, right? optimistic. don't we need a little more optimism these days, especially when it comes to washington. why not bathe congressional hearings in the joyful glow of living coral? let's turn c-span into lc-span.
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wouldn't that make the white house press briefings fomore carefree? let's do the news in living coral. everything is more peaceful and relaxing. for more, let's go to live puppies in a metal tub. puppies? ♪ >> i don't know about you, but i feel better. forget yellow journalism, can't we all get behind coral journalism? that is all for tonight. we'll be back tomorrow with more "mtp daily." "the beat" with less puppies is right now. jasmine is no for ari. i don't know how to say your last name. but who does? >> why would you want to say my last name when you just ended the show with puppies? i can't top that. >> that was the best part of my day. >> let's all go home today.
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