welcome to "kasie dc." i'm kasie hunt. we're live every sunday from washington from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. eastern but this is spacial night. as we come on the air, the principal conclusions we have been waiting so long for robert mueller and his team of investigators are finally out. the summary for attorney general william barr explains no american involved with president trump's campaign conspired or coordinated with russian to impact the 2016 campaign. but then there's the question of obstruction of justice. the special counsel did not draw a conclusion one way or the other as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction. it also said that while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. so the president celebrated on twitter and basically everywhere

else saying no collusion, no obstruction. complete and total exoneration. and here he is, leaving his mar-a-lago club to return to washington. >> so after a long look, after a long investigation, after so many people have been so badly hurt, after not looking at the other side where a lot of bad things happened, a lot of horrible things happened, a lot of very bad things happened for our country, it was just announced there was no collusion with russia. there was no obstruction, and none whatsoever, and it was a complete and total exoneration. it's shame that our country had to go through this.

to be honest, it's a shame that your president has had to go through this before i even got elected it began. and it began illegally and hopefully somebody's going to look at the other side. there was an illegal takedown that failed. >> but hougs speakse speaker na pelosi and minority leader chuck schumer read the four-page document quite differently, saying the letter raises as many questions as it answers, saying it does not exonerate the president, and quote, given mr. barr's public record of bias against the special counsel's inquiry, he's not a neutral observer and is not in a position to make be ottibjectiv determinations about the report. how much judiciary chairman jerry nadler already said he will call the attorney general to testify and we could see cowells to call the special counsel before congress as well. the bottom line here is the

likelihood the president is removed from office by impeachment before november 2020 is all but nil after this. with that i would like to welcome in my panel "the washington post" white house reporter ashley parker, white house correspondent for pbs news, former chief communications adviser for paul ryan, brendan buck, former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense, jeremy bash, and nbc news national security and justice reporter julia ainsley. of course, in birmingham, alabama, we have former u.s. attorney joyce vance. thank you all for being here this evening. joyce vance, i would like to start with you in terms of the thinking behind not deciding to prosecute this obstruction of justice question. we know mueller himself didn't make a determination on this point. in fact, barr said that the report cites evidence in both camps that there was possible obstruction or that there was not. how unusual is this, and does it cast suspicion on this letter

from william barr as democrats are insinuating? >> this is sort of a 15 on the richter scale. i don't know how high the richter scale goes but this is a big earthquake because prosecutor's central job is to make decisions about the evidence and about the law in the hard cases. and barr's letter, which is a summary, it's not the actual conclusions the mueller report, tells us that mueller laid out evidence on both sides of the issue, acknowledged that both legal and factual issues were difficult, but never came to a decision about whether or not obstruction should be charged. that is very unusual. it means that there will have to be further inquiry by congress. we will have to see what the mueller report actually says and the most important question to me is why did mueller do this? was he told not to make the decision? did he decide to leave it up to congress? surely he didn't mean for an

attorney general, even the memo he used to apply for the job with the president, prejudged the obstruction issue. that called into question the step that's barr took today. >> julia ainsley, to joyce's point, what do we know about how any of those decisions were made in the justice department? do we know anything along those lines? >> well, we have some bread crumbs that are just laid out in this letter here, kasie. what the attorney general is saying is because of report from mueller didn't weigh one side or the other about charging obstruction, he believes that and this leave it's to the attorney general to determine whether that conduct described is indeed a crime. so he's taking that on himself because there was no conclusion reached by robert mueller, and he said one thing we know did weigh in his decision, and that was the fact there was no underlying crime. there have been charges for obstruction of justice and other criminal cases when there is no underlying crime.

mrs mrs is martha stewart comes to mind famously for that. but there's also weighed against that, is there an underlined crime, can someone have the intent of covering a crime if there is no underlying crime? intent is what leads to obstruction. the other piece we often wonder about is could they indict a sitting president and would that weigh in on william barr's conclusions? william barr made a specific comment that did not weigh in his decision. the fact a 2000 opinion from this justice department said a sitting president could not be indicted, he left out of this and said it didn't come to that point. he said because there was -- i will read this here -- the president was not involved in any underlying crime related to russian experience he found absence would bear upon the president's intent with obstruction of justice. we see how william barr weighed this here. but the question i have is how in the world did the attorney general make the decision within

40 hours of receiving that report, when he gets all of that evidence laid out, what this a decision he came to too hastily and what i have been told to officials who are backing up their boss' decision, you have to remember william barr for a long time knew what was in this and rod rosenstein, who worked closely on this, had been in charge of the investigation from the very inception, he appointed robert mueller and therefore he knew what was coming to him so they had these pieces long before the official report came down on friday, kasie. >> interesting point. jeremy bash, in the point that julia was making about collusion and kind of decision that in fact there was no crime around collusion and, therefore, there was no reason to actually prosecute the president for obstruction of justice. do you feel as though the evidence on the table already indicates that the president included with the russians? and does this put to rest any question about whether the president could still come under the influence of russia >> . >> i think there's sufficient

evidence to see that the russian government may out-reach the trump campaign and tried to interfere to help donald trump. it wasn't so much about election ference but sanctions relief, t the leverage they wanted over donald trump. so this is a fairly narrow one and i accept robert mueller's conclusion there was not unlawful conduct there. but the important thing is the second paragraph on page three in which attorney general barr says robert mueller didn't make a decision here. that leave it's to the attorney general, him speaking in the third person about himself. says who? there's no policy. there's no law. there's no attorney general guidelines, special counsel guidelines that says if the special counsel doesn't make a prosecutorial decision it goes to the attorney general, handpicked by the president. >> who else could it be? >> a nonprosecuted event. barr just said we're not going

to have prosecutorial action. instead barr said i have re-examined all of the evidence and i determined donald trump is clean on this. i don't know what authority bill barr wa using to make that conclusion and i don't even know if it was a correct conclusion. it's one congress will have to undertake and examine. >> let's open it up to our table and talk about the politics, how this plays out. brendan, i will start with you, the very question about what democrats do next. we know house democrats are not going to drop this but it seems this markedly shifts the conversation we have been having. >> you would think. we saw jerry nadler saying he will continue going forward with this investigation. would you think this would take the wind out of the sails of what they're doing. i was struck by nancy pelosi's response saying she didn't think going down the impeachment route was good for them. if you're looking for an exit ramp, this would be it and she clearly didn't take it today >> do you feel like she got pressure from the left? >> she certainly got blockback but she certainly appears in court of the situation and you

have a committee company going forward and you don't want to look like you're getting rolled by your committee chairman but it looks look an opportunity to pit away from where they're headed and she didn't take it. >> jerry nadler, chairman of the you'ry spoke a couple minutes ago. he also did not take this well. take a look. >> these conclusions raise more questions than they answer, given the fact mueller uncovered evidence that in his own words exonerate the president. it is unconscionable that president trump would try to spin the special counsel's findings as if his conduct was remotely acceptable. given these questions, it is imperative the attorney general release the full report and the underlying evidence. the attorney general's comments make it clear that congress must step in to get the truth and provide full transparency to the american people.

the president has not been exonerated by the special counsel, yet the attorney general has decided not to go further or apparently to share those findings with the public. we cannot simpliry lie on what may be a hasty, partisan interpretation of the facts. >> ashley, i definitely take the point if they wanted an off-ramp on impeachment, they could have easily taken one. on the other hand the president has simply declared himself to be completely exonerated, which in fact is counter to the facts we have been presented. it's possible the attorney general and deputy attorney general decided we're not going to go down this road but mueller said there's evidence both ways on obstruction of justice. >> for starters, this is not a president who from his campaign to his presidency has been constrained by the facts. >> good point. >> but what he went out and said which is total exoneration is going to be a rallying cry and a political kothle to use against the dems heading into 2020. no collusion sort of started in

the aftermath of 2016 as a defensive mantra. i didn't do anything wrong. i didn't collude. now he's going to use it to say no collusion, i told you so, and any other investigation -- and there are to be clear very real investigations still going on in new york, congressional investigations into the president's inaugural committee, into his finances. we don't know what other investigations might be launched, but he will say i told you no collusion. i told you this was a witch-hunt. robert mueller, who you now will say is a boy scout, man of sterling character, agrees with me and x, y and z and every other thing is false and witch-hunt. >> talking about a rallying cry, the president and people around him are already using mueller's report as a rallying cry. they're already on the trump campaign fund-raising for this. they released a video saying basically it's a witch-hunt. text witch-hunt to a certain number to become part of their fund-raising campaign. there's an idea the people i have been talking to close to the president, it feels like 2016 all over again and it feels

like election day, election night where they were all basically pointing their fingers at people saying we told you so, we told you so. someone literally texted me today close to the president, lynne patton, high-profile friend of the president, she said basically this is basically the president being told you are really the president of the united states and you're lawfully in your office and democrats will take this as this basically being like hillary clinton, i know you're bitter, i know you're angry but we should go ahead and swallow this. but your point on the idea there's still real investigations, the republicans don't want to talk about that at all and they're not going talk about that. the president will head out on the campaign trail this week and he will be talking about this. >> we should point out the president just returned to the white house a couple of minutes ago. he said america is the greatest country on earth. and then walked into the white house ignoring shouted questions. joyce vance, i want to ask you about this decision democrats have made to attack bill barr on this question. they have essentially said he doesn't have the credibility because he's made biased remark,

that's their word, about the investigation overall. do you buy into that? do you think this is a smart strategy? do you think mr. barr has credibility to make these decisions or not? >> i think the problem that bill barr has to deal with is this memo that he wrote before he came to the job in which he prejudged obstruction of justice. but he has a really easy method for clearing that question up, which is to release robert mueller's report, to release all of the underlying evidence, to let congress engage in the inquiry that they need to engage in and to let the american people see it for themselves. but one issue that barr cannot cure by doing that is how very narrow we've learned today the mueller investigation was. it was limited only to the question of collusion with russia, and only to the issue of obstruction, presumably in regards to that question of russian collusion. there are a lot of other investigations out there and

before the president cries witch-hunt, we need to remember that prosecutors don't quit, don't pass on investigating a murder just because they learn about it during a bank robbery investigation. these other investigations are still live. there are important questions about this president and if the conclusion from republicans today is that once you're cleared of a crime, you get a clean bill of health, you may down the road have to say what do you say when you find out if you see a problem? the southern district of new york basically called the president an unindicted co-conspirator in campaign finance fraud. >> good point. to remind our viewers about what the attorney general said so far he would do. senator amy klobuchar did press barr whether he would make it public when he had his confirmation hearing back in january. take a look. >> will you commit to make public all of the report's

conclusion, mueller reports, even if some of conclusions can't be made public. >> that certainly is my goal and intent. it's hard for me to foresee a conclusion that would run afoul of the regs as currently written. >> julia ainsley, you heard bill barr there. we know that he said in this letter that they're worried about some of the grand jury information and, of course, information related to ongoing investigations. what's your sense -- and this is of course we're watching the president walk across on the north lawn of the white house. that's him waving at reporters. thumb's up. we heard him saying america was the greatest country on earth and then walked inside. julia, what do we expect, we

know there will be a public reckoning of some kind with a remainder of the report but will that look like some of the classified documents. one second. >> i want to tell you america is the greatest place on earth. the greatest place on earth. thank you very much. >> okay. that was the president of the united states returning to the white house after what is no doubt a triumphant day for his campaign based on everything she said so far. julia, i'm sorry, let's go back to the question, is this going to look like a document we get from the senate intelligence committee where you have three sentences and the rest is blacked out, or do you think we will actually get some full public reckoning? >> the only thing that will be released are the things the attorney general will be in the public interest. i don't know why he would give us mueller indictments where half is pure printer toner. i think anyone he puts out now it's for the public consumption. however, he put out a lot of parameters in what he can and cannot say in this letter today.

anything that would be a part of a matter occurring before a grand jury, which we know is how robert mueller conducted and collected a lot of the evidence in this investigation, he considers that off-limits. he also wants to look around the limits of disclosure about other circumstances like going forward other investigations. we know there are a number of spin-off investigations like the southeastern district of virginia, southern district of new york and possibly others that the attorney general doesn't want to leave out anything that would get in the way. but i have been pressing officials saying how might this look, will we get another letter? and will it happen? they're not giving a time line for this. something that will come over a lot of time or consult with robert mueller, and it might not even be in one document. it might be dribbles we get over time if they decide what they can release partly as some of the other investigations wrap, there might be more information they can give us. the last part is what i'm inferring based on the fact it's a longer time line. in a sense we don't have nearly

the same commitment that we had on friday when the attorney general said as soon as this weekend, i'll release the findings. everything else now is really undefined on that time line. >> does that make it completely irrelevant in the political world? >> no, because they're going to continue -- they will drag him up as soon as they can to talk about these things. i think there are two layers of questions here, how much is bill barr going to release to the public? i also think there's a question how much information about the president bob mueller put in the report. he heard the department of justice do not make accusations and claims against people they don't want to prosecute. how much will he say in the report and how much will we get from bill barr, two very different questions but important ones as well. >> what is your sense of republicans are going to do on this point? are they going to call -- >> celebrate? >> we're seeing that. but do they -- is this a situation where since they are celebrating, they would feel comfortable saying yes, the american people should see this

report. >> they said that. sefrpd th i don't think that will change at all. i think everybody wants it out there. i think what everyone is celebrating today is the first question, no collusion. let's not forget, that's what this entire thing started as. but i hate to say some of the reactions from democrats seemed disappointed we learned the president wasn't conspireing with a foreign power. that should be good news and we should be happy about that. that's why you're seeing a lot of republicans happy today. >> one thing that should surprise you and these were conversations i had with white house officials before today's news but a number of people in the white house were also saying actually that they were pushing for more transparency internally and the president seemed receptive to that. but by the time this rolled around in two years there were moments of deep anxiety and deservousness even before mueller turned in his report on friday. the trump white house and people in his orbit were feeling confident. it turned out they were right in that confidence based on what we know so far but the people i

talked to said they're pushing for transparency because they felt like if they don't release the public report to the public, democrats can go and do what they're doing now which is saying we want to see the full report, we want to see every period and comma. they thought releasing it would get rid of the conspiracy theories. that said there's a world that the president said all looks so good for him y. bother reading every word and adjective in that report? >> i want to say it's not good news, brendan, what the russians did was help donald trump and he knew it. therefore, they have a lot of leverage. they've had financial leverage and now they've had political leverage over american foreign policy, over our president and presidency. whether the trump campaign assisted him in that, robert mueller no, he didn't. that's a good thing that happened but that doesn't fundamentally change the national interest, what is it the russians have over foreign policy? turns out a lot. >> and there's an idea the doj

said if you're not going charge someone with a crime or disparage them, but then you think of 2016 and james comey, that press conference to end all press conferences where he said hillary clinton didn't break any crimes and didn't commit any crimes but she did act negligently, she was reckless. if it has that, you have donald trump saying on the lawn of the white house make the report public but if it reads the president acted negligently, he was reckless, he had bad intent, he surrounded himself with people who are liars and showed bad judgment, i can imagine the president saying look, just stop here and put this behind us and go forward. i think it's going to come down what are the details of the report and that's why i think people will get in different camps. >> it is a good point that jim comey sat a certain precedent when you decide not to prosecute a public official and be interesting to see if they follow it. hallie jackson is with us from the white house. hallie, what's the latest

thinking there about how much of this they're going to encourage -- what are they going to say in public about whether this should be released? >> that has been the question president trump, despite many opportunities to answer in the last few hours, has not answered. let's say the mood at the white house among the officials we talked to and are reporting seems to be celebratory, frankly. there's a glow or aura among folks that you're chatting with him after the release of this barr letter, and i will say the president came over and in this sort of interesting moment -- i think he plaued it back earlier, came off the chopper here on the south lawn of the white house and came up to reporters and we thought maybe it was an opportunity to ask him questions about where he stands on the release of this report, and instead he said america is the greatest place on earth, and i'm paraphrasing there. he seems to want to be chatty but not take questions as he's talking with reporters here, which is certainly his prerogative. but i think the central question is how much of this report do you not want released but are

you directing or are you personally asking attorney general bill barr to do that? i was told by one source the president has not had any scheduled calls or meetings with barr today and they're not on his schedule imminently. that, of course, can change but that is something we will be drilling on on, and the support democrats are calling for in the public testimony of bill barr on capitol hill. is that something the white house also wants to see, barr going out publicly perhaps, perhaps behind closed doors, answering questions from democrats, republicans, lawmakers, asking about this. and i also want to share -- i will get on the record with this here because we have a new statement out from vice president mike pence. he said today is a great day for america. it's lengthy so i won't read it but he wraps up by saying we can only hope democrats who have spent so much time on these discredited allegation will join us to advance to make our nation more prosperous and secure for every american. you know the vice president also

takes his q from his boss, the president of the united states n this instance it's shots fired from vice president pence back to the democrats down pennsylvania avenue, kasie. >> hallie, thank you for that. i'm curious when you guys covered the president on the campaign trail, probably more times than you care to remember, i mean, what is the sense -- know the campaign seems to think that this sets them up very well for 2020. i have already talked to democratic sources who are pretty dispirited and feel like this will send the president back to the oval office in 2020. is the level of confidence among the trump campaign at that point or not? >> i mean, this just happened, but the people i have been talking to and his orbit in the campaign or deeply, deeply excited. this is a tremendous victory lap for them. going into this and we that you this weekend, their argument and totally to the president and their surrogates and allies was

be restrained. lets democrats go out and hang themselves by engaging in what they say as overreach. so far you've seen president trump made remarks before he got on air force one, said a little bit on the south lawn for himself, he's been quite restrained. and i think the interesting question and everyone is waiting to see, what does he do when he gets up at that rally on thursday night? what does he do when he wakes up in the morning and he looks over at his phone and is tempted to tweet something? how much can they prevent him from stepping on what right now their very good news? >> i have been talking to trump campaign officials and they sound like they're debuting what will be key talking points on the 2020 campaign trail. number one thing they're telling me not only do they say the president was vindicated and exonerated, they say over the last two years the president ushered in a good economy. he's in some ways carried tlul of the promises he said he would do. that's, of course, political spin there. >> and tenuous.

>> you mention the president has been doing work while the democrats have been obsessed with mueller report to bring donald trump down. that's their message, not to say that's accurate. and it's also important to say the president in his first statement after this report put the line keep america great again. that's a campaign slogan, not just a statement coming from the president. that's the first thing he tweeted after learning about the mueller report summary. >> fair enough. joining me now sheila jackson lee of texas, a member of the house judiciary committee. congresswoman, thank you so much for coming on tonight. >> kasie, thank you for having me. >> i would like to start walking through a couple of pieces what we learned in this summary tonight. first of all, do you agree, do you believe the conclusion that robert mueller made that there is no evidence that the president or his associates includ occluded with russia? >> kasie, i think first of all we should remind the american

public how we got here. we got here because of levels and layers of evidence of russia's intrusion into the 2016 election, wikileaks, the dumping of e-mails, the conspicuous call to the president during his campaign for roger stone saying e-mails are about to be dumped. and then we got here as well not by democrats but by the deputy attorney general rosenstein, who thought that after the incident with director comey, that there was enough evidence or enough concern to the rule of law to open a special counsel investigation. the judiciary committee, chairman nadler, all of us on the judiciary committing want to be sobering and deliberate in our view. the first order of business is to lease the report. while there's jubilation in the president's camp, then let's have the president urge the attorney general to release the

report in its totality to the american people. secon secondarily, let us make sure the oversight committees, particularly in the house like the judiciary committee get every document because our task is to continue to review this and provide to the american people our assessment and our view, which we want do as quickly as possible. >> again, do you believe robert mueller when he writes that there was no collusion? do you accept that conclusion? >> i think what i accept is that robert mueller did a very thorough job and he has made the assessment that there was no collusion. again, that is not a legal term. it's conspiracy. but his decision was based on a whole number of factors and investigations, and what i am saying is we in the judiciary committee want to review those

documents. >> on the obstruction of justice piece, robert mueller said there's evidence on both sides of that. william barr, the attorney general and his deputy who made that conclusion not to prosecute the president for obstruction of justice. do you think the attorney general handled that appropriately? >> i think the main point is that the report from director mueller indicates that he did not exonerate the president, nor did he exonerate him from the issue of -- and in particular of obstruction of justice. what the report says i believe is that he submit the those issues, and those documents, to the attorney general. we want to have the attorney general as a witness because certainly the attorney general's decision if there's been a final decision of what to do next regarding the president of the united states, we know where he stands with respect to a president being engaged in the criminal justice system. we want to abide by the rule of law. i do think questions remain on

the question of abuse of power, public corruption, obstruction of justice, and we think it's important for us to see all of those documents, for us to be able to review it and review the decision. we would like to have attorney general barr come before the house jieudicial committee. >> we saw jerry nadler call for that tonight as well. based on what know now, do you believe there's evidence to impeach the president of the united states? >> based on what i know now, i think i'm falling the same theme. high crimes and misdemeanors have to do with the high office of the presidency. you know, kasie, what we need to do. what we need to do is to follow the evidence, continue to investigate. this is a political process. if piexment were ever be discussed or moved on and to look to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join

us in following the evidence and the rule of law. >> are you saying impeachment should be ruled out at this point? >> i think we can't rule a final process if evidence takes us there but as you well know, we as democrats are doing our work, passing legislation that interestingly enough the senate is blocking, such as gun safety legislation, such as legislation dealing with the violence against women act and legislation dealing issues of health care which we're working on extensively. we want to continue it work on them on behalf of the american people. >> and would impeachment jeopardize -- would impeachment hearings and focus on impeachment jeopardize all of that work and potentially jeopardize democratic chances of winning in 2020? >> i think that any ultimate result would only work if we're doing it on behalf of the american people and it is done with republicans and democrats

who recognize the rule of law has been violated and that's all we want to do in the house judiciary committee. what are the real questions? the only way with can do that is present the document to the american people and follow the evidence. we want to get to work and work quickly to share with you and share with the american people what we found, what is our assessment and analysis? as you well know, we have documents ourselves that really point to quite bait of russian involvement in the 2016 election. so we want to match what documents we now have, we also deal with the ee moee moll mean clause gaining to the white house in the midst of their presidency, that's a violation of the constitution. so we're not prepared to have conclusions. we are prepared to deal with the facts. >> congresswoman sheila jackson lee, thank you so much for your insights tonight.

appreciate you having on the show. >> it's a pleasure to be with you. thank you so very much. >> brendan buck, what's your reaction to what you heard there? sounds like they're not backing off impeachment? >> they're not backing off but i saw it the other way. she's one of the most ardant supporters pushing on impeachment, the fact she's not ready to go there hard at the moment, this was a go or no go moment. it doesn't seem like they're going. to your lead to the show, i think the chance of him getting impeached was small to begin with and at this point it's almost none. >> kind of the reverse of what you said about the speaker's statement, where they didn't seem to take it totally off the table. instead going hard after william barr. >> they're willing to push forward in terms of having hearings and making a show of it, and i wonder the wisdom of that as well, but i don't think they're going to be successful and i don't think they're going to be able to get a national consensus that this is the right thing to do. >> but this is where the barr letter and text of it is so

relevant because had robert mueller put forward a report and we were able to read it right now and said there's evidence he did obstruct justice, there's evidence he didn't and i can't make the final decision, now it obviously would go to the judiciary committee, have to look whether there's abuse of power or constitutional basis of finding out if there were high crimes and misdemeanors. but he said i made a de novo review of the in facts and derld the president is clean on this. i think some republicans, independents, questions, why would the attorney general make his own determination? he didn't do the investigation. he had about 48 hours to look at this and there's no law or policy that says he can do this. i think this actually hurts the president. it actually makes it more likely democrats have an opening to investigate. >> i think as a reporter, i think you basically have articulated -- both of you articulated why this becomes a political fight. on one side you're going to have

one people say, this does not exonerate the president, we need to see the entire report before we can actually do that. by the way, there are so many other things like the emolument clause and the fact ivanka trump works in the white house and then there will be people that are going to say -- like republicans, who just say you're fishing and you need to let this go and instead go down the path of something completely different. i think there will be two political wars. i think this is the beginning of the political war. we waited for two years for the mueller report to answer questions and i think what we have now is the beginning of an argument. >> it's going to be a long additional two years. thank you very much for your reporting tonight. julia ainsley, thanks, of course, to you as well for your very long day. still to come, michael beschloss joins us. and later i'm joined by top democrat dnc chairman tom perez. we will be right back here on msnbc with this breaking edition of "kasie dc." kasie dc."

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does the public have the right to see the mueller report? >> i don't mind. let it come out. let people see it. >> i have been saying it for a while. put it all out there. put it all out there. how about don't redact anything? >> i tend to think we should air on the side of transparency. i have been for that all along. >> if he does put out a report, you will see people claim we have to have this public. it's got to be made public. that's fine. >> that includes our witness

left list, every interview transcript and document provided. >> the president, his son and son-in-law in congress calling for transparency in the run-up to the release of the mueller report we have today and now barr claiming trump is a highly respected man. and here he is talking about the attorney general last month. >> we have a great attorney general, i hope, and i think he's going do a terrific job. he's smart and he's tough and he loves the country and department of justice and the fbi. bill barr i think is going to be exceptional and we need somebody exceptional because it has to be cleaned out. >> joining our conversation as associated press white house reporter katherine lucy. so katherine, one question i have for you, obviously you heard a lot from the president, his family, republicans. but we didn't hear hardly anything from the president for like two full days on twitter over the weekend. i'm sitting here last sunday it

was after 50 tweets insulting various people in the course of 12 hours. so clearly keeping him quiet was kind of a project. how did that actually work? >> it was a real contrast. we had this epic weekend of tweets about everyone and anyone to a very, very quiet weekend down in mar-a-lago. there was an acknowledgment from a lot of aides that he perhaps didn't have enough to do the previous weekend. it was important to keep him occupied. >> schedule him. >> he was scheduled, down in a place he enjoys. his family was there, more aides went down that don't often go down typically, sarah huckabee sanders was down there, chief of staff there, lawyers there. and variety of events, fund-raiser, dinner at mar-a-lago he attended, birthday dinner for his son, golfing both days. in addition to scheduling him, there was a message given to him by attorneys, baidy aides, alli

hold back. see what this is. they felt good after friday with no indictments. so there was a message sent to him that it is bet are for you to wait on this and he took it. >> ashley, do they feel like there's now no danger in the president talking about this? we had been having this ongoing conversation every time he picks up the phone to tweet something, he could be putting himself in legal jeopardy. have those questions been put to rest? >> that's a good question. i don't know the answer. it's two-fold, in general his aides and certainly his lawyers feel the less tweets, the better. that's a baseline rule of thumb. but they understand there's only so much they can do and they're operating in the world they can give him these messages and this past weekend he took it and he didn't act on it. some weekends he doesn't. there are moments his lawyers would tell him on this issue be sure not to say anything and they would be pulling out of the white house, not even back at their office, and he would tweet

the exact thing he told them not to tweet. just to briefly go back to last weekend's crazy tweet storm i have been doing a lot of reporting on, there's also acknowledgment in the white house yes, they don't love it but there's not that level of panic and anxiety that there used to be. the president is going to do what the president is going to do and everyone will scurry around trying to fix it or spin it or modify it or in some cases many amplify it. >> which is true even with the mueller report, why they pushed him to stay quiet, nobody expected he would permanently not comment. they're grounded in reality. >> one thing with our experience, there are no permanent victories. he takes guidance but requires constant reinforcement over and over again. >> i'm going to refrain from saying what's in my head about what that compares to. do you feel this other thing we have been talking about over and over again, is there a point in which republicans break from the president? we were waiting to see if this

would be calf strtastrophic eve. you think that conversation is done? >> i would have to think so. bill barr would have to dramatically misrepresent what's in the report for a bombshell that would change the minds of republicans. i don't think that will change. the thing for me is how the democrats will handle this on the campaign side. i don't know any smart democrat was banking on this report would save them or get them elected. while republicans may have to reassess how they're going to approach this, the ones who were waiting in the wings, i think for democrats it's business as usual, carry on and they weren't ever really waiting on this one. >> briefly to brendan's point, there were some democrats even a couple weeks ago when they thought this report might be a bombshell, they said even if it is a bombshell, that's not where the campaign will be, win or loss. that that's not the most effective approach to take. >> that was my experience too

when you pushed especially 2020 candidates on this. they didn't want to go there. jeremy, one big decision we're seeing chatter about tonight is the decision not to subpoena the president. what do you make of that in the context of how this is going to move forward with the criticism of barr? >> the president obviously stiffed the special counsel and kind of got away with it. if you think about in 1998 when president clinton was under investigation, not only the special counsel -- different legal authority but not only did the special counsel interview the president and interviewed before the grand jury, they drew blood from the president's arm. think about how intrusive it was in 1998 and here we have a president who said i'm not playing ball. i think there will be a lot of questions about whether or not that aspect of the investigation was thorough enough and also in 1998 i think it's important to note ken starr not only sent the report but all of the boxes of information, underlying evidence. even the 2016 investigation of hillary' e-mails, all of the fbi 302s went up to the hill after

republicans requested them. i think there's precedent for the underlying information, evidence, testimony, files to go right to the hill and that will be a basis for further investigation. >> very good case about precedent that was set. joyce, can you weigh in on the decision not to subpoena the president and the point jeremy was making of the history of this? were you surprised they ultimately came to the conclusion not to subpoena the president? >> you know, i think jeremy's absolutely right. it was a surprising decision in many regards, unless the president was himself a target of some investigation, doj doesn't typically interview targets under oath. but the real issue that this hints at here is whether or not the president is in fact fully exonerated by this report. if you read the collusion section of bill barr's letter carefully, it doesn't say that the president has been exonerated. instead it says that the investigation didn't find evidence that established

collusion. that's a very wide gap. so it will be interesting to see at the point of where all of the evidence that underlies the investigation is turned over to the hill and, jeremy is right, it has to be turned over. it will be interesting to see if mueller tried to interview the president and was somehow foiled in his effort toe do th do that whether that weakens what the president is now calling outright exoneration. but bill barr didn't go that far. he didn't say there was exoneration on collusion and i would expect he would have used that language in his letter if mueller had in fact used it. >> that makes sense. joyce vance, thank you so much for your very long day here on msnbc. i'm sure your week ahead will be equally as intense. we appreciate your insights. ashley parker, brendan bach, jeremy bash, katherine lucy, thank you to all as well. in his four-page summary the attorney general said mueller didn't identify any actions that were in his view done with corrupt intent.

back in 1974 president richard nixon argued that he wasn't guilty of obstruction because he lacked corrupt motive. nbc's presidential historian michael beschloss reminded us of that fact today on twitter and michael joins me now here on set. sir, it's great to have you and your perspective. thanks for being here. let's pull back a second. we've been talking a lot about the details, which i know are very, very, very important. but it's still a momentous day in kind of the arc of what has been a remarkable presidency. what do you think are the things we should be focusing on? and put it in context for us. >> one thing is that however it is ending, this is one of the biggest investigations of a president in american history. they're not too many of those. and the other thing is there's been suspicion that donald trump was acting during the campaign and later on as president in secret concert with a hostile foreign policy, russia. and that one, you know,

obviously there was by the mueller report if we can trust what william barr has said, not a violation of the law but those suspicions continue. . >> in terms of how we're going to think about this for years s. >> in terms of how we're going to think about this for years to come, how important is it we see a full accounting of what went on. if we don't find out now will we ever? >> sometimes, i hate to say this and sound like a historian, sometimes it takes a decade. >> you're killing us. sorry about that. we need journalists and they work together. assuming the mueller report is correct and william barr has not-we're talking about a four page press release. not a report, do we know how

long the mueller report is yet? do we have an idea? >> we have a little idea of the scope. >> there's a lot we don't know yet and a lot of evidence we don't know. william barr, a big donald trump partisan maybe does not see something in this that alarms him. perhaps if democrats look at it and other observers, they might be alarmed by things he is not unsettled by. >> mhow would you compare the treatment of this president by what happened to bill clinton when he was impeached but not ultimately removed from office. >> i think if you compare it to richard nixon, you haven't had a situation where an attorney general in this case is basically controlling this situation. this is someone said before hired on the basis of a memo saying essentially that the mueller investigation should not take place at all. he's not exactly coming at this

as a neutral broker of the kind you'd want from most attorneys general. >> do you see any parallels between what has unfolded here and the nixon experience in terms of nixon ultimately left office. it doesn't seem as though this president will be forced from office, in terms of the investigations themselves where do you see that divergence. just today or somewhere earlier? >> definitive in all sorts of ways. in nixon's case you had two prosecutors going after nixon and a senate watergate committee going after him. 1973 judiciary committee talking about impeachment in 1974. comparatively sort of a linear process. in this case, it has gone very different lays and reflects how life is in 2019 from 1974 and

even more than that, donald trump, a very different president from richard nixon. in nixon's case he was never accused of consorting with a foreign power. that's something very different. >> what do you think is different about our politics today. you mentioned the watergate hearings. really, it was the senate republicans and richard nixon's own party who ultimately were the reason why he lost the support he needed to stay in office. what's different from those republicans then and their politicking and willing to go along with it than now. >> in nixon's case he was dealing with a hostile congress and dems had both houses and he felt he could not miss a trick. as we've seen in the past couple of months, you can't throw a president out of office if you have the senate, place where a trial would be held dominated by members of his own party who

have to go back to voters who love him by about 80 or 90%, very different from nixon. >> how do you think history will judge robert mueller? >> i think i would like to see the report before i say that. that report is essential for americans to see it to understand what has gone on. it would be one of the great travesties of history if we have to make decisions about this based on a four-page press release by a fairly partisan attorney general we have seen today. >> do you think this process accurately reflects what the founders expected in this country? >> i think the founders would be chagrinned because they always worried about if there was a question of the president not behaving well they assumed the house and senate would move in and at least investigate. maybe not impeach or convict but even members of his own party would be up against that

president and make sure he behaved well. i think they would be chagrinned by the fact that in the first two years of his presidency, republicans in congress and to some extent republicans in the senate now basically see this in political terms rather than getting a president to do the right thing. >> do you think there's any trouble of setting a precedent of not going after this president if you're the congress. the constitution does specify high crimes and misdemeanors. there are members who said there's evidence this president committed crimes. if they don't go after that is it a precedence? >> it's a problem because the founders were worried a president would behave badly and presidents in conspiracy with a hostile foreign power. this is something they would have seen and been very upset by. they always assumed there was that check by congress. instead, we have attorneys general saying a president can never be indicted until he's out

of office and members of the president's own party saying we will not impeach him or convict him almost no matter what. the founders would say they're letting down what they should be doing. >> thank you very much. an historian. >> thank you. an historic night. >> we're happy to have you on such an evening. >> we're just getting started here. another hour to come. the first insight of the mueller report out tonight. i'm joined by dnc chairman, and we'll talk about what the party should do with with 2020 on the horizon. h 2020 on the horizon.

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a a welcome back . on a historic night. attorney general bill barr has released a summary of robert mueller's findings. mueller's investigation found neither president trump nor any of his aids conspired or

coordinated to influence the election and no conclusion whether or not the president illegally obstructed justice. while this does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. on his way back to the white house from florida, the president claimed complete vindication. >> it was just announced there was no collusion with russia. the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard, there was no collusion with russia. there was no obstruction, and none whatsoever, and it was a complete and total exoneration. >> already, house judiciary chairman, jerry madler said he will be calling on the attorney general to testify before his committee. in a statement released by house speaker nancy pelosi and chuck schumer the two write attorney general barr's letter raises as many questions as it answers

given mr. barr's public record of bias against the special counsel's inquiry, he is not a neutral observer and not in a position to make objective determination about the report. with that, i welcome in my panel for this hour. "new york times" political reporter jeremy peters and staff reiter for the atlantic, nash tasha and cofounder and managing editor, tiffany and mitch mcconnell and tony. on a hard assignment in sea island, georgia, national reporter, ken, and former fbi assistant director for counter against and nbc national security analyst, frank. frank, i'd like to start with you here, as we reset our table and what is your sense of how this all unfolded inside the justice department. a pretty remarkable decision from the attorney general and

his deputy, to come out and say that they made this decision not to charge the president with obstruction of justice? >> i've got many questions about the process, kasie. by process, the decision by which bob mueller special counsel decided this was a hard issue, obstruction issue. he couldn't exonerate the president, couldn't find him guilty so he will kick it across the street and have the a.g. make the call. that's unusual to me and something the american people will be talking about in terms of what we paid the special counsel to do. we certainly paid for a comprehensive detailed investigation and certainly got that with incredible findings. when it ultimately came to make the hard call on a criminal matter, mueller decided to kick it across to the a.g. we need to find out like the math teacher says i need to see

the work for your answer. we need to find out how it happened in this way. democrats have clearly shown they will go after the attorney general as their strategist moving forward saying he doesn't have the credibility to have made this decision. what's your assessment of the wisdom of that path. >>. >> look, we have an attorney general who got this report friday evening and on sunday announced he had done all the research on the criminality of obstruction of justice and he's come out with the announcement. i think congress is right to dig into the process. we're going to see people called to the hill. ironically, mueller himself, in trying to put this across the street to doj, may find himself as exhibit a on the hill. democrats have to balance this with the public is hearing a drumbeat from the white house and the president and he was a victim and now a victor. they have to proceed very

carefully on this issue. >> ken delaney. what about the collusion piece of this? i know you're down for a very private conference with a lot of folks you talk to in the national security against world. i'm curious what you're picking up from those folks and how they're thinking about this. this report was pretty clear in saying there was no evidence of conspiracy or collusion is a word we often use here, but there have been a lot of very difficult to understand moves by the president when it comes to russia. >> to be honest, kasie, it falls down partisan lines. people obama appointees skeptical about donald trump are finding this hard to understand. we have seen so much public evidence that raises questions. if we say we have confidence in robert mueller, i think we have to state loud and clear this was a resounding vindication, it

wasn't just, we don't have enough evidence to file a conspiracy charge, we don't have evidence of coordination with the russians. that's a big deal because for two years we have been pointing at things in that direction. robert mueller took a look with the 2800 subpoenas and 500 search warrants, this wasn't the mueller report, the barr summary of the mueller report, we don't know how long it is. short of a criminal conspiracy, what about trump's conduct and russia contacts and the lying? what explains all that. was the trump campaign manipulated by a sophisticated c covert operation? were they negative and were they warned? i hope the mueller report answers it and that they get to the bottom of that, a valid question for congressional inquiry. for members of the public that

placed stock in the idea this was a criminal case and robert mueller was going to prosecute it we have to acknowledge what robert mueller found on collusion was a complete vindication of the president. >> following the twist for twist and turn for turn to the depths of the trump associates and ties to russia. what's your take away to what is left that's still worthy of looking into and what as ken says, has the president been vindicated? >> i think what, over the last two years now, looking at this investigation have looked at it as something completely all encompassing, something that was really going to investigate every aspect of the president's ties to russia, every aspect of his campaigns, communication with this russian and that russian during the campaign and transition. we were looking at it through the lens of a counter intelligence investigation. the language of the mandate made it seem as though this was an

open-ended probe mueller could look into to get to the bottom of pressing questions such as was the president compromised by russia or putin? were any of his campaign members compromised? now, we're finally coming to terms with the fact this was a criminal investigation run by prosecutors and run by mueller with a prosecutor's mindset. when he says there was no evidence to prove really conspiracy charges between the campaign and russia that doesn't really -- between the campaign and russian government that doesn't really tell me anything about all of the myriad communications and contacts that the campaign had with russians during the campaign in the transition period and the president's continued deference towards putin during his time in office. >> mueller did say there were multiple overtures and to bill

barr in his discussions, the russians did talk to the campaign but no evidence they wanted to collude. >> the grand conspiracy charge some people thought was a neat bowe to be wrapped around this entire thing. talking with john mclaughlin, he said mueller's standard for evidence to proof beyond a reasonable doubt is so high is different from the cia and what they present. we have to look beyond that lens. it is significant he could not prove there was coordination between the campaign and russian government and keep in mind it was from a prosecutor's standpoint. >> i see your face being skeptical. what's your view? your former boss, mitch mcconnell put out a view different from other republicans. >> more measured.

>> he is typically, true, in the complete vindication, he looks forward to reviewing the additional information. how do you see this playing out on the hill? >> there's a couple things. we as americans should be happy that the special counsel said there was no collusion. that is a good thing for our democracy and our public. if it was the other thing, we would be sitting here talking about how a foreign power tried to influence and colluded with an actual nominee for a major political party to win an election. those are really scary things we are talking about. we as americans should be very glad about that. number two, there is a political downside to a lot of this. overreach. there was a piece in the "new york times" today how democratic 2020 hopefuls are not being asked about this question. why is that? this is not just republican voters sitting here wondering about what is going on here supporting the president.

you have democrats themselves who are getting tired. i think the challenge is there is a desire and need to come to the truth and conclusion with this report. democrats are clearly going to continue going down this path. there is a very real danger for democrats to overplay their hands here. this is not just republican voters, even with their own voters, all this is going to be is pulling different strings of legal cases most voters do not understand and frankly, i will say it, don't care much about because most voters have already made their opinions made and known about donald trump. you either like him or hate him with a few in between who will decide the 2020 election. it is those people, i will guess, we have to see some polling, they probably don't care much either. >> your first comment, it's a good thing the president obviously did not collude with a foreign power, that's a conclusion robert mueller drew.

fine. we still don't have an answer whether or not he's compromised and why has he been so deferential to the russian president or any other autocratic leader. we still don't know. that's the counter-intelligence person to this. >> that's not in the purview of what a special counsel does. >> no. you're totally right. >> this is a legal question. if there are people in intelligence circles have other view, that's their prerogative. i am curious why the obama administration in the last six months of its time in office did so little to push back on russia and influence. i will tell you -- they went -- i will just say that is something they have yet to answer and -- >> that is an a rabbit hole we can spend a lot of time on. certainly your former boss, i should say conducted himself. i do want to set the stage for how our members of congress reacting, what's coming next for democrats in this bigger picture. take a look at what they've said

so far from "nightly news" tonight. >> republicans in congress tonight triumphant, no collusion and no obstruction. senator lindsey graham writing on twitter, the cloud hanging over president trump has been removed by this report, kevin mccarthy saying in a statement, this case is closed. tonight, democratic leaders questioning the integrity of attorney general william barr after mueller didn't reach a conclusion whether the president obstructed justice. but barr and deputy rod rosenstein decided the president should not be prosecuted for obstruction. chuck schumer and nancy pelosi writing in a statement, quote, given mr. barr's public record of bias against the special counsel inquiry, he is not a neutral observer and not in a position to make objective determinations about the report. >> the mueller report must be made public for a full accounting of what happened.

and the attorney general of the united states must be required to testify before congress. >> reporter: house judiciary committee chairman jerry nadler says he will require barr to come testify before congress. just because the mueller investigation i concluded doesn't mean the investigations are stopped on capitol hill wrapping up the russian interference in the election but the other committees are already investigating potential obstruction of justice, political corruption and abuses of power. democrats friday sending letters to nine government agencies demanding they preserve any documents related to the probe. >> we know there are lots of investigations going on. southern district of new york and eastern district of virginia, et cetera, and there may be in diameters frdictments.

the story is not over. >> what struck me you're not hearing much about impeachment. this is the answer every democrat about impeachment had, let's wait for the mueller report. let's wait for the mueller report. i have a very difficult time saying with the bar nancy pelosi set, this has to be bipartisan ever gets met. >> it comes with nancy pelosi's comments about impeachment with a new perspective. democrats got word early on this was not going to be the slam-dunk smoking gun report a lot of them had hoped for. i hope to the point about democratic overreach they certainly need to be careful because they have republicans' example to follow. republicans overreached impeaching bill clinton. the public tires of these ongoing investigations into public officials. it's not something voters are talking about. the stories out there, voters

are rolling their eyes or concerned about their healthcare, concerned about their wages, even in the most democratic districts i visited during the midterm cycle, voters weren't talking about russia. >> frankly, democrats won in large part because they kept their message on healthcare and other things. tiffany, you mentioned the "new york times" story. i was sitting next to lisa, who wrote that, at the event with amy klobuchar. we were both struck by the questions from the crowd were not about mueller, a whole list of other topicings. not to say i didn't speak with a list of voters who came up to me to ask what will happen tomorrow? at the same time, it's clear there's a balancing act. how do you think democrats should thread this needle against a base agitated with this president and independent voters needed to win this presidency. >> i would say thank god the democratic majority can listen at the same time, to say democratic impeachment takes

away from these discussion is a false narrative. not true. you were saying the american people should feel relief. i don't feel relief. there are a lot of questions we still don't know. we haven't proven this president didn't collude. what we have is a summary from bill barr about the report. if the republicans are so confident it would show a witch hunt, they should make it public. when you get to policy discussions happening, if you only focus what the american people are caring about, you might have realities on dunkin' donuts and the business of american people. everybody that doesn't know the min nu-shay of government doesn't affect our adversaries. >> wow. i guess my turn. congress is able and should do multiple things at the same time. on the one hand, remember, democrats rested so much of

their faith and hope on mueller. on protecting him. remember, we had multiple times democrats said we must protect bob mueller. talked about his integrity and he is a bipartisan official and figure that has garnered a lot of respect. i don't think we should say that because the attorney general released these findings there was any malfeasance here. if there was collusion he would have said it. no way to deal with that. much of it will be made public as much as possible. this talking point, i'm sorry to say democrats have, is a little bit -- convenient for now, they will release as much as they can and go through sources and make sure they're following the law. it's in everyone's interest to make as much of this public as they possibly can. good for the justice system and the country and i think we should expect that. >> one more interesting note what can be made public on this report. when bill barr lays out things in the report that can't be made public like grand jury, he

doesn't say classified information is one of them, that classified information needs to be scrubbed from this report, which makes me think perhaps all the information mueller revealed and relied on during the investigation has already been revealed potentially. if we see a lot of redactions in this report i will have a lot of questions because cross information doesn't appear to be one of the things he's worried about. >> joining us on the phone, democratic for rhode island calling in. appreciate you calling in. >> good to be with you. >> let's just start with your takeaways here with what we have learned from robert mueller, a momentous day here. we know he said he found no evidence, robert mueller found no evidence of conspiracy, however, he did not come to a conclusion on obstruction of justice and instead the attorney

general, he and rod rosenstein declined to prosecute any obstruction crime against the president of the united states. do you think that was the right decision, sir? >> it's really early to tell. when you've got, after all this effort, special counsel going out of its way to put in this report to the attorney general does not exonerate the president. and leaving it up to the attorney general to make that decision. it raises a lot of questions, not the least of which is the astonishing astonishing rapidity with which the attorney general made that decision. i don't know how they could have gone through the record between friday and sunday. maybe they had prior contact on this matter. i don't know. there's a lot here to sort out and it seems a lot like a rush to judgment on the question of

obstruction. >> senator -- >> on the scope of it -- >> go ahead. >> the thing i've been waiting for is some charge related to that strange shift in the ukraine plant in the republican -- >> oops. sounds like we just lost the senator. we will work on getting him back. i think he was talking about the ukraine platform at the rnc, i'm sure, natasha, you have covered extensively. jeremy peters, what's your sense from a political perspective, i'd like to continue the conversation with sheldon whitehouse what exactly these senators on the judiciary committee think about this, more measured from the house. what do you think the democratic base will demand from their leaders in the wake of this? >> i think they will want to see, and should see as much of the report as legally able to be released, right?

that this is fight the democrats can have and have high moral legal standing on. it's tricky for president trump and the justice department to say, no, no, no, we will only release this much. it's in his political interest for the president to release as much as they possibly legally can. i think where trump benefits is once that fight shifts away from what are we releasing and not releasing an gets into a fishing expedition, so he can say it's a fishing expedition on the part of democrats to relitigate what appears to have been settled on this report. thumb thrives on having an enemy and saying he's been persecuted. he's always seen himself as being persecuted. a lot of republican voters out there, his loyal followers feel they've been persecuted. >> take it on personally. >> unlike any politician we've seen in modern times. he will win fights like that. there is an entire media

apparatus out there that has conditioned his base to already have rejected the conclusions of this report before it even came out. >> senator white house, i think we're back with us. we totally forgive you. we have all had cell phone malfunctions in the past. apologize if it was on our end. you were talking about the changing of the republican platform at the convention. the shoe i've been waiting to drop in this investigation has been the ukraine plank. it was a very big deal to hawkish republicans, to have that in there. very important to russia to get it out. manafort was the campaign guy at the time. he had all these ukrainian pro russian oligarch connections. after that, the big debts and weird set of loans. that idea and scenario in which manafort changed the platform in favor of russia doesn't turn up

in any charges that have been brought so far really strains my cr credulity and i'm interested where that got carved out by the narrow definition of this report, specifically conspiracy in election interference activities opposed to other things like perhaps changing the party platform. >> senator, do you think that there is a responsibility from the attorney general to put out additional findings in an expeditious manner? he had said initially we would get these conclusions this weekend. that was very quick. now, the timeline is very open. from a political perspective that could have serious repercussions. when would you like to see it made public? >> the sooner the better and the sooner they come to congress about where they limited the

investigation, where the boundaries were and how much time they took to look at whether there was obstruction at the a.g. level. every minute that goes by leaves suspicions on the table i think they'd be well served to clear. >> who do you think should testify before congress about this? would you like to see robert mueller in addition to the attorney general? >> i'd like to see robert mueller, rod rosenstein and attorney general barr at the table subject to questioning. >> do you think there's any way lindsey graham will let that happen? >> if he doesn't, he's just taken himself out of the loop because i'm confident the house is going to go forward, and i think it would be a same if the senate judiciary committee failed to undertake our senate responsibilities while the house was going to undertake theirs. >> senator, do you think that this puts the question about whether this president has

committed impeachable offenses to rest? >> you know, this is a guy who hasn't even released his tax returns yet. we have no idea what business entanglements he might have with russian interests. setting aside these two waves cited in the report, in which the russian government tried to interfere in the election and probably did successfully interfere in the election, there is a whole other array of things going from the emmollients lawsuit all the way back to potential business transactions with russian interests, saudi arabian interests. still a lot we don't know, and i think the american people are entitled to know if their president is in business relationships with foreign powers and foreign interests. so far, they haven't disclosed any of that, and the mueller report has kind of silenced our

inquiries. i think with the mueller report finally having dropped, there's going to be a lot more interest figuring out what they did and didn't look at and making sure the stuff they didn't look at gets a good look. >> very quickly, before i let you go, do you think it is politically wise for democrats to pursue impeachment or do you think that would risk the white house in 2020? >> impeachment is the verdict in the house. it's what starts us off in the senate but it's the verdict in the house. as a prosecutor, i don't think you go straight to the verdict. you start by building your case, developing new evidence. i think that's the stage we're in. we now need to know what exactly was decided in the mueller report and was not and what do we need to look at in congress in order to clear the air. >> senator sheldon whitehouse of rhode island. i'm sure we will see you on what is going to be a very busy week on capitol hill. thank you for your time. ken, i want to get your response

to what you heard from the senator there. i'm told you have some thoughts about obstruction of justice and rod rosenstein's role in it. >> i wanted to talk to the criticism of the senator whitehouse and making the question, how could william barr have decided in 48 hours president trump didn't have the intent to obstruct justice when mueller was looking at it for two years and couldn't decide. part of the answer is rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general also participated in that decision, barr makes clear. and rod rosenstein, in fairness, was living with this from the beginning, grappling with the questions and there was a report about there was a debate whether to subpoena the president, one way to find out the president's intent was to interview him and eventually decided not do it and would never get the president and he could have pleaded the fifth and didn't have to testify

against himself and would have delayed the investigation. there is a question about why mueller punted on the obstruction question. he deferred the question to his superiors at the department of justice and in doing so subverted why he was appointed independent of donald trump because he wasn't hired by donald trump. william barr was hired by donald trump, and they ended up making the decision to legally clear donald trump of obstruction. that will be a question going forward. it wasn't just barr, it was rosenstein and he was there for two years. >> thank you. to ken, we will give you the last word before we go to break. you made that very good point about mueller's decision making. this other decision not to subpoena the president. what's your take on how they made that decision. was that the right decision as a prosecutor? how do you look at that?

>> from how i know mueller works when he was director of the fbi, he papers the file very well. i would specific somewhere in a footnote or appendix to his report we will see his thought processes why he didn't do this. it will be recorded and discussions with rosenstein will be memorialized and will come out on discussions on the hill. if you're told this repeatedly and why the public needs to see this report, if mueller was told emphatically by the president's attorney, we will plead the fifth amendment on self-incrimination if you insist on a grand jury subpoena or in person interview, the public needs to know that why mueller can't say i can't tell you about it or can't incriminate myself. this started as a counter intelligence investigation and neither to end as a counter intelligence investigation. by that i mean the public needs to see all the work done resolving the question whether

russia compromised this president and why this president is behaving this way. that's not a criminal standard, not a criminal prosecution decision, a nuanced counter-intelligence case. that needs to see the light of day as well. >> frank and ken, thank you for your sharp insights on this topic. i'm sure you will both have very long weeks ahead of you. a lot more on this breaking edition. what do democrats do now? i'm joined by dnc chair, tom perez. don't go anywhere. we're just getting started. nywh. we're just getting started 't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. 't. most pills only block one. flonase.

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by the time we get to 2020, donald trump may not even be president. in fact, he may not even be a free person. >> that was senator elizabeth warren last month talking about the legal peril the president faced at the time. joining us, tom perez, dnc chairman. thank you for keeping your appointment with us on a very busy news night. let's talk about elizabeth warren suggested that the president may be in prison come 2020. do you think that's a sentiment that should be put to bed after this report? >> i'd like to read the report

first. i spent over a dozen years of my life at the justice department, worked under bush 1 and republican and democratic administrations and investigated and prosecuted a number of cases in involving allegations of corruption and other wrongdoing of public officials. when we close a case, sometimes we close cases and close a case at times because we couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt the allegations we put forth. there are so many unanswered questions, one thing clearly answered from this report is russians attempted to interfere with our election. >> i'm not sure that that question -- we've known that for some time. that's a fair point. that raises the question. why does this president continue to deny it? those are part of the unanswered questions. we know in addition to the fact that the russians did meddle in our investigation, we know his

campaign managers, deputy campaign manager, his lawyer, papadopoulos, stone, all these people were having contact. the question for me remains was he compromised? why does he say he believes putin over the against community and leaving nato that puts our national security at jeopardy. why won't he release his tax returns and why were they so hell bent getting the trump tower in moscow. i think the house needs to move forward to answer these questions. >> is he compromised? the line in the report you're referring to, william barr writes quote the special counsel did not find the trump campaign or anybody associated with it conspired or coordinated with the russian government despite multiple offers from the

officials to influence the trump campaign. you just argued if you're a prosecutor you make this decision because you can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. my question for you, is there somewhere in between short of criminal collusion provable in this kind of prosecutorial manner and the president's conduct that would constitute an impeachable offense? >> we have to see where it takes us. there are so many unanswered questions and why we need the entire report. >> i take your point. every democrat i had on this show we made a point asking where do you stand whether the president committed an impeachable offense. nine times out of 10 they would say, wait for the mueller report. my question to you, were there any questions answered here? >> we haven't gotten the mueller report? >> we have a lot more information than we did before. >> as someone who spent over a dozen years at the justice

department, i know what goes into those reports. i was part of the team in republican and democratic administrations preparing those reports. frequently, when we declined a case, we declined it not because we didn't have major concerns, we declined it because we made a conclusion we conned find beyond a reasonable doubt that the allegations were provable. that's very different. that's why thereton be so many unanswered questions. the overarching one, is he compromised by a foreign adversary in russia. i still don't understand the press conference in helsinki where he looked so weak. i don't understand why he would believe putin over our against officers. i do understand russia interfered in our investigation. these are the unanswered questions and why it's so important to get the entire report and again to understand what the special counsel said on

obstruction, which is this report doesn't exonerate the president. we have to understand why. i'm pretty confident this report will explain why they did not exonerate the president on the obstruction. >> at what point do you think you can give a definitive answer whether impeachment is off the table. what do you need to see? >> evidence. right now, the committees are doing exactly what they should do, gathering evidence. we need the report and to hear from the attorney general. i'm hopeful the will go to capitol hill and testify soon. we need to understand why is the president reluctant to release his tax returns? a routine exercise by presidential candidates. in the case of this president and his involvement in the effort to build the trump tower in moscow, it raises some real concerns. >> the house speaker, nancy pelosi, has said impeachment would divide the country and

quote he, donald trump, is just not worth it. do you agree with that assessment? >> impeachment is a high bar and goes over to the senate. impeachment is one step in the process. as senator whitehouse said, you need to make a judgment. we won in 2018 because we focused on the issues on people's minds. while donald trump was talking about caravans, we were talking about healthcare. we were making sure if you have a pre-existing condition you can keep your healthcare. if you're diabetic, we will work to bring down the cost of insulin. if you're struggling to pay for college -- >> it worked. >> democrats know how to walk and chew gum. speaker pelosi is better than anyone at that. she is fighting to make sure we are saving the affordable healthcare act. i don't think there's any leader

in washington done more to enhance access to healthcare and save the affordable care act than nancy pelosi. we understand the importance of continuing to do that and focusing on bread and butter issues, making sure if you work a full time job you can feed your family. >> i hear it every time i talk to 2020 candidates. part of the problem in the last election with john podesta's e-mails being hacked there is evidence russian trolls were working on behalf of bernie sanders. his campaign has denied that and bristled at those acquisitions. nbc news about helping gabbard's campaign and what are we doing to make sure they're safe and secure and not able to be tampered with. >> that's a huge priority for us. one of the first things we did was build a cybersecurity team

top flight. our chief cyber officer was the chief cyber officer at yahoo!. he uncovered a russian hack shortly after he got there. we are working day in and day out with all of the campaigns. let's face it. what they did worked in 2016. there's no accountability for this president. >> are the campaigns cooperating with you? >> absolutely. we had a meeting as recently as last week. bob lord is our chief security officer and he met with all the campaigns. here's my philosophy about our role as relates to cybersecurity. we are a public utility. we are providing help to every campaign so they understand how they can make sure their data is cyber secure. >> do you have a uniform standard they're all following? >> yes. bob met with all the campaigns to go through a checklist. some of the things are quite simple. two factor authentication. let's start there. we have a team of people that

frankly, spend their entire day trolling the internet and looking and finding nefarious trolls, talking to facebook, talking to twitter, saying we believe you need to remove these because they are involved in nefarious activity. they did it before, will do it again. we can't do this alone and why we're working not only with the campaigns, working with a broader cyber ecosystem because again, we saw what happened in 2016 and working our level best to make sure it doesn't happen again. >> dnc chairman, tom perez. more in a minute. more in a minute (danny) let me get this straight. after a long day of hard work... ...you have to do more work? every day you're nearly fried to a crisp, professionally!

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at comcast, it's my job to constantly monitor our network. prevent problems, and to help provide the most reliable service possible. my name is tanya, i work in the network operations center for comcast. we are working to make things simple, easy and awesome. in the wake of william barr's summary of the mueller report and the president's claim of total exoneration, it's important to keep in mind all that the investigation did uncover. 34 people were charged. seven people had guilty pleas. one conviction by trial. four people jailed or incarcerated and five were sentenced. six former trump advisors were ensnared in the investigation including the president's former campaign chairman, paul manafort and his former national security

advisor, michael flynn. while the mueller investigation is now complete, federal and state prosecutors are pushing forward with probes that grew out of his work, particularly in the southern district of new york. the "new york times" reports unlike mr. mueller whose probe was largely linked between the campaign and the russia, for instance, in the 2016 election, manhattan takes an expansive view to have a broader orbit around the president including his family business. natasha, you have dug into a lot of this as well and the southern district of new york put michael cohen in prison, for example. what in your view is the next turn of the screw in these other areas? >> the biggest question a lot of people have now is the inaugural committee is like a major investigation under way apparently. a lot of subpoenas have been

issued to figure out whether or not foreign money flowed into the inaugural illegally and could have potentially compromised the president and people around him in that way. that is new york to see whether or not the president has had these, you know, illegal practices throughout his entire real estate career and whether or not that could also be compromised. because if you aric look at all of this from like a counterintelligence standpoint, which, you know, prosecutors probably won't be but, you know, other people will. >> -- start that way so good point. >> it did start that way. you know it really is worth understanding where the president's final interests lie here and the fact he hasn't released his tax returns obviously is still a major open question. >> we didn't see indictments. and we know -- obviously there are no further indictments in the special council's investigationsel's investigati investigation.

nobody indicted. donald trump jr. the most potential exposure. is he home free now or not? >> i don't think anybody should consider themselves home free on the trump campaign in his orbit, in his business, especially for the reasons you were just discussing. southern district investigation. the attorney general of the state of new york looking into various aspects of the businesses we know. so i think this is going to drag on in other streams. not necessarily related to collusion but related to what he did. and his tax returns. interesting kwesmt i don't knqu. i don't know the answer. we haven't seen them. but we think that mueller has. over the course of the investigation wouldn't he have looked at them. >> he would have had to power to get them. i think there was an open question whether he would have. >> and did he not see anything in there if he saw them. did he not find anything in there that he thought was worth -- that pointed to illegal activity or just beyond his scope. and i don't know the answer to that question. there is still a lot about his

taxes we just don't know. >> and one thick we're still waiting on is the report from the senate intelligence committee which, you know, there have been reported that it will show the similar conclusion to what mueller said, which is that there is no evidence of collusion. we do expect the democrats to have some sort of different take on it. but do you think that that is going ultimately bolster what we've learned from mueller? or do you think we'll get new revelations? >> the short answer is i suspect it will track closely with mueller. now again we have not. we will have to wait and see what eventually becomes public and i think democrats and republicans won't as much made republican. i will give chairman barr tremendous credit. he decided pretty quickly after there was a conflict and never went back down to the white house for anything ever again.

he's tried very hard to do a very bipartisan report with mark warner. i expect it will be as bipartisan as it can be. with probably two different views. you will have a majority and minority view. but i think overall since this was really looking at russia, that is what we will see. i would also just note that this is going into -- and what they looked at was going into all of the 2016 election. >> right. >> so this was not just looking at -- >> it was not just the president. right, of course. >> just looking all of this. and i think also from an intelligence perspective and understanding there should be a lot of information gleend from this that will help america moving forward in terms of dealing with threats to security and election security moving forward. it will be viewed in a political prism but there are national security things and other things to learn moving forward to protect from meddling. >> -- centers on the issues of national security. the intelligence committee has

been historically bipartisan. one thing i'm watching is the senators who are running for president in the senate. which is not netly a bipartisan endeavor at all and the news surrounding the mueller report has unsurprisingly made its way already to the 2020 campaign trail. here is kamala harris earlier in atlanta. >> let's speak truth. that the american public deserves transparency and accountability and the mueller report must be made public for a full counting of what happened. and the attorney general of the united states must be required to come and testify before congress. instead of just submitting a four-page memo of what happened. >> so tiffany cross, this was -- this is obviously big news night.

this was a short piece of kamala harris's speech. where do you think this issue when we're here at this table in two years heading into the election, where does this rank on what democrats care about the most? >> i think it ranks very high to people who claim to be patriots and care about the country. particularly as we're going into an election season. and we have overwhelming evidence that russians certainly did attack our democracy. you know, i think for candidates they are obviously running against each other. none have come out and said anything different. everyone is saying the report should be public. >> yet. i take your point. >> exactly. but the thing is i don't think it is going sway any voters either way. the people who are solidly planted in trump's camp, that, you know, in my opinion is a layer of woeful ignorance you can't penetrate. i think on the democratic side for people who, you know, a wide speculate spectrum of people frustrated with the process and angry about what they see on the right and there are people who want some of the party further left on impeachment talks.

i'm not sure it is going to gain any one candidate more or less voters. >> that is our last word for tonight from tiffany across. antonioia, natasha, jeremy thank you for a spirited discussion tonight. that is it for us here on "kasie dc." we did do interviewes on the road this weekday with amy klobuchar and john hickenlooper. thank you personally for your time. we're going post some of those conversations on the web and to our pod cast. ari melber is live next with special coverage from here in washington after a short break.

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♪ good evening to you. i'm ari melber. live from washington with special coverage of the mueller report. attorney general william barr has a new letter that's begun to characterize special counsel robert mueller's report. first the letter makes it clear on the issue of election

conspiracy bob mueller did not find chargeable conclusion. barr quotes mueller is stating members did not establish the campaign did not establish or coordinate with with the russian government in election