more time to consider the question than we thought. there was an issue over the weekend whether it was a rush to judgment for him to make the announcement that he concluded it wasn't and now we know that he had three weeks to think about it and it's still going to be a controversy going forward. >> david ignacious, thank you. that will wrap up this hour of msnbc live. i'll see you tomorrow on "today." andrea mitchell reports starts right now. >> i'm andrea mitch kneell in washington where we will hear from donald trump. the president clinging total exoneration clinging to mueller's conclusion that the trump campaign did not conspire or coordinate with russia to influence the 2016 election. the president's own actions did not constitute obstructive conduct while ignoring a critical quote within the mueller report that while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime it also does not exonerate him.

this morning you'll hear from experts on the key questions that we're still asking, why did the special counsel after two years of investigating leave the obstruction decision to the attorney general. how did he reach his conclusion after 48 hours after getting the report. will mueller's no collusion conclusion impact president trump's approach to vladimir putin and russia, and most importantly for millions of americans and the lawmakers who represent them will the american people get to see the mueller report for themselves? nbc white house correspondent kristen welker, nbc justice correspondent pete williams and nbc national security and justice correspondent julia ainsley join meese now. julia, you're at the justice department abowith more when william barr got the report from robert mueller. >> we have learned that william barr and rod rosenstein heard three weeks ago that he would not be reaching a conclusion on the obstruction question and he came to them with these difficult answers. >> and we're going to interrupt

because we see right now president trump and benjamin netanyahu entering the diplomatic reception room at the white house. prime minister netanyahu was supposed to be here, as well, tomorrow and for a dinner tomorrow night he faces re-election april 9th and he is returning because of violence from gaza into israel with a number of injuries reported today. he's cutting his visit short right after this white house moment. >> this is a very important moment. it is my honor to welcome prime minister netanyahu to the white house. a very special man. he's done a great job. i want to begin by expressing our condolences to the prime minister and the people of israel for the horrific hamas rocket attack on israeli homes this morning which wounded seven civilians, at least, including numerous children. our prayers are with our friends in israel as they carry out an

incredible way of life in the face of great terror. the united states recognizes israel's right to defend itself. the despicable attack this morning demonstrates the significant security challenges that israel faces every single day and today i am taking historic action to promote israel's ability to defend itself and really to have a very powerful, very strong national security which they're entitled to have. in a moment, i will sign a presidential proclamation recognizing israel's sovereign right over the golan heights. israel took control of the golan heights in 1967 to safeguard its security from external threats. today, aggressive action by iran and terrorist groups in southern syria including hezbollah

continued to make the golan heights a potential launching ground for attacks against israel. very violent attacks. any possible future peace agreement must account for israel's need to defend itself from syria, iran and other regional threats. we do not want to see another attack like the one suffered this morning north of tel aviv. in our meeting today the prime minister and i will discuss these dangers as well as several mutual priorities in the middle east and beyond. we'll be discussing other subjects also including trade, but we will mostly be discussing this defense and perhaps offense. under my administration the unbreakable alliance between the united states and israel has never been stronger. you read things, you hear things. it's never been stronger, just

remember that. people talk, but it's only talk. our relationship is powerful. at this moment the american embassy stands proudly in jerusalem, the capital of the jewish people have established and they've wanted the embassy for many, many years, for many decades and frankly, through many presidents and we got it done. not only did we get it done. we also got it built at a slight cost saving like about $1 billion cost saving, and i want to thank ambassador david freedman for the job he's done and jason greenblad and everybody. i want to thank you all. thank you very much, ambassador. are you enjoying it? and you love israel. >> and america. >> good. >> and america. i was waiting for him to say that. [ laughter ] we have defeated the caliphate in syria. we have withdrawn from the

horrible iran nuclear deal and imposed the toughest-ever sanctions and these are, by far, the toughest ever on the iranian regime. it's having a big effect. iran is not the same country that it was when i took office. the day i took office we had threats all over the middle east and beyond. iran is a much different place right now than it was. as i said during my state of the union address we will not avert our eyes from the dictatorship that chants death to america. death to israel and calls for genocide against the jewish people. we won't let them even consider that. we will confront the poison of anti-semitism through both our words and maybe even more importantly our actions. in the last century humanity witnessed the horrific

consequences of anti-semitism and a world without a jewish homeland. in the wake of those unthinkable horror, the jewish people built a mighty nation in the holy land. something very, very powerful and something very special and important. today israel demonstrates the incredible possibilities when strong, sovereign and independent nations shot their own destinies. they can be no better example of greatness than what israel has done starting from such a small speck of sand. israel is an inspiration, a trusted ally and a cherished friend. the united states will always stand by its side. i'd like to now invite prime minister netanyahu to say a few words and bibi and i have known each other for a long time. he's another one who truly,

truly loves israel. i think i can say he also loves the united states. so before i sign the presidential proclamation recognizing israel's sovereignty over the golan heights i'd like to ask prime minister netanyahu to say a few words, thank you very much. thank you. thank you. [ applause ] >> mr. president, my dear friend donald, you have shown consistently incredible support for israel, for our right to self-defense when we exercise that self-defense you have never flinched, you've always been there including today, and i thank you. yesterday a rocket was fired from gaza deep inside to israel. it hit a home north of tel aviv. it wounded seven including two

small children and miraculously no one was hurt, no one was killed. israel will not tolerate this. i will not tolerate this, and as we speak, as i told you, mr. president, just now israel is responding forcefully to this wanton aggression. i have a simple message to israel's enemies. we will do whatever we must do to defend our people and defend our state. after this meeting, i will return home ahead of schedule to lead the people of israel and the soldiers of israel, but before i go, mr. president, it was so kind of you to invite me to come here and it was important to come here and to thank you. mr. president, over the years israel has been blessed to have

many friends who sat in the oval office, but israel has never had a better friend than you you showed us time and again, you showed us when you withdrew from the disastrous nuclear deal with iran. i remember in one of our first meetings, you said this is a horrible deal. i will leave it. you said it. you did it. you said it when you restored sanctions against a genocidal regime that seeks to destroy the one and only jewish state. you said i will restore those sanctions. you said it and you did it. you showed that when you recognized jerusalem as israel's capital and moved the american embassy there and gave us a tremendous ambassador. you said it, you did it, and you've shown it once again today, mr. president, with your official proclamation recognizing israel's sovereignty over the golan heights.

mr. president, ladies and gentlemen, this is truly an historic day. for two decades, from 1948 to 1967, syria rained deadly fire on the golan heights on the citizens below. a generation of israeli children lived in constant danger, and then in two glorious days in june 1967 the brave soldiers of israel scaled those daunting heights and liberated the golan. this has profound meaning for all israelis and for me personally, one of those brave soldiers was my brother who was wounded in battle three hours before the end of the war, and a few years later as an officer in a special unit, i led my soldier into a covert mission into syria and as we came back to the golan, to israel we nearly froze to death in a blinding

snowstorm, well, as you can see, i'm still here. but at that point, in 1967, israel seized the high ground which has since proven invaluable to our defense because in 1973 syria launched a surprise attack against israel and those same golan heights proved to be, to enable us to absorb the initial attack and it was a horrific attack and successfully counterattack the syrian forces and within three weeks we were at the gates of damascus. outmanned, outgunned our soldiers triumphed after the hardest fought tank battles in our history, but while israel won those two wars, we would have to wait nearly half a century until this moment here in this room, to translate our military victory into a diplomatic victory and that is why, mr. president, your

decision to recognize israel's sovereignty on the golan heights is so historic. your recognition is a twofold act of historic justice. israel won the golan heights in self-defense and the jewish people's roots in the golan go back thousands of years. in the long sweep of jewish history there have been a handful of proclamations by non-jewish leaders on behalf of our people and our land. cyrus the great, the great persian king, lord balfour, president harry s. truman and president donald j. trump and you, mr. president -- mr. president, you've done it not once, but twice with your bold proclamation on jerusalem and with your bold proclamation

today on the golan. your proclamation comes at a time when the golan is more important than ever for our security when iran is trying to establish bases in syria to strike at israel. from across the border, in syria, iran has launched drones into our airspace, missiles into our territory. mr. president, just as israel stood tall in 1967, just as it stood tall in 1973, israel stands tall today. we hold the high ground and we shall never give it up. mr. president, we have a saying in israel. i'll say it in hebrew. it says -- [ speaking foreign language ] that means the people are with the golan, but thanks to you we now know that there are two

peoples who stand with the golan, the people of israel and the people of america. so on behalf of all the people of israel, thank you, president trump. thank you for your leadership, thank you for your friendship and thank you for all you've done to make the alliance between america and israel stronger and greater than ever. thank you, mr. president. >> thank you very much. [ applause ] >> so this was a long time in the making. it should have taken place many decades ago.

>> give this to the people of israel. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> after signing this proclamation and recognizing -- will your deal of the century include separation of jerusalem. >> right now we're talking about this. thank you very much. >> will you say something -- >> do you want to see -- >> i have to tell you that i brought you a case of the finest wine from the golan. i understand you're not a great wine drinker, but can i give it to your staff? don't open an investigation on us. >> mr. -- >> mr. president, do you want to

see -- [ inaudible question ] >> you've just seen the president and prime minister netanyahu. the president signing a proclamation declaring what he tweeted out on thursday that he was recognizing the sovereignty of israel over the golan heights. it's not clear what impact this declaration has other than diplomatically because there are u.n. resolutions and international laws which say that israel does not own or annex the golan heights. there's even a multinational force involving some u.s. troops by the u.n. in a buffer zone there between israel and syria. joining me now is barrett berger, former prosecutor in they new york southern and eastern districts. national security analyst frank figluci and the counterintelligence division. ben rhodes, also an msnbc political contributor and elliott williams, legislative affairs during the obama administration, msnbc

contributor kimberly atkins washington correspondent for wbur in boston. frank, i want to ask you first about the conclusions of the mueller probe as we capitulated, if you will, in that brief four-page letter to congress by william barr because we now understand that he had -- this william barr had seen the conclusions. he'd been given them some weeks before according to julia ainsley at the justice department. does that take away some of the criticism of barr for making a snap 48-hour decision this quickly on whether or not to prosecute on obstruction which was the one -- the one major issue that mueller did not exonerate the president on? >> so it -- it does somewhat mitigate the criticism, but again, it's taken mueller two years to dig deeply into this and look at very nuanced, subtle, counter intelience and intelligence questions and as mueller describes, difficult issues of fact and law.

so the fact that the two years in the making for ultimate decision making still raises serious questions. chief among them for me being a counterintelligence officer for many years is the very question that mueller was supposed to answer which is do we have a compromised president? do we have a president that can remain a decisionmaker in all things russia and none of that, andrea, is touched upon in the four-page summary. if you remember, this whole thing started as a counterintelligence case. it needs to wrap as a counterintelligence case and applying criminal standards to that kind of question. if that's all we do we never get to the heart of what counterintelligence is which is to determine whether or not we have a president that is on our team or not. >> and let me follow up on that. barrett, let me swing around to you. as a prosecutor i'm hearing from a lot of prosecutors, former prosecutors that prosecutors

have an obligation including the special counsel to make a call one way or the other or recommendation. in this case, robert mueller punted, basically. he did not make a recommendation on obstruction. where do you come down on that? >> yeah. it's surprising to me. i mean, i think what he did with respect to the conspiracy or coordination of it, people can be happier and upset about the outcome of it, and i think where he came down on the obstruction piece is surprising and i understand why a lot of former prosecutors are puzzled by this because very rarely, in my experience as a ross cure tpros rarely do we send it is aing here are the facts and now it's your decision to know what to do with this. that isn't the way it works. we would put forth the facts and make the recommendation and sometimes the attorney general would not agree with the recommendation and take a different course, but we would always make the recommendation. out of everyone to be in sort of the best position to make such a

recommendation, that would be robert mueller himself. so it is surprising that he took that, and the question still remains why. >> elliott williams, the attorney general here, making a decision even if he had a head's up, but he didn't have a report itself as far as we know. we don't know how long the report is. he did not quote complete sentences from the report and we really don't know everything that mueller decided on either of these big issues and the conspiracy or the conspiracy regarding russia or obstruction. >> all the more reason why congress needs to see and we all need to see what's in the report. it's piggybacking on what they said. the attorney general didn't need to make a determination on the obstruction of justice charge and he could have relayed what the special counsel found which is that the special counsel did not make a determination. >> this whole obstruction charge is fascinating if you read through it because number one, he walks through the reasonable doubt standard and how hard it is to convict someone and also makes that point about while

this doesn't exonerate the president. to me, it appeared to be a wink to congress saying, look, we cannot find criminality here, but there's still troubling conduct and another body can take a look at this, and i remember from my time working there, too. it's not uncommon for an attorney general to be briefed, but it's very rare for the attorney general to make a final call on something and he could have just stayed silent here so we really do need to see what's in those papers. >> frankfurt was just mentioning as a former longtime counterintelligence officer, he wants to know more about the russia connections. pete williams joining us now. pete, can we assume that in the mueller report that he drills down on the trump tower meeting, that he would explain why these things do not comprise as far as he's concerned, a criminal conspiracy. there are so many connections with russian-backed ukrainians. why this campaign had so many meetings and connections, the cigar room meeting and all of

that. why is it not a conspiracy? don't the american people deserve to know how they've reached that conclusion? >> let's see, in the order that you asked them, andrea, yes, i think the report probably does go into detail about the various questions that arose on the question of either a conspiracy or a cooperation with russia that would explain why the special counsel reached the conclusion that there wasn't any. how soon will the public see it? as bar's letter says, that's going to be largely up to the special counsel because apparently the report is just shot through with grand jury secrecy material and it's going to be the special counsel who will have to spot the ball there and tell them where the grand jury secrecy material is and help them filter that out. i have no idea how long that's going to take. it's not going to be quick, i wouldn't think, although i would assume at the same time that,

you know, the special counsel's office would be well aware that there would be these to see it and they would have started on that. so i think it's just going to take a while, but yes, i think we can assume that there's a lot of detail in it. >> pete, we understand from house judiciary that they're talking to justice about the date for william barr to testify. do you assume that the attorney general will comply with that and agree to testify or might he say we have to wait until we redact and decide what we can say or he could appear and say i can't answer that until we decided how this can be explained. >> yeah, i -- i don't know what the negotiations on the timing will be or whether he'll agree to appear and just say i can't discuss certain things. back on the question, though, you were discussing about whether the attorney general could have just left it where -- where mueller did which is to say there's evidence on both sides on the obstruction question and just leave it at that. two thoughts about that, if that's what he did, then, of

course, that would be the same as saying that would be a charge, but secondly, the rules that govern the attorney general and the special counsel regulations say that i believe the phrase is ultimately the attorney general is in charge of this investigation. so to a large extent, the buck stopped with him even though it was mueller's investigation, we sort of got away from that because the attorney general jeff sessions was recused, but the rules are quite clear that the attorney general has the ultimate responsibility. so he may well have felt that he had no choice, but to make a decision here. >> and kristen welker at the white house, the president was asked a question that we couldn't quite hear there in the diplomatic reception room which was does he feel that robert mueller is an honorable man. what's the attitude from what you're hearing from white house officials about that? >> reporter: this is pretty remarkable, andrea.

let me read you the exchange. he was asked by the poehler, do you think robert mueller acted honorably and the president said and quickly walked out, yes, he did. remember, this is a president who has taken aim at the special counsel. he has called the investigation a witch hunt and a hoax. he has called mueller a liar. he's indicated that he may be compromised, and so this is a real shift in tone, of course, coming on the heels of the developments yesterday in which the attorney general did say there was no collusion between the trump campaign and russia, to meddle in the 2016 election and then to make that determination that you and peter are talking about right now that nothing within the report rises to the level of criminal charges when it comes to the question of obstruction. the president taking a victory lap today and the one question because he got a lot of them. so it's a notable shift in tone. it gives you a sense of what we can expect to hear from mr. trump and of course, his top

advisers have been out sort of taking victory laps throughout the day, andrea. they are spike being the football and president trump will be hitting the campaign trail later on this week and it's a preview of what we can anticipate there. of course, there is a big battle looming on capitol hill as democrats are demanding to see the entirety of the report and everything that mueller found of the two-year investigation, andrea. >> ben rhodes, former deputy security adviser under president trump. what we're hearing also from the white house and from lindsay graham, importantly, who was with the president all weekend in mar-a-lago is they want to investigate the origins of the dossier and lindsay graham with the judiciary and the immr. implications for the clinton campaign after the initiation of the dossier was involved in picking it up. your reaction to the conclusions of mueller that there was no conspiracy with russia and the democrats. >> first of all, andryea, i woud

like to read the report before we know what's in it. >> what do we know? we know russia intervened in our election to help trump. we know trump associates were more than willing to solicit that help including donald trump in front of the entire nation on camera. we know, as you said, that there were countless meetings with russians that don't normally take place during a political campaign, and we know that the president's national security adviser and former campaign chairman have been charged, in some cases convicted of crime, right? so we've definitely moved the goalpost in this country, somehow the sum total of those events is a positive development for trump. i should also add the republican hipocracy here is completely laughable. you will recall when jim comey did not recommend charges against hillary clinton. that was still treated as a

giant problem for hillary clinton by the republicans and is a cause for further investigation of hillary clinton. they will want to investigate hillary clinton and the obama administration for as long as they have a pulse, andrea, and the fact of the matter is here if you really cared about the security of the united states you would be focused on the counterintelligence question and you would be focused even if there was not a criminal history established and why this person has embraced vladimir putin and vladimir putin is helping this president and that should be a greater concern than re-litigating right-wing conspiracy theories about the clintons and the obama administration. >> does it become a problem, though, kimberly atkins for democrats to pursue this on the house side where they do have control and on the campaign trail given that the president has gotten out front of them. he's had a 24-hour head start.

he's got the megaphone of the white house to claim no collusion, full exoneration whether or not and we know that's not the case as far as obstruction is concerned. >> right. i think it depends on the committee and what we learn more on this report beyond the four-page summary from the attorney general's office. certainly the oversight and judiciary committees given robert mueller's determination basically non-decision on the issue of obstruction. i think that is probably going to be fodder fuel for them to investigate more. those were the first committees and the folks were the first that we heard to release the full report and also the underlying evidence. clearly, they're looking into it. it may be harder for the intelligence commit, frankly, led by chairman schiff given this decision on the collusion issue. it may be tough. we already saw -- we already saw kellyanne conway come after him, two reporters this morning. it seems that the white house is really trying to shut that down and calling him a liar

suggesting there is evidence of collusion there and that may pose a problem, but i think the other democrats will go full speed. >> everybody stand by with me because joining us now is senat senator hirono. your chairman lindsay graham came out very strong today going after the democrats and going after the clinton campaign with the conspiracy theories about the dossier. your reaction on whether lindsay graham can be an honest broker after spending the weekend to mar-a-lago and the statements he made reportedly to a republican fund-raiser at mar-a-lago this saturday night. >> andrea, it's getting harder and harder to find honest brockers surrounding the president at all. it's par for the course that the president who basically cares about protecting himself and money that he will come out and say this is full exoneration

knowing that is not the case at all. meanwhile, the chairman of the judiciary committee will continue to do whatever he will do regarding hillary because as long as there's a pulse they want to go after the clintons and we should be moving forward. at the same time there's no question that the house committees will continue their investigations. so just because there was not enough evidence for a criminal charge of conspiracy does not mean that this very cozy relationship that donald trump has with vladimir putin, who, by the way, must be very happy that this came about that this kind of cozy relationship that is not good for our country in that it's not transparent will continue. >> senator, is there a political price to pay, though, if the democrats are too aggressive. are people having mueller fatigue and now that the report is in, if not out. if not presented to the american people.

are they better off going to health care and climate change and other issues and wage disparity and trying to get more into policy making outside of the investigations? >> there's no question, andrea that the american people by a large percentage want the report to be made public especially on the question of whether there was any obstruction of justice, which, by the way, we saw going on in front of our very eyes with all of the actions that the president took to try to stymie this investigation. at the same time, yes, we want to get on with the things that people care about, such as they want to make sure that they have jobs and they have health care, and that we move on with things that we can agree on, such as construction of infrastructure and not a vanity wall. so, sure, there are lots of things that the democrats have been talking about for a long time and now at least with the house in democratic control that we can do more than just

continue to focus on those things that just simply support the president and his ill-conceived and totally harmful policies. >> do you think robert mueller should appear on capitol hill either on the house or senate side? >> yes. i think both mueller and barr should get and the mueller report and we do not know how long it was and we did ask barr during his hearing whether or not we would just get the summary of the mueller report and that's what we've gotten so far, a four-page summary, but i had said last week that i was particularly interested in mueller's analysis of whether or not there was obstruction of justice because we saw this going on in front of our eyes. so again, this is all in the context of the disaster that is the trump administration. so whether it be the cozy relationship he had with putin and other questionable leaders throughout the world and mainly

people who are strong men and you have the muslim ban and trying to eliminate health care from millions of people. you have the disastrous tax bill that gave 1.5 trillion to the richest in our country. so this is all in the context of a disaster that is this presidency and those things do not go away just because he thinks that he's -- he's been totally exonerated. you know, this doesn't make him a good president, not by a stretch. >> senator mazie hirono member of the judiciary committee, thank you very much. joining us now john podesta, former chairman of hillary clinton's presidential campaign now founder and director for the center of american progress and of course, most memorably, hacked by the russians. john podesta, your initial reactions to this, this mueller report as capsulized, we should point out, in this brief memo from william barr. >> well, look, it's hard to know from reading a four-page memo from william barr what this report actually finds. we do know that has been stated

in your show that the russians did commit crimes in the united states. 26 russian nationals were indicted by mr. mueller. we knew there were over a hundred contacts between the trump campaign and agents of the russian government. we know that there were more than 28 meetings between the trump campaign and russian operatives. we don't know why mr. mueller reached the conclusion that he did not have enough evidence to form a criminal conspiracy, but we should know what his reasoning was about that, and i think it's important that the democrats on capitol hill press ahead to ask for the full release of this report and so the american people can form a judgement about what actual he occurred 2016 and what -- what involvement the officials of the

trump campaign had with respect to that. >> it occurs to me if you accept the premise which is put forward by many of the lawyers from justis that y justice that you have to have an underlying crime for there to be obstruction of justice and if mueller was quoted correctly that he had evidence on both sides about obstruction and that he did not exonerate the president on obstruction and couldn't reach a conclusion and left it up to the ag, is it possible that there was so much obstruction that he could not reach a conclusion on collusion or conspiracy is the legal term, most appropriately. because of obstruction and we will never know that. >> it's hard to speculate, but honestly, if there was absolutely no underlying evidence of a crime, then, of course, obstruction would have been off the table and he would have rendered that judgment. the fact that he said and i think it was one of the few things that mr. barr actually quoted from the report that he

was not reaching a conclusion that he was exonerating the president and he had made no decision with respect to that. i think that tells you something. we understand that the president has been speaking in the cabinet room and asked questions by the pool and according to the pooler he asked if the mueller investigation was a witch hunt and the president said he went on far too long and a lot of people did a lot of bad things and he went on at some length and this should never be allowed to happen to another president again, when asked about the attorney general he wouldn't mind. asked about pardons the answer was inaudible. we'll listen to the tape and we'll get that tape played back in about 30 seconds or so so we can all listen to it for ourselves, but it's very clear that william barr is the critical player here if we think he's independent and not under some white house influence. we'llie we will be hearing from the president on that. he was in the cabinet room with netanyahu who is about to leave

and cut short his visit by a day and a half, actually, by going back immediately. here is the president speaking in the cabinet room. >> thank you. [ inaudible question ] >> mr. president, so did this turn out to not be a witch hunt after all? do you think robert mueller -- >> it lasted a long time. we're glad it's over. it's 100% the way it should have been. i wish it could have gone a lot sooner, a lot quicker. there are a lot of people that out there that have done very, very evil things and i would say treasonous thing against our country and hopefully that people that have done such harm to our country, we've gone through a period of really bad things happening. those people will certainly be looked at. i've been looking at them for a long time and i'm saying why

haven't they been locked at? they lied to congress. many of them, you know who they are, they've done so many evil things. i will tell you, i love this country. i love this country as much as i can love anything. my family, my country, my god, but what they did, it was a false narrative. it was -- it was a terrible thing we can never let this happen to another president again. i can tell you that and i say it very strongly. very few people i know could have handled it. we can never, ever let this happen to another president again. thank you all very much. [ inaudible question ] >> thank you very much. [ inaudible question ] >> thank you very much. [ inaudible question ]

[ inaudible question ] >> it wouldn't bother me at all. up to the attorney general. it wouldn't bother me at all. [ inaudible question ] >> that was in the oval office and not the cabinet room as i said earlier. that was the president and netanyahu. the president saying it went on too long and that there were some evil people who did things. i'm not clear who he means by that. also to that final question as to whether or not the report should be released. he said it is up to the attorney general and it wouldn't bother me at all. frank, your takeaway as to the president's response.

he also said i think importantly, it should never happen to another president. it makes me think that there might be some effort to change the special counsel law. >> yeah. so a couple of thoughts. when the president referred to many people doing bad things and traitorous things i have to think the things that went through my mind were paul manafort, michael flynn and others. so i don't know who he's referring to. with regard to this going on too long. let's look at the tremendous value of what the country learned during this inquiry about what russia intended to do to us, to our electoral system, and in fact, indictments of a couple of dozen or more russians who actually hands-on messed with our democratic process of elections. that's invaluable. with regard to intentions moving forward, yes, i agree, andrea. i think you will see a movement particularly coming out of the senate to try and curtail future special counsel, and i do think eventually trump will use these

findings as a springboard to issue pardons, perhaps for manafort and others by saying, look, we never would have gotten on to this criminal conduct if it weren't for a, quote, flood premise to begin with, and i would expect pardons to be coming at some point during the president's tenure. >> ben rhodes, your reaction to all of this? >> well, again, andrea, i think we really need to maintain some perspective here. what we're dealing with in this country is a president who just now on camera is essentially calling for the weaponization of the justice department to target the people that he doesn't like, the people that he thinks are evil. we're seeing this effort to, because mueller didn't choose to prosecute a criminal conspiracy whitewash altogether the very grave and unprecedented reality that russia intervened in our election to help donald trump and that there is plenty of people around trump who lied

about that. there are plenty of people around trump who are more than willing to take that help even though they may not have engaged in criminal conspire see. i think this is a dangerous moment for our institutions, andrea that if we overread the conclusions of this four-page memo written by a trump appointee who had previously called the mueller investigation in some ways illegitimate. i think we risk losing the forest for the trees here. the realities is that we still have a deeply corrupted president and we still have a deeply complicated intervention with vladimir putin and his interventions with our election which will happen again and need to be taken seriously. i think people should be careful to wait and see what's in this report and to see where further investigations go. the democrats in congress can walk and chew gum. they can press the very needed agenda in terms of healthcare and climate change while doing their constitutional responsibility of protecting our constitutions and conducting

oversight. >> barrett broker, you were in the southern district of new york, the prosecutors there who still have a lot to deal with that was not part of robert mueller's remit. how long will we be seeing results beyond michael cohen? >> certainly, there are a lot of ongoing investigations, some of those housed in the southern district of new york. to your question, i'm not sure if it matters if there will be patience for that. the southern district of new york prosecutors are not answering to the public as to whether they have patience for an investigation. they are looking for criminal activity, they're investigating it and if they've finding criminal activity they'll charge it. obviously, they work as part of the department of justice so they'll have to get approval for charging decisions and approval for investigative step, but they're not operating a political investigation here. they're doing the same thing with these investigations as they do with everybody else. so i'm not really sure it matters what the political

temperament is of this and i think they will continue doing things as they've been doing them. >> and elliott williams, was there a decision today by the supreme court to reject the appeal by a private foreign corporation to try to stop mueller from getting information turned over to the grand jury. does that now die, that case, die with the end of the mueller probe or does this possibly get turned over? >> i have to look at the order. i haven't looked at it yet and it might get down to the lower court to take another look at it. it's one of the many loose ends that we have here and -- >> is the mueller grand jury gone? >> again, it was extended, for i believe, six months ago. >> right. again, mueller has seized his work and clearly no other indictments are coming and it's probably wrapped up and grand juries are secret and we don't know a lot of what's going on. what's interesting is looking at the president from just a moment ago, it was a slightly more measured tone we've seen from

the president, but yesterday he was talking about investigating the other side. now is he talking about the media and is he talking about hillary clinton? what, if that's what this is about now we're not even -- the grand juries and the d.c. circuit and the supreme court don't even matter because this is now a political matter where the president has taken it beyond the four corners of this lawsuit? >> this is out of the realm of the law and out of the realm of what you can charge and in the realm of what is appropriate conduct for a presidential campaign or a president of the united states and i think only congress at this point is the entity that can look into that. >> there's some big political decisions. first of all for nancy pelosi and chuck schumer, principally nancy pelosi with a democratic caucus, she has to juggle all of the pressures. she had said there had to be overel whenmi overwhelming evidence before impeachment, and there would be

overwhelming evidence because of the bare bones conclusions, john, but if you were advising democratic candidates, move on from the campaign trail? touch on this, answer it, but don't campaign on it? what should be the posture going into 2020, because it seems to me that all things being equal until we see the report and whatever may come out of this and why, this president has a very big campaign issue to run on for 2020 with him as the victim of an out of control prosecutor. >> well, i would say first of all, with respect to democratic candidates, they ought to be answering the questions that voters are putting to them and if you look at what happened over the weekend, mostly what they want to hear about are health care, wages and topics that are much more immediately and close to home, but i think the congress does have an important oversight responsibility. i think speaker pelosi will take that seriously and that begins by demanding that we get to see what's in the mueller report and

not just a four-page summary by president trump's attorney general who he appointed just recently. so i think that as ben said, they can walk and chew gum at the same time and they need to press forward with demanding that we see what mueller uncovered in the probe with his 500 witnesses and more than 2800 subpoenas, but i think that for the candidates, i think they'll go on and talk about the direction of the country, and i think they will talk about the character of the president, quite frankly, and you just saw that at issue in the oval office just now. he has, from the beginning been, i think, temperamentally unfit to be president and he just demonstrated again this morning. >> ashley parker joining us now. white house reporter for "the washington post" and msnbc senior contributor.

you recognize the conclusions as transmitted by attorney general william barr. >> that's right. you would expect certainly in talking to people in the president's orbit a sense of relief and that's what they felt, but it's not just relief. it is defiance and anger and a realization that they believe from the rnc to the trump campaign to white house aides themselves, that they now have a political -- going into 2020. they can go out and say -- the president can say, for two years i told you there was no collusion, i told you this was a witch-hunt, and i was right. just look at the mueller report or look at the summary of mueller's report. when there are investigations in new york, congressional investigations, this is going to be the exact message they are going to use, but they believe it is going to be a lot more effective having been in their minds essentially vindicated by mueller's findings. >> and, kimberly atkins, we now know that william barr is scheduled now to appear on april 9th before a subcommittee of

house appropriations. that's a budget hearing, but it can be also attended ex officio by other members of the leadership as well. we don't know yet about house judiciary. so that will be a star turn. >> absolutely. even before the four-page summary was released, house democrats were telling me they were interested in having the attorney general appear before congress when it was released to get behind these details. certainly the fact he is the gate keeper as of right now of these findings may still be that case when he appears before the house. this is going to be a very intense and crucial moment in all of this. >> and one minor point to tack onto that. i worked for congress a little while. appropriations hearings can be oversight hearings light. they're de facto oversight hearings. so even if members of the house judiciary committee don't attend, those members, lowly or whoever else, are going to be asking questions about this. >> i don't want tangle with any

of them. >> no. >> just want to point out that savannah guthrie had a memorable interview today with sarah sanders. we don't often see sarah sanders responding to follow-up questions because the way the brieflyings have been shortcutted. i want to play a little of this exchange between savannah guthrie on today with sarah sanders. >> did robert mueller deserve better from the president with this kind of language and behavior? >> frankly i think the american people deserved better. they didn't deserve for the election of this president to try to be -- >> wait a minute. the president's rhetoric. about a public servant doing a job -- >> are you kidding? the president's rhetoric matches. they are literally the media and democrats have called the president an agent of a foreign government -- >> wait, wait, we're talking -- >> that is an accusation equal to treason which is punishable by death in this country. >> wait a minute. you have kids and you know if you say, did you do this, the answer isn't, yeah, but my brother did that. does he owe robert mueller an apology for that kind of

rhetoric? >> i think the liberal media and the democrats owe the american people an apology. they wasted two years and created a massive disruption and distraction. >> ashley parker, that was a pretty interesting exchange, the whole interview is a great interview on the part of savannah. sarah sanders very forcefully answering. >> it sure is. and it gives you a sense that the white house is, you know, as i said before, fully defiant and fully aggressive. there is no sort of sense of maybe we should have done x, y or z things differently. it is that mueller, in their minds as the president tweeted, totally exonerated him and they are going to go ahead and prosecute the case. they are not going to apologize for all of the president's tweets and the way in many ways he went to war against his own justice department. now, reasonable people can disagree with that, but as of now, this is the defiant stance we're going to see from them and there is no real indication they are letting up. the interesting question to me

is they are threatening investigations. they are threatening holding people accountable. is this, again, just sort of this victorious talk in the wake of what we learned over the weekend about the mueller report? or are they really preparing a strategy to go after individual members of the media, individual members of congress, individual members of his own justice department? and that we don't know quite yet. >> and, frank figliuzzi, did robert mueller waste millions and millions of dollars in two years of the american people's time? >> boy, i have to tell you, that clip from sanders' interview has really got my blood pressure up. if we think that two years were wasted when we discovered beyond a shadow of a doubt that a foreign adversary had meddled through their in tell jensen services with our electoral process, if we think that's a waste of time, we're in sorry shape because we're headed into another presidential election cycle and the russian bots and social media propaganda are still out there and we're still not going to properly address the threat if we think this was a waste of time.

>> ben rhodes, as a former deputy national security advisor, the russian threat just a waste of time? >> knowledge. and, in fact, it's only growing. let's remember here, the russians engaged in a multifaceted complicated asymmetric war essentially to intervene in our politics, including in our 2016 election. that's only been confirmed by what we learned because of bob mueller's work. and we know they're going to do it again, andrea. and we know that they have essentially a government here in washington that is doing nothing to stop this. and when i watch sarah sanders in that interview, all you see is this sense of manufactured grievance. we don't even know what robert mueller actually thinks. we haven't read his words. we read a summary of his words by william barr. we should worry we have an adversary that is going to continue to use the tactics that bob mueller illuminated in his

report to intervene in our politics for years to come. what we need is a government that is focused on stopping from that threat, not benefit from it. >> we're going to have to leave it there on a busy da: we'll be right back. coming up, more special coverage on the mueller report. stay right here on msnbc.

you. all of you. how you live, what you love. that's what inspired us to create america's most advanced internet. internet that puts you in charge. that protects what's important. it handles everything, and reaches everywhere. this is beyond wifi, this is xfi. simple. easy. awesome. xfinity, the future of awesome. well, thanks for being with us on a consequential day. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." be with us tomorrow. remember to follow us online, on facebook and twitter at mitchell reports. here is ali velshi for "velshi &

ruhle." ali? >> a consequential. i'm running out of words to describe these days. i'm going to stick with consequential the rest of the day. thank you, have a good afternoon, andrea mitchell. good afternoon, my colleague stephanie ruhle is out. it is monday, march 25th. let's get smarter. >> israel is an inspiration, a trusted ally, and a cherished friend. the united states will always stand by its side. today i am taking historic action to promote israel's ability to defend itself and really to have a very powerful, very strong national security. i will sign a presidential proclamation recognizing israel's sovereign right over the golan heights. >> no collusion, but new questions. after nearly two years of investigating, the mueller report is in. >> it's lasted a long time. we're glad it's over. it's a 100% the way iul