quite a busy night as we like to stay around here, can't stop, won't stop. tomorrow night we have a special guest. a man who bob mueller's campaign helped. george papadopoulos. don't go anywhere right now because "hardball" with chris matthews is up next. bombshell. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. the attorney general's letter on the robert mueller report stirs the country. it says mueller cleared trump and his people, including his children, on the russian front. barr quotes from mueller's report that the investigation, quote, did not establish that

members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities. that's the box office news of the weekend because if mueller had found evidence of a crime there, the calls for impeachment would have been resounding and could even have reached republicans but he didn't. as a consequence, republicans are even less likely to back impeachment and certainly not conviction and removal from office but now comes the big stickler, obstruction of justice. according to barr's letter released to congress late yesterday, mueller did not draw any conclusion as to whether trump had committed a crime here. what barr then did, quote, the evidence is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense. well, that's because according to barr the report identifies no actions that were done with corrupt intent. in other words, barr reviewed mueller's two year investigation over the course of two days and ruled that the president had not obstructed justice. reacting to that news yesterday the president was quick to claim

exoneration, of course, and then attack the investigation itself. >> it was a complete and total exoneration. it's a 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 for before i even got elected it began. and it began illegally, and hopefully somebody's going to look at the other side. this was an illegal takedown that failed. >> well, the president's claim of exoneration, however, is at odds with mueller's characterization on findings of possible obstruction of justice. the special counsel specifically said, while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. all this has intensified calls to release the special counsel's full report as well as the underlying evidence he

collected. i'm joined by shannon petty peace. caroline frederick son, president of the american constitution society. mimi rockwell. thank you all for joining us. i want to start with shannon. what's the difference between the political, legal, constitutional reality we faced five minutes to 5 last friday and now? what's big and change in the cosmos? >> politically i don't know if much has changed. i've been talking to a lot of people about this. i know democrats really hitched their wagon to this argument, but that's not what voters cared about. they cared about economy and health care. legally i don't think the president is in any more legal jeopardy than he was before this. there is this opening for democrats that you pointed out with mueller saying that he is not charging him with a crime, he is not exonerating him. that gives democrats an opening to pursue this and to call for the full report to be released. i think that is going to be difficult for barr to do because so much of what barr collected

was grand jury testimony, classified information or things covered by executive privilege, but if the democrats want be to wage that fight, they could do so. that could be a court battle that could play out for years just like these other battles of releasing documents have played out. i don't know if that's a path the democrats want to go down. i think some will pursue it but i think you're going to see them shift. >> i'm interested in whether the president committed a crime or not. let me get back to mimi. every crime show i watch, my favorite was "the good wife" for years. there's something i saw in the face of the reality which is prosecutorial discretion. prosecutors get to decide what to do, whether to prosecutor not. why did robert mueller not decide? why did he play punch's pilot here? why did he pass the buck to barr who he knew was a republican who had written favorably of the president's position on obstruction of justice, passed

it over to him and didn't use the two-year investigation to make up his mind? did the president or not obstruct justice? what's wrong with the question? and where's the answer? >> well, chris, i don't know that mueller did pass the buck to barr. i mean, look, we're recreating something here without knowing, you know, all of the facts and, again, this is something that a release of the report might tell us, but it seems to me that what mueller -- mueller is not -- he spent decades making hard decisions in his career. i do not view him as someone who would shy away from a decision just because it's hard for no good reason. it sounds to me like he came up with facts that were problematic for trump that pointed towards obstruction but as barr quotes mueller as saying, there were, quote, difficult questions of law and fact and mueller felt that given that the president was -- could not under department of justice policy be

indicted, it was for congress to resolve those questions. >> he doesn't say that. i don't see that. i don't see that in the letter from barr. where did you know that he was thinking that the president couldn't be indicted? where are you getting that from in this report? i haven't seen it yet. >> i'm saying that that could be one of the difficult questions of law that mueller was trying to resolve, and i think mueller was trying to pass this over to congress and bar swooped in and took it. >> would have been helpful to know that that was his reason because what we're getting here is difficult issues. we're getting questions, and if he had just said i can't rule out an indictment because we're not supposed to indict. that would have saved us a lot of speculation here. my question is why did he turn it over to a guy who he knew was pro trump? >> well, i guess what i'm saying is i don't know that that was mueller's intention. to quote my former boss, pete

berrara, i think mueller was punting the football to congress and barr swooped in and intercepted it and took it out to the bleachers. >> okay. that's a nice thought. i want to go to caroline. i have a lot of respect for your judgment. i want other thoughts here. caroline, it seems to me that the chain of custody of the report went right to barr so whatever his intentions were, he was turning over the authority to do what he wanted with that report to the attorney general and the attorney general's position was pretty damn clear going into this, that he was pro trump. then mueller gets what he -- he gave him the hot potato. he took the hot potato. in 24/48 hours he decided to rule on the evidence of two years. he just did it. he had rob rosenstein helping him. >> right. i think it's highly problematic. this is an attorney general who auditioned for this job by writing a letter to the president that said, i don't think a president can commit obstruction. so right off you have to wonder about -- >> he turns over the report to a

guy he knew didn't believe the president could be guilty. >> mueller -- we don't know what mueller -- there wasn't really a clear alternative for him. >> he could have made a decision. >> certainly, but i think what mimi said is most likely correct, that he, you know, is guided by this justice department policy. >> we don't know this. >> we don't. >> and he didn't say it. >> but the fact of the matter is the fact that we don't know it is why we need to see the report and why mueller and barr should have to go up to congress and testify. i have to say, i disagree. we don't know, again, that most of what mueller's collected is -- can't be turned over to congress because it's grand jury. i mean, congress actually has a right to see grand jury material when it's related to -- >> i want to go back to mimi on this one more time past you. it seems to me the report that we got, the pieces of it we got thanks to bar basically said i'm not exonerating him, i'm not indicting him. why would he go through all of

that if the reason either one of those were irrelevant was because he couldn't indict the president to begin with? why would he talk about weighing the evidence if it didn't matter how he weighed it because according to your reference he couldn't indict? >> again, you're right. we don't know that was the only basis. i think that the olc policy could be changed. there's no question that it could be changed, but it could be that the facts did not cry out for that, right? you have to take the policy in combination with the facts. i'm not saying that mueller did the right thing or didn't do the right thing. i don't know enough to pass judgment on someone like bob mueller right now sitting here. i can tell from barr's letter that it seems to me, the impression i'm left with is that he says mueller didn't decide this. here, i'm going to -- it's left to me to decide. he inserts himself. i don't know what gives him the authority to do that. >> i agree. >> i don't think it was appropriate, and i think most of all, releasing this letter with this pick and choose quote

partial sentences from bob mueller is just very unhelpful and quite prejudicial because it's giving a certain impression that is not the full picture right now. >> well, i think everybody wants to see that full picture. to that point, mimi, former attorney general eric holder said it was wrong for bill bar to make that decision on obstruction of justice saying it shouldn't have been up to him. your thoughts? >> so when barr in his letter suggests this is up to him, is he right or wrong about that? >> i think he's wrong. i would say he's acting in a way that's inconsistent with the best practice. it would seem to me having received the information in the way that he did from bob mueller, that attorney general barr should have taken that information and then, you know, packaged it in the appropriate form and sent it to the house for consideration. it seems hard for me to imagine that bob mueller asked bill barr to do this. that seems -- because that would be bob mueller shifting

responsibility for making the call to the attorney general and that's just not the way in which bob mueller is wound. that's just not the way he's wound. >> i want to bring in senator sheldon. i've been lis jetening to this. do you think it makes sense for bob mueller to turn it over to a guy who was just appointed attorney general to make a final ruling on obstruction of justice? >> no, because the whole purpose of special counsel is to have somebody make prosecuteive decision and that defeats the whole purpose of being special counsel. he could have sent a draft indictment and said, you know, this is for you to review under the policy if that was the problem, but it really seems odd, and i agree with everybody else who has said -- this emphasizes why it's so important that we get to have a look at what went on because there's no

logical explanation for this at this point. >> if he and jeff sessions were still attorney general under the logic of what we saw over the weekend, this 48 hour rush job that ended up being a judgment by william barr, jeb sessions would have made the report. >> he recused himself. >> what does he do then, pass it as another hot potato to the congress? maybe that's what he should have done. >> he would be recused and then it floats off to some other place in the department. you can speculate about all of that, but the bottom line is we need to know what happened. on its face it doesn't make sense. what happened here with this very peculiar treatment of the obstruction charge and, two, what was the scope of the collusion investigation? if i've got to tell you, chris, i still have that ukraine plank in the republican party platform stuck in my draw. it was probably the top thing the russians cared about in the

republican party platform. their guy manafort is on scene doing this stuff. manafort has got all kind of hawk that he owes to russian -- pro russian and ukrainian oligarchs and the idea that somehow that whole thing ended up being legit makes no sense to me. i don't know if they looked at the trump tax returns to see if there was a financial element to this. so we've got to figure out what mueller actually looked at. i think he's entitled to the benefit of the dot in what he looked at. he's not entitled to the benefit of the doubt of what he did not look at. we're entitled to know. >> i'm with you. counter intelligence. you have a minute left, senator. compromise, all the ways they might have had him on his shorts, they could have had him on his business dealings, the dossier, who knows. we didn't get that information, did we? >> this was driven by a very

narrow set of phrases in the mueller report. this was related specifically to the russian efforts to interfere in the election. so if they were trying to interfere in the republican party president, if they were trying to interfere in the republican party platform, it isn't clear that they were looking at that. the rest is an unknown and that's why we have to get mueller and rosenstein on a panel and to the public. >> let's start with everybody saying that report for mueller himself. i hope we get ahead with this spy versus spy and what they got from trump. lots of information that you suggest we may not have even had in the report itself. thank you, senator sheldon white house. thank you very much. thank you for coming on. shannon, of course, for the reporting here and caroline, stick with us. up next, much more on the unanswered questions from the mueller investigation. we're starting to get to them.

stick with us. plus, trump is already hitting at vengeance, isn't this swell, following his declaration of exoneration which he's given himself, by the way. i'm going to talk to bob woodward. he's coming here to talk tonight. how did he get away without being questioned even? h'm, we don't even know if the tax returns were looked at. it's a busy night here on the news. stick with us. news stick with us. excellent. they really appreciate the military family and it really shows. with all that usaa offers why go with anybody else? we know their rates are good, we know that they're always going to take care of us. it was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. it was funny because when we would call another insurance company, hey would say "oh we can't beat usaa" we're the webber family. we're the tenney's we're the hayles, and we're usaa members for life. ♪ get your usaa auto insurance quote today. ensure max protein... to give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you don't. (straining) i'll take that.

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hopefully somebody's going to be looking at the other side so it's complete exoneration. no collusion. no obstruction. thank you very much. >> welcome back to "hardball." claiming complete exoneration he talked about the other side. he went further today calling his critics treasonous. >> there are a lot of people out

there that have done some very, very evil things, very bad things. i would say treasonous things against our country and hopefully that people that have done such harm through our country, we've gone through a period of really bad things happening and those people will certainly be looked at. they lied to congress. many of them, you know who they are. they've done so many evil things. but what they did, it was a false narrative. it was a terrible thing. >> a nice way to be saying if it was a bad weekend. rather than embrace mueller's probe which clears him on collusion he appears vengeful. calling it an illegal takedown. it was trump's own actions, let's face it, that prompted the fbi to investigate in the first place. as the washington post points out, russian citizens interacted with at least 14 trump

associates during the campaign and during the transition. then those same people tried to hide those interactions. donald trump jr. released a misleading statement about the trump tower meeting. michael cohen lied to congress about the moscow project. michael flynn lied to the fbi about sanctions on russia. paul manafort was found to have lied to prosecutors about his contacts with the russian intelligence opera tiff. george papadopoulos lied about seeking dirt on hillary. roger stone was charged with lying to congress about wikileaks. i'm back with shannon and caroline and joining us is robert kosta from the washington post. how do we explain trump's anger, this vengeful nastiness we're getting even though he got the clearance on the issue of did he collude with the russians. none of his kids got nailed. none of his henchmen got nailed. he's acting like he had the worst weekend of his life.

>> politically they're urging him to move away from the mueller probe, to take the barr summary and to walk on and focus on 2020 but according to the president's confidante's, he takes it personally. some of his friends being called in as witnesses. he wants to fight back against the media who he sees as an opposition party against the federal government, especially department of justice. >> let me ask you about this, the question of what he thinks of mueller. he took an opportunity in passing today to say he's an honorable man. very directly. he's an honorable guy. how does that fit with his trashing of the investigation? >> it's totally discordant. this is him flipping it. this is tabloid style, personality driven politics. this is how he operates, how he operated in business, how he's always been as a political figure. if you are with him and you give

him a positive affirmation in any way, he'll be with you. if you are negative, he'll attack you. >> what do you think is going on with john mccain? he was going to drop it and he did drop mccain. he hasn't said anything awful about him. >> he decided to revive his greatest attacks hits. all i can assume is where was everybody looking in the news media before that happened. it was beto o'rourke standing on top of a diner countertop. it was beto in his van. beto on the cover of vanity fair. he put out 50 tweets in 24 hours and all of a sudden people were talking about trump again. i think as we get more and more into 2020 he is going to have to struggle with this idea that he is not always going to be the center of attention. even with this mueller report, even the good news and the bad news out of the past two years,

it has kept him out there being able to counter punch and stir up his base. if he doesn't have that microphone, it takes away from his appeal and ability to mobilize people. there's no doubt where there are going to be moments where he's ignored over the past two years and he has to try to pass through. >> he'd rather look like a jerk than be ignored. >> there is no such thing as bad press and he has said as much. >> i think there is. president trump said he wouldn't mind if the mueller report was released. >> it wouldn't bother me at all. up to the attorney general. wouldn't bother me at all. >> that was a little twisted there. it's up to the attorney general. wouldn't bother me. however, trump lawyer jay sekulow said the written answers isn't supposed to be released. >> as a lawyer you don't waive privileges and you don't waive

investigative detail absent either a court order or an agreement between the parties and you'd have to weigh a lot of factors there in how that affects other presidencies so i think it's not a simple waive your hand and here we release the document. i think that would be very inappropriate. why would we want that out? that's his defense. >> he says he's been exonerated completely. in addition to his own statement he's sworn to under oath, he should want this report to come out. if he says, he claims it exonerates him, he should be entirely supportive of it being provided to congress and the american public pronto. >> to turn the pillow over, too hot on one side, you turn to the cool side. the cool side of the pillow question, robert kosta. who is trump most in the middle of the night worried about

running against? >> i can't speak to his inner mindset, but we're talking about white house officials. they say he's paying attention to vice president biden. someone who could actually in his view compete in a significant way in the industrial western states and he also has respect when he's talking candidly to his friends for movement style politicians like senator sanders, like congressman o'rourke. he also saw the big crowds for senator harris in california keeping an eye on her as well. >> thank you so much. looks like biden's the one that's knocking at his window at night. shannon, thank you for being here tonight. caroline, thank you. robert kosta, of course. still ahead, will congress get to see the entire mueller report for themselves? they are elected to watch this president. will attorney general barr be called to testify? i think it's up to the supreme court, and you know what we think about that.

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president trump continued to call the special counsel's report a complete and total exoneration of conspiracy and obstruction of justice. for the record, the report explicitly, explicitly does not exonerate the president and says so. it says we've seen william barr's summary and not the report itself. a number of questions are out there, namely, what's in the mueller report. we haven't seen it. did the attorney general overstep when he cleared the president of obstruction in two days? he covered what was looked at for two years. moments ago six democratic committee chairs submitted this letter, you're looking at it, to the attorney general, william barr, direct requesting he submit the full mueller report and the underlying evidence to congress by next tuesday, april 2nd. in the joint letter they go on to say, your four-page summary of the special counsel's review

is not sufficient for congress. as a co-equal branch of government to perform its oversight function. for more i'm joined by hakeem jeffries, democrat from new york and member of the house judiciary committee. i want to start with congressman jeffries. first of all, how do we know whether the president obstructed justice on all of these matters, especially around the russia probe, and who says so? we didn't take the word of attorney general barr that the president is innocent and exonerated because apparently that's his word. >> we absolutely should not take the word of attorney general barr. what we've seen to date is the barr report, four-page report from someone who was appointed by donald trump, perhaps because as donald trump indicated, he wanted his roy cohen. he wanted his attorney general who would have the president's back. that's not the job of the attorney general but apparently that's what donald trump believes is the highest qualification to hold that

position. instead of the barr report, we need to see the mueller report, every single word. the house voted 420 to 0 for full and public disclosure of the work that bob mueller has undertaken and that is why we all stand behind our six committee chairs to make sure that we can get access to this information so that it is present theed to the american people. >> how do you twhan fight? is this going to the supremes? that's of course a republican court. if you take this to the supreme court, we're going to subpoena the president. he's going to ignore it. can you win that fight with a republican court? >> i think we can but hopefully it doesn't have to get to the court. we are separate and co-equal branch of government. we don't work for donald trump. we work for the american people. we have a constitutional responsibility as you know, chris, to serve as a check and balance on an out of control executive branch. that's not the house democratic caucus playbook, that's the

james madison playbook and so we are well within our rights on behalf of the american people to subpoena the attorney general if necessary, subpoena the report if necessary on behalf of the american people. >> congressman quigley, the report from robert mueller as quoted by mr. barr, the attorney general, says that the president was not exonerated from obstruction of justice. then having quoted the mueller report the attorney general said, but i'm going to exonerate him. what do you make of that sequence of events? it's extraordinary. >> look, mr. barr did the job he was assigned to do. it is the singular purpose for him being exactly where he is. he argued against the theory of law that mueller was theoretically using to deal with an obstruction case before he got there. he never should have been approved by the senate, but here he is and we have to face the consequences. and i think not just mr. barr but mr. mueller has to appear

before congress to get into the details, not just of the report but of the underlying documentation they used to make their argument. >> two weeks ago, gentlemen, house speaker nancy pelosi told the washington post these ama amazing words, i'm not for impeachment. impeach. is so did i advivisive to the c. i don't think we should go down that path because it divides the country and he's just not worth it. she's talking about the president. a democratic aide tells politico, you can hurt trump more without impeaching him. if you're going to go after him, it has to be a kill shot. but otherwise, you can keep cutting him over and over again and beat him in 2020. >> do you think impeachment should be on the table after this weekend? >> well, for most of us, impeachment was never on the table. i think nancy pelosi, our speaker, was making two important points. the first point is we didn't run on impeachment. we didn't win on impeachment.

we're not focused on impeachm t impeachment. we're focused on our for the people agenda, lowering health care and enacting a real infrastructure plan and cleaning up the mess which we've begun to do with passage of hr 1. that was the first point. the second point is if we were to even consider going down the impeachment road, the case must be compelling. the evidence must be overwhelming and the public sentiment must be bipartisan in nature. in the absence of those elements i completely and totally agree and so do the overwhelming majority of house caucus members that impeachment is not the route we need to go. >> congressman quigley, listening to what mr. jeffries says, i respect him, of course, and i respect you, but how come everybody who stops me at an airport or anywhere i walk, are we going to get rid of this guy? somehow the people got the idea that the democrats were going to impeach trump? where did they get that idea?

the democrats are the only one who can do it and where did that come from? >> i think a couple of our colleagues filed articles of impeachment some time ago. the fact is, i would not rule out impeachment. i just said we shouldn't be focused on it. let the mueller investigation take its course, let's find out what's in the mueller investigation report and the underlying documentation. remember, there are 12 ongoing criminal investigations that are taking place. there's a lot more information out there, including the house investigation still dealing with counter intelligence, which is one of the reasons that report and the documentation is so important. was the president compromised? how does that look before the american public and of course the u.s. senate. >> thank you. gentlemen, so great to have you on tonight. thank you for coming on. hakeem jeffries of new york and mike quigley of illinois. still ahead, why was president trump never forced to answer mueller's questions in person? he never did. they're looking for criminal

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for more information on how to be prepared and keep your family safe, visit pge.com/safety. welcome back to "hart ball." according to attorney general william barr, they made no determination about whether president trump committed the crime of obstruction of justice. mueller never questioned president trump under oath. today trump's lawyer rudy giuliani said that was not unusual. >> well, i think i made 5,000 prosecutorial decisions in my career, some of the worst criminals of the 1980s. i rarely got to interview anyone. the people that i indicted and the people i declined. that's very extraordinary when you do that. i mean, only because he was the president was there any pressure to do it.

>> well, one target of the russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 election who was called in to testify, hillary clinton's former campaign chairman john podesta argued otherwise. >> i think that's exceptional and i think the question is why. perhaps mr. mueller will be asked that question by the judiciary committee, why he thought he could complete his report without being -- submit to questions by the special counsel, but right now all we know is that he did have heavily lawyered answers submitted for the record. >> that's the guy that was hacked, of course. veteran journalist bob woodward detailed why john dowd thought his client, that would be the president, his testimony was a bad idea in bob's book "fear." woodward writes between a meeting between the lawyer and one of the deputies dowd said, the fact is i don't want him

looking like an idiot. i'm not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot. you publish that transcript because everything leaks and the guys overseas are going to say, i told you he was an idiot. why are we dealing with that idiot. unbelievable. what are we dealing with that idiot for? john, i understand mueller replied. it would have been a bad idea. bob woodward is coming here. he'll tell you how the president avoided that face-to-face with mueller. that's coming up next in about a minute. about a minute i hear you, sister. stress can affect our minds. i call this dish, "stress." stress can also affect our bodies. so, i'm partnering with cigna to remind you that your emotional and physical health are more connected than you think. go in for your annual check-up. and be open with your doctor about anything you feel. physically, and emotionally. body and mind. cigna. together, all the way. that's better.

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welcome back to "hard ball." bob woodward spoke about how president trump avoided answering mueller's questions under oath in "fear." bob woodward joins us now. how did he avoid that? everybody wanted to see that room. they wanted to see it. >> like clinton. >> yeah. >> but the special prosecutor, special counsel really can't force a president to testify and people say, he could have subpoenaed him. that might have been a loser in the supreme court, particularly this supreme court, but what i chronicled was john dowd who was

trump's lawyer for eight critical months did practice sessions with him and they went through it. he said to trump, you make things up. you lie. you're going to wind up in a jump suit if you testify, and what dowd did, which is quite extra ordinary in washington, he stood on a principle and said, i'm not going to sit next to you and have you do this to yourself and wind up in that orange jump suit. i'll resign. >> that's missing perjury. he wasn't going to do it. >> exactly. also, there was a principle there. bob, he i'm here as your lawyer to defend you and you're not letting me do it. they resisted testifying. dowd did resign to send the message and the new team of lawyers, giuliani and so forth, stuck to that line with trump. >> let's talk about mueller's

job here. the word i was getting from some of the legal experts is when you go to obstruction of justice, particularly that kind of charge, you have to understand corrupt intent because a lot of this was done in broad daylight and you can't discern or detect corrupt intent without a meeting, without a sitdown. so how did mueller decide he couldn't convict, he couldn't exonerate but he never got to the need he had, the necessity of sitting down with the guy? >> exactly. and the resistance by trump and his lawyers, no, i'm not going to do it. the route would be a subpoena. it would be challenged, go to the supreme court and it would be the -- you know, it would be 2021 before this was decided. even if you expedited it. so, again, this is an illustration as we look at this in detail, the power a president had. >> why didn't bill clinton know

this? he had a great lawyer in bob barnett -- bob bennett. barnet's another great lawyer. why did he go and agree to sit down on camera and talk about monica lewinsky. >> he thought he had no choice because it was a civil suit and he was being subpoenaed and there were court rulings that he would have to testify, but the key point here is trump understands the power of no. no, i'm not going to do it. no, i'm not going to -- >> let's talk about that power, bob. >> yes. >> you went through the whole watergate investigation leading it in the journalist's point of view. i want to ask you about. remember the phrase, release the tapes? >> yes. >> people are driving past the white house in the summer of '74 blowing their horns. it was a freer country then you could drive right past 1600 pennsylvania. blow the horns, release the tapes. today will they say, release the report? >> yes. i think everybody who is saying we have to see the report is

quite correct. god is in the details here. and this is under dispute and so let's look at it. i have no idea and no one i've talked to has any idea or will say how long it is. it might be thousands of pages. >> or three. >> well, no. >> you think it is long? >> oh, sure. it has to be. >> let's talk about the difference in politics because i know you're not a political reporter per se. you're an investigative reporter. but the difference in politics back then when republicans -- and they were not all moderate republicans, they were regular republicans who gradually said, you know what, i think nixon did it, i think he is responsible for obstruction of justice, we have the evidence and when it comes time to do it we will vote to remove him from office. remember when george wallace wouldn't help out nixon in the south, even the crusty southerners were willing to vote for impeachment. >> at one point after nixon

resigned, bear remember goldwater had carl and myself up to his apartment here in washington, quite nearby, and read from his personal diary the last meeting the republican leaders had with nixon. no one else was there and nixon knew he was going to be impeached, charged in the house, and he kind of joked according to goldwater's diary, confirmed by the other participants, hey, look, barry, how many votes do i have? 20? kind of you needed 34 to stay in office in a senate trial, and goldwater said, mr. president, i counted, you have four votes. one of them is not mine. and talk -- >> rough. >> yes, rough. stuck it to him. the next night nixon announced he was resigning. >> that's another one of your books, "the final days." a hell of a book. anyway, over the past 24 hours

democrats have spoke with one voice in calling for the mueller report to be released in full. let's watch. >> the entire unfiltered report as well as the evidence underlying that report must be made available to congress and to the american people. >> the mueller report must be made public for a full accounting. >> let's have the president urge the attorney general to release the report in its totality to the american people. >> i think the american people deserve to see the report itself, not simply the attorney general's summary of it. >> we need the mueller report and the documentation released so that the public can make a determination. >> obviously we really need to see mr. mueller's report. >> we will be pushing in every direction to make sure that it is released. >> and i want to see the whole report, and certainly the public wants to see the report. nearly 90% of the public has said that they want to see the report. >> democrats speaking in harmony. >> yes. and trump himself said, okay, it

is okay as far as he's concerned. >> but then he said it will be up to the attorney general. >> yes, but, see, looking at the details of that report are only one path we're on. the other path, all of these investigations in new york and the u.s. attorney there in that office is celebrated for tough investigations. there are lots of allegations and these are the follow-the-money issues, among others. >> yeah. >> and i think the third path is the counterintelligence investigation that's going on. normally those things are not made public, but it would be quite something to see what they came up with. and as you know, the media is being criticized now. oh, okay, there was all of this hyperventilation about alleged collusion and so forth. you lived through this as i have for the last couple of years, and i think the media, nbc, my

newspaper, "the washington post", the "wall street journal", "the new york times", did a very good job with all of these allegations and lies out there. there's no way you're going to sit at home, even myself at my age was energized by this. >> just think if they let it go after all of the contacts with the russians, all of the incredible russian names we have gotten used to. if all of that happened and there wasn't an investigation, where would we be? i think maybe in the end it will be better off for the mueller report. who knows? it is weird. >> there's something we can do with the tone that we make presentations and distinguish between the fact-based reporting and the commentary and the analysis. >> news, analysis, opinion, in that order. >> yes. >> thank you, bob woodward. up next, it is time for democrats to adjust their strategy to remove trump from office. i will be back with that commentary. [farmers bell]

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♪ it is important for all of us to grab hold of the difference in the world minutes before 5:00 p.m. this past friday and right now. it is vitally important that the democrats grasp this new reality. after months of waiting for robert mueller to arrive like the u.s. cavalry, it is time to realize he has arrived and left and now you, democrats, are left alone. there will be no more cavalry arriving from the special counsel's office, far less of a

chance from the rest of the justice department over there. for the democrats to remove donald trump from the white house one of two methods are now available. one is defeat him in next year's november election and the other is the two-term limit, whichever comes first. to win it in 2020 means beating trump because i can't help but think that this weekend's report from mueller and barr has barred the chance of any republican to take on and defeat the incumbent republican president, not that a good candidate on the republican side wouldn't be doing the country and the gop a favor. so in all probability the person standing in donald trump's door to the white house come january 2021 will be one of the democrats picked to be there. the question is who. not the candidate through whom you would like to make a statement like the one you want to signal your point on the ideological spectrum, but the person you can see preventing trump from getting four more years, the one you see serving this country and returning our country back to world respect. it is a big job picking that person but i have a hurcnch a

small number of candidates will prove themselves able to convince us. the important thing to realize is as of close of business on the east coast last friday it was time for the loyal opposition to open business in saying what the democrats are for. the world knows and agrees with them on what they're against. that's "hardball" for now. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. ♪ tonight on "all in" -- >> robert mueller is finished. >> no collusion. no collusion. >> and the barr report on the mueller report is out. >> we don't need the barr report. we need the mueller report. >> tonight, what we now know about the 2016 election of donald trump and the push to learn more by making the special counsel's report public. >> wouldn't bother me at all. >> plus, the problems with the barr leather, mueller's punt on obstruction and no exoneration. what all of this means for the candidates trying to take donald trump's job --