there are fewer and fewer people who are likely to do that as the circle has gotten smaller and smaller, you have more and more people who are more likely to carry out what the president wanted to do. we saw another case of this where the president wanted people to interfere in the at&t case. they ignored him and probably kept the white house out of trouble. >> thank you. to all of our views out there, you, too, can sign up at axios.com. "morning joe" starts right now. >> and as the special counsel's report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by his sincere belief that the investigation was undermining himself presidency, propelled by his political opponents and fueled by illegal leaks. >> you see the president was

simply frustrated. so of course he, quote, launched public attacks on the investigation and the individuals involved, engaged in a series of targeted efforts to control the investigation, attempted to remove the special counsel, sought to have attorney general sessions unrecuse himself and limit the investigation, sought to prevent public disclosure of information about the meeting between russians and campaign officials, used public forums to attack potential witnesses and praised witnesses who declined to cooperate with the government. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, april 19th. along with joe, willie and me we have national affairs analyst for nbc news john higheilemannhd lust susan del percio, michael

schmidt, benjamin wittes and former aide to robert mueller, now an msnbc law analyst, chuck rosenberg. joe, a lot to get through this morning. >> a lot more questions still out there than answers. it was fascinating, yesterday was fascinating. i think the most remarkable thing about yesterday was the fact that a man who had had the respect of attorneys of both sides of the aisle, attorney general barr, humiliated himself, shamed himself by just a pathetic performance. i'm not so sure that he didn't do that -- i'm not so sure he didn't do that to gain actually the sort of notoriety he got yesterday. he took the heat from donald trump. you'll notice yesterday half of

the talk was about what barr did and a lot of pundits couldn't focus long enough on what donald trump did. dan balso summed it up, "the document is replete with evidence of lying of public officials and others, of the president urging them not to tell the truth, of the president seeking to shut down the investigation, of a trump campaign hoping to benefit politically from russian hacking and leaks of information damaging to its opponent and of a white house in chaos and operating under abnormal rules. now, willie, the politician in me says that the democrats need to keep their head down, focus on, you know, issues that are going to matter around the

dinner table of americans and just win the election in 2020 if they want to get rid of a man who obviously is unfit to be president of the united states. but you see, here's the rub -- they also have a constitutional responsibility, a constitutional responsibility to follow the rule of law. and this mueller report documents explicitly that he obstructed justice. and robert mueller even said in the report of course william bar lied. that's just what he does now. but he said in the report, listen, i can't come to this conclusion, congress, this has to be up to you. so the democrats have a choice, are they going to play it safe, are they going to do what polls would tell you will actually get donald trump removed from office in an election or will they

begin the impeachment proceed g proceedings that this mueller report suggests donald trump deserves? he is unfit to be president of the united states, and anybody who suggests otherwise has not read the report. >> that debate among democrats began almost immediately yesterday. you had some congress women and men talking instantly about impeachment saying what i've read in these two volumes in the mule are report constitutes ground to begin the impeachment process. jerry nadler came out pretty quickly and said let's go through the process. i want to have bob mueller sit before the committee, i want to have william barr sit before the committee. i think the attorney general went even further and was more aggressively partisan than we could have even predicted as he made the case no conclusion, no

collusion, no collusion. william barr did attempt to shape the public's perception by excusing the public as behavior detailed within it. >> president trump faced an unprecedented situation, as he entered into office, prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before taking office and the con didn't of some of his associates and there was relentless speculation in the news media about the president's culpability, yet as he said from the beginning, there was no conclusion. >> the investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in accordance with its election activities.

it did write "while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the russian government and individual associated with the trump cam pan, the evidence was not sufficient support criminal charges." in barr's march 24th letter, it said the investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities. barr left out the left flattering beginning of the statement saying "the investigation did nestablished the russian government perceived it would benefit from a trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome and that the campaign expected it would benefit from information stolen and released through russian efforts. >> that's incredible.

>> completely off base. william rehnquist once wrote an opinion about wretching words of a political hack. john heilemann, when this presidency is over, john mitchell will not be sitting alone as the worst attorney general in modern american political history, he will be side by side by william barr. i want to say, though, how ridiculous for barr to try to excuse donald trump's obstruction of justice, for barr to try to excuse donald trump running around telling people to fire the special counsel, telling people to lie to investigators, because he was angry, he was frustrated because of political enemies. my gosh, listen, i voted to

impeach bill clinton twice. one on obstruction of justice or abuse of power. would bill clinton -- what bill clinton was charged for, i mean, again, we're talking about lying before a grand jury, lying in a deposition about his personal life, so pales in comparison to what lindsey graham, who prosecuted that case in the senate, to what lindsey graham now excuses every day of the week. it is shameful. and republicans like myself were going after blill clinton from day one. so that's no excuse. what about mitch mcconnell before barack obama even got d elected president of the united states saying his only focus was making barack obama a one-term

president. they were going after -- i mean, what barr said, it was akin to a mother saying, please, forgive joey for not turning in his homework, the dog ate it. no excuse at all. >> can you imagine back in your day if bill clinton said i lied because i was frustrated offver the way the republicans treated me on health care. it being too nice to barr to say he is a political hack, something we discussed on the show before, i agree with ththat that but worse than just spin the story, knowing he was going to get found out for that lie, what's the strategy, what's the game that barr is playing? he had to know he was going to be, po exposed. the no collusion mantra, it's not that the report found no collusion, it's that the report

explicitly says we reject the notion of collusion as meaningful. it says it right there on the page. it says collusion is not a meaningful firm, we were focused on a much narrower definition of what constitutes coordination and conspiracy, yet barr is saying they fond no collusion. that's not is what's at issue. the second really compelling this evening that goes to this obstruction piece is that barr yesterday essentially said rod rosenstein and i looked at what mueller wrote here, the evidence of obstruction, which was not definitive in the report for various reasons we'll get into but he didn't make a d determination so rod rosenstein and i doo siecided he hadn't obstructed justice and he fully

cooperated with the special counsel, yet the 448 pages is full of ways in which the president did not cooperate with the special. it's studied noncooperation. barr is saying the reason we didn't find obstruction is because trump cooperated. you're right about where the place in history that bill barr has earned himself. >> why doesn't we move beyond barr. he's made himself really irrelevant to the discussion and to history. he's now a hack of donald trump. let's talk about the mueller report, what we know about it so far. there are still redacted parts that need to be unredacted. but talk about the mueller report, what you saw in it, what stood out and what congress has to work with now moving forward. >> so there are still redactions

and they are less substantial than pop believed theople belie be. we actually do know what bob mueller said and he created a mammoth record on two front. the first of course is the russia investigation itself, where as you guys have been talking about, i mean, he did not find prosecutable conspiracy beyond that which he had already found, which was of course substantial. but he did detail more than a hundred pages -- it's literally more than a hundred pages of contacts, probes, recruitment efforts by russians toward people associated with the trump organize and campaign, and these

included everything from his business to the campaign itself. and, you know, i think there's a legitimate whenever a criminal investigation closes, hey, the criminal investigation is over but this material as a factual matter is now part of history and part of the political assessment and the fitness assessment of donald trump. the second area, which is probably more immediate because it deals more with trump's personal conduct and less with the people around him, is this unbelievable record that mueller created on obstruction. and i don't think any summary of it or talk about it on a show like this can entirely do it justice. i really think people need to spend the time to, if only read the executive summary of it but to actually look at the document

and ask yourself is this okay. is it okay to have a president who interacts with the law enforcement and intelligence apparatus of the country, his own staff with respect to those communities and the law itself in the fashion in which in is depicting the president doing. this is conduct as president, in his capacity as president and i do think it will have a very long tail. i don't know how the political system is going to react to it. i do think it will have a very long tail in terms of the way people understand who this man is. >> well, and that brings to mind the quote in the report by the president himself, joe, where he says i'm you know what because it does actually spell everything out, all of his conduct, all of his behavior, all the things that, you know,

aren't completely confirmed. even sarah sanders lying, flat out bold faced lying to the media is now out in the open. this presidency is different now. >> the president saying, oh my god, this is terrible, this is the end of my presidency, how he responded to finding out that robert mueller had been appointed obviously goes to intent of him trying to obstruct justice throughout entire last two and a half years. you also look at the 100 pages that benjamin just talked about, remarkable, 100 pages of contacts. and then you go back and look at a clip from the campaign where donald trump says nobody connected with me, nobody in my organization has had any contacts with russia. it's one lie after another lie after another lie after another lie. but obstruction in effect couldn't ultimately be proven by

robert mueller because he could never get donald trump to come sit down with him voluntarily. and, chuck rosenberg, a lot of people asking yesterday why robert mueller did not push for that. i understand he says it would have delayed it. i must say it makes no sense to me at all that he didn't subpoena him. again, i can't read the minds of supreme court justices, but i find it hard to believe there were not at least six, seven votes that would go robert mueller's way deciding that a president is not above the law. so why didn't robert mueller push for that face-to-face deposition and have the answers that america needs? >> that's an open question for me, joe. in the report what the mueller team says is two fold. one is that they had lots of other stuff that enabled them to gauge credibility and, two, they

were worried if they did subpoena the president, it could lead to a protracted fight. all that said -- >> let me ask you about the second one, though. i heard three years, it could delay it three years. the supreme court would have expedited a hearing on this. it wouldn't have taken that long, would it? >> no, i don't think so. and moreover in u.s. v. nixon, the 1974 case on executive privilege in which the president was required to turn over tapes and documents pursuant to subpoena, i believe the amount of time from subpoena to supreme court decision was about four or five months. so it's an open question for me. there could be another plausible explanation. mueller didn't mention this but if a target of an investigation signals to you through his or her attorneys that they would invoke the fifth amendment, their privilege against self-incrimination if subpoenaed to the grand jury, would you not then subpoena the person to the

grand jury and make them invoke there. mueller doesn't maengs that nor frankly should he talk about a fifth amendment invocation in the public report. that's the only other thing i can think of. as a prosecutor, you always want to talk to the subject. >> chuck, help me out here. if the president -- if everybody's operating under i believe the faulty assumption can the president cannot be indicted and if robert mueller is operatingnd that assumption, which i believe again is a bizarre assumption in a land where we believe that no man or woman is above the law, how could anybody be allowed to their fifth amendment p amendment rights in you can't be indicted anyway? the policy -- you can't charge a sitting president. the key word is sitting.

he would theoretically have a fifth amendment privilege because guess what, he could one day no longer be and you broke a lot of the news in the report. i'm specifically on the quest n question -- that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his request. in other words, time and again donald trump, who was obsessed with this investigation wanted to have bob mueller fired, despite his claims that that never happened. but people like don mcgahn, the white house counsel, jeff sessions, the attorney general and even corey lewandowski stood in the breach and prevented that from happen ing. >> they were really guardrails for the president anz stopped

him. had they followed through on these things, there may be a much stronger obstruction case to be made against the president. >> the interesting thing about this document is that the reason there is so much damaging political stuff for the president, even if it's not criminal, is that donald trump decided himself to cooperate with this investigation. and he opened the door for his aides to go and speak with mueller. and that's how they learned all these things. the reason that you have unfiltered donald trump in there is because you had direct access to his lawyer don mcgahn. and the president okayed that. the president okayed mcgahn as cooperation. and i'm not sure that the white house at the time understood the depth and breadth of what mcgahn knew. they had looked at the documents that the white house had handed over to mueller and thought there were no problems, but a lot of the stuff mcgahn gave up was not in the documents and it

is politically damaging. it is the stuff about trump's attempt to fire mule are and the lengths that mcgahn went to to stop that. and while the white house today, you know, there was a report earlier but b how the president may not be very happy with done mcgann, the reason the stuff is there is the president allowed to go in. >> also, you have the mueller report talking about, willie, that they couldn't prove certain charges beyond a reasonable doubt because there had been destruction of e-mails, destruction of messages on app devices that just didn't allow them to get there. but, chuck rosenberg, i think i heard you say something about this yesterday. whatever i hear anybody say that

there wasn't obstruction of justice, that he's cleared of obstruction of justice, i just apply these fact patterns to what would happen if a mayor in iowa had done this, if a governor in nebraska had done this or illinois had done this, or if any ceo, i believe you said, if any fortune 500 ceo had told his board members that he wanted them to ent fear with an investigation one half of the way that donald trump did, they would be sitting in jail today, would they not, chuck? >> that's what i said, joe. and here's how i framed it. read the report but take out the words trump and president of the united states and substitute smith and bank ceo or any title that you want. if that person did -- if any person on the planet did what is described in this report and again strip it of democrats,

republicans, liberals, conservatives, left, right, take all that out. just read the facts, they would be in handcuffs yesterday. this is a damning report. it outlines a compelling case of obstruction of justice, but for the fact that donald trump is the president of the united states, he would be charged with a crime. that simple. >> and in that line where the president says i'm you know what, i didn't see he's going to jail, he's going to definitely be completely tied together with collusion, that all may happen, by the way when he leaves office but i knew he knew his horrific behavior would all be exposed and and there is more evidence that for this presidency to function, people have to undermine it. his own staff has to not regard

his wishes, not take his orders in order to survive and in order to do the right thing. >> america was actually spared by the fact of a full-blown constitutional crisis from the fact that he's such a weak leader, that even his sub ordinates doesn't respect him and ignore his orders. >> too dumb to collude. everyone stay with us, we're just getting started. president trump may feel exon rated but his press secretary is just humiliated. sarah sanders is forced to admit what everyone knows, she lies to the american people. plus george conway says the facts in the mueller report are even more damning that the report's refusal to clear trump of a crime. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. g "morning " we'll be right back.

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the mueller report reveals then deputy press secretary sarah huckabee sanders lied to the press about comey's firing. on may 10th, 2017, the day after comey was let go, sanders told reporters that countless fbi agents had told the white house they had lost confidence in comey. she repeated that claim the next day. >> she said it again? >> this is maybe how she got the job, the next day on may 11th. >> i've heard from countless members of the fbi that are grateful and thankful for the president's decision and i think that, you know, we may have to agree to disagree. i'm sure there are some people that are disappointed but i've certainly heard from a large number of individuals and that's just myself and i don't even know that many people in the fbi. >> you said today and you said yesterday that you personally have talked to countless fbi officials, employees since this

happened. >> correct. >> i mean, really? so are we talking -- >> between like e-mail, text messages, absolutely. >> 50, 70? >> we're not going to get into a number's game. i heard that a large number of individual from the fbi that said they were happy with the president's decision. >> that was one lie after another lie followed up with more details about the lie, while a report ser preer is pre her. >> i love the press. >> the thing that has always driven me crazy about sarah sanders and sean spicer and. >> who stands before that podium, you nope they'know they everybody watching knows they're lying but they just keep lying. >> i don't know how this presidency actually moves forward but that's the big picture we'll get to with congress.

according to mueller's report, sanders, who was interviewed by the special counsel's team admitted that her claim of hearing from countless members of the fbi was a, quote, slip of the tongue and that is one hell of a slip of the tongue, susan del percio. >> over two days repeatedly. >> it sure is a slip of the tongue. what's astounding about it is we now see that sarah sanders is one of the biggest propagators of fake news. she's delivering fake news out to the press corps and the people of the united states. it's disgraceful seeing her behind that podium just blatantly lie but it's something we already knew. i do think it opens up another avenue when we start to look at what happens as a result of the mule are report and it moves from the legal arena into the political arepublna and politic

arena. i think we're all going to have mueller fatigue but as cabinets come in for oversight hearings, you can simply ask him or her, has the president ever asked you to lie? you use all the information you have as a back drop to go after the jove sight of aoversight ofo show the corruption of the agencies. >> you worked very hard trying to track this story down for "law fare," trying to figure out whether sarah sanders was lying and what fbi agents reached out to her and you reported some time ago that in fact she was lying. it had to be satisfying for you to find out yesterday that your reporting, like so many other people's reporting, had been proven accurate and they had actually been the people pushing fake news. >> yeah, i did take a certain satisfaction in that passage of the report. you know, the lie that she told

those couple of days, you know, it was not one of the most fateful lies of the presidency, it's not about separating families from their kids or about, you know, but imagine that you're an actual employee of the fbi and unlike sarah huckabee sanders, i do actually talk to fbi employees. and imagine that you're somebody among the enormous number of fbi employees who had a pretty deep relationship with the director that the president had fired and who really admired jim comey and who believed in the leadership vision that he represented for that department. and maybe also who liked him personally and was shocked and humiliated by the way the president had treated him. and then to have the press secretary of the president go out and kind of misrepresent you, right, by claiming that, you know, she had been talking

to countless people like you and they were all thrilled and you're having sort of your own experience of what the president had done really lied about. i think that the firing of comey was deeply, deeply traumatic for the institution of the fbi and for a lot of individuals within it, but those lies really amplified it. to have her kind of blithely admit to the special counsel's office, yeah, i made that stuff up, i mean, i knew that it was made up when i saw her say it and i actually spent, as you mentioned, a lot of time getting the documentation to prove that. we had to go to court to get it. but i do think the sort of blitheness with which she just admitted that should change the way people look at everything she says from that podium to

the, tethe extent they had any information, she really disgraced the white house and the logo that is back of her. >> and she tripled down on what she said from the podium. she was going on tv to cont contradi contradict, she said, quote, a number of both current and former fbi agents agreed with the president. so she's not backing off the lie she told. she's in fact diving deeper into it but just saying i used the wrong term but i stand by the general idea that the fbi was pleased with the president's decision to fire jim comey. >> and yet we know the one time she speaks under oath, she admits that she's a liar. so if -- when she's talking to investigators and she knows that she has to tell the truth, the one time she tells the truth in

her public service, she admits that she's a liar. and she goes back on to fox news, she starts lying again. but this is the remarkable thing, this is a wonderful thing, michael schmidt about having the mueller report, that we actually find that the man who has used the term fake news the most has been over the last two and a half years the biggest propagateor of fake news time and time again. he has proven to be a liar when he says that something that you write or something that the "washington post" or wall street journal writes is a lie. it ends up he's the one who is lying. the best part of it all is it's his own staff members that are calling donald trump out as a liar and actually as the greatest publisher of fake news. >> and as you see in the sarah sanders part that comes out in the report, you see the power of

law enforcement, where the administration can no longer make false statements because if ne d they did, they would get into trouble and that's how they got at the truth. the interesting thing there is this investigation concluded without the president having to do that himself. so mueller never had a chance to ask the president about his intent and that will remain simply something he'll able to explain publicly and there will be no other consequences when he respond than simply being called out by the media. there's no back stop to it in a way in a made sarah huckabee sanders disclose what she did. the other thing that i took away was just how bad the president was at obstructing justice. he clearly wanted to interfere with the investigation. >> this was hogan's heros type

of bunglinbungling, michael sch. >> it's pretty clear from the report he wanted to interfere and it's pretty clear from the report he really struggled to do that. if he had been more adept and better skilled, he would have done more damage to the vgs. but he was ham-handed about it and he went about it in the wrong ways and was thwarted time and time again by the people around him. and that's just a remarkable thing that he couldn't really figure out how to damage the investigation in the ways he truly wanted to. >> and at the end of the day, that is the warning for americans moving forward into the future before the next elections. this has been a constitutional fire drill and we can on be grateful that the president of the united states thus far has been too incompetent to cause the lasting constitutional damage that he wanted to cause.

chuck, let's go to you there. let's put this in perspective about where we are right now. because i had a disagreement with a friend last night who expected me it say that what we saw unfurl yesterday was a constitutional crisis. i said the constitutional crisis would have been if robert mueller been fired, if the united states supreme court had ordered donald trump to testify in front of mule are and he refused. just like in richard nixon had hadn't turned over the tapes. my personal belief is that we can all exhale on two front. one, robert mueller did not find the president of the united states in a conspiracy with the russians. and, two, we did avoid the constitutional crisis. we have the mueller report. congress will soon have perhaps

the mueller report in its entirety. this now moves from the justice department and from the special counsel's office to the united states congress, who can now following the constitution decide whether to prosecute the president or not. what are your thoughts? >> joe, you think that's an important point. personally the term constitutional crisis to me is a bit overused and a bit hollow. there are things that could constitute a constitutional crisis, something for which the constitution provides no answer. but to your point, this report goes to congress and there is a process. by the way, written in the constitution to address this issue. now whether or not swings and misses, whether they elect not to begin impeachment proceedings is completely up to them but there is a process. by definition, it's not a

constitutional crisis. moreover, bob mueller did his job. he did what we asked him to do and he did it well and he did it professionally and he did it discretely and that is not a constitutional crisis. i guess as americans we should probably be grateful that the president of the united states to interfere in the election. if we want to see what happened, we have a remarkably detailed and compelling report. at this point i am deeply disappointed in the way the president and. of those around him have acted. it is disheartening but it's not a constitutional crisis. >> and just to add to that, mika, the president has proven once again he is unfit to the president of the united states. >> totally. totally. >> and only does the mueller report provide a road map for people meant if the democrats decide to go down that path and challenge the republicans to

defend the sort of abhorrent begg beggar, but also it gives people voting in michigan in ohio and florida in 2020, it gives them a look inside donald trump's white house. and so they decide now is this what they want in the oval office and in the west wing and in the white house and in washington for the next four years? if that is -- if they are okay with that, if they can wipe that all away and not even worry about it, then we have much deeper problems than donald trump. i loved john robert's reasoning in the afford care act. each said do it at the ballot box. i'm not going to do here what you can do at the ballot box.

that's where we are today. robert mueller said i'm not going to do here and i cannot do here what you can take care of at the ballot box in 2020. so if americans want to express their displeasure in this abhorrent, immoral public behavior, they've got to vote a year and a half from now and they can do that. >> and also congress. we'll have to talk more ahead about robert mueller's intention here and what his directive was, but a lot of this is now being passed to congress, oversight will step in, questions will be asked, there will be subpoenas and this will play out. we have elijah cummings on the show later this morning and i can't wait to talk to him about his reaction to this report and how they methodically plan to move forward. chuck rosenberg, michael smith, benjamin wittes, thank you all. coming up lindsey graham has been one of president trump's

staunchest supporters during the mueller probe, but it seems he had a much stricter standard for obstruction when there was a democrat in the white house. >> i am shocked. >> we'll explain that next on "morning joe." it's easy to move forward when you're ready for what comes next. at fidelity, we make sure you have a clear plan to cover the essentials in retirement, as well as all the things you want to do. and on the way, you'll get timely investment help to keep you on the right track, without the unnecessary fees you might expect from so many financial firms. because when you have a partner who gives you clarity at every step, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward.

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you don't say we're going to commit perjury at noon, we're going to be late, we're going to obstruct justice at one, don't be late. you don't have to say let's obstruct justice for it to be a crime. you judge people on their conduct, not magic phrases. >> republican lindsey graham, his take on obstruction of justice nearly 20 years ago, singing a different tune today. joining us, branding expert, political commentator and guru donny deutsch. do and julia ainsley. >> i think basically what do the

democrats do now? do they follow his moral imperative and say we've got to protect our constitution or do they say we have an election to win, we have to get trump out in 500 days and go back to things that matter. there's a way to thread both. you keep the story alive about the mueller -- not only through impeachment but this is one more example the way the system is rigged against the little the guy. that was compelling message is the rich and powerful are going to get everything. they want to take your health care away, they got their tax break, and you didn't. they don't even have to play by the same laws that affect you. the most important thing going forward about the mueller report is to use it the right way politically, not let it go and not run around with your hair on fire, aoc today, we're going to bring impeachment things. let that process go, keep it

alive as part of a big ager narrative that says the little guy is getting screwed, the big and the powerful win. two other thoughts, the william barr thing was the scariest thing. we' i get frightened now because i talk so much about the southern district. is he going to be putting in a call to jeffrey berman, hey, let's slow down on all that. final thought also, the one thing, joe, in the last segment you talked about the free press, the one thing he rails against is the one this evening that sa. can you imagine if during the last two years we didn't read about this, if the number one enemy tried to infiltrate our government, denied it and tried to cover up for two years, can you imagine if that hit us all?

yesterday the free press saved us. >> yes, it did. >> and julia ainsley, you were sifting through it live yesterday, did a great job disat this timing it down and getting the important information, and now that we know what we already knew, that the russians interfere aggressively. bob mule are said he couldn't connect a conspiracy. >> 24 hours ago i was on "morning joe" and we were preparing for this press conference with william barr. we were thinking why is he having a press conference before people have a chance to read the report and ask questions about it. i can see two sharp discrepancies between what the attorney general said and -- one

is how much he leaned on the oac decision, that you cannot indict a sitting president. but if the evidence didn't support an obstruction charge, robert mueller would have just cleared the president. instead robert mueller talks a lot about that opinion and how a sitting president made this a different kind of case. he talks about these difficult issues. i wish he would be more embassy police it but he talks about difficult issues that arose that would would need to be somehow satisfied or taken care of in order for him to move forward in a prosecution than you would in a tradition an sense temperature and then he leaves the door open for congress and the attorney general said it's not up to congress, it's me, i'm the final arbiter of that. but that's not at all what robert mueller actually spelled out for him. and the final thing is just the willingness of the white house to cooperate. the attorney general said over

and over how wonderful this white house had been, the president and his legal team in providing information, but as you read through how the president interacted with robert mueller, he waited over a year of a back and forth, of trying to get a sitdown interview, said no and then his written answers was not for the coming as well. he denied over 30 times any wrerecollection of these events. >> john heilemann here. a lot of news and a lot of pages to digest. between the conspiracy piece and the obstruction piece, the obstruction piece is the one that seems apparently more open for business, open for debate, we focused on that. i think one of the things that happened was that people didn't focus quite enough on the conspiracy coordination/collusion part of the report. there's a lot of stuff in there that's compelling and important. i know it interested you to see

what detail there was. talk about to me, john, the most shocking thing in the report was the revelation that the fbi concluded that the russians successfully hacked into the computer system of at least one florida county's election department. up to now we've been told the russians tried to do it but we haven't been told they successfully did it and that to me is deeply troubling. it raise as host of questions such as were there more than one county involved? should congress investigate to find out whether voter registration was affected or maybe that the russians had the capability to change votes? these are really upsetting issues that need to be address because supervisors of elections need to be vigilant for 2020 because you know the russians are preparing for 2020 and this should not be a partisan you.

>> we heard it from the fbi, we we've heard from everybody the russians are trying to impact our democracy. so want to, if you just removed the president of the united states, removed donald trump's name from all of the evidence regarding obstruction of justice, would most americans not be indicted? would most americans not likely face jail time? would most ceos most likely not face jail time for the actions that you read in that report? >> other americans would not be protected by the d.o.j. policy of not indicting a sitting president, and that is the biggest problem i had in the four-page barr memo was that the

barr memo i thought was a little misp misleading when it said mule are punted on obstruction because of difficult issues of law. nk it said mueller was not going to draw created by the d.o.j. policies of not indicting a sitting president. and that's why mueller decided to let congress and future prosecutors make these decisions. >> that's where i think we go next. julia ainsley, final word is from you. what is next? >> well, we don't know we're respecting that rebuttal. it seems from our reporters at the white house that they're planning on holding that back. so we're hearing less from the white house than we expected and nen i think all attention turns

to congress, wlo there seems to be somewhat of a rod map how much time will they spend reworking a lot of what robert mueller did, hoping that in their context with their powers they may be able to put some kind of penalty on this that robert mueller was not able to do. let's also not foregot about the southern district because that is far from over. >> that is nbc as julia it has rahal broken through as you covered story. >> thank you, mika. >> we have so many more big

gues guests, we going to talk to bob woodward who knows a thing or two about investigations. and richard blumenthal will be here. house judiciary committee member veronica escobar will join the conversation. the next hour starts right now. >> i am sure that all americans share my concern about the efforts of the russian government to interfere in our presidential election. >> i have president putin, he just said it's not russia. i will say this, i don't see any reason why it would be. >> as the special counsel report makes clear, the russian government sought to interfere in our election process. >> i will tell you that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. >> i got to say, meek yark the president, even when you see him

in front of vladimir putin, he's so timid, he's so weak, he's so inept, he's so impotent. he actually lied again, called our fbi and he called the nsa -- he called everybody, he called the military intel people all liars and said he trusted an ex-kgb agent more than he trusted our intel community or the military. well, end up the intel community was right, vladimir putin was wrong, donald trump again chose the wrong side. >> and this report exposes him in a big way. the attorney general is sure that all americans are concerned about russian hacking -- well, maybe not all americans. >> not the president. >> we have branding expert and political commentator donny

deutsch is with us, republican strategist and political analyst susan del percio and joining the conversation, former justice department spokesman, marks and and white house correspondent for pbs in u "newshour", yamiche alcindor joins us. >> mike: john heilemann, lay it out for us. the democrats have a very stark choice. they could move forward as the constitution might suggest they should, if you look at all of the apuces of power. it was, by the democrats have a

stark choice. do we do what we think is right or do we do what we think may be best for the country, which is to focus on issues that will actually defeat donald trump at the ballot box and remove this stain from the presidency. >> yeah, one of the problems for them, joe, it's not clear even if they move successfully on impeachment of the house, that they would remove the stain because of the she doesn't want to know that the country is with democrats and rab are ready to take that step. if mueller report and the sequence we can talk about bill baer and the way he corrupted this process but but if where

public support was crumbling, the republican base was abandoning trump and republicans in the house and senate were also abandoning trump, the political troum, it would be an easy call also or you'd say the impeachment is going nowhere. instead, we're in a place where bob mueller has laid out a road map for congress. there's clearly a bunch of stuff that at least opens the door to a plausible realist being and it is a rahal difficult political choice for nancy pelosi. we had steny who ier say yesterday we're not going to do impeachment. you have we have a presidential election that is starting to and.

the pressure to move, that are going and i do think it's a very -- it's a very -- it the biggest political choice democrats face right now and there are arguments on both sides. my guess is if you finish quickly, they may troy and spend the nbs few months probing donald trump, trying to tie up the administration withee would involve and attempt to impeach the president. >> course the republicans fin there's so much more damning evidence here that anything we but, willie, it is a tough

choice for nancy pelosi, but there may be a counterintuitive argument that is certainly not safe, that the democrats go ahead and follow the through where ef and put them in the position of doo eveneding a president who tried repeatedly to obstruct justice -- >> incredible. -- and breach constitutional and political norms. >> do you have any doubt that the republicans in the senate would do just that, though, based on what we've seen for two years? >> yes, i know they would. >> do you? >> again, i'm not so sure that would be be a good look for them day nabbed day out because evidence is so damning. >> we did see a number of democrats yesterday talking

about saying what we seen is robert mueller has led us to the doorstep,s even, i saw aerk he wouldn't use the word impeachment when ask if he thought that was appropriate. he wouldn't say that he did think so. there will be this internal debate and they'll have to think about whether or not they want to have an too many having been through a few of these fights and a few of these administrations, particularly one comes to mind. what did you make of the report and what do you believe happens next? >> well, first of all, i think the report is quite amazing, and the attorney general barr did himself a mass of disservice

because his letter quoted a portion of the report that looked like trump was off the hook on obstruction of justice, but as we know on page 182, mueller makes it very clear that they did not reach this issue because of evidence, because they could not make a determinati determination. joe may remember this, but the day reagan was shot 1981 was it was al hague who rushed in and defined the way people were going to remember him by saying i'm in charge here. of course he wasn't. and barr is going to be remembered for this because it was not -- it was just a deception and a misrepresentation of what this report shows. now, where it goes, i think it turns on the quality of

evidence. in the nixon case again, i'm sorry to go back but the tapes showed conclusively the president of the united states ordered the payment of hush money to the watergate burglars and their overseers. he did it again and again, said let's blow the safe, let's break in. now, in the case of the trump case here, as mikel sh midi think was wisely pointing out, they stumbled, trump stumbled. it was but as i reported in my book, there are lots of people who said i'm not going to do these things that he ordered. does somebody come up with tapes or new evidence? i think that would be the

propellant here. >> bob, isn't it extraordinary, studying the nixon story and studying nixon's successful efforts -- well, his attempts to obstruct justice and having everybody who is working for him following his orders, comparing that that to what happened with donald trump, what you first, first of all in fear, that all the president tried to be instruct justice, jeff sessions said no. what -- what does that tell us, not on from the mueller report but from your extraordinary reporting and fear. what did. >> well, there is a denial, evidence in the the book i

describe how gary cohen who was president trump's economic adviser, saw a let in which i and he snatched it away. the book came out and trump said, oh, that's fake news, that couldn't be true, i interin it was put in by and he probably did not get that far in the book probably. no, i'm not kidding. time and time again things are denied. >> i know! he doesn't read. >> and what's important also about this report, it validates and supports the time and time

again you see people are saying under oath that was reporting from unbut if you have evidence, you have multiple sources, you're willing to go forward with those stories and mueller has come in and said, oh by the way, it's all true. >> matt miller, want to get new on this part of the mueller report. it details russia's efforts to obtain thousands of missing e-mails from hillary clinton's computer follow this russia, if you're listening, i hope you're

able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. i think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. let's see if that happens. that will be next. >> july 27th, 2016, and according to the special counsel's office, within about five hours of that statement by donald trump, russian intelligence officers targ theed clinton as office for the first time in a bid to find those e-mails. several individuals affiliated with the trump campaign lied to the the office and to congress about their interactions with russian-affiliated individuals and related matters.

>> conclusion out in the open is the exact way to think about it. that's the way mueller describes it. remember where he said the investigation established that there was no criminal conspiracy. what he left out was the first part of that season tr and although the trump campaign expected they would again fit from the house help, they didn't actually ever get together and have a meeting of the minds they didn't have a tacit agreement thats coulded the line into a criminal that doesn't mean himself actions were acceptable and meet the standard of what we expect as you said, bob, no

conspiracy between the trump cam pan and russian government but did leave open all these questions about obstruction. how are you looking at this report? ? i don't think you have to jump to impeachment right away. congress as role is back finding and i don't think that will do better be they might watch congress a i would have don mcgahn in front of my committee, i would have his chief of staff,

annie, to my committee. if donald trump jr. wants to take the fifth, he can take the fifth. ewould lay out for television cameras all they could move forward with impeachment. if not, let's talk about what other sanction might be appropriation. the standard the attorney general laid out yesterday that it's okay that the president obstructed justice in that way it's understandable that who did this. i don't think that can hold. mabb it's something sort of impeachment but you have that conversation after the hearing. >> yesterday jerry madler indicated he might be headed down that kol yamiche, given

what was just being said, about that road map clearly juf which ones to choose but there are cler questions, there are people who are clearly humiliated in this report and there is clearly horrific behavior that sand inside this white house and some great behavior as well, those who protected the integrity of the presidency or at least twied to. so what is given the fact that this is so clearly laid out and you can see the next steps that are going to happen, what is your guess as to why barr worked so hard to protect trump? because he knows what happens next. >> well, essentially barr auditioned for this job that he's owe and not you a loy has

to frrm which is no conclusion, over and over again. but i think the mueller report is really i think full of and technical dots of the the president telling people to lie and break the law. wheel we talk about the president surrounding himself really a "c" team full of people, you have people saying looks being this guy as kind of krasy. it was a chief of staff seai seaingand realizing the people around him are trying to run the country and then you raet the report and if you're the attorney general and you're reading this support, do you really want to get in front of the cameras and do what he did? i can't figure it out he's

marked his place in sfroup you know, the mueller report always reveals that donald trump did not actually had i've been saying and mika's been saying for two yoors, he believed his candidacy was more of a branding exercise. i've always described it a branding exercise gone horribly wrong. on page 72 on a section describing the trump power moscow product mueller writes that michael cohen recalled conversations with trump in which mall reveal and the

mueller report that this was nothing more than a branding exercise that went orably wrong. not only did he not think he was going win the republican nomination, he never thought he was going to win the white house. he thought he might run as an independent and ruin jeb bush's chance winning so his friend, hillary clinton, could be elected. >> clearly, clearly, as michael cohen said, this was infomercial. wow, can got these honeys of millions of dollars worth of media attention for next to nothing. it's not going to matter because i'm not going to be and that he didn't as a business guy, to do thanksgiving to and that are also able to assess wins and losses. here are the wins and losses for

trump. trump within the election, he lost the taxes, he lost on repeal health care, he won on cavanaugh, lost the midterms and lost on this. like it or not, you got to give -- it disgusting, it's vile. he got a w here, now you turn around unless the democrats can honestly, honestly say we lost this within, until they can do that, i don't think they can move forward effectively. >> you said something before that was important, donny and that is you turn the win into a loss, which is really is, robert

san do you skill mcthat you struggle in, that you fight to be able to get good health care that, you struggle to get your kids into school, do you struckle, but you don't believe and then there as donald trump's world where he passes tax cuts and. i just made you all a ton of money. yet given, willie, you take it back to what happened yesterday. that is not justice for all. that is not an american all men and women are equal under the law. that is one set of rules for the rich and powerful and one set of

rules for the work man and woman. and, willie, i just -- i don't know how that helps donald trump in wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania or ohio. >> i agree with you and donnie on the poll tex but, man, are we moving the goalpost if this is a win for the country and for the rez of the united states. what do the nbs 18 months look like as woo again to talk about hearings in front of the how is this going to play out way see it? >> earlier joe was pointing out there's this missing team we literally this of course can you could hear what he was saying in ordering. so are we going to get trump's

version in some form? joe, you were asking, well, why didn't mueller subpoena trump and make him testify? if you go back to the nixon case, tapes case from the supreme court, the ruling was on a trial subpoena. nixon's top aides, alderman, ehrlichman, mitchell, were going on trial and the prosecutors said under federal rules of criminal procedure 17c. it sounds abstract but the whole opinion is built on that. in this case at least there is

such a thing of executive privilege. not having it is going to hamper any forward movement on all of this. >> well, we shall see. everyone stay with us. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump claims to have one of the agree and he takes issue with those who have trouble recalling things. >> crooked hillary clinton told the fbi she couldn't remember 39 separate times. you know, her memory is a little bit off. >> how about she couldn't remember 39 times. each within of those 39 was a lie, right? >> yet, in his answer. >> you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ we'll be right back. ♪ ♪

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his main rebuttal is he will be reelected to office. >> "the washington post" title says "trump is a cancer on the presidency, congress should remove him." it was said stunningly that if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.

mueller did not so state. presidential attempts to abuse power by putting personal interests above the nation's can surely be impeachable. the president may have the raw constitutional power to say squel ch and investigation, for even a close associate. but if he does not -- so not to serve the public interest but to

serve his own, he surely could be removed from office, even if he has not committed a criminal act. >> you look at what george conway said. it brings us back to the debate of what should nancy pelosi do. which is the best way for her to move forward politically? that is the challenge. i understand what joe says that there is an obligation for congress to do their job, but i think that congress can do their job by continuing their interview and oversight process, bring in don mcgahn and ask the question after you're done with the mueller stuff, what else do you know? i think lying is so prevalent of this white house, it affects every aspect of our government period. i'd like to see some real

oversight questioning of where else are these folks not doing their job. >> jerry nadler, chairman of the judiciary committee announcing he will serve a subpoena for d.o.j. today for the full, unredacted report, the mueller report, and also the underlying evidence, including the grand jury testimony. does that change the calculus at all? >> it's part of a two-step process, they need to speen at justice departme -- subpoena and ask for the court to make available grand jury information. but there's another step short of those. some of the material that was redacted was related to what seems to be related to the roger stone case. that's the most critical material around the dissemination of the hacked e-mail. not the hack itself but the dissemination. there's a very interesting sentence that's partially

redacted about the president getting a phone call, in the car with rick gates, he gets off the phone call and says "wikileaks has a dump coming." they're going to make that information available to congress privately. the justice department can't release the information. if they can get access to that information, they should share that with the american public immediately. >> we learned a lot of things about the russian cooperation, collusion, whatever word you want to apply to it, we learned a lot. that was within of tone of the if you looked around, there's an interesting story with that, certainly surrounding roger stone. >> and there was a very carefully worded sentence where he said no collusion on the social media, no collusion on

the hack, no violation of law around the dissemination. which says to me he can't say no collusion. there's something there he's trying to spin. >> do you expect the chairman of the judiciary committee will meet resistance from the d.o.j. on the subpoena request? >> i think he will. the body language from bill barr the last few weeks, he do not want to cooperate. he's sending the report because he had to. he doesn't want to do anything else and he's going to fight every step of the way. >> the white house believes it's case closed but jerry nadler announcing just a minute ago in the next couple of hours, he'll issue the subpoena for the full, unredacted support and he wants all the underlying evidence that supported the roar. >> jerry nadler is doing something that he can and should do. one of the most striking thing that bill barr said is it didn't

say that congress should have some role in deciding whether the president obstructed justice. congress has the right and the authority to look at the president's behavior and decide whether or not he's corrupting the power and whether or not he's using his power in a way that's not outlined in the constitution. if they are doing that, they are protecting the integrity of the constitution and the united states. i think jerry nadler is going to take that oversight role very, very -- very, very particularly and really looking at that. i will say of course that the president is going to be screaming from the mountains that this is presidential harassment, that this is really the democrats not wanting to drop this and i think in some ways it's really going to come down to 2020 and whether or not jerry nadler and speaker of the house nancy pelosi want to have this fight. there are a lot of people around the country who want to be talking about health care and other things. there's also this idea that there's a road map for congress

to go down and look at all the specific instances where the president was asking people around him to lie and where they said we cannot do that. >> bob woodward, it's tileman her -- heilemann here. at the nexus of politics and law, you raised obviously the tapes back in 1974 as having been decisive, dispositive, a huge deal, and part of the reason for that was the tapes were the trigger for the crumbling of republican support, the crumbling of public support that made it possible for a bipartisan consensus to emerge that nixon had to go. do you see in this instance this report is damning, the mueller report, in a million ways, but what it doesn't have, as you pointed out, it doesn't have the tapes, it doesn't have trump's account nor does it have anything right now that seems like it will trigger that public

consensus across party. can you see a world that emerges in a time frame that's meaningful in the course of the next six months to a year, can you imagine a scenario in which that could happen given the facts that we know now and the anticipatable facts that might still be out there? >> that's the essential question but i think there's another one that accompanies that key question. the daily functioning of government goes on. you can't just pause and say, okay, let's spend six months to thrash our way through this. i believe from reporting that there is a governing crisis, a daily governing crisis in the trump administration. you look at the way north korea, the chinese trade and tariff debates all the immigration questions. joe was raising the question about the tax cut and so forth.

it is just not working. and the trump administration really doesn't work. a lot of people who have more experience are gone. so i worry about a crisis. the difficulty if there is a crisis is trump doesn't have a strategy on any of these issues really, if you look at them, and he does not now have a team that can work together. so we can't go into the sleep mode on this. obviously it's just like reporting what the house judiciary committee is going to have to do is conduct an intensive, full-scale, full court press investigation, try to find new evidence, new

witnesses that may cut one way or the other. that is, again, a time consuming business. so i -- at the same time, we better worry, we bet water wake to not just what's in this report but what's going on in the daily trump government, and it is not good. >> that's right. this report shows what trump practices behind the scenes look like in that white house. everybody should be extremely worried about what we have read. everybody should read the report. bob woodward, matt miller, yamiche alcindor, thank you all very much. and still ahead, we'll get brand new reaction from that news from two key voices from capitol hill from the judiciary committee, senator richard blumenthal, and chairman of the house oversight committee, congressman alilie e

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joining us now a member of the senate judiciary committee democrat ic senator richard blue -- blumenthal and rick stengel. do y do you agree with the conclusion that the president conspired -- >> it may not be admissible evidence provable beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a conspiracy with a meeting of the minds, an explicit agreement, but this massive, sweeping montage of misconduct and shows links between the russians and the trump campaign, connections that the trump campaign knew and happily accepted and welcomed as an aid to them.

and so the continuing threat here of russian interference in our democratic process is very real, and i found one of the most chilling parts of this entire report to be donald trump's attempt to enlist the intelligence community and the national security professionals in stopping the investigation. because this russian threat is real, it's continuing. they're going to do it again. they're paying no price for it and it's not just our democracy, it's all western democracy that vladimir putin has in his sights. >> do you accept the specific conclusion that there was no criminal conspiracy? >> i accept that conclusion for now, but i think there's a need for continuing investigation by the congress. weep need we need to hold the president accountable for all of those examples of impropriety and misconduct that may not rise to the level of a proof beyond a

reasonable doubt but others may be provable once he leaves office. >> there was immediately yesterday upon the release of the report, it appeared an internal debate among democrats and progressives about whether there were impeachable offenses in the mueller report. >> there are clearly offenses. >>impeachable offenses? >> there may be impeachable offenses, there may be censurable offenses. i think mule are and his team need to be called before congress for their testimony, others like don mcgahn about how the president instructed him to fire the special counsel and then put a false document in the file saying he never gave that instruction. k.t. mcfarland, another absolutely riveting story. she's fired as national security director, deputy.

and then offered an ambassadorship to singapore on the condition that she write a false memo to the file saying that the president never asked flynn to talk to the russian ambassador about sanctions. these kind of stories need to be presented to the american people to hold the president accountable as part of that fact finding and the other investigations ongoing in the southern district of new york and the counterintelligence investigation and the fbi need to be protected against the interference as we've seen from william barr's performance. >> rick, volume two, the obstruction piece of the mueller report, the underlying conclusion of entire second volume is the president wanted to obstruct justice, he attempted to obstruct justice but was thwarted by people like white house counsel don mcgann, jeff sessions and even corey lewandowski. what of these two volumes jumped out at you as most significant? >> i'll talk about the onism

know -- one i know a little bit about. what jumped out was all the stuff about the research agency in st. petersburg, a lot of which we knew, i expected in the main report there would be a an example of coordination we hadn't seen before. the amazing thing about the russians is they never really broke cover. they took american identities, pretended to be tennessee gops but they never came out and said, hey, guys, it's really us doing this. that's one reason that mueller could not establish that coordination that was necessary for conspiracy. same thing happened with the gru and the hacking of the dnc. they also never broke cover. but the third area of infringement was where the russian meetings where they tried to meet with the trump campaign, similar to what happened in the white house, this was the c team on both sides. you had the trump people that had no idea they shouldn't even be talking to foreign pows are

a -- powers and the russians sent these people who were inept themselves. they didn't think this was going to happen, they didn't think the trump campaign was going to win. the reason they couldn't establish this idea of conspiracy was because there was such incompetence and ineptitude on both sides. >> just to go back to russian interference in our elections and we know it's going to happen again, i have two questions for you. one is what are we doing to stop it, and the other is about the southern district of new york investigations because we have a primary that's coming up in less than a year. should they conclude or announce their findings by -- is there a drop date? like should it be by labor day? do we have to worry about those investigations also interfering potentially with the elections and a potential republican primary? >> two questions, number one on what are we doing about russian interference? not nearly enough. the department of home land security is skirt you'virtuallys

at many levels of its top positions. who is responsible for election security? that department. in effect, the president has left it rudderless at a time when it should offering help to of the state officials who are on the front lines of protecting against interference, the kind of hacking that occurred in florida and illinois and a number of other states in the 2016 election. number two, on the southern district of new york, it should proceed as quickly as expeditiously as possible. there are general understandings and rules that there are no indictments within a certain number of months of the election, but one thing that bob mueller did not do here was in effect, follow the money. none of the financial crimes are in this report. none of the deutsche bank leads have been followed. that presumably is what the southern district of new york is doing and that's one of the reasons that perhaps donald trump is an unindicted

coconspirator there, in effect. individual number one and so i think the southern district of new york has to pursue those leads and that investigation including possibly against donald trump jr. another mystery here for me is why did bob mueller not recommend charges against donald trump jr. given the absolute montage of evidence against him. >> the mueller report gives an account of the president's f furious reaction to it. the president slumped back in his chair and said, oh, my god, this is terrible. this is the end of my presidency. i'm efed. a month later on june 17th, 2017. the president called don mcgahn at home and directed him to call the acting attorney general and say that the special counsel had

conflicts of interest and must be removed. mcgahn did not carry out the direction. the president asked mcgahn why he had told the special counsel's office investigators that the president had told him to have the special counsel removed. mcgahn responded that he had to and that his conversations with the president were not protected by attorney/client privilege. just think about that. the president then asked, what about these notes? why do you take notes? lawyers don't take notes. i never had a lawyer who took notes. mcgahn responded that he keeps notes because he's a real lawyer and explained that notes create a record. the president said i've had a lot of great lawyers like roy cone, he did not take notes. well, senator bloomen that witht

to go to you here. what do you make of that conversation alone? >> that conversation reflects a profound disrespect for the law as well as for the legal profession, don mcgahn was acting like a professional. he refused to put a false memo in the file after he was instructed to do it whether out of self-preservation, and he documented a lot of what he was told to do with those notes and memos to the file, which are quoted very, very extensively in the report, but i think donald trump operated here withtrying stop this investigation and the

comment's been made that he was ham handed, that he was unsuccessful, but the fact of the matter is that this report observes that those actions to stop the investigation and obstruct it materially affected it. and they may have prevented the special counsel from gleaning enough evidence on the conspiracy with the russians to bring indictments and recommend charges. this obstruction had an effect. there's no question about it. >> answers in a sober and serious way a question that i would have said, these are going to make great seens cenes in thi series. that scene of trump slumping in his chair saying my presidency is over is a great dramatic high human moment it's also the moment that exposes the corrupt intent for all of the other behavior because it's in this moment of clarity he has

basically where it's like if there's an objective investigation into my campaign's potential coordination with russia, my presidency is over. he's realizing that's the political stakes there and to me it seems as though that is -- if you were looking for corrupt intent that's key to obstruction of justice. it's there that first moment. >> it's hard to say that trump has any intent other than ones that are corrupt and the kind of sad irony of the whole report is that robert mueller agonizes about whether or not trump is guilty of these things. trump doesn't seem to agonize it at all. everything he does betrays his guilt. he realizes his guilt and that's what's frustrating to americans who realize that character is guilty. i'm just going to say one more thing about my colleague and friend here. the russians are -- what they're doing and they did in 2016 they are doing right now. my twitter feed will be attacked

by russian bots after this. they are doing the same thing they're doing in 2016 and we need to actually be more forceful in counter acting that. >> some of those are me, by the way. >> i know. >> a lot of the attacks are from me. >> the president of the united states believes vladimir putin over our intelligence community and americans ought to be worried not only about the russian attacks but the leader of the free world who denies that it's happening when our national security is in peril. >> he said that standing right next to vladimir putin. >> thank you very much. coming up, another packed hour ahead. as we've mentioned house judiciary chairman says a preponderance for the full unredacted mueller report will come out in the next couple of hours. we'll talk to congresswoman and

house judiciary member veronica escobar about that but first elijah cummings is standing by and he joins the conversation at the top of the hour. "morning joe" is back in a moment. orning joe" is back in a moment ♪ - [woman] with shark's duo clean, i don't just clean, i deep clean carpets and floors, so i got this. yep, this too, and this, please.

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and as the special counsel's report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by his sincere belief that the investigation was understominin his presidency and fuelled by illegal leaks. >> the president was simply frustrated. >> that was actually -- that's unbelievable. >> it is. >> it's like a simpson scene where fat tony, the mob boss's lawyer might say to the judge that fat tony was pushed to try to kill homer and bart because

he was frustrated. there is no justification for that and again, the attorney general turned himself into a clown for donald trump like so many people have and he will -- the ending will be the same for him as it is for everybody else who humiliate themselves for dth donald trump. >> of course he quote, launched public attacks on the investigation and individuals involved, engaged in a series of targeted efforts to control the investigation, attempted to remove the special counsel, sought to have attorney general sessions unrecuse himself and limit the investigation, sought to prevent public disclosure of information about the meeting between russians and campaign officials, used public forums to attack potential witnesses, and praised witnesses who declined to cooperate with the government. welcome back to "morning joe." it's the top of the hour.

>> i've got to say again, the "washington post," this summary, there's so much to read in this article by dan about mueller's report paints a damning portrait of the trump presidency, but here he says the 448-page document is replete with evidence of repeated lying by public officials antd others, some of whom have been charged with that conduct urging the president not to tell the truth of the president seeking to shut down the investigation, of a trump campaign hoping to benefit politically from russian hacking and leaks of information damaging to its opponent of a white house in chaos and operating under abnormal rules. >> abnormal to say the least. joe, willie and i are joined by the chairman of the house oversight committee. democratic congressman elijah cummings of maryland. welcome back to the show. it's great to see you. what's next? i mean, after what you've seen

in this report, what stands out to you as the next line of questions? >> well, first of all, i'm very pleased that jerry nadler is now subpoenaing the unredacted record and all the documents that underlie the mueller decision. and then of course i know that he's going to bring barr in and we need to hear from him. but i think we have got to -- the thing that we have to do, mika, is look at the road map that has been created for us with the mueller report. but first we've got to make sure we understand how those decisions were made, but i agree with you. i was so disappointed in attorney general barr, it was just -- it was phenomenal and most lawyers will tell you that part of our duty is to -- we're

always officers of the court and we're always supposed to be telling the truth. and i just found that attorney general barr went overboard in trying to represent the president when he should have been representing the people of the united states of america. so what we will do, we want to do a deep dig in our committee because we want to figure out whether or not there were conflicts of interest. and that comes directly under our jurisdiction. we're wondering when the president when he makes certain decisions whether he's making them in the interest of the american people or making them in the interest of himself. and so -- and we've got a lot of other thing it is we're going to look into and the other committees and of course we will back up schiff and intelligence and congressman nadler in judiciary as they proceed

because they're the two committees that have most jurisdiction over this matter. >> good to see you as always. there were two volumes to the mueller report, the first dealing with potential special issues between the trump campaign and the russian government, the second dealing with obstruction. mr. mueller found in volume one and he said pretty explicitly that he did not establish a criminal conspiracy or coordination between the trump campaign and the russian government. do you accept the special counsel's conclusion on that point? >> to a degree, but again, we need more information. clearly i think part of the -- part of the problem here is that we've had so many lies coming from this president and some of the people that work for him, but clearly -- i mean, think about one, the president from the beginning said he had no relationship or no business dealings with russia and come

on. give me a break. and then we see what has now come forth. i think that there may have been and i think there were two folks that is russia and the campaign, both wanting to have a certain end and the question is whether it met a criminal standard based on what they had to say, but just because something does not meet the criminal standard does not mean that we should tolerate it. >> not in a presidency. >> i think everything you said is true and the lies ooutlined and the evidence is in the report but the conclusion from the special counsel was that he could not establish any coordination or conspiracy. do you accept at least his conclusion on that? >> yes. >> and then on the obstruction question, mr. chairman, what remains open to you as you read through volume two? what questions do you have? >> the -- i want to see exactly why -- why it was that we've got

these ten areas which shows that there was clearly efforts to obstruct and i think joe said it a little bit earlier, anybody -- i can't think of anybody in this whole country that have done maybe one or two of those things in the ten that mueller cites that would not be indicted today. no doubt about it. and i understand he's the president, but -- but he -- and i think the thing that's so frustrating and must have been frustrating for mueller, the reason why he could not say -- bring the charges or recommend the charges, one of the reasons is the efforts by the president and his team. keep in mind, he said to the president, he tried for a year to get the president to sit down with him and on the other hand the president is running around the country, oh, i want to testify. i want to come before mueller.

and then we see the real picture. there's another thing that happened. there apparently has been some destruction of evidence. that's another thing that we want to look into. again, you know there's a presidential records act and i want to know who was destroying evidence. that's another thing that stopped mueller from being able to complete his job and a lot of this stuff may have been directed by the president. >> well, of course. and that's not even speculation that you said there. go ahead. >> by the way, that -- that to me when i've got a president who's sitting in the oval office who's directing people to lie and to be deceitful, that's not leadership. and i think the american people have to understand that we cannot allow that to happen. >> yeah, i just want viewers watching that heard you say,

elijah, that robert mueller couldn't come to some of his conclusions because some evidence had been destroyed or tampered with or not turned over, that -- that's not your opinion, that actually came out in the report itself. >> yes. >> and there's so many instances of obstruction of justice, i want -- i want to take everybody back to when you and i worked together and worked in congress together. we also were friends during the impeachment of bill clinton. >> that's right. >> and i voted for two articles of impeachment, you didn't. my standard then is my standard now which is, if a working class guy couldn't get away with lying to the grand jury, then the president shouldn't and of course there were differences and in the way we all approached that, but elijah, could you just explain to people that weren't around in 1999 how -- forget the

personal side of it. let's just talk about the abuse of public trust. how much worse donald trump's examples of obstruction of justice were compared to bill clinton's. because i was there and again, i voted for two of the four articles of impeachment but i am here to tell everybody, there is no comparison, lindsey graham running around trying to clean this up for donald trump, he was prosecuting bill clinton in the senate for -- for something that pe pales in comparison to what we read about yesterday. >> i would say it's at least -- what president trump has done at least 100 times worse. >> at least. at least. >> and then the thing that bothered me about barr, he seemed very sympathetic to the

fact that the president came with somewhat of a cloud being investigated. well, duh, he did that to himself. >> not only that, you remember when barack obama got elected president, the majority leader of the senate said, our job is to make sure he doesn't get re-elected. when bill clinton got elected in 1992, i mean, republicans never ever gave him a break and i was one of those who -- who from the very beginning went after him. donald trump does not deserve protection from his attorney general because people play hard ball in washington, d.c. >> and want the truth. >> that's right. and want the truth. and i'm glad you said that because that's what we're in search of. our president has spent the last two years or more spewing out over 9,000 lies according to the

"washington post." and at some point, those lies have a detrimental effect on the very people that we represent. and so we have a duty to -- to dig deep. i think people should not be celebrating with the president as he runs around saying no, no collusion, and they need to -- they need to understand that mueller made 14 referrals, criminal referrals of things that he obviously believed that there is some kind of evidence -- reasonable evidence that they need to be looking into these other u.s. attorney's offices. those things are still open. but there's something else that's happening here and i got to get this out. one of the things that i've -- that we've got to really be careful about is this president now probably feels 'emboldened.

in other words, he says oh, i got away with this and now he feels he can get away with anything. and he probably fields emboldened because a lot of our republican friends will not raise a finger against him. they now say oh, everything is fine, we've got to keep on doing what we're doing. i'm in disagreement with that. we've got to go against this. we've got to expose it. a lot of people keep asking about the question of impeachment. we may very welcome to that very soon, but right now let's make sure we understand what mueller was doing and understand what barr was doing and see the report and -- and the -- in an unredacted form and all of the underlying documents. >> well, elijah, i'm grateful that the process has played itself out in such a way that you and nadler and -- and nancy

pelosi and other leaders are going to get a chance to look at the mueller report, and -- and decide what constitutional steps you take. however, i want to follow up on something you just said, because i'm not so concerned about the fact that the attorney general of the united states made a fool of himself yesterday, because he's a clown, everybody knows he's a clown. okay? and you still get the report. and you're still going to be able to act constitutional on that. this is my question to you. how do you as chairman of the oversight committee. how does jerry nadler, how does nancy pelosi, speaker of the house, how do you all hold this reckless and out of control attorney general to count if suddenly he starts killing investigations in the southern district of new york or in other jurisdictions that may prove to be embarrassing to donald trump or his family?

>> joe, that is -- that is a great question. i'm not sure how we do it, but one of the things i know we do have to do is that we have to continue to expose to the public what is going on here overall. and hope that the public chimes in on this, because again, the republicans are not going to help. and so i'm not sure. we may end up in some instances in the appropriate instances in the courts. i don't know. i'm not sure, but we're going to figure all of that out. but there's something else happening here, joe. this administration will not give us one shred of paper when we ask for documents. not ooshred. they don't even acknowledge the fact that we asked for them. and this -- that's dangerous because in this last election, joe, what happened was the -- the american people said, you know what? even the people who like donald trump said you know what, we

want some accountability. but you cannot have -- you sat on government reform. you cannot have accountability unless you have information. they do not want us to interview one government witness, not one. and so they've blocked us in every way. the american people cannot stand for that. and we will not stand for that. >> so elijah and your commit tee will be the ones on the forefront of getting answers to questions whether it takes subpoenas or whatever. i'm just listening to this conversation and having read this report, it exposes so much about how this president operates, how this presidency functions and it is so troubling and so disturbing. more evidence that he has those in the white house that lie to the country for him. the white house press secretary lying to american people and having to admit to people under

oath that she does that and also evidence that for the sake of the truth and for the sake of protecting this democracy and rule of law that his staff members, like his attorney don mcgahn have to undermine him or not respect his wishes in order to keep this presidency or the rule of law or democratic norms intact. it is so frightening and i wonder where you begin with questions that you need answers to as head of oversight. >> well, again, we are looking at -- we're looking at some questions with regard to conflicts of interest. we have now subpoenaed the accounting records from the trump organization's accountants and again, mika, the republicans did something that was unprecedented. after we made the request, sent the subpoena for records, records of the trump

organization, they then sent a letter to the accountant saying basically, don't give them any records. joe, you know that's unheard of. as a matter of fact, a lot of people sit there and say cummings, what did you do when you win the minority? i joined in with the republicans on at least 700 letters trying to documents and do investigation. that's my job, that's what i'm supposed to do and we have not -- i've never seen the minority come in and try to block the majority from doing its job. but when they do that, they not only block the majority, they also block the minority. i mean, they keep forgetting that we are an independent body and that we -- we are coequal to the executive branch. and it is our duty to be a check on that branch and i'm not going to give that up. not -- not me.

>> yeah, lets me ask you, you and i, you were talking about us working together. we worked together obviously very closely on government reform. and always communicated, always -- >> oh, yeah. ? -- always shared information. i've got to ask you though, could you ever have imagined in all of your years in congress that you would ever work with republicans that -- that would -- would care less about getting the truth out to the american people and work more to obstruct congress's efforts in pursuing their article 1 powers to have oversight over the presidency and the executive branch? >> i never -- joe, i never imagined it. and joe, as you well know, we -- not only that, joe, we are now trying to look at these prices

of prescription drugs and how they're skyrocketing, we send a request for documents from the pharmaceutical companies so we can find out more on how they're pricing their drugs and my colleagues on the republican side also sent the pharmaceutical companies letters saying don't cooperate with cummings. in other words, they would rather protect the pharmaceutical companies than protect their own constituents. there's something wrong with that picture and it's very painful. and you know, the thing that we have to do, we got to look at the big picture here. where will we be after trump has gone? where will we be? will our laws be all shattered? will we have a lower standard for our presidency? and so what we need to do as a congress is also figure out if there are loopholes, we need to figure out -- loopholes in the laws, we need to figure out how

to patch those and deal with those loopholes because we cannot have this. security clearances, same thing. they don't want to give us any information on security clearances. that goes to the security of every person in this country and in some instances in the world. but they don't want to -- they do not want to give us one syllable with regard to documents. that is dangerous. >> yes, it is. elijah, what surely is a coincidence during our last block discussing the president's pushback at the white house counsel for taking notes the president has been tweeting about this issue in real time. and he continued using a curse word, quote, i never agreed to testify it's not necessary for me to respond to statements made in the report about me. some of which are total bull blank and only given to make the other person look good or to make me look bad.

this was an illegally started hoax that should have never happened. so the president who claims total exoneration is angrily cursing on social media. >> but he's doing that, mika, while, of course, his campaign manager is in jail. he's doing that while his national security director actually had to plead guilty and cooperate. he did that while -- i mean, you name it. his foreign policy people, i mean, there were so many people around him, his personal fixer, all of them either in jail or going to jail. >> i can't help but to be worried as we go through this process methodically, going through this report and watching oversight do its job how he behaves and what might happen. >> i think it's -- i think we are in a very difficult time in this country's history. and i'm begging the american people to pay attention to

what's going on. i often say that people are going to look back at this time 200 years from now and ask the question, what did you do to reverse this. you on msnbc have been doing a great job of exposing what's going on. part of what i have to do in my committee is let the nation see what's going on through our president and the ramifications of it. and as i told the president when i mote with him two years ago, i said, mr. president, you know, i am 67 then, and i said, here you are, 70. i said the greatest gift that we can leave to our children is a democracy that is intact and at the rate we're going it won't be there. and i'm begging the american people to become a part of this process. notify your congressman, tell them that you want to make sure that we address this issue in an effective and efficient way. >> i have chills.

chairman of the house, overnight committee, congressman eli cummings. thank you very much. >> happy holiday to you. >> have a blessed easter. >> there is much more "morning joe" straight ahead. we'll be right back. joe" straight ahead. we'll be right back. t there. the freshest stuff this planet can grow. not buzzword fresh. but, actually fresh-fresh. fresh. at panera, we hand-pick berries at peak-season. use creamy avocado. cage-free eggs. and a dressing fit for a goddess. oh and every ingredient is 100% clean. come taste what a salad should be. and for your next event big or small, try panera catering. panera. food as it should be. i like to make my life easy. ( ♪ ) romo mode. (beep) (bang) good luck with that one. yes! that's why i wear skechers slip-ons. they're effortless. just slip them right on and off. skechers slip-ons, with air-cooled memory foam.

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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. john, my wife accuses me of repeating myself. >> who's that again? >> that's mika. >> no, you make up stuff. his idea was to have elijah marry us. >> my wife accuses me of making up things, making up stories, but i'm going to repeat myself. anybody that's watched this show has heard me say time and again, my favorite political quote came from former senator the late paul simon from illinois, who

upon exiting his career in politics was asked, i think it was by role call, what have you learned in all of your years in politics and he said you know, in politics, sometimes, a lot of times when you think you win, you lose. now, a lot of times when you think you lose, you end up winning. now, during that conversation i just had with elijah cummings i just thought to myself if i were a politician right now on the campaign trail would i ignore what happened yesterday? because some people are saying there's a win for donald trump and the answer is no. i would fill up my political swimming pool with the mueller report and i would dive into it for the next year and a half and i would talk about documents lives. it is now documented. they have now testified under oath donald trump's own workers, he is a liar.

his administration is packed with liars. it's all in the report. and they're the ones who admitted it starting with sarah sanders, all of them. also, the obstruction of justice. any working man or woman in america, any small business owner, any fortune 500 ceo, if they had attempted to obstruct justice the way donald trump did, they'd be in jail. >> absolutely. >> and then finally, the contacts with russia. donald trump says never had any contacts with russia. oh, my god. there are a hundred pages in the mueller report describing the repeated contacts with russia during the campaign. i will just -- i'm just politically, john heilemann, i'm just -- that's where i've come to. i'm curious where you are politically about where this plays -- because i think this

mul mueller report is a huge political win for democrats. >> we've talked about the complexities that nancy pelosi and others democrats in congress face on the impeachment question. that's a specific thing and you can make arguments on both sides purely politically. if you're a 2020 democrat who's trying to become the democratic nominee and take donald trump on next fall you've got to understand that people often get confused about is a sitting president in a re-election fight, is it a referendum or is it a choice? well, it's both. it's always both and you've got to make yourself a plausible alturn tifr but you've also got to prosecute the case against the incumbent that you're not better off than you were four years ago and that the person in office is not going to be as good a president for the next four years as you would be and if you think about the -- it's inevitable that donald trump's character is going to be a big part of any campaign in 2020.

and this document in addition to being potentially a road map to impeachment for democrats in congress it provides a devastating, damning detailed indictment of the president's character in a way that stands up a lot of the arguments. mika earlier said today this is a window into how this white house operates beyond the many other important elements of it. it shows you what it's like in donald trump's white house and how dysfunctional it is and how much the president lies about the ways in which the president's corrupt. i think any democrat who doesn't take the elements as you suggested, joe, take the elements of it that are damning indictments of the president's character and find a way to incorporate them in the case that they prosecute against donald trump over the course of the next 18 months will be missing a huge opportunity. >> exactly. >> you remember when we talked about how james comey improperly indicted hillary clinton during the campaign. indicted her politically after

finding he could not indict her personally. he indicted her politically. it was improper. way out of bounds. we've talked about that for some time. this actually is an indictment of donald trump done the proper way and it is a far more damning indictment than anything anyone ever mentioned about hillary clinton and john's right. this is a road map for democrats. >> yeah. >> they follow this road map and they show americans just how unfit donald trump is for office and more importantly, how donald trump gets away with things that no one else would ever get away with because he's not a pop you list, he looks a lot like an eastern european -- >> he does. total analysis but democrats do their job, trump will learn that you cannot rebrand democracy and impeachment proceedings will

happen. >> yoinijoining us now, congresn veronica escobar of texas. i'll start this way. do you think impeachment, anything in this report is impeachable? i'd like to ask you, what in this report is not something that could be impeachable or that should be impeachable or that should be a road map toward oversight and congress moving toward impeaching this president? >> well, good morning. thank you for having me on the show again. it's always great to be with you all. so what should not be? is that your question or what is nottism peachable in here? >> how could democrats not look at this and say these are beyond anything we have ever seen in a normal presidency in modern time? okay? and that -- we've got to look at all these things and figure out

which impeachment proceedings to choose. >> absolutely. first and foremost, i'm so grateful to chairman nadler for issuing a subpoena because this is what we got. this is a big part of what the american people got and we deserve more. we deserve the full report. we deserve all the underlying evidence. it is imperative as you all have urged americans that everyone read what we can read, what we are able to read. this is really an important moment as congressman cummings said, an important moment in american history. and you are absolutely right, mika. what is in this report, what we have been allowed to see is shocking. there's a couple things that we know and that are indisputable and should be indisputable to everyone whether you're a republican or whether you're a democrat. one, that the trump campaign team, his allies and many folks closest to him lied to federal

agents, destroyed evidence because they were desperate to prevent the american public from knowing about russia's involvement. they did everything they could to hide that from the american people. why? the question is why. number two, we also know that a lot of folks named in this report, this has been out now, in a few hours it will be 24 hours. many folks who are named in here have not come out to dispute the facts. and so that to me is an acknowledge ma acknowledgement that many folks named in here know the truth. >> joe, i want to get back to you in a minute on that win thing but i want to flip it back so i'm not letting you get away with that, buddy. but congresswoman, how do you guys continue to be vigilant and not let this go but at the same time send a message to voters about their dining room table

issues, about health care, about wages so that voters don't say okay, you know, obstruction and this, we know it's wrong, but how about me? >> right. and here's my view. and i -- i bring this view to washington from my community. the values of my community are around health care for everyone. comprehensive immigration reform, an economy that works for everyone and a government that works for everyone. if we are going to have a government that works for everyone then that means no one, not even the president is exempt from the rule of law. and we're really only just talking about one facet of what's been happening with this presidency. we haven't even begun to look at emoll y emolumen emoluments. right now we're only talking about obstruction of justice. you know, yesterday i sat at a round table with local labor leaders and we were talking about this because we had met

literally just within the hour of the report being released and little bits and pieces of information were trickling out and we were having lunch together and we were talking about it and one of my local labor leaders said to me, you know, congresswoman, i teach my two kids the difference between right and wrong. i'm trying to teach them that they have this moral path to follow. if you all in congress don't do anything about this, what lesson will my kids be learning? and i think that's very powerful and very important. >> congresswoman, i think it is important that we talk about other issues and especially when we think about this report and the amount of lying that's gone on that we just know because of the mueller report under that particular scope. you introduced the homeland security improvement act and that's calling for much more oversight and other things. can you get a little bit into that and now knowing that -- how

much this administration has lied about one thing, how you would want to investigate it further. >> absolutely. and the fundamental value in my legislation is transparency, accountability and oversight. for two years, propreceding this congress, there was little to no oversight over very important federal agencies, over the white house. that we were front row -- we have front row seats to a government that chose to hide as much as possible from the american public. that is contrary to our values. that's contrary to what my community wants, that's contrary to what's good for democracy and so this -- my legislation is about one department, the department of homeland security because in el paso, my community, we have seen a militarization of the border with -- over the last few years with no accompanying atabili

accountabili accountability. we have to have shift that to the president. we can't build a government that works for everyone when we have a white house that is trying to prevent the american public from knowing the truth about something as important as russian interference in our election. as many other guests have mentioned and noted, i think one of the most chilling things about this report was how successful russia was in getting into our country's social media, into the minds of the american public, and into our election. and -- and it's still happening today. it's still going on today. congress has an obligation to bring that to light, to bring some checks and balances to that, to control that. but i also think it is so imperative that the american public get engaged in this, because we've seen unfortunately

too many of our friends on the republican side who are so loyal to one man that they're willing to ignore what is right in front of us, which is a foreign adversary that is trying to divide us further and trying to continue to control the outcome of our elections. we should all be very frightened about that and willing to -- that should be what unites us. we should be coming together as republicans and democrats saying wow, what we read in this report is absolutely -- should be alarming and should be a wakeup call and it should be uniting. it should be uniting us. >> it's chilling and that was really well put. member of the house judiciary committee, congresswoman veronica escobar, thank you so much for being on this morning. >> thank you. >> so how is all this playing out on the campaign trail? we'll go live to iowa to talk about that and there's been speculation about whether or not

joe biden will jump into the 2020 race. the atlantic magazine says it's happening. we'll talk about that and speaking of presidential contenders from klobuchar to abrams, we're hosting important conversations about women in leadership and what leadership looks like. check out my article at know your value.com. it's also part of our upcoming discussion at the ascend summit in new york city. >> that is going to be a fantastic lineup, a fantastic day in columbia. >> you can grab tickets for that and join the conversation at know your value.com. we'll be right back. com. we'll be right back. i'm 53.

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that joe biden will announce his

candidacy for the white house on wednesday and he's going to do it through a video. now, this would be joe's third bid for the presidency and i know a lot of democrats are going to be interested to see how it plays out. well, apparently we're going to see how it plays out starting next week. current declared candidate congressman tim ryan of ohio was on our show yesterday and we offered for him to call in to us and give us any updates on the campaign trail. that's something that mika, willie and i have been asking candidates to do since oh, i don't know, ougt 7, ougt 8. my major candidate call in and update us on the trail and the congressman took us up on that offer and congressman, a great day for you to join us. because we're going to be interested to hear how iowa and people in middle america are

reacting to the mueller report. what can you tell us? >> well, we had a couple hours last night when we got here and to be honest with you, it wasn't even a topic of conversation and i made it a point not to drive the conversation, but really to listen to what folks were saying out here, and the only time the mueller report came up was at the very end after somebody realized that we had this two and a half hour discussion and we didn't mention the mueller report. i mean -- >> you know, congressman, isn't that funny? that's what we have heard time and time again and when mika and i have gone out to events, when we've talked to leaders like yourself, people in middle america aren't talking about russia, they're not talking about the mueller report, they're talking about their jobs, their kids' futures, they're talking about kitchen table issues that you focus so much on. >> i think as democrats we've

got to stay focused on too. we have a constitutional duty, i think chairman nadler and others have got to do what they have to do with regard to oversight of the executive branch. that's an important responsibility. one we should be supportive of and encourage. the reality is, people don't vote on that. people are going to -- they know donald trump lies. they know donald trump shades the truth. this is no surprise to them, they want to know how they're going to make more money, what's the next job they're going to get that actually pays the bills so they're not scrambling to make ends meet? they want to start thriving again. they're really worried about their kids. i will tell you that my last trip here, my time at home over the past few weeks and back here last night, the conversation is really driven about real concern for our kids. their health, their wellness, their ability to function in so it today, get a good job, not have student debt.

people who don't even have kids are worried about what we're leaving to the next generation. >> it's willie. we'll spare you can role play like we did yesterday. i'll just ask you a just ask you a question. let me ask you because yesterday almost immediately after the mueller report dropped, there were members of your caucus, democrats who were using the word impeachment and said there's enough in here to bring up the question of impeachment, perhaps to impeach the president of the united states. others like nancy pelosi have tried to pump the brakes on that. what's your view now knowing what you know that's inside the mueller report? do you think democrats should pursue impeachment of president trump? >> i'm not there yet. i think chairman nadler needs to go about doing his work and continuing the oversight of this process. i think mueller does need to testify. he needs to come before the united states congress and the people of the united states. and he needs to dig in.

we're not there yet. we need to get back on the adjacent, what are the future jobs we're going to bring to davenport, iowa, youngsport, ohio. people are struggling and if they see us going down that road, you know, full bore, full throatened, then we are -- th t throated were going to continue this disconnect with the american people. >> call again soon. great to talk to you. >> thanks. still ahead on "morning joe" we're back in one minute. "morn" we're back in one minute staying at hampton for a work trip.

oh no. your new boss seems cool, but she might not be sweatpants cool. not quite ready to face the day? that's why we're here with free hot breakfast. book at hampton.com for our price match guarantee. hampton by hilton. good friday, spiritual inspiration from amazing singers who joined joe's band on stage

on wednesday night at the cutting room in new york city. it was an awesome performance, an impressive set up. >> unbelievable. >> those screens made it so powerful provided by bml black byrd services. the band was amazing and that song you wrote "lift me up". >> the choir was so inspirational, and miller did a great job getting everything together and really was something. >> joe, the song was touching on these times right now that we're in. time now for our faith on fridays discussion. joining us now, rabbi matthew guerhz, in new jersey, and president-elect at santa clara university, father kevin o'brien back with us this morning. >> rabbi, let's start with you and talk about the significance of this time this weekend for

your faith. >> good to be with you. and i want to tell you i have a congregant who was there at the cutting room and said you were outstanding, joe. keep on rocking your love for paul mccartney, i'll always have that bond with you. good to have something on television about faith, and not just about what's going on in our country. this is our jewish spring holiday, the holiday that represents and commemorates freedom from egypt for the israelite people after 400 years of arduous slavery. pitting up not just god at its main character but the narcissistic, and egotist pharr pharroh, and major ritual items, that we eat represent each stage of the passover meal, the unleavened bread, the

gastronomic wonder that we suffer with seven or eight days with in the passover season. >> father, obviously this past week, so many not only catholics but americans and people around the world were brokenhearted by scenes coming out of paris, but i tell you what cheered me so much is that the way the french responded and also the way the church responded. much has been written about american history, about how evangelicals have an optimistic view on their faith, on their life, on reconciliation. i thought it was the catholics this week that showed that extraordinarily well, and this -- the fire was still burning, and not only did the church but also the french people and macron said we're not going to mourn this cathedral. we're going to rebuild it.

>> right. yeah, well, i mean if they could is about anything for christians, beginning today with good friday and ending with easter sunday, it truly is about hope and rebuilding and resurrection. we will not settle for dust and ashes. we believe there's something more. and i think this is something that links our jewish brothers and sisters with christians is that we are people together, we are people that looks forward with hope, and the freedom that the rabbi spoke about is something that's important for christians this weekend is that we seek to be free of violence and self-dealing that today is marked by good friday to look to easter which is truly about peace and lasting reconciliation and justice among all peoples. >> rabbi, i'm so fascinated looking at trends regarding faith and it seems from the 1960s, numbers going down for people attending churches,

attending synagogues and yet, what i'm finding, not only from my children but friends of my children, younger people, millennials, a realization that this material world we live in is meaningless. i think there is actually ironically enough more of a yearning than there ever has been to find spear chirit and f meaning in this cheap materialistic world we live in. >> we are in this day spiritually ravenous but institutionally suspicious. somehow our institutions have becom become stayed and stoic and hierarc hierarchy in nature.

they are buying into meaning, we need definition. i believe that all of us were born with some reason to be here on earth and our synagogues, churches, mosques, have to be places that help people key into that, so world is made better by virtue of their connection. not just because they take it for granted. >> i have an 11-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old son and we have been talking about the story of easter which they have heard growing up, but getting more specific in the depth and meaning of it. what do you think it is important for children awakening to the story, what should they know about it? >> i think young people, willie, or all people should focus on this weekend as a season of hope. the spring, the nature tells us to look ahead and look forward, and so i think this is for christians and jews a time of hope. very important for all of us to know is people with hope should be living differently. we should be living that out in our lives and how retreat each other, and how relabor for

justice -- how we labor for j justice. that spiritual seeking is important, and young people want to live out their faith in a way that's meaningful. rabbi matthew, and father revenue o'brien. it is time now for final thoughts this morning. joe, why don't we start with -- actually, let's start with donny deutsch, branding expert. >> real quick, it's really important to frame, you start with tim ryan, the mueller report, not let it go but not make it about an obstruction argument, make it about the rich screwing the poor. he got away with screwing our taxes. he's trying to get away with taking health care away. we're not going to let him do it. it's a loss. >> hey, joe, you going to be watching baseball on easter sunday. >> i don't know that i will. perhaps, why? >> i'm just curious. red sox rays this weekend, i thought you might be focussed.

>> that's his final thought. >> it's not a good final thought. >> that seems to be a hateful thing to say on this holy weekend. >> baseball is the holy game. >> i think it's time to put everything away frgt weekend during the holiday season and wish everyone a blessed holiday -- from the weekend during the holiday season and wish everyone a blessed weekend. >> that does it for us this morning. quite a morning it's been. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. any minute now we expect a congressional subpoena for the full unredacted mueller report, and now that we have had the first look at what the special counsel found, will democrats push for impeachment. the special counsel made clear that he did not exonerate the president and the responsibility now falls to congress to hold the president accountable. >> the congress of the united states will honor its oath of office to protect and defend