that does it for me today. see you tomorrow 10:00 a.m. eastern. alex witt has the latest. alex, my friend, i know you have a big show today. a lot more on mueller and rod rosenstein? >> i do. he was in the room when it happened. >> yes. >> that will be coming up and you will be here tomorrow morning live, so we will worship at the altar of "a.m. joy." >> happy easter! i might wear a bonnet but i'm not sure yet. >> all right, girl, we will see. hi, welcome 9:00 a.m. in the

west, noon in the west. so now what don mcgahn is saying and what he may single out rudy giuliani. and she's back. and with a recurring role in the mueller report. hope hicks pops up a number of times. how and why? and developing this our, new word from the man the administration report worried the most about what he told the special counsel. former white house counsel don mcgahn defending the mueller report, a center figure in the administration on whether the obstructed justice. telling mueller and investigators he directed special counsel to have him fired but mcghan did not follow through on it. his lawyer writes, it's a mystery why the lawyer's president rudy giuliani feels the need to relitigate incidents the attorney general and deputy attorney general have concluded were not obstruction but they are accurately described in the

report. don, nonetheless, appreciates the president gave him the opportunity to serve as white house counsel and assist him with signature accomplishments. here's what mcghan is reacting to. >> even if it's true, it is not. those aren't like real orders. i'll tell you, what do you want, ask jim comey if he could fire somebody. yes, he ruminated. yes, he got angry. yes, he got upset. after a while the messages were never delivered and there's a pattern there and the pattern is he didn't mean them to be delivered. >> now democrats debating whether to try to impeach the president. senator and presidential candidate elizabeth warren urging the house to start impeachment proceedings. >> this isn't about politics. this isn't even specifically about donald trump himself. it is about what a president of the united states should be able to do and what the role of congress is. >> this morning i asked the only house democrat representing the

state of kentucky whether he supports pursuing impeachment. >> i believe we're on a path that could lead to impeachment, but we're doing everything i think we need to do. there's certainly enough in my calculation to say that the president has committedi impeachable offenses. i don't think there's any question about that. >> and a member of the judiciary committee where, of course, impeachment starts said her constituents are alarmed with mueller's findings and want her to continue to investigate the president. >> what else will we learn as a result of our investigation and -- and getting the entire report and underlying documents that present a clear and complete and convincing case to the american public? the political calculation is not on my table. i want a clear, complete evidence. >> and in the first poll after the release of the redacted mueller report, the president's approval dropped by three percentage points, now standing at 37%. joining me now, representative

denny hef, member of the intelligence committee. always great to see you. let's get right into it. do you support some of your fellow democrats calling for impeachment proceedings to begin? do you have any concerns this could backlash on democrats? >> alex, i think there are a couple predicates to that conversation, not the least is actually read through the entire report. here we are 36 hours later. evidently all of my friends are speed readers. i'm not quite through all 448 pages. it is my weekend reading. in fact, frankly, i would recommend not just my colleagues in the house read it but, frankly, i think every american should read this. go online read this, digest this process, talk about this. additionally we need the underlying documents as well. so it's kind of like this, we have the sheet music, and we've never heard the song. the only way we're going to hear the song is if we hear from bob mueller himself so that's the

second step as a predicate to the serious conversation. it strikes me as somewhat interesting in the nearly two years this issue he has been before the american public and director mueller is engaged in his work, we've not once, not one time, heard his voice. i think it's time to hear from director mueller >> so do you think jerry nadler jumped t mueller's voice on capitol hill in an open hearing that could be televised potentially? do you think it should have waited a bit to have everybody completely consumed, digest this 0 pretty big report, if not get the unredacted report? >> i think we do need the unredacted report and i think we need the underlying documents. as a member of the intelligence committee, alex, my principal focus is on the counterintelligence information. there's not a lot about that directly in the report, even in the first section. i think it behooves us to receive all of the information that the special kouncounsel ma

have gathered in that regard. there are indications he has additional information relating to counterintelligence because at the end of the day, just to remind everybody what this should be about, above and beyond just holding the president accountable, which is important, and worthwhile and should be done, is ensuring we don't have to go through this again, we protect ourselves against the kind of interference in our sovereign election process russia gained in, in 2016. >> the attorney general, it's my understanding, offered up a look at least with a lot of restrictions. but a look at least at the unredacted report for a very select few. is that enough for those whoa can go in and read it, perhaps take their own notes and not make just to remind you as i have before, alex, twice a week i go three floors before this united states capital. i go through, count them, three bank vault doors, i give up my

electronics in order to receive top-secret briefings, as does every member of the intelligence committee. i think especially as it relates to counterintelligence, the intelligence committee ought to be provided with all of the information, unredacted report and underlying documents and any additional information that he may have gathered with respect to counterintelligence activities in 2016. >> you expect that to happen? >> i'm omt mystic over the long term. pretty clearly, if you were to ask me, alex, what was my biggest surprise the day before yesterday, i would tell you two. first of all, i was surprised at the end of the report -- i did race through to read the end like reading the climax of a novel. the section dealing with how many investigations director mueller spun out, there are two that are redacted -- two that are not redacted, and 12 that are redaktsed. what that means, alex, in some u.s. attorney's office somewhere

there are 12 separate investigations going on that are outside of the particular parameters of director mueller's investigation, ie russian interference. the breadth and depth of that level of criminal information is just stunning. but the other surprise that i had was, frankly, how completely far afield from the actual c contents of the report was attorney general barr's press conference. in fact in a very material way he actually said something that was demonstrably not true. he said, for example, director mueller chose not to recommend a criminal indictment on the obstruction of justice matter, which he walked right up to in ten different instances, because of the office of legal counsel's precedent indicating that you cannot indict a sitting president. in fact, the actual text of the report reads just the opposite, that that is in fact part of why

director mueller did not recommend that. so the answer to your question is, well, i'm optimistic over the long term, clearly the administration is much more focused on spin and defending themselves then they are of full revelation of the truth to enable the american public to make its decision and those of us that have the privilege to serve in congress act on their behalf. >> so congressman, the part about the mueller report that you have read, granted it's redacted, does it explain to you the president's behavior towards russia? >> no, and as a matter of fact, that's a really good question, alex, because i think pretty clearly director mueller did not want to go down the an seton financial potential. we did not get into as far as we can tell some of the business dealings then-candidate trump or business trump had with russia or rush oligarchs that might have served as a predicate for

candidate trump, president trump, to engage in the kind of encouragement of russia to interfere. and what it is that may have compromised him. so we don't really know that part either. that's why it's so important congress be able to get his tax records and business tax records and to look more thoroughly than we've been able to do thus far at what is the potential financial entanglement that causes him to behave in this bizarre way. and as we see in the performance in helsinki where he basically said to the world, i trust vladimir putin more than i do my own intelligence community. either there is a financial entanglement there that behave not yet discovered or, frankly, it's just bizarre. >> what are the risks of your committee continuing to investigate the president and potentially not finding anything of substance, because politically speaking, that could be a problem for the democrats in 2020.

>> so, alex, this isn't about politics. this is about our article one constitutional responsibility to provide oversight. thns about us protecting the health of our democracy. the greater risk is that we do nothing. look, i've said all along and i don't know how many times to you, let's follow the facts wherever they follow. i'm willing to accept that. i'm willing to accept director mueller's recommendations in this regard. but the fact of the matter is, however, that russia interfered in our election, in a nonkinetic way, our nation was under attack and it cannot stand. the truth is it will continue day in and day out until and unless the price russia or any other actor has to pay is greater than the benefit they receive from that interference. so i'm not worried about the political risk. i'm worried about the future of our democracy. >> to which i say carry on, sir. representative denny heck. good to see you as always, my

friend. thank you. the president taking it easy today on the links but the mueller report is very likely on his mind. nbc white house correspondent kelly o'donnell, she's covering the president for us in west palm beach, florida. kelly, good day to you. the president's been out on the links but what do we hear from him, if anything? >> there's really two sort of streams of information coming from a white house on a holiday weekend where lots of people are spending time with their families. that's true for the president. some of his grandchildren are here. yes, two days back to back being at one of his golf clubs and the white house has put out images of him spending time out on the golf course with notable conservative radio host rush limbaugh. imagine what they were talking about. and the president using his twitter feed over and over again public to attack the report, to undercut the findings in it, and yet at the same time to embrace its conclusion, that there was no criminal offense that could

be charged against the president or those closest to him beyond what had already been known in the various indictments. so that is a bit of a landmine for the president to walk. at one point in his tweets talking about how the reports are naftly written, which clear li must be a reference to all of the different instances especially related to x that were considered obstructive that were laid out in such almost novel-like detail by the team that wrote the report. and the president accusing robert mueller, who he at one point said was an honorable man and behaved honorably, of being highly conflicted. it's all over the map where the president is attacking the report on many different foundations and certainly the original investigators who launched it and also wanting to just get right to the headline as he would put it, no collusion, no obstruction. we know it's more come florida kated than that but the president pushing away and embracing aspects of this report.

alex? >> kelly o at a windy west palm beach. thank you so much for joining us, kelly. joining us now senior director of progressive programming at sirius xm, rick tyler, also msnbc political analyst and republican strategist rinna shaw. welcome to all of you. zerlina, you first here, your take on what we heard from congressman heck. i presume you were listening to the conversation. how do you read it? >> i think the democrats are trying to do the smart thing here which is not focus so much on the politics but the substance of the report. while you can read all of the facts laid out in the report, which are in cruciating detail and come to a conclusion that perhaps there were no crimes specifically laid out there, it doesn't really do much to assuage sort of your anxiety there was a deep betrayal of the country committed by the president of the united states and those close to him. so i think the american people right now can take in all of

this information in the report and they can go to their congress "peoplpeople if they fe congress should be doing something about this. personally, i think that's exactly what this report is. a lot of folks have called it a roadmap to impeachments and i think that's exactly what's happening here. robert mueller is very, very cautious. he methodically went to all of the facts and some of the facts we will never know potentially because of the objective acts of the president. if you're a viewer watching today and you think the report, congress should do something about the facts laid out in the report, make that known. call your congress person and let them know that. >> okay. rick, your reaction? >> two parts. the first part i think is the most important, as russia did interfere in our election and will continue to do so, and we're doing absolutely nothing about it. the second part is a subset of russian interference and that is the degree to which the president and his campaign core

nat coordinated with russia. mueller went through great pains to see the collusion -- look at the lens of collusion in the president's word. he did not look at what they call a prosecutorial judgment. and it's very clear to me the report is designed to lay out a case for the congress to decide. mueller did not decide because justice department guidelines says that not only can he not indict the president but they can't even recommend him being indicted for a crime. and the legal analysis over the last 36 hours have covered that ground completely. so what we have now is a choice. and the choice is presently by the democrats it's all in the political realm, not the legal realm. the political realm is one, start impeachment proceedings which could be highly risky. some may say that may be the right thing to do. the other would be to go to the people and let them decide november of 2020.

but keep in mind both of those actions have the same, if successful, have the same exact result, and that would be removing the president from office. neither one punishes the president. impeachment and even conviction if they got in the senate, which they won't, does not punish the president. the election does precisely the same thing. that doesn't men the president wouldn't be subject to civil or criminal liability after he's not president. but that's what the democrats have to decide at this point. >> i want to ask you, zerlina, why is it jerry nadler is subpoenaing this report when it's our understanding that he has been offered to get a look at the full report, with limited circumstances around it in terms of taking notes, put eyes only on it, but that's been offered to him by bill barr. the sense is this is a very political move asking for the full report unredacted to be put out there. >> i think this is a power move,

right? i think this is a chest move. jerry nadler has taken criticism for not pushing hard enough on some of these things so far. so i think he's heard that message from constituents, and other folks in his party and his caucus. now he's trying to play hardball. now we actually have the report. for the past month, we've been talking about a four-page memo that is not the report and in fact now that we have the report, we find out that the things that were in that barr memo were not correct. right, he's quoting partial sentences that come after the word although. and so we now are in a moment -- and i think jerry nadler feels that pressure from constituents and also members of his caucus, to play and to play hardball and be tougher here because this is not a game, alex. this is very serious. we're going to be talking about this probably for the rest of our lives because this is the biggest political scandal ever. the president may be compromised by a foreign government and, again, the counterintelligence

information that was left out of this report is somewhere in the government, and hopefully, congress will be able to not just get the unredacted report and be able to prevent this type of attack from happening again, using all of that information, but also ensure this never happens under another president. maybe that's making sure t legislative changes through the congress that prevent this from happening because, again, i go back to the word betrayal. it's not necessarily about crimes being committed, although there's arguments and legal analysts are doing all of that analysis right now. but i think it's unpatriotic what happened in this report, alex. and the american people and the congress are responding to all of those new facts that we're learning now. >> i got to tell you, rinna, i was going to ask you whether or not the democrats and efforts to investigate the president and administration helps or hurt , him, but i just listened to zerlina make a pretty strong

case for this being the worse situation ever. comment on that. >> yeah, well i think congressman heck spoke about that as well. the do-nothing option is a terrible option right now. politically speaking, that's tough for democrats. i want to back up for a second and hit to something zerlina talked about, the game of chess. the game of chess continues and this is unfortunate for the american people. as you know, i've been on the show many times talking about how i have been so concerned to this president and ties to russia. i remain a republican because i thought my party was better than this. i thought more people in the republican party would be concerned about this president's actions and in the past 36 hours, my conversations have given me no hope that trump acans can see this for what it is and this is a president consumed with his own political power to the point he's willing to put his personal interest far and above the american people's interest. the problem though remains what

we're in at the moment is hyper partisanship. the democrats, what their next move in and investigation we're about to enter will cloud the minds of republicans and allow them to get further and further, deeper in bed with trump and his cronies. they're going to continue to make accusations of the people trump surrounded himself with instead of about trump himself and continue the what about ism that frustrates me so much. clinton lied to, comparisons to watergate. but this is worse than watergate. >> rick, is this worse than watergate? >> it's -- it's pretty close. look, it's way worse than anything clinton was indicted for -- impeached for. but it's -- the obstruction is pretty blatant. the report details all of the efforts to obstruct justice. and there's a lot of talk about an underlying crime. i think meadows and jordan tried to spin this, and jordan may hit

meadows in the face, if he doesn't, there's no crime but if he attempted to and moved and game a false report to a police officer, that would be a crime. i think their analogies are flawed. the president clearly obstructed justice. mueller did not want to indict him for them. the congress now deserves to see the entire report plus the underlying investigation to determine for themselves as it appears, until we hear from mueller, as it appears mueller intended from the very beginning. >> great chat, guys. thank you so much. have a great weekend. if you have not heard the revelations in the mueller report about wikileaks in the trump campaign, you will want to hear from my next guest. he is cited a number of times in the just-released document. billions of mouths.

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wikileaks. it's not my thing. wikileaks, i love wikileaks! wikileaks! wikileaks, wikileaks! wikileaks, did you see what came out over wikileaks? this wikileaks is like a treasure trove. >> not his thing. so it was revealed wikileaks information stole by russia in 2016, the report saying, quote, the campaign expected it would benefit electorally through

information stolen and released through russian efforts. according to rick bates, the president told him more releases of damaging information would be coming. joining me now is mike attish cough, from yahoo! news and author of "russian roulette" and the election of donald trump. thank you for joining me. >> thank you for having me. >> you covered this wikileaks aspect. is there something that gets revealed that you did not expect from this report? and is a lot of what you reported confirmed here? >> yes, yes. the details that you just highlighted there were a surprise because they went beyond what we had known before, although it was suggested in the roger stone indictment there was a great deal of interest from the trump campaign in what the wikileaks disclosures were. there's references to somebody

senior in the trump campaign reaching out to roger stone to find out what would be in the wikileaks disclosures and now we learned pretty much that directive was coming and started with the president himself, that then-candidate trump was intensely interested in finding out what wikileaks was going to be releasing. in fact, there is even testimony from paul manafort that there was a whole strategy the campaign was developing about how to use and exploit whatever wikileaks was going to expose. >> why does it matter that the president knew about potential releases in advance? >> it's not in and of itself a crime because the criminal act was the theft of the dnc emails by russian intelligence, which were then provided to wikileaks. the broader way of looking at this is, this was all a russian intelligence operation and that they were -- and that the

president and candidate trump, was a part of it. that he was receptive to it. that he was trying to enhance the russian intelligence operation to interfere in the election. whether you can make a -- it's not clear you can make a criminal case about that, but in terms of the taking a look at the whole picture of what was happening during the 2016 election, it's a pretty damning portrait of what the president was doing. >> that redaction that follows gates' claim about wikileaks, is that an ongoing investigation related to wikileaks? >> i assume it's related to the upcoming roger stone trial, this is evidence that would be presented by the government in the roger stone trial. >> that makes sense. so beyond covering the wikileaks and angle, you wrote a met discussing carter page's discussions with russian officials. this was cited in the mueller report. did you know you would be in the mueller report?

the nature of your mention, did that surprise you? >> i didn't know what to expect from the mueller report so it was interesting to see it there. it was the first story to suggest, to report that there was an ongoing investigation to someone related to the trump campaign during the 2016 election. it was noteworthy for that reason alone. the carter page matter was one of the initial items that the fbi was investigating as part of its counterintelligence investigation because, as you know, alex, he had been on the fbi's radar screen before. he had contacts with russian intelligence operatives, made a trip to moscow in july 2016 after being named as part of the foreign policy advisory board of candidate trump, and one of the things the report makes clear -- and this is very interesting, that invitation to moscow came

about because of his role in the trump campaign. that is what put them -- put page -- that's what led to the invitation from that trip to moscow where he did have discussions with russian officials. >> another place of michael isikoff prominence, if you will, the reference to wikileaks in 2016 in the stile dossier, that was also mentioned in the mueller report, but did you find the conclusions about the steele dossier in the mueller report to your satisfaction or do you think there are still a lot of unanswered questions? >> yes, there are clearly a lot of unanswered questions. there was one of the sensational allegations in the steele dossier that's addressed directly and that is michael cohen, the claim he went to moscow and met with russian officials about paying off hackers and the report definitively states that's not true. that cohen did not go to prague at the time that that meeting was supposed to have taken place. look, i think there's still a

lot more we need to learn but more and more the stooeele dossr made a lot of claims that didn't pan out and people have to start recognizing that. although it got a lot of people excited, it set expectations very high and it made a lot of sensational allegations that here we are more than two years later just either have been disproven as in that case or remain unproven and remain unproven. >> i'm always excited to talk to you mike isikoff. see me soon. >> any time. and he set up the trump campaign and he was there when it happened. that's the next hour. (mom vo) it's easy to shrink into your own little world.

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2020 presidential contenders are out in force this weekend. senator cory booker in nevada, representative tim ryan in iowa, be senator kamala harris in south carolina and senator elizabeth warren as well as mayor pete buttigieg in new hampshire. so let's go to plymouth, new hampshire, now. nbc's josh lederman is following him for us, as in mayor pete. so what is mayor pete saying about the mueller report news? >> hey, alex.

what pete buttigieg is saying is that the mueller report shows a pattern of corruption as well as behavior that borders on illegality but he doesn't think it will change much politically which is why i thinks it's important to elect someone other than trump at the ballot box. but i want to show you how touch pete buttigieg is going on william barr, the attorney general who wrote the letter summarizing for congress. let's watch. >> it's almost as if he didn't think anybody was going to read it. i mean, the characterizations he made were so out of whack with what is on the page, it's mystifying to me because people have google and they're not stupid. but he put himself in this incredibly bad position behaving forelike the president's lawyer and not the attorney general. it raises concern about if his true loyalty is to the president or constitution. if you were ever asking me for

advice, which he won't, i would ask him to step aside. >> and when asked if there should be impeachment proceedings against the president, which elizabeth warren is calling for, he's not willing to go quite that far yet but he said if congress moves in that direction, there would be plenty of evidence for impeachment. alex? >> and we have helene cast-- ju castro calling for it as well. two 2020 candidates say confirmation of the mueller report are enough to start impeachment proceedings, including elizabeth warren. but house speaker nancy pelosi and several other democrats are saying not so fast. >> what i think we need to do is take some time to let settle in the seriousness of what mueller set out in almost the dozen acts or courses of conduct that could amount to obstruction of justice and determine what the right

course is. >> joining me now emanuel cleaver. thank you for joining us on this saturday. what is your take on whether the white house should start impeachment proceedings? how do you feel? >> i think we have to be careful talking about contemplating the undoing of an election. the american public made a choice, albeit bad choice from my per spspective. but it's important for us to understand, from my vantage point at least, i would rather defeat donald trump. he was appointed to the presidency on november 3rd, 2016, and my goal would be to disappoint him from the presidency on november 3, 2020. and for those who want to impeach, we already are badly divided nation. the impeachment effort is only

going to divide us further. let's go to the american public and tell them we have an opportunity to re-elect a cleptio crat or democrat. i think the majority of the american public will go for a democrat. >> perhaps democrats choose not to go down the impeachment route, is ak accepted precedent being set for presidential behavior? >> that's the bad part. to be sure -- and no one's supposed to be above the law, but i think we take -- first of all, the house may -- may, it's not even certain, may have enough votes for impeachment. the conviction has to take place in the senate. and as you know, there's only been one senator with the courage to stand up on the republican side and condemn what has become a comedic white house, an inept white house who

cannot even get obstruction right. so with only one republican willing to say that, it means we won't have a conviction. and donald trump will go out on the campaign trail, he's accustom to not telling the truth, so he will say look, i've been found to have commit nod crimes. the senate has already cleared me and voted for me again. i think we're given the republicans an opportunity to put him back in. for many of them, even those who come to us behind the scenes and talk about how inept he is, at least they will have someone from their own flavor in office and it's power over anything else. >> may i ask before you let you go, sir, on this holiday weekend, being a member of the house financial services committee, which already subpoenaed the president several times for tax records, what is

hoped to have answered by digging into the president's finances? >> first of all, mueller could not do that or chose not to do that because he had a very narrowly tailored path of investigation. so we got to find out if there is something in the president's finances that causes him to want to sing love songs to a murdererous dictator, president putin of russia. we don't know where his loyalty lies. and my position is on a holy weekend, the bible would say if you show me where your money is, i'll show you what you believe in. and that's what we need to find out from the president. >> congress emanuel cleavers, sir, have a great holiday weekend and thank you so much for spending part of it with me. coming up, clues to the redactions in the mueller report and if they can change the substance of what we already know. nce of what we already know through the at&t network, edge-to-edge intelligence gives you the power to see every corner of your growing business.

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while the mueller report answers questions surrounding obstruction and russian interference, new questions emerge after substantial portions were left redacted. a new analysis by "the washington post" highlights that from the 448-page report, there were 900 redactions overall. joining us now is a reporter from "the washington post," david fahrenthold. welcome back to the broadcast. can you tell me what this means for the president? should the president be

concerned? likely the president and his family face legal peril in another district? these redactions, are they about things that have been booted to the sdny? >> there were a lot of reasons things were redacted and one is language to an ongoing matter. people would be harm fundamental they knew what was under the redactions. that could mean roger stone, an ongoing case or something to do with president trump. i think there were supposedly 14 referrals made by the mueller team's other law enforcement authorities we only know about two or three of them. it's possible that means a continuing investigation of the southern district of new york into trump's finances, into his dealings with michael cohen that might implicate campaign finance violations. but we don't know enough to know what they really mean for him. we know the investigations are going on but we don't know how much they will affect his

presidency. >> i want to get an educated guesstimate from you because there's something still missing from this report, it's what the president and vladimir putin discussed behind closed doors during their one-on-one meetings, i believe they had five. is the possible the answer to this question is behind one of those thick black lines that have been redacted or passed on to another d.a.'s office? or do you think it's that is never going to become public? >> i don't think it's never going to become public. i think it's too early to rule that out. there were other people there, russians there, interpreters there. we don't know what was said in those conversations, at least i don't, the american public doesn't. but i don't think mueller saw uncovering that as part of his mandate. so i don't think that sort of thing is among the redactions in the mueller report. it's usually important to know what the president talked to a foreign adversary about, especially a foreign adversary that helped trump get elected. but we don't know and i don't

think mueller made it his business to find out. >> what about the redactions with wikileaks. >> certainly, julian assange, the head of wikileaks was hauled out of the ecuadorian embassy in london and facing charges in the u.s. it's possible to find out more there and roger stone, somebody who has been reportedly in contact with wikileaks during the 2016, could learn about wikileaks from the stone case and assange case when he's brought to the u.s. >> before i let you go, i want it ask you about your latest article on the president's lack of recollection to mueller's questions. you say there were at least 37 instances where the president responding either he can't recall or i don't know. what can you tell us about the president's history with this excuse? it's my recollection he said he's got one of the best memories ever. >> he's said that a number of times, he's got one of the best memories in the world. but if you look at times trump faces a situation where it's convenient to forget, where

forgetting would solve some of his problems, he forgets. i don't recall the details of meeting. one time he said he didn't recall saying he one of the world's greatest memories. that's a valuable legal strategy, if it's true, he did forget, that's the right thing to say f it's not true, and i have talked to some defense attorneys, what do you do then? he's not somebody who keeps notes or emails or keep a paper trail, how are you going to say you're lying about your own mind? >> and he doesn't like lawyers to keep a paper trail. but that's another conversation for down the road. thank you and happy holidays. >> you too. >> you too from any one else. so why accept it from your allergy pills? most pills don't finish the job because they don't relieve nasal congestion. flonase allergy relief is different. flonase relieves sneezing, itchy, watery eyes and a runny nose, plus nasal congestion, which pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances.

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serious allergic reactions may occur. see me now. i'm still clear. how sexy are these elbows? get clear skin that can last. ask your dermatologist about cosentyx. mueller report do not paint a very flattering picture of the trump administration. anecdotes about low morale in the white house has been surfacing since the president took office, in fact. one anonymous source going public last summer with an inside account of what it's like to work for the president. joining me now is a woman with firsthand experience working for the president. barbara russ is former vice

president of the trump organization and she wrote a book, all alone on the 28th floor how one woman changed the face of construction, in part about her time there. barbara, welcome to you. you know this president very well. tell me what you think in the mueller report would really be getting under his skin? >> i thought about that. my instance with 245, whthat wa admitted he was f'd. i have never heard him say that. and that his presidency was over, i don't think he would want people to know he said that. >> how often had the president asked his aides to carry out something uncomfortable for them and, listen, potentially illegal as well? did that surprise you? in your experience with him, is that unique to the white house

or is that part of his m.o.? >> i think he's evolved over time but it's quite familiar to me, to be honest with you. asking people to do things they shouldn't think they should do. not so much illegal stuff, there might have been a little bit of illegal, but not like this. things like get rid of this architect or do this kind of thing or don't pay this guy, whatever, that kind of thing, that people didn't want to do. that was wrong. back then we got away with not doing things. >> how? >> when you are told to do something wrong, there are a couple of things you can do. first would be try to talk him out of it. and then that generally didn't work. so the best thing to do always was make him think the right thing to do was his idea so sort of move him into the right thing. and then the last thing is not to do it and put up with the consequences. once in a while we did do what he said and knowing we would do damage control down the road.

>> how impetuous of a man is he? does he think through things and then say what he believes or direct his employees or those in his administration to do his bidding? >> i would say if it's something he just heard and reacts to it, he's extremely impetuous. wants to do it and now. >> damn the consequences? >> he didn't think there will be consequences. he truly believes every decision he make is the right one and he knows everything. if he says do something, it's got to be the right thing to do. >> if you proved he didn't know anything or in a certain case was wrong, how does that go over? >> not well. not well. >> like what? >> you don't want to tell him he was wrong. there are times he knows he's wrong -- >> does he admit it? >> no, he doesn't. one time he admitted something to me and we crossed a line with each other arguing but i have never heard him say he was wrong

but he will say, this is better or something like that. >> how concerned are you that those people who prevented the president, according to the mueller report, from actually having the kind of criminal charges against him for obstruction of justice, people who did not do his bidding because of what he was asking them to do was illegal. how concerned are you those people are not there around him? >> some are not there because they didn't do what he said. others we others are not there because when he said it in the beginning he would fall back and become a sycophant. i was surprised, to be honest with you, he had the courage not to do what trump told him to do. >> and can i ask you, lastly, and we mentioned this the makeup room, how did you feel when you learned the man you previously had worked for was elected preds of the united states? >> i was devastated to be honest with you. i thought it was the worst thing

that could happen to our country. >> and why? >> he totally isn't qualified. he came out of -- not out of nowhere, we knew who he was but in terms of politically came out of nowhere. he was never a governor or mayor or anything like that. to be honest with you, the way he acts, he didn't even take civics. >> cure saying he's not qualified for political reason, does that mean he's qualified to run trump, inc.? >> it's an interesting thing. there are pluses and minuses with the company. it's not all that successful to be honest with you. there are a lot of bankruptcies. and he also got lucky with a lot of things. he's got a lot of partners. if you look close, he's no genius businessman. he did do good things. trump tower is a great thing, work on the highway and maybe buildings but not so much anymore. but he's got that licensing thing and that was genius. >> barbara, great to talk to you. thank you so much for your insights. >> my pleasure.

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good day, everyone, from msnbc world headquarters in new york, welcome to "weekends with alex witt." developing this hour, key player in the mueller report, former counsel dawn mcgann, is breaking his silence. mcghan told investigators the president directed him to have a

special counselor fired but did not follow through on it. he wrote in part, it's a mystery why rudy giuliani feels the need to relitigate instances the toerlg and deputy attorney general concluded with were not obstruction but they were accurately described in the report. mcghan is reportedly the person the white house worried most about as during his more than 30 hours of cooperation. >> even if it's true, those are not. those are not like real orders. i will tell you, when he wants to fire somebody, ask jim comey if he can fire somebody. yes, he ruminated, yes, he got angry, yes, he got upset but after a while you realize those messages were never delivered and there's a pattern there. the pattern is he didn't mean them to be delivered. >> meanwhile, a lingering question for democrats, impeach or not to impeach? >> here we are 36 hours later and evidently all of my friends are speed readers.

i'm not quite through all 448 pages. i recommend not just colleagues in the house read it but every american read it. we have the sheet music and we never heard the song. the only way we're bog to hear the song is if we hear it from bob mueller himself. >> and this morning we ask the only house democrat representing kentucky if he supports pursuing impeachment. >> i think we're on a path that could lead to impeachment but we're doing everything we need to do. there's nothing in my calculation to say the president has committed impeachable offenses, i don't think there's any question about that. >> his campaign raised $1 million before the report and now the ratings dropping by three points after the release of the report. kelly o'donnell is with us from west palm beach, florida.

very nice weekend for the president at the golf resort but you have to think he has a lot on his mind. >> the white house tries to emphasize ways he's working, phone calls he's making, meetings he's having. this being a holiday weekend they're not doing that and maybe conveying a different sort of feeling by releasing through the official white house chain some of the photos of the president golfing with lexi thompson, professional women's golfer, rush limbaugh, his friend, member of his club here in west palm beach. trying perhaps to show the president laughing and enjoying himself, a real departure of the tone of the tweets we've seen from president trump, who used his twitter feed to retweet and write his own tweets attacking the investigation, undercutting the nature of the investigation, its origins and so forth, while at the same time, alex, embracing its final conclusion

that whatever incidents are written about in such detail did not rise to a criminal prosecution of the president or those closest around him on matters of collusion or conspiracy or obstruction of the justice, notlevel. so the president is raging against that saying mueller himself was highly conflicted and pointing out this was nastily written. that gives you an idea what was on the president's mind, although the photos released by the white house, not taken by journalists, certainly show him resting and relaxing and enjoying a holiday weekend. alex? >> always bringing us the full story, my friend. thank you very much, kelly, for that. joining me author of power app newsletter forbe "the washington post" and jacqueline, we welcome you. the headline from your newsletter releases "mueller's report schachters alternative white house universe." give me the make takeaways in

your views. >> yes, that is a rip on kellyanne conway's alternative facts statement, which i think is to say the mueller report did a great job of corroborating a lot of fantastic reporting of my colleagues at the post and "the times" over the past several hundr hundred days. i think it's important as the president tries to continue to cast out the mueller's report that the investigation is based off of the con temporary anus memos with his own staff. this isn't a deep state conspiracy or fake news. these are a lot of details and scenarios described in depth by some of those closest allies. and so the range of falsehoods that are really pointed out coming as -- as coming from the white house in mueller's report range from little white lies

like the president, the white house pretending the president wasn't as all upset about the news he would have a special counsel investigation. obviously, his expletive, he said his presidency was, you know, screwed. and two big lies like sarah huckabee sanders claiming they fired comey because there was a lot of discontent within the fbi with comey and they actually did not like him. i think what this does is it really cuts through against false hordes the white house consistently peddled and people should think of this going forward in terms of taking the white house at their word. >> right, but ironically the president told lester holt, my colleague in that interview exactly why he fired james comey. so there's that. john, is there anything that's not included in that report that you think is noteworthy? >> yes. first of all, i would like to thank jamie for sparing us the

actual word the president spoke because they are not suitable for family viewing. >> no. although we did print it in "the post," front page. >> i think other outlets printed it too. look, i think the issue that remains unresolved and we don't know where this information resides or whether it's been compiled into a report yet, the intelligence committee will search it is the counterintelligence portion of the investigation that's been going on for a couple of years. that is to say the assessment not of women, a conspiracy crime committed, mueller says there there was not, or he lacked evidence that there was, why was rush trying to help elect donald trump in the first place? why did they consider donald trump a friendly politician in relation to their interest? why has donald trump considered vladimir putin an ally? he praised him throughout the

campaign. he has behaved strangely with respect to putin and putin's representatives, having them in the oval office after he fired jim comey saying the pressure is off and weird conduct that is a summit in helsinki with vladimir putin. it's been a very odd situation, even back to when he the miss universe pageant in moscow and tweeted out will vladimir putin be my best friend? why do they think of themselves as friends or allies? that's what we don't know. it could relate back to financial ties against the president and russians who put money into his businesses. we just don't know the answer. there's a lot of speculation but that's the part i want to know more about. i think adam schiff and the intelligence committee will do their best to get this. >> and it's extraordinary why he would want to work with him specifically. he never had been a politician or held office before.

being a politician or trying to legislate is a lot different than trying to run a company. >> alex, from the very beginning of the campaign, he cast doubt on u.s. sanctions, lashed out at those who had been imposed for their seizure of crimea. and you had the part after the campaign with suspicious activity with michael flynn, his security adviser, talking to the russians about sanctions, and everybody lied about it. and everybody lied about the business transaction the president was pursuing with russia during the campaign. we don't have explanations for those lies. >> okay. theres another battle shaping up. i want to start with you, jackie, on this one, how judiciary committee jerry nadler issued subpoena for the whole unredacted mueller report. and here's what hogan gidley said about that. >> when does this stop?

if we give him the unredacted report, tax returns unredacted, he would want something else. we're not dealing with jerry nadler. we've cooperated so much with the house democrats and will continue to do so but the fact is this is just more political grandstanding. >> i was wondering if they did give him the full unredacted report and tax returns what more they would want to ask for, but is there any political risk of subpoenaing this unredacted report? we believe william barr said he would offer them. does hogan have a point here? >> i do think arguments of transparency is always a winning one. right now the democrats have not come together and put forward a really salient message. so you can't go wrong with sunlight. i think that's something that democrats realize, especially as this stark divide is that is potentially more consequential decision, which is whether or not democrats are going to impeach the president.

but hogan is right, this will go on a bit longer with regards to subpoenaing the report for the nonredacted one to be more widely zri widely distributed and attorney general barr and potentially mueller going to testify on the hill. again, i think he was really smart when he said i'm in no rush. i talked to a number of staffers friday to talk about their plans for reading the report -- on thursday, i'm sorry, and a lot of them were complaining, look, we're not in a rush here. we need to digest this and come up as a party with a message back. the party has initiated a lot of protracted legal battles as it relates to trump and things will start to look a little politically messy if they don't come together with one coherent message. >> john, don mcgahn's lawyer putting up that statement, what do you think the catalyst was for that? why do you feel he had the need to speak out?

>> because don mcgahn was beginning to be trashed by both the president and rudy giuliani. obviously, don mcgahn did the president a favor by preventing him from firing robert mueller and that could have triggered an obstruction investigation that would have resulted in even a stronger report than robert mueller filed. ultimately though, of course, this is a matter for the congress to decide as robert mueller laid out in his report. but, you know, don mcgahn is somebody who as conservative as he is, operates in the reality-based world of facts and truth. and he had the president thinking like he was roy cohn, who was a mob lawyer, who the president said great lawyers don't take notes. why are you taking notes? you take notes when you deal

with donald trump because you're very liable to get yourself in trouble if you don't document what's happened. the president doesn't like it. he's turned on trump and we saw in the report after don mcgahn refused to recant a truthful rks of what happened with himp the president, the president called him a lying -- i won't say the word. but the point is the president doesn't deal in truth, don mcgahn does. and he was getting attacked for that and decided to stand up for himself. >> don mcgahn had a great line in the report, i'm a real lawyer. there you go. great to see you both. have a great holiday weekend. >> you too, alex. now the 2020 contenders reacting to the release of the mueller report. here it is. >> first i want to hear from bob mueller. >> i think it would be perfectly reasonable for congress to open up those proceedings. >> it certainly is the case you can see a lot of evidence this president deserves to be

impeached. >> it is about what a president of the united states should be able to do and what the role of congress is. >> that's some of the candidates and nbc's von hilliard is also getting reaction from voters. he's in south carolina following the presidential campaign. what are you hearing out there? by the way, good to see you, welcome. >> good to see you too, alex. in conversations with my colleagues across the country, i was in iowa yesterday in council bluffs, western part of the state and we are now here in south carolina. what we're getting the sense is the white house having a reckoning of what the mueller report findings essentially were, essentially what you have is 18 months out from the morph 2020 election, you have this coming to a head. you have those pro-supported the president of the united states, continued to defend him and be in the corner, well acknowledging what the findings were, and you also have democratic voters that are

frustrated and they're calling for impeachment proceedings and calling for essentially that reckoning the white house has yet to come to with itself. i want to introduce you to two voters who i think represent that divide from what we heard. >> i do think the american people are owed a reasonable expectation and overview of all of the findings in the report. >> if you're investigating, i would think you would -- not lie but slow it down. he was real nervous to start with but if he didn't do anything and the truth comes to light, you know, i'm good with it. >> alex , that sort of divide i playing in communities like this in holly hill, south carolina. kamala harris, we will be teaming up with her in a couple of hours. she campaigning at a church down the road. mayor pete buttigieg, elizabeth warren in new hampshire, cory booker in nevada, tim ryan in

iowa. and what the voters are saying and in bipartisan agreement here is they want the focus to go elsewhere. because people talked about infrastructure, they talked about health care and education. democrats and republicans, those that support the president and those that do not at the same time because there is yet to be that reckoning in the white house, what we have is essentially this is very much a part of the conversation taking place, despite everybody wanting to at the same time move on, alex. >> all right, vaughn. before i let you go, is that a piggly wiggly you're standing outside of? >> we're at a piggly wiggly, alex, of course we are. >> i love piggly wiggly. >> good read. >> my team saw that. i had to smile. great name. vaughn, thank you so much. new revelations are emerging from the mueller report about don jr. in that infamous trump tower meeting that could raise more questions about how don jr. could escape prosecution. in a moment, are the man who set

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up. there was some puffery to the email, perhaps to make it happen. in the end there was probably bait and switch about what it was really supposed to be about. in retrospect, i probably would have done things differently. this was before russia mania and building up in the press. for me this was opposition

research. >> new revelations in the special counsel's report on why donald trump jr. met with russians to discuss hillary clinton's emails. joining me now publicist rob goldstone, who was at the meeting. rob, you just heard don jr. make a couple of statements there. what's your reaction to what he said? >> i'm sure he would in hindsight do things differently. i have publicly when they said what do you regret, and i said two things, sending the email in the first place. and second, this is really important, naming hillary clinton. it's important to information the information i had been told was there was about funding to the democrats and its candidate. inserted hillary's name because she was the candidate but if that candidate had been you or joe biden or bernie sanders, that name would have been in there. i think because how i wrote it, it made it seem hillary personally had dong something

wrong. >> hindsight being 2020, i'm sure you replayed it a million and one times. >> yes. >> before i get to the mueller report, you were in the room when it happened. i have been setting this up that way. you were there june 2016. what stands out to you about that meeting? >> if somebody held a gun to my head and said, give us one word, the takeaway from that meeting, it would have been adoption. the reason is stood out is because it made no sense. when the russian lawyer started talking about adoptions, i actually thought -- it was almost as if i was having an out-of-body experience, am i listening or half-listening to a meeting about adoption? what people don't understand, and it's right maybe a lot of people would because i had to learn about this, i never heard of the magnitsky act. i never heard of magnitsky or the act. but adoption was a huge part of that, as i would come to learn. it's the sanction russia put in place to kind of punish america for implementing the magnitsky act.

so it's wrong for people to dismiss it as it's lies, they just made up something about adoption. that was the takeaway from it. >> as you think back on that meeting and probably parse it over a number of times in your head, was there anything you think -- were there messages being delivered? was there anything subliminal, sub tr sub traa fruj that you could take away? >> i described it at the time, it's public record now, i described it as sense. i'm not political, i don't have a political brain but i had been a journalist and publicist for years and i would like to think i'm not stupid. i sat in and i said i thought what jared kushner articulated, he was sitting next to me and said to natalia, i have no idea what you're talking about. and i remember thinking thank god you said that because i was

like what is she talking about? because at the time russia wasn't the hot-button topic and people say all the time, ho can you, rob goldstone, let this meeting go ahead, a publicist from england? i look at it like the campaign chairman was in that meeting. so if anybody perhaps should have known better -- and i'm not trying to throw paul manafort under a bus because he's already, as we know, thrown himself under a very large vehicle, but maybe he should have known better. but that was the point of it. it was a meeting that was very short. it appeared to make absolutely no sense, except that hind sight afterwards, it looked like a bait and switch. it looked like somebody who dangled this idea of dirt in order to get a meeting. once they got the meeting, the so-called dirt was too generic. it was about people like the ziff brothers and bill browder donating to the democrats, and

how awful that was, which maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but immediately switched to the subject they wanted to discuss which was magnitsky and adoptions, and that made no sense at the time. >> what was don jr.'s reaction to this when you said this just lack of sense making conversation was going on? he wanted that meeting. he pushed for the meeting because he thought he was getting dirt on hillary clinton. >> i think -- i know why i wrote the email the way i did and i think maybe you alluded to it before, it was a publicist who 3 pupped up something. my client gave me very scant information about what i was to ask for this meeting and as a publicist, i did what i have done a million times before, mainly with entertainment clients, and i puffed it up to get someone's attention. in this case it was don jr. what is often overlooked is i feel the most important line in my email to don jr. was, maybe

it's best if you just speak with amen, my client about this, directly. and when he answered, i take events slightly differently to other people. he answered if it's what you say it is, i love it. i took it as oh, thank goodness for that. he understands, i have no idea what i'm talking about, if it is what you say i love it. and then he went ton say, perhaps you're right, i will just speak with eamonn, my client, about it directly. they did that because i set the call up after which that meeting went from being some random lawyer and don jr., he added in paul manafort and also jared kushner. i also felt something must have been interesting on that call. >> so, look, you mentioned the emails. i want to read a crucial piece of evidence in the email to don jr., which you wrote, quote, the crown prosecutor of russia offered to try trump campaign with official documents and

information that would incriminate hillary and her dealings with russia. this is obviously very high level and sensitive information butt is this part of russia and its government's support for mr. trump and don replies with the famous, i love it. but did you rob have any indication it might not be a good idea to offer campaign help by a foreign government, one that many would consider an adversary? i know you describe yourself as not being critical but did any alarm go off? >> i said at the time to my client eamonn, this isn't a good idea. and the reason i said it, not because alarm bells went off, the reason i said it is because selfishly i thought what my publicist had, we had a quite distance connection but connection nevertheless 20 somebody who may become the presidentst united stat of the if i'm going to ask a favor on behalf of my client, who i

manage and pr, might i add, i would like it to help him. so the answer is it didn't trigger alarm bells. one is i never had a political discussion with my client ever as far as i knew. he knew as little about politics as i did. and i also felt that by adding that line, why don't you two just speak directly to each other, i kind of can wash my hands of it. it may not be a very nice thing to say but that is why i said it. i would never normally suggest a client of mine speak directly to somebody i'm pitching, otherwise why would you have me in the middle? in this case, it was the number one thing i wanted them to do. >> the mueller report, i'm sure you're aware, said you apologized to don jr. i'm curious what you said to him, don, and his response to your apology. >> i said, i hung back and as we left the room i said i have to apologize, and before i could finish, he said i have in idea

what that meeting was about and i used the words, i said it was insane nonsense. and that was it. and i hoped i would never ever have to hear about or speak about this meeting again. i believe i had done the one thing i cautioned my clients about before, which is we didn't know what we were doing and it was a bad idea, and if it was bad in my mind, it meant they would never take a call from me or eamonn, my client again, and woe have ruined the relationship, which i may add, i met donald trump about four, five times and i met don jr. twice. i had been portrayed as everything from their close family friend, actually a member of the family some people said. i met him twice. >> before i let you go, i just want to have you articulate a little bit about how life has been for you the last 35500 day something you discussed in this "the washington post" op-ed you wrote. >> i write on there the day the mueller report came out, i was

able to sleep for the first time. i'm not supggesting i haven't slept for 500 days because even i could look quite good for that, but i slept without a sense of fear. even when you know and you believe and you have been told by people in power fundamentally you have done nothing wrong, for all intents and purposes you can say whatever you want in an email, the investigation is about the potential willingness of the other side to accept this, you still have this fear that hangs over you. i have given testimony on capitol hill. i have given testimony to the mueller inquiry, to the grand jury, all in a voluntary capacity. i have never been subpoenaed. you just have this malaise that kind of hangs over you because the media has had all sorts of conjecture about who i was. and when people are calling you a russian spy, when people are stopping you in the street to scream and vilify you -- and i understand that they're angry at the president and sometimes when

you need to vent, you vent at the closest person you can, which often is me. but i just want to end by saying it was summed to me when i was at an airport in charleston and i was standing and a lady came up to me and pointed and said look, it's donald trump. i just thought wow, it's at that level now the perception is of such. so really my belief was always it would take bob mueller and his report to at least show there was no criminal intent, there was no conspiracy at least on my part. and that russia-gate is a massive jigsaw puzzle with many interlocking pieces, some of which won't fit. i was hopeful mine at least might not fit. >> been a long 500 days for you, rob. i hope you were comfortable with this interview. i very much appreciate your candor. >> pleasure. happy easter, passover or whatever you celebrate. >> same to you. selective memory or

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no. sign up online for free. discover social security alerts. striking new reaction to the mueller report from republican senator mitt romney. in a new tweet he called it good news there was insufficient evidence to charge the president with a crime but he also said he's sickened and appalled by the behavior laid out in the report including the dishonesty

and misdirection by trump administration officials and by the president. joining me is peter emareson, who worked on three democratic administrations, michael singleton, contributing host for "considerate" and the press secretary for trump's 2020 campaign and former spokesman for the rnc and former federal prosecutor nelson cunningham. big welcome to all of you. katie, we will go ladies first with you. is senator romney opening the door for other republicans to voice concerns about the president? >> he opened it but there is not a lot that will follow him. there was no collusion. it was something that had been said two years and it didn't exist. if romney wants to open that door t. will be a lonely walk. he won't have anyone. >> except i want to read you a passage from the mueller report,

which goes as is, here's the quote -- the evidence we obtained about the president's actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from koconclusively concluding that no criminal conduct had occurred. while this does not conclude the president did not commit a crime, it does not exonerate him. that's in correct contradiction so what you just said. do some or any of the president's people recognize he did some things that were at the very least troubling? >> no, because first of all, prosecutors are not in the business of exoneration. proerss are in the business of bringing criminal charges if they think there's probable cause and case to be made. had you the most aggressive prosecutorial team here, andrew weissmann, who's been rebuked by the supreme court, his convictions overturned in one instance, 9-0, a team of democrats and this is what they came up with, no collusion and no enough evidence of obstruction where they couldn't make the decision so they punted to the attorney general who made a decision? if that's all they came up with,

it's a day for the president. he should be celebrating. >> peter, nothing at all troubling here for the president? what's your view on this? >> i'm reading the mueller report now. it's a long document, as you know. i keep hearing richard nixon's voice telling his chief of staff and chief counsel, when they ask you tell them you don't remember, don't recall. lie, lie, lie. those gentlemen all are indicted, convicted, serving time. the president would be indicted and convicted by a jury of his peers if he was not president. there are over 100 documented cases of contacts with rukss. there are over 14 investigations, including national security investigations under way now that we still don't know about and there are also over 9,000 documented lies about the president since he became president. so i would suggest maybe you look, as you did to mueller, who simply said the president's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, which means there were some attempts that were successful. i'm waiting to hear about those. >> so my other republican friend on this panel, shermichael, do

you believe the mueller report makes it clear that the president did a things that were wrong? and if so, do you think he must face baccountability of some sort? >> alex, i think donald trump has not led like a president should. i think in many ways he's ran the white house like a crime boss. i should preface my comments by saying that. but i think katie is honestly correct in her remarks. when you look at the political implications for the president, i think republican voters are going to stand behind him even stronger. i was just reading an oral on "business insider" that galluped showed data shows president trump's approval rating is the same as president obama during this point in his presidency so that should be telling. as we discuss the various legal aspects of this and ongoing investigation, this is all relating to the mueller report politics, all political now. that's why many of the candidates running, why you see speaker pelosi saying let's be

very careful on calling for impeachment. let's continue with what our investigate process, why we were elected last year, be careful because we don't want to find ourselves in a position that could jeopardize the candidates' positions next year. >> to our attorney here, nelson, another aspect of this mueller report is the written answers that the president gave. he answered i don't know or i don't recall some 37 times. should the special counsel have tried more aggressively to interview the president? he said he had legal authority to do so. >> i have no doubt that he should have tried harder to interview the president. look, the anglo-saxon common law tradition, oral testimony and cross-examination is the gold standard for how we get to the truth. ken starr's investigation of the monica lewinsky matter took just eight months, and yet in those eight months, he repeatedly asked for bill clinton's

interview. bill clinton resisted, hesitated to fire off a subpoena and by august of this year, eight short months after the whole matter began, bill clinton spent four hours in front of ken starr's grand jury and the impeachment report came out the following month. there's no doubt in my mind based on clear supreme court pros dent going back to watergate and into the bill clinton era that mueller could have gotten his testimony and he should have gotten his testimony. the written responses, the written questions only dealt with half of this. they only dealt with the russian matter. they did not deal with obstruction of justice because trump's lawyers objected. that is not the way we get answers. and certainly when somebody says i don't recall, there are plenty of ways that a good lawyer can work to refresh somebody's memory or get them boxed into a corner that it's clear when they say i don't recall it's i don't

really want it answer your question. we missed that opportunity. >> let's remind our viewers these were all written responses so there was no one on one in terms of questions and back and forth that way. guys, unfortunately i have to wrap this here. i will welcome all for of you back to the broadcast any time. i appreciate it. ham happy holidays this for whatever you're celebrating this weekend. thank you. william weld, what does he think about impeachment? e you t. take this left. if you listen real hard you can hear the whales. oop. you hear that? (vo) our subaru outback lets us see the world. sometimes in ways we never imagined. you might or joints.hing for your heart... but do you take something for your brain.

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report from president trump's first republican challenging, calming the president a one-man crime wave. joining me now william weld. governor, with a welcome to you, sir. i'll apologize for the brevity of the conversation and we got heavy so you are welcome back any time. and you were part of the staff during watergate and served in the justice department and sow know bob mueller. i'm curious of your biggest takeaway from the mueller report. >> my biggest takeaway is the 180 pages that detail the obstruction of justice by the president are absolutely damning. the report essentially says he's

completely guilting of having endeavored to obstruct justice but we can't charge him because of this internal 2000 memo from the justice department that said you can't charge a sitting president. on the matter of guilty or not guilty, the 180 pages of volume two of the report makes it very, very clear the president instructed senior officials, intelligence officials, national security officials, legal officials to lie. and they didn't. but that doesn't peeb he isn't trying to get them to lie to ward off the investigation. he tried to have the special counsel fired. he tried to have his jurisdiction narrowed. he -- he tried to have the attorney general unrecuse himself and said all investigations are only about future obstruction of justice and nothing in the past. >> that couldn't be clearer. and i think, by the way, that it is improper to rely on the internal justice department memorandum. the constitution said up top, article one, section 3, the

president remained liable to indictment, prosecution and judgment after leaving ofls and if the president could get re-elected he could serve throughout the period of the statute of limitations and never be prosecuted and that would be contrary to the plain language of the constitution. >> now, governor, you're talking about out of office. but i quoted you earlier as calling the president a one-man crime wave and yet you're against impeachment. what is your reasoning behind that? >> my think being impeachment is political. it is not based on the law. i just think with the republicans controlling the senate and the requirement of 67 or a majority of the members of present in the senate to convict and remove a president, it is very unlikely that is going to happen. so politically, i think there is risk that democrats could wind up if they proceed look like overzealous prosecutors and the president was -- was made to hound him from office because i think it is unlikely woe be removed from office.

so that is impeachment. but on the other one, i think the evidence was pretty darn clear in the mueller report that he was in fact guilty of obstruction of justice but the prosecutors said up top, we're not going to make a traditional prosecution judgment and i think he got given a mulligan, that is a term the president will understand. >> governor, again, my apology for the brevity. i want to talk about your presidential candid assy. and joe biden will enter the race as a democrat front-runner but does he have an achilles he'll? that's ahead. achilles he'll? that's ahead

we're approaching the top of the hour and i'm at the end of my time but kendis gibson has a great big show. >> yes, we do. good day. i'm kendis gibson here at nbc headquarters in new york. and it is a holiday weekend. if you thought the president was taking time off twitter, he's not. this morning he ramped up the no collusion, no obstruction tweets and even a video. but have americans had enough. the new poll numbers released after the mueller report with the president's approval numbers taking a big hit. how low can he go? well it is the lowest he's been all year long. and in the meantime democrats have issued a subpoena for the unredacted version of the report. r