"hardball" with chris matthews starts right now. flunking the barr exam. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in philadelphia where the u.s. constitution was written. tonight america is dangerously close to a constitutional crisis as president trump tightens his grip on power and continues to strong arm the congress. attorney general william barr who justified president trump's misconduct called off his appearance today and continued to resist the call for the un redacted mueller report. gerald nadler presiding and warned that the trump administration's defiance of congress has dangerous implications for the country.

>> the attorney general must make a choice. every one of us must make the same choice. that choice is now an obligation of our office. the choice is simple. we can stand up to this president in defense of the country and the constitution and the liberty we love or let the moment pass us by. i do not -- we have seen in other countries what happens when you allow such moments to pass by. i don't know what he will choose. i don't know that my republicans will choose, but i am certain that there is no way forward for this country that does not include a reckoning with this clear and present danger to our constitutional order. >> moments after the hearingend ed, the white house leaked. the-page letter delivered to the attorney general on april 19th, one day after the mueller report went public, highly criticized

the mueller report itself. they wrote the special counsel office released a prosecution curiosity. part truth commission and part law school exam paper. he added that the refusal to exonerate the president was political and he said it can be understood only as political statements issuing from persons who in our system of government are expected to never be political. additionally, trump's lawyers signalled that the president would move to prevent aides and officials from testifying before congress. william barr's refusal to appear is an escalation of tensions between a white house that sees itself free to roll unimpede and a congress trying to wrestle back the mandated supports to serve as a check on executive misconduct. nancy pelosi who has so far resisted calls for impeachment

from the democratic caucus accused accused the attorney general of perjuring himself. >> did the attorney general commit a crime? >> he lied to congress. nobody is above the law. not the president of the united states and not the attorney general. that does not give you a bath to say whatever you want. it is the fact because you are the attorney general. >> should he go to jail for it? >> there is a process involved. >> tonight nbc news is reporting that the house judiciary bypassed william barr and is discussing mueller's testimony, though nothing has been finalized yet. madeline dean and a member of the house judiciary committee.

thank you for joining us tonight. it's moment us. i get the sense that congress has weapons at its disposal. has congress been a paper tiger. you can't get subpoenas honored and scare people with contempt of congress. are you disarmed against the attorney skbrgeneral and the president? >> not at all. this was a terribly important day where we gavelled into the judiciary hearing to an empty chair and mr. barr not showing. his refusal to come with us under the rules of our committee show that he along with the spt t president is trying to obstruct. into getting the facts of the mueller report before the people. what i thought as i sat there this morning was that empty chair was symbolic of a few

things. it's really that we don't need to know much more about the mueller report. we need to know about barr and his own behavior. his own behavior, lying to congress, claiming there was no communication from mueller about mueller's concerns about the miscommunications and misperceptions of the report and the full summary, it showed me we have taken a turn. we need robert mueller in front of us and that's what the special counsel regulations give us the opportunity to do. even though mueller is an employee of the department of justice, there is a special out that the regulations allow him to come to congress. we are far from a paper tiger zeechlt a. we have all kinds of opportunities to hold in contempt and anybody else who fails to follow legally drawn subpoenas. we have all the levers at our hand. >> congresswoman, what have you

been able to get done so far to get the truth from this administration from mr. barr who wouldn't give you his notes. he said rather dramatically, i'm not going to give you my notes even. >> barr is not an honest broker of information. it is mueller we need to talk to. he has shown extraordinary restraint and credibility and abides by the law and refuses to get involved in leaks or gossip. when mueller writes that this report and the way barr handled this report gives him grave concern because he's creating public confusion. imagine that. this man swore to uphold the oath of the independence of an attorney general's office and he is creating public confusion, offering this president cover, saying things foolishly like no collusion and allowing the president to skip past. most damaging is the public

constitution fusion. mueller warned us of that and is less important. what barr is responsible for is his own behavior and his lying to think and why is he offering cover to this president and not upholding his oath of office. he is now responsible for that. >> speaker pelosi accused barr of lying to congress. her comments appear to refer to questions given during his testimony last month. take a look. >> reports have emerged recently, general, that members of the special couple's team are frustrated at some level with the limited will information included in your march 24th letter, that it does not adequately or accurately necessarily portray the report's findings. do you know what they are referencing? >> no, i don't. i think, i suspect that they probably wanted more put out, but in my view, i was not

interested in putting out summaries. >> i just got it confirmed from the speaker's office that that is what the speaker means when he lied. he denied getting any communication from the special counsel's office when he got a very direct communication, a letter from the special counsel himself. that was a direct lie. on tuesday, we learned that mueller had written a letter to barr, objecting to his interpretation of the report. here's the thing that gets me. the reason i was tough with the congresswoman and i will be tough with everybody. i hear the outrage including the gentle woman from montgomery county, pennsylvania. i believe in the virtue of her arguments. if you listen to mr. barr, the president cannot be indicted and should not be accused if he is not. the special counsel has no role in delivering information for use of impeachment and besides,

the president is incapable of obstruction of justice because he is all-powerful. by his measure, this president is above the law and he's going operate in that fashion. >> yeah, i think barr has not recognized what the law will do to those arguments. it's very clear when the attorney general or when others are going to try to challenge the congressional subpoenas in court, the courts have a long record of siding with congress. it is well established law and he will find himself in defiance of a court order. not one branch of government, but two. you have to ask. is he being at all faithful to the oath he swore to defend the constitution? >> do you believe that the u.s. courts -- go ahead, congresswoman. >> there is one piece that you are missing and maybe you read this very interesting op-ed by neal katyal who was the drafter of the special counsel

regulations. what he says is, there is one thing we have left. it is not all within the administration or the attorney general. he called it a break the glass emergency relief measure. that is that mueller has the ability to come directly to congress not by way of the attorney general and report to us. that's the break the glass measure provided in the report and that's why the same author said he believes the system is working. however slowly, to get to justice. >> that's in our report tonight, congresswoman. the house judiciary committee under jerry nadler, the chairman, is working with mueller's team to get him of his own volition to testify. do you understand the law whether the administration or the president could stop him if he chose to come? >> i take the author at his word. he tells us very, very clearly that the president and the

attorney general, barr and trump cannot stop him. mueller has every right to come to us. he has an eagerness to disclose the full substance of his report and the work of a team over 22 months. looking at obstruction of justice by a president and russian interference in our elections. i believe we will negotiate well and mr. mueller will come. >> it's your assessment between the house democrats led by the judiciary and a contest with the attorney general and the white house lawyers working for trump. >> first of all, the president long searched for an attorney general who will be loyal to him & found somebody willing to put his reputation on the line and using his language, talking about no collusion and parsing words and splitting hairs to try to make sure he can do whatever he can to protect the president.

the president is very pleased with william barr's testimony and pleased with his actions today. you think now we move on to the idea that the house judiciary committee is looking forward to robert mueller testifying. the letter emmet flood sent to barr after he read the mueller report. he was worried about a road map to congress. what you see is the white house even if the president is saying he was exonerated. the white house read that and was worried robert mueller was going to be able to work with the committees and try to move forward with the investigation. it's going to be interesting when robert mueller comes to congress and say here's what i was thinking. obstruction of justice volume two. muls muls is talking about the concerns he had when william barr was setting the narrative. robert mueller had issues with the media coverage.

the letter speaks for himself. he did not mention cnn or any net works. they have issues with the way you are creating public confusion. >> one last question in this segment. we know the president according to the office of legal counsel, you are not supposed to indict a president and if you can't indiz, you can't accuse him. that leaves only one access to justice. impeachment. now we are hearing from the president's lawyer, emmet flood, the special counsel has no right to offer a road map for impeachment. in other words, not to provide a charming document useful to the congress. then why do we have a special counsel? how are we going to get judgment about a president's misconduct. >> it's clear emmet flood is using taxpayer dollars to protect the president and

mulener laying out his report is pointing to a number of instances of obstruction of justice and problematic behavior from the president that even if not criminal is at the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. mueller had a limited charge. he was not looking at things subsequent to that and prior to the election. the house judiciary and the ways and means and intelligence committees are taking a broader look at his finances and conflicts of interest. some things done in his administration. they may build a fueler record that we know even from mueller. >> it's an optimistic assessment. thank you. congresswoman from pennsylvania. attorney general barr's stunning testimony bending over backwards. he seems to think there is a difference between trying to fire the special counsel and trying to remove him. you tell me the difference. forcible removal and firing are

identical meanings. >> i'm living rent-free inside of donald trump's brain and it's not a very nice place to be, i can tell you that. >> it's not just trump. clinton who hasn't held public office in more than six years was repeatedly brought up in all the hearings yesterday. why is trump doing for biden what johnson did for nixon in the 60s. building him up by attacking him. much more ahead. stick with us. him. much more ahead. stick with us. but it's not just big either. it's the kind of big where you'll never have to ask, "should i scooch up?" it's big that looks at a sunroof and wonders why it can't just be most of the roof. it's big that's better because we built it that way. the spacious, 121 cubic feet of cargo space ford expedition.

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the latest inisn't just a store.ty it's a save more with a new kind of wireless network store. it's a look what your wifi can do now store. a get your questions answered by awesome experts store. it's a now there's one store that connects your life like never before store. the xfinity store is here. and it's simple, easy, awesome. welcome back to "hardball." attorney general william barr will protect the president at every turn in spite of the damning evidence in the report by robert mueller. on countless occasions in his testimony yesterday, he said he believes the power has the power to obstruct an investigation with impunity and said a

president is within his rights to kill an investigation if he and he alone believes it is based on what the president believes are false allegations. >> if in fact a proceeding was not well founded and it was groundless and based on false allegations, the president does not have to sit there constitutionally and allow it to run its course. the president could terminate that proceeding and it would not be a corrupt intent because he was being accused. >> expressing that opinion, attorney general william barr echoed the language he used in a memo shared with the white house last june months before he became trump's attorney general in language that was his application for the job. barr said a president does not act corruptly by acting on or

terminating on his own conduct. mueller believed the president could not be accused of a crime, mueller should not have investigated him in the first place. >> was it special counsel mueller's responsible to make a charging recommendation? >> i think the deputy attorney general and i thought it was. i think that if he felt that he shouldn't go down the path of making a traditional prosecutive decision, then he shouldn't have investigated. >> wow. i'm joined by two former prosecutors. former u.s. attorney and former senior fbi official. the host of our newest podcast, the oath. currently the top podcast on apple charts. i will go to chuck and barbara, in that order. same question to both of you. i have been listening to this guy who looks like the

president's lawyer and talks like his lawyer. he is defying the president out of getting into trouble. he can't be indiz and can't be accused. a special counsel shouldn't be giving information to congress that they can use for judging the president. to clear the air, a president can't be changed with robb instru -- obstructing justice because he is in charge of justice. he said donald trump is above the law, get it? get it. that's the thinking of the guy. chuck and then barbara. >> i will start with one piece and barbara will do a better job on the second piece. the office within the department of justice that holds that a president can't be indicted also explicitly states that a president can be investigated. so that makes sense, by the way. if a sitting president cannot be

charged, a former president certainly can and how would you know whether changes are appropriate if you did an investigation? mr. barr can't really pick and choose here. the policy of the department of justice is perfectly clear. by the way, on page one of volume two of mr. mueller's report, he cites to that opinion that said a sitting president may be investigated. no there there. >> what about this thing about a special counsel like robert mueller shouldn't be able to prepare a document that could be used by the congress for impeachment purposes or considering impeachment and if that's true, barbara, pick this up. there is no role for any kind of special counsel regarding a president. >> i agree. i think what william barr is describing couldn't exist. what he is saying that a prosecutor, a special counsel must make a binary decision.

prosecutors decide charge or don't charge. that is true in an ordinary case, but this is not an ordinary case. what he is saying, but you can't charge the president. so in fact what he is saying is you can only clear the president. that's the only thing you can do. why would we spend all of this time, effort, and energy so we can have a report that said nothing wrong. as you were. we must be able to preserve that evidence. nosprohibits the special counsel from investigating and even if he can't charge. robert mueller told us why. i want to preserve it because there will be a day when donald trump is no longer president and he also makes reference to not wanting to preempt congress from fulfilling their constitutional duty to impeach. he does not want to prejudge the evidence. he collects it and hands it off to those to make the decision

later. >> the house judiciary committee and jerry nadler from new york is trying to work around barr. he didn't even though up for the hearings and not going to give them the un redacted report. the special counsel to appear before the house judiciary. first to barbara. can a president pull robert mueller back into his earlier position as special counsel or can barr say you will not testify? i was amazed by barr's comments. this is my baby. this whole report is my baby. does he control mueller as well as the baby? >> i don't know if robert mueller is still working for the special counsel or the government. it does make a difference. he can stop him from foitestify if he does. if he's a private citizen, he can testify. he might be subject to executive privilege. anything shared with him in an investigation, the privilege

would have been kwafed. he probably can't answer about grand jury manners. i think william barr put in what was intended between the correspondence by characterizing his letter as snity and producing the letter. i think we are entitled to know. william barr characterized that robert mueller cleared or exonerated president trump from obstruction of justice and the american people are entitled to hear it from robert mueller himself whether that is accurate. >> chuck, on this same point, it seems that i'm trying to remember yesterday's testimony. i thought he said he would have no objection. my question is that might change. we know the white house has a lot of power that they can exert. the president has to assert executive privilege. the president, can he exert privilege over a justice

department official? >> yes, he could if it applies. barbara is spot on with regard to the law. it may very well have been waived, but that doesn't fre collude the white house from asserting it and litigating it. that's going to take a long time to resolve. that might be part of the ploy. you know well that sometimes people file lawsuits not because they believe they have a claim, but because they want to gum up the works. mr. trump when he was a business developer was known for the tactic. >> can you withdraw your waiving of executive privilege? i was told once you waive it like don mcgahn and mueller, once you start talking to the public on a topic, that's it. you can't go back. now i'm asserting privilege. can this be with drawn? >> that's the general rule, chris. once waived, waived forever.

it doesn't preclude the president from asserting it and litigating it. i think that's the problem. >> bottom line, do you think the courts will referee this? i think the democrats believed a couple things i'm not sure is true. the report by robert mueller will be useful in deciding one way or another in proceeding with impeachment and they assumed when they subpoena someone, they will show up and if they threaten somebody with contempt, they will act. this administration is breaking all those rules so far. do we have confidence? pete williams, our expert, does not believe the courts have shown a history of intervening between the fights between the executive and legislative branches. will they this time? >> they will resolve it in producing the information, but i agree that courts are reluctant to get involved. what they are more likely to do is push the parties to

accommodation to try to avoid that showdown and get them to agree and compromise to turn over that which is necessary to proceed. but as chuck said, all you have to do is slow walk it. i think president trump would want to slow walk it until after the 2020 election. >> thank you so much. as i listen to you experts, i hear more and more the fear i have that this president thinks he is above the law and may well get away with it for a couple more years or if the electors decide that way for him, six more years. up next, but her e-mails. what is it with republican lawmakers's obsession with hillary clinton. they were changing the question to talk about hillary clinton dozens of times in a hearing that was about the mueller report. is this just a force of habit or do they think it works with their base? i think it's the latter. more "hardball" after this. i think it's the latter. more "hardball" after this

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situation. >> hillary clinton. >> hillary clinton. >> the hillary clinton decision that she didn't do anything wrong. >> secretary clinton. >> it appears that the obama administration justice department and fbi decided to place their bets on hillary clinton. >> it's not just congressional republicans unable to get let go up 2016 nominee. president trump has repeatedly talked about his formal rival. in the past week alone, he mentioned her several times. listen again. the heads of the union voted for hillary. or as we say crooked hillary, which turns out to be so true. >> how much did hillary clinton pay for the dossier. >> you look at hillary clinton did with her e-mails. nothing happens to her. >> if you want to litigate, go

after the dnc, crooked hillary, the dirty cops. all of these things. >> i'm joined by sam stein at the daily beast. what is this. this is psycho whatever or calculated? what do you make of living in his brain, rent-free? >> there is two components. one is that hillary clinton for a generation served as a convenient foil and a villain that they use in election season. it's not a surprise. this happens in nonelection seasons, too. way they diverted attention from the findings of the mueller report is to try to put the attention on the origins. they muddy the waters by stressing hillary clinton and people rooting for her election were the originators of this

decision to surveil the trump campaign and from that to launch the investigation spearheaded by robert mueller. this is a classic diversion tactic to get away from the findings. what they say is investigate the investigators. >> all i know is watching this and anyone who denies that the trump people play ball with the russians is blind to the facts. they had every meeting in the world with them asking them for help and taking help back and forth and trading and polling information. it was all a huge get together between the two sides. whether criminal or not is up to mueller and the rest. no doubt critical. they were playing ball and the democrats didn't make tup. here's the interview with rachel maddow where hillary responded to the attention she got from this president and the fellow gopers. >> i'm living rent-free inside donald trump's brain and it's not a nice place to be.

>> this is a diversion attack. this is one of the tools to fire up their hard core base. when it doubt, go after me. >> it could be that trump hates hailry because she gave him a tough fight and a lot of people think he won with russian help. does that drive him craze when he goes to sleep at night. maybe the russians did help me enough to beat her by a half percentage in some of those states. i won so narrowly, could the russians be that margin of difference? >> he's obsessed by the fact that he lost the popular vote. he's obsessed by the fact that james comey may have swayed the results of the election. he is more than anything else, precouped by the idea that he has a legitimate presidency. any talk of mueller or james comey's influence inherently

undermines his legitimacy. this is something he is preoccupied with and does he continue this through the 2020 election when hillary clinton will not be on the ballot and he will be running against somebody else. >> someone who may not have the baggage. it's easy to pick up critics after all those years. most people and i probably do it, too, you project. could it be that hillary had donald trump in her head rent-free. imagine reading the paper and watching the tube and say how did i lose to that? i wonder what she must be thinking day after day. her rental arrangements with him. >> it's not how did i lose to that, but what have i allowed to happen. when you talk to clinton aides, they sense the gravity of what happened in 2016. they look and say wow, history really took an abrupt turn in this moment. what could have been. you look at the paris climate

accord and global warming and the iran nuclear deal and the attacks on health care. all of that hinged on votes in three states and you wake up every day thinking what have i done and what could have been done differently and what was done by me to affect newscast such a profound manner. they are both living rent-free in each other's heads. >> elections are consequential to the human soul. thank you. great reporting. hillary is not the only one living rent-free in trump's brain. joe biden has taken up residence thanks to a big endorsement that struck a nerve with trump. more after this. stuck with us. h trump. more after this. stuck with us. pay as much for insurance... as not safe drivers! ah! that was a stunt driver. that's why esurance has this drivesense® app. the safer you drive, the more you save. don't worry, i'm not using my phone and talking to a camera while driving... i'm being towed.

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welcome back to "hardball." another democrat is living rent-free in the president's

brain. joe biden. he woke up with a new front-runner in his mind in a rapid fire twitter spree. trump retweeted nearly 60 anti-biden posts from firefighters after the union's endorsement for the former vice president. biden seemed to enjoy getting under the president's skin. >> folks, you know, i understand that the president has been tweeting a lot about me this morning for a while. i wonder why the hell he's doing that. so i'm going to be the object of his attention for a while, folks. >> he was right. in an interview with fox business, president trump mocked his would be 2020 rival, biden, and complained about his union endorsement the other day. >> he's a sleepy guy. i don't care. it just seemed to be what happened is the firemen love trump. the policemen love trump.

the firemen and the international come out and they always do. they have for many, many years, but they go with the democrat with joe. the firemen and women, they went craze when they saw it. they went crazy because they will be voting for me. >> actually firemen are the people that used to throw the wood in the oven into the steam engine. a firefighter is the right term. the back and forth between them, the list of democratic candidates grew again today. michael bennett brought the number of officially declared dems to over 20. new reporting suggests president trump may not be able to stop himself from meddling in the primary politics, even if it boosts the top rivals. he can't stop himself. stick with us. that's coming up. p himself. stick with us. that's coming up

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with a rattled incumbent. it's not helping us. it's helping biden. we don't think biden can make it out of the woke primary, but he will if the president gives him oxygen. somebody is smart in the white house. in an interview on fox, the president couldn't hold back. let's watch. >> biden seems to have a lead, i would be happy if it were biden. sleepy joe. i think he did a bad job and i would be running against him. >> you think he is be beatable. >> i don't think he would be a good candidate. i wish him well. i would be happy with bernie. i personally think it's those two. >> for more, the director of progressive programming and democrat from florida. your thinking is smart. is trump knowing what he doing or is this a case where he doesn't? >> i think he knows what he's

doing and it's a strategy to elevate biden during the beginning of the primary process where voters are trying to figure out who they like and they are trying to figure out the policy. it's a smart strategy, but it's a reflection that donald trump is so scared of the possibility of running against joe biden. he is somebody who can go hand in hand and to toe with donald trump in terms of performing toughness in a specific way. something good about that. on the debate stage, they will go toe to toe on an equal playing field in that way. i do think that there is also a danger for joe biden in this moment. he just jumped into the race about a week ago. there are all these other candidates running. we are up to 21. joe biden can't count all the

chickens before they roost either. donald trump is clearly very afraid of joe biden because he cannot stop talking about him. >> seems like that would be a good estimation of what he's worried about rather than what he's thinking. congressman, is this a smart calculation. he will hit back hard. >> i think people tend to talk about things that make them anxious. joe biden makes donald trump a little anxious. there are two types of candidates that pose a threat to the president. one is a movement type candidate and another can build a coalition. joe biden can build a coalition. he can rebuild that democratic wall in the midwest you were talking about and labor support earlier on your show. joe biden can win back a lot of those democratic labor voters that ended up supporting trump over hillary clinton.

summer the president understands that biden is a form dbl opponent and that make him anxious and why he's talking about him so much despite the fact that he's getting advice from his political team to stop talking about the democratic primary and not elevate the candidates that would be most likely to beat him. >> trump is a very impulsive guy. president trump is reportedly spending a lot of time thinking about potential foes. politico spoke to several people close to the president and he talks a lot about it. with trump, everything is permanent. a lot of the day is trying to assess the weaknesses of the other candidates. during his interview with fox business, he weighed in on the candidates who questioned attorney general barr. here he goes. >> kamala harris? >> she was probably very nasty. how about the three people running for president and not

doing very well. three of them are running for a particular office. you have three of them running and they were ranting and raving like lunatics, frankly. >> that's not the way i saw it and i don't think you did either. i thought they looked pretty good. the three he talked about. >> right. and i think in the case of kamala harris, there was no ranting and raving. that's what made it effective. she did it like a surgeon. she has the experience as a prosecutor and she calmly asked questions that really flustered bill barr because he's not operating in good faith. donald trump uses the word nasty to describe a particular kind of woman, chris. he uses it to describe women who are opinionate and outspoken and tough. he doesn't really have a good sense of anything else to call them. sometimes i think he wants to say another word i can't say on

television so he lands on nasty. >> he's pretty nas nasty. he puts people down about physical appearance and look in the way i never have seen anyone do it. >> a lot of attacks are petty and childish because he's a bully, chris. we have to be honest about the president's behavior. that's not really an opinion. that's an analysis of the way he conducts himself. certainly the senators yesterday took advantage of a critical opportunity to show that they can go toe to toe with the trump administration and to toe eventually with donald trump if they get the nomination. amy klobuchar did a great job and senator booker was solid. you have serious candidates vying for the top job. how does donald trump have so much time to tweet. i don't have enough time to retweet 60 people in one

morning. that's odd behavior and concerning when he should be running the country. >> he has a lot of servants to put it lightly. a lot of gophers. let me go to the congressman. i got the sense looking at it that the smugness, the arrogance of the attorney general was so profound and obvious, a little toughness by the democrats was in order. whatever your politics, i thought. >> chris, i just really think that the administration, the attorney general, the president really wanted to bait the democrats into starting impeachment proceedings. they have done the math and if they provoke the democrats it's more likely they get impeachment and they think that helps them in november of 2020. >> there is the chinese curse. you get what you pray for. thank you. up next, how trump is making the same political mistake that lyndon baynes johnson made in

attacking another resilient opponent. you are watching "hardball." r r opponent you are watching "hardball." for all out confidence...

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i think donald trump, the politician, is making a big mistake. tweeting and fussing on joe biden is having one effect. building up biden. he came out with a clear cut strategy. run against trump and reminded everyone how morally embarrassing it was to have trump as the head of state. all the tweeting is exactly what

the democrat hoped for. even after he was going after the recent vp. >> i just don't see him as a threat. he has been there a long time. his record is not good. >> if trump knew history, fortunately he doesn't, he would know a previous president was cost his presidency. on the eve of a mid-term, johnson attacked nixon as a chronic campaigner and it brought him back into the arena. it gave him a half hour of prime time that he used to accuse johnson against a political opponent. >> he engaged in what i thought was a rather, well, a personal attack which is not worthy of the president of the united states. >> of course this was nonsense. by landing a modest punch on nixon, he triggered the come

back from the electoral dead. he lost a close race in 1960 that was close for the california governorship. he was roaring back because the president attacked him and put him back into the spotlight. good work, president trump. keep it up. that's "hardball" for now. all in with chris hayes starts right now. >> tonight on all in. >> the attorney general of the united states of america was not telling the truth to the congress of the united states. that's a crime. >> democrats escalate after the attorney general's no show. >> mr. barr's moment of accountability will come soon enough. >> after trump defiance of congress grows, is there a movement to impeach bill barr? then senator richard blumenthal on the question bill barr avoided. >> i don't recall having substantive discussion on the investigation. >> plus, 2020 candidate bernie