twitter, facebook, snapchat, linkedin. thank you for watching. white house with nicolle wallace starts now. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. we're watching capitol hill where the earth is rapidly shifting underneath the feet of the iron lady of the house of representatives, nancy pelosi, over impeachment. the speaker facing pressure from her own allies in leadership as outrage grows within the democratic party over donald trump's stonewalling of congress. democrats now urging house speaker nancy pelosi to begin and kpeechlt inquiry into the president of the united states. that's according to new reporting in the "washington post." quote, at least five members of pelosi's leadership team, four of him also sit on the house judiciary committee with jurisdiction over impeachment, pressed pelosi in a leadership meeting to allow the panel to start an inquiry, which they argued would help investigators obtain documents and testimony

that trump has locked. several hours later, judiciary committee chairman nadler met with pelosi as well and made the case to start the inquiry. he later told his panel members on a call, though pelosi did not appear swayed by those deliberations, according to the post reporting, lawmakers within her party are turning up the heat and they are doing it out in the open. >> will you open an impeachment inquiry? >> again, my view is that we should. >> campaign chairman is in prison right now. don't tell me there's not enough to discuss and debate impeachment. >> i believe an inquiry into impeachment is required at this point in time. >> the president of the united states of america needs to be impeached. >> when doesn't show up, we can't get any of these documents, that is, in fact, a constitutional crisis. i think we have to use the full force of the constitution to try to resolve that crisis. >> adding the to the sense of

urgency around impeachment, today robert mueller's star witness, former white house counsel don mcgahn defied at subpoena and skipped his scheduled testimony before the house judiciary committee. democrats promised a legal challenge in response. >> let me be clear, this committee will hear mr. mcgahn's testimony, even if we have to go to court to secure it. we will not allow the president to prevent the american people from hearing from this witness. we will not allow the president to block congressional subpoenas, putting himself and his allies above the law. >> nbc is just learning that members of house judiciary committee have subpoenaed don mcgahn's former chief of staff donaldson whose notes were central to robert mueller's report, obstruction report, as well as hope hicks, her testimony, and more documents. that is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. with us at the table, this is a

treat, "washington post" national political reporter robert costa, former assistant u.s. attorney and prosecutor mimi rocca. also from the post white house bureau chief phil rucker and host of saturday night politics here on msnbc, donny deutsch. let me start with you, robert costa. hope hicks and annie donaldson not yet household names. if you've read the mueller report, the second volume around obstruction, they are as essential to painting the picture, offering this narrative in the president's own words as recipients and witnesses and observers of all these efforts to thwart the russia probe as anyone. >> they are witnesses not only to the president's conduct but his intent when he made certain decisions. that's what house democrats are trying to figure out. that's why they are calling him to capitol hill. they know don mcgahn's testimony will only take them so far.

hope hicks was around him constantly, his confidante, strategist. also annie donaldson, how did mcgahn describe the conversations to her to, again, figure out the intent. >> your colleague wrote an article a few days after the mueller report was out. i was just handed my copy. i have a lot of hope hicks and annie donaldson footnotes. they appear in the footnotes. what she describes in her piece, annie donaldson's notes could be seen as a parallel to the nixon tapes in that they have put in writing some of the reactions, some of the efforts the lawyers were taking and making to try to protect and preserve themselves, to try to offer the president legal analysis of some of his desired moves. when he wanted to investigate hillary clinton, when he wanted to fire jim comey, they wrote in their own notes to themselves and others, possible obstruction. they were aware he was walking up to and in some instances

possibly crossing the line into obstructive conduct. >> they were very aware. annie donaldson took those notes at the direction of don mcgahn to create a record in their office of all these encounters with the president. it's not only noting possible obstruction but dialogue. exact word the president used in meetings with don mcgahn and others. it establishes a fact pattern of what happened in all of these many instances of possible obstruction of justice. the mueller report has a lot from the notes in there. he does not print all of the notes for us to see. so there's more material presumably in those primary source documents the congress is trying to get their hands on. that's why they are so adamant about getting those documents and about now bringing forward annie donaldson for testimony so she could talk about what she remembers from those moments. >> what do your hill sources say about the strategy? they obviously are now homing in on the obstruction report. it's the second volume of the

unredacted version of the mueller report. there are other witnesses around flash points. chris christie, the president's friend, was in the oval office with donald trump february 14th, turned out to be a consequential day. that's the day he ask the jim comey to let mike flynn go. chris christie a recipient of a phone call from the president when he was batting around the idea of firing robert mueller. he appears in the footnotes telling the president and telling robert mueller's investigators he told him that wasn't a very good idea. why not bring chris christie and lewandowski and another witness around a few of the obstruction flash points. the effort to fire jeff sessions and install a loyalist. why not bring those folks through who have no privilege and no sort of -- not controlled by the white house? >> they have not been ruled out as witnesses who could be called to congress. based on conversations with house democrats, they are leaning their shoulder against the door -- against the per's door saying we've got to impeach

this president now. she keeps telling them privately, let the committees do their work. let jerry nadler and adam schiff and all the other chairs build the case against the president. she keeps telling them privately, i'm told, the country is not fully aware of the pleasant president's behavior. as you said, paint the picture. for now don mcgahn, annie donaldson, hope hicks, another level of cory lewandowski, all the characters from the mueller report. this could take the rest of 2019. that's what the speaker's strategy is. you couldn't rush the process, begin impeachment proceedings even though the president is defying congress. billed witness by witness to process it with more than a document in front of you. >> a lot of analysis, none of these would be slam dunks for democrats. the democrats don't need a slam-dunk. they simply need someone to put words and videotape to what's already in the four corners of the mueller report. democrats run the risk of setting the expectation there's going to be dramatic testimony.

this report, the black and white letters, and teeny tiny footnotes are sufficiently dramatic. >> they realize the president is not going to go to jail after one day of testimony on capitol hill. this is all about building evidence. pelosi's view is you can't begin an impeachment proceeding until we have a body of evidence beyond what the mueller report shows. it's incumbent upon the congress, in her view, to build the evidence. that's why they are seeking all these documents. that's why they are looking in other areas, too, like financial records and tax returns and other areas where there could be some criminality by the president. they are going to keep pursuing this but there's an impatience level and her committee chairman growing very impatient because they are not getting a single witness or single document from the white house and they are exhausting their options here. that's why there's this push suddenly to begin impeachment right away. >> so many democrats are talking to are frustrated. they want to see this process move more quickly. at the same time top democrats are telling rank and file there

are cracks in the republican wall. small cracks to say the least but there are cracks. justin amash calling for impeachment. that's a republican, a conservative speaking out. it's one but it's more than we had a week ago. >> i think you or your colleagues noted when he into out -- of course the president always responds instantly. so he certainly acts guilty. whenever anyone says what this report depicts is criminal conduct, the president jumps in. if you really believed in your innocence or believed it wasn't politically damaging, i imagine you'd go forward and pursue some economic message or something better for you politically. you've made the point if one republican says something, he's usually speaking for at least ten times that many. >> right now republicans are watching the market. a lot of midwesternepcontinues s are feeling it, we may have to break with the president. not necessarily on the mueller report but on his trade policies.

justin amash raising questions about the mueller report. it's private but private grumbling among republicans. they still see president trump as a way to win re-election in 2020. if they want to keep their power, they have to stay with him. >> i remember, it's not the same but about a damn breaking. i remember around the iraq war. at first chuck hagel and john mccain, a vocal critic, from the right we weren't aggressive enough. it only takes one. it only takes one. then everybody that's unhappy or discontent with the conduct of the iraq war or the way it was being pursued or the way we were communicating about it, the flood gates open. is there any anxiety that that could be on the horizon? >> certainly. i think the most interesting word we've heard the last few days is courageous. that's the word senator mitt romney used to describe what senator amash had to say. to be sure romney hasn't called for impeachment and hasn't gone nearly as far as amash but calling that point of view

courageous. >> some admiration. >> some of these mainstream senators feel like that book you've got in front of you is a whole bunch of bad behavior. >> gop using the word coup to describe actions within the justice department, they are cheerleading all the attorney general is. that's where most of the gop is in our reporting. >> let's reset the news. we come on the air at 4:00 and learn this, gerald nadler issued subpoenas to annie donaldson. she is the former chief of staff for white house counsel don mcgahn who today did not show up for his testimony, the house judiciary committee. and hope hicks, former white house communications director. anyone who has perused -- hope hicks appears in both documents. i think annie donaldson mostly shows up in volume 2. is there a greater chance of hope hicks and annie donaldson showing up before that committee than there was don mcgahn? >> i would have said yes untila

with this absolute immunity idea. any close adviser to the president has absolute immunity to subpoenas from congress, which i think is a legally untenable position. the one court that has ruled on this, even though it's not binding, has said that is a lawless position essentially. i do not think that would be upheld in the courts. will hope hicks come in voluntarily? maybe. i think at this point democrats should assume no one is coming voluntarily. it's all through subpoena and all litigated in the courts, where i think we saw for the first time a glimmer of hope yesterday. the courts will uphold a rule of law and much of the positions taken by administration, the department of justice now and olc are just not backed up by the law. >> as an investigative body, are they better served calling in witnesses like chris christie who witnessed the president on

the day he asked jim comey to let flynn go, who received a phone call from the president about the wisdom of firing robert mueller. cory lewandowski who was deputized, to actually fire jeff sessions and test the waters for replacing him with a loyalist. are they better served as investigative bodies to call in witnesses who have no claim to that immunity you described? >> i think they are at this point. clearly their strategy was to try and start with some of the biggest witnesses, the ones who had the most to say with the biggest impact. that didn't work. understand that strategy. you do that in a trial, you want to start with first, best most sub stapt i have witnesses that get the biggest bang for the buck. that didn't work here. they have to play those out. now they have to get some testimony, some evidence. they need to start getting exactly what you said, the narrative in the report. it's already there. you can investigate donald trump for ten years and you're probably going to find new stuff. the difference between a new

investigator and mediocre investigator or prosecutor, you know when to stop and say i'm going to go with what i have. doesn't mean they shouldn't investigate but they need to get the story out of what they already have. >> you know more about storytelling and narratives than just about anybody i know. as far as somebody who can tell the story of intense security, hope hicks may be better situated to do that. if you think the tantrum around don mcgahn being called and all the theatrics between the white house counsel's office, doj, all the efforts, i imagine he'll throw his body down before he'll let hope hicks open her mouth and fielding press calls. >> knowing donald and understanding the relationship, hope hicks would have more personal color and to him it would be the personal affront beyond going after his children. you saw the reaction to michael cohen. i want to go back to the overall strategy, impeachment, not impeachment.

i want to remind of the score. nancy pelosi one, donald trump nothing. that was mono woman. she played him like a fiddle and let him hang himself. poker analogy. you can go all in at some point. just because you don't go in right now doesn't mean you're not going to go all in. back to you, if i'm advising nancy pelosi, i'm so with her. keep the heat on. keep building the case. keep doing the investigations. time is actually on your side. you have until november of 2020, okay? there is no reason if there's a fork in the road right now so say i'm going down impeachment and immediately giving trump they are trying to take me away narrative without the back-up to it. >> suppose, donny, the chairman say to the speaker, we can't get our witnesses, we can't get our documents unless we start the proceedings. >> i'm going to say get ten more you can't get. my point is -- >> you're saying let them stack up. >> let them stack up. i've got my chips here. let me put more chips. it's going to be more of the

same. at the same time as a strategist, be polling the american public. what is the tipping point. when does the american public start to get an appetite. like it or not, impeachment problem isn't a legal one, it's a political one. i'm with nancy, i keep stacking my chips, stacking my chips. you will go high in at some point. why not have as high a stack as possible. >> what would she say? >> she's been having a strategy since day one. she's still a speaker meeting with the president on infrastructure, prescription drugs. there's a constitutional office, she's trying to engage with the president. the pressure from the committee charms. >> she's the grown-up in the room. >> 1974 articles of impeachment, article 3 was about -- was a narrow article of impeachment. it was about abuse of power, the white house refusing requests from congress. she has to wonder, and i've talked to house democrats about this, could she begin an impeachment proceeding without trying to impeach the president. i know it sounds like the same thing. could you launch an impeachment

investigation in order to get documents but say we're not moving there yet to a vote on the floor. >> begin to prosecute that single, which in that case was a single article. >> lawyers are telling this committee chairman if you were in an impeachment process, you could have a better case in court to say because congress is mounting an impeachment process those documents and witnesses have to come forward. >> that's the view from the justice department. i talked to a source close to the investigation. i said, can you imagine the situation where all the underlying evidence is turned over, including grand jury evidence, where mueller is offered up, where some of his investigators either on the obstruction side or around the counter-intelligence side, and they said only in the context of the commencement of impeachment proceedings. that is the lever, as the justice department communicated it, for turning more stuff over. >> right. you would pretty much -- i don't want to say automatically but the redactions made on the basis of 6(e), for example, would have

to be unredacted. i don't think that's actually a huge category, though. i think talking about the redactions. i don't know that anybody here is disagree in terms of what the democrats should do. everyone seems to be agreeing. i think democrats largely would agree that it's about getting the facts out, whatever you call it. >> some going on right now. that becomes the headline. >> you can call it an impeachment inquiry, that doesn't mean you're impeachment him. >> donald trump is zero sum a, b guy. once you give him the word, the narrative 24/7, trump impeachment, versus chorus of 20, 30 investigations he doesn't have a clear counter-punch, too. >> he already has that narrative. >> let me say and push back a little bit because i always do. >> there's no other guest. >> let me just say, i think for the parts of the population that

only hear the one-dimensional message, they are the 40% that hear it one way or progress i was that nev-- progressives nev enough. a lot are hearing in stereo. they are capable of processing that pelosi hasn't ruled it out but she is going to pursue investigations. i hear what you're saying, articles of impeachment are discreet investigations around discreet crimes. in this case the conduct is ongoing. they are now obstructing congress. there's nothing -- i hate this all being put on democrats. the reason it's all on democrats is because republicans are awol. >> also, the speaker knows if you launched impeachment now in the house, it would die in the senate. >> right. >> there's not one republican senator who has articulated anything close to being interested in voting impeachment should it come. >> make it the chorus not the lead singer. >> i believe -- not yet. not yet. we're waiting for a which congressman of the house

judiciary committee. my question for you is more on these two women. very interesting figures in the trump administration. every time i say not everyone has read the mueller report, literally everyone who watches the show has read it more carefully than i have. there is, to your point, there is some available public opinion to be influenced by seeing these individuals, these loyal lifelong republicans, both women, very loyal to donald trump, to his presidency, up there on capitol hill. and donald trump knows it. donald trump is someone who is so swayed by dr. christine ford's testimony he blinked. he's someone who understands the power of congressional testimony. >> i think when you're thinking about annie donaldson and hope hicks, the big get, the star witness for the democrats would be hope hicks. she's somebody who can go beyond establishing a fact pattern, which annie can do based on her notes but can speak to the president's moods.

she's the person who talked to him every morning. she sat in an office right outside the oval office where he was at his desk and he said hope and she could hear him and come right in. she talked to him late at night, the family, understood his motive, intent with every one of these decisions. she kneshe could telling you th and downs of how he felt about jeff sessions, rod rosenstein and mueller and can fill in a lot of blanks left empty in the mueller report. she can color that narrative as donny was saying. >> here is the operative with hope hicks. thinking of her brand going forward, if i'm hope hicks, not in politics anymore, hope hicks has a richer life if she turns on trump. she's not inside the beltway. she's out. she's a young woman, in the communications world. she can go anywhere. a lot of the places she touches to go forward are infinitely

more dark blue than red. she is somebody who would be vulnerable from a personal point of view to betray. >> people close to the president, no one expects hope hicks to do that. >> we're putting it through the wrong potato masher. you don't have to turn on the president. she's already told the truth. she told the truth in page after page of the mueller report. her choice is not whether to turn on the president but tell the truth before congress. >> do it publicly versus privately. >> let me bring in representative swalwell. i teased you on the phone. the house judiciary committee issued subpoenas for annie donaldson, don mcgahn's chief of staff and hope hicks. tell us what you think the response will be. >> good afternoon, nicolle. these are front row witnesses to a double digit obstructer. bob mueller and his team laid out at least 10 instances the

president obstructed and these two individuals were front and center. they have a story to tell. i was part of the teamwell hope hicks over a year ago when she came before the house intelligence committee. she had a very, very deep memory and recall of everything the president had done. i was really struck by that. where others who have known him for decades have set to us over and over, i don't recall, i don't recall. hope hicks said the opposite. she did recall. it would be very helpful to know what she saw. >> congressman, robert costa is at the table, has he a question for you. >> congressman, you said hope hicks that knowledge of everything. we all know we want to hear from don mcgahn about the president's decision to ask about firing mueller, whether that would be possible. what's the one thing, the top line, if you get her in front of your committee that you want to find out from hope hicks. >> the question i asked her on the house intelligence committee and she refused to answer, which

is did the president ever tell you to lie for him and did you ever lie for him. that was a very, i would say, flash point in the interview. she asked to step outside for ten minutes, and then she came back inside and refused to answer the question. i asked if donald trump jr. had asked her to lie and she refused again. she started shaking her head and said, i refuse to answer. i refuse to answer. i asked her about ivanka trump, whether she asked her to lie, she said i refuse to answer. it clearly struck a nerve. she came across as truthful throughout the interview. but that line of questioning -- >> are you referencing plane flight on "air force one" about the don jr. meeting? >> no. i asked her broadly, has the president or candidate trump asked you to lie -- >> trying to figure out the statement? >> we were trying to zero in on the trump tower cleanup between the president and his son.

we just also sensed that if he had asked her to lie about one thing, he probably had asked her to lie about a lot of things. she clearly didn't want to lie. if he never asked her to lie, she would have been truthful and said no. it was clear there was a lot she was seeking to protect. >> congressman, let me ask you, the analysis on where the democrats stand right now is really in two camps. one, people think that nancy pelosi is playing this smart, that she's proceeding with caution, keeping a line of communication open with this white house around policy priorities for democrats. other parts of the democratic base and caucus agitating from aggressive action. are the subpoenas did today an effort to play indicate the side of the party eager for more aggressive accountability from this white house that has made so clear in interviews and newspapers and others that their strategy is to give you nothing.

>> the subpoenas are an effort to get the information we need and a recognition that the president and his team are outnumbered and that we have the subpoena power now whereas we didn't before. the courts are on our side. we saw that in this week's court ruling. we expect now as all these subpoenas go to court, you're going to continue to see we've got the subpoenas, we've got the courts, and the administration is going to either have to continue to be lawless and not comply or follow the law. we believe the law is on our side. as to impeachment, i have advocated, nicole, that there's a third way here. we should first impeach the attorney general. he's the front door obstructer to the information we need and he's refusing to turn over the mueller report and other documents. we should move on him, so that he's not above the law, and also send a signal to the president that his lawlessness also will be held accountability but we'll start with the attorney general. >> what is a sign of accomplishment or sign of

progress on any of those three tracks? i think the white house feels like they are winning. >> they may be winning day to day in that they have empty desks in our committee hearings but the days are coming where they are going to be facing court order after court order to turn over documents or provide testimony and the american people are going to see more and more of how lawless they are. most individuals know if they get a court order, they have to go to court. you can't ignore it and say i don't want to answer to that. i think in the court of public opinion, that's not going to fly with every day americans who have to follow the laws themselves. >> congressman eric swalwell, we're so grateful you jumped on the phone and spent time with us. phil rucker, just real quick, the subpoenas are a sign of a more aggressive posture, but the truth is they have not yet been able to produce a witness or documents since the mueller report has been out.

>> not a single one. that's why you're seeing so many democrats in the house becoming increasingly impatient with this strategy. they want to see something, show some momentum. it's been a month since the mueller report came out and the democrats have been very aggressive trying to get their own evidence and do their own investigation and have gone nowhere because of the strategy that the white house has imposed. >> all right. after the break, admiral william mccraven, the man behind some of the biggest military victories of modern times joins our table to talk character, clarity, and being dised by donald trump. lock them up, rallying cry from supporters targeting fbi as donald trump ramps up talk of investigating his political enemies. stay with us. blah enemies. stay with us blah when you can. but sometimes life gets in the way, and that stubborn fat just won't go away. coolsculpting takes you further. a non-surgical treatment that targets, freezes, and eliminates treated fat cells, for good. discuss coolsculpting with your doctor.

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when times are toughest, face down the bullies, lift up the downtrodden and never, ever give up, if you do these things, the next generation and generations that follow will live in a world far better than the one we have today. and what started here will, indeed, have changed the world for the better. >> supremely inspiring message, one i played for my seven-year-old from a fixture in modern military history. that was admiral william mccraven whose resume includes overseeing a handful of seismic world changing events, capture of saddam hussein, rescue of captain phillips and osama bin laden. honor and dignity he showed during his time in military spilled over into the political realm last summer when donald trump revoked security clearances from former intelligence officials seemingly out of political retribution. admiral mccraven wrote a letter to the president saying this in part, revoke my security clearance, too, mr. president. sadly and rather predictably the

op-ed struck a nerve with the president. the day after it was published, he said he doesn't know who mccraven was, a start lipping statement to make by any president. he circled back to the line of attack. here is how he described mccraven. >> bill mccraven, retired admiral, navy s.e.a.l., 37 years, former head of special operations. >> hillary clinton fan. excuse me, hillary clinton fan. >> who led the operation, commanded the operation that killed osama bin laden -- >> he's a hillary clinton backer and obama backer. >> he's a navy s.e.a.l. >> we would have gotten osama bin laden sooner than that. wouldn't it have been nicer. living in pakistan, beautifully in pakistan in what i considered a nice mansion. i don't know. i've seen nicer. >> i have no words.

joining us now retired four star u.s. navy admiral william mcraisin out with "sea stories:my life in special operations." i want to read a little from this book. i had such a visceral reaction both to your speech and i have played that video for my seven-year-old, and i think i threw a shoe at the television during the chris wallace interview. good for chris wallace for saying, no, mr. president, not a hillary clinton fan, an american hero. even watching it now makes me sweat. what do you think? >> look, i've said before, i hope the president does well, i want the president does well, and i think every american should want the president to do well. as i said before, i had the great honor of working in the bush white house on the national security staff and, of course, worked for president obama as one of his commanders. i didn't agree with either on a lot of issues, but at the end of the day they were easy to follow because they were men of great integrity and great character.

i think president trump could take a few pointers from those two presidents. >> do you think anyone in the military thinks donald trump is easy to follow, that he has any of those attributes you just described? >> the fact of the matter is the military is going to follow the commaner in chief. >> is it easy to follow this one? >> it is always challenging when you recognize that you're sending men and women into harm's way. the president has some great advisers, joint chiefs, joe dunford is one of the typest officers i've ever worked with. pat shanahan seems like a good man and capable guy. i'm hoping the president will take their advice and counsel on the tough issues he's dealing with. >> secretary mattis resigned over policy dispute. he's the only one to do so. are you surprised more people haven't used their resignations and used positions to articulate differences with this president? >> clearly jim mattis felt the

point at which he couldn't continue on. jim is, again, a close friend, and i will tell you one of the finest officers, one of the finest men i've known in my lifetime. >> donald trump called him a democrat. >> i'm not sure i know what his political leanings are. what i can tell you is he's a true american hero. when you're in uniform, you have an obligation to follow the president unless the order is unlawful. there are a lot of orders out there that folks in the military, regardless of which party the president is from, where people in the military say why are we doing this. frankly as long as the order is lawful, you are required by law to follow him or you can resign. and frankly, there are times when you need your military leaders to follow and do so in a manner so the country moves forward in challenging times in the right direction. >> you talked about democracy

around attacks on the press, calling members of the media, both these gentlemen go out to trump rallies and stand there with a notebook as their only shield to cover the president, what he says and what he does. he gets tens of thousands people chanting enemy of the people about reporters doing their jobs. at a rally last night, they were chanting lock them up about the fbi. >> this is something that really does frustrate me. the university of texas a couple years ago when the president came out with the comment about being enemy of the american people. i did say at the time i thought it was the greatest threat to american democracy in my lifetime and i stand by that comment. all of us who have been in a position of authority have been hit by the media, raked over the coals by the media many times. i will tell you, without the media, without freedom of expression, without freedom of speech, we would not be the democracy we are. to say that the press is the

enemy of the american people. al qaeda is the enemy of the american people. the nazis were the enemy of american people. the press, freedom of the press, absolutely essential. i do get frustrated when the president attacks the press and fbi and kind of questions our intelligence communities. having said that, you know, he is the president of the united states. i think we have an obligation as civil srvervants to follow him until the orders are unlawful. >> you and i know for protective purposes the former senior u.s. government official -- >> no. i'm firmly planted in austin. >> there was a man who ran for president from austin once. >> yeah, there was. i guess you never say never. but the fact of the matter is, i absolutely have no plans to run for president. now, you know, if the administration changes and somebody is interested in my support in a policy world, i

might consider that, but i have no plans to run for president. >> let me unpack that a teeny bit. you have no plans. your story, and i read your last book, and i want to read a little bit from this one, because i think you're setting up some hope for people like me. you write in this new book, "most of all, i learned that for all his faults, man is worthy of this world. for every reckless belligerent who seeks war, there are thoughtful wise men and women who strive for peace. for all the unbridled hatred that aboupnds, there is greater love. man's passion far exceeds his greed. his caring is greater than his brutality. his courage outshines his cowardice and his sense of hope prevai prevails. that is the salve to our gaping political wound. >> i think that was just my assessment of 37 years in the military and traveling around the world. it is easy to lose hope. you see kind of what's happening

in d.c. today and you wonder whether or not we have a bright future. i continue to tell folks, i am probably the biggest fan of the millennials you'll ever meet. we talked about the entitled, pampered, soft millennials, i'm quick to say you never saw them in a firefight in afghanistan. having traveled around the world and seen the worst of mankind, you know, the iraqi torture houses, what the taliban did in afghanistan to women, i mean, these are horrendous acts. and yet at the same time you see incredible kindness, and you see people going out of their way to help other people. so in spite of all that i've seen, i have great hope for the future and certainly great hope for america. that's not political. there's nothing in this book that is political. it's not a political expose. hopefully what it is is a recognition that -- again, in

these remarkable tales that i tell in here from the bin laden raid to the capture of saddam hussein and really the credit belongs to the men and women who were part and parcel and part of those missions. >> you give me hope. i hope you'll come back and spend time with us. congrats on the book. go out and buy it. thanks for spending time with us. the book is "sea stories." go buy it, you'll feel better. up next, more on the new chant. i just referenced it at donald trump's rallies. it has his critics crying abuse of power. it has his critics crying abuse of power fill up for the chance to win free fuel for a year.

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you reclaimed your destiny, defended your dignity, and you took back your country. >> lock them up! lock them up! lock them up! >> well, we have a great new attorney general who is going to give it a very fair look, very

fair look. >> in case you missed that, that was donald trump's crowd last night at a campaign rally in pennsylvania. they were chanting, "lock them up!". it's a chant started after trump repeated his debunked allegation about being spied on. the crowd directing their ire at the fbi while the president of the united states did this and stood smiling and clapping from the podium. let this sink in. it's not disturbing enough that donald trump green lights and stands silently applauding while mega ralligoers calling for jailing law enforcement officials, there's this. "new york times" takes us inside donald trump's long list of political enemies he'd like to see investigated. it includes joe biden his son hunter, hillary clinton, john kerry, and dnc. most ominously the "times" writes this. when attorney general bill barr took over in february, many

justice department career employees hoped he would act as a bulwark against what they saw against their political work. he showed no desire to push back active actively. this to me is the most extraordinary -- extraordinary sort of tectonic plate shift of the sessions, even whittaker regime at doj and barr. barr makes you long for his two predecessors. >> right. because it's not just that barr is not pushing back, he's enabling, he's helping send this message that this is okay to call for the prosecution of law enforcement who engaged in legitimate investigations, to call front-runner the investigation of your political opponents just because they are your political opponents and not for any valid reason. barr is furthering that message by, for example, using the term

spying" as we've discussed, by actually opening, sending an investigation to a u.s. attorney as opposed to letting it run its course in the office of the inspector general where it belongs about the original origins of the investigation, by coming out and saying it's okay for the president to call it a witch hunt. barr just time after time -- it's not just that he's not pushing back, he's really enabling this, and that gives trump the comfort at a rally to say, yup, and my attorney general. >> how galling that was. he's saying lock the fbi up. as doing this, there are hundreds of thousands of lives at risk that very second. to protect those morons behind him on stage and protect the seal going like this. exactly what the admiral is talking about, destroying an institution. that's the fbi. these are people risking their lives, and he is so desensitized what that means that those people are cheering.

the image you're in the business, 30 faces behind him are all white. have you ever seen any politician and those are all choreographed. those one black face, latino face. when is the last time a national politician with setup screen with 30 white faces on. >> this is the point jack daniels made yesterday, we were talking about ""to kill a mockingbird"" and sort of what happens in a mob. not specific to -- this is, this idea that he has changed the conversation so much. i guess if i want to feel better, the last guy to lead "lock her up" chant is being sentenced, flynn. the idea of criminalizing what is so far not considered unlawful surveillance of the trump campaign is shocking. >> part of what's going on here is the president is using this as a political tactic will he's under siege, got all these

investigations going on. that rally last night happened just a few hours after a federal judge effectively allowed for the financial records to come out and trump feels threatened by that. what's he doing? he's trying to investigate his opponents. he's trying to move the spotlight over to hunter biden, look at connections when for two years now the various institutions in our government have been looking into trump's foreign connections and his business interests over there. trump is trying to deflect and move it over there. he thinks it's a political game but so much more serious than politics. these are the core institutions of our country and law and order of our country. >> it's not shocking. the president during the 2016 campaign, he said on a debate stage, if he were president, secretary clinton would have been in prison in his view. he also brought up all these accusers of president bill clinton to the debate. these tactics, this talk of

imprisoning and prosecuting political rivals has been in front of this country, then this country went to vote in november. for anyone who is shocked, you weren't paying attention. >> i was paying attention and still shocked. i'm galled by attention. >> i'm galled by it. >> it's one thing for trump to say it, which is bad enough, but when you have an attorney general who seems to be enabling it, i don't know how far bill barr will go. that makes it lot more frightening and real. >> up next, michael cohen is still talking, and donald trump's lawyers are still spinning. questions about trump's testimony point and why that's still a perilous path for the president. that story coming up. ...do your sneezes turn heads? try zyrtec... ...it starts working hard at hour one... and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. zyrtec muddle no more.

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michael cohen's closed door testimony with the house intel committee released to the public last night reveals that cohen told lawmakers it was trump's attorney jay sekulow who encouraged him to lie about the timing of the trump tower moscow negotiations. a lie we know is part of why cohen is currently behind bars. cohen said he spoke to sekulow between 10 and 15 times about his statement and when asked what sekulow wanted him to include, cohen said, quote, stay on message. minimum contact. no russia. no collusion. nothing here. the table is back. interestingly, the response from sekulow's lawyers was that cohen is a liar, not that sekulow didn't have these conversations.

>> that's been sort of the automatic response for anything with michael cohen. you mention those two names and get a response from trump world that he's a liar and an unreliable narrator. they're going to continue to make that case. >> we know, donny, that congress is pursuing all sorts of lines of investigation. robert mueller didn't just take -- if anyone knew he was a liar, it was the federal prosecutors at sdny and mueller. i think he lied to congress and was charged with lying to congress. but they have gone through and corroborated some of his testimony to the point where they found donald trump to be basically an unindicted coconspirator. >> they have given a lot of credibility to a lot of things. tha they weren't just taking it on face value, and they're not done with him. mueller is, but as these investigations go on, obviously, he's in prison now, but michael cohen is still very active in his cooperation.

>> does jay sekulow have any exposure here? >> he does. it's going to come down to what did sekulow know at the time he was directing cohen to lie? so if he did explicitly, it takes out that sort of did he just imply he should lie. if he directed him to lie, okay. it's a crime if he knew the information was false. that also will go directly to trump's potential exposure for impeachment or indictment, because if trump was the one obviously telling him, we know trump knew when the negotiations ended. there's a whole can of worms here that mueller didn't want to go down. he didn't want to go into piercing the attorney/client privilege veil, but congress can. >> robert? >> this is comes down to a key question we always had about robert mueller. why didn't he pursue a presidential interview? it's so hard to figure out without hearing from president trump himself, and written answers or verbal answers, what was he telling his own lawyers, and piercing that veil is going to be difficult even for

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i could talk to these friends forever, but we're out of time. my thanks to bob, mimi, and donny. thank you so much for watching. i'm nicolle wallace. mtp daily starts right now with chuck todd. >> nice to see you. happy tuesday. >> tonight, we've got more subpoenas breaking at this hour. as impeachment fever grows in the democratic caucus, can speaker pelosi withstand the impeachment pressure? >> plus, new reporting bob mueller and democrats are at an impasse over potential bombshell public testimony. and with the abortion issue front and center in our national politics, democrats face a critical divide in their own party. if it's tuesday, it's meet the press daily.