tv Andrea Mitchell Reports MSNBC October 25, 2019 9:00am-10:00am PDT
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about, yet he went to him to work on an issue that's so important. that says everything about his life. >> thanks, antjuan, and thank you, trymaine as well. president clinton and president obama are set to speak in baltimore. "andrea mitchell reports" starts right now. >> thank you, craig melvin. next on "andrea mitchell reports," the justice department opens a criminal investigation into the origins of the fbi's russia probe. what's the crime? who's under investigation? and why are the findings of the nation's 17 intelligence agencies and the republican-led senate intelligence committee not enough for the trump administration? falling in line. republicans escalate their assault on the house impeachment inquiry, trying to slow down the pace after two weeks of damaging testimony. plus going home. thousands gathering in baltimore this hour, including two former presidents, for a final farewell
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to congressman elijah cummings. the man that speaker of the house nancy pelosi called "our north star." ♪ and good day, everyone, i'm andrea mitchell and we're keeping a close eye of course on congressman cummings' funeral service in baltimore. we'll take you there when president clinton begins his remarks followed by president obama. but we begin in washington where the justice department is pursuing a criminal investigation into the origins of the mueller probe. for two years president trump has been calling this a witch hunt and a hoax. even though russia's attack on the 2016 campaign to help mr. trump's election was unanimously accepted by u.s. intelligence
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agencies and the fbi, a conclusion ratified again just this month by a republican-led senate intelligence committee investigation. what had been considered an administrative review of those conclusions is now a full-blown criminal probe. we don't know exactly when that started. giving u.s. attorney, john durham, the power to convene a grand jury and subpoena witnesses. nbc white house correspondent kristen welker joins me as well as matt miller and legal analyst mimi rocah, julia ainsley, matt miller, just named, of course, former spokesman to eric holder, and ruth marcus from "the washington post." kristen, the president has been calling this a hoax all along. is this to validate his
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suspicions, his theory, or is there something more going on? do we know who is being investigated? >> well, it has certainly opened up president trump to that type of criticism, andrea. particularly you have jerry nadler saying this is essentially the president using the justice department to attack his political enemies. i put that question to mark short, who is of course the chief of staff for vice president mike pence, who disputed that that's what's happening here. but it does fit into the fact that president trump has been calling for this to happen for years, referring to the mueller investigation is a witch hunt and a hoax. i asked kellyanne conway if president trump had been briefed by the attorney general, whether he had spoken to him about this development. and at this point in time she wasn't able to answer that question. it is a critical one, andrea, because it gets to the heart of what you're asking, is president trump engaged in these discussions about opening a criminal investigation. bottom line, though, as you point out, the mueller
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investigation, while it found there was insufficient evidence to prove that there was a conspiracy, did determine there were as many as 140 contacts between the trump campaign and russia and found that there were ten instances of possible obstruction by president trump. and so there were real findings that were yielded from that trump which complicates of theory that this investigation was purely politically motivated. so president trump right now speaking on the white house south lawn before he departs, andrea, so far it doesn't seem like he's been asked about this specifically, but we'll let you know what he says as soon as we get a readout from the reporters who are there with him. >> and that video of the president of course will be played back. mimi rocah, what is the significance of this being a criminal investigation? what kind of power does that give the investigators from the justice department? >> well, yes, so practically speaking, it's quite significant. now they can use the power of the grand jury to compel testimony, to compel evidence
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from witnesses. it raises the stakes as well because at the end of the day, criminal charges now could be brought. now, that's not to say that they will be. and while i, like many, find this escalation to a criminal investigation alarming, the real question at the end of the day is, will there be criminal charges, which would be just a whole other level of, you know, shock, i think, unless there's really something out there that we don't know yet, which is hard to believe given the amount of scrutiny, as you pointed out in the beginning, that's already been given to this investigation. so it gives power in the investigation, and it opens the potential for criminal charges, which is just a whole other level of serious. >> and we have a piece of an interview that david loughman, the former head of the national
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security division of the justice department, who was speaking to rachel maddow last night shortly after this broke. >> i have high regard for john durham and the other former prosecutors and fbi agents he has surrounded himself with to carry out this investigation. i have high regard for him. he's a distinguished prosecutor. but this investigation, if not born in sin, was born in political taint. there's just no mistaking its origins that this is something the president wanted to see happen to vindicate political grievances about the 2016 election. >> and the president apparently has just been asked about this, whether he knows anything about it, he says he does not, he's leaving it up to attorney general william barr. matt miller, having worked in the justice department, the whole question that david laufman raised last night about the taint on this because of all the politics involved and all the conspiracy theories that have been promulgated by one
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network and by president. >> you know, i know john durham too and share david's assessment of him. he's thorough, fair, hard-charging. but ultimately at the end of the day he's apolitical. if i thought john durham were running this investigation by himself, i wouldn't have any concerns. but that's not what we've seen. whatever seen the attorney general taking control of this investigation to the extent that he has flown to italy twice to personally interrogate foreign officials about their cooperation with u.s. intelligence authorities. so i don't think that john durham is in charge of this investigation. i think bill barr is and i think there's very much reason to question his priorities. i find this entire step deeply concerning. as you pointed out, as mimi pointed out, we know more about the mueller investigation, the russia investigation, than maybe any investigation in doj's history. we saw a 450-page report at the end of it. the department released a fifa application, something it's never done before. and throughout, we've seen no
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credible allegation of wrongdoing. if there's a crime here, of course it should be investigated. but based on what we know now, we haven't seen any of that and it feels more to me like bill barr trying to smear the president's political opponents than trying to get to the truth. >> julia ainsley, what is the justice department saying about why the attorney general is so personally involved, trying around the world, collecting evidence himself? >> they say it's perfectly within his bounds to be doing work to help out an investigation. but i think what this shows is what a priority this is for william barr and it's hard to extrapolate that from the priorities of the president. as we know, trump has been so fixated on the mueller probe, he sees this as a deep state conspiracy out to undermine the legitimacy of his presidency. we saw the italian prime
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minister saying that the italian intelligence agencies had no information to hand over to barr. this could be a reason the president did have calls like he did with the president of ukraine where he talks about what went into this 2016 opening of the russia probe. one thing i would point out about these other investigations. we have the inspector general investigation on top of investigations that republicans have already run from congress, on top of senate intelligence. now the reason why they say they need this extra step was simply to compel testimony. that's the whole reason william barr justified the existence of john durham in this matter, was to be able to compel testimony. they're now at that point, by being able to impanel a grand jury. it's not clear what evidence predicated that, what brought it over to the criminal side.
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at this point it's not clear whether or not they felt that there were people who weren't cooperating with their inquiry and that somehow this will be the tool needed. it's not clear what meat is on these bones, what they're going after. at the end of the day, the worst case scenario would be a political bias. that doesn't necessarily show that just because there was a political bias maybe on peter strzok or lisa page at the fbi that that somehow would have made an entire investigation impartial and would have led to a fisa warrant that should have never been granted. that was signed off by many people in both the trump administration and the obama administration. >> and repeatedly by the fisa judge who had to keep renewing that fisa warrant. ruth marcus, one of the issues that had come -- was exploding when this was first authorized was the fact that the president
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authorized the attorney general to declassify very sensitive, top secret cia information about the origins of the probe. and that was not taken well by the former dni, dan coats, and others in the intelligence world. so we don't even know what access they have had to the most important secrets, secrets that there was, frankly, concern in the intelligence community would be shared with the president who tends to blurt these things out to the russians. >> "we don't know" are probably the most important words we can say today. there are reasons to be concerned. chief among them is the remarkable degree to which the attorney general himself has inserted himself personally into this probe, whether it's an internal probe or whether it's now a criminal probe. but we also -- and on-john durham as -- i don't know john durham as you do, but it would
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require him to be knowingly going along with that. there are reasons for concern but there are also reasons for us to do what we're not very good at which is to stay tuned and recognize there is so much we don't understand about what's going on here. >> a lot we don't understand, we should not be jumping to conclusions. but kristen welker, it has to be alarming to the democrats running this impeachment inquiry that a whole other criminal investigation to some of the former officials who were front and center in the univer universally-accepted conclusions of the russia probe. and key to this might be john bolton, we're now hearing that lawyers in contact with the house committees are talking about a possible deposition from the former national security adviser. that could be pretty explosive. >> it could be significant, andrea, because he is someone who would be aware of the
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conversations that were taking place here about ukraine, about those investigations that president trump was asking for. we know that he wasn't on that july 25th phone call. but certainly you would anticipate that the administration, the white house, would be concerned if he were among those going to capitol hill to testify. tim morrison, one of the russia advisers here, who we believe was on that phone call, those are the reports, we don't have that confirmed ourselves, but all signs point to the fact that he is going to be testifying as soon as next week. so both of those testimonies could be of concern to this administration, andrea. >> kristen welker, mimi rocah, julia ainsley, matt miller, ruth marcus, thanks to all of you for starting us off here. meanwhile, secretary of state mike pompeo is refusing to talk with kansas reporters about former ambassador to ukraine bill taylor. this happened on thursday. >> bill taylor told congress this week that he sent you a
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cable on august 29th expressing his misgives about the delay of military aid to ukraine. what do you do with that cable? >> i'm not going to talk ukraine this morning. >> did you relay his concerns to the president? >> i came here today to talk about workforce development. >> this as "the washington post" reports that the white house pressured ukraine -- the pressure on ukraine, rather, went well beyond withholding military aid. it turns out in late august white house trade representative robert lighthizer recommended to restore some of ukraine's trade privileges after then national security adviser john bolton warned him the president would probably oppose anything that would help the government of kiev. joining me now is stephen piper, former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, currently with stanford university. thank you for being with us. let me ask you about william taylor because you worked with
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him. he's being attacked pretty vigorously if not viciously from the white house and others -- well, certainly secretary of state pompeo and others have also talked about him being a bureaucrat and being political, not pompeo himself i should say, but other people speaking from the state department and the white house. what is your reaction, having known bill taylor as you did? >> i've known bill taylor for more than 25 years. he served america for 50 years, going back to as an infantry captain in vietnam, going to places like afghanistan, ukraine. there is not anybody who i would say more clearly represents the ideals of the ideal public servant and that's been ambassador taylor. and it's disappointing that the state department and the secretary of state are not speaking up for him. >> one of the statements that came from the white house, from stephanie grisham, was slamming
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taylor's testimony saying, president trump has done nothing wrong, this is a coordinated smear campaign from far left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the constitution. roberta jacobson is here as well, a veteran diplomat who resigned from the state department a year and a half ago, thank you for being with us. this refusal by mike pompeo to defend the witnesses who have come from the state department after so-called friendly subpoenas and being told by the state department not to testify. >> yes, i think this has been sort of the death blow to morale at the state department. this unwillingness to defend people who are career diplomats, people who are not radical unelected bureaucrats. they're public servants who have served, many of them, half a dozen presidents from different parties. and the leadership in this effort comes from the top. but i have to say they've been
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brave, and they've been forthright, at least in the public statements that we've seen, the opening statements. they're not political animals at all. >> i also wanted to ask you about ukraine and syria and just the whole devolution of policy and how it's been practiced by the president. >> obviously i saw that up close in the case of mexico early in the administration when that was handed off to jared kushner and did not seem to follow normal procedures. but i think this is the sort of extreme version of that. this is hyper, you know, reactive politics. i think when you have something like that, the implications of it are not known. you don't know where it's going to go. whereas when you think about a policy and go through the normal
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process, option a will get you the following, option b will get you the following. this is what career people do, they lay out the implications of making a snap decision. that's not being done right now. >> mr. pifer, you were quoted as saying that if bill taylor said something happened, it happened. tell me a little bit more about his credibility with you. >> no, absolutely. this guy is the ultimate straight arrow. and he faced exactly this problem, which is in effect, washington was conducting two policies towards ukraine. one was official policy designed to advance american national interests. and part of that was getting military assistance to ukraine, which was important both in terms of the military aid, giving ukrainian military extra capabilities, but also important in terms of signaling strong american support for ukraine in the face of russian aggression. and on the other hand you have this unofficial channel, apparently organized by rudy giuliani, that's about promoting the president's personal
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interests in trying to, you know, basically revive this long-debunked theory about the biden scandal in the ukraine which many people looked into and there's nothing there. and that's about the president's personal interests. and the giuliani channel is basically saying, let's hold up this military assistance. so you have what giuliani is doing directly contradicting official american policy. it makes it very hard to run a railroad and it makes it very hard to achieve what's in america's interests. >> ambassador pifer, thank you very much, ambassador jacobson as well. here is the president speaking on the white house lawn earlier today. >> let me tell you something. the level of unfairness for a perfect conversation with the president of ukraine, this was a perfect conversation, and frankly, had they known what the conversation was, they wouldn't have even wasted everybody's time. but this was a perfect conversation with the president of ukraine. president of ukraine and his
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foreign ministers separately came out and said there was absolutely nothing wrong with the conversation. president of ukraine and the foreign minister came out and said there was no anything. there was no -- he used the word no blackmail. they said there was no pressure. there was nothing done wrong. this is a hoax just like there was no collusion after two years they found out and wasted $45 million. this is a disgrace that this could happen in our country. but remember -- wait. wait. the president of ukraine right now, the president of ukraine said no pressure. the president of ukraine and his foreign minister said, again, no pressure, no blackmail. they don't even know what you people are talking about. it's a -- it's a hoax. it's a hoax. it's just a continuation of the
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russian witch hunt which turned out to be phony, the mueller deal was phony, and now they have this. and all it is is very simple. it's one conversation that i had with the president of ukraine that was perfect, that adam schiff defrauded everybody and he made up the conversation in the halls of congress. >> reporter: are you at all concerned about the growing criminal investigation into rudy giuliani? >> i don't think so, because i think rudy is a great gentleman. he's been a great crimefighter. he looks for corruption wherever he goes. everybody understands ukraine has great problems in that regard. he was the greatest mayor in the history of new york and has been one of the greatest crime fighters and corruption fight erg ers. rudy giuliani is a good man. >> reporter: do you want to see the justice department investigate biden? >> i think what biden did and
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his son and now they're finding also romania they're finding today or some other country and i'm sure there are more than that. when a man walks away who has no talent, no skill, no experience, with $1.5 billion out of china, when he walks away with 168,000 a month for him and his friend from ukraine, when ukraine supposedly gave him $3 million, whatever the numbers are, that he's got no experience in oil and no experience anywhere, and now other nations are coming out, i heard one today, i won't embarrass the nation, all he's doing and in my opinion that's a payoff, because you don't pay that kind of money for any other reason and then you look at what the father did with oil. and let's get oil and then all of a sudden let's not get oil. and now he's a great environmentalist because ukraine benefits by that. and other places benefit by that. no. i consider what they did to be
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an outrage to our country. i consider that to be an outrage to our country. [ inaudible question ] some of them weren't even spoken to yet. they got 40 very quickly, i think they're at 47. and some of them don't even know about it yet. it only took place yesterday afternoon. so they had a great response. you have -- we have great support. we had 185 out of 185 the other night, the republican congressmen, i think we had 185 present and we had 185 positive votes, and with the senators, we're doing great too. [ inaudible question ] we're doing very well with china. we're moving along nicely. we're dealing with them right now.
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and a lot of good things are happening with china. they want to make a deal very badly. [ inaudible question ] we're moving with afghanistan. we're doing well in afghanistan. we're slowly bringing things down to a certain level. but we're doing very well with afghanistan. things are moving along. >> reporter: that you held up military funds because you wanted ukraine to [ inaudible ] on what hunter biden said. >> the problem is -- >> reporter: are you calling him a liar? >> he's a never-trump and her his lawyer is a never-trumper. hey. everybody makes mistakes. mike pompeo, everybody makes mistakes. he's a never-trumper. his lawyer is the head of the never-trumpers. they're a dying breed but they're still there. here is the other problem. you're with cnn and you're fake
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news. >> reporter: mr. president? [ inaudible ]. >> they have to do usmca, they have to do guns, they have to do many things. we want to reduce drug prices even more. we can go so far but we can get drug prices -- the democrats, the do nothing democrats, have no time to do it. [ inaudible question ] which one? [ inaudible question ] we have a great republican plan and if we take over the house which we should, especially because of what they're doing with impeachment, i think we'll take over the house by big numbers. you'll have health care the likes of which you've never seen. much less expensive. deductibles will be much lower.
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because the democrats don't have any time to do anything. >> reporter: vice president pence said yesterday that america stands with the protesters in hong kong. >> i know he made the speech yesterday. i went over the speech. the speech was fine. it was fine. no, the speech was fine. but i'm also working very closely with china on a deal. but his speech was fine. >> reporter: are you trying to intimidate the whistle-blower? [ inaudible question ] >> that's true. we're doing very well with china. the farmers are going to maybe do better than anybody. china wants to make a deal. they would like to see reductions in tariffs. they would like to see tariffs that are scheduled to go on very soon, they would like to see them not go on. you know it, they really want to make a deal. they're going to be buying much
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more farm product than anybody ever thought possible. >> reporter: are you confident you have the votes in the senate to survive an impeachment vote there? >> only for one reason. i did nothing wrong. the only reason. i had a perfect conversation with the president of ukraine. perfect. had they seen that conversation before they made up the story, they made up the story about that -- had they seen it, we wouldn't even need to be talking about it right now. the conversation was perfect. for that reason i have tremendous support. >> reporter: since the opening of the investigation, attorney general william barr, [ inaudible ]. >> so they've started and it's been going on a long time. and i read the papers, i read
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them probably in greater detail than you, actually, and i try and sift out the fake news from the real news. but as you know, there's been a long term look at -- look-see. and it looks like it's becoming very serious from what i'm hearing. investigate the investigators. whether it's strzok and page, whether it's clapper and whether it's comey and all of these people, because terrible things went on for our country, and we have a great attorney general, highly prestigious man, a very honorable man, and they've been looking at it for a long time. i can't tell you what's happening. i can tell you this, i think you'll see a lot of really bad things. a lot of people think that -- and they know they have problems because they were very dishonest. and again, i leave it all up to the attorney general. and i leave it all up to the people that are working with the attorney general who i don't know. but i will say this. i think you'll see things that
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nobody would have believed. this was the worst hoax in the history of our country. and a lot of people say that the phony deal on impeachment where i have a perfect conversation, perfect, with the president of ukraine, and they're using that to impeach one of the most successful presidents, we're going to hit another stock market high. we have the best jobs reports, we have the best unemployment numbers, we have the best employment. more people working today in the united states than ever before. i've rebuilt the military. we're strong. we just did a great thing in syria where we're getting our troops out. we took over oil. a lot of great things are happening in this country. i will say this. if anything ever happened with this phony witch hunt that the democrats are doing, the do nothing democrats, i really believe that you would have a recession-depression, the likes of which this country hasn't seen. now, a strong statement was made by a very highly respected man
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this morning on wall street, a man who is very respected, about that, that if anything happened to trump, president trump, you would see repercussions in the market like you haven't seen before. but here's the thing. i don't have teams, everyone is talking about teams. i'm the team. i did nothing wrong. this has been going on for before i got elected. this was going on from the insurance policy, strzok and his lover page, this was the insurance policy, with strzok and page. we did nothing wrong. but strzok said, oh, she's going to win, she's going to win. >> and as we see the president repeating a lot of his defense against both the mueller investigation, his attacks against the investigators. we're going to return to elijah cummings' funeral service in baltimore where former president bill clinton is about to deliver his eulogy. >> on the sunday before the
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electi election. and i remember, you know, i love that you introduced the staff because we would all be dead without the people who are helping us. but if you're president, your staff is always trying to tell you why you shouldn't do something, or you shouldn't go somewhere. i remember this very well. they say, it's tuesday, sunday before the election, why would you go -- i get why you want to go to an african-american church but why would you go to baltimore, come on, they're so good to you, they always vote for you. why would you go for he will el cummings? he's been in the house 15 minutes, he literally hadn't
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finished one term yet. i said, i just got a feeling this is something we ought to do. and if we do it, we'll know whether it was right or not. and so the bishop rolls out the red carpet. thousands of people were there. and you may remember, we got in some trouble, didn't we? we got in some trouble. people criticized us for having get out the vote event in a church. they said it was inappropriate. and as i remember, elijah reminded people that our constitutional rights, including the freedom of religion, the freedom of assembly, the freedom of speech, depended people giving voice to them in elections. end of debate.
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then i got to listen to he wiel talk that day. you talk about a lousy deal. i had to follow both the bishop and elijah cummings. and at least i'm getting in ahead of you and president obama today. in my old age, i'm the warm-up act. i'm glad to do it. anyway, elijah was great. and he ended his quiet and reasoned and rhythmic voice going into his booming voice by quoth that wonderful verse from the 40th carpet hapter of isaiay
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will walk and faint not. he just kept doing more and more. the crowd was going crazy. over the course of these last few days, i've had a chance to think a lot about elijah's life. he really did sort of mirror isaiah. he had one of the greatest one-liners in the history of human affairs when the lord asked whom shall i send and who will go for me, isaiah said, here am i, lord, send me. elijah cummings spent a whole life saying, send me.
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an entire lifetime. he was not even a teenager when he hauled down to the swimming pool and joined a group to integrate it and for his trouble gets banged on the head with a glass bottle, leaving a lifetime scar which he bore with honor. then the people of baltimore sent him to annapolis and then sent him to washington on behalf of the rest of the nation. i would like to thank you, you did a good thing. [ applause ] and then i was looking over all the things he worked on just in the four years we were together. he was elected the year i was reelected, 1996. he had this amazing array of
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interests. but we all know now that at least until certain things happen, his legacy is howard enterally he honored his oath to protect and defend the constitution of the united states. [ applause ] i think he did it for a lot of reasons. he loved the fact that his parents' humble lives made his a great american story. and he loved that it confirmed his faith. he knew without the constitution, the laws passed under it, the rights that were guaranteed by it, and the abuses
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it was designed to prevent, without that constitution he would not have been in congress. and so he said to himself, i am certain every day i will not let this promise be sullied. and he did his best. and while doing his best and fighting his heart out, sticking up for hillary and lots of other people, many of whom were voiceless and weak and will never be known, while doing all that, he actually made in one of the hardest periods in our country's history, a lot of republican friends. why did he do that, how did he do that?
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i think he did it because everybody could see he was the real deal. he was doing what he believed. his heart was in it. and i think he did it because no matter how hard he fought and how passionately he argued, he tried to treat everybody the way he wanted to be treated. the way he thought americans should be treated. you know, you can't run a free society if you have to hate everybody you disagree with. [ applause ] i mean, sooner or later, if you've been married 45 years, you're going to have a disagreement or two. if you're in a business or a team or in a campaign and you're
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thinking, you're going to have disagreements. he believed that he should treat people the way he wanted to be treated. and he believed if everybody accepted his broad, endearing, exclusive definition of one america where we respect our differences and think what we have in common matters more and we all live under the same set of rules and we all believe that under those rules those of us who have more than we need should do more to help those who don't have enough, that everything would work out okay. [ applause ] now, that's what he believed. and being friends, he was so proud that he could help resolve the personal spat between his
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republican congressional friend and a new member of the democratic caucus. but he believed. so here is what i want to leave you with. elijah spent his working life in the tradition of isaiah. he went again and again and aga again. but i think in his lasting legacy to us, we should think again about the prophet elijah for this reason. he was about to be killed for his ardent promotion of his
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faith. he hid in a cave either within or next to mt. sinai. he received a message from god to go up and stand on top of the mountain and wait for the voice of god to speak to him. he had a pretty hard time, just like at the end of elijah's life, he's already had a pretty hard life, you have to go through this too. there's elijah standing on the mountain and a huge wind came, so strong it broke the rocks of the mountain. but the lord was not in the wind. then an earthquake came, shaking everything. but the lord was not in the earthquake. then the fire came.
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but the lord was not in the fire. and then, what does the scripture say, a still, small voi voice. elijah by that point had gotten rid of all the pomp, all the circumstance, all the glory for the still, small voice. i love this man. i loved every minute i ever spent with him, every conversation we ever had. i loved his booming voice. but we should hear him now in the quiet times at night and in the morning when we need courage, when we get discouraged and we don't know if we can believe anymore, we should hear him. [ applause ]
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our elijah, let him be for us what he himself heard. a still, small voice that keeps us going, keeps us grateful, keeps us happy, and keeps us moving. thank you and god bless you. [ applause ] >> and the tribute to bipartisanship, to elijah cummings, to the man that bill clinton knew so well. the contrasts today are a little bit mind-blowing. we're coming from president trump really explosively denouncing his critics, denouncing career ambassadors with very sharp criticism that we've heard before, as he was leaving the white house, and now president bill clinton, a
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modulated bill clinton, clearly aged. with me, chuck todd here in the studio. chuck, we haven't seen bill clinton in a while speaking. and reflecting the elijah cummings that was beloved in washington and on capitol hill. >> i think it's remarkable how easily is a nation we mourn without our president. nobody i don't think is missing the president's voice in this. you think about some of the political leaders we've buried in the last two or three years, and of course some of them have requested not to have the president around. it's remarkable how he doesn't get involved in this. >> here we see another former president. >> i'll keep my mouth shut. >> governor, friends, colleagues, staff. the seeds on good soil.
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[ applause ] the parable of the soil tells us, stands for those with a noble and good heart. who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering, produce a cr crop. the seed on good soil. elijah cummings came from good soil. [ applause ] and in this sturdy frame, goodness took root. his parents were sharecroppers from the south.
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they picked tobacco and strawberries and then sought something better in this city, south baltimore. robert worked shifts at a plant, and ruth cleaned other people's homes. they became parents of seven. preachers to a small flock. i remember i had the pleasure of meeting elijah's mother ruth, and she told me she prayed for me every day. and i knew it was true. and i felt better for it. sometimes people say they're praying for you and you don't know.
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[ applause ] they might be praying about you. but you don't know if they're praying for you. but i knew miss ruth was telling the truth. so they were the proverbial salt of the earth. and they passed on that strength and that grit, but also that kindness and that faith to their son. as a boy, elijah's dad made him shine his shoes and tie his tie, and they would go to the airport, not to board airplanes but to watch others do it.
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i remember elijah telling me this story. robert would say, i have not flied, i may not fly, but you will fly one day. we can't afford it right now, but you will fly. his grandmother, as elijah related, and as grandmothers do, was a little more impatient with her advice. your daddy, she said, he been waitin' and waitin' and waitin' for a better day. don't you wait. and elijah did not wait. against all odds, elijah earned his degrees. he learned about the rights that all people in this country are
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supposed to possess, with little help apparently from ameriperry mason. elijah became a lawyer to make sure that others had rights. and his people had their god-given rights. and from the statehouse to the house of representatives, his commitment to justice and the rights of others would never, ever waver. elijah's example, the son of parents who rose from nothing to carve out just a little somethi something. public servant who toiled to guarantee the least of us have the same opportunities that he
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had earned. a leader who once said he would die for his people even as he lived every minute for them. his life the things we tell ourselves about what's possible in this country, not guarantee but possible. the possibilities that are destinys and are not preornate but rather to our work and dedication and our willingness to open our hearts to god's message for people's love of all people. we can live a purpospurposeful .
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we wither among the rocks but we have the capacity of the chance. as individuals and as a nation, to rule ourselves in good source. elijah understood that. that's why he fought for justice. that's why he embraced this beloved community of baltimore. that's why he went onto fight for the rights and opportunities of forgotten people all across america. not just in his district. he was never complacent. he knew there were not clarity
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of purpose and steadfast faith. the promise of this nation can whip. co it has been remarks that elijah was a kind man i tell my daughters and i have to say listening to elijah's daughter speak, that got me choked up. i am sure those of you have sons feel the same way but there is something about daughters and their fathers.
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i was thinking i want my daughters to know how much i love them but i also want them to know being a strong man includes being kind. there is nothing weak about kindness and compassion. there is nothing by looking out for others. there is nothing weak about being honorable. you are not a sucker to have integrity. and to treat others with respect. i was sitting here and i was just noticing the honorable
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elijah e. cummings, and you know this is a title that we confer on all kinds of people who get elected to public office. we are supposed to introduce them as honorable but -- but elijah cummings was honorable before he was elected office. there is a difference. there is a difference if you were honorable and treated others honorably.
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outside the limelight, on the side of the road, in a quiet moment counseling somebody you work with, let your daughters know you love them. you know as president, i knew i can always count on elijah being honorable and doing the right thing. and people have talked about his voice. there is something about his voice that just makes you feel better. you know there is some peop people -- deep bear tone, a pathetic voice, and when it was good times, we achieve victories together, that voice and that laugh was a gift. but you needed it more during the tough times.
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when the path ahead looks crooked, when obstacles are bounded. when i entertained doubts or when i saw those who were in the fights start to waiver, that's when elijah's voice matters the most. more than once during my presidency when the economy still looked like it may plunge into depression, when the healthcare bill pronounced dead in congress, i would watch elijah rallied his colleagues. the cost of doing nothing is
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nothing. folks would remember why we enter into public office. he would say and he would remind all of us that our time is too short not to fight for what's good and what's true and what is best in america. 200 years to 300 years from now he would say people will look back at this moment and they'll ask the question, what did you do? hearing him we would be reminded that it falls on each of us to give voice to the voices and comfort to the sick and opportunity to those not born to it and to preserve and nurture our democracy.
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elijah cummings was a man of noble and good heart. his parents and his faith planted the seeds of hope and love and compassion and righteousness in that good soil of his. he harvested all the crops that he could. the lord is now called elijah home to give his humble faithful service a resting place. and now it falls on us to continue his work so other young boys and girls in baltimore, maryland and across the united states and around the world may too have a chance to grow and to
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flouri flourish. that's how we'll honor him. that's how we'll remember him, that's what he would hope for. may god bless the memory of the very honorable, elijah cummings. and may god bless this city and the state and this nation that he loved. god bless you. thank you. >> former president barack obama, a man he paid tribute to as the master of the house. the first african-american to lie in state in congress. this extraordinary funeral service included two former presidents, speaker of the house and close friends and others paying tribute to elijah cummings.
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a man that was loved for being bi bipartisan, reaching across the isle and giving out the best of washington. that does it for "andrea mitchell reports." now, "velshi & ruhle." >> thank you so much andrea. what a day, it is friday, october 25th, coming up this hour on "velshi & ruhle." capitol hill is on pause as americans remember congressman elijah cummings. there are many developments including words from john bolton maybe in talks to testify before congress. plus, there was ukraine and the da, the former va secretary says he has seen the back channels and back room dealing before he joins us this hour. and raging fires across the state of california, 600 fires in just the past few days.
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