you know we're a little big partisan to do a lot of things and conspiracy it's time to wait to be deeper to hit the stories that made history media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now we're watching closely watching the hawks. robert muller speaks and makes it clear whether to impeach donald trump or not is completely in nancy pelosi is hands can she withstand the push from her party to pursue impeachment we're taking a look on this edition of politics. welcome

to politicking i'm matthew cook in for larry king on wednesday special counsel robert mueller broke his 2 year silence on the russia probe the major take away from his prepared remarks he declined to clear president trump of obstructing justice muller now makes nancy pelosi is job even harder can the house speaker resist her party's growing demands for impeachment proceedings against donald j. trump let's begin there with the political panel they are david brown democratic strategist he served as majority counsel to democratic senator patty murray on 2 congressional congressional committees and we have adolfo franco former member of the george w. bush administration he was also a spokesperson for the john mccain and mitt romney presidential campaigns they are both in washington d.c. welcome gentlemen thank you matthew and matthew so muller statement on wednesday is this a game changer on whether to proceed with impeachment of the president let's start with you david. well i think hearing ball bowler speak and hearing him

restate in most respects the report but in his own voice standing behind the seal of the department of justice that was a very striking visual and it was a very compelling statement by bob mohler so i do think that there is increased political pressure not only among democrats but frankly even among some republicans congressman amash as an example that really is is going to put speaker pelosi i think in an increasingly tight position i also think it's noteworthy to look at the democratic presidential field and to see how many of our tier one candidates have come out in favor of beginning in an impeachment proceeding so so yes i think obviously there's there's increased attention and increased pressure and if anything this was about as close to a recommendation for referrals for impeachment the bubble or probably could could

make it all for a while i have a completely different take from david on the last point i don't surprise david i don't believe this is it changes in any way shape or form what people had read into or concluded on the miller report before mr mueller spoke meeting i still see it as a complete victory for the president there was no conspiracy which is really what this was about collusion and whether there was cooperation that conspiracy really was the crime and of course the conclusion on that is an emphatic no and that since that time the democrat party has been very disappointed but the bottom line on this and your question is i can't speak for the democratic party but this particular statement in my view today does one significant thing it moves mr mueller from what democrats want to was was a grilling on capitol hill. and then a big. discussion on the peculiar the particulars of the report and try to try to

create news around that that would propel more investigations of president trump and there sadly disappointed with his conclusion that my report speaks for itself the american people have come to a conclusion of course the majority are against impeachment of president trump according to the polls so this now becomes without a mule or show much more difficult for them to proceed david your response do you think obstruction of justice is a technicality. no it's not and so not surprisingly i disagree with quite a bit of what was just said but look let's be clear on on the collusion question and the underlying criminal conspiracy i mean if you look at the report and you read the report what the special counsel concluded is there was insufficient evidence to charge that's very different than clearing so let's let's just acknowledge the legal standard here is important because it's not an exoneration it's it's they are unable to make a prosecutorial referral because they they don't have the case they don't have the evidence so is obstruction a technicality obviously not if you look at the nixon articles of impeachment there

were there were passed out of the judiciary committee in the house and if you also look at the impeachment proceedings brought by republicans against bill clinton president clinton obstruction factored into both of those cases in fact in many respects it was at the heart of both of those cases and the reality is that obstruction of justice is at the core of our judicial proceedings if you are obstructing the ability of the government to fact on uncover the truth then by definition you are you are preventing the government you're preventing the prosecution from doing their job so no it's not a technicality it's very important matt matthew i have to correct correct a couple of things 1st of all the role of a prosecutor mr mueller included is not to exonerate anybody you never have press conferences by any u.s. attorney anybody exonerating or clearing a prosecutor either brings charges or a prosecutor does not i'm referring to the in this you get off when you were to write letters and that's on a. let me that i let's just political that's

a political term and i use an exoneration but they in terms of what a prosecutor does a prosecutor i see their brinks apart a prosecutor brings charges against someone or a prosecutor does not the problem is as you see with the so-called episodes of supposed it possible obstruction there are 2 things those were things that were ongoing where the president as mr barr has said was understandably frustrated lastly and most importantly mr mueller is an employee of the justice department charge with preparing a report for the attorney general of the united states to come to a conclusion as to whether there is a basis to bring any charges or there were there was obstruction mr barr who is the chief legal officer of our country has concluded there are not sufficient elements or basis for obstruction david let's focus on and whether or not this is going to divide the democratic party with regards to pursuing impeachment as adolfo said at least prior to today polls were showing the majority of the country doesn't want to

impeach the president but there is large pressure from the from the left to do so on palosi what do you think happens now yeah i mean look the politics are fairly obvious here that there are significant parts of my party that do believe that impeachment at least initiating the proceedings is warranted and i guess that's an important distinction because simply initiating the proceedings and beginning to to evaluate and build a case is very different from impeaching a president so and a distinction worth making but look if you look at leadership around speaker pelosi and her top lieutenants they are they are unanimous or near unanimous and their support for the speaker's position and you know nancy pelosi is a master strategist and tactician and she's looking at this and i think she's correctly looking at the long game here and whether or not beginning in. impeachment process today would serve as a distraction for

a very important presidential election that's just right around the corner and so that's the calculus that that is really happening at the highest levels of democratic leadership but you are correct to note that there are there are a number of people within the party who do think we should begin and even as i said earlier if you look at the presidential field there are tear one candidates who have come out and support of beginning the impeachment process senator warner as an example people to judge as another example so so yeah i think it's going to be an ongoing conversation that would be disingenuous of me to say otherwise are there political costs and not calling for impeachment sure you can make the argument i think among grassroots support and perhaps progressives if they're frustrated at at the party's decision to not begin impeachment then you could potentially extrapolate that they'll be less enthused to be really proactive in the run up to the presidential election but look i also think that you know sort of taking a step back from that and viewing this for the prism of what is the paramount duty

for democrats i think it is to ensure that this president is denied a 2nd term in office and for doing that at the ballot box as i think we should be doing that at the ballot box then i would hope the progressives would also share that same sense of mission and give it their all and be out there electing the next democratic president united states switching gears adolfo let's let's hear your thoughts on president trump's recent visit to japan and his attacks on vice president and presidential candidate joe biden. well 1st of all i think the visit was a huge success and the polling which i took the liberty to look at before the program in japan rates at extremely high remains very popular respected figure i think the president has accomplished 2 things 1st of all the president is always reinforcing the relationships with our allies but and this is the difference between other presidents and president trump be they republicans or democrats is there's no clear

it's very clear that president trump is is true to his promise to. america 1st and this is what in a sense continues to put pressure on our allies to do more fair share in terms of fair trade japan's concerned about a possible trade difficulties with the united states and certainly on the defense issues whether it's japan or otherwise so i think that was a very positive visit and every regard i think is an excellent relationship with the prime minister of japan with prime minister abbott. but i think the president also is one that's always has said that he is going to counterpunch you know people say these attacks on president president. former vice president biden or others you know you just don't tune the television and watch what these candidates for the presidency are saying about president trump why aren't they vilified for saying what i think are rageous things about the president's character

about the president's policies about the president's motivations and just things that are being said by all these candidates and somehow that that's ok or does it is not perceived as a problem when the president when the president punches back as he says then you know why this is not presidential well he is the president but he's also a political figure and he's also a human being and he's also there were will be the republican nominee for president so i think it's fair game david your response i mean we used to have a long standing tradition or convention of leaving domestic politics at the water's edge or you know and visiting foreign countries and speaking to foreign leaders what do you make of it. it's another norm that this president has seen fit to break in peter king republican from new york made the same point but look i mean my takeaway watching all of that this is a president who has never met a despot he hasn't loved right if you think about his gleefulness when when putin

in the russians were hacking hillary clinton's email servers and he said find the e-mails and now here he is siding with kim jong un a north korean dictator who's brutally murdering his own people to make fun of a former vice pres in the united states while standing on foreign soil i think it's disgusting do you think that president trump is worried about facing biden in the next election horse yeah and if you look at the polling there's a good reason for that i mean joe biden would be donald trump were the election held today so absolutely he's concerned about it and i also think it's pretty interesting that the north koreans are so fixated on joe biden clearly they're concerned that if if and when joe biden is elected president that he'd be a heck of a lot stronger in standing up to north korean aggression and this president is do you think that it helps or hurts biden to put this focus and attention on him. well 1st of all i think the vice president is really smart how you address this he didn't if he had an aide come out and issue a statement and really i think vice president biden is doing is very best to stay above the fray you know i mean people to judge talked about this at

a town hall not too long ago when asked about donald trump's tweets and he centrally said i'm paraphrasing here but how do you turn away from the grotesque it is what it is and it's grotesque but it's it's someone insults and i think joe biden up to this point is doing well by by really staying above the fray but also demonstrating that he's strong and that's something that the donald trump seems to respond to strength so joe biden is doing well in that regard david adolfo thank you so much for your time thank you so much matthew after thank you after the break former u.s. ambassador to the united nations bill richardson is here with his take on donald trump's north korea policies stay right there more politicking right after the break. there's an petersburg international economic forum is a unique event in today's business world. over the last 21 years the forum has

become a leading global platform for discussing the key economic issues facing russia emerging markets and the world thousands of business community members attend the forum to address today's final issues. or just actual forum coverage. some in media and even some politicians are giving julian assange as a new look and it's no wonder a case can be made the u.s. crusade against a staunch is a blueprint for criminalizing journalism what date is in store for a song will journalism suffer the same. kind of. welcome back to politicking on matthew cook sitting in for larry king nearly

a year has passed since the singapore summit between donald trump and kim jong un and we don't seem to be closer to a deed nuclearized north korea for his part president trump insists his strategy with kim will ultimately be successful for expert analysis we turn to bill richardson former u.s. ambassador to the united nations former democratic governor of new mexico and he also served as secretary of energy during the administration of bill clinton he is in santa fe new mexico bill welcome to the program thank you matthew so 1st let's talk about your reaction to what robert muller just said wednesday. well it wasn't a good day yesterday for the president robert mueller basically said if there was no crime he would have said so he also said there was not a total exoneration he kind of contradicted the attorney general on that score he said there was russian interference so the only good thing for republicans and the

president was that robert muller will most likely not be testifying before congress but at the same time you know it was symbolically important here's the attorney general of the seal of the justice department the cautious robert mueller not appearing for 2 years and he appears and he's basically a bombshell report i believe these that he kind of contradicted william barr did he contradict him. yeah because i think what william barr said was that there was no crime william bar also said that almost said he said there was no collusion i think that mahler said maybe not collusion but there was massive interference so i think what muller was trying to do is everybody's interpretating what my report says that the president the attorney general the congress democrats

so i'm going to say what i have concluded with after 2 years and i think he came off as a statesman in my judgment so the case for impeachment is it's stronger now. it's stronger now but i would follow the leader pelosi i think the congress's job is to legislate and continue investigating there 20 probes going on beyond what moller has come up with the president is resisting the checks and balances of the congress is duty to investigate i think you have to see where this falls but you know there's 40 members of the house. that want impeachment proceedings to start there's about 220 i think palosi is right let's do this correctly don't bring politics totally into this let's see where these probes end up but if the president keeps resisting he's going to dig his own hole on starting these impeachment proceedings

how risky is this though for the democratic party to not call for impeachment. well i think it's going to be mainly in the democratic primaries there's a lot of activists that one impeachment but the primaries will not end until july of next year who knows where this issue is going to be i think the public right now is not convinced that impeachment is necessary although it's very close it's almost 5050 i think what you've got to do here is try as much as you can to stay out of the politics i know this is an election year i'm a politician there are a lot of politicians out there just see where this investigation leads i think mahler's report even though he won't be testifying leaves a lot of holes a lot of things that need to be looked into also beyond the moller report their issues like that the president violate the law by wanting a border wall and not going through congress when it means appropriating funds

that's a legitimate role of congress or many other issues that are not touched by the smaller pro that the congress is looking into so this is really interesting so president trump ordered the declassification of obama era intelligence information related to the russ and this investigation and says he hopes attorney general will look at everything and he also says it's all about transparency so what are the implications for the u.s. intelligence community here. well this is very sad because you can't bring forth what is called sources and methods from the indulgent community and have the attorney general has the ability to uncover sources and methods investigate the intelligence agencies i think on the political charge that there were spying this is going to be bad for the millions and billions of dollars we spend on intelligence and our ability to recruit information and spies to protect our national security i hope the attorney general is very cautious here and

i worry because i knew william. barr before he was a good attorney general in the reagan bush administrations but now he seems like he's the president's lawyer he's the country's lawyer who's the people's lawyer and i'm concerned that he's not showing that so president is just back from japan he's had multiple engagements with prime minister shinzo a and a meeting with the new emperor what's your take away on the trip. well 1st the u.s. japan relations a very important relationship i think that is going well although the president stopped disto by minimizing the importance of short range missiles by north korea going into close to japanese waters but on the whole i think progress was being on trade on military issues you know leaders have to get along with each other he has a good relationship with prime minister abi with the emperor that's good but i

worry that the north korean issue overshadowed the good potential for bilateral relations between the president and japan and the comments he made about vice president biden were you know were totally out of order it was wrong you don't say that in a foreign soil about a president the 4 of vice president ited states it's just unfortunate siding with kim jong un coddling kim joe moon i don't understand the president's strategy contradicting his own secretary of state national security adviser and our policy why are these traditions so important for those who who are younger generations who don't know this longstanding convention of not criticizing or commenting about domestic policy when you're overseas why is that important. because i think what we have to do is when a president goes overseas or a foreign american leader goes overseas he or she is representing the american

people not the republican or democratic party you're a statesman in the old tradition of politics stops at the water's edge in other words do all the domestic fighting within the united states but me you go outside you don't criticize an american president or a fellow american and the president not only criticize joe biden a distinguished vice president but he said that he agreed with kim jong moon you know who doesn't have the best reputation is kind. a human rights violator in his assessment kim germans of the vice president you know just brought tangles at the mastic politics and international issues and young people should recognize that we have to represent the country totally and the president seems only want to represent his political base as narrow political base and not the whole country on one of the represent me and you matthew when he's overseas just protect america's interest don't get into the presidential race so going back to north korea national

security advisor john bolton says there's no doubt that the north korean missile test violated security council resolutions and the new york times also reports that the president jokes that if bolton decided foreign policy the u.s. would be in 4 wars by now that's hard to disagree what are your thoughts on this apparent split in the administration is bolton's star falling. well you know the split is not good because the north koreans read everything we say and the president is wrong here bolton is right about north korea violating security council resolutions i was u.n. ambassador is very clear that you don't shoot short range missiles in the north koreans did that and so the president is trying to minimize that because he thinks with his charm with his bilateral relationship one on one with kim jong un he's

going to fix things that didn't happen in the one always summit so that's unfortunate now you know boldness kind of a hawk there's no question but i think on this issue of north korea he was right in saying that these were violations of the u.n. security council and that the north koreans need to come to the negotiating table and start being flexible we need to be flexible let's have a a compromise north korea destroys a good part of their missiles their nuclear weapon. we reduce some of their sanctions and keep negotiating towards a future that's in the international interest america's interest let's come to an agreement how do you see it playing out with the current strategy that trump is employing. well the north koreans this is what what they're doing now is what they always do i've negotiated with up fiery rhetoric threats insults at the secretary of state national security adviser they haven't insulted the president yet shooting

short range missiles not violating the pledge they made to the president on long range missiles but still causing trouble coddling up to russia and china the north koreans want us to cave in on our negotiating strategy we shouldn't cave bin but we should try to reach a compromise and north koreans this is what they always do and we seem to be playing into their hands of the president is by saying no can joan and i are going to work things out well the 1st summit was good the one in singapore the one or the summit was was almost a disaster and we're heading possibly with the president wanting another summit saying no i don't need the secretary of state i don't need the national security adviser i worry that he's going to one of the 3rd summit and it'll be another disaster and then we'll be back to the old days of intensive tension and rio real in the north in the korean peninsula real tension so let's talk about trade

what was accomplished during the trip to japan with regard to our trade deficit with japan. well i think what happened with trade is we still have a trade deficit is that going to be reduced maybe a little bit but but i think what you know the president's strategy is very aggressive on trade with china with mexico with canada with japan with south korea you know it's called manage straight let's spoke and push and see if we get a better deal for our products i think the important thing there is we continued our relationship we're not going to have probably more tariffs on japanese products the military relationship is good. the social relationship with japan is good but i think we're japan is really worried is that will make a deal with north korea that excludes short range missiles that could hit japan that's the worry of abbaye and i'm not sure he's reassured with all these president

comments about kim jong un meaning somebody you can deal with bill thank you so much for your time today thank you and thank you for joining me on this edition of politicking and also thanks to larry king for letting me sit in this chair today remember we love hearing from you join the conversation on larry's facebook page and as always you can share your thoughts on twitter by tweeting at king's things and using the politicking hash tag i also invite you to join me on my facebook page matthew cook official and that's all for this edition of politicking. after the previous stage of my career was over everyone wondered what i was going to do next the ball different clubs on one hand it is logical to start off on fields where everything is familiar on the other i wanted a new challenge and

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