> good evening, there are reports tonight president nixon has ordered eliot richardson to fire archibald coxes to fire cox. >> i am the independent special prosecutor and for me to have acquiesced in him being fired would be a total betrayal of that commitment. >> so then the president orders him to fire the special prosecutor. before the night is done, the u.s. attorney general agrees to fire archibald cox, the so-called saturday night massacre. still nixon is hardly immune to it all. about nine months later, nixon on the verge of impeachment, but instead of being removed from office, he resigns. >> i shall resign the presidency, effective at noon tomorrow. >> we decided to assemble a group of people who were very involved in what was happening in and around the white house, david gergen was the speechwrit speechwriter, the lead attorney for the watergate's special prosecutor's office and carl bernstein, carl along with bob woodward would become journalistic legends by breaking story after story in the post. i wonder what went through your mind then and what went through your mind when you

solicitor general, suddenly filling in as attorney general, agrees to fire archibald cox. "so-called" saturday night massacre.still -- nixon is hardly immune to it all. about nine months later, nixon -- on the verge of impeachment. but instead of being removed from office, he resignsnat of pres. richard nixon: "i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow."randi kaye cnn new york. (justine) governor jerry brown is proposing a new plan to help put five million zero- emission cars on the road over the next 12 years. brown's two-point-five million dollar plan announced on friday... wants to expand the number of electric car charging stations across the state. this adds to his already ambitious goal of selling over a million zero- emission cars by 2025. california currently has just 350- thousand cars on the roads. the plan still needs to be approved. (justine) if you're not following all of the rules... stanley roberts will likely be there to bust you.(jr stone) and this time...stanley just stumbled upon a big time pick-up issue. while driving home i noticed this

the firing of archibald cox has not affected you.sted ourselves off because we were not fired. but clearly an effort to obstruct justice. as the firing of robert mueller would be because there is no legitimate basis to fire him. it is something we discussed here on your show since june for sure and perhaps that's had some effect on don mcgahn and others in the white house who tried to prevent and did success in preventing trump from following his instinct to fire robert mueller. >> carl, the irony, the backlash against nixon was so strong, he had to appoint a new special prosecutor who was just as tenacious to get the tapes. >> the big difference up until now has been the republicans who have come time and time again to donald trump's support as he tries to shutdown this investigation. we have yet to hear mitch mcconnell or paul ryan get up and say mr. president, this mueller investigation which is legitimate and important to our country must go on. what happened in watergate is that republicans became the heroes by saying nobody inc

number one if you're reporting that the president may believe archibald cox is a there's is a redheadedomic book character as opposed to -- >> that's a poor excuse for an argument. you know better. you know better. stop. >> let her finish, please. >> the volume of your voice is neither persuasive nor respectful and does not match my persuasion at all. number two, the point is this. obstruction of justice is simply not the end game. to talk about this as a conscious effort of obstruction is but part of the inquiry that mueller is engaged in. the larger issue is what would be the thing you are trying to obstruct ors on fuss obfuscate? that's the nature of the argument and the investigation. to be dismissive frankly is baffling. >> no, it's not baffling. the last point is the only point that you've made that makes any sense. that actually is relevant. the issue about what -- >> your condescension is quite improper. >> again, that's an excuse for an argument. get to the point. >> let her -- >> hang on, hold on. we all need to be respectful of each other. we shouldn't name call and be rude.

the night richard nixon fired the man in charge of the watergate investigation, archibald cox. this was the front page of the "new york times", nixon discharges cox for defiance, abolishes watergate task force. >> here is the thing, it turns out his task force didn't stop investigating watergate. it actually kept going even after cox was let go. the night of the saturday night massacre, the special prosecutors' team trekked down to the office to make sure their documents and evidence were secure. the fbi sealed up the space to make sure nothing was tampered with and then the investigation just kept going. soon the investigation got a new boss. his name was leon jaworski. he did not want the job but before he would take it, he made sure what happened to archibald cox would not happen to him. >> jaworski accepted the prosecutor's job reluctantly after the white house assured him he would have complete freedom and said he's confident he's not suffering the same fate. >> i am not anticipating a disagreement will be reached. on the other hand one of the matters i searched for and wan

why would he go to the extent of firing archibald cox? here the same question pertains. will ask why won't the president simply keep his hands off of mueller, this orchestrated campaign to denigrate the fbi, to denigrate mueller who -- his picture is in the dictionary next to public servant. i mean there's no one better equipped to conduct an impartial investigation than robert mueller. >> insults aren't equated with criminality. with nixon, because of your expertise and experience, it was that he was hiding material that was relevant to the investigation of an actual crime, a felony of that rars any, that break-in, that burglary. where is the equivalent here out of the suggestion well, donald junior's meeting which was inarguably stupid they had with that russian lawyer, he wanted to doctor the statement and make it better for them politically? >> put the obstruction of justice piece of this aside for a moment. there are a lot of things cumulative that add up to an inference there. there's a lot of smoke, but we don't know because mueller is doing what he's supposed to

nixon has ordered attorney general elliot richardson to fire the special watergate prosecutor archibald coxrter: but the attorney general refuses to fire cox and resigns in protest. >> i am committed to the independence of the special prosecutor. >> reporter: so nixon orders the deputy attorney general to fire the prosecutor. he too refuses and resigns. before the night is done, though, the u.s. solicitor general suddenly filling in as attorney general agrees to fire archibald cox. the so-called saturday night massacre. still, nixon is hardly immune to it all. about nine months later, nixon, on the verge of impeachment. but instead of being removed from office, he resigns. >> i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. >> reporter: randi kaye, cnn, new york. >> david gergen and timothy naftali are back with us you. were working for nixon the night he ordered the firing of the special prosecutor. when you heard this proportionate that president trump had also ordered mueller to be fired, what were you thinking? is history repeating itself? >> it sure triggered a lot of memories

massacre. >> the area that is similar is when richard nixon moved to fire archibald cox who fired him is the president who is abusing his power. there are some people in washington and around the country who read the story as part of the puzzle that leads to the same conclusion. >> when he didn't do it though. he didn't fire mueller. we know as recently as a couple of days ago sarah sanders said you would have freaked out. the media would have freaked out. one of the things about "the new york times story" is the president was zeroing in on robert mueller. why he had conflicts. dispute over fees for the trump golf club membership. he worked previously with the law firm that represented jared kushner. the day before he became special counsel, he interviewed for the fbi director job. are these reasons or excuses? >> i think these are excuses. these are reasons to legitmate his concerns. he is upset and bothered by investigation. he has been trying in public and private to stop it at many turns. i think these other reasons in his mind or the spin we get afterwards is the legitimacy to br

it involved the firing of the special prosecutor archibald cox. that's what triggered the impeachment and do you feel of richard nixon. and we have had one firing of fbi head. and we've had another attempted firing of mueller. another -- the special counsel. so we are getting into watergate territory in the sense that the president thinks he is above the law, that he can pick who is going to investigate him, that he can stop an investigation, that he can thwart an investigation, obstruct an investigation. that's not an america that we know and that we tolerate. >> you're you were a member of the house judiciary committee during watergate. >> yes. >> you know of the parallels and you spoke of them. >> yes. >> for the people in washington -- this seems so political now when you look at the -- go on. >> that's the sad thing. it's very political. i mean it didn't start out being political. >> was the environment the same way during -- were people as polarized then. >> no. because what happened was you had the senate -- first of all what happened was y

he resigned rather than fire archibald cox. we haven't yet seen that kind of profile and courage.h as you were saying, rachel, some of what you were saying about don mcgahn looks good. >> if he's staking himself against don hague, i'd want to be the don mcgahn character. >> things we never expected to see. and hope not to. >> right. hope we wake up and it's not happening. micha micha micha michael beschloss joining us at the very last minute here. i enjoy you being here on short notice. thank you for being here. >> be well. >> that does it for us tonight. i had a whole other show. i will save it for you. maybe. see you again tomorrow. now it's time for "last word with lawrence o'donnell." >> come on over and do your whole other show. just hand it to me. i'll just read it. rachel, among the things i never expected to hear from you is i would want to be the don mcgahn it's trying to imagine the relationship between don mcgahn and the president right now as all of these news stories are coming out showing us that don mcgahn is the man saving us from the abyss. it's hard to imagine wh

republicans respected archibald cox. he had been the solicitor general. who cares if he had worked for kennedy? this was someone with a pristine reputation and that was enough to win him the credibility he needed. >> the other thing that i feel like is very striking to me at this one-year mark since the intelligence community assessment came out is the attacks on the fbi as an institution and efforts by republicans almost large within congress to say the fbi is a bad institution and corrupt and should be purged along partisan lines. how do you compare that in terms of the fbi's role with watergate? >> there were no such attacks on the fbi by nixon. in so far as there was anger from the nixon white house towards cox, sure, there was plenty of them. even though it didn't blow up publicly very much. if you listen to the nixon tapes, he said all sorts of things about archibald cox privately. but, no, the fbi, as far as i know, did not sustain any kind of attacks like this. >> leon is the host of the podcast about watergate called slow burn. i'm obviously a fa

the president has fired the man you just saw, the special watergate prosecutor, archibald cox and he has sent fbi agents to the office of the special prosecution staff and to the attorney general and the deputy attorney general and the president has ordered the fbi to seal off those offices. >> seal off those offices. now that was called a massacre because so many people resigned. rather than carry out the potentially illegal order. but then what? public outrage, criticism? but what happens. some of the next legal moves are actually often forgotten in that history. here is some rarely seen footage of a man known for a lot of fights in public life, ralph nader. he challenged nixon's firing in court just three days after the massacre. >> tomorrow we will file in federal district court a complaint challenging the removal of mr. cox from his position as special prosecutor and the attempted abolition of the office of special prosecutor by acting attorney general robert bourque under the command of richard nixon. >> his argument there is what don mcgahn surely had on his mind, a president

to barbara's point about the saturday night massacre, it was the firing of archibald cox by president nixon that sort of began the ends for him. this paragraph also pertains. barbara, i want your reaction to it. another option that mr. trump considered in cushions with his advisers was dismissing the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and elevating the number three official rachel brand overseeing mr. mueller. what do you think about the possibility how would that work if you would to remove rosenstein? >> you want me to answer that question. >> please, thanks. >> i think that would have similar political ramifications. rob rosen sign is a career respected deputy attorney general. he's been a u.s. attorney in both republican and democratic administrations. to remove him in that scenario without any just cause i think would cause a lot of alarm and panic. i don't know that it would be any better than firing robert mueller because it would suggest you're trying to elevate someone who obviously might be more sympathetic to your views in overseeing the investigation. so i think that t

now, obviously, you have heard the analogy to the president nixon wanting to fire archibald cox who was special counsel back then. and you just heard on your show, people saying secretary gates, it would be a blunder, disaster, i'm not here for that. legally speaking, it's a tricky nuanced question. >> and big news this week, we are told president trump ordered to be fired. but then he backed down when the special counsel threatened to quit over this. >> that is interesting because it highlights what you asked me and some new gloss. there are a lot of debates open on this. he may have ordered it and then don mcgahn said, here are a number of reasons why you shouldn't do this and the president backed down. as far as the reporting requirement, did they have to report it? not clear. i know that is a little wishy-washy. he obviously has no maternity clients and is with the president white house council. so that is one way of sort of answering that. it is our privilege under the attorney/client privilege. >> i want to take you back to obstruction because of what president trump had to say ab

had every right to do that, including the right to do that because he didn't like the fact that archibald coxas getting close to, you know, showing that richard nixon engaged in criminal misconduct. now, you can charge -- once he's removed from office, richard nixon for a whole bunch of things, including orchestrating a conspiracy to obstruct justice by having a slush fund to pay off witnesses. but what you can't do, i don't think, after you remove him from office, is charge richard nixon or donald trump with a crime of obstruction of justice because he removed somebody from office which he had every right to do. >> but even though someone has a right to remove him from office i think this is why the question of obstruction is what his intent was. if he thought there was terrible conduct, racial discrimination, or he just didn't like comey, okay, right? i think we would all agree on that. but here i think the real question is going beyond that, did he do it because he intended to stop an investigation into his campaign? >> we're opening up constitutional -- the president is a unique constitut

when archibald cox fired, his work caused nixon to resign. i think that director wray of the fbi when he made a secret visit to the house intelligence committee vault sunday afternoon to look at the four-pay memo saw something that implicated mccabe and decided it was time for him to go. he can't be fired because he's civil service protected. he can be removed from his position as number two in the fbi. but he's still fbi and still gets a salary. kennedy: he was placed on terminal leave which means he will take all the accrued vacation time. >> i think that's unlawful. as a private citizen he's no longer the subject of being called for congress. there is a lot congress wants from him. if he doesn't work for the fbi, they can't get him. kennedy: what about james comey? >> he went there voluntarily. they could subpoena him, but he could resist it for a long time. he can't resist it while he's an employee of the federal government. kennedy: can he resist a grand juriy subpoena from robert mueller? >> no. i think he would spec voluntarily to muel

>> well, if the reports are accurate, then i would say don mcgahn reported an archibald cox moment and don mcgahn is to be commended. he's a man of integrity, a very good lawyer. he stood up and he did the right thing. if the president were to fire robert mueller, that would set off a political firestorm, the likes of which we haven't seen since watergate. >> does the report of intent in any way add to your view any mounting evidence of obstruction or an attempt of obstruction by the president? >> well, the mueller investigation deals with, you know, russian interference in our election and if there was any, you know, involvement by the trump campaign. i am not aware at this moment of the president in any way colluding, although there are others who obviously have some real exposure. so i'm not sure just what mueller -- director mueller is going to find, but it's pretty clear to me that, you know, he is looking, he may be looking at obstruction. i mean, if the president, as he has stated, that he has done nothing wrong, i don't understand why he seems to want to interfere with this pro

nixon's attorney general had appointed a special prosecutor, archibald cox, to investigate watergate. the special prosecutor then demanded nixon hand over eight of the tapes. >> eight specific tapes of conversations either in the president's office or on his telephone. >> nixon not only refused but on a saturday night in october 1973 he also ordered his attorney general to fire the special prosecutor. the attorney general was appalled. he said no and resigned. then the president told one of his assistants to call the deputy attorney general. >> when i picked the phone up it was al haig. he said he wanted me to fire cox and i said i'm not going to do it. >> ruckleshouse refused in a moment of constitution of drama to obey a presidential order to fire the special watergate prosecutor. >> first the attorney general to say i'm not going to do that and then resign and then the next person who is the deputy attorney general, bill ruckleshouse, one of the great people in the nixon administration, one of the most ethical men i have ever known, he, too, was not willing to do it. >> so the depu

when archibald cox investigated richard nixon, he knew nixon wasn't too happy about the investigation. special prosecutor proceed and they do their job. the people who are under investigation don't usually like prosecutors, but if they're professionals, they get their job done in a professional way. >> do you remember, susan hennessy, one of the president's lawyers, john dowd told axios, quote, the president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer. he claims that's under article two of the constitution. that would still have to be determined by the courts, but that's the white house position. >> this really is a very, very extreme position. it's essentially akin to saying the president can't violate the law, he's above the law. there are complex legal questions about whether or not you can indict a sitting president. that's a separate question about whether the president can violate the law. ultimately here we probably aren't looking at donald trump being indicted at the conclusion of the mueller investigation, even sort of the most extreme examples. th

when nixon ordered attorney general elliott richardson to fire independent special prosecutor archibald cox. richardson refused, leading to richardson's resignation and that of deputy attorney general williams ruckelshouse. and trump has already fired comey but unlike with nixon, mcgahn's pushback worked. still, we're all just sitting around and waiting to see how far president trump is willing to push this and how much his advisers and republicans in congress are willing to put up with. my panel of experts is here with me to talk about it all. so, laura, does the president ordering the fire of special counsel robert mueller constitute obstruction of justice or attempted obstruction of justice if it was not carried out? >> yes, it could certainly do that. this is a crime that you can use if it's based on an endeavor. if you attempt to do it, that can still constitute obstruction. you need not accomplish it. remember he did fire comey. if the reason was to obstruct justice, that could be the accomplishment. but if you endeavor to do so, that could also constitute obstruction. again, this is

should be looking at that as an impeachable act in the same they they looked at the firing of archibald cox as part of an impeachable offense, abuse of office. so i think that these people in the white house communications operations, need to spend more time with their history books, understanding the real issues they face are legal and fought just perception. >> they should know they actually do work for the american people. i know they're there to get the president's message out. but their intention not be to lie to the american people or call something a hoax, a legitimate investigation a hoax, we are living in an upsidedown universe. jim, there is something we need to report on the president is denying christopher wray threatened to resign in the wake of the pressure from his administration what is going on here? >> cnn is reporting, contradicts the president, frankly. this is based on people familiar with the conversations, but the conversation as recounted to cnn was attorney general jeff sessions speaking to christopher wray, in effect asking him to clean house, names mentioned among

archibald cox moment. he saved us from that. i think by doing so he helped the president. >> i think it was david ger den saying it was a slow-motion saturday night massacre? he's basically getting rid of everyone who is investigating him. he's at war with his own party and the people he appointed. why won't republicans -- they voted on party lines today to release that. every single one of them. why won't republicans stand up for -- you heard director clapper, you heard general hayden, saying the congress is there to keep checks on the president, and they have relinquished their power and authority to the president of the united states. >> sadly, we're supposed to have a system of checks and balances, where we -- it's supposed to be a separation of powers, not a separation of parties. this predates this president. i've seen parties protecting the president, instead of providing the robust oversight. this is concerning. if i were on that committee i would have raised concerns about moving forward on information this sensitive, t

nixon's attorney general had appointed a special prosecutor, archibald cox, to investigate watergate.r then demanded that nixon hand over eight of the tapes. >> eight specific tapes of conversations either in the president's office or on his telephone. >> nixon not only refused but on a saturday night in october 1973 he also ordered his attorney general to fire the special prosecutor. the attorney general was appalled. he said no and resigned. then the president told one of his assistants to call the deputy attorney general. >> i picked the phone up and it was al haig. he said he wanted me to fire cox. and i said i'm not going to do it. >> ruckleshouse refused in a moment of constitutional drama to obey a presidential order to fire the special watergate prosecutor. >> first the attorney general to his great credit just saying i'm not going to do that and then resign, and then the next person, who is the deputy attorney general, bill ruckleshouse, one of the great people in the nixon administration, one of the most ethical men i've ever known, he too was not willing to do it. >> so the

if the reports are true, he did in fact prevent an archibald cox moment or a saturday night massacre.d for don mcgann. he's a very fine person, i've known him for many years. i guess i just have to say to you, again, let mueller do his work. and if mueller were to be fired, and i don't think he will be. but if he were to be fired, that would set off a political firestorm like this country hasn't seen probably since watergate. >> do you get the impression that the president doesn't want mueller's russia investigation to come to a natural conclusion? despite what he says, he says one thing, but then behind closed doors, or not in front of the cameras, he indicates other things. >> well that's always been i think part of the frustration of this whole thing. publicly the president says he's done nothing wrong and there's been no collusion. and up to this point i've seen no evidence of the president himself colluding with the russians, now there have been other folks who do have some exposure. but the president, there's been no direct evidence of that. so i guess that begs the question --

and review what happened to president nixon after the saturday night massacre when nixon fired archibald coxthe independent counsel. i think there will be massive opposition. i think people will pour into the streets if he does it. >> douglas, are you seeing more comparisons to richard nixon? >> well, there's no question about it. everybody's nixon bell is being rung. i think that one of the things that is surprising about trump's attempt to fire mueller is that this hasn't leaked out before now. that means there's a lot of covering up going on in the white house that this hasn't leaked sooner. and everybody in the white house has to be very fearful, just to even be in an environment with donald trump working in government is dangerous. you know, harry truman used to famously say, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. and donald trump is saying i love the heat. bring on the heat. but he now has radioactive heat around him, donald trump. this last bit of news about wanting to get rid of mueller is a big, almost a guarantee that obstruction of justice is going to be levied at hi

that it would be a repeat of what was called during watergate, the saturday night massacre when archibald cox the special prosecutor in that case was removed, because he kept insisting on nixon releasing his tapes to the court and to grand jury and there was a subpoena for them. to try to halt that action, nixon fired cox. he had to also let his attorney general resign, and his deputy attorney resign, and he had to swear in his solicitor general as attorney general to get the job done. it was a really startling weekend, and following that is when impeachment became a serious matter in washington as a result of removing cox. it was sort of a defiance of the rule of law, and washington reacted. >> some republican lawmakers have pointed out that don mcgahn did the right thing when the president asked him to order mueller fired, but givenb the outcome that no action was taken against mueller at that time, does it make any less damning for the president? >> well, today, post watergate, the ethic standards have changed for attorneys. today, today, the white house counsel does not represent the pers

specifically when nixon fired archibald cox, the real nixon reference is that if the president had moved on the special counsel, bob mueller, there may well have been a cascade of resignations just like with nixon that would have left trump exactly where nixon was. forced to resign for efforts to derail justice. that's where we are tonight. let's bring in one of the new york times reporters who broke the story. can you hear me? >> i can. >> where do you want to start? i think it makes most sense -- have you heard anything from the white house in response to this reporting? >> just a statement from ty cobb that out of respect for the process they were going to decline to comment. that's not a denial. i think it's worth noting. the first that we have heard of an actual effort by the president to do this. chris who is an ally of the president and who was in the white house last summer, around this time went on television and said the president was considering firing mueller. there was a frantic effort by white house advisors to walk that back and insist it wasn't true even though it was tru

i mean we could have had an archibald cox moment, a saturday night massacre. >> i've been call it a slow-moaturday night massacre because he's gotten rid of mccabe. he's gotten rid of comey and is on his way to getting rid of rosenstein. it's almost the same pattern as nixon's in '73. yes? congressman? you're the one that made the reference. it's so clear. he is channeling nixon. >> again, i think it's a terrible mistake for him to go down this road. it makes absolutely no sense. i believe it provides a greater legal exposure to him by doing so. i think as republicans, we are the party of law enforcement at the state and local levels. and we should not be getting into this type of warfare with the fbi and even the department of justice. i don't want to undermine the american public's confidence in our system of justice, doj and certainly the fbi. it's not. he to us as republicans. >> in the u.s. house of representatives, president trump does have a more receptive audience. it's a majority republican body. kevin mccarthy, a republican leader, a trump ally does not think legislation is necess

corruption, in fact, no one suggested to my knowledge that richard nixon engaged in a crime by firing archibald cox. he did engage in crimes. obstruction of justice, but that had to do with the hush money and the like. there's no suggestion of that. we just have a trump tower set of ethics here and that is what we're seeing in the president. i hope that he will control that more in h the remaining years of his term. i think we're seeing business tactics. i just don't see the corruption. he's so transparent. he tells everyone, look, i want to get rid of this guy. he's a thorn in my flesh. >> okay, dan abrams, i know you're shaking your head. i tend to think that you don't agree with that. >> yeah. the question isn't, does firing robert mueller, would firing robert mueller be a crime? that's not the question. the question is, would firing robert mueller, does trying to fire robert mueller potentially become a piece in an obstruction case? you put that together, potentially, with the firing of james comey. why? the conversations that he had with the director of the cia. the director of national intell

alexander haig, the chief of staff for nixon's white house, told archibald cox, the special prosecutor who began looking into questions about money given to nixon to refurbish his home in california, and he said that if he continued in that, the president would discharge cox. so it's the same thing over again. >> michael, i want you to respond to reports this week, including from nbc news, that don mcgahn, the president's counsel, asked for some pressure to be applied -- or applied some pressure himself, rather, on attorney general jeff sessions, trying to convince him not to recuse himself from the russia investigation. help us understand the gravity of that. >> it's tremendously important and very serious, because the justice department is supposed to be independent of the presidency. as a matter of fact, the idea of having a compliant justice department has its roots in watergate as well. before the special counsel was appointed, special prosecutor cox, in april of 1973, the attorney general himself, and henry peter soernsion the head of the criminal division, gave private briefings

obviously in the end if we go back to the one historical example we have, richard nixon, removed archibald cox. i think in the end, the facts and evidence are there. i think they will be found out. but if donald trump tries to fire rod rosenstein, has rosen steen -- rosenstein's replacement fire bob mueller, there will be conflagration around that. i don't think in the end he can escape accountability for bhafr -- whatever is in those files in mueller's office. >> we'll have to leave it there. thank you all -- no, i'm sorry. i have one more question for frank. what happens now inside the fbi? what happens with the rank and file? >> well, i think they're going to want to know the answer to the question was andy forced out for political purposes, or was this a choice that andy decided to make for the good of the fbi. that's going to circulate quickly, starting on the seventh floor of the hoover building and getting out to the field offices. then the rank and file are going to look very closely at the next pick. i would not be surprised if we see someone brought in, a major leader of a major fiel

have studied the saturday night massacre in which richard nixon fired his special considerate, archibald cox they have concluded is that it's not that nixon did it, it's the way he did it. and that maybe he would have gotten away with it, if he would have done it more slowly and more obliquely. and maybe that's what we're seeing today. >> folks say that if there was -- or posture, at least, if there was a fox news back then when nixon was in power, winix wouldn't would not have had to resign. what do you think of accusations like that, tom? >> i think we have to, especially in our business, just deal with the facts as we find them out on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. you know, part of the condition, part of the environment that has changed so much is social media, quite honestly. everybody has something to say about it. and they flood the screens. left, right, and in between. true and not true. and so it's very hard for the american public to sort out what is true and what's not true. what i say to a lot of people that come up to me and say, you're not going to believe what i read on t

example i use very quickly to demonstrate the point is richard nixon's firing a long time ago of archibald coxm comey or whatever, it is obstruction of justice. i just disagree with the entire mind set that says the exercise of executive power, barring bribery and so forth, somehow in and of itself are connecting a few dots constitutes a crime. that should not be that, that can not be. now the congress can step in say, hey, we don't like that. we are going to call to you account. that is what the constitution calls for. steve: judge, if it is true and they were discussing it at the white house, what happens if i fire this guy, who i feel has a bunch of conflicts of interest, just discussing is not against the law. and even if he did fire him for a conflict of interest, not like he tried to shut down the investigation? >> that's right. that's a key point again everybody says, oh, my goodness, this is armageddon but the investigation just as with watergate, archibald cox gets fired. in comes lee on jaworski. the investigation would go on, you're absolutely right. here is another key point. the p

nobody suggested duke the water gate era, for example, that richard nixon's act firing archibald cox was a crime. for some reason in the current environment people are contending an effort or an endeavor to fire special counsel mueller would constitute the crime of a obstruction of justice. my view that is baloney. that is just wrong. neil: the president said he is open, this president, to being interrogated or interviewed. >> right. neil: more to the point by mueller. what do you think of that? >> i think they have made a political calculation way certainly in place as early as ty cobb joining the president's legal team they can survive this there is no evidence of collusion. no provable evidence in a criminal case, no provable evidence of obstruction of justice. the president should outlast the investigation. the fastest way to get that accomplished, otherwise you prolonging thing agony, submit o the interview at appropriate time, would signal end of investigation, and hope is, you and i talked about this for months. neil: right. >> the goal has got to be in the political process t

nixon fired archibald koch, then got leon jaworski. admittedly coxcertainly had a political background which was democrat but clearly trump seems to think, i'll check back with michael on this, he seems to think his worse enemy is bob mueller. >> his worst enemy is donald trump. michael's reporting has teed up a question that mueller will ask trump that could lead to trump's removal from office. the question is, robert mueller to trump, did you try to get me fired. if trump answers no, that's perjury. he's going down. if he answers yes, that's obstruction or at least strong corroboration of his criminal intent to impede the investigation. >> michael, let's talk about the reporting here because i love the background. does trump, donald trump the man, fear bob mueller the man? >> i think that he recognizes that mueller is an existential threat to his presidency and that not only is this something about russian collusion and questions of ties between his campaign and russia, but it is also something thatting is focused squarely on his time in office. th