so that's the speech that jeff sessions is supposed to give. mueller says, quote, the dictated message went onto state that sessions would meet with the special counsel to limit his jurisdiction to future election interference. >>> now a group of people -- this is what, again, sessions is supposed to say -- now a group of people want to subvert the constitution of the united states. i am going to meet with the special prosecutor to exexplain this is very unfair and let the special prosecutor move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections so that nothing can happen in future elections. a you can see him thinking. this is not firing the special counsel. two days before this meeting with cory lewandowski, two days previous to that meeting he had told white house counsel don mcgahn that don mcgahn should fire robert mueller, the white house special counsel. don mcgahn refused that order from the president. and this is genius, but he'll arrange through cory lewandowski, private citizen at this point, no role in the administrat

the president asked to contact jeff sessions saying that mueller must be removed. that was june 17. 2017. add five years, statute of limitations expires. the president met with corey lewandowski saying that sessions should publicly announce the investigation was very unfair to the president. from then on he should only move meddling for future elections. that was june 19, 2017. then a follow-up meeting a month later in july. july 2017, add five years. july 2022. the special counsel laid out the obstructive act, the nexus for a criminal proceeding and criminal intent. if president trump is not reelected, he will be out of office in january, 2021. at that point he will no longer be immune from prosecution. he will still be well within the statute of limitations of all of the alleged in this report. they don't expire for more than a year after he leaves office. if he is reelected, he will definitely still be in office while the statute of limitations on all those potential crimes expires and he can no longer be prosecuted for them. how is that for a re-election bumper

special counsel was necessary, and jeff sessions said it was not. any time anyone says origins, i wonder if they mean oranges. by the origins have been investigated, defended by trump's own appointees at the justice department. so what is the what that is being examined? >> rod rosenstein has been a big defender of this process and the republicans on capitol hill have demanded a lot of documentation about this. a lot of it has been handed over. we saw the stuff that went on with devin nunes and the memo and the stuff about the origins of the investigation. the refuting of the notion that the dossier was the reason for opening the investigation. so this is all in the same caldron of things that the president has tried to kick up. here he has the wind at his back a bit. he has embraced the barr letter, said it fully exonerates him and now he wants to investigate the investigators and he's clearly made some head way in that direction. >> robert costa you have an incredible body of reporting about the role the freedom caucus has played in shaping the tr

on president's orders, and this was when he was trying to put pressure on then attorney general jeff sessions to unrecuse himself, sessions wouldn't do it, so the president then pulled in his former campaign manager corey lewandowski to dictate a message, i quote, that session should give a speech publicly announcing, i know i recuse myself from certain things ha having to do with specific areas but our president is being treated very unfairly. give us a sense of how the president was operating. >> the president wanted corey lewandowski to deliver this message to jeff sessions to unrecuse and try to limit the scope of the operation, and lewandowski, an outside adviser to the president didn't feel he was comfortable and didn't feel it was his place and didn't have an official job in the white house and didn't follow through and took it over to rick dearborn who was working in the white house and tried to get him to deliver the session to jeff sessions and rick dearborn didn't feel comfortable and tnts understand what was going on and decided not to deliver the message and you see the theme ove

i'll pass on that message to jeff sessions, i'll get jeff sessions to do this crazy thing. but then rick dearborn did not actually pass the message on. did not actually do it. we've talked about this specific incident on the show since the mueller report came out. because it's freaking ridiculous, right? because it's comical. corey, write this down. but also because mueller lays this out very clearly. not just in terms of the facts in his report. he lays out very clearly, very plainly, like a choose your own adventure novel but one that had only one available ending. so, make your choice carefully but there's one choice. mueller laid out in as straightforward a way as possible that ridiculous incident with the president telling a private citizen to go get the attorney general to give this speech unrecusing himself, limiting mueller's investigation to future crimes and then told corey lewandowski should feel free to fire the attorney general if the attorney general wouldn't agree to do that, right? mueller lays that out, in terms of the facts, as potential criminal obstructi

otherwise, to use the antiquated term by jeff session, no one is above the law. at's not session' term. that goes back to 1610 in dr. bonham's case in england. >> i thought it was jeff sessions' original. i didn't know he was remixing older stuff. let me also play for you, neal, rudy giuliani, who seems to find a way to muddy or complicate what might have been an easier set of weekend interviews. take a look. >> it doesn't matter whether there was an underlying crime. it's still obstruction. >> when did mueller become god? there is nothing wrong with taking information from russians. >> there is nothing wrong? >> it depends on where it came from. >> don mcgahn saved him. >> don mcgahn didn't save him. >> don mcgahn didn't carry out an order and saved him. >> he had a perfect right to file mueller. >> omg. i don't know even where to begin. let me take there is nothing wrong with getting information from the russians. the russians are our most sophisticated adversary. trump has been denying that they interfered in the election time and again to the consternation of

adviser michael flynn go, when he later fired comey, when he tried to persuade attorney general jeff sessions not to recuse himself. over and over again, mueller describes where the president tried to hinder his investigation. >> the special counsel does not charge the president with obstruction, acknowledging that a sitting president cannot be indicted but mueller does not exonerate him either f. we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. based on the facts and the applicable -- to help them and hurt hillary clinton, but mueller says those in trump's circle were definitely deceptive about their russia contacts. the report says the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the trump campaign lied to the office and to congress about their interactions with russian affiliated individuals and related matters. we get more now from political correspondent sarah morgan. >> reporter: good morning boris and christine. bob mueller's report is out and the redacted report reve

after having made jeff sessions -- or watched jeff sessions recuse himself and not be happy with that he's going to let another attorney general come in who wasn't playing ball the way he wanted to play ball. i don't think it's an accident then that when we come to this moment of bill barr having to make a decision how to interpret obstruction of justice, when bob mueller hasn't, that he steps into that vacuum and says, fine, you're done with this. i think the other side of this now, with what's going on with nadler and the congress is i think they would be wise not to try to relitigate all of the conspiracy issues. but they clearly have a door they can push open around obstruction. when you see them subpoenaing don mcgahn, for example, you know, mcgahn, sally yates walked over from the justice department we have tapes of michael flynn, we think this matters, and they didn't do anything with it until they were forced because of press accounts of what flynn said and how he lied about it, to do something. there's more digging nadler and his crew can do around obstruction and make hay ou

all of the pressure that he put on jeff sessions. it's interesting in here to unrecuse. they had conversations between sessions, even after flynn was indicted, where he was putting pressure on him, asking him to unrecuse, telling him, look, you'll be a hero if you do it. and sessions says, i don't think you did anything wrong. i don't think there was any basis to believe the campaign conspired with russia, but he ultimately didn't recuse, as we know. they also have of the instances in which the president tried to shape the narrative with mcgahn on public reports and mcgahn felt like he was being used as a tool in that way, often pishing back. there's many of these, as we said, i should say, the attorney general said, were in public view, but it's interesting. mueller said that's not dispositive. just because it's in public view doesn't mean that it couldn't still be harmful in an obstruction context. so that fact wasn't dispositive for mueller. it wasn't weighted the same was as it appears to have been for the attorney general. >> interestingly, the attorney general at th

he is going to not be jeff sessions. he is not going to get himself in the box that sessions found himself. >> he's put himself in a new box. >> he has. >> not a single member of the democratic party trusts him right now. >> true. the other side of that, which is potentially defensible, is that he can't do his job if the president thinks he's not on the same team. if the president thinks that his attorney general is working against him, he actually can't be effective at his job. it goes to the question of what that job is and how pious we want to be about it. he's clearly coming down on the side of i not going to be jeff sessions. >> isn't this, michael steele, like in a criminal case the defendant comes out and announces the charges and the verdict? >> yeah, yeah. >> it's sort of like i'm just so confused here. it just -- i have to say, it is pretty -- you know how you think you just can't imagine they'd go there. >> oh, yeah. >> there is not a guardrail yet that they won't plow through. >> of course not. it's even bette

it is something that jeff sessions never did. the post reporting that rosenstein used his access to trump to try to mount his own career survival. saying it would be resolved and he told the president, he would make sure that trump would be treat fairly. he said, he said i give the investigation credibility. and this is the quota lot of people are talking about.

report, trump met with former campaign aide cory lewandowski and dictated a message intended for jeff sessionsin the message, sessions was told to publicly announce the investigation was very unfair to the president and he should not be subject to an investigation because he hasn't done anything wrong. the message was never delivered. still the redacted report concludes the trump campaign did not criminally conspire with the russians, but trump had other reasons to dread the investigation. according to the report, the evidence does indicate that a thorough fbi investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the president personally that the president could have understood to be crimes or would give rise to personal and political concerns. cnn has reported at least 16 trump associates had russian contacts during the campaigner transition. according to mueller's report, the campaign expected it would benefit electoralally from information stolen and released through russian efforts. but the investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with

it was the president lamenting the fact jeff sessions recused himself. folks have seen how the president reacts to people who don't give him information detrimental to him even while telling the truth to federal prosecutors. i don't think that matters that much to the president. i think one thing i'm looking out for and we'll see when this report comes out is just how attorney general barr is perform in the president's eye. will there be a lot of redactions? will he try to minimize the amount of potentially embarrassing information or negative information that is contained in this report? i mean that certainly will spur a fight certainly with the democrats in congress. or will he release a fairly transparent report that contains a lot of negative information and how the president will react to him after we saw the way he treated jeff sessions. >> robert costa? >> here is why don mcgahn matters. based on my reporting the president is searching for his so-called roy cohn leaned on don mcgahn many times in the white house hoping he would act as almost the p

didn't have an in-depth conversation with jeff sessions but i spoke to attorney general sessions on dozenscasions, but never did i ask them to interfere with the mueller investigation, never did i ask them to do anything other than what was completely legal, which was continue to do his job. i tell you, i am disappointed that attorney general sessions recused himself from the investigation because that recusal is really what set in motion the entire special counsel and the two year, two and a half year, one year, ten month, and six days witch hunt that this president has gone through, i'm very disappointed that senator sessions recused himself. if he didn't do that, we would've never seen the special counsel or the attacks on this president undergo the last few years. >> ed: you talked about a witch hunt. we began the show talking about the president tweeting, look, it's time for the table to be turned. do you think james comey, james clapper, do you think others are going to be held accountable? >> justice should be blind, but it shouldn't be deaf, blind, and stupid. going after the peopl

the pressure on former attorney general jeff sessions to step down. the attempt to get rid of special counsel robert mueller. some of the top officials who were in trump's close orbit and who also spoke to mueller include, but aren't limited to, white house counsel don mcgahn, former coms director hope hicks, and the two former chiefs of staff reince priebus, john kelly. even current white house officials like jared kushner, sarah sanders, stephen miller took part in interviews with the special counsel. mueller also interviewed james comey, jeff sessions, former national security advisor mike flynn, a lot of names here, but former white house counsel don mcgahn may be the most potentially dangerous witness for the president. he reportedly met with mueller's team for over 30 hours of testimony and witnessed some of the events that led to concerns about possible obstruction, including efforts to get rid of mueller and sessions, and the comey and flynn firings. last year, as mueller was in the middle of his inquiry, mcgahn had this to say about his curre

trump was told the special counsel had been appointed the president told the van attorney general jeff sessions this is the end of my presidency gone from later on to the white house lawyer don began to fire robert mala. refuse so here is just some of what the attorney general had to say. as you will see the special counsel's report states that his quote investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities i am sure that all americans share my concern about the efforts of the russian government to interfere in our presidential election as the special counsel report makes clear the russian government sought to interfere in our election process but thanks to the special counsel's thorough investigation we now know that the russian operatives who perpetrated these schemes did not have the cooperation of president trump or the trump campaign or the knowing assistance of any other american for that matter that is something that all americans can and should be frightful to have confirmed. ok so

jeff sessions was attorney general for 18 months after that. don mcgann was white house counsel for 18 months after that. the president has the right to fire any of us. he showed that by firing jim comey. he could have fired mueller. he did not do that. >> the report showed that people around him did not let him do that. mrs. conway: intent matters. intent should matter. intent has never mattered to any of you, respectfully. was there intent to collude or intent to conspire, was there an intent to steal the election from hillary clinton, i am sure for whom most of you voted. intent matters. the president's intention was not to do that. intent matters, and i know you want to cherry pick one line here or one line there, because the big lie that you let fly for two years is over. i guess if people want to investigate in congress and waste their time and not listen to people like nancy pelosi, let's talk about what her word was, kitchen table issues. let's have at it. because i present to you the document that shows that the democrat's successes --

the president dictated a message for lewandowski to deliver to jeff sessions. gation was very unfair from the president and the president had done nothing wrong. sessions planned to meet with the special counsel and let him move forward with the election meddling. lewandowski was to deliver this message to sessions. he met with him -- met again with the president the next day. the message had not been delivered. according to this -- this must come from lewandowski's discussions, lewandowski didn't want to deliver the president's message personally. so he asked another white house official to do so. you have cases where don mcgowan, corey lewandowski are being directed to take steps to interfere with the investigation and are refusing to follow the president's order. >> the president did remove james comey. he did want to remove robert mueller and he was complaining about jeff sessions. >> this is something new. another act that might result in obstruction of justice. the president in march of 2017 met with dan coats -- this is on page 55. the president asked int

we know when jeff sessions was here, people on his staff were the architects behind what became zero tolerance and it was sessions who announced it. it's not clear that barr will go to that same place. >>> after the break until the end of time, the chief accomplishment of the ousted dhs secretary will be a cruel policy. >>> with the release of the mueller report days away, the president sweating the big reveal. new reporting from ax owe on what lies ahead. >>> mayor pete buttigieg breaking through once again with one of the most honest and human moments in this young political season. stay with us. this young politi season stay with us ♪ there goes our first big order. ♪ 44, 45, 46... how many of these did they order? ooh, that's hot. ♪ you know, we could sell these. nah. ♪ we don't bake. ♪ opportunity. what we deliver by delivering. if your adventure keeps turning into unexpected bathroom trips you may have overactive bladder, or oab. ohhhh... enough already! we need to see a doctor. ask your doctor about myrbetriq® (mirabegron). it treats oab symptoms of urgency, frequency, and leak

the list includes former white house counsel don mcgahn and former attorney general jeff sessions. going to talk about a few of them now, with "washington post" investigative rel rter caonnig. carol, thanks so much for joining me. talk to me about how former house counsel don mcgah was pushing back against the president. rsey and says he wants to fire f.b.i. director comey. in that instance, the white house counsel is a little bitgo smacked that that is the plan for the day but tries to carefully tone down the rhetoric and the rage of the president at the f.b.i. director and make sure that his original draft of how he's going the fire this person is not the one he actually uses. and there is a notation in on of the notes taken of white house counsel don mcgahn's puty saying, this original talking point should not see the light of day, the president's original missive because it is legally questionable how e president plans to do this and why, and it look like obstruction of a criminal investigation. sohen the next moment that don mcgahn tries to send off a problem for the president

he then harassed and mocked his own attorney general, jeff sessions, for months upon months, because session did the right thing in the instance of recusal. he also failed to come before the grand jury, refusing to come in to testify. and then he handed in some written answers and would not respond. when attorney general barr characterizes the president as fully cooperate iing with a spel investigation that he was not a part of and he knows these underlying findings, that's mischaracterizing the president's participation and the report. the report itself does not exonerate this president. we know that. special counsel said, if he found reason to exonerate the president, he would have clearly stated so. but that didn't happen. >> do you believe, congresswoman, that mueller's intent was to let the decision on prosecution be up to you guys and the judiciary committee? >> i think that's possible he believes it is and i believe there's a part of the report where he says it is on the congress, on the judiciary committee, as well as other oversight committees. but certainly, the duty is on u

when it comes to the matter of investigating the president. >> jeff sessions who we've just learned was actively investigated by the fbi for perjury. >> uh-huh. >> ta-da. >> among other things. among the many gems that each of which deserve a full hour of attention. >> exactly. honestly, we should do it alphabetical by character. i'm going to get actors i swear. >> that's the next step. >> thank you. >> gualuk attorney general barr took as long as he possibly could to hand over his redacted version of the mueller report to congress. congress has it now. which means the republican-controlled senate will try to ignore it but the democratically controlled house of representatives must take on the responsibility of dealing with the you mule are report which robert mueller clearly anticipates in the report. he expects congressional action. it's very clear in the report he expects congress to be the next center of the action in the investigation of the president including the possibility of impeachment which is specifically mentioned by mueller. in the report. actualrences to impeachment.

the president is comparing him to jeff sessions. the president is pleased. >> i think the democrats expected barr to be siding with the president but never expected to be as bad as they considered it to be. he willn have a uncomfortable time. with the democrats when heie test they are four yous. robert: what could they do? >> they could complain and embarrass tim. nk setting the narrative in washington is very important in these stories. anbary helped the president. the report coming out is starting t reverse that narrative. they areurus. they think he acted improperly. >> iyou watch barr's press utnference before the report came the defenses he gave of the president mir order the president's defineses. no crdination or conspiracy. he said no collusion, over and over. he said the presidentad noncorrupt kept. thpresident was mad at the investigation. what explains that is either barr feels that way after looking at the report, he seesp noncor intent or has a broad pansive view of expansive power and the president has the right to d a

they are talking about the former attorney general jeff sessions refused to unrecuse from overseeinghe investigation. among a number of other issues and the language that mcgahn uses on this is just stunning and they say on june 14th, 2017, the media reported that the special counsel's office was investigating whether the president had obstructed justice. press reports called this had a major turning point in the investigation, and while comey had told the president he was not under investigation following comey's firing, the former fbi director, the president now was under investigation. the president reacted to this news with aer size of tweets criticizing the department of justice and the special counsel's investments on june 17th the president called mcgahn at home and directed him to call the acting attorney general, meaning rod rosenstein, and say that the special counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. mcgahn did not carry out those instructions deciding instead to resign to avoid a saturday night massacre. this is chock full of instances where the president was

not words that were inappropriate. >> attorney general jeff sessions. >> he's confirmed.t's a loss for warren. her team capitalizes. plastering it on merchandise to raise min for her reelection to the senate. >> that would galvanize millions. around here. >> we're the party of opposition. that's our job. >> out spoken and unapologetic. she takes a leading role against the trump administration. >> we will band together to fight donald trump. >> it's a role she embraced when president trump was candy dade trump in the spring of 2016. >> she was listening to the indiana primary results come in. republican side. >> the take over is complete. it's trumps republican party. >> trump wins. she was so sort of appalled by this. she wrote a series of posts. that were very critical. of trump. >> days later, trump tweets back. launching a personal attack on her claim about her heritage. >> it was a realtime back and forth. >> >> she said because her cheekbones were high, that she was an indian, she was native american. >> he is kissing the fannies of the poor misunderstood wall street

intentÓ que jeff sessions serra usarÁ la investigaciÓn y le dijo a sus asesores que querÍa un fiscalir el uso corrupto de autoridad por parte de un presidente, para proteger la integridad de la administraciÓn de justicia. barr dijo que estaba en desacuerdo con esa lectura de mueller, y que su departamento concluÍa que no hubo obstrucciÓn de justicia. reportera: al fiscal general al revelar el reporte le dio la razÓn a trump. >> como dijo desde un principio, no hubo colusiÓn. reportera: indica que esperaban beneficiarse de de los esfuerzos de los rusos. el fiscal general barr indica que nadie fuera del departamento de justicia, incluyendo el presidente trump, ha visto al deporte en su totalidad y sin tachaduras. patricia: tras conocerse el reporte del fiscal especial, el presidente trump cantÓ victoria, pero segÚn los demÓcratas, insuficiente evidencia de que el presidente cometiÓ colusión. reportero: las versiones del fiscal general y los demÓcratas son tan diferentes, que parece que hablan de dos informes distintos. barr afirmÓ que no hubo obstrucciÓn y colusión. trump celebrÓ sus p

president donald trump told the then attorney general jeff sessions that he thought it was the end of his presidency when he heard a special counsel was being appointed to investigate links between his campaign and russia it also found while links where identified between individuals with ties to the russian government and those associated don't trump stand by and wasn't enough to support criminal charges. see this was u.s. attorney general william barr announcing his take on the sense of version of the muller report he says the report confirms that trump didn't obstruct justice. the report recounts ten episodes involving the president and discusses potential legal theories for connecting those activities to the elements of an obstruction offense after carefully reviewing the faction legal theories outlined in. report and in consultation with the office of legal counsel and other department lawyers the deputy attorney general and i concluded that the evidence developed by the special counsel is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense

he actually called domcghan at home when he was angry with jeff sessions and said you need to get rid special couel and you need to get rid of this problem. so, in thitrcase, he wang to get don mcghan to fire the special counsel and really trying to use his power as the president to do tha it's important to note that attorney general wilarr this morning said the issue of obstruction is something the special counsel diad not ve the congress. in the report over and over again about congress, and i mention that because the three instances i laid out could come a road map congress might use to start trying to get information from people like special counsel robert mueller who we know the house judiciary committee and house judiciary chairman has asked to come afd testify beore congress. >> woodruff: a lot of new information there in the report, especially about the the efforts to get don mcghan to step in.le me come back to you, carrie johnson, at the justice partment, and ask you abut the meeting at trump tower in june of 2016. what did we learn about that meeting? and also about the sta

according to the reporting of robert mueller, the president be rated his former attorney general jeff sessions for letting him down. the report reads in report, "when sessions told the president that a special counsel had been appointed, the president slumped back and said oh, my god. this is terrible, this is end of my presidency. i'm effed." the report can'ts. "the president became angry and lambasted his decision saying how could you let this happen, jeff?" now 701 days later, the president's legal team is calling the results of the mueller investigation a total victory for the president. that's a quote. october, the report itself says that it does not exonerate the president. robert mueller said that if he could have exonerated him, he would have. ellison barber reporting live at the white house. ellison? >> shep, that's right. despite all of that, the president, his top aides here at the white house and his outside legal team, they're saying the same thing, that right now they feel vindicated. in a statement from president trump's personal attorneys, they said "the report underscores what

intentÓ que jeff sessions serra usarÁ la investigaciÓn y le dijo a sus asesores que querÍa un fiscalministraciÓn de justicia. barr dijo que estaba en desacuerdo con esa lectura de mueller, y que su departamento concluÍa que no hubo obstrucciÓn de justicia. reportera: al fiscal general al revelar el reporte le dio la razÓn a trump. >> como dijo desde un principio, no hubo colusiÓn. reportera: indica que esperaban beneficiarse de de los esfuerzos de los rusos. el fiscal general barr indica que nadie fuera del departamento de justicia, incluyendo el presidente trump, ha visto al deporte en su totalidad y sin tachaduras. patricia: tras conocerse el reporte del fiscal especial, el presidente trump cantÓ demÓcratas, insuficiente evidencia de que el presidente cometiÓ colusión. reportero: las versiones del fiscal general y los demÓcratas son tan diferentes, que parece que hablan de dos informes distintos. barr afirmÓ que no hubo obstrucciÓn y colusión. trump celebrÓ sus palabras diciendo que esto le exonera, y puso en un tweet, una foto basada en la serie game of thrones, pareciendo parodia

which covers the notes of hope hicks, which covers the notes of jeff sessions, chief of staff.p said, "i'm effed. close with i was an air. he could have done it but he said no. that's it's ordinary. you could argue, if you are just some who cares about executive authority and the separation of powers, they were too generous on giving them so much access. you could argue that. the president could say, "i'm not guilty of anything. let them talk to who they want to come i didn't do anything wrong." >> sandra: we will let you get back to page 73c can get through the rest of it. >> bill: see you tonight, 10:00 eastern. thank you, laura. speech by the way, the campaign manager for the 2020 campaign just put out a statement saying the president has been fully and completely exonerated yet again. and now the tables are turned. obviously, further calling for an investigation of the investigators. let's bring back our team. standing by with us this morning for all the breaking news, i know that everybody continues to dig through the report. bret, chris, and shannon sitting by. and martha

he immediately took action to get rid of jeff sessions. he was talked out of that. eventually by people like reince priebus who were in the white house at the time. he wanted to go forward with that. very angry. he actually kept sessions' resignation letter. there's little mention of pardons in this. they get into other issues, many of which were public. things the president did in public remarks. times when he slammed the special counsel's investigation. they say that those periods can be divided up into times where the president knew explicitly from comey, he was not personally under investigation. and then after it was revealed there was an obstruction investigation. after media reports came out that the president wanted don mcgann to fire the special counsel, he asked him to say that, to say those reports were inaccurate. he refused and said he would resign over firing special counsel mueller. the president continued to pressure his own white house legal counsel to lie. those are some of the highlights we have so far. we're continuing to go through this. as i'm

then attorney general jeff sessions -- >> if you're smuggling a child, then we're going to prosecute you. and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law. if you don't want your child to be separated, then don't bring them across the border illegally. >> reporter: to chief of staff john kelly. >> yes, i am considering, in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network, i am considering exactly that. they will be well cared for, as we deal their parents. >> reporter: even as he was denying a return to zero tolerance, the president also appeared to justify family separations as a deterrent. >> once you don't visit, that's why you see many more people coming. they're coming like it's a picnic, because let's go to disneyland. >> reporter: a senior administration official told reporters a different form of zero tolerance has been under consideration, something called binary choice, which would let migrant parents decide whether to be separated from their children or be incarcerated as a family. that official told reporters, binary choice is a po

who he said, if jeff sessions was loyal to me he wouldn't have been recused. the implicit nature of that he's going to help me, or the replacement. he's smart enough to know some things. he's not smart enough to know it doesn't work that way. whether me, berman, down the line they are not going to do the bidding of a president for political reasons. they are going to do what's right. i'm proud of the fact i didn't return the president's call. >> that you even have to say that proves my point. the public isn't looking for federal prosecutors to get rid of president trump. there's some guardrails where even the president isn't above the law. >> that's correct. >> after the break, the looming national security threat offer house security process. a house hearing gets heated over subpoenas. we'll bring you the latest and the president's favorite political punching bag, puerto rico and its citizens who the white house again describes as residents of another country today. donald trump, the cheater in chief. a new book explains what trump's commitment to cheating at

the report vividly describes the moment in the oval office when then attorney general jeff sessions informed trump a special counsel had been appointed. the president slumped back in his chair and said oh, my god, this is terrible, this is the end of my presidency, i'm blanked. how could you let this happen, jeff? >> there are a lot of ugly things in there about how president trump tried to kill this investigation. >> reporter: according to the report, president trump ordered former white house counsel don mcgahn to have mueller fired. the president called mcgahn at home and directed him to call the acting attorney general, rod rosenstein and say that the counsel had conflicts of interest and needed to be removed. he said mueller has to go, call me back when you do it. mcgahn refused, deciding to resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential saturday night massacre. ultimately, he stayed on for over a year. >> it could have been much worse for the president if he had been allowed to follow his own instincts. he was stopped from stopping it. he should be very grateful for that. >

. >> cory lewandowski not pressuripressure ing jeff sessions.on mcgahn, the scenario as a white house counsel, can you imagine yourself in a situation where the president is calling you from camp david and saying get rid of mueller. tell rod to get rid of mueller. what would you have done? >> repeatedly. at one point mcgahn left him with the impression he would do it but he was worn down so he got him off the phone and didn't do it. there was another aspect of the president's demands he wanted mcgahn to fabricate a record that would subsubstantiate ordered the firing of mueller. he ordered him to create a piece of evidence in the official records of the white house he knew not to be true. >> we know that mcgahn, because of reporting had given 30 hours of testimony. now we know exactly a great deal about what went on there. the president was criticizing mcgahn for taking notes in meetings and said why do you take notes. lawyers don't take notes. i've never had a lawyer who took notes. mcgahn responded he took notes because he's a real lawyer. par

detail and clarity about the russian ambassador sergei krislyac and mike flynn and then senator jeff sessions to become attorney general and others in the orbit of the trump campaign and then the transition. what's important is the russians understood, based on my reporting, even the appearance of contact could be damaging to these individuals as it was when it came to the recusal of jeff sessions and the firing of mike lynn over the conversation on sanctions of december 2016. >> dana: the russian ambassador it's like the flat stanley of this investigation. he's every and we've seen it documented in a thorough way. >> dana: we'll be back with you if anything else developed. martha maccallum and shannon breen and chris wallace, thank you for doing this for me. we've had a couple hours to start with this what's the main take away for you. >> i look at what jerry nadler and we're waiting for him to come out. it's clear both sides will dig through and find what they want and what they find is supportive of all of this. so nadler's going to say it's clear the president engaged in obstruction of ju

i don't think he should be viewed as -- i mean jeff sessions was the enemy, let's not kid ourselves, i don't think bar should be viewed the same way, let's see what he does , does that make sense? >> definitely. >> >> my understanding is that the law, our law provides for refugees to apply for asylum and, that includes her with respect and dignity. so, you just mentioned softening the system i wonder is there some legislation we can propose that we just honor the law with dignity and respect. >> well, the asylum case is a really interesting one and that still pending, because that's one of the few areas, in my experience with the immigration and nationality act for the act clear and second, relatively humane. the statute says, and immigrant , in the united states shall be allowed to apply for asylum whether or not he or she is found at a point of entry. i mean, you know, you're always amazed when congress writes a sentence that's clear. but, there it is. so, the administration issued a regulation saying, personal to the statute, we will not allow them to apply for asylum status if no

we see former aide cory lewandowski refusing to pass along a message to jeff sessions about curtailingsee k.t. mcfarland refusing to provide a statement about russian sanctions and michael flynn because she wasn't sure whether it was true. we see them describing the potential issues that have involved paul manafort, the president's former campaign chairman. and how the president's public statements could have potentially affected the outcome of the trial. all things that the special counsel is looking at in this obstruction investigation. but at the end of the day, special counsel team sought that fairness, because the president couldn't be put on trial as the sitting president, fairness dictated that they not say in this report that he was implicated in a crime. that they do say congress, you have the ability to pick up the mantle and do something if you choose to. >> i think they took extra defense in regard to the president's legal rights that they couldn't make the case based on the evidence but it was a damn close call. the idea there is no evidence of wrong doing and what we hear