what's ken starr doing in this business? pursue clinton until they caught him doing something and the something was monica lewinsky. >> a couple weeks ago a woman named linda tripp walked into ken starr's office and says, i have these tapes. i have ten phone calls of a young woman named monica lewinsky and in it she talks about having a sexual relationship with the president. >> monica lewinsky bares her soul about her love for bill clinton to her friend, linda tripp. linda tripp gives those tapes to paula jones' lawyers and kenneth starr's office. ken starr knows that the president has to give a deposition in the jones case. >> part of the danger for the president lies in what he said under oath to lawyers for paula jones. mr. clinton denied in his deposition having a sexual relationship with monica lewinsky. >> did the president agree with monica lewinsky to deny their affair under oath? >> if the president, in fact, encouraged this woman to lie under oath or ask someone else to encourage her, that's a crime. >> it's a dif

but if you think that which worked on ken starr, who was in his first prosecution.ould have never been given the job. he'd never prosecuted a traffic case. he was put in there by some very politicized judges. there was a republican prosecutor named robert fiske who was doing a perfectly adequate job, a very experienced guy out of new york. the judges, the republican judges fired him and put starr in there. and starr went on this witch-hunt for years and years and years. ultimately instead of looking at a land deal looked at extramarital affairs. if you think that's going to work again bob mueller like ken starr, you're wrong. >> this is '90s memory lane. can we talk about o.j.? no, i'm kidding. >> i believe that's tomorrow. we have a busy day tomorrow. that's all i can say. >>> more on russia. also, details on that late-night meeting on capitol hill. republicans trying to agree on replacing obamacare. we'll talk about that ahead. esurance does insurance a smarter way. which saves money. they offer paperless billing and automatic payments. which saves paper. which sa

where there was an all-out war from the white house trying to discredit ken starr, so any result of his investigation would be tainted. so what you're seeing here from this president, with the difference, that the president can actually -- although it would be complicated and politically explosive, could actually fire mueller, because there's no longer a special prosecutor law protecting mueller, but what the president is trying to do, like he tries to do with all of his political adversaries, is undermine his credibility and legitimacy. so at least in the eyes of his very loyal base and the broader republican electorate, which has kept republicans on capitol hill at bay, because they still support him, they are not going to buy anything that mueller comes up with. and i think that's the shot across the bow that we've seen this week. >> you know, it's been really interesting. in a way, the president's interview with "the new york times" was checkov's gun. overnight in "the washington post", these stories are pointing out alleged conflicts in a concerted direction they're doing from this

but if you think that which worked on ken starr, who was in his first prosecution.ould have never been given the job. he never prosecuted a traffic case. he was put in there by some very politicized judges. there was a prosecutor named robert fisk. he was fired and starr was put in there. >> this is '90s memory lane. can we talk about o.j.? no, i'm kidding. >> i believe that's tomorrow. we have a busy day tomorrow. >>> more on russia. also, details on that late-night meeting on capitol hill. that's ahead. hey, i've got the trend analysis. hey. hi. hi. you guys going to the company picnic this weekend? picnics are delightful. oh, wish we could. but we're stuck here catching up on claims. but we just compared historical claims to coverages. but we have those new audits. my natural language api can help us score those by noon. great. see you guys there. we would not miss it. watson, you gotta learn how to take a hint. i love to learn. tthat's why at comcast,t to be connected 24/7. watson, you gotta learn ♪ music plays throughout) we're always working to make our servic

she gives those tapes to paula jones, lawyers and ken starr's office.t the president has to give a deposition in the jones case. >>art of the danger for the president lies in what he said under oath to lawyers for paula jones. mr. clinton denied in his deposition having a sexual relationship with monica lewinsky. >> did the president agree with monica lewinsky to deny their affair under oath? >> if the president, in fact, encouraged this woman to lie under oath or ask someone else to encourage her, that's a a crime. >> it is a different order of magnitude than what the white house has had to put up with over the past several years. >> there was a how coming up in the media, and from republicans. people were horrified of this. it was overpowering. >> i want you to listen to me. i'm going to say this again. i did not have sexual relations with that woman. miss lewinsky, i never told anybody to lie, not a single time. never. these allegations are false, and i need to go back to work for the american people. thank you. [ applause ] >> i think from the very

ken starr versus robert mueller? >> they are different.ook, there's a big divide even inside trump's own team. the spokesman for his private lawyer, his personal lawyers resigned last week. one of the things that he had n objected to was this idea of trying to tarnish robert mueller's reputation. he worked with robert mueller in the bush justice department when robert mueller was the fbi director. he believes strongly that robert mueller is a person of integrity and professionalism and they ought not to be trying to undercut his credibility. other people on the legal team have advised the president the same thing. they say, look, this is a person who is seen as a straight arrow. it's to your advantage that he is the special counsel. if he doesn't find anything, he's going to have more credibility in making that conclusion than some prosecutor that you would have picked. so there's a real divide inside trump's own team about this. >> peter, you were one of three reporters in the headline-making interview with "the times" this week and there

judge star just wrote an op ed for us, but bob mueller is no ken starr.tarr came to that job without the kind of prosecutorial in the trenches experience that bob mueller has. bob mueller is also operating under a different statute than ken starr did, but it's still -- not statute. he's operating under justice department regulations. he has done nothing so far that i am aware of that in any way calls into question his legitimacy, but you see this case starting to be built by the president and his allies, his lawyer jay sekulow on sunday, the sort of glimmerings of a case against mueller and against his legitimacy because of comey. and that makes me very nervous. i think it should make republicans on the hill very nervous, because they know bob mueller is a reasonable person who is going to do a reasonable investigation. and i wonder when the president fired jim comey, it had more of an effect than he expected, more of a firestorm, but i'm wondering if he's under estimating really seriously the impact of firing of bob mueller. >> well, matthew, what would

it turns out that ken starr and his staff reached the opposite conclusion. they had a deeply reported out long and very detailed memo that has been locked away for 20 years because in the end starr didn't indictment clinton. saying he had the power. the constitution does not protect a president from being indicted. and it was just a matter of prosecutorial discretion at the end of the day starr decided not to do that. putting this out -- obviously this is very relevant now, very interesting now. the fact it was developed by ken starr and very conservative prominent lawyers on the republican side of things adds an extra layer of irony as we sort of think about whether this is something that would be an option at least in theory to bob mueller depending on what he finds. >> there's a lot to go through, it's 56 pages long, as you cite in the article. charlie savage, very good to talk with you, thank you. >>> how much latitude mueller really has in investigating trump's finances. their experience is coveted. their leadership is instinctive. they're experts in thi

it was all about a lot of this what we just saw, what we witnessed from ken starr coming to the whitedepose the president. i remember that day. at that time many visitors were allowed to walk closer to the white house, and i remember standing there watching ken starr turn into the white house to go depose the president in the map room of the white house. i remember that evening, and i also remember the president trying to push forward with his agenda, but what was first and foremost on the minds of americans were all of the twists and turns about different things involving the scandal, and it evolved into basically, a scandal about an affair with an intern, a then intern. so it was a very tough time for the nation. it was a very tough time for the president. it was a very tough time for the first family, and it was a tough time for this president to push through with his agenda, and i remember specifically that was also the time, seconds-term presidents look at it as a term that they can do whatever they want, almost and push things through. he tried to talk about issue of race, you k

ken starr. he went from whitewater which was not anything to paula jones which was a lot of money about, a million dollars. then he goes to good old monica lewinsky and nails the president. so they don't quit. they metastasize these guys. they grow, they grow, they grow until they find some dirt and they light up and their career is made for them and they announce in a press conference, i daughter dicaught the dirty d. they don't ever say, clean as a hounds tooth. they never do that. >> the president has been looking over his shoulder. >> the mooch provides the bright shining object. that everybody he will talk about. meanwhile there are other things being laid. what is interesting is now the senate is upping its game. you heard today, senator mccain and others talk about do not touch. >> do not touch the special prosecutor and do not touch the attorney general. the president is trying to figure out which lane will get him to his ultimate goal, to remove both those gentlemen at the end of the da

this is an analysis of what's going on with the ken starr investigation.presidents aids expand offensive to counter ken starr prosecutor is denounced as corrupt and accused of leading a witch hunt. here we go again. his incredible, the similarity spin katrina. >> that's the media for you. this is only happening because the losing side claimed foul, and no one bothered to look at the evidence. now they're trying to find some. try to find anything to go after the president. it's simply unfair and it needs to stop it. we went president trevor said it is out-of-bounds, the finances are unrelated to anything doing with russia. do you think jeff sessions and and -- >> absolute. paul manafort, a lot of officials and the president himself are vulnerable. we can make this about democrats and things like that. but the president himself, the chief of staff, they have lied repeatedly. jeff sessions said he had no meetings. paul manafort said he had no meetings. that ended up not being true. you can't make that about the democrats making this about the russian collusio

ken starr writes, quote, tweet to your heart's content, but stop the wildly inappropriate attacks on the attorney general, an honorable man who i have known since his days as u.s. attorney in alabama. jeff sessions has recently become your pinata in one of the most outrageous and pro foundly misguided courses of presidential contact i've witnessed in five decades in and around the nation's capital. what you are doing is harmful to your presidency, and inimical to our foundational commitment as a free people to the rule of law." chris wallace joins us. chris, have you seen anything like this? >> no. nothing even close to it. in the middle of that interview with cnn, if you remember famously in his first press briefing last friday, anthony scaramucci said, well, look, reince and i are like brothers. brothers rough each other up. we all know that. i've been a brother. but then today he talked about cain and abel, and as i remember that didn't turn out so well. if that's his definition of brothers, there will be blood in the white house. >> jenna: no jaw bones lying around the -- >> jon:

savidge points to an unearthed memo from ken starr's office suggesting the answer could be yes. o starr writes it is proper constitutionally and legal to indict a sitting president for criminals acts that are not part of and are contrary to the president's official duties in this country. no one, even president clinton is above the law. that's one view. we bring in the "hard spls baba roundtable.splsball" roundtable. ball" roundtable.ball" roundtable. charlie, can the president pardon himself? >> nobody knows. it would be a conflict of interest. you can't be a judge in your own case. justice department -- >> why hasn't anyone ever written down, the president can't pardon himself if he has pardon authority. >> four days before nixon resigned, it is asserted, it makes no sense. they don't explain why this thing that is rational is a law. >> if you're judge scalia, and a lot of members of the court are, who believe that if it isn't written in the constitution or an power provider whatever denied, then it is not there. no privacy about the impeachment. and why would this supreme cour

. >> ken starr. >> ken starr. >> and basically laid it out trying to xplam, this is the ethical and right he followed protocol and said trump needs to lay off him. >> and said trump needs to respect the rule of law. sit tight. thousands of jobs may ma be coming to wisconsin and president trump said we have him to thank. hey joanne, want to trade the all day relief of 2 aleve with 6 tylenol? give up my 2 aleve for 6 tylenol? no thanks. for me... it's aleve. with my moderate to severe crohn's disease,... ...i kept looking for ways to manage my symptoms. i thought i was doing okay... then it hit me... ...managing was all i was doing. when i told my doctor,... ...i learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease... ...even after trying other medications. in clinical studies,... the majority of people on humira... saw significant symptom relief... ...and many achieved remission. humira can lower your ability... ...to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened;... ...as h

they were desperate, because of the ken starr appointment.the same way this president is out of his mind about the recusal, the ken starr decision is something they -- i don't know if they will ever forgive. but they didn't neighboring it public. it was an open secret, he's bucking the trend. >> jeff sessions, while people personally like jeff sessions, he was sort of on his own on immigration. >> absolutely. >> he was sort of an island in the senate. >> and on this criminal justice stuff he was on an island. he has the best job he could ever have that he wouldn't have gotten in any other administration. >> i feel like we haven't done health care here because right now we should be split screening and you're seeing -- it is -- we know that whatever they come up with isn't going to last, isn't going to be lasting. what are we doing? >> i mean, it's really an impossible situation that, you know, that they're not getting any support from trump and trump is out there saying they and calling out specific republicans by name instead of doing the ty

you may remember, i'm sure your viewers and you do that ken starr's investigation into whether or nothe president lied about a sexual relationship with a white house intern started with looking at some real estate deals. >> whitewater. >> in a rural part of arkansas that no one had ever heard of. certainly this team is mindful that i have heard them discussing this like where are we going from here. are we going to look at every condo in a unit as the president has remarked that may have been purchased by somebody who was russian? are we going to look at the prices of all of those things? were they fair market prices? are we going to look at every bank transaction that involved a russian bank or a russian oligarch and his funds through a german bank? i think that there is anxiety and tension. and that's part of what's going on here. >> in fact, in your article, you quote one lawyer involved in the case as saying this is ken starr times a thousand. >> yes, indeed. we'll see if that bears true. >> that's certainly what they want people to feel. >> it could -- times a thousand may be ove

we heard jeffrey toobin talk about how, in fact, they did this during the ken starr investigation with bill clinton. they wanted to look into what they thought was an overly conservative panel. >> right. it makes a level of sense. if you see a prosecutor who is -- who has pretty wide latitude to start, special counsel, i should say, and then you know from the reporting that we've seen that it's ramping up and broadening, not narrowing, it does make some level of sense. the thing that i wonder about, and i just don't know is, what we've seen so far, is there is a lawyer that mueller picked one of of the investigator said he picked who has donated to hillary clinton. we know that. bob mueller and james comey, the fired fbi director, are friendly. we know -- i mean, that's public knowledge. bob mueller, according to trump, was in his office, interviewing for the fbi job. we know that. >> so does that taint everything? >> and i don't -- i don't think it does. i think what -- i'm not even sure trump, necessarily, thinks it does. i think what trump is doing, he's making sure the case exists,

like you said we saw ken starr go from whitewater to the monica lewinsky investigation.e are going to be keeping an eye on that. something else i know you have all been keeping an eye on is health care. >> whiplash, right. >> this has been a week of whiplash. it seems to be the summer of discontent, in the only for trump, but for the republican party. the collapse of the health care plan this week. how much of that bill's troubles stem from trump? and how much of it stems from divisions within the republican party? >> i put it almost all on congress. not on president trump. number one, they made a fundamental mistake. they should have put transportation up first. then they should have gone to taxes. then they should have gone to health care. get some wins under your belt make some bipartisan moves. they went with health care first. and distilled through a bumper sticker, 22 million people thrown off. if you can distill to a message that small it doesn't work. he threw up a bill he knew he didn't have votes for. looks terrible. >> it was like he threw up his hands, fine w

look, bill clinton did the same thing when ken starr was appointed. causes, how active they were among republicans. did it have an impact? i don't know. but lawyers do that all the time. clayton: so then it dragged on for seven years. so i guess you bring up a great point about the clinton administration. the beginning started out as an investigation into white water. ended up being a nothing burger. >> that's the problem. clayton: descended into monica lielieu enis i seven years litter. the trump administration has said if you start looking into our finances, that's when we're going to have a problem. did they just kind of open a door for them to go looking at their finances? >> well, you know, obviously. the police come to your house and try to search and you say to them don't open that box. don't look in that drawer. obviously, it's a clue. now, you know, the problem with special counsel, i am not supportive of the appointment of a special counsel in general is that it's captain ahab and the white whale in moby dick. you give the guy one goal. pros

. >> the thing to understand is think about where ken starr started. in the oval office. trish: i hear you. they go off on these different tent10 atenttentacles. let me turn to what the democrats are trying to do. if you have seen their latest campaign chuck schumer and nancy pelosi are talking about a better deal capitalizing off fdr and the success of donald trump. they are talking about getting back to their roots in the democratic party. back to their blue collar roots, jobs, jobs, jobs. isn't this a playbook from donald trump. and assuming it is, why is it they won't work with him on his playbook? >> i commend them for realizing they lost touch with the common man, the working class. whether it's women in ping hats or rye d -- in pink hats or rioters in the street. it's such a weaker version of what donald trump did, i don't think it will be compelling to people. trish: that means finding the right candidates. i don't think nancy pelosi talking about this will embody that. the be hour to buy lou's new geopolitical thriller with jim born, "putin's

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lawrence walsh or jaworski or ken starr. they find some crap on the guy and then they move. anyway, it has drawn significant criticism. watch these. they're mostly southern senators. they consider sessions one of their own. an old southern guy. you can almost hear dixie in their voices. >> i would fire somebody that i did not believe could serve me well. rather than trying to humiliate them in public which is a sign of weakness. he's trying to get sessions to quit. and i hope sessions doesn't quit. if the president wants to fire him, fire him. >> jeff sessions is an honorable man. did he what any ethical attorney general would do unlder the circumstances. >> he is a man of very high integrity and he is an eagle scout. jeff sessions has my confidence. >> he is a man of courage. he is a man of purpose. and he is a man of substance. >> i think his independence has been proven by his willingness to recuse himself. >> jeff has been very loyal to the president. i think he deserves loyalty back. >> i would strongly recommend against firing sessions. >> you're from illinois. figure

just ask ken starr how that process worked for him and the clintons.k that mueller knew well that this was going to be part of the assignment. as to whether it will be successful, i think it's a good luck with that to the opposition. i don't think that mueller is assailable for any of the conflicts that are being talked about in the newspaper an that his team will proceed with their investigation unencumbered by thee allegations of conflict or golf memberships or donations by one or two staff members to a campaign opposition to trump's. >> all right. michael, thank you. see you soon. >>> more straight ahead, but first one in eight american women develops breast cancer during their lifetime. this week's cnn hero was one of them. as she battled the disease, she saw that it was taking a serious toll on her husband, her young son, and she was inspired to create a way to give other families a chance to reconnect and enjoy life again. meet jean. >> when the cancer bomb goes off in your house, it's devastating. it's financially, physically, emotionally exhaus

. >> it wasn't just ken starr.le say don't make us choose between and you jeff sessions because we will choose jeff sessions. in congress, lindsey graham one of many voices, just one of the more colorful ones. don't force him out. if you do, you won't get a replacement. john kelly moving over from homeland security to the white house, will he just try to move him over to homeland security? is that a feasible option? >> i don't think it's over. i think trump is still upset about the recusal that happened months ago and maybe he has been distracted for the time being. i don't think that trump is over this yet and i don't think that trump thinks this is a political problem for him. yes, there are republicans who are doing everything they can to stop him, you know, and from firing sessions. his political people don't see it as a problem. jeff sessions is pure in the base, has a lot of fans, particularly in washington, particularly among the conservative set in washington, but his political advisers are telling him thin

gone through this countless times myself and with the independent counsel back in the '90s with ken starr, i can tell you that if you don't take these things seriously it comes back to bite you. and i think i don't know it's so much as musical chairs as somebody has come to the realization that this is a real live criminal -- federal criminal investigation, and you're not playing around. this is serious stuff. ty cobb is a serious lawyer. and, you know, they need somebody who can explain to them that, yes, there are potential federal violations here. and you need to just stop with the nonsense. >> and still today the president's calling it a hoax on twitter. mark geragos and michael zeldin, thanks so much for bringing your take. >> thank you. >> so it's still unclear what exactly happened in that infamous meeting with the russian attorney, and did donald trump sr. know about it. tom foreman takes a look back at how the events unfolded last june and july around that meeting at trump tower. >> reporter: late spring 2016, hillary clinton is on a roll. polls have her far ahead of donald trump

there's a newly revealed ken starr memo that foia saying that they concluded and his conservative republicanthe white house water investigator and special counsel that the circumstances in this case, president clinton is subject to indictment and criminal prosecution, although it may be the case that he could be impressed assuming he's convicted and prison is the appropriate office after he leaves office. a sitting president has never been indicted, is that correct? >> that's correct. the opinion to that effect was issued in 1973 and then a longer version in 2000, both concluding that the president could not be indicted while in office but the there's questions as to whether that's accurate and would have to be decided by the supreme court. >> how significant is it that the president is condemning his attorney general who's been a republican senator and a major supporter throughout the campaign. >> it leaves the administration in a very weakened state to where firing on his attorney general. i know of no precedent for it whatsoever. it's not something that could have been anticipated and it'

jones, a former special adviser to president obama, scott jennings, ron rotunda who served with ken starrvan, kushner insists he did nothing wrong. right now there is nothing to prove he did anything wrong. is it possible there's more to come or is it possible that this is, as has been said, a nothing burger? >> well, i think kushner may become an even richer man because apparently he's been able to create a smoke machine so there's always smoke but there's never a fire. every time these guys come before the camera they say nothing is going on, they deny everything and then admit to something they just denied before and now they say we are done. if you see this pattern of denial, deny it, admit it and then deny something else, you have to wait. in a few more weeks or months, no one would be shocked if it turned out there was another russian, four more russians that talked about this. but the overall effect of it is to get the american people used to a level of insanity and drama in the white house, which is bad for everybody. >> scott, jared kushner said he didn't read the full e-mail fro

but the clinton white house was anything but kind to ken starr and certainly tried to discredit him many, many times. >> sure, i think what's different about this situation is that you didn't have president clinton himself out there every day -- >> talking about it. >> -- talking about it, right. i think any lawyer and certainly any political strategist advising a president on how to manage a situation like this would tell him to try to segregate these issues. to leave the legal stuff to your legal team and focus on governing the country. >> sure. doesn't mean the efforts -- >> well, it doesn't mean the efforts are different. you didn't see necessarily the over power and prestige of the presidency concentrated against a special counsel with whom the administration was at least nominally cooperating, right? that's really different here. and for allies of president trump, what's been i think most disconcerting about this week is the sense that the president himself just can't kind of get off that topic. that even when it is clearly counterproductive politically and probably counterproducti

bill clinton we know did the same with ken starr. is that going on as far as you know?torney would do that in situation like this. these are people involved in the political world of law where they have been appointees. they have been bureaucrats. they have had private practices. three of them made significant political democratic campaign donations. the number one conflict is probably between mueller and comey. come my being the source of the leak that led to the special counsel. you can argue that as we believe that was illegal, that leak. david: right. >> but they are best friends. they once offered to resign together if president bush and general ashcroft did not do what they asked. these are guys with close personal relationship. that brings things -- go through the normal process. not to be nasty, part of the law. david: jordan we have to go. attorney general jeff sessions started all this recusing himself. that led to robert mueller being appointed by rosenstein. should sessions resign, quickly? >> i don't believe attorney general sessions should resign. i think

richard, as you know, with ken starr, he started is out with white water and ended up with the blue dress. so where is the boundary for a mueller investigation when it comes to donald trump? or is there none? >> well, i think president trump stated correctly, it has to do with russia. but russia does a lot of its business with money, with rubles that are converted into dollars. russia has laundered some money through majors banks in the world. i won't mention any of their names here but some of those banks are banks that do business with donald trump. we need to follow the money. it concerns russia. no, we're not interested in whether the president has had sex with an intern. we're not going to play that game this time around. this is a serious investigation that needs to be conducted thoroughly. but there is no way that bob mueller can conduct the investigation without looking at the finances of the trump business empire, of the kushner business empire, and finding out whether there are financial ties between those families and the russians or people working for the russians, and once ag

. >> ken starr, at least in his investigation in special counsel and "the new york times" said, no, he cannot pardon himself, at least that's the headline, if you will. >> because the constitution basically says, listen, you can't be the defendant and be the judge at the same time, and that's where tribe's position was. and tribe co-authored that article with richard paynter, who was the white house chief ethics lawyer under george w. bush. >> and so the signaling that comes out of this, rick, is that the white house is considering pardons, that's at least one narrative, right, because the president did mention it in his tweet and now we're hearing discussions and scaramucci trying to defend the answers and response coming from the president based on the reporting of him being uncomfortable with what is happening right now and looking at options. and so as the white house does look at options, what might they be based on a very energetic group of investigations happening, not only the four on the hill, but also counsel mueller's? >> well, they have several option. one is they can fight

precedent, is that my friend, paul, and others, when paul talks about the rule of law, so, too, was ken starr about the rule of law. and this -- that investigation started with a real estate deal, white water, for president clinton, and wound up with monica lewinsky. the point is that the clinton administration and its allies went out of their way to attack the special prosecutor, to attack, attack, attack. they brought all precedent. in doing so, they laid down a precede precedent. so there should be no hesitation in the trump white house or for trump allies to go out there and treat mueller as kent star. >> how about that, paul? >> i'll go on the record, i'll attack robert mueller if he starts investigating president trump's sex life. even saying it makes me want to wretch. i don't want to know about it. i want to know about our nation and the rule of law. why is the president so obsessed with russia? >> very quickly, jeffrey, are bob mueller and attorney general jeff sessions going to survive this administration, in term? >> i think the attorney general will. i'm not so sure about bob muel

chris: and he survived, and he rubbed up ken starr.ve to you, juan, what do you think the president's various actions this week on scaramucci, on giving that surprising interview to "the new york times" on shaking up his legal team, the guy who was in charge, mark cat wits, no longer is. what do you think that tells you about where this president is right now? >> well, i think he's totally focused on the russia story. let's use a cultural term, the god father, he's going to the mattresses right now. he brings in scaramucci because he sees scaramucci as a guy who got an apology from cnn, got people fired at cnn -- chris: cnn did a story that said scaramucci was under investigation. there's no evidence that he was -- >> right. chris: -- and that's what followed. >> and then president trump, who had initially taken advice from his white house chief of staff not to bring in scaramucci, suddenly he's now fascinated with scaramucci because he's had success in this kind of street fight attitude. so you have that. but then the big surprise was

people have the parallel between trump's attacks on mueller and former president clinton's attacks on ken starridea of attacking mueller and throwing out the idea of pardons at this early stage of an investigation both may be part of sort of chaos strategy and also perhaps unintentionally acknowledging that our president may face criminal liability for his actions. >> kathleen clark, professor of washington university school of law. thank you for joining us. thank you for hanging out the last hour of your lives here. thank you for joining us. we have much more ahead coming up after the break including today's big picture. stick around. so that's the idea. what do you think? hate to play devil's advocate but... i kind of feel like it's a game changer. i wouldn't go that far. are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary. (phone ringing) what? keep going! yeah... (laughs) (voice on phone) it's not millennial enough. there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you! so we're doing it. yes! start saying yes to your company's best ideas. let

including senator lindsay graham who called the president's attack a sign of weakness and this plea from ken starre the whitewaurs prosecutor against bill clinton tell the president to please cut it out. joining me now is michael steele, former rnt and previous administration, but a law professor and the dean of a law school. you've got people lining up to point out that this is legal ethics, this is procedure that jeff sessions had no choice but to recuse himself for conflicts of interest. >> right. well not only is it exhausting, andrea, it's also problematic in the sense that people now are beginning to see exactly how this administration is positioned itself on these very important ethical and legal matters. and the reality is there is, you know, regardless of the politics here, there are some very bright lines. and i believe jeff sessions, you know, stayed true to those lines when it came to his responsibility. and what is surprising, it's not like jeff sessions didn't telegraph nor tell publicly what he intended to do if he was required to do so. and that was to recuse himself. it came out i

there have been a lot of comparisons to how the clinton's tried to discredit ken starr in the '90s, this different in your view? is this feeling a little differently to you? >> well, there's a few things here. one, i think the president's reaction comes out of the fact that he sees this as discrediting the entire presidency, in that if there was an issue with the russians, it under mines the spire four years, can you understand why he spun it. at the same time, i do think this sort of defensive sort of throwing elbows reaction is probably the wrong one politically. i'll tell you why the smart play is bob mueller has an investigation, he's a very smart guy. we appointed him. you talk to him about russia, we'll wait until his report comes out. it can be good or bad for the president. it will be a while before it comes out, they will wait to let that play out and let the story go away and focus on the legislative agenda, which isn't happening. >> let me quickly get you on the comments the president isn't making on the attorney general. what can jeff sessions do? can he continue to serve eff

you know, when i covered ken starr in the late '90s, i looked into some of the people on starr's staff and found out that they had very conservative views and i thought that was newsworthy and people in the white house thought that was newsworthy. and i see no reason why if that's the case that mueller's staff has lots of big democrats on it. that's not a legitimate subject to investigate. pardons, you know, it is the president's power to pardon anyone he wants. pardoning himself is a constitutional tricky question. but if he does that, you know, i think people can all draw their own conclusions about why he's doing that. and it may -- it may get significant -- create significant problems on capitol hill, but given how loyal republicans have been to him on these russia issues, maybe he could get away with it. i don't know. i think he's looking into these options but i don't think that it's necessarily sinister that he's doing so. >> doesn't it show weakness, though? we're supposed to be marking the six-month anniversary of the trump administration. we all think back to january 20th, in

they think that the clintons, when they had ken starr and the independent counsel, they were, you know, fighting him every day and there really were no consequences for that. that's their argument. and they think it's fine to sort of let everyone in the justice department know that, you know, maybe their job hangs in the balance if they don't do trump's bidding. but i think it's all backfiring. you finally have congressional republicans standing up and saying, don't do this. i think you have now sessions probably creating more of an independent space from trump because of this. and just politically, trump made an error here by launching this war against this guy. >> okay. so we're watching that. that should be coming up in this briefing that is late but we'll take it live. >>> dana, back over to you, just continuing on my list. health care. we watched some of the activity yesterday. today, this -- what is being dubbed vote-a-rama happening a little later. debate is still open. just explain to everyone what to expect today as far as the vote is concerned and also what the, you know, fol

but despite that outcome both former independent counsels lawrence walsh and ken starr concur that congress should not automatically defer to the criminal justice system when pursuing its own inquiry. congress must after consulting with the justice department determine for its itself what course is in the best interests of the nation. it should also be noted that in the end the iran contra committee's work led to new laws including the creation of a statutory c.i.a. inspector general. executive branch criminal investigations examine the past, congress can consider a broader set of issues, including solutions for the future. without congress, significant public policy questions about the russians' attempted interference in the 2016 elections will remain unanced. is the foreign agent registration act working? do we need to increase protections for the integrity of our elections? have there been nonkiloliter abuses of power? and has the application of justice been politicized? none of these questions will be answered by criminal prosecutions. i encourage to you continue your work with vigor an