A recap of the days news. Sessions you should stop this rigged witch hunt right now. Its a dirty disgrace, would that be a problem . You bet it would be. If he had sent Jeff Sessions a memo to that effect or said it in a meeting, would that be important evidence . In an inquiry into Obstruction Of Justice . It certainly would. I know that, im not an attorney, im sure you know that as well. Because he types it out on twitter for the whole world to see, including Jeff Sessions, are we supposed to ignore it as just the president blowing off steam . Why . And its far from the first time that we have been told so treat the president s public statements as something else, something other than what they say. Remember this from july of 2016 . Russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. This is why this is important. This is how the new york times
cnn has learned the president s tweet today was just hours after his legal team updated him on the possibility of a sitdown interview with Robert Mueller, one in which mueller wants to ask questions about instructions. The president might be making muellers job easier in putting himself in jeopardy. Lets get to our panel right now, to our folks here who can discuss all of this. Patrick healy, cnn Global Affairs analyst laura coats. Good evening to all of you. Its good to have you on. Reporting that Robert Mueller, Senate Proposal about a possible interview last night and agreed to accept some written answers. Want the ability to be able to ask followup questions in person. What do you think about that proposal . I think its really a compromise thats kind of expected. The reason he would never agree to all written questions is because he would not have had
the opportunity to ask the followup. If hes going to get it in written, and have someones words written down before them. Able to lock them in on an answer, and be able to ask followup questions, it seems to me mueller has the best of both words. He doesnt have to have the simple note taking. Hes able to have the combination of the two. It is a bit of a compromise in the sense that being able to respond to questions in Writing Mines youre able to prepare quite fully, and theyre not able to have the off the Cuff Statements or have a genuine authentic action. Preparation doesnt lead to you being able to have an assessment of truth telling. I want to ask you one more question. Theyre reporting that the president s lawyers want to reject it, but the president is pushing them to keep negotiating. At what point does the president do it against their counsel snil. I think given this president ial administration, any time, remember, the beauty of
being able to have the Negotiation Tactic here is that he can have his lawyers in the room. As long as hes negotiating, he has the ability to say my lawyers can come with me, if it gets to the point where he has to be compelled under a subpoena in front of a grand jury, thats never going to happen, you cannot have an attorney present. Hes trying to maintain the upper hand. His lawyers will say, if the choice is either we cannot be present and we can allow this person to talk in front of a grand jury without us, or we can present and negotiate a combination well take the latter option. What do you think about the reporting that President Trump is eager to meet with a special counsel. Hes been calling it a witch hunt for a year and a half. And hes been eager to clear his name. Hes been frustrated with this, he sees this as the most overt and direct threat to the legitimacy of his presidency. And he wants to get in the room. The problem, though, for his
response is to obstruct justice. Thats what he was doing, saying the Attorney General needs to end this rigged witch hunt right now. I love the fact that have you all these trump apologists, the word should means this doesnt mean anything. I beg to differ. If your boss says i dont like your shirt. If your boss says, you should go home right now and change your shirt, thats a little more than an opinion and lets remember, donald trump is not some blow hard bloviating on the web. Hes the president of the United States and hes Jeff Sessions boss, and saying i should do something that is improper. This is a tweet from this morning i wonder if you see it as Obstruction Of Justice in
plain sight. Because max, you write this, you think the president is throughtouflouting the law. Im looking here at 18 u. S. 553. Whoever corrupts by threats or force endeavors to influence, impede any officer of a court of the United States. Isnt that what trump is doing right here . Typically the difficulty with proving Obstruction Of Justice is proving corrupt intent that he has some ulterior motive for doing that. All you have to do is read his twitter feed or listen to his interviews. It would be fascinating to get him on the stand and ask him, do you take twitter seriously. He sees himself as a master
communicator, who has found a way to use social media to energize millions and millions of readers. He fired the Secretary Of State by tweet. I mean, if his tweets dont mean anything, how come Rex Tillerson isnt Secretary Of State any more. This idea that the president of the United States is trying to suggest that somehow the should versus shall. I feel like were back in 1998 when bill clinton was saying, well, it depends on what your definition of the word is is. And people were very critical about this semantics based argument. And it became a meme. And it should have been. You dont have to prove intent by that one smoking gun. It can be the context tulle arguments, it can be all of the comprehensive things over time to show that there is no other
conclusion, that someone can reasonably draw some nefarious intent here. Laura go ahead. Quickly, i have its your show. I just wonder if you look at all of these tweets, should we be looking at them any differently, as i said in my opening statement, because he said them in public rather than he didnt pick up a phone, write it in a memo. Clearly Jeff Sessions and others have access to twitter. You should not look at this and say, nobody commits crimes in broad daylight. A great number of crimes are committed in broad daylight. Especially those who think justice will not apply to them. Repeat criminals, serial criminals. People who can say things like, i could go out on to the street and shoot somebody, no one would know. Thats more than 18 months ago. Clearly the idea of committing a crime in the dark is not the only way to do so. No prosecutor worth their salt or investigator would ever consider Obstruction Of Justice to be the end game. It is part of the overall inquiry, it would be like giving a Speeding Ticket to somebody who is fleeing in having just robbed a bank and ignoring the robbery charge. The president of the United States has put himself in this position and continues to do so. And prolongs the investigation with every single tweet. If he wants it to end, he should stop speaking. When we come back, the president s lawyers update him on the mueller investigation. The President Calls on Jeff Sessions to immediately end the mueller investigation. Coincidence . Taking a shortcut. woooo taking a breather. Rewarded
special counsel investigation indicates somebody who is deeply worried about what they will find. His mantra of no collusion. Is pretty thin. Why would he be freaking out on twitter if he thought they werent going to find anything. I thought laura made a good point. Im excited to be on here with a future host of jeopardy. They are the arrogant ones, the ones who think they can get away with anything, because theyve gotten away with a lot of stuff in the past. Donald trump has been getting away with stuff his whole life. Including as the president ial candidate, attacking john mccain for being a pow. I think that leads to a sense of impunity that he is bulletproof, he said he could kill somebody
on fifth avenue and his supporters would be behind him. Thats why he has the hutzpa to be attacking people on twitter. You said it Doesnt Matter, when youre talking about the president and what i said in my opening remarks about if he says it in public. It Doesnt Matter if its whispered in secret or shouted for all to hear. It Doesnt Matter if the investigation is stopped or not, a crime is still a crime, even if its not carried out to a successful conclusion. The Impeachment Proceedings would have already started if the Congressional Republicans werent including with trump to obstruct justice. What do you think when things like that are said . Im an exrepublican. They are protecting donald trump as evidence is accumulating. Republicans are protecting him. There is legislation that was passed by the Senate Judiciary committee to protect Robert Mueller from being fired. Paul ryan, the House Speaker will not bring that legislation to the floor. They will not protect Robert Mueller, and they will not hold donald trump accountable. Instead, theyre allowing members to engage in the most reprehensible obstruction on behalf of donald trump, maligning people like rosenstein, the brave and honest Men And Women of the fbi, tearing them down, in order to save Donald Trumps hides, thats where the republicans are, theyre firmly in the obstruction camp, thats the big difference between now and watergate, at the time of watergate, there were a few honest republicans who realized they could not let nixon get away with this stuff. So far, there are no republicans that are willing to stand up to trump. Its interesting what max is saying, it goes to president
trumps mindset. The republicans have formed this wall of defense around the president. Publicly. They are defending him. It brings him no comfort, it doesnt calm him down. Hes been a command and control person his entire life. He was taught by roy kohn and some of the other people that helped him come up in business, you get what you want and you do what it takes to get it. He had a very small family he business, He Relight On family members, he relied on people like Michael Cohen to be fixers to deal with problems as they came up. Now hes president of the United States. Roy kohn would say, you should squash this. You are the most powerful person on the planet. You should squash this. It Doesnt Matter to him that Mitch Mcconnell and paul ryan are protecting him so well. It bothers him such a great deal
that he cant squelch it, democracy doesnt work that way. Its simple when you continue to give a child what they want, and they keep lashing out, wanting more and more and more, you never say no. Its like dealing with a child, but they are not good parents. Impulse control from the campaign throughout. People inside the white house say the burst of tweets reflect the anger trump has aired privately for months. Hes been in a dark place since the cohen story broke last week. When someone is in a dark place like that, in your experience are they operating . Does this come from a guilty conscience . Its hard to say definitively. With the actions of someone whos acting out. Are they someone who should be defiant . Or should they be a defend. You wonder about this, because at the one hand you mentioned
roy kohn who is the master of witch hunts, you wonder if hes taking a page out of that book and saying, heres the way to become the johnny apple seed of Planting Seeds of doubt, you lash out, you make people realize that the court of Public Opinion links directly to impeachment. You will have the Strings Attached to congressMen And Women who will have to vote in some way on your impeachment. On the other hand, someone who would like everything to be resolved, let the chips fall as they may. That often tends to see someone who is silent, who lets everything go on. Its always a constant battle trying to reconcile what his intent is, which is why you cant look at any one thing hes saying in isolation, its about the pattern of behavior, the series of things, the pattern you have, and the other contextual clues you have, this has been broading for quite some
time, and it makes the Pendulum Swing closer to a guilty conscience, as opposed to somebody whos simply defiant. I think what hes engaged is in a Successful Campaign to tear down Robert Mueller. This is how he is defending himself, by attacking the people who are investigating him. The Public Opinion, will that that wont make a difference . It will make a difference, hes not going to be tried in the court of law, because the doj position is, you cant indict a sitting president , he has to be impeached, he would have to be tried in congress. And Public Opinion matters a lot for congress. Thank you all, i appreciate it. The white house defending behavior like this. Youve got to hear the false stories the white house is using in their defense. Know what . No, what . I just switched to geico
and got more. More . Got a company i can trust. Thats a heck of a lot more. Over 75 years of great savings and service. You cant argue with more. Why would ya . Geico. Expect great savings and a whole lot more. We support a free press, but there becomes a level of security with that. The media risks National Security tools. This has happened in our administration and the past administrations. One of the worst is publishing listening to osama bin ladens phone in the late 90s. Because of that, he stopped using the phone and the country lost valuable intelligence. That story is just not true. It was debunked years ago, despite the claim having been made by george w. Bush and the 9 11 commission. Osama bin laden was known to use a Satellite Phone, something that was widely known at the time and had been previously reported. By the time it was reported the u. S. May be able to monitor that phone, bin laden was already
scaling back use of those devices, its quite a stretch to go back two dpek aids to a debunked story to defend the behavior we all saw last night. Are you supporting a free press if you spread lies from the podium . And does the president support a free press, if he also support the people who try to stop journalists from doing their jobs. The president retweeted a video of fans booing jim acosta. The rally gets ugly. What does the president do . Retweet a video in support of the hecklers. Thats why when asked a second
time whether she supports what happened to jim acosta. No one was violent and no broadcaster was broadcasting state secrets, they were trying to do standups at a public rally. You had people yelling over them, and yelling that their network sucks on live tv. Do you support that or not. We support Freedom Of The Press and Freedom Of Speech, we think that those things go hand in hand. April ryan is here, cnn political analyst. Boy oh, boy. Lowest common denominator. And then to have it defended from the podium. The most esteemed podium in the world. What do you think why would she go back to a story thats been debunked, years and years ago about the Satellite Phone . Because shes trying to justi justify. Trying to justify the irrational. Trying to justify foolishness. There was no cause for that. And shes playing to this base that listens to the president. They need this to rally behind the president , because this president is embattled, when this president is embattled, he either goes to sports and talks about the knee or he goes to the press or he goes to some other things that just make his base get into a africandy and forget all the other stuff. Thats what it is, its a Big Shiny Silver Ball at the detriment of free press. You have been at the white house 20 years now . 21. For republican and democratic administrations . Yes. Im sure this is different. Do you sit in that room and say, i cannot believe that someone is standing here lying to the
american media and the American People . Yes. Or trying to gaslight them. Is it surreal to you every day . Don, im going to say this to you today when she said that, i couldnt believe how she was talking about how we get leaked information. We dont just walk into an office and open files. Our sources are giving it to us. Giving it to us willingly, because theyre whistle blowers. And for her to assume or say we are gathering shes not shes changing the facts 23 you want to say shes like, shes lying, i agree with that. It was shameful today that podium is no place to play. You dont play with words or moments. Thats a serious moment and a serious place. And jim acostas life in my
opinion was in jeopardy that night. There was a safety issue. She gets run out of a hen house a couple weeks ago, and gets Secret Service detail. We dont have Secret Service detail. This president , President Donald Trump has stoked the flames for reporters to feel like they are in jeopardy. Their lives are in jeopardy, their safety is in jeopardy. She gets taxpayer funded security for some she stokes. Yet its okay, its Freedom Of Speech for us. I talked to ari fleischer. And we had our back and forth quite a bit, ive had back and forths with robert gibbs. It was always a friendly adversarial situation. It was never personal. This has gone into life, into changing lives. Heres the thing i have to say, a couple things here. We dont bee grudge her security or anyone who has they need it, and many journalists need it now because of what this president and this Administration Im raising my hand, im one of those. A lot of us are. It started with lock her up. Build a wall, and all of these unseemly chants, now its cnn sucks. Its not about cnn, its about the behavior, oh, cnn is wining because theyre its not. If they had said it about any other network or person in the crowd, we would be having this conversation, because this is supposed to be a dignified respectful place to do the American Peoples business. What youre reading and hearing, what youre seeing, whatever, its not true. So further stoking that. Heres the problem. And people want to listen to the now and listen to this president and be entertained by him. They talk about patriotism and the constitution in this country. They forget, before they talk about the guns, second amendment, theres the First Amendment that beat out the second amendment. Within that First Amendment is the Freedom Of The Press the Founding Fathers put into the constitution this account ability piece. If the checks and balances over here dont work, you still have a press to ask questions. To give transparency to a check and balances. Yes, yes. Its there for a reason, april, that its the first one. Its in the first one. Yes. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. When we come back, the president Spreading Lies and stoking divisions with another ralgly tomorrow, and more this weekend. Should we expect more angry crowds . Well discuss. No. No, no, no, no, no. Cancel. Cancel. Please. Aaagh being in the know is a good thing. Thats why discover will alert you if your Social Security number is found on any one of thousands of risky sites. When you bundle your auto and hwith esurance, you could save with their single deductible. So if you confused the brake with the gas, or if your lamp post jumped out of nowhere, or if you forgot your bike was on the roof rack, you only pay one deductible instead of two for a claim involving both your auto and home. And when you save that much, its almost like it. Never even happened. Thats auto and Home Insurance for the modern world. Esurance. An allstate company. Click or call. Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens brown paper packages tied up with strings these are a few of My Favorite Things
the president is set 20 return to the campaign trail tomorrow night, leading a rally in pennsylvania. That coming as a worried president is reportedly in a dark mood over Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort and the mueller investigation. All of that with the midterms looming. I want to bring in matt lewis and dan pfeiffer and Condition Krfrn contributor, the author of the great revolt. A great book, welcome one and all. Lets start with the author of the great revolt. The president is heading to pennsylvania, hes going to have another rally tomorrow. Last nights rally, if that was any indication, hes going to go all out are you concerned at all about how these rallies are going, the lies, the aggression
toward reporters and on and on . Sometimes i feel like were in groundhog day, right . I think its a little more amped up right now. People have looked at the results from the Special Elections, and they see that the democrats are excited, and energized to come out. And they believe that they need to they need to be at that pitch as well. And so i think were just. I think its going to be this way, every day not every day, but every rally we see him host or speak at. Going to be the exact same way, now, i didnt see the whole rally, i didnt see the whole thing. I did see some of the parts that acosta tweeted out. Honestly, can we all be nicer to each other. I feel like, its simple and common sense, right in . I doubt that was everyone in the place, certainly that didnt look very comfortable at all. Ive been in those situations, i dont like when im in those situations. Dan, you seem concerned. Its almost like you cant believe this is happening. I was disturbed by what i saw there. When i see that, the crowd got like that, they were screaming things calling president obama a terrorist, saying he was a danger to the country. And mccain grabbed the microphone and said, we disagree. But he is a decent man and you should not be afraid if he becomes president. Candidates are not accountable for every member in the crowd at the rallies, they have a responsibility to try to speak out against that, to try to be a leader, that was one of the last times that a major republican figure spoke out against this anger and outrage and division thats been driving the Republican Party over the last ten years. I wonder if hes honing in on their energy. It really was as much a cultural event as it was a political won. So i was he feeding off of their energy . I think thats part of it, a leader can take the crowd and channel their energy in a more positive way. But that is not what we have in the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement right now, sadly. Instead, again, i dont think donald trump caused this problem, i think hes a symptom of it, and i think hes actually taking amping it up john mccain lost. He did the right thing and lost, i think a lot of republicans, a lot of people in that room dont like john mccain any more, they want a guy whos a fighter. And if it tears the country apart, thats okay. The country is already the institutions, the media. The other institutions, they believe have already sold them down the river. I need to get to the break. When we come back, i want to talk about the shadow we group spreading dangerous Conspiracy Theorys and why they showed up last night. The new united Explorer Card hooks me up. Getting more for getting away. Traveling lighter. Getting settled. Rewarded learn more at theexplorercard. Com thank you. Now im at a time in my life where i want to do business with companies who do right by me. 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So the president is using his Campaign Rallies to fire up his base, but those rallies are also attracting the members of a shadowy conspiracy cult with pretty shocking beliefs so lets talk about it. Matt, dan, and selena are back. So disturbing signs, disturbing signs popped up at the trump radially last night. We have svideo from it, a group called quanon. The mother of all conspiracy
theories identifying a nonexistent person named q. Follow along. A nonexistenter. Named q. Reported to be a hig highlevel Government Official and believe crazy things like this group like President Trump against a global elite seeking to murder him. Thats just nuts. So how Worrieded Shout The White House be about attracting these kinds of supporters . Those are some of the Conspiracy Theories that are out there. Well, they should be worried. Im positive theyre not, because americas most famous Conspiracy Theorist is donald trump of birther conspiracy fame. And this is something that its not just donald trump, the entire Republican Party has allowed this to go on for a long time. You take donald trump, for example, the ratest birther Conspiracy Theory crusade, that gets debunked, high he sort of Waddles Off Stage in shame. You know, a few months later every republican candidate goes to trump tower, bends the knee, tries to get his endorsement. He stays involved in the Republican Party. There is an opportunity for leaders to stand up as matt mentioned, to debunk this stuff, to call it out, to say that that is not welcome within our party, but no one does that. They want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to seem serious, yet still get alex jones supporters, quanon supporters, i think that is problematic not just for politics in the moment, just for sort of the state of society in general. The muslims cheering, that was one, voter fraud, thousands of illegals voting. That sort of thing. So, but matt, we have been operating in the satrange kind f space be truth is being devalued. All these kinds of groups. Im wondering if theres a consequence of that. There are people who are convinced in these groups that everyone put trump is lying to them. Yes. This is a really weird thing, right . You used to be able to disagree about politics, you know, obama a socialist, this guy you could do that. Thats weird. Its fine. Its fair. But right now, what were doing is actually questioning reality. Like, is did Ronald Reagan really even die . Like, if we cant believe that we watched on tv, they say there was a school schohooting, if we cant believe that event actually happened, if swn omeons saying not only did you have the facts wrong, but, like, it didnt even happen, the shooting, like, if we cant agree on basic reality, like, how am i even here right now, is donald trump really the president . When we start questioning things like that, sanity goes out the wind window. And that is i mean, i know it sounds like im being crazy right now, watch some of the videos. The explainers on this group. They believe that every president since reagan, by the way, they believe that this globalist cabal killed kennedy and every president since reagan, so both bushes, the clintons, the obamas, are all part of this evil, you know,
conspiracy to take down america and donald trump somehow has out its really unbelievable. And this is, like, a you know, a lot of people who were in the shots last night at these rallies. Yeah. And a lot of folks have written about it, about that, and we saw we witnessed it with our own eyes. Selena, youre shaking your head. My question is, should the president should he reject this administrations support from groups like quanon, with these sketchy histories and people who believe in Conspiracy Theories that are just outlandish and completely not true . Like, like one of the trump rallies, this guy seen wearing that blacks for trump tshirt, he once belonged to a violent fringe cult. These are the people who are at the rallies. Not all of them, would assume. Im not there. But you certainly see a whole lot of them. Well, i mean, i think we should all Disavow Violent Fringe Cults and the ive
never even heard of this q thing. Quanano. Quanon. No. Of course you should disawe vow things like that. Its ridiculous. I was not at this rally. Ive never seen this at other rallies. Maybe its a new thing. But, you know, if it becomes growing, and it becomes dominant as part of the rally, certainly, its something you should say, hey, hey, hey, were not part of that. You know, it becomes introduced as part of mainstream. Hey, quick a quick answer, if you can, because im pushing it here, so if because i know that Trump Supporters hate to be, you know hate for people to paint them with a broad brush, right . That theyre racist or Conspiracy Theorists, on and on and on. Absolutely. Shouldnt they be upset about these people making them look ba
bad, shouldnt they be our rallies, you make us look back, or, hey, its all great . Of course not. Of course, they speak out against it. I was just at a rally for pence the other day in newark, ohio, for the Special Election in ohio 12th. They, you know, obviously a much different tone rally, right . But they half the tweets they love the results of his presidency but they dont like hatch the tweet half the tweets that the president does and certainly call out or are unhappy when people make trump voters look as part of this sort of kracrazy gp of people. These are trump voters who are doing it to themselves but go on. Right, but its not all trump voters and not everyone should be lumped in that same see that crazy person . Thats what all of them are like. Thats when we get in trouble. Thats how we missed the election because we would see these voters you know, viewers would see these voters and say, thats what theyre all like, theres no way hes going to win. Yeah. And thats not what theyre all like. Yeah. And thats our problem. We have a problem with trusting institutions and expertise and i think thats the larger problem that we have in this country that we need to address. Ive got to go. I dont want to be rude and cut you off. Thank you, all, i appreciate it. I have to get to the top of the hour. Well be right back. Bundle and save big, but now its time to find my dream abode. Right away, i could tell his priorities were a little unorthodox. Keep going. Stop. A little bit down. Stop. Back up again. Is this adequate sunlight for a Komodo Dragon . Yeah. Sure, i want that discount on Car Insurance just for owning a home, but im not compromising. Youre taking a shower . Water pressures crucial, scott its like they say location, location, koi pond. They dont say that