Interview this morning. Plus House Democratic caucus chair Hakeem Jeffries, republican senator tom scott and analysis from our powerhouse round table. Announcer from abc news, its this week. Here now chief White House Correspondent jonathan karl. Good morning. Welcome to this week. The campaign trail, coronavirus and calls for racial equality all converged last night in tulsa. The president was hoping to reboot his campaign, but while the hype was huge, he claimed 1 Million People asked for tickets, the crowd was modest. Lots of empty seats, a rarity for a trump rally. While there were some tense moments in tulsa, protests remained largely peaceful. In a speech that lasted nearly n, defhis the president slme handling of coronavirus saying he requested to slow down the testing to avoid finding more cases. He spoke at length about his slow walk down a ramp at west point. What the president did not do is mention juneteenth, the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 or george floyd amid a National Outcry for change. Well have more on the president s rally and demands for racial justice. First the fall out from the president s firing of federal prosecutor Geoffrey Berman, the man who until yesterday was overseeing an investigation into the president s personal attorney. It was an extraordinary move. Now the president is saying it was all the attorney generals idea. Why did you fire Geoffrey Berman . Mr. President , why did you fire him . Its up to the attorney general. Attorney general barr is working on that. Thats his department, not my department. Thats up to him. Im not involved. Lets take this to our chief justice correspondent Pierre Thomas and our chief legal analyst dan abrams. Pierre, why is the attorney general doing this . Isnt he just doing the bidding of the president . Jon, it wasnt a state secret the president wanted berman out of that job. Barr believes its the president s prerogative to have in this position who he wanted to have. That said, this exploded and became quite the washington controversy. Dan, this of course is the prosecutor that was investigating the president s personal attorney, sent his former personal attorney to jail. There are suggestions that there may have been other investigations involving the trump organization. What happens from here . What happens with those investigations . Thats the big question about those other investigations. I think that is why it was so important that attorney general barr agreed to put in the existing deputy Audrey Strauss into the position for now. It provided a level of assurance to the prosecutors working in that office that those investigations will continue. You talk to people who know her. They will tell you they expect this office will continue very similarly to the way it was working when geoff berman was in charge. Of course there does become a legal question which is what if attorney general barr becomes frustrated with Audrey Strauss before jay clayton is in that position . Could she be gone at that point . That is a concern. Well have to see. It seems that berman forced the temporary appointment of Audrey Strauss by refusing to leave. Jon, let me tell you this, what berman did yesterday was extraordinary. Basically what he said is that i dont trust you, mr. Attorney general. I dont trust you. He said im not stepping down unless you make me go. Thats what ended up happening. What barr was sensitive to, according to my sources, is this notion that it looked like he was meddling. So he wanted to blow that notion up. Thats why he made the deputy in that office the person who would be the acting u. S. Attorney to blow up that notion and he put forth this notion that anybody in that office who feels pressure can and should report to the Justice Department inspector general. Make no mistake, he knew he had to respond to this allegation that he was doing the president s bidding and trying to sabotage these investigations. What made this so extraordinary, especially extraordinary in terms of the timing, was it comes as john bolton is saying that the president promised the president of turkey he was going to make changes in this prosecutors office. Lets play a little bit of martha raddatzs interview with john bolton on this. The president said to erdogan at one point, look, those prosecutors in new york are obama people. Wait until i get my people in and then well take care of this. I thought to myself and im a department of justice alumni, i have never heard any president said anything like that. Thats brazen to have this move happen just after that allegation. Right, because thats from a while ago that happened. That makes it bolder that it happened now. The question from a legal perspective will be what happens to bolton now . He won round one in that the book is going to be published. The administration cant stop it. Theres a serious argument that he could face civil damages meaning all the money hes making from that book could end up going to the government because he violated his nondisclosure, because he didnt finish the review process. On the question of any criminality with regard to john bolton, there has to be classified information. The president alleged that much of the information in the bolton book isnt even true. You cant say the information is not truthful and classified. Theyll have to pick between those arguments. Well see. I dont expect criminal charges. Dan, if they get those earnings, the way that book is selling, it may put a dent in the national debt. Thank you, dan abrams and Pierre Thomas. Joining me now exclusively is senator tim scott. Hes leading the Senate Republican effort on police reform. I want to begin, senator scott, with the news about the firing of u. S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman. Do you have any concerns about at least the appearance here with the attorney general firing somebody who was overseeing an investigation into the president s personal lawyer . I dont honestly. I think President Trump actually hired mr. Berman and he fired mr. Berman. Everyone at the doj works at the pleasure of the president. Thats number one. Number two, theres no indication that whatever is being investigated will not continue to move on. Will you track and see . Right now his deputy is taking over, Audrey Strauss. Theres no guarantee she wouldnt be replaced. How important to you is it that shows investigations continue without any interference from washington . I dont know that anyone has any evidence in whats in those investigations. As far as i can tell theres no indication that those investigations would stop. I would say that jay clayton the person who has been confirmed by the senate as the fcc head is in line to take over that position. Hes a straight shooter. Hes black and white. It will be hard for him not to move on any credible evidence in any situation or in any case. This comes as john bolton has made some extraordinary allegations against the president. I know you know john bolton well. He is certainly not a member of the deep state. Hes not a liberal democrat. What do you make of his rather serious allegations against the president . I do wish that mr. Bolton would have come into the house under oath and testified. One of the things about making allegations in a book for 29. 95, certainly going to be a best seller, but the problem is youre not putting yourself in the position to be cross examined. Under oath he would have had an opportunity to answer questions and not just make assertions. It would have been good for him to come to the house, answer questions under oath and be cross examined so we would have more information about fact patterns. So far it looks like he monetized it more than provided a fact pattern. On much of that the democrats would probably agree with you, although the president didnt want him to testify in the house. The president in response to this has called bolton a wacko, a sick puppy, a disgruntled boring fool who only wants to go to war. He said john kelly was way over his head. Called his former secretary of defense jim mattis, the worlds most overrated general. His secretary of state dumb as a rock. Jeff sessions not mentally qualified. These are some of the most important positions in government. Secretary of state, defense, National Security adviser, chief of staff. What does it say about President Trump that he appointed such people as that to those positions . It says the president s love language is not words of encouragement. Thats what i get out of those sequence of events and comments. May be a slight understatement. Lets move on to your bill, the justice act, which you unveiled this week. I was struck when you unveiled it. You talked about your own personal experience. We know you had been stopped by a capitol policeman coming into the capitol as a United States senator. You said you were recently pulled over for what you described as driving while black. What in your bill will address that type of action . Will anything address that . Certainly theres in our bill a lot of accountability. Not only do we provide resources for more training, we provide oversight and accountability so we can get to the root of the problem. The only way to get to the root of the problem is to have information collected by the fbi. Only 40 of offices report their information. For us to see the patterns in Law Enforcement that may be problematic we need all the information. Thats how we lead in the direction of how to target our grants to get the outcomes we want. Very important part of our legislation. I was struck by one place that praised your bill, the root which is an africanamerican liberal online magazine said the gop bill is more likely to stop cops from killing black people. They go on to say the bill would enforce its provision by reducing federal grant money and is available to state and local Law Enforcement agencies. Scott wants to prevent departments who dont comply to receive these funds. The article goes on to say it sounds a lot like defund police. Jonathan, i guess thats a question . God bless the root. Its nice to have them on my side every blue moon. Im not sure i agree with their conclusions. Its important for us to use the resources we give to Law Enforcement to compel them in the direction we think is in the best interest of the nation, the communities they serve and frankly of the officers themselves. We try to bridge that gap. One of the areas hes probably referring to is the importance of body cameras. Five years ago i started this journey after the Walter Scott Shooting in north charleston. A man was shot in the back five times and there was a false Police Report that brought us to the conclusion that was inconsistent with reality period. Had we had the type of resources in place, i think we could prevent more of these deaths and certainly have enhanced penalties for falsifying Police Reports. Thats not in the house bill. Its only exclusively in our bill. The false Police Report has an enhanced penalty on top of the serious Bodily Injury or death that leads to prosecution. Its important for us to bring more emphasis on character driven Law Enforcement. If we miss that, we miss the entire boat. I guess their point is if the Police Departments dont do what youre asking, they will lose access to federal funds. There would be an element of withholding funding here . Well, very important aspect of our bill, as well as the house bill, this is where 70 of it overlaps. The importance is that if the police an example, we all want to ban chokeholds. The house and senate knows you cant ban local use of chokeholds or state use of chokeholds except by removing federal grants that come into play. By removing federal grants you make those departments change their policy in the direction of satisfying what we all know and frankly in South Carolina very few, if any, departments still have a chokehold. That we know is an unnecessary tactic except for saving the life of the officer. We use the resources in an effective way. We believe you need more resources, not less resources, if you want officers to be trained effectively, you have to give them the tools, training, to get there. That requires more resources. If you want more information on the federal level, that requires more resources for Record Keeping and for data collection. The house bill says the exact same thing. Were in a position that says, in order to get the Law Enforcement agencies to improve their data collection, to improve their training, to improve the deescalation of situations and the duty to intervene we use resources from the federal level to compel or coerce local behavior. Its the exact same thing the house does because the u. S. Constitution doesnt allow the federal government to take over local Police Departments. Right. This is local police. Let me ask you before you go about Mary Elizabeth taylor who was the former assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, somebody you supported getting that position. She has resigned. In her letter of resignation she writes the president s comments and actions surrounding Racial Injustice in black americans cut against my core values and convictions. I must follow the dictates of my conscious and resign. I want to ask you to comment on her resignation. I know shes somebody you supported. When you heard some of what the president has done just over the past couple weeks, invoking the words of segregationists, taking credit for making for juneteenth becoming something that people know about, when you hear his words and see what he has done, have you ever felt that his actions cut sharply against your core values and convictions . I certainly have spoken out about the charlottesville situation. He and i sat down after that. Thats how we got opportunity zones. I spoke about the comments about the squad in baltimore. The president has said things i found offensive. I spoken out against those things publicly. I also called him to have constructive conversations. Heres what i would say. I think Mary Elizabeth is a wonderful person, brilliant. She has an incredibly bright future. Shes following her convictions. I believe my convictions have allowed me to work with the president on opportunity zones, on the highest funding for hbcus, on permanent funding for those schools. Ive been able to work with the president on the executive order so we can make sure more folks who are suspects get to go home if they were not stopped under appropriate manners and go to jail if necessary. We were able to sit with the families of victims of Police Brutality and have a serious and civil conversation where the families left and they said themselves they were heard by this president. Im not sure what their expectation was coming in. I know what their expectations were going out. Frankly, whether its dick durbin with his use of token versus other comments made by the president , there are plenty of blame of race on both sides that we need to be more sensitive on the issue of race in this nation. In order for us to make progress its insincere or at least not authentic to suggest that one side has a bigger problem than the other, especially if you look at the 1994 crime bill that cory booker said this locked up a disproportionate share of africanamericans and then he worked with president to get the first step taken care of. Both sides of the aisle should be working for a more Harmonious Union called the great United States of america. Thank you, senator scott. Appreciate you joining us. Thank you, jon. Coming up an exclusive new excerpt from martha raddatzs block buster interview with President Trumps former National Security john bolton. Martha joins us next. Interview with former National Security john bolton. Martha joins us next. Neuriva has clinically proven oingredients that fuel five, indicators of brain performanc memory, focus, accuracy, learning, and concentration. Try our new gummies for 30 days and see the difference. Polo marco. polo si . Marco. polo scusa . 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