He refuses to comply of a grand jury subpoena of the russian investigation. He did an all day marathon on tv instead, eventually, going onto say well, he may corroborate. All this is proving that the only thing you can count on in this white house is chaos. You know who says hes fine with the chaos . The president himself. I want to bring in New York Times columnist. Assistant secretary of state under president obama. Thank you both for joining us here this evening. Never a dull moment. Nick, the first question goes to you. I want to talk about chaos. Everyday is something new here. Do you have trouble keeping up . I do it every single day. You think after a while it is going to come down and the white house loses more experience and people definitely recruiting others and this may actually accelerate. That really strikes me is that given the difficulty on trade policy, for example, President Trumps inability listening to or a rational evidence based path. You wonder how indeed hes going to handle north koreas policy, real work, thats very scary. A trade war we candace disentangle ourselves from. A nuclear war with north degree. We cant. Lets talk about trade policy and how it may impact our policy. Lets take a look at what paul ryan said today, the house speakers comment on this. We are extremely worried of the consequences of the trade war and urging the white house to not advance with this plan. The new tax reform law boosted the economy. Speaker ryan is concerned of what a trade war would do to the economy. What does this say of the role of this policy . Well, i served four years on the National Security counsel staff at the white house and you know setting aside the merits here it seems to me that it is probably going to cause us more jobs than saves. This is something thats a priority for the president , he evidently bleed this for 30 years and there is also a failure of not only on the merits but also a failure of the process. You have the president if hes going to do this, he does not set an impromptu meeting with few executives and they know just impulsively announce the tariffs. Hes out making a speech at a steel plant, secretary of state and advisers and engaging with allies and how to understand what the initiative means and does not mean. And how he has economic advisers on wall street, we have a situation where we dont know the details yes. The ship is still on the piers. Its already taking on water. Making it difficult to achieve the objective. The president was asked about speaker ryans warning. Are you going to book down with the tariffs. No, we are not backing down. Now, gary cohn is planning a meeting this week between the president and representatives from the industry that could hurt the trumps tariffs. Do you think the president could be swayed . Boy, i hope so. If it is limited to steel and aluminum, thats manageable. The impact on the economy would negative libl. The real risk is twofold, one that europe responds and other countries would respond. The other is this leads President Trump in the renegotiation of nafta to take a hard line and causes nafta to fall apart and collapse. In either of it happens then the damage just goes all through the economy and undermines it at a time when it is really strong. Pj, i believe you have a response to that. I you know, said well maybe we wont include canada if they agreed to renegotiation on nafta of President Trumps term. Whether you are talking about canada or mexico, every time, the president actually makes negotiations of a balance deal thats good for the United States and good for canada and mexico. Updates nafta as necessary. It makes that much more difficult. If nafta does collapses, out the window goes the rosie economic assumption that the administration used for a number of tax reforms. I want to talk about russia. Yet to use tens of millions of dollars in funding that lawmakers allocated. Tillerson has left almost 80 million on the table for months. What do you suppose it is taking him so long, nicholas . This is in unfathomable. The way he defends putin and the way he changes his republican platform and the failure to respond to our russian attack of our system. The failure to tell Admiral Mike Rogers to give him the authority of the u. S. Cyber command to respond and confront russia on these attacks. Now we find that the state department has 120 million and spends zero, this is a broader pattern that i think is explicable unless if there is another part of the puzzle that we dont see. Which is come kind of lempverag that moscow had. Over President Trump. Pj, intel chiefs are warning about russia and folks are wondering if this had anything to do with the president reluctant or acknowledgment or responding. To the interference. Pushing back saying its because tillerson wants to do a careful review. What do you think of this . I think there are three things going on here. The fact that the president is not leading a conversation about helping us protect the integrity of our electoral process, thats president ial malpractice. Secondly, he has not learned from the experience of george w. Bush and barack obama both who made a significant effort to do business with Vladimir Putin and by the end of their respective terms were disabused that there could be cooperations. I dont mind the fact that President Trump has tested that waters but now when you look at just the interference of 2016, you look at whats happening in syria and whats happening in ukraine and whats happening in north korea, and we do need a whole of Government Strategy on confronting russia. It is not a new cold war. At the sate department, you have this Global Engagement centered. They have been focused primarily over the past several years on countering violent extremists and they have been given some money but they have no russian speakers and no russian expertise and the backdrop of this is that as the state department is increasing its globals responsibility, tillerson is trying to cut the state departments budget from anywhere from 15 or 30 . You got a hemorrhaging of experiences and talents in the state department. It is a real capacity there and given an important mission. They need time to build up the ability to do it. Of course, i agree with that russia seems to be preparing to interfere with our elections this year which they attempted to hack into 31 different states, Electoral Systems and the idea that we would be so passive in the state department and the u. S. Cyber command and its white house, i find it just inexplicable. I want to ask you about the gun legislation. This has been three weeks. Lawmakers falling on the same side every time we have one of these mass shootings. I think they are. There will be a little bit of movement at the state level and oregon just passed some state measures. There maybe measures at the state level in florida. We are missing such an opportunity here and you see 96 and everyone a gun owning household in america favoring universal background checks. This is something thats not everyone on the radar for congress. Maybe the federal government will move on bump stocks or do this next system and improving the database. These are tiny baby steps in which during your show more americans will die from gun violence than die all year in japan from guns. This bump stock, they should do whatever they can but thats thats a head fake by lawmakers. It does not address the fundamental problem. One american dies 15 minutes of gun violence. Thats not going to change. Nick and pj, thank you. I appreciate both of you. A blunt response to mullers subpoena. Screw that. Will he agree to testify in congress . You wont see these folks at the post office they have businesses to run they have passions to pursue how do they avoid trips to the post office . Stamps. Com mail letters ship packages all the Amazing Services of the post office right on your computer get a 4 week trial plus 100 in extras including postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again nunberg went onto give a Series Television interviews. What does Robert Mueller think of all this. Muellers assistant is here and kim whaley is a former associate independent counsel in the white water investigation. I am so glad all of you are here this evening. It is a significant story and deserves a lot of discussions here. Nunberg gave at least seven interviews today and three of them are from cnn. Asked if he think muellers team has something on trump. Watch this. The way they asked about his business dealings, the way they asked if you had heard anything everyone during while i was fired, it just it just made me suspect that they suspect something about him. Glory trump may very well done something during the election with the russians. What makes you if he did that, i dont know. If he did that, it is inexcusable. What do you think of these interviews . What do you think of this, julia . Theyre obviously entertaining and i dont think it is credible or move the needle that much. What i take away from it is nunberg is givering us a window and a good window in where mueller and the team are heading and what they are asking about. We have not gotten someone leading the interview being as explicit as him and i am assuming hes telling the truth of whats happening and at least tells all of us that this investigation is really at the core about trump and his family. Thats what those questions were about and thats what sam was disclosing and thats i think thats why tomorrow morning, well all wake up to a series of tweets in response to this. Yeah. I can predict that much. What do you think, michael, what does mueller want to hear from nunberg . Can i say as an over arching matter and i watched that interview and my fundamental response to it is sadness. I am hoping that there is somebody out there whos a friend thatll keep an eye on sam. It made me concerned for him. I wanted to say that because it is been weighing on me. In respect of the specific question. Mueller i thought the thing that nunberg said to me because most compelling was hes interested in roger stones relationship with wikileaks because that makes sense to me if muellers fundamental responsibilities in this case is counter and indictment of social media part of this and facebook and twitter and now hes going to look at number two of the hacking and the domestic hacking of podesta and the dnc. He thinks perhaps relate to that roger stone may have information on it. I think thats what drove nunberg so off the rocket today because he tried to protect his friend and thats what he thinks is in jeopardy today here. What we learn is part two of the Counter Intelligence investigation is going to be looking at the hacking and as of the social media and now hacking, we are going to look first to that outside coming in and then well look to see anyone on the inside cooperate on the way out. That would be analytics of Jared Kushner on the social media and roger stone and don jr. In communication with stuff and wikileaks. Kim, adam schiff, wants nunberg to the in the house and the committee, do you think hell do that. I think it is impossible. The threat of contempt in front of the grand jury. Its a much more serious circumstance. Should he testify before congress . I said before that i think there are some liability in thing before congress if you appear before the Mueller Investigation, so you know how i would advise him as a lawyer is whats best for the country is another. What i think is really a concern here is that we had and we have russians that are interfering with our democracy and we have two branches of government thats not functioning. The executive branch and the legislature. The judiciary is extremely important and the fact that this incident demonstrates and contempt for the process is a problem. I would expect that mr. Mueller would make sure there are compliance of all the witnesses that he calls for the grand jury the system sustains itself. I want to talk about something thats significant that he was asked about that june 2016 meeting. It looks like it may be the center of muellers investigation. Listen to this. President trump says he knew nothing about the meeting, do you think thats true . No. You dont think thats true . No. Jake, i have watched your news report, you know it is not true. He talked about it the week before and i dont know why he did this. All he had to say was yeah, we met with the russians. The russians offered us something and we thought they had something. And, that was it. I dont know why he went around trying to hide. Julia, how significant is that response . I think it is significant in the sense that a lot of us have suspected from the beginning. It seems unconceivable that meeting would take place and donald trump would mention the disclosure the next couple of days. That meeting took place of his top adviser and including his son. And he wouldnt have known about it. Whether sam nunberg knows for a fact or extrapolating from the way the campaign worked or the way donald trump works with his son or the way the interest that donald trump would have. Donald trumps disclosure over the next couple of days, once you put two and two together, it often does equal four in some stage and i think sam was sort of picking up on that. I have long thought that meeting was relevant and not so much get the information whether that happened or not but the lying about whether donald trump knew about it is the more significant part and i think a lot of data points are now suggesting that is exactly what happened. He either knew simultaneously or immediately after. We got a lot more to discuss and i want all of you to stick around. When we come back, who else is mentioned in nunbergs interview and what is that investigation going . Small business, internet providers promise you a lot. Lets see who delivers more. Comcast business offers fast gigspeeds across our network. At t doesnt. We offer more complete reliability with up to 8 hours of 4g Wireless Network backup. At t, no way. We offer 35 voice features and solutions that grow with your business. At t, not so much. Get internet on our gigspeed network and add voice and tv for 34. 90 more per month. Call 18005016000. Sam nunberg did a lot of talking today to cnn and several other media outlets. He released a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller. It is interesting that we have a copy of this subpoena. Robert muellers team is asking for all communications between nunberg and trumps associates, steve bannon and Michael Cohen, paul manafort. Thats a lot of trumps allies or associates here. What does this tell us, kim . One thing that i did learn of the wait water investigation is whats happening inside is different than from what the public or media understand. We can all tell a story of everybody up on that screen at this point. The question is whether it is going to lead to the president of the United States. The meeting in june of 2016, that was just discussed as important of additional reason is that if mr. Trump was aware of that meeting could create the meeting of aiding or abetting or in addition of obstruction of justice. It is quite serious of a criminal matter and we open the question whether the president could be indicted. The Mueller Investigation is getting closer and closer to the upper. Etch echelon or the executive branch. When you see that list, what do you have in mind . A lot of these guys, lewandowski, they are early members of the campaign. This is an effort by mueller sort of understanding the origins of the Trump Campaign and their evolution and that may include who they communicated with. What theyre communicating about. I am not sure if it paints a picture of obstruction or or collusion or indictable offense or anything like that. I broadly base as an effort of mueller to understand foundational stuff as this campaign got underway and from that, hell extrapolate and make the determinations. Juliet, you have been reading the tea leaves. Most of what you have said, you how this sh going to turn out. The timing. Predicted correctly. When you look at this list of names and they were actually tea leaves, how would you read that . Similarly. This is the inner core of the trumps team. It is interesting that the family is not on that list and so you sort of wonder why not. And where this investigation is going. The most interesting character, there are two interesting people in that list sort of standing out. One is roger stone. There is a lot going on with roger stone including h is communications with wikileaks and what wikileaks was going to do and the question is how much of that did he communicate to the campaign and who knew that in the campaign. I think we constantly need to be looking at roger stone as someone thats sort of a lynch pin in this dynamic. And the other is hope hicks. About to leave, maybe k and shee inner circle. And shes has parents who maybe urging her to get out of this mess. That she found herself in. I sort of well, keep my eyes opened to see what hope hicks moves are considering the investigation will have a lot of interests in here at this state. Carter page, he believes page was colluding with the russians. The white house really wants the word collusion to go away but now there seems to be a new angle on collusion. Well, collusion should really go away because it is criminal investigation, collusion is not a crime. Conspiracy is a crime, aiding and abetting, another crime is a crime. It is difficult to determine whether anything that this witness is saying is something that we should all put a lot of faith in. They want to stee see what he communicated with other members of the campaign. It suggests after the grand jury testimonies, prosecutors decided they need these documents. If these emails are consistent or inconsistent of what he said in the grand jury. Michael, this is a report from the New York Times reporting that muellers team is investigating in there is any attempt by the united emirates if they donated money to donald trump. Is he expanding the probe now or is it apart of it . The mandate uses the word russia in the first sentence. When it says count intelligence. Mueller is to continue the counter investigation that comey testified to in march. Thats the russia investigation. Within that mandated, he