U. S. Attorney for the Southern District new york, preet bharara, and former defense secretary, robert gates join me ahead. Plus, moments of reflection. The nation marks the anniversary of juneteenth as demands for policing reform reverberate across the country. Theres no playbook for what we are dealing with right now across this country. Is change on the way . Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms coming up. Hello. Im jake tapper in washington where the state of our union is remembering that there is a president ial election in less than five months. Is hoping to be back in his comfort zone this weekend holding his First Campaign rally in months. Saturday night in the city of tulsa in ruby red oklahoma. But the event was riddled with missteps, a much smaller than expected crowd, and news early saturday that six members of the Trump Campaign advance team had tested positive for covid19. Instead of a speech of unity and hope, President Trump gave what critics described as a meandering speech filled with complaints and falsehoods. He spent about 14 minutes talking about west point and defending his wobbly walk down that ramp. The president also made no mention of george floyd or juneteenth or the massacre of black americans in tulsa 99 years ago this month, as many on his team had hoped he would. The president also seemed to minimize the threat of the coronavirus. He used the racist term kung flu to describe it. Thats a term his own adviser Kellyanne Conway called highly offensive back in march. And at a time when states are experiencing increased cases of covid19 and increased hospitalizations, the president said this about testing. When you do testing to that extent, you are going to find more people, you are going to find more cases. So i said to my people, slow the testing down, please. A white house official later said that the president was, quote, obviously kidding. Just a reminder, there are currently more than 2 million cases of covid19 in the United States. And more than 119,000 dead in the United States. Thats more than the total number of americans who died in world war i. Sources tell cnn that the president was also upset to see so much news on saturday focused not on his return to the campaign trail but on his administrations hamhanded move to fire the widely respected and independent u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york, Geoffrey Berman, whose office is currently investigating trumps attorney, Rudy Giuliani. A standoff ended when the president stepped in and fired berman. Bermans deputy will now temporarily fill the role rather than the administrations pick who had been announced on friday. I want to start right there with the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and congressman from new york, jerry nadler. Chairman nadler, thanks for joining us. Lets start about this president s and attorney generals decision to fire the u. S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman. You seem to be suggesting in statements you made since the firing that barr may be trying to impede an ongoing criminal investigation in the Southern District of new york. Which investigation . Well, i think its obvious that the number of investigations the Southern District has been doing with reference to the president s associates, giuliani, the turkish investigation. Weve seen a pattern of the president opposing of barr corruptly impeding all these investigations. So, this is just more of the same. You tweeted that you would like to invite, i guess, the now former u. S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman to testify in front of your committee, the House Judiciary Committee committee, this week on wednesday. Has he accepted your offer . Will that happen this week . I couldnt hear your question. Im sorry. You said that you invited Geoffrey Berman to testify in front of your committee on wednesday. Has he accepted your offer . Is that going to happen this week . Well, we are having a hearing on wednesday in which we have a number of whistleblowers from the department of justice who will testify. We have invited berman, and i am sure he will im sure i dont know about wednesday, but im sure he will testify. I know you announced youre going to investigate why berman was fired. Some Congressional Democrats including senator Elizabeth Warren have said that this is it, this is the last straw, attorney general bill barr needs to be impeached. You have not gone that far. Do you think calls for his impeachment are premature . No. I dont think calls for impeachment are premature, any more than the calls for the president s impeachment were premature. But they are a waste of time at this point because we do know we have a corrupt republican majority in the senate which will not consider impeachment no matter what the evidence and no matter what the facts. So were instead going to do what we have to do without that. And including barring 50 million from his own personal budget. Youre calling every Senate Republican who voted to acquit President Trump corrupt . I think in the sense of being corrupt against the interest of the country, yes. I want to ask you about new revelations in addition from this less redacted version of the Mueller Report that cnn was able to obtain through the freedom of information act. We learned that mueller raised the possibility that President Trump lied to him when the president said that he did not remember any conversations with roger stone about wikileaks, which obviously got those emails from the dnc that the russians were to have are said to have hacked, that were damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign. We learned that testimony from trump attorney Michael Cohen, Trump Former Campaign chair Paul Manafort and deputy Campaign Chair rick gaetz suggests that President Trump did talk with wikileaks. With roger stone about wikileaks and the pending release of these damaging emails. I know you are familiar with this. Do you think President Trump lied to Robert Mueller and his investigators about this issue . Yes. I think its very clear that he lied and that he committed a crime. And i think its also the case that as mueller implied in his report that the only reason the president wasnt indicted is because mueller was operating under the department of justice guidelines that say a sitting president cannot be indicted. If he were not president , i think he would have been indicted and shouldve been. For obstruction of justice or for something having to do with conspiracy with russia . Well, for lying to mueller. Its lying to thats a crime to lie to the mueller committee. I want to turn to the latest from former National Security adviser john bolton coming out in his book that i think comes out on tuesday. Bolton accused democrats, House Democrats of, quote, committing impeachment malpractice by not broadening your impeachment investigation beyond the ukraine controversy to include other episodes he describes as potential high crimes and misdemeanors involving the president with china, involving the president with turkey. What do you make of that charge . Well, the fact is the president couldve been impeached on other grounds, too, such as obstruction of justice in the russia investigation. We chose to try to keep it simple. And bolton who has, as we now know, evidence that he could have offered and refused to offer, is certainly no one to talk. Well, he did offer to testify before the senate. But, as you know, the senate voted not to hear any additional evidence. No. He refused to testify before the house. Right. He refused to testify before the house and the senate, of course, was never going to call him because the Senate Republicans were not interested in any evidence, as i said, they were corrupt in that respect. I should just note every republican voted against new evidence except for Susan Collins and mitt romney. Thats right. Are you planning on calling bolton to testify about this new information . He has he suggests in his book im sorry. Am i planning to what . To call john bolton im sorry. Am i planning to what . Are you planning on calling john bolton to testify before your committee . No. Were not interested in boltons testimony. Bolton says in his book that President Trump promised him he would stop the investigation into the turkish bank that the Southern District of new york was doing at the time, which you brought up as a potential reason why geoff berman might have been fired. It sounds as though bolton has evidence to back that up. But you dont want to hear him because what, because youre upset that he didnt voluntarily testify during impeachment . We may. But well see about that. I mean, do you think that any of these new revelations from bolton are impeachable . Or is the door closed on impeachment for 2020 . Well, i think the president has done a lot of impeachable things including what boltons talking about. But we have an election coming up. We know the republicans in the senate will not entertain an impeachment in any event. So at this time this will be a waste of time and effort. One last thing before we go. You said calls to impeach the attorney general were not premature. Does that mean that you think attorney general barr should be impeached . Well, i think he deserves impeachment. He certainly deserves impeachment. But, again, thats a waste of time because the republicans in the senate wont look at that. And we have other ways of getting at this. All right, chairman jerry nadler, congressman and democrat of new york, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. I want to bring in the previous u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york who President Trump fired in 2017, preet bharara, also a cnn senior legal analyst. Preet, good toe see you. You just heard my interview with chairman nadler. What was your reaction to what he had to say . Well, a couple reactions about what is going to happen Going Forward. I understand that jerry nadler has asked the former u. S. Attorney, Geoffrey Berman to come testify. I dont know that he will do that. And i dont know actually how much he will have to say. After i was fired lots of people wanted to ask me questions about what ongoing investigations i mightve been overseeing to try to make a connection between the fact of those investigations, the relationships to the trump administration, to trump himself, and the firing. My policy was, and i think the Standard Operating Procedure is not to talk about ongoing investigations even when you leave office. So i dont know how much progress youre going to make with respect to trying to get an answer to that question. With respect to the comment about bill barr, i leave it to members of congress to decide whether to impeach or not. What i have said publicly and i think a lot of people understand clearly is the case that in the most recent incident starting last thursday and friday, the attorney general of the United States made a public misrepresentation about whether or not geoff berman was stepping down from office. It was clearly not the case. It was clearly a falsehood, and he tried to cover that up with a letter that namecalled, spent time calling names against geoff berman and also retreated from the position a little bit allowing berman to decide if the offices are going to be left in good hands with Audrey Strauss, the deputy, and i think that conduct alone shows there is this sort of unfitness for office. We teach our assistant u. S. Attorneys not to spin, not to make misrepresentations in court. And if you do, you apologize for it and you withdraw the statement. I know its not the biggest thing in the world and he was trying to accomplish something that the president wanted which was geoff berman out because he wasnt perceived to be loyal enough. But you make a representation thats not true, it is a particular problem if youre the attorney general of the United States of america. We should, just to bring our viewers up to speed, make sure people know that geoff berman is a registered republican, gave money to the president s campaign in 2016. But hes also regarded as an independent prosecutor. His office got Michael Cohen convicted, sent to prison. Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Also lev parnas and igor fruman. He also has been going after this turkish bank that we talked about with chairman nadler. Hes also been going after Rudy Giuliani, investigating Rudy Giuliani for his behavior. And also his office is looking into jeffrey epstein. Why do you think attorney general barr wanted berman gone . What seems to me the president wanted him gone. There have been reports over time including the recent report from the john bolton book and prior reports where the president seems to have been upset that Geoffrey Berman recused himself from the prosecution investigation of trumps former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, which is parallel to his concern about Jeff Sessions recuing himself from the russia investigation. There have been repeated reports of the president of the United States was not happy with geoff berman, not happy with my former office. Hes shown himself not to be happy with independent law enforcement. Hes not happy with inspectors general at all. Its very hard in these circumstances to pinpoint the exact reason someone was let go. But the circumstances show that i dont think it was in good faith. In fact, the whole idea that geoff berman did not lose the confidence of the department, such that he was being asked to move to some other position, not being told, you know, to leave the department all together, doing a terrible job, weve lost confidence in you, but the idea that bill barr puts in his level to geoff berman. Youve got the s. E. C. Chair who has never done a criminal case, and is doing a good job as the s. E. C. Chair as far as i can tell. Lets put him in the Southern District. Meanwhile geoff berman, who is a criminal prosecutor and has been doing a good job in the Southern District, why dont they just swap jobs four and a half months before an election . Given that fact and the weirdness of it and all the other evidence that the president wasnt happy with how things were going in the Southern District and wanting to make sure that they kept their place, stayed in their lane, that lane being loyalty of the president. I think its a reasonable conclusion that the decision to get rid of geoff berman was not done in good faith. You have talked about the woman who is now going to take over for Geoffrey Berman, the deputy. Berman released a statement when he left his post saying hes confident that the Southern District will, quote, continue its tradition of integrity and independentance under the deputy, Audrey Strauss, who you know. Which of the investigations are you watching from your purview, and what could those investigations mean potentially for President Trump . I dont know. I dont talk about investigations of people. Since i left office. They dont talk about them with me since i left office. I will say i should affirm Audrey Strauss is an incredible lawyer, a principled lawyer, a lawyer with a lot of integrity and with a lot of experience and widely respected in the office. I am a little concerned that there is no assurance that Audrey Strauss will be, so far as we know Going Forward, until a u. S. Attorney is confirmed, that her job is safe. We know Going Forward until there is a permanent u. S. Attorney confirmed that her job is safe. Thats implied by the letter from bill barr to geoff berman. With respect to other investigations, i cant speculate about what will happen. What i do know is the people in the office are professionals. Theyre career folks. And Audrey Strauss is well respected. And if there is an investigation that leads to a prosecution, itll be done on the facts in the law without fear or favor as the oath says. And so im not worried about that at all. All right. Preet bharara, thank you so much for your time this morning. A white house aide called this quote highly offensive. So why did the president use the term last night . White house adviser Peter Navarro will join me next.