20th, 1973, when the attorney general and the Deputy Attorney general of the United States under Richard Nixon resigned in protest rather than comply with nixons order to fire the special prosecutor looking into the watergate breakin. Those resignations in protest and nixon abolishing the special Prosecutors Office afterward were ducked the saturday night massacre. Well, on saturday, the Trump Administration orchestrated its second purge of federal Civil Servants having previously dismissed more than two dozen career and mitt calpolitical appointe appointees. The dismissals came after two days of trump loyalists going on cable tv calling for a purge of anyone in government who isnt absolutely, unquestionably loyal to donald trump. For weeks weve been warning you about the deep state obama holdover government bureaucrats who are hellbent on destroying this president , President Trump. Tonight its time for the Trump Administration to begin to purge these saboteurs before its too late. And then iowa congressman steve king said this to me and msnbcs katy tur on friday. It sounds to me as if you just suggested a purge, a governmentwide purge from the white house, directed by the white house, of any staffer who previously worked for the obama administration. Is that what youre suggesting . Anyone whos a political appointment is what i said. And i will use the word purge. I think that needs to happen. I think its a descriptive word and i know there are people that will attach extra meaning to that. I dont know a better word to use. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions executed that on saturday. Most complied but one in new york refused to go quietly. So on saturday evening, donald trump fired Preet Bharara. Someone Time Magazine once said is busting waulll street. He led new yorks southern district. Hes taken down big Corruption Cases involving both Political Parties and has very high prosecutal success rate. In september trump asked him to stay on and bharara agreed. We had a good meeting. I said i would absolutely consider staying on. I agreed to stay on. I have already spoken to senator sessions, who is the nominee to be the attorney general. Well, not anymore. Joining me now is joan walsh, harry siegel, Evan Siegfried and subo chandra. Im going to you first, what was he working on . A whole lot of things. Two of the governors closest allying and what came out in november, an investigation of fox news that came out in a Different Court hearing last month when a lawyer for former host there said that, hey, he had gotten a subpoena and that the southern district, sometimes called the sovereign district, was looking into the payoffs that fox had made in response to suits there, Sexual Harassment and otherwise, to see if those had been basically hidden from shareholders. So thats one Development Since trump said preet would be staying. And thats the roger ailes Sexual Harassment suit to be clear. To be very clear. The name thats come up immediately to replace preet is the son of the former attorney general who represented ailes and has been in business with giuliani, partners at two different law firms for over a decade. Evan, you wrote a piece online saying this was a mistake for the Trump Administration to push Preet Bharara out. He can now become that face to the Opposition Movement that has been sorely lacking. He has gravitas on both sides of the aisle. Republicans here, especially locally elected republicans are apoplectic that he was fired. They wanted him to stay. Judicial watch wanted him to stay on because of all the Corruption Cases hes been prosecuting and investigating. Any charge against bill de blasio or andrew cuomo can now be answered by this is a republican witch hunt. But Preet Bharara has that ability to stand up and say to the president now i am going to be the thorn in your heel and i will not stop. And on the question of what he can now discussion, just to put up some of the investigations that he was involved in. He was involved not only in this investigation of fox news and the payouts that were made over roger ailes, the allegations of Sexual Harassment, but also russian Money Laundering. He was looking at cases of that. He had put away some people involved in a turkish corruption scandal, thinking about general michael flynn, who was just lobbying for the government of turkey. Trump tower is in his jurisdiction, so any investigations that have to do with what might have been going on in trump tower is in his jurisdiction. And dinesh d souza, is he able to talk about those investigations now that hes not an employee of the United States government . To a limited degree, joy. What we see is a reputation for fearlessness and independence and not really caring if someone was from his own community. There were several that he prutprut prosecuted. Only to a limited degree. For example, if theres a grand jury investigation going on, bharara cant talk about that. It is customary in the department of justice not to talk about ongoing investigations. What i believe will happen, though, is that as bharara emerges and starts to give interviews, we may start to see little hints, little tea leaves of the kinds of issues that were in his jurisdiction. Beyond what you just mentioned about russian Money Laundering, trump tower, the famous tax returns that weve never seen. We dont know if theres a criminal tax investigation going on since donald trump has been so secretive in saying this neverending audit is going on. Who knows if theres a criminal tax investigation going on. So theres going to be a very limited extent from what we may hear about the nature of his jurisdiction, the nature of his offices work and what may have motivated his termination. And theres a certain sort of sense in which every time that the Trump Administration tries to turn the page off of the subject of, for instance, russia, they have managed to turn the page right back onto it, right . If you look at some of the specific cases that Preet Bharara was looking at, he had charged russian spies in january of 2015. He announced charges against three men, one of whom he managed to convict, he had gone into this question of Money Laundering, of the sort of russian Money Laundering schemes, some of which lead little paths back to trump tower based on where some of these people were locating their businesses. And he is somebody who himself is personally banned from russia because of his investigations back in 2013. So the Trump Administration by ousting this guy has managed to put the spotlight right back on some of the things that he was working on, russia and turkey. Exactly. And there was an interesting moment in i think it was harrys story where Trumps Office actually calls bharara and asks that he call the president back and he doesnt, because he is not allowed to be directly in touch with the president of the United States. So he calls Jeff Sessions or he calls sessions office and says i cant do this. And then the next thing he knows, hgets a ca king him to resign, which he refuses to do. Thats bizarre too. The whole thing lots of people said yesterday, legal twitter was like this happens all the time, dont freak out, folks. To some extent its true. But to do it with this kind of disruption. To do it with nobody ready in place to lead all of these offices without leadership is unusual and the way that they did it to bharara is strange. We saw, you showed, they had asked him to stay. Jeff sessions asked him to stay only a week ago. So what changed . And you had, evan, the president of the United States, the white house called only three u. S. Attorneys. He was one of them. They tried to call him but he said its unethical, im not going to take this call. The two others were people who were asked to stay and you also have an administration that does not have replacements for any of these people other than just rumors. They had to transition out but this is a bigger sign of the administration itself and how its unable to manage things. There are were starting to see on twitter a lot of people saying this was a conspiracy, he might have been looking into donald trump. No. Youre basically then exceeding or acknowledging that somehow the white house is competent. They arent. They are basically running around, and this was just score settling by getting rid of bharara with Chuck Schumer because Chuck Schumer was the mentor to Preet Bharara and Chuck Schumer has not been very nice to the white house and the president is getting revenge on him. That could just be a cover story. In and of itself thats correct. Youre going to punish this independent u. S. Attorney for the sins, the supposed partisan sins of a democrat . That would be ridiculous as a story in itself. Yeah. It doesnt necessarily cover up other things that bharara was doing. I just want to make one more point. Its not necessarily incompetence. It is partly incompetence. Its also a complete happiness with chaos. Who needs 46 u. S. Attorneys looking into every manner of wrongdoing. Im not saying that any of them are looking at trump, but its just theres a comfort with having nobody none of those people ready. Theres a comfort with not having ambassadors. Theres a comfort with completely decimating the state department so that no one is directing anything there, including, perhaps, rex tillerson. This is a strategy too. Its a strategy, but at the same time, harry, you also had just four days before this saturday night massacre, if you want to call it that. You had crew, ask Preet Bharara to look into whether Donald Trumps many businesses may violate the emoluments clause. A failure by your office to investigate will leave the nation exposed to foreign governments directly and indirectly, providing payments and financial ben at this time to President Trump when other governments may be seeking to influence the executive branch. This is exactly the type of problem they asked in the constitution. So he was looking at one of Donald Trumps nemesis, the mayor of new york city and the governor o new york, he was also asking to look into donald trump. Potential, sure. As weve been saying, this is government by chaos. Trump won the election somehow by chaos. Sorting out what slop hes disinterested in by calling these u. S. Attorneys generally, and the two that are staying are the acting Deputy Attorney general and the nominee to be the new Deputy Attorney general. Those are the people who would be leading the russia investigation that Jeff Sessions has recused himself from. So we have this letter and we dont know exactly what that means. We dont know what preet is investigating. We have hannity and others talking about a purge and they knew this was coming and got a little heads up. So whats the horse and whats the cart is hard to tell. You have all these messes. Going back to the ambassadors and this, there is zero for these 44 u. S. Attorneys. No one nominated. With the ambassadors it was get out that day. Its your kids who are in the middle of school overseas, theyre done. So theres a sense in which hes saying what the haey, were goig to create chaos, almost Silicon Valley style. Whats incredible is he doesnt have his own people there. Theres all these democrats and deep state folks that you dont trust, its their right hands who are now going to be leading these agencies and these attorneys offices until they finally start figuring it out. And what does that mean . Does that mean you have career Civil Servants who now are actually in charge of these investigations or is the second layer also political appointees . Well, at least for the time being you have career civil sev servants in place leading the office, but remember bharara is known to be a very active manager, so he is going to have personal knowledge of all the investigations that are going on, to be fully engaged in them. To have this disruptive sudden firing imagine anybodys workplace, if somebody whos a leader of the organization is suddenly gone, who has so much Institutional Knowledge in their head and is conducting and coordinating and pushing and leading the strategy, that is a significant loss to the office. To have it done so precipitously, to me the most telling fact is the fact that this was a u. S. Attorney that donald trump and Jeff Sessions had said could stay, and then they suddenly and very dramatically fire him immediately. What that says to me is that they were concerned about what he was going to do and his fearlessness and his independence just at the time that we have russia in our sights and we have financial improprieties in our sights. This was the office that was going to be involved in it. This was the u. S. Attorney who was going to be deeply engaged in it. And now hes gone. Drip, drip, drip. All right, joan walsh will be back in our next hour. Thank you to harry siegel and Evan Siegfried and subho chandra. Up next, even sarah palin hates it. Stay with us. Your Insurance Company wont replace the full value of your totaled new car. The guy says, you picked the wrong insurance plan. No, i picked the wrong Insurance Company. With new car replacement™, well replace the full value of your car plus depreciation. Liberty mutual insurance. Whfight back fastts, with tums smoothies. It starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue. And neutralizes stomach acid at the source. Tum tum tum tum smoothies only from tums 17 would be a disaster for obamacare. Thats the year it was meant to explode, because obama wont be here. That was when it was supposed to be as bad as it is now, it will get even worse. Donald trumps latest Conspiracy Theory the Affordable Care act is a bobbytrap rigged to implode the moment president obama left office. Fact check, false. Republicans have bragged that their repeal and replace bill is much shorter and yet they still found space for these items. Making sure people who win the lottery cant get medicaid. Double the amounts ceo pay tax break. And defunds planned parenthood. Joining me now is yvette clark. Also with me is kevin cait, and cornell belcher, democratic pollster and author of a man black in the white house. Congressman, im start with you. So far just a few of the organizations that are opposed to what i call tryan care, aarp is against it, the American Academy of pediatrics is against it, the American Hospital association is against it, the american medical association, the American Nurse Association is against it. Even sarah palin is against it at this point. Why is it that paul ryan is continuing to push a bill that republicans hate and every single one of these organizations hates too . Absolutely. Listen, joy, i have no idea what is on paul ryans mind. You didnt add the koch brothers. Theyre against it too. The bottom line to it is the republicans are trying to use a vehicle, the reconciliation vehicle, and they see a small window through which they can get this done. And so they have hastily put together a really bad bill. And, you know, theyre going to pay the price for that. When you say the reconciliation pace, that is only allowing them to repeal the tax portions, things that affect taxation and fiscal. They cant repeal, for instance, putting your kids on having your kids stay on your health care. Absolutely. What theyre trying to do is get rid of the individual mandate. That is like their ultimate goal. And so theyre using this vehicle. They have just sort of turned this whole Health Care Policy inside out, upside down, making sure that Insurance Companies will benefit, will get a windfall, and putting the risk of us at risk, from our seniors to our children to the poorest of the poor in our nation. Its really a disgrace. And you know, kevin, youve already had an estimate that 6 to 10 Million People would lose their haelt care. Brookings Institution Says its more than 15 million lose their health care. What the congresswoman just said, they still have a mandate, theyre basically just replacing the taxes that youd pay to the federal government with a 30 premium you pay directly to Insurance Companies. Right. Its almost like its not repeal and replace, its repeal and revenge. And the revenge is obviously aimed at president obama, but whos bearing the brun