Rex tillerson has his saturday night live exit interview with the help of john goodman. Okay, gentlemen. Any insights into trump is a moron im sorry. I done splurted that one out. Woo feels nice to say what i want. Call jurrasic park because the rexie is loose. And good day, everyone. Im andi rea mitchell in washington, where President Trumps yearlong frustration with the special counsel investigation appears to be boiling every. Hes blasting newly fired fbi director Andrew Mccabe and james comey in a string of tweets and targeting Robert Mueller himself, marking the first time the president has name checked him on twitter. Just this morning, calling the russia probe a total witch hunt with, quote, massive conflicts of interest. The president now heads to New Hampshire this hour. Lets begin with nbc National CorrespondentPeter Alexander at the white house and msnbc political analyst robert costa, National Political reporter at the washington post, and moderator of washington week. Peter, first to you. The president seems to be unleashed, but now his lawyers are trying to say, well, he doesnt mean to fire Robert Mueller, but boy, seemed to be getting awfully close to that kind of breakout this weekend. Reporter yeah, lets be clear. If there were to be any orders in terms of the firing of Robert Mueller, they wouldnt come from his lawyers. Theyd come from the president himself. He would need to direct those orders to the attorney general. Since hes recused himself, hed go to rod rosenstein. At the end of the day, its the president s words that matter most. Thats why its so striking to see him so unrestrained over the course of this weekend, lashing out a about partisan investigation, in his eyes, that hes repeatedly viewed as a hoax and witch hunt. As you note, and this is why its important, now for the first time personalizing his attacks against Robert Mueller. Notably similar the way he went after Andrew Mccabe a matter of months ago. Ty cobb, the president s attorney, this weekend basically pushed back all this and said the president is not discussing, is not considering the firing of the special counsel Robert Mueller. Again, to be clear, it wouldnt be the president who would do that firing. And youll remember that the New York Times reported several months ago the president , we understand, tried to orchestrate the firing of the special counsel, even pressuring don mcgahn to look into the firing of the special counsel before mcgahn basically said he wouldnt do it. The president backed off, andrea. Peter bob, weigh in on what peter was discussing. How do we interpret what the other lawyer, john dowd, had to say over the weekend . These are lawyers, andrea, who have had a difficult relationship at times with President Trump, as he has grown increasingly frustrated with this ongoing russia probe. My sources inside of the white house say that dowd and cobb are trying to rehabilitate their relationship with the president , speaking for him in part, at least his impulse that hes confiding to them behind the scenes. Its a complicated moment for the president s legal team as this white house comes under such scrutiny. And the scrutiny is very personal now that we know that there have been inquiries subpoenaed to the trump organization. Robert, is that partly what might be driving this . Partly, its that. Also, the white house and president s lawyers are aware that the mueller team is looking into potential obstruction of justice, things that happened during the presidency. So the president was already alarmed that his business dealings from the past were under the spotlight. Now he knows his own conduct is being evaluated very closely,ing even come up in an interview with Robert Mueller in the coming months, should the president move forward with that. And peter, what about the propriety of the president of the United States taking aim at Andrew Mccabe in such a personal way for more than a year now . Reporter yeah, andrea, it was striking to see the way this played out. Obviously mccabe fired, literally a matter of hours before he would have been eligible for his full pension. I just want to make one more point about this conversation were having. I think this is important here. The president again this morning, in all caps, describing this russia investigation as a witch hunt. Over the weekend, as he referred to mccabe and comey and others, using words like fake and fraudulent. But remember just a matter of days ago, this white house effectively acted on findings by that special counsel and his teams investigation. Those findings as they related to interference by russian individuals and russian organizations, sanctioning those individuals and those organizations. So on the one hand, theyre saying this is a witch hunt, its a hoax, but on the other hand, theyre using that very information, those findings to basically go after russia and in fact acknowledging theres something to this. Indeed. Peter alexander and bob costa, thank you both so much. Wisconsin democratic congressman is offering Andrew Mccabe a job to help him qualify for his job. Congressman, thank you very much. Tell me how this would work, and have you heard back at all from mccabe . Yeah, hi, andrea. Thank you for having me. So weve definitely talked to his folks this morning. Were hoping to have a personal conversation, but clearly this is a very legitimate offer. What the president did was one of the biggest, i think, character flaws that we see in him. He just lacks human decency. It was cruel the way he did this, to fire someone literally hours before they would have got their pension. So we need to be a check in the balance of this system. In this case, our check is that we can make sure at least someone isnt going to be threatened and others threatened that theyll lose their pension if they do something the president doesnt like. So weve made a very legitimate offer to work on election integrity. Its a nonpartisan issue. And if Andrew Mccabe would like to work for us, we want to make sure he gets his pension after many years of service to this country. And would this be a shortterm hire so that he has the additional days to qualify for his pension, or might he continue for a while if this is agreeable . You know, ill tell you, i think itll be part of the conversation well have, but well make sure that hes on at least long enough to get the pension. Its important work that wed love to have him do with his invaluable background. But its also dont forget, the president did this to try to interfere with the Mueller Investigation. He wants to send a signal that anyone who crosses him, hes not going to just hurt you, hes going to hurt your family, hes going to hurt your future. Hes going to go after your pension. Andrea, i grew up in a lowermiddle class family. I still live on modest means, like almost everybody else in the country. When you threatening pensions, you are sending a message. Its thuglike behavior. Quite honestly, paul ryan, mitch mcconnell, and others have to stand up far more than they are. Im glad others also made offers. I dont necessarily care if he comes to work for me or not, just as long as he can get his pension. But we have to let people know, dont be intimidated by someone trying to stop you from talking and doing your job because again, thats cruel behavior and its unbecoming of a president. Now, are you at all concerned about what may or may not be in the ig report and in the office of Legal Counsel in terms of the substantive issues against Andrew Mccabe . Yeah, again, every report weve seen, whether it be the fake report that devin nunes found then delivered to the white house last year or the bad report that the House Republicans put out, every time we see one of these reports, we find out theres absolutely nothing. Its one more reason to try to derail this investigation. Im guessing the same thing is here. This person has had 21 years of credible, honorable service, and im going to put my bet behind andrew rather than behind the president. And one quick question. I was listening to congressman hines this morning on morning joe suggesting theres an effort by some democrats at least to put this standalone bill having a backstop for an office of special counsel to be legislatively enabled as part of the mustpass omnibus budget bill this week. Obviously there will be pushback from republican leadership, but is that a real thing . You know, it would be something credible. If paul ryan wants to show hes not on the staff of the white house and hes the head of a coequal branch of government thats a check and balance, i would hope that they would rise to do this because we all need to send a message regardless of partisan affiliation, that this investigation needs to go forward. As Lindsey Graham and a few other republicans have said, we would have a constitutional crisis if mueller is fired. I think we need more of us to stand up and say it. This may be the best opportunity, as you know, in a mustpass bill. Thank you so much. Thanks for joining us. Please let us know after talking to Andrew Mccabe or his people if theres a deal. If hes a new hire on the congressional staff. Absolutely. It was your tweet that started all this. I just want you to know. We saw your tweet over the weekend. Thats what gave us the idea. So thank you. Well, thats interesting to note. Thank you very much, congressman. And joining me now, Msnbc National Security analyst and former fbi special agent clint watts, and msnbc contributor chuck rosenberg, a former u. S. Attorney and senior fbi official. Chuck rosenberg, i know you worked well for quite some time with Andrew Mccabe. Do you know how hes doing now after all this tumult . I think it was his 50th birthday yesterday as well. It was, andrea. Hes probably doing about as well as you would expect one to be doing after being fired in a public way and humiliated by the president. But heres what i know about andy, and i think its worth telling you. Hes a good man. Hes a decent man. I found him to be a kind and humble man. I enjoyed working with him. Now, to your point earlier, i dont know whats in the report, and maybe theres something bad in there, but the andy i know, the andy mccabe who served his country honorably and well for 21 years, im proud hes my frie friend. And chuck, just to be clear, the information that was allegedly disclosed, he says properly, with authorization, but apparently the ig found otherwise, to a reporter actually was detrimental to Hillary Clinton. It was not favorable because it involved a continuing investigation into the Clinton Foundation during the campaign. Thats one piece. The other piece is that according to a lot of reporting, this information was lifted out of a larger ig report and hurried through to try to get him out of there before his pension could kick in. So its the speed with which this was done without due process, without his opportunity to really look at it, rebut it, et cetera. Thats one of my questions. Did he have the requisite amount of time to view the report, to rebut the report, to present evidence in his own favor, or was it rushed . Heres where i think this may be nuanced, andrea, because i know a number of the career officials who are in this process. Like andy, ive worked with them, i trust them. Theyre people of integrity. But was there unlawful command influence . In a military setting, the four star says i want Andrea MitchellCourt Martialed a courtmartialed and out. Its in violation of the rules of military justice. Here you have the chief of the executive branch, the president of the United States, saying exactly that. I want this guy gone. What role does that play . And even if it doesnt apply as a legal matter, it should apply as a malter tter of principle. And clint watts, lets talk about that also. Mike hayden, a former general who headed the cia and the nsa, suggested that no matter what the facts of the case are, there was in a military context, not a legal context, but a military context undue command influence in this case. Thats absolutely right. The president forecasted this months ago, and he did it through his twitter feed. We saw that this was a vindictive attack on Andrew Mccabe. It didnt matter what Andrew Mccabe did or what the findings were. They had an objective they wanted to meet, and this is the method they chose to pursue it. And the problem with all this is we have no idea whats in this report. If the attorney general is going to go to such lengths, im sure he knew this would cause a fire storm, as it did last week. Then he should have disclosed that report. He should have offered what opr did in the representation, what they put forward in the recommendation, why he made his decision. Right now we only have two sides of the story. We dont have the ig report. So its very hard for the public to make much sense of it, other than if you have to go with President Trumps word, which he forecast this months ago, or Andrew Mccabes statement, im going with Andrew Mccabes statement at the moment until i see that ig report. I think it would be very helpful, much like when we went through this process with the nunes memo, for the public to have something to base this on rather than cherry pick information and really behind the scenes maneuvering. Clint, do you think that this is a prelude to you know, weve seen the president fire comey. Weve seen him now pressure for the firing of mccabe. There are a lot of questions as to whether sessions recused in the underlying russia probe should have even been involved in the firing of mccabe. Is this something building to the firing of bob mueller . Every time i say the president wont do that, he goes ahead and does something completely outrageous. At the sam point, i think strategically what the president and his lawyers are trying to pursue is a Discrediting Campaign against anybody thats a potential witness against him. What weve seen both with former fbi director comey and now Deputy Director mccabe is theyve both been ousted from their job, and theyve been discredited. If this were to go to a trial or into open hearings, they could just point and say, comey was fired because of his handling of the clinton investigation. Mccabe was fired because of lack cough candor. They can discredit each of these witnesses and have grounds on the record. This is definitely the number one and primary goal. Even if the Mueller Investigation processes all the way through, many of the witnesses have now been tarnished through these actions that have happened in the public. And chuck, were hearing from james comey on twitter. His book is about to come out. Hes tweeting in response. Mr. President , the American People will hear my story very soon, and they can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not. Comeys controversial. Theres no question that a lot of Hillary Clinton democrats and other democrats as well blame his reopening the investigation into her emails for the way her momentum got stalled. Thats right. Im sure the book will probably not change a lot of minds on either side of the equation, andrea. Chuck rosenberg, thank you very much. And clint, stay with me for a second. I want to bring you to texas, where there is growing fear across austin, texas, today after yet another package bombing overnight. The fourth to strike the city this month, two victims sustained nonlife threatening injuries. Investigators believe it could have been triggered by a trip wire, an evolution in the bomb makers tactics. Austin police are working with the fbi. Officials say it is not clear whether any of the six bombing victims were themselves targeted. Clint, youve worked on joint Terrorism Task force operations at the fbi. What are they looking at now . This is an extraordinary development. Yeah, i was at south by southwest last monday when two of the devices went off. You could hear the sirens whirling around town. This is definitely a very serious case and one the public needs to be paying attention to. I mean, this is a sophisticated bom bombmaking effort that seems to follow at least a deliberate pattern for the first three. It targeted people in their homes. It sounds like Law Enforcement think theyre connected to each other. Now youre seeing a different type of device, employing the trip wire, which allows for more random targeting. It seems like it might have been a random target late last night. The sophistication, also, it seems like theyve put out warnings that point to this person, whoever is making the devices, has bombmaking experience, maybe even military training, and shows some sophistication. I think we saw over the weekend the austin Law Enforcement along with the fbi and atf asking for the bomber to say what they want, essentially to come forward. If you remember back to the unabomber time, one of the keys was understanding his motive and getting them to talk, that way you can connect them both in terms of motive but in terms of persona. Its a fastdeveloping case and one that definitely should be on the attention of the American People this week. Clint, thank you so much. Double duty for you today. We appreciate that. And coming up, social insecurity. Facebook back under fire for its role in the election. Youre wat