Interviews with political figures and news updates. Looking at. If you are looking at, as Robert Mueller had been known to do, how tweets fit into a larger pattern of obstruction of justice, the contrasting this weekends tweet and the statement that the president put out, helped put out in july of last year, obviously, will go to, you know, that argument. Does that constitute an illegal act or as jay sekulow says, is it not relevant to the law . And elli, what is elvent to the law . Its hard to tell what mueller is looking at. But we hear from a lot of reporting that youre looking at that june meeting. June 2016 meeting. Yeah, andrea, and they should be. If im prosecuting a case for soliciting illegal Foreign Campaign aid and a witness testified to exactly what the president tweeted yesterday, my next move is to say no further questions. Its really an astonishing admission by the president. He essentially admits to 95 of a crime and the other 5 is obvious. We can break it down. The president tweeted, this was
a meeting to get information on an opponent. Thats quite an admission. And he says, well, its done all the time in politics and nothing came of it. Lets break that down for a second. Okay. Just asking for dirt on a Campaign Rival is not in itself illegal. But if you are trying to get that information from a Foreign National, never mind foreign adversary like russia, and if that information has any amount of value and here clearly that information would have had extraordinary value, then it is a crime. We just saw a clip of the president s attorney jay sekulow saying point me to a statute, to a law. I dont want to turn this into a Law School Class but 52 usc 30212 thats a statute that makes it a crime to get campaign aid from a Foreign National or foreign adversary. And, in fact, just if i walk with you for a second, elie, it doesnt matter if anyone acted on it and, in fact, theres no proof that they didnt act on it given all of the coincidences that then transpired with the
president saying, hey, russia, if youre listening and the timing from the Mueller Investigation indictment of when that first they first set up that fake russian what would you call it . The Wikileaks Dump . The wikileaks and also the trolling account. Youre right. Factually, thats a big gap we have to see if mueller is able to bridge. The eventual hacking and posting of wikileaks. But if there is no link ultimately, what you said right up front is correct. Even if there was no ultimate delivery of dirt, you still have a crime. Under federal law and i think every state law, just the agreement to commit a crime is a conspiracy. As long as theres an agreement plus some minimal action and here id say the team of russians that flew half across the world is more than enough. Just the agreement itself is a
conspiracy. And even if they tried and didnt get the information, thats still an attempt. Both of those things are still crimes in and of themselves. Peter, i want to ask you something about this working vacation, if you will and the president s retreat and the reports we saw our friend and colleague Ashley Parker in the Washington Post in writing on and phil rucker writing on saturday that the president is really getting exacerbated, getting increasingly upset. We see the tempo of some of these tweets against the press. Increasing. Now today he, if he did do it today and we have no way of knowing, they release a picture of him after they socalled put a lid on all of you that there will be no more pictures, no more movements today, nothing to cover and that they release a picture of him signing the Sanctions Against Iran. Well talk about iran in the next block. But this is normally something hed do in public. A photo opportunity. Reinstituting Sanctions Against Iran and dialing up the rhetoric. Doing all of this very much in
private. What are you sensing is going on behind the scenes . Yeah, you point to something that is significant here obviously. This is a president who wants to show all that he is doing. How effective he has been in making america not just great but strong again. So this would have been what you imagine is an opportunity for the president before the cameras to sign that Executive Order today, the reimposition of many Sanctions Against Iran. The statement the white house put out today says that the president signed it today. We cant verify that. Of course, because we werent there. But what im hearing and the conversations that ive had with people that speak to the president that are close to the president is that he is not just frustrated now but in effect, he is fearful right now. And the reporting as weve witnessed, much of it for the Washington Post is that the president has real concerns that Robert Mueller is now zeroing in on members of his family. Most notably his son donald trump jr. Here who, according to the post in conversations with people that have been talking to the president , President Trump is effectively indicating he has
concerns his son may have not purposefully, but broken the law that he would have wandered, as they describe it into some position of legal jeopardy here. And to best demonstrate the president s real frustrations here is what hes done over the course of the last 72 hours. This weekend, lashing out at everything from the Meetia To Mueller to lebron james. A topic youll talk about a little bit later. So effectively, hes going on offense as best he can, even as it appears in some ways investigators are closing in on those close to him. And peter baker, as a form ir Moscow Bureau chief and expert on Vladimir Putin and all things russia, i want to ask you about this appointment of Steven Seagal as the new appointment. Steven seagal, you know, became a russian citizen a little while back. He is a fan of Vladimir Putin, a
fan of the strong man. And so theres this trolling aspect to putin naming him to be his representative in this fashion. Its a way of sort of gigging the United States and saying, see, ive got one of your stars. Of course, Steven Seagal hasnt been a star for a few years or anything, but, you know, thats the way the russians operate. If they can one up you in some way, theyd like to do it. Well, i guess youd call him the Dana Rohrbacher of actors. Former actors, retired actors. Peter alexander, i love your Color Coordination with that Gorgeous Green Backdrop in new jersey. And elie, thank you for joining us today. Coming up, deepening the divide. Today the first set of sanctions waived under the Iran Nuclear Deal set to be reimposed. Theyve signed the order. What next . Ben rhodes joins me right here on Andrea Mitchell reports. Stay with us on msnbc. , who governed thousands. Commanded armies. Yielded to no one. When i found you in my dna, i learned where my strength comes from. My name is courtney mckinney, and this is my ancestrydna story. Now with 2 times more geographic detail than other dna tests. Order your kit at ancestrydna. Com
joining me now, one of the architects of the deal under president obama, ben rhodes. Now an msnbc political contributor. And the author of the new book the world as it is, a memoir of the obama white house. Thank you, ben. Good to see you. So you helped negotiate the nuclear deal. You were, obviously, heavily invested in that outcome. It never was intended to deal with irans terror activities, not really its most of its Ballistic Missile activities and other actions certainly syria and iran and the world. Does the president have a point in that iran is the worlds worst terrorist, according to u. S. Policy, and is misbehaving around the world . Yes, no question. But the whole premise was thats why you want a nuclear deal so the worst Terrorist Sponsor cant have a nuclear weapon. What he did today violates the iran deal. Were now in violation of the deal. Iran has not violated yet. What i sphefear is that its go to make it more likely iran
aquires a nuclear weapon, or well have a conflict with iran. Or they could retaliate with a cyberattack and it will take us awhile to even detect who is the perpetrator. Theres nothing to suggest that they will abandon their support for terrorism under sanctions. We were able to get them to abandon their pursiuit of a nuclear weapon. President rouhani is going to have a statement within the next hour or so from tehran speaking to his people. Certainly a lot of indications in what both Secretary Pompeo has had to say, john bolton has had to say and what they said on a background Conference Call with us that theyre saying, we are standing with you. Bolton was asked on fox about a half hour ago whether hes really talking about Regime Change. I wanted to play that for you. Our policy is not Regime Change but we want to put unprecedented pressure on the government of iran to change its
behavior. So far theyve shown no indication theyre prepared to do that. The president has made it clear repeatedly that he viewed the Iran Nuclear Deal as one of the worst in american diplomatic history. I thought he was right on target on that. Were not going to allow iran to get nuclear weapons. The problem is we no long ver the leverage. We have the financial leverage. Not diplomatically. Can china and russia move in and buy all of this oil, not worrying about the u. S. Sanctions, whereas european countries, by all reports, are backing out of tehran because of this action today . What bolton said is false. They changed their behavior. They rolled back their nuclear program. The second thing is bolton called for a Regime Change when he was outside the administration. So did pompeo. I dont think these men changed their views when they came in. I think they want Regime Change. The people who are going to be hurt are the iranian people. When you talk about china and
russia and work arounds, the people in iran who are best at avoiding sanctions are the worst actors. The Revolutionary Guard there, the people engaged in supporting terrorism, they constructed all kinds of black Network Links where they can access revenue even when iran is under pressure. What youll see is, yes, these will have an impact on the iranian economy. The iranian people will suffer but the hardliners will not suffer because they are the ones who create those work arounds with the chinese and russians. And if they were to somehow spark an Iranian Revolution and weve seen bad results in the past with such efforts, but if the iranian people did try to overthrow the regime, wouldnt it be president rouhani who supported the nuclear deal who would be the first target, not the military, not the Revolutionary Guard . And this to me is a huge disconnect kind november tof in antiiran realm of politics. We all support a more democratic iran. And we thought the nuclear deal
was more likely. Wasnt going to transform iran. But to bring about change inside iran. The problem here, if theres a collapse if we see protests, people might, obviously, want to support the rights of people on the street, and so do i, but the people most poised to win a Power Struggle in iran are the people with guns. The Revolutionary Guard. Theyre more likely to emerge from a Power Struggle. You could get something worse if its a complete collapse of the iranian state. So i worry about we may try to tip the regime over and get an even worse outcome. I want to since youre an expert on all of these foreign subjects, i wanted to ask you about venezuela. What were seeing here, they claim its a drone attack that raises all sorts of red alerts for Homeland Security if drones could be used in this fashion. We dont know whether that really took place or theyre just trying to blame the opposition or build up his support but you basically have a failed state and its the Worlds Largest oil reserves with an economy that is now out
of control. A million to one, the dollar to the venezuelan currency. What do we do . It could spark huge migration flows. Could make our Immigration Problem worse. Destabilize the neighbor colombia that were very close to. I always thought what we need to be doing is bring about some type of break in this situation. As a unity government essentially, where the opposition is able to be brought into the government in venezuela more and a process of moving things forward. The only way to execute that is if were working with the other countries in Latin America to do that, everybody has to be pushing in the same direction. Even a country like cuba that has a lot of influence in venezuela. Weve lost our influence in cuba. Thats my point. Weve pulled back from Latin America. Weve pulled back from the cuba opening. We have even less leverage and less lines into venezuela. I think we need to be actively involved to avert a continued spiral into chaos there. We need some type of diplomatic resolution. Ben rhodes, thank you very
much. Author of the world as it is. And coming up buckeye battle. The president making a final pitch before tomorrows special election in ohio. Will the results be a hint of whats to come in november . Republican strategist mike murphy joining us next here Andrea Mitchell reports on msnbc. I woke up in memphis and told. Harmonica Interrupts . And told people about geico. Harmonica Interrupts how they could save 15 or more by. Harmonica Interrupts . By just calling or going online to geico. Com. Harmonica Interrupts sighs and chuckles sorry, are you gonna. Harmonica Interrupts everytime. Geico. 15 minutes could save you 15 or more on car insurance. Infections or have flulike symptoms or sores. Liver problems can occur with entyvio. If your uc or crohns treatment isnt working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. Entyvio. Relief and remission within reach. But prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. At the Marine Mammal center, the environment is everything. We want to do our very best for each and every animal, and we want to operate a sustainable facility. And pg e has been a partner helping us to achieve that. Weve helped the Marine Mammal center go solar, install electric vehicle charging stations, and become more energy efficient. Pg e has allowed us to be the most Sustainable Organization we can be. Any time you help a customer, its a really good feeling. Its especially so when its a customer thats doing such good and important work for the environment. Together, were building a better california. In ohio, the last special election before the november midterms has emerged as the latest big test of President Trumps political clout. Republicans are in an allout push to stave off a democratic surge with the president headlining a raucous really over the weekend to rally around Troy Balderson. But ohios republican Governor John Kasich says the president s appearance in the Buckeye State may do more harm than good. Just watch. I said, troy, did you invite trump in here, the president . He said, no, i didnt. So i think donald trump decides where he wants to go and i think theyre firing up the base, but i have to tell you at the same time he comes in here, i was with some women last night who so said, hey, you know, im not voting for the republicans. See, this is the problem the party has now. Joining me now is msnbc political analyst mike murphy, republican strategist, long time adviser to mitt romney, jeb bush and john mccain. Great to see you. So what is the republican problem because this district has always been republican. And why is it even in play . I think i know the answer to that, but is it really in play and will the president push republicans to come out, the loyal republicans . Youre exactly right. This is a pretty good republican district. Better than 10point advantage. Whats happened with the president s unpopularity, which governor kasich was alluding to and some of the other headwinds gop has, i think, for being too slavishly behind the president is, its like playing pool when somebody is picking up the pool table by four inches at the other end. The fact were in, according to polls, a tight race here, though i think the republicans still have a slight advantage. Tenpoint district shows that
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