Transcripts For MSNBCW Andrea Mitchell Reports 20190225 : vi

Necessary. And fighting for the heroes. Jon stewart leads the fight for 9 11 First Responders on capitol hill again as they have to again permanent compensation for injured survivors all these years later as jon stewart has been advocating for years. I cant stress this enough. Why is it incumbent upon our First Responders to have to consistently push to get the benefits that are coming to them purely for their acts of valor in a wartime situation . This is insanity. Good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington. President trump is departing this hour for hanoi and his second highstakes meeting with kim jongun kicking off a critical week for the trump precedence owe all fronts as kim is half way through a 2,000mile train ride across china to vietnam, the president is tweeting this morning with complete denuclearization, north korea will rapidly become an economic powerhouse because of it. Chairm chairman kim will make a wise decision. Even as he is taking off today the president s trip could be overshadowed by three days of testimony this week including public testimony wednesday by trumps former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen. It is a spectacle that could shed now light on questions of possible obstruction and collusion going back years. Nbc White House Correspondent jeff bennett joins me now. Jeff, lets talk about what the president is going to be dealing with. Hes going to be en route to vietnam with his first day of testimony and hell be arriving 24 hours from now and you will have Michael Cohen appearing on what is going to be a mob scene on capitol hill. Reporter thats right, andrea. Look, when Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison he apologized to the federal judge and said he felt compelled to cover up for his former boss dirty deeds. Come wednesday well get a better sense of what those dirty deeds were. Michael cohen has already implicated the president in that Illegal Campaign finance violation, that hush money that was paid out to the two women who claimed to have had affairs with mr. Trump in the leadup to the 2016 election, but Michael Cohen also has a story to tell about the Business Practices of the trump family business. He has that marathon appearance set this coming week and three appearances on capitol hill, one at least publicly before the House Oversight committee on wednesday and whats interesting about it is we dont expect him to be asked any questions directly related to the russia investigation in that public appearance. Certainly, hell be asked about those private appearances before the Senate Oversight and Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing and youre right, andrea, the president will have to contend with that as he sits down with kim for the second summit. And of course, house intelligence, ed. The first thing they want to know from him is theyll reask the questions that he acknowledged lying about and get the correct answers and take it from there and then go forward. Those will be private sessions and certainly you can expect there will be some leaks and the Public Session on wednesday will be quite a twitter force. At the same time the president going to hanoi, there is some concern especially given recent statements when tweets and also what he said back in singapore that hes going to be overselling that hes too eager for a victory. Thats right and thats that reporting from our colleagues carol lee and courtney. U. S. Officials and north korean experts are still concerned that the president will be so intent on emerging from this summit victorious that he will offer concessions without having anything in return to show for it. In the tweet that you mentioned in the open to the show you see the president there dangling this carrot and perhaps easing economic sanctions on north korea. We know that is kim jonguns number one goal to get relief from the sanctions that have crippled north koreas economy. These sanctions curb everything from north koreas ability to import oil and to his ability to import laptops. We dont know yet whether or not the president will put that on the table, but i will say, though, that i think its interesting how measured he has been in terms of setting expectations. The president , as we know, has a pension for hyperbole, he has a pension for preemptively declaring victory before these kinds of summits, but in this go round hes saying the most that he can hope for at this point is to improve upon the progress that he and kim made in the first summit back in singapore. The white house, the president i think are all too aware of the gaps that remain between u. S. And north korean officials as it relates to agreeing on some sort of denuclearization. Well, and in fact, secretary pompeo has been the point person on all of this. Was yesterday saying that the president was trying to say that the president never said that kim promised to denuclearize after singapore and claiming, you know, victory after singapore which the president did. Those were his words and they were trying to deny the reality of what happened after singapore, and it is far and if he can have a oneonone meeting that he did with vladimir putin. You know that kim will be very, very well prepared for this. The question is what does President Trump do going into the critical meetings and i know you will be watching, jeff, as will i from here. Joining me now, bob bower, former white House Counsel to president obama and the former District Attorney for lobby affairs advocating for the importance of the special council. First, as former white House Counsel, if you were counsel to the president and i know this is a big stretch, but if you were the counsel to the white house today mr. Donald trump you have Michael Cohen, his former lawyer who is the lawyer involved in the Trump Organization for all those years, what are the perils going into the testimonies this week . Cohen looks like he will be testifying across a broad range of issues about the finances of the Trump Organization and the hush money payments and the very critical payment which is who in the white house saw the testimony that he gave which was false to congress about the time period during which the president negotiated with the russians the moscow project that never came to fruition. Hes been involved in so many different aspects of the president s professional, political and personal life that obviously, to have this lawyer testify publicly, but also on three different occasions on capitol hill this coming week would have to be a source of the white House Counsel of not insignificant concern and would lead the white House Counsel to make sure precisely what he was potentially facing. And elliott, here, the white House Counsel may not even know fully what to expect. He may not have full transparency into the dealings the off the book dealings of the Trump Organization. Personal dealings going back three decades. Going back after all of the real estate deals and the hush money payments before theyre more. Think about the Trump Family Foundation so what were seeing here is the intersection of trump the man, trump the family, trump the business and ultimately trump the inauguration, campaign and presidency, and the folks in the white house may not know about all of this because given how far back it goes and how deep these ties are. As i said before, ink Michael Cohen poses a far greater Reputational Risk to the president than even Robert Mueller does right now given all of the information he has about the president and the fact that hes already said it was my job to cover up and lie for the president. So well see. Talking about insurance deals and payments, i mean, possible things that the Trump Organization has done in a variety of arenas. When we think about this, bob bower, the president has said in july of 2017 in the New York Times there was a red line if Robert Mueller tried to get into his personal finances whether it was loans and other dealings that that would be where he would go after the special counsel. So its Michael Cohen who knows about the things that happened crossing that red line. As you know, yes. As you know, the president is missing the mark there because Robert Mueller is not the one who will necessarily be picking up on all of these investigative threats and there are investigations and other jurisdictions state as well as federal investigations that will be looking at questions like the activities of the foundation and the financing of the Trump Foundation excuse me, of the Trump Organization. So for all of those reasons and he can train and hire Robert Mueller, but Robert Mueller is not the only person with the position with the position to cause him legal troubles that he needs to worry about. The other question is what happened to the Mueller Report . Bob barr in confirmation hearings was very precise that he would follow the guidance and what the regulations require and the regulations only require him to report that there is a report, to report to congress if there had been declarations and prosecutions. You know the deal better than i do, bob and youre both the attorneys here. So how effective can adam schiff and others be as House Democrats try to get the results by them subpoenaing mueller and the report. First to you, bob. The congress can be very effective. Congressman schiff has said well be able to go to the kwou courts as well as subpoena mule tore testify and subpoena for withholding and you are right he does not have a regulation urn the congress and the report he submit which is is submitted to the attorney general is confidential and the regulation seems to suggest that all of this will be in some way ill defined and fairly limited and the reports mr. Barr makes subsequently very brief. However, again, going with what the white House Counsel would tell the president and in the end the administration confides very hard, but it will get the material that it needs. Elliott, i think youve worked on the hill and you know the broad reach of the majority now that the democrats do have the majority and theres precedent for getting this information out and for instance, Kenneth Starr back in the 1990s. Different statute, but theres still a tradition of that special counsel or independent counsel testifying before congress, but more recently jim comey with the clinton Investigation Congress got in various ways, number one, comey testified. Number two, all of the fbi 302s and the investigative documents were made public and comey testified to congress privately or spoke to members of congress privately. So getting the information out about these highprofile investigations, theres certainly its happened before and given the high Public Interest in this, theres no question and again, as bob said the hammer the congress has they can subpoena and force it to happen. So i would be shocked if this information didnt come out for any number of reasons and given that weve seen it before. And bob, to elliotts point, the 302s, those investigate of report, it was the republicans who demanded those from the investigators from comey and others, so that precedent was established by the republicans who would be trying the hardest to try to protect the president from the mueller findings. The comey experience creates a really significant problem for the republican talking points for sure, but at the end of the day whether there was a norm to follow and ultimately congress has the Constitutional Authority and the legal avenue to obtain this material. Thanks so much, bob bower, Elliott Williams and both of counsel to us and coming up against the wall, President Trump telling the nations governors more than 200 miles of border wall will be under construction soon. Really . Ill speak to jay insly who is also a possible 2020 entrant. Well talk to him about that. Stay with us next on Andrea Mitchell reports only on msnbc. Gone noseblind to. And try Febreze Unstopables for fabric. With up to twice the fresh scent power, youll want to try it. Again and again and maybe just one more time. Indulge in irresistible freshness. Febreze unstopables. Breathe happy. indistthat was awful. Tering why are you so good at this . Had a coach in high school. Really helped me up my game. I had a coach. Math. Ooh. So, why dont traders have coaches . Who says they dont . Coach mcadoo you know, at td ameritrade, we offer free access to coaches and a full education curriculum just to help you improve your skills. Boom mad skills. Education to take your trading to the next level. Only with td ameritrade. Im going to call it a wall. Theyd like me to call it a barrier. Its a big, powerful, beautiful wall that you can see through it. It is very important to be able to see through it. If you dont have it you will not have borders and you will not have a country pretty soon. I expect 350 miles built in the very near future. President trump defending his emergency border wall today while meeting with the nations governors and the 16 states are about to challenge the emergency order and they already have in court. Joining me now is the democratic governor of Washington State jay insly, thank you very much. Good afternoon. Good afternoon to you. Tell me about this meeting with the president today and hes described it as a wail, a fence, barriers and saying it is now going to be under construction and what did you take from your meeting today . Nothing productive. The president is still living in this never never land and feeding us a bunch of baloney. The vanity project of his and its not a National Emergency. Its a political emergency for him meaning his failures and this has been rejected by both parties. Thats the thing that is interesting. To me, there has been a bipartisan rejection of this waste of money. We could be spending these billions of dollars educating kids. We do have a National Emergency in Climate Change, and weve talked about today with governors about the fact that we do have real emergencies in our states with forest fires and floods and he continues to do nothing about. So we are hopeful the republicans will stand up to the senate, if not the Supreme Court, and our state will be suing him the moment he tries to take money out of our state. Other states have already sued and is there a reason why youre waiting to see what happens with your own money . Yes. We have a really good track record of beating donald trump and thats because we see it the right moment and our lawyers are telling us the right moment is the moment that the president purports to try to take money out of our state and hurts our economy. So that complaints already drafted and were ready to push the green button. If the republicans turn tail the republicans took an oath to the constitution not to donald trump. If they follow all of their language over the last ten years theyll vote to rescind this exercise and political vanity. I hope they do, but if not, we need the Supreme Court to stand up for fundamental american democracy. Youve been an advocate on climate issues for years and decades, really. The white house is convening a panel to study whether Climate Change is real. Is that the way you read it . Well, unfortunately, that seems to be the case, i brought our concerns through the epa administrator and acting administrator yesterday and of course, they ignored the science and they ignored the clear consensus and the clear recognition by Donald Trumps own government has found that this is really an exist earn threat to the security and safety and health of our country. I talked to acting director bernard this morning and asked him about this, and i said this seems to be an insane waste of money to try to ignore the thousands of scientists that work for your own administration and he said well, its not a final decision yet. That smells fishy to me that they actually are trying to again subvert. Look, every time it snows Donald Trump Tweets that Climate Change doesnt exist. What an ignorant position. It seems to me that we need a president of the most intellectually proficient scientific history and to follow pure science and understand the difference between weather and climate and we have a president that will lead us through a Mission Statement to defeat Climate Change and hope that comes sooner rather than later. I know youve been to nevada