I do, but i have chosen so far not to. This is a blunt assertion of unitary executive power that seldom if ever heard from an american president and in response to a rare rebuke from bill barr who told trump to stop tweeting and talking about cases before the department of justice. You know, i think the i cannot do my job here at the department with a constant backgrou background commentary that undercuts me that is why i think it is time to stop the tweeting about the department of justice criminal cases. Lets ignore the attorney general plea following his public effort to assert insert control over the Justice Department for political purposes. The president lobbied for reduced sentencing recommendation for his political adviser roger stone and when the Justice Department did just that, he attacked the prosecutors who quit the case. And then he tried to intimidate the federal judge who are will decide stones fate next week. And last but not least, he attacked the leading member of the jury in the case and despite the attorney general public rebuke of trumps of trump, barrs work at the Justice Department still appears closely aligned, doernnt you think, wi the president s political purposes. According to people tame with the matter barr has assigned an outside prosecutor to scrutinize the criminal case against nasa security adviser Michael Flynn. The move is highly unusual and could trigger more accusations of political interference by the president. Im joined by charlie savage, and for the New York Times and Yamiche Alcindor and mieke eoyang and Charlie Sykes editor at large at the bulwark. Let me start with charlie savage. What would the president be up to here with Michael Flynn . Is he trying to spring him . Well, so to lay this out to your listeners just a little bit more, what weve learned is that two weeks ago when attorney general barr installed an interim u. S. Attorney here in washington over the office that has all of the politically contentious cases, oversees the roger stone case and Michael Flynn case and deciding to charge james comey and other things we dont know about and he also sent this an outside team of prosecutors, some from st. Louis, some from the Deputy AttorneyGeneral Office to impose a new layer of sup supervisory review handling the cases to be in a position to secondguess and micromanage these cases. Whether trump knew this was happening or barr did this on his own is an open question. But it is extremely unusual and part of the reason that that office was already in an uproar before this happened with roger stone and the pulling back of the sentencing guidelines recommendation that led those four attorneys to quit the case. Charlie sykes, are we seeing corrupting of the Justice Department here where the president and his attorney general who sort of walks in lockstep with him and thinks and acts that way are out there to use the Justice Department to clear his political attendants. Yes. And there is nothing stealthy about it. This is the thing about donald trump. He says the quiet part out loud. His vision of the presidency is the constitution gives him the power to do anything that he wants which includes attacking, harassing, indicting his political enemies, cutting slack to his political cronies and hes had had an attorney general who has been willing to do all of that. So as this revenge tour escalates after his acquittal on impeachment, i guess the only surprising thing is how blatant it is. So i see bill barr not as breaking with the president but simply as cya, saying, look, im going after your buddies, your cronies your friends but it is embarrassing if you give away the game by announcing it on twitter. Weve on talked in my generation the advantages of watergate with John Mitchell and the former law partner running the show and behind watergate. But since watergate the idea was that the a. G. Was an independent force in the country. An honest judiciary. Look, weve seen a breakdown of the norms. We have the fbi and tenyear term to insolate Law Enforcement from political influence. And what were seeing here is all of those lessons post watergate, this administration is not interested in them at all. They want their hands really on all of the levers, making all of the decisions, letting friends off, starting investigations of the people who are causing them trouble. This is exactly the kind of corruption that our government was trying to fight in ukraine when we were trying to say you cant do this kind of using the prosecution to hurt your enemies. As trump just mentioned, his tweet this morning asserted his authority to interfere with the department of justice even though he still denies doing it. It is not the first time the president has denied accusations of Improper Conduct while at the same time claiming he had ab lu absolute right engage in such conduct. I never told done mcgahn to fire mueller. Any wanted to fire mueller, i would have done it myself. It is simple. I had the right to. And whether i did or he did, we had the absolute right to fire mueller. In the meantime i didnt do it. And there would be nothing wrong if i did say it. It is not even under campaign finance. If it was, it is not even a violation. There was no pressure put on them whatsoever. I put no pressure on them whatsoever. I could have. I think it would probably possibly have been okay if i did. But i didnt. I didnt put any pressure on them whatsoever. Yamiche, lets talk about the power over all of the executive branches and including the Justice Department is under his thumb. Where did he get that the idea from. There is two things. The norms and traditions and then what is illegal and what is legal. Based on my conversations from former doj officials it is legal for the president to be as chummy as he wants to be with the attorney general. I put a question to so many both conservative and liberal people in the Justice Department and said what is the hypothetical, if President Trump calls up a. G. Barr and said change the sentencing for my friend, is that illegal and both of them said no. All of them said no. How powerful do they think they are theoretically . Could the president say let that guy go, hes a pal of mine . It sounds like he could do that. It sounds like my reporting and conversations that that is legal but the issue is norms and traditions, in america most times president s said there needs needs to distance between me and the Justice Department and now wee see a president emboldened after being acquitted of being impeached and a Republican Party given him the goahead to do things hes done with ukraine and china and he feels emboldened to say i could tweet about this if i want to. Obviously you see bill barr saying lets keep this lower than twitter. And now to what is the president s m. O. Beyond some constitutional theory that the president could tell the doj whatever to do. Justin amash, a former republican turned independent member of congress, criticized trumps claim today saying, it follows a standard trump progression, amash said that trump the trump first claims i didnt do it. Then it becomes, i didnt do it but i could do it. And then it becomes, i did do it, so what . And finally, i did do it and it was right to do it. This is unbelievable this does remind me of the early 50s with the alleged communist. What are you . What is your point here . Your thoughts . I think justin amash is right there. And weve seen this pattern before. And the really frightening thing as yamiche points out these are norms. There is nothing in the constitution or statutory prohibition so if the president wants to go full authoritarian, what stands against him . We know that the Justice Department so far has not been standing against him. We know that the republicans in congress wouldnt. So this is a genuinely alarming moment. I guess this is one of the moments where you want to put up a red flag and say, this is the essence of the attack on the rule of law. This may not be technically a constitutional crisis, but this is the essence of authoritarianism when the president claims he has untrammeled right to basically say i want you to go after this person and i want to punish my enemies and i want to let my friends off the hook. Look and by the way, we know how this will end. Hes going to pardon flynn and pardon manafort and will pardon roger stone and at the end of the day we know hes going to do all of this. And quite frankly this is one of the moments are where we have to look in the mirror and go are we still a nation of laws . You know, weve had had such a difference among attorney generals. I remember reporting on this digging it up for history purposes that joe kennedy sr. , the father of the president , said i want bobby, your brother, to be attorney general because i wanted to look out for you. That is why he was put there. And then you had a case under clinton which was so clean, janet reno, every time clinton called up she would say let me get my notebook so they could record very formally the conversation. And thousand we ha and now we president who is a synchronized swimmer who knows like a did butler knows what the boss wants. Yeah. Or thinks like the boss so much. And it is very the thing is it is all happening out in the open. It is not like this is some sort of secret pact and it is very clear as to what charlie im sorry, as to what the attorney general is doing here and what the president wants and the attorney general is following his guidance. I dont think theyre trying to hide this at all. Charlie. I want to say it is important for viewers to know that today the Justice Department announced they were not going to be charges against Andrew Mccabe, the former acting fbi director who is one of trumps enemies hes ville tied for the role in the russia investigation and this is an example coming one day after barr said back off, you cant be telling me what to do. Is it showing independentence. It is sending a signal of the nonpartisan use of the this power, were going to do this one thing and get away with the other things or is trump going to blow up at barr or accept this. This is the thing to watch. But in this conversation knowing that barr having gone out and fired the shot against trumps bow then did the opposite of what trump clearly wanted on mccabe is a hugely important fact. Well well see. Sally yates blasted the president in a scathing Washington Post oped writing that from the virtually the moment he took office President Trump has attempted to use the department of justice as a cudgel against his enemies and a shield for himself and his allies, detailing the misconduct yates warned that with every blow the wall of justice has wobbled a bit more saying that this week it teetered on the verge of collapse. Yes, yamiche, this. This is what i would say about the president. I think he has this political, some would say genius and some say outlandish that the president said things that are so openly go against the norms and he is aware to air it out there. In case in point when china should go after hunter biden. That took the wind out of it. Except that it was happening on the white house lawn and now the president tweeting, he could tweet as soon as we get off this show. He could tweet, Andrew Mccabe should have been prosecuted and i wish that would happen. What you have the president telling attorney general barr, you could do on tv and im in charge and i could say whatever i want to say and the Republican Party said the president can do whatever he wants. How does that translate to the person voting later this year on the president s reelection that he could be so bold that it is not just that he breaks laws, he ignores them and speaks publicly about how hes doing it in a way that is so outlandish that somehow it seems strong . Just simply strong. Yeah. Well, among the trump base theyll be people who say, look, hes draining the swamp and getting things done. And this, by the way, is something that is also, i think, terrifying, which is that leave ago side what donald trump is doing, what is he doing to the American Political Culture . Now republicans now are going to accept it this idea that the presidency, the imperial presidency could basically punish and use the department of justice as a cudgel or a shield for your friends. Are they going to buy into that . If they do, then the culture that has undergirded all of the norms and traditions will have been bad hi damaged. Once that jeanne is out of the bottle can we put it back in. Let me ask a political question. Simple fill in the blanks. Who do the trump people out there, in the country, the real voters, the 90 of the Republican Party that wants to get trump back in again next time, who do they want him to run against . Which democrat or whatever do they want to be his main challenger come november . Are you asking me . Charlie sykes. You, sir. No question about it. Bernie sanders. Every republican that ive talked to thinks that Bernie Sanders is the ideal candidate to run against because they think that you have a lot of swing voters in places like wisconsin who height be willing to be looking at a centrist democrat but if you are going full radical democrat socialist that is the deal breaker for a lot of swing voters. Charlie very much. You guys seem like friday neat people around here. Thank you. It is great to end the week with you. And yamiche, thank you. And emboldened by republicans who wont hold him accountable. President trump admits he was the one that sent Rudy Giuliani over to ukraine. He told geraldo rivera, yeah i sent him to get information on the bidens and now admitting it and targeting the state of new york, the state of new york in a new apparent quid pro quo to make it more difficult for new yorkers to travel on airplanes. Plus the stakes are high for democrats as they enter the critical threeweek period in the race to defeat President Trump. Starting off in nevada, then South Carolina and then 14 states on supertuesday. Wow, 40 . Meanwhile Trump Supporters are taking aim at mayor petes sexual orientation. It didnt take long as trump himself stokes division in the Democratic Party. We have much more to get to. Some of it rotten, actualliment sti actually. Stick with us. 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Maisel, tom clancys jack ryan, and the man in the high castle. All in the same place as your live tv. Its all included with your amazon prime membership. Thats how xfinity makes tv. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Im feeing good right now welcome back to hardball. Emboldened, you might say, in the nine days since his acquittal by the u. S. Senate on two articles of impeachment, President Trump is now admitting to his misconduct out in the open as we said. Out in the open now. In a radio interview yesterday with geraldo he acknowledged that he sent Rudy Giuliani to ukraine to dig up dirt on his political rivals. Was it strange to send Rudy Giuliani to ukraine, your personal lawyer, are you sorry you did that . Not at all. Rudy was a great crime fighter. You know that maybe better than anybody else. Of course. I interviewed him. Rudy is on his game. Rudy was a great crime fighter. Well geraldo is a lawyer too and he led trump right into it but trump wanted to do it, he wanted to admit that he did something hes been denying for months. That contradicts what he just said to geraldo his own repeated denials during the impeachment investigation itself that he had anything to do with giulianis trip to ukraine. Here is what he told bill oreilly back in november. What was Rudy Giuliani doing in ukraine on your behalf . Well, you have to ask that to rudy. But rudy i dont even know i know he was going to go to ukraine and i think he canceled a trip. But rudy has other clients other than me. Im one so you didnt direct him to go there on your behalf . No. No, but you have to understand, rudy is a great corruption fighter. No. No, no, i didnt send him. Well in an interview yesterday with geraldo he seld the American Intelligence Committee left him with a bad taste. So when you tell me about rudy, so here is here is my choice. I deal with the comeys of the world, and or i deal with in either words i was given a very bad taste of our Intelli