Ancestry story. Now with 100 million family trees, find your story. Get started fofree at ancestry. Com. Welcome to kasie d. C. Im kasie hunt. We are live every sunday from washington from 7 00 to 9 00 p. M. Eastern. Tonight, paper tiger. A document from the president s lawyers gives us a Breath Taking inside look at the mountain battle to come. Well dig into why the president s legal team says the president cant obstruct justice. And that he doesnt have to sit for an interview with robert mueller. Plus, the firstever admission that the president worked on the statement explaining his sons meeting with the russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. And later, an exclusive
interview with former Governor Terry mcauliffe. Well talk about everything from the Russia Investigation to the healthf his party when he joins me live onset. But first, the start of this week, believe it or not, marks 500 days of the trump administration, and the Mueller Investigation rolls on with it. This Sunday Morning we were presented with an evolving posture from the white house. There was the scripture of a secret legal memo that the New York Times revealed, and then there was the sermon of how Rudy Giuliani framed it on the sunday shows. The document written by john dowd and jayekulow before giuliani joined the team asserts that the president could end the special counsel investigation, doesnt need to sit for an interview with robert mueller, could ignore a subpoena, and depending on how you interpret it, could potentially even pardon himself. But pressed to defend those claims, Rudy Giuliani was not exactly preaching fire and brim stone. Youre making a case that he Didnt Obstruct or are you making a case a president cannot
obstruct justice . Well, i dont like you know, im a lawyer. Im sort of a conservative lawyer in a legal sense and i dont like going into an argument you dont have to get to. You might want to say he has very broad powers. Do you and the president s attorneys believe the president has the power to pardon himself . Hes not, but he does. He has no intention of pardoning himself. He probably does. Doesnt say he cant. I mean thats another really interesting constitutional margin. Can the president pardon himself. Its not going to happen. Why put it in the memo . Is this a veiled threat to mull er . You push it do too far, we can end your probe. Youre not asking the guy who wrote the memo. Fair enough. Im not sure i would have written that, chuck. I think its a hollow, sort of a hollow promise. Almost impractical. The president of the United States pardoning himself would just be unthinkable. And it would, it would lead to probably immediate impeachment. But as with everything, what it really comes down to is what the president believe. Joining me onset,ngton anchor for bbc news katty kay, msnbc political analyst robert costa. Yamiche alcindor. The New York Times and msnbc contributor charlie savage. Andoining me from new york i ce for edelman and msnbc contributor Steve Schmidt and his debut on kasie d. C. Steve, its great to have you. Great to have all my panel here in d. C. As well. Charlie savage, i want to start with you on this because you were part of the team that unveiled what we have now been talking about all weekend which is this Behind The Scenes memo. Weve been picking apart kind of the details of this, but we were talking right before we went on the air about what you think the most important broad take away here is and that is the sweeping
constitutional challenges here. Thats right. So, this memo is a top to bottom set of, you know, legal claims, factual claims, arguments why he Didnt Obstruct justice, couldnt have obstructed jus and so forth. But the one thats really Breath Taking and that makes all the rest of them not matter if its true is this vision of a president who wields Absolute Unrevealable control over the Justice Department, over the machinery of the federal law enforcement, as a result he can shutdown or director close any investigation he wants and he can pardon anyone he wants, even if the evidence shows that his motivation for doing so was corrupt and selfserving. It doesnt matter congresss law of Obstruction Of Justice cant touch the president. The implications of that are so profound. It hearkens back to the nixonian, he cant do it because it would be illegal in our society. Right. Its not just a defense, you
know. Being used as a defense here, well, i didnt do this bad thing, you cant come after me for it. But if that is true, it is justification for offensive use of the Justice Department, too. As hes threatened to do, he can open an investigation start an investigation into an enemy. Irs audits or whatever. And thats the law cannot touch him. The law has nothing to say about that. Its impeachment or nothing and thats the system of American Government we live in according to the lawyers who are whispering in the ear of the president of the United States. Steve schmidt, i enjoyed your twitter thread last night on thistopic. Care to take us through what your view is of thi memo . Well, this is a very serious moment and, kasie, we have to look at this in a couple of different aspects. First, this is a president who lies constantly. Thousands of times on the year. In fact, the Liza Cumulating seem to suggest that objective truth is being challenged by
this president. That whats true is what the leader believes is true, or tells us is true despite what reality may or may not be. Secondly, we have a president who Routinelybout Locking up political opponents. Talks about locking up journalists. Talks about locking up anybody who disagrees with him. And lastly, this memo declares, i am the law, Above The Law, that the president , if he so chooses as charlie pointed out, can use the Justice Department to investigate political opponents, and that there is no boundary to the execution of the president s power. And we have to understand how an thi antithetical that is and how deeply unamerican it is. The greatness of George Washington was that he was the first person in thousands of years who could have been a king, could have been an emperor, and he said, no, i will be a president with limited
powers. And after a time of service, ill go home. He established a precedent that the institution is bigger than the man, that the system is bigger than the office, and that the constitutional democracy bequeathed to all of us by our founders and paid for with the blood of patriots for 200 plus years. Donald trump is asserting that hes no longer a president , but, in fact, a king whose powers are unlimited. That is the plain meaning of this legal memo. It is the singularly most disturbing thing ever articulated by an agent of a president of the United States with regard to president ial power, far exceeding any claims that Richard Nixon once made about the power of his office. Katty kay, whats your view on what steve is laying out right there . Its not exactly government by the people or government for the people, right . The concept thats laid out in
this message. You dont even have to go back as far as the war of independence to see the anomalies in what the Trump Legal Team is proposing here. There are plenty of republican senators who in the late 90s decided that actually a president could be charged with Obstruction Of Justice. Jeff sessions being one of them who also said that president clinton had said that he was not the subject of the civil legal system because he was president of the United States. And Jeff Sessions view was the Supreme Court did not agree with that as an argument. So, yes, this is an anomaly in the american system of especially an american exceptionalism rests on that idea of George Washington and the way the rest of the world sees this. Im not sure the monarch of Great Britain would put themselves as being the law and Above The Law in the way that the president is certainly the people of Britain Wouldnt Go along with that this day and age. Bob costa, lets explore a little bit trumps legal team. Its evolved. Rudy giuliani was not one of the authors of that memo, hes new to the team since. How are the dynamics playing out . He didnt want to take the memo to its logical conclusion. If you read between the lines, you look at it, could be interpreted to say the president could pardon himself in the event that there was a crime that mueller were to charge him with. Giuliani says, no, no, no, were never going to go there. That would be political suicide. Inside of the president s legal team, going back months whether it was john dowd or now mayor giuliani, you had this belief that the president could dance between the raindrops on the Russia Collusion aspect of this special federal investigation. At the same time, they have always been worried about the Obstruction Of Justice aspect of this investigation. So, when you go to this memo that charlie and his colleagues sharply reported today, you go back to how giuliani has been on tv talking through, its really about countering the idea of Obstruction Of Justice and how do they do that. They started time and again by talking about executive power rmt. As long as they underscore that the isnt in the clear. Its a different strategy than collusion. On the Collusion Side they a cert no collusion, no collusion, no collusion. In this instance they seem to be laying out a legal argument. The president s conduct is under scrutiny with the Obstruction Of Justice piece. When it comes to the trial of former Campaign Chairman of paul manafort, we didnt really know paul. He wasnt really involved for a long time or george papadopoulos, he was just a Coffee Fetcher on the campaign. They can move away from the individuals who were really under scrutiny under the russia interference part, but this is the report thats likely to come out this summer if the president does or does not sit for an interview with mueller is about his duct. Yamiche, one thing that stuck out to me in giulianis series of interviews, he kept saying it would be impossible, he would never go there. I want to play a little bit. We have sound of Chris Christie and dan abrams talking about this on abc and then ill ask you about it. He left open the possibility of the president pardoning himself even though he doesnt expect him to do it he would have the right to do it. Theres no way it would happen. It would become a political pardon. If the president were to pardon himself hell get impeached. I think it would be outrageous for a sitting of the president if the president decide he decided he was going to pardon himself thats selfexecuting impea impeachment. Whether there is an argument they can make, thats not what the framers intend. Thats what the American People would be able to stand for. The president s lawyer also saying it would be politically impossible for us for the president to pardon himself. It reminded me of, you know, this president when he was running for office said, you know, i could shoot people on 5th avenue, my supporters would still be with me. There does seem to be a calculation we havent been able to figure out where that line is. What can this president do that would cause people to turn against him . There seems to be a consensus that pardoning himself would, in fact, cross that line. Well, ill say two things. The first is this also reminds me of czSarah Sanders, is he gog to fire mull er . We wouldnt be in this kind of crisis. There is a line there they would draw now. There is a president who is trying to keep onto his political will and trying to get his supporters not completely abandon him. They are hedging on the idea pardoning myself would be pretty terrible. However, when i talk to people who say would this president go to jail or pardon himself, who among us, if you had the power just as a human being to keep yourself out of prison or to stay in office and hope that maybe after you get out of office you might actually be charged with a crime, who wouldnt pardon themselves . To me as a reporter it is in some ways common sense. Sources close to the president are true. They say this is not something the president would want to do. This is not something hes looking into. But i just think that if the president , i think, most people ive talked to think that he would pardon his son, his
soninlaw, that if he is backed up against the wall and has a case against him, why wouldnt he pardon himself . Katty kay, im not sure there is isnt a line this president wouldnt be willing to cross. Yeah, i mean, the point about his supporters, you know, abandoning him, the evidence is his supporters are growing when it comes to Public Opinion on the whole Russia Investigation and the number of people who feel this is politically motivated. Whether they are winning the legal case here, they are certainly winning the Public Opinion case. If this is going to be a political issue, American Voters increasingly believe there is an element of witch hunt about this. Over 50 now believe this is politically motivated and thats critical for the president. Its working for him. Thats a point that is so right. This white house looks as it as a public battle. Talking about as president clinton did. As president clinton did. Look what happened to the 1998
elections. The democrats thought the Republic Kands ov republicans overplayed their hands. He hasnt crossed the line yet by Firing Mueller or rosenstein. You talk to people who know the president , he still feels burned after firing director james comey. Interesting. Steve schmidt, whats your view on what the president might be willing to do here or not . To bobs point, he hasnt fired rosenstein. He hasnt fired bob mueller. Pardoning himself it seems like would be the next kind of iteration of that. But again, you know, i still i still feel like the whims of this president go back and forth so wildly, eye nim not convincs staff can keep him on track. His behavior will be increasingly erratic. I think hell burn everything down to save himself. I think that his desperation has become more clear as this investigation has moved closer
to the oval office. Fundamentally, this letter is deserving of a response from every elected official i this country who has taken an oath of fidelity to the constitution of the United States. The legal argument is an assault on the concepts of the American Republic and on the concepts of liberal democracy. It is that serious. And what we know for sure is there wont be a single republican member of congress who lays out an argument tomorrow morning that says, this is too far. This is a dangerous argument. This is an antiamerican argument. And his strategy is quite clear. Donald trump is using mass rallies where he lies throughout them to incite a base to a level of fervor where they suspend what is clearly true before their eyes, where they accept truth as what the leader says is true, and where they join together in a shared sense of
victimization. This is all out of autocrat 101. It is fundamentally illiberal. Whether its poland, hungary, the rise of nationalist parties in germany, in england, in france, the tactics are exactly the same. And it is disturbing to see it playing out in the United States of america in the Political Leadership of this country, whether they are republicans, democrats, liberals or conservatives. If you have fidelity to liberal democracy, it is important, i think, to speak out and reject the premise of this argument which is as far out there as anything weve ever seen in the countrys history with regard to the power of the president. The president of the presidency in our system is constrained. Its checked. There are three coequal branches of government. This is an assault on that concept and i think this president would do anything
anything to save himself or to save Family Members from this investigation which at every single stage has proven that whatever this administration has said is going on in fact has proven not to be the case. Im glad you raise that because re going to Start Talking about it that here in a couple of minutes. When we continue, another revelation from the memo, the president did work on that Statement Splarning his sons meeting with the russian lawyer in trump tower. Plus, the on again Off Again Summit with kim jongun is on for now, but is t