Well talk about everything from the russia investigation to the health of 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 jay sekulow 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, w lly comedown to is what does the prentelieve. Joining me onset, washington anchor for bbc news katty kay, msnbc political analyst robert costa. Yamiche alcindor. The New York Times and msnbc contributor charlie savage. And joining me from new york is vice chairman of Public Affairs 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, ual claims, arguments why he didnt obstruct justice, couldnt have obstructed justic. 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 this topic. Care to take us through what your view is of this 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 believe true, or tells us is true despite what reality may or may not be. Secondly, we have a president who routinely talks about 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 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 apresident could b 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, 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 johdowd or now mayor giuliani, you had th belief that the president could dance between the raindrops on the russia collusion aspect of this special federal investigation. 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. Well, ill say two things. The first is this also reminds me of Sarah Sanders, is he going 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 ats 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 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, im not convinced his 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 in 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 democr 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. 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 anythieve 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 were 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 the president falling into the same pattern bill clinton did years ago . Later as the antiestablishment movement takes power in italy, one of the fathers of it here in the u. S. Says maybe now isnt the best time after all. Kasie d. C. Back right after this. Welcome back. In the letter President Trumps lawyers sent to special Counsel Robert Mueller back in january, they acknowledged for the first time that the president did, in fact, dictate a statement about that now Infamous Trump tower meeting between his eldest son and a russian lawyer. That original statement claimed the focus of the sitdown was russian adoption. Of course, emails later revealed that trump juniors real motivation for taking the meeting was to obtain damaging information about Hillary Clinton. You may also recall that after reports of the meeting first surfaced, the white house repeatedly denied that the president had any involvement in the drafting of that statement. The president was not did not draft the response. The response was came from donald trump, jr. , and im sure in consultation with his lawyer. I do want to be clear, the president was not involved in the drafting of the statement. The president didnt sign off on anything. He was coming back from the g20. The statement that was released on saturday was released by donald trump, jr. , im sure in consultation with his lawyers. The president wasnt involved in that. He certainly didnt dictate, but, you know, like i said, he weighed in, offered suggestion like any father would do. Just to be cl all of those statements not true. This morning one of the president s closest allies in Congress HouseMajority Leader Kevin Mccarthy was asked about those repeated denials from the white house. Mr. Leader, are you bothered by the fact the white house lied about the president s involvement here . Look, one thing i have found, this has gone on for more than a year. Millions of dollars have been spent. The white house has been cooperating all the way through. This was all based upon was there collusion involved in the election. Everyone has looked at this says theres no collusion going forward. Mr. Leader, i understand those are the talking points. But this is a specific question. Are you concerned that the white house you heard the sound bites, you saw the statement from his own lawyers. They lied. Does that concern you . They can go on with the investigation. What i was concerned most about, like most americans, was there any collusion. There was no collusion. So, briefly setting aside Kevin Mccarthy not engaging on that question at all, charlie savage, whats the reason for the legal team to do this, put this in this memo . They clearly feel they needed to sit the record straight in some way, otherwise it seems harmful. Right. Thats a Chris Christie marco rubio moment not being able to get off the talking point and think in real time. Right, so, the context in the memo was as you have received in testimony from other people. They knew it was up. People who had been in the airplane told mueller what really happened so they couldnt not acknowledge it in the missive to mueller. They had to plain it away some other way. The fact jay sekulow signed that letter means he has known he misled the public for at lst since january. Maybe he didnt know it when he said those things last summer and he let the record go uncorrected. Thats on him now as a credibility statement. Just to finish the thought, so their argument is look, its not a crime to lie to the New York Times. At the end of the day we lied to the New York Times. Sure, they are still talking to the American People, though. They are evading why bob mueller would care. He would care because if this this is trumps personal actions. This isnt the people around him. And if trump is showing that he has the desire to cover up the truth about certain contacts between hi