So no matter where youre going. Were right there with you. The powerful backing of american express. Dont do business without it. Dont live life without it. 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 august in washington feels even hotter than usual. President trump today publicly roaring as one paper puts it. Speaking out on twitter about that trump tower meeting. Possibly putting himself and his son in front of legal jeopardy. The president also ramping up his campaigning ahead of november while taking a shot at ohios favorite son ahead of a highstakes Special Election. Plus, when governor jay inslee was asked whether hell
take on trump in 2020, he said hes running against him already. Ill ask him what that means when he joins me live. And congressman Seth Moulton Turning fellow vetd ranz into members of congress. He joins me live as well. But first President Trump who is spending his sunday at his golf club in bedminster, new jersey, taking 0 twitter seeming to deflect from the investigation of Robert Mueller into his campaign. There was a familiar attack on, quote, the fake news, the enemy of the people. Mueller and the socalled 17 angry democrats. The fake dossier, as he puts it and of course the classic witch hunt. But slipped in between those tweets is the one getting the most a attention acknowledging the subject of a meeting involving his oldest son and lawyer with close ties to the kremlin. Tweeting, fake news reporting a complete fabrication that i am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son donald had in trump tower. This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics and it went nowhere. I did not know about it. Heres how one of trumps attorneys responded this morning defending the meeting. According to the email that Special CounselRobert Mueller has, this was a meeting to get information from the Crown Prosecutor of russia on Hillary Clintons campaign. How would that be legal . Well, the question is how would it be illegal . I mean, the real question here is with a meeting of that nature constitute a violation. The meeting itself constitute a violation of the law. Trumps tweet about that event conflicting with a statement that don junior had released to the New York Times in july 2017 that the meeting had been primarily about the issue of adoption of children by americans. The trump tower the subject of Special CounselRobert Muellers investigation. With that id like to welcome in my panel. Joining me on set political reporter to axios, jonathan
schwan. Greg bauer, former u. S. Attorney and fbi assistant director. Ken dilanian who covers security and intelligence for nbc news. And White House Correspondent for bloomberg news, Shannon Petty piece along with Ashley Parker doing white house duty for the Washington Post at trumps summer get away in new jersey. Thanks to all of you for being here on this sunday night. I want to set the stage with you first, mr. Brower, about the potential legal jeopardy the president is putting himself in or not. How do you assess the statement that jay sekulow made there essentially saying that its not illegal . Do you think that they are now in a worse legal position than they were . Well, they are certainly not doing themselves any favors with statements like this. Ive said it before, ill say it again. Its a really bad idea for the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation to be speaking out like this, especially by way of twitter. It remains to be seen what the mueller team will make of this particular tweet, but its not necessarily the case, but it does not create exposure. Jonathan swan, these tweets seem to be the product of the
phrase that you introduced to the world, executive time at bedminster. There is apparently quite a bit more executive time on the schedule . The president has a very light schedule this week. Mostly executive time, but a dinner each night with supporters and business leaders. I want to get back to this topic. I think i feel like im going crazy because trump said exactly this last july, like i went back because i was like, i feel like he said this before. And i went back to the quote. And he literally said last july, most people would have taken that meeting. Its called Opposition Research or Even Research into your opponent. Thats very standard in politics, where they have information, you take the information. Trump has already conceded the purpose of this meeting was to get information about his political opponent. Sure, like its a shocking thing to reverse yourself in that way, but he did it last july. I was just kind of perplexed why
it was this rolling news story today. Did we know then that he definitely had crafted that statement with don junior back in july . Because we might have been living in a world then where it was like, he weighed in the way any father would, but it wasnt to the point where even his lawyers had acknowledged, yeah, he wrote that statement. So maybe now in this new context. But i mean, if youre Robert Mueller and youre going back and looking through all these tweets, yeah, he definitely has a chronology of whats been said, when on twitter he can go through any moment. The answer to sekulows question why would this be illegal is election know. As he well knows its illegal for foreign nationals to offer anything of value. Its illegal to solicit a thing of value. Even if nothing was transmitted its illegal to try. Its a conspiracy. It looks more and more like donald trump has Exposure Hire and his father realizes that. You wonder when tweets like this start appearing whats going on behind the scenes. Theres a lot of churn in the russia investigation. Michael cohen is on the bubble. He may cooperate. Paul manafort son trial. Manaforts lawyer has the fbi interviews of rick gates. Who knows what rick gates has told the fbi about potential collusion issues even. All of this is factoring in into Donald Trumps tweets now. The story of course that set the president off this morning that he is concerned about the meeting that his quoteunquote wonderful son had in 2016, could possibly have been this one in the Washington Post. Quote, the president privately about broods, publicly roars at a precarious moment. Ashley parker was by lined on this newsy piece with don juniors connection to the Mueller Investigation and his role in organizing the june meeting at trump tower. Writing, quote, as one advisor described the president s thinking, he does not believe his son purposefully broke the law, but is fearful nonetheless that trump junior inadvertently may have wandered into legal jeopardy. Ashley, this was a story from you and your colleagues in the Washington Post. Put this in a little bit of broader context for us, this storm of tweets that jonathan
swan knows weve heard echos of in the past. But clearly the context that everyone is living in very different now than it was a year ago. Yeah, thats exactly right. And the irony is that the story, this post story that we wrote that prompted this tweet where hes denying the story, the story says that he is privately brooding and publicly roaring. Thats actually exactly what you saw in the tweet. You saw a man privately brooding over our story and publicly came out with a bit of a roar. Whats coming out in a context of a year ago muellers probe has expanded. And as it has, the president has felt sort of, at times in his most intro speculative moments, pangs of culpability, that these people, including even someone like Paul Manafort he believes are getting embroiled in something that would not be happening were it not for their connection with him. And that is, of course, most stark with his eldest name sake son, don junior. How does trump sort of
emotions and State Of Mind play into this when it is his son as opposed to others around him hes concerned about Heappeoplee Hope Hicks who we saw surface this weekend. He is concerned about everyone in his inner circle and he does feel and he has said to people privately that they would be getting treated differently were it not for their connection to him. But with President Trump as we know, what he values most are two things, one is loyalty and one is family. So the closest person in there who is actual family is his son, don junior, and he is very upset. And again, he doesnt believe his son intentionally did anything wrong. He thinks he may have inadvertently wandered into some trouble. Or even at the very least his son did absolutely nothing wrong. But his son is getting dragged before congress, dragged before mueller, in the news, and it upsets him deeply. Shannon, before you mengtiond
what we knew and didnt know a year ago around this. One thing that came out the president himself dictate that had statement about the meeting aboard Air Force One initially that was attributed to his son. How in your view does that play into this as far as, you know, when were trying to answer how much legal jeopardy is don junior in here . Well, it would make it could potentially, depending on whats found wrongdoing, make the president coconspirator in some sort of a cover up or some sort of conspiracy with russia. Thats the concern here. Is he a coconspir for if any wrongdoing is found there. On the don junior front, i have heard from people over the years exactly to ashleys point, over the months, i should say. It feels like years. It does, doesnt it . This idea that they lear from the president saying, gosh, How Did Don Junior Get caught up in this . Don junior is supposed to be off hunting somewhere raising money
for republicans in texas. The president almost Couldnt Believe Don Junior somehow got sucked in the middle of this, in digs belief that don junior was the one who got pulled in. More from ashley and her colleagues at the post, that despite his private concern for those like donald junior in public, quote, trump is a man roaring. Trump is more than ever channeling his frustration and fear into a ravenous grievance. He is churning out false statements with greater frequency and attacking his perceived enemies with intensifyi intensifying fury. It has not been years with the trump administration, despite the fact we might all age that amount of time. How does this report around his State Of Mind square with what you know . Well, i think the hard thing always with trump is to gauge changes in State Of Mind because its really a moment to moment proposition. Theres been mornings where he
fires hell be angry about something that hes seen in the New York Times and he does really read the physical papers and hell see something that sets him off and hell fire off a tweet. But then hell get distracted and get a phone call and his mood will literally change. On a dime. On a dime. So the thing i havent got my head around and been able to wrap my head around is whether theres been any sort of substantive longterm change in the way he feels about any of this. I just dont know. Its just something that i havent been able to really gauge because i get reports that are sort of anecdotal from sources in there of a moment when he erupts and its very hard to work out whether thats indicative of something thats, you know, longterm. Whether its did you try to get the sense after that Michael Cohen raid, there are moments when things chapd. After the Michael Cohen raid, his thinking about the whole investigation and anger and angst about it all. That was definitely a turning point. Craig, lets talk for a minute, one thing ive been
trying to get my head around repeatedly as this comes out, we know Robert Mueller is looking at the tweets. In the past, you know, were hitting a watergate anniversary, for example, of some of those back and forths where it was revealed president nixon had essentially ordered a cover up. That was all information we didnt have before the investigation was undertaken. Here you have a situation where potentially his public statements are incriminating him. Is that much different from, you know, other cases weve seen . It is different. In my experience as the target or in this case in the president s case the subject of a criminal investigation feels the wall start to close in on them, they often become desperate and at least are tempted to make emotional statements and act emotionally. Its usually the job of their Defense Lawyers to make sure that doesnt happen in a public way because it can only hurt their chances visavis the prosecution. Here, though, there is this curious reality where the
president s team doesnt seem to be able to rein him in. Tweet after tweet no Defense Lawyer wants to see. Ken dilanian, it feels like years ago, but this tweet about Jeff Sessions where he ordered sessions or Didnt Order Sessions to shutdown the investigation, or suggested thats what he should do. Right. Right. House did that statement play into this broader question of legal jeopardy . Its some people see it as obstruction in plain sight. And its also part of a piece of him savaging the Law Enforcement agencies of this country, the fbi and the justice department. And Robert Mueller and his team of fbi agents, prosecutors are not talking back to that. All theyre doing is potentially working an extra hour at night on the trump investigation. Its just a bad idea from a strategic level and it remains to be seen whether its going to get him in legal trouble. Ashley parker, can i ask you kind of what your sense is . Youre there at Bedminster Covering the president s vacation. There is a lot of unoccupied time on his schedule Going Forward that could potentially lead to more of these i mean, has his staff tried to manage that . Is that a good plan generally speaking for him . How much more trouble could he cause . Well, these periods of unstructured time as i believe jonathan wrote tonight, they used to be something that his staff would stress out about. They would try to fill his days with meetings and briefings just to keep him occupied to prevent exactly what were seeing. The president watching cable news and tweeting about it, tweets that no one knows are coming. If you look at his public schedule for the week, he has a lot of unstructured down time. So i think we can expect to see more of this. The one wrinkle i will add is that this past week, for instance, he did three of these megarallies in five days. That is a calculation for the midterms. Hes going out and campaigning
for candidates. But one of the up sides is that these rallies where the president appears in front of thousands of devotees, screaming fans who chant lock her up when hillarys name is mentioned are a place that buoy President Trump. Behind the scenes, he would go in these rallies, as jonathan said he it would change his mood on a dime. He could take that anger and grievance and make it show man like and fun. Well talk a lot more about that. Greg bauer, thanks for your insights. Ken dilanian, stick around. Well talk to you later on in the show. We of course are just Getting Started on kasie d. C. Coming up President Trump has been hitting the Campaign Trail hard including ohio where there is a big Special Election on tuesday. Plus, the president versus the king. What trumps attacks on lebron james mean for the culture war in america. Kasie d. C. Back after this. Fact is, every Insurance Company hopes you drive safely. But allstate actually helps you drive safely. With drivewise. It lets you know when you go too fast. And brake too hard. With feedback to help you drive safer. Giving you the power to actually lower your cost. Unfortunately, it cant do anything about that. Now that you know the truth. Are you in good hands . Whats the 1 new Skincare Product in 2018 . Olay whips. Absorbs faster than the 100, 200, and even 400 cream. Feels amazing. I really really love this. I will 100 swap up my moisturizer. Can i have it . Olay whips. With the new Chase Ink Business unlimited card i get unlimited 1. 5 cash back. Its so simple, i dont even have to think about it. So i think about mouthfeel. Introducing Chase Ink Business unlimited with unlimited 1. 5 cash back on every purchase. Copd makes it hard to breathe. So to breathe better, i go with anoro. Go your own way copd tries to say, go this way. I say, ill go my own way, with anoro. Go your own way oncedaily anoro contains two medicines called bronchodilators that Work Together to significantly improve lung function all day and all night. Anoro is not for asthma. It contains a type of medicine that increases risk of death in people with asthma. The risk is unknown in copd. Anoro wont replace Rescue Inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than once a day. Tell your doctor if you