Reports and interviews that give viewers a look inside the corridors of power in Washington, D. C. 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
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 people like 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 mentioned 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 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
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. Ahh. Summer is coming. No questions asked. You can also roll your credits to the next month if you dont use them. So take audible with you this summer. On the road. On the trail. Or to the beach. Start a 30day trial and your first audiobook is free. Cancel anytime, and your books are yours to keep forever. No matter where you go this summer make it better with audible. Text summer17 to 500500 to start listening today. Knew about sexual abuse during his time as an ohio state wrestling coach. And then the president came to town. And as he is apt to do, push those stories below the fold. After attacking nba superstar and ohio native lebron james in a tweet on friday. He held a Rally Last Night Drawing Stark Cultural Battle Lines ahead of that highly anticipated Special Election on tuesday. They talk about the elite, the elite. Did you ever see the elite . Theyre not elite. Youre the elite. You are the elite. Youre smarter than they are. You make bigger incomes. Youve got everything going. Our panel is back. Also joining us msnbc political analyst rick tyler andWashington Post political reporter eugene scott. Thank you all for being here. Rick and eugene, its nice to see you. Eugene, i want to start with you on your kind of broader take on what we saw from the president in this culture war that he is essentially this fight that hes picking with lebron james. One of the fights hes picking i think is reminiscent of what we saw following charlottesville. The president is using a common Talking Point for White Supremacists that black communities have less intelligence. He attacked lebron james. He called Maxine Waters iq. He uses stupid, ignorant when attacking his black critics opposed to entertaining their argument in a way that i think is what made people think that he was giving life to and encouraging White Supremacists communities after charlottesville. And so that felt very familiar to a lot of people and i think we saw that reaction on social media. Rick tyler, what did you hear in the president s words last
night . Well, look, i wish the president could avoid these fights. It seems like hes compelled to have them. Hes going to pick a fight for the sake of picking a fight. But the president ought to worry. Republicans ought to worry. They are now in a district that the republicans have held since 1980 and before that they held that district since 1936. So this isnt a democrat district by any stretch of the imagination. The idea that you would send the president to a district to save a race that has this kind of track record when he won that particular district by double digits is really concerning. Couple that with the fact the democratic turnout has been 84 . In ohio its been up 150 . Republican turnout in ohio is down. Everywhere else it was up, only 20 as opposed to 80 . Theres a lot for republicans to worry about. Ashley parker, the president s kind of approach to campaigning in the mid terms has
been a little bit scatter shot. I certainly know from my reporting that republicans on the hill have tried very hard to focus him where they would like him to be focused at any given moment. This race did sneak up on a lot of republicans here in washington. But whats the president s thinking about, you know, his role in the midterms . Obviously hes saying out loud i want to go to all these places. As rick points out, this place should be one where republicans help. Broad republican territory. That is not necessarily true across the map. Thats not true across the map, but the president who does president always like to travel, hes actually by all accounts been eager to be out on the road as we mentioned earlier. He wants the personal adulation. Hes there campaigning for, he gets from the crowds. People sometimes suggest a rally maybe in september, october and hell say, that sounds great but lets do it now. Can we do it next week . So hes eager to get out there. You were at all of the president s rallies over the course of the past week . I was, yes. Get a medal or something. What was your you mentioned hes feeding off of this. Is there anything that you notice about his rallies now thats different than what you covered over the course of the campaign, these Conspiracy Theories that have popped up, obviously the vitriol toward the media has been intense . Yeah, a couple things. One is the Conspiracy Theories especially with the q anon crowd. That is something i personally just sort of really noticed for the first time in tampa and then again in pennsylvania and ohio. Those crowds those signs and shirts are very noticeable. If you look out in the crowd, i will say this is a moment of increased vitriol by the president at the media, but one thing that was interesting to me, at least in the last two rallies in pennsylvania and ohio, is that on the Campaign Trail i remember some rallies that felt very tense and uneasy and almost dangerous. And those rallies existed also
once he became president. But the president , he trains his fire on the media, but he sort of did it these couple of nights, he was kind of in a performers mood. He did it with a show mans alum. The crowd responded in kind. They did all the usual things. They turned around and chanted cnn sucks. They booed us, they did thumbs down. It was more they were sort of playing their role as bit actors in the trump show than actually being angry. And sometimes you find very angry crowds. It sort of depends on the president s mood and what hes trying to feed off of or incite. In some ways, Jonathan Swan, the midterm energy is a better place for him to be than focused on the mueller probe. Yes, with an asterisk. Senior republican officials have told me that theyre worried about how trump trump is now, its like hes discovered the super power. He has figured out that when he intervenes in a republican primary, he has, you know, lawmakers today said theyve never seen a president have this kind of holdover the partys base. Hes enjoying it, almost like a video game. When he intervenes their numbers shoot right up. Sometimes hes doing it for candidates the establishment doesnt think are going to be good in the general election. For example, in florida, ron desantis, littleknown congressman. Trump, he was losing pretty badly to putnam who is a well respected conservati