Welcome to morning joe, its wednesday, may 30th. With us we have pulitzer winning prize columnist, editor of the Washington Post and msnbc political analyst, Eugene Robinson. Political writer for the New York Times and msnbc political analyst Nick Compasori and nbc news correspondent and host of kasie d. C. On msnbc, kasie hunt on set. Still good with that . Are you sick of that yet . Dont get sick of that. I love her show on sunday night. It gets you ready for the week. Kasie d. C. You have been waiting a long time. Just to talk to her, willie . Its been worth the wait. Its been a long ride. And cj behind me, hes been waiting, too. There he is. Were going to get to the rose anne story, that was staggering in just a minute. Great action i think by abc. Quick, too. They acted quickly. Theyre on the west coast. When this stuff broke they went at it. Anybody that has friends who work on the west coast, they dont get into the office until about 11 30. They have lunch at 1 00 and then, they got to go to a thing by 3 00. Its pretty crazy. Absolutely horrendous what she tweeted. Really raises issues about the level of racism that people dont even understand is you know, simmering between below the surface. I mean gene and i talk about how great it was when abc did that. It was great what they did. I think i read a tweet yesterday, this never happened in history of television when the number one show got canceled. She was front and center, the first person that came out in the upfronts. This cost millions of dollars. At the same time you do have to say a little caveat here, you this knew what they were hiring. They knew what they were hiring. They knew that, they knew in the past, they knew she had tweeted racist thing about susan rice when she was in the white house for example. Comparing her also to an ape and all of these paranoid fringe rightwing crazy things that she tweeted and if reports are to be believed, and i think they are, obviously theyre aware of all this. They are sort of watching all this. And thats one reason it moved so fast. Because they have this sort of, this sort of record and saw this was so clearly over any rational line. This isnt going to get better. This isnt redeemable. So they said you know, were going to, if were going to end the show, when we do that, how about now. And they just decided to move very quickly and i think that was the right thing to do. She overnight is blaming ambien for the tweet. Shes got a series of tweets, she said what i tweeted was reprehensible, i deserve what i got, but she said ambien was the chief culprit and has spent overnight retweeting and replying to tweets that had a lot of what aboutism suggest other things that people said were worse and they kept their job. So her apology is not a fully heartfelt. Afterwards, one of her tweets this morning is oh, guys, dont try to justify what i say. After retweeting about 20 people who tried to justify what she said. Were going to have much more on this story coming up. But theres bigger news to cover. A lot going on. A new report that claims President Trump put even more pressure than previously known on attorney general Jeff Sessions. With trump urging the nations top Law Enforcement officer to intervene in the russia investigation on his behalf. After sessions recused himself in march of 2017. The New York Times reports that according to confidantes and former Administration Officials, sessions had flown to trumps maralago resort in florida, because mr. Trump was refusing to take his calls about a pressing decision on his travel ban. But when they met, mr. Trump was ready to talk, but not about the travel ban. The president objected to sessions decision to recuse himself from the russia investigation. Mr. Trump berated mr. Sessions and told him he should reverse his decision. An unusual and potentially inappropriate request that sessions refused. The times reports that special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the episode, suggesting the obstruction investigation is broader than the firing of fbi director james comey. This follows reporting from the Washington Post that mueller has been examining trumps efforts to oust sessions last summer in a barrage of public and private attacks. The special counsels team interviewed sessions in january. This is incredible. It really is. Willie, another example of long before all the scam artists on capitol hill and all the scam artists in socalled conservative media came up with all of these plots and twists about how this began and barack obama is tapping trump towers and barack obama, the deep state is out of control. Here you had donald trump from the very beginning, without even knowing anything that was going on, going so wildly out of the way to influence an investigation that he knew would come back to him, hes berating his own attorney general and yelling at him. For doing what any lawyer would have to do. Its an obvious call for most people that Jeff Sessions would have refused to recuse himself because of his role in the Campaign Many other things, we know having talked to enough people, everyone at this table knows and Michael Schmidt points out in the piece, this has been the part of the investigation thats stuck in the craw of President Trump since the beginning. Talk about from the beginning. Again, you got to go to state of mind. Look at the fact that before any of this started out, sessions recuses himself, trump freaks out. Sessions doesnt tell the truth about his meetings with russians, jared doesnt tell his truth about meeting with russians. Mike pence doesnt tell the truth. Baldfaced lies, saying we never met with any russians during the campaign. You go back and you look at their state of mind. They all were lying about contacts with russians and donald trump freaking out about an investigation, really hadnt even begun. And the frame around all of this is that donald trump believes it was the job of the attorney general to first and foremost be loyal to him. He thinks its his attorney. Not to get to the bottom of what happened or and to protect him. Protect him in the investigation. We have Michael Schmidt with us, hes the coauthor of this report, New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt. Michael, lets talk about that day down at maralago. As you point out, the president of the United States berated his attorney general at maralago. But still, Jeff Sessions refused to recuse himself. What was that moment like . What was that conversation like . And did sessions at any point consider not recusing himself . Well sessions had to fly down to maralago because the president needs to resign travel pan part two, because of the first one had been messed up. But he wasnt taking sessions calls. He realized the ban had to be signed. They sent sessions down to florida and the thing that trump wanted to talk about was the travel ban. The president was obsessing about it. If you remember this is the same weekend that the president tweeted about the wiretapping. Sessions recusal set the president off. The president s original sin, the thing that leads to mueller. The president is convinced that Rod Rosenstein overtook overseeing the investigation, from sessions, never would have appointed mueller. And he would not have the cloud over the administration that he has. As we point out in the story, this is something the president has talked about as recently as the end of last year. The idea of sessions coming back to unrecuse himself. To legal folks, the idea of unrecusal is a baffling idea. Its a very creative legal idea. Something that a lawyer would probably not come up with the idea of doing. The concept of. But this is something that the president is obsessed about. He has, hell speak about it publicly in july when we sat down with him, he said he would not have made sessions his attorney general, if he knew he was going to recuse himself. Nick, its so fascinating again to hear what donald trump and the entire team said about Jeff Sessions. During the campaign. That he was the most brilliant mind on capitol hill. That he was the one man they could trust to be with donald trump. Donald trump said he was so brilliant, he could appoint him any cabinet position and he would do an extraordinary job. They were thinking about appointing him as secretary of state. And attorney general. They went down the list. And then theyre asking him to do something that no lawyer would ever do and not recusing themselves in that position. And then going on and saying well we want to you reverse your recusal, which is even more impossible. I think its so cute. That this president thinks that attorney generals are supposed to be their personal lawyers, and by cute, i mean completely ignorant. Something that a 4yearold, while smearing chocolate on the side of a wall might think. Thats actually not cute at all. Not cute at all. Actually pretty depressing. It sucks when they do that. An important thing here, put it in context, Jeff Sessions is the ultimate trump loyalist or was at this point. He was one of the first people in the party to endorse the first senator. First senator, lets say that again. Jeff sessions throughout the entire campaign was the ultimate trump loyalist, and the only member of the republican establishment early on to support donald trump. And hes flying down to maralago because the president is in florida when he could be in d. C. To sign something that is the centerpiece of one of his central policies. He had a golf game with fabio. And when he gets there, he berates them about this. This decision. Which was obviously the right decision. So just think with all that context, how important this recusal must have been to the president. And you look at the fact pattern at that time. The various meetings with gulf leaders, with russian agents before. I mean it just adds up and puts new a state of mind that the president obviously felt that he was vulnerable. And kasie, it goes back to this this is what prosecutors do, this is what lawyers do all the time state of mind. What was their state of mind at the time of x. What was the mind at the time of y . Why did they do that the night before the murder . Why did they do that the night before the burglary. It doesnt make a lot of sense. In this case, why is donald trump freaking out so badly that Jeff Sessions has recused himself for an investigation that has not even begun . Well, freaked out so much. Michael schmidt mentioned this offhand. But sessions has to fly down there because the president is not taking his attorney generals phone calls . I mean about something thats happening. The last time i refused to pick up my phone, if somebody really important in my own life kept calling. Its an extraordinarily petty way to react to something and really i think says a lot about. And give Jeff Sessions some credit here for doing the right thing on an action of recusing himself. In a big way. Mike schmidt, all of these months since then, why hasnt President Trump just gotten rid of Jeff Sessions. This is guy who has infuriated him. He believes that Jeff Sessions is the reason for a lot of his troubles. Why not just get rid of sessions . He tried to in july. He went to Reince Priebus in july and basically said, you got to get him to resign. Priebus stalled out the president over that weekend. The president backed down. This was over the time that the president was attacking sessions publicly. The president would really like to get rid of him. But republicans in the senate have said they will not confirm another attorney general. And they have sort of boxed the president in on this issue. Theyve said that getting rid of sessions would be going too far. Tough remember, because sessions is recused, if the president puts someone else in as attorney general, they would oversee the investigation. They would be above Rod Rosenstein and as long as they dont recuse themselves, they would be in charge. And they would have a chance to do whatever they would like with mueller. So the republicans on the hill have sort of stopped the president from doing what he would like to do. The president talking recently with someone that he would like to do it maybe after the mid terms, get rid of sessions after the mid terms, but sessions and rosenstein have survived longer that a lot of other folks in that cabinet. Kasie, republicans let him do it because sessions is a member of the club and hes beloved by hardcore conservatives. He is. And finally theyre not going to allow donald trump to fire a lawyer for doing what a lawyer is supposed to do in his position. And recuse himself. This is one place where for all of the conversation about what republicans will or wont say in public to condemn or not condemn the president when he says something that is offensive, they have stood in the way to the extent that they can, on this. And it is i think been made very clear that there is no, there is basically no way that if the president were to fire Jeff Sessions that he would get another attorney general. Which would leave the department in Rod Rosensteins hands. And by the way, have you seen gene, Rod Rosenstein in press conferences, hes so scared of donald trump, hes just shaking. Actually ive never seen a man less concerned about President Trump. Thats a look of a man that is holding four aces. So much of what exactly what are you going to do . Hes not going to do anything to him. Hes not going to be able to get rid of sessions. If he went ahead and did it, any how, the first question any confirmation hearing if indeed there were a confirmation hearing for new attorney general, is will you recuse yourself to eliminate the possibility that the president is going to interfere with the election and he would have to prerecuse himself. Weve been rightly critical for republicans for not standing up for the extremes in the breaches of constitutional norms, i agree with kasie, in this case, the message has been sent. Which is, youre not getting rid of the attorney general and youre not getting rid of Rod Rosenstein. So were going to get to more of this coming up. Michael schmidt. Thank you so much for your reporting, well be reading your reporting in the New York Times. Still ahead on morning joe hes brimming with excitement. He never breaks. Aww. We get a smile. Just the facts, maam. Just the facts. He looks a little tired. He was up with some of us on bryants show last night. You dont sleep, do you, michael . This is not about me. Lets go Something Else. You know what, by saying its not about you, you made everything about you. No. No, he did not. Great job, thank you very much. You know hes like me, he doesnt like the spotlight. Just keep it all right, coach. Well take you through rose annes fast fall yesterday after the ugly tweet. What it means for the network that fired her. And the president , who counted her as a key supporter. Plus, north korea looks to supersize its position. How about a burger joint . Yeah, it factors into the nuclear negotiations, believe it or not. 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