Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20180904 : vimarsana.com

MSNBCW Morning Joe September 4, 2018

Present at mccains funeral except the president , who is tweeting grievances about the doj and fbi. That twitter activity continued over the Labor Day Holiday and yesterday trump levied another attack on attorney general Jeff Sessions and the Justice Department, an attack that is quite notable even by trump standards. Good morning, and welcome to morning joe. Its tuesday, september 4th. I guess the summers officially over. With us we have former treasury official and morning joe economic an solicit Steve Rattner. Politics editor for the bailey beast sam stein. Nbc news Political Correspondent and host of kasie dc on msnbc. Yeah, kase hunt. Oh, yeah. Ro rockin into the fall. And columnist of the Washington Post Eugene Robinson and columnist and associate editor for the Washington Post David Ignatius and editorinchief of lawfair benjamin witis along with willie, joe and me and joe, wow, as we get ready to launch into the year, its an incredible moment in history marking the passing of john mccain. It is. Were going to talk about all that. We have so much to talk about pt we could i know we all want to catch up on the john mccain funeral quickly before we get to news. We could talk about the Aretha Franklin funeral which was pretty extraordinary. Yeah. You could talk about a lot of things that happened over the long push tod long fourday weekend. Mika a tough, difficult time for you. What . No. You know, all good things must come to an end. Oh. Willie and i were talking this morning. Some of the saddest lines ever in western music. I woke up this morning and the sums gone. Turned on my music, to start my day, and dream about a pig i used to know. I closed my eyes and shes gone away. Your pig. Mika shes coming back. Did you leave her in a nunnery in maine, after it was going to be a nunnery but we had a last change. Going to a nunnery, willie. But well have her back next summer. Its better to keep her in maine because my mom can have her next. Why are we talking about that . When are you going to eat her . What . No shes so cute. I love her. Shes amazing but this is not the time or place wrmplgts is she . Me at a sanctuary in brooks, maine. A sanctuary for abused animals. Its a wonderful place. Willie, used as a prop, willie, for over a year. Exploited on instagram to sell mikas products. Her fashion line. Im going back to get her next summer. Im going to volunteer there. Its such an amazing place. So im not sure why were talking about it right now, but im glad we are. Because you dont like when we talk about baseball, but, willie, going back to 2011. The yankees always, i want you to know, the yankees always get us thinking, just like Charlie Brown kick the football that this is our year. You guys, everybodys injured on your team. Yes. Seriously. The batboy. On the dl. Actually has a strain. Yeah. On the dl. Everybody is. And yet you guys are going to come back and beat us, just like 2011. You were 9 1 2 games behind, september 3rd. Youve once again, got news that trap. Yeah. We dont have pitching, big problem and biggest bat, aaron judge, injured. Lot again yesterday. Red sox won yesterday. Lead is 8. 5. Safe with about 30 games left. Were hanging in for dear life for the wild card after losing to the as. Two more out this this week. Not incredible that the yankees who are still really within reach of the red sox are still within reach of a team who just had a gone on a torrent streak, in many ways historic season, and im serious. Most of your best players of injured. It is pretty extraordinary. The yankees still could win 100 games, by most standards a great season. By standard of the red sox finish about ten games behind you. If we get into a onegame playoff with the oakland as who are whoever it is, if we get into that, worried about that pitcher to send out there and count on. My god. Time to move on for sure. Enough pigs for you, mika . Its never time to move on. Honestly, joe, i think all of us really stopped this past weekend, because the magnitude of mccains funeral, i think it was so powerful, that in a way i kind of walked away from it going well, first of all it was so john mccain, the message of it. It was a salute to america and a very different gesture to the forces behind people like donald trump, who you wouldnt even want to mention in the room but you could just feel it, and yeah. For me, i kind of move on knowing, this presidency, in many ways is over. And were just getting through it, and goodness will prevail. That is a really strong statement. I think most of the Trump Administration and his supporters in the press would strongly disagree with you. One thing is for sure. You did really see representatives of americas constitutional government, republicans and democrats alike, sitting next to each other who believe in madisonian democracy, checks and balances, constitutional norms. It was extraordinary. There you see lynne cheney next to al gore. You see, of course, democratic president s next to republicans. But they came together in a building to celebrate the life of one man who defied the first president , who had contempt on those values whether talking about an independent judiciary, or checks and balances, of free press and an independent department of justice or rule of law and willie, fascinating is, i dont think Donald Trumps name was mentioned throughout the entire message but as Jonah Goldberg said in a tweet, when somebody said the entire the entire funeral was aimed at attacking President Trump, Jonah Goldberg said he thought one of the most devilish things they did to attack trump was play the battle hymn of the republic. To, to, really, to make the point, and it is true, the very values that defined john mccains life and american heroes lives for over 240 years, some Trump Supporters actually took as an insult. As a slight to a man who does not share the values that the overwhelmingly majority of people in that room shared. His name wasnt mentioned but beginning with senators daughter Meghan Mccain a rebuke of President Trump and david ig nis ignatius, its extraordinary that the sitting president was not in the room in what amounted really to a state funeral and you had two former president s, one republican, one democrat, both of whom vanquished john mccain and prevented him from becoming president and george w. Bush in 2000 and barack obama in 2008 delivering eulogies for the man. Willie, it really did have the feel of a family funeral for the american family, the values that we hold, that sometimes are hard to express were stated so clearly and pour e fwerfully bye w. Bush and barack obama and Meghan Mccain enraged and only as much as she could be as a daughter and a sense of who we are as a country, a sense of the path out of this difficult period and the path is simple. Its the values that virtually everybody in our public life at a senior position gathered together in the Washington Cathedral shares and then for the rest of the weekend we had an eruption of the problem that were dealing with with donald trump, but serm on the day of that funeral, we knew who we were as a people and we had most articulate expressions of our common values. And, joe, the remarks by president s bush and obama i thought were especially fitting and beautiful. I guess there might have been in controversy about that. Whats your take . Well, there were quite a few people that found it hypocritical, and even some saying i hate politics. That the two men that took john mccain apart on the campaign trail and said very rough things about john mccain in South Carolina and also throughout the 2008 campaign were there eulogizing him. Actually, i would kindly tell those people who were offended that youre missing the big point. Yeah. That that is the very nature of american democracy. We come together against those to fight a bigger cause, against those who weve spoken ill about and who have spoken ill of us and the greatest example of this is after the civil war. Abraham lincoln second inaugural address talking about with malice towards none after southerners rebelled and caused the deaths of over 650,000 on the battlefield. Abraham lincoln said, okay. Now we go together as one in a yoon yi with malice towards none. It is a difficult standard but it is a standard that were all going to have to follow as we move forward through this difficult time, because it is going to be a difficult time. But thats the very essence of great leadership as bill clinton said, ive said it time and time again, a great leader must have a poor memory. Thats how you move forward and get things done for the American People. Well, as the senate gets ready to hear testimony from President Trumps Supreme Court nominee, the president is busy blasting the federal Justice System for daring to prosecute his allies. The president tweeted yesterday, two longrunning obama era investigations are two very popular republican congressmen are brought to a well publicized charge just ahead of the midterms by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because theres not enough time. Good job, jeff. The Justice Department declined to caught up when asked by the New York Times. The president s claim is false in that the Insider Trading investigation of congressman cress collins stemmed from actions he is accused of taking five months after the Trump Administration began. Including messages that prosecutors say collins sent in june of 2017 while at the white house congressional picnic. A handful of republicans in congress reacted with dismay to the president s tweets. Senator sasse said it is not a twotiered system of justice. One for the Majority Party and one for the minority party. These two men are charged with crimes because of evidence not because of who the president was when the investigation began. Senator jeff flake replied, this is not the conduct of a president committed to defending an upholding the constitution but rather a president looking to use the department of justice to settle political scores. Through a spokesman Speaker Paul Ryan responded to cnn, doj should always remain apolitical and the speaker demonstrated he takes these charges seriously. Good. Willie, its its almost boring, because at this point his tweets are so unimportant, but you get a sense of where hes trying to take this. You get the sense, ben mijam witis, he views department of justice as protecting the president and not for america. So, yeah, the tweet is astonishing because it incorporates so many of his attitudes that the purpose of the Justice Department is, you know, not to do impartial justice, but to protect his friends and punish his enemies. To advantage him in elections, right . And certainly not to do something that would disadvantage his favored candidates in an election. And, you know, youd think that if he even if he believed these things hed have the decency to be a little bit ashamed of it, but hes not. And so he just says them out loud. One problem with doing that is that if you happen to be a special counsel looking for evidence of corrupt intent, its hard to get better than the president saying that the purpose of the Justice Department is to, you know, help you elect early and that the attorney general really should pony up on that score. Yeah. Thats one. You know, gene robinson, that when the president is trying for obstruction of justice at a future tie, tried for obstruction of justice. Im just a dumb lawyer but what mork that one an exhibit one. Look at the timeline, seen great lawyers, worked for great lawyers who put together trials. When they start putting together timelines and you just get your arms around all of this information, but it gets clarified when you look at the timelines and sit there and look at it on the wall and youre like oh, my lord. This is not good news for the defendant, and ive got to say, mika said something really interesting. He said, its almost boring, because weve seen this act. This is like a nostalgia act. This is elvis in 1977, you know . Sort of loafing through the hits. That we all know what hes going to say. We all know where its going to go, and it seems if he fired sessions, the senate wouldnt confirm another attorney general. So its really its just a useless threat right now. All hes doing is building the obstruction of justice case against him, and you just have to sit back and wonder in wonderment and laugh at just how ignorant he is. How many times does he have to, in public, obstruct justice before we get the message . We know about donald trump. We know who he is. We know about his corruption, we know about this craziness. His inability to exercise any sort of selfcontrol, and thats who he is. Hes unfortunately president of the United States, but thats who he is, and so you know, in one sense it does get kind of boring, because you you know, youve seen it before. Youre not surprised by it. In another sense, we have to, i think, guard against being bored by just such a clear transgression. Of course. Of any norm, and of the way our system is supposed to work. Its just really incredible, and so you can i mean, look at the future timeline. They may be able to constrain him from firing sessions before the midterm, but hes sure going to do it right after. So we should all be all be ready. I mean, this was a what a fascinating few days weve had. Because we had those two funerals which were, the Aretha Franklin funeral and john mccain funeral both sort of portraits, pageants of america. They were as american as they could be. Yeah. The america we know we live in. Absolutely. And then we have donald trump. Right. Who is this sort of alien force that has the powers of the presidency right now, and is very difficult to dislodge. Queen of soul versus the soul of america versus some sophomoric joke that pretends to be president. Got to cover it, but its over. Alover the weekend the president launched a report as the conservative watchdoing look, Judicial Watch reported friday the Justice Department admitted the Surveillance Court held no hearings on the fisa warrants targeting page. Op the same day at john mccains Funeral Service the president tweeted that saying it is astonishing that the fisa courts couldnt hold hearings on spite warrants targeting donald trump. Isnt it about carter page . Its about trump mika, this is im sorry. This is a joke we could read this, but this is so ignorant of the entire process. Yeah. Im going to just go to kasie hunt. From start to finish. From start to finish hes wrong about how this works. You know, these were republican judges. Republicans judges appointed by john roberts. You dont have hearings for these warrants. Its even Donald Trumps closest advisers, sam stein, even even they were quietly grumb grumb grumbling. This is absolute nonsense. The like attacking alex cora for not kicking a field goal at the end of the braves game. Why didnt he kick a field goal . Its a good question. This weekend had me thinking a bit. I think about how american politics is usually played between the 40 yard lines. You know, you have broad consensuses between the parties about how the country should be run. Occasionally things go really haywire. For instance, the iraq war. But by and large you stay within those 40 yard lines. What donald trump is, someone well without, outside of the 40 yard limit. Doing things dramatically different from what is the ideological sense of the party and predominantly about his view of executive power and how it should benefit the Justice Department. So i take that mikas point, you know, truthfully, about how this is getting representative and boring, but to me, the tweet about the congressman was a wholly different thing that isnt boring but far scarier than anything hes tweeted before, because it wasnt about selfinterest politically. It wasnt about protecting his own hide. It was about weaponizing the department of justice to help his political party. Correct. Thats a different step. No. Hes not hes definitely not above that. Mika, but, no i think he cant do that. Thats the thing. My fear it will actually get worse. I know everyone thinks it plays out, but what when they do potentially lose the house of representatives and he feels cornered . Suddenly its no longer a government in which he can just rest assured that the house will have his back, and republicans have his back. Now he actually has to weaponize i think it actually could get worse. Listen, heres the thing. We have proven Steve Rattner time and again, ill let you get in on all of this, but, steve, time and again we have seen donald trump make these threats. We have seen him try to do specific things and time and again have seen federal judges stand up and push back. We have seen the free press stand up and push back and yes Even Congress at times stand up and push back and if he fires Jeff Sessions he can threaten to fire sessions all he wants he know thats adds to the obstruction of Justice Charges against him and, two, the senate will not confirm anybody, especially after this fall unless there is an agreement on how J

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