Obamas fight on the campaign. And Sarah Huckabee sanders only an hour ago briefing for the First Time Since monday. The president knows that there was no collusion in the campaign. And he has been quite clear about this. Its gone on for over a year. They have found no evidence of collusion, and still strongly believe that it is a witchhunt. So this you have trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani marking this anniversary with yet another round of media tours, this time the blitz is centering on this question. Can special Counsel Robert Mueller actually indict a sitting president . Well, according to giuliani, muellers own team told him the answer is no. Lets start this hour at white house with msnbc hans nichols. There is a lot of Foreign PolicyThe Middle East news we will get to in a little bit about what the president had to say today. But here we go again. You have those major events, a north korea summit, china, all the things the president talked
about today. And yet hes tweeting, his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani is talking about Robert Mueller. I know that Halle Jackson has spoken with Rudy Giuliani. Yeah. What did he have to say . When hallee jackson spoke to giuliani, it was the intent of giuliani to make this case that they have been communicated from the mueller shop that they cannot indict a sitting president. Giuliani said it is a closer call whether you can subpoena a sitting president. I think we have to be clear. This is the white house in this case, Giuliani Filtering through and translating for Robert Mueller. Until we hear those words from Robert Mueller and what they think their prerogatives are in terms of potentially indicting a president i think we have to look at this as spin there the white house or i should say spin
from the legal side, the president s legal team, because the white house itself doesnt weigh in. Several times today trying to get the white house to weigh in on this, Sarah Huckabee sanders simply would not take the bait and said look that has to do with the president s personal legal team. Hans, we will get back to you in a minute. You have arguably the key player for President Trumps defense other than the president himself, Rudy Giuliani back at it, both making the rounds and potentially making more trouble for his employer. Because on multiple outlets not only did giuliani say last night and today that special Counsel Robert Muellers team says that he cannot indict him, but he had some other interesting positions about the russia probe. Worth noting, the last time we had a Giuliani Media blitz he revealed that President Trump reimbursed his Attorney Michael Cohen for that 130,000
settlement with Stormy Daniels. Now we know why giuliani was on that head scratching media campaign. Was this done a couple of weeks back on the network because you knew this was coming out. Sure. Absolutely. And the president was fully aware of it. The president endorsed a strategy. We wouldnt do it without him. He is the client and has tremendous judgment about things like this. That brings us to the big question now. What is motivating Rudy Giuliani in this latest reveal . Let me bring in my panel. Nischelle penner, who spoke with giuliani recently. Liz holtzman is a counsel and a former congresswoman who voted to impeach nixon. Mad of a pewso. And stephanie douglas. I want to start with stephanie. We have team trump clearly continuing to push this witchhunt narrative. But giuliani take it a step
farther. He suggests instead of an indictment hes concern there had could be a report. And they are prepared to attack this report. Let me play for you what he said about it. Theres no reason for this investigation. There never was a good reason from the first place. This was engineered by comey. Im still hopeful when it comes down to it they are not going to impair their reputations with a bogus report. If you are going to write a fair report, fine, write it. If you are going the write an unfair report, write and it we will combat it. We are ready to rip it apart and we are ready to rip them apart. I dont think there is anybody who dose that they have a plan in place that they are going to go after whatever said report would be. Under what circumstances would Robert Mueller issue a report . He is the Special Counsel. As part of the his duties as the Special Counsel it is to issue a confidential report. You know, the American Public is waiting to see what the findings of his investigation are. And those will be documented in a report. You know, i would assume, given the nature of the investigation and with a significant amount of Security Equities involved in t the, parts of the report will be classified. You know, mr. Giuliani is playing a different role other than trusted counsel. You can guarantee that the Special Counsels team, in any conversation that they will have with him, will anticipate it leaking to the media. Trusted counsel would be an interesting way to describe Rudy Giuliani. You also talked to him last night. Tell us a little bit about what he said to you and put it in the context of everything weve learned today. He basically reaffirmed to me that President Trump said he believes that Robert Muellers team told President Trumps team that a sitting president could not be indicted. And that means that they had
that information for two weeks, that they feel as though the president will not be indicted by Robert Mueller because they want to follow what he described as these rules and this press did be and this culture at the department of justice. The issue is that Rudy Giuliani is way more someone who was hired to talk to the media. He was somebody who was meant to be put on the offense and hes somebody who is making the case and getting people ready for whether or not this report comes out. I think why Rudy Giuliani is out there talking about this is because once this report comes out there are two things that are going to happen. People are going to start saying what are republicans going to do . And Rudy Giuliani wants to say look it is a report, who cares . It is not a real thing. Its not a real indictment. Thats why i think he is over there talking to everybody. Liz holtzman on one hand you have Rudy Giuliani saying there cant be an indictment, there wont be an indictment. On the other hand, he also said this is what raised a
lot of eyebrows as people look at him as potentially getting the president in even more trouble he saimd seem to indicate that it is okay to get dirt on your opponents from other cups. Let me play that. The headlines today, cnn don jr. Admits he was looking for dirt on Hillary Clinton oh, wow. And they Werent Looking For Dirt On Donald Trump . Only the dossier. When i ran against them, they were looking for dirt on me every day. I mean, thats what you do. Maybe you shun, but you do it. Nothing illegal about that. And even if it comes from a russian or a german or an american. It doesnt matter. And they never used it is the main thing. They never used i. They rejected i. If there was collusion with the russians they would have used it. So he seems to be suggesting that if they took in information from the russians but didnt use it, it was okay, and that there is no differentiation between
opposition research, which does happen all the time and getting together with a Foreign Government. Listen, donald trump himself said that giuliani needed some time to get up to speed on the facts. Well, he need a lot more time to get up to speed on the law because he is completely wrong. Information is valuable. If the russians contributed dirt, whatever you want to call it, information, negative research, to the Trump Campaign, there is no question they were looking for it, and the Trump Campaign wanted it and clued with them. First of all its i will for the russians to do it. And its illegal for the campaign to receive anything of value from a Foreign Government or from a foreigner. Period. Absolutely no ifs, ands or buts about it. I dont know what giuliani is talking about. I also dont think he is right we he says that the president can be indicted. I pulled out this of the aboutered copy of the constitution i carry around with
me. Let me get that on the other side. Richard blumenthal who was a prosecutor and is now a senator from connecticut was making your point. I want to see if your point is the same as his. Lets play it from earlier this morning here on this network. We dont have that . Okay. Well, basically, he did argue he argued that this absolutely could happen. That and he also made the argument that the reason not to indict is based to an precedent thats 45 years old and could perhaps be looked at differently. There is no precedent. The only thing you have is two opinions from the Legal Counsels Office and the Justice Department. And they really kneel at the feet of the president. There has never been any precedent in terms of prosecution. In fact, what we have is the constitution itself, which never says one word about you cant prosecute a president. Interestingly, the framers. Constitution gave immunity from prosecution to members of congress. So we know they cant be prosecuted for anything they say on floor of the house or the floor of the senate in debate. We know the framers knew how to give immunity when they wanted to. They gave it to congress. They didnt give to it the president. Also, there was no statute of limitations, no term limits on a president at that time. So how could you have ever prosecuted a president . A president could have been served three or four or five terms, the statute of limitations would never run out. They never anticipated that the president would be immune from the rule of law. Your Justice Department some believe the fbi agents could have been more aggressive right at the beginning of this investigation. And now you have this constant repetition, witchhunt had, witchhunt had, witchhunt. Tell bus your reporting. To close the loop on the last
point, i think its important to keep something in mind about bob mueller on this issue of indicting the president. I have covered the fbi. I have covered bob mueller. And stephanie can weigh in on this. There is almost 50 years of kind of established policy at the office of legal counsel. Bob mueller is not the kind of guy who just goes in and breaks that for the sake of breaking it. So hes not somebody who is inclined to tip over that table, you know, that 50 years is going to mean something to him. And the question of witchhunt, we spend a great amount of time studying the origins of this investigation. What we found was this case, which was code named crossfire hurricane, really, the agents at every turn deferred to secrecy and keeping it quiet, and even keeping information from senior political officials at the Justice Department because they
were so concerned this was going to leak. Thats not evidence of anything other than how closely held and compartmentalized this investigation was. But if the goal was to try to harm donald trump, they had a million opportunities to along the way and chose the exact opposite. So you make an interesting point, matt, i will go back to stephanie on this. Stephanie, does Robert Mueller seem like the kind of person to you who would set aside that 45, 50 years that this has been in place and say you know what, lets see, maybe we can indict a president . I would say not the point that Richard Blumenthal was making was that he could indict him now and then hold off on the actual trial. I agree with matt. I mean, Director Mueller has Great Respect for the institution of the presidency. He is going to be very respectful of that office. You know, if something comes to light in the course of the
investigation that is so extraordinary and so overwhelming, you know, he may change his mind. I mean we would be speculating as to what he might do because we dont know the full evidence that he acquired during the course of this investigation. But i do not think that he would do it lightly. I dont think that he is looking to change the rule of law orr the press departmentsetting law thats happened in the past. I think he will be very, very careful about how he proceeds and try to keep the scope of his Special Counsel investigation within the confines of the expectation of the department. Now, on hatch, who of course is a republican senator, was asked about this this morning. Heres what he had to say. Do you think a sitting president can be indicted . No. Maybe afterwards. My personal belief is is that there should not even been an attempt to try to indict whoever is president. Why is that . Why . Well, because they are in the
middle of major major problems for the country that they need to be able to pursue. Maybe afterwards. Whats the buzz on capitol hill about all of this . Im more so talking to people from in the white house. And the white house officials that i talked to said that not only do they feel like its precedent that President Trump cant be indicted but they also say that james comey repeatedly told the president this and basically gave him the feeling as though whatever happened with whatever investigation the department would not seek to break precedent and look over the 50 years of law or culture that matt was talking about. To be continued. Thanks to all of you. Much appreciated. I want to bring back nbc news hans nichols at the white house. Because, again, when we werent talking about robert mutual, when he wasnt tweeting, when
giuliani wasnt talking on tv or making phone calls there was aet mooing with the Secretary General of nato. We heard from the president twice at length. There a lot to unpack. Start off with the president defending his comments on referring to ms 13 members as animals. They are clearly doubling down on that. You heard that from the president at several points. You heard his criticism of the iran deal yet again talking about what an awful deal this was, even suggesting that there could be peace in syria. It will be more likely now that the iran deal has been skufred. Then more Trade Deal Criticism of germany. I think its really the north korea part that is perhaps the most interesting and also the most confusing. I say that because the president seemed to be going in several directions when he was speaking about it. Have a listen to how he said where the current state in the negotiations are. Nothing is changed on north
korea that we know of. We have not been told anything. And if it does, thats fine. If it doesnt, i think we will probably have a very successful meeting but we have to the been told anything. We are just reading we are just reading stories like you are. Is this just a typical thing that north korea does . Did you expect that . I really dont note. I want to give everybody the benefit of the. Do you i think that i can only say our people are literally dealing with them right now in terms of Making Arrangements for the meeting. For the most part, that was the president trying to get negotiations back on track. At several points suggesting what he might offer kim jongun saying there would be great economic benefit. Also suggesting that he would remain in power, that they would bolster his position. He is trying to get away from this idea of the Gadhafi Model, the libya model. Its confusing because when we talk about libya there are two dels. One in the early 2000s under the Bush Administration where they agreed, gadhafi to give up hisNuclear Weapons. They did that quick dplee and swiftly. Later on the Obama Administration that was a air campaign that was join by other nato members in 2011 that ultimately led to a Civil War In Libya and the dekplin and the fall and the death of gadhafi. What the president is trying to do is clarify and send a signal to kim jongun that they dont have the Gadhafi Model in mind in term of the end of the regime. Now, i will say at one point the president issued quite a threat. And he said if these Negotiations Dont Work Out that may be the deal he ends up getting, meaning the deal that befell gadhafi, which was death in a drain ang pipe. Never a dull moment at the white house. Thank you for that. Meantime, hawaiis Kilauea Volcano is throwing a plume of ash 30,000 f