America. We talk about testing of the guardrails. In most cases the guardrails of democracy have held up. In this case we might find out that bill barr broke one of those guardrails and we are still dealing with it. All right. This is as good a place to end as any. My thanks today to joyce, frank, matt. That does it for this hour. Thank you so much for watching not just this hour but all day long. Were grateful to all of you. Mtp daily with my friend chuck todd starts now. Well, if its wednesday, its no ordinary hump idea. Its meet the press daily. And we are in the center of a break news storm right now, sort of the postmueller wrapups. Youre looking live at capitol hill where in just a few moments we expect to hear from house
speaker nancy pelosi, jerry nadler, and adam schiff after muellers historic testimony. The biggest question perhaps is what do democrats do now . As we speak, weve been getting tape of the president who is speaking to reporters at the white house. No surprise here. He is claiming vindication. Here is some of what he said at the top of his remarks on his way to a fundraiser in west virginia. This witch hunt thats been going on for a long time, pretty much from the time i came down on the escalator with our first lady, and its a disgrace what happened. But i think today proved a lot to everybody. In those remarks the president lashed out at my colleague Hallie Jackson about comments made that mueller suggested that he could actually be indicted after he leaves office. Well have more on that in a moment. The president clearly misheard the question. What we dont know is that did he intentionally mishear the question or not. But if the goal for the democrats today was to reestablish the facts against the president s that he welcomed help from the russians, tried to obstruct the investigation, then todays hears were a success because mueller largely did reestablish all of those facts. But if the democratic partys mission among House Democrats was to have Mueller Breathe New Life into those facts in a way that grabbed the attention of the American Public in a sense of urgency, well, then todays hearings were probably a failure. In many ways mueller affirmed the democrats case against the president and he delivered moments that in any other time of modern history would be viewed as exhibit a in an impeachment proceeding about this exchange about him potentially indicting mr. Trump for obstruction. Could you charge the president with a crime after he left office . Yes. You believe that he committed you could charge the president of the United States with Obstruction Of Justice after he left office . Yes. Mueller testified that the president s written answers to
his investigation were, generally speaking, untreuthful. Mueller also confirmed the actions for surrounding the russian conspiracy to get him elected. The Campaign Welcomed the russian help, did they not . I think we reported our in a Report Indications that that occurred, yes. The president himself called on the russians to hack hillarys emails . There was a statement by the president among those general lines. Donald trump was trying to make millions from a real estate deal in moscow. To the extent youre talking about the hotel in moscow . Yes. Yes. And when donald trump called your investigation a witch hunt, that was also false, was it not . Id like to think so, yes. Well, your investigation is not a witch hunt it is not a witch hunt. More proof that part two of muellers testimony, a lot more compelling in some cases than part one. But overall, mueller declined or
deflected questions nearly 200 times by our count. At times he seemed to lack a full grasp of what was actually in parts of his report. At times he pulled his punches when the president s allies questions the legitimacy of his work. But if you want to know if this hearing was a success for democrats, you got to first figure out what exactly their goals were. And if Marshalling Support for impeachment was the goal, what do they do now . Well, weve got a great team in line for us tonight. Reporters, analysts and experts to break down what mueller said and didnt say. Pete williams, kasie hunt, capitol hill correspondent, she was in the hearing room today now waiting for the Press Conference to start with pelosi, schiff, and nadler. Geoff bennett, ive got andrew mccabe. He took over after james comey was fired and Chuck Rosenberg, a senior fbi official and u. S. Attorney whos worked closely with Robert Mueller in the past and is also a msnbc contributor. So pete williams, let me start with you. Youve covered i think the
longest. Chuck rosenberg i think has worked with him. What today was the Robert Mueller you were used to and what today was the Robert Mueller you werent used to . Today is clearly not the same take the hill Robert Mueller who was a hardcharging fbi director and would be sometimes combative with members. You know, i dont think any of us expected to see that Robert Mueller today for two reasons. One is hes 74, hell be 75 in two weeks. He is appearing before the Committee Really against his will with a mission in mind not to say very much, which i think he succeeded by his own measure because he was there under subpoena and determined not to go beyond what he said in his report. And he largely abided by that. But hes clearly hes an older person now. Let me highlight i think the moment that sort of made that
crystal clear. First its the back and forth with Congressman Ted Liu in part one of the hearing. Thats number three byte, guys. You did not indict donald trump is because of olc opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president , correct . That is correct. Now before we go to questions, i want to add one correction to my testimony this morning. I want to go back to one thing that was said this morning by mr. Liu who said, and i quote you didnt charge the president because of the olc opinion. That is not the correct way to say it. As we say in the report and as i said at the opening we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime. You know, pete, we were all actually around the table wondering if mueller heard both parts of lius question. And we wondered whether he was saying what we thought liu thought he said and of course
ends up walking that back. I think there were several examples of that today. And just to be clear the olcs opinion is of course a factor, the one that says you cant indict a sitting president. But it is not the situation that the team decided that donald trump committed crimes but they couldnt say so because of the olc opinion. Quite the contrary. What the report says and what mueller made clear a couple of times at the hearing today is that having marshaled the potential Obstruction Of Justice examples, they deliberately said we cant even decide whether these constitute a crime because of the olc opinion. So its just sort of where you put the olc opinion on the Conveyor Belt that plays a role. And, frankly, i think that was the same sort of question from ken buck from colorado about could you indict the president after he leaves office. Mueller says in his report one of the reasons we can do it is that the olc says you cant indict a sitting president but you can indict one after they leave office. And i think mueller was there
thinking about any president not saying he could indict this president after he leaves office. Kasie hunt, it seems as if democrats are most excited about two exchanges. One was one that i played earlier with adam schiffs back and forth. And the second is the First Exchange jerry nadler had with Robert Mueller. Let me play it and then talk to you on the other side. The president has repeatedly claimed that your report found there was no obstruction and that it completely and totally exonerated him. But that is not what your report said, is it . Correct. That is not what the report said. So the report did not conclude that he did not commit Obstruction Of Justice . Is that correct . That is correct. And what about total exoneration . Did you actually totally exonerate the president . No. Now, in fact, your report expressly states that it does not exonerate the president . It does. So, kasie hunt, how do democrats feel and do they wish
they could take those two moments and have those be the moments everybody sees over and over again . Reporter well, chuck, i think that question is still to be answered in terms of how the American Public digests what happened today, how many people watched these hearings gavel to gavel and how much will watch summaries that include those very exchanges and those headlines are very clear. The president is constantly tweeting and claiming no collusion, no obstruction, total exoneration. Robert mueller very clearly refuted that very directly. You put those kind of sound bytes next to each other, and, you know, there you go, its pretty cut and dry. But i will say that there is still a lot of questions about how much this fundamentally changes the political calculus at hand. Nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house, has been very reluctant to embark on impeachment proceedings. She has continued to say the best way to get donald trump out of office is at the ballot fwox
box. This was really the key, the absolutely key test. Were still waiting to hear directly from nancy pelosi. And right now House Democrats are huddled behind the scenes with house counsel. So thats the lawyer that takes over and spearheads any litigation on behalf of the house of representatives. So thats where this process is right now. We are not doing impeachment proceedings, but democrats are pursuing things in the courts. So i think the question here is can nancy pelosi figure out how to thread the needle to keep those democrats happy considering what happened today with the other ongoing procedures . Because i have to tell you the initial read on this is from talking to aides and members who are close to nancy pelosi is that this isnt going to fundamentally change the game its not going to fundamentally change her mind. Its not necessarily the kind of Blockbuster Situation that could cause a Sweeping Change in Public Opinion. Theyre really watching that
because, you know, at the end of the day this is, as you and savannah were talking about throughout the day today, this is a political calculation for them. And if they go too far in pelosis view, they risk ultimately jeopardizing the ultimate goal that democrats have which is of course a democrat president in 2020 and trump out of office. So i think thats where we are right now, but well see of course in just a few minutes. Before we dig into more of what mueller said with andy mccabe and rosenberg, the president , is he just trying to optically declare victory . Because the substance of today was not good for him. I guess he can feel good that he had House Republicans defending him. But today didnt come across to me as like, oh, my god, if he doesnt win reelection, hes got all sorts of problems. Right, chuck. And ive been talking to white house officials and people close to the president all day. And the mood their attitude, theyre downright gleeful. Theyre feeling vindicated to your point. The president is unsurprisingly unmoved by all of the days events including some of the more damning assertions conveyed by Robert Mueller from questioning from democrats. And a couple of republicans. And one of the ways we know that is because one of the first things the president said to reporter whats to call the russia investigation a witch hunt and a hoax, even though Robert Mueller said today explicitly to lawmakers that the russia investigation was no such thing. So, yes, the president is setting aside entirely the substance of what transpired today. Hes focused mainly on the optics. They believe, and when i say they, i mean white house officials to include them, they believe that Robert Mueller with his sort of halting performance, his nearly 200 Deck Lynnations and deferrals really robbed democrats of the things that they wanted the most. And that was for him to sort of have this live animation of his 448page report. Because he wasnt able to do that, their report is that people are left believing what they want to believe. That is a fight that these white
house officials and the president think that they can win because they know how to fight it. I mean, the president has been under a cloud of controversy and alleged criminality ever since he was elected. To keep things moving along straight to the 2020 election. Lets talk more about the substance here. Chuck rosenberg, you had said earlier in a conversation we had that Robert Mueller did exactly what he told us he was going to do three months ago. How did democrats do an extracting the Mueller Report out of Robert Mueller today . Not that good a job. I think, chuck, look, working for bob mueller was one of the great professional privileges of my life. I learned to take the man at his word, completely and directly. If he says hes going to do something, he will do it. If he says hes not going to do something, he wont do it. And what he said on may 29th, i think that was the day of his Press Conference that his report would be his testimony. He was almost as a warning, hey, guys, if you call me up there, im not going outside the
bounds of this report. So why in the world would anyone be surprised unless they didnt take him at his word . And by the way, if they were waiting for him to be animated or lively, thads not the bob mueller i knew. I dont mean that disrespectfully. Hes serious, sober, dignified. They could have used that to their advantage. Of course. Hes a man of tremendous integrity. And also, you see how a man of Integrity Acts because he could have skewered the president or the Attorney General or anybody else for that matter. But he played it straight down the middle, which is the bob mueller i know. Andy mccabe, youve worked closely with Robert Mueller. What would you would told jerry nadler and adam schiff . I think actually, chuck, that the democrats approached that in exactly the way i would have advised them to had i been asked, which i wasnt, but, you
know, as chuck just mentioned, no one shouldve been surprised that mueller was going to confine all of his remarks to the substance of the report. So that being said, their goal should have been to get as much of the most significant material in that report out and communicated to the public in a way thats memorable and easy to understand. For my money, the best way to do that is exactly the way they approached it, which is with analyzing each category of obstructive behavior within the elements of the offense. I thought they did that effectively, and i thought that, you know, Director Mueller went along with that in the way that we expected he would. But let me should there have been should this had happened sooner . This is now july, and correct me if im wrong, july 24th, we had his Press Conference may 29th. We had the barr version of this in april. A lot of time has passed. Yeah. Far too much time in my opinion, chuck. They should have really endeavored to get this testimony out as soon as possible, especially in light of the conflicting messages about the conclusions in the report coming from the Attorney General and then the response from Director Mueller. So it was unfortunate that so many weeks have gone by with this void of information in terms of whats actually in the report, of course for those folks who havent read it. And if i could point out one other thing, chuck, its been mentioned a lot today this is his 90th appearance on the hill. I would venture a guess that this is the first time hes ever appeared on the hill following the release of a 400page statement. So to compare the way he conducted himself today and the way he answered questions today with all of his appearances of old is a little bit of an apples and oranges comparison. Fair enough. I want to play number seven,
excerpt number seven, and this is the decision that was about and, Chuck Rosenberg, we talked about this there wasnt to me enough questioning which is his decision not to subpoena the president. Lets go through the back and forth. Because actually mueller gave a little bit more so than he had given in other answers in responding to his decision on not to subpoena the president. We were almost towards the end of our investigation and we had had little success in pushing to get the interview of the president. We decided that we did not want to exercise the Subpoena Powers because of the necessity of expediting the end of the investigation. What did you think of the president s written responses Plrks Mueller . Not as useful as an interview would be. In fact, you pointed out, and by my account, there were more than 30 times when the president said he didnt recall, he didnt
remember, no independent recollection, no current recollection. I take it by your answer that it wasnt as helpful. Thats why you used words like incomplete, inprecise, inadequate, insufficient. Is that a fair summary of what you thought of those written answers . That is a fair summary. I presume that comes from t