Theyre trying to say this. They all say theres no collusion and there is no collusion. Absolutely no collusion. Everybody knows it. It has been determined that there is no collusion and by virtually everybody. By virtually everybody he meant of course not everybody. Trump didnt just repeat the defense. He did something notable. He back tracked from past claims that he would be happy to talk to bob muellers investigators. Now he says well see. Well, again, john, there has been no collusion between the Trump Campaign and russians or trump and russians. No collusion. When i watch you interviewing all the people leaving their committees, the democrats are all running for office and theyre trying to say this. Bottom line, they all say there is no collusion and there is no collusion. Would you object open to certainly well see. When they have no collusion and nobody has found any collusion at any level, it seems unlikely that you would even have an interview. Of course, trump had prettily made a big deal in that rose garden address that he would speak. Does trump know something that made him change his tune . Or is he strategizing making it a point of leverage . To be clear and fair, that is how bill clinton initially respond responded. Tonight we know trump has fallen back a step. He also defensively called for a partisan request, saying republicans should quote, take control. Lets be clear. That is not a confident position. Just a few moments ago, the white house lawyers were saying, they would welcome the Mueller Probe because they expected a factbased exoneration. They said that before the new year and said this would all be wrapped up by now. A factbased exoneration, lets be clear. Thats lawyer speak for a result where the prosecutor doesnt find any facts supporting a crime. Thats not what the president just said. Now hes saying, republicans should take control to ensure he wins. And spoiler alert, thats not how criminal investigations work in america. Im joined now by the assistant direct or for counter intel. Karen laughler and Betsy Woodruff who covers the rush probe doggedly for the daily beast. I could start anywhere but in the news, ill start with your latest view of what were getting here. It is interesting the president said republicans should take over the rush probe given mueller is a republican. There is absolutely precedent for someone in that place. Tunneled exact same authority that mueller is currently work under, told me when i spoke to him a few months back when mueller was impaneled that he himself called bill clinton during the investigation and they had a conversation. Not a particularly amicable one. A serious one where danforth was trying to move the investigation forward and he said he didnts it would have been a complete and thorough investigation if he hadnt talked on bill clinton. So im confident that mueller is very much aware of that and that history would be on his side if he decided to use his special Counsel Authority to press for a sitdown with trump. And thought as there is continued scrutiny how we got here. I want to read to you from something that addressed a lot of your colleagues which came out today as well. This is what fbi leadership was saying in the wake of the comey firing. The line that jumped out to me was basically Deputy DirectorAndrew Mccabe saying we will get through this together. That was an internal message. While that may sound kind of basic, i want to get your analysis of it. At that time the leadership of the doj which oversee fbi was making a claim that this was a typical routine personnel decision that it was all about handling the clinton email case. That is to say not a calamity. We all know what happened since then. But i wonder that he was immediately seeming to undercut the rod rosensteinsessions cover story. I think andy mccabe knew exactly what this was about. I think jim comey was sharing details of what was transpiring with his top management. They knew what was happening. And i think the fbi now realizes what this was really about. The removal of jim comey was a form of obstruction. Having worked the fbi for 30 years, i think the Deputy Director was trying to tell his people to do their jobs. That he was behind them and they he should ten to do their jobs. And also, because mr. Comey was so well respected by the vast majority of the agents. He knew what was going on, they knew what was going on and he was saying, you have an important mission. It was different from what was playing out. It was a personnel decision and not as you both put it, at least the elements of a potential he obstruction of justice case which would be a bad thing. We talked about a fissure that i dont think will be reversed with being pushed to the limit, putting out this dossier testimony. That is on the investigator side. Then there is security side. How are we doing as a country . Will they come after us again . Senator ben cardin putting out his own report on a partisan basis. Saying the republicans wont come with him. President trump, he says, negligent in response to the threat and here was senator cardin expressing this new report. Today current president of the United States still barely acknowledges the threat posed by mr. Putins repeated tasked. Let alone the kind of leadership necessary to effectively counter this kixd aggression. Never before has a u. S. President so severely ignored such a grave and growing threat to u. S. National security. Is that fair to the president to say that never has anyone ignored a threat this much . I think it is extremely fair. This gets to the heart of what the special counsel inquiry is all about and why it actually started. So the president can continue to call this a witch hunt. What sits a vital investigation to get to the one question, to what resident a fortune government attempt to med well our last president ial election and what will we do about it . We have midterm elections coming and there is no plan to deal with foreign governments influencing and shaping our next election. I think it is important to wreb the context, that these have the effect. The goal of the probes is he to name and shame foreign bad actors who try meddle in elections to the extent the house and senate xlees and muellers investigators themselves are able to identify individuals who held and encouraged these attacks on the american electoral system. That could be a deterrent Going Forward and the inverse is that it is really striking that the president himself is at odds with what the Intelligence Committee has concluded and were already hearing from these investigators. That the russians worked overtime to try to influence the american election. On this point, betsy was just speaking about it is not only attempted justice but also playing to our protections and what prosecutors and cops talk about, the deterrent effect. Were so fixated on the american part of what happened and how it could affect our politics. But he that doesnt mean its easy to get ahold of him. One of the big pushes that our last two attorney generals talked about, well indiet anyway when we find fortune nationals violating our laws. And then well deal with whether we can get them back and through their travel somewhere or working with other countries. But protection. United states, and using the laws and the Prosecutorial Authority to protect something as important as the underpinnings of democracy should be an absolute staring in your face number one priority of the country. So you absolutely focus on going where the crime led you and use he have tool that you have. And finally, because you prosecuted so many different types of cases. What are the unique challenges of the potential interview and doing it in a way that is valuable than what he wants to learn but is different than any other sitdown. You have to be, of course, respectful of the job which is president of the United States. So you have to treat that differently and with respect. And while the president has the fit amendment, he has the issue of not wanting to take fifth amendment. So you have to schedule it but also with this president , you have to have it documented and solid fact for anything that you and him. In a situation like this where the president is clearly part of the circle, you want to give him an opportunity on answer it before indictments come out. It will be up to the president and his lawyers, how he decides to deal with the request. Thank you all for being part of our coverage. Coming up, a brand new report developing about secret buyers who are now snapping up trump real estate and they only start hiding their identities after he broke the story. And Rush Limbaugh firing a warning shot about the big meeting yesterday. And what will mueller do when he wants to question him . Shes a vicious person. That lawyer is on the beat exclusively. Shell of seats. They think its theirs. Look at them, they have no idea its not theirs. Its mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. The new lexus rx 350l with three rows for seven passengers. Are you excited about your baby sister coming . Experience space for the unexpected with the rx l, part of the rx family. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. Big australia is back. Our biggest sirloin. Our biggest bloom. Our ultimate Great Barrier combo. Our biggest entrees ever. Hurry in now. Outback steakhouse. Aussie rules. Yea, s stuffynoset this cold nosleep i got it. Mouthbreather yep, weve got a mouth breather. Well just put on a breathe right strip and. Pow it instantly opens your nose up to 38 more than Cold Medicine alone so you can breathe. And sleep. Go to breatheright. Com today to request a free sample. I tabut with my back paines, i couldnt sleep and get up in time. Then i found aleve pm. Aleve pm is the only one to combine a safe sleep aid plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. Im back. Aleve pm for a better am. We know life can be hectic. Thats why, at xfinity, weve been working hard to simplify your experiences with us. Now, with instant text and email updates, youll always be up to date. You can easily add premium channels, so you dont miss your favorite show. And with just a single word, find all the answers youre looking for because getting what you need should be simple, fast, and easy. Download the xfinity my account app or go online today. This is classic trump. The media is the message. He aims to look good negotiating without caring what hes even negotiating about and betting other people wont care either. That strategy running into a wall and i dont mean a border wall. Trump gave democrats so much rhetorically in the meeting on tape that his base began rebel clg led to that now infamous transcript saying trump did not fall on the wall. The white house has since corrected it. Conservatives blasting this meeting. Donald trump could not possibly believe that he could abandon his threeyear position immigration and still maintain the support of his base. Donald trump just could not be that object as to. He could not be that obtuse. Or maybe he only cares about the media and not the substance. Take two is that trump was on the verge of getting rolled yesterday because he doesnt care about immigration or anything else. All he cares about is being loved and being liked. Just like us. We all want to be loved. In every other week of the trump presidency, this is the kind of fight that steve bannon would relish. He would position himself between trump and the base. He would tell both sides that bannon, he is the key to saving trumpism. But why is this night different from all other nights . I suspect you already know. Trumps billionaire has now ousted the one time bannon. Trump enrage d. We dont have a rebuttal for bannon tonight because that street fighter is unusually silent. Im a street fighter. Thats what i am. Youre more than that. No, i think im a street fighter. Lets get into it. Im joined by a political donor who has pledged to spend 30 million in the mid terms. And mitt romneys new book is the road not taken. We start with conservative infighting so i begin with you, mr. Boot. Is this about something . Or is this about nothing . First off i would not consider this conservative infighting. I would not call steve bannon a conservative. I would not call donald trump a conservative. In the case of bannon, he does have populism, nationalism. Bannonism. In the case of donald trump, i wouldnt go that far. His ideology is donald trump had bits getting as much power as possible. Getting in love with the crowds, being in the spotlight. He has some other impulses to be sure which are largely racist, xenophobic. But those are impulses. It is not about philosophy. And you saw where one minute he is saying, we can deliver the democratic agenda. He walks it back and they take it out of the transcript but thats a sign that donald trump is a bundle of competing impulses and the only threat is selfpromotion. Well, as is often the case, max boot puts it all in one big strong par graph. I want to give you response but i want to play another moment. There is the argument that even the people who are allied with trump when you get him to the negotiating table. It is like keeping water in a backpack. No matter how good you are, you cant do it. And has the double clip. You may have seen the beginning, the exchange with Kevin Mccarthy and then mike sgims his take on whats going on. You need to be clear. I think you have to have security. I think youre saying daca without security. Love the effort to daca explain things on senator feinstein. I dont know if you know the term dacasplaining. What did you make of this meeting . From our standpoint, we want a clean daca. Period. What we can see the president doing is he is confused about exactly what hes giving away and what he stands for. That doesnt matter to us. What weve seen in the first year of the Trump Administration is a hard right agenda. He said a lot of things in meetings. You look through the, mr. Trumps first year, he has walked away from everything except a hard right health care plan, a hard right tax plan, immigration plan. Everything when you get to cutting the mustard, he is always on the hard right. So whatever he says in the interim, he should be ignored. This is a president who has determined that his interest, his allies, his constituencies, are on the radical right end of the spectrum and he has gone to this monday where he said the people from el salvador who have been here so long will have to leave. What youre making is a kind of an analysis that you cant look at the top of the wave of the surfboard. There is always this undertow. While donald trump may move around, he has made common qualls the allies. With the other big event this week, with fire and fury. Were developing a copy to each and every member of congress. One could argue that the these sis a little different. It is more on what smax saying. Lets draw distinction between man and his personality issues and the agenda that hes pursued. What i was describing was the agenda that he has pursued, regardless of what he says. Im saying, ignore verbiage. When push comes to shove, it is about flight. The question is whether he is fit for office. Whether he is trustworthy, i would say when we talk about the need to impeach, were saying he is unfit for office, that he is dangerous to the American People. That has a lot to do with his actions. He has met the criteria for impeachment in many ways but separately, he has pursued this hard right agenda consistently. Im not sure that he has. He has done a lot of hard right things that i think are very objectionable but not, that the people this charlottesville are very fine people, pardoning sheriff arpaio. A lot of people are pushing the other way. Now theyre pushing him not to blow up the iran nuclear deal. I think the point tom was making is a good one. At the end of the day, the case against trump is not that he is a hard right reactionary, although he has elements of that. I think the thing is that he is dividing the country, subverting the rule of law. Thats the ideological grounds. By character and temperament he is not fit to be in the highest office. Were out of time but the other thing that was revealed is that steve bannon is not that tough, he was loaded one the money. As soon as they pulled the money, hes gone quiet. You have different ideologies than say, the mercers. What makes that you different if youre spending tens of millions of dollars and then presumably a lot of democrats will oh you. My question is, arent people like you part of problem if you have too much power over our democracy . Let me say this. We agree, there should be a reform of money in government for sure in the United States. We consider it a huge problem. We try to be responsible in the context of the system that we have that we believe is the best system in the world but it is surely imperfect. Let me say this. What we do in everything we do is promote a broader democracy. That is what we spent our money on. We actually spend our money trying to register, engage and involve the citizens. Everything we do is about the answer to our problems is more democracy. Even the need Impeach Campaign is an attempt to empower american citizens so their voice organized get and put together is more like direct democracy. It is not about me, this is all about, can we involve and engage the American People so their voice is heard more loudly in the halls of power. So the elected officials cant ignore the actual people who run our country which is the people of the United States. A lively discussion. Thank you both. Still ahead, trumps lawyer suing over the russian dossier. We have an interview with the journalist who First Published it. First, who are the secret buyers snapping up real estate. Well have the story next. Ience across web and tablet . Do you want 4. 95 commissions for stocks, 0. 50 options contracts . 1. 50 futures contracts . What about a dedicated service team of trading specialists . Did you say yes . Good, then its time for power e trade. 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