President s attempts to ban muslims from entering the United States. The New York Times reports mr. Sessions had flown to florida because mr. Trump was refusing to take his calls about a pressing decision on his travel ban. When they met, mr. Trump was ready to talk, but not about the travel ban. His grievance was with mr. Sessions. The president objected to his decision two days earlier to recuse himself from the russia investigation. Mr. Trump, who had told aides that he needed a loyalist overseeing the inquiry berated mr. Sessions and told him he should reverse his decision, an unusual and potentially unappropriate request. Mr. Sessions refused the invitation is being investigated by the special counsel robert s. Mueller iii as are the president s private and public attacks on mr. Sessions and efforts to get him to resign. The New York Times says that the special prosecutors interest in Jeff Sessions encounters with the president , quote, suggest that the obstruction investigation is broader than it is widely understood to be, encompassing not only the president s interactions with and firing of former fbi director james comey, but also with his relationship of mr. Sessions and. Investigators have pressed the current former white house officials about mr. Trumps treatment of mr. Sessions and whether they believe the president was trying to impede the russia investigation by pressuring him. Of the four dozen or so questions of mr. Session wants to ask mr. Trump, eight relate to mr. Session, among them, what efforts do you make to try to get him to reverse his recusal. The special prosecutors interest in the president s dealings with Jeff Sessions is yet another reason why the president s tv lawyer Rudy Giuliani says he is more worried about the obstruction of justice investigation than possible collusion. On sunday, when discussing the possibility of the president agreeing to an interview with robert mueller, Rudy Giuliani said this. If everything can be worked out, then they would probably limit it to collusion and obstruction. The collusion part, were pretty comfortable with because there has been none. The obstruction part, im not as comfortable with. Im not. The president is fine with it. He is innocent. Im not comfortable because its a matter of interpretation, not just hard and fast true, not true. In that same interview, Rudy Giuliani made it clear that he expects the special prosecutors investigation will lead to impeachment. Eventually, the decision here is going to be impeach not impeach. Members of congress, democrat and republican are going to be informed a lot by their constituents. So our jury, as it should be, is the American People. Impeach or not impeach. Joining us john holland, and also with us harry litman and Deputy Assistant general under president clinton, and Jason Johnson, politics editor at the root. Com and an msnbc contributor. John heilemann, so Jeff Sessions is now a significant part of the obstruction of justice investigation . And i think, you know, in retrospect, as the times story notes, its sort of crazy that we didnt focus on this earlier. People have obviously focused on the relationship between trump and sessions and its been contentious and sessions has hung in there. You and i were exchanging a private conversation the other day about whether in some long narrative we will eventually look back and say Jeff Sessions was the hero of all of this, having recused himself when he should have and having resisted trumps pressure. Now because of the good folks at the New York Times and their reporting, we know about the private pressure. Im not a lawyer. Harry litman will be able to speak more eloquently of what constitutes obstruction of justice, but i know the corrupt intent has something to do it. We have focussed on james comey, et cetera. When youre going to your attorney general who has done absolutely the right thing by recusing himself, when you publicly say i need loyalty. This was a horrible decision. If he told me he was going to do it, i wouldnt have done it, and then youre privately going to him and saying i need you to reverse your decision, thats a problem. And also includes the president asking Jeff Sessions to resign or trying to. Right. Doing it through Reince Priebus and Jeff Sessions chief of staff tells Reince Priebus if there is going to be a request for resignation, it has to come directly from the president. And then Reince Priebus does nothing, and the president apparently forgets about it. Well, yeah. This is one of the things thats always been a big irony about this president. In trump particularly, lawrence, for somebody who got famous by telling people youre fired, we consistently hear he is a bit cowardly when it comes to direct conflicts with people. He tries to do it through someone else. He gets kelly to do it. He tries to do it through reince. He wont go directly facetoface unless he feels particularly empowered. Ive always agreed strangely with Rudy Giuliani that impeachment that may or may not happen. But the obstruction of justice case against this president is extreme. And when your flunky flaky lawyer Rudy Giuliani is saying im actually worried about obstruction of justice, that is a real sign why trump has become so unhinged about this. Even the people around him cant keep lying enough to say look, all the times youve been leaning on these people, that does look like obstruction. I dont think we can keep you interest that. Harry litman, what is your little reading of the New York Times tonight that there is so much focus on Jeff Sessions in the obstruction of justice investigation . It makes sense to me, and for the reasons john said. Look, its been 100 clear from day one that of course trump wanted to squelch the russia investigation. His only defense has been that hes lacked the socalled corrupt intent, that he wasnt doing it for personal reasons. Now when you think about other conduct like the firing of comey, there are Different Reasons you could try to proffer. But think about this with sessions. And by the way, sessions recuses because the Department Tells him he has to. So its very straight forward and legally mandated. But what other reason could you say on behalf of trump for why he thereafter is we rating him and insisting he reverse the decision . Its obviously wanting personal loyalty, obviously wanting personal protection. Its that kind of protection above for his own sake that leads directly to an inference of corrupt intent and doesnt allow for the sorts of other inferences he could at least argue about for different conduct. John heilemann, weve noticed that Jeff Sessions has real friends among republicans in the senate. They certainly behaved that way during his confirmation. They got him through the challenges to his confirmation testimony, which some people thought included perjury. Yep. And here is another piece of the New York Times reporting tonight, which i think it contains a new fact that maybe we believed but did not quite yet know. Right. It said mr. Trump complains to friends about how much he would like to get rid of mr. Sessions but has demurred under pressure from Senate Republicans who have indicated they would not confirm a new attorney general. Now, john, i have not heard any Senate Republican say that out loud publicly, but apparently they have said that to the president. They wouldnt confirm a new one. Lawrence, i got to say, sometimes you and i are in sync. When i read the story, it was one of the things that jumped out at me. I thought thats a separate news story that thats a frontpage news story in the New York Times. Senate tells trump if he gets rid of session they wont confirm anybody else. Its not been reported this way. And Jeff Sessions has a lot of republican friends, and weirdly, because of the stance he has taken and because of the way he has upheld the institutional integrity of the Justice Department on this issue, he has a lot of friends in the Democratic Party right now. Trump realizes there is no one in the senate who would vote for anyone else. So Jeff Sessions job as much as trump hates him and wants to get rid of him, Jeff Sessions is maybe the safest man in washington, d. C. Right now. And lets remember what donald trump, we have the tape of it. The New York Times did an interview with trump about sessions and about the recusal. And this one is on tape. Lets listen to what the president said last year. Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and i would have picked somebody else. Now, jason, for robert mueller, it has to sound really interesting that you would have picked a different attorney general if your attorney general nominee had told you he was going to act according to the rules of the Justice Department. Right, right, exactly. Its sort of like saying well, if you would have told me that you wont bury dead bodies, i wouldnt have picked you as a lawyer, would i . Thats essentially what the president is saying right now. The issue is, look, he has been saying things like this all along. I have to mention, i thought that element of the New York Times story was interesting as well because weve seen at least publicly that republicans have bent over backwards in the senate to say oh, were kind of letting the president do whatever he wants. You had Mitch Mcconnell coming out and saying there is no indicate theyre the president wants to get rid of mueller. So were not going to do anything about it. But if there is this push behind the scenes for republicans saying look, at least dont touch jeff session. He is at least someone that we respect, there may be that one small stopgap in the integrity of our Justice System and our executive branch that weve all been hoping for so that this investigation can continue. But, again, the president s behavior is everything short of directly leaning on people in the white house and dangling them out the window and saying do what i say or ill fire you. And that part is obvious to anybody. Lets listen to Senate Republican marco rubio talking about the president s latest notion that his campaign was infiltrated, which of course it was not. That is a lie the president is telling. Lets listen to marco rubios reaction to that. I have seen no evidence that those people were part of an investigation on the campaign. If that exists, i would want to know about it. We should all know about it, and that would be wrong, and we should do something about it. But up to now, what i have seen is evidence that they were investigating individuals with a history of links to russia that were concerning. And that was appropriate if thats all that happened. Harry litman, thats marco rubios view of whats appropriate, but the notion that a campaign cannot be investigated the way any other enterprise or any other group of people can be investigated is has no legal grounding that im aware of. Because it has no legal grounding. And, in fact, what theyre really trying to say is just a fiction. I dont think anyone in the trump camp is trying to argue what theyre try together argue with is the facts. Theyre trying to suggest it wasnt a routine counterintelligence investigation. It was a sort of by the invocation of watergate or j. Edgar hoover, it was some kind of embedding of a political operative. Thats just false, and its just a rhetorical flourish that they know is designed to inflame people but doesnt doesnt stand up to even the slightest scrutiny. Moreover, just as i i just want to make another point. Just as sessions had to do what he did, you know, the fbi of course had to do what it did. You hear from papadopoulos through australia that hes talking about russia interference. You hear about carter page. It would have been derelict of them to leave it fallow and not try to investigate. And there is no attempt to try to respond to that by the trump camp. John heilemann, you see marco rubio finding his voice, at least on that particular point. And then when you play that against the backdrop of the New York Times reporting tonight that Senate Republicans or the right Senate Republicans have communicated to the president that if he gets rid of Jeff Sessions, they will not vote to confirm a replacement to Jeff Sessions no matter who that is. We have reason to believe that there is a kind of communication going from Senate Republicans to this president that we most of the time know nothing about. Correct. Especially given the tenuousness of the relationship between rump trump and mcconnell that has been on again and off again. Throughout most of the term. Rod rosenstein still remains vulnerable. He is not getting this we have no sense that Senate Republicans or anybody else on the senate on the republican side is conveying to trump the sanctity of rod rosensteins job. So trump still has a root to get to bob mule fer he wants to. Ths is safe. I want to focus on one thing very quickly. The high human drama of this which is always the thing that draws me to a story, Jeff Sessions, the first u. S. Senator to endorse donald trump. Yeah. He was mocked. He was scorned. His colleagues in the senate thought he was an idiot. He signed up with trump early. He was with him all throughout. He got this job, and then he followed the rules. And trump has abused him mercilessly, humiliated him, threatened him, tried to get him to quit, just pummelled him publicly and now we know privately for 15 months. Jeff sessions going to go to bat for donald trump with bob mueller or is Jeff Sessions going to stick the knife, the shiv right in Donald Trumps back . Or tell the truth. I think he is going to tell the truth. Thats a good point. The president has publicly done more than anything everything you could possibly imagine to taunt Jeff Sessions. Yeah. Hes insulted him. Hes made fun of him. He has attacked him on twitter. But this is what i said, lawrence, a couple of weeks ago when i talked about grumble bragging from members of this administration. Oh, its so terrible to work for donald trump. But they dont leave, do they . And they dont leave because at their core they actually agree with a lot of the things that donald trump is doing, even if they dont like him the person. Jeff sessions is in favor of the travel ban. Jeff sessions is just as much as a hawk on immigration. Jeff session believes that black lives matter is a terrorist organization. He is not going to leave this administration. And to be perfectly honest with you, while he may recuse himself one, because the law required it, and two, because he didnt want to get himself in trouble, i dont think he would ever turn. I dont think he would ever flip on donald trump because he likes the power, and he likes the position he is in. This is the opportunity for him to live out the White Nationalist fantasies he has been talking about for the last 35 years of his career. I dont think there is anything that would make him turn on donald trump unless he thought it was him or trump. And i dont think he is facing that decision yet. Harry litman, as you know in under oath testimony and fbi introduce, there is a huge difference between i dont recall, i dont know, and answers the difference between i dont know and i think so. That takes an investigator from nowhere, the i dont know. When you switch that to an i think so as a witness can, because thats within the range of their possible choice, thats in the space. Its in those spaces in those interviews where witnesses can try to protect someone or just not try to protect them at all. You know, its true, although, in fact, the most frequent perjuryious statement anyone might make is i dont recall. Its so frequent that people who do know are coached by lawyers to say that and think its safe, and indeed, its almost an impossible perjury case to bring. But yes, there is going to be a lot of news wants to the either endorsement of or undercutting of trump. I would say, by the way, this is also true at the level of the Senate Republicans. Giuliani suggested its a kind of plebiscite that you go to the people on. In fact, this is really their highest duty under the constitution to really make that sort of judgment. Trump has been banking on their not doing it for political reasons. But if the cards turn on him, it may well be the Senate Republicans at least incertain numbers are actually able to make a constitutional judgment, not simply a popularity question. Larry litman and john heilemann, thanks for joining us during this breaking news. Please stay with us because when we come back, were going to be discussing roseannes final episode, which turned out to be a twitter especially toad this morning which got her fired this afternoon. Find the remote yet . Nah. Honey look