Analysis and discussion of the days top stories and compelling issues from Lawrence ODonnell. Presidency. They all appear completely brainwashed now. We have never seen anything like this in american politics. And Today Is The Day that the president needed them to all be brainwashed. Senator ted cruz said absolutely nothing today, not one word, when donald trump had his fifth avenue moment, when donald trump publically obstructed justice today, which he did in more than one way, which we will get into a moment. Not one word from ted cruz about that today. And here is what that same ted cruz said about the president two years ago. This man is a pathological liar. He doesnt know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. The man cannot tell the truth, but he combines it with being a narcissist. Bob mueller is totally conflicted and his 17 angry democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to usa there are two potential crimes in that tweet, two. One of which has not been mentioned at all today. Our first guest tonight noticed it and she and i will discuss it later this hour. Democrats were outraged by the president s obvious attempt at Obstruction Of Justice today. But republicans in their surrender to trumpism have forgotten what they used to think about special prosecutors investigations of president s of the United States. Mr. President , i am deeply troubled today because judge stars Pursuit Of The Truth is being undermined every step of the way, every single day in the press by those whose sole mission is to atake and impugn the Court Appointed independent prosecutor and the process. And these attackers are not the
journalists or the broadcasters. Mr. President , what troubles me the most here is that these reckless attacks, these Ruthless Onslaughts are being carried out by the closest advisors to the president of the United States. My point here, mr. President , is simple. They are unfounded and unproductive, unconscionable. This is the moment in Mitch Mcconnells career when standing up to the unconscionable is the most important thing he can do. It is the most important moment in Mitch Mcconnells career. There will not be a Video Library that lives in history showing what Mitch Mcconnell had to say at this point in the challenge that donald trump presents to the United States of america because Mitch Mcconnell has been so silent at every turn. In history, we will be turning to the bank tape of mitch
mcconnell saying nothing about what donald trump does. Mitch mcconnell was silent today. He was silent today in the face of a president publically obstructing justice. Mitch mcconnell could not find one word to say about it. President s of the United States cannot comment on ongoing prosecutions and Mitch Mcconnell used to know that. Everyone knew that. Prior to donald trump it only happened once in the modern history of the presidency, and it was a shocking mistake made by the welltrained lawyer turned president Richard Nixon. I noted for example the coverage of the Charles Manson case when i was in los angeles. Front page every day in the papers. It usually got a couple minutes on the evening news. Here is a man who was guilty,
directly or indirectly, of eight murders without reason. And the country and the news media were stunned because the problem was Charles Manson was still on trial for those murders when the president of the United States said that he was guilty. And so immediately that very day in court in los angeles Charles Mansons lawyers moved for a mistrial in the case because the president of the United States prejudiced the outcome. President nixons Press Secretary immediately issued a Statement Saying the president did not mean to suggest that Charles Manson was guilty and later that same day president nixon issued a Statement Saying i do not know and did not intend to speculate as to whether the sharon tate defendants are guilty in fact or not. All of the facts in the case have not yet been presented. The Manson Trial Judge was able to deny the motion for a mistrial only because he believed no damage was done by the president s comments because the jury was sequestered in the Ambassador Hotel in los angeles where they were not allowed to read or hear any comments about the case. But Paul Manaforts jury is not sequestered. They are going home every night with an instruction from the judge to not read or listen to anything about the case. So the manafort jurors are at home tonight in a country where the president of the United States today called the prosecutors in their case angry democrats who are doing dirty work. Richard nixon at his worst moment wouldnt dare call the lawyers defending Charles Manson a disgrace to the usa, and that is exactly what the president of the United States called Paul Manaforts prosecutors today, a disgrace to usa. So the president is actively interfering and he is trying to stop any other prosecutions brought by Robert Mueller and stop the Mueller Investigation entirely. And he did all of that in public today because his lawyer told him to. Last week Rudy Giuliani said if you are going to obstruct
justice, you do it quietly and secretly, not in public. He is insisting it is impossible to publically obstruct justice. Today his defense turned on the meaning of the word should. What it is is that we said its an opinion and he used his he used a medium that he uses for opinions, twitter. One of the good things about using that, if hes established a clear sort of practice now that he expresses his opinions on twitter. He used the word should , not must. There was no president ial directive to follow. He didnt direct him to do it and hes not going to direct him to do it. Should. Rudy giuliani said he carefully used the word should. On the advice of his lawyer, did Rudy Giuliani advice the president to use the word should so he could defend him publically and base that defense
entirely on that one word, should . What most republicans lost sight of is that president s must not give their opinions about ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions. There is no innocent persian of the president of the United States putting his finger on the scales of justice. But a year and a half into the trump presidency, the president today decided he was ready to say the thing that he had not publically said before. Attorney general Jeff Sessions should stopped this rigged witch hunt right now. If there was a tape of donald trump saying that in the white house today, it would be the smoking gun in an Obstruction Of Justice case. But Rudy Giuliani has told him to do his obstructing in public as if he was standing on fifth avenue with a gun. There was a deeply perverse twist in Donald Trumps tweet today. Right after he tells Jeff Sessions to stop the Mueller Investigation, Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions should stop this rigged witch hunt right now before it continues to stain our country any further. There is now not a day that goes by that donald trump and Rudy Giuliani dont find new ways to continue to stain our country. Former assistant Watergate Special prosecutor and conservative Opinion Writer at the washington post. And, jill, we are going to talk later in the show about what you see as the trump tweets effect on the manafort trial, which is hugely important. But first of all, lets go to what Rudy Giuliani is saying
today about the word should is not an order. What do you make of giulianis defense of what the president was saying today . I think its a very weak defense. And i will also say that it is a question for the jury as to whether should is an order or just an opinion. And i think that when presented to a jury, they would find in the context of all of the other tweets that the president has done and all the other actions that he has taken, including the firing of comey, that they would find that the word should was an order. And that it was intended that it be obeyed. The Attorney General is recused in this case, and he cannot take any action. But the president doesnt care about that. He said it should be ended. And it goes along with all of his other tweets that have said this is a bad investigation. Its a hoax. It is a witch hunt. Mueller is bad. His staff is bad. Sessions is bad. The fbi is bad. He has undermined the investigation from day one. He has polluted any possible impact on a potential jury in any case because of what he is saying. Jennifer, help us pause for a moment and consider where the country has come. From that nixon slip of the tongue, and it really was. There wasnt anyone out there who watched Richard Nixon out there who thought he didnt make a mistake. He corrected it as fast as he could. Weve gone from there to now where it is considered absolutely routine that of course the president of the United States gives his opinion. Rudy giuliani said it is a well established pattern that the president of the United States gives his opinion. Of course the president of the United States must never, ever
give his opinion on an Ongoing Investigation and or prosecution. I think there are three things to keep in mind. First is to remember this occurs during the pendency of a trial. In the past when we had these conversations about Obstruction Of Justice, there was some question does it really count that it is just an fbi investigation . Maybe hes not really interfering with a proceeding under the law. This is clear. It is a trial. Hes asking not only that the entire investigation be stopped, but the trial be stopped in its tracks. I cant think of anything that is more evidentiary, and this goes to the second issue, of Corrupt Intent. Thats the name of the game. Evidence that donald trump from the getgo as intended to obstruct, delay, shortcircuit this investigation. And when he says things like this, it is not only that in and of itself it is obstruction, but it is evidence of intent. And that, i think, is now so
plainly clear that all he has cared about is getting rid of an investigation into his cronies and into himself that the issue of Corrupt Intent will be easy to prove in this case. The third thing i think we should remember is that everyone was assuring us that the Paul Manafort trial didnt have anything to do with donald trump. I beg to differ. I think this is the beginning of the end. What did donald trump do again and again . He denied he or anyone on the campaign had ties to russia, had any communications with russia. And this is the first time that were seeing evidentiary proof that that is false. And donald trump i think knows very well where this is leading. We are going to learn a lot about in this trial but more so in the next one in d. C. That Paul Manafort was thick as thieves with the russians. For him at that level of the campaign to have those relationships with the kremlin and kremlin type figures i think
goes a long way towards proving the collusion conspiracy theory. Matt, i know with your experience in the Justice Department, you know that previous departments have not even been tempted. Not even tempted to make Public Comments about ongoing criminal investigations and ongoing currently underway criminal prosecutions. But your reaction to what you saw in the president s tweets today and in Rudy Giulianis defense of them. You are right, lawrence. You are right, lawrence. It is a red line for any president to cross to interfere with an Ongoing Investigation, a trial, any Justice Department proceeding or anything the Justice Department is pursuing. The problem with the president , yes, this was an escalation today, but he crossed the red line a long time ago and he never went back after he crossed it. He stayed on the wrong side of that line and has been continuing to pressure the Justice Department, not just publically in his tweets and speeches but also privately in
pressuring Jeff Sessions to back off from his recusal, pressuring rod rosenstein. Every one of these is an inappropriate action by the president. And i think, you know, the defense that rudy came out with today i think is probably the best you could do in this circumstance. What it ignores is the totality of all the evidence. And the interesting thing, i think the interesting thing, the most interesting thing about what he says thats been lost on a lot of people, he granted that, you know, it would be legally problematic if the president was issuing an order here. Thats implicit in their defense. That may be the best he can do for today. But the president has issued orders in the past. Lets not forget the New York Times reported he ordered don mcgahn to go to the Justice Department and get him fired. It is legally inappropriate for
the president to issue a direct order interfering with the investigation, thats something his client has already done. Jennifer, count me as one of those people who still cannot get used to the idea that Mitch Mcconnell and paul ryan and the republicans just sit there and accept this and with their silence they are in effect cheering it on to see that video of where ted cruz was talking about donald trump from his heart about what a pathological liar he is and to listen to the sound of ted cruzs silence today remains an extraordinary thing. It does. And even people who are supposed to be the good republicans like Suzanne Collins makes these statements, oh, he really shouldnt do that. He should just let the prosecutor do his work and finish. There is no sense of outrage. There is no desire to defend the institutions of democracy. It is if as it is all some kind of game that their highest obligation to defend him or whatever political position, whatever looney tunes legal argument he is making, and they are completely devoid of any view, of any belief that their highest obligation is to the country. We talk about donald trump betrying the United States by being an agent or an accessory for vladimir putin. What about these people . Theyre doing the same thing. They have betrayed the country. They have betrayed their oaths of office. And i fail to see how any of them are fit for office after that. Thank you for starting us off tonight. Were going to discuss the point that you raised with us earlier today about what you saw in this tweet, and that is the possible crime of Jury Tampering, which no one has been focussing on. Were going to go in and take a sharp look at that. Also communication with Robert Mueller apparently a communication between the Trump Lawyers and Robert Mueller this week might have set off the tweets we started off today and some might have been cowritten by the Trump Lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani last night. Perhaps the word should was Rudy Giulianis idea last night. Thats coming up. Its the Ford Summer Sales event and now is the best time to buy. Man on tablet preparing classic campfire trout. Say what . Trout. Trout. Alright. You dont think i need both . Why does he have that axe . Make summer go right with ford, americas bestselling brand. Now get 0 financing for 72 months plus 1,000 ford credit bonus cash on a great selection of suvs. During the Ford Summer Sales event, get our best offer of the season 0 financing for 72 months plus 1,000 ford credit bonus cash. 0 financing