Transcripts For MSNBCW All In With Chris Hayes 20180417

New reporting that trump blocked the russia sanctions. Senator chris murphy is here to respond. There is a nonzero possibility that the russians have some sway over him. Plus, a new push from some republicans to protect Robert Mueller. And about last night i dont think he is medically unfit to be president. I think he is morally unfit to be president. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Well, well, well. A federal judge right here in manhattan just rejected an effort by the president of the United States to block federal prosecutors from looking at thousands of documents seized last week in the criminal probe of the president s lawyer and associate Michael Cohen. It was an extraordinary scene at a federal courthouse downtown today where cohen, the president s personal lawyer and fixer was ordered to appear in person exactly one week since being raided by the fbi. Now cohen was joined by a new attorney for the president , joanna hendon. Thats her right there representing President Trump in attempts to limit the federal governments access to those materials they seized last week from cohens office, his home, his hotel room, a safe deposit box, and a number of electronic devices. It was the president s lawyer in court arguing against the Justice Department prosecutors from the president s own administration. Also in attendance, just to give it a little more spice, adult film actress Stormy Daniels whose hush money payment before the election is reportedly of interest to the federal prosecutors. Now she has also filed, of course, a civil suit against Michael Cohen that may be delayed while he is under criminal investigation. For years mr. Cohen has acted like he is above the law. He has considered himself and openly referred to himself as mr. Trumps fixer. He has played by a different set of rules, or shall we say no rules at all. My attorney and i are committed to making sure that everyone finds out the truth and the facts of what happened. And i give my word that we will not rest until that happens. The day began with cohen attempting to defy a federal judges order to reveal the names of his legal clients there are not many, i should note. Cohen is claiming the raids last week violated attorneyclient privilege, threaten his clients rights. In a letter this morning cohens attorneys agreed only to disclose two of his grand total of three clients. That would a man by the name of donald trump, who is president these United States, and a man by the name of elliott broidy, who is a republican fundraiser who you probably hasnt heard about until he resigned from the rnc after he was revealed to have paid 1. 6 million in hush money, through Michael Cohen, that guy, to a former playboy playmate he had impregnated. He being broidy. Client number three, one of his lawyers telling the court the client is a publicly prominent individual and he didnt want the name released to the public, piquing everybodys curiosity. The judge was not having it, forcing cohens team to fess up. And client number three was, drum roll, please, none other than sean hannity, who railed against the cohen raids last week without disclosing his own connection. Cohen was never part of the Trump Administration or the trump campaign. This is now officially an all hands on deck effort to totally malign and if possible impeach the president of the United States. Oh, its all hands on deck, sean. It is definitely all hands on deck. Hannity insists he never formally retained cohens services, claiming they occasionally had brief discussions about legal matters. But the real battle in court today was over how the government would separate out seized materials that fall under the protection of attorneyclient privilege from material pertinent to the months long investigation of Michael Cohen. Ordinarily a group of independent investigators known as the filter team through the fbi and the stmy, or the taint team would be responsible for doing the separating, withholding any protected documents forever being used in the case. But this a remarkable letter to the judge last night, the president s own lawyer asked the judge to suspend the governments usual review process, making investigators instead hand all the seized documents over to none other than Michael Cohen so cohen and the president could decide whats okay to use. Think about that for a second. Their argument is that the subject of a criminal investigation who investigators did not trust to turn over material, hence the raids, instead of obtaining a court warrant, should get to rule out whats used against them. Not surprisingly rejected. Jane fox was in the courtroom today. She is a Senior Reporter for vanity fair and msnbc contributor. What a scene. It was a day today. They were in court all day on friday. Michael cohen was not there and Stormy Daniels was not there on friday either. But i thought it couldnt get much more spectacular than friday when you had michael avenatti, Stormy Daniels attorney walk in. And you had a surprise visit from the woman who is now representing donald trump. That was a pretty miraculous day in court. And today it just got even crazier. I have to tell you, the moment there was a long drawn out debate over whether or not this third client would be named. It went on for quite a long time, and there was a lot of back and forth. And finally the judge said this client has to be named. You have no standing under the law. And so Michael Cohens attorney said well, i can give it to you in a sealed envelope, or i can just say it out loud. The judge said well, whatever you feel comfortable with. You can do whatever you want. And it felt like there was that moment, that pause where it was going to happen. They were going to say now, after the commercial break. There was so much tension and buildup and it was such a reality show moment. And when the name sean hannity came out of his mouth, not only did most of the audience in the courtroom which was primarily filled with journalists, it was a laughter and a sigh and oh, come on, you got to be kidding. Hands over his head. Exactly. The energy in the room felt like the whole courtroom was going to explode. Youve got that moment. And we dont know. What is the nature of their legal relationship is unclear. There is sort of i would say slightly different stories coming from each man about it . Would you say thats fair to say . From a source i talked to about it who was familiar with the situation, there was some sort of real estate discussion. I dont know. I have no backup for that claim. I will just say this. Sean hannity make can higher whatever lawyer he wants to in new york, whatever team of lawyers, whatever troop of lawyer, division of lawyer, army of lawyers. What he is talking to Michael Cohen about legally, thats sort of interesting. Kind of an odd coincidence. Michael cohen is friendly with a lot of personalities in new york, certainly in the media. He deals with people in the media all the time. Every time i have interviewed him, ten reporters will call him the course of the time im interviewing him. Its not uncommon for him to speak to reporters. Attorneyclient privilege, theyre not clients under a court. It is certainly unusual. And absolutely unexpected, as we could tell by the reaction in the courtroom today. All right, emily jane fox, im glad you got to witness that firsthand. Im jealous of that. Im joined by nick akerman and attorney lisa green. Lets talk about the substance today. We got judge kimba wood, senior u. S. District judge who is presiding over this. The filing by the president of the United States was for what . To try and keep the documents from the prosecutors. What he is concerned about is that Michael Cohen was probably in prague in the summer of 2016, and there is bound to be evidence in that cache of documents about his visit to prague. Thats what theyre worried about. Well you dont know that. You do know from the mcclatchy report just recently. Yes. There is reason to be there is reason to believe that why else would donald trump be going to this length to stop something . Nick, because he doesnt know whats in there. He must know whats in there. Because he is not going to care about Stormy Daniels. Thats already out. He doesnt care about the playboy bunny. Thats already out. What he is worried about is the Russian Investigation and cohens involvement in prague and the trump tower in moscow. There are bound to be documents in that seizure that relate to both of those issues which completely undercut the entire republican narrative thats been leveled against the Mueller Investigation since day one. So you think your suspicions that this is all about russia fundamentally . Its all about russia. I just want to get to a more technical point. Lawyers i know, former federal prosecutors are really outraged about whats going on. Here is why. This is not abnormal, having, you know, a clean team and a dirty team to review documents. Lawyers for the sdny made the point in Court Filings that look, there is nothing in it for us to inadvertently give over attorneyclient privileged information because then the defense can come at us, sue and maybe the case is done. I used to do this all the time. There is no incentive. B, again, three clients . Thousands of documents . One client is someone he had a casual conversation with real estate about like at bar . This is not a giant cache, chris, of attorneyclient privileged information. To that end, what i would also say is people who are sort of gaming out todays ruling by judge woods are completely missing the forest or to the trees because in fact the president and Michael Cohen have sort of already lost this war. Why . What do you mean by that . Delicious is never going to be a wholesale return of all this information. The filing which says tell you what, tell you what, why dont you just go ahead, give us all the evidence. We will look over it, and we will give you what is relevant there is no way a federal judge is ever going to sign off on that. No way. Not in a million years. As a nonlawyer, it sounded preposterous to me. Youve got people who believe that the attorneyclient privilege applies just because youre talking to an attorney or attorneys are in the room or attorneys got your documents that doesnt work. It seems to be the kind of idea here is that Michael Coyne is ive got a law degree and im licensed to practice in new york. Hence, when im talking to you, when were having a cigar outside the hotel, were maybe coming up with some hustle, were doing taxi medallion business, whatever it is, were in the umbrella. Were in the cone of privilege, and its all good you. Say whatever. Not the way it works . Thats to all the lawyers we know, including ourselves who have worked really diligently when you do a document production, even in a civil case, and youre carefully reviewing every document and taking notes and stamping it privileged. This is not a joke. And its not casual. Point being theres got to be some sort of substantive. Attorneyclient privilege is a thing that pertains to a ongoing relationship with a attorney and not anything that happens in a lawyers room. You cant just go to a Cocktail Party and approach somebody and ask for legal advice. Thats not privilege there has to be an attorneyclient relationship. In new york state you have to have an engagement letter. According to hani, he didnt even have an engagement letter. What do you make of the hannity part of this . I cant figure it out. But the fact that he didnt pay his lawyer is definitely not indicative of not having a lawyerclient relationship, because weve all chased clients who dont pay, not to mention pro bono clients for whom you work for free because theyre intergent or theyre immigrants. For sure this wasnt pro bono. But the fact that no money exchanged hands is no importance at all. Let me play this. This is hannity sort of giving his side of the story on this radio show today. Take a listen. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which i wanted his input and perspective. Not one of any issue i ever dealt with Michael Cohen on ever, ever involved a matter between me and any third party. I never gave him a retainer, never received an invoice, never paid any fees. I might have handed him 10 bucks. I definitely want attorneyclient privilege on this. Something like that. Is that the way it works . Of course not. I give you 10 bucks. Give me attorneyclient privilege. He must have asked about a parking ticket he got this. Is ridiculous. If the hannity account of it is accurate, its weird for cohens lawyers to say we have three clients and one is this guy, right . Go back and look at the letter that cohens lawyer gave to the court on friday. And it goes to great lengths, ambitious lengths to protect the nature, the relationship with this particular unnamed client at the clients request. Fast forward to today, not so much. And hannity saying that i was not a party. I never made this request. So someone is not telling the truth here. And thats just the tip of the iceberg. Your point here, which i think is an important takeaway from today is they are not going to get away with some scheme in which they get the documents back. No. Its really unfortunate that what weve done today is sort of muddy the waters. I hope people dont leave this with a misunderstanding of how limited the privilege can really be. But this is really significant. Really significant. I feel pretty clear on that. Nick akerman, lisa green, great help. Thank you both. You have worked as a federal prosecutor. Youve worked in courts. Your response to the president s personal attorney filing a motion to sort of upend Standard Operating Procedure from the department of justice. What i find refreshing about this, chris, is the fact that the rule of law won the day here. The president s lawyer wasnt treated differently than any other lawyer. The same procedures that would be used in any courtroom in the country to decide what is attorneyclient privilege and what is not were applied by this judge, which will probably mean the judge earns the condemnation of the president. But i think it is very encouraging for country to see that no one is above the law, including the president s lawyer or the president himself. The Justice Department was going to dot every i and cross every t before they ever sought any warrant on an attorney, let alone the president s attorney. So you have to think they put a lot of thought, did a lot of scrutiny of this before they went forward. The fact that he has been under investigation apparently for months means this is very serious business, and they wouldnt go to this step lightly. The right ruling by the judge here. Frankly, chris, the deal that you were marveling at that the trump and cohen lawyers wanted where they got to decide what they turned over to the prosecutors is basically the deal they got from our majority in our committee. We wanted to subpoena Michael Cohens travel records. We wanted to get his travel records. Want we wanted to determine did he go to prague . Interestingly the allegations in the steele documents about Michael Cohen were that he was the fixer, brought in to fix the manafort problems, the information was coming out about carter page. He was the fixer brought in. So that is certainly consistent with the kind of work he was doing for the president. But we were never able to pursue it. Basically, cohen was able to decide, ill let you know what i feel like turning over to you. Since you brought up prague, i want to ask you about this mcclatchy reporting that broke friday we brought up on the show. Sources, mueller has evidence cohen was in prague in 2016 kirping part of the dossier. Did that come as news to you . Is that credible to you . Well, you know, it came as news to me what the special counsel has. As i was mentioning, we were never really allowed to pursue this. And it was part of a trend with our committee. The only subpoenas, the majority was really interested in pursuing were subpoenas against our own government, not against witnesses that were trying to be recalcitrant or stonewall us. So they subpoenaed the Justice Department. They subpoenaed the fbi. They threatened to impeach the fbi director. But can we get a subpoena for Michael Cohens travel records . No. Can we get a subpoena to get steve bannon to answer questions or hope hicks or the president s son . No. So we were not able to get the answers we needed which is why there is so much work left undone. Why we cant figure out whether roger stone was being truthful or whether erik prince was being truthful. That work is still going to have to be done, if not by us, then by the special counsel delicious is a school of thought i hear coming from republicans, allies, the president , that there is something illegitimate, if it ends up being the case, the investigation into russia and the possibility of collusion leads investigators towards other evidence of wrongdoing or crimes committed by people in the president s circumstance oral by the president himself. That stuff somehow doesnt count. Its in some other category. The only thing that matters is this sort of narrow question is did the president collude. What is your response to it . First of all, the scope of the investigation, the chart theyre bob mueller has been given is to do a russia investigation. The relationship between russia and the trump campaign, but also to investigate anything that arises from that. Now, i dont know that you can say that the Stormy Daniels stuff and id have to look back at the origin of it, that seems to arise independently. And it may be part of the reason why that was referred to the Southern District of new york and not pursued by bob mueller. Now it may very well be that when they go through these documents that they do find evidence that is very pertinent to the Mueller Investigation, which case it would be provided to bob mueller. But just because there is a russia investigation doesnt mean the president or his lawyer or anybody else gets a get out of jail free card if it comes to the attention of Law Enforcement that they have violated the law. So i think the Justice Department, i think bob mueller are doing exactly what they should. I think the judge today did exactly what the judge should. And this is evidence of the system working. But of course that system is at risk every time the president threatens to fire people at justice or the special counsel because he doesnt like the way the system works. Finally, congressman, do you have an opinion on sean hannity and the president sharing a lawyer apparently . Well, you know, it is interesting, of course, why this particular lawyer who doesnt have an expertise in real estate. Why would sean hannity of all people seek out legal advice from Michael Cohen . And if you know, the insinuation of sean hannity is i paid him 10 bucks because i wanted to make sure that that conversation couldnt be disclosed unless it was some kind of a shady real estate deal, that doesnt make sense either, if youre just asking about flipping houses or where Good Investments or how do i get the deed for something. Thats not the kind of thing you worry about needing to protect from attorneyclient privilege. All right, congressman adam schiff, thanks for your time tonight. Thank you. Next, senator chris murphy and the president s sudden decision to reverse russia sanctions just one day after they were announced. Senator murphy joins me in two minutes. Because youve made sure this sensor and this machine are integrated. She can talk to him, yes. Atta, boy. Some people assign genders to machines. And you can be sure you wont have any problems. Except for the daily theft of your danish. Not cool at t provides edge to edge intelligence. It can do so much for your business, the list goes on and on. Thats the power of. This shipment will be delivered. So lets promote our spring travel deal on choicehotels. Com like this. Earn one free night when you stay just twice this spring. Allergies. Or, badda book. Badda boom. Book now at choicehotels. Com your digestive system has billions of bacteria, but life can throw them off balance. Try align, the 1 doctor recommended probiotic. With a unique strain that realigns your system. Realign yourself, with align. And with free access to tvs hottest shows from netflix, showtime, starz, hbo and more, youll want to tap out of your regular life and go binge. For you. Go binge. I got this. Thank you. Call back next week. Amy are these timesheets still. Youre not amy. I am now. [snaps] dont miss the greatest week in tv. Show me watchathon. Binge now with on demand or the Xfinity Stream app until april 22nd. You will see that russian sanctions will be coming down. Secretary mnuchin will be announcing those on monday, if he hasnt already. And they will go directly to any sort of companies that were dealing with equipment related to assad and chemical weapons used. Yesterday u. N. Ambassador nikki haley announced new russia sanctions. And then today, after russia complained, President Trump walked them back. Washington post reporting trump was, quote, upset the sanctions were officially being rolled out because he was not yet comfortable executing them. Joining me is chris murphy of connecticut, member of the foreign regulations committee. Chris, this fits with a broader pattern in which the president seems to be at odds with his own administration in terms of russia. What do you make of it . The Foreign Policy of this administration is a slow motion car crash. And every single time that an Administration Official gets trotted out just to be overridden by the president hours or days later, it weakens american credibility across the board. So separate and aside from the specific question of what the heck our policy is visavis russia, we are seeing american influence atrophy because Rex Tillerson and nikki haley are often contradicted by the president within the news cycle. I have no idea what the president s policy towards russia is. On one hand, he has been very slow to sanction russia. He is walking back haleyhaleys commitment with the sanction stands. Sending lethal arms to the ukrainians in the middle of that fight. The sanctions he finally did announce a week and a half ago related in a 10 diminution of the russian stock market. It just seems to be a policy thats made up on the fly on a daytoday basis. And ultimately, that makes no sense to the rest of our allies who are trying to be in this with us together. Is there a risk there . It seems to me that its fair to characterize the Trump Administration as both being more solicitous and easier on russia and putin, and also more aggressive at the same time. Yeah. Listen, and i think you have to be fair that this policy has been somewhat schizophrenic there have been aggressive steps taken and then there have been moments in which russia has gotten much of what it wanted. But this the broader sense, lets be clear that russia is the winner in this relationship over the last year and a half because lets set aside these specific policies regarding sanctions. By americas withdrawal from the middle east, russia has inserted itself in a way that has empowered it in a region they have long been asking for power. The assault on the state department, which is the primary means by which we push back against russias asymmetric methods of warfare in and around its perspectivery has been a gift to russia. So whether or not were going to do the next round of sanctions, russia is getting a gift by americas general withdrawal from a place it cares about. Do you think the president is compromised in some way . There is certainly a possibility of that. I mean, its hard to understand why he has been unwilling to take steps that both republicans and democrats in congress have wanted him to take. And the message that he has sent overall to the russians is that they are by and large free to manipulate the 2018 elections in the way they did in 2016. And i think we are all trying to figure out what the reason is for this very bizarre positioning that weve watched on russia. President ordered strikes on three sites in syria controlled by the the assad regime, alleged to be involved in the production or storage of chemical weapons. He said this via twitter. A perfectly executed strike. Thank you for france for and the United Kingdom for the power of their fine military. Mission ash accomplished. What was your mission . If the mission was to look tough and dominate a news cycle, you did that but if the mission was to bring the civil war to an end to save the people of syria, then there is no way the mission is accomplished. Evidence suggests that these surgical missile strikes end up just quickening the pace of assads assault on his own people. Thats what happened after last years strike, and the politics of escalation in which american actions get met with equal or greater reactions from the iranians and the syrians and the russians is ultimately awful news for the people of that country. So that mission is certainly not accomplished. I would just interject that there is some reporting indicating there has been further strikes just in the last hour perhaps carried out by the israelis. Thats all sort of unconfirmed. Thats floating around right now. But thats in the background. I just want to be clear. Do you oppose the strikes . Yeah, i did oppose the strikes. Substantively . Not legal . Both substantively and legal grounds. I understand that it makes us feel good to hit assad, and he deserves everything that he gets. But ultimately if our desire is to bring this civil war to an end, we are going to have to live with some very unsavory terms. That will likely mean that assad or some successor to assad stays in power. And every time we continue this policy, which has been the obama policy and the trump policy of providing just enough pushback against assad to keep the civil war going, but never enough pushback to actually dislodge him from power. All were doing is postponing the misery of the Syrian People without actually having any policy that will mean that assad is removed from power. And so i argue for a reorientation of our policy here that seeks a diplomatic end that may end up with assad or his allies staying in power for a period of time, but ends the carnage. Finally today announce today youre a no on pompeo for secretary of state. Quickly, why . Pompeo may end up being a better than Rex Tillerson, but thats a pretty low bar. What im worried about is there is going to be no one walking into the president s office that is going to recommend Diplomatic Solutions to big complicated problems in the world. Bolton is going to advocate for a military response. Traditionally, the department of defense comes in with military options. Now pompeo, who has a reputation of thinking about military options before Diplomatic Options will just add fuel to that fire. And so i see both sides of the ledge were pompeo. I actually think he will restore some morale to the department. Ultimately im worried about the advice he will give side by side with the advice the president is going to get from his new National Security adviser. All right. Chris murphy, thank you for being with me tonight. Thank you. Up next, over 500 former staffers say the attacks on Robert Mueller are so concerning, Congress Needs to act. The efforts to protect mueller after this. I thought i was managing my moderate to severe Crohns Disease. 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With exciting new dishes like lobdueling lobster tails. R. And lobster truffle mac cheese. Classics like lobster lovers dream are here too. So enjoy these 10 lobsterlicious dishes now. Because lobsterfest ends april 22nd. Play [music plays]his. When everythings connected, its simple. Easy. Awesome. Can you assure the American People that Rod Rosenstein and the special counsel are safe, that the president will not move on them until the work is completed . So the president and his team have complied with everything that theyve been asked to do. Not the question. Is there a chance no, no. You want to say kellyanne struggles to answer the question. You are struggling to answer the question. Do you think there is a chance that the president will remove Rod Rosenstein and or bob mueller . The president has done everything that he and his team have been asked to do to comply with this investigation, and you know it. Why arent you answering this question . President ial counselor Kellyanne Conway refusing to answer whether the president will fire and then commenting on her refusal. Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and special counsel mueller. Legislation to protect mueller faces a tough battle in the senate. If the president does fire mueller, it will be aa direct attack on the bastions of democracy. Ian bassin of protect democracy. You came out with hundreds of people signing to protect mueller. Who are the people and what are they saying . These are hundreds of officials who served in our department of justice from every administration between kennedy and trump. They come from 43 states. They served under democrats and republicans, if you total it up, they served the public for more than 5,320 years. These are people who are saying this is not a partisan issue. This is about the rule of law and the found decision of our republic. We are at a rubicon moment, and they are telling the president we are a nation of laws and not of men. And firing mueller or rosenstein would be a very dangerous moment for the found decision of our country. Do you view them as equivalent in terms of danger . Is firing either the same thing . I think i do for this reason. None of us as americans gets to decide our own prosecutors or prosecutors or what we did is right or wrong. Neither does the president. We only give power to elected officials in this country under certain constraints. And what the president would be doing by removing either of them is saying those constraints dont apply to me. And thats completely inconsistent with american government. The other side of, that though, and this is the argument that some make. Alan dershowitz is one of them prominently is that none of us get to decide who the deputy general is. There is Something Special about the president. He runs the federal government. And one of the things he does is he nominates and appoints people and he also fires them. They serve sort after at his pleasure. Within certain limits. This is what is really being missed in this entire debate. People are talking the president has the power to appoint and remove certain officials. Yes. Except for one restriction. He took a oath and the constitution requires him to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Removing an official for a corrupt purpose such as blocking an investigation into ones self is not a faithful execution of the law. This is fundamentally not just potentially evidence of obstruction, but its a violation of the constitution of the president s oath. Paul ryan has been very circumspect about taking any actions. There has been some movement in the senate. Thom tillis of North Carolina talking about getting behind some bill to protect mueller. In the house you basically hearing in. Here is paul ryan talking to chuck todd this weekend. Take a listen. Do you believe that if the Senate Passes this bill to protect mueller, protect the firing, youll bring it up in the house . I dont think its necessary. I dont think he is going to be a fired. Insurance isnt necessary, but you buy it. This is an insurance policy. First of all, i dont think he should be fired. I think he should be left to do his job circumstances that enough . Chuck todds point, you could take a step further, right . This is like saying im not going to get, in for my haas because i dont think its going to get robbed but in this case the robber has told you he is trying to rob your house. He told his associates to case it. He even tweeted hey, im looking at your house. He is playing outside with a boom box with a song im going rob you. If wouldnt just get insurance, you would get heavyduty security. It is absolutely remiss of any member of congress as Mitch Mcconnell and paul ryan have no, there is nothing going on here. Theyre looking at a different reality than the rest of us. Ian bassin from protect democracy thanks for making time. The take away from the first day of james comeys book tour have. You heard of that guy . Plus, tonights thing 1, thing 2 starts next. Ggests. Were an organic tea company. A premium juice company. A Coconut Water company. Weve got drinks for long days. For birthdays. For turning over new leaves. And we make them for every moment in every corner of the country. We are the cocacola company, and were proud to offer so much more. Discover card. I justis this for real . Match, yep. We match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. Whoo i got my money hard to contain yourself, isnt it . Uh huh let it go whoo get a dollarfordollar match at the end of your first year. Only from discover. No matter how much you clean, does your house still smell stuffy . 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But the Trump White House has become somewhat notorious for its frequent and careless errors. For instance, the slew of typos like the president s official schedule listing his travel on air force once. A snapshot story about the secretary of education that managed to somehow misspell the word education. Or ahead of trumps first meeting with british Prime Minister theresa may, misspelling her name three time which matched the spelling of a former british porn actress. To be fair, those mistakes were relatively harmless. But even on the most crucial matters, issues of war and peace and life and death, they have little regard for the veracity or accuracy of just about anything they put out. Last week the president was considering taking military action in syria. A white house Statement Released reading we are continuing to asses intelligence. His press secretary Sarah Huckabee sanders tweeted, quote, last night the president put our adversaries on notice when he draws a red line, he enforces it, along with a photo of trump and senior staff in the situation room there is just one problem. See Vice President mike pence there sitting right next to trumps right . Pence was over 3,000 miles away from the situation room on friday when trump ordered the strikes on syria. And thats thing 2 in 60 seconds. Your brain changes as you get older. But prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. The name to remember. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee sanders sent out this tweet on saturday. Last night the president put our adversaries on notice. When he draws a red line, he enforces it, along with a photo captioned inside the situation room as the president is briefed on syria. In that photo, President Trump is surrounded by senior members of his staff, including san sanders herself on the far left, and Vice President mike pence to trumps right. That, however, doesnt quite add up because Vice President pence was in peru on friday when trump issued the order to strike syria. This couldnt possibly be a picture of trump ordering Decisive Action against which was roundly mocked until a clarification the next day, the photo was taken thursday in the situation room during syria briefing. But there will still be pain. It comes when your Insurance Company says theyll only pay threequarters of what it takes to replace it. What are you supposed to do . Drive threequarters of a car . Now if you had Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, youd get your whole car back. I guess they dont want you driving around on three wheels. Smart. With Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, well replace the full value of your car. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. 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Now the epa in its defense argued the super secret soundproof booth was, quote, analoa analogous to other items an employee might require to perform his job. The Government Accountability office did not buy it. A secure area for communication known as a skiff already exists on another floor at the epa. All this comes amid a seemingly endless stream including his first class travt, his security detail which is quite expensive to boot, his 50 a night sweetheart deal to stay in a lobbyists condo, his big pay raises to certain staffers going around the white house, which he denied which appeared to have originate nated with him and his attempt to have an epa souvenir coin redesigned to slap his own name on it. Today the gao report concluded the epa must officially report its own law breaking to congress with regard to the phone booth. As for everything else, were left to wonder when scott pruitt will finally be fired. Do you tho surprise your daughter . Absolutely. Wait, is mom here yet . 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Com i dont buy the stuff about him being mentally incompetent, early stages of dementia. He strikes me as a person of above average intelligence whos tracking conversations and knows whats going on. I dont think hes medically unfit to be president. I think hes morally unfit to be president. Nearly 10 Million People watched that interview with fired fbi director james comey last night. It seems the president was one of them, not surprisingly, rage tweeting this morning at comey claiming comey committed many crimes. Here to help me process all of this, msnbc contributor, New York Times investigative journalist nick confessoconfess. Jennifer rubin. And jason johnson, msnbc political analyst and the politics editor of the root. Jason, let me start with you. What was your takeaway from the interview last night . I thought that if look, comey could either be right or he can be liked. I didnt find him to be particularly likeable, but he seemed to really make the case of the corruption thats going on in this administration. I think he was still inconsistent about why he made some of the decisions that he made. And i think i mean, this guy threw more shade than lenscrafters. Every other comment he made about donald trump, about his tie, about his hair, about hes got above average intelligence and can track a conversation like hes a chihuahua or Something Else like that. I dont think he came off personally particularly charismatic. But the facts he laid out are the facts. And this administration seems like theyve been obstructing justice. What did you think, jennifer . I think two things. One, you can be honest and also have horrible judgment. And i think both things are true of mr. Comey. I think he honestly related what happened with the president. If i were the special prosecutor, i would not be pleased with a witness who is so obviously shall we say biased against the president. I share that bias with mr. Comey but he wouldnt want me as i awitness either. So thats not good if youre trying to make a case this is a guy by the book. But with regard to Hillary Clinton, again and again this guy showed such a lack of selfawareness, such ego, that he was going to race in and save the day, he was going to run over the normal protections that you have, like you dont explain why youre not prosecuting someone, like you dont step into a election cycle 11 days before, because he was going to save the day. He was going to protect the fbi and himself, by the way. And you just have to go back and look and say guy, you know, you really should have been a little bit more humble, a little bit more selfaware. And the rules, one of the things i find interesting here, nick, this back and forth between Loretta Lynch where hes got this kind of stuff in the book and the interview about doubting her, how neutral she was, her integrity, one foot in, one foot out. And she put out a long statement in response. I thought this part was very interesting. She said, at critical early stages of this case followed the departments longstanding policy of neither confirming nor denying the fact of an ongoing investigation. The policy both predates my tenure in the department and will live on long after the current debate is over. It neither misleads nor misinforms. Instead both protects investigations and guarantees equal treatment of those under scrutiny whether well known or unknown. Any suggestion i invoked this bedrock policy for any other reason is simply false. Listen, im not sure that either comey or lynch comes out great in this scenario. It seems pretty clear that lynch was putting some pressure on him to take some pressure off Hillary Clinton, that she was interceding. Im not sure i think it seems pretty clear thats the case. It is to me. I think he interpreted that as being the case. Go ahead. All right. But look, this whole rollout shows a side of comey, comey is a politician. He hates that idea. And im not saying that to criticize him. But he is a politician. The institution he happens to lead or led was the fbi. But he acts as a politician. And so what happened, this is the great irony of comey, right . He did all these things he said to keep the bureau away from politics. But at every point his decision dragged the bureau into politics. Yep. Right from the decision. And i think the real questionable one really on its own merits from his description was to announce the reopening of the email investigation, which was then over in a matter of days. There is no compelling argument with his experience he should have known that they could easily have figured that out in a few days. Exactly. But instead he jumped the gun. And he still defends it. I think, jason, my thing about comey, and obviously theres a lot of reason that he has had a very storied career and incredibly impressive guy, very smart, very accomplished, i know a lot of people that worked with him in both the bush and Obama Administration that think very highly of him. Theres a bit of i a roommate problem with him where if your buddy has a bad roommate and hes complaining about that thats fine. But if your buddy has a succession of six bad roommates in a row you start to think maybe youre the bad roommate. And theres lal bit of james comey is always the last honest man surrounded by all these people who arent as virtuous as he is. Isnt it funny the selfrighteousness of i dont understand why everyone else doesnt have my ridiculous level of boy scout ethics. But heres whats interesting. In the process you managed to ignore what your boss said i mean, Loretta Lynch, regardless of what her personal biases may be, shes absolutely correct in saying we dont talk about any of this, james, we dont talk about any of this. Thats the most ethical and responsible way to go forward. He ignored his boss. He endangered basically the presidency of the United States by involving the fbi. He damaged the fbis reputation all because he claims he didnt know any better but he was supposedly sick to his stomach. All of that is extremely problematic and these problems always go back to him. If we had a more ethical president these would be legitimate reasons to fire the guy. This sort of segues, skrefrn, to the way he talks about the president. And i thought there was nothing i think substantively new in the interview last night because a lot of it had been previewed, but what i did think was interesting was his characterization of trump as canny and as wily and attempting to suborn him at every turn in ways that werent haphazard but quite intentional. That picture to me at least quite convincing. What did you think . I did. I think trump has an intelligence not that you and i might recognize as book intelligence, but a way of persuading and manipulating people. And i think thats what comey saw. It was pretty obvious, actually. He didnt try to straighten himself or try to conceal it at all. Makes a lot of references to the mafia references. So i think trump is like a bulldog. He knows what he wants, and hes just going to roll over anyone and anything. Of course any norms or rules. To get what he wants. And i think that was right. Comey was viewing. And by the way, on the subject of politics what is this guy doing prognosticating the election . He said i knew hillary was going to win. Thats exactly why you dont have people making decision thats could affect an election 11 days before. And i also thought his impeachment answer was almost a parody of some kind of version of centuries m where he says the guys unfit to be president , possibly obstructed justice, i cant definitively say hes not compromised with the russians but impeachment would be too easy an out for the American People who need to stand and vote again. Look, comey has an opinion on so many things about the president. So many things from the size of his hands and to his height, and yet on this one thing it maybe a legitimate view on his point. Theres a certain argument you could make the country needs like a bloodletting or something to get rid of this. But look, he chose his shots very carefully. It was all very deliberate. And i think what he was saying about the president was that the president has an instinct for leverage and influence. And so keep that nineday as you watch this play out. And that to me is important because i think sometimes Hillary Clinton was sitting right in that chair when i interviewed her for almost an entire show, for an entire show. The First Exchange we had was on this. You know, that which school are you in, the kind of like dottering accidental doofus or the very canny and wily operator . And she is wholly in the latter. And comey is. And i think a lot of the people that have had the experience of being on the underneath the truck that he is driving come away feeling that. And that was interesting to me. About that interview last night. Nick confessore, Jennifer Rubin and jason johnson, thank you all for being here. I would be remiss, of course, not to mention that james comey is sitting down with our own Rachel Maddow this thursday night in what im certain will be a phenomenal interview which i am going to be watching and you should too. That is all in for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Good evening, rachel. Youre getting me all stressed out. Dont be stressed. You got it. Its going to be awesome. Have you ever known me in all the time weve worked together, have you ever known me to not be stressed out . I have not known you to not be stressed out, particularly about big interviews, which you tend to really throw your back into. Thanks, my friend. Good luck. Yeah, cheers. Thats a great way to start. Ive been stressing about that interview already. Anyway, happy monday. Thanks for joining us this monday. Happy to have you here. I will say this is going to be sort of an interesting show tonight. There are a number of things that happened in Important National news today that frankly im not quite sure how to talk about them. But were going to do it. This is a weird time in the news. Ther