Transcripts For MSNBCW All In With Chris Hayes 20190507

I will not let you down. And is john bolton about to take america to war . All options are on the table. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. While Michael Cohen was reported to prison today to begin serving his threeyear sentence, his coconspirator, the man behind cohens criminal hush money scheme, according to prosecutors, was still at large, comfortably ensconced in the white house. This morning cohen turned himself in to a federal prison 70 miles north of new york city to serve his sentence for a number of crimes, including the ones he committed together with the president of the United States. The president identified over and over again as individual one in Court Documents was effectively cohens unindicted coconspirator. They conspired together to cover up damaging information that could have jeopardized Donald Trumps campaign for president. And heres the thing. It worked. The public never learned that information before casting their ballots, and so now because in part the conspiracy succeeded, because the president eked out an Electoral College win by just over 100,000 votes in three states, the president has a legal and constitutional force field protecting him from prosecution. You cant indict a sitting president. The only way to pierce that force field is with the 2 3 vote in the senate to remove the president from office. And with our polarized politics its hard to imagine anything clearing that threshold. Senate republicans seem willing to give the president a pass on just about everything. They say i have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that . Where i could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot somebody and i wouldnt lose any voters, okay . Its like incredible. The hush money scheme is just one of two separate distinct criminal conspiracies that we know of that helped elect this president. The other one, which was carried out by russia, was the subject of volume i of special counsel Robert Muellers report. Volume ii detailed the president s own efforts to impede or shut down muellers investigation of the lexicon conspiracy. The special counsel emphasizing that from the beginning he determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgement that the president committed crimes. According to hundreds of former federal prosecutors, that is exactly the judgement mueller would have reached if, again, he had been investigating anyone other than the guy who is the president. More than 500 former prosecutors, including career employees and political appointees from both parties, signed a statement asserting the president would have been charged with obstruction of justice if he were not the president. Once again, donald trump shielded from prosecution by the office he occupies. Of course the man who cleared the president of obstruction, attorney general william barr, argued a president effectively cant obstruct justice. He can do whatever he wants within the scope of his awesome constitutional powers. In the situation of the president , who has Constitutional Authority to supervise proceedings, if in in fact a proceeding was not wellfounded, if it was a groundless proceeding, if it was based on false allegations, the president does not have to sit there constitutionally and allow it to run its course. The president could terminate that proceeding and it would not be a corrupt intent because he was being falsely accused. We are right now in the process of creating an extremely dangerous precedent, that the president is functionally above the law. If thats the case, that the presidency itself is what is protecting him from legal accountability from prosecution. Well, then this president and every president hereafter has every incentive to try to keep shutting down investigations and do whatever it takes to win reelection and stay in office. Ian was the associate white House Counsel of president obama. Now hes the executive director of protect democracy, spearheaded the statement by former prosecutors the president would have been charged with obstruction. Paul butler is a former federal prosecutor and one of more than 500 who signed that statement. Ian, let me start with you. How did this letter come out . We had several hundred prosecutors reach out to us. Protect democracy was founded by former white house attorneys, doj attorneys, saying they felt in their judgement they would have indicted here and their colleagues would have as well. Invited us and asked us if we could help spread the word to other prosecutors. We did that. The response was overwhelming. The message of this letter is basically if you or i or any of the viewers at home engaged in the conduct detailed in the Mueller Report, we would have almost certainly been indicted. In our system of government just because youre the president you dont get treated any differently. Why did you sign the letter, paul . I became a prosecutor because i wanted to uphold equal justice under the law. My specialty was public corruption and the ethos of the department at that time was that no person is above the law. And when you look at the details in the Mueller Report, it is not a close case whether the president committed obstruction. There was voluminous evidence. Weve all prosecuted many people for crimes like this, and what we say in the letter is that we could get a conviction, we could sustain a conviction and, again, the only reason that President Trump is not under indictment now is because hes the president. What do you say to people who say this is kind of posthoc rationalizing to look at a set of facts and say, oh, yeah, we would have indicted him. You know whats interesting, just how nonpartisan this is. That includes a former federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan to be a u. S. Attorney general and george h. W. Bush to be a judge. These are people from both parties, career civil servants, but the other aspect of it, maybe this is a hopeful thing, after the 2016 election, there was some research that showed one of the factors that motivated a cohort to support trump in their minds if they had done the things Hillary Clinton was accused of doing, they would have been prosecuted. And they felt if hillary, you know, is not being prosecuted and they would have been, thats fundamentally unfair. Well, now its the exact same situation in reverse. One question is i think, i hope, we will see maybe both trump voters and hillary voters come to an agreement on this fundamental agreement on the principle of law. If its illegal for me, its illegal for you, its illegal for the president. What the Mueller Report points out, the Mueller Report is 400 pages. Every word is purposeful. So there is a section that says the president can be indicted after he leaves office and mueller adds one reason for all of these hundreds of pages is i want to preserve evidence i want to collect evidence. Well, while memories are still fresh. In 2020, 2024 when trump leaves office, there could be an indictment. Im not sure that the alternative is better. I can think of ways that indicting a sitting president could be abused, people that have a political ax to grind and decide they can take this down. I understand the constitutional provision that would put this in the hands fundamentally of a democratic choice, but the situation we have now we seem to have created a force field around the guy. He today is watching Michael Cohen report to prison for a thing they did together. Thats not even contested they did it together. Thats admitted to in the court filings. Michael cohen admits it. It is a felony. Hes going to do some time for it. The president sits there watching this footage. You know hes watching. Return address to 1600 pennsylvania. One piece of bad news do him, right, its important to remember that its not that the president cannot legally be indicted, its just that there is a piece of people issued by government lawyers in the office of Legal Counsel holding that as a nonbinding opinion. Word to President Trump, thats not a great defense. Lets just assume thats true. What mueller says in the introduction of volume ii of the report is he basically implies that im kicking this over to congress. Right. Because he says at one point one of the reasons that hes choosing not to indict is because he doesnt want to interfere in other possible political avenues, and i think now it goes to your point of now its up to be the people. Now weve got more than 500 former prosecutors who have signed at dojalumniletter. Com. If youre a former federal prosecutor, you can still sign on now because its up to us to build the pressure on congress to act and create accountability. There is a deeper issue here. The fundamental, we say this in a hairy sense, no one is above the law. In a real sense, is the law actually a binding constraint on people or just the way we dress up power relations in the society . This is basically is. This is where the rubber hits the road on that question. This is where we rely on some basic integrity with the people who lead our government. There was a scary moment in that hearing last week when senator harris asked him, has the president directed you yep. To prosecute anyone. He refused to answer that question. I want to talk a little bit more about sdny in just a moment, but i guess the next question here is do you view this in terms of the legal sense you just mentioned congress. This is a congress question and a democratic question. It is on congress, but its on everyone who took the oath that the president took. Right. And every federal employee takes this oath, right, to uphold the constitution. And i think this oath is actually the core that shoots through everything because the president took a special oath. He took an oath to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. At the very end of volume ii where mueller responds to bill barr who has made the argument as you just showed on television that while the president would be totally within his rights toe shut down an investigation, mueller rejects that and he says, nope, the founders gave the president under article ii the power to execute the law faithfully. If he acts in bad faith to, for example, protect himself, hes violating his oath. Congress needs to look into that. Mueller looked at criminal activity. Congress is looking at whether he violated his oath, different standard. To take care of the laws faithfully executed. It seems obviously overwhelming to me. It is a slam dunk. Thank you both. For more on the legal and constitutional stakes of the president s functional immunity. Im joined by benjamin wittes, and carol lam, former u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of california and former superior court judge in san diego. Carol, let me start with you as someone who ran an attorneys office. This item brought to the surface in the last few days. One item is we know from reporting that the president talked to Matt Whitaker when he was sort of the custodian head of doj basically about the sdny case that has resulted in Michael Cohens prison time. The House Judiciary Committee believes it has evidence that President Trump asked whitaker whether manhattan u. S. Attorney could gain control of his offices investigation and his real estate business, essentially can we get this back under control of people that i trust, and then this item that earlier this year new york federal prosecutors had notified the trump org they wanted to interview additional executives but have yet to follow up on that request, according to people familiar with the matter. Do you have trust that that part of the department of justice is being preserved and protected from political influence . Well, that is one of the most concerning things, frankly, about the way things have rolled out here. As we know, there were 12 investigations that were referred by the special Prosecutors Office that we dont know about yet in terms of what the subject matter is. And those prosecutions and investigations all roll up to the attorney general. Hes not recused from any of them. And so we dont know what kind of dialogue is going on in the Justice Department about what should be pursued, what theories should be pursued, what people should be pursued, and, frankly, i think at this point people would be justified in having concern that certain aspects of certain cases might be shut down. I really have no reason to believe that at this point things are going to take their normal course as they would, as they certainly would have i think when i was u. S. Attorney. Ben, what carol just said is something ive heard echoed by a bunch of people who are sort of longtime doj institutionalists, chuck rosenberg, two or three weeks ago or even four, five, six weeks ago say we dont really think that the place is being operated in bad faith who now are just really concerned that it is. Well, yeah, so, you know, count me as one of them. I wrote a piece suggesting that we should all give bill barr the benefit of the doubt on the matters of the redactions of the Mueller Report. Only to find that he had, you know, quite dramatically mischaracterized whats actually in that document, both in his letter and in the press conference the very day he released the document. So i think there is reason to be concerned about the integrity of the Justice Departments senior leadership. I do think i have a certain amount of confidence, and its weird to say confidence in leaks, but i i do have a certain amount of confidence that if the Southern District of new york were not able to conduct the investigation that it means it conduct and wants to conduct and thinks it is ethically required and legally required to conduct that the people in that office would sort of find a way to make that clear. And so i i am not alarmed yet that that investigation yeah. Is being substantially interfered with, but i do think we have to be vigilant on the point. You know, carol, it strikes me as worth taking a step back to consider the fact that today is a day that the president s longtime associate, lawyer, bagman, fixer, is going to federal prison in part for a crime he committed with the president , according to this individual. Well, he did he did implicate the president , but, again, he pled guilty and people who want to support the president can say, well, you know, you can say anything when you plead guilty. Right. Because youre pleading guilty, right . He didnt go to trial. There was no verdict from a jury. But, yeah, i mean, the point was made earlier that there is a little bit of a protective dome around the president once he is elected president. No person is above the law theoretically, thats true, but a lot of things are different when youre talking about the president as a potential criminal defendant. You know, you have to consider the fact that even if the olc memo didnt exist, if you actually indicted the president , what if you lose that case . I mean, you know, you dont want to have right. You dont have to have too you dont want to have too many situations where things shake up. When you have people who have different views of the law, those different views can coexist as long as everyones operating within certain norms, certain precedents, everybody understands where things are going. I think whats happened here is that the president has danger things to such an extreme that it has forced everybody to go to an extreme in terms of their positions. Bill barr was a perfectly fine attorney general back in the early 90s but now his views, hes had to push some very extreme views. And the problem is there is no precedent for a lot of things that are happening today. And everybodys having a little bit of trouble yeah. Finding the guardrails to stay within. Thats well said. Ben, you were nodding your head. Indeed. I think that the, you know, we have a set of understandings that of the parameters of debate. You know . And theyre pretty broad. I mean, people believe very Different Things about the law, but the nature of the law is that it does discipline those conversations, and then you have somebody like trump come around and, you know, just operate wholly outside of the parameters of the normal discussion and that forces everybody to make right. A decision, are you defending the general parameters in which we have this discussion or are you willing to tear the whole thing up on behalf of donald trump . Ben wittes and carol lam, great to have you both tonight. Next, breaking news tonight in the fight to release the president s tax returns. As Steve Mnuchin rejects the quest from House Democrats to turn them over, well talk about that and the president s attorney general scrambling to avoid being held in contempt in two minutes. Grease on contact. It works great on bathtubs. And even stainless steel. Try new clean freak from mr. Clean. We have breaking news this evening as treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin missed todays deadline to turn over the president s tax returns, telling congress, in reliance on the advice of the department of justice , that would be William Barrs department of justice. I have determined the committees request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose. This comes as the attorney general are scrambling who has refused to testify before the House Judiciary Committee and blown off the committees formal subpoena for the unredacted Mueller Report. The Judiciary Committee is now planning a contempt vote for wednesday. Now tonight Committee Chairman jerry nadler has announced the doj has proposed a meeting with his staff tomorrow to begin to negotiate an acceptable accomodation. But there is still another possible shoe to drop if House Democrats subpoena barrs testimony. Meanwhile, the president has done a 180 on whether Robert Mueller should testify. It looks like the department of justice may move to actually block mueller from appearing before congress. Joining me now, a member of the committee chasing after the man who guards the Mueller Report, congressman ted liu, democrat from california, member of that House Judiciary Committee. Lets start first with the business before your committee. It is notable to me that the department of justice and the attorney general appear to want to avoid this contempt citation. How do you read their behavior. Thank you, chris, for your question. Im not going to really look at what the department of justice wants to do. I want to know if bill barr is going to provide the unredacted materials and the underlying evidence, which 420 members of congress on a bipartisan basis voted to get, and also bill barr is going to show up in committee hearing. Right now this is all a bunch of talk from the department of justice. And my view is if the Trump Administration is going to engage in maximum obstruction of justice then we have to be prepared to engage in a maximum response and that includes contempt. What about the question before congress right now about the tax returns . Obviously thats on a Different Committee than yours but, again, you are a member of this of congress, which is having its nose thumbed at. I want to read the ways and means chair representative neal who said secretary mnuchin notified me the irs will not provide the documents i requested. I will consult with counsel and determine the appropriate response. What do you make of this refusal . So there are two different legal theories happening. Bill barr violated a congressional subpoena last wednesday. Secretary mnuchin is violating an actual statute that says you got to provide the tax returns to the house ways and means chair. It is black and white. Plain letter law. So i dont see how Steve Mnuchin gets out of this. If he doesnt provide it then i think were going to go to court and we will prevail in the court case. Is that where you understand the ultimate arbiter of this power struggle . Right now youve got a whole bunch of stuff happening. Whether the Mueller Report will be provided unredacted. Whether a subpoena will be issued to barr. If he will appear if so. On the tax returns, do you trust that the courts will ultimately be the ones to ultimately resolve these disputes . I do trust the courts because they actually have to rely on facts. So if you look at the statute in the tax case, it is very clear the house ways and means chair gets to get the tax returns of the president. If you look at congressional subpoenas, courts throughout our history have upheld the power of congressional subpoenas. In watergate they upheld the power of congressional subpoenas. I believe they will do so again. Lets say the courts dont do that. Congress itself has inherent contempt power that the Supreme Court itself has held and congress can take action without having to go to the Supreme Court. What does contempt of Congress Actually mean . If the Judiciary Committee in the house votes to hold bill barr in contempt, it triggers two things. One, it allows us to litigate the issue in court. Second, it triggers inherent contempt power, which means we can take action through our internal congressional processes, such as levying fines on individuals without having to go to court. The Supreme Court said we have that power. Look, it should not be our first option, but the Trump Administration is going to engage in all of this norm and rule and law violating, we have to look at all options. What is your understanding of the status im confused about special counsel mueller. The department of justice, some noise being made they may block him from testifying. He is still an employee of that department and he can do that. Why is he still there under doj and how can you get him before your committee if the doj blocks it . So, the Trump Administration has made some arguments that Senior Advisers to the president should not have to testify before congress. There is no Legal Defense for the department of justice to hold Robert Mueller from testifying. Not only is he not a Senior Adviser of donald trump, he was the guy investigating donald trump, and so case precedent and what weve seen in our history is that in watergate, the special prosecutor leon jaworski, testified before congress. During the clinton administration, ken starr testified before congress. There is really no legal reason to keep Robert Mueller from testifying before congress. Ultimately then is that something you would also have to pursue in the courts . Potentially if it resorts to us having to issue a subpoena. Its not clear to me you have a good question why Robert Mueller is still an employee of the department of justice. At some point i believe hes not going to be an employee. Right. Because he finished his report and then we can get him in as a private citizen. Even now i dont see any legal basis to keep him from testifying before congress. Congressman ted lieu who sets on that Judiciary Committee. Thank you very much. Thank you, chris. Ahead, is Donald Trumps National Security adviser about to take america to war . New alarms about what john bolton is up to next. Thats harder now because of Psoriatic Arthritis. But youre still moved by moments like this. Dont let Psoriatic Arthritis take them away. Taltz reduces joint pain and stiffness and helps stop the progression of joint damage. For people with moderate to severe psoriasis, 90 saw significant improvement. Taltz even gives you a chance at completely clear skin. Dont use if youre allergic to taltz. Before starting, you should be checked for tuberculosis. Taltz may increase risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, symptoms, or received a vaccine or plan to. Inflammatory bowel disease can happen with taltz, including worsening of symptoms. Serious allergic reactions can occur. For all the things that move you. Ask your doctor about taltz. Over the weekend in a typically bellicose statement, the always bellicose infamously john bolton said that the United States is deploying the uss Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike group and a Bomber Task Force to the Persian Gulf Region to send a clear and unmistakable message. Heres the thing. According to the Associated Press this was not a big policy change. The order to the Carrier Group would get the Abraham Lincoln in the middle east about two weeks earlier than earlier planned. In other words, it was already headed there. But bolton along with secretary of state mike pompeo and others in the administration has been making lots of noise about the possible use of the American Military force just about wherever they can manage to get away with it. Saber rattling over venezuela and now iran and lord knows where else. In a new profile of bolton in the new yorker, during the past two decades, bolton has established himself as the republican partys most militant Foreign Policy thinker who ridicules anyone who disagrees. So is the Trump Administration going to follow bolton into a disaster . Here with me now is the writer of john bolton on the warpath. It was a great piece. Thank you for coming. What do you make of whats happened in the iran theater in the last day or two . Well, i think the important thing to say is we dont know because we havent seen the evidence. All we have are statements from the white house basically. So what the white house says is that the iranians theyve seen indication that the iranians are engaged in escalatory behavior. Theyve indicated there are preparations to possibly attack americans or american interests in the region. Honestly we dont know because we dont know what they have. So they deployed, you know, theyre clearly trying to send a message to the iranian regime. I have to say, the message sending i want to play mike pompeo basically making that point over the weekend and then get a reaction to it. Take a listen. We have continued to see activity that leads us to believe that there is escalation that may be taking place, and so were taking all the appropriate actions both from a security perspective as well as our ability to make sure that the president has a wide range of options in the event that something should actually take place. Okay. So that was today. Youre being very diplomatic. Youre a straight reporter. Thats fine. Forgive me if im slightly jaundiced and skeptical that they are being honest about what the actual intelligence says, given the preexisting desire to confront iran and get out of the deal from day one. Well, youre right about that. Theyre very up front about this. Theyve said we our goal is not regime change. Weve tried that. It doesnt work so well. But we are trying to collapse the iranian economy. If we do that and the iranian people want to take action against against their government, thats fine with us. And so i think this is if you look in the larger context, this is they have the white house strategy against iran is very aggressive. Its also the other thing i cant help but note is the timing here, right . This is part of what i find worrisome. Youve got two spheres in which bolton has been very active and pompeo very bellicose, iran and venezuela. It almost seems like they kind of alternate between the two. So a few days ago it was the u. S. Clearly coordinating with the Opposition Leader to have this call to arms to have the military shift its loyalties, and basically nothing happened. Nothing happened. I think pompeo said Something Interesting about iran, which is weve been working on this for awhile. And i dont know what that thats a very curious statement. I dont know what it means, but it suggests that this is something theyve been thinking about. And so that makes me wonder, okay, then what was it that happened yesterday or did it happen a month ago . Youre saying with iran . Yeah, about iran. So if we take them at their word, theyve been kind of working on this for awhile. Right. My point is it seems to me the timing of the announcement is right after the venezuela right after it collapsed. Exactly. There was all this, you know, they very clearly have applied maximal pressure to venezuela. Shanahan studying the acting head of d. O. D. A meeting at the pentagon. Studying possible military options. And you know, thats, you know, they keep talking very loosely about the possibility of american troops there. Well, they keep all options are on the table. Right. He made that very clear. Yeah, the venezuela clearly it was a misfire. Clearly it was a misjudgement. They thought the army was going to rise up. Nothing happened. So thats off the screen now. Right. Exactly. Now were talking about iran. What do you think how much sway does bolton have . I mean, one of the things that happens in this administration often is the thing that the president s least engaged with gives the most amount of space yes. For determined and knowledgeable staffers or principals to pursue. Definitely. This seems like the perfect example of that. It does. I think the question you just asked is the most important one, and i think there is a there is it seems to me a fundamental divide in the white house. You have bolton, whose reputation as you say, hes the most aggressive hawk in the republican party. Hes been that way for years. I dont im not sure trump really has bought into that. I dont i dont get the impression trump wants a war. He doesnt want to be blamed for american deaths. He certainly doesnt want to spend the money. So where does that leave them . Either you can see them not their minds not meeting on any number of policy options. Right. But the question is, does trump just say, you guys deal with it. This is your portfolio. Or do you, you know, hes also known, and this comes through in your piece, this sort of master bureaucrat infighter, does he create the conditions that corners the president into taking some sort of action that he wants already. Again thats really good question. What was interesting about the statement that bolton put out last night is that it came out from bolton, not the president i noted that adds well. Not the white house. The National Security adviser, historically has been his office is right down the street from the president. He doesnt speak in public. He doesnt go out in miami and give speeches about venezuela. He doesnt pound the table. Hes not a political guy. Bolton has prove to be otherwise. Great piece. Thank you very much. Thank you. Coming up, the infowars president will talk about the way he cultivates the ugliest and most authoritarian impulses. And tonights thing one, thing two starts next. Thing one tonight. As you may have heard. There was a big controversy at the Kentucky Derby this weekend when the apparent winner, a horse named maximum security, was disqualified after the race. Officials ruled the jockey had broken the rules against interference and so a different horse, country house, was named the winner. This, of course, caught the attention of the guy we elected to watch tv and tweet stuff. The Kentucky Derby decision was not a good one. It was a rough and tumble race on a wet and sloppy track. Actually, a beautiful thing to watch. Only in these days of Political Correctness could such an overturn occur. The best win did not win the Kentucky Derby. Not even close. To be clear, the president thinks that politically correct people run the Kentucky Derby and the horse which broke the rules to cross the finish line first is the real winner because of Political Correctness. Maybe he could invite that horse over to the white house to eat garbagy cold fast food in protest. In the meantime, trump did have a tiger over today. We dont know what the president fed him, but he did give him the president ial medal of freedom and thats thing two in 60 seconds. Etsy is the place to find new favorites. The belongings we hold on to. Etsy knows that moments, big and small, deserve things that really matter. Sold by real people and filled with things that last beyond the latest trends. Belongings dont just show what we care about. They show who we are. Shop etsy. Com since hes become president , donald trump has loved to give out goodies to his friends like when omarosa got a job in the white house doing nobody really knows what or the time he pardoned sheriff joe or when he gave Sheldon Adelsons wife the president ial medal of freedom. That was a memorable day because he gave one to elvis, too. Our final medal of freedom, and heres another one who is just very incredible. Today goes to one of the most beloved artists and most enduring Cultural Icons that has ever lived, the king of rock and roll, the true king and you have to say that. Elvis aaron presley. Kind of a deep cut there made for an awkward moment for white house history. Today the president moved the ceremony outside for the latest recipient, masters champion and trump golf buddy, tiger woods. This is the rose garden, for those of you that dont know, and we use it seldom, but this is one of the types were using it, tyinger. Ah, yes, the obscure and seldom used rose garden that he hasnt used since thursday. Tiger returned the favor by showing him what it would look like for wearing the same suit. The greatest civilian honor. Even if it comes from a guy who regularly drives on the greens. Thats the only place you can drive on the green, your own golf course. Thats mine. Im going to need it. Another putter in the grass. How are you doing . Whats happening . Everything good. Everythings terrific. Security, fellas. After facebook announced it was kicking off a variety of bigoted and conspiratorial cranks from its platform, the president , himself a bigoted and conspiratorial crank rose to the defense of his fellow bigoted and conspiratorial cranks by retweeting a bunch of bigoted and conspiratorial cranks. Defended her fellow travellers and warned her peers on the right there wasnt much of a difference between them and band. When those to the right of them are all banned. Good luck with that one, guys. She ended with an okay symbol which has recently been appropriated by white supremacists. And do her trouble got a retweet from the president of the United States. Of course shes kind of got a point that the ideological difficult cans between say inn to have to move seven times for safety and, you know, White Nationalist congressman steve king or say the president of the United States, that ideological distance isnt that vast. In fact, if donald trump werent president , does anyone doubt he would almost certainly find himself in danger of being banned from the social media platforms he loves . And there in lies the danger. When the most powerful man in the world with the biggest platform in the country is using the power of that platform to cultivate the ugliest and most authoritarian impulses. Were going to talk about that next. Stand up to chronic migraine with botox®. What if you had fewer headaches and migraines a month . 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Just stick with us. Dont believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. And just remember, what youre seeing and what youre reading is not whats happening. Trump did not invent the alternate reality machine that exists on the right, but he has used the mega phone of the president s seat to expand it. Joining me now to discuss where we are, Yale University professor jason stanley, author of the book how fascism works. Also with me ruth ben gott, whose book is strong men, how they rise, how they succeed and how they feel. And jelani cobb, a staff writer at the new yorker. So let me start with you, ruth. At one level, i feel torn when the president goes for one of these twitter jags, which he is retweeting all kinds of people because on one level it feels small and trivial. Here is this guy with all this power, and what he is doing is retweeting howard h. With 92 followers who is mad that Andrew Napolitano is saying mean things about the president. But when i read someone like you or people at this table, you see it as something more menacing and darker. Why . Always look for the end game, and always ask why is he doing this . And tweeting people who its not random people who have no followers. Its usually some extremists or neonazis or people who have already tweeted violent videos against the press and antiislamic things. So that actually built his populist professional that even a little person can be feel heard by the president. But there is always a bigger logic in what he is doing. And he is really he is a marketing master. He is very dangerous because he knows exactly how to communicate and the principles of propaganda are saturation, representation. And he has done that very effectively for a few years now, and were seeing the effects. So hes breaking down factuality. Like the goal is to break down any kind of connection to reality and great this usthem narrative by tweeting really out there conspiracy theories like wildly islamophobic Conspiracy Theory he tweeted right before basically on the eve of ramadan. Hes trying to introduce into Public Discourse stories that detach us from reality. Right. And i think there is another point to this too, which is that when you look at the way authoritarians tend to function, they anthropomorfize the state. They take over quirky aspects of character. Things people would never care about. There is gadhafi with his ode to condoleezza rice. Or there is the weird things about Saddam Hussein or these kind of individuals who have these strange personality attributes that somehow or another become aspects of the states actual day to day existence. So were having to deal with questions that should never rise to the level of national conversation. Thats one of the tyrannies, right, of living in a state run by a strong man. Their bizarre idiosyncrasies and character traits filter down in all sorts of ways that youre going to have to deal with as just a subject. And another mechanism when i saw it with berlusconi when i was living in rome when they brought the fascists to power. Ive seen it over and over again. The fringe people, the extremist people who had no power, who, again are, lunatics, they get into the mainstream and there is no better legitimizer than the president of the United States. Were seeing a very concentrated and dangerous form of this process thats been repeated for 100 years with other dictators. And thats the key to breaking down nip sense of reality. You break down the Mainstream Media as an authority source. You go after the universities. You say theyre not allowing free speech since they dont allow these nut ball conspiracy theories in. This is what trump did with birtherism. Yes, but there is a question with all of this. A bigger bark than bite and likes to talk a lot of trash and doesnt like to actually throw punches. That is who he is, and so, yeah, hell rail against to me, its like you guys are ascribing intentionality to me to me he isnt that different from howard h. Who has 92 followers. He is retweeting him because he identifies with howard watch. The two both watch fox news and are mad at Andrew Napolitano. Theyre the guys that go into act on his behalf. He does not denounce them. Its a tacit endorsement. And we say that people can be damned by faint praise. It can work on the opposite too. They can be praised by faint damnation. So when you give these kind of half hearted denunciation of things, what it does is encourage more of the same. Hannah orrin discusses this. You dont denounce the unofficial vigilante violence. You dont praise it. You just let it go. Right. And so therefore sanction it. So these materials, and i dont think this is innocent. We dont know. Its oh, i dont think its innocent. I want to be clear about that. I think its malicious and nefarious. I just dont know how powerful it is. It is making the information sphere into spectacle. But its also he signaled what authoritarians do, and they start this when theyre still on the campaign trail, when he did in january 2016 i could stand on fifth avenue and shoot someone. We played it in the a block. I saw that. He was being very intentional. He was giving americans a message that he could be violent, that he would connect himself to violent people and he figured he was above the law. Because it wasnt just that he was going to shoot someone, it was also he would have no consequences. Right there. Is the falwell retweet where he sort of makes this dumb joke about reparations. Trump should have two years added to his first term as payback for time stolen by the corrupt failed coup. There is all this coup talk and now floating the idea running up the flag pole. Like maybe the president gets two extra years. Erdogan. Or how many dicktorial heads of state have we seen who havent claimed there was an attempt for a coup. Its in the textbook. Erdogan really did have a coup. But still. You start with page one. You have to kind of empower your enemies and place them in a position of where they poll as much more jeopardy. The stabbed in the back meta story which is both sort of broadly cultural, but specific to the security services, the fbi. Here you have the i mean, you have the head of this is the head of the rnc saying that comeys fbi sent undercover agents to spy on donald trump. Stunning revelation the lengths they went to. We actually investigate how this whole hoax started. This is a structure. This is a sfruk cher from antisemitic conspiracy theories that there is a secret global conspiracy of all powerful agents. And of course that licenses then the kind of violence that you see because there is this connection between an all powerful link of media and deep state behind, well, whos the ones arranging it. And its also its very important. All of these right wing leaders over 100 years have had to pose as victims. So victims of the deep state. Victims of witch hunt. Berlusconi, erdogan and trump have used the term witch hunt a lot. And i even found in my research for my book strong men a poster from the late 20s of hitler with his mouth tape upped. And the caption is translating roughly of all the millions of people in the world, im the only person who is taboo. And it was because there were speaking bans on him in the late 20s. And they were done at the local level. And he convinced them right before the depression hit, he convinced some of these places to lift the speaking bans because he said he would work within the law. So this right wing whining about being victims. Deplatforming. Yes. Is really old. The original deplatforming. It probably goes back further than that. Jason stanley, ruth bengiaut and jelani could be, thank you. Tonight, the treasury secretary refuses to hand over trumps tax returns to congress, which means this battle is likely headed to the Supreme Court. Also, a Bipartisan Group of more than 500 former prosecutors comes forward the say that if donald trump werent president , he would be charged with obstruction of justice. The president , meanwhile, has changed his tune on muellers testimony. Now he says hes had two years of his presidency stolen thanks to the investigation. And Michael Cohen, trumps onetime fixer behind bars tonight as the 11th hour gets under way on a monday night. Good evening once again from our