Transcripts For MSNBCW Andrea Mitchell Reports 20190424

Foreign actors. Veep. Joe biden faces unique obstacles. How much will name recognition help or hurt . Good day President Trump sounding off against house subpoenas. Defiant in the fame of congressional demands. I say its enough. Get back to infrastructure. Get back to cutting taxes. Get back to lowering drug prices. Thats what really we should be doing. The president s combative message competing what he told the Washington Post in a call tuesday night saying theres no reason to go any further. Mr. Trumps strategy to slug it out in court telling key current and former staff to innognore congressional subpoenas. This subpoena is ridiculous. Ive been the most transparent president and administration in the history of our country by far. I thought after two years wooeds we would be finished. The house wants to know every deal ive ever done. Mueller, assume, for 35 million checked my taxes. Checked my financials which are great, by the way. You know theyre great. Joining me now nbc White House Correspondent Kristen Welker and ruth marcus. Welcome. Kristen, we have seen it all but that was classic trump. Clearly trying to run out the clock and saying to the House Democrats were not getting anything. Ill see you in court. Reporter the president has been defiant all morning long on twitter and then upon departing the white house and hes heading to an opioid event in georgia today. Thats where he wants to put the focus. The bottom line is hes digging in against these requests from Congressional Democrats for more information and for some of his current and former officials to testify. Don mcgahn, they want to hear from him. The former white House Counsel. He testified to bob mueller for over 30 hours. Now democrats saying they have more questions for him because hes someone who is engaged in a number of those very thorny conversations that occurred here at the white house President Trumps argument is this. He goes back to this issue of transparency. What he is really talking about his Legal Team Strategy right from the beginning which was to turn over a number of documents. To make a number of officials available to robert mueller. President trump never sat down with mueller himself. His critics would say theres not transparency there and Congress Wants the see the president s tax returns. This is an escalating battle. I think youll see the president use it not only as he heads off to an event like the one today but out on the campaign trail. Michael steel, when you were working with john boehner and trying to get information from eric holder, the attorney general, what was your experience . Where do we stand on the whole issue of separations of powers . We were never happy with the speed of the Obama Justice departments transparency efforts but its a whole different universe than what were seeing now. Usually the executive branch pretends to try. This administration is doing nothing but stone walling, delays and dragging it out. They are only there about one day out of three. If krou can delay long enough, they will slip into this 2020 primary mode and youll escape scrutiny. I think thats what they are counting on. I think washington democrats need to rediscover the fierce urgency of now if they want to get the results they are seeking in a time that makes sense. Ruth marcus youre the only harvard lawyer on our panel today. What about the fact you have, in particular don mcgahn testifying for 30 hours. Appearing 150 times in Mueller Report. Hes told his story. How can you exert executive privilege. You have a trump tweet saying he was fine with this white House Counsel testifying. Yes. The concept behind executive privilege is the president has to know that his conversations with his top advisers will be shielded from being revealed. Once the president has allowed those to be revealed, they are out there. Once you waived the privilege, you cant sort of turn around in a sort of normal world and say you want it back. As michael points out, were not living in normal world. Were living this trump world which is to say that was then, this is now. The bigger question for the trump folks as the strategic matter and trying to prevent the testimony of former white House Counsel don mcgahn is whether they want to be going out there and trashing him, trashing his veracity as they are hoping he doesnt testify because they are not the boss of him anymore. He needs to worry about whether hes got ethical obligations but he probably doesnt have those. I would not be just, if i with r the trump folks, not just thinking about the law of executive privilege but the law of dont beat up on the guy who could hurt you. Just to recap, what the president told robert costa in an extraordinary interview last night on the telephone. He said i allowed many i lawyers and all the people to go and testify to mueller and you know how i feel about that whole group of people that did the Mueller Report. I was to transparent. They testified for so many hours. They have all the information thats been given. With a follow up to you ruth, don mcgahn is the lawyer for the presidency, not his personal lawyer. Lawyerclient privilege would not obtain here. Correct. If he was so transparent, why were there citations about the instances where the white house refused to cooperate, refused to be transparent and objected to permitting key people to testify. Most notably declining to make the president , himself, available for an interview and declining to answer even written questions on the obstruction matter. I kind of go back to michaels point which is in a normal world if you look back to say president clinton dealing with ken stars investigators, they thought it was too dangerous. They slow walked the star folks. They delayed for a long time but thought in the end they couldnt sustain the Public Relations injury of telling starr to take a hike, which i guess is the legal term, so they didnt. Were now in trump world. He told mueller to take a hike. Were done. Congress take a hike. I guess my question is Congress Gets its backbone up and works for more than a day or two a week. How much they can really press this and get this accomplished before trump successfully runs out the clock. Its a real worry. In fact, trump, the president and significantly his attorney general have completely branded the Mueller Report, the findings incorrectly and also branded the whole issue of russian interference. Now you have the acting chief of staff telling Kirsten Nielsen before she was forced out not to bring up the subject of organizing an administration wide cabinet level against future russian interference with the attempts in 2018 because it wasnt a great subject. It should be kept below the president s level. This deliberate attempt, there were 5,000 russian bots eliminated from twitter. This is a continuous effort and its not being organized. No. I think youre exactly right. This is just a reminder of the vulnerability that the president still feels about the russia investigation. He thinks the whole hacking issue casts a poll off his je legitimate ma si. Hes deeply fearful of that to his day. Its gotten to him on a personal level. He cant let it go. I think the question Going Forward is whether or not the president s personal qualms, grievances, anger over the way that the democrats are going to be coming after him over the next 18 months overwhelm his ability to articulate a clear, concise case for why people should reelect him. At the moment, theres a lot of worry among republicans that the president and the Republican Party dont really have much to run on. The tax cuts, yes. They put more money in mediumpe pockets but just a little bit for most ordinary americans. Theres a question about whether the country will face an economic slow down as we go into the general election. I think that you could be looking at a really ugly, negative general Election Campaign in which the president of the United States does really the one thing he knows how to do best and thats savage his opponents. Thats absent any type of really clear case for why people should reelect him. I know theres a lot of republicans worried about that. On the democratic side, michael steel, are they at risk of even though there are compelling reasons to have these house investigations to force, try to get some action on the subpoenas, are they talking about the wrong things politically because theres investigations fatigue. Some of these hearings wont produce the results they hoped for. I think theyll have to do three tracks here. First im amazed they are not doing more on the Cyber Security issue on capitol hill. I think despite the blinders the president has, thats a huge issue and one con grgsal democrats should be active on. They need to continue working on the bread and butter issues they believe helped House Democrats win the majority. They need to talk about health care. They need to talk about infrastructure and all of these things that voters voted for. That voters are asking them about in town halls. They want abandon their constitutional responsibility to continue to do effective oversight of the Trump Administration. Whether or not that leads to impeachment is unclear at this point. There are too many areas where there are outstanding questions. At this point this is less a fishing expedition than fishing with dynamite. Kristen welker you reached out and got a response from Mick Mulvaney about the pushback against having cabinet level against russian interference and the response that you got was i dont recall anything along those lines happening in any meeting. The Trump Administration will not tolerate foreign interference. We have taken many steps to revent r prevent this in the future. This against the backdrop of Jared Kushner saying the foreign interference was less damaging than the Mueller Investigation amounting to a couple of facebook posts which is just patently false. Reporter right. It was a lot more than a few facebook posts. Were talking about thousands they they believe were sweeping and were increasingly learning about how sweeping it was and the threat continues. What has the administration done so far. If you ask top officials, they will say what we have done, dhs, doj have this process to try to sure up the infrastructure at state and local levels. President trump signed an executive order threatening to slap more sanctions. Critics argue those measures dont go far enough and needs to be a top down approach. President trump himself needs to send that message that it wont be tolerated now. Upon his departure, he answered two questions today. We tried to get some questions to him about this very matter. Didnt answer. Well save them for next time. This is going to be put to the president over and over again. A letter from doj to elijah cummings. No one from the Justice Department will be permitted to testify to a House Committee without a lawyer present. Also, a question to you as to whether the white house can run the clock on the subpoenas and drag it out through the courts and resist the subpoenas for the tax rumeturns and testimony fro former officials like don mcgahn. To enforce the subpoena, im not sure about the tax returns because thats a separate provision of law but to enforce the other subpoenas, you have to get, i think, the Justice Department to litigate for you. Good luck with that. If you cant do that, there may be other avenues to enforcement but the normal process is give and take and negotiate terms and is it under oath. Is the lawyer present . Whats the scope of the inquiry . We are not in normal land. I keep saying that. I think that the ability to normally the ability to enforce the subpoenas and requests are norms, but when you need to resort to litigation, i think the experience of eric holder is he left office by time that litigation was completed. Thats a kind of troubling road map and maybe a good one for the trump folks to be looking at. Ruth marcus and Kristen Welker, thanks to all. Coming up, the biden factor. How the 2020 president ial race will change once the former Vice President officially announces tomorrow. Stay with us right here on an dree t msnbc. Dree t msnbc. Oh. I needed this. No, i cant believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on our Car Insurance with geico. We could have been doing this a long time ago. So, you guys staying at the hotel . Yeah, we just got married. Oh hoho congratulations thank you. Yeah, im afraid of commitment. And being boiled alive. Oh, shoot. Believe it. Geico could save you 15 or more on Car Insurance. That guys the worst. The latest inisnt just a store. Ty its a save more with a new kind of Wireless Network store. Its a look what your wifi can do now store. A get your questions answered by awesome experts store. Its a now theres one store that connects your life like never before store. The xfinity store is here. And its simple, easy, awesome. Joe biden is less than 24 hours away from his big announcement breaking into the 2020 president ial race. Already facing several charges in a new political era highlighted by diverse candidates, expanding progressive base skeptical of the old guard. He will have to compete with familiar faces like Bernie Sanders and beto orourke and Pete Buttigieg. Joining me is former democratic governor who has worked alongside joe biden for decades and considered running until last week. Great to be back with you. Why didnt you run . I got close. I would have thought a week ago i was definitely running. It would have been a tough pathway. A lot of the things i thought were important to say on the issues but you got to go where your heart is and where you think you can make the biggest difference. Virginia needed me. I decided to go where i can make the big difference. As governor i worked hard for four years. Took the state to the next level. Took it to a level we hadnt seen nationally. Now we need to go globally. Yesterday i agreed to 41 events. Its an important election coming up in virginia. What about the National Election . What about donald trump . Is joe biden the right answer . You know him better than anyone. Sure. We have a lot of great candidates running. What i lo above about joe biden people know his value and his character. You can put joe biden up against any world leader in the entire globe. He will build a strong relationship which will benefit america. He stood next to president obama. Pushed for the aca, the Affordable Care act and made sure that everybody got health care. 20 million more people got health care. Hes been a leader in climate change. Just to interrupt you for a second. On the assault weapons ban in the 90s, he was helping the nra with some issues they had. Does he have too much of a record and a lot to answer for as things have changed . A lot of folks have been in politics a long time. I know his character, his value set. You put joe biden against donald trump, are you kidding me . Its not even close call. Hell have to answer. Hes had a long career in politics. We all do. Thats okay. Joe biden will get out there and explain all those. What im hoping is we have a real discussion on issues. I want to see us talking about what American Families care about. I can tell you right now in virginia and these 40 plus events, im going to be with local folks who want to talk about health care. People put these litmus tests and medicare for all. We got to focus on what matters to the voters at home. Health care costs, coverages is important. We better drill down on helping people pay for their prescription drugs, people are upset they go to a hospital. Theyre in network. All of a sudden an an these gist shows up thats out of net work. You get home with a 2,000 bill. Fwhe we need more generic drugs. Thats what im hoping the democrats focus on. Lets get away from these shiny objects and people have these litmus tests. People want action. They want results. They want people to get in and help them. Ive been leading on this effort. Tell me what youre going to do for me. Sg you youre making a very good case for your campaign. Hes getting in a little late. Hes on fund raising alone, hes in the old model. Right now joe biden would have to raise more than 100,000 every day until next christmas only to match what sanders has banked at the start of april. That is, a co pretty extraordin. Are you going to become a bundler for biden . If so, isnt that the old model . That doesnt work according to the current campaign. Ive raised a lot of money in my past. Joe biden has gigantic name id. A lot of the other candidates will get in, buttigieg and others need to name id up. He doesnt need as much money as the others. I hope as we go forward, theres a yearning in this country for people to talk about infrastructure and ha do we do about infrastructure. Im proud as governor of virginia. Will you going to endorse joe biden . Ill sit down and have discussions. Im a huge fan, a huge supporter. I want every democratic candidate, listen to me closely, i want every single one of you to commit youll come to virginia this year. Youre going to do a fundraiser with me and do a political event with me to win the house and senate in virginia for the first time in 26 years. I fought hard to stop all of those issues that i had to deal with as governor. Shutting down or Womans Health clinics. I stopped all that. There were bills i wanted on assault weapon ban and background checks and closing gun show loophole. They never saw the light of day in a republican legislature. With a democratic legislature, we can make virginia the beacon globally. I need these candidates help and i need it this yiear. President ial will come fast. Redirecti in redistricting is something i cared about for years. We need fair lines, competitive lines. I support nonpartisan independent groups. We got to get the voters. Theres nobody better than staying on a message than terry. State, local. Its about virginia. Get them to commit to campaign with you. Virginia for lovers. Were the place to be. Dont live anywhere. Thank you so much for being with us. Coming up, separation anxi anxiety. The new Homeland Security chief telling lester holt how he will resist the pressure. Resist the pressure. Does this map show the peninsula trail . You wont find that on a map. Ill take you there. Take this left. If you listen real hard you can hear the whales. Oop. You hear that . vo our Subaru Outback lets us see the world. Sometimes in ways we never imagined. Wake up theres a lot that needs to get done today. Small things. Big things. Too hard to do alone things. Day after day, you need to get it all done. And here to listen and help you through it all is bank of america. With the expertise and knowhow you need to reach that blissful state of doneness. So lets get after it. Everything is all right what would you like the power to do . ® all right tto harrison, the wine the tcollection. To craig, this rock. The redwoods to the redheads. The rainbows to the proud. I leave these things to my heirs, all 39 million of you, on one condition. That you do everything in your power to preserve and protect them. With love, california. President trump today warning about a new so called caravan of migrants as a 3yearold child was found abandoned in a corn field at the border tuesday morning. Illegal crossings and the separate of families among the many issues for kirsein s replacement. He spoke about the border crisis to lester holt. You became the face of the family separation issue. The reports are your predecessor was shown the door because she didnt want to move down that road. Is that something that you would reconsider, family separations in any form . I think the president has been clear that family separation is not on the table. Again, this was a zero tolerance prosecution initiative. It have targeted at adults violating the law. It did have the impact of several 2,000 plus families being separated during that prosecution. In your view, did family separation work even if it was ugly publicly . Prosecuting violations of law does have a consequence and deter behavior. It did not work if you lose the public trust. If you cant maintain an initiative from an enforcement perspective is not worth it. Joining me now, is jacob along with sydney. Congratulations. We are so proud for all of your reporting across all of the networks of nbc. Thank you for all the support throughout. This touches the at a time department. It touches the white house. There r dozens were dozens of p involved. Only today, the congressman bipartisan call from Foreign Affairs committee against the cancellation of state department moneys to the northern triangle. To the three countries where it counts. We know it works. It stopped the flow and reduced the flow during one of the previous migrant surges. The president is against it. Hes a career guy with jeh johnson and his predecessor. No comment from your calls to homeland. The super caravan which you go to the people, you expect the folks who know the most about it and i was able to get nothing. I guess you got to go to the source, the president. Hes the one that puts his information in this tweet. Are you getting your intelligence from . If i cant get an answer from the department that deals with this, what are you talking about . Children were separated even starting before they acknowledged what Jeff Sessions announced, the separation policy. They had a trial program. They had no procedures for reuniting these families. You also have an i. C. E. Crackdown on people that had been here for decades. A family of from chicago, man who had been here for 30 years and he was deported to mexico so his american kids, his three daughters, four daughters, i think including a disabled child are now have moved to mexico along with his wife to be with him. Im done very similar stories where you have an american child going to school in mexico because his father was deported even though the little boy was born and raised in the United States. The father did have a criminal conviction. Lets be clear. Those types of deportations definitely happened under president obama. President obama deported more people than any other president in history. Far fewer in the second term and far fewer people without criminal records. Thats the distinction. In the Trump Administration hes buffer bumped up deportations on people that dont have criminal record, violent crimes. Its one element of many thats got everybody looking at this administration and saying what is the intention here. Is it to go after remember, the Number One Group of undocumented immigrants are people that over stay their vee sa visas and not people that come across the boarder. Its not something they talked about until right now. Lester also asked about the report that the president told him to shut the border and if he broke the law, he would pardon him. Something thats been denied. Lets watch. So im not going to do anything that violates the law. Ever. Im a Law Enforcement official. Ive been asked to serve in this role. Ill carry that out with full focus on my legal duties. That said, ive never been asked, never been suggested to do anything unlawful by the president or anything else and i wouldnt do it. He said ive never been asked to do anything unlawful but he didnt say the president didnt ask me to do that. Hes in a sensitive position. Sher hes a career one of the top career folks before he moved over to dhs. Now hes up against the president who has an underlying policy. Wants to detain families during their asylum proceedings and number two turn around and immediately deport, young, unaccompanied minors the minute they set foot in this country. Thats something immigration activists say is inhumane. Your focus on this, your reporting in the field is just been extraordinary. Now its being recognized. We could not be more proud. Thank you. She is people. This afternoon 2020 candidates are on stage in houston. A first of its kind forum. Readyaveenos sheer formulaiant . Packed with pure soy evens tone and texture. So skin looks like this. And you feel like this. Aveeno® positively radiant get skin happy™ about medicare and supplemental insurance. Medicare is great, but it doesnt cover everything only about 80 of your part b medicare costs, which means you may have to pay for the rest. Thats where Medicare Supplement insurance comes in to help pay for some of what medicare doesnt. Learn how an aarp Medicare Supplement insurance plan, insured by United Healthcare Insurance Company might be the right choice for you. A free decision guide is a great place to start. Call today to request yours. So what makes an aarp Medicare Supplement plan unique . 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Two this type of plan allows you to keep your doctor as long as he or she accepts medicare patients. And three these are the only Medicare Supplement plans endorsed by aarp. Learn more about why you should choose an aarp Medicare Supplement plan. Call today for a free guide. Eight of the 17 or 18 or 20, 2020 hopefuls, the democrats will gather in houston today at a conference organized by women of color. A critical block in the democratic primary. The she the people forum is focused on gender and economic issued identified by the organizers. While each candidate was hand picked to reflect the diversity of the crowded field of democrats, polls still show this white men are taking the top spots. Early polling can be very misleading. Joining me is former White House Communications director for the obama white house. Welcome both. First to you maya. This is unusual because its such an important voting block. We see it in all the results yet we havent seen in the past focusing on these issues. Yes. The way i think about it is black women have had a fora. Its called the beauty shop. Black women its not just voting which black women vote in very high numbers but its get out the vote. Its voter registration. Its all the participation that drives what can be very successful Election Results for those who can garner their vote. This is the first time weve had this National Convening that has really called all the candidates to come speak directly to black women about what they will do for black women. Jim, we know how important this focus was in this sector. Made a big difference in the primaries last time around. Who is it going to appeal to the people to women of color, to people of color and why are Pete Buttigieg buttigieg and beto orourke and Bernie Sanders still bunching through in the ways that some of the women candidates are not . I want to underscore what maya said is black women are the best voters in the country meaning they vote more per capita than any other demographic in the country. They are important to the democracy. They are the best, most reliabilireliable voters. Bill clinton would not have been president of the United States, lyndon johnson, carter would not have been elected either were it not for black women. I dont know if you can predict how they will vote based off of someones demographic. Back then we didnt have a lot of choices. Now we have a lot of great diverse choices that they can consider but they do seem when you see women interviewed from the forum they are fou kcu on issues. They want to hear what they will do to create jobs. They are concerned about issues and things that will affect their own lives. Its something to see all the top of the polls being led by three white men. I have to say, im concerned that somebody who worked for a woman candidate last time that theres something that about the sort of bias we still hold about leadership and what that looks like. That makes us gravitate towards men and even white men. That it is something about how we this image that we still hold makes it harder for the women candidates who are really great to breakthrough. I think that maybe some of the rea reactions well see today will tell us if that will change. We lived through this in the campaigns where Hillary Clinton was so focussed and advised in 2008 to prove that she could be commander in chief and we remembers who is answering that 3 00 many the morning call. There was a Counter Point in 2016. Im a grandmother. Im a woman. Not knowing how to define women women not knowing how to define themselves in terms of gender and what people want and how to fit in. You see women affected by that. One of the organizers of the she the People Campaign was on with Rachel Maddow last night. I want to play part of that interview. She the people is telling a brand new story about women of color to the nation. That is were the most progressive voters as you rightly said. We are the very critical core of the democratic vote. Were one of four voters in many of the swing states that trump won. Elevating women of color in this moment to speak directly to the president ial campaigns is crucial. We believe women of color can lead and build a multiracial Inclusive Coalition to win not only the primary but the white house itself in 2020. Maya. Absolutely. All we have to do, regular doug jones in alabama. Doug jones owes that senate race to black women. Black women have always been interested in issues that are fundamental to families, to prosperity. When we see candidates starting to address issues of housing, as we have seen with Elizabeth Warren and child care. Actually making child care an issue, that is in part because black women have worked very hard to fight for those issues. I think we are seeing, i would say about it withe polling, one the things i think is happening, theres a way in which the media gets directed to some of these candidates and the name recognition does happen to benefit them in the early polling. I think well start to see that change. Briefly, we see that stacy abrams broke through in a way. She had so many head winds from the legal restrictions, the false restrictions from the secretary of state but look at the way her candidacy took off. It did. Elizabeth warren is very focused on issues. I suspect thats the kind of candidate whose por ypularity breaks. Theyre not kind of candidates that catch the early head lilin and the early buzz. Great to have you both. Thank you. Coming up, enough is enough. A former Trump Transition Team member is using the i word. Stay with us. 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Writing in the atlantic, if you actively work within a Political Party there is some expectation that you will follow orders. Even when you disagree. Theres a point, though, at which that expectation turns from a mix of loyalty into something more sinister. The Mueller Report was that Tipping Point for me and it should be for republican and independent voters and for republicans in congress. Joining me now is j. W. Vered. I know this must have been a hard Decision Point for you, for many republicans and independents, your reaction to the Mueller Report, why now . What was it in the report that struck you as being very different from the way it was described by the attorney general and certainly by the president. Well, it was about a series of 12 counts of obstruction of justice, it was the tone in former director muellers report that made it very clear to me that this was essentially a referral to the house to begin impeachment proceedings. And i dont think we need to fear the i word here. Impeachment is the constitutions version of a grand jury. And a grand jury is nothing but a check on the prosecutor, essentially a gut check on the prosecutor. Is there enough here to start a hearing . It certainly is with me with 12 potential counts of obstruction of justice about an investigation that touches on potential treason by the president or potentially by other people in his orbit or connected to russia. What do you do if you cant get the underlying material distributed only being shown, according to the white house and the Justice Department, only to be shown just to selected leaders and not to be discussed even among their colleagues. How do you have an impeachment hearing in the house if you cant get the evidence from mueller . Well, remember, one of the things the house can imimpeach officers for is failure to respond to appropriate subpoenas. And the congress can impeach inferior officers of the president as well. Once this process starts, i think a lot more people will be willing to walk. I think the congress will get more information than even what is contained in the Mueller Report which is quite substantial. And so i think that public airing just like with the nixon hearings will i think develop a whole lot more in terms of witness cooperation and just the development of diligence and underlying facts to get to the truth. What do you think of the stone walling right from the white house, the president saying the Mueller Report was done, its over, its finished, im not going to comply, they wont turn over the tax returns, they wont go respond to any of these subpoenas . Frankly, this is where aisle disagree with many democrats, ive seen that before with the obama administration. I wrote the subpoena authority that Maxine Waters is now using to subpoena financial records, the unilateral authority for that chairman. But for the former chairman. He needed unilateral authority to subpoena the Federal Reserve about insider trading. Im familiar with the subpoena that Maxine Waters has. And shes well within her rights to ask for that. One of the counts in the impeachment that was coming for nixon was failure to comply with lawful congressional subpoenas. A former trump transition officer, thank you very much for being with us. Thanks for your insights. And well be right back. Applebees bigger, bolder grill combos. Now thats eatin good in the neighborhood. Hey allergy muddlers. Achoo . Do your sneezes turn heads . Try zyrtec. It starts working hard at hour one. And works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. Zyrtec muddle no more. Title x for affordable natbirth control and Reproductive Health care. The Trump Administration just issued a nationwide gag rule. This would dismantle the title x ten program. It means that physicians cannot tell a patient about their Reproductive Health choices. We have to be able to use our medical knowledge to give our patients the information that they need. The number one rule is do no harm, and this is harm. We must act now. Learn more. Text titlex to 22422 thanks for being with us. That does it for this edition of Andrea Mitchell reports. Remember, follow the show online at mitchell reports and here is ali velshi and Stephanie Ruhle for velshi ruhle. Great to have you here again, andrea. Im ali velshi. And im Stephanie Ruhle. It is wednesday, april 24th, lets get smarter. Executive power play, President Trump tells the Washington Post in the wake of the Mueller Investigation, it is now unnecessary for his staff to comply with congress. The subpoena is ridiculous. We have been i have been the most transparent president and administration in the history of our country by far. Is executive privilege being considered here in the white house . Thats up to the attorneys. I fight every subpoena they issue for him, for a witness, if i was representing a witness, i would fight it. Why . Because theyre illegitimate. Theyre prejudiced, biassed. And despite the reports topline conclusion that russia did meddle in the election, team trump insists the investigation, that is the real interfer