Trusted as an honest broker. Yes, barr barr seems to have acted over the last four weeks including yesterday not as the attorney general of the United States but as the president s personal attorney. Barrs critics point to the report, things taken out of context during the initial fourpage summary and statements at his press conference. And the fact that the report went to the president s personal lawyers days, days before congress got a look. Ranking member collins says the subpoena is overboard and flies in the face of normal and proper congressional oversight. Hes hardly the first congressional floun come to the president s republican to come to the president s defense. Although the president is arguably his own best defender because hes tweeted about the report nine times since it was released yesterday. And despite trumps repeated claims of total exoneration, the report does not conclude anything of the sort. In fact, mueller specifically declined to zoexonerate the president of obstruction of justice and as Congressional Democrats note, there are still parts of the report we have not seen. So our big question today is what more will Congress Learn if it does get the unredacted Mueller Report . Young me, White House Correspondent kristin welker, National Security reporter matt zapatosky, editorinchief of law fair and analyst who has not slept in the last 48 hours or so, benjamin whitdis, and former House Intel Committee staffer mika youn. The president has been saying this since the summary came out from william barr. Today he tweets about the fact that he says that this is a crazy report. Heed that its a lot he said that a lot of people lied in is. Is it an zone radiation or a report exoneration or a report of lies . Whats the white house saying . I think its the result of the dueling results yesterday. The fact that you had the attorney general come out and say the bottom sideline no collusion, of course thats something that weve heard the president say quite a bit. And then you have the report itself, 400 pages that were made public an hour and a half after that remarkable press conference by the attorney general which essentially said, look, here are ten different examples of which President Trump walked up to the line of obstructing justice, but his own top advisers basically blocked him, thwarted him, saved himself from himself and from potentially crossing a number of legal and ethic at lines. So the white house knows the president knows that there were some very damaging revelations in the report. At the same time, they want to bottom line this. Thats why i think the president didnt answer questions yesterday from the press. They wanted to try to turn the page. We know this president. We know things get under his skin. This is the second phase of his acceptance i think of essentially what happened yesterday which is that a lot of embarrassing and damaging revelations came out of that report. So matt, youve been covering this, the report, for nearly two years. You are so good, you get these great numbers. You noted that while there were fewer redactions than expected, its amazing to look at the sort of the breakdown of what they represent. Almost seven out of every ten lines, lets put it that way, because theyre ongoing investigation. The rest about grand jury material, very little really, less than 10 , about classified information. 5 because of personal information. So what does this tell us when you look at the big picture of what this report represents . Yeah, that last category surprised me the most. I kind of thought that democrats and others would be so unsatisfied because there would be heavy redactions for people that bill barr defined as peripheral. Almost despite his performance in the morning where he says five times the president committed no collusion, he adopted the president s word, he then aired it out in this report. I mean, the redactions on the whole were relatively minimal and didnt get in the way of this compelling story of how the president , you know, repeatedly sought to crush muellers investigation. It was just remarkable how little was sort of taken out to interfere with the narrative. Thats not to say im not curious about whats behind all of those black boxes, but there is so much laid out. I was sort of sitting there thinking as im reading, man, if we didnt know all of this in leg roletime, if the post realtime, if the post hadnt reported in realtime, everyone learned this information today, what a different world wed be living in. Yes, theres some redactions. Im curious whats behind them. Im still stunned by the whole story that mueller laid out. Lets talk about the part of it that isnt there i want to look forward a little bit. When you look at those numbers, when you see whats missing, when you see that clearly Robert Mueller has decided theres still things out there that need to be investigated, that needed to be handed off to someone who wasnt the special counsel, how do you view this report . I view it very much as a referral to congress for further investigation. Look, there are a number of open questions in this report. Theyre clear that they couldnt get to them. And also part of muellers charge was a counterintelligence investigation. We havent seen any sign of what that is. That will be much more highly classified if it were released with greater redaction. Congress has a right to see that, too. Its not just a question of criminality here but of risk to the National Security of the nation. And the foreign intelligence questions still remain. So where do we go with this . Where do you see this going from a legal sense, benjamin . I think theres a big question facing Congressional Democrats which is whether they want to have a big fight over what i agree with matt are relatively marginal redactions that actually dont get all that much in the way of your ability to read the report, or do they want to focus on the substance of what the report says . Now the subpoena that went out today suggests that they are sort of spoiling for a fight over the process. And i actually think thats not the greatest idea in the world. I think the the monumental nature of the content of this report actually requires a lot of attention, and i think tractortrailers easy to use and i think it is easy to use process fights as a way of avoiding paying attention to the substance of what the document actually says. I think this say document that really calls for judgment from all kinds of actors, journalistic judgment, historical judgment, political judgment by voters and, yes, judgments by members of congress as to whether this is the kind of activity from a president that we should accept as a society. And i dont want to lose track of that by focusing on these process questions. One of the questions, though, is was that you . I was going to jump in on that. Look, i have confidence in the congressional committees ability to do both, to seek the full information that theyre entitled to and to focus on the investigation. Weve seen them take on other issues. You know how the process works. Help us to understand why you think that. So, the subpoena process, theyll send a letter over, house counsel, not the committee staff, can bring suit in court about this. This is a process that will run con correctly with concurrently with the investigations of the substance of the Mueller Report itself. I think that this isnt in place of but in addition to. And Congress Absolutely has the right to the full unredacted report here. One of the things we know, and you reported this, this longawaited response that the white house was going to give is not going to come out, but how big of a fight are they gearing up for over this, and what are they doing right now . Well, theyre gearing up for a political fight. And as you point out, the president s legal team is saying that longawaited counter report, we dont need to put it out. Again, theyre hanging their hat on the bottom line as it was laid out by the attorney general. So what does the political fight look like . This becomes a part of the president s reelection campaign. This is something i think that he will use to energize his base. You saw that again today on twitter. Hes trying to turn this into something that becomes a political strength instead of a weakness. How will it play remains to be seen. In terms of what congress does, in terms of what democrats do, theyre in a bind here. Bens talking about the challenges with that moving forward. Of course we know the i word has resurfaced and has gotten new focus. Impeachment. There are new calls for impeachment, but Democratic Leaders are saying, wait a minute, weve got to let this process play out. Were not there yet. They say they want to hear from mueller first. And again, they say they want to see the full and redacted report. Great of to you here in studio. Ma, ben, mieke, thank you all. That leads me perfectly to the next guest. Democratic congressman from california Eric Swalwell, a member of the intel and judiciary committees. And he is also, of course, a candidate for president. I want to pick up if i can on what kristen was saying. She said, look, democrats are in a bind. Weve seen in the moves to given, there the snufs thint they say theres enough for articles of impeachment. Where are you on that . Good afternoon, chris. First, i think first and foremost we need a president whos going to acknowledge what the russians did and assure the country were not going to see this happen again. 200 pages are you holding your breath for that, congressman . I hope republicans can join us and say regardingless of the criminality here, regardless of the obstruction issues, we dont want any campaign to ever do this again. And just because there was a failure of imagination by prior congresses to write laws to prohibit what this campaign did doesnt mean we should allow it and doesnt mean we shoot try and write laws now to prohibit this type of conduct going forward. Then theres the obstruction issue. And according to bob mueller, the president is a doubledigit obstructer. And hes going to have to be held accountable. The first weigh point is bringing bob mueller to testify. I think its going to be helpful to hear bob mueller lay it out. That report was 400 pages. Took me a couple of hours to go through it. Most folks that i know, you know, look, theyre just doing their jobs, picking up kids from soccer practice, putting dinner on the table, theyre not going to have time to read and digest it the way lawmakers are. They will listen to bob mueller if he comes before congress. I think thats the next step. Reading through the report we should remind people that you have a law degree so you read it with a practiced and learned eye, theres nothing that says to you right now we should pursue articles of impeachment . Oh, no, no. I would say theres nothing that says were we should go farther away from impeachment. I think its a conversation we have to have as far as how do you hold this president accountable, how do you set a standard for a future president that says were not going to tolerate this, that you cant fire your investigator and you cant lie. And as the report describes, that the president and his campaign and their lies and their obstruction materially impaired the investigation. In america, you dont get to bury the evidence so deep that if investigators cant find it you get off scotfree. There are ways to hold you accountable. Thats called obstruction of justice. So youre for impeachment. Thats what im hearing you so no, im for bringing bob mueller in and seeing what evidence is laid out by mueller, where that leaves the country. Will there be bipartisan buyin to hold the president accountable. Hes going to have to be held accountable one way or another. I know nancy pelosi said that, and i understand why from a political point of view people would say lets make sure that we have people on both sides of the aisle who are willing because why go down this road if its not going to do anything but divide the country. Theres an argument on the other side, and ive heard it from democrats that theyre concerned if you dont pursue impeachment, its sending a message to future president s you know what this kind of behavior is okay. The kind of behavior that you and an awful lot of democrats have found at least unacceptable and in some cases in your own mind criminal. Im closer to that latter group. Its understandable that if you see donald trump always jumping to conclusions, always believing that he can call someone guilty without evidence, that you would expect democrats to do the same to him. We believe in the rule of law, though. We still think there has to be order to this process and the most important thing is to get all of the documents, bring bob mueller in, and make sure the American People were not going to allow this in our election in 2020. Before you go, i want to ask about ythe world we live in. You got a threat against you and members of congress. You tweeted and said thank you to Capitol Police and florida Law Enforcement for protecting my staff and constituents. What can you tell us about this threat . And do you think that we are in a world where look, you would not be the first member of congress, sadly, who has been threatened. But are we in a different space now, a really different space . I hope not. And i am grateful to the Capitol Police, chris, for protecting me, my family, staff, and constituents. And im running for president because i want to have a conversation in this country about changing our gun laws. This threat is a tactic to have congress and our lawmakers do nothing. There should be space to have a respectful debate. But making a threat like this is the lowest form of communication. Theres no space for that. And also, by the way, if your response to a lawmaker proposing in our democracy to change gun laws and take the most dangerous hands out of the most dangerous people, if your response to that is to threaten to kill that lawmaker, you are proving why we need to have more restrictions on firearm possession in america. President ial candidate and congressman Eric Swalwell, thank you so much. I hope youre going to have a nice Holiday Weekend with your family. Thank you, you, too. Happy easter. Republicans are saying this is case closed. Does congress have the responsibility to pick up where mueller left off . We heard that from in of our guests. Pl 34 guests pl 3 [zara larsson wow] baby im not even in a gown and the only thing u have to say is wow make youre jaw drop drop say oh my drop drop drop make u say oh my god my drop drop make youre jaw drop make u say oh my god and you never felt this type of emotion make youre jaw drop drop say oh my drop drop drop make u say oh my god my drop drop make youre jaw drop make u say oh my god mno kidding. Rd. But moving your internet and tv . Thats easy. Easy . easy . Easy. Because now xfinity lets you transfer your Service Online in just about a minute with a few simple steps. Really . Really. That was easy. Yup. Plus, with twohour appointment windows, its all on your schedule. Awesome. Now all you have to do is move. That thing. [ sigh ] introducing an easier way to move with xfinity. Its just another way were working to make your life simple, easy, awesome. Go to xfinity. Com moving to get started. For lawmakers how you perceive Robert Muellers report might depend on the party you belong to. Of course some democrats see the special counsels findings as a roadmap to the president s impeachment. But republicans see the report as vindication. Now that we have the special counsels conclusions, the gop is ready to turn the page. In a Statement Issued thursday, minority leader Kevin Mccarthy said, it is time to move on. Americans deserve better than this partisan quest to vilify a political opponent. And how to minority leader whip steve scolis said, while washington democrats hoped for the special counsel to deliver a conclusion collusion, the report instead delivered a death blow to their baseless conspiracy theories. Matt gaetz represents the state of florida and is a member of the house judiciary committee, as well. Happy easter weekend to you. And i want to start with the what weve heard from the president. He released when william barr released his fourpage summary and since then he said it exonerates him, he said no collusion, then he called it a fabricated report with total b. S. , he put it more colorfully. Which is it . Is it a report that we should believe exonerates him, or is it totally unreliable . I think that you can look at the collusion facts differently than you look at the law review article that mueller writes on obstruction of justice. When it comes to the lack of Factual Development on criminal conspiracy with russia, i think we can see that there is no evidence dont we want a legal basis . Im not sure you make a law review article sound disparaging, but that was the point that he was appointed to get to the bottom of the law. Yeah. No, im cleaving out the difference between volume one and volume two of the report. Im not casting a pejorative. Im describing it. Volume one is more daysed on evidence. Volume two is more based on evidence. Volume two is based on conjecture. You have twice as many media references in vom s is in volum one. Volume one is based on more actual evidence collection. The other is more based on watching television and reading Mainstream Media print publication. Nonetheless you like the one thats more favor to him no, i think they come from very different places. Theres a different methodology used in the facture development of the lack of any conclusion any collusion evidence and then this like parade of potential obstruction charges. Even in those 11 circumstances that Eric Swalwell cited on your show, even really concedes that in even swalwell knows theres not a an okay instructive act. In all the circumstances even mueller doesnt find all the elements are met. The president was pissed. He thought it was an illegitimate investigation launched against him. He is the head of the executive branch. He thought the executive branch was doing things to hurt the country. So hes trying to do everything legal, proper, and appropriate to conclusion looking at the campaign, the white house and potentially looking at you, that you do something because you dont like it and i dont know any president whos been happy with his coverage or happy with the way hes been treated. Youre right about that. By the other side, never in the history of this country. And yeah and for the attorney general to come out and say he was frustrated and he was mad or angry, whatever the words were that the attorney general said, is that appropriate . Yeah. Because there are if youre frustrated by the way youre going treated, you get to try to stop it . No. Chris, let me explain why. During the period of time where this is unfolding, the president is trying to Leverage China and russia against north koreament when he takts off north korea. When he takes was obama tells him north korea is the biggest problem the world has. The president has limited tools to engage in that important thr thre threedimensional chess because of a situation he knows is false because he didnt conclude with russia. If he wanted to collude with russia. If he wanted to he could have fired mueller. Based on the criticism of obamas Inspector General of how mueller compromised the team, i think the president should have fired Robert Mueller. He didnt, and he didnt obstruct justice. There are reasons why mueller he tried to do it, he talked to people about doing it. And in fact, this report concludes im going to read, the president s effort to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests. If you skip to the bottom of the page, you see the three reasons why none of that manifested in criminal charges. One, he has legitimate exercise of article two powers that would be difficult to cleave from any obstructive act. Two, he did all of this in public. Like people dont obstruct justice in public any more than they rob banks via facetime. You dont obstruct justice if you put something out there that intimidates a witness . Look, look, this is in public these three factors, any one mueller said any one of those factors would not have been a reason in and of itself to come to the lack of a conclusion that he came to. When you combine the fact that hes got legitimate powers, he acted in public, and there was no underlying crime, if you have those three defenses, theres no mechanism by which to bring any sort of criminal charge against the president or to impeach him for high crimes and misdemeanors. Whats the crime . Whats the misdemeanor . I dont get it. Let me read for you or play something that back in 1999 someone from your party, senator lindsey graham, said there has to be a stricter standard for obstruction. And i want to play to you what he said about clinton impeachment. He doesnt have to say go lie for me to be a crime. You dont have to say lets obstruct justice for it to be a crime. You just people on their conduct, not magic phrases. Have republicans lowered the threshold . If this report came out on president obama do you mean to tell me you would be sitting there and defending him . If it was a report on president obama, there would be infinite assertions of executive privilege. Here you had unprecedented transparency from the Trump White House that you never saw from the Obama White House he said repeatedly in the course of two years he wanted to answer questions under oath. He didnt. He did answer questions under oath. Those are the interrogatories. Written answers that you could if you read them as im sure that you have, so much says i dont remember, i dont remember, i dont remember. I dont remember what i had for lunch last week and youre asking about the president about conversations in the middle of a president ial campaign of stuff that was going on so long ago. Of course there are specifics he doesnt remember. You should not say on this air that he did not answer questions under oath. He, in fact, did so through the interrock torres which he had no obligation to do. Ive never seen in ten years of practice of law a party turn over their own lawyers private notes in discussions to the other party. That happened here because i think the president wanted to lay bare before the country what had happened. Good, bad, or otherwise. While people may be critical of the tactics and strategy to and his involvement in his own communications, he certainly did not collude with the russian federation. That is a lie that the American People will not forgive the democrats for telling in the 2020 election. Were out of time. I want to clarify because i do want to make sure that we are accurate. The president was asked repeatedly by the press, and he said repeatedly he wanted to he would be willing to go to Robert Mueller and be interviewed. Thank god his lawyers didnt let him he did not do that. Thank god. He answered well thats a perjury trap one of the lawyers said the best thing they accomplished was the fact that he did not answer questions live under oath. You cant argue with a win take it as you will. Congressman, youre always a good sport to come on. Thank you. Happy easter. Over the investigation, democrats warned that President Trump could move to fire the special counsel, an idea that republicans in both the house and senate denied was a possibility. With the Mueller Report now in full view, we now know that the president tried to remove mueller. Not once but multiple times. The only thing standing between him and that explosive decision at least at one point was white house attorney don mcghan. Hes not the only aide that helped the president commit acts of obstruction. According to the special counsels findings, quote, the president s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsfrl. But again, as i read this just a while ago, that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests. Joining me, former federal prosecutor annemarie mcavoy, and doj chief spokesman and justice and security analyst matt miller. Matt, according to muellers report, this could have been much worse. It says the incidents of possible obstruction were often carried out through oneonone meetings which the president sought to use his official power outside of usual channels. These actions ranged from efforts to remove the special counsel and to reverse the effects of the attorney generals recusal to the attempted use of official power to limit the scope of the investigation, to direct and indirect contacts with witnesses, with the potential to influence their testimony. Theres a running list of aides, frankly, who refuse to carry out trumps orders. From dan coates toey lewandows lewandowski, going to Chris Christie and k. T. Mcfarland. She we take comfort in the fact that the president surrounded himself with people who werent necessarily yes men and women . I suppose we should take a little comfort from it and that that averted a massive political crisis for the nation. A lot of people have misunderstood the section of the Mueller Report and have take ten to mean that the president wasnt successful in obstructing justice because his attempts to influence the investigation werent successful. Thats not what the report said. An attempt to obstruction justice is called obstruction of justice. It wasnt because they were unsuccessful in removing sessions or mueller that he didnt obstruct justice. It was that he was unsuccessful in influencing the investigation. I think what people like don mcghan did by refusing to carry out his orders, he prevented a saturday night massacretype situation where you had mass resignations at the Justice Department, a massive political crisis for the company, and a possible impeachment of the president. It wasnt that they prevented him from obstructing justice. He may still have met the legal threshold for having committed a crime. Its just that he prevented a political crisis from swinging into play. Let me to that point, let me play for you what the president s attorney said when he was asked about these instances of alleged obstruction. Heres what he said. So the president of the United States did not fire, did not fire did not tell Jeff Sessions to resign. He did, but he didnt follow through with it. And they did not fire mueller. The fact that he thought about it and actually called in from air force one and wrote the talking points on the trump tower meeting, you see that does not add up to obstruction . No, all of it first of all, youve got to step back and say none of it actually happened. So justice wasnt obstructed. They cant point to a single thing they werent able too get, able to do don mcghans recollection is wrong . Im not saying im not saying that something didnt happen. Im saying it is far different from the way its been described. Whether or not dan mcghans recollection is right or wrong, as you well know matt miller, the president isnt happy that he took notes and don mcghan said im a real lawyer. Thats neither here nor there. That is going to be and has been over the last 24 hours or so the republican argument, right . So how do you settle this . How do you settle this for somebody whos not a lawyer . How can they look at this report . I think thrive got to look i think theyve got to look at it, and its difficult for people who arent a lawyer, you have to go through the ten potential obstructive acts at that special counsel examined, he lays out in areas whether it met the threshold in the statute and lays out the evidence that he suggested, unlike what congressman gaetz said, theres quite a bit of obstruction obviously. Mostly notes from interviews with members of the white house staff and also notes that they kept at the time which is some willi ing that lawyers tend on something that lawyers tend to do. If i was a member of congress trying to make it easy, i would call witnesses to open hearings and let them testify so the American People can hear some of the witnesses in their own words and see them and see whether they believe them or the president. Annemarie, as you look at that lets use that, he laid out in great detail the ten examples, right. Was that a roadmap as you saw it for congress, is it a roadmap for potentially down the road criminal charges . How did you read it . Im not sure that it would recognize to the level of criminal charges because you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. And i think there are a lot of questions as far as criminal charges. Certainly in my mind, i think that is it was given as a roadmap for potential impeachment. Mueller specifically mentioned congress having the right to act and preserving evidence for some later time. So i think the other thing that it certainly is helpful for is potential president ial candidates. I think that this is its laid out simply for them, and now they all will be able to cite back to the Mueller Report saying these different things, that there were problems and issues. I think that when were looking at the 2020 campaign which is happening right now, that also will be useful for the opponents to President Trump. Yeah, the politics of this is going to be interesting. Let me go back to in some ways its the politics of it because theyre already hoping to talk both to mueller and to barr, as you know. But they want this report. They want to be able to see it full, unredacted, and they want the accompanying information, the investigatiinvestigative ma. Matt, we were talking about this earlier. 69 of the parts of it that were redacted were related to ongoing investigations. And you know, it was laid out by the in one report that 22page section on russias social media campaign, a 12page portion largely recontracted about a meeting redact good a meeting at trump tower. What would you want to see, what are your key questions to fill in the blanks for those redactions . You know, typically i agree with the Justice Department that information related to ongoing investigations shouldnt be made public, shouldnt be made available to congress. Theres a key difference with some of the information redacted in this report. Some was it redacted because of a gag order in the roger stone case. The Department Said theyre going to let Congress Look at that information. That gag order doesnt apply to congress. With respect to the dissemination of the hacked materials, the hacked materials that were disseminated through wikileaks, theres a big section of that report thats blacked out. And it includes this interesting account from rick gates who was in the car, he gets off the phone and tells rick gates that a public release of information is coming. That phone call may have been from roger stone, may have been someone else. Congress is probably going to see that information in the next week or two. I hope we and the American Public get to see it, as well. Matt, annemarie, thank you so much. When it comes to voters and the findings in the Mueller Report, are they over, ready to move on, or do they Want Congress it to a congress to act . Well get into that. Act . Well geint to that. What if i wielded the power of i could bend reality to my will, with a snap of my fingers i just saved money with geico. I saved hundreds of dollars nice that is a lot of money. The power is exhilarating hahahahahaha hah. Ha. Just got something in my throat. Yea. Marvel studios avengers endgame. In theaters april 26. But prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. When a plan stops being a plan and gets set into motion. Todays merrill can help you get there with the people, tools, and personalized advice to help turn your ambitions into action. What would you like the power to do . Congressional democrats have responded to the Mueller Report, of course, subpoenaing the release of the full version. And theyre in talks with the department of justice for mueller to testify. The prospect of impeachment still on the minds of some democrats, though House Speaker nancy pelosi said last month that impeachment is off the table without bipartisan support. But she is now scheduling a Conference Call on monday to discuss what she calls next steps. She says congress will not be silent. So the question is, how far can congress go without turning off democratic voters . Because as the Washington Post put it, going to alone could make democrats look petty and turn off voters who think impeachment is a step too far. But democrats are also uniquely positioned to slap some kind of consequence to a president who by muellers telling only failed to obstruct justice because people below him failed to carry out his orders. Vat gist and political analyst susan del ppercow and doug thornel. Jacob, lets start there. Youre in a coffee shop where a lot of folks are Walking Around out west. What are they telling you . Yeah, this is Grand Central market, heart of downtown los angeles. I also think its the heart of the resistance. The day after the inauguration on the streets of downtown l. A. , hundreds of thousands came to protest President Trump. I guess the question is not how far democrats with go in congress but is that what the base want to hear . And not just the base but those who dont vote. 45 of people stayed home for one reason or another. What do they want to hear . I meet these guys today, arnold and jean a. Guys, were live on msnbc. Let me come this way. Flip around. Did you guys read the Mueller Report . No, i have not. Reporter you didnt either . I have not. Reporter why not . Why wasnt it something that you decided to focus on . What is it that you are focused on as democratic voters . I think for me, education is the top of my priority list. Yeah, i would say affordable education for reporter affordable education for everybody. You told me youre a bernie supporter. Correct. Reporter how about you . Pretty much how everybody reporter people have been tweeting me at Grand Central market in and said why dont you follow one people who didnt read the report, they didnt want to read it. Its critical to the health of the democracy if russia interfered with the election or even if trump obstructed justice whether or not russia interfered with the election. Is it that you dont care about what trump, did or you find it more important to folks on other stuff . More important to focus on other stuff that matters. Like i said earlier, she said it, too, you know, education, health care. Stuff like that even immigration, too. They affect all of us around the nation. Before we go, you staying with bernie in 2020 . Feel the bern. Reporter they feel the bern. Thank you. Nights to meet you guys. Therein lies the conundrum or question that democrats have to figure out. Are they going to press hard in d. C. And stick with that message out here in the world, particularly in california, dont forget the primary is march 3rd, or are they going to do a little bit of both issues and impeachment . Tbd. If its up to them and the other folks i talked to, they want to hear about stuff that impacts them every day first and foremost. Youre not fooling me. The conundrum is what are you going to have for lunch. I lived in l. A. I know how much good food there is there reporter i know, bell campo burger. They are not paying me to say that, it is delicious. My mourth is watering. Thank you so much. Its interesting to listen to the voters. And you do wonder if, susan, youre in the heart of sort of liberal california, los angeles. And people are like, you know, because ive been watching him throughout the day as hes been talking to people, yeah, they care. Some have read the report, its not the numberone thing on their minds. So is it best to just step away from the report . Well, its from a political standpoint. From a political standpoint, i think the democrats in washington when theyre in d. C. Actually need to do some things. But they dont necessarily have to call for impeachment. They can first hold hearings. Bring mueller in, bring don mcghan, the former white house counsel, bring people in and ask them questions, and let the story kind of come out that way so people can digest it. And judge their credibility. President tweets today questioning a lot of the reliability of people in the report. Thats an important point. Some of the loudest voices on the democratic side in the house are not the swing districts, the people who were elected from swing districts. Theyre from the loud voices are from progressive districts that have been democrat forever, and will always be democrat. But its the swing districts where people are going to be i think the democrats there have to be more careful because they do have a habit of voting republican. I cant tell you how many times on Election Night we heard Orange County going democrat. That was unheard of. Yeah. Thats where i think the line will have to be. To that point, last night the president was in florida. Listen to what he had to say thank you, everybody. [ cheers ] game over. Game over. Game over, folks. Now its back to work. I know who youre voting for. Game over, doug . The president has by a lot of peoples analysis played this very well. He said no collusion, no collusion, no collusion. He got that mantra going. He got his base fired up. He certainly has fox news in his corner. So where do you see this fitting into the big picture of politics . Well, i dont think the behavior that is depicted in the Mueller Report is anything that the administration should be celebrating. This you know, the portrayal of the president in that report is someone youre a democrat. Im talking from a political perspective. The president not only didnt lose voters on this, he probably, you know, ginned up the base a little bit more. To susans point, in the swing districts, the purple districts and the districts that are going to maerktter, does this matter . It matters if the democrats can construct a good narrative around it. I think the narrative is that this is a president who is outfor himself and out for himself. And his priority is himself and his own political interests and not the American People or this country. In fact, if hes willing to throw his own son under the bus, why do you think hes going to look out for us . And that is where i think the democrats can turn this into an issue that relates to the American People. Not just on russia but on the economy, on health care, on a whole range of issues that the American People care about. This is this is the type of behavior we wouldnt want out of anyone let alone our president. And but i think the narrative around this in simplifying it for the American People is incredibly important for democrats to focus in on. We only have 30 seconds left and i brought this up earlier with kristen welker. Susan, the counter report they had been working on is not going to be put out there. So fine. But the reason it seems to me that theyre not doing that is because his advisers said, look, we think weve won already. We think weve got our message out there. But do you see the president dropping this . I mean, he never lets things go. Circumstantial tweet good it many times certainly tweeted about it many times since yesterday. I think he would rather talk about this unanimous anything else. The summer of twant2018, what we numberone motivation for democrats, problems in the administration. Thats where youll see democrats going back to and using the Mueller Report for. Susan, doug, great to see both of you. Have a great weekend. Thank you. Thanks. The Mueller Report actually is quite a read. Describing a west wing in chaos, staffers willing to sideline the truth for their boss, well talk a little bit more about that next. Xt nothing says spring like fresh flowers, so lets promote our spring travel deal on choicehotels. Com like this sneezes earn one free night when you stay just twice this spring. Allergies. Or. Badda book. Badda boom. Book now at choicehotels. Com. [laughter] im okay. Were oscar mayer deli fresh your very first sandwich,m. Your mammoth masterpiece. And. Whatever this was. Because we make our meat with the good of the deli and no artificial preservatives. Make every sandwich count with oscar mayer deli fresh. Ncht muellers report is raising new questions about the various white house explanations for james comeys firing back in 2017. Specifically this moment in march of that year when Sarah Sanders told reporters that countless fbi agents told the white house they have lost confidence in their director. Ive heard from countless members of the fbi that are grateful and thankful for the president s decision. You said now today and i think you said yesterday that you personally have talked to countless fbi officials, employees, since this happened. Correct. I mean, really. Are we talking between email, text messages, absolutely. So she said it first and then she was questioned about it, but this is what Robert Muellers report found. Sanders told this office that her reference to hearing from countless members of the fbi was a slip of the tongue. She also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank and file fbi agents have lost confidence in comme comey was comment she made in the heat of the moment that was not founded on anything. The now White House Press secretary is now trying to explain the discrepancy between what she said in the briefing ro room and what she told mueller under oath. If you look at what i said, i said the slip of the tongue was in using countless. There were a number of fbi that agreed with the president s decision. Why cant you acknowledge what you said then was not true . I said that the word i used countless and i also said if you look another whats in quotations from me, thats and its that informs the he the he moment. It wasnt a scripted talking point. Im sorry i wasnt a robot like the Democrat Party that went out for two and a half years that stated there was definitely russian collusion between the president and his campaign. Joining me now nbc news White House Correspondent kelly odonnell. Shes traveling with the president in florida. Kelly, im going to let that hole thing spooeak for itself i is a white house that includes sar Sarah Sanders and the president and many others that have talked about fake news countless time. That really is countless. Fair to say that one thing that Mueller Report does do is verify how much of the reporting that the president criticized is corroborated. Very much so. It is an interesting read for people who have not done it yet but to go through that detail and to remember back reporting at the time where we didnt have a full picture and now see it again what was the carefully written, carefully thought through final report of this two year investigation. You see that the major themes were supported by the facts. Ive covered three president s, you have been many the White House Briefing room. We understand that there are times when theres human error on the part of a press secretary but i would note that sanders has not come forward to correct that record on her own. At least im not aware of it and holding today to whether it was countless or not, really pushing back hard. The job of the press secretary is one of the unique positions where youre not only advocating on behalf of the president but on behalf of the press and public. Thats a bit of a different place than the other roles in the white house even though they are all government public servants. It does tell us a story that the wide swath of reporting was largely accurate to a very high degree and the accusations that it was fake do not bear out. It puts responsibility on those official who is have on obligation to speak truthfully to the public. They may spar with us at times. They may not like all the stories we do but providing truthful, reliabilile informati is part of what theyre required to do. This calls into question the frustration that many journalist vs fe s have felt and the public about the Trump Administration. Sarah sanders is acknowledging a part of that but she didnt clean it up prior to this time and there were many opportunities for her to do so. Jackie, many of those stories that have been talked about as fake news were broken by your newspaper and verified, corroborated so a hat tip for all the great reporting that gets done there. I want to talk about something the president tweet today. He said watch out for people that take so called notes when the notes never existed until needed. Im not sure what until needed means because isnt that why you take notes. You take them so you have a c contemporaneous report later when you need it. Isnt it often backed up, notes but other peoples testimony, text messages, emails, anybody who has not read this report will see its full of details, the kind of details that tell you where this information has come from. Thats exactly right. I think what is so important to note especially to the American Public here as the Trump Administration has tried to refute the majority of reporting on the Mueller Investigation over the past two years is that muellers investigation and his findings and all of these details that really illuminate chaos and pedaling of a lot of falsehoods come from trumps own staffers. Former trump loyalists and people who were many the room with the president during these times. These memos were written for a reason and now what youre seeing the president do is, i think, the report provides a retaliatory road map and the president seems to be going after that. After don mcgahn specifically. Theres this one instance that every one keeps referring to when the president in an attempt to maintain control of the investigation as he did over the past 700 days is tried to apply pressure to don mcgahn to deny that the president wanted to remove mueller from his position as special counsel. Mcgahn refused to do so. Uncomfortable with that pressure and documented it as a lawyer is supposed to do. This is trump fundamentally misunderstanding the role of white house counsel. Great seeing both you have. Have a good weekend. Well be right back. Have. Have a good weekend. Well be right back. You wanted to save on prescriptions. So, you went online and got so confused that your brain went offline. Next time, ask your helpful cvs pharmacist. We created a proprietary search tool that analyzes ways to help lower your prescription costs. Just drop in. Before you conk out. That wraps up things for this hour. Ali velshi picks things up. You have yourself a good weekend. Happy easter. What now . As nbcs political unit puts it, thats the all consuming question that democrats are faced with now that robert muell muellers 448 page report is out with nearly one thousands redactions. Jerry nadler wasted no time in issuing a subpoena for the full unredacted report saying the Justice Department has until may 1st to fulfill the request. It falls to congress quote to decide what steps we must take going forward. Mueller decided it was not the special counsels role to determine whether the president broke the law but he did lay out several episodes that amounted to possibly obstruction of justice. As written on page 158 of muellers report, the president was unsuccessful