President trump is furious over democratic investigations into his administration and his personal finances. In less than 30 minutes, trumps acting attorney general will appear on capitol hill despite earlier threats to skip the hearing entirely unless a subpoena was dropped. If you think the news could not get any stranger, im going to blow your mind. In one corner, youve got jeff bezos the founder of amazon and the richest man in modern history. In the other corner, youve got david pecker, the head of American Media and the National Enquirer whos a close friend for decades of President Trump. In the middle, youve got threats of blackmail, extortion and hints that the whole thing was very politically motivated. I have a great team here to break all of it down, but first, i must explain what this is all about. It started last month when the National Enquirer published a huge front page story about bezoss love affair with a former tv anchor named lauren sanchez. The enquirer called it the biggest investigation in its history publishing photos of the two as well as private text messages. Bezos responded by launching his own investigation to find out how the tabloid and its Parent Company ami got its hands on those very text messages. And thats where the story gets crazy. An extraordinary post bezos published medium that when word got out about the investigation back to ami chairman david pecker, pecker was furious and just a few days later, bezos says ami approached him with an offer. They told him they did not just have his texts, they also had explicit sexual photos of bezos and sanchez. Ami said they would publish those photos if bezos did not meet their demands. If you said that sounds like extortion and blackmail, youre not alone. But instead of backing down the amazon ceo did something very surprising. He called their bluff. He explained, quote, of course i dont want personal photos published, but i also wont participate in their wellknown practice of blackmail, political favors and political attacks and corruption. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over and see what crawls out. Thats some hot fire right there. Bezos released emails he says he and his legal team exchanged with American Media to show the, quote, precise details of their proposal. They appear to show ami describing what they had and what they wanted. Number one, they wanted bezos to stop his investigation. In an email addressed from amis deputy general counsel john fine, the company also demanded, quote, a public mutually agreed upon acknowledgement from the bezos parties released through a mutually agreeable news outlet affirming they have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that American Medias coverage was politically motivated or influenced by Political Forces and an agreement that they will cease referring to such possibility in the future. Thats a wow. Bezos says he would not make that Public Statement because he says it would be a lie. We should note that we reached out to American Media but a spokesman declined to comment. Ami has denied that it is reporting that its reporting is influenced by politics, we know the National Enquirer has a long history of publishing stories beneficial to President Trump and we know that ceo david pecker and the president have been friends for years as has Jared Kushner and david pecker. We also know that President Trump is no fan of bezos and has repeatedly criticized the Washington Post which bezos bought six years ago. We have no evidence that the president was involved in any of this, but its certainly raising a whole lot of questions. As for bezos, many are giving him serious credit for standing up to amis threats even at the risk of his own personal humiliation. As the ceo wrote on thursday, quote, if i cant stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can . This is a wow. I want to bring in dylan buyers, Scott Galloway whos an expert on all things amazon, and kim wehle former assistant u. S. Attorney. Dylan, we got to start with you. What could be so damaging that ami would resort to a apparent blackmail to end bezoss investigation and presumably keeping him from finding out how exactly they got these texts . That really is the question because what we have here in jeff bezoss post are pretty detailed letters showing what ami allegedly had on him, the question is, what might jeff bezos have known, what might he have had going after how ami got a hold of these information, these photos and texts that they found so damning and on top of that, why are they continuing to go after jeff bezos after david pecker, the chairman of ami, has already copped to participating in catch and kill stories with President Trump to the Justice Department . Theres no question that the scrutiny is already there, so why are they doing this . That indeed is the question. What do they have . This whole story as you just laid it out so fascinating because what you effectively have is you have bezos, the wealthiest man in the world, the founder of amazon going from being this punchline of this sorted affair that either destroyed his marriage or hastened the destruction of his marriage, cast him in a very negative and scandalous light, flipping that script over night to all of a sudden becoming praised as a hero of journalism who is indicting the American Culture and really recasting himself as part of that larger narrative of the the Washington Post and the Media Standing up against that sorted kind of journalism. As a source close to bezos told me last night, do not poke this bezos bear. Kim, to me its not a surprise how david pecker runs his business. Weve known this is how the enquirer operates for years, but it seems incredibly reckless to put these threats in an email given that theres a deal that was made with federal prosecutors . Right. The cooperation deal had to do with the quid pro quo to silence a woman who had had a relationship with the president , Karen Mcdougal and they essentially agreed, listen, doj said were not going to prosecute you for the related election and Campaign Finance violations with this if you cooperate and the agreement is very clear. The deal is completely off if you engage had any crimes whatsoever. We dont know if there are any crimes here. Possibly if the information mr. Bezoss private information was hacked, thats certainly a crime, and theres some talk about extortion. Thats another question of the whether theres elements or facts getting rise to that. The notion that they have this agreement, the Justice Department is has them under scrutiny, the noose was around their neck and theyre nonetheless engaging in problematic, at the least Type Communications with a titan of the media or amazon titan. Its really quite dangerous and so the question arises why, why put it all on the line in this way . What kind of politically motivated charges against ami would bezos allegedly have given . We should remind our audience, ami does not own the national enqui they own us weekly. The first week david pecker had editorial control of us weekly, that first issue had a glowing lifestyle article about ivanka trump and since has had many, many articles about the trump family and their lifestyle. Scott, you tweeted last night speaking of the president , that you believe he is directly involved in this. We have no evidence of that but clearly its on your mind. Yeah. And to be clear its pure speculation. A key tell among Law Enforcement officials is when someone is driving 45 miles an hour in the fast lane that theyre hiding something. The president s silence on this is eerie. He tweeted about bezos calling him bow zoe january 4th but this is someone who never misses an opportunity to mock someone he perceives as an adversary via twitter and he hasnt said anything and i think thats thats a tell here and like with a facebook hack or any scandal involving the president , the only thing we know for sure is that its almost worser, always worse than we originally thought. I think this is going to be one of the biggest stories of 2019 and there are several cards still to be turned over here. Put another way . The president and ami are both acting like guilty parties right now. Acting. I want to bring my panel in rick tyler and mark thompson. Rick, you know ami and the National Enquirer, you worked with ted cruz and it was the National Enquirer that was going hard after ted cruz with the ridiculous Conspiracy Theory that his own father was tied to the assassination of jfk. Can you tell me your experience or what you know about this organization . Whats at stake here, what bezos is establishing that the National Enquirer is not legitimate news. We knew that. But its an important point and then when you have the president who is friends with david pecker and he has consistently used that tabloid to strike at his political enemies, he did that with ted cruz and here hes doing it with jeff bezos but jeff bezos is now punching down because his letter is extraordinary because he imindicates not only the president in his letter but not directly and he implicates the saudis because they are they would be the first person you would go to to say where did you get these texts . It seems to be either from the government or the saudi government, likely the saudi government and thats thats a big thats a big problem. Not russia . He didnt he didnt mention russia. The other thing that was interesting, he actually made himself incredibly vulnerable and he describes the text and the photos that ami has in their possession because once you read the descriptions of the photos, no offense, jeff, theres no real market for people to say, gee, i wish we could see those photos. Thats not true. Hold on a second. There is a huge market. Im not saying a personal interest, what you got going on down there, but its a huge story . It blunts the whole the way they operate. Gee, look at this now Everybody Knows they have it and this is sorted. These are the kinds of people the president likes to hang out with. My friend Stephanie Gosk just walked in with a statement received from American Media. We hadnt gotten a response until now. Ill read it to you. American media believes that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of mr. Bezos. Further, at the time of the recent allegations made by mr. Bezos it was in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with him. Nonetheless, in light of the nature of the allegations published by mr. Bezos, the board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims upon completion of that investigation, the board will take whatever appropriate action is necessary. Okay. Thats a wow. First of all, they say right out of the gate, we stand behind the reporting that we did. No ones denying that. Jeff bezos had an affair with this woman. He didnt say that wasnt the case. We got that. But now the board is looking into the conduct of ami. That is interesting. To they have a choice do they have a choice . In a real world in a normal situation, theres accountability in a corporation, theres a board. If someone is going rogue like pecker is, although i find it doubtful that he has a board that does not exist of sink cofants that wouldnt go along with him. Your board says were going to look into this individual we dont know that he has a sink cofan tick board, because hes either been in bankruptcy or on the verge of bankruptcy many times and that company has gone through a number of rescue financing deals. He might have a board thats not necessarily friendly. Maybe not now, but hes been doing this isnt this is not a surprise. This is what he does. Weve never heard of any board thats worked with him that has looked into his conduct before, have we . No, but his conduct in terms of, you know, hey, tiger woods, i saw you walking out of a hotel with a beautiful woman who wasnt your wife, id like you to be on the cover of my mens magazine is much different than working with the president in covering up something potentially tied to wrongdoing in winning an election to be the president of the United States. I want to go back to you. The fact that jeff bezos was not influenced by ami, he was unwilling to say that their reporting was not politically motivated, what does that tell you about what bezos or the Washington Post might know . It tells me that hes going to be if hes not already an important witness in the Mueller Investigation and perhaps somebody that would testify in connection with the various congressional probes that are ongoing. It seems like for this level of exchange, the notion that e oh, ill come out and just say it was not politically motivated what is that about . Why was that so, so important to ami . We can only speculate on it, but as with other aspects of this sorted russia trump story, you start pulling the thread and more and more comes out. In the bigger picture, the fact that mr. Bezos is fighting back to what some scholars have called sex tortion, this idea that you take texts or pictures, you hack them or find them some where and then you threaten people in exchange for something. That hurts a lot of people. It hurts people without a lot of money and resources in the way mr. Bezos has. Its led to severe tragedies for the idea being, ill be humiliated, ill be shamed and that bigger narrative is perhaps an important one. Scott, you tweeted yes . Just a quick point on that. It would be enough this drama between jeff bezos and david pecker over the question of extortion and blackmail, but to me thats the secondary story. The bigger story is what bezos insin yates in that post when he effectively suggests that President Trump and or saudi arabia might be behind the political motivation for going after bezos because they dont like the coverage that theyve been receiving by his paper, the Washington Post. Now thats an insinuation, its not an allegation. There is going to be a sort of greater focus now on what those connections are and, in fact, earlier today, former cia director john brennan gave us a statement which said effectively, i have no doubt that saudi arabia would want to embarrass jeff bezos and hurt him financially. I think that is where the focus of this conversation is going to turn and to me those are the significant political threats. Scott, last night you tweeted that ami went out of business last night. They just dont know it. Thats a wow, but why is now . Why this . Why is this going to put them out of business . They have been in hot water since they went into publication. The second worse business decision of the last 12 months was the wealthiest man in the world deciding to send out a very intimate photos. The worse business decision of the last 12 months in business, was a Media Company deciding to attempt to extort the wealthiest man in the world via email. This has echos of teal versus goker and its going to have a similar outcome. The courts and the public are fed up with organizations wrapping themselves in the First Amendment to engage in depraved activity. They have literally taken the best resource, most creative mind in business and turned his attention from disrupting the book industry to destruction. This is literally there is now a meg la done in the reads coming for ami. This was a terrible business decision on the part of the individuals at pecker. They are out of business. They just dont know it yet. Not to mention, when you cut that kind of deal, you also agree, the worrying is not to commit any crimes. Think of how absurd it is. Ive talked to thousands of reporters on many stories that i didnt want them to publish, right, and there was never like this negotiation, if you give us this, we wont do the story on your client. This is not the way the press should function. Its interesting that bezos who owns the Washington Post is going to take down ami. That would be amazing. Heavens to betsy. My goodness. Great conversation. Stephanie . Yes, dylan . Yes . That wasnt me scott, excuse me, scott. Just real quick, stephanie, in your kim touched on this point, im really hoping you followup here but the best thing that can come out of this is that it cmakes a longer conversation that we have a digital crisis. Jeff bezos knows hell be okay. Does a 15 or 16yearold boy or girl who is sitting and struggling with the mental anguish of a mistake they have made, do they know they will be okay . It is no accident that teen depression is escalating and suicide among teen girls has sky rocketed. This needs to be a bigger conversation around the emerging crisis in teen depression and what it means to have our mistakes digitalized. I cannot thank you enough for ending our segment on that powerful moment. As a mother of a 12yearold, we have this conversation in my house almost daily. 100 . Thank you so, so much. All of you. Its a really important topic. We are watching the House Judiciary Committee this morning, acting attorney general Matt Whitaker is about to testify. Well take you there when he answers questions. But first we need to take you to a very important moment. A moment to remember. Former democratic congressman, he passed away monday. He served a record 59 years in congress before he announced his retirement in 2014. In his nearly six decades of Public Service he was known as a lion of the United States congress and played a key role in some of the most important pieces of legislation in this country, including the clean water and air acts. Medicare and the Affordable Care act as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1957. After his retirement, he became known for his fierce his fierce twitter game. I said last night theres no joy left in twitter without this man. President trump was often his target, but so was everybody else on twitter. For example, his tweet, 99 of you people dont even deserve 140 characters. And then this moment, he was told about the kardashian empire. Staff has now informed me of what a kardashian is. Im only left with more questions. When i went on to ancestry, i just put in the name of my parents and my grandparents. And as soon as i did that, literally it was like youre getting 7, 9, 10, 15 leaves that are just popping up all over the place. Yeah, it was amazing. Just with a little bit of information, you can take leaps and bounds. Its an awesome experience. [kno king] memories. What we deliver by delivering. Im Stephanie Ruhle with a lot going on today. Right now we are watching and waiting for acting attorney general Matt Whitaker. Hes about to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Were expecting questions about what the acting attorney general said about muellers time line and what he has said to the president about the investigation. I want to bring in the Washington Post phil rucker. Phil, walk us through the chess game that played out yesterday. What it all meant . Whitaker threatening to bail on the testimony if the committee didnt promise not to subpoena him . If he was showing up any way, what did all that matter . Steph, it was a real game yesterday back and forth, back and forth between the Justice Department and chairman nadler, the democrat in the house, over whether the democrats would subpoena whitaker to testify. Whitaker wanted in writing a promise not to subpoena. They ultimately agreed late last night to go ahead with this testimony today and all it served to do frankly was raise the stakes for this event today, draw more attention to what whitaker may say and the sorts of questions he may be asked in particular about the Mueller Investigation and what kind of discussions hes had related to the russia probe. Take us inside the white house. How do they feel about this testimony . Well, i think its a little bit outside of their control. Its something that whitakers been working on with his advisers at the Justice Department and theyre staying tuned, but the president is very tuned in on this. Hes been tweeting this morning about the russia probe again calling it a witch hunt and a hoax and going on with a lot of his now very familiar talking points clearly agitated by, you know, the Ongoing Investigation and whitakers forced to answer some questions about that, including i think what sort of conversations hes had with President Trump. He may not answer those questions in the open session but he will be asked them, no doubt. All right. Democrats are doing their day jobs but they are also working hard on oversight, which is part of their day job. At least six Legal Investigations at this point surrounding the president , his campaign, his foundation, his business, his Transition Team and now the house committees are talking about his personal tax returns and investigating the separation of parents and their children at the southern border. Testimony yesterday revealed that the policy may have started earlier than we realized and more people separated than we previously reported. Based on all the reporting you and your colleagues at the post are doing, which is the white house most concerned about . Theyre concerned about a number of fronts. Theyre concerned clearly about investigations into the president and into his personal conduct in office, his personal finances, the tax returns. But theyre also, frankly, concerned about investigations throughout the administration, what you just mentioned about the border child separation policy but also, you know, allegations of corruption and various agencies of the government. This is going to be an ongoing Oversight Effort by democrats that could take up the next two years and, remember, were heading into a campaign season. So the white house is concerned not only with any legal exposure, you know, people in the administration could have because of these investigations, but with the political fallout for the president and his Reelection Campaign and how damaging, you know, what the democrats end up finding might be. Theyve staffed up at the white house with a number of new lawyers. Theres a new communications operative in charge of dealing with these oversight investigations. Theyre very much preparing for a pretty ugly series of months here. Were seeing there on your screen acting attorney general Matt Whitaker making his way into the room shaking some hands about to take his seat before jerry nadler the ranking democrat starts this thing off. Quickly, any concerns about even the appearance of overreach on the part of democrats . Six investigations are a lot and it takes a lot of time. Thats right. Its certainly a concern. It was the concern when the parties were flipped back in the late 90s and the republicans who had the House Majority were very aggressively investigating then democratic president bill clinton and politically at least it seemed to backfire on the republicans. There is that concern right now. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been careful to sort of keep her members at bay and avoid, you know, the impeachment question and avoid members who are eager to try to impeach this president from beginning any of those proeldings. Theyre cautiously taking their time but clearly its a concern among democrats and i think the white house is looking to capitalize on that and make it appear that the democrats are obstructing and doing a lot of pointless partisan investigations which is what the president raised in his state of the Union Address tuesday night. All right. Phil, thank you so much. We are keeping an eye as Matt Whitaker has taken his seat. Hes expected to be grilled im going to say mostly about his oversight of the Mueller Investigation, but before we get to him, weve got to talk about taxes. Its money power politics time. We are only two weeks into tax season and theres a lot of american suddenly worrying, wheres the rest of my money . This is the first time taxpayers are submitting returns under the new gop tax plan that went into effect last year and were beginning to see some people voicing their frustrations that they either owe the irs or that theyre going to be receiving a smaller than expected refund. Its more than just a few people. Government data shows that about 30 million people, 21 of u. S. Taxpayers are expected to owe money to the irs this season 3 million more, 3 million more than if the tax law had not been changed. Joining me now, founder of d. C. Report. Org and author of the making of donald trump, david k. Johnson. During the president s state of the Union Address, he touted that passing this tax law was for working families. He has said it over and over. By my estimation, it has always been for Corporate America and it was going to trickle down. He said this was a tax cut for the middle class, for working families, why are so many people realizing theyre getting less of a refund . Because the republicans ran a sort of Stimulus Program by reducing your withholding under new tables without the experience of knowing exactly what would happen and about 25 of taxpayers who had been itemizing deductions will not be able to do so under the new law and those people are going to get a real shock because of the limitation on how much they can deduct for state and local taxes. If you were paying 20,000 in state and local taxes, youre only going to be able to deduct half and that likely means that you will now not file an itemized tax return and youre going to pay more. Its not just a smaller refund. The new tax bill eliminated a number of popular Tax Deductions and were hearing that theres a lot of people out there who could end up paying more. Lets walk through those deductions and why this could be the case. One of the most important ones is the elimination of miscellaneous deductions, if you were a police officer, you could deduct the cost of your uniform, your gun, your night stick and the cost of cleaning your uniform and your union dues, all gone. Donald trump always tells you he loves the cops, took away that and its a substantially expense for police officers. Your ability to deduct your state and local taxes is the big one. If you live in a state with high property taxes because you spend a lot of money principally on schools, you only get to deduct 10,000 and there are many, many people in this country who pay more than 10,000 a year in property taxes. Im one of them on a middle class house. So those are two of the most important ones. They took away the medical deduction and all of this was done instantaneously along with taking away your ability to deduct a Home Equity Loan against your house. Yikes. Walk me through, could there be an impact we just went through a Government Shutdown as the tax season was kicking off. We could be on the verge of another one. Could that affect peoples refunds . , in fact, one of my grown children was told by the irs yesterday that it would take 12 weeks for her to get an answer to a very simple tax question. Wheres my refund because it hasnt come through. 12 weeks. We have stripped the irs down so much that the governments revenue source, Revenue Agency cant even properly do its job and a lot of people are going to have to borrow money to pay the government. Heres the only upside to this. The irs is announced that they will waive the penalties if you under paid in the past year, so you wont face a penalty but youre still going to have to come up with the dough. My goodness. Well stay all over this. Remember, the president talked about it over and over especially saying were going to simplify tax returns. You can do it on a postcard. People arent going to care if theyre doing it on a postcard or a book as big as a dictionary why did they do so abruptly . Why didnt they phase it in . They couldnt make the budget numbers work for the tax cut for the richest among us unless they hit the middle class first fully. Im going to say that one more time. They couldnt make the tax cut for the richest among us unless they completely hit the middle class first. Think about that. David, im sure i am going to have you back in the coming weeks as we get deeper into tax season. This is really important. The president considers that tax cut a huge win for the country. Up next, we are headed to capitol hill where acting attorney general Matt Whitaker will be in the hot seat facing questions from the House Judiciary Committee. You better stick around. Youre going to want to see this. Gentle means everything, so we improved everything. 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Im Stephanie Ruhle and we are Just Moments Away from the highly anticipated testimony from acting attorney general Matt Whitaker who will be the first top trump official to appear before the newly empowered democrats in congress. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have said they want to grill the acting attorney general on his conversations with the president. You guessed it related to special counsel Robert Muellers russia investigation and the firing of trumps first attorney general Jeff Sessions as well as ask what he meant when he indicated the investigation was about to wrap up and we have already learned from whitakers Opening Statement which we received in advance that he plans to invoke executive privilege when it comes to his conversations with the president. Thats no surprise, but it is a disappointment. Lets go live to msnbc garret hague on the hill. Yesterday, as we said it was a chess match between democrats and Matt Whitaker but there he is today, it sounds like we arent going to get much. Reporter well find out who wins in the check mate portion of this chess match in the next hour or so once the questioning gets started here. Democrats have made it clear. They want to know what directives the acting attorney general got from the president about the Mueller Investigation, how he came to some of the decisions he did including the comments he made a few weeks ago suggesting that the investigation might be wrapping up and whitaker in his Opening Statement draws a line in the sand and says, hes not going to talk about his communications with the president. Now under republican control of the house over the last two years, those disagreements were largely left to lie. Democrats had been threatening that in this case they would invoke a subpoena. This was the back and forth yesterday. Whitaker told the House Democrats yesterday if a subpoena came out, he wasnt going to participate. We will see how this standoff ends. Does the subpoena come out in a hearing today . Does whitaker get up and walk out of the room . Do House Democrats really want to test that at this phase with somebody thats only in this job for another week. We expect a vote on a soon to be new attorney general bill barr to happen next week. Whitakers time is limited here but his information is considered very valuable to democrats. Theyll try any way they can to get at it today whether we have the first real come to blows moment between the administration and House Democrats today over this issue of executive privilege and how officials can invoke it. We will find out shortly, but this is the tip of the iceberg. Democrats will be going after information about how the president and his appointees have impacted the Mueller Investigation in a lot of different ways over the course of the next few months and well learn a lot about how they plan to do that once the questions start for matthew whitaker. Joining me now former assistant u. S. Attorney and law professor kim wayly, former Deputy Assistant attorney general and the Washington Post columnist Harry Littman and my panel mark and rick still here. Harry, executive privilege, does that mean were getting nothing . Short answer is yes. Sorry about that. If hes going to step a baby step away from invoking it and this is what the chess match was about yesterday and hes essentially pinned nadler. Anything that could be executive privilege, my conversations with trump, i wont answer. Thats not the same as a formal invocation, but i think theyve in terms of getting the answers, what does it matter if its right next to a formal or it is a formal . Is he answering or not . No. And the difference is for court terms. If he says, executive privilege, they say, heres your subpoena. He says, see you in court. And maybe a few years pass. What theyre going to want now is as much information as they can and there will be he will want to keep this dull, talk about normal department priorities, et cetera. The dems will try to question him in a sort of open ended way, get him a little bit talking on certain key issues and tease it out but its clear on two things, its going to be contentious and frustrating. Any conversations with trump and then his Opening Statement makes clear that he follows the party line on the southern border and how much drugs are coming in through there. Of course theyre flying over. Its nothing thats been interdicted that the wall would help. That will be the second bone of contention at the hearing. Kim, he knows whats questions are coming. Democrats have already provided a list. How will he handle all of it . The key question as was indicated is what happens when he doesnt answer pointed questions about his relationship with mr. Trump and the difference between a subpoena and a nonsubpoenaed testimony like he is now has to do with the contempt power, the ability to say youre in violation of a subpoena and therefore we can go to court through the Justice Department to force you to testify and its that piece that i think mr. Whitaker has been trying to avoid. He had the questions in advance. He could have affirmatively or formally asserted executive privilege and that way i think hes just kind of hedging a little bit to make to try to on the one hand comply with it, on the other hand not be in a position to be forced to actually disclose this information. Hes also under an obligation to tell the truth which i think in all things trump these days has to be a concern for any witness thats had a relationship with mr. Trump. This will be the first big test, rick, of the president s executive privilege strategy. Dont make me defend the president , but im not. I know youre not. When it comes to conversations about the president those should be protected because president s want to have and this is not just for donald trump, this will be for the next president in the next democratic president. We want conversations with the president , you want the president to be able to speak freely to get advice and that shouldnt be subject to public review all the time. In that sense, if its narrowly on that point, i think then theyre on firm ground. It will be interesting to see why whitaker if hell answer the question announced that the investigation was soon wrapping up on the eve of roger stone having his house raided and all that legally. And all that material that they gathered which would indicate this investigation is nowhere near close to wrapping up. Whats your take, mark . The with all due respect to rick and executive privilege hes about to disagree with you. I hope so. With all due respect when with all due respect comes at you, get ready. Even if i want to agree with you to some extent on other cabinet secretaries, the attorney general is supposed to maintain a certain level of objectivity when it comes to specific matters like the law and perhaps even like what the special counsel is doing. I dont think hold on. What if the president wants to ask him questions about the law . The president has the right to do that even if it appears you cant claim executive privilege over it. The president is asking him questions that appear, like, what does the president want to do, even even if what hes getting at is not appropriate, whitakers not going to answer that. Hes the act attorney general. The president should be able to ask the attorney general legal questions. Thats what his job is. I dont think that thats something that is necessary when you claim executive privilege, as far as im concerned, youre trying to hide something. Theres something that could be incriminating, which were talking about donald trump. Theyll want wide latitude. Theyll want to protect executive privilege. If the president if they ask him about conversations with trump with regards to the Mueller Investigation and hes saying executive privilege, that in and of itself is incriminating, because to me thats a conflict of interest to begin with. The Justice Department is overseeing a special counsel investigation to the president. If hes badgering the attorney general about whats going on, thats obstruction to me. If im totally offbase its a toughy. Your point technically speaking its a toughy. Your point is important, though. Executive privilege does not should not cover any conversation with the president. That paradigm is executive privilege. Youre asking for legal advice, of course. What they want to get at is actual assurances of possible interference with the probe. That depending on how its framed is not executive privilege, the second big point it would depend. If its a request for actual legal advice. Second big point, it sometimes yields, probably not to congress but in the nixon case to a criminal process. Executive privilege can yield to an important Law Enforcement objective with that being the Mueller Investigation. Is he going to claim executive privilege or executive time . Hes going to claim thats a joke. I got it. I got it. Youve seen the pie chart. What hes going to claim is, any conversation, anything that asks for questions about what he and donald trump said is going to not just hes going to claim could be executive privilege and im stopping here and i dont think they will engage him right away. Theyll try to keep talking. I need to tell you whats happening here. A roll call is taking place because republicans who took their seat are looking to adjourn this and get it over and done with and walk out the door. Are you surprised or should we expect this from republicans . From the pushing back on eve stage of this which is to be expected. But i think regardless of political party, the fact that the congress is roaring back to life and engaging in oversight of the presidency is really important for democracy. Remember, the discussion weve been having for months now is whether the president can be indicted and i think most legal scholars will say no. That means the judicial process is out in terms of holding a president accountable. That branch of government cant do it on that theory. So now were talking about congress, republicans and the president saying this is overreach. Then we would knock out the second leg of the stool. Whats left . A single president with unlimited, unaccountable power. Thats a problem. And i think theres actually an interesting memo produced by mr. Bar himself in 1989 that talks about executive privilege. And in that he was at the office of Legal Counsel under the first george bush. In that he says executive privilege is not in the constitution itself. This is really a norm that was developed as was suggested to not chill conversations between the president and his closest advisers. But that is different from a larger Public Interest if the conversations are people are engaging in conversations in order to obstruct justice, in order to cover things up. Just like the exception to an Attorney Client privilege, i think the executive privilege would give sway. Im not sure in the congressional in the congressional standpoint if weve got enough experience with that, but i would think most courts would say listen, its not absolute. It does not give you a blanket basis to not answer questions if theres a problem. But whats happening now is republicans are making the argument, the reason to adjourn is that this is a waste of time. Help me understand how much power do republicans have . The argument that this thing is a waste of time, they could have made that argument yesterday. Its not a good look, because this is the motion just failed. This is the congresss duty to have oversight. Weve had two years of no oversight. Some say its overreach. Others say were making up time. The president s claim that this is a president ial harassment doesnt hold water. I mean, there were huge investigations during the Reagan Administration by democrats, during the carter administration, and it actually goes down during the clinton administration. And the obama administration, anybody forget benghazi . This is normal. This is what congress does. Its not always a good look, but they investigate the other team. Theres a lot here, a lot of questions that need to be asked about obstruction of justice, about the russia probe that needs to be vetted out. Thats got to then if im a republican and im sitting on the Judiciary Committee and i dont have any link to russia, why wouldnt i sit back and say let this thing play out . Because they dont want to be primaried and they want to play to the fox audience. Thats w its better to say i on tv. It plays well on fox. Really . Yes. And one other thing. I dont think he can mention executive privilege, use that. The Justice Department oversees the Detention Center in brooklyn. We covered that earlier this week. Abuses, no heat, a Justice League in new york. Almost a week. Were hoping people dont forget in light of all that that she is attorney general. He needs to be asked about a number of things including the Detention Center in brooklyn. I hope he is. When you look at the leverage republicans have, if theyre saying this is a waste of time, lets get out of here, beyond it being a bad look, is it a good strategy . The strategy i dont think is to win the battles but to bring them. I agree. Not much lvreverage. The leverage here is with the executive branch and their secret card is the knowledge that if it comes to a court battle, its going to take a long time and might even take longer than this congress will take before it winds it way up and there wont be a definitive answer. Thats why they want to keep him in the room even if he speaks the words executive privilege. A week from now hes a former acting attorney general. The goal if youre a republican is to run the clock and push this as long as you can because if it ends up in the courts, youre going to get past President Trumps term in office . And also make political points. Also be heard on fox tv. Maybe even msnbc saying why are we doing this . Its useless. They dont intend for that to pass. They intend to make a talking point. The fox bug burners are watching this. Theyre saying obama should have been in jail. Clinton should have been in jail. This is all like retribution. This is the democrats coming out. Its all made up. They believe what trump says its about a witch hunt despite the evidence and indictments that have happened. They believe this is all injust. They dont look at both sides. They dont try to say this is just bad for america. Its bad for government. And its a conservative point of view. Conservatives should be railing against for congressional oversight. Then i need you to tell me. Youve been a republican long before donald trump decided he was a republican. How does the rest of your party really feel about this . Are they so happy with the legislative moves, the judges, or the tax cuts that all of this is worth it . Its about power. Remember, when people say there are leaders in congress, there are none. Theyre all followers. They follow their constituency. If the constituencies in their districts follow trump, theyre going to follow trump. If the constituencies rise up and say no, this is unacceptable, foreign interference in an election is unacceptable, propping up saudi day care d dictators who kill journalists is unacceptable, then the congress will turn. And those constituencies follow trump because they follow fox, unfortunately. And he follows fox. Well, i invite all the constituencies to tune into msnbc daily at 9 00 a. M. And 1 p. M. With us. Were going to take a quick break. Matt whitaker is giving his Opening Statement. When we return, well get a bit closer to the questions when nad ler will begin, and we want to hear the answers. Stick around. Youre watching msnbc. Today is better than a soap opera. Day is better than a soap opera. [birds chirping] [brakes squealing] accidents can happen anytime thats why geico is here 24 hours a day everyday. 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The man you see in the chair there, Matt Whitaker, the acting attorney general after a lot of back and forth yesterday about whether he would appear, here he is making his Opening Statement after that dramatic political standoff. Democrats ultimately retreated on their threat to subpoena him, leaving high a