Well, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 832 of the trump administration. A full day, an explosive day on capitol hill, as attorney general barr defended the man who appointed him, defended his handling of the Mueller Report, to members of the senate. Well take you through the hearing in just a moment, but the latest news from today came tonight. Its about tomorrow. Barr has decided hes one and done, where hearings are concerned. He turned down house judiciary tomorrow. Hes not going to show. He didnt like the idea of getting questioned by the committees appointed lawyers in addition to members of congress on the committee, something the Committee Chairman said tonight shouldnt be up to him. The attorney general has a nerve to try to dictate, and the administration has a nerve to dictate our procedures, simply part of the administrations complete stonewalling of congress. Hes trying to blackmail the committee into not following what we think is the most effective means of eliciting the information we need. Tonight a spokesman at the department of justice tells nbc news that nadlers insistence on the staff question format is, quote, inappropriate. Nadler also says justice refuses to hand over the full unredacted Mueller Report. His committee is now trying to get mueller, himself, to testify may 15th. And now back to the attorney general. He spent much of today before Senate Judiciary defending at every turn how he handled and released and summarized the Mueller Report. Defending trumps assertions about the Mueller Report, even the mischaracterizations of muellers findings. Do you think the president s campaign in 2016 was thoroughly looked at in terms of whether or not they colluded with the russians . Yes. And the answer is no, according to bob mueller. Thats right. In his report, mueller noted he was applying the framework of conspiracy law, not making a judgment about collusion which is not an entity in federal law. Mueller also made plain the evidence that trump directed his exwhite House Counsel don mcgahn to have mueller fired. Trump also denied this and today barr seemed to as well. The president never directed him to fire and there is a distinction between saying to someone, go fire him, go fire mueller, and saying, have him removed based on conflict. In his report, mueller also detailed evidence indicating trump attempted to get rid of the special counsel with the corrupt intent of curtailing the investigation. Trump has suggested he could have fired mueller because he believed the investigation to be a witch hunt, which you may have heard. Here is what barr told the committee today on that front. If the president is being falsely accused and he felt that this investigation was unfair, propelled by his political opponents, and was hampering his ability to govern, that is not a corrupt motive for replacing an independent counsel. Barrs appearance came just hours after we learned that mueller had, in fact, written the a. G. In late march, suggesting that barr misled the public with his fourpage nowfamous letter describing the reports conclusions in advance. Earlier last month, barr under oath told a House Committee that he was unaware that members of the mueller team were concerned about what hed written in his summary. Today, he was asked about that apparent discrepancy. Why did you say you were not aware or concerned when weeks before your testimony mr. Mueller had expressed concerns to you. Thats a fairly simple i answered the question and the question was relating to unidentified members who were expressing frustration over the accuracy relating to findings. I dont know what that refers to at all. I talked directly to bob mueller, not members of his team. Would you concede that you had an opportunity to make this letter public on april 4th when representative crist asked you a very related question . I dont know what you mean by related question. Seems to me it would be a very different question. I cant even follow that down the road. That i mean, boy, thats a masterful hair splitting. On several different occasions, barr seemed to diminish his friend of 30 years, Robert Mueller, calling him the equivalent of a u. S. Attorney, which, indeed, mueller was years ago, saying mueller wasnt a career prosecutor, and then hours into the hearing, heres how he characterized the letter that mueller had sent him. You know, the letters a bit snitty and i think it was probably written by one of his staff people. Another revealing moment today during withering questioning from former prosecutor turned democratic senator Kamala Harris who asked barr about his contact with the white house. Has the president or anyone at the white house asked or suggested you open an investigation of anyone . I wouldnt i wouldnt yes or no . Could you repeat that question . I will repeat it. Has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone . Yes or no, please, sir. The president or anybody else . Seems youd remember Something Like that. Be able to tell us. Yeah, but im trying to grapple with the word, suggest. I mean, there have been discussions of matters out there that theyve not asked me to open an investigation, but perhaps theyve suggested . I dont know. I wouldnt say suggest. Hinted . I dont know. Inferred . You dont know . Okay. Because elections have consequences, time for civics. Republicans run the senate, and lindsey graham, who years ago was a withering trump critic, is now a close trump ally. He set the tone for the other republicans on the panel. After all this time and all this money, mr. Mueller and his team concluded there was no collusion. But when the Mueller Report is put to bed and it soon will be, this committee is going to look long and hard at how this all started. Were going to look at the fisa warrant process. What are you doing to investigate unauthorized Media Contacts by the department and fbi officials during the Russian Investigation . We have multiple criminal leak investigations under way. The Obama AdministrationJustice Department and fbi decided to place their bets on Hillary Clinton and focus their efforts on investigating the trump campaign. Starting with strzok and page and everybody else leading up before the investigation, i hope theyre being investigated. Which brings us to our leadoff discussion on this consequential wednesday night. Berit berger, former assistant u. S. Attorney with both the Eastern District of new york and Southern District of new york. Matthew miller, former chief spokesman for the Justice Department. Jeremy bash, former chief of staff at cia and the pentagon. Former chief counsel to the house intel committee. And ken vogel, veteran politico reporter for the New York Times. Good evening, and welcome to all of you. I know its been a long day. Jeremy, if i might, i want to begin with you. You were here when the broadcast started over two years ago. Among our first guests. Youve been along for the ride ever since. What did you make of todays hearing . Today was a sad display, brian. I think the attorney general advanced weak and shallow arguments. Hes gone full trump. Basically he mischaracterized bob muellers report, badly mischaracterized it. Bob mueller called him on it. But for the media reports the last 24 hours, the attorney general would have appeared before the senate this morning, repeated the lie, repeated the mischaracterizations. In addition, brian, as i think were going to get into, his analysis of the obstruction volume of the Mueller Report is way off base, essentially saying, no, the president didnt order that mueller be fired, he just ordered he be removed as if were all too stupid to know the difference. Berit berger, knowing you for five minutes means learning you love the Justice Department. Having established that, what did you make of today, what did you make of william barr . I think its painful any time you watch a witness testifying and having to sort of twist themselves into a pretzel to answer really basic questions. Its even more painful when that witness is the attorney general who in my opinion needs to be held to a higher standard. To see somebody like bill barr quibbling over the word of suggest, its painful. This is the nations top prosecutor. This is somebody who should be able to answer questions clearly and honestly and i dont know that the public can have much confidence in him after the performance today. Youve got friends, former colleagues, of course, still on the inside. This is their leader. Their boss. Right. Many of whom have investigations that were referred from the special counsels office team. This is the person that continues to oversee all of those investigations. Look, i think this testimony today answered some questions. I think it raised a lot more questions. Specifically, about, you know, where the attorney generals loyalties are here, who is he really serving in this role . Matt miller also a loyal former doj employee, come from the calm side of the street. Did we see a Communications Strategy today . The democrats charge that, yes, this was the period at the end of the sentence that obfuscated and fuzzed up the Mueller Report writ large. Yeah, i think it was a simple Communications Strategy by the attorney general. That was to defend the president at all costs. Its kind of stunning when you look at what he was there to testify about. He was there to testify about the Mueller Report. Which in its entirety is a pretty scathing account of the president s behavior. It all but accuses the president of committing a crime of obstruction of justice. It lays out a number of very troubling patterns of campaign. Conduct. Doesnt accuse him of crime but lays out things the americans should be concerned about. Every question the attorney general was asked he excused the conduct, dismissed the behavior of bob mueller and his team. At times he attacked the leadership of the fbi and Justice Department. He seemed skeptical of this entire investigation in the first place. It was a very disappointing performance for the attorney general who should have been there defending the departments work, instead went up there and questioned it kind of from the beginning. Ken vogel, by one theory what we saw today was two hearings under republican questioning and under democratic questioning. Watching cable news tonight, i saw two hearings. One as covered by this network, another as covered by another. What will shine through, in your view, tomorrow . Well, i think republicans definitely did provide fodder for barr to present this alternative story line. He did talk about spying. He echoed the president. The president s claim continuing he didnt back down from the claim that he previously made which echoed the president s claim that Trumps Campaign was spied on which a lot of career intelligence and Law Enforcement folks took issue with that term. He didnt back down from it. He also took the bait, not just took the bait, he talked at some depth about the investigations that he has launched at the department of justice into the origins of the russia investigation. Into possible fisa abuse and weve heard a little bit from Rudy Giuliani and even from the president , himself, that they would like an investigation by barr of ukrainian meddling on behalf of the clinton campaign. So these are the types of things that republicans prefer to talk about and they found a willing sort of response from barr on those issues. Jeremy bash, you were chief of staff, out of all places, spy headquarters in langley, virginia, and he did invoke the word today. Went further than that. Lets listen to some of that. Talk about it on the other side. I dont think the word, spying, has any pejorative connotation at all. You recognize to me the question is always whether or not its authorized and adequately predicated, spying. I think spying is a good english wood that, in fact, doesnt have synonyms because its the broadest word incorporating really all forms of Covert Intelligence collections. Of course, jeremy, politically, spying is the preferred word of the trump right. No collusion, no obstruction, is the preferred phraseology of the trump right. All your time at cia, was it known or ever referred to as spying if someone was put under surveillance and all the traps were run that have to be run . Its spying if its done against foreign adversaries, brian, to collect foreign intelligence, but when youre talking about undertaking surveillance, electronic surveillance, or investigative surveillance, on u. S. Soil against u. S. Persons, no, you dont call it spying. To call it spying is basically to say there is no predication, there is no judicial oversight, and thats contrary to the 4th amendment and our constitutional order. And our attorney general knows exactly that. He knows better. In fact, he told me so when he was general counsel of verizon and he was lobbying congress for an exception from liability for the Telecommunications Companies under thenpresident bushs surveillance program. And berit berger, i have one for you. Here is senator klobuchar also a former prosecutor talking about potential witness intimidation at the hands of the president. The report found that Michael Cohens testimony to the house before it, that the president repeatedly implied that cohens family members had committed crimes. Do you consider that evidence to be an attempt to convince a witness to change testimony . No. I dont think that that could could pass muster. The report found that after manafort was convicted, the president , himself, called him a brave man for refusing to break. Yes. And that is not and that is not obstruction. Berit, in your view, does that reasoning hold up . Well, whether or not its obstruction, its certainly not appropriate for the president of the United States to be congratulating a witness on not breaking. In the department of justice ive seen it in movies. Fair enough. The department of justice, we had gang cases, organized crime cases where we would bring additional obstruction charges against defendants for doing just these kind of actions for, you know, potentially threatening witnesses or, you know, making sort of these veiled threats against family members so whether or not it reaches a criminal threshold is sort of beyond the point here. You have the attorney general sort of acting like he sees nothing wrong with that, which to me is just baffling. Matt, neal katyal, frequent guest of ours, former solicitor general for this country, our lead lawyer before the supreme court, a guy who coauthored the regs that allowed mueller to do his work has written this and this is kind of an instruction manual for mueller request list going forward. This is interesting. Mr. Mueller needs to testify and tell us whether he disagrees with mr. Barrs analysis and conclusions about obstruction of evidence, what he thinks about the attorney generals reaching his decision without reviewing any of the underlying evidence, what mr. Mueller thought of mr. Barrs characterization of their reported disagreements, whether there were other disagreements that have not been reported, and whether mr. Muellers knowledge of what mr. Barr has done leads him to conclude that the attorney general must recuse himself from the continuing trump investigations. Its a long list, matt. Obviously, valid questions. One problem, bob mueller is an employee of the department of justice. His boss is bill barr, the attorney general, unless and until such time hes allowed to testify or is no longer an employee. Yeah, bill barr said today as he said previously he had no objection to the special counsel testifying. However, for some reason he cant the Justice Department cant seem to find a date to make him available to the House Judiciary Committee which said very much it wants to have him come testify. I think those are very good questions that neal laid out. I think before this week, i always thought muellers testimony would be a bit of a disappointment, come in and talk and testify the way he did when he was the fbi director which would be reticent to say anything beyond what was in that report. After finding out last night he was so upset with the way barr handled himself in his first letter that he sent two letters to the special to the attorney general complaining and in the second one arguing that he misled the american people, and whats happened since then . The attorney general doubled down on that at a press conference and then tripled down on it today and continued to mislead the American Public about what the special counsel had found. I wonder now if bob mueller, if he was mad enough on march 27th to send this kind of extraordinary letter to the attorney general, if hes even more upset now that he might come in when he eventually testifies, maybe after hes left the department and really lay his disagreements out for everyone to see. Hey, ken, democrats as of tonight have been presented with a moment. There will be no barr at tomorrows hearing. They are capable of playing it correctly and whatever, whoevers view that is or tends to result in more pointiant questions and better answers, or at least more confrontational on point questions. But we saw today that there were several Democratic Senators who were able to elicit very revealing responses from bill barr during the testimony, including senators harris and blumenthal. We talked a little bit about, showed clips of very on point questions. You would think the democrats on the House Judiciary Committee might be able to do the same thing but at this point the sides are kind of dug into their corners and i dont expect that either will give. Figuring theyve all been up all day anyway all of our guests have agreed to stay with us just this next break. And when we come back well look at how much Senate Directs were able to get on their own. One strategist called barr the president s defense lawyer, the 11th hour just Getting Started on this eventful wednesday night on capitol hill. cause it turns liquid to gel. So i have nothing to hide. Always discreet. A Business Owner always goes beyond what people expect. Thats why we built the nations largest gigspeed network along with complete reliability. Then went beyond. Beyond clumsy dialsins and pins. To onetouch conference calls. Beyond traditional tv. To tv on any device. Beyond lowres surveillance video. To Crystal Clear hd video monitoring from anywhere. Gigfueled apps that exceed expectations. Comcast business. Beyond fast. That handles anything. That protects whats important. And reaches everywhere. This is beyond wifi. This is xfi. Simple, easy, awesome. Bob mueller is equivalent of a u. S. Attorney. He was exercising the powers of the attorney general subject to the supervision of the attorney general. His work concluded when he sent his report to the attorney general. At that point, it was my baby, and i was making a decision as to whether or not to make it public. During his testimony today, the attorney general spoke about a conversation he had with Robert Mueller after he received that critical letter from mueller of barrs march 24th summary to congress. I said, bob, whats with the letter, you know . Why dont you just pick up the phone and call me if theres an issue. And he said that they were concerned about the way the media was playing this and felt that it was important to get out the summaries which they felt would put their work in proper context and avoid some of the confusion that was emerging and i asked him if he felt that my letter was misleading and inaccurate. He said no, he thought the press coverage was and it was and that a completer, a more complete picture of his thoughts and the context and so forth would deal with that. But theres nothing in Robert Muellers letter to you about the press. His complaint to you is about your characterization of the report. Correct . Well, the letter speaks for itself. After that exchange, the judiciary chairman, lindsey graham, said he would reach out to Robert Mueller to ask him if he disagreed with barrs characterization of that conversation. He was then asked about calling mueller to testify. This was in the hallway after the hearing. Why not call for mueller to testify . Because im not going to do any more. Enough already. Its over. If theres any dispute about a conversation, then hell come, but im not going to retry the case. Im not calling mcgahn. It is over. What is the chairman disappeared after that. Still with us, berit berger, matt miller, jeremy bash, and ken vogel. Berit, the question is, and i know youre not a political person, did the democrats do the damage to this witness they wanted to do . One of the headlines tonight, because im from new jersey, the record shows he took the blows for his boss. Donald trump did not get pummeled today. Barr did. Yeah. I think the democrats landed a lot of really strategic punches in this hearing. They were able to ask effective questions. I think they really poked holes in a lot of what barr had to say. I mean, i think the ultimate question at the end of this is, like, so what . How does this actually help congress in what is their ultimate decision, which is do they actually use the information in the Mueller Report to begin any kind of impeachment proceedings . Did this advance the ball for them on that field . I think it did. I think it definitely gave them some more fodder for bringing in additional witnesses, such as mueller, such as mcgahn, but i dont know that i dont know that we have a, you know, full picture of what went into the unrolling of the Mueller Report. I think theres definitely still room for more inquiry on this. Matt miller, barr says with a straight face that trump fully cooperated but we know trump didnt sit down for testimony. Yeah, that was one of the remarkable things he said that hes said for a while now that the president fully cooperated when he only gave written answers to half the report. He wouldnt sit down at all. I think it goes to this point that he was really acting kind of as the president s defense attorney. And so to the question you asked berit, democrats succeeded in dinging his credibility, dirtying up his credibility. At the same time, hes not playing the same game, hes not worried i dont think about his credibility with the Mainstream Press or people in middle america. Hes aiming for that fox viewer, the fox audience, who just needs to hear a different narrative. Need to hear no collusion, no obstruction and this was a witch hunt from the beginning and there needs to be an investigation into the investigation. Thats what he was trying to do. And so for democrats going forward, you know, look, hes not coming to testify before the House Committee tomorrow chaired by democrats. I dont think thats actually a bad thing for democrats. They dont need to hear any more from the president s chief defender who can sit there and explain why in his view the president didnt commit a crime. They need to hear from the witnesses that bob mueller put in his report. Don mcgahn, don mcgahns chief of staff, corey lewandowski, start hearing from those folks so the focus is not on bill barr but on donald trump. Jeremy bash, if your chief concern is the fact that our next president ial election is vulnerable to the russians again, did you hear anything today that would satisfy you . No. In fact, i think the attorney general is downplaying the whole notion that the russians posed a threat. I mean, there was some back and forth with some republican senators about it but the whole approach by the department of justice and the attorney general in this case is theres not much to see here, dont worry about it. You know, i agree with matt. I dont think the Democrats Gain much by having the attorney general there tomorrow. Although i have to say, ive been along for many congressional testimonies of cabinet secretaries, agency heads, where they usually do this senate then the house, house then the senate, back to back. Tomorrow, page 1 of the print edition, if you can summarize what folks will hopefully later read, it involves this man, joe biden. Theres even a cameo by rudolph giuliani. Yeah, its almost two separate stories. We have joe biden as Vice President having intervened to sort of force the firing of a ukrainian prosecutor who happened to have an open case looking into a company, ukrainian gas company, that was employing joe bidens son. Joe bidens son, hunter biden, was on the board of. Potential conflict of interest i think joe biden will have to answer for, particularly as hes casting himself as a statesman. And then on the other side you have Rudy Giuliani and allies of the president actually soliciting information from ukrainians that could be damaging to joe biden and also could be used to undermine the origins of parts of the special counsel, what became the special counsel investigation, so you have Rudy Giuliani really trying to capitalize on this in a way that could redound to Donald Trumps benefit. To our viewers, the request remains the same. Look for ken vogels byline as always, especially tonight. To ken vogel, our thanks, along with berit berger, matt miller, jeremy bash. Our foursome taking on this big day. Our thanks. Coming up, what donald trump had to say about what he saw today, when we come back. Hey, mike. Check out this timespace wormhole i created. Hows it work . Let me see your togo, and ill show you. Earl you have my lunch. Pretzelrami is back, with our famous pastrami and a bigger soft pretzel roll. And try the new turkey bistro with warm turkey and smokehouse bacon. Or the new hot club chicken dijon with black forest ham. The new hot pretzels, only at togos. How far would you go for a togo . I heard that the attorney general was really, really, solid and did a great job today. Not all not all the reviews were quite like that. The Washington Post headline tonight is this. With mueller silent, barr interprets the special counsels report to the advantage of trump. And there is no question the president is pleased. Here he was on fox business tonight. He did a fantastic job today. Im told. I got to see some of it. He did a fantastic job. And its all a big hoax. Hes an outstanding man. Hes an outstanding legal mind and i heard he was really he performed incredibly well today. And you have the Kamala Harris. Uhhuh. Well, she was probably very nasty. That was about Kamala Harris. I had not heard the president call it a hoax before, however. With us to talk about it town, john heilemann. Veteran journalist. National affairs coauthor thank you, thank you, jonathan of game change. Cohost, cocreator of the circus on showtime. And jonathan lemire, White House Reporter for the associated press. Jonathan lemire, we begin with you and your beat because you have fresh reporting on how today as a broadcast Live Television event went over in the west wing and portions of the residence. It went over very well. There are a number of televisions in the west wing scattered throughout the offices there including one just off the oval office in the president s private kitchen, dining area. That was tuned to the hearings today. People i talked to who have spoken to the president since, others in the west wing, white house officials, said the president kept a careful eye on this both in the residence before coming down to the oval office and again between meetings once he got to work for the day and that he told people privately more or less what he said publicly adding a few details, that he, yes, thought the attorney general did a good job. He defended him appropriately. He really he told a couple people that he thought that he was very combative with Democratic Senators and liked that, liked that sort of fighting spirit. This continues, what has really become, you know, the president didnt have much of a relationship with bill barr before he took this post. But since that summary, the fourpage summary a month or so back, was released of the Mueller Report, the president has been telling people really raving about his selection saying it was a great choice for him, in particular, this was heightened again today, because he feels like bill barr was loyal to him. Thats what he wanted. He as we all know complained about length, previous attorney general, Jeff Sessions was not after sessions recused himself from the russia probe and feels like barr here is sort of protecting him, protecting the president. As we know, this president feels like the attorney general job is about that, much more so than, perhaps, being the nations top Law Enforcement officer. All the evidence shows hes got his man in that job now. John heilemann, i have this for you. Here is how sean hannity started his broadcast tonight. All right. Buckle up. Welcome to hannity. Let me give you a quick headline. The details will follow. Nobody else will report. The mueller witch hunt is completely over. It is done. Nobody listened to the attorney general, and, yeah, the attorney general admitted today everything weve reported the last two years, full criminal investigations, are now just beginning. Imagine that. A talk show host is right and so many in the fake news industry are wrong. John, have we gotten it wrong these past twoplus years . I just am you first of all bring me in here and the first thing you serve me up is a big fat steaming plate of hannity, so thanks for that. On the house. Its been a long day. On the house. You just brought it out here. Happy to do it. Theres a phrase, people talk about a pig in, you know, thats sean right now. Hes happy as a pig in uhhuh. You know. Have we all got it wrong . I mean, many people would say that the news, not so much the barr news, not the barr performance today, which as my friend mr. Lemire says, you know, predictably, what was, how barr has been behaving for the last two months. Certainly for the last since the events in question have really unfolded. As a political apparatchik for the president. The president is happy. For once a president who has now lied 10,000 times in office seems to be telling the truth and saying he was pleased with performance, in fact, he seems to be pleased with performance and for good reason. The news really the last 24 hours is nothing that happened in the hearing today. The news is the mueller letter that we know mueller wrote to barr and can fairly characterize the special counsel as having been furious. Yeah. Apoplectic. Willing to write multiple letters. Trying to beat down the door of the Attorney Generals Office to say youre lying about my report. Thats a pretty big piece of news and it suggests that, perhaps, theres an alternative reading of reality here thats not what sean hannity wants us to think. Both of these gentlemen have agreed against their better judgment to stay with us over this break. When we come back, what was on the president s mind before mr. Barr sat in that witness chair this morning . We are back and we have established the Media Attention was on the attorney general today. The president s attention this morning seemed squarely focused on one joe biden. Bordering on obsession. Donald trump fired off roughly 60 tweets and retweets within a 20minute span. What got him what got to him, specifically, today, the National FirefightersUnion Support for bidens president ial bid. Still with us, john heilemann, jonathan lemire. So, mr. Heilemann, you saw the Trump Republican Party operating as one today from chairman of the committee, to attorney general, what they couldnt do was effect the head guy whos got to say what hes got to say. Yeah. The president has his theres its this Republican Party rarely operates in quite so much concert in terms of its message strategy. It often acts in concert in terms of what its aims are in terms of protecting the president , falling if line behind him, but rarely is the message quite so well orchestrated as this today, of course, the president is not part of that. The president has his own wants and own impulses and right now its clear not just from today but really since joe biden got in the race that the former Vice President is a burr under the president ial saddle right now. Everyone what everyone makes of joe bidens prospects in the democratic nomination fight, there are varying views about that, hes clearly right now the real frontrunner. At this moment joe biden is the frontrunner and anybody right now who thinks joe biden is a paper frontrunner, theyre not in sync with donald trump. Donald trump is clearly bothered by joe biden, worried about joe biden, obsessed with joe biden. Hes a man who is the fear that he has, the nervousness he has about the prospect of running against joe biden is evident in his social media and other utterances. But political wisdom would teach you, jonathan lemire, you dont want to be the frontrunner now. No. Its eight months before our first primary. The entire party is going the opposite way of joe biden. Hes in many ways on outlier along with bernie to a lesser degree. What is it about this guy . Biden is having a moment, hes the front runner now. The polls have been very good. Surprisingly good to many here. In the 2016 campaign went behind the barn and having a fight. Donald trump certainly recovered. But biden has an appeal to a particular graphic that the president prides himself on, the blue collar voter, upper midwest residents, its really been his focus this time around, firefighter, resembles that character pretty carefully, being on the trail in 2016 a lot of firefighter types supported the president. That time they set it out, this time theyre giving their endorsement, this is something these retweets today were almost all firefighters saying theyre not voting for biden, theyre going to vote for trump. The president wants them to stay on board. Its been a long day for all of us. Thank you both for coming on. And coming up after yet another unprecedented day from the trump administration, and by the way for our country, Pulitzer Prize winning historian jon meacham is with us to talk about all of it after this. Thank you, both, for coming on. Coming up, after yet another unprecedented day for the trump administration, and by the way, for our country, Pulitzer Prize winning historian jon meacham is here to talk about all of it after this. Hi, doug. Hey [beeping] [ ] hmm yummy pretzelrami is back, with our famous pastrami and a bigger soft pretzel roll. And try the new turkey bistro with warm turkey and smokehouse bacon. Or the new hot club chicken dijon with black forest ham. The new hot pretzels, only at togos. How far would you go for a togo . I own you, doug. The critics who pounced on the attorney general today said he acted like his client is the president and not the american people, as our chief Law Enforcement officer. James comey, whose firing started it all, posted a piece in the New York Times just as the hearing got under way. He offered a theory on how the president coops people like bill barr. He wrote, trumps outrageous conduct convinces you that you simply must stay, to preserve and protect the people and institutions and values you hold dear. Along with republican members of congress, you tell yourself you are too important for this nation to lose, especially now. Of course, to stay, you must be seen as on his team, so you make further compromises. You use his language, praise his leadership, tout his commitment to values and then, you are lost. He has eaten your soul. Back with us again tonight, Pulitzer Prize winning author and president ial historian, jon meacham. Jon, i want to know where we are tonight as a country, and before you compare this to hearings in the past, i watched the coverage tonight on two different cable networks, heres a hint one of them employs us both, and they apparently covered two different hearings today. So, thats something new for american society, relatively. Well, we do live on separate political planets and hopefully we occasionally have diplomatic relations between the two. Im going to use a fictional analogy, if i may, but based on history. I thought where we were today was in a reality tv version of a man for all seasons, where thomas moore is betrayed by richard rich, in exchange for wales, hes granted a title in wales, and thomas moore says as hes being carried off, but for wales, richard, for wales . Put in the word trump, and change the name to bill and you have where we are. Bill barr has decided that for whatever reason, his historical fate is in safer and better hands with donald trump than with the rule of law. And, or with Robert Mueller. And so, and i guess in the this analogy mueller becomes thomas moore, which may be a beat too far, but we watched someone today, basically, historically, decide that they would like the rest of the American Republic to look back and use this man as a case study in how to obfuscate and cherry pick in defense of a particular client, as opposed to the broad nation as a whole, and this really isnt even a partisan point. Its clear, i mean, i was watching it, thinking, i hope this guy goes back into private practice soon, because i might need to hire him at some point. Hed be a good defense lawyer. Youd want him on your side. He has that laconic, almost cheneyesque jowly cynicism that tends to try to appear, he tries to make the questioner appear to be the outrageous one. When what the questioners are doing is exercising their rights under a constitution that was based on divided sovereignty. And right now, it seems to me, we have an attorney general who has decided that hes a defense lawyer, hes not our lawyer. To thine own self be true. Does Robert Muellers reputation remain where it was . Is he just about to a lot of people the most important living american at this point in time . You know, three weeks ago, four weeks ago, i thought, you know, the great mueller moment had probably passed, that our sense that he was our fortinbras, that he was the heroic figure that he was going to come down, that his decision to follow the olc opinion as opposed to trying to litigate or adjudicate a sitting president , seemed to me as a layman he has ducked on the issue. Bill barr has reelevated Robert Mueller. To almost sanctified status. Perhaps after director mueller testifies, if that ever happens, perhaps he falls back off that pedestal, but compared to what the attorney generals been doing, director mueller, you know, looks like maybe Thomas Moores not a bad example. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why our guest tonight has a Pulitzer Prize and i have a valid drivers license. Jon, always a pleasure. Please come back. Thank you, sir, for joining us on this, as we say consequential wednesday night. More of the 11th hour when we come right back. Termites. Were on the move. Hey rick, all good . Oh yeah, were good. Were good. Terminix. Defenders of home. In reaching your conclusion, did you personally review all of the underlying evidence . Ah, no. We took and did did mr. Rosenstein . No. We accepted the statements in the report as factual record. Did anyone in your executive Office Review the evidence supporting the report . No. No. Yet you represented to the American Public that the evidence was not, quote, sufficient to support an obstruction of justice offense. The evidence presented in the report. Democratic senator and former prosecutor Kamala Harris of california made headway for her side of the hearing room late in the day during her questioning of the attorney general. She will be a guest tomorrow morning on morning joe. With thanks to Nicolle Wallace and all of our legal experts and former feds who were with us all day long for every moment of the coverage today, that is our broadcast for this busy wednesday night. Thank you so much for being here with us. Good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. Know. Bill barr responds to Robert Muellers stinging rebuke. I said bob, whats with the letter. T nur concerns about white house interference in ongoing cases. I dont recall, no. You dont recall . t the growing calls for barr to resign. Hes going to have to answer for testifying untruthfully