firing? again, the president can t fire bob mueller directly, he would have to get rid of rosenstein, would have to get rid of sessions. is that what it s going to take for republicanyou re going to h to fire rosenstein. we have already seen some republican sorry, was that for me? you can go. we have already seen some republicans making it clear that they do not want the president to fire robert mueller. we have seen everyone from senator tom tillis, republican from north carolina saying that congress should act to at least some other lawmakers in their statements saying that, well, i don t think that the president will, because that would be a constitutional crisis, trying to telegraph to him, really, don t do this. but there s really nothing standing in the way at this point, there s no election, particularly protecting robert mueller, so there s nothing they can do at this point to stop the
president from seeking to fire robert mueller if he wants to. he tried in the past, and he was stopped only because people didn t follow his orders. so if he directs attorney general rod rosenstein to do so, rod rosenstein has a decision to make, either he ll step down or we ll see another saturday night massacre situation, but that s all in the hands of the president to initiate. charlie, what do you think the likelihood is that donald trump sits down for a face-to-face with bob mueller? dramatically less than it was 24 hours ago. this has become very, very personal. he perceives this as a it was never really like i think his lawyers would have set th themselves on fire before they would let him be in that situation, now it becomes
there s reporting that one of the things that robert mueller, at least the new york prosecutors might be looking into, allegations of bank fraud or wire fraud. when you have this investigation ongoing and robert mueller and his team come across evidence that could be evidence of a crime, they can either look into it themselves or refer it as they did in this case to other prosecutors. so that has always been the peril, that it could entangle other people in donald trump s orbit. charlie, as you watch the president of the united states go off yesterday, in a rant that was bizarre, even by the standards of rants that we ve come to see over the past year or so, what did you think? well, what ever red lines were in donald trump s mind about this investigation have been now crossed by bob mueller and by the fbi. this is a very, very serious matter, you know, going after your own personal attorney in this particular way is as intimate an attack as you could
get so, you know, what i m guessing is the president is going to do a, you know, all of his intinstincts is recognize t is a threat not just to his presidency but his business so he s going to look for every possible way to lash back. the question is whether there will be adults in the room who will explain to him that he doesn t have that many options. that even if he fires bob mueller, this investigation does not go away. this is a separate crime investigation. but i certainly would not expect that he will stand down, which makes it so much more important for republican congressional leaders to make it absolutely clear what the consequences will be if he does try to fire bob mueller. that doesn t get him out of legal jeopardy but it creates a constitutional crisis. it s one thing to hear from chuck schumer but until you hear from ryan and mcconnell, i don t think the message has been sent. do you think that s what it would take for a number of republican leaders to step up? is that
right? i wouldn t advocate for the firing of him. he didn t draw any red lines or say what he would do. that s why i wouldn t advocate for it. they have the ability to do something here and they re not doing it. you can condemn a speech and they are, but they re saying, oh, he won t take a step so we re not taking a step. i want to get to some of what the president said in a tweet which he finally called out bob mueller by name. the mueller investigation shouldn should never have been started that there was no collusion and there was no crime. it was based on fraudulent activities and a fake dossier paid for by crooked hillary and the dnc, and brorply used in fisa court for surveillance of