of new washington rules. so we don t know if mueller will abide by that traditional thinking. but people who know him say he is a traditionalist. he wants to do this by the book. that means, you know, labor day is creeping ever closer. we have about a month. the president s team is certainly aware of that, you know, traditional deadline. so they sense that the clock is ticking down to could be ticking down to something. and i was told this morning that it is what we have talked about so many times around this table and elsewhere, and that is the president, even as he says and is forced to say last week that russia meddled in america s election, that the minute he believes the minute he gives an inch on that, then the conversation shifts to the legitimacy of his presidency. he would rather have the public fight and the dialogue about meddling rather than the legitimacy of his presidency. so that s what a trump source said to me just this morning. manu, i want to ask you about some
it is not whether they can manipulate him of the why didn t he front it? the question is not whether, i ve talked to russians, the former kgb when i was with the fbi. i went to christmas dinner when i was with the fbi. that s okay. don t say i never did it. i didn t report it. the question is, why weren t you truthful on the initial application? the bigger question is, it is not whether he has access to one piece of information or another. you walk into a room. in this case the oval office. you re talking about iran, china, the palestinians, the israelis. when the conversation shifts, you have to look at the corner of the room and say, can i continue this conversation? that guy can t get his clearance. it is not about one piece of information or the other. it is about why did the attorney general feel compelled to call the white house to say, for an accelerated clearance, we can t close it out. and we matter jared kushner
criticizing the media. it s right to hold him accountable and right to fact check him but immediately after that when the conversation shifts into he s insane and he s unfit for office and he s lost his mind and we re doing psychoanalysis on television of the president, you re doing his work for him. this is almost what he wants to see happen is that he criticizes the media and the media themselves are unhinged and start calling the president insane. that s a huge mistake. i think it s a mistake not to call the protesters left wing protesters that are in arizona right now fighting the police, i think that s a mistake, as well. if you could do those things, not call the president insane and fact check him and call the protesters out for who you are, you gain the credibility to push back on the president when he gives a speech like this. you re almost doing his work for him when we start calling him insane. that s the first comment i have to make about that. you thought it was a ration
conclusion as a committee. how much has it stung, that it was two house republicans, mccarthy and hanna, how much has it stung you, that they have helped create this atmosphere that has called the committee s credibility into question? well, look, everybody s familiar with different misstatements and mischaracterizations and oops moments. so hillary clinton s no stranger to this. she said, we came, we saw, he died. or her testimony in the senate side that was mischaracterized frankly when she said, what difference does it make? so that s the nature of politics. is it helpful when someone characterizes it as political? no. but my point, all of that stuff is chatter and chaff that burns away. and that tomorrow we ll be focused in on what was the secretary s involvement, what did she know and then the conversation shifts.
because the events are so complex and muddied and in a way the garner case is the opposite. it is hard to see what there is to argue about. we watched the video. we ve seen what happened. ate mystery how the grand jury ruled the way they did. and so i think it s easier to have the conversation about what is happening on our streets and what is happening between our communities and police around a case like garner than ferguson where people are arguing past each other about ferguson. and yet in a way they are two sides of the same argument and i think it will be very interesting to see how this conversation shifts in the weeks to come. and is driven now by this latest chapter in the story. joe klein is talking about how peace is becoming more and more loose in the middle east. it s heartbreaking. he s reporting from a very rare school that s half palestinian, half jewish where families have