would be helpful in proving charges against the trump organization because i have a feeling that in the end there is no case against the president himself, but there may very well be a case being made based on michael cohen and what manafort provides against the trump organization for some kind of business, you know, practices. and my take is a little bit different than david s on this odd statement that rosenstein made. i mean, he s come out and said that the mueller investigation is appropriate and independent. now, this comes in the wake of a meeting with the president where a lot of people thought rosenstein was going to get fired for allegedly suggesting that he taped the president or invoke the 25th amendment. whatever happened in that meeting, it was a friendly meeting because trump came out and made no nasty statements about rosenstein. so i think in that meeting there must have been some hint given to the president that what s
indictments? joining us now david gurgen and political commentator for senator ted cruz, amanda carpent carpenter. just to tie a bow on this, what strikes me most is the reporting that rod rosenstein has made clear that he wants mueller to wrap this up soon after he had the plane ride with the president that made everything chummy i suppose. what does that indicate to you? it indicates to me he is still not certain what is going to happen after the mid terms whether jeff sessions will be fired or he may be fired. he doesn t want to compromise the investigation. he wants to tell him there will be pressures. how can you predict what he is going to do? it has been really notable to me that in this quiet period we have had where mueller has been
inside the white house. we re talking about the pulitzer award winning author bob woodward s brand new book on the trump white house. a.b. stoddard is associate editor for real clear politics. she s joining us. also with us, cnn s senior political analyst, david gurgen. and our analyst laura coates. jamie, very quickly, it s amazing some of the stuff the president is quoted by woodward as having said in meetings about senior aides, about jeff sessions, the attorney general of the united states. we know he ridicules him, berates him on twitter all of the time. as you report, this is what the president said of the attorney general of the united states. this guy is metropolitanntally . he s this dumb southerner. it s amazing.
fire all the time from the man on top and he s making your job more difficult. david gergen, last week when we spoke, and i can t believe it s just last week, because every week seems like a month, you talked about the possible need for some sort of i don t know if intervention was the word, but you think that the president s family should make sure that he s doing okay. has his reaction to this flynn news changed your opinion at all? no, it s only reinforced it, i m afraid. look, i did use the word intervention. and that is often that someone in a family, if a family a beloved family member has gone off the rails, you step in and tray to help that person. you may do it with the help of outside psychiatrists or other mental health person or someone, you know, who can help a person through a crisis. but the critical thing is to make sure the person is okay, and then try to get them back to stability. and that clearly hasn t happened with this president. and it is it s unsett
to be nervous, given these latest developments. right, david gergen, especially because it s not just about the president or it s not just about his about people around him in the white house. it s also potentially about his family, about his you know, his son-in-law or whomever. absolutely. and we saw that mueller, in going after flynn, very artfully brought flynn s son into the net. and basically was able to go to flynn and say, look, you know, do you want to reduce your charges and, by the way, do you want to reduce possible charges against your son? well, cooperate. and that s what he s got. and there has been speculation now for some time that, ultimately, mueller hopes to do that with one of the if the facts justify it, to go after one of the children of donald trump, or, indeed, jared, and be able to go to the president, you know, you want to save your family, you might want to begin by telling us the truth. david gergen, david axelrod, thanks very much. coming up ne