special counsel robert mueller. so, phil rucker, he came up the organic way, saying things the boss liked. what do you make of what appeared to be an attempt to distance himself and now tonight at 4:55 a.m. all the way across the atlantic an attempt to defend the guy. yeah, this is classic donald trump, right? as soon as one of his associates gets in hot water, embroiled in controversy, trump will try to distance himself. we saw it with paul manafort, the campaign chairman who he hardly knew, the personal lawyer michael cohen. who he hardly knew. the truth is trump knew whitaker very well. he had several meetings with him in the oval office according to our reporting because, and get this, trump didn t want to get briefings from attorney general jeff sessions because he didn t want to talk to sessions. because he was so mad at sessions. so he would get the briefings instead from matt whitaker. he s very familiar with matt whitaker. he s trying to distance himself
own figuring out the motivation of that comment, back to whitaker and how he might affect the mueller investigation. phil rucker of the washington post is standing by, coauthor of a new piece. looking at bind trump is in over this appointment. here s how they described the situation, quote, with the white house scrambling to manage public examination of whitaker s background and leadership within the justice department, trump sought to douse speculation that he had installed the partisan loyalist to curtail the probe of russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. today trump was asked about whitaker and mueller. did you talk with matt whitaker at all about the probe? i didn t speak to whitaker about it. [ inaudible question ] i haven t ruled out anything. i haven t even thought about it. did you ask matt whitaker to
that fact. its hardball for now. thanks for being with us. tonight on all in. whoa! i didn t know what happened. bombshell reporting from the the wall street journal. when it comes time for the financing which will be what financing? tonight, the new report that the president of the united states himself directed a criminal conspiracy to help get himself elected. we ll have to pay cash. no, no, no. then, i can tell you matt whitaker s a great guy. i know matt whitaker. the president caught pretending he doesn t know the man he appointed to oversee the mueller. matt whitaker, i don t know matt whitaker. and the growing bipartisan fears over what matt whitaker is up to. do you want him to rein in robert mueller? what a stupid question? all that and the fight to count all the votes in florida.
never talk about conversations that i had. wait, what? for clarification, let s just play what the president said today and what he said a few weeks back ago back-to-back. i didn t speak to matt whitaker about it. i don t know matt whitaker. i mean i know matt whitaker. i mean i know matt whitaker. i don t know matt whitaker. i mean, i know matt whitaker. 18 attorneys general called on whitaker to recuse himself. massachusetts attorney general laura healey. so what is the case that you lay out in the letter, why write this letter to the attorney general? chris, i just think its really important that as prosecutors we step forward and state what i think is evident to the american public and that is, we need a justice department that the public can trust and can rely on. this isn t a partisan issue, this isn t a matter of democracy and the rule of law and if matthew whitaker was installed
interview record. if jeff session is fired, there will be holy hell to be paid. any effort to go after mueller could be the beginning the of the end of the trump presidency. holy hell, the beginning of end? look at him when confronted with that very clip. where we are now, what do you say now? so when was that? what year? july of 2017. things have changed. i think mr. whitaker was a good pick. i think he will be as fair and impartial as loretta lynch were. and eric holder the bottom line is this is hysteria more than it is anything else. graham trying to laugh that off. but it s not funny to most people.