trump had one overriding problem that dowd knew but couldn t bring himself to say to the president. you re a f-ing liar. joining our discussion now, harry litman, former u.s. attorney and deputy attorney general under president clinton and maya wiley who served as counsel to new york city mayor bill de blasio. she s an msnbc legal analyst. and maya, in the woodward book we re seeing that john dowd is calling the president a liar and the new york times reporting that robert mueller has partially given up on the idea of ever getting an interview with donald trump and is interested in possibly getting written answers at least on the collusion questions. yeah, i think it s pretty clear that donald trump can t tell the truth on a regular basis. we know that. that s clearly something he has demonstrated in public. so it s not so surprising that someone like a john dowd, who i think has denied, it may have
want the president to testify. i m not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot and you public that transcript because everything leaks in washington and the guys overseas are going to say, i told you he was an idiot, i told you he was a goddamn dumbbell.go what are we dealing with this idiot for? after that meeting with robert mueller john dowd gave the president the following advice. don t testify. it s either that or an orange jumpsuit. the president then said, i ll be a real good witness. you are not a good witness, dowd replied. mr. president, i m afraid i just can t help you. and the next morning john dowd quit and he left an opening on trump s defense team that has since been filled by rudy giuliani.inum leading off our discussion now, john heilemann, national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc. he s also co-host and executiveb producer of showtime s the circus. an tim o brien s with us, executive editor of bloomberg opinion.
when he ran for the presidency exactly the same way. you were in the midst of that, john. you know what that was about. and the picture that s created n here is amply solidified and backed up by lots of other reporting.di with the additional factor that now you have bob woodward and the woodward method, which is he triangulates with sources, he backs things up with documents. he has tapes.so it s a different order of magnitude from any kind of reporter that trump has ever dealt with before. in the same way that the mueller investigation is of a different order of magnitude on the legal side.er but let me just say on this for a second as you were a different kind of reporter than trump had ever dealt with before when he dealt with you, and he ended up in court with you because he was stunned that you were the one who he could not con on the question of how rich he was. so and you won the lawsuit
presidency, the woodward version. what bob woodward calls the best obtainable version of the truth. and so tonight bob woodward has tapes and the white house has press releases. the most damning quotes in the excerpts of bob woodward s book that were already released todaa from the president s former criminal defense lawyer john dowd.de bob woodward describes a rehearsal session with the president where john dowd pretended to be robert mueller asking the president questions. the washington post reports that in that rehearsal session donald trump s answers were stumbles, contradictions, and lies until the prevent eventually lost his cool. this thing s a god damn hoax trump erupted at the start of a 30-minute rant that finished with him saying i don t really want to testify. the book then describes a meeting john dowd with had he robert mueller and mueller s deputy james quarles in which dowd explained why he didn t n
father was such a high-ranking u.s. navy admiral. and then the book quotes james mattis as immediately correcting trump and saying, no, mr. president, i think you ve got it reversed. and the defense secretary then explained that mccain, who died on august 25th, had in fact turned down early release and was brutally tortured during his fine years at the hanoi hilton. to which trump says, oh, okay. so tim, it seems that trump had been getting away with that lie around any other circle in the white house until jim mattis is sitting there and has to correct him because truly that isn t the first time trump tried that. and remember, this is the donald trump who successfully got five draft deferments sew didn t have to serve in the vietnam war. donald trump, who refused to fly the flag at half mast over the white house after mccain passed away. he s the guy who holds on to these grudges for a very long time. you know, david frum touched on this earlier and john touched on it, is why do