they were planning an illegal act and using a quote from peter strzok, the 2016 text messages to write this was an illegal and treasonous insurance policy in full action. joining me now nbc justice correspondent pete williams, msnbc contributor sxhchuck rosenberg, former federal prosecutor and nbc political analyst robert costa, national political writer at the washington post. welcome all. first to you, pete williams, this is a very angry presidential response to rod rosenstein. he may be nearing the end of his tenure, but the mccabe details here that there was a second conversation about it and he talked about the wire with his general counsel. let s put aside right now all of the revelations about the 25th amendment and this is in some ways a more serious indicator, if you will, of rosenstein s reported concerns about the
resuming our conversation, eli stokols and bill kristol remain with us here in our new york studios. eli, the scenario bill just laid out of the firing of rosenstein, what republicans do you see standing up being willing to die on that hill to protect mueller? i don t know how many. i think there may be a handful of them. it there pay be some of the ones like the jeff flakes and bob corkers of the world and then perhaps richard burr, you know, somebody who s had a role as a chair of a committee that has been pretty sort of nonpartisan in his approach to them. i just it remains to be seen. at every point, we have watched this play out and we have said, when mueller was appointed and all the republicans were saying mueller is a great guy, impeccable credentials and a lot of the same people have now, you know, basically taken the
remain with us here in our new york studios. eli, the scenario bill just laid out of the firing of rosenstein, what republicans do you see standing up being willing to die on that hill to protect mueller? i don t know how many. i think there may be a handful of them. it there pay be some of the ones like the jeff flakes and bob corkers of the world and then perhaps richard burr, you know, somebody who s had a role as a chair of a committee that has been pretty sort of nonpartisan in his approach to them. i just it remains to be seen. at every point, we have watched this play out and we have said, when mueller was appointed and all the republicans were saying mueller is a great guy, you know, impeccable credentials and a lot of the same people have now, you know, basically taken the president s side. so every time you expect people to sort of step back from politics and do something that is motivated not by political interests but national interests, a lot of times they ve been disa
resuming our conversation, eli stokols and bill kristol remain with us here in our new york studios. eli, the scenario bill just laid out of the firing of rosenstein, what republicans do you see standing up being willing to die on that hill to protect mueller? i don t know how many. i think there may be a handful of them. it there pay be some of the ones like the jeff flakes and bob corkers of the world and then perhaps richard burr, you know, somebody who s had a role as a chair of a committee that has been pretty sort of nonpartisan in his approach to them. i just it remains to be seen. at every point, we have watched this play out and we have said, when mueller was appointed and all the republicans were saying mueller is a great guy, impeccable credentials and a lot of the same people have now, you know, basically taken the president s side. so every time you expect people to sort of step back from politics and do something that
hill are actively talking about this plan as a real possibility for thursday of this week? i don t know about discussing it for thursday of this week but it s important to point out this was developed around the idea of mueller being fired. not around the idea of rosenstein. elected officials were just as confused as a rest of us as to what the deputy attorney general was doing at the white house and what his fate would be when he left. there s real concern among democrats. first, protecting the integrity of the investigation and the documents in it. what can be done? legally what can be done through the house to make sure those things are protected in the sense of in purely a legal sense and engaging the democrat base. engaging public opinion in the way those sympathetic republicans and frankly democrats would hope all americans would not be able to