argument this morning. it was about an hour of argument in front of the second circuit. and throughout the argument the position taken pie trump s lawyers was really pretty astounding. obviously this was sort of the peak moment, peak trump, right? i could kill somebody and you still can t investigate me. but the entire argument that they make is just reprehensible. it is that a sitting president can t be investigated or indicted no matter what he does by state or by federal prosecutors. and that s just inconsistent with any notion of having a rule of law country. and this is a theme here, the inability to distinguish between a president s personal interests and public interests between what s good for the country and good for him. and ambassador fried, the president appearing to call for a political test for the career service today. he says this it would be great if the trump administration all well-meaning and the i hope would stop hiring the never
today arguing against the manhattan d.a. being able to subpoena tax records. go so far as to say even if he shot someone on fifth avenue he can t be prosecuted or investigated. were you as taken aback by that argument as apparently folks in the courtroom were? i listened to that entire argument this morning. it was about an hour of argument in front of the second circuit. and throughout the argument the position taken by trump s lawyers was really pretty astounding. obviously this was sort of the peak moment, peak trump, right? i could kill somebody and you still can t investigate me, but the entire argument that they make is just reprehensible. it is that a sitting president can t be investigated or indicted no matter what he does by state or by federal prosecutors. and that s just inconsistent with any notion of having a rule of law country. this is the theme here. the inability to distinguish between the president s personal interests and the public
reporter: the white house has declined to comment in response to rouhani s statements. yesterday the president was asked about the strategy behind his bluster and contradictory statements and he said it is the way i negotiate. he said it served him well and the country well, too. erica. boris sanchez with the latest. thank you. as we learn more about just what did happen behind the scenes, it is fascinating to us as we look at this. that the president, we knew he would continue to push for russia to be allowed back in. but to hear about how this happened at the dinner is somewhat remarkable and yet not surprising all at once. right. in some ways this is peak trump in other ways we should continue to be surprised and alarmed by this behavior. whether it is on the world stage, domestically, behind closed doors, at a podium in front of the world to see, we should call it out. we should report it as we are and we should talk about it. all of those caveats aside to
which it s great you make that point. but the whole thing from inception came from reviewing whether or not there was collusion between the russian federation and the trump campaign of which manafort was a part of. so you can t say that they re not related because they are related. yes but to be clear we don t know what. he wasn t charged. we don t to know what mueller is doing on the collusion fund. what i was going to say erin if you let me finish. we have to wait for the mueller campaign excuse me the mueller investigation to be completed. but i think it s absolutely incorrect to say it has nothing to do with collusion in this case. because it began out of that investigation. right but what was being tried and argued in court what was ruled on, congressman, you and i both know was bank fraud and tax fraud. it was not collusion. this was a financial case. you can t say there is no collusion as a result of the trial it s false. it s a false statement. what af said is
of. and now as mueller began his investigation looking at mafrpt, looking at whether or not there was collusion between the trump campaign and the russian federation in case where they prosecuted him for financial transactions or came about. now certainly part of what you suspect is well where is that case? where are those individuals from the trump campaign. we don t know. or the trump side that have been charged? no one has. no one has been charged with colluding with russia. again as you and i point outen the interviews before the mueller investigation is not complete and we have to wait to see what it says. but to this date no one has been charged on the trump side or the trump campaign with colluding with the russian federation. that s accurate from this case that came out of that investigation. i m points out that was not what it was. to to say the conclusion was no collusion it s a false statement. but similarly it would be false to say it has nothing to do with it and d