between the president of the united states and the chief justice of the supreme court? well, it s really quite extraordinary. i m not aware of anything really like it in our lifetime. the chief justice, i have appeared before him 37 times in target cases. the adjectives you think about when you think about the chief justice are restrained, bi brilliant, dignified. that s everything donald trump isn t. i think this whole episode demonstrates that. trump is saying some pretty extraordinary things about the courts, things that he s actually just statistically wrong on, like that it s the most overturned court in the last five years. that s not even close to the most overturned court. it s more than that. it s the corrosive attitude about courts and the rule of law. this attitude about courts and the rule of law, what s the consequence? i mean, it s huge. i don t think that trump is really he cares much about
between donald trump and robert mueller s team for subpoena power for the president? and that goes to the supreme court, would this affect a ruling? you know, i think the nine justices are wise enough to do the thing that they re going to do and make the decisions they re going to make. so, i don t think, you know, this episode, you know, you can say it s going to mean mueller will win or trump will lose or anything like that. but i think it does demonstrate the president and the rule of law. it may not affect the cases that go to the supreme court. but remember the chief justice has one other really important role in our constitution, which is to preside over the impeachment proceedings of a president. and, you know, the way things are looking that very well may happen, and the chief justice may be presiding over this man that he s now in this twitter fight with. let me ask you this. if he loses the subpoena battle at the supreme court, and that s obviously an if because there is
and the people he s putting in office, not much better. it must be said that this problem predates president trump. one of the points of this article of mine in the new yorker is that for 30 years, the fossil fuel industry, the big oil companies, have known about and lied about climate change over and over and over again. and that lie has had enormous consequence. we were stuck for 25 years, we still are really, in a completely pointless debate about whether or not global warming was real. a debate that both sides knew the answer to at the beginning. it s just one of them was willing to not tell the truth. and that wasted 25 or 30 years may turnout to be the critical 25 or 30 years. let me jump in, you talk about exxon knowing about this as early as 1977. and exxon doing what it could in order to fortify its own business, raising oil platforms where they knew the sea levels would rise and knowing they d have more time to drill in the
things contrary to that because he s trying to walk back. and so the whole point of interviewing the president, even if you re going to do it by questions, is to get him on record under oath with whatever the answer is. not allow him to go back and forth and pick and choose which answer is convenient for him at that time. does he need the president on record under oath in order to end this investigation? well, because he s unlikely to get indicted, because he s a sitting president and that is the policy of the department of justice, it would be an incomplete report if it were to go to the attorney general or to congress without the president being interviewed, at least even by written questions on obstruction of justice. this is a very unusual case where he can t be indicted. many times you do not interview a potential target of an investigation and you build a case and you charge it. in theory that could happen here with donald trump. he has statements out there in
i.e., during the campaign. rudy giuliani told axios president trump would not cooperate if mueller asks additional questions about his behavior as president, including questions on potential obstruction of justice, even if he was presented with a subpoena. giuliani also told axios that if mueller wants president trump s answers on obstruction, they re already out there. quote, any question he has on obstruction, the president has given the interviews in tweets. other witnesses have given it to him. joining me now is daniel goldman, nbc news legal analyst and former assistant u.s. attorney, also the 5th brightest mind that we ve had on today. daniel, thanks for being here. rudy giuliani says he can find all of the obstruction answers, they re already out there. are they? that is complete garbage. first of all he did talk to he sat down with lester holt and he said i was thinking about russia when i fired comey. he tweets about this stuff all the time. but he s also said othe