rosenstein said early on that if at some point in this investigation it was appropriate to recuse himself, that he would do so. let s remember as mentioned in the reporting of the last 12 or so hours that he wrote the letter on which the white house relied, at least said they did, to fire james comey back in may of 2017. is it time to recuse himself from the investigation? i don t think so. i think that basically he was used as a tool when he wrote the letter and trump was trying to set him up or sessions wanted to set him up for documentation to concerns about cocoa and expressed by both about comey and expressed by both sides after the election. i don t think he has to recuse himself. he was overseeing the russia investigation. the letter had nothing to do with russia, nothing to do with the interference of the election. robert mueller is operating a special docounsel now and is
but you ve got real bad wupz. you ve seen what happened at the fbi. they re all gone. they re all gone. they re all gone. [ cheers ] but there s a lingering stenchings and we re going to get rid of that, too. reporter: perhaps foreshadowing there. there have long been calls from conservatives for the president to fire the deputy attorney general dating back to some of the previous grievances that i mentioned. this report about rosenstein talking about the 25th amendment and potentially wiretapping of the president is ramping that up. we actually saw a tweet from donald trump jr. last night saying that this was shocking, he was being sarcastic, of course, because the news plays into the nortive we ve heard from the president and some of his allies that there s a deep state out there looking to undo
his agenda and to impeach the president. victor and diane? boris sanchez for us in new jersey. thank you very much. joining me, contributor walter schwab, former director of the government of ethics, former district for georgia, and phillip mudd, former fbi senior intelligence advise oar. gentlemen, welcome back. michael, i ll start with. listen to two people to whom we know president trump listens sean hannity, laura ingram. the president tonight should seriously consider whether rod rosenstein should remain on the job. we just cannot have this plotting at the highest levels of the justice department against the chief executive of this executive branch. i have a message for the president tonight under zero circumstances should the president fire anybody. they are hoping and praying the
jest. and now that s being turned into something else. think about the chaos the white house is in with the kavanaugh nomination that is teetering. you ve got grassley tweeting. you got trump trying to decide if he s going to talk to mueller, do a take-home test. so it looks to me like the classic case of trying to create a diversion. i think that at the end of the day, rod is probably safe because of there will be so much discussion on capitol hill about what would happen to them in the midterms if he s fired. but what we need to see is some states men and women stand up in the congress and push back and say we won t let it happen, this is what we re going to do. these are odd times. who would have imagined something like this crazy would go on? yeah. i think it he s probably safe. let s stick with rosenstein s job and then the specifics of the reporting. walter, you have in of the past given some strong guidance and warnings to the president about firing rosenstein, firing
allegations, we ll talk about them more. but remember that talking about the 25th amendment is constitutionally protect ed activi activity. it s salt lake what the 25th amendment calls on cabinet members to do, to to confer and figure out if something has to happen. i don t think that happened, but the point is, it s it s provided for in the constitution. phil, let s get to the accusations here. rod rosenstein has denied all of them. to you, phil, just put into context the gravity of the suggestion of wearation wire to record the president of the united states and then to what end i mean, he was recording the chaos and incoherence that many analysts were seeing at the time was public, that we all saw. count me skeptical, and i ll tell you why in a moment. to answer your question, when i first saw the report and talked to my friends, i thought i couldn t be surprised anymore.