Thank you. And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. If youd like to vote for susan to host the next Rachel Maddow show taking your calls live on the air about gardening tips you can vote you cant. Happy monday. You know, theres been a lot of complaining, public complaining by the president. Theres been a lot of all capital letters misspelled tweeting by the president. Theres been a lot of cheerleading by the president for people who go on the Fox News Channel and make arguments disparaging the fbi or Robert Mueller or the special counsels investigation into the russia issue. Theres been a lot of noise. A lot of complaining. A lot of yelling. But if you clear aside all that noise, if you treat this president and this administration as a silent movie and you pay no attention to what they say and you only observe what they do, it really is twice now that the president has takeown fishtak takeown fishel action as president to try to wart the russia investigation. The first was a
Vefrg investigation. Now the doj is asking the attorney general to look into the president s claims. Theyre setting up a meeting with the doj along with congressional leaders to share highly classified information, democrats demanding a seat at the table for that meeting. What does all of this really mean . Will the Justice Department be forced to turn over highly classified documents on the fbi source, documents subpoenaed by house intel chairman and trump ally devin nunes . A lot to get to in the coming hours here on cnn. I want to bring in senior economics analyst Stephen Moore who was a Senior Adviser to the Trump Campaign. Also Global Affairs max booth, the author of the road not taken. Stephen, the president is demanding an investigation of the investigation. The Justice Department is kicking this over to the inspector general. Do you think this is another attempt by the president to put a roadblock on the Russian Investigation . I think you stated one thing wrong where you said
We report with keeping them honest the ever changing story coming from the president and his new legal team. O one statement that is just not true. What happens if Robert Mueller subpoenas the president , will you comply . We dont have to. He is the president of the United States. Keeping them honest, it is not true that the president does not have to comply with the subpoena simply because he is president of the United States. The Supreme Court has been clear, there was a subpoena ordering Richard Nixon to turn over tapes and the Supreme Court overrode the president s argument in keeping them private. And bill clinton, the Supreme Court ruled the president could not invoke president ial immunity. Ken starr did get a subpoena for clinton to testify. It is true the president could fight any subpoena argue executive privilege, but no guarantee that fight would be successful and historical evidence to the contrary. Giuiliani showed up to the interview already rocking the boat. That was af
Came to the same conclusion, this is horrible appeaseable, slippery slope stuff, they are breaking precedents that are priceless and can you blame them . Right. Given the circumstances that theyre in, maybe there is a greater good that they are trying to sacrifice for. The question is whether or not the sacrifices buy them anything toward that greater good and we just dont know it yet. I always found i had to learn this, actually, working in the senate. When the other side is demanding something of you, you always look at it, as long as you can trying to find, is there anything in there i can give them, is there anything . And rosenstein is now in politics, in a way naa Deputy Attorney general hasnt been for a very, very long time. This takes us back to a previous era of politics when the Justice Department was politicized but in the modern era it hasnt been. So hes in politics now. When he looks at a trump moment, he has to look at it like a politician and figure out is there a way i
This tonight, the way Rod Rosenstein responded yesterday to the president s tweet and today in the meeting. The longer ive stared at it i find myself coming down on the side of what other choice did he have . The live to fight another day view of it. Talking to congressman jim himes, talking to ben wittes, both of them actually sort of came to the same conclusion, this is horrible appeaseable, slippery slope stuff, they are breaking precedents that are priceless and can you blame them . Right. Given the circumstances that theyre in, maybe there is a greater good that they are trying to sacrifice for. The question is whether or not the sacrifices buy them anything toward that greater good and we just dont know it yet. I always found i had to learn this, actually, working in the senate. When the other side is demanding something of you, you always look at it, as long as you can trying to find, is there anything in there i can give them, is there anything . And rosenstein is now in politi