Washington. Let me begin with a story about the Vice President hiring outside counsel. A distinguished lawyer from richmond, virginia. What does this say . I think it says what is likely to be a pattern inside the white house. Members of the senior staff who have been around President Trump as he has discussed various aspects of the Russian Investigation and his feelings toward it could end up being interviewed by the special counsel, and they are going to need their own outside counsel. The president has outside counsel at this point. The fact the Vice President has decided he needs it i think will be taken as a signal to everybody inside the white house who might have some knowledge, culpability, whatever you want to call it, that they will need it as well. Charlie it should not be presumed they have anything to hide. It should be presumed in todays world you need someone who understands that world to guide you. I think that is right. I think part of it is also a way to compartmentalize it. They do have day jobs beyond what the investigation is doing. I think there is another aspect to this, which is a reminder that once you go down the road of having a special counsel and the degree to which this seems to be an expanding investigation, it will slow down the machinery inside the white house. Have a dualere will responsibility. They obviously have a responsibility to the country and the president to help in the governing process. But they will also feel an obligation to themselves to take whatever precautions they may need or simply to be as open as they feel they should be to cooperate in the investigation. As you say, it should not be a suggestion they have something to hide. But it is wise to have your own counsel when you are in situations like this. Charlie we dont know what dan coats or mike rogers said. They said they would say most of it in a closed hearing. They will not have that possibility unless they claim some kind of executive privilege when they talk to the investigators coming from the special counsel. The other aspect is i am they cannot claim executive privilege if a matter of a crime is being considered. It is my understanding in a criminal investigation like that, it would be very difficult for them to invoke executive privilege. As we have seen so far, there has been no action to do so. Agotestimony we saw a week with dan coats and admiral rogers and the testimony this week with the attorney general, although they would not talk about the conversations with the president bearing on the specific questions of what he might have said about the Russian Investigation or anything related to that, they were not invoking executive privilege. That seems to be the line they are trying to walk. It is a more difficult line to walk if they are interviewed by bob mueller or members of his staff. Charlie or the f. B. I. Yes. Charlie you always have the question, what is obstruction of justice . It came about with consideration of mike flynn and i hope you will do something about that. Is that obstruction of justice or expressing an idea the president was trying to say i dont think this will go anywhere and i hope you will let it go . Director comey took the president s words as a directive although he did not act on them. He also deferred on the question of, does that amount to a section of justice, but said that is something the special counsel will have to answer. Mueller hasfact mr. Opened an investigation into that question is in some ways not surprising given the testimony from director comey last week. On the other hand, it is significant certainly because it puts the president directly in the line is a target of the investigation. I should not use that in a legal term. But he is now being investigated. At the same time, we should not leap to the conclusion that means there is a case for obstruction of justice. I think mr. Mueller would have been criticized if he had not begun to look at that question. They are in the preliminary stage. Where, if anywhere, the evidence takes him on that. There is certainly enough for him to want to look at it and interview a lot of people about it. Charlie you have a special counsel who has subpoena power and the power of the f. B. I. To investigate all working with him. Yes. You now have we have a fullfledged investigation that now includes the conduct of the president of the United States. In a sense, we need to step back and recognize the gravity of that situation. Determining what the conclusion is going to be. This puts the president in a terribly difficult position and all of those around him. These are serious lawyers working for bob mueller. They are going to do everything they can to run a very serious and thorough investigation. That is going to take time. It is going to make people uncomfortable. And it could well land some people with criminal indictments. We just dont know. There are a lot of threads to this. Theres obviously the question of what russia did in the election. For there is also obviously the question of whether or not there was collusion or cooperation with trump associates, what other things were being done. There is now indication the investigation is not simply looking at the role of the president s conduct but also the financial dealings of some of the people in the white house or who were part of the campaign. Any one of those is a significant investigation. You have all of that operating at the same time. Charlie you may remember there was a thing called watergate and someone said follow the money. I do remember a little about that and follow the money it is. There have long been questions about the role of money and russias money with Donald Trumps organization and his financial empire. We dont know exactly what bob muellers team may be beginning to look at, whether it is that or money involving some of the trump associates. Once you start down the trail, you dont know where it is going to lead or end. The one thing we know from watergate and almost all of these investigations that begin with a specific subject, that they go in unexpected directions based on where the evidence leads and can end up in unexpected places. For the president and the trump white house, that has to be worrying. I believe the president s reaction to it and some of the things he said in his tweets today make it clear he is very unhappy about it. Charlie you wonder, as you did about president clinton when he was facing impeachment hearings and other legal difficulties, you wonder how you can focus on being president when your own skin is at risk. One thing we know about the president is he has a relatively short attention span. He has shown that through the course of the campaign and through the first months of his presidency. And second, when he is under attack, he fights back and he fights back very hard. He certainly seems to regard this as a personal attack. And the reactions he has had privately and publicly suggest he is going to fight very hard. We saw that in the statement from his attorney last week based on director comeys testimony. We have seen it in the tweets week from the president himself aimed at bob mueller and that investigation. They seem to have decided on a strategy, that they are going to go hard at the special counsel and his team as part of a strategy to in one way or another discredit whatever the findings may turn out to be. Charlie do you expect when you talk to other reporters at the Washington Post that Cover Congress that we will see legislation between now and the next election . I think people expect there will be some legislation. The senate is working very hard in private to try to get a Health Care Bill ready to have a beforelatively soon, perhaps the july for recess, certainly before the august recess. They want and need to do that, they feel. They have struggled to do that. With all of the initiatives, they are struggling. They have passed some legislation. But it is not the big ticket or big priority items of either the republican majority or the president. Is, what will they be able to get through . How are they going to get a Health Care Bill through . The bill the senate is working on will be different from the house bill. But we dont know whether it will be as different from the house bill as first thought. It seems to be going in a more moderate direction. Whether it is moderate enough for the moderates and too moderate for the conservatives, we will not know until it comes out of the hermetically sealed chamber within which they are working on it. Charlie at the same time, it appears to me theres a fight for the soul of the democratic get muchch does not attention because all of the attention is focused on the president and his troubles. There is a fight in some ways. I think if you look at lets take the most recent example or most recent laboratory case of this, which was the primary in virginia, the gubernatorial primary in which the Lieutenant Governor had the support of the democratic establishment and tom ofry ellis had the support the Bernie SandersElizabeth Warner wing of the party. It turned out to not be a close election when some polls adjusted it would be. They seem to have come together relatively quickly. We will have to see how that plays out. Charlie it is always good to have you on this program. I thank you so much. Dan balz from the Washington Post. We will be right back. Stay with us. Jeffrey goldberg is here. He is the editorinchief of the atlantic. It celebrated its anniversary. There have been perhaps no more remarkable times in the recent history of american politics than we have now. President trumps Young Administration continues to struggle with controversy. Reportedington post the probe has been widened to whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice. Jeffrey goldberg joins me to talk about this and his magazine. I am pleased to have you back at this table. I want to turn to last months cover about a remarkable story. Tell me the story. A writer, a Filipino American writer, lived with a shameful secret. When his family immigrated to america, they brought with them essentially their family slave. They inherited a slave. Kind of a strange indentured servitude in their culture of the philippines. They brought this woman with them. Family,n lived with the the mother and alex, this pulitzer prizewinning writer. He inherited her. He freed her but she could not be freed in a way. The story went viral. Millions of people have read the story online an imprint. The story is him coming to grips with what his family did to this person, how he could not liberate her even though he tried, and his anxieties about it. Thisis the part that takes to a strange and tragic level. Alex, who had written for us before, a great writer, filed his story to us, went through one round of editing, and we learned just as we decided to make it the cover story for that issue, we learned he died. In his sleep at night. His editor was trying to tell him we chose the piece for the cover. She did not hear back from him. Usually, that is the kind of good news writers like to hear. And then we found out a couple of days after that, the police discovered him at home in bed dead. Through the remarkable administrations of his family, his wife and siblings, we managed to finish the process of getting the piece into prints. It was his last story. He had expression, great writer this guy, and great profiler of marginal people, his wife told me later he believed every person has within them an epic story. Most average person in the world has an epic story. Disgorged himself of his own epic story, wrote it out, and then died. It is the stuff of literature, the way this sort of unfolded. It is very sad. But im glad we were able to present his last story. Charlie it is not always about politics. It is about who we are as human beings. This came out during a very intense trump month to it came out at a particularly tense moment and exploded when it came out. Forink people are looking long, wellwritten stories about fascinating subjects that might have nothing to do with politics. Maybe in particular because we are drowning in politics. I dont know the theory of this, but something happened with this article. It was heartening as the editor of a magazine that publishes long story to see that millions of people were spending a long time reading a very long story about nonfamous people, nonamericans in a lot of cases, and the issue of social huge social importance. Charlie and what humans can do to other humans. It was interesting journalistically to watch the reaction. Charlie my question is, what happened to her . She lived with him to the end. He tried to liberate her. But she was that was the life that she knew. He began to pay her. He she lived with his family. Took care of him. He did not ask her to do anything, but that was the nature of the situation. She eventually died of old age. The story, i recommend people read if they have not, it is the story of him taking her ashes that to the philippines to her village for final burial. It is quite beautiful and touching and sad. Charlie moving from that to what happened in washington this week also tragic and sad and odd. Charlie but more than that, people are asking this question ,hey often have after 9 11 after so many events of mass violence. Will this one be the time we do something . No, no, no. Charlie you have been there before. Here is the thing. There was an assumption on the part i think there is an assumption on the part of president obama after sandy hook, after the massacre, that this is the one. This is not chicago gang violence. This is tiny children, mostly white children, nav colleague suburb in a bucolic suburb. Just an insane story. This is the thing that is going to tip. And then nothing tipped. Charlie i think he said it was the hardest day of his life. The issue i think that probably frustrated him the most as president where he could not waswhat he was all about the application of logic and rationality to a set of problems. He assumed if the argument with sound enough and he was convincing enough that people would move in his direction. The education of barack obama was it was not always the case. This is where he thought it would be it. It does not change. Remember also, and here is the odd permutation of this sad and tragic situation in virginia, the people targeted generally fierceg are pretty Second Amendment near absolutists. You know what i am saying. The targets in this case are not people who have previously been known to be at argue for greater gun control. Charlie one of them today in a passionate conversation said i wish i could have had a gun because i could have saved lives. That is a recognizable reaction. When someone is shooting at you we you cannot shoot back, know the Capitol Police were not there with guns. There would have been a massacre. I understand that reaction entirely. A lot of people say the urban elites do not understand the feeling of i would rather have begun then not have a gun because the addition of a gun to a situation will make it worse, but there is the argument to be made the addition of a gun mitigated some of the damage. Charlie they went into harms killed thee shot and same. The assailant. Amazing people. We have the greatest economy, the greatest military power, the greatest technology, universities. This should be our century, the 21st. He said it should be. I said, what could prevent it . Universities. He said, our politics. Is our politics the same reason we cannot get at this issue of what happens when other human beings, for some reason, whether it is ideology or anger or whether it is victimhood, to go out . Every issue has become more polarizing. 30 or 40 years ago, the n. R. A. Was not where it is on this issue. Deeper than this one issue. Jim mattis, the secretary of defense, says frequently, i think he has been quoted as saying this. That one of the issues that concerns him the most, obviously there is north korea and isis and iran, etc. But one of the things that concerns him as an american is we have stopped liking each other. That one part of the country has come to loath another part of the country. I have her to another people say we are drifting toward divorce. There are people who no longer have friends or acquaintances on the other side. With respectpeople to those who supported President Trump in the election believe everything has failed them and nobody is listening to them, and that they dont know what to do. I think this is one of the Little Secrets about the durability of the Donald Trumps support. The secret is i think there are a lot of people who voted for him who look at this administration and do understand analytically it is dysfunctional, that he is not delivering on the things he said he would deliver. But that feeling is outweighed by a feeling of loathing and repulsion for his critics. In other words, there are people who voted for donald trump who saw donald trump as the flawed figure other people see him as. But they just see the other side as worse. That is not a healthy dynamic either. Charlie they see him as flawed but think he may be the only change agent around, the what the country needs is disruption . Is dangerous or unqualified as donald trump is or as erratic as he is, the other side, the coastal elites with their smugness and conversation about a range of issues, including the Second Amendment and religious and otherabortion issues important to that segment of society, they look at liberals and do not see opponents. They see people looking down upon them. Charlie that is a little bit with what president obama got in trouble with campaigning in philadelphia. Guns and religion. That was a fairly rare misstep for him. It was his version of deplorables. Charlie exactly what i was going to say. I think humiliation is deadly. If you make someone feel humiliated in politics, they will come after you and they will not stop until they have proven that they are not what you think, inferior. I think that is a big part of the dynamic. A big part of how he came to be. Charlie and how he maintains his support. It is leaking at the edges. But i think the matter how , theyected they become still look at mainstream coastal democrats and think those people are worse. That is my guess. Charlie what is going to happen with the russian probe . The Washington Post reported yesterday bob mueller, special counsel, is moving in a direction, not making the case, but looking for information in pursuit of whether there is a case. Interestedw, i am as as anyone in trying to understand this. Right now, it seems to be a bit of a donut of the scandal. Im not sure what is at the center of a scandal. I see more evidence of a scandal to cover up a scandal than actual scandal related to collusion itself. I have said this before and i do not want it to sound snarky, but there is not a great deal of canence that trump people collude with themselves. I mean this. They are having difficulty colluding with the Republicancontrolled Senate and house, right . Get, it is a little bit notish than a dr. Situation. We understand the russians were trying to do certain things in the electoral process. But to me, it is an open question whether trump or trump related people were having anything directly to do with that. It is almost immaterial, and i hate to lean on a cliche, but that is where we are at. It is not the crime, it is the coverup. The firing of comey was an overreaction that is begetting donald trump all kinds of problems. Charlie with her not be a special counsel without the firing . You and i both know a lot of real estate people in new york and they are used to being titans of the universe type of people. Charlie masters of the universe. You know what i was going for. Donald trump looks at the org chart and says the f. B. I. Director is a pain in the neck. If he works for us, we can get rid of him. This is what happens when you enter the presidency without sufficient knowledge of or respect for the norms of governing president ial behavior. Not the laws as much because legally charlie the norms. What is the accepted behavior on the part of the president . Paul ryan is right. He cast it in a benevolent way. Lack of experience, learning on the job. But at a certain point, there have to be people around you who president , in the postwatergate american reality, president s do not get to fire the f. B. I. Director because they do not like him. And you do not fire and f. B. I. Director investigating you. Charlie and you do not go have meetings with the Russian Foreign minister. In the manner in which charlie and suggest to him he is crazy. We are in new territory. I dont think it is a snarky observation to say we have never experienced a presidency in our lives like this one. Charlie do you think he will survive for years . It is hard to be president. I know i have a lot of friends on the left to think, how could this go on . The answer is this goes on. We dont swap president s every three months. You have to convince them to resign or you have to impeach him. Now, Republican Leaders of congress are driving up to the white house and saying having network it can be plausible on both parts of pennsylvania avenue. It is plausible that if they ever did get in the car and drive up, they would say, paul, you are right. This is not working out, i am stepping aside some mike pence and the president. It does indicate a pattern that we have all studied. Removal is another thing. Baby after the election in 2018, we will see a different kind of congress. You dont put the presidency. It was so far gone. You dont really quit. I assume unless someone can prove to me otherwise, he is president for four years. It is a pretty intense ride. What is it doing to our reputational broad . How does that affect possibilities of the future . It is interesting, i dont want to the contextualize him in a way that would be unfair to trump. The preceding president s of the , each did things that damaged America Division abroad. Overreacted to a set of events and opened up a pandoras box in the middle east. Barack obama under reacted. He was the president that the opposite to the bus stop. Declaring a redline and not enforcing it. That is not only true in syria. You could argue on the margins that he didnt do enough to box in china. That didnt do enough to keep rusher from doing what it did in ukraine. All of those things said, those president s operated within normal bandwidth and they had internal consistency and the records are particularly in barack obama paschi is, to lift americas verification, through ,is seriousness of his presence he had a lot of problems as well. Somethingking about obama said to me. His frustration with nato, they were he said the act is free riders. Donald trump is on the continuum. The key difference is that barack obama understood in his states andthe united the european allies were not a mercantile relationship or to put it more bluntly, not a mother relationship. You pay us so we protect you. Like a candy store in the corner of the never. He understood that there was no choice. Democracy, for the common good, not only for the safety and security of these nations but or a set of ideas. There is no evidence that donald trump understands the way that barack obama understood the way that george w. Bush understood, we stand for something, the president must understand that the president stands for something more than getting a good deal. Barack obama was never going to leave an alliance because germany wasnt paying enough. That is where we are. They live in fear of being attacked on the twitter feed of the president for doing something that hurt or annoyed he was reluctant to defend and say recommitted article five. It is the understanding of history they are looking for. As well, we are better in the category of adversaries. We remember that one of the problems of barack obama was was too predictable, to wouldal, too logical, he frequently talk about what the United States would do in a situation. Now we have the opposite situation where no one, including people around the hesident himself know what is going to do in any given situation. There is no sense of a search the facts on the part of yes, by investigative committee, by special counsel, you dont get the sense that the president has said that i dont care what you do, i want to know what happened with the russians and the election. It is notons is almost it implausible. The fact that the deputy never said what are we doing about this . Jeff sessions is in charge of the f ei. The lack of interest is profound. And we have distrust between the National Security establishment and our president. Cap north korea be stopped . Notwithstanding all that has been done and said. The problem is a military confrontation would be a nightmare. It would be a nightmare in the case of north korea. It is also a nightmare if they manage to figure out a way to deliver a Nuclear Weapon on the missile to the west coast of the United States or the east coast of the United States, certainly hawaii. Said prompted you this thought, it is about credibility. One of the things a president is all of ourcrisis crises today have been to date have been selfinflicted. We haventhad had a Hurricane Sandy for katrina or san bernardino, one thing that a president has to do is to tap into a reservoir of trust with the american people. That when he goes on tv and says this is what is happening, this is why it is happening, this is how we are handling it, a substantial portion of the American Public has to be able to say that it is true and that they have this. That is what is whole encounter tricking critiquing the mayor of london struck me as odd. A civic leader leader why would they want to noncalm in a population . Is that the about president is not asking the correct questions. The president is not entering those questions. He is not willing to listen to different kinds of counsel. Then the president wont be believed by large swaths of the american people. You have to have some level of credibility. Dangerous it is very dangerous not to have that credibility. I love being the editor of the atlantic. Questionos answering a i feel like i was answering a question like a pr executive. It is a different thing. Reporters are the children and editors are the adults. When you are a reporter, you follow your women, youre responsible for yourself and your own work and that was fun. I did that for 30 years. That was great fun. It, pound for pound, i have the best staff and journalists in america. Amazing people. People taken very seriously, millington of people read this, it is great fun to try to figure in this unstable. In journalism how to do this. Thank you for coming, editor of the atlantic magazine. Stay with us, back in a moment. Was later discovered that these lands were sitting on some of the largest oil deposits in the united rates. The led to the osage being richest people per capita in the world. Spent five years researching the story for this book. It is called killers of the flower mound. Flower moon i heard about the story from a historian. I made a trip out to osage territory when i first heard about it. I went to the osage museum. On the wall was this large panoramic photograph which was taken in 1924. It showed members of the tribe but a portion of the photograph was missing. I asked the Museum Director what happened to the missing portion of the photograph and she said a picture soined frightening that she removed it. The devil was standing right there. The book was trying to figure out who that figure was and the history. It led me to one of the most sinister crimes in america. Systematic targeting of the osage, one by one for the oil money. In 1870, and osage to step up when they were being driven off of their land and he said we should move to what was indian territory. He said we should move there because the land is rocky. It is infertile and the white man considers it worthless. The osage migrated to this territory, they purchased it, they migrated there. Behold, it was sitting on some of the largest deposits of oil. Mostsage had become the wealthy people per capita in the world. Alone, that youre those 2000 or so would be worth 400 million. They live in mansions. They had servants, many of whom were white. All of this belied longstanding racial stereotypes. Might own a car, each osage owned 11 of them. Then they began to be targeted. I write a letter the book about a remarkable osage woman named molly burkart. Sister, she had an older anna. Molly looked everywhere for her. She was found shot in the back of the head. That thee first hint family was being targeted. Days, she became mysteriously sick. Evidence at a suggested she had been poisoned. Molly had a younger sister. She was so frightened by these murders. One night at three in the morning, she heard a loud explosion. She goes to the window of her house and she looks out in the direction of where her sister lived. All she could see was this large orange ball rising into the sky. In bomb undered the sisters house. Killing her sister, her sisters husband and a made in the house would let been left behind. Other families were systematically targeted, there were poisonings, shootings, one was given a poison it caused the whole body to convulse with electricity and you slowly. And strangled while you are conscious. The killers themselves were targeted. There was a lawyer or an attorney, he had told his wife that should anything happen to me, go to this hiding place where i hid the evidence. When a person got to that hiding spot, all of it had been cleared out. Was founded oilman with the osage. Hoping to get federal authorities to investigate the crimes. He checked into a boarding house and received a telegram from an associate in oklahoma. The telegram sent be careful. He stepped out of the boarding house that evening. He was abductive, at some point, a burlap sack was wrapped around it. He was found beaten to death and shot. A Washington Post headline reported that the osage already knew. What made his crimes so deeply sinister was that the only way to get the oil was to inherit it. It involved people marrying into families, white settlers, marrying into families, pretending to love these people, sometimes even having children with them who were systematically plotted to kill them. The people targeting the family for the people she thought loved her, who should trusted. It was one of the things that made these crimes so deeply nefarious and sinister. By 1923, they were officially more than two dozen osage murders. The official death toll was much higher. They pled for federal authorities to step in. It was picked up by an obscure branch of the justice department. Of course, we know it would be renamed the federal bureau of investigation. The case became one of first major homicide investigations. They badly bungled the investigation. J edgar hoover had gotten an outlaw out of jail. He slipped away, he robbed a bank and he killed a police officer. J edgar hoover is afraid of a scandal. Back then, he was insecure in his position as a new director. He put together an undercover team, most interestingly, one of the undercover operatives was an american indian. Probably the only one in his bureau. They ultimately follow the money to try to determine who was profiting from these murders of the families. That might lead them directly back into the house. Her own husband and the husbands uncle were behind the killings. After she had had two children with this man, this man had married into the family with a toy calculating plot systematically murdered family members so that the inheritance would go towards him and his uncle who was the most dominant and powerful figure in this county. King of the osage hills. Where did you find all this information . It took many archives, a lot of time. I tried to end the descendents of both the murderers and the victims who were able to provide me both oral histories and stories and trails of evidence. I tried down molly burkarts granddaughter. To told me what it was like grow up without pants and uncles. Photograph that had the grandfather ripped out. Her own father as a little boy was standing there. The victims and perpetrators lived in the same household. To this day, the descendent of the murderers and victims often still live in the same neighborhoods. Their fates are intertwined. What happens to the money . Millions of dollars were swindled during his crimes, during this criminal conspiracy. A lot of the oil was gradually depleted. Receivedhe osage still oil money today. It is not the millions they once did. They are a very vibrant nation. There are still 4000 osage that live in that area. There are 20,000 with Voting Rights in democratic institutions. They have found other sources of income from casinos. One osage lawyer said we were the dont this book live as victims. Every month, it is named after a moment. Month of may is known as the Little Flower killing moon. Almost like confetti. Taller plants come, they still the water, they die. It is in the month of may where she first disappears and the first brutal murder takes place. Is the unbelievable osage for the wealthiest people. Er capital in the world they were scapegoated for their money. Somehow, members of the u. S. Congress would say they would hold hearings about these native americans and all of their money. They went so far as to pass legislation requiring many osage to have like guardians to manage their wealth. This system was not abstractly racist, it was literally racist, it was based on the quantum of osage blood. Youre given a guardian to manage your wealth. Whocould be a great chief lead a nation and had millions of dollars in that trust and you have a White Guardian whether or not you could buy this car or that car for that toothpaste at the corner store. He created one of the largest criminal enterprises. You sell this to the movies . Yes i did. This is a part of history that has been lost. We havent fully reckoned with it. Be if theying would made a movie that would become part of our history. You asked me at the beginning what positive me to begin this project. I was shocked that i had never read about this in school. It was not part of my history books. When i saw that photograph at the museum, a portion had been cut out and it contained one of the killers. The osage had removed the picture not to forget but because they cant forget. People,re so few including myself, we had no knowledge of these crimes. Im hoping a book or movie will make as part of our national narrative. Thank you. Thank you for joining us, see you next time. Welcome to the best of the Bloomberg Markets middle east. The major stories. Qatars diplomatic isolation after its second week. Its actions denies amounted to a blockade, we have all the developments and the market reaction. Oil prices were on the drop again. We got the outlook