Reporter the alleged attack was as bad as she says it was, Christine Blasey ford would have filed charges. I thought that the president s tweet was completely inappropriate and wrong. Good saturday morning to you. Top of the hour. I am victor blackwell. Im Diane Gallagher in this saturday for christi paul. So was it a plan to remove the president from office, or just a sarcastic comment that was taken the wrong way . Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein is denying reports that he discussed wearing a wire to record conversations with President Trump last year. Cnn sources have confirmed the story first reported by the New York Times that in the days after james comey was fired as fbi director, rosenstein reportedly talked about recruiting cabinet members to help remove President Trump by invoking the 25th amendment. First he issued a statement denying the report calling it factually incorrect. Then sources say that rosenstein went to the white house, spoke with top aides, and issued another statement saying, quote, i never pursued or authorized recording the president and any suggestion that i have ever advocated for the removal of the president is absolutely false. Two statements. According to the washington post, President Trump asked advisers yesterday whether he should fire rosenstein. They talked him out of making any decision last night. Yeah. Hes at his golf club in bedminster after a rally in missouri. Cnn White House CorrespondentBoris Sanchez joining us live from berkeley heights, new jersey. Anything from President Trump so far on this . Reporter not directly. At least not yet. Were watching twitter to see if the president has announcements as far as personnel changes to his department of justice. Look, its no secret that President Trump has been angry at the doj publicly. Previously some of his grievances include the department of justice not shielding certain republicans from investigations, not prosecuting some of his political enemies, and specifically what the Deputy Attorney general, the president according to sources, has voiced displeasure about the fact that Rod Rosenstein has given Robert Mueller free rein over the russia investigation which, as you know, the president describes as a witch hunt. The president , again, is not directly addressing this. He was asked about it on the tarmac as he was walking to an event in springfield, missouri, yesterday. Though at that event he did send a message that could be perceived as a foreshadowing of the Deputy Attorney generals future. Listen to this we have great people in the department of justice. We have great people, these are people i really believe you take a poll, i got to be at 95 . But youve got real bad wupz. Youve seen what happened at the fbi. Theyre all gone. Theyre all gone. Theyre all gone. [ cheers ] but theres a lingering stenchings and were 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 weve heard from the president and some of his allies that theres 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, ill 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 immedia president gets mad, sick and tired of it, and they can turn into their into their equivalent of a friday night massacre. The president needs to know it is all a setup. Judge Jeanine Pirro from fox tweeted that the president should fire Rod Rosenstein. Michael, what to do, what to do . The fox box are telling him he should fire rosenstein. Theyre conflicted if they should or not actually. Is his job any more in jeopardy than it was 24 hours ago . Theres clear dissension amongst the fox cabinet there. Apparently thats where the president goes oftentimes to get advice. My guess at the end of the day is that youll find out this may be an inside plant from the administration to create chaos as the investigates tightens up the Mueller Investigation tightens up around the president. I know Rod Rosenstein. Hes a careful guy. Hes deliberate, and my guess is that if comments like this were made, they were clearly made in jest. And now thats being turned into something else. Think about the chaos the white house is in with the kavanaugh nomination that is teetering. Youve got grassley tweeting. You got trump trying to decide if hes going to talk to mueller, do a takehome 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 hes fired. But what we need to see is some states men and women stand up in the congress and push back and say we wont let it happen, this is what were going to do. These are odd times. Who would have imagined Something Like this crazy would go on . Yeah. I think it hes probably safe. Lets stick with rosensteins 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 sessions. Does this reporting make it any easier for the president to do that andoff said there would be dire consequences. I guess would those be as dire in context of what the New York Times is reporting . I think the bottom line on all this is we should be very concerned about a pet who wants to turn the department of justice into the imperial guard. He tweeted this week that he doesnt are v an attorney general. Of course he doesnt have an attorney general. America has an attorney general. The job of the department of justice is to objectively and independently pursue criminal investigations and other litigation and intelligence matters, not to be the personal servants of a politician to wreak havoc on his enemies. So thats the context you have to view this, not the latest allegations, but that the president has been trying to warp the criminal justice process to his own ends. In terms of the these allegations, well talk about them more. But remember that talking about the 25th amendment is constitutionally protect ed activi activity. Its salt lake what the 25th amendment calls on cabinet members to do, to to confer and figure out if something has to happen. I dont think that happened, but the point is, its its provided for in the constitution. Phil, lets 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 ill tell you why in a moment. To answer your question, when i first saw the report and talked to my friends, i thought i couldnt be surprised anymore. But to have somebody whos a deputy cabinet official suggest that they dont trust the president enough to the point where they want to wear a wire and a conversation, presumably a reference to the coachy issues last year when comey was writing memos, and there are obviously differing stories about what happened in the conversations. I couldnt believe it. My point when i started by saying im skeptical is context is everything. Say theres a comment about wearing a wire and shrine was laughing. That one word, laughing, tells you its not a serious conversation. Say somebody said there were conversations on capitol hill about invoking the 25th amendment and rosenstein says, well, that could potentially be a federal legal issue, we might want to look at that. That context tells me hes just trying to research an amendment. Context here is everything. And i think were seeing maybe 20 of the story, 30 . Count me skeptical. Michael, back to you. Rosenstein said early on that if at some point in this investigation it was appropriate to recuse himself, that he would do so. Lets 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 dont 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 dont 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 moving forward. Rods job is to oversee that. To do approvals, make sure things come through, warrant applications. Im sure he reviews charges before they come out, budget matters, that type of thing. The man in charge of this investigation on the ground is bob mueller. And i think we can have total confidence there. And we can have confidence in rosenstein because hes withstood the pressure to hes not shut the investigation down. He said im going to let it run forward. Hes done that no matter which side its tended to favor through the different trials and indictments and charges and things that have come out. I have 90 seconds. I want to get to both of you one more time. Phil, to you. Let me say this, short of firing rosenstein, whats the impact of this reporting on the investigation, on the department of on the department . Is it rhetorical, or will there be more . There will be impact. Let me cut to the chase. When there are further indictments, and i suspect there will be, the president will use it to his advantage and walk to the American People and line this up with Everything Else thats happened including jim co comey and say none of the indictments are accurate. People like Rod Rosenstein are the deep state, im going to pardon everybody. To you, walter, finally here, i want you to listen to President Trump last night at his rally in missouri and saying who is on the ballot in november for republicans. A poll came out, they said everybodys going out in 2020 because they want to vote for you, they want to vote for the president. Theyre not maybe coming out in 2018. Get out in twa2018 because you voting for me in 2018. Youre voting for me. Thats not what some vulnerable republicans who are trying to create some distance want to hear. Walter, to you, in november, are the persuadable voters, whomevers left, they voting for the president who says that he is against a rigged witch hunt or the deep state as he puts it, or against the person that for eve every couple of weeks, invoking the 25th amendment comes up . Im not ail political analyst so i dont think im not a political analyst so i dont think i have the expertise to see who the voters will vote for. I think its important that in terms of the daytoday operations of the government we stay focused on the concerns about a president trying to interfere with the department of justice. He bought that into the discussion there. And i think that it sounded a little bit to me like hes asking people to ratify his interference with the department of justice. I think thats a job for congress to step in here and told him accountable and tell him that they are a coequal branch of government under the constitution and tell him to leave stay out of the investigation that hes the subject of. Walter schwab, michael moore, phil mudd, thank you all. U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations nikki haley and senator mazy hirono join jake tapper tomorrow on cnn, 9 00 p. M. , and former governor bloomberg joins Fareed Zakaria gps at 10 00 a. M. More coming upped to on the woman accusing coming up on the woman accusing Brett Kavanaugh of Sexual Assault. And ted cruz and beto on, rush hour hit the main stage k. They block it from a second term . Half the story . At t. Rowe price our experts go beyond the numbers to examine Investment Opportunities firsthand. Like ecommerce spurring cardboard demand. 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