I love my colleague kasie hunt even more now. Jut Department Lawyer claiming hicks thats immunity from answering questions since she used to be a member of the executive branch, an argument democrats say is bogus. Im watching obstruction of justice in action. You have the white house inserting immunity which is not a thing, it doesnt exist. You have to ask the question, what are they trying to hide from the American People . It just take its to the court and waste taxpayers dollars and you will just see the president say, this is taking too long, and the reason its taking too long is because its a team of obstructers. The president is continuing to engage in a coverup to try to prevent congress from finding the facts. Theres no question democratless contindemocrats will continue to push for answers from hicks from her time from the white house. Shes a key witness who is cited several hundred times in the Mueller Report, including trumps reaction of the mueller investigation. Quote, when sessions told the president that a special counsel had been appointed, the president slumped back in his chair and said oh, my god, this is terrible. This is the end of my presidency, im fd. The president told sessions he should resign at attorney general. Sessions submitted his resignation and left the oval office. Hicks saw the president shortly after sessions departed and described the president as being extremely upset. Hicks said she had only seen the president like that one other time, when the access Hollywood Tape came out during the campaign. And his patience with hicks runs thin. So does patience with special Counsel Robert Mueller and his reluctance to appear on capitol hill. In terms of bob mueller, hes going to have to testify, and he can testify voluntarily or he can testify under subpoena, but its going to have to happen. I dont think a twoyear investigation of this magnitude followed by a written report in a tenminute statement without questions satisfactorily answers the many, many questions we have about the investigation. So i also think time and patience are running out on that front. Muellers elusively triggering our friend Joe Scarborough this morning in his questions House Intel Committee jim himes. Millions and millions of dollars will pay for your report. Not everybody, bob, is going to read it so you read it for them like this is seriously im tell what you, as you can tell, im a little this is outrageous that this guy has not been dragged to capitol hill to talk. Thats all i got to say. Two things to say, number one, its going to happen. Hes going to get subpoenaed. We have a profound interest inside the Intelligence Committee hearing about something we have not heard nearly enough. By the way, it will be behind closed doors. It will not necessarily be newsworthy. Why . Why will it be behind closed doors . Because we care about in the Intelligence Community the counterintelligence investigation. So thats totally separate. What is going to be public . What youre talking about animatedly is getting bob mueller, because for all of the reasons you state, getting bob mueller to say what he said in the report, which by the way he said he would do. He said my testimony is in that report. As you point out, an awful lot of people have not gotten through the near 500 pages so theres virtue in that. Its time for all of us to speak animatedly. Thats where we start with some of our favorite reporters and friends. With us on set former democratic senator claire mccase kill, nbc news correspondent heidi pris bella, Jonathan Lemire and also joining us former u. S. Attorney joyce vance and frank. Tell us why they are coming out of a concerted fiveact play to cover up the result of the Mueller Report by attorney general william barr. They lost all of the team from that revelation, any momentum they had and the white house seems to be getting his way by evidence of hope hicks, not even answering questions while walking the halls of capitol hill. Its ludicrous. Definitely civility to Robert Mueller and his adherence to protocol and apolitical appearance has not served us well. It worked well a few years back but were in a society that watches tv, gets our news from whatever particular network we watch or from our neighbors or colleagues and we need to see something play out in front of us. Its sad but true and i think bob mueller absolutely does need to testify. Its time, its past time for him to talk about his report to all of the American Public. And as much of that testimony needs to be an open hearings, not behind closed doors. Joyce vance, Robert Mueller found donald trump committed crimes, that he committed ten acts of obstruction of justice. Robert mueller also found russia attacked our democracy to help donald trump. These are two really simple truths. These are two Elizabeth Warren was able to boil them down into a sentence. Why cant democrats . Thats really been a challenge for democrats. Theyve never been effective with the pen as President Trump is on twitter. Maybe they should try limiting the number of characters and doing it it that way but the reality is when youre talking about complex issues, and these are, for instance, i would take issue with the fact mueller found ten issues of obstruction. I think he had evidence to move on four. You can see doing the topline explanation, it takes time, being sensible, having good policy, understanding the law. It takes time. So the real challenge for democrats is getting the attention of the country for long enough that we can engage in something more substantive than a tweet. Im going to Say Something that is going to keep my off twitter for a week. When democrats lose elections, this is why. What joyce just said im sure is accurate. But the opposite of i cant say crimes were committed is to a political communicator crimes were committed. And if democrats dont have the you no he what to assert that and let people let the president s lawyers go out and say he did and found ten instance between a nexus and occurrence and proceeding were not exactly met, but let trump explain that crime wasnt committed in the obstruction section. And the idea mueller doesnt believe he has a responsibility to communicate further about this report. He know whats barr did. This is not a dumb man. He knows barr totally screwed him in terms of the way he put the report out there before mueller had a chance to have his summary or to have his conclusions presented in a fair way. Right. So heres the deal, youve got to come. Heres my thing to the house judiciary committee, dont even talk to me about impeachment if you cant manage to get mueller in front of your committee. Jerry nadler needs to quit doing press conferences on the need for impeachment and start explaining to the American People why a subpoena wasnt issued the next day. Thats such a good point. Have called and told him that . No, i havent. Can we call him . Lets get him on the phone. Its a per setup. Why are we debating impeachment when we cant even get Robert Mueller to capitol hill . That was the very first question when the report came out okay, when are you going to come sit in the chair and tell us about it . Even from Jerry Nadlers perspective, that is what he told us would happen and it is beyond me as a reporter because im plugged in to all of the sources up there who you need to be talking to on this as to why there is such a long lag on this other than, im sorry, theres only one explanation, which is the leadership made the calculation that the numbers are not there, even though they could eventually move. They dont want to have this show right now. They want to push it off as far as possible because they dont want to actually do impeachment. They dont want to do it. I guess Jonathan Lemire, the point to all of this is hope hicks strolling around the capitol saying nothing to kasie hunt is a perfect a symbol of this moment as anything. Hope hicks whos quoted in the Mueller Report close to 100 times, who witnessed all of the scrutiny, all of the conduct under scrutiny, not just the president s reaction saying im fd when mueller was appointed but the incidents i understand hes most concerned about, getting sessions to unrecuse, all of the conflict and internal strife with don mcgahn, who was the one asked to carry out a lot of the president s code reds, if you will. Why is she up there saying nothing . Hope hicks today in her testimony wouldnt talk at her about her time in the white house. She would not even confirm where her desk was in the west wing. Why not . She said thats part of the privilege. She doesnt have to speak about it. She wouldnt even confirm where she sat. To me thats emblematic of the approach the white house is taking. Theyre not going to cooperate. Theyre going to stonewall. They will not say anything or if they do the bear minimum and in this case she said nothing to kasie hunt in the hallway. This is what theyre going to do. The president back to the mueller prart, weve been saying this all along. We know how anxious he is about the idea of mueller appearing in public. Even if he doesnt go much beyond his reading from the report, they know the weight his words would carry, this is someone who the American Public has heard from exactly once in twoplus years since he got the job and that was a riveting display. That News Conference he held. Imagine that comes more if he sat there a few hours in capitol hill in Congress Talking about what he found, and perhaps go maybe he would go further to rebut what william said. You dont need mueller it do all the work tlxt were actually close to two dozen skilled prosecutors who could sit on sit next to him and if there were different individuals, different investigators who questioned hope hicks or don mcgahn, i dont think mueller would question either of them. You can deputize others to tell the story. And there is a big constitutional question that will get to the forefront. Clearly the white house believes they have a Supreme Court that will go places no one anticipates with executive privilege. Theyre not saying its executive plinch and, joyce, please correct me if i get any of the legal stuff wrong. Theyre not saying plinch because shes already testified, she talked about this to someone else. So theyre trying to say this is an immunity from talking. This is an open question of law. My question to my former colleagues in congress, republicans and democrats, really, youre going to let the executive branch go this far . Youre equipment going to say were going to lay down and let the executive branch say we get to decide who can tell you anything about what were doing on the publics behalf . Thats just it. Theyre undermining congresss very role, not just the political evaluation in the short term. And President Trump, theyre absolutely screwing the Congressional Branch of power for maybe a long, long time. And trump will coach pushing it. Thats why my republican friends need to wake up and smell the coffee. If you listen to the democrats today, david cicilline, eric swalwell, they say thats it, were going to court. We passed this resolution previously to give us the power to go to court and enforce these subpoenas so here we come. The problem is even if they use every lever of power that they have available to them right now, the mission of slow walking this is achieved by the republicans. And let me just press you on this idea, claire. It seems as though Nancy Pelosis last pronouncement about trump is im not going to even answer him. Its interesting and ironic she wont even answer him when hes taking her lunch, he is schooling her. Hes stripping her of her authority. Hes stripping her of her power and has her 24 7 whipping the impeachment count and monitoring tracking poll like he monitors tv ratings. Hes beating pelosi on the impeachment question. On the question of who has more power in our checks and balances system, this is unprecedented what this president is doing. I mean this is a guy who campaigned and said no more executive orders. Executive orders are terrible. I used to listen to all of my colleagues on the right in the senate go on and on about obama using executive power. I mean, holy cow, i mean, he was like a piker in executive power compared to what this white house is trying to do. Not even letting somebody testify why their desk was . I guess my question is why . Is he in their head . I understand why the republicans do it. Theyre too wimpy to sustain and survive a mean tweet y do the democrats do it . I think the democrats are trying. I think youve got one of the things nancy pelosi has to do is her cats, you have a lot of committees, a lot of jurisdictional committees. Its bizarre. I saw it in the senate. One chairman would get up in arms because another chairman was talking about things. You look at immigration. There are four committees in the senate who have jurisdiction over immigration. No wonder we cant fix immigration. Like high school. We cant decide whos in charge. So i think thats part of the problem. But i think shes got to realize that shes got to get more focused on the issue of getting the facts in front of the American People first with mueller and then as quickly as possible getting them to court. By the way, im not sure it works to their benefit, if they get a Supreme Court decision like next april or may, that the president cant do this, that probably is more damaging to the president than a Supreme Court decision. Theyve got some time for the court system to come to the rescue. And maybe closer to the election, im just talking from a political perspective, its better for the democrats. I agree with you on that too. I think worrying about the politics now is so shortsighted, do the right thing. Do the right thing, democrats. Politics take care of themselves. And we all know politics change. Right. Who knows where we will be six months, eight months from now. Southern district may indict him for Campaign Finance violations. Hes already an unindicted coconspirator there. I believe we have new sound of chairman nadler talking about what he got from hope hicks. Do we have that . Not yet. Heres what he said. I have the transcript. Here we go. Heres chairman nadler on the hicks testimony. I thought you just told someone you were doing that. No. The white house is having this doctrine of absolute immunity, which we will destroy in court, doesnt mean shes as of right now you havent decided if youre taking miss hicks to court . Go with that. I dont know if you want to do translation there. The transcript is a little more helpful. They will go to cost over this question of immunity. Is that what you got . Yeah, i think thats what he said. Not clearly and not forcefully. Would i have liked him to stop and go, we are taking them to cost right now and were going to eat their lunch in court. Not clearly and not forcefully has been the democrats issue throughout this process. I agree, its frustrateling. Joyce vance, immunity is not a thing, what is everyone talking about . What is she under immunity from . I dont understand congress to be querying her about anything she hasnt already testified to to Robert Mueller. What does she want immunity from . Thats the point senator mccaskill makes, theres no executive privilege being saerted because this has been asked and answered and sent out to the public. That is failed argument. Now they seized on this notion shes immune from discussing absolutely anything that happened during her financial tenure in t official tenure in the white house. Let me put an end right here and debunk that myth. What you have to have for a successful claim of immunity in this setting is you have to have a clean record. Here where theres plenty of predicate that indicates hicks is being asked to testify about criminal activity, theres no reason to apply immunity, no precedents for applying it. What happened in the Obama Administration was an effort to look into someone with no predicate of criminal conduct. Here 488 pages in the Mueller Report say hope hicks has to answer questions. And frank florida gluzy, one of the time periods she did answer was the period before the transition before the trump presidency, which is obviously the trump tower meeting took place, all of the conduct that was under scrutiny in volume one of the Mueller Report was in place and there had been some news reports from various organizations she would be asked about the hush money operation that the Southern District of new york investigated. What sort of what are those lines of inquiries saying to you . Well, theyre pursuing criminality involving the president directly and her knowledge of it. They are trying to lay the foundation for the possibility of high crimes and misdemeanors and possibility of an impeachment. I think hope hicks thats to be very careful here. While she wouldnt apparently allegedly answer a question simple question of, hey, is the Mueller Report accurate with regard to what you said, she wouldnt answer that, she may be concerned about giving multiple divergent statements that could get her jammed up and that would be an interesting scenario to be concerned about, selfincrimination, of course, but where i see this going is theyre going to focus squarely on conduct she can talk about involving the president , Crimes Involving the president , her knowledge of them. Hope hicks is not going away. Youre going to see her called to testify in grand juries in the state of new york, in manhattan,