He could exccompel him which could be even more interesting. I dont think he wants to. Yeah. I dont know if i told you but he went to princeton and he is a st. Pauls guy. He is a real smart fella. Hes super smart. Real smart, but i still if i were president of the United States and i had lawyers that thought i was too stupid to talk to Robert Mueller. Yeah. Id take it personally. You are like i have done all this stuff and they still think im too dumb. They think im a moron and i cant sit down just right across the table and talk to this guy. Thats what he does. He talks he makes deals. Thats what hes thats who he is. Right. Could you see that like the finale of the apprentice, them saying, hey, i want to talk to suchandsuch and Donald Trumps people like mark burnett did mark burnett ever whisper you better not sit across your table at the apprentice because you are too stupid. He would roll mueller. He thinks he can roll mueller but, willie, his lawyers all think hes dumb. They really do. Thepg hes too stupid to talk to Robert Mueller because i guess they think Robert Mueller has a better education than donald trump. Wouldnt you be insulted . I would be deeply insulted by that. I think the president s believes he is his on best advocate and would love to sit in the room with bob mueller. Somebody said remember in watergate we had the tapes, we had find the tapes. Right. In this case the tape was on the nbc nightly news with lester holt on may 11th, 2017, where the president said, yes, i fired james comey because of the russia investigation. Right. You remember the fugitive, that great movie with harrison ford. Sure. It would be like the dude like standing in front of everybody at the beginning of the movie. I did it. You know . Because thats what donald trump has already done. Right. By the way, alex, get the russian tape because the confession and him smiling with the russians, thats just the best where he is confessing to the russians, hey, i get pressure off of all of us because i fired comey. He is a nutjob. Relieves the pressure. It relieves the pressure. All right. With us on set we have washington anchor for bbc i would be so insulted. Katty, would you insulted if your lawyers thought you were too stupid to talk to somebody like Robert Mueller . Yeah, and if i was a trump type of person that very insult might be the kind of thing that might drive me to do something rash. Well, i mean, donny, hes isnt he his own best advocate . By the way, you know, talking about princeton, im a wharton man, he is a wharton man, he would be defending wharton also. And he was a fordham guy. But i think he needs to validate that. I think his dad probably paid a lot of money to get him into wharton just so he could have the degree. Trump would never run from a fight, right . Hes going to sit with mueller. Of course he is. Hes running from this fight, though. I dont think hes a coward, do you . If he didnt talk to mueller it would make him a coward. You wouldnt think he is a coward. We know he is not a coward. He is acting like a coward or, mika, i guess his lawyers are just thinking he is too stupid to sit down with Robert Mueller. I dont know. Donny, do you think thats what hes doing, he thinks hes too stupid . You know, i actually think deep down he does think hes too stupid to be honest with you. Are you serious . I think right now theres these little birdies on each ear, one is going you are not stupid and the other one is going mika, i think he needs to raid the confidence code. Maybe he does. You know its number two on the best seller list, katie kay. 71yearold president 71yearold president s who have a problem keeping track of things. If he didnt talk to comey he would be very smis sieve, he would be submitting to comey and saying you are stronger than me, i cant talk to you. Thats what would be going on there. That would be it. With us we have White House Reporter for the Associated Press jonathan la mere who read the james comey book. Thank you. I went to a good school, i was able to read the book. Donny deutsch is with us and in Washington National political reporter for nbc news carol lee who has the big scoop this morning about the brewing obstruction of justice case Robert Mueller is building. Monday mornings raid on President Trumps personal attorney has white house allies on edge and up and upended the delicate negotiations with the Mueller Probe. Last night the Washington Post reported that trumps allies worry that federal investigators may have seized recordings made made by Michael Cohen. Quote, cohen who served for a decade as a lawyer at the Trump Organization and is a close confidant was known to store the conversations using digital files and then replay them for colleagues. Cohens attorney declined to comment. That takes us to nbc news exclusive new reporting on the Mueller Investigation. Cooperation between the white house and the special counsel is believed to be damaged beyond repair by mondays raid of President Trumps attorney. Nbc news reports that months of talks collapsed this week and Robert Muellers team is now moving forward without a president ial interview according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Carol lee, you were the lead reporter on the knee that broke the story for nbc. Take us through what we know and especially on the obstruction of justice report that bob mueller is reportedly building. Sure. There is a number of ways in which this raid on Michael Cohen is ricochetting through both obviously the significant elements of the investigation and what they may find, but also just in the reaction that the president s legal team is having to this and the president himself. What we learned is that he has soured on the idea of an interview at least for now, he is feeling much more defiant and combative towards the Mueller Investigation and that essentially the raid on cohen upended these negotiations that they had were having with muellers office about a possible interview. So really may have sealed the fate of whether or not that interview happens. We learned that they were much further along than we had previously thought in terms of coming to some sort of possible agreement about an interview. They were discussing final sticking points just as this raid was unfolding and this so so theres that piece, and then, you know, we also learned that when it comes to the obstruction portion of the Mueller Investigation that muellers team is essentially finished with that piece of investigation. Carol, to prove obstruction they dont need trumps interview, do they . Thats what people we spoke with said, that, you know, hes done all the interviews, talked to everybody else, looked at all the evidence and the interview with the president was kind of this last step in finalizing that portion of the investigation because the one thing that they dont necessarily get from interviewing other witnesses and looking at documents is an explanation from the president about his intent and obstruction is obviously all about intent. So, carol, if we can leave this graphic up right here for our people in the car, the areas of the Mueller Report on obstruction, the firing of former fbi director james comey we just talked about, the president s response to the report in the 2016 trump tower meeting, remember, drafting on air force one that memo that said the meeting was about adoption, of course, it turned out to be about getting dirt on Hillary Clinton. Then trumps dangling of pardons before witnesses who perhaps were going to testify against him and then finally the pressuring of attorney general Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the russia investigation which he of course did, much to the frustration weve heard even again this week of President Trump. So what does all this mean, then . If mueller is not waiting for a president ial interview, what does it mean about the pacing of this and when might we hear the results of his investigation . Well, we dont know exactly, but what weve been told is that if he decides to not subpoena the president and, you know, just goes without an interview on this portion of the investigation, that would really speed up the process for submitting some sort of report on this of what his findings are. We were talking to people who said that the expectation was that that would happen within the next few months. The president s legal team was asking mueller as a condition for an interview to set a time frame for that within three to four months after he sat down with the president without an interview, mueller is not obligated to do anything like that and he can move on his own time frame. So it could actually really speed up the process for finalizing a report on this obstruction piece. It could speed up the process but also, donny, trump could actually help himself by sitting down with mueller. I know that his lawyers are afraid for him to do that, but at this point all he could provide since its about his state of mind i dont know what youre smirking about. Hold on a second. Im serious. Mueller right now looks at the facts and they are there. This is state of mind depends obstruction depends so much on state of mind that im dead serious. There is i know there are down sides for him sitting down with mueller, his lawyers think he is too stupid to do that, but there are already upsides where they can say what you were you saying when you did this with the interruptions . Oh, i was just talking about you can a match a mitigating factor to every single incident and instead of allowing prosecutors without his testimony to put the worst possible interpretation on every event, you put the best. The reality is its never going to happen. Hes going to fire all of them. You can go to the bank on that. I love when people he cant, hes not. If you know donald trump, you know anything about him, he is not going to let this continue as its continuing. He knows there are certain things that cannot come out. I will take any betters, please call into 1800morning joe. I didnt know that was a bet line. Thats the bet line. Donnys date line. There will be a saturday or a sunday or a tuesday night massacre so its not going to come to this. You can go to the bank on this. I dont care if its constitution he will be very happen to start that constitutional crisis. Jonathan, im not so sure of that because the one thing that donald trump does seek to recognize over the first year and a half is that the worst thing he has done, the most damaging thing he has done, the single action that has caused him all the hell of the past year was the firing of james comey. Yes, and he has told people around him that he wishes that had gone differently, which is obviously a bit of an understatement. We also know despite that he has had conversations in the last couple weeks toying with that idea about firing Rod Rosenstein, trying to end the Mueller Probe. He feels like it has crossed lines. The red line of dont venture into my business. He feels like in this last week with the raid into Michael Cohens office that its also venturing into his personal life. If the access Hollywood Tape is in play. These are things that are to him here is the thing, though, here is the thing, if he fires mueller the investigation not only continues, it gets worse. You have hearings in the senate because you have the head of the republican judiciary committee, the Senate Judiciary committee saying it would be suicidal. It becomes a meltdown politically, but the Southern District of new york is the one investigating the access Hollywood Tape, the other payoffs. They have all of cohens recordings. Thats not that goes on whether bob mueller decides to spend the next ten years in the south of france or not. Snyderman, he continues with his investigation whether mueller is in the south of france for the next ten years or not. There is nothing donald trump can do now to stop this. Anybody watching billions this year . Yes. Of course. So the attorney general would say, mr. President , the horse is out of the barn. He is a great character. You are not going to get the horseback in the barn. Now, you can shoot a lot of ponies, but the horse is out. Right. Thats what hed say, right . The portion that is in the Southern District is going to continue. Thats going to happen. Eric snyderer man, hes going he and donald trump have a complicated history. Complicated is a nice thing to say. Long time add varies. I think that schneiderman would happy i will take the ball and run with it. Donald trump would say im doing this on behalf of the country. Somebody has to take a stand. Youre not listening. It doesnt matter. It doesnt matter. Hes still going to do it. The genius of mueller is to have put roots down from bits of this investigation into other jurisdictions and thereby protecting the investigation for the American People. He has known all along that donald trump wanted to fire him and the prospect might come even though this would be politically catastrophic potentially for the white house where he would go ahead and pull the trigger and thats why he has done exactly what he has done. By the way willie willie, the guys that have done deals right now, the last person that wants this to happen is Michael Flynn because if mueller goes away and the investigation which it wont, but if it did, he would have the attorney general of pennsylvania bringing up on kidnapping charges, the kushners schneiderman will be on the r h kushners no matter what. When you have mueller sharing the information with them and the Southern District of new york doing it, suddenly other u. S. Attorneys decide they want to do it, suddenly it becomes such an epic nightmare for donald trump. Here is the problem, thats a rational well thought outage sis of what comes next, you have considered the consequences and why you think its a bad idea. When donald trump is cornered he just punches the guy in front of him to get him out of the way. He knew exactly what was going to go on on hannity two nights ago with the Bulletin Boards and the whole thing. Thats a great show by the way. He knew what was rachel thinks its a great show because she beats him all the time. He knew who was going on that show and according to some reporting yesterday may have spoken and instructed some of the people who went on that show and the argument, the entire thesis of that show was that Rod Rosenstein has to go. Trump sent out a tweet make sure everybody watches hannity tonight. If he is not feeding that narrative he is supporting that jonathan, its trial balloons, he sees what sticks and what doesnt stick. This is not sticking because, again, talk about the reaction from the republicans on the hill, especially the senators, when people started talking about this. Well, this would be the moment where you would think that some republicans who have been refusing to stand up to this president no matter what he has done, this would be the line that would be too far and people have said to him, you know, when the Rosenstein Mueller talk a few days ago popped up there was an effort to have a bipartisan support for legislation on the hill that would protect mueller, something to this point has not gone forward. Mitch mcconnell has not said he would bring it to the floor just yet but there seems to be more of an effort to protect this, to sanctify this investigation. No nun around the president thinks that firing him is a good idea. I had people saying that that was a onesource story with steve bannon. Steve bannon says talking to white house a former white house insider who would be steve bannon. That plot of getting that war room back together also has a bay way of not just defending the president but puts steve bannon back inside his good graces. Doing something again that would destroy his presidency according to the head of the judiciary committee, republican. Mika, donald trump is obsessed on something right now. Cable news. Have you seen the front pages of the paper, the paper that he reads. He is obsessed with this james comey book and james comey if you would lift that up, please, mika. James comey says that when he was fbi director can we just pause for a second and let that art soak in for our audience. That donald trump was absolutely obsessed with what the daily news is calling the weewee bit and saying can you imagine me with hookers. Now you kind of can some would say. So this is the comey book, the comey book is coming up next and we are going to be talking about you will also see in the daily news its the photo. There was nothing i had another teaser like it was not dom deif you look at this the no teasers on this cover, mika. The entire thing whats the back page . Red sox. It doesnt matter. Whats coming up next, mika . That was it. We will be right back with much more morning joe. Bp is taking safety to new heights. Using drones and robots offshore so engineers can stop potential problems before they start. Because safety is never being satisfied and always working to be better. Depend silhouette briefs. Feature a comfortable sleek fit. As a dancer, ive learned you cant have any doubts. Because looking good on stage is one thing. 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