David Gura hosts coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Opportunity for a politicians challenger. In this case it is a democrat named nate mcmurray. I reached out to him a couple of hours ago and got this statement. He says this. It is absolutely true that Chris Collins should not be running for this or any other seat, a fact that the local Republican Party knew full well when they endorsed and celebrated him while he was under investigation for securities fraud. So the question now is, if this seat, this safe republican seat is now in jeopardy, can the democrat, nate mcmurray, raise enough money, secure enough outside support, and then win over enough rightleaning voters to pick up this seat and unseat any republican challenger, if it is Chris Collins or someone else . We have to see if that will be the case. One thing we know for sure is that democrats know all too well they only have to flip about two dozen seats to take back control of the house, david. Jeff bennet, thank you very much. Jeff bennet covers the white house at nbc news. With me is blake and michelle goldberg, a columnist for the new york times. Michelle, lets start with these tweets. The president saying i saw that. Think we all did. Calling his Attorney General here, scared stiff, missing in action. The White House Press secretary i assume would say that the president is just voicing an opinion. Weve heard it from his personal attorneys as well. What do you make of this . As i say, the attacks have piled up, jeff citing the one in a couple of weeks ago in which the president is calling on the Attorney General to end this investigation. How does it hang the narrative of the tweet today . My assumption when he says Jeff Sessions is scared stiff he is projecting, right. I think theres an increasing frenzy in his tweets which could be due to the fact that roger stone, who has as much to do with his political career as any person living, is very likely about to get indicted soon. Theres been papa rarade of wits of people against roger stone coming before the grand jury. One of the keys to the russia inclusion narrative is roger stone. If he is about to get indicted
trump tower has reason to be as freaked out as he is. The pinstriped key to the investigation. Blake, i want your perspective on this as well. As michelle mention, you had three people interacting with the grand jury this week. One decided not to testify and he was held in contempt by a judge in washington, d. C. Your perspective there, blake, on the role that roger stone is playing now in this investigation . Well, notice, it is funny. If this kind of thing had happened in private and some, you know, journalistic outlet, say msnbc, report that the president said this privately, it would be a huge story. The fact he is just venting on twitter is so bizarre because it makes it seem like hes a passive observer of his own presidency. He does have the power to fire Jeff Sessions if he wants to, but the reason he is not going to do it is because it is politically dicey. I think republicans would have a cow if he did it. So here he is sitting in bedminster in the rain, cant golf, and hes just blowing off steam on twitter. It is amazing. Michelle, Lets Get Meta here. I started the day wondering if we would hear from the president About Charlottesville as we approached the anniversary. I looked at the schedule for the weekend and there was nothing on it that would indicate there would be a formal statement. Hes having a photo op with bikers in bedminster today, and we get a short statement, if you can call it that, on twitter About Charlottesville. What do you make of the way he is using these medium for things like that, things of great import . He has cheapened the discourse in many ways in the country, but there are things that merit something more than that and were not seeing him use it for that purpose. Well, i mean, of course. He is a person who does not have the dignity or gravitas necessary for this job. You know, i mean i guess this statement is maybe about as good as you could expect from him, but it is not saying very much. Basically saying all sorts of racism is only a degree or two removed from, you know, bad people on both sides, right. He still cant call out antiblack racism in particular, or neonaziism in particular. Theres a date of Unite The Right rally in washington, a repeat sort of the charlottesville demonstration, and a time when the person he used throughout the campaign is saying, no, actually he is a bigot and misogynist. I got to ask you about that blake and michelle. I will give you a hachance to te a bite of that. You are talking about omarosas book that has been leaked and there will be the interview as well coming up. Let me get your perspective on the role that omarosa played for the short time she was a part of it. Michelle talking about the bona fides she offered when she was a part of the race. What do you make of this . I think it is causing quite a
stir already. Shes really a character straight out of reality tv. I think it is fascinating that she observed these things while she was on The Apprentice and yet she chose to work in his administration. I think it is further irony that here is someone with probably more Government Experience than anyone else in the white house and by all accounts she did very little while she was there. There was a story about how she piled up shoes in the white house and people had to trip over them. So i dont think she is really missed in the west wing. Certainly with this memoire she is not making friends in the white house now. At the center of the book, michelle, is the search for this tape. She maintains it exists, of the president using the nword when he was on The Apprentice. I will go back to a question i have been using here, thinking about it throughout the day. What changes if that tape exists . If we hear that tape. You have thought about what changed after that access Hollywood Tape came to life. In terms of a picture of this president as he thinks about race and talks about race, what changes if that tape exists . Look, i dont think any of us need omarosa or a secret recording to tell Us Donald Trump is a racist, although if the tape exists it might make it harder for some of his defenders to insist hes not a racist, which some are still trying to do. There are still people in the Republican Party, and i guess the hypocrisy is the death of virtue you know, hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. There you go. They pretend to think racism is shameful even as they enable it. The emergence of this tape will make it that much harder to separate themselves from the kind of blatantly White Nationalist cast of this administration. Michelle, quickly here, you have been traveling the country a lopt, looking at divisions in the democratic party. Let me talk about what we have seen in kansas. We havent talked about the
gubernatorial, but it is a thin margin that separates them. Chris kobach now recusing himself. What does it tell you about what happens in november. On the republican side, it is nice to see others realizing kobach is not a good actor when it comes to voter fraud when it is used against them. What it tells us is what we have known all along, right, which is that the democrats would crawl over broken glass to vote against donald trump. They are incredibly fired up. Even though, you know, it was disappointing they didnt win in ohio, they will get another chance in three months. I think you see that republicans, although trump still has his base, that base is not a majority of the country and parts of it are at least disspis i Thinke Disspis disspirited. I think it looks better to be
democrat right now. In every part of the country i have seen, particularly women, whose lives have been transformed by their revulsion of donald trump, who wake up who never paid close attention to local politics before, but who now work about thinking about what they can do to flip their districts. I will pull up the latest from the cook political seat. Under solid seats for democrats, 181. Looking at republican, 153. Looking at likely lean seats, 21 to 53. The Cook Political Report giving democrats more reason for optimism i should say. Michelle goldberg and Blake Shelton of political magazine. Thank you for joining me. Coming back with a counter offer, the ultimatum from the president s lawyers that they negotiate a sitdown interview with Robert Mueller. Morning. Morning. What do we got . Keep an eye on that branch. Might get windy. Have a good shift. Fire pit. Last use 0600. Id stay close. Morning. Get ready to switch. Protected by flo. Should say, protected by alan and jamie. Right . Should it . When you bundle home and auto. Run, alan . You get more than just savings. You get roundtheclock protection. You get more than just savings. Ive been Making Blades here at gillette for 20 years. Theres a lot of innovation that goes into making americas 1 shave. Precision machinery and highquality materials from around the world. Nobody else even comes close. Now starting at 7. 99. Gillette. The best a man can get. One theme thats been consistent for months, the president s attorneys stalling on his interview with Robert Mueller. Here is Rudy Guilliani and jay sekulow defending their client, the president. Flynn is the example. No crime. If it had been said, the president says, go easy on him. Which the president says, you know, he said he didnt say stop it, dont to it. So, no crime. However, It Didnt Take place according to the president. According to comey it did. Now, we have of course, if it did, it wouldnt have mattered, but youre right. If theres two different recollection goes of a meeting, now you set up a perjury situation. Correct. Joining me is ned price, former assistant to president obama and National Security analyst. Also with me is guy lewis, a former u. S. Attorney. Let me start with you, guy, giving context to the audio we just heard. The president s attorneys not busy enough, decided to fill in for their friend sean hannity on
his radio show, a chance to hear them talking about the case and what they think the grounds are for any criminality. Let me get your perspective on that. This has been a week in which they filled in for sean hannity. There was a moment earlier in the week when jay sekulow, who despite managing the president s case, managed to guest a show and had as a guest the cocounsel. What do you make of the way theyre managing the case publicly. It is clear to me theres never ever in a million years going to be an interview between bob mueller and his team and the president of the United States. I mean how long have they been negotiating now . Eight months. There you go, almost a year. Were closing in on a year, back and forth. Bob mueller, frankly, needs to just go ahead and say, thank you very much, youre going to be interviewed on my terms. I did this for a long time. Prosecutors, look, it is it is okay to be reasonable, to be fair. You need to do that. But at some point you have to put your foot down and say, i
appreciate it, i respect that youre the president , but we need to either move forward with this interview or im going to issue a Grand Jury Subpoena for you to testify and i will compel your appearance. Ned price, i want to go to the tweet that i referenced at the top there. The president saying that his Attorney General is missing in action. This is not the first time we have seen the president call out Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions explicitly on twitter. It happened most memorably about a week and a half ago when we had the president s White House Press secretary say, this isnt a direct order. It is the president spouting opinion. Rudy guilliani, the president s personal attorney, saying, we all know now it is how the president using twitter, as his conduit of expressing his opinion. What do you make of the president doing that after the tempest that kicked up a week and a half ago . What is so interesting is that Jeff Sessions is missing in action for a simple reason, he is recused from the investigation. If he were involved in the investigation, if he had a handson approach to this
investigation, that would be something that the Department Of Justice would have to take up. It could lead to some upheaval within the department itself. So it is quite appropriate that in this case Jeff Sessions is absent from this. I know that the president is frustrated by that, but that gets back to the core question. Why does President Trump want Jeff Sessions to have a handson approach to this . Why does the president feel it is necessary to have someone, a loyalist like Jeff Sessions essentially babysit this investigation . That does not bode well for President Trumps knowledge of the facts surrounding this case if he feels that he needs someone there to manage them. If he feels that he needs someone there to ensure that everything is going according to his plan, that suggests there is something there that the president does not want to come to light, that the president does not want to get out, that the president does not want to go awry. Guy lewis, you know well it is a complex case. There are a lot of moving parts
here. We have seen in recent weeks Robert Mueller kicking things over to the Southern District in new york, having others work on some of the things that he has discovered. Im going to read here another tweet from the president today. The big story that the Fake News Media refuses to report is lowlife Christopher Steeles many meetings with deputy a. G. Bruce ohr and his beautiful wife, nelly. Im sure she appreciates the compliment. It was fusion gps that hired steele to write the phoney and discredited dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the dnc. I want to return to this that is being argued in the court of public opinion. What were seeing as the weeks wear on is the president and Rudy Guilliani and jay sekulow i would say expertly trying to distill or whittle down what they hope were focusing on here. Were returning again to the dossier, Christopher Steele is this hot Watch Button Issue that the president likes to bring up. What is your counsel about what to Pay Attention as all of this continues . David, so bob mueller is
strategic. He is smart. He is experienced. He is a former u. S. Attorney. He knows how to run these investigations. So lets take a step back. Hes got Paul Manafort right now in the crosshairs. Manafort is going to be found guilty. I would bet the house on that. Then the question is does the president pardon him, does he go to jail, does he cooperate. Big, big issue there. Hes now focused, bob mueller is now focused on one of the political operatives, who allegedly was involved in some of this russia shenanigans business. Stone, who is a dirty tricks guy, is now in the crosshair. Is he going to get indicted . We know that in down in virginia, in alexandria they sealed very interesting, didnt get a lot of press, but rick gates tried to testify to this questionandanswer session, the prosecutors objected to it. They sealed it. The judge said, im going to seal it because theres an
ongoing investigation. That is what i think is coming around here, which is additional cases, additional indictments, additional defendants. Ned price, last question to you. A lot of democrats were saying let it follow its course, let it play out. I would say a lot of republicans are saying that as well. Congressman devin nunes from california is not one of them. He sits on the House Select Committee on intelligence. Rachel maddow obtained a tape from him at fundraiser about the russia investigation. Lets listen to what he was recorded saying. If sessions wont unrecuse and mueller wont clear the president , were the only ones, which is really the danger. I mean we have to keep all of these seats. We have to keep the majority. If we do not keep the majority, all of this goes away. Spelling that out there in very explicit terms, im going to read a couple of the highlights because the audio was tough to hear. Sessions wont unrecuse and mueller wont clear the president , we are the only ones. What does that tape tell you, ned price, of the outlook of some republicans here on this investigation . Well, the problem, david, is that devin nunes is not a bystander in all of this. He is the chair of the house intelligence committee, one of the two u. S. Committees on capitol hill that are investigating these series of crimes from russian hacking to everything else. So the fact that he is broadcasting for everyone to see and for everyone to hear, the fact that he is essentially putting his finger on the scale for the president is pretty remarkable. At the same time, we didnt learn anything from that tape we didnt know before, at least that