Transcripts For MSNBCW MSNBC Live With Stephanie Ruhle 20170

Transcripts For MSNBCW MSNBC Live With Stephanie Ruhle 20170613

I think hes weighing that option. You got to be kidding me. Will he do it . Can he do it . Its tough questions. The attorney general set to testify today in an open hearing about his undisclosed meetings with the Russian Ambassador and the trump comey meeting that led to the fbi directors firing. My sense was the attorney general knew he shouldnt be leaving which is why he was lingering. No, this is not reality tv. A strange, strange trip, Basketball Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman is in north korea, the former apprentice contestant knows President Trump and kim jongun. Is he an emissary for the president . Im pretty sure hes pretty much happy of the fact that im over here trying to accomplish something that we both need. Extraordinary. All right. Were going to begin this morning with word that President Trump is toying with the idea of firing special counsel bob mueller. A rumor met with sharp resistance from capitol hill republicans, but welcomed by some of trumps favorite right wing conservatives. Youre in luck because i have the best team in the business here to break it all down. Beginning with Nbcs Kristen Welker live at the white house, kristen, what more do we know about these rumors and whats the administration saying . This is really striking, stef, and some analysts say it amounts to political suicide if President Trump actually tried to fire the special counsel, Robert Mueller. But this all started when the president s friend, chris ruddy, floated this idea on the pbs newshour and it came yesterday sort of bubbled up, we know he was here, had west wing meetings, we dont think he actually met with the president , by the way, thats important to point out, but he did float the idea that the president was thinking about this possibility of trying to get mueller fired. Take a listen to what chris ruddy lad to say. Theres some real conflicts comes from a law firm that represents members of the trump family, he interviewed the day before a few days before he was appointed special counsel with the president who was looking at him potentially to become the next fbi director. Reporter so, thats the key issue, stef, that youre hearing not only from ruddy, but from some of the president s other surrogates, there are some conflicts here. Weve been talking to white house officials overnight and sean spicer pushing back against ruddy. Let me let me read you what sean spicer saying and analyze it on the other side. Mr. Ruddy never spoke to the president regarding this issue. With respect to this subject only the president or his attorneys are authorized to comment. Its interesting statement from sean spicer because he doesnt actually dispute that its a real possibility and, of course, we know over the weekend it was one of the president s outside counselors who, in fact, indicated that it was a possibility that he could think about firing Robert Mueller. This morning chris ruddy pushing back against sean spicer saying that effectively he should be focused on the messaging here at the white house, focused on the president s accomplishments, not focused on botching the messaging. So some strong words of pushback from chris ruddy, even as the white house maintains that this isnt necessarily a real possibility. Poor sean spicer can never catch a break. I want to bring my panel in. Katie is an attorney and msnbc legal analyst, alec ross is a democratic candidate for governor in maryland and Evan Siegfried is a republican strategist. Katie, start with you, can the president actually do this, fire the special counsel . The president himself can do it. Theres some nuances, but its really the attorney general, the Deputy Attorney general, and then frankly as we saw on the saturday night massacre during the watergate scanned physical the a. G. , the deputy a. G. , both resign and refuse to do it, then your solicitor general who back then was robert bork was named a. G. And he did it. The short answer is can he do it . Yes. But then the real question, stephanie, is should he do it and frankly as weve heard that optic is horrible, legally and politically. Well, i mean should he do it . What matters more to the president lowering and lowering his Approval Rating or letting Robert Mueller do his work and who knows what hes going to find. Evan, i want to share what weve heard from some republican lawmakers and go down the list. Lindsey graham said if the president were to fire Robert Mueller it would be a disaster, Susan Collins said it would be an extraordinarily unwise move, jeff flake, congress has a lot of confidence in mueller. Peter king, i dont see any reason to remove him, and paul ryan said let bob mueller do his job. You tweeted out, if the president were to do Something Like this, you would see a shift. The wheels would come off the republican party. Why do you think that . Hes done a lot of things and they still stood by him . This would be looking like its trying to cover up a cover up of a cover up. Firing james comey wasnt that . I said covering up a coverup. So you got to follow the coverups of the coverups. If its four coverups thats when the wheel comes off but three were still okay. A certain point its insanity and a government serving only the person in the oval office as opposed to the person in the oval office serving the people, then republicans will turn around. Republicans right now are dealing with two things that are making it harder for them to stand up to the president and grow a pair which is, one, they have a base that 80 of them you know how i said we dont say unprecedented, grow a pair is not were not using grow a pair. Last i checked when you kick someone in the where you grow a pair they start crying. Grow a pair, move on on that one. Well, at this point republicans still need to develop that backbone where they are able backbone works. Where theyre able to say listen, our problem is 80 of our base is still firmly behind the president and we still want to have a chance at getting tax reform and the ahca but fall when that has not happened more republicans will be willing to oppose the white house. Theyre in an Uneasy Alliance with the white house only getting further apart. Well you know whos not in Uneasy Alliance the super right. We have heard in the last few days, whether its ann coulter marks levin, Newt Gingrich this morning, this shift that extreme right is now going after bob mueller. Is that what matters to the president . We know that group knows how to fire up his base. But his base isnt going anywhere. Yeah. I think were in fullon Banana Republic mode right now. I think President Trump has crossed the line multiple times in terms of who hes willing to firing, what hes willing to do. So what do you do when youre on your back foot when your Approval Rating is getting to the low 30s. Reembrace the base. And thats what ann coulter and Rush Limbaugh and all these other lunatics do is they fire up that 30 to 35 which also has the effect of scaring mainstream republicans in congress, in keeping them from push too long hard against trump. So for all of the outrage that would be caused by firing bob mueller, i actually dont think that the Republican Congress would do much. I dont think theyre going to do much of anything unless trump gets caught in bed with a live boy or dead girl. Thats a little much for 9 00 a. M. In the morning. Before we move on, evan, weve heard from adam shift if the president does this, congress would reestablish a special counsel it would be Robert Mueller. Is that a pipe dream on adam schiffs position . Do republicans want this investigated or to go away. . We want this to be investigated and come to its conclusion. Republicans whether we like it or not have married themselves to bob mueller because we were up until his appointment, the onus was on uss to hold the president accountable and with bob mueller as the special counsel we are able to shift that away. If mueller goes the onus comes back to us and we would have to act. The talk about firing bob mueller, whats being missed is what has bob mueller done other than hire assistants. Thats how crazy what is going on right now. If were talking about firing bob mueller because he hired an assistant that looks optically bad. Its insane. The one last point, there is now on the far right the allegation that theres some sort of deep state conspiracy between president obama, bob mueller and james comey. And theres a photo going around from june 21st, 2013, in the oval office of the three of them together and you know what happened that day, it was the day that the president or president obama nominated james comey to succeed bob mueller. A standard photo op but thats the proof of the conspiracy. The salem witch trials were built on more evidence than that. Extraordinary time and we have a quick programming note. Chris ruddy will be live at noon with Kristen Welker filling in for andrea mitchell. We will find out what he says he heard whether it was from the president or someone close to the president around his intentions around Robert Mueller. The other big story about five hours from now, attorney general Jeff Sessions will voluntarily speak, really give his story to congressional lawmakers, and there are plenty of questions they want answered. What happened between you and comey . When did he feel the way he said he felt . What did you do to create that feeling, what role did you play in his firing . I like Jeff Sessions, hes a fine man. I think it says a lot he wants to testify this quickly. Why are you surprised hes doing that . He feels his side of the story needs to be told. Nbcs Peter Alexander is in the hearing room on capitol hill. Peter, lay out the stakes for Jeff Sessions here. This is where its going to take place around 2 30 this afternoon. Where sessions will be seated facing off with a lot of his former Senate Colleagues but may not be the warmest of welcomes after his last appearance before members of the senate when he was not fully transparent about some of his past meetings, at least two that took place with the Russian Ambassador sergey kislyak. Hes certain to have less capital as he faces off for what could be a contentious hearing later today. Among the questions we will be focusing on and we think hes likely to be asked, they will include does he still stand by his initial explanation that the reason for james comeys firing was his handling of the email investigation into Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign. Number two, while he recused himself from the russia investigation, why does he believe it was appropriate for him to have played any role in comeys firing . And perhaps a third question that hes likely to face today is one that came up during the fired former fbi director james comeys testimony, less than a week ago, where comey basically spoke about his telling Jeff Sessions he didnt want to be left alone with the president so they could have any more of these oneonone conversations. How did he take that and what did he do about it and what actions did he do to follow through on that. Those are the things theyre focusing on today, the contacts with russia and what role he has played in this investigation to this point. I need my panel to weigh in. Katie, Jonathan Swann from axes yee yose reported that Jeff Sessions will knock down the characterization of the conversation he and james comey had back in february. Is this going to turn into a he said he said he said . Which would be unfortunate. I think if i were to counsel Jeff Sessions before he testified today i would remind him hes the attorney general of the United States. He is not the attorney for President Trump. And that is a distinction as a lawyer, he needs to abide by his ethical duties and obligations to tell the truth as we all do, but he needs to respect the office that he currently holds. So the idea that hes going to try to attack comeys character is not becoming of not only the attorney general, but an attorney in general, so whats left to be seen whether or not sessions will try to hide behind the idea that theres certain conversations that he wants to maintain as being confidential but really there is nothing that he can invoke to protect him from answering certain questions absence executive privilege that we deal with his conversations with President Trump. But as weve heard, sessions has offered up, he wants to have a Public Session today, so that the American Public can know the truth about whats going on, but im a little skeptical as to how open and transparent hes really going to be today. Public session with sessions. Evan, what are you focused on most . Jeff sessions isnt just in the hot seat with congress but the president will be watching every single thing he says and the president certainly cares. Well, theres only one viewer that matters to Jeff Sessions and that is the president. So why whats Jeff Sessions going to do . Hes going to frustrate the committee. Think hes doing this for the president . To keep his job after the reports last week that president is unhappy he recused himself which is the best thing Jeff Sessions has done as attorney general. I think the president because of the pressure hes putting on sessions sessions will be frustrating the committee by not answering questions and not invoek executive privilege specifically, and hes just going to Dare Congress to hold him in contempt and thats not going to happen because it would take months because they would have to go over every question. Do you think this is Jeff Sessions goal to do this to perform for the in the Jeff Sessions has existed in politics for decades before he ever knew donald trump and im guessing he plans to be there after . The emass cuelation of the members of Donald Trumps cabinet is remarkable. I mean there was this spectacle yesterday, looked like something out of the north korean Cabinet Meeting where all of the cabinet members sort of jen new nexted, made fools of themselves, saying oh, mighty leader thank you so much for allowing us to serve here. Today if Jeff Sessions does that, and just sort of carries water for donald trump, and is something less than entirely forthcoming he will be taking decades of Public Service and basically flushing it down the toilet, just disgracing himself. All right. Were going to take a break. Next, much more on President Trump weighing firing special investigator Robert Mueller, texass attorney joins us next. I knew what i was doing last night, watching this game, history did not repeat itself as the Golden State Warriors closed out the cleave cavaliers to win the championship. Kevin durant extraordinary game scored 39 points and took home the finals mvp trophy while steph curry tipped in 34 points. The second championship for the warriors in the last few years. I beg you to watch the highlights, kevin durant with his mom, amazing. counting for hide n seek. ready or not, here i come. Anyone can dream. Making it a reality is the hard part. Northrop grumman command and control systems always let you see the complete picture. And were looking for a few dreamers to join us. I am totally blind. I lost my sight in afghanistan. If youre totally blind, you may also be struggling with non24. Calling 8448442424. Or visit my24info. Com. Theres nothing more than my vacation. Me so when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. Booking. Com gets it. They offer free cancellation if my plans change. Visit booking. Com. Booking. Yeah. The future isnt silver suits anits right now. S, think about it. We can push buttons and make cars appear out of thin air. Find love anywhere. Hes cute. And buy things from, well, everywhere. How . Because our phones have evolved. So isnt it time our networks did too . Introducing americas largest, most reliable 4g lte combined with the most wifi hotspots. Its a new kind of network. Xfinity mobile. The president cannot fire bob mueller. He must request that acting attorney general do so and if he fired him then i think it would be a huge mistake. That, of course, is the null reaction from new reaction from angus king on the Senate Intelligence committee after one of trumps closest friends says the president is considering firing Robert Mueller the special counsel in the russia investigation. Chris ruddy made those comments last night on the pbs newshour joining me is ken paxton a supporter of President Trump. Good morning. Lets start there, can

© 2025 Vimarsana