Analysis and discussion of the days top stories and compelling issues from Lawrence ODonnell. Analysis and discussion of the days top stories and compelling issues from Lawrence ODonnell. Rudy giuliani told politico today that the trump team wants to rule outofbounds about half of what Robert Mueller wants to discuss the president. Quote, we dont want questioning on obstruction. They would have to concede that. Robert mueller would not be allowed to ask President Trump what he said to james comey about the fbi investigation of michael flynn. James comey says that the president told him, i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting flynn go. Hes a good guy. I hope you can let this go. The only area that the trump team would consider allowing is how donald trump and his campaign interacted with russians during the president ial campaign. A week after reports that trumps personal lawyer Michael Cohen is willing to testify that donald trump knew about the meeting in trump tower with russians during the campaign
before it occurred. Nbc news is reporting today that the Special Prosecutor now wants to interview someone who helped arrange that meeting. The Special Prosecutor has requested an interview with the russian pop star who sent emails to donald trump jr. To arrange that meeting in trump tower. His American Lawyer told nbc news conversations are ongoing about a potential interview and that it is, quote, unclear how this will play out. Which, as of tonight, could serve as the headline for the status of everything. Still under investigation by the Special Prosecutor. Unclear how this will play out. Leading off our discussion now, joyce nance, former Special Prosecutor. And former counsel to the mayor of New York City and eugene robinson, Opinion Writer for the washington post. Hes an msnbc political analyst. And you are a former federal
document, nothing. If there has been communication about this recently from the mueller team to the giuliani team, we have to believe Rudy Giulianis account of that, which is an extremely difficult thing to do. But lets do it for the sake of this discussion. But the truth is we have no idea what communication has been going on. But if the giuliani conditions are whats being communicated to mueller, is there any way for mueller to accept those conditions . It really depends on what mueller thinks he needs out of this interview. And of course we dont know all of the cards that hes holding right now. But one thing prosecutors dont do when they need an interview with a witness, they dont negotiate because they have the subpoena power. And it is abundantly clear at least in my judgment that they dont Plan On Indicting the president because they are seeking this interview. According to giuliani and the president s lawyers, they have
already said he is a subject, not a target. If Mueller Needs Information that giuliani and the other lawyers arent willing to seed them the authority to ask, they will simply issue a subpoena for the president and then let that run its way through the Court Process. How long would that take through the Court Process . You know, thats a really good question. It would depend on which grand jury they use. They could either go through d. C. Or through virginia, which would be the fourth circuit. Even if those were treated as emergency appeals, it would stretch on for some time. Then it would likely go up to the United StatesSupreme Court. They could either decide it or return it in part to the lower court. We could be looking at a process that would stretch out over months. Thats one of the reasons why republicans are racing as fast as they can to confirm the next Supreme Court justice, it is the route that joyce just described. But the giuliani game of he wants to testify. The New York Times reporting last night as if it was Breaking News that there are people in the white house who tell the New York Times that the president really wants to talk to the Special Prosecutor, but it is his lawyers who are reluctant. There is absolutely no way to back that up. We have no idea whether donald trump actually wants to talk to mueller or not. All the indicators are that hes desperately afraid of talking to mueller. Yeah. He ought to be, i think. If hes not. It is true that donald trump does appear to believe he can talk his way out of anything, just by lying, basically. That would be a really, really bad strategy to take into a meeting with the prosecutors. And that surely is what his lawyers are worried about. I do believe that his lawyers dont want him to go in there and talk. And as to whether, you know, he really wants to do it or really doesnt want to do it, who
knows. It could depend on the day. But as you said at the beginning, if were taking Rudy Giulianis word for this, we are really out on a very slender limb. Its frankly hard to talk about what rudy says because we know that a lot of it, and i think the technical term for it is total crap. I mean, its just not true. Lets listen to the way the president s allies are talking about this possible interview publically. Lets listen to the way Newt Gingrich describes the situation. I think the president is very unwise to walk into a perjury trap against a group of smart guys who have spent a years time getting ready to try to kill him. And i think he is not no one is smart enough to take on all of muellers team. And of course there is no such thing as a perjury trap. All you have in perjury is
my view would be an admission of guilt, particularly on an obstruction charge, which is why they dont want obstruction as part of the interview. That part i believe. If there is an interview, they dont want any conversation about obstruction. I think it actually points to something that i think i will disagree with joyce on. It is one thing to say hes a subject, that donald trump is a subject of an investigation. Subjects can become targets. The fact they have said hes a subject doesnt mean he can become a target, which is the very reason why they dont want him to testify. I think youre absolutely right. This entire political strategy, not legal strategy, but political strategy has been to convince the trump base that there is nothing they should be concerned about in terms of trumps behavior. Here is the question i would ask anyone without regard to political affiliation. If you have nothing to hide, you cooperate. This is not cooperation. Yeah. And, joyce, to that issue of subject versus target, it is a
potentially of an impeachment proceeding if the Folks On The Hill at that point were deciding to go that direction, rather than making the president the target of an investigation and also an indictment. When you are using the word target, you mean in direct relationship to the other worth indictment. Yeah, exactly. Thats a term of art within the department of justice. But he is, in effect, gene robinson, a target for impeachment in the outcome of this investigation, especially on the question of obstruction of justice. The only person who could obstruct justice in this story is donald trump. Yeah. And certainly the only person who has done it repeatedly and in public to say nothing of what he might have done in private that we dont know about. I guess one question i would have about this whole stage of the investigation is whether the president could in fact be named, if there is a conspiracy alleged in the final analysis by mueller, if he could be named as an Unindicted Coconspirator as Richard Nixon was years ago . Is that a possibility to joyce or mia . I think to joyces point, which is an important one, this does depend on how the department of justice looks at this institutionally. We already have a congress thats going after Rod Rosenstein for impeachment literally for acquitting his responsibility to the United States of america. Its very hard to know. But i actually think, and im one of the folks that thinks that it also depends what the court of Public Opinion says. If there is sufficient evidence
that becomes public that donald trump committed crimes beyond obstruction of justice, which i think is already in the public record, that there could be a reckoning that creates even potentially constitutional crisis. But certainly Unindicted Coconspirator would be if there is sufficient direct evidence. Last word on Unindicted Coconspirator. I think its likely that we will see the president as an Unindicted Coconspirator. What that means is he wont be named. He wont be indicted and Justice Department policy is not to include the name of a target that you dont indict in a case. So thats why his name wont be used. Much as we saw in muellers most recent indictment where people quickly realize that roger stone was the person referenced in a series of conversations, we might see the president in a Cameo Appearance like that in a subsequent mueller indictment. Thank you very starting us off tonight. Really appreciate it. When we come back, ivanka trump proved today that she is the only member of the white house staff who knows she absolutely cannot be fired. She said she disagreed with her fathers policy of separating children from their parents on the southern border. She did not explain why she did absolutely nothing about it. And why she hasnt visited the southern border to tell her father what is really happening to those children. And republicans continue to try to push the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court so that perhaps he will be there in time to rule on any appeal of any issue involving Robert Mueller and the president of the United States. [music playing] vo from the beginning, wells fargo has supported Community Organizations like united way, nonprofits like the american red cross, and our nations veterans. We knew helping our communities was important then. And we know its even more important today. So were stepping up to volunteer more and donate over a Million Dollars every day. So our communities can be even stronger. Its a new day at wells fargo. But its a lot like our first day. These are the specialists were proud to call our own. Experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. Expert medicine works here. Learn more at cancercenter. Com hi how was your day . It was good. It was long. Lets fix it. Play connection by onerepublic. beep these days, my waves get lost in the ocean Seven Billion swimmers man im going through the motions sent up a flare need love and devotion trade it for some faces that ill never know notion can i get a connection . Can i get can i get a connection . Can i get a connection . Can i get can i get a connection . Is in control of the impeachment process. The trump Political Team realizes the president s lies about maybe it wasnt russia attacked our election are not working and knowing they cannot get the president to say the right thing, they decided to use Cabinet Members to do that today. The president is so worried about who will be in charge of the impeachment process, that he threw himself into a Senate Campaign in pennsylvania in which the republican challenger is pulling 15 points behind the democratic incumbent senator bob casey. And a more disturbing poll in texas tonight for republicans. Shows a statistical tie with ted cruz. On saturday the president will campaign at an ohio Congressional District that he won by 11 points and there will be a special election there on
tuesday. The democrat, danny oconnor, is in a statistical tie with the republican in that race. A democrat has not held that seat since 1980. Joining our discussion now mike murphy and jonathan alter. Both are msnbc political analysts. Mike, these numbers look like problems for republicans. What do you see when you look at them . Yeah. Its kind of winter is coming, i fear. This was an interesting trip to pennsylvania. These rallies are mostly about the president wanting love and adoration of crowds. He went there because there is a lot of history for trump. The congressman from that area who is running for senate is
behind double digits but running is an early trump supporter. And to the president s credit, that is a county where he massively overperformed. It is a place where he really spiked up. Lou wants to win that senate race. He better get out of his own district, which is only maybe 80,000 voters out of the 2. 5 million statewide and get to the philadelphia suburbs where the action is. The problem is he cant take trump there because trump cant get arrested. This was no political master stroke today. It was just the president doing his routine to an adoring crowd of republican primary voters. Im sure it made him feel good. I dont think it moved the needle at all . I tie in the senate race in texas with ted cruz as of tonight . Its unbelievable. I mean, if the democrats knock off ted cruz this year, they will be dancing in the streets. It is not clear it is going to happen. Texas has been a strongly republican state for a long time. Cruz is, you know, pretty effective at the cut and thrust of politics and he has a lot at his disposal, including a lot of money to try to take him down. But this is the kind of thing that indicates there could be a True Blue Tsunami that goes beyond retaking the house and goes down to the State Legislators and is a transformative election. I dont think were there yet. I think democrats have this habit of kind of going on miller time, you know, going, okay, we got this in the bag. You know. All the signs, mike murphy is telling us on tv winter is coming. We dont have to dig deep in our pockets. We dont have to work that hard because this thing is done. And i think that would really be to misunderstand the history of elections and misunderstand recent elections where democrats have not turned out in midterms. Thats the recent history. They dont show up. So unless that trend is changed, its not at all clear that the democrats will do as well as expected in november. Lets take a look at the president attacking the news media tonight in pennsylvania. It is a very familiar bit that we have seen at all of these rallies. Lets take a peak at tonights version. But they can make anything bad because they are the fake, fake, disgusting news. To which mike murphy tweeted today in anticipation of that very moment, my advice to media re Out Of Control Trump driven Crowd Hostility at his rallies, boycott them. Send in an ap Pool Reporter and ap pool photo. Nothing more. Take away his oxygen for a while. Mike, it makes a lot of sense. If there is a tv camera there, we will all have access to anything he says that might be
news worthy or worth putting on the air. There is not a thing he said tonight in that rally that has made it into this show in any serious way. Yeah. If he is going to act the way he acts, and id say this about any politician of any party and not make any news. He is the president. You got to cover him. But you dont got to cover him like its the dday invasion. There is no need to cover it for anything other than the pool. And trump walks into these rallies and he looks in the back and he counts how many sticks and cameras there are. If he says he won, he will know the calculus is turning. This is a Decision Point for the media to decide if they are complicit in this because they like the box office of having their Talent Arguing with trump and all this back and forth. I dont see it. Cover it with a Pool Reporter. I dont think there is any need to put on the show now that frankly the president uses to reinforce his Base Supporters where the media is very
unpopular. It is Good Box Office for trump. The question is is the media more interested in that or the journalistic side of this. Veteran of the Campaign Trail that has stood at more rallies as a reporter than any of us can count. Is there any value to sending reporters into that room . No. At this point, i think mike is absolutely right. And i think we actually could go further than that. Traditionally reporters are really competitive with each other. Yeah. But as Eleanor Roosevelt said during world war ii, this is no ordinary time, right . And i think reporters have so sort of Work Together now more and they do that when there is a
pool situation. They have to do what mike is suggesting. And if the president crosses a line in attacking somebody personally and hes done this, the