to let devon into nein nunes re memo. where do you think there is a red line for republicans who used to stand for something? i think it would be foolish to predict one at this point. i would have given you any one of a number of red lines a year or two ago. i can t see one at this point besides losing. that s not really a red line. that s just yourself interest turns in a new direction. question of a red line presupposes that there s some way in which people might go against their own self-interest to do something right by the right. i can t point you to evidence that i have seen from any of these people that they have it. i think this also gets to a deeper issue that trump is not our only problem. i think that s it is very important to remember. this is a diseased republic in which so many people agree on not speaking truth to power, in which so many people are so motivated by the protection of their careers, that they won t do the thing that they promised
but it is an indication that there is some durability to these norms but they are under a lot of pressure right now from people in the white house. matt miller, there is a big stack of memos people will begin reading through today as they did last night. you ve looked through them and have a certain expertise having worked inside the justice department and understanding what all this means. what should people be focused on, the headline for you? i think the point josh earnest made is the right one. you step back from the few new pieces of information, the president s obsession with the more salacious aspects of the dossier, his obsession with andrew mccabe. the big take-away is the president s kind of repeated, crossing the line to interfere with the department of justice in a way that s really unprecedented. it wasn t just the president. we also learned for the first time in this memo, the chief of staff, reince priebus, also asked james comey about an ongoing matter, something th
start with the stephanopoulos interview and go through. a lot of criticism, lots of obsession about what he did in the 2016 campaign naturally, then there is this focus on trump period which we are now really focused on because of the release of the memo. as we come to the end of comey week one, where does jim comey stand? well, look. the goal of this week nor jim comey was to sell books. he had no trouble putting himself in the headlines. i m sure that s been very good for book sales. i m sure his agent and his publisher are very happy about that. i think that s probably his number one goal. that s the reason you write a book, to go out and convince people so they ll read your story. the second thing is, any time a public official wants to put their credibility up against donald trump s they ll look pretty good. i think he s benefited from that. the third thing that i think hasn t been so good for him, he did have this strictly non-partisan by-the-book law man reputation, and some o
sexual assault. to further break down some of the more salacious aspects of the comey memo, former director privately raised the subject of the steele dossier with trump at trump tower in early january 2017. comey s memo says the president-elect interjected there were no prostitutes. there were never prostitutes. comey writes the president raised the subject again at an impromptu oval office meeting in february writing the president said the hookers thing is nonsense but putin told him we have come of the most beautiful hookers in the world. comey writes trump did not say when putin had told him this and comey s observation is redacted. so jim comey says donald trump described a conversation he had with vladimir putin when the russian president said his country has the best hookers in the world. here s what putin was saying publicly around the same time. the translation comes from the independent.
it s like the story of trump saying he met he had an interview with putin around 60 minutes when they weren t in the same room. it goes to the basic credibility of trump and he says to comey over and over, i never spent the night in moscow. it could never have happened. we now know because keith schuller has testified he spent one night during the miss universe pageant in that hotel room in moscow. just to the question of credibility. trump can t even remember whether he spent the night there. he also happens to lie gratuitously. one of the things that came out in the memo, at the beginning of his dinner, chief of staff priebus doesn t know you re here. oh, he knows you were here and can talk to him. for no reason did he have to lie but he just can t help himself. the president in these memos did say, i did not spend the night in russia. he said i came to the hotel room, took a shower, changed my clothes and we went to whatever the paggent was that night. that s contradicted by