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So she steps down as party head june 7th. Then it will take several weeks to come up with a new Prime Minister. And of course, the queen has to officially name the new Prime Minister and yes, or more, i think, just as importantly, the new Prime Minister has to figure out a way to do brexit, which has proven impossible. Impossible. So we will see what happens there. Also breaking overnight, in an unprecedented move, the president has granted william barr full authority to declassify sensitive intelligence and also ordered the Intelligence Community to cooperate with barr as barr investigates the origins of the Mueller Investigation. This happens as the president s closest allies are spreading lies ....
Emboldened. i mean, the mueller report, the russia investigation was sort of hovering over his head, his whole presidency so far. after that wrapped up, you know, we ve just seen him make comments like that. well, we ll see if a foreign government offers help. we ll see what it would be, instead of saying, absolutely, i wouldn t do this. the g-7, talking about having the g-7 at one of his hotels in florida. you know, people saying that 100% goes against the emoluments clause that said a president cannot be accepting any sort of gifts from a foreign government. and over and over again, he is showing that he doesn t care about defying congress. and you know, it s we re getting a sense from the white house that they feel like the democrats aren t going to do anything in the house, and they can pretty much do whatever they want. and you know, poppy, the phone call with the ukrainian president came one day after bob mueller s less than exciting testimony on capitol hill. to rachael s po ....
And the language from the inspector general there, very clear about just how seriously he s taking it. alex marmarquardt, thanks very much. let s talk about this with our experts. cnn legal analyst, michael zeldin is with us, former federal prosecutor, and rachael bey, political reporter for the washington post. good morning to you both. thank you for being here. and michael, let me begin with you. a number of the president s allies are comparing this to president obama. and they re specifically bringing up that sort of hot mic moment when president obama told medvedev essentially, let me get through this and i ll be much more open to negotiate post-election. listen to matt schlapp and his argument on that front. he has very wide authority, really, unchecked authority, to talk about to world leaders about anything he deems appropriate, as he s representing the united states of america. if this were able to go forward, any staffer in an agency could ....
Constantly hobble a democratic president, duly elected. michael zeldin, unchecked authority? is that what the president has? he has broad authority, but that authority is checked by his obligation to act on behalf of the united states and not on behalf of himself. and the allegations here, the facts of which we don t know, all seem to imply that the president may have been acting on behalf of his own interests, his own campaign interests. and not the interests of the united states. so were it the case that he was only acting on behalf of the united states, then matt s argume argument, but it s not known yet how the president was acting and what gave rise to the complaint. rachael, it strikes me listening to rudy giuliani last night that in a moment, even, his position moved from defending and denying to justifying, frankly. what he did here, which was, you know, go there and try to pursue, pressure the ukrainian ....
The courts to rule in. they could take this to the courts, but it could literally be months, if not years until we see what this complaint actually is. that seems to be part of the administration s strategy. drag it out. michael zeldin, simple question, but i think an important one. if you were the first reporter to get called on in the press conference today, what would you ask the president about all of this? what did he say to this foreign leader that may have triggered the determination that this was an urgent matter that required congressional oversight. explain to us, what is at the heart of this complaint to your understanding. fair question. simple, will he give a straightforward answer? yeah, rachael, to be clear, if you look at past precedent on this, the president has, in the past, said that he would accept, for instance, foreign help in a campaign. he s justified that. well, listen, if they offer, this is something that we would have to look at. so it s possible t ....