even though there s a new acting attorney general who will be the most senior person overseeing the mueller investigation, that that does not necessarily mean that rod rosenstein gets cast to the side. he s still a person who has deep knowledge of what s going on there. he s the one who appointed bob mueller in the first place. and i m not aware of any regulation that requires rod rosenstein not to be involved. and i think it would be silly and it would also be a bad look optically if the new acting attorney general decided to freeze out rod rosenstein. because he can still offer advice and guidance and counsel. and he should. he s a former u.s. attorney in baltimore, rod rosenstein. you know, kaitlan, i m anxious what did you think of that little goodbye that the attorney general now the former attorney general, jeff sessions had? it was all staged, as evan correctly points out. they wanted to show that. but some are already suggesting maybe it was a little bit of a slap at the
the way you traditionally say goodbye to attorneys general. i was there when eric holder walked out of the building. there were tears. people were clapping, just exactly like this. obviously, the circumstances today are so, so different. because, you know, eric holder wasn t fired as this attorney general was today. preet, i m anxious to get your thoughts on the treatment of rod rosenstein, deputy attorney general. how much of a slap in the face is it for the deputy attorney general, the number two person at the department of justice, to be bypassed by the president and the president naming sessions chief of staff to now become the acting attorney general instead of rosenstein? i don t know if it s any more of a slap in the face than, you know, the embarrassing things that the president has been saying about him from time to time. we had that moment a few weeks ago when it appeared he had been summoned to the white house and was going to be fired and that didn t happen. and there w
was apparently pressing the attorney general on behalf of the president, as well, in this resignation was wanted over here at the white house. and so obviously the president now is getting what he wants. he s getting rid of jeff sessions, who had recused himself on the russia investigation. keep in mind, rod rosenstein, deputy attorney general, he was overseeing the russia investigation, because jeff sessions had recused himself. now that is no longer needed, matt whitaker is free to oversee this investigation in terms of how the justice department and the white house, how they both view it at this point. and so that is a favorable development, obviously, for the president to have somebody like matt whitaker, who has, as i said, been parroting what the white house has said about this investigation with the president. is now in charge of the investigation and overseeing the investigation. wolf? what are you learning about how it was actually done, how the president fired sessions and
has criticized him. he went to dinner that time really publicly with rod rosenstein at a very popular washington restaurant and a photo with them dining with the solicitor general quickly surfaced and that incensed president trump after it surfaced online. that s what likely this was. look at me, i m walking out. and you can see the faces on those justice department employees as jeff sessions is leaving. they re not pleased. they re clapping, they re thanking him. but no one looks pleased to be there, to be watching jeff sessions marched out like this. and a lot of people in the white house also feel similar to that. they do not think jeff sessions deserves the treatment that he s gotten from president trump. they think it s unfair, but a lot of people don t stick up for jeff sessions, because they see it as just this futile attempt to do anything like that. and we ve seen jeff sessions lose his defenders inside the west wing. he used to have reince priebus, steve bannon, who all stood
the russia investigation before he tapped him to become the acting attorney general. that s going to be a big question that we re likely going to find out soon. also, white house officials are questioning the logic of the timing here. i know that a lot of critics and pundits do not believe yesterday was a good day for the white house and mid terms, but in the white house, they thought it was a good day because they were bracing themselves for it to be ugly for them and kind of walked away with what they were expecting. a lots in the house and maybe picking up a few seats in the senate. so right now the conversation gore the last two weeks had been about the mid terms, not about the mueller probe. less than 24 hours before even the polls closed, it is right back on being about robert mueller, the white house and the president s focus on this, which we should have seen coming since he was tweeting about it this morning. and i suspect, josh, the president would not have named whitaker a