criticizing robert mueller's investigation. president trump claims that mueller would have brought charges against him if he thought he committed a crime, but mueller said explicitly the opposite yesterday. mueller did not even consider charging president trump because of justice department guidelines. mueller said that responsibility falls on congress, which of course begs the question this morning, what will congress do now? >> a growing number of house democrats and 2020 presidential candidates, including one right here on our show, are calling for impeachment proceedings, but continues to resist, though she says nothing is off the table. the spotlight is also now back on the attorney general, william barr. a lot of people are accusing him of misleading lawmakers and the public about the mueller report. mueller's version clearly different than the attorney general's. joining me discuss congressman mike quigley. thank you for being with us. before yesterday you were not on the list that nancy pelosi and others are keeping of democrats calling for impeachment proceedings to begin.

all eyes will be on that department of justice press conference and the one and only robert mueller will be speaking. that wraps it up for me in this exciting news hour. i am now turning over to my friend, chris jansing who picks up coverage. >> 10:00 on the east coast i'm chris jansing in for hallie jackson. what a huge breaking news story we're following for you at the top of the hour. robert mueller the special counsel in charge of the investigation is coming out at the department of justice. he is scheduled to make a statement on his investigation at the top of the next hour. his first public comments on the probe since he started as special counsel more than two years ago. a full team of reporters and experts who have been following this investigation throughout. let me start with ken delaney in our washington bureau. ken, this is someone throughout the investigation did a remarkable job of keeping things under wrap and stopping any leaks from coming out. we have not seen him. he is someone who has very specifically stayed a political, it stands to reason if he's coming out and spea

robert mueller to say today. we're starting off with adam schiff. we're going to be joined by senator blumenthal and senator hirono. neal katyal will be here with his analysis. but there's something coming up right at the end of this hour which i think we really need because i'm going to be using what robert mueller said today very similarly to the way you did, the stashed way we use in these kinds of shows. we take a piece of it, run it, get a reaction to that piece, we talk about that piece. brian williams at 181:00 p.m. is going to do us all a service at the end of this mueller surprise day and one the whole 9 1/2 minutes uncut. the 9 1/2 minutes because most people were at work. most people weren't there to watch the unfolding of it, the drama, the way it you be folded in that room end to end. brian's going to do that. one of the great things about having these sequences of our hours that we can rely on what each other are doing in these situations. i heard about this from brian a few hours ago. i'm relying on that here that thissed youience can watch the whole thing. >> s

dissatisfaction that four-page letter didn't capture the nuance in the report. >> barr needs to resign. he took an oath to the constitution not to trump >> barr is supposed to testify before the senate judiciary committee. >> the attorney general has to accept our terms well. will control the hearing >> if these guys want to keep diggi digging, fine. mueller is the last word for me >> guaido escalated the tension calling for a full military uprising. >> he was ready to leave. the russians indicated he should stay >> they are trying to come to grips with what the aftermath might be. >> announcer: this is "new day" with alisyn camerota and john berman. >> good morning. welcome to your "new day." so has the entire prism with which we view the mueller report changed? we now know special counsel robert mueller doesn't like the spin that the attorney general put on this. overnight, we learned the special counsel sent a letter to william barr in late march telling him his four-page summary of the report, quote, didn't fully capture the context, nature and substance of this office's work and conclusions. the two long-time friends spoke by phone with the special counsel telling barr his summary lacked mueller's nuance on obstruction of justice. >> it also appears bill barr wasn't truthful when he spoke to congress two weeks after getting mueller's letter. here's a small portion >> did bob mueller support your conclusion? >> i don't know whether bias or prejudice supported my conclusion. >> we'll play more of that for you. as we look ahead to barr's testimony this morning there is one man on capitol hill -- a lot of lawmakers on capitol hill would like to hear from. that's bob mueller. joining us now is the washington investigative correspondent for the "new york times" and security analyst, one of the reporters who broke the explosive story. mark, it was stunning to hear this for the first time. it's the first time we hear really how robert mueller who was so tight-lipped during this, how he felt about bill barr's characterization. turns out he was frustrated. what did he say in the letter? >> we need to see the full letter. we need to see exactly the words he used, exactly what he was objecting to. what we were learning was at least there were concerns expressed in the letter about how william barr's letter had taken the findings out of context, somewhat mischaracterized the judgments, at least in terms of how damning or not they were for the president and we had known, of course, that there had been anger and frustration among members of mueller's team. we reported that some weeks back after barr's letter. for mueller to take the step to write a letter, send it to the justice department, send it to barr, it's pretty extraordinary. we really get a sense of mueller himself >> you write mueller laid out his concerns in such stark turns it shocked doj officials. do you know what the terms were? >> that was something the post put in their story. >> i'm sorry. >> that was them. i wouldn't characterize how it was received at the justice department. i think we need to know more about what the terms of the letter were, how it was received. i can say certainly the fact that there was a letter surprised people at the justice department in part because they were not expecting mueller -- again, this is a career prosecutor who knows what actually putting something in writing shl writing, sending it up the chain can do. people have to respond. i think there was a scramble that went on to figure out, how are they going to respond? barr decided to get on the phone and talk about it rather than have a letter exchange between him and mueller >> i also read and forgive me that i don't remember exactly which article it was in, as you're saying justice department officials were taken aback by the tone of robert mueller's letter. so do you have any -- can you categorize what the tone was? >> we have glimpses of it at this point. as they said, we need to know the full context. in terms of what we know, he was up front and he's careful with his words. to say i and my team put in the letter is a powerful statement. the tone even saying this, this and this were of concern to my team in itself is a big deal. >> this i know is from your article. it's an important point and i want to read it. mr. barr and senior justice department officials were frustrated with how mr. mueller ended his investigation and drafted his report according to three people. they expressed irritation that mr. mueller fell short of his assignment by declining to make a decision about whether mr. trump broke the law. that left mr. barr to clear mr. trump without the special counsel's backing >> there is clearly a simmering and possibly escalating dispute between the sides. there is some sense from people around barr that mueller left them to have to decide this. therefore, they were put in this position to have to decide it. one might question whether robert mueller really did leave it for them to decide, if you read the report. it looks like they didn't make a judgment. it doesn't necessarily mean they were expecting the attorney general to make the decision. one reading of the report was they thought maybe this was for congress. it's not completely clear, but there is some bad blood between the sides. certainly if you look at what's happened since then, since the initial letter you see the way barr was asked if it's a witch hunt. he said, i don't know. his characterization in the press conference on the day the mueller report was released. he said he objected to some of mueller's legal reasoning and defended the president in some cases. this isn't going away >> furthermore, when lawmakers asked him does robert mueller support your conclusions, he said, i don't know. we now know from the reporting and from the letter that robert mueller had real concerns with the conclusions. so that was not fully truthful to congress either. >> well, there were a couple of clips floating around since last night. one of them specifically asks the question, did he know about concerns among the mueller team about his initial letter. he says no. that clip, you will certainly hear more about today, i would imagine, with the questioning by the senate. that seems to be very much on point to whether he was misleading congress. we now know he did know about the concerns because mueller had written him a letter >> we'll play those moments for our viewers. thank you very much. >> he received a letter and had a telephone conversation with ra robert mueller. >> he knew there were concerns. >> want to bring in david gregory, kaitlyn collins and elliot williams, former deputy assistant attorney general. let's do something we haven't done yet. i want to read p 108 and 109 to get a sense of what is in robert mueller's letter in the washington post. the summary letter didn't fully capture the context, nature and substance of this office's work and conclusions. there is public confusion which threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the department appointed the special counsel to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations. the fact of the letter, robert mueller is making paper here. he's creating an official document of his concern, his split with william barr >> it's easy to say he outlined his now to say there was no obstruction of justice. what mueller does in the report that's clear, if you read it is to say we knew from the get-go we weren't going to charge him criminally because of the guidance and the guidelines in the justice department. so therefore, here's behavior. this is for congress and its role to make a decision about whether to proceed. >> how do you see it? now that we know about the existence of the letter and some of the contents and the phone call, how do you think it changes the equation of what we know? >> it does, pretty dramatically. not enough can be said about the decision to put this in writing. lawyers know when something will be made public and when something needs to be memorialized. legally, i think there is no reason why this letter can't be made public. i don't think it's going to contain grand jury information or national security information. given the care or it was deliberative internal document or anything like that. given the care that went into drafting the report i'm sure that level of care also went into the drafting of the letter. it's as if robert mueller was drafting it with an eye toward the public seeing it. it seems like his goal is maintaining the integrity of the investigation and keeping public faith. one of the things you quoted in this is that i'm concerned -- i'm paraphrasing -- but i'm concerned that public faith in this is being damaged or being harmed. it's almost that secondary to the legal findings is what does the public think about this? i think this changes things dramatically and makes robert mueller's testimony far more likely now. initially, the testimony -- any testimony he would have given would have been on the four corners of the report. now you can ask about, well, tell us about the dispute you had with the attorney general. it becomes a richer congressional tale now. >> how does he not testify? i can't imagine what the excuse would be not to appear before congress and explain your misgivings. >> i only know he's seen as a man of few words. he avoids the spotlight >> writing this memo is a way to say not only do i expect this memo to become public, i think he probably feels, you know, kind of that his work was violated enough that he's willing to speak out about what should be the correct interpretation. >> that would be helpful. >> let me do this. william barr did face questions. this was after the summary was released after william barr received the letter from mueller and had the phone conversation. let's make sure we play both exchanges here. you can see barr being far less than truthful, we think, in his answers. >> did bob mueller support your conclusion? >> i don't know whether bob mueller supported my conclusion. >> reports have emerged that members of the special counsel's team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your march 24th letter that it does not adequately or accurately necessarily portray the report's findings. do you know what they are referencing with that? >> no, i don't. >> at this point he had already read the letter from robert mueller and had a phone conversation with robert mueller. so his answer there does not seem true. >> it's the second exchange there that's so crucial. of course he had already received that letter over about a week before from robert mueller detailing his issues with how barr portrayed the report. telling that lawmaker, no, i don't know why members of mueller's team are frustrated as had surfaced in media reports is not what he had heard from the special counsel himself. now there barr goes on to say he believes members of mueller's team would have wanted more of the report to come out. according to the post that's the conversation that bill barr and robert mueller had. what makes all of this more fascinating is the personal relationship between the attorney general and the special counsel because bill barr did not know the president very well before the president picked him to be attorney general. but he does have a relationship going back with robert mueller. they talked about that. he talked about it under oath during his testimony before lawmakers. so that's what makes this interesting. it's not only significant that bob mueller is someone who is fay loumously tight-lipped throt the two years of the investigation, wrote a letter detailing his issues and had a phone conversation with the attorney general. when the attorney general is before lawmakers he said he didn't know what the grievances with his portrayal of the key findings was. >> i'm with kaitlyn. i find it interesting the psychology of the friendship and who bill barr is. bill barr famously said the barrs and the muellers have been friends before this report and the barrs and the muellers will be friends after this report. that comforted people to think, okay, they are on the same team, looking for truth. they both want to get the facts out. now to know they had what was described as a cordial and professional conversation, that's not a friendly conversation. >> right. i think clearly mueller felt he had gone way too far in being reductive of the report, reducing it and shorthanding it in a way that violated the central mission and raising concerns which we still don't know the basis of. disagreeing with parts of the legal reasoning. was that a trip wire to say, no, there was no obstruction. rod rosenstein signed off on this as well. finding out what was behind that is important. in the end, donald trump, president trump had got the attorney general he wanted. someone who would protect him, basically lead the charge in shaping the public narrative around this report such that his own legal team has not put out its rebuttal. i think they feel they don't have to. lindsey graham, chairman of the judiciary committee said it's over for him. we'll see how much the drama of today will change anything >> to that point, did robert mueller get played here? is it a fair question to ask at this point if his intention was to tell the american people, look at the evidence of obstruction of justice. did he get played by allowing william barr to step in the way he did? >> that's an excellent question. the underlying question here is what was the goal of the whole enterprise? was it to find whether there was wrongdoing or was it to exonerate the president? all of the actions we have seen william barr take from starting with his theory on obstruction of justice a couple of years ago to the press conference, to the letter all seem geared at clearing the president's name more than making a determination as to whether there was wrongdoing or criminal conduct. his testimony makes it clear. look, we are prosecutors. it is our job to decide whether something is a crime or isn't. on this bigger question of was there wrongdoing or misconduct, that mueller seems to be punting to congress as he does in the report, barr says, well, this is really about clearing the president's name. he was angry that day. >> one thing we have to look at is the timing of this. this came out shortly before he was scheduled to go before the senate, just hours before he was scheduled to go before them. there was already a level of scrutiny facing the attorney general. now it's a fresh new level of scrutiny with the letter from the special counsel. one thing to keep in mind is over the past few days we have seen the attorney general pushing back on a request from the house because he was supposed to testify before them because he doesn't want to be questioned by staff lawyers. it's something democrats have been pushing for. jerry nadler has been strident that he wants it to happen tomorrow. it makes you question, is this part of the reason why barr has been pushing back on that? >> that's a super fair question. also worth asking if democrats should wait to talk to barr all together until they get robert mueller. >> get him in front of the committee. there are three presidential candidates doing the questioning which under scores how completely polarized the report has been, will be seen and that will continue in today's hearing >> david, elliot, kaitlyn, thank you very much. the attorney general will be appearing before the senate judiciary committee in a couple of hours. coming up, we'll speak to a senator who will be part of the questions. senator chris coons, what will he ask the attorney general now that we know how robert mueller feels? >> announcer: "new day" brought to you by jared. dare to go all in. dare to never let go. dare to be devoted. dare to shop the jared semi-annual sale... it's our best sale of the season featuring 20% off select diamonds. dare to be devoted. only at jared. hmm. exactly. and doug. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. nice. but, uh... what's up with your... partner? 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>> well, john, that's one of the things we should explore today. he certainly wasn't fully forthcoming. he did know that robert mueller had reached out to him, first in a letter and second in a phone call to convey he was upset or disappointed that william barr's four-page summary to congress was creating, as he called it, public confusion, and didn't fully reflect the context, substance, nature of the important work of the special counsel. one of the first questions i want to get to this morning, john, is whether or not it was that letter from special counsel mueller that propelled attorney general barr to release much of the report and to commit to testifying in front of congress. one of my thoughts is that the timing of the release of this letter is quite telling. it was released yesterday on the eve of attorney general barr's testimony and suggests that at least some on mueller's team remain upset at the ways in which this four-page summary released by attorney general barr weeks ago was significantly misleading about the conclusions of the special counsel's work. >> does this change the questions that you plan on asking the attorney general today? >> yes, it does. that first question i just suggested -- did this letter from mueller telling the attorney general that he was unhappy with the characterization of his work lead to him agreeing to testify or release the content. there are two other things i hope to get to. as you know, there are lots of members of judiciary. it's tough to predict exactly what i'll have the chance to question. but first it is blindingly clear from robert mueller's report that russia directly interfered in our 2016 presidential election. that's been the conclusion of our intelligence community for a long time. in great detail, robert mueller lays out the many ways in which russia interfered in our election. what is the president doing to protect our country for the next election from foreign interference? there are things folks at homeland security or nsa or fbi are doing, but i don't believe president trump has ever said this is a threat, we need to confront it and we need to invest in securing our next election. second, if part of what robert mueller's report was supposed to do was to clarify whether there was wrongdoing or misdeeds, there are ten different instances detailed in mueller's report of actions that amount to an attempt by the president to obstruct justice, one that stood out to me was two instances when he directed white house counsel john mcgahn to fire the special council. the only reason it didn't happen was don mcgahn refused to carry out the order. to me for many months i was trying to get a bill passed to protect the special counsel and many republicans said there is no need to worry, trump would never do something like that, this is clear hard evidence that trump tried to do exactly that. the only reason we are not sitting here talking about an obstruction prosecution is that trump's own deputies, his white house counsel in this case didn't carry out his directive. that's stunning. that deserves further discussion >> i will note the other reason we are not sitting here talking about an obstruction prosecution is special counsel robert mueller says repeatedly that he does not feel that a sitting president can be indicted. >> right. he framed his entire investigation around that fact and the report. he said, i'm not going to say he was guilty of a crime. it's inappropriate to do so because we can't charge him. he can't defend himself in a court of law. i want to ask you. you said if robert mueller's intention was to lay out the case for obstruction and provide the evidence. did robert mueller get played here? if his intention was to make a case for obstruction, did he get played by creating the space for william barr to come in and shape the narrative? >> they have a long professional relationship. i think he trusted the attorney general to represent the work of the special counsel faithfully. i'll choose to be thankful for the hard work of the special counsel and his team and for the evidence that's in front of us today in the report that we have even with the redactions we have. to your point -- >> don't you have to get robert mueller in front of you now and ask him about it. >> absolutely. that's the conclusion i was headed toward, john. i'm now convinced the attorney general is conceiving of himself as the president's lawyer, not the people's lawyer. as someone who really was trying out for the role of president's attorney by sending in an unsolicited 19-page memo attacking robert mueller's theory of obstruction and his conduct suggests he thinks his central role here is to defend the president and to make the best case he can on the evidence given to him by mueller that the president was cleared even though there is evidence in the mueller report that misdeeds, inappropriate actions took place in the white house >> one quick question on venezuela. there is bipartisan agreement that the maduro regime is illegitimate and should go. mike pompeo, the secretary of state said there was a plane on the tarmac waiting to take maduro to cuba but the russians intervened. do you have information on that? >> that's as much as i know. russia and cuba played a heavy hand in supporting the maduro regime. the regional pressure that has been assembled due to secretary pompeo is an important piece of this. there is strong bipartisan support for what the administration is doing and for the demonstrations and protests of the venezuelan people as they seek to restore a legitimate constitutional government in their country. my hope is this will come to an end soon. this is just one of many countries where we see vladimir putin interfering to prevent legitimate constitutional elections >> we'll be watching venezuela closely today. likewise we'll watch you in the senate judiciary hearings coming up in a couple of hours. senator chris coons, thank you very much for being with us >> thank you, john. >>> a cnn investigation raising safety concerns about boeing 737 max jets. the details you need to hear next. om saw a chip in her windshield. >> mom: honey is that a chip? >> tech: they wanted it fixed fast so they brought it to us. >> mom: hi. >> tech: with our in-shop chip repair service, we can fix it the same day... guaranteed. plus with most insurance a safelite chip repair is no cost to you. >> mom: really? drive safely. all right. ♪ acoustic music >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, ♪ safelite replace. ♪ pardon the interruption but this is big! now at t-mobile buy any samsung galaxy s10 and get a galaxy s10e free! >>> a cnn investigation is raising new safety concerns about boeing 737 max jets. the fleet is grounded in the wake of two recent crashes in which 346 people died. cnn's drew griffin is live in chicago with details. what have you learned, drew? >> this goes back to the design of the plane, how the design was improved and flight safety. one government official saying it all has serious implications for boeing. a cnn analysis of faa data is raising questions about how boeing could have designed a flight safety system on its 737 max centered on just one sensor with a history of failures. the mcas system is designed to prevent a plane from stalling. it is triggered by one of two aoa sensors which lead the angle in flight. if the sensor gives an incorrect reading, the mcas could activate, automatically pitching the nose of the plane down repeatedly as the pilots struggle for control. investigators in the crashes of the lion air and ethiopian airline crashes suspect that scenario started a chain of events that led to both tragedies. just why boeing would have no backup for a single sensor with a terrible track record has aviation experts baffled >> this is a fairly simple external device that can get damaged on a regular basis. >> reporter: a cnn review of faa records shows aoa sensors had problems on at least 216 flights since 2004. sometimes forcing pilots to make emergency landings or abort takeoffs. 42 happened on boeing planes. here's proof boeing knew the sensors were prone to problems. two separate faa air worthiness directives involved boeing planes. in 2013 and 2016 before the max crashes ordered inspections or changes to aoa sensors because of an unsafe condition that could lead to problems with control of the airplane. >> far too often it takes a tragedy to connect the dots and say we really ought to take a look at the design of this piece of equipment. >> reporter: going said the new software fix includes input from two aoa sensors being in agreement before the system would activate. boeing's ceo said it is not an admission of a design flaw >> we haven't seen a technical slip or gap in terms of the designion. >> reporter: cnn learned boeing never flight-tested a scenario in which the aoa sensor malfunctioned. a former test pilot said apparently we missed the ramifications of the failure of the aoa probe. potential failure conditions were analyzed in the design and certification according to a source familiar with the testing. it was determined trained pilots would have been able to handle the failure. >> it should have been in the test program up front to expose the problem. >> reporter: peter lammare who was subpoenaed said he doesn't understand why it took two fay toll crashes for boeing to make changes. >> this is the part i find almost incredible. aoa have been on the plane for years. it's a well known failure. >> reporter: the boeing 737 max was designed safely but proper procedures weren't followed by the pilots. >> when we design a system understand the airplanes are flown in the hands of pilots and in some cases the safety analysis include it is engineering design but also the actions that pilots would take. >> reporter: when pressed on why boeing is admitting no flaws in the design, the ceo walked out of the press conference. >> 346 people died, can you answer questions about that? >> reporter: the department of justice, congress, the faa have opened investigations looking into how the plane was designed and how boeing was able to get proper government clearance with what now appears to be a plane with a safety flaw. >> these questions remain open and very concern iing. an thank you for your reporting on this. >>> this is the first full week of joe biden's 2020 campaign. is he making the grade? chris cillizza's midweek grades are out next. -♪ just like any other family ♪ the house, kids, they're living the dream ♪ ♪ and here comes the wacky new maid ♪ -maid? uh, i'm not the... -♪ is she an alien, is she a spy? ♪ ♪ she's always here, someone tell us why ♪ -♪ why, oh, why -♪ she's not the maid we wanted ♪ -because i'm not the maid! -♪ but she's the maid we got -again, i'm not the maid. i protect your home and auto. -hey, campbells. who's your new maid? i protect your home and auto. was a success for lastchoicehotels.comign badda book. badda boom. this year, we're taking it up a notch. so in this commercial we see two travelers at a comfort inn with a glow around them, so people watching will be like, "wow, maybe i'll glow too if i book direct at choicehotels.com". who glows? 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>> those things help joe biden's argument that he's the one trump is worried about and the most electable. solid a >> the next person you give a grade to, joe biden is beating him by 38 points. >> yes. >> in the cnn poll. why does eric swalwell get a b plus? >> he has only one chance of doing anything. that's getting on the debate stage late june, late july. getting on the debate stage and impressing people who have never heard of him before which if you look at polling is most people. this week he's announced he has 65,000 individual donors that allows him to qualify for the debates. assume he can get the polling -- there is a polling metric, too. he has to get above 1% in three national polls. assume he can do that. that's a win. he has only one path to viability, credibility in the race. it's debates. i give him a b plus. he's still a long, long, long, long, long shot. >> kamala harris is doing better in the polls but you give her a b minus. >> yes. you have to compare yourself to yourself. in our march poll, alisyn, she was at 12. in our most recent poll we just released in april she was at 5. it's not all bad. it's april -- now may 2019. there is a piece of the poll that i think matters. one in four voters who are for someone else who told our pollsters they support another candidate say they want to learn more about harris. she continues to be -- if we were doing it as an nba draft she's someone who a lot of people are interested in, a lot of potential. taking a step back in terms of public opinion polling now. nothing to be concerned about >> elizabeth warren is right in the same position. >> correct. >> she's performed better in polls and people want to know about her. they are onthe rise. on the fall is? >> beto o'rourke. it's not clear to me what he's doing. i didn't give him an f because i didn't give anybody an f. a d minus is the worst grade we have given. i don't know. he's really not anywhere. he did release a climate plan. that's something. overall it feels like he's not doing much. a buzzfeed story came out last night that essentially says there is not a lot of coordination in the staff. people are confused at what's going on. his polling has dropped. he was at 13 in our march poll. way down into single digits. it feels like pete buttigieg, mayor pete, south bend mayor is taking the momentum there, the fresh-face momentum and beto hasn't figured out his next act. doesn't mean he can't. >> i'm not familiar with the next candidate. arya >> arya stark. can you give ratings to "game of thrones" candidates? good. do we have an hour? arya stark killed 200 of the undead in the battle of winterfell and did the knife drop in the gut of the night king. a plus plus. >> we're seeing a different side of chris. >> he's underselling it. arya is the most impressive person in real or fake earth. there's never been anyone as impressive. >> she should run for president. >> all right. next in line >> jon snow. >> he knows nothing. >> c minus. that's being kind. terrible battle plan overall. i don't know why they put the whole army outside of the gates of winterfell. anyway, he lets the dothraki get murdered at the beginning. the dragons are flying, unclear. his plan at the end to an undead dragon is to stand up and yell at it? very lucky arya saved his bacon >> better than daenerys. >> no clue what she's doing. i gave her an f. she's just flying around. it's not clear if she likes jon snow, thinks he's a threat. the main advantage of a dragon is it flies. why would you land it among an army of the undead so they could all get on him and start stabbing the poor dragon? >> how many times have i asked that? >> we have been over this. >> she benefits from low expectations going forward. she and beto o'rourke have that going for them >> high upstudy, daenerys targaryen, high upside. >> chris cillizza, alisyn has never watched an episode. >> i'm sorry. >> i hope there were no spoilers in there. >> oh, my gosh. i know we are out of time. i'm doing my rant on spoiler aert will. i didn't say spoiler alert. i didn't. i'll tell you why. tls like the super bowl. you've got to watch it live. i'm not apologizing. this is a huge event. it's been three days. >> very controversial. >> take that, america. >> thank you very much for being with us. >> thank you. >>> can elizabeth warren solve the student debt crisis and make four years of college free? we break it down in the reality check next. ter the other car got a scratch so small you coulda fixed it with a pen. maybe you should take that pen and use it to sign up with a different insurance company. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. liberty mutual insurance. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ i've always been amazed and still going for my best, even though i live with a higher risk of stroke due to afib not caused by a heart valve problem. so if there's a better treatment than warfarin... i want that too. eliquis. eliquis is proven to reduce stroke risk better than warfarin. plus has significantly less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis is fda-approved and has both. what's next? reeling in a nice one. don't stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. don't take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. while taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. seek immediate medical care for sudden sign of bleeding, like unusual bruising. eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. eliquis, the number one cardiologist-prescribed blood thinner. ask your doctor if eliquis is what's next for you. ♪ what did i miss? [laughter] you ready to go? yeah. let's go! ♪ it's nice. ♪ you got this! ♪ woo! ♪ ♪ ♪ numbers. 1 in 59 children has autism. most will not be diagnosed until they're three or four years old, but a new study suggests that kids can be screened and diagnosed much earlier which would mean the possibility of therapies much sooner. cnn chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta joins us live with more. this sounds like a game changer. >> it could be. you know, you think about autism and the diagnosis right now, there is no specific blood test or biomarker or scan to be sure that someone has autism, that a child has autism, and so as you mentioned, typically the diagnosis happens around three or four. sometimes as early as two. but i think for some time now researchers have been saying, well, look, how early can we reliably diagnose a child with autism. that's what this study focused on. they looked at over 1,000 children and the conclusion that they arrived at here, alisyn, i think the headline was as early as 14 months, 14 months of age, they could make a stable diagnosis of autism. meaning that they would make the diagnosis of autism and then that child at three or four years old, they had autism. there was about an 84% likelihood that that diagnosis was going to be consistent and stable. earlier diagnosis, more consistent diagnosis, possibly leading to earlier intervention, that's the significance here. >> what would you do for a 14 month old if you determined they have autism? >> i think, you know, we talked to some of the scientists specifically about that, because, look, if you just diagnose something, there's nothing to do about it, then that obviously doesn't do the patient or family any good. there is a couple ways that they break it down. first of all, earlier diagnosis might mean avoiding what they refer to as more challenging behaviors. so for a child who is not communicating, for example, and instead they're trying to get attention in other ways by head banging or things like that, could you start to intervene, prevent, you know, develop other skills to prevent that sort of behavior, prevent isolating behavior, provide skills for not only the child but also the family. the family now knows the diagnos diagnosis, this he know what they're dealing with, could they develop skills to better cope? but then there are other interventions and i think we have a list of the thi that people sort of focus on here, everything from family training obviously, but speech therapy, hearing impairment services, physical few triggs services. it comes under this umbrella of applied behavioral analysis as well, really trying to understand what are the behaviors, how are the behaviors impacted by the environment and how can you subsequently change the behaviors. no one is saying, look, earlier intervention is going to lead to an absolute treatment or certainly cure, but the idea of better adaptive behaviors for both child and family, i think, is what people point to as the benefit of earlier intervention. again, 14 months is very young, i mean, think about a 14 month old and what they typically are able to do. if you can diagnose earlier, you know, that could provide some benefit. >> okay. sanj sanjay, thank you very much for explaining all of that to us. >> thank you. >> so important to so many people. >>> elizabeth warren has a $1.25 trillion plan to cancel college debt for almost everyone and make four years of college completely free. could it work? john avalon has our reality check. >> look, according to a new cnn poll tuition free public college is number four on the list of top issues for democrat i can it voters this year. free college may sound radical, but it's a reaction to rising costs and crippling debt. college tuition has more than doubled over the past 30 years. america's total student loan debt is more than $1.5 trillion with a per student average of more than $20,000. at a time of growing income inequality it's no surprise that progressive politicians are offering alternatives. out in front is senator elizabeth warren. she says she can immediately raise more than 95% of students. also boost spending on higher ed. the cost, a whopping $1.25 trillion over ten years. it's roughly a dozen marshall plans, but only half the estimated cost of the trump tax cuts. so how do we pay for that, you ask? >> it's a familiar refrain. tax the super rich. a 2% tax on wealth above $50 million and 3% tax on wealth above a billion. it may seem like a lot but to warren it's a small sacrifice to pay for a new great society. >> two cents. we can do universal child care for every baby 0 to 5, universal pre-k, universal college and knock back the student loan debt burden for 95% of our students and still have nearly a trillion dollars left over. >> this is a pretty popular idea by polling 90% of americans agree that college affordability is a big to very big problem. democrats have been moving in this direction for a decade, president obama first proposed two years of free community college back in 2015. bernie sanders of course made free college his signature issue in 2016 and hillary clinton followed suit by backing tuition free bachelors degrees for families making less than $125,000 a year. joe biden started talking about free college when obama did and it's still part of his core sell. he wants to pay for it by closing a loophole used by the wealthy to avoid paying taxes on things they inherit. they are all co-sponsors of the debt free college act. kirsten gillibrand is pegging her free college to public service. two have come out strong against free college for all and one of them, mayor pete buttigieg has a clear reason why. >> americans who have a college degree earn more than americans who don't. as a progressive i have a hard time getting my head around the idea that a majority who earn less because they didn't go to college would subsidize a minority who earn more because they did. >> instead buttigieg supports expanding pell grants and incentivizing states to help out. other writ critics point out that warren's plan penalizes those folks who have paid back their loans while critics say if you think college education is expensive now, just wait until it's free. america needs to strengthen the middle class and improve social mobility and increasing access to higher education is one powerful way to do that. let the policy debates begin, that's what we should be doing, and that's your reality check. >> and those debates are very much on. we look at our most recent poll a lot of democratic voters want to be talking about just this, the idea of free college tuition. >> big debate. >>> we now know what robert mueller told william barr about the handling of the mueller report and barr is going to have to answer for it in just a little bit. he appears before the senate two hours from now, this will be a dramatic day. "new day" continues right now. >>> there was a letter from mueller expressing objections about how barr characterized the findings. >> barr put out a misleading summary. >> mueller was pissed. >> the special counsel couldn't conclude barr who was doing what he was supposed to do -- >> we are looking ahead to two days of the attorney general testifying. >> this is an opportunity for him to be completely transparent. if he stands by his statements, he should be forthcoming. >> he is going to get tarnished if he isn't fully cooperative. >> the intense standoff at the heart is still ongoing. >> there is no way maduro can stay in a station he has so decimated. it's time for him to leave. >> announcer: this is "new day" with alisyn camerota and john berman. >> all right. things are heating up this morning. good morning, everyone, welcome to your new day, it is wednesday, may 1st. >> are you talking about the news or other things? >> i'm talking about the in us. >> good. >> because we are just two hours away -- >> because that was awkward for a second. >> and our chemistry. two hours away from bill barr settling into a seat that just got hotter on capitol hill. that is going to be a hot seat because the attorney general will have to defend his handling of the mueller report in front of the senate judiciary committee, but overnight we learned that the special counsel, robert mueller, sent a letter to bill barr in late march expressing frustration about the attorney general's four-page summary of his report that he felt mischaracterized the findings. mueller said it failed to fully capture all of his investigation. mueller then called barr on the phone to share those frustrations. >> this raises all kinds of new questions. did robert mueller get played by william barr? if mueller meant to send a message to the american people on obstruction did he fail because he was outmaneuvered? when will we hear from mueller himself? his testimony really seems guaranteed and vital because there are serious questions about whether the attorney general lied in testimony he has already given on the report. how will barr explain his selective quotes from the mueller report that seemed to twist the special counsel's intent. some democrats are already calling for impeachment of william barr. so we have a potentially explosive day ahead and our coverage begins with lauren fox live in capitol hill. she is in the hearing room, the room where it will all happen. lauren? >> reporter: that's right, john. in just a couple of hours bill barr will come before the senate judiciary committee and have to answer questions about how he handled the mueller report, specifically that reporting from the "washington post" as a new explosive element to all of this where democrats are going to be

listen to what robert mueller has to say. do you believe an incentive like that would incentivize robert mueller to speak out publicly? remember, he wasn't pleased with the four-page summary william barr put together. he didn't believe it reflected the context in which he wrote that report. would this sentiment affect that? >> i don't know about that, stephanie. yes, on one hand mueller wants the public to know actively what -- accurately what he put out there but he's not of the public opinion. he was given a job by the doj and by all accounts do that accurately. does he want to publicly testify? i think hearing misconceptions spreading, that might motivate him. but bottom line i don't think he will be motivated by public opinion. that's up to lawmakers and reporters and everybody else to inform the public about what happened. the last thing i would like to say about justin amash, looking forward to his republican primary next year, it will be fascinating to see if a republican who takes this position can survive. other republicans who dared cross president trump either ended up

just responded to robert mueller after the special counsel broke his silence, stressing that if they could have cleared the president, they would have. >>> and was it a typo or did the president just admit russia helped him in the election? >>> and louisiana lawmakers officially pass an abortion ban becoming the fifth state to prohibit terminating a pregnancy once a fetal heartbeat is protected this as virginia's only clinic performing abortion is on the brink of losing its right to do so. >>> texas lawmakers go around the nra to pass a gun safety law. the woman nicknamed the nra's worst nightmare will join me to talk about how small victories are adding up to big success. >>> breaking news from the white house. the swift fallout and reaction this morning to special counsel robert mueller surprise public comments on the russia investigation. let's start with peter alexander outside the white house now where the president just spoke publicly to reporters for the first time sense mueller's statement. peter, the president had a lot to say. break it down for us. >> you are right. this wa

, if you are subpoenaed to appear before congress -- >> no questions. counsel robert mueller in the first public comments we've heard from him since may of 2017 when he was announced as the special counsel on the russia investigation, announcing they are formally closing that investigation and he's resigning from the justice department and returning to private life. we will open up our phone lines to get your thoughts on what you just heard from the special counsel, robert mueller. democrats, call 202-748-8000. 920.2-748-800 921.blicans, 202-748-800 922.others, 202-748-8002 robert mueller went broadly through the investigation, focusing on the russian interference in the indictment, time tohey designed interfere in our elections in 2016. he made several comments about the allegations of obstruction of justice. we would love to hear from you. we go to our democrats line to hear from diana in livingston, new jersey. caller: good morning. haspe that now that mueller formally resigned from the department of justice that he will be allowed to testify publicly, not behind closed doors. th

, everybody. the president strikes back. president trump today responded to robert mueller's partisan performance in which the former special counsel admitted he had no evidence with which to charge the president. >> i think he is a total conflicted person. i think mueller is a true never-trumper. he's somebody that dislikes donald trump. he's somebody that didn't get a job that he requested that he wanted very badly, and then he was appointed. and despite that, and despite $40 million, 18 trump haters including people that worked for hillary clinton and some of the worst human beings on earth, they got nothing. it's pretty amazing. lou: they got nothing. and tonight we take a closer look at the wildly conflicted and committed partisan robert mueller and his special counsel investigation, the witch hunt that was from beginning to end nothing but a partisan effort to help the dems steal the 2018 midterm elections and overthrow a president. powerhouse attorneys victoria tensing and joe digenova join us here tonight as does corey lewandowski and ed rollins. and the security crisis at the

>> i'll say no. >> or it has an expiration on it. thanks for joining us on "inside politics." if you come back this time tomorrow, don't go anywhere. brianna keilar in the share. she starts right now. have a great day. >> i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters. under way right now, we begin with a litany of lies from the president of the united states. just one day after special counsel robert mueller again but this time on camera explained he did not clear the president of a crime, and signaled to congress the president's fate is up to them. president trump stood before reporters ranting about mueller, shouting insults, falsehoods and outside lies over the din of an awaitingp marine one. >> i think he's totally conflicted because as you know he wanted tonight fbi director and i said no. he said essentially you're innocent, i'm innocent of all charges, and you note thing that nobody brings up, there was no crime. they are saying he's obstructing and there was no crime, and nobody brings it up. i believe that russia would rather have hillary clinton as president of the united states than donald trump. the word impeach, a dirt, filthy disgusting word and it had nothing to do with me so i don't think so because there was no crime. you know, high crimes and -- not with or objection it's high crimes and misdemeanors. there was no high crime and there was no it is demeanor. >> none that have is true and we're going to fact check all of it here today. first let's get to the white house and our white house correspondent abby philip. abby, were one of the reporters questioning the president, and the president had what seemed to be a measured response to the mueller report yesterday. he wrote a short tweet. he said the case was closed, even signed off thank you, but this is very different what we saw today. what happened? >> no question about it. the president apparently slept on it last night and woke up this morning feeling very differently about what robert mule her to say yesterday. he was reviving a whole long list of attacks that he's been throwing at mueller for two years now, including a country club dues dispute between the trump club and robert mueller that even trump's own aides called pet and did not think was an actual conflict that would have prevented mueller from being at the helm of the special counsel probe, but it does seem that the president is on edge about the one thing that robert mueller did that i think the white house is paying attention to. he made it very clear that he wanted congress to take up this issue of where to go next with obstruction of justice. mueller believed that he could not do anything with it constitutionly, and so, therefore, the only remedy was for congress to either do something or not, and so the president became fixated on this idea of impeenchlgts and as you heard him say there, he said i'm not sure the courts would let the democrats impeach him. well, brianna, we know that that's not true as well, but it just gives you a window into where president trump is on this issue, that he believes that it's unfair if democrats were to impeach him, yet, at the same time sources are telling us he's in some ways eager to have this as a political fight, eager to use this in a way to kind of gin up his base but in the meantime he's not letting up on attacking robert mueller even though the white house continues to insist that the case it is closed. the case is clearly not closeded when it comes to president trump and robert mueller who he even accused today of being part of the never trump movement. robert mueller being, of course, a lifelong republican. >> we'll be fact checking that. abby philip at the white house. thank you. >>> president trump claimed the courts would not allow him to be impeached. there's a problem there, has nothing do with t.imspeech. a congressional process, a process that a growing number of democrats want to pursue after special counsel robert mueller's public statement. let's get to cnn congress a.m. correspondent phil mattingly on capitol hill covering this angle. robert mueller made it clear, phil, he doesn't want to talk about this anymore, but that doesn't mean the conversation is over? yeah. that's exactly right. one of the big questions is will democrats at this point subpoena robert mueller given the fact that he said it was his hope he would not have to testify, that the report would speak for itself. jerry nadler said if he had to subpoena robert mueller he would subpoena robert mueller but jerry nadler after robert mueller's comments yesterday did not weigh in on that specifically. we do know that democrats want him to come still. the speaker nnandi pelosi said it yesterday and adam schiff, stenny heuer, the majority leader said it yesterday and the reason it was put into context by pelosi herself saying it would be useful. i was texting back and forth with a member of the house democratic caucus says the power of these images, even if it's just robert mueller reading verbatim from the report carries so much more weight in the democrat's views than just the 440-page report in and of itself. democrats want that. they want that testimony. they want it to be public. that's what they are going form. the question is how far are they willing to go to get there? we don't know the teens that just yet. brianna? >> phil mattingly on the hill. thank you so much. >> the host of "the lead kwnd "and "state of the union" is here to discuss. first of all, let's talk broadly about what we saw this morning. i'm very curious about your impression of we know the president is a norm buster, but this was beyond that. was it? >> you felt like it was the same to you? >> well, i mean, this is how he behampts sometimes he's restrained and sometimes he just lets it all hang out and says whatever is on his mind, whether it's true or not. he insults people. this is who he is. it's certainly not what we're accustomed to when it comes to behavior in politics, but this will be one of his legacies. i don't know if this is going to be carried on and other presidents are going to bemay have this way but acting this way is part and parcel who have he is. >> you obviously have covered the presidency so up close and personally previously, president obama. when you -- when you look at how president trump throws out one thing after another that is untrue, what is the -- what's the effect of that, and also the difficulty of the fact checking of it when it's so many things are thrown out in quick succession? >> well, i mean, one of the effects of it is that there are tens of millions of americans who now believe things that are not true because he says them and they like him and they like what he stands for and they want to believe in him and so tens of millions of people think things such as, for example, you know, what he said about how the courts aren't going to let the democrats impeach him. that's not the case, as you point out. according to the powers of impeachment, but there -- that's one of the things it means and it means there's an erosion more broadly in what facts are and what truth is and that's, you know, empirically bad for the country. >> the president earlier today posted and he retracted a tweet that read hi nothing to do with russia helping me to get elected. >> i think there was a typo in there, and that's why re-retract it had and ultimately he reposted the same thing. i believe it's still up there. hi nothing to do with russia helping me to get elected, but the larger point, that's a profound admission by the president though he tried to walk it back. >> i got me elected is what he said in person. >> but he said rush -- russia -- russia helped me. >> what do you think about that as being a slip of the tongue? >> well, he's basically just confirming what every national security and intelligence official of both his administration and the obama administration have said which is russia tried to help him get elected, and he admitted it in this tweet, and now he's going to try to pretend he didn't admit it. it's a freudian slip. he accidentally admitted the truth. >> in the mueller awareness, not a conspiracy, an awareness on the part of the trump campaign that this was being done in a way that would aid the trump campaign which isn't enough to be a conspiracy. just the expectation that it would help. >> right. but the fact is that the russians, according to all national security and intelligence officials of both the obama and trump administrations, the russians packed into or spear fished into democratic accounts and got e-mails that were release that had were damaging to hillary clinton and also did this disinformation campaign on social media, so while there's no way to compute and figure out how many votes it affected, if any, clearly the russians tried to help president trump and hurt hillary clinton, and, you know, what's remarkable is that it took any president this long to admit it. for this president i'm surprised he did admit it. >> litigating what happened is obviously important, but robert mueller made this point yesterday at the beginning and the end of his remarks that russian interference in the election is serious. we know it's ongoing. >> right. >> without the president, you having covered the presidency the way you have, without the president taking the lead on an issue like that, what is the effect of -- we know there are many people and agencies who are trying to do this. the intel committee is trying to counter this. what happens when the president doesn't provide leadership on this issue? >> there's a national security apparatus and they are doing the best job they can do in countering this, and i've spoken to some of the people running these didn't, and they say regardless what have president trump admit or says publicly or doesn't say to vladimir putin or whatever, they are doing their jobs and they are trying to protect the country from these kind of intrusions, not just from russia, but also from china and north korea, iran, others. the one thing they say is, yes, it would be incredibly helpful in president trump ulgsed tsed pulley pulpit to educate the public, don't believe everything you see on social media, don't believe that people on facebook are saying we'll have a rally to do there are necessarily real. there's a certain awareness that the public does not yet have and the president could help with that if he wanted to. he chooses not to, and that's really where they fault him. it's not that they are not doing their jobs at the national counterterrorism center. they are. they are doing everything that they can, but the question of could the president be educating the public more? that's something that they all wish he would do. >> as an educator in chief? >> the reason it's a bully pulpit is because when he says anything people listen, and he could use the time to be educating people about ptsd for veterans, or he could be using the time to talk about cyber security and election interference, what the public needs to know, or he could be using the time attacking a senator who has been dead for a year and besmirching a vietnam war hero like robert mueller. he chooses to use his time hand his bully pulpit the way he does. >> jake tapper, thank you so much, and we'll see you, of course, at 4:00 p.m. on "the lead. 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>> well, he's trying to say that there's -- he's trying to say there are all sorts of conflicts with robert mueller, and the mueller report actually goes through the -- the fbi situation us a describe. apparently there was a bit of a conversation where they talked about, well, you know, they would have to pass a law to let him be fbi director again, nothing seriously discussed. in the case of a business conflict, again that's -- business dispute. it's addressed in the mueller report. all it was was he asked for a refund of his golf membership fees which he didn't get. the report is he never even got an answer back from the trump organization, and he never followed up. >> not really a business dispute. >> what is this claim where he said deep like or love between comey and mueller? >> as far as i know and as far as anyone has been able to tell they were business colleagues. they were ten years overlapped but they are not personal friends. in fact, mueller has more of a friendship with trump's attorney general william barr than he would have with comey. >> so they had an opportunity to have a friendship obviously with their association at work, but they didn't have one, just to be clear. >> right, yes. >> so before speaking to reporters the president made a stunning admission. haddy tweeted this. i had nothing to do with russia helping me to get elected. it seems like he realized what he admitted there because he came outside and said this bit of revisionism. >> no, russia did not get me elected. you know who got me elected? i got me elected. russia did not help me at all. >> intelligence officials, lawmakers and mueller say this. >> i am confident that the russians meddled in this election as is the entire intelligence community. >> is there any dissent within the intelligence community on the question of whether the russians indfeared with the american election? >> there's no dissent and i've stated that publicly, and i've stated that to the president. >> no doubt at all and i stand behind the intelligence community assessment. >> did russia interfere in the u.s. elections? >> yes, i believe they did. i think as to the question with the interference with the election, that's fairly well-established. >> the fact that russia hacked u.s. databases comes as no shock to this committee. >> there were multiple systematic attempts to interfere in our elections. >> you hear the agreement that russia interfered in our elections and the intelligence community is also in agreement that they did so in an attempt to benefit president trump, not hillary clinton, right? >> yes, correct. and the mueller report documents in great detail that it was on behalf of trump and the trump campaign was a willing recipient of that help. >> that they understood that they were getting help? >> yes. >> so when you look at the president's tweet, is that just in line with what the report says that they understood that this was something that would benefit them even if they weren't conspiring to get the benefit. >> the that's why it's significant that he tweet that had because he seemed to be accepting the central premise of the mueller report. >> and the president made another claim about interference saying vladimir putin actually wanted hillary clinton to win. let's listen. >> i believe that russia would rather have hillary clinton as president of the united states than donald trump. the reason is nobody has been tougher on russia than me, whether it's our energy policy, which was not hers, whether it's the pipeline as you know in europe going all over the place, that i've been bitterly complaining about, whether it's ukraine, whether it's a whole host of thing, there has nobody ever been more tough or difficult for russia than donald trump. >> i do want to quickly point that vladimir putin himself admitted that he preferred trump for president. >> did you direct any of your officials to help him do that? p. >> yes, i did. yes, did i, because he talked about bringing the u.s./russia relationship back to normal. >> all right. so let's get to the bottom of this, because it's actually more complex dhan the president's rhetoric, rhetoric versus actions. has the president been tough on russia, tougher on russia than anyone else? >> no, he hasn't, and -- and, you know, he gave us somewhat cherry picked descriptions of his policies, but broadly speaking he is a president that vladimir putin has dreamed of. he's done his best to try to weaken the alliance in nato. he has done his best to encourage splits within the european union with with the brexit situation in the uk. he has given free reign in syria. these are things that have been beneficial for russia in policy interests and began geopolitical aspirations, and i was just going to say there have been some sanctions that have been imposed under his presidency, but that was generally imposed by congress over trump's objections. >> that's right. >> his rhetoric hasn't matched sort of the imposition of those sanctions. we have a lot still to talk about. you're going to stand by with us, glen kesler from "the washington post." the claim from the president that the courts would never allowed impeachment. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ applebee's new loaded fajitas. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. applebee's new loaded fajitas. straight from the world's best plant scientists comes miracle-gro performance organics. it's miracle-gro's next big thing. ♪ ♪ organic plant food and soil that finally work. ♪ ♪ and work... and work. ♪ ♪ and yes we did say organic. for twice the bounty, guaranteed. miracle-gro performance organics. organics finally grow up. and up, and up. - anncr: as you grow older, -your brain naturally begins to change which may cause trouble with recall. - learning from him is great... when i can keep up! - anncr: thankfully, prevagen helps your brain and improves memory. - dad's got all the answers. - anncr: prevagen is now the number-one-selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. - she outsmarts me every single time. - checkmate! you wanna play again? 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>> right. there's several parts to that section there, but he was saying we can't clear the president. there's evidence that suggests there was behavior that would be considered criminal, but at the same time we under justice department guidelines cannot charge him with a crime because that's -- we don't believe that can be done to a president, so, therefore, it's up to congress to decide whether or not they want to launch impeachment proceedings, but the -- but he's saying if he hadn't committed a crime we would have said so but we're not going to say so but he did not clear the president. >> let's talk about his last claim that all of this was one big scam and that he cannot be impeached. >> i don't see how. they can because they are possibly allowed though i can't imagine the courts allowing it. i've never gotten into it. i wouldn't think that it would be possible to be using that word to. me it's a dirty word, impeach. it's a dirty, filthy, disgusting word and it had nothing to do with me so i don't think so because there was no crime. high crimes and, not wither or, it's high crimes and misdemeanors. there was no high crime and there was no misdemeanor so how do you impeach based on that, and it came out that there was nothing to do with russia. the whole thing is a scam. it's a giant presidential harassment, and honestly i hope it goes down as one of my greatest achievements. >> what do you make of that claim, also considering you have a database of how many disproven claims? >> 10,000. >> and he's talked about the courts before. >> right, right. >> he's suggested that somehow the courts would prevent an wo. he was talking about article ii before. he needs to study that more carefully. imspeech. a proses by which congress removes the president. they can define high crimes and misdemeanors however they want. in the case of nixon the art calves impeachment that were passed had nothing to do with the underlying crime of the break-in. it had to do with nixon's efforts to cover up the -- the crime, to obstruct justice it, you know, prevent the investigation from going forward. one of the articles actually had to do with the fact that he wasn't answering subpoenas from corporation and, you know, right now the president's administration is not answering dozen of subpoenas, so if congress wanted, to they coast guard for the whole russia thing and simply focus on that. >> very interesting. glen kesler, thanks so much for coming in and spending so much time with us as we fact check with this. >>> when president trump has to say about a report that the u.s. asked the "uss mccain" to be out of view during a trip to japan and the calls for impeachment. growing. a number of democrats, the number is growing. my experience with usaa has been excellent. they really appreciate the military family and it really shows. with all that usaa offers why go with anybody else? 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just ask experts on civil military relations. sure, these actions win appropriate. they will also tell you they are dangerous. the navy which is stretched so thin on resources and deployments that many experts think that's to blame for recent fate al accidents like on "the mccain fc" is dedicating manpower to deal with this "uss john mccain" controversial. as a whole the president's politicization of the military actually undermines how other countries view u.s. military action abroad, u.s. involvement in conflicts looks like the policy of a minority faction of the u.s. navy instead of the whole. the simultaneous supposed to serve america, the constitution. they are yours, not the president's. if the military is seen as supporting a particular president then americans who don't support that president may not want to serve of, and then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. then the military is the riff to become weaponized by one party and that's not supposed to happen in america. that's what happens in venezuela, iran, china, russia, north korea, and back to the "uss john mccain," the fact that the president never authorized this move to obscure the name of the ship is actually worse than if he did because it means that some officials in the navy are catering to the president's political vendetta against john mccain. it means that not only is the president politicizing the military, the military is politicizing itself. special counsel robert mueller suggesting only congress can hold the president accountable in a crime. my next guest is a member of the house judiciary committee and she says she is ready to act. also, actor ashton kutcher is taking the stand testifying in the hollywood runner serial killer trial. what he says about the day he discovered his girlfriend was murdered. ♪ be right back. with moderate to severe crohn's disease, i was there, just not always where i needed to be. is she alright? 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we have congresswoman mad line dean of pennsylvania, a member of the house judiciary committee joining us now from philadelphia. thanks for being with us. >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be with you, brianna. what was your reaction when you heard robert mueller speak, and what was the thing that stood out to you the most? >> i was pleased that he spoke, and what stood out to me was that he chose to speak. we know the behavior of robert mueller. he's been very careful to do his duty and to not speak beyond the report. i believe that if he did not see any attorney general barr and all the people around this president including this president covering up what actually happened and lying about the contents of this report, he would have gone quietly into his private life but that he chose to me speaks volumes, i'll play on that word, speaks to the two volumes that he prepared with 19 other dedicated public servants that president and lying to the benefit of trump. the trump campaign welcomed it and wallowed in it. and then when we investigated that, there is ample evidence that the president obstructed justice. now congress, it is up to you. i thought it was powerful that this man of few public words chose to speak. >> and so when he was saying what he was saying very straightforward, in a sort of a legalese kind of way and part of what he didn't say is what was so important. it is very interesting to hear your translation of that in the message that you were taking. so i just want to make that clear. but i also want to talk about how you had reserved judgment on impeachment. and now you said enough is enough. tell us how you got to that point? >> well, as you pointed out, i'm a member of the judiciary committee and i prize that duty and that role to do both substantive legislation but also the important duties of oversight. and so you saw the stonewalling and the obstructing of our oversight capacity by this administration directly by this president and his attorney general and personal counsel. so when lawful subpoenas to attorney general barr for documentation and his presence and testimony were stonewalled and ignored, when lawful subpoenas for mcgahn's documents and testimony before our committee were again stonewalled and obstructed, enough is enough. i don't think that we, as the front line in the work of oversight in the judiciary committee could just sit idly by and allow lawful subpoena after lawful subpoena ignored and we do have to uphold the rule of law. apd -- i believe we should open an impeachment inquiry. that is a more robust version or robust name and direct name to the oversight that we were already involved in. >> your chairman had previously said he would subpoena mueller to testify. he has been reticent to -- after hearing from robert mueller yesterday, he's been rit -- reticent or saying he will move forward. we don't know exactly where he is on this. do you want to see the committee subpoena mueller to testify. >> i would like to hear the testimony of robert mueller, whether by way of subpoena, i believe he will honor our subpoena and come forward but i also take him at his word. he's not going to elaborate or speculate beyond the contents of the report. that is what he said to the american people. read this report, it speaks for itself. in terms of the criminality and the evidence of criminality by trump world. it speaks to the welcoming of russia's inter -- interference in our election. the at the end of the testimony yesterday or statement yesterday he reminded the american people of the serious problem of russia interference in our elections. so i certainly home he comes before the committee. they're still in conversation, the chairman and mr. mueller's team as he pivots to private life. american people -- and i had a town hall last night toe share with you the reaction there. it was a terrific town hall at our local montgomery county community college. and terrible weather, more than 100 people came. and very quickly, among the questions was, a., what are you doing substantively about legislation around health care, prescription drug pricing, social security, infrastructure, those kinds of things but very quickly came up the question, what are you doing about this president and when i said to the audience, this is the most indecent president of my lifetime if not the history of our country, the entire room applauded. they agreed. we have to do address the indecency. >> if robert mueller isn't going to share anything beyond what is in his report, why, then, do you think it is important to hear from him in person testifying before congress. >> well, i think americans have busy lives. i don't think everybody is going to have the chance to sit down and read a 448-page dense report with damning information it that is important to the american public. so who better to hear from than -- as i said, the report are his words. it is his testimony. i think it will help the american people understand exactly what happened here and the extraordinary lengths to which this president went -- there is evidence of serious lengths of obstruction of justice by this president. i think the american people need to have the story painted for them in some ways so that they understand the bad acts that were going on, both on the campaign side, and then in the obstruction side. the american people are busy. and they need to hear from this public servant who so faithfully upheld his duty to investigate very serious things. >> congresswoman, thank you. madeleine dean with us. thank you. >> thanks for having me. >>> just ahead, jeopardy host alec trebek has mind-boggling news about his battle with pancreatic cancer. hear what doctors are telling him. >>> and she's known at the tiniest surviving baby weighing less than 9 ounces at birth and her amazing story about going home. - i love my grandma. - anncr: as you grow older, your brain naturally begins to change which may cause trouble with recall. - learning from him is great... when i can keep up! - anncr: thankfully, prevagen helps your brain and improves memory. - dad's got all the answers. - anncr: prevagen is now the number-one-selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. - she outsmarts me every single time. - checkmate! you wanna play again? 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denigrate robert mueller and to further misize what's in mueller's report we can read, he's there to say i'm not going to answer questions unless they're about things i decide to construe as crimes and by the way, i don't know when you'll hear from robert mueller himself. why continue with this operation today? i know there's a lot of drama whether or not the house judiciary is going to be able to compel him to appear now that he's turned down his committee date with them tomorrow. part of me is not excited about the prospect that he would ever succeed in getting him in there because at this point, i'd much rather hear from robert mueller at least on this point. when they later want to investigate barr's handling as a separate matter, sure, get hill back then. right now we need to know what mueller found because barr is still restricting access to that information. >> we're waiting for mueller. thank you, rachel. >> thank you. >>> we, at the end of this hour tonight, we're going to show you what went through my mind today when we heard lindsey graham complaining about fbi official

mueller report. it feels like that. >> will special counsel robert mueller's decision to go public yesterday force nancy pelosi's hand on impeachment? there are new a growing number of democrats calling for impeachment. mueller broke more than two years of silence on the russia investigation saying his report did not clear president trump of any wrongdoing or crimes, but charging him was never an option because of the justice department guidelines. it is congress's job to hold the president accountable now for any wrongdoing. what will congress do today? mueller hopes to avoid testi testifying. he says the report is his testimony. >> his statement is full of findings. barr said it was up to him to determine whether there was wrongdoing. robert mueller said no and leaves it up to congress. how would the attorney general respond? we are expecting to see president trump shortly. he'll depart the white house in minutes. will he take questions? he didn't say anything out loud about it yesterday. this morning is his first chance. let's bring in david gregory, abby phillips, and jeffrey t

next time. elizabeth: robert mueller breaking his silence, he will will not testify and not clear president trump. here is the question, will blue dog moderate democrats go along? they are key, we debate that. you are looking at live pictures of attorney general william barr at alaska native justice round table in alaska, we'll keep you posted if he addresses today's fireworks. >> this story matters to your money, stocks down on fight with china, sell-off kicked to high gear when robert mueller spoke, dow sinking 410 at low, in end stock closed off of session lows, dow january levels, we have angles on your money covered, and also, what robert mueller did not discuss, what he left out. >> it is total full metal gridlock in washington, nothing gets turn. 200,000 vehicle hit crumbling roads every day, no cheaper crisis or healthcare. we're breaking that down. >> also, is joe biden following the script of the obama campaign back in 2012? the strategy was cutback on joe biden's campaign appearances to avoid negative headlines. is that strategy for biden right now? to historic tornado

house, nancy pelosi, is set to speak at any moment. we expect to hear her reaction to robert mueller's remarkable morning. four hours ago, the special counsel made his first public statement about the russia investigation. in doing so, he directly contradicted what we've heard from the white house. the special counsel stated clearly that his findings do not exonerate the president. >> if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. we did not however make a determination as to whether the did commit a crime. >> shepard: the special counsel spent ten minutes explaining his investigation and its findings. the president said there was no collusion. robert mueller said there was not enough evidence to bring charges. >> the first volume of the report details numerous efforts emanating from russia to influence the election. this volume includes a discussion of the trump campaign's response to this activity as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. >> shepard: robert mueller says he was bound by the j

. this could affect the market. robert mueller will be making a public statement on the investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election. he will be speaking live. that will be at 11:00 eastern time this morning. he will be speaking from the department of justice. you will see it. it will happen right here. whether that has market impact or not, i don't know. it certainly has political impact. we will run it for you. >>> all right. back to the market. look at airlines. some people predicting a summer of hell for air travel. susan: great. stuart: you got the grounding of the boeing max 737 jets and the loss of some tsa staffers down to the mexico border. but i think it's going to be good news for airline stock. bad news for passengers, travelers. ashley: that's where the hell comes in. 2.8 million people traveling by air every day from june 1st to the end of august. susan: 274 million in total. stuart: murder for passengers, people lined up at tsa, but for the stock prices -- >> absolutely. plus very low energy prices. it reflects a great economy, great labor market. people

closer look at the wildly conflicted and committed partisan robert mueller and his special counsel investigation, the witch hunt that was from beginning to end nothing but a partisan effort to help the dems steal the 2018 midterm elections and overthrow a president. powerhouse attorneys victoria tensing and joe digenova join us here tonight as does corey lewandowski and ed rollins. and the security crisis at the southern border producing the biggest smuggling bust ever. border patrol agents arrested a group of illegal immigrants courtesy of the mexican drug cartels, 1,000 illegal immigrants. now president trump is ready to make a major announcement on border security. we'll have that, we'll take up the latest in our broken borders. dr. sebastian gorka, trump administration drug czar james carroll join us here tonight. and more carnage left by storms throughout the nation, tornadoes leveling communities from texas to iowa, to kentucky, flooding worsening along the arkansas river in oklahoma and arkansas. we'll update you with the very latest on the severe weather patterns that are d

force academy. before leaving the white house, president trump responding to robert mueller's rare public appearance yesterday. watch. >> to me, it's the same as the report. there's no obstruction. you can see what we're saying. there's no obstruction, no collusion, no nothing. it's nothing but a witch hunt. this is a witch hunt by the media and the democrats. they're partners. >> [question inaudible] >> that means you're innocent. excuse me. he should have said you're guilty. >> the former special counsel's remarks fuelling impeachment in the house. more than 40 house democrats calling for impeachment proceedings to begin with justin amash. nancy pelosi not quite ready to go there. she's not ruling out the possibility of impeachment but saying democrats need to first build a compelling case. >> nothing is off the table. we do want to make such a compelling case, an iron clad case that even the republican senate, which at the time seems to be not an objective jury, will be convinced of the path that we have to take as a country. >> not all of the democratic leadership on the same p

remarkable statement in the last hour fraumom the russia special counsel robert mueller after two years of public silence, mueller giving a ten minute summary of his investigation that injects new drama into the big debate over impeachment. mueller restated his core findings. the russian interference in the 2016 presidential election here in the united states was clear and systematic. two, there was not enough evidence to charge a broader conspiracy between the trump campaign and russian meddlers. and three, if the special counsel could have said no obstruction as the president claims he did, he would have said so. listen to this. >> if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. we did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. the introduction to the volume two of our report explains that decision. it explains that under long standing department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. that is unconstitutional. even if the charge is kept under seal

robert mueller breaks his silence on the russia investigation — and repeats that his report did not clear president trump of obstructing justice. if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commita crime, we would have said so. we did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. israel votes to hold its second election this year — after prime minister, benjamin netanyahu, fails to form a coalition. it's been sitting in the country for years — now the philippines is set to ship tonnes of canadian waste back to canada. hello. a cruise boat with more than 30 people on board has capsized in the hungarian capital. state media are saying at least seven people have died — the south korean foreign ministry has confirmed they were south korean tourists. it happened on the river danube in budapest. divers have joined the search for 19 other people still missing. 7 people have been rescued but strong currents and high water levels, caused by heavy rain, are hampering emergency teams. the vessel collided with another boat near the parl

♪ ♪ lou: good evening, everybody. special counsel robert mueller today breaking his silence and doing so in a somewhat bizarre fashion. he said his special counsel report spoke for itself. but then he spoke for almost ten minutes. during which he claimed that his role as special counsel was never to prove that the president committed a crime of collusion or obstruction, and then he claimed he could never have charged him had he found such evidence. which, by the way, he didn't. >> and under longstanding department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. that is unconstitutional. even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that too is prohibited. the special counsel's office is part of the department of justice, and by regulation it was bound by that department policy. charging the president with a crime was, therefore, not an option we could consider. lou: mueller adding nothing to body of public knowledge about what he did for almost two years or what he did with that $35 million of taxpayer money. the only thing that is clear as a result of his almost ten minutes of musings is that his investigation was a partisan event, a vehicle, in fact, that provided the radical dems and the national left-wing media with a constant drum beat of negativity that served to support and fuel the radical dems' theft of the 2018 midterm election. and now the dems control the house, and they're spending, it seems, every waking moment searching for ways in which to obstruct, to undermine and overthrow the president of the united states. more than a dozen committees now focusing attacks on the president, his administration, even his family. none more hell bent in his hatred of our president than house judiciary committee chair jerry nadler. >> with respect to impeachment question, at this point all options are on the table, and nothing should be ruled out. we are following through in our investigation, we will continue to do so, and we'll make decisions as they seem indicated. lou: what a nasty, vile person. we take a closer look at mueller, the radical dems and their corrupt efforts to collude, conspire and subversion and the overthrow of the trump presidency. an all-star lineup, ed rollins, tom fitton, eric trump, congressman matt gaetz, ronna mcdaniel among our guests. >>> and we continue our coverage of the violent outbreak of severe weather after another round of storms slammed through communities from kansas to pennsylvania. our top story tonight, robert mueller today broke his silence and in so doing, set off the left-wing national media and the braying radical dems on capitol hill. most of them pretended to make much of mueller's nine minutes of musings; that is, they took mr. mueller's remarks to mean that the radical dems must do what mueller couldn't. namely, impeach the president. and they've been trying to subvert him for the past three years. the sanctimonious mueller today said of his official special counsel report, the report, quote, is my testimony, end quote. and then he went on to say that, quote, it is important that the office's written work speak for itself, end quote. and then he said of his so-called final comments today, quote, i hope and expect this to be the only time that i speak about this matter, end quote. again, let me offer, if i may, this translation: mr. mueller seems to mean exactly the opposite of what he's saying. his report is done, but he is obviously not. in my view, he means to speak out and to do so loudly, because -- as his 448-page report, his subsequent letter to justice department and today his remarks have made clear -- he is a partisan, and he is on a mission. mueller and his refusal the leave the stage is the subject of my commentary here later in tonight's show. joining me now, former reagan white house political director, fox business political analyst, ed rollins. ed, great to have you here. >> thank you. lou: what do you make of mueller as he clings to the stage and tries to explain again that his report is his testimony as his testimony broadens and broadens and broadens? >> tells me we could have kept $35 million and spent it somewhere else in government. we certainly didn't need two years of this investigation to come up with absolutely nothing. he basically made a declaration that there was no way he could indict a president because of the rules of justice and the rules -- and the reality is he should have made that statement right up front and walked away. there was no charge against the president, the president didn't do anything wrong, and i think at the end of the day the american public are going to watch the democrats make big fools out of themselves. lou: let's be clear, the mueller special counsel knew, knew long before the 2018 midterms that there was no conspiracy, no collusion of any sort however you want to characterize it with the russians on the part of the trump campaign or the trump presidency. yet he persisted, and he persisted in the obvious -- for the obvious partisan purpose of stealing, permitting the democrats to steal that election. >> well, certainly created the dialogue that was negative for the republicans, and they couldn't run away from it. finish the bottom line is, as i said, first week, second week he was there he should have stood up, called a press conference and said there's nothing there, we're all going to go home and, basically, go on -- let the president go on and do his job, because there is nothing there. there was no collusion, as has been said, there's no conspiracies, there was no, you know, getting people like manafort, any u.s. attorney could have done that and done that easily -- lou: and a dozen russians who will never -- >> right. lou: -- never see a u.s. courtroom of any kind. >> absolutely. and my issue, again, it never came out today the, is this all occurred during the obama administration. this did not occur during the trump -- trump was elected the first tuesday in november, and this had all gone on before, the russian stuff. why wasn't the obama team doing something about it? lou: your sense of mark warner today, the vice chair of the senate intelligence committee, which under richard burr continues its -- it is so-called investigation. he basically -- he said today to intelligence community defy the attorney general of the united states as he investigates the investigators, and the democrats will back you up. have you ever heard of such a thing? >> no, i haven't. but the reality is for two years this guy has basically blocked everything that we've tried to do. what he's basically saying is blocking the president, this is -- the intelligence community reports to president of the united states. the president has asked barr to go investigate and find out what was wrong there. for the him to say as a member of the senate, vice chairman of the committee, that we will basically block any efforts on the part of the president to find out what went on among his people is outrageous. lou: so let me ask you about lindsey graham, chair of the judiciary committee in the senate. i'm going to say this as sweetly and gently as i can. where are the republicans in the senate, and why isn't there a response to mendacity, the viciousness, the vileness of the democrats as they attack this president? >> well, i watched tv all day today, and they were missing in action totally. there was nobody out there to defend this president, and it was easy to defend. this was the most outrageous thing i've seen in my 50 years in politics. at the end of the day, they're going to basically drag this thing out with their six or seven investigative committees in the house and try and find stuff that's to not there. and it's time for it all to go away. lou: is it your judgment that, ultimately, the republican party will stand the up for this president? >> i certainly hope so, and i'll lose all faith in the republican party, and it's pretty small at this point in time if they don't stand up. equally as important, gutless democrats, i think, are having a hard time with all of this, and they realize the consequences of the election. the speaker was all over the place today trying to make sure, and nadler, he's been wanting to do this for months and months now, is still being brave and courageous. they want a road map handed to them that basically says here's how to indict him, how to get rid of him, and there's not one there. lou: the radical dems are just, they're beneath contempt. i mean, they have become something -- >> right. lou: -- they are the party of hate. they are the that party that isi mean, what they're doing is unconscionable, and i cannot for the life of me figure out where the right-wing media is. they know what this party is doing, and they're. [audio difficulty] from his campaign, responding to mueller sanctimonious nonsense today saying this: president trump has been fully and completely exonerated. mueller said his investigation is over, the case is now closed. now it's time to turn to origins of the russia hoax and get to bottom of why the trump campaign was spied on by the obama era doj and fbi. anyone who is for transparency, constitutional civil liberties and the rule of law should want to know why human sources, wiretapping and unmasking were used to infiltrate a presidential campaign. >> all i can say is, amen. that's a perfect statement. actually, very truthful and needs to be put across this country. lou: ed rollins -- >> thank you. lou: -- good to see you. coming up next, more than a dozen congressional committees opening investigations trying to harass the president and carry out political persecution of the president and his family. we take that up tonight. our special guest, eric trump. >>> also, the desperate dems and their friends in the national left-wing media want more, more, they say, from robert mueller. >> this is in a way very frustrating to resistance and to some democrats who had hoped that robert mueller was going to get in there and get the truth about what happened. >> his hands were tied. he could do nothing else. >> hearing bob mueller raise his right hand, testify to congress, that would be quite illuminating for most americans rather than going through and clicking through 400 pages of a report. >> we expected a verdict from mueller -- >> when did he tell us we weren't going to get a verdict? lou: the radical dems, they're frustrated and disappointed in robert mueller. and yet some members of the national left-wing media were saying this really is an open, open charge to go ahead and impeach the president. facts, opinion. what's happening in the national left-wing media? we'll have all of that and much more right after this break. stay with us. ♪ lou: robert mueller today took 9:40 n which he announced his resignation of special counsel, the closing of the special counsel office and to announce his return to private life of and, of course, recast the purpose of the creation of the special counsel's office that he led for two years. mueller would have us believe it was all about russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. it was not. if it were, mueller would have been investigating the role of the intelligence community and its 17 agencies that apparently didn't realize what was happening in the months of campaigning leading up to election and all of that russian interference. if it were, why would the president's firing of dirty cop james comey have triggered the special counsel? doesn't that seem inconsistent, if not contradictory? if it were, why do we have no explanation as to why the fbi relied on a third party for the claim that the democratic national committee had been hacked, and ostensibly by russians? why would the special counsel focus only on the so-called trump campaign response to russian efforts to intervene, to influence the 2016 election? why not just a little, little reference to obama administration, president obama, his administration responsible for the integrity of that election? and why the obama administration and the intel community did nothing at all in response to russian intervention until the last month of that administration. call it meddling, if you will. the campaign and the election of 2016 seemed, well, it seemed to have some problems with responding to that russian interference that we're assured by so many was in collusion with the trump cam and president -- n and president trump. mr. mueller avers that he and his counsel's office conducted an independent criminal investigation. those were his words today. but then he obfuscates, either intentionally or perhaps otherwise, as he claimed that from, the -- from doj principles and policy he concluded that the special counsel could not reach a determination one way or another about whether president trump committed a crime. simply put, that is a conclusion, and it's equally obvious that mueller is unhappy with his conclusion and deeply, deeply troubled that 22 months of investigation produced an obvious conclusion that only a partisan would resist. mueller couldn't overthrow the president. but in that almost two years, he gave the democrats all they needed to steal the 2018 midterms. now it is time for justice, true justice. and this time it will be courtesy of attorney general william barr. >>> joining us tonight, judicial watch president tom fitton. tom, good to have you with us. your thoughts about the performance of robert mueller today. >> well, i don't know what reputation he had that deserved any credence til now, but it's no longer there. he's really destroyed whatever reputation he's had with this political attack on the president, turning the rule of law on its head, suggesting the president is guilty and, because he can't prove otherwise, we should conclude that he should be impeached. it's an abuse of power once again by the mueller special counsel and him personally. you know, he had some plausible deniability. there was this gargantuan report out there, with we knew he had hired all these anti-trumpers, but he came out and personally endorsed this abusive attack on the president, doubling down on the corruption from the report, you know? and i think highly of attorney general barr, but i think he's been too differential to special counsel. he should have shut this report down before it was even written, and it's been abuse piled on top of abuse targeting president trump. and this mr. mueller, he needs to be investigated as well. the office of professional responsibility should be asking why did this justice department prosecutor come out and suggest wrongdoing by an innocent person without any foundation? because there is no foundation. if there was a foundation, there would have been indictments or requests for an indictment while highlighting that. outrageous. lou: turning our judicial system on its head, saying that you have to prove your innocence, in effect, particularly for the president of the united states. is it a coincidence that james comey, the dirty cop, wrote an op-ed that was published just a day ahead of the mueller remarks today? is -- doesn't that strike you as odd, coincidental, perhaps? >> i'm trying to figure out who's worse in terms of ethics, comey and mueller. they're two peas in a pod when it comes to attacking president trump. i have some -- you know, i do hope mr. mueller testifies. i know some don't want to see him testify. he should be asked why is it, despite his conflicts, that he accepted this appointment. why is it despite the knowing that comey stole fbi records and then leaked them illegally to get him appointed, he continued to participate in that corrupt process? what about all these biased democrat and anti-trump pro-hillary clinton donors he hired? when did he know there was no collusion? if when did he know there was no collusion? and as you point out, why didn't he shut it down then? lou: and this relationship between james comey and robert mueller, many years in its duration. but do you suppose it persisted even as the special counsel and the fired former fbi director, could they have possibly been colluding? should there be an investigation of that collusion? because there are too many coincidences, it seems to me. >> well, we've asked for documents about that collusion. remember, mr. mueller allowed mr. comey to testify despite his being in the middle of this massive obstruction investigation. we thought that was curious. lou: yeah. >> and this is why there needs to be at least an internal ethics investigation of the way the mueller operation proceeded and its interaction with some of these witnesses. you know, mr. mueller, for instance, strzok was caught red-handed writing these anti-trump texts, these pro-hillary clinton texts. strzok testified, mueller didn't ask him one question about whether or not his anti-trump hatred influenced the investigation. mueller was disinterested in that. isn't that curious? lou: it is curious. and after today there are more questions about the witch hunt, as the president first characterized it which i think is an apt description of what this turned out to be. mueller says that charging the president, he at least tries to intimate that charging the president was never an option. so why did he persist at all? he didn't, by the way. there were no co-conspirators indicted. so why did he persist at all? and if there are no co-conspirators and there is no evidence -- he said he carried out an independent criminal investigation -- then why in the world did he have any kind of reservation about saying clearly no evidence whatsoever of obstruction or collusion? >> well, try to follow his -- i is suggest to your listeners go and read what he said. it's full of legal health care iggle -- higgle-piggle. he's all over the place. mr. barr has testified that mueller did not say that justice department policy about -- lou: yes, three times. >> -- can't be indicted guided his decision making here. so now he's changed his tune, and it's all -- i think he wants to, he's worried about the momentum of impeachment be kept moving forward. this was about as political an intervention in our system as any justice department mow's ever done. lou: by the way, what we're hearing from the democrats as of right now is that they're frustrated with the mueller performance and his, the content of that performance which, obviously, many democrats -- as you heard earlier in this broadcast -- think is inadequate to support their enthusiasm for impeachment. tom, as always, great to have you with us. thanks so much. >> you're welcome. thank you. lou: fox news' greg gutfeld, you've heard of him, enjoying great success with his saturday evening show. this year gutfeld's average audience, 1.7 million viewers. that outpaces, for example, hbo's realtime with bill maher, cbs' late, late show with james corden. despite whatever greg says personally about me, we are still pals, and it would be foolish of me to say anything about him because he is so immensely successful now. you can watch greg's show saturdays at 10 p.m. eastern on the fox news channel. congratulations, greg. >>> up next, more neighborhoods blown away after two weeks of powerful tornadoes. devastation and more. dozens of dem investigations into the president now, his family left unchecked by republicans in congress. eric trump joins us right after the break with that and more. stay with us. ♪ ♪ termites, feasting on homes 24/7. we're on the move. roger. hey rick, all good? oh yeah, we're good. we're good. termites never stop trying to get in, we never stop working to keep them out. terminix. defenders of home. lou: a historic tornado outbreak in this country rampaging from the southern mains to northeast over the -- plains to the northeast over the past 12 days, at least 8 tornadoes a day reported. over those 12 days, the country has, well, seen 225 tornadoes, and they've taken the lives of at least 10 people. tonight more than 34 million americans could still see severe weather from texas to illinois, from east ohio through the mid atlantic. >>> well, joining us tonight for more on the mueller report and the endless radical dem campaign against the president, his administration ask if his family -- and his family, the president's son, executive vice president of the trump organization, eric trump. eric, it is good to see you. >> good to be with you, as always, lou. lou: the question of the night, what did you think of the mueller presentation? >> i think he did a travesty to his country. it shouldn't take two and a half years to come up with no collusion, no obstruction. he said today i stand by everything i said in the report. albeit he didn't just come out and say, guyses, after two and a half years, there was no collusion and there was no obstruction. he was talking in code. and i just, you know, you look at how well our country's doing right now economically, the taking care of our vets, the respect around the world. you look at those images coming from japan where world leaders actually like us again, my father's doing an unbelievable job for this country on every front. on every front out there. and all the democrats can do is put on these clown shows on the side, and it's a shame, because it hurts this country. it's, it's a travesty. we're doing so well. when are people going to start cheerleading for america versus just being obstructionists? that's what these guys are doing. lou: and it's stunning, the only initiative announced by the democrats in this period has been the aoc new green deal. >> yeah, which is going to cost, what, $91 trillion, it's going to bankrupt our nation, it was going to -- lou: yeah, roughly, i think we could round that off --? >> lou, these guys have no message if, they have no leadership. they're old ideas. they have no charisma. look at the people running, right? there's 50 people running. no charisma. bill de blasio, the mayor of new york, right? he can't break 0%. i mean, he can't break 0% -- lou: but i'd like to see him stay in the race just as long as possible -- >> just for entertainment value? me too. [laughter] my father's doing a great job. he's brought back jobs to this country, he's brought back manufacturing, he redid every single deal, deals that were driving jobs out of this country left and right, that were driving businesses. people are getting wage growth for the first time in 15 years in this country. lou: the middle class is again growing. when your father announced his candidacy, the middle class was till shrinking. and -- still shrinking. and now, after two and a half years already, the middle class in this country is growing again. and as you say, wages are moving higher. more people are prospering and moving -- upward mobility has been restored, which is the essence of the -- >> everywhere we went, everywhere we went, we were in pennsylvania, we were in ohio, we were in -- just everywhere, right? you walk into these factories, they'd be boarded up, right? beautiful buildings, they're boarded up, they'd have chain-link fences around them. they used to have life, and they were dead. nafta sent all the deals overseas, and those factories are coming back to life again, and those lightbulbs are turn thing back on, and these towns are now thriving. wages are going up. we've got the lowest unemployment in the history of our country. but, again, all these guys will do is these clown shows. get up there, let's impeach the president. they're going to impeach him because our economy is the talk of the entire world? strongest economy, hands down, in the entire world. i mean, what's our gdp growth, 3.2% right now? where's europe? .4%. we're the envy of the entire world right now. and the democrats don't like that because their candidate was supposed to win, and she didn't. she got beat horribly badly. they had to come up with a narrative to save face. it backfired on them, as you can tell right now, and he's winning. he's winning. the guy's winning. lou: every left-wing program, every democratic initiative has been proved hollow and, frankly, destructive of this country. and that is the reason -- people talk about the 2016 election, of course, they are disappointed. but what really scares, i believe, the democrats in this country is that they know this president has just simply kicked out every leg of the stool that they've sat on for decades. and that the joke is over. record low minority unemployment in this country. >> and hispanic, female, everything. i mean, and think about it, 93% negative media coverage. yet the guy is at over 50 in the polls. i mean, they must be, they must be worried. i know they're worried, but they must be worried. lou: they're so worried that they are trying to overthrow a president, they have been for two and a half years. >> let me mention one other thing, it's horrible for our nation. it's horrible when you go overseas and you see the nastiness on cnn. you go overseas and you watch it -- lou: it's failing overseas too, by the way. >> it's not patriot you can. it's a horrible thing that they're doing especially when they know they're casting lies every single day because they got it wrong. they were wrong, lou, and they keep on digging and digging and digging. as i told you before, we're going to win this thing again. he's going to win this again, but we're going to win, but this country's doing awesome, and i'm incredibly proud of him. i knew he was going to do this, and he's exceeded my expectations. i'm proud of him. lou: i know you did. and the rest of us are awful grateful. eric, thanks so much, come back soon. eric trump. >>> we'll be right back with >>> we'll be right back with much more, sta ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ of all the moments you share with your best friend, the greatest could be the moment you save her life. every second counts in cardiac arrest. learn hands-only cpr and be the difference for someone you love. and be the difference hey and learn a skill's a wathat can save their life.un swim lessons, woo! sadly, drowning takes too many young lives, but, it's preventable and studies show that lessons reduced that risk by 88%. so, go to usaswimmingfoundation.org and enroll your child today. i learned how to swim. the usa swimming foundation, saving lives and building champions. lou: a new mexico border town's democratic mayor, well, filing a cease and desist order against a private group billing a board -- building a border wall. the group says they had verbal permission to build a half-mile-long steel fence. but the mayor of sunland park says no development permit was ever approved. the group calling his order an intimidation effort by a historically corrupt city government. it's worth noting that sunland park's former mayor pleaded guilty to extortion and conspiracy as part of a corruption scandal. also democrats hold every political office that oversees sunland park. everyone from the governor on down. joining us tonight is congressman matt gaetz, a member of the house judiciary and armed services committees, a great american. matt, great to have you with us. we are delighted to have you here. let's start with the mueller report, which i think proves that the witch hunt, as the president framed it, was a corrupt enterprise from the very beginning. >> of course it was. and today what we saw from robert mueller was a drive-by accusation of obstruction of justice that seemed to pivot away from some of the principles that he established in his written report. in robert mueller's written report, he points out that there's legitimate exercise of article ii power of the president that would seem to be a logical defense to any obstruction of justice charge. he also pointed out that the president was acting in public which would seem to disprove any corrupt intent. and finally and most importantly, there was no underlying criminal conspiracy with russia, and so that would undermine any prosecution for obstruction of justice. but it seems today that robert mueller is unhappy that the american people are opposing impeachment. he's trying to prod along the democrats, and now the democrats have a real fish or cut bait moment. will they move on, as robert mueller has, as house republicans have and as the president has, or they continue to try to have this circus, this parade in the absence of real policies a parade of democrats earlier in the broadcast who were talking about being frustrated by mueller, disappointed in his performance, looking for a verdict, if you will, from mueller. i thought he came very close to embracing the entire radical dem agenda. but they're disappointed. >> well, we have questions for mueller. i mean, look -- lou: yes, go ahead. >> we would have been happy if mueller would have come before the committee, because we had questions for him. when he says he can't clear the president, what legal standard is he using? clear and convincing evidence? beyond a reasonable doubt? a preponderance of the evidence? there are a lot of questions we had about the corrupt beginnings of this investigation, about why robert mueller never bothered to investigate the clear conspiracy between christopher steele, the democratic national committee and russians who were trying to inject lies about donald trump into the presidential election? that was never even evaluated. so maybe robert mueller didn't want to answer our questions, and that's why he's unwilling to come before the committee. but in any case, there is no basis for house democrats to continue this charade. let's get to business of reducing prescription drug prices, dealing with the immigration crisis at our border, building the wall and then, you know, soing problems for -- solving problems for people. i thought that's what we were elected to do. lou: well, it may have been, but the democrats have made it pretty clear they've only got one pony, and that pony is impeachment. they haven't got ideas, they haven't got any new initiatives. and, by the way, the republicans in the senate aren't exactly bristling with energy in defending this president. what is going on over there? where is lindsey graham in the judiciary committee? why aren't they giving this president at least, you know, some air cover as the political persecution from the house continues? >> well, us house republicans are happy to defend the president that did not collude with russia. and, by the way, it was house democrats who set the goalpost that the president was some sort of russian agent. and when that turned out to be a lie, they have to continue the witch hunt on a different broomstick, and that's what's so troubling. as far as senate republicans go, i'm glad lindsey graham wants to get to bottom of the corrupt beginnings of this investigation, but we could always use more defense of the president. lou: absolutely. and congressman matt gaetz leading that charge, as usual. good to have you with us. >> thank you. lou: up next, well, first, wall street. let's get ahold of that. the stocks closing lower, the dow down 221 points, the s&p down 19, the nasdaq lost 60. volume on the big board, 3.3 billion shares. trading picking up a bit. a reminder, listen to my reports three times a day coast to coast on the salem radio network. >>> up next, real-life fighter pilots go public with their own tales of ufo sightings, and mitch mcconnell triggers the dems! how about that? he's talking about a new supreme court justice. we'll tell you about that, much more right after this quick break. break. hey mom, i can't wait to tell you about today. i met a new friend. it's great to meet someone .. who really understands. she lost her dad last year. i really miss you mom. >> taps, the tragedy assistance program for survivors provides resources, support and comfort to heal the harts of grieving military families. help us at taps.org/family. the latest inisn't just a store.ty it's a save more with a new kind of wireless network store. it's a look what your wifi can do now store. a get your questions answered by awesome experts store. it's a now there's one store that connects your life like never before store. the xfinity store is here. and it's simple, easy, awesome. lou: more u.s. navy pilots have reved their close encounters of the third kind. "the new york times" reporting that navy pilots have had daily encounters, it seems, with unidentified flying objects off the eastern seaboard. by the way, from florida to virginia, over a two-year period, 2014 and 2015. one veteran pilot says he saw a ufo reach 30,000 feet in altitude and then hit hypersonic speeds without any evidence that the craft had an engine. hypersonic without an engine, imagine what it could do with one. >>> well, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell commenting on filling a potential supreme court vacancy next year in an election year after blocking president obama's election year appointment, merrick garland, back in 2016. when asked about a possible vacancy, mcconnell succinctly e answered, oh, we'd fill it, end quote. joining us tonight, rnc chairwoman ronna mcdaniel. great to have you with us. earlier talking with eric trump, he is, i would say, supremely confident that this president is going to win re-election in 2020, and he builds a very strong case for the president. your thoughts. >> well, i agree with eric, obviously. i'm traveling the country on a regular basis, and i run into the people who say my wages are up, jobs are coming back, this president has delivered. they're frustrated with the media, they see the democrats have refused to work with him at any turn, and so i do think the president's heading to re-election and, of course, the rnc's raised record money, and we're already building our ground game because we want to make sure that that happens. lou: and today -- [laughter] robert mueller coming out with that 10-minute performance one day after his old friend james comey, the dirty cop, came out with an op-ed. your thoughts about coincidence and the content of what mueller had to say today. >> well, i agree with you, lou, there was nothing discussed about how the obama administration failed horribly, miserably to teal with russian meddling -- to deal with russian meddling and their attempt to interfere in our election. why didn't mueller address that? i think that the president said it succinctly today which is, case closed. the case is closed. there's been no collusion, no obstruction. how can you obstruct a case when you allow your general counsel to testify, when you allow your chief of staff, when you don't exert executive privilege, when you give all this transparency, when there was no crime? it is just never ending, and the democrats are going to continue to seize on this because they've never accepted the results of the election where the american people said we want a change agent in washington. president trump is who we've elected, and day after day after day they have worked to obstruct and take away the rights of the american people who duly elected president donald j. trump. lou: it's interesting the number of people who really don't want to understand primarily in the national left-wing media why this president is so successful, why he persists, why his numbers, his polling numbers are two points ahead of obama's at this same point in his first term. this is a president who's getting it done and doing so despite being surrounded by negative, vile attacks 24/7. >> yeah. 93% of the media coverage is negative. you've never seen a president have to deal with what this president has dealt with. plus, this ridiculous investigation that has been hung over his head for two years based on a phony dossier paid for by the dnc and hillary clinton. it has just been shameful what has happened. what happened to peaceful transfer of power? what happened to saying, yeah, we lost the election, but we want our president to succeed because our country is more important than our party? democrats have shown they don't care about that. and so they're going to walk into 2020 with a giant goose egg with nothing accomplished except on instruction, resistance and hurting the american people because we have major issues still to address; immigration, infrastructure. there are so many things, usmca. this president's they're not there. and this president is there in every way. one of the areas that i, you know, of so many that he doesn't get credit for, he is the only world leader trying to balance international trade. the benefits of which are almost impossible to calculate, but they're vast, extraordinary and would reverse what has been $5 trillion of u.s. economic growth lost over the course of the past 20 years. are you going to campaign on his world leadership? because it is exactly that. >> we are going to campaign on every aspect of his successful presidency, with the economy, with wages up, with jobs coming back, with better trade deals, with strengthening our military, with taking on isis. there's so much to campaign on, with good judges, criminal justice reform. and i do want to make sure, it is the democrat leadership that hates this president. there are many democrat voters across this country who love this president, who look at him as somebody who is pushing better trade deals, who is bringing manufacturing jobs back to this cup. i'm from the state of michigan. there are a lot of union members who have been democrats their whole lives who support president trump, but their democrat leadership has failed them. lou: and independents too. >> absolutely. he brings everybody together. lou: absolutely. ronna mcdaniel, always good to see you. >> thanks for having me. lou: look forward to seeing you again soon. >>> when we come back, more on robert mueller's emergence into the public light. he didn't seem to like it very much. certainly, i didn't. awful, awful. we're coming right back. stay with us. ♪ limu emu & doug look limu. a civilian buying a new car. let's go. limu's right. liberty mutual can save you money by customizing your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. oh... yeah, i've been a customer for years. huh... only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ lou: robert mueller today finally resigned, shut down the special counsel's office. in a, well, a news conference he announced that charging president trump with a crime was not an option, as he put it. eric trump offered his blunt assessment of the special counsel investigation. >> it wouldn't take anybody two and a half years to come up with the fact that there's no collusion, no obstruction. that was said in the report, and he said today i stand by everything i said in the report. albeit, he didn't just come out and say, guys, after two and a half years, there was no collusion, and there was no obstruction. he was talking in code. lou: that's it for us tonight. thanks for being with us. victoria tensing, joe digenova among our deathses tomorrow. we thank you for -- our guests tomorrow. and a reminder to please follow me on twitter @@loudobbs like me on facebook, follow me on lauren: robert mueller breaks his silence and puts an end to the russia probe. talk of impeachment is just beginning. how it could affect markets, trade and the road to 2020. the u.s.-china trade show pdown, a chinese state run tv anchor goes head to head with trish regan and concedes that china dozen gauge in i.p. theft. uber gear uing up for its first quarterly report as a public company. can uber impress invelvetters today -- investors today. anit is thursday, may 30th. "fbn: a.m." starts right

i have a very international perspective, i believe every nation should be transparent and fair, there is more work doing done, we'll continue talking about it see you tomorrow. ♪ kennedy: thanks, ladies and gentlemen, case closed. or is it? president trump said robert mueller's surprise statement on the russia investigation is proof that whole thing is finished. but for democrats, robert mueller's comments are fueling calls for impeachment. at 11:00 this morning, robert mueller made first and only statement in two years since the investigation began, many people here at fox didn't know what his voice sound the like. before he spoke, few people knew what he was doing to say -- going to say, he did expee speaa particular part caused a earthquake in tdc . >> we did not however make a determination as to whether or not the president did commit a crime, under longstanding deputy department policy, a standing president cannot be committed of a crime while in office. kennedy: constitution does not allow a sitting president to be charged. that is good enough for the president who tweeted, nothing changes, there was insufficient evidence, therefore in our country, a person is innocent, case is closed thank you. white house lawyers echoed president's sentiment as did vice president pence, democrats, they did not agree with that. and for many impeachment is still very much on the table, watch. >> with respect to impeachment question, at-this-point all options or the table, nothing should be moved out, robert mueller said loud and clear, president trump is lying, when he says no collusion, no obstruction, he was exonerated. >> all right, house speaker nancy pelosi a little more restrained. >> we're legislating, we're invesinvestigates and we're litigating, we're going to make a decision down the path based on strongest possible case to get the best results for the american people. kennedy: we're gest-- vibrating and die lating. she has a tough road ahead. we will talk why russian threat is not getting more attention, but first, is the case really closed or did the democrats just reload? ned ryun is here, fox news contributor, and richard fowler welcome back. >> good to see you. kennedy: i'll ask you both the same question, richard, what happened today? >> all that happened today was robert mueller reiterated what was in his report, he isolated 7 intenses where there could be possible obstruction of justice. bob mueller talked about russians and them engages in our election, everyone in congress, should be a bill passed to shore up our election. audible paper ballots, and ensure our democracy is safe from the russian doing this again. robert mueller warned us about. kennedy: i'll get to russian element later, i, agree. did robert mueller layout a case for impeachment today? >> i think robert mueller laid out a case in which we've seens house continue to investigate and ask questions about second volume. kennedy: nothing has changed, ned, what happened? >> we saw a political hack try to tell us an uncharged person was not innocent, turning entire premise of our legal system, on its head, now we say you are guilty until you can prove yourself innocent, that is absurd, mueller could have said we found evidence to charge, we just didn't have the authority to change or he could have said our investigation led to us believe that president obstructed our investigation, he did not say either one. >> he could have been within his right. >> right. kennedy: i would have been much more satisfied if he had done that, ifs implication is a that president behaved in a way that almost rises to threshold of impeachment. >> his equivocation telling us all we need to know, this was a political hit job, with one of two purposes, maybe potential impeachment of president of united states or the idea of damaging him, to 2020 election. i think in many ways that is what we saw today, robert mueller dropped the masquerade, coming out for who he is. kennedy: he said this is the last word, i'm not going to speak any more about this. which was his way of saying to congress, don't bother with a soupine ai ain't coming. >> he said that the report is my testimony, from you, richard do you have questions you feel are unanswered from robert mueller? >> there are questions, you find when he goes to congress, he gives you 4 corners of his testimony, 448 page report of mueller, i disagree with ned second volume of this report lays out very clearly -- kennedy: it is not clearly that is the problem. >> i think it is. >> it is not. kennedy: it is not, then say charge him, impeachment him, say he is guilty, say he obstructed. >> wait. kennedy: ned is right, use presumption of innocent as starting point. that is not the ending point. >> well, in his pressure he said there is evidence. and -- >> 35 million dollar job to explore that evidence that was his job. >> he does that. in second volume, he gets where president called don mcgahn thole him to fire robert mueller how is not obstruction of justice. kennedy: that is a really good question, because obstruction of justice and conspiracy and perjury are serious crimes, they are crimes that people don't commit by themselves, ned last word, i am taking that up with my next guest, but ned, take the football. >> he had 30 hours with don mcgahn, i have known don for decades, he would have been able to say these, and given mueller enough evidence, but he didn't, if he did -- >> he said today. kennedy: you can say that, and that would have been acceptable. >> that is what he said. kennedy: it is not what he said. >> he did not. >> he did not say president was completely exonerated. kennedy: he could have made determination. >> white house attorney general said that president is exonerated. kennedy: i agree with you on that. it is not a full exoneration, that is the problem, he is trying to straddle both worlds, you have to go big or go home. he did not go big. >> is in the happens of congress. kennedy: alleluia for that. >> thank you. >> in his statement, robert mueller seemed to leave door open for an impeachment investigation of the president, he said department of justice has done its job. >> constitution requires a process other than criminal justice system to accuse a sitting president of wrong doing. kennedy: today white house press secretary sara sanders was asked if white house would cooperate with any house investigations. >> the president instruct everyone to cooperate to respond to the subpoenas. >> we have been fully cooperative throughout the process, i think that democrats move forward on that, what they do is not hurt the president, they hurt americans, they have to make a decision if that the course of act they want to take, of course, they have noah, jen athey -- noah,genda, no message. kennedy: great question from melissa, what is going to happen next, how nasty will things get in washington if democrats take a ride down impeachment boulevard? joining me now. bob barr, he knows about this topic, in 1997 he was first to call for president clinton's impeachment, and resignation. welcome back congressman barr. >> thank you. kennedy: what was point of this press conference today? >> point of the press conference today forever st. mueller to come before american people, say gee, i really wish i were an independent count with authority to make recommendation to congress on impeachment. but i'm not, i'm just a lowelly special counsel -- lowly special counsel but let me do it anyway, that is what it was about. kennedy: he could have used more forceful language in his report if he really had such strong feelings about the president committing obstruction of justice. back further than the clinton impeachment, and let's talk about nixon issue. you know as you remember he was not actually impeached, only andrew johnson and bill clinton have that mantel before them. richard nixon was a unindicted coconspirator. john michelle was convicted of obstruction of justice, conspiracy and perjury, he spent 19 months in prison, he could have spent up to 8 years, there were several other members of nixon administration who went to prison for this not for things like, lying to fbi or congress, they remember charged and convicted of more serious crimes, my point and i'm not defending president but i don't think that one can commit conspiracy and obstruction of justice on their own? >> they can't, and historic cases nixon, near impeachment, and the clinton actual impeachment, there were pending cases involving president in which president was very clearly involved there was very substantial evidence in bill clinton a case that he had perjuried himself in judicial legal proceedings, we had when we considered prime minister in house judiciary committee in 1998, was a report from the independent council ken starr, he was required by law to deliver to the house that provided basis for the impeachment. we didn't go out there and look for something, we didn't have some half baked report come up to the hill from somebody that well, i would really like to too something but they won't let me so here you and congress do it. this pails in comparison to real cases involving clinton and nixon. it nowhere near the same. kennedy: it is not. and you know, differences are very stark. and that should be internalized as a warning for several people who are running for president who might get the job, my last question, nancy pelosi seems to be most restrained of house democrats. she is the speaker. is that because she knows she will not win here? or because she thinks that impeachment is too divisive. and in that respect, it is problematic for democrats? >> speaker pelosi is a very, very clever woman, she grew up in the very hard nosed politics of baltimore county, maryland, she knows how to manipulate and to say and when to say it, i think that republicans take her less -- should take her more seriously, she wants impeachment as much as anyone else, but she recognized there is a game to be played, if she stays above the fray, it makes her appear more of a leader, but she want its as much as anyone. kennedy: i think you are right about, that i think she doesn't it, but she knows she has to pull trigger at the absolute right moment. and you should not underestimate her political instincts, in this rel amrealm. she has history on her side. very interesting bob barr thank you. >> sure. kennedy: coming up, mitch mcconnell putting brakes on democrat last attempt to nominate a supreme court justice because it happened during an election year. now tables might be turning. singing a different tune, does the left have the right to be ticked off? i will ask the panel next. back then, we checked our zero times a day. times change. eyes haven't. that's why there's ocuvite. screen light... sunlight... longer hours... eyes today are stressed! but ocuvite has vital nutrients to help protect them. ocuvite. eye nutrition for today. [laughter] ♪ ♪ "i'm okay." ♪ ♪ ♪ my trial began. ♪ kennedy: woo. cocaine blue for cocaine mitch, mitch mcconnell might have pulled a fast one on democrat when it comes to nominating supreme court justices during a election year. he was giving a speech, said what he would do if a vacanty opened up next year. >> we would fill it. >> i'm a turtle. far cry from mcconnell's stance in 2016, president obama nominated oh, poor garland to supreme court. and mitch was like no way hoser. >> we think that important principle in middle of this presidential election is that emergency people need to weigh in decide who will make this decision. not this lame duck president on the way doubt th on way out the door but next president next year. kennedy: majority leader playing smart politics or a democrat's right to call him a big fat hypocrite. panel is here, daffodil dream come true, katy pavlich. and cofounder of run for america david bernstein, and correspondent from greg gutfeld show, kat timpf. meow. mellow. >> hello. kennedy: cocaine mitch, i love talking about him, i think he is being a bit of a hypocrite, you can't have it both ways. he has to put up garland. >> i don't think that is going to happen you about good thinking. mcconnell's office, put out contacts this afternoon, saying mitch mcconnell was not talking about just putting through any nominee, he said opposite party in senate should not push through a nominee nominated by the president. then because white house is now occupied by a republican, and senate -- controlled by republicans, their therefore it is legitimate, does it square when what he said in 2016? not necessarily, but election have consequences. >> are you buying thi this thiss not sit well with me. >> i heard that, i think that just a bunch of word that i cannot say on tv. kennedy: you can say it. >> i think it is convenient. i think you could argue on a technicality. what he is doing is what sometimes we see politicians do where they think one thing, then they think another thing because it is politically convenient, then they call it evolving we hope we not notice they are not. kennedy: biden. >> so-called biden rule. mostly by mitch mcconnell. and reality at last night, last time i read my constitution, president is not given a lot of earlier today, actually, president -- >> whole thing. >> not whole thing. kennedy: what do you think of the -- the -- a lot of people talk about that, my favorite amendment. >> on basis of this point. kennedy: can you name third amendment. >> i cannot. kennedy: how dare you, don't throw the constitution out here, and not be able to quote from the bill of rights. >> but i reviewed it, if you are allowed to appoint supreme court justices, president should be allowed to appoint supreme court justices. >> they are not stopping the appointment they are stopping the confirmation. >> but there nothing about only an elect year. kennedy: i will say -- >> that. kennedy: you would agree senate race in 2016 was closed. people were so upset they would have given democrats control. >> i would not necessarily say that, i think it is really difficult, i am critical of this, democrat and republican do it, to interpret elect results as any one individual thing. kennedy: as mandate. >> particularly, you don't have 60% result. kennedy: libertarians never have a mandate, do we. >> no, mandate, you leave me alone. kennedy: don't take my stuff, and don't touch me, unless i say, hey touch me. >> in which case it okay. kennedy: not necessarily human trafficking. >> is it, joe biden could learn from those statements, he could learn a lot from lib tearians libertarians about not touching. kennedy: several democrat still banking on russia investigation. did they try to win with better ideas? my meme is next, and yes, we'll do it live. at comcast, we didn't build the nation's largest gig-speed network just to make businesses run faster. we built it to help them go beyond. because beyond risk... welcome to the neighborhood, guys. there is reward. ♪ ♪ beyond work and life... who else could he be? there is the moment. beyond technology... there is human ingenuity. ♪ ♪ every day, comcast business is helping businesses go beyond the expected, to do the extraordinary. take your business beyond. who used expedia to book the vacation rental which led to the discovery that sometimes a little down time can lift you right up. expedia. everything you need to go. expedia. termites, we're on the move.24/7. roger. hey rick, all good? oh yeah, we're good. we're good. termites never stop trying to get in, we never stop working to keep them out. terminix. defenders of home. kennedy: robert mueller making brown water murkier, the interesting thing is the crumb trail to impeachmentville special counsel sprinkled for resistance dems, short-sighted reaction from almost all of president's 2020 opponents, robert mueller is right every american should be concerned about threat of russian agents, coming to dismantle our democracy one misleading facebook post at a time. instead dull chorus of leftist lemmings running for president are too busy parroting predictable talking points be they watched and screamed in unison lock him up. kamala harris, said we need to start impeachment proceedings, cory booker, immediately, eelizabeth warren, mueller statements make cheer it is an impeachment referral. up to congress. yeah. well you get it. all the seimonly names will change -- they admit they can't legitimately beat the president in 17 months, and they want election, results down by fiat, and saying like a bunch of thick skulled minnie mug ins. worse of all let's ignore the russia problem an pretend our cr security is as robust as kylie jenner's lipin -- lip, injections. if they impeach, what are we left with? a frustrated electorate who opposed idea 66 to 29%, and. incumbent president who now gets to play victim as his twitter conspiracy materialize in real-time, or you get president pence. who next supreme court pick will make amy coney barrett look fore liberal than recor ruth bader ginsburg. that is th memo. >> 2020 democrat seem to go behind impeachment call, should they focus on better policies than medicare for all and the new greenspan deal? yes, they -- new green deal? they should, back is our panel. i would want to make sure if russians didn't want me to be president, they would do -- >> we should focus on that. russia interfered in our election, and that is bad. but as a country we can't seem to get mad at that, reminds me one time my now ex-boyfriend, i said somethingb bad about a girl named liz, he is a mean girl, he said he liked liz, we broke up hours later, not related but it proved we were divided, liz, you are a very mean girl. >> liz is -- >> we're fighting over liz. >> liz is russia. >> looking at details of report. they state purpose of russians to have americans pitted to fight on silly issues. all liz's fault, but, here we are with robert mueller making this statement. and leaving open the door that there was some kind of evidence to implicate the president in a crime but it was insufficient evidence then a gap about onus, rules about indicting a sitting president, and justice deputy comes out with a joint statement, but by end of day congress still go forward with this idea of impeachment. pitting americans again each other, we're still talking about it. >> that is what the russians' us. kennedy: americans don't want impeachment right now, that is why i am so surprised this is what democrats are going after, if you look at field, and you are an independent, you say, i wish someone would emerge with a great idea. >> yeah, this is a impeachment is a losing process for democrats, right? this is. kennedy: right now there is snow win, no -- no matter what they do, i know saying trying too render death by a thousand cuts with investigations and statement. but that is not how you beat the president. >> democrats have been force call, i think important to russia issue. they have been calling for investment in election security. they is lacking on part of president who is too sensitive -- >> no details about -- >> way too sensitive. under funded he does not listen to his nationall security he can't handle his ego. kennedy: note just about russia -- it is not just about russia, that is sor short-sighted it iso every other yo country that wans to attack freedoms we have and enjoy by sewing discord. >> it is not government job to protect the election system. >> local elections to be you know put -- have more backing, but not true to say that president and his administration have not put that kind of funding behind that, his national security plan that he released a year and a half ago lays it out in black and white. kennedy: i want to get to russia look at what ro robert mueller t election. >> close by reiterating central allegation of your indictment that were multiple, systematic, effort to interfere in our election, that allegation deserves the attention of every american. >> they will be back for more blood in 2020, seeing how they can screw around with the next presidential election. so we should be concerned about this, but i'm wondering if russia is the big issue, and russian agents are offer this information in a number of ways, they are incredibly clever, is it conceivable that russian agents, got to christopher steele, and sold him disinformation for millions. >> it is consever conceivable b7 people don't' to conceive anything except saying that it is donald trump's fault, that fits in their narrative, if i were president, i would say come at me, bro. look at what bill clinton, democrats, favbility up 10 mers. >> i don't think there would be a successful impeachment, i don't think there is enough votes in house. donald, if you are watching, come at me bro, feel free to use that. kennedy: i have been saying the whole time, it could be the best thing for president. >> absolutely, things that independents who decide election hate is to see people going after people at expense of trying to get things done. i think it has a lot too too with his personal feelings. kennedy: hard to know what the impulsiveness ends and strategy begins. >> right, but desire to say, you know i believe in my record, i believe in what i have done, and i believe i am innocent lit it stand for yourself, such a stronger statement as a leader then trying too remind everyone have you been cleared of all wrong doing. >> pleading can be done. fun. >> is he not supposed to round some robert mueller, dangling out there may have been evidence he commit a crime, they will not talk about whether he did commit a crime, he is defending himself. kennedy: you know, i want to add something on, a reason that mueller was forceful case closed i'm done, no more questions, he doesn't top answer questions about the steele dossier, and russia's involvement there, you know russia is a dirty actor, and infiltrated both sides, everyone that thinks just one side or trump campaign colluded is naive. >> one side who paid for research, from a foreign spy with russian sources feeding bad information. kennedy: who are they, what was their goal, and how is that different from goal of russian agents who were using facebook and social media. >> way worse. kennedy: how is it different. >> no one -- >> other thing robert mueller has not pointed out how did the facebook ads change people's photos, i tell you, there are millions of people who see ads on and bananas boiled and one thing that every gut doctor tells you to throw out, it does not make them throw anything out. >> algorithm. kennedy: don't bridge al gore be into this. >> we're out of time, congrat on fox nation show. >> david welcome and katy great to see you. >> lovely. kennedy: coming up anti-trump a other michael wolff with a new book. he claims one of trump's biggest supporters says, that president is running a criminal enterprise. who would say such a thing? more personally important persoy can we belief mike will ♪ it's nice. ♪ you got this! ♪ woo! ♪ ♪ ♪ in the unstoppable john deere gator™ xuv835. and be prepared to go the extra mile. because when others take rain checks... ...we take the wheel. with 3-wide seating, heat & a/c. this is the coolest, most comfortable gator™ yet. nothing runs like a deere™. run with us. ♪ test drive a gator™ xuv835 at your john deere dealer today. with a lot of other young couples. then we noticed something...strange. oh, could you, uh, make me a burger? -poof -- you're a burger. [ laughter ] -everyone acts like their parents. -you have a tattoo. -yes. -fun. do you not work? -so, what kind of mower you got, seth? -i don't know. some kid comes over. we pay him to do it. -but it's not all bad. someone even showed us how we can save money by bundling home and auto with progressive. progressive can't protect you from becoming your parents. but we can protect your home and auto. kennedy: anti-trump author, michael wolff taking another shot at the president with a second book, his last book was largely discredit, this one seems to be headed in the same direction. bannon predicts trump's past financial dealings would bring him down. oh, bitterness does not look good on you, he says that president has run what seemed to resemble a criminal enterprise. but will trump's base carat all. will the president win bigger in 2020, with me. chief strategy officer of scott adams, welcome. >> thank you. kennedy: so you have written object ofly about the president, i think this is interesting because people keep trying to attack him from all different angles, and we don't know yet if it will work, we really won't know until 2020, but it seems that he one has really figure out the magics rs recipe for hiy ididdemise. >> hey have tried just about everything. what the stuff fades, because you know the facts on ground are not supporting it, they will have to either come up with a new hoax or, they have to ask computer into help them -- putin to help them but he is not very good at it. kennedy: he really condition deliver, interesting. >interesting. -- can't deliver. damagdemocrats areparroting sak. all 2020 hopefuls except bernie and biden who are a little bit softer are talking about impeachment, they immediately go to impeachment, every candidate on is beatable. what is president doing that can be used against him. >> history on his side. i am no historian, but i can't think of a time a first term president with a super economy who was against someone with lower charisma. if you have a reagan working against a you know bad economy, you have a bill clinton against a bad economy. then you could unseat someone. it will be hard, i think their best plays are either social media mischief, which i remind you is legal. nobody lost a job in 2016 for you know allegations. and seems to be doable and they would have to move maybe 2% of the people in a handful of states, they know who they are. or they can find out. kennedy: to many democrats that is a fore gone conclusion, they act as these movement has already taken place by joe biden shooting to top of polls, i want to talk about what president has done, and whether it has been used successfully in politicians in past you talk two movies played, at this same time. but they have separate plots. we saw that at top of show, richard fowler and ned ryun had difference experiences watching the press conference. >> he is best i have seen in terms of being a sales person, he uses every tool a sales person uses, he is funny and visual, he leaves a bit o a bitt of an error, he is pitch pifer fec in persuasion most of the time. i would think will come down to probably social media, maybe with black vote or all of the common things such as say they go after him for sexism that was a big thing in first election, if he hands against han handsy e biden. kennedy: a very tough sell. and i don't think if -- come back we have so much more to discuss, i appreciate your time. >> thank you. kennedy: scott adams thank you. >> topical storm is next. hey, who are you? oh, hey jeff, i'm a car thief... what?! i'm here to steal your car because, well, that's my job. what? what?? what?! 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[laughter] you ready to go? yeah. let's go! ♪ it's nice. ♪ you got this! ♪ woo! ♪ ♪ ♪ kennedy: thank you for watching our show, i hope it was the best hour of your day. follow me, tomorrow night, chris whiten. don't miss deirdre bolton's interview with disney's ceo bob iger. tomorrow on mornings w (announcer) the following is a paid advertisement for time life's music collection. the '60s was a decade of change, of new hopes and dreams, new attitudes, and a decade where love and romance were expressed in many new and different ways. (the beach boys) ♪ wouldn't it be nice if we were older ♪ ♪ then we wouldn't have to wait so long ♪ (the guess who) ♪ these eyes (mellow music) ♪ cry every night for you ♪ children behave ♪ that's what they say when we're together ♪ (announcer) it was led by a generation filled with energy, vision, and desire.

>> this has been one of those days and the news is continuing to develop over the course of this hour, and i have a feeling it's going to continue to develop into the late night tonight. i will just tell you before we go that you shouldn't forget, tomorrow night right here, hillary clinton is going to be here live in studio, in person for the interview. tomorrow, 9:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. i'm not going to sleep between now and then because i'm already working on it. i'll see you then. now it's time for twrld with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> rachel, you weren't going to sleep anyway. >> i know. >> you've got that big hearing coming up tomorrow. come on. come on. >> and with the news today -- >> yeah. >> i mean, even if you're only talking international news, i probably wouldn't have slept today, but with the number of things that have broken over the course of the day and the drama behind them and the promise that more details are going to be coming out within the next 12 hours, which means the overnight, it's just -- >> here's -- here's what i could spend an hour talking about that we won't because we're going to talk about what's actually developing, what we know in the news, but william barr himself, the what was he thinking? >> yeah. >> that's an hour of tv right there, what was he thinking? he knew -- he knew that we were at some point going to know about this letter. >> yeah. >> and in government, when you -- when someone in government writes a letter to someone else in government, it's not because they're trying to communicate with that person who is receiving the letter, okay? never. >> right. >> it's i need this letter to live after this moment. and so robert mueller knew what the life of this letter was going to be. robert mueller knew it was going to be a night like this that was about this letter. but most importantly, william barr knew and he still went out there and said all of the things that he said and actually gave these answers in house and senate testimony about, i don't know if mueller's okay. i don't know what mueller thinks. >> yeah. >> you know? >> he knew exactly what mueller thinks. and i will say, i mean, this is coming out ahead of that testimony tomorrow before the lindsey graham-led senate judiciary committee. who knows what that's going to be like. barr is very capable at spinning stuff. >> mmm-hmm. >> i would not be surprised if he wanted this out ahead of that testimony and that friendly environment so he can spin his testimony, particularly under republican questioning, spinning out his own yarn about how this is all some an dine thing. one of the most important things may be the late breaking story from the daily beast that the justice department won't allow mueller to set a date for his testimony in the house. mueller's testimony is worth 10,000 times what barr's testimony is worth at this point, and that question is call more than ever. >> yeah. let me read you something, rachel, that the great michael beschloss tweeted while you were on tonight. >> okay. >> it's about william safire, who was a columnist for "the new york times" and a republican. he worked -- he was a -- went into politics to write for richard nixon's -- >> yeah. >> -- 1968 campaign. so he knew -- bill safire new all the republican players. he knew all the players, but the republican players, he knew them very well. in 1992, thanks to michael beschloss, bill safire's column refers to then attorney general william barr, then attorney general william barr as the cover-up general. bill safire was quite the phrase maker, and that was his view of william barr then. >> how do you think they found william barr for this gig? >> they googled "cover-up general." >> exactly. who is famous for cover-up as attorney general? right. >> okay, rachel. go home and don't sleep. >> i will do. >> thank you, rachel. >> thanks. >>> senator elizabeth warren is going to join us later in this hour, and it's on a day when she's enjoyed a significant bump in the polls, including one poll where she comes in second behind joe biden, just ahead of bernie sanders in third place. we will get her reaction to what joe biden said today about impeachment. at the end of the hour, we will take a look at what the outlaw trump white house got away with today in the white house driveway. kellyanne conway actually broke the law in the white house driveway, on video in front of a group of reporters who didn't seem to notice that she broke the law, and that might be because there is so much other seemingly bigger potential law breaking going on in and around this president of the united states. first tonight we go to the breaking news about the break between special counsel robert mueller and his boss, attorney general william barr. and we begin with new video tonight of the attorney general not telling the truth about special counsel robert mueller. >> did bob mueller support your conclusion? >> i don't know whether bob mueller supported my conclusion. >> the video is, of course, not new, but our knowledge, our understanding of that video is completely new. our knowledge that the attorney general was not telling the truth. that is what's new tonight. we also know tonight that the attorney general did not tell the truth about the special counsel in the house of representatives. >> reports have emerged recently, general, that members of the special counsel's team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your march 24th letter. that it does not adequately or accurately, necessarily, portray the report's findings. do you know what they're referencing with that? >> no, i don't. >> two weeks before william barr answered those questions in the house and the senate, he received a letter from robert mueller. "the washington post" read that letter today and broke the news about it tonight this way. "special counsel robert s. mueller iii wrote a letter in late march complaining to attorney general william p. barr that a four-page memo to congress describing the principal conclusions of the investigation into president trump, quote, did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of mueller's work, according to a copy of the letter reviewed tuesday by "the washington post"." the timing of the leaking of this letter on the eve of the attorney general's testimony tomorrow to the senate judiciary committee will surely change the dynamic of what was already expected to be a highly confrontational hearing that will include three democratic candidates for president in the committee's questioning of the attorney general, amy klobuchar, cory booker and kamala harris. "the washington post" quotes robert mueller's letter of complaint to the attorney general saying, "the summary letter the department sent to congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of march 24th did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of this office's work and conclusions" mueller wrote. there is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. this threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the department appointed the special counsel to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations." robert mueller's letter made a key request, that barr release the 444-page report's introductions and executive summaries and made some initial suggested redactions for doing so, according to justice department officials. "the washington post" reports that justice department officials were, "taken aback by the tone of mueller's letter." the very next day, william barr wrote another letter to congress, this time saying that his earlier letter was not intended to be a summary of the mueller report. chairman jerry nadler of the house judiciary committee, which has jurisdiction over the department of justice, and the impeachment process, issued a statement today saying that he shares the concerns expressed by robert mueller in his letter to the attorney general. chairman nadler says, "the special counsel's concerns reflect our own. the attorney general should not have taken it upon himself to describe the special counsel's findings in a light more favorable to the president. it was only a matter of time before the facts caught up to him. attorney general barr also should not have withheld this letter from congress for as long as he has. i have demanded a copy from the department of justice. i have asked that it be delivered no later than 10:00 tomorrow morning. the attorney general has expressed some reluctance to appear before the house judiciary committee this thursday. these reports make it that much more important for him to appear and answer our questions. the department of justice has also been reluctant to confirm a date for special counsel robert mueller to testify, given this evening's reports, i will press the department to schedule that hearing without delay." and joining us now by phone is democratic senator mazey hirono of hawaii. she's a member of the senate judiciary committee and will be questioning attorney general william barr tomorrow. senator hirono, thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> good evening, lawrence. >> part of our reporting should include that you have now tonight sent a letter along with some of your colleagues, about 11 fellow senators have signed it, to the justice department inspector general asking that the inspector general of the justice department on the basis of what you've learned tonight and other issues investigate william barr's handling of the mueller report. what are you hoping to hear from the inspector general about that? >> well, let me clarify that i sent the letter before this bombshell was dropped tonight about the letter that mueller sent to barr about his concerns about -- of what barr said in his four-page letter. so it just lends even more concerns to the request that we sent to the i.g. so what i hope to get is for the i.g. to take on the investigation and to tell us one way or the other whether or not this attorney general is acting impartially as the people's attorney general and not the president's. so all of the indications are that barr is acting as the lawyer for the president. >> what do you want to ask the attorney general about in tomorrow's hearing? >> i have serious concerns already whether i was going to get any kind of unvarnished truth from barr. this is before this letter -- the information regarding this letter came forward. clearly barr has lied to both the house and the senate committees because he was asked, knowing full well that mueller did not agree with how barr characterized his report in the four-page barr letter, knowing that he still testified before both the house and the senate to indicate that he really didn't know how, you know, barr felt about the four-pager. so that's a lie. it's a lie. let's call it what it is. so i don't know -- >> and -- >> whether it's going to be -- whether i'm going to get anything that is not more spin from this person. i fully intend to use my seven minutes to make my concerns known, however. >> and do you expect any republicans tomorrow to be troubled by what they've learned now tonight about robert mueller's objections to the way william barr characterize the mueller report? >> i would be very surprised if any of them step forward with raising any concerns because they have not expressed concerns up to now, knowing full well that barr auditioned for this job and all of his subsequent actions have indicated that he is not impartial, and, therefore, he should not be attorney general, as far as i'm concerned. if he wants to be the president's lawyer, he should have taken the job. when it was offered to him. >> will you be focussing your questions tomorrow on the disagreements with robert mueller? >> as i said, whatever questions i will ask him, i have no idea whether i'm going to get a straightforward answer. i'm not particularly interested in giving barr more minutes to spin. he is not forthcoming. he wasn't forthcoming during his hearing, and that's one of the major reasons that i did not support him for attorney general's position. and, you know, you look at this previous tenure as attorney general and you noted that he was called the cover-up general. he had recommended pardons for people who were involved in iran-contra, so his past record as attorney general was already concerning, but his recent actions only lent further to my concerns that this is not a guy who is going to be impartial. quite to the contrary. >> senator mazey hirono, thank you very much for joining us by phone tonight. >> thank you. >> we really appreciate it. we'll be watching you in the hearing tomorrow. joining our discussion now are two democratic members of congress. congressman raja krishnamoorthi of illinois. he is a member of the house oversight and the house intelligence committees. congressman ro khanna of california. he's a member of the house oversight committee. congressman khanna, let me start with you. your reaction to this new development that robert mueller expressed basically immediate disagreement with the way william barr characterized his report. >> well, this is not a complex legal issue. it's actually common sense. if a law student engaged in this kind of dishonesty, they would be kicked out for academic fraud. if a lawyer engaged in this kind of dishonesty, they would be disbarred. bill barr needs to resign and he needs to resign tomorrow, but i think he knew that he was going to have to resign and he said it was worth the cost of obfuscating and giving the president breathing room, and he intentionally took that hit to put a false narrative out there. >> presidential candidate julian castro has also called for barr's resignation. congressman krishnamoorthi, your reaction to this breaking news tonight? >> well, i think that at this point it's all the more reason why we need the full unredacted mueller report. we need this letter. i don't want a summary of this letter. >> right. >> from mr. barr. i want the letter from mr. mueller. then finally we need mr. mueller to testify himself. as you know, the house intelligence committee has also requested his testimony. the fact that the justice department may be standing in the way of his testifying is yet another act of obstruction, in my opinion, and now we need to vindicate our rights to investigate, whether that means going to court or not. >> let's listen to more of william barr's testimony with charl charlie krist. >> did you contemplate having the special counsel's office help you with the preparation of your march 24th letter or did you? >> we offered to have bob review it before putting it out and he declined. >> i didn't ask you about reviewing. i asked if you thought about having them help prepare the march 24th letter. i mean, they did the report, after all. >> no, i didn't think about it. >> why not? >> because it was my letter. >> congressman khanna, when you watch these, these answers take on new meaning. >> well, and he's trying to be so slippery. >> mmm-hmm. >> and trying to obfuscate. but it's not going to work. i mean, the american people have common sense. they know that he went before the senate and he lied. i mean, he said that bob mueller didn't give him any indication of disagreement. that is just untrue. and at some point we have to distinguish fact from spin, truth from othuntruth. this is obvious a case as you can get. >> what can jerry nadler do to get robert mueller's testimony if the attorney general is standing in the way? >> well, he would subpoena robert mueller. and, again, from supreme courts down to lower courts, they've all said that, "a," congress has the right to investigate, "b," they have the right to issue subpoenas, and, "c," they have the right to hold people in contempt. and so i think those are all rights that now we have to exercise because at this point we know that the president has already challenged the power of the purse by declaring an emergency with regard to spending money on a border wall, and now he's challenging it on a right of oversight. and he's not the king. he's the president. and the president is accountable to the people and to the representatives, namely in congress. >> and congressman khanna, the standoff that we're seeing here is something that we really haven't seen. there was a very kind of a brief version of this during the nixon investigation, but what was -- what was so unique -- is so unique about the trump administration is it seems impervious to political pressure. because it was, in fact, political pressure that forced a lot of the cooperation from the nixon administration. it also forced certain forms of cooperation out of bill clinton when he was being investigated. political pressure has always been a factor in every other administration during any investigation. it doesn't seem to be a factor here. they don't seem to care at all about the political pressures. >> well, you're right. i mean, sam irwin, who was chairing the senate select committee famously threatened to send the sergeant at arms to get some of nixon's white house aides and that shamed them enough that the white house aides complied. but here you're talking about an administration that has no shame. people view as being held in contempt as a badge of honor as opposed to a career ending embarrassment then what do you do? my view is similar to representative krishnamoorthi, there is only one person who this country will trust, and that's bob mueller. we need to bring him in front of congress, let him tell the facts on live television, and i think that's the only thing that's going to resolve this. >> and mueller's complaint to barr was that what barr's summary did was it undermined, it undermined the public confidence in the special counsel, and that's what the special counsel is all about. >> that's right. he complained about the fact that it didn't capture the context, nature or substance of the mueller report. apart from that, he had no problems with the barr summary, apparently, but, you know, the point -- the point of this whole situation is that at this point we don't want anymore filters. we want the mueller genuine draft. we want the full unredacted report. we want mueller on the hill and we want this letter before us by 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, i think mr. nadler has asked for. i think that's very reasonable. i think we should have it tonight. but no more filters. we don't want -- >> "the washington post" saw it but congress hasn't. >> yes. >> we are joined now by neal katyal, justice department veteran, former acting solicitor general and msnbc contributor. he wrote the justice department rules governing the special counsel. neal, very eager to get your reaction to what we've learned about the communication now between robert mueller and attorney general barr. >> thank you, lawrence. i guess my reaction is dios mio. like, i can't even imagine where to start. i mean, it's not just the fact that there are disagreements between barr and mueller. we kind of knew that. it's not just the gravity of the disagreements and it's not even just the fact that mueller decided to go to paper to create a historical record. to me the most significant thing, and you just heard it at the end of your segment, is this line from the mueller letter which "the washington post" is reporting. "the barr letter threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the department appointed the special counsel to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations." that's a quote from mueller's letter to barr that "the washington post" unearthed, and it's significant because the whole point of the special counsel regulations when we wrote them back in 1999 was to say, look, you can never get the attorney general out of the process in our constitutional system, but you can either ensure an independent investigation or if the attorney general interferes in it that it's going to become public, and that is what we are seeing now. we are seeing interference by the attorney general becoming a matter of public record, and that means there's only one failsafe option, and that is what we anticipated in 1999, and that is a congressional investigation that may culminate in impeachment. this has set up -- everything barr has done has now set up congress to have to investigate. they have no choice because there can't be public confidence when you have an attorney general effectively superseding or trumping the independent investigation by bob mueller. >> "the washington post" is also reporting tonight that after attorney general william barr received robert mueller's letter of complaint that the two then spoke on the telephone for about 15 minutes. "the washington post" reports that in that call mueller said he was concerned that media coverage of the obstruction investigation was misguided and creating public misunderstandings about the office's work, according to justice department officials. in their call, barr also took issue with mueller calling his memo a summary. we are joined now by david frum. he's the senior editor for "the atlantic" and author for "tru "trumpocracy" a former speech writer for george w. bush. what we're learning about the very quick complaint of william barr's very first public statement on the mueller report. >> "the new york times," which got the story second, has a line in its story that i think gives a piercing shot of light as to what this dispute is ultimately about. "the times" got a comment from people around barr that was barr was angry with mueller about was that the mueller report, barr felt, was written for congress. and not for him. so why would that bother him? well, because the issue of the mueller report is was there obstruction? and mueller sets up facts that say if this were anybody but the president, obviously yes. however, this department has rules that say i can't charge the president. and since i can't charge the president, i'm going to follow this department's rules, therefore, i'm not going to make any recommendations to anybody. i'm going to pass this over to the people who have the power and the right to make this decision. and that is not you, mr. barr, that is congress. and that is what barr was angry about, that mueller was forcing his hand by taking a decision that mueller wanted to make away from him and giving it to these gentlemen to say if you all think there has been obstruction of justice then you have remedies this department does not. and barr is saying i am going to take the fact that i don't have a remedy to say there isn't a problem when there was a problem. >> neal katyal, to that point, it seems that that interpretation of the mueller report then suggests that what william barr did was in effect intercept it. if the report was intended to be delivered to the body that can make a judgement about obstruction of justice, it was then intercepted by an attorney general who, according to the department's own rules, actually can't make a decision about obstruction of justice, and then he made a decision about obstruction of justice. >> exactly. i mean, the whole thing is so snowflaky, just like much of the trump administration. they have all these, like, fake complaints. i mean, you know, how can barr complain about mueller not reaching a conclusion about obstruction of justice? that's after all what happened in whitewater with jaworski, whitewater with ken starr and watergate with jaworski. they sent the information up to congress and said you decide. i agree with david frum entirely. the whole idea that you can't indict a sitting president, every scholar, even the office of legal counsel memos and even the mueller report all say the reason for that is because you have to impeach first. you've got to have a congressional determination first. so how barr can sit there and complain about this when after all it's what he wanted, which was the non-indictment of his boss, the president, is beyond me. and then, you know, the special counsel regulations did exactly what we hoped they would do here, which is force sunlight on barr barr. if he's going to interfere, we're going to find out about it, and that's exactly what we're finding out tonight, massive interference by the attorney general in an ongoing investigation of his boss, the president of the united states, and you cannot trust an attorney general who interferes in such a way with an independent investigation. >> neal, let me ask you about one other point of interference with your experience in the justice department, and that is can the attorney general prevent william barr from testifying? because we have a breaking news report tonight in the daily beast saying that house democrats told the daily beast they've been told special counsel robert mueller is willing to testify before them about his report on russian interference in the 2016 election, but that the department of justice has been unwilling to set a date for it to happen. neal, can the attorney general prevent william barr from testifying -- prevent robert mueller from testifying? >> no, i mean -- no, i mean, these folks at the trump administration are so afraid of the truth. they're afraid to testify. barr is afraid to testify in the house of representatives on thursday because he might get more than five minutes of questions in a row. and now they're trying to prevent, according to the daily beast, mueller from testify. it's not going to work. it's not going to work because we wrote the special counsel regulations anticipating a nefarious attorney general like what evidently it seems we have. the failsafe was to appoint somebody from outside the justice department. so robert mueller was outside of the justice department. he was brought in to be special counsel, but he can leave tomorrow, leave government service tomorrow and the attorney general and the president will not be able to stop him from testifying. that was our break glass in case of emergency option. i sure hope we don't have to use it, but everything that this administration has done to try to squelch the truth leads me to believe we might have to cross that bridge. >> congressman krishnamoorthi, rachel maddow reported in the previous hour that her staff contacted the spokesperson for the special counsel's office and once again they said that robert mueller's departure is days away, but that's something they've said weeks ago, that it's days away. so it may be that that's what we're waiting for in order for him to testify. >> it may be that, but on the other hand, i still think that mr. mueller should express himself publicly on this, whether he should testify or not. i think that -- he has to show deference to the department of justice, but on the other hand he is the special counsel. he need to exercise some independent independence. if at that point the justice department formally says no then he formally has to leave. but we have to remember, you know, the trump administration is now trying to get even former officials from testifying, prevent them from testifying. >> yeah. >> such as mr. mcgahn, the white house counsel. again, i have to say congress has the ability to subpoena people in their individual capacity and hold them in contempt in their individual capacity and we have to vindicate the right of the people to have oversight over the president. >> don mcgahn's personal lawyer has been showing some deference to the notion that the white house still may have control over the testimony of a former white house staffer. i want to bring in this new call for the attorney general's resignation. it comes with some weight from senator chris van hollen because he is using the testimony that robert barr gave to him in a senate hearing as the reason. senator van hollen is saying, "on april 20th i asked barr, did robert mueller support your conclusion? his answer was i don't know whether mueller supported my conclusion. we now know mueller stated his concerns on march 27th and that barr totally misled me, the congress and the public. he must resign." so congressman khanna, the calls for resignation increase as you sit here. i mean, you led off with one, but there's going to be more before this hour's out, i'm sure. >> well, the irony is of all the obstruction bill barr may have committed the gravest offense in obstructing justice. and it's important to realize bob mueller is not ken starr. i mean, he was so careful. he made a conclusion not to go after trump on the collusion issue. he has been bending over backwards to not go after the president. and that's why i think he has so much credibility. frankly, more credibility than people who are democrats or republicans than we have on the committee. the american people have a sense of judgement, and they're going to look at this person as nonpartisan, as having done his duty, has putting country above party, and i think he's the only person, really, who can help us heal when he comes in front of congress. >> david, i read at the beginning of the hour bill safire's 1992 column where in bill barr's first tour of duty as attorney general, republican columnist who worked for a republican president richard nixon, referred to him, gave him the label of cover-up general. in those days. what does this do to the future of attorney general william barr? >> well, i think many people who are watching this program and listening to you tonight may be feeling a little bit of anguish, maybe even some despair, and i think they should know that we are here in the last hours before this dam cracks. that the white house yesterday served a letter on deutsche bank saying we don't want you to cooperate with the congressional subpoena. that letter is -- you read it, i mean, it's been a long time since i read law, but you read it and you think, this is poor work. but sometimes when you have no facts and no arguments on your side, the best work you can do is pretty poor. in which they are saying, you know, deutsche bank, you can refuse this subpoena for a whole list of reasons that every supreme court case on the congressional subpoena power says they cannot do. they're going to try to interfere with other congressional subpoenas, but the law is clear. if congress can legislate on something lawfully. they can't ask you to produce something that would vital your first amendment or fourth amendment rights, but if they can legislature, they can get the material they need so you can legislate. these cases are going to be lost. the trump administration is praying for time. they're hoping to push this beyond november 2020. that will be up to the courts. hair going to lose and lose and lose. >> i think public opinion's with us, lawrence, i think on this particular issue. >> well, it is -- >> the president's accountability. >> the polls show that. but what does it matter in the way this administration conducts themselves? they don't seem -- they've never cared about public opinion. they only care about trump base opinion, which thigh have. >> i think this is all the more reason we have to go to the mat in exercising our subpoena and potentially holding people individually in contempt with regard to this particular investigative right of congress. if we can't do this, we might as well just go home. >> but congressman khanna, it's my sense that this administration is happy to watch you use all those tools and contempt and anything you want to do because the only thing they care about is how many days it eats up on the calender and they simply want to push this thing -- they don't have to push it all the way to november of 2020, they just need to push it well into 2020 so that the whole political community just kind of throws up their hands and says, oh, okay, it's too close to the election for us to try to do anything conclusive, anything like an impeachment procedure. >> i think you're absolutely right. i mean, their hope is that trump becomes the republican nominee and then they'll say, oh, how unfair. you can't disqualify the republican party's nominee. and they just need to push this out until january, until the iowa caucuses. that's why the thing they're petrified of is someone coming before live television, the president understands that. he didn't care if don mcgahn was talking to mueller in a confidential 448-page report, but the president understands television, and what he is scared of is that mueller or mcgahn or these folks come and testify on live tv. i mean, you saw the impact of the kavanaugh hearing where the president actually first thought that christine blasey ford had won the day. and i think that's the only thing that can change public opinion. >> neal katyal, is there any tactic available that can somehow speed up these processes to kind of make the subpoena process move more quickly for the democrats in the house? >> i do. i think that they can have expedited proceedings in court if the administration decides to try and block people from testifying and the like. so i do think that that's possible. but i think, lawrence, there are really two fundamental issues, apart from the politics or even the law. one is, what does it say about us if we don't launch investigations and subpoena people right away? i think it also says that we're in some sense, you know, weak and too afraid to get at the truth. the other thing is what it says about them. because even if they can stretch this out a little bit, maybe they'll even stretch it out to next year's election cycle. there is now a damning historical record, not just about the president but about his attorney general bill barr. i used to walk down the justice department on the fifth floor and see the portraits of legendary attorneys general, griffin bell and robert jackson and people like that. bill barr will not be like that. there is no chance anymore. he has fundamentally sullied his reputation and his legacy with the way he's acted, and, you know, in the history books these folks will go down for what they are. >> and david frum, whoever donald trump chose as his next attorney general at that moment in time knew that he or she was going to take a very significant place in history. history's being handed to that attorney general. this was not going to be a forgotten attorney general. and bill barr has -- seems to have made his choice for history. >> well, he may just have made a bad calculation. people sometimes do. he may have thought maybe i can do this for a little while, return to my law firm, eat lunch in washington, be a big man. a former attorney general is one of the greatest jobs in the american legal profession if you don't disgrace yourself. maybe it will work. but there are too many cracks in the dam. the emoluments case cracking just as we speak. the tax returns case, they are able to slow that one down, but the deutsche bank subpoena, deutsche bank wants to release those documents because deutsche bank has important reputational risk. they don't want to be seen as stooges for russian money launderers and i don't know that they're going to be able to resist having the people in this white house case refuse subpoenas from congress from the house of representatives. remember also, only one house needs to vote to hold someone in contempt, not both. >> go ahead. >> at the end of the day, you know, lawrence, the option is either to proceed with our strategy of issues subpoenas and hold people in contempt or doing nothing. that's it. and we can't afford to do nothing at this point. we have to continue, and if there is some delay, fine, but we have to do this for the purpose of our congress. >> we're going to have to squeeze in a break in our breaking news coverage. congressman ro khanna, congressman raja krishnamoorthi, neal katyal, david frum, thank you very much for joining our discussion and starting us off tonight. really appreciate it. >>> when we come back after this break, elizabeth warren was the first presidential candidate to call for impeachment of the president immediately after she read the mueller report, and today elizabeth warren's presidential campaign got a significant boost in a new round of polls. senator warren will join us next. what if i wielded the power of the infinity gauntlet...? 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(♪) shaving has been difficult for me. i have very sensitive skin, and i get ingrowing hairs. so it's a daunting task. oh i love it. it's a great razor. it has that 'fence' in the middle. it gives a nice smooth shave. just stopping that irritation... that burn that i get is really life changing. you inspired us to create internet that puts you in charge. that handles anything. that protects what's important. and reaches everywhere. this is beyond wifi. this is xfi. simple, easy, awesome. >>> impeachment has never been an issue in a presidential campaign before, but now it is, and the new front-runner in the democratic presidential primaries was asked about impeachment today. three new presidential polls show joe biden with a strong lead, and those three polls also have good news for another candidate, senator elizabeth warren, who finished in the top three in all of those polls, and in one poll she came in second, just one point ahead of bernie sanders, which is actually a statistical tie, within the margin of error. elizabeth warren's move up in the polls has come after months of campaigning on a near constant rollout of new policy proposals that have made her the recognized new policy leader in the campaign, and her move up in the polls came after she announced in no uncertain terms that she is in favor of the impeachment of president trump. the day after the mueller report was released, two weeks ago, here is what the new front-runner in the democratic field joe biden said about impeachment today. >> the mueller report. what was your initial reaction to the findings? >> one, there was russian interference. without any question, russian interference. number one. number two, there are elements of the report in the second phase of the report, about seven or eight things that are left undone. he was not within his purview to investigate, he thought. the congress is attempting to take that up. what the congress is doishould they are doing is investigate that. if in fact they block the investigation, they have no other alternative to go to the constitutional resort they have is impeachment. it's my job in the meantime to make sure he's not back as president of the united states of america. >> we recorded our interview tonight with elizabeth warren before the breaking news of robert mueller's letter of complaint to attorney general william barr. here is that interview. >> joining us now, the senior senator from massachusetts, elizabeth warren, who is also a democratic candidate for president. thank you very much for joining us tonight, senator. >> thank you for having me. i'm glad to be here. >> i want to get your reaction to what vice president biden said this morning about impeachment. >> so, look, i read the report, as you said, and when i got to the end of the report, there were three things that were very, very clear. the first is that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election with the purpose of helping donald trump. the second is donald trump welcomed that help. and the third is that when our federal government tried to investigate after donald trump was inaugurated, he did everything he could to try to stop that investigation, to try to derail that investigation, to try to send that investigation somewhere else, and the actions that he took are well documented. it's all right there in the report. i got to the end of that report and i said, look, this is not about politics, this is about the responsibility of congress as a co-equal branch of government, and i think it's time to open impeachment proceedings. >> and there is a difference there. because the vice president is saying that the house should investigate and then -- but he's also saying if the president blocks the investigations then they have no choice. that actually puts him in a slightly stronger sounding position, let's say, than the house leadership, which continues to want to hold to the idea that it has not yet developed the information necessary for an impeachment hearing. >> so, you know, look, i just don't know how anybody reads that report and reads the documentation of the president trying to get the white house counsel to fire mueller, and when mueller refuses to do that, tries to get the -- the president tries to get the white house counsel to lie about it. and when he refuses to do that, the president tries to get the white house counsel to write a letter lying about it. and then when he won't do that, the president castigates, goes after the white house counsel for having taken notes about what he tried to get him to do. you know, it's that way over and over and over through that report. there are ten separate instances that are fully documented. there's plenty of testimony about it, plenty of documentary evidence about it. there is enough there that we should open the impeachment proceedings now, in my view. you know, look, opening the proceedings doesn't mean that you stop an investigation, it means that you can continue an investigation. but, look, that's how i read it. i read that report, the mueller report, and when i got to the end, it is perfectly clear to me that what donald trump has done are impeachable offenses and that it's now up to congress to step up, and stepping up in this case means opening an impeachment hearing. >> i don't want to belabor impeachment. >> sure. >> because i want to get on to the issues. >> sure. >> i want to ask you one more thing -- that's how i read it. it sounds to me -- this is how i read it as a harvard law professor, as a trained lawyer. i'm wondering if you feel you have certain advantages, legal experience advantages in reading it over some of your colleagues? >> no. i mean, yes, those things are all true that i am a lawyer, and, yes, i've taught at law school, but this isn't hard to read. i mean, i really want to be blunt about this. i do not understand how somebody could read 448 pages of the mueller report, and mueller lays out in pretty clear terms exactly what the grounds are for obstruction of justice and what the documentation is for each piece along the line. this is not hard to follow. in fact, most of the pushback that i hear is about the politics of it. and for me, this is a point of principle. this is about whether or not each person in the house and then if the house votes it over to the senate takes a vote and says that those efforts to obstruct justice are okay or they are not. and i think everyone in congress should be called on to take that vote and then to live with that vote for the rest of their lives. >> one element of the politics of it are the presidential politics. there is a belief -- i shouldn't -- let's call it a fear instead of a belief among some democrats, democratic strategists and some democratic office holders, both in the house and the senate, who worry that impeachment proceedings could help empower president trump in his re-election campaign, especially if there's no hope of removing him in a senate vote, and you could be on the ticket running against president trump for re-election next september. don't you -- don't you have any concern that the -- that some kind of impeachment process might actually help energize his campaign against the democrat in november? >> look, there are some issues that are bigger than politics, and one of them is whether or not a president of the united states is above the law. you know, i understand that in a dictatorship everybody circles around the president and protects him. but that's not the way the constitution divides power in our country. it says that no one is above the law, and that includes the president of the united states. and the tool to make sure that the president is not above the law, the tool given to congress is an impeachment proceeding. this is serious. this is about a foreign -- a hostile foreign government that attacked our election system and an investigation into that that was blocked by the president for his own political purposes. this is a moment when we have to stand up in congress. it's not a question of political party or the next election, it's about what we think is right. i didn't go into this thinking, oh, great, you know, let's see if we can stir up a big impeachment fight. it's the conclusion i've reached by reading the whole report. and i -- i urge everybody to read that report. i urge all of my colleagues to read that report. and tell me how they can stand by and say, you know, that kind of behavior may be just fine in a president of the united states. it's not fine. no one's above the law. not even the president. >> thanks to senator elizabeth warren who joined us earlier. we prerecorded that interview before the breaking news tonight that has kind of taken over this hour. and after this break, we will take a look at the outlaw trump white house. the way the trump white house actually breaks the law every day and no one even bothers to mention it anymore because of all of the bigger stuff in the mueller report. that's next. if you have a garden you know, weeds are lowdown little scoundrels. don't stoop to their level. draw the line with the roundup sure shot wand. it extends with a protective shield and targets weeds more precisely. it lets you kill what's bad right down to the root while guarding the good. roundup sure shot wand. got weeds in your grass too? 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he refused to answer that. i simply asked him, did mueller agree with his conclusion and he gave the answer that's just vague. taking issue with the way the attorney general concluded. >> bob mueller's letter to quoted as appears in the washington post says that what attorney general barr about the report did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of this officer's work and conclusions. that's something that general barr knew when he gave you that answer which seemed to, i guess feign ignorance of robert mueller thinking on this. >> that's exactly right. he had to know in the back of his mind that he gotten this letter from bob mueller which he just quoted said that attorney general barr's conclusion did not have substance. mueller's work and conclusions, i asked him whether or not mueller agree with his conclusion and he used the same word that -- barr clearly and deliberately i believe misled not just me but mislead everybody. lawrence, this is a pattern of behavior which is why you know when the attorney general can no longer be trusted by the public, it is time for the attorney general to leave. >> senator, when you ask that question, did you have any knowledge or information about what the answer to that question should be? >> i did not. i was growing very frustrated with the fact that the attorney general refused to let me know how he had reached the different conclusions with respect to obstruction of justice charges or how he reached the conclusion to exonerate president trump when mueller did not exonerated him. i grew frustrated, i just asked him if he had any reason to believe that mueller agree with this conclusion and he said no. i didn't not know. i didn't know at that moment the attorney general knew and was already in possession of this letter from mueller. >> i have to say when you ask the question, it seems like a logical question to me at the time without any other surrounding knowledge and it is a normal question to ask. senator, you are not a member of the judiciary committee where william barr will be testifying tomorrow. i had a feeling you will play a large role in that hearing. i assume one of your colleagues will be quoting you and quoting that exchange to the attorney general. is there something the attorney general could possibly say that you think could explain the answer that he gave to you? >> i can't think of any plausible explanation, i do believe that this exchange that i have with the attorney general will come up, i am confident that my colleagues will pursue that line of questioning because it leaves everybody and scratching their heads to that response. of course, it fits the pattern of deception that we have seen from the attorney general, anybody who still believes the attorney general is acts as a public's lawyer had a wake up call from both the letter a. >> senator, you shared my view base on my experience in government. you have more experience in government than i do. when someone like robert mueller writes as letter like that to the attorney general, it is for the attorney general but the author of that liar knows that the letter is going to live in history and knows that eventually that letter is going to be revealed to congress and knows that letter on some news night like this is eventually going to be the big story of the night. >> yes, i believe strongly that mueller was very disturbed and upset with the way the attorney general characterized this report when the attorney general put together a four-page letter and mueller wanted in his views clearly documented, for the reasons you are saying, it is an important historic record and he wanted to go on record on this important question. senator chris van holen, thank you for joining us on this important night. we appreciate you joining us. that's not exactly the program, we schedule to the beginning of this hour, a lot of things have changed during the course of this hour including getting senator van holen on the phone. he gets tonight's last word. 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here in washington where after more than two years robert mueller just broke his silence announcing his resignation as special counsel. saying he hopes and expect this is will be his last spoken word onto subject, but not exonerating the president. >> as said forth in the report after that investigation, if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. we did not make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. >> in that excerpt from the report, mueller saying for the first time that from the out set of the probe under justice department rules, his office could not indict a sitting president but indicating that now it's up to congress. >> the opinion says that the constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrong doindoing and beyond department policy we were guided by principles of fairness. it would be unfair to potentially -- it would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge. t

. will robert mueller come to capitol hill to answer questions? >> barr is refusing to testify today before the house judiciary committee when it convenes in two hours because he doesn't want to be questioned by the committee's staff attorneys. barr offered no apologies for his handling of the report yesterday. he admitted he didn't review mueller's underlying evidence before his summary of the report. we'll speak to senator kamala harris about that exchange in just minutes. lauren fox is live inside the hearing room. she's there. william barr, not going. what is going to happen today? >> this is the room where bill barr was supposed to be. in the chair behind me, that's where bill barr was going into sitting to be grilled by house democrats with concerns about how he handled the mueller report and its rollout. he's not attending because of a dispute with chairman jerry nadler over the format of the hearing. what nadler wanted was to allow staff lawyers on the republican and democratic side to question barr for 30 minutes each. that's not going to happen. the justice department said

now and if you could grab my phone that robert mueller is going to be making a statement on the russia investigation. pardon me for a minute here. we're just learning now he will be making a statement on the russia investigation. there have been calls for robert mueller to testify publicly. we know that he has asked to speak to lawmakers behind closed doors rather than a public hearing. robert mueller we're just now learning is set to speak on the russia probe at 11:00 a.m. eastern time. let me pull this up here. see what else i can learn about this. 11:00 a.m. eastern time today. it is going to be on the investigation into russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. this is going to be a statement only we're being told. no question and answer period will follow. department of justice just put out this statement and bill you are with me right now as we learned this. >> bill: working through this now. public testimony has been a source of debate for bob mueller when we believe that jerry nadler has apparently at least for now settled on bob mueller testifying in priva

president trump was publicly praising robert mueller, behind the scenes the white house was gearing up to attack him. there is a letter from a white house counsel calling it a law school examine paper and accusing mueller of not doing his job. >>> and he lied. nancy pelosi accuses attorney general barr of lying to con. she is calling it a crime. this came after the attorney general refused to testify before the house judiciary committee turning today's hearing into a show. featuring an empty chair and bucket of chicken. tonight democrats want to hold barr in contempt. >>> under cover operative, a blockbuster new report from the "new york times" reveals the fbi was so concerned that the trump campaign had been infiltrated by the russians that seasoned investigator undercover to question george papadopoulous. will the revelations help or hurt the president? >>> and moore is less. a second trump pick for the federal reserve board was just forced to back out. and he blames the unrelenting attacks on my character. were both democrats and republicans right to call moore unqualified for the job?

investigation. and the fact that barr has been really the only voice speaking out on this has fed that perception. so with mueller now finally adding his voice, that will hurt the president's ability to continue this line of total exoneration, jim. >> especially when it's not true. doesn't match the facts. sarah westwood, thanks very much. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. >>> top of the hour here. i am jim sciutto in new york. our breaking news, a bombshell in the making. robert mueller, the special counsel, who has not said a word in public since he took over the russia investigation two years ago this very month, is set to make a public statement, his first public statement one hour from now. this comes amid weeks of negotiations with the house judiciary committee over whether and how he will answer questions on the hill about the report that he submitted in march and will he take questions, will he take them in public? a lot of open questions there about the testimony. but no question now that in one hour, less than an hour, you will hear from that man there for the first time since the start of this investigation. our dana bash is in washington. dana, you and i have been covering this investigation since the very start. tell us about the significance of this moment. >> you really can't overstate how significant it is, in that, as you said, we have not heard from robert mueller. obviously, we have a very dense, lengthy, detailed report from mueller and his team about the investigation that lasted two years, the conclusion of what it meant, but even in trial after trial, courtroom after courtroom, we heard and saw members of mueller's team. not robert mueller himself. we basically have, you know, the pictures and the video that our team got of him going in and out of his office all that time. so this is hugely significant. the fact that they are telling us from the justice department that he is going to make a statement. he is not going to take questions, obviously begs a very big question in terms of the content. why does he feel so compelled to come out to say whatever it is that he's going to say, especially given the back and forth that you've been talking about with our colleagues over whether or not he should or will testify, not just privately, but more importantly, publicly before the house judiciary committee. >> you know, we have not heard his voice, words come out of his mouth, dana, but as you know, he did submit not one, but two letters to the attorney general following attorney general barr's characterization of the mueller findings, which mueller in those letters, we now know, says hey, wait a second, you're not saying what i said in my report here, and i wonder what kind of potential conflict that sets up in these comments here. again, we don't know if he's going to repeat that line of argument. we also don't know if bill barr signed off on whatever public statement bob mueller's about to make here. but the fact is, there is already a public disagreement, is there not, between bob mueller and bill barr on this? >> absolutely. absolutely. a public disagreement that robert mueller clearly wanted to be public after he was frustrated, to say the least, by the way that the attorney general characterized his report in the summary that was sort of the only thing out there for weeks before the actual mueller report came out. you know, we don't know. the real -- we hate to see this when we're on television, especially at something so big. we are trying to do reporting, but we don't know the content of what he is going to say in about an hour. it is going to be about the most dramatic moment, i think, it's fair to say, that we have had. and that says a lot, given the drama that we have seen and we have been a part of for all of these months and even years in the trump era. >> no question. it makes you think of the comey testimony a couple of years back after his firing. dana bash, stand by. certainly a lot more to cover here. laura jarrett is at the justice department where, in less than an hour, the special counsel will make these groundbreaking public comments, or at least public statement here. laura, what are you learning now as we get closer to that moment? >> well, jim, we're still trying to figure out exactly what he will say, but as dana pointed out, i think the timing here is really interesting. the investigation has been over for quite some time, so why now is the day that he chooses to speak out, of all days? we know that he's been going into work every day, we've been trying to figure out exactly what he's been up to. the justice department really won't provide any details on what he's doing every day and so we've been asking the question, and he's finally now going to get to speak for himself. we haven't even heard his voice. in many, many years, he hasn't made any public statement, he hasn't come to court, he hasn't appeared at the justice department for any of the press conference that other senior justice officials have done on some of the cases, some of the indictments. he has let his deputies handle all of those proceedings. it so will be interesting to hear how he frames whatever argument or statement that he wants to make about the report itself or about his testimony. we don't yet know whether he will address some of the findings of the report. we recall, as you pointed out, in the last hour, he had concerns about how the attorney general, bill barr, had characterized some of the findings. he and his team members really wanted the attorney general to put out those summaries that the team had worked up, because he thought that those provided a more fulsome explanation of some of their findings and that the public wasn't getting the full picture. obviously, the attorney general opted not to do that and instead to release a redacted report. so we'll see how much of anything he mentions on some of the substance of the findings versus his testimony, which is still in doubt at this time, jim. >> laura, you know how that building works. and i wonder, based on the chain of command, a statement announced bip ty the justice department to be given from the justice department, by a special counsel who by the chain of command serves under the attorney general, as head of the justice department, would that mean that this statement had been vetted by the attorney general or even perhaps the white house as well? >> i think the question is vetted versus given a heads up. i know our colleague jeremy diamond is told by a senior administration official that the white house was given a heads up, i think, last night, that he was going to make this statement. the attorney general, bill barr, is actually out of the country in alaska right now, so we're trying to figure out exactly what the coordination was between those two men. obviously, they go back quite some time. bill barr had been mueller's boss for many, many years back in the '90s, so they know each other well. we're trying to dig into what is going on there. but in terms of vetting the statement, i think you get in tricky terrain when you start talking about, someone vetting it in terms of editing it. i think mueller probably has some things that he wants to say and there's nothing anyone could do to stop him at this point, jim. >> he's been around a while, he's an old marine scout from vietnam, he's proven himself to be his own man through the years. again, if you're just joining us now, bob mueller will make his first public comment on the russia investigation, the justice department statement says a statement on the investigation into russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. it will be the first time that we hear from the special counsel since the start of this investigation. i want to go to joe johnsons a to the white house. i imagine it's not a stretch to say that the white house is bracing itself for what words will come out of the special counsel's mouth in less than an hour now. >> reporter: that certainly appears to be the case. what is clear to us through our reporting from the white house team is, number one, that the white house got a bit of a heads up on the fact that he was going to make this statement. and also, that the white house will not make any statements until after they hear what mr. mueller has to say. one thing i can tell you from my own personal experience in my time covering the justice department and the supreme court, bob mueller appears to be at least reasonably fond of making exit statements. and i know that because i interviewed him when he left the fbi in a round robin with a number of other journalists from around town. so the question, of course, we've been told for a while that he was about to leave any day now. the question is whether this would be the appropriate time for mr. mueller to make an exit statement, if you will, as he leaves the office of the special counsel. that's just based on past experience and no direct knowledge, though i have raised the question with the office of the special counsel, jim. >> interesting possibility. and again, as you say, we don't know. but is that what he's going to say? that he's completed his work and now's his time to go home? open question. we'll know in 52 minutes. a little less than that. david gergen is joining us now. he's worked for a handful of presidents through the years. again, we're in theory territory now, because the special counsel has not tipped his hand yet. what is your view of what he hopes to accomplish here? >> ha-ha, great question. a dramatic moment. first time bob mueller has spoken in two years. he's almost been a sphinx-like character. you know, given what we learned in the last two or three weeks about his reluctance to testify in front of an open hearing in the house or the senate, that he does not want to get involved in a political circus, i think that's one pressure he's -- by putting this at the justice department with no questions, he can control the message and the atmosphere much better than going up to the hill. so i think he's partly doing that, but he is also under pressure to clarify, because he put out his report and then along comes barr, the attorney general, and puts a new gloss on the report, which is much more favorable to the president. and so you have to -- mueller has to decide, do i want to take that on or not? or do i want to clarify what my thinking was and where we're going? so my sense is, he wants to clarify, but he does not want a circus and this is the compromise to get there. >> let me ask you this, because he doesn't want to be seen as political. okay. but this is a fundamentally political question, is it not? there's even a theory that what mueller tried to do here was, in effect, give this evidence and allow congress, a political body, to decide if this is evidence of impeachable offenses. i mean, we require a whole host of non-political figures, be the intelligence commanders to testify in public. what's so special about bob mueller's status to avoid such public questioning? >> i don't think there is all that much difference. but one could understand his reluctance, after spending two years of his life doing this and going so seriously into it. he and his -- in the final report, he dodged the political questions. he stuck to the legal issues, and dodged the question of whether this -- these would be impeachable offenses, if the house so held. or whether he thought they were impeachable offenses. remember, since his report, we've had some 900, is it now, former justice department prosecutors on both sides of the aisle who come forward and said in a sense that if what mueller had presented to us, if trump were a private citizen, he would be indicted and charged and he'd be facing possible jail time. well, mueller has never spoken on that. and i think people are extraordinarily curious to know, what's his view? what is his view on obstruction given where we've been? and did the justice department distort and in some ways spin his report in ways that made him uncomfortable? >> and to be clear, just a reminder, we mentioned this a few moments ago and we have an image of the letter on screen, on march 27th, robert mueller sent a letter that we now have and has been testified about in congress, it is public, in which he calls out the attorney general for not properly conveying the weight, the seriousness, the specifics of his findings there. so there's already a public disagreement. of course, the difference between one in writing and one -- a spoken public disagreement is different. >> yes, i think that's right. and jim, this may be the last time we hear from mueller. given his desire to stay out of the spotlight, to stay out of politics, you know, this may be the first and may be the last statement. we'll have to wait and see. it's clearly going to raise new questions pant what he thinks, about his judgment, and those reporters are going to be wanting those answers, as will members of various committees on the hill. but it may be very hard to extract them after this statement. this may be his sayonara. >> his sayonara. shan wu, you've encountered the special counsel through the years, shan, including representing a witness, a significant witness in this investigation, rick gates, former deputy campaign chairman for trump and now someone who's pled guilty to crimes. tell us what questions he needs to address. he's going to answer questions, but what questions he needs to address in this statement? >> i think if it is a farewell statement, it kind of gives him a clear shot at saying what he wants to say. i think what would be really important is for him to address the whole question of, there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges about conspiracy or conclusion with russia. and the problem is, i just can't see mueller making some type of grand unveiling that in fact there was a lot here, it's an impeachable offense. i can't see him saying that in these circumstances. so he may just kind of amplify a little bit some summary of his findings. and i think that could be very disappointing. but that would be a really crucial piece of insight for him to give us as to what was really going on there. do you think that even though there's not enough to bring a criminal charge, that these are very serious problems that you found and very serious misgivings and that you really did want congress to take a look at that. the problem is, i can't see him giving that much of an opinion about it. turning to the obstruction side, he's already opined that he cannot exonerate the president. so there he may be willing to speak more forcefully, and ideally, shed light on whether that office of legal counsel opinion really kept him from bringing a charge. and we've heard some rumors that there's actually an indictment drafted. so i think that would be something i really want the answer for. was it but for that rule that he would have been charged? >> will he address that. >> i want to quote from his letter march 27th from bill barr to robert mueller. he said the following. the summary letter that the department sent to congress and released to the public late in the afternoon on march 24th did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions. that is already in letter form a public disagreement between the special counsel and how the attorney general portrayed the special counsel's findings as he put them together over those two years of this investigation. ga garb, i believe you're still with us. we've already had two people on the air raise the possibility this could be his swan song, his farewell here. are you hearing anything in that direction >> i just spoke with a key republican congressional source, one who should be in the know about what robert mueller was going to do, just even the fact that he's going to give this statement. and unlike the white house, which according to our reporting did get a heads up, just that he's going to give the statement, that heads up came last night, that did not happen for republicans, it seems, on capitol hill. at least those who are in a position to before kind of, you know, dealing with this kind of thing. you know, we don't know yet and we're still doing reporting about whether or not the same goes for democrats who are in charge of the house of representatives, but when it comes to republicans, my understanding in talking to a key republican source is that did not happen, as it seems to have had with the trump white house. >> now, would hill need to be notified based on a special counsel law in advance if the special counsel was completing his work? >> that's a good question. the answer is "no." my understanding, i don't know, maybe you read it a different way, jim, but it's because the work has been completed. they did, by law, have to be notified when the attorney general got the report from robert mueller's team and, of course, they got notified when that report was going to be made public. but this is something that seems to be outside the bounds of and the parameters of the special counsel rules and regulations that were put in place by the deputy attorney general when he appointed robert mueller two years ago. >> we should note, and again, if you're just joining us now, special counsel robert mueller will give his first public comments since the start of this investigation and of course, its completion, just a number of weeks ago. this is what the advisory from the justice department says. it says that he will make a statement on the investigation into russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. his statement will be about the investigation. is it his involvement in it? will he offer any clarity on his findings, particularly the characterization of those findings as they differ between what the attorney general has said about him and what the special counsel meant to say in his conclusions in this report? we're going to find that out in 43 minutes, 42 1/2 minutes right now. sunlen serfaty, i believe you're still with us, up on the hill. are you hearing from lawmakers, democrat and republican, as they wait for the special counsel's statement? >> no word from any members yet, jim. certainly, i think, many people are waiting to see what he'll be saying in now just under 45 minutes today. and certainly, we've been discussing over the last hour, i think of utmost important to many on the hill is whether robert mueller today says whether he will testify or not. this has been the source of a lot of back and forth between the teams on the house judiciary committee and the special counsel's office over the last days and weeks. this has stretched on for over a month now, active negotiations of the terms of how that testimony might go down. they are still certainly negotiating this. many democrats are concerned about restrictions placed on his testimony. the fact that the special counsel's office behind the scenes has expressed some reluctance for him to testify for not only the opening statement, but the question and answer segment in front of tv cameras in public. there have been some questions around him potentially being allowed to testify behind closed doors for the question and answer section. they say this is an issue of jut most gravity and importance and he should appear and explain his findings and be questioned by members of congress in front of the public. and that should happen before tv cameras. now, a lot of different potential variables that could come into that, including potentiallily him testifying behind closed doors and a transcript being made to public, but that not satisfying many democrats that are pushing hard for the entire testimony, if and when it happens, to be in front of tv cameras. >> the chairman of the committee, jerry nadler has been very clear that he says he will get mueller in front of his committee one way or the other. he has given him room to try to negotiate this, but he says that he will subpoena it if need be. and another issue that i know you've been talking about, mueller still being an employee of the department of justice, you know nadler has questioned why he is still there. so this will be interesting to see if this is him issuing the end of his official employment there. nadler intimating that that could be a way for him to appear in front of the congressional committees, despite objections from president trump. >> sunlen serfaty, thank you. joe johns, i understand you've been speaking to house members about their expectation for the hearing. what are you hearing? >> i just got off the phone from one of the senior aides on one of the committees that is seeking very much to have bob mueller come and testify before him. and the indication i got from that senior aide is there has been no movement on negotiations to get mr. mueller to come voluntarily to the committee. of course, there is that option of a subpoena, which certainly has the potential to be problematic, unless mueller would want a subpoena in order to do it along those lines. also, i do have to mention to you, and it's one of the things that's kind of underreported about the justice department, is that technically, regardless of whether the individual who worked for the justice department is an employee or is not an employee, according to doj rules, they may still be constrained from speaking publicly, unless they are authorized by the appropriate supervisor, in this case would likely be the attorney general himself. and the other thing i think is important to mention is running in the background of all of this is that mr. mueller, despite the fact he did do exit interviews years ago when he left the fbi has been very, very reluctant to go public, to speak in front of the cameras to news media unless he feels there's an absolute necessity. now, of course, the question here is, is this an absolute necessity? it certainly seems to be the case. back to you. >> we're getting new information into cnn and that is that bill barr, of course, the sitting attorney general was notified ahead of time as to the special counsel's intention to make this statement in about 40 minutes' time here. barr not in washington, though. he's traveling in alaska now, so he will not be physically present, but it is notable that this statement will be coming from the grounds of the department of justice. special counsel serves under the department of justice and that's where he will be making this statement. again, no questions to follow. laura jarrett, you continue to follow this -- sorry, laura jarrett is making phone calls. news is breaking, our colleagues are making phone calls to learn more about this. evan perez also covers the justice department. evan, what are you learning as we get ready to hear for the first time from the special counsel since the start of this investigation? >> reporter: jim, one of the things that people have been puzzled by the is fact that members of congress have been pushing for mueller to come testify and there's been sort of weeks and weeks of talks that have gone nowhere. and one of the things that i think people don't understand, perhaps, going on behind the scenes, is a reluctance by mueller himself to appear in what he believes is going to be a very partisan, very political setting. and a lot of what the democrats are asking of him, i think a lot of the questions and a lot of the answers that they're seeking are ones that he, most likely, won't be able to deliver on. hep won't be able to give them exactly what they're looking for. and that's one of the reasons why there's been this hesitation, as joe johns just mentioned, you know, joe obviously covered the justice department for many years. and i covered him for years at the fbi. and these things, these hearings were always the least favorite thing that he had on his calendar. perhaps, just behind talking to reporters. and one of those reasons, one of those things is that he would prefer to do private briefings for members. he would be able to talk a little bit more frankly, but he believed that his job was not to become part of the partisan jockeying that happens at a lot of these hearings. a lot of the questions are not really questions, they're more about statements and trying to get a tv moment. and so that's one of the things that he dislikes the most. and i think that's one of the sticking points, one of the reasons why it's been so difficult to try to get -- to come to terms to do this public hearing. >> well, he wouldn't be the first official who would not -- would prefer not to take those questions. but it's a democracy. laura jarrett's at the justice department. you're getting new information, i understand, on what this statement -- the first public comments from the special counsel -- are about. >> reporter: well, jim, we're told that the statement will be substantial. what exactly it will say, how far it will go, whether it will go into the reports' conclusions or whether it will go into mueller's perception of how the attorney general depicted those conclusions in that controversial four-page memorandum, all of that remains to be seen. but i am told that it will be substantial, so it will be a substantiative statement. it will not be just a two-minute good-bye. he is not taking questions, though, however. and so it is important to note, there will be no back and forth with reporters. it will only be mueller up there making a statement. i'm also told that the attorney general, bill barr, who is actually traveling right now in alaska, he did receive a heads up about this. i know that was a question that you had for me in the last hour. just in terms of the chain of command here, you know, mueller does report to the attorney general, obviously, as the special counsel. he has a great deal of autonomy, but he does still report to barr at the end of the day. so he did give his boss a heads up that he was doing this. and of course, the white house was also given a heads up, according to our colleague, jeremy diamond, jim. >> laura, just to be clear, and i don't want you to tell me who your sources are, but when you're told that this will be a substantial statement, you're hearing this from the justice department? >> a source with good, solid knowledge of what he plans to say. >> understood. >> when we say that barr got a heads up, that the special counsel is giving this statement, a heads up simply that a statement was going to happen, or should we expect he also got a heads up on the content of that statement? >> a heads up on the content, a heads up that it was going to happen. i don't have any reporting on any sort of back and forth iterative. i don't expect that this was sort of, you know, a really lengthy process, but that he was informed, which should be expected, again, given the chain of command, given the role here, given that under the special counsel regulations, mueller does report to barr. that is to be expected. but, again, barr will not be with him. the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein is no longer here. there's a new dag in town, jeffrey rosen. so this is not going to be the same show of force we've seen in the past at press conferences at the justice department that have to do with the russia investigation. this is just mueller making a statement on his own. >> a substantial statement, your sources are telling you. final question, and this gets to chain of command. the special counsel turns under the attorney general, the attorney general serves under the president, appointed by the white house. we know the wohite house got a heads up that this statement was happening. by past practice, would the white house get an okay on the content of the statement, as well? >> i think that would be unusual. it would be hard to imagine how they would even try to go about something like that. i imagine that the white house counsel's office would be involved. you recall, during all of the rollout of the actual report, even the closing down of the investigation, the white house lawyer, emmet flood, the top white house lawyer who has been working on the russia investigation, was heavily involved, talking about barr's staff about how everything was going. so i think that they have been in close contact throughout this investigation, but in terms of actually making a call on what he would say, i think that that would be unusual to say the least, jim. >> all right, laura jarrett, i know you're going to stay on top of that. please get back to us if you get anymore information. we're about a half hour away from the special counsel. this is quite a moment for the country. it's been two years since this very consequential investigation started. this is the first time we're going to hear from him at that podium right there about 33 minutes' time at the justice department. first public comments from the special counsel. david gergen remains with us. been involved in a lot of administrations. tell us your thoughts again as we come up to this moment. >> well, i very much respect laura's reporting. i must say, jim, if you were at the justice department a senior to bob mueller, you would want to see the contents of the statement before he goes out. and the fact he's doing it at the justice department, you know, shows very much he's an employee of the justice department. and i would think that they would want us to not only see it, but if possible, have editing rights. i think that's a crucial questi question. is this coming directly from him or gone through channels and been approved and check marked and so forth. we would put different weight on it if it's gone through channels than if we were told this is his raw statement and nobody else looked at it. >> well, you've been in government long enough the to know that the difference between seeing it prior and having editorial power, veto power prior is significant. >> it sure is. >> and this, of course, is a special counsel who at least in written form, has not shied away from differing with his boss, quote/unquote, bill barr. he issued a letter march 27th. we'll put it up on screen again in which he said, your summary did not get at the context, nature, and substance of this office's work. so it is a special counsel with some credibility here who you might expect would be willing to say something that he was not told to say, as it were. >> well, because he's not answering any questions, we may to that.ow the absolute answer - i'm sure there'll be background statements coming out of the justice department officials and the white house and the like. but it would be really helpful if he, himself, clarifies exactly whose statement this is, whether it's from him and the counsel's team, period, or whether it had to be cleared. i can just tell you from a white house perspective, you would be really anxious to get your hands on that and have a clearance process before he goes public. you would be really anxious. it's just in the nature of the beast of the white house. you know, they try to be protective of the president. >> yeah, i'm sure they would beg, borrow, and steal to be -- we'll know shortly if they did. if they did. shimon prokupecz, you've been covering this investigation, like me, since the beginning here. we don't know what the statement and how far it's going to be. laura jarrett reporting that it's going to be substantial. we should expect, as a substantial statement now in the investigation into russian interference in the presidential election, how significant a moment is this for the investigation? >> it's a significant moment for the investigation, really, a significant moment for this country. here we are, we're going to finally hear from this man who has been at the center of this investigation, who we have not heard from, has never spoken. all of a sudden now, today, we get word that he's going to speak and given all the buildup, you know, we've been waiting to see if we're going to hear from him in congress, it's clear he does not want to do that. this allows him to control the situation, this lengthy statement. he's going to do it his way and say what he needs to say. a couple of key things, i think, that people need to look for here is whether or not he is united with the department of justice, with specifically, the attorney general's findings, and what the attorney general has said in terms of this investigation. or is there some kind of divided front here, where he's going to offer his own take on how things went here. and really speak to what he feels in terms of this investigation. and the other thing is, i think what we're going to see, he's going to really make this probably about russia, right? in the end, that's what this investigation was about. how much does he go into that versus the whole obstruction thing, which we've all been focused on, the obstruction part of this investigation. the other thing i think is important to note is that this is being done on a day when the attorney general is not in the building, right? he's traveling. i think that's really interesting, the fact that this is happening when the attorney general is not there. he's going to have the podium, robert mueller, on his own, sitting there, standing there, perhaps, and he's going to speak. look, a lot has been said about robert mueller for the past two years, about where he stands. there have been some assumptions made about his well-being, about things going on in his life. of course, people have been wanting to hear him speak for so long and now we're going to have this moment. and also, we're going to get a lot of detail, i think. if this is going to be as lengthy as folks have told us it's going to be, so, you know, i suspect he's going to go into a lot of the thinking behind his decisions. and really, ultimately, in the end, try to defend what they did here and what they didn't do, which is just as important, jim. >> lengthy? how long are you being guided that this statement is going to be? >> we know it's going to be several minutes. i think laura jarrett has said it probably best in terms that it's going to be pretty detailed. depending on where he goes and how much detail he goes into, i think it's going to be pretty lengthy based on what she has heard. >> and just repeating our colleague laura jarrett's reporting there, is that the special counsel's stadium there at that podium, you're seeing live pictures where it will take place in 27 minutes, that that statement will be substantial. the department of justice says it will relate to the investigation into the russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. we still have a number of colleagues with us who have covered this investigation for some time. shan, you have the advantage of having, i don't want to say, participated in, but you've certainly been a party to this investigation, because you represented one of the most significant witnesses and that is rick gates, the former deputy campaign chairman for the trump campaign in 2016. a substantial statement expected from the special counsel here, a special counsel who has disagreed, differed publicly with the attorney general on his characterization of the special counsel's findings. if it is, indeed, a detailed statement, what should we be looking for, as he takes that podium there? >> well, the details we'll be looking for, will be, i think, to expand upon what they really found on the russian side of the investigation, and i want to echo both david gergen and shimon's comments. looking at the hierarchy, the way the department usually works, there's a big difference between the independent counsel, like when he was counsel to janet reno, we had a lot of independent counsels, but we also had some special counsels working on specially designated cases. a special counsel like mueller is very much subject to the hierarchy and you would certainly expect that a statement would have been really vetted through the attorney general. now, to shimon's point, on the schedule, i found it was a very intriguing thought, actually. the ag's schedule is very well known. everything has to be planned around when the ag is in town, when they're not in town. for something as significant as this to be planned when the ag is out of town, it suggests either barr is very comfortable with what's going to be said or mueller being quite an old hand and his team being quite e experienced, deliberately chose a day when the ag is not in known. >> it's a good point, shan. you've been around washington for a wile, that things like that -- listen, could just be an accident of timing here, but significant to have the boss out of town when that happens. so you would say, it's unlikely that those two things are not connected? >> i would say it's a little bit unlikely. those sorts of schedules are pretty carefully coordinated. and, you know, the sort of tableaus we've seen with everyone standing on the podium is how the department likes to project its unity. so to have this statement possibly mueller's last statement be just the image of him be himself delivering it, rosenstein's not there anymore, barr's not there, that's a very different image than what the department normally likes to put on. >> understood. shan wu. we're joined now by jennifer rogers, former federal prosecutor here with me in new york. has been around cases like this for some time. jennifer, tell us what questions -- well, he won't take questions, but he will be making a statement. what information do you want the special counsel to address and do the american people need to hear the special counsel address when he goes to that podium 24 minutes from now? >> i think they do, because there's been so much misinformation about what the mueller report said. so i'm less interested in an, i said this and barr said this and i wrote a letter that said this, that back and forth. i want him to summarize in very simple terms why he made the decisions he made and what the report says. just in, you know, very, very concise statements. because that's what the american people really don't understand, even though we've had the report for a month or so now. >> the trouble, of course, is since he is not taking questions, he can't be cross-examined. he could make a statement, characterize it any way he wants to, but you would want a reporter or a lawmaker in the room to say, wait a second, in your march 27th letter to the attorney general, you said his summary did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of your findings. why is that? did you have disagreements? how did you settle those disagreements behind closed doors? the trouble is, there are public differences here that if he doesn't address in the statement, we'll have to wait, i suppose until he goes to the hill. >> i think that's right, but at the end of the day, what the public really needs to know is what his investigation found h pcpc. so we can save all of that back and forth and was the attorney general misleading the public. i don't think robert mueller will want to get into all of that now. i think he thinks his job is to tell everyone what he and his team found, spending 22 months investigating these things, what they concluded. because that's what's been lost in all of the back and forth and all of the misleading comments from the attorney general and the president's supporters. so i think that's really what we need from him. i hope that's what we get from him. and maybe he'll surprise us and also give us some information about why what he said is not what the attorney general reported. but i suspect not. you know, i suspect he'll keep it to the four cancorners of th report, and that's the most important thing. >> jennifer rogers, great to have you here. dana bash back with us in washington. a little more than 20 minutes away, dana. what are you hearing? >> i just thought it was noteworthy, listening to you talk with shan and laura jarrett about the fact that bill barr is not in that building. he is not in the justice department. he's traveling in alaska today. and, you know, it's noteworthy that bill barr isn't the only one gone from washington. congress, as well. this is a memorial day week and members of congress are not here. and this is a man, robert mueller, who has been in intense negotiations, not with republicans who run the senate, because lindsey graham would be in charge of that and he says he doesn't need to hear from robert mueller, but house democrats who are desperate to try to find a way for him to testify in public. and as evan was talking about, there has been some stiff resistance, not from the justice department necessarily or the president, which has been quite public, but from robert mueller, because he has been so reluctant to jump into the political circus that is always congress. and the fact that he's doing this when congress isn't here, i think, is knows wortnoteworthy. now, it's 2019. there are cameras everywhere. people can use their iphones to make a video and make a comment, but it's not the same as having manu or phil or any of our colleagues chase after you in the hallways. >> no question. the significance of the special counsel speaking now after only one, but one republican lawmaker has said it's not just democrats who believe the president has committed impeachable bayehavio here, because there is, of course, a school of thought that robert mueller's intention was, if he's not making a recommendation to indict, that his view is, it well and truly is up to congress, and that here, congress, is what you should consider. how different is it now that you have a republican very publicly voicing that opinion? >> you know, very publicly and he said during his town hall -- you're talking about justin amash -- that his gop colleagues have said that, not all, but some of them have said that to him privately, as well. you know, the fact is, jim, that impeachment is an inherently political decision. and there is no question -- i mean, it wasn't even subtle the way robert mueller spelled out what he thought. yes, he didn't make a decision. he didn't say explicitly that the president of the united states obstructed justice, but he did pretty explicitly say, it is up to congress to make that decision. and so i think it's still a stretch to call the notion of wanting to start impeachment inquiry bipartisan. it is one republian. we'll see in that changes. but i'm not so sure that justin amash is going to push people who are very reluctant for political reasons on the gop side to say much more publicly, unless something changes significantly with what we've learned. >> dana bash, thanks very much. it's often been noted that the watergate proceedings took about two and a half years from break-in until the president's eventual resignation. it's not an direct or identical parallel to watergate here, but in that situation, republicans were reluctant to join until later as well. you never know. gloria borger, you've been covering this like me from the beginning. a substantial comment from robert mueller happening in fewer than 20 minutes here. so a substantial statement. how significant is this moment to hear his first public comments? >> i think it's as i think shimon said earlier, i think it's a substantial moment for the country. i think everybody wants to hear from bob mueller. democrats and republicans. what we've heard from him is his 438-page document and the letter that he sent to the attorney general, which was stunning to us, saying that the attorney general had really misrepresented his conclusions in his report. i think what the question, the obvious question that everyone wants to know if he will answer today, and we don't know whether he will or won't is would you have indicted the president of the united states if there were not an office of legal counsel opinion that said you cannot do that? and how did that play into your thinking and into your team's thinking. and i hope he elaborates a little bit on that. it's clear that he is a reluctant witness. he doesn't want to go before congress. it seems like he doesn't even want to go before congress behind closed doors. we will find that out. and so, i'm hoping that in this statement which laura jarrett says is substantial, that it is substantial and it does answer a question like that. >> absolutely. and another question, too, you know, whether he makes a statement on his decision to indict, does he -- does he address and say, in effect, that his boss, bill barr, the attorney general, did not pro r properly characterize the findings of the report, as he said, gloria, you know as well as me, in a letter, you did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions. that would be a very simple thing for him to address here, and different, i imagine, to hear that coming out of his mouth as opposed to in written form and letter to the attorney general. >> he's done that, as you read from his letter. the question is whether he goes beyond that and whether he says like, this is now up to the congress. or gives the democrats any encouragement. we just don't know the answer. >> gloria borger, great to have you there. we know you're going to be there to digest these comments as they come. we have some news into cnn just now. and that is that the house judiciary chair, that, of course, jerry nadler, democrat from new york, was told in advance about the mueller statement. this a committee spokesman tells cnn, the committee has been in talks with mueller, as we've been reporting here, and those talks continue about robert mueller testifying on the hill, that the fundamental disagreement there has been the special counsel willing to make a public statement there, as he's about to do here in 15 minutes' time, but also, as he's about to refuse to do here, not answering questions in public. the special counsel prefer as those questions on the hill to be made in public. that is not a position that the chairman of the house judiciary or other democrats, and in fact some republicans, support. shimon prokupecz, you cover the justice department here. 15 minutes from now we're going to hear from the special counsel, now, a substantial statement. what does that mean? >> probably pretty detailed. he's probably going to go into a lot of what we want to hear about, certainly in terms of the investigation i don't think he's going to get political. but the big thing is going to be whether or not there is a united front here. whether or not we're going to see robert mueller and ultimately, the department of justice, under the current attorney general, bill barr, whether or not there's a united front here in what has been said about this investigation, in how the attorney general feels about this entire investigation. and also, does he support the fbi's work? that has come under scrutiny, obviously, in some ways by the attorney general, but the intelligence community. they're gathering, so to speak, the investigation of the investigation that we have heard so much about, how does mueller -- how does he talk about that? does he talk about it? does he go into detail and voice his support for how this investigation was conducted? he probably will. obviously, he wouldn't have been conducting this investigation. but you know, what he says, the optics of this are tremendous. tremendous for this country, they're tremendous for the department of justice, for all the work that has gone into this entire investigation that he has been overseeing all the scrutiny that he's been under by the president, by members of congress, by others in terms of this investigation. all will hopefully be addressed in this statement he's ultimately going to give. perhaps this is his good-bye here after being part of this for two years, jim. >> you raise a good point. will he defend the investigators? you have the president of the united states accusing people who participated in this investigation early on of treason. he's used the word "treason." you heard a republican lawmaker, liz cheney said the same on sunday programs. will robert mueller come to their defense here. jennifer rogers is with me here in new york. a longtime federal prosecutor. tell us about from a legal standpoint the significance of an investigator here who likes, like many investigators do, to do their work behind the scenes, outside of the public eye, but let's be frank, this is a very public investigation, of public importance. tell us about how he walks that line. >> well, mueller's been even more reticent than many public servants are to speak publicly outside of the four corners of whatever document or indictment it is that he's working on. so for him, it is a big deal. and contrary to what many of the president's supporters say about him, he is a republican, he's a lifetime republican. so it must be challenging for him to try to speak against bill barr and against the president and other people, at least that's how the president and his supporters see it, but i think first and foremost, he's a person who wants to uphold the rule of law. so that's going to take precedence over this loyalty that i'm sure he feels that he has to the republican party. at the end of the day, you know, he's got to do what's right in terms of the law. so i think that that's what he'll do here. >> we have some new reporting on this statement coming in. this also from our colleague, laura jarrett. she says that bill barr was not -- the attorney general, not only given a heads up that the statement was coming, but the attorney general was briefed on the contents of the statement, so he knows, in effect, in general, at least, what the special counsel robert mueller is going to say. however, when asked if barr requested that mueller make this statement, our colleague, laura jarrett is told, unequivocally, no. so at least based on that reporting that this is the special counsel who chose to make this statement. did give a heads up to his boss, effecti effectively, the attorney general, as well as briefing him on the contents, but it was the special counsel's decision, the special counsel's decision to come out and make this statement at that podium. i'm going to turn you now over to my colleagues, jake tapper and wolf blitzer as cnn continues this special coverage of this truly momentous moment for the country and the russia investigation. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. >>> we want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer in washington along with jake tapper. just minutes from now, a critical turn in the russia investigation. the special counsel, robert mueller, will make a statement on camera over at the justice department. >> if you're racking your brain, trying to remember what robert mueller's voice sounds like, you might not actually have ever heard it. this will be mueller's first public comment since the start and the completion of his investigation into russian interference into the 2016 election. and mueller's remarks come amid the political debate over the findings of his report and specifically, whether president trump obstructed justice. also, whether attorney general william barr mischaracterized the findings of the mueller report zp report. >> the 22-month investigation loomed very large over the last two years of the trump presidency. a senior administration official tells cnn, the white house will wait until after mueller's statement to issue remarks of its own. our team of cnn reporters, our correspondents, our analysts all are here. let's go to cnn's laura jarrett. she's over at the justice department. what are you hearing, laura? >> reporter: well, wolf, after nearly two years of complete and utter silence from the special counsel, he is breaking that silence finally today at the justice department. we're expecting to see him very shortly up on the podium. i'm told that he is going to make a substantial statement, but we still are waiting for details on exactly what he will say. we know that he's been going into work every day. we've been asking the justice department what exactly he's been up to now that the investigation has been closed, for nearly two months, they haven't commented. but he will now have his chance to speak about whatever he wants. he's not taking any questions from reporters, but again, i am told his statement will be substantial. just to give you a little bit of behind-the-scenes color on how this all came together, my colleague jeremy diamond is told that the white house was given a heads up yesterday that mueller would be making a statement. and i'm told by a source familiar that the attorney general bill barr was also given a heads up that mueller would be making this statement, and not only a heads up, but actually informed about the contents, briefed on exactly what he would say, and so even though the attorney general is actually traveling in alaska right now and will not be here for it, he knows exactly what is about to come out of the special counsel's mouth. and i was asking that source whether barr actually requested that mueller do this. after so much speculation about the report and all of the fallout over barr's memo, i asked if barr requested that mueller did this, and the source said unequivocally "no" to that. so we wait to see what he'll see in just a short time from now. >> very interesting that barr is actually out of the country. >> he's in alaska. >> i'm sorry, he was out of the country, now he's in alaska. >> let's bring in cnn's abby phillip at the white house. and abby, the white house has had any number of interpretations of the mueller report. they have said it exonerated the president, which it does not do. they have attacked robert mueller. they have attacked his team. any idea of what they might say or if they even know what mueller is going to say? >> reporter: well, jake, it really is going to depend on what exactly mueller has to say in this statement. the white house will not say, at this moment, if they know of the content of what mueller will say at the top of the hour, but they were given a heads up, as laura just said, last night, that this statement was coming. and this morning, there has been a flurry of activity here in the white house. several senior staff meetings convened. it's not clear exactly what those were about, but you can imagine that they might be trying to coordinate what their response might be. and as you pointed out, jake, the president has been saying this report was a complete exoneration of him, but at the same time, he has not let up on his attacks on the investigation itself. in fact, he has cheered this effort to investigate the investigators. so this is clearly a white house who is still on the defense about the content of the mueller report, even as they claim that it exonerates president trump. and the white house says they're going to wait until mueller completes his statement before responding. what's not clear, is, are they going to issue a paper statement, is the president going to respond himself, either in person or via twitter. but i think you can bet that he is not going to just let what robert mueller has to say stand. this is a president who's still deeply skeptical of this investigation from start to finish. he still calls this investigation an illegal witch hunt. so i don't think you're going to see the white house really cheering anything that robert mueller has to say, based on their actions and their words over the last several months since the report was completed. >> we'll stand by to get reaction from the white house as soon as mueller finishes his statement. evan perez, you cover the jpt for us, as well. what are you hearing? >> well, wolf, i think a lot of people are taking note of the fact that the attorney general is out of town. but i should note that his immediate boss, robert mueller's immediate boss, who is the deputy attorney general, jeffrey rosen, he's in the office. he's actually still near washington. you know, just based on having covered robert mueller for a number of years, i don't expect, perhaps, that there will be that much daylight between him and the bosses. it's simply because, you know, that's not his style. again, we could be surprised here and he could stand up and go out with a big bang, but, you know, i think one of the things that he wants to do is let people hear from him. he still does not want to testify in public, in congress. i think he's always been reluctant to do that, because he believes that when you're testifying, you invariably become a part of like this political football, you know. and i think he wants to resist that, especially for an investigation this important. so i think one of the things he's trying to do is show the public, here i am. if you're going to hear from me in private, then members of congress can do that and ask me questions, but in public, i don't expect that you're going to hear a lot of daylight or see a lot of daylight from him between him and his bosses. >> and people i'm talking to on capitol hill are leaning into the fact -- although i should be clear, that neither key republicans who control the senate nor democrats in the house, nancy pelosi included, got a heads up, not even about the content, but just about the fact that he is giving this statement. having said that, my impression in talking to sources, is that, like evan was saying, he wants to close this out. he's closing out his office. there have been questions about when he's finally going to leave. so this is partly a swan song. but we can't forget the fact that laura jarrett is reporting, also, that it's going to be substantial and substantiative. so

morning, mueller report: the director's cut. that's what we have this morning for the first time. robert mueller finally told us what he thinks is most important from this two-year investigation. it is wildly different than the version filtered two months ago by attorney general willia barr. mueller all but said it's up to congress to decide how to handle the facts uncovered. this morning the key question is what will congress do. a growing number of house democrats are calling for impeachment proceedinginproceed. a growing number of candidates including one who will announce a shift on the show -- a growing number of them calling for impeachment proceedings as house speaker nancy pelosi continues to resist though she says nothing is off general. did he mislead lawmakers and the public about the mueller report? you'll remember that william barr tried to spin mueller's findings before the report was made public insisting he had reviewed the evidence and concluded that the president did not break the law. well, yesterday, robert mueller had a different conclusion and said that it's congres

alert for you now, new reaction to special counsel robert mueller's first public remarks since completing his report on russian interference in the 2016 election. that was 68 days ago. you are reiterating there was insufficient evidence to charge the trump team with conspiracy. >> speak of the report as 2 parts -- addressing the two main issues we were asked to investigate. the first volume of the report details numerous efforts in a needing from russia influence the election. this volume includes a discussion of the trump campaign's response to this activity, as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. >> melissa: but on the matter of obstruction he said it was "not an option" to charge president trump with a crime, citing justice department policy. president trump, just minutes ago, not surprisingly tweeting, "nothing changes from the mueller report. there was insufficient evidence, and therefore in our country a person is innocent. the case is closed. thank you." but moments ago the democratic chairman of the house judiciary

letter to live after this moment. and so robert mueller knew what the life of this letter was going to be. robert mueller knew it was going to be a night like this that was about this letter. but most importantly, william barr knew and he still went out there and said all of the things that he said and actually gave these answers in house and senate testimony about, i don't know if mueller's okay. i don't know what mueller thinks. >> yeah. >> you know? >> he knew exactly what mueller thinks. and i will say, i mean, this is coming out ahead of that testimony tomorrow before the lindsey graham-led senate judiciary committee. who knows what that's going to be like. barr is very capable at spinning stuff. >> mmm-hmm. >> i would not be surprised if he wanted this out ahead of that testimony and that friendly environment so he can spin his testimony, particularly under republican questioning, spinning out his own yarn about how this is all some an dine thing. one of the most important things may be the late breaking story from the daily beast that the justice department won't allow mueller t

robert mueller did not stay silent after all about the attorney general william barr's testimony to the senate tomorrow. he did not stay silent after all, so we're going to see what happens tomorrow morning. you've got to wonder whether the timing of this news is a coincidence. tonight a source tells cnn that mueller wrote a previously unknown letter to the attorney general. that was on march 27. that was three days after the a.g. released his own four-page letter laying out what he said were the principal conclusions of the mueller reports. but listen. what mueller said about that was pretty scathing for the notoriously tight-lipped special counsel to do. guests that we have coming up on this show told us they are absolutely stunned that robert mueller took that step. we're going to hear from them. that will be in just a little bit. but first let me read to you from the letter mueller sent. this was from the "washington post" reporting, okay? it says, quote, the summary letter that the department sent to congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of march 24 did not

countdown." melissa: robert mueller making the first comments on the russia investigation since the probe began two years. the special counsel standing by itself saying it speaks for itself. he will not provide congress with any information that isn't already public in the report. the white house says it is time to move on. democrats on capitol hill are vowing to take action. i'm melissa francis. connell: i'm connell mcshane. then we started coming back, the dow only down 223. we say only, because it was down more than 400 in the middle of the day. s&p 500 and nasdaq closing in the red today, hitting two month lows. we have a lot to talk about. team coverage of it all, gerri willis on floor of new york stock exchange. blake burman is at the white house. let's start with edward lawrence at the justice department following the appearance by robert mueller. reporter: connell now, former special counsel robert mueller laid out how the russians tried to manipulate our elections during the 2016 elections. he also went through why he charged so many people with lying to federal investigato

robert mueller 3 day after the former special counsel refused to clear the president of obstructing justice. the whole thing is a scam, it's a giant presidential harassment. no, russia did not help me get elected. you know who got me elected? i got me elected. russia didn't help me at all. the captain of a boat that collided with another on the river danube in hungary is arrested. we report from syria as the un warns that tens of thousands of children are still at risk. and r kelly has been charged with more sexual offences — he's pleaded not guilty. president trump has launched a particularly fierce and personal attack, without giving any evidence, on former special counsel robert mueller. mr mueller made headlines this week with a rare public statement, reiterating that his long inquiry did not clear the president of obstructing justice. mr trump spoke today about russian election interference and moves by the democrats to impeach him, before laying into robert mueller. there wasn't much change. i never got into it, i never thought that would be possible to be using that would b

>> what did he say today that was new? >> the white house also waited following robert mueller's statement as sarah sanders spoke with supporters. here's what she had to say. reporter: on mueller's statement today, do the statements differ? press sec. sanders: you would have to ask the department of justice, i am not sure about that. he reiterated the point he already made in the report. we agree with him. there was no collusion, there was no conspiracy, we consider this case closed. he completed his investigation. it is time for everybody to move on. he is going back to his private life, and we think everybody else should, too. reporter: the president and you said case closed, but robert mueller said if no crime was committed, he would have said so. he didn't say so. press sec. sanders: if he had determined there was a crime, he would have had a moral obligation to report it. the whole purpose that he had an investigation, the whole purpose of the special counsel was to make a determination on whether or not there was collusion. he came to a very explicit conclusion on that front that the

his own statement from a few minutes earlier on twitter. then he blasted robert mueller the special counsel as a never trumper who had an ax to grind. >> make no mistake here the president on the white house lawn there recited a series of claims, long debunked claims not based in fact, easily contradicted and fact checked. he said that robert mueller was conflicted. this after a couple of weeks ago he said robert mueller was an honorable man. his reading of the special counsel report was that it was in favor of him. he said that president obama never confronted russia on election interference when, in fact, we know the president at the time directly confronted vladimir putin in a way that this president has not. you will remember this president stood next to vladimir putin and accepted his denial of interference in the election. >> and just had that call with him and didn't bring it up. >> repeatedly. oddly enough he does confirm a story which the navy had contested and that is that u.s. navy made an effort to block the name of the "u.s.s. john mccain," which is named after both joh

of the mueller report. overnight we learned the special counsel robert mueller sent a letter to bill barr in late march expressing concern about the attorney general's four-page summary of his report. mueller told barr those four pages failed to fully capture his findings. the two old friends spoke by phone with mueller raising concerns about how barr's conclusions made the public more confused >> did robert mueller get played by william barr? if he meant to send a message on obstruction, did he fail because he was outmaneuvered by barr? when will we hear from robert mueller himself? his testimony seems guaranteed and crucial. did the attorney general lie in testimony he's already given on the report? how will he explain his selective quotes from the mueller report that seem to twist mueller's intent? some democrats are calling for impeachment of the attorney general. this makes for what could be an explosive day. jessica snyder is live from washington this morning. >> reporter: good morning, john. this was set to be a contentious hearing already. now even more so. democrats spent th

was my decision how and when to make it public, not bob mueller's. robert: democrats want the special council t testify. republicans say enough is enough. >> it's over. if there's any dispute of a conversation then he'll come. but i'm not going to retryhe case. robert: house democrats are furious. >> the aeorney general of united states is not telling the truth to the congress of the united states. that's a crime. robert: the subpoenas fly in the battle between the white house andgr cs, next. announcer: this is "washington week." funding is provided by -- >> kevin. >> kevin. >>. kev >> advice for life. life well planned. learn more at raymondjames.com. >> babbel, real life conversations in a new language such as spanish, french, italian and more. their 10 to 15-minute lessons are online. more information on babbel.com. additional funding is provided by the qu and patricia you win. -- yuen and by contributions from viewers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, moderaosr, robert. robert: this week, robert mueller answered key question, did he the special council have concern

counsel robert mueller and his investigation. he may be really worried about impeachment which he calls a, quote, dirty, disgusting, filthy word. blaming bob, the attorney general, will barr openly contradicts mueller saying he disagrees with the counsel's failure to reach a decision on whether the president obstructed justice. >>> mocking mueller. russian officials take a cue from president trump mocking mueller in his investigation. especially the stark conclusion that moscow attacked america's democracy. >>> and evil ambition. even after president trump publicly undermined his own advisers and a key ally by signing with kim jong-un, north korea unleashed a new attack accusing america of evil ambition and insulting the dictator's regime. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." >>> this is cnn breaking news. >> breaking news, a day after robert mueller's refusal to publicly clear the president, attorney general william barr's openly questioning mueller's failure to reach a decision on the question of obstruction. that comes shortly after president trump unleashed a stun

today we got word, i guess, that robert mueller henceforth shall speak for himself. at least we sort of got that word. now this is only a single source report thus far, and you should consider that, but nbc news is reporting, according to one source dollar with the matter, that the judiciary committee in the house led by new york city congressman jerry nadler, according to nbc news that committee has begun discussions directly with robert mueller's team about mueller himself coming to testify to congress. according to nbc's reporting previously, the committee has been trying to arrange mueller's testimony and they had been discussing that matter with the justice department, assuming that the justice department could speak for robert mueller and would facilitate his testimony. there have been multiple reports and some scathing allegations from democratic members of congress recently that the justice department has been blocking that, that they've been refusing to set a date for mueller's testimony, they've been slow-walking the request for mueller's testimony from multiple congre

up to 11 after last night's stunning revelation of a confidential letter robert mueller wrote to barr complaining the attorney general mischaracterized mueller's report. >>> plus, chaos continues in caracas. we will go live to venezuela as the push to get maduro out grows even stronger. >>> as we're keeping our eyes on 2020. poll after poll shows joe biden with a clear lead. steve kornacki is here to dig in to what the numbers mean now. >>> we must begin this morning with the stunning new revelation first reported by "the washington post" and confirmed by nbc news. special counsel robert mueller expressing frustration. in a letter and phone call to attorney general william barr shortly after barr released his initial four-page summary of the mueller report march 24th. this was the same memo which barr cleared president trump of obstruction, mueller expressing frustration, specifically over the lack of context and substance in that memo, saying it caused public confusion. and this new development is now shining a light on barr's back-to-back congressional testimony last month. let me j

for being here today. >> special counsel robert mueller of the justicent departme giving his first and what he say will be his only public remark on the almost gation he nves conducted into russia's interference into the 2016 election. importantly, he emphasized the aspect of the report that dealt with whether or not president trump obstructed justice in this matter. he said and the report said, if they had evidence that the president did not commit a crime, that theort would have said so. he emphasized it didn't say so and he emphasized that he and the office were bound by long-standing department of justice policy that states a sitting president cannot be indicted. he indicated that the constitution provides for other means for dealing with the president in these circumstances and, most importantly, he hasrt asse that he will not testify before congress. i want to go to pete williams who was in that om. he is on the seventh floor of the justice department this morning. pete, he didn't go outside the report. heelso has said h doesn't want to testify before congress. it may be that

would have said so. >> robert mueller finally speaks. >> we did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. >> and tells congress effectively, it's their job to deal with the criminal president. >> the constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. >> tonight, what we learned from today's statement from the special counsel. >> this is stronger than the language in his report. >> what democrats plan to do about it. >> we want to do what is right and what gets results. >> how robert mueller's statement underscores bill barr's deception. >> i said, bob, what's with the letter? senator cory booker on why he is now for beginning impeachment proceedings. >> how mitch mcconnell and the white house are leaving america's elections unguarded in 2020. >> there were multiple systematic efforts to interfere in our election. that allegation deserves the attention of every american. >> "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york. for the first and possibly the last time,

headlines: donald trump lashes out at robert mueller 3 day after the former special counsel refused to clear the president of obstructing justice. the whole thing is a scam, it's a giant presidential harassment. no, russia did not help me get elected. you know who got me elected? i got me elected. russia didn't help me at all. another front in the trade war as china prepares to impose tariffs on $60 billion worth of american goods. i'm lewis vaughanjones in london. also in the programme: as the syrian army closes in on the last rebel strongholds in the north, the un warns the lives of tens of thousands of children are at risk. keeping fit while fasting — we meet the athletes in singapore who are training hard while observing ramadan. good morning. glad you could join us. it's 8am in singapore, 1am in london and 8pm in washington dc where president trump has lashed out at robert mueller, the special counsel who investigated russian interference in the 2016 election. in a 10—minute outburst to reporters on the white house lawn before he boarded the presidential helicopter, mr trump called

>>> happening now, breakig news. not exonerated. that's robert mueller's message about his investigation to president as the special counsel speaks out for the first time in two years. is that his last word or will he testify before congress? >>> all options. top democrats are keeping the door open to impeachment as the drum beat within the party grows lou louder after hearing from mueller. did the special counsel leave new clues for congressional investigators to follow. >>> let's do it. we're told that's the president's attitude toward impeachment. mr. trump is spoiling for a fight even as he declares he's innocent and mueller's case is closed. >>> rising waters. c nrk cnn is on the scene of devastating flooding after two straight weeks of violent weather across the united states. new storms are brewing. new tornadoes are feared and nearly 40 million americans may be in danger. >>> we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room."s on robert mueller ending his silence and begin impeachment reedings

stunning is this news, the news of this letter from robert mueller? >> it's pretty stunning when you think about the fact that we have not really heard from robert mueller throughout this entire investigation, throughout in entire process. the only time we have heard from his team is through court records. and what we're seeing here is obvious disagreement from the mueller team, from robert mueller himself in this letter to the attorney general, and it's all about context. it's all about nuance. it's all about how they handled the beginning stages of releasing this report in that four-page letter that was ultimately released where he made the -- the attorney general made some statements that now mueller and his team have disagreed with. and it set the tone. it set the tone in terms of how this went from that day on. and what mueller said was he had issues with how the media certainly handled it, the impression that was left in the media by the attorney general. and certainly this is all -- keep in mind this is all having to do with the obstruction issue, which he feels was not proper