Show: THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL Date: December 21, 2018 Guest: Norm Ornstein, Jonathan Allen, David Frum, Neera Tanden
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RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Where does the time go? It has officially shut down the clock, which means I shall now hand you over to the tender mercies of Katy Tur, who is in for Lawrence tonight on "THE LAST WORD." Good evening, Katy.
KATY TUR, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Rachel. We will take it over from here. Merry Christmas.
MADDOW: Merry Christmas. TUR: And I`m Katy Tur, in for Lawrence O`Donnell. The tone in Washington for most of today has been tense to say the least. Congress is not funding President Trump`s border wall. That is of course after Mexico refused to fund it.
One person close to the White House said today that Trump was melting his own administration down in an attempt to get his wall funded. The president even said today that he`d have no problem with the shutdown which could affect hundreds of thousands of government employees, dragged on for days.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Now it`s up to the Democrats as to whether or not we have a shutdown tonight. I hope we don`t, but we`re totally prepared for a very long shutdown. And this is our only chance that we`ll ever have in our opinion because of the world and the way it breaks out to get great border security.
(END VIDEO CLIP) TUR: Tonight, we are headed toward a partial government shutdown. There is still no deal. But after the last few hours, there`s a big difference in what our NBC News team has been hearing on Capitol Hill. There is now a good faith effort, we`re told, to move forward and come up with a spending deal.
Of course there`s still plenty of question marks at the moment. It is unclear when a deal will emerge and it`s unclear what the deal will look like. But it is safe to say that when a spending deal materializes, either in the coming hours or the coming days, it`s all because all five relevant parties are in agreement. President Trump, Speaker Ryan, Leader Pelosi, Leader McConnell, and Leader Schumer.
The House has adjourned for the night. Members are expected to be in session Saturday around noon. The Senate has also adjourned. Senators are being told they`ll be given 24 hours notice before a vote happens. The bill passed by the House Thursday night with $5 billion in wall funding never had a chance in the Senate because it requires 60 votes to advance to a final passage. Senator Jeff Flake said it was dead on arrival.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R), ARIZONA: There is no path forward for the House bill. The only path forward is to a bill that has an agreement between the president and both houses of Congress. And the next time we vote will be on the agreement, not another test vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP) TUR: How long could a shutdown last before a deal is reached? Keep in mind that if Trump stays in D.C. during the shutdown, he`ll be sitting in the residence watching TV and likely stewing. Remember not even two weeks ago, the president said that he would take responsibility for any government shutdown.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I`m not going to blame you for it. The last time you shut it down it didn`t work. I will take the mantle of shutting it down. And I`m going to shut it down for border security.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TUR: He made it pretty clear there. So we could see movement tomorrow or the next day or whenever the president has had it with wall-to-wall news coverage of the third government shutdown this year. Starting things off for us tonight, NBC News chief White House correspondent Hallie Jackson. Hallie, what`s going on back there?
HALLIE JACKSON, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NBC NEWS: Well, the White House, the lights are technically still on, but it`s pretty dark inside, Katy. Most people headed home for the evening. I ran into the vice president, Mick Mulvaney, Jared Kushner as they made their way back from the Capitol earlier this evening.
Director Mulvaney said, the incoming chief of staff, still talking and that`s where things seem to be. So, here`s where things seem to stand tonight. The president in that video that he has tweeted out this evening says hopefully the shutdown will not last long.
He is again reiterating his demand for border wall money or money for what he calls a slat fence which is a formulation of a phrase that we have heard him use more and more over these last couple of days talking about some kind of construction with steel slats.
Perhaps the president is trying to move toward an off ramp where fencing money, money for a border fence, is something that he would be willing to accept, but that`s still a question mark. I`m told by one White House official in just the last couple of minutes that at this point, president, the White House, they want more than $1.6 billion for this border wall, border security. Democrats want to give less than that.
So this is the stalemate that we`re at. It`s the stalemate that we have been at. As far as time line, listen, they have today, they have, well, I guess not today, they have tomorrow, they have Sunday to try to figure this out. The expectation is that the shutdown will last at least until Sunday, at least here inside the White House. That`s the thinking of officials that I have been talking to.
But what happens come Sunday night. That`s a real question, right? Because if there is no movement, if both sides are still stuck far apart here as we are seeing so far, Donald Trump is then faced with something kind of interesting here, he either stays at the White House over Christmas eve and Christmas day while his family and many of his friends are down at Mar-a- Lago where he traditionally spends his holiday breaks.
So he stays in Washington. If he wants to go to Mar-a-Lago, he either capitulates on his demand for $5 billion for this border wall, essentially gives in, reopens the government goes down, or potentially the president could fly down to Mar-a-Lago with the government still closed and deal with the sort of political optics of that. That is something Democrats are sure to turn into an attack line.
The third choice, of course, that he remains home, but I have to imagine that at that point the frustration may start to build. I get the sense tonight here at the White House that there is a resignation, that the shutdown is happening. It`s here for probably 48 hours or so. The question mark is what happens after that, Katy.
TUR: What is the end game? You talked about steel slats. The president, as you know as well as I do, campaigned on a wall. This idea that now he`s talking about steel slats has to be some acknowledgment by him that the majority of the country doesn`t like a wall, doesn`t actually want the wall despite what Sarah Sanders may be saying on Fox News or despite what the president may tweet out.
Is that an understanding that at some point he is going to need to capitulate one or the other? In every conversation I`ve had today about what`s going on on Capitol Hill, the consensus has been that Donald Trump will have to fold at some point on something. JACKSON: It may be an acknowledgment of what he`s hearing from people inside the Department of Homeland Security and elsewhere about the logistical impracticality of like a huge concrete wall laying along the border, right? That`s not realistic. It doesn`t seem to be effective based on what experts say. So perhaps it`s an indication that the president has that.
Here is the thing. He already broke his wall promise. That`s gone because he promised, as you know, that Mexico would pay for the wall. That was the two-part promise that he made. Wall, Mexico pays. Well, now we know that`s not happening because the president is now in essence threatening, doing, shutting down the government in order to try to get Congress to agree that taxpayers should end up footing the bill.
So the wall promise is over. The question is now does he get some of what he wants, right? Does he get this money for border security? And I`ll tell you, that is -- its more than just a talking point, right? People here at the White House truly believe that the president, and the president believes that this is what is right, this is what his base wants, this is what his supporters want to see, and he makes to make it happen. TUR: Does his base want steel slats indirectly paid by Mexico, though --
JACKSON: We`ll find out when Rush Limbaugh gets back on the air next week. TUR: Yeah, that`s right, exactly. Certainly wasn`t the campaign promise that either one of us heard on the campaign trail. Hallie Jackson, I hope the end of the evening is coming close for you. We appreciate your time. Thanks for staying up with us.
Joining us now are Norm Ornstein, congressional historian and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Jonathan Allen, national political reporter for NBC News. Norm, talking about Rush Limbaugh, Hallie Jackson just brought that up.
NORM ORNSTEIN, CONGRESSIONAL HISTORIAN, RESIDENT SCHOLAR AT AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Yeah.
TUR: Bob Corker earlier today said that basically Rush Limbaugh is the one that is in control of the government. He called it the tyranny of talk radio hosts. We have two talk radio hosts who influenced the president. He said, that`s tyranny, isn`t it? Talking about Ann Coulter --
ORNSTEIN: Ann Coulter.
TUR: -- and Rush Limbaugh.
ORNSTEIN: Don`t forget Laura Ingraham.
TUR: Yeah.
ORNSTEIN: That`s a threesome. You know, there`s little doubt that this is a Trump, Limbaugh, Coulter, Ingraham shutdown and that makes it more difficult to resolve, and we wouldn`t be having it if there wasn`t this pressure from the right.
One thing I want to say though, Katy, is the human cost of this. There are 800,000 federal employees and a lot of other contractors involved here who over the Christmas holiday aren`t going to get paid. TUR: Hold on --
ORNSTEIN: A lot of them go from paycheck to paycheck.
TUR: We in fact check on that. There`s going to be a delay in -- there`s a delay in the processing of paychecks. So they`ll still get their paychecks over the holiday break, we have been told, but they won`t get the paychecks down the line if there is a shutdown. ORNSTEIN: They will get their paychecks for the previous period, but not for this time. But for a lot of them, they have already made commitments based on what they expect will happen. And if you are a contractor for the federal government, you may not get the money back down the road. It`s almost guaranteed for federal employees.
There`s one other point I would make here. A lot of people are going to be disrupted by this. The TSA is one of the agencies that is probably not going to have people furloughed but they`re not going to be in a very good mood over the holidays. And the IRS which will pretty much be shutdown if this goes into January is going to cause enormous disruption for people filing their tax returns and hoping to get the money back.
So, there`s going to be pressure, I think, on a lot of members of Congress. The people who had plans are going to find that they aren`t going to be able to fulfill them. And then the question becomes, as you said, what`s the end game? And I think the only end game available here is that there is a deal where Democrats get something in return for giving him more money and that something, I think, has to be the dreamers.
TUR: Jonathan, are there any discussion right now along those lines?
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JONATHAN ALLEN, DIGITAL NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, NBC NEWS: I think right now the discussion that is on the table is the one that Chuck Schumer put there, which is the offer that he and Nancy Pelosi put forward and the thing that the Senate passed earlier this week, which was $1.6 billion in wall funding.
Katy, I think if you take a step back here, there are really two buckets to look at in terms of the politics of this. One is government. Republicans control the house, the Senate, and the presidency as you know. It has been -- Norm can check on this, he knows the history here -- but with the exception of the shutdown earlier this year, it`s been about 40 years since there was a government shutdown when one party controlled all three of those levers, since the Jimmy Carter administration --
ORNSTEIN: That`s right.
ALLEN: Because no party wants to be so incredibly responsible for the failure of governments to have control of all three of those levers and to fail to govern. The other bucket here is Trump`s immigration policy which has been an abject failure to the point that you and Hallie were making earlier. Mexico isn`t paying for a wall. Congress isn`t paying for a wall.
The legal immigration code has not been rewritten. The illegal immigration code has not been rewritten. And you got the government with this shutdown over the wall. The president hasn`t gotten any of those things, and he lost 40 seats in the midterms after campaigning on immigration.
So, I think the question that you have to ask yourself if you`re at the White House or you`re on the president`s team strategically and if you`re - - Republicans in Congress I know are asking this question, how do you back out of this as gracefully as possible without losing anything more?
TUR: Well, that is a good question. And my other question to you, Jonathan, is just how much does his base think that he is proving his mettle by fighting for this? And when we talk about the base, I mean, he needs to expand it at some point. Let`s remember, he only won by a small margin in a few counties in a couple of key states.
So if that support erodes here or there even a little bit, he`s in real jeopardy in 2020. So this idea that he needs to prove his mettle for his base, does that still hold water today in 2018? December? Jonathan? ALLEN: It`s amazing, but that`s what I`m hearing when I talk to people who sort of come from that base and who talk to his voters. I spoke to Michael Caputo. You know him. He worked on the 2016 campaign and he said exactly that. This is a test to the president`s mettle for his base, whether he`s going to be able to stand up for the wall, the signature promise, and at the same time, as you point out, if he runs a base plus zero (ph) election, that`s not likely to result in a win.
We have seen some other moves by him this week that look very much like he`s expanding his bandwidth in some ways, right? He does the criminal justice bill this week. We see him drawing down from Syria, drawing down from Afghanistan. These are moves that are likely to be popular outside of his base, and at the same time he`s very stuck in this wall fight because I think there are a lot of people who voted for him who very much expect him to be there on this. TUR: But again, it wasn`t for steel slats indirectly paid for by the Mexican government. It was for a wall paid for by Mexico directly.
ORNSTEIN: There`s a larger point here though, Hallie, which is Mueller. And the reason he`s doubling down on his base and is not so concerned about expanding it is he wants to keep 80 to 90 percent of that base on his side because if they`re there, the Republicans in Congress are going to be much more reluctant to join in when the other shoes begin to drop as the noose is tightened.
It`s why I was pretty confident we would see a shutdown even when it didn`t look like it would happen because there`s a lot of news out there that suggests they`re getting closer and closer to a big problem for him and whenever that happens, he wants, one, a distraction, and two, to get that base excited. So, he`s not as concerned about expanding right now. 2020 is still not on his radar screen. He wants to survive 2019. TUR: The phrase we keep hearing over and over again is that the wheels are coming off in the White House. Listen to how The Washington Post puts it today. Inside the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump was in what one Republican close to the White House described as a "tailspin," acting "totally irrationally" and "flipping out" over criticisms in the media.
Even his aides argued to him that protesting over wall funding could deprive government workers of paychecks over Christmas, Trump warned in private conversations with Republican lawmakers that they all would get "crushed" if they did not get the wall built.
Norm?
ORNSTEIN: So, there`s little doubt that the -- there`s a whole lot of things going on that`s causing chaos in the White House and all of the turnover is making a difference there as well. There will be pressure on Republicans but remember one other thing, Democrats have no particular incentive to give in on anything before January 3rd, when they gain even more of an upper hand, when they take the majority in the House of Representatives.
Paul Ryan as his last gesture gave the president the bill that gave the $5 billion of funding for the wall. That won`t have to continue. And really it`s going to be a question of whether over the next few days the Republicans in the Senate, especially, put pressure on Trump to find some kind of deal. It`s not going to be caving to the $1.3 billion because Rush Limbaugh will go to DEFCON one over that.
But if you can give the Democrats the dreamer of something on child separation that gets folded into this package or both, then maybe we`ll find a deal. Otherwise, this may stretch on for some time. TUR: Norm Ornstein, Jonathan Allen, thank you very much.
ORNSTEIN: Than you. ALLEN: Thank you, Katy.
TUR: Coming up, call it the Mattis panic. Members of Congress, former diplomats and military experts and even foreign leaders are worried about the president`s military decisions now that Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has resigned in protest.l
And later, reports that the president has been pressuring Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker to intervene in the prosecutions that could ensnare the president.
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TODD: Distressed, concerned, frightened. Those are the words of growing bipartisan panic after Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned in protest and condemned Donald Trump`s approach to foreign policy. Tonight we`re learning new details about why Mattis quit over Trump`s hasty decision to withdraw troops from Syria.
The Associated Press reports that Trump made the decision during a phone call with Turkish President Erdogan. Trump reportedly ignored talking points that Mattis and other national security advisers prepared for him, then when Erdogan pressed him on the need for U.S. troops in Syria, the president quickly capitulated by pledging to withdraw shocking both national security adviser Bolton and Erdogan.
With Mattis leaving, fear about what an unchecked Donald Trump might do is reverberating around the world and rattling U.S. allies. In The New York Times, the former Australian government defense strategist said, "who is left in the U.S. cabinet who we regard as an adult? We both scratched our heads."
The Washington Post reports that Germany`s foreign relations committee chair said, "now we have an unrestrained Trump, which is a dangerous signal for the year ahead." Even the former army colonel in China expresses concern. "If Trump chooses a lackey who isn`t willing to serve as a balance to his instincts, the worry is that the world becomes even more unstable."
Joining us now, John McLaughlin, the former acting director of the CIA and an MSNBC national security analyst, and Nick Kristof, a Pulitzer Prize- winning columnist for The New York Times. John, thank you so much for joining us and Nick as well. What can you tell me, John, first about how you see Mattis`s departure?
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, FORMER ACTING CIA DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST FOR MSNBC: Well, Katy, I have never seen in 40 years of being in government service anything approaching the chaos we have in our government now, both in the national security arena, but across the government in our process and so forth.
If you you are a foreign observer looking at the United States now, you`re going to say to yourself, there are no principles, there is no policy, there is no process, we don`t know where you stand. And so I think Mattis`s departure takes Trump`s foreign policy to a crossroads here.
It is the first time we see fully manifest what America first means because in this case, it is not just a matter of pulling out of a treaty or agreement like the climate agreement or something like that.
It is matter of pulling back American troops and abandoning allies who have worked with us and fought with us and to whom we owe allegiance and support. That message is going to reverberate around the world. The president`s erraticism and incompetence is on full display this week.
TUR: John, who benefits from a pull out of Syria or Afghanistan? MCLAUGHLIN: I`m sorry, say that again, please.
TUR: Who benefits if we pull out of Syria or Afghanistan? MCLAUGHLIN: Oh, clearly it`s Russia and Iran, to Turkey to a degree, and of course ISIS itself which is not defeated. I say Russia because it is Russia that came in in 2015 and has kept Assad propped up. Our own policy stated within the last month is that we have three goals. This is stated by other than Trump.
We have three goals. To get rid of Iran, to defeat ISIS, and to construct the political settlement. With his decision here, he has overturned all three of those goals without any intergovernmental process that normally would take place to sort out what are the secondary and tertiary consequences of that. It`s complete folly, I think. TUR: There are questions surrounding why Donald Trump made this move. We`re talking about Vladimir Putin here, Nick. There are questions surrounding was this something he may have promised him or they discussed at least in that one-on-one meeting they had back in Helsinki that no one attended, that there is not a record for, so it is unclear what was discussed.
Sarah Sanders was asked about whether this was done for Putin today. After all, Vladimir Putin is happy. The Russian media is reporting that this is basically a gift to the Russians. Listen to what she said.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Vladimir Putin cheered the president`s decision to leave Syria and James Mattis said he would be leaving the administration. What message does that send that Putin cheers the president and his own defense secretary is upset about it?
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The idea that Putin is happy about this is ridiculous. He is not. This puts a greater emphasis and makes them have to actually step up and do something and do more in the region. It puts them at a greater risk. So I think that`s just silly.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TUR: Is it just silly?
NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES: You know, so the idea of pulling out troops from Syria or reducing the troops in Afghanistan is not a crazy idea and it`s something that over time we should be working toward. The way this was handled was, indeed, completely crazy. Indeed, Russia is the beneficiary.
In the case of Syria, we abandoned the Kurds. The latest betrayal of the Kurds in 100 years of such betrayals. And I, you know, it speaks to this larger sense of chaos and undermining of our commitments.
I mean, this was the last straw for Mattis, but I think that for Mattis, the larger issue was the way the president was systematically undermining the systems that could help keep us safe for 75 years and the recognition that what keeps us safe isn`t just guns but also our alliances, and that`s what this portrayed.
TUR: Bob Woodward wrote in his book, "we`re doing this, this is about how Mattis served as a check on Donald Trump`s military strategy, specifically North Korea. We are doing this in order to prevent World War III, Mattis said. They couldn`t believe they were having these conversations and had to justify their reasoning. Mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like and had the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader."
This is talking about doing military exercises along the Korean Peninsula.
KRISTOF: Katy, I think that is indeed the issue, that globally Mattis was seen as kind of a Trump tamer, that Trump would have some crazy idea about a military parade, about transgender troops, and it would be Mattis who would reign him back in.
But really the most important issue of all was North Korea and what we all heard is that Trump put a lot of pressure on the joint chiefs to explore military strikes, to explore provocative actions along North Korea that people worried might spark something, and that it was really Mattis who managed to talk him down from that.
And Mattis did that. In a way, he managed Trump. Mike Pompeo in contrast is somebody who is essentially a yes man to Trump. And I think we all worry about what will happen in that context. TUR: So John, who is left? Who is the one that`s going to push back and pull Donald Trump back from his worst impulses? MCLAUGHLIN: You know, Katy, I thought about that and I would like to say that someone is left, but I don`t think there is at this point. That is why it will be very important to see who ultimately becomes the next secretary of defense.
That is probably at this point the most important role in government other than the president, in that it commands one of the largest budgets in the world and is responsible for the lives and safety and policies of our armed forces.
So at this point, I truly don`t see anyone in this cabinet who has what Mattis had, which is the authority that was accepted on both sides of the aisle to speak truth to power. He won some and he lost some, but he could speak in that way both to the president, to the Republicans, to the Democrats and to our foreign partners. And I don`t see anyone else in this lineup who can do that with the same authority and respect.
TUR: It would be very fair to wonder that no matter who takes that job, no matter how strong they may be, wonder whether Donald Trump will even listen to them. John McLaughlin, thank you very much.
MCLAUGHLIN: Thank you.
TUR: Nicholas Kristof, thank you as well. Coming up, more Republican legislators are coming forward to say they are concerned about the president`s decisions, but will they stop with just words or will they act?
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TUR: The resignation of Defense Secretary Mattis has raised the stakes for Donald Trump`s GOP defenders in Congress. The man who`s seen as the last guardrail of the president is out and Republicans seem worried. The normally reserved Mitch McConnell says he is "particularly distressed that Mattis is resigning due to sharp differences with the president".
Senator Marco Rubio tweeted, "We are headed towards a series of grave policy errors which will endanger." Our nation but talk is cheap, will Republicans do something? Well, he didn`t say that. That`s our question.
There are no more excuses not to argues David Frum, in "The Atlantic" he writes, "So long as Mattis stayed on the job, Republicans in Congress could indulge the hope that responsible people remained in charge of the nation`s security. That hope has now been repudiated by the very person in whom the hope was placed. It`s James Mattis himself who is telling you that the president does not treat allies with respect, does not have a clear-eyed view of malign actors and strategic competitors. And now the question is for Congress, the Klaxon is sounding. The system is failing. What will you do?"
Joining us now is David Frum, a senior editor for "The Atlantic" and Norm Ornstein is back with us as well. David, keep going with that. You`re asking what Republicans will do. They have clearly heard it. They read the resignation letter like the rest of us. They had been pointing to James Mattis and General Kelly or General McMaster now for a year and a half. All three of them will be gone soon. McMaster has been gone for a while. What happens now with the GOP?
DAVID FRUM, SENIOR EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC: When Cyrus Vance resigned as Jimmy Carter`s secretary of state in 1980 because he disagreed with using force to try to liberate the hostages in April of 1980, that was a policy disagreement. But on his way out the door, Cyrus Vance did not say, "I don`t think that Jimmy Carter has the best interests of America at heart. I don`t think he is reliable. And I have no respect for him." It was a policy disagreement and that`s it. And those are important resignations over those are a great American tradition.
That`s not what James Mattis did. He didn`t say I disagree with the president or he said I do disagree with the president and what I disagree with him about is recognizing enemies and protecting friends. And, oh by the way, I`m signing this just James Mattis, no respectfully. That letter is a warning that Mattis thinks there`s something not different between the two points of view but actually untrustworthy, unreliable, unpatriotic about the president`s point of view.
TUR: Well, look at this quote from the "L.A. Times" tonight. And this comes from a Republican senator conversation with the Republican senator. "Think of Trump as sitting on an island," said a top aide to a Pro-Trump senator who requested anonymity to reflect on the conversations. "Every story like Mattis, Syria, shutdown is like a wave that erodes a little more of the beach. How much land is going to be left when the Mueller tidal wave hits," David?
FRUM: Well, how much should there even be there now? Bob Corker who is departing this year, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been on this show and so many others and has expressed so much his anxiety about what is happening. And yet Republicans and the Congress and especially Republicans in the Senate who know all the things who is not saying anything that they haven`t heard, haven`t thought, maybe haven`t even said but they have been passive and fearful.
TUR: Well, it`s continuing. I mean today, a number -- or yesterday, a number of Republican lawmakers who were railing against all of this chaos norm were saying, "Hey, yes, I`m going to actually vote to extend this CR to add the $5 billion towards it." You can argue that Republicans have capitulated the president and paved the way for him to act as chaotically as they are.
Here`s what Ezra Klein in "Vox", "Trump had no power to force this shutdown on his own. Congressional Republicans and Democrats had to come to an agreement. If Trump vetoed, they could have overturned the veto but Congressional Republicans are choosing once again to indulge Trump rather than serve the country."
NORM ORNSTEIN, CO-AUTHOR, ONE NATION AFTER TRUMP: So Katy, in 23 months, we have had not a single action taken by the Republicans in the House or Senate to put any constraints around this president or his cabinet or the policy actions that they have taken. There`s no doubt in my mind that if they could secretly snap their fingers and click their heels three times and have him simply disappear without a trace that you would get a vast majority of Republicans in Congress doing that.
So far, there have only been angry tweets. One real question coming forward is the president is going to have to nominate somebody to replace Jim Mattis, what will they do with that confirmation? So far any major confirmation including people highly questionable for the courts or for the cabinet or sub-cabinet have gone through with enough votes. And we`re going to start to see if there`s any backbone whatsoever with members who privately stew, privately say this is nuts, publicly do nothing.
TUR: David Frum and Norm Ornstein, gentlemen, thank you very much.
ORNSTEIN: Thank you.
FRUM: Thanks, Katy.
TUR: And coming up, we have breaking news reports that the president has been pressuring the acting attorney general over the Michael Cohen prosecutions in New York. That`s next.
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TUR: As drama over the government shutdown continues to unfold tonight, there is even more breaking news coming out of the nation`s capital. A new report out tonight claims that Trump lashed out at acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker for not trying to exercise control over the Southern District of New York`s investigation into Trump`s former personal attorney Michael Cohen. Citing multiple sources, the report claims that Trump made his displeasure clear to acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker after Cohen pleaded guilty, November 29, to lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow.
In a separate instance, a week later, Trump reportedly blew up at Whitaker again. This time over the Southern District`s decision to implicate him in the hush money payment schemes for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. In that instance, Trump reportedly pressed Whitaker on why more wasn`t being done to control prosecutors in New York who brought the charges in the first place, suggesting they were going rogue.
As Special Counsel Robert Mueller continues to investigate whether or not Trump obstructed justice in the Russia investigation, these new allegations could raise a whole new set of questions about whether the president could be trying to obstruct the Southern District of New York`s investigation as well. The panel will help me break down the allegations in this new report and what it could mean for the president, next.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP: Do you expect Matt Whitaker to be involved in the Russia probe? Do you want him to --
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That`s up to him.
PHILLIP: Do you want him to rein in Robert Mueller?
TRUMP: What a stupid question that is. What a stupid question. But I watch you a lot. You ask a lot of stupid questions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TUR: That`s a stupid answer more than a stupid question. That was President Trump insulting a reporter for asking if he wanted acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker to reign in Robert Mueller`s investigation. But now, a new report out tonight claims Trump has already asked Whitaker to rein in prosecutors in a different investigation, the Southern District of New York`s investigation into hush money payments for Trump`s alleged mistresses.
Joining us now, Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress. David Frum and Jonathan Allen are back. Neera, I`m going to give you the first bite of this apple. The president meddling into the Southern District of New York. What do you think?
NEERA TANDEN, PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: I think that we have a case here over two years in which the president of the United States has meddled. And another word for meddling in a case in which the president is the subject of an investigation is obstruction of justice. And this would be -- anybody worth his or her salt in federal law enforcement who was -- who the president was discussing this with would say, "This is possible obstruction of justice. You should really not talk about this."
But we have this case. We have the firing of Comey. We have tons of conversations going back and forth on this which is very clear that the president wants to impede the investigation. And he`s doing that, I believe, because he is worried about what will happen but it`s obviously obstruction to me.
TUR: Giuliani all but confirmed this. Listen to what he said to "CNN", David. The president`s lawyer said the president and his lawyers are upset about the professional prosecutors in the Southern District of New York going after a non-crime and the innuendo the president was involved, Giuliani said in a statement to "CNN" on Friday. That`s pretty much confirming the president -- he says he didn`t know specifically if he did talk to him, but not being surprised if he did get involved in it with Matthew Whitaker.
FRUM: Look, when the president said to Abby Phillip what a stupid question if you can translate from the Trump speak what a stupid question means, why yes, those are my fingerprints all over the murder weapon. And I --
TUR: It`s like writing a book, what if I did it?
FRUM: What if I -- well, no, actually, but not the what if. I mean so it`s confirmed that the president`s own lawyer goes on TV and aimlessly talks. By the way, one of the questions that people out there in TV land, if you ever find yourself on the wrong side of a law enforcement investigation, the question to ask your lawyers, do you like going on television. And if lawyer says yes, get another lawyer?
TUR: That is really good advice. Try to choose not a TV lawyer but somebody who puts their head down and does their work. I mean this shouldn`t be surprising though, Jon. I mean he said the quiet part out loud multiple times before. He said openly that he wants his attorney general to protect him. He claimed that Eric Holder protected President Obama and that`s what he thought Jeff Sessions would do. That`s why he was so upset with Jeff Sessions.
Matthew Whitaker is a guy that went on cable television and lambasted the Robert Mueller investigation, called it a witch hunt, used all those words that the president is so fond of using. Now he`s the acting attorney general. He`s refused to recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation. Should it come as any surprise that Donald Trump would tell him that he`s unhappy with the SDNY investigation? Or should it be more of a surprise that he wouldn`t tell Matthew Whitaker that he was unhappy with the SDNY investigation?
JONATHAN ALLEN, CO-AUTHOR, SHATTERED: I don`t think it`s surprising at all. I agree with David. I think that the president`s response to Abby Phillip reads exactly the way that David suggests that he`s saying that it`s not a smart question because obviously, the answer is the president intends to hire somebody that will be helpful to him.
I think the question though is if you`re Matthew Whitaker and you`re in that position if you want to remain in a place where you`re consistent with the law and that you`re not eventually prosecuted yourself, how is it that you don`t fulfill the requests of the president? Because while the president may not be able to be prosecuted under the Justice Department guidelines, there`s no such opinion about the acting attorney general. And so Matthew Whitaker`s in a really bad place if the president is asking him to potentially get involved in things that might be looked at by prosecutors as obstruction of justice.
The other thing is if you`re the president and you`re thinking these things out, Matthew Whitaker, if he`s thinking clearly can`t do the things you`re asking him to do, so it`s counterproductive the minute you ask him to do it, he can`t do it. So it defies any sort of logic that the president would get on the phone and demand that he gets involved in these investigations because if Whitaker is smart and wants to stay out of trouble himself, he then can`t do anything the president`s asked him to do.
TUR: Neera, why would he get involved, though? I mean, what is --
TANDEN: I mean, the obvious issue here is, except that the president wants to impede the investigation, it`s because the investigation itself is such a great risk to the president that he`s willing to take smaller risks to impede it. I mean, it seems -- we have these conversations in which the President Donald Trump doesn`t know what he`s doing or, you know, tonight it`s more like he`s colonel mustard in the library.
But the truth is it seems to me pretty abundantly clear that he is deeply worried about what the investigation will find because he`s willing to take risks no other president who`s been under investigation or anything close to this is willing to do. And he`s breaking those guardrails because at the end of the investigation, he`s worried he will be directly implicated in crimes. I mean I think that is the way to think about this rationally because why else would he take this risk except he wants to impede it.
TUR: David.
ALLEN: He already has been implicated in crimes.
FRUM: The question we always talk about on cable TV is what should the president do. And there`s really only one credible workable answer which is be less guilty.
TUR: Or just be quiet.
FRUM: Well --
TANDEN: But see, if he`s quiet, I think he`s worried that at the end of this, the special prosecutor will find him.
FRUM: If he is quiet -- there are no good answers here. Be less guilty, otherwise, you`re going to be in a lot of trouble.
TUR: Is that the case? I mean we talk about this all the time and we try to find -- I mean it`s human nature to try and find a complicated answer to a very simple question. And the simple answer is just that Donald Trump, could it be that he just did something wrong and he is very guilty and he is trying to hide it. Do we need to keep twisting ourselves around? And - - but is it fair to just assume that? I mean it`s hard to come down on the right side of history here on this.
FRUM: Well, let me put it this way. If it were back in the summer of 2015, the day that Donald Trump declares to the presidency and none of these things he did as president were known, that you would know that over his previous 40-year career as a real estate developer in New York, he was guilty of a lot of things that weren`t political. But he`s just guilty all the time. He`s just always guilty.
And so that doesn`t mean that each and everything that he`s accused of that he`s guilty of that thing, but he`s been guilty of so many things that. That`s just the law of averages tells you that the next thing, he`s probably guilty of that too.
TANDEN: I`m not saying -- I`d just like to say, we don`t have to presume he`s guilty. I`m just saying he has acted guilty in numerous occasions. He has lawyers. He knows you shouldn`t actually try -- look like you`re impeding an investigation or actually try to impede it. He`s already got - - we`ve had a public discussion of the Comey firing. He`s cognizant of that. So it`s just a little hard to understand what alternative explanation --
TUR: Can you make the argument that this is Donald Trump and Donald Trump doesn`t like being backed into a corner and his ego is everything. And so what he`s going to do is fight, fight, fight, fight, fight no matter what and that is really what`s motivating him more than anything else despite the fact that it`s in his worst interests to act this way, Jonathan?
ALLEN: Yes. But Katy, if you look at the form that that fight is taking right now, he`s got Rudy Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, arguing that crimes that Michael Cohen admitted to, has been sentenced for, that a judge accepted as federal crimes are not crimes. If you were somebody who got prosecuted by Rudy Giuliani provided that you`re still alive, because it`s been a long time since Rudy Giuliani was actually a prosecutor, you should be begging for an appeal of your conviction on the basis that whatever it was you pleaded guilty to or convicted on wasn`t actually a crime because, you know, as we now know Rudy Giuliani doesn`t think anything is a crime as he`s arguing for Donald Trump.
TUR: Let`s just remember that Rudy Giuliani was the mayor of New York. And in order to clean up New York, he had a broken windows policy which when after squeegee man, there was no crime that was too small not to be prosecuted in New York City while Rudy Giuliani was mayor. That`s how he cleaned up New York.
And yet now he`s trying to say that crimes aren`t really crimes and it`s not a big deal because the president -- because nobody died. It`s really quite an about-face for somebody who was so strict once upon a time.
David Frum, Neera Tanden, Jonathan Allen, thank you, guys. Happy holidays. Happy New Year.
FRUM: Thank you.
TANDEN: Happy holidays.
ALLEN: Congratulations, Katy.
TUR: Thank you very much. And tonight`s LAST WORD is next.
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TUR: Time for tonight`s LAST WORD. Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is said to be resting comfortably in a New York City hospital tonight after having two cancerous growths removed from her lung. The nodes were found after she fractured three ribs last month. Justice Ginsburg boarded a plane to New York City shortly after voting with the majority of the court to block President Trump`s order restricting asylum seekers at the U.S. border. That vote was 5-4.
In fact, I was on the same flight as Justice Ginsburg from Washington to New York City yesterday. Now we know why she was traveling. If you were curious, she seemed pretty well yesterday. She walked on the plane, walked off the plane on her own, spent the entire time working, and still today, as it was yesterday, the wildest sentence I have now ever heard is Justice Ginsburg would you like anything to drink? She ordered coffee. That`s tonight`s LAST WORD.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END