Transcript for Dem strategist: Administration 'got caught telling the truth' on $130,000 payment

says things that turn out not to be true, when the president, the white house, show what appears to be a blatant disregard for the truth, how are the American people to trust or believe what is said here and what is said by the president? We give the very best information that we have at the time. I do that every single day and will continue to do that every day I'm in this position. That was the briefing room the day after Rudy Giuliani's first interview on "Hannity" that set this off this week. We discuss it with Jon Karl. Matthew dowd. "Wall Street journal" columnist Jason Riley. Democratic vat strategist Karen finney. I want to get back to the briefing later. Let's begin with the interview. Your big takeaways, the big headlines? You're seeing a new war on Robert Mueller. A new war on the investigation. Mueller and the investigation are now central to the trump midterm election strategy and his re-election strategy. They want to vilify. They want to delay this investigation. Draw it out. You'll see more interviews like this. They actually want this issue to be front and center, because, George, they believe that the biggest motivator for the trump base in the midterm elections will be fear of impeachment. And pretty clear from that interview that the president is not going to sit down with Robert Mueller anytime soon. Absolutely not. If there is a subpoena. And I don't believe there will be, it will be fought. Even if they believe they'll lose, they'll fight it to draw it out, draw it out as long as possible. Rudy Giuliani did not rule out having the president take the fifth. No, he did not. A bizarre interview. He came out against the rule of law and ever speaking to a grand jury. He ruled out taking the fifth. Seemed to suggest maybe there was a slush fund and other women were paid. You know, look, I think the reality here is they got caught telling the truth this week. And I think we saw them trying to walk that back over the course of several days. So what's the point, Jason Riley? If you go back to Wednesday, clearly, maybe it was a mistake in strategy. Clearly on Wednesday night, Rudy Giuliani deliberately put out the idea that the president reimbursed Michael Cohen after denial after denial after denial. And he's spent 72 hours now in damage control. Politically, it's a very risky strategy, Jonathan, going this route. Up until now this is a story about a 10-year-old affair with the president and stormy Daniels. Now, we're ensuring wall-to-wall coverage of the president and the porn star. The administration is not out there talking about their agenda. You had unemployment fall to rates we have rarely seen since World War II ended. But nobody is talking about the jobs numbers. Nobody is talking about the economy. We're talking about this instead. I also think, George, he's sort of taking his supporters for granted here. The president. The president. He put out a narrative there that he had no knowledge of this payment. His daughter ivanka was defending this. Sarah Sanders was defending this. Now he said, we're going to put out a new strategy. And I expect you to defend that, as well. This was just April 5th. Not long ago. One month. Completely blew up. It wasn't April 2017. It was April 2018 he made the statement. I think Rudy Giuliani has come so far from when he was a U.S. Prosecutor. Basically prosecuting people like book Mueller and James Comey have done. He's come so far afield from that. I would like to take a step back. You never hear a single person who speaks on behalf of the president use this argument. The president is a man of integrity. He's trustworthy and honest and we should believe him. You hear, if he lied, he lied. This is how it goes. It wasn't a campaign violation. If it was a campaign violation, you can't prosecute him because he paid it back. All of the statements in all of in, to me, points out the fact that we have now come to a position in our politics where people don't seem to think integrity matters anymore. Or that we -- lying has become so normalized. The way people talk about the administration. Talk about what happens daily in the white house briefing room as -- if the best answer that Sarah Sanders can give is, I only have the best information that I have, it's because she knows that her boss may be tweeting something that is totally the opposite of what she might be telling the American people. I think part of the problem with that, though, I kind of go back to, that's not news. What is news is what are the Republicans who are running for congress, running for re-election going to do about it? All of this, I think Rudy did his job this week, if his job was to create a shiny object and take us away. You're right. We're not talking about the jobs numbers. We're not talking about, North Korea. And the sort of danger of the idea that -- of president trump sitting down with the north Korean leader and what could come of that. So I think, again, we're not talking about the idea that rod Rosenstein is this Archibald cox moment we're facing. I think we have come to a position now where almost everybody that deals with the white house or listens to the president, the default position is, it's probably not true. It's an awful position for a white house or a president to be in. Donald Trump, the past week, Albert Pujols both got to the 3,000 club. Albert Pujols did it for hits. Donald Trump did it for lies. If you can't believe them on any of this, can you believe them on North Korea? On Iran? On military exercises? You and I were texting during the briefing the other day. It did seem to hit a new low in that briefing. Sarah Sanders either couldn't answer the questions and just punted. But also couldn't clean up what the president had said before. It almost gets to the point where you shrug your shoulders and say, we don't know what's true. What's not. We're not going to get the answer from the podium. The first part of my question, when I said when the president shows a flagrant disregard for the truth -- she didn't take issue with that statement. She didn't challenge that statement. How many times has she been up there, told a piece of information, it turned out not to be true. I want to make a point about the manafort case. That Rudy Giuliani made with the judge in that case. I think that that judge spoke for a lot of trump supporters when he said that the Mueller investigation seems to have gone well past what its mandate was. This goes back to Rosenstein. That's where the real anger is. Coming from conservatives and trump supporters. The real anger is Rosenstein. Because he's the one that is supposed to be overseeing Mueller. He's allowed him to go off on tangents. Their question is why doesn't he rein Mueller in? The judge was asking questions there. I think one of the things you have to be careful about is getting to the idea that the judge was reaching conclusions. One of the things the judge did there was, let me see the document from rod Rosenstein that gives the mandate to -- They're very reluctant to show that. It breeds the suspicions amongst trump supporters. They say it's not about manafort. It's about taking down a president. The big difference is that's how the justice system works, right? A federal judge asks questions of the prosecution. He's said, I have questions about this. That's how it's supposed to work. What you didn't see is people that support Bob Mueller come out and say, the federal judge should be removed. You have rod Rosenstein out there chastising congress. That's part of the system, too. The trump fan club and trump supporters, every time they're confronted with something in the legal system and justice department, they say the justice department is filled with storm troopers. They're anti-american. What you saw with this is a federal judge stood up and said, this is how it works. We're going to raise questions. You don't see people that support Bob Mueller say, fire the judge. They're asking rod Rosenstein for information that he can't give congress because, as we know, congress is not particularly trust worthy right now. It leaks like a sieve. While we're talking about stormy Daniels, we're not talking about this -- the fight about rod Rosenstein and whether or not, impeaching him? Tomorrow the house of representatives is going to try to impeach rod Rosenstein for doing his job? Rosenstein has job security right now. If you talk about the low unemployment. 3.9%. The maneuvers with North Korea. They have issues to talk about. But I'm telling you, George. I talked to somebody very key working on the trump political strategy for the midterms. The argument that is made is that we tried running on tax cuts and deregulation in the special elections. We got beat. The only way to really turn people out is fear and anger at what Democrats are doing. They're going to look back at 1998 and say this was when bill Clinton was getting impeached. They picked up seats. Democrats picked up seats in the midterm election. And his job approval numbers were at the highest in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky investigation. It was a strong economy, as well. Let me push the point. Rod Rosenstein. That's the logical argument there. Are you certain that the president's -- um -- fortitude will last in the wake of another series of indictments from Robert Mueller? Or a speen ma for his family? Or perhaps a subpoena going after members of his family? You cannot be sure of anything when it comes to Donald Trump, but, George. I'm telling you that every senior person around the president, everybody who -- gives the president counsel on this tells me he is not going to fire rod Rosenstein. He understands what it would mean and the disaster that would ensue. The political damage. That Republicans would start fleeing from him on capitol hill. But, you just can't say for sure. One thing I want to go back to. Something Rudy Giuliani said and many of the people supporting Donald Trump including Donald Trump, saying there's nothing here. We ought to be done. Benghazi was a four-year investigation. Zero indictments. Clinton e-mail scandal, a two-year investigation. No indictments. This has been a 14-month investigation. There's been 23 indictments. If you're going make an argument that something hasn't existed, this is way far above and beyond. I want to bring that question to Jason Riley. You heard it again from Rudy Giuliani. Consistently from the president. No collusion, no collusion, no collusion. That that conclusion has been reached. That dies ever piece of evidence from every person who has talked to Robert Mueller's team. We don't know. Giuliani says he doesn't think Mueller is a leaker. That his top agents are leaking in the case. After he said that the questions were leaked by Mueller. Very interesting. That gets me back to what judge Ellis said here. He said to Mueller's team, you don't have unfettered power here. You can't have unfettered power. You should be working within parameters. And many trump supporters think that this is no longer about Paul manafort's bank fraud or financial dealings. This is about doing whatever it takes to bring down Donald Trump. And, people are very concerned about that. Trump supporters are very concerned that Mueller has not kept his eye on the ball. That he's gone outside of his mandate and the latitude given to him by rod Rosenstein. That goes to, Jon, what you were talking about. The if you talk about 2018. Firing up the trump base to try to turn them out in 2018 when, Democrats have already put it on the table. This is not going to be about impeachment. That's not what they're going to run on. I do think, though, rather than popping the champagne about a blue wave, it is time for the Democrats to actually focus on a message. We, in 2006, talked about the culture of corruption. I think they could talk about a culture of corruption on steroids here. And how the Republicans in congress are protecting the president. They're trying to halt the Russia investigation. They're protecting all the various things he's doing. That's a closer to a winning message than trying to -- than letting the Republicans make it about impeachment. One of the things, Matthew dowd, during the period, a lot of talk about Russia, stormy Daniels. The president's approval rating has been going up. The Democrats have actually lost a little bit of ground on the generic ballot against the Republicans coming up in the midterms. Yeah. I think we're in April. The president's approval is now 42% or 43%. It has bumped up. A similar bump-up to what happened to Bill Clinton. I think we should keep in mind as we go through this, almost every single midterm is determined by a president's job approval rating. It wasn't really fund mentally derned by the message in 2006 or whatever the message was in 2010. It's always an anti-incumbent presidential move. If the president's job approval rating is at 42 or 43 and hasn't risen any more, the likelihood that the Democrats take back the house is huge. I think the Republicans are concerned about turnout. We saw that at the speech with trump to the NRA. That was about gting his base out there. Even though he's not on the ticket. The Republicans are not so much looking at his approval rating. As looking whether tump trump supporters will turn out when trump is not running. That's what the speech was about. Saying to the folks, you have to come out. Even though I'm not on the ticket. I wonder if that is an indication of where things are going forward. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect with what the president wants to do over the next several months on the campaign, and what the Republicans in the house and senate want him to do. The president's political team wants to make this the second trump election. A referendum on trump versus Democrats who want to try to impeach trump. Do you want trump or do you want him impeached? The Republicans running the strategy from capitol hill don't necessarily want that. It's a district by district, state by state effort. Some candidates will have to distance themselves from Donald Trump. The trump political team believes you have to make this all about -- you have to make this a referendum on impeachment. A referendum on the president. And the Democrats cannot let that happen, because I agree with you. That is the way to fire up the base. And Matt, I disagree with you. Part of why the messaging from the Democrats does matter is they have to try to keep the president's number as low as they can and create as much of of a wedge for the Republicans running. It's the claim they have had already in the special elections. We have to -- they have to continue to draw this wedge. And they have to make it quite frankly about while Republicans are sitting there trying to impeach rod Rosenstein, they're not talking about your life and your jobs and your health care. At the end of the day, that matters. Democrats and Republicans are both in a fiction land if they don't think the election will be about Donald Trump. It's absolutely going to be about Donald Trump. Right now, the people that strongly disapprove of Donald Trump are almost twice as large as the people that strongly approve of Donald Trump. That's fundainnocently the issue. In the midst of all the talk of Mueller and special counsel. There's the southern district of New York. And if you talk to Michael Cohen -- that is the real existential threat to Donald Trump. They don't know what is there. You could see the fear is that he will go after the trump organization. The trump organization, which can be subpoenaed. But cannot be pardoned. Cannot take the fifth. And who knows what is there H? That is the real concern. And we can all conclude that though Giuliani is brought on board to speed up the Mueller investigation and bring it to a conclusion, he's probably done just the opposite. He's probably extended it. That is going to be the last word. Thank you all very much. ???

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