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Discussion of Mueller Report. Aired 3:30p-4p ET
Aired April 18, 2019 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN: First, Carl, let me get some perspective from you on how this was handled by the AG -- no John Mitchell of what we saw back in Watergate days, where he was part of an act of criminal conspiracy, but what do you think about the way the AG handled this today and up to today?
[15:30:05]
CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN COMMENTATOR: Well, I think obviously the attorney general of the United States has thrown his lot in with those who believe that there is a vast conspiracy against the president of the United States. And that he is echoing the line of the White House.
I think what's so significant is how different Mueller's report is from how it was characterized in that rather astonishing press conference by the attorney general. This is a vast narrative of a presidential cover-up. That's really what most of these 400 pages about -- are about, including things having to do with Russia.
It explains I think why there was so much lying by the president and those around him and also I think we're now able to understand from this report how judgments are possible about one, the conduct of the president of the United States. Two, about the conduct of the attorney general of the United states these past days.
Three, about the conduct of the investigation that Mr. Mueller conducted, we can make some real judgments about its efficacy and what he found. And fourth, I think we can make some real judgments about the conduct of the press over the past four years. And it all comes together. I think this is a great opportunity.
I'm still halfway through the report. But reading it, we now have some real clarity and it's also -- it's abundantly clear I believe that Mr. Mueller intended this vast narrative to go to the congress of the United States for whatever purposes they saw fit. So this is no exoneration of the president and the United Stats by a long show.
CUOMO: Well, look we heard the AG say today I don't know that he wanted this to be for congress, never said to me -- it's right in the report.
BERNSTEIN: That's right.
CUOMO: And this very tortured -- look, I think there are going to be questions about Mueller here also. You could make the argument that he just should've said I can't make the case of obstruction. But he didn't do that. He took a risk in not going that that he would be criticized for extending himself in to the political but he took that risk.
And obviously it was done by consensus because he had a team. And within that team consensus we saw them take the time to spell out how while there are complicated legal issues regarding his ability to charge, what are those? Article 2, the DOJ guidance about indicting a president among others that congress can do something about this.
And then he then threw in language that dictated a political process by saying can't charge, can't exonerate as we both know prosecutors aren't in the business of exoneration. They never talk about exonerating people, finding them innocent. He did that for a reason to say there's enough here, just not for me, fair take.
BERNSTEIN: I went back and read the charge to Mr. Mueller when he was appointed. And he is supposed to produce a report not just about charging or not charging--
CUOMO: Yes.
BERNSTEIN: But also to find out what the hell happened. And he--
CUOMO: Yes.
BERNSTEIN: -- has really done pretty well at it given the obstructive behavior of the president of the United States and those around him and the lying, et cetera, et cetera. We also still need to see the un-redacted report. Obviously there are some sections that are redacted fir legitimate reasons--
CUOMO: Sure.
BERNSTEIN: -- of national security, disclosing sources and--
CUOMO: Not a grand jury stuff in here too that they should be able to get cleared.
BERNSTEIN: We need the grand jury material.
CUOMO: Yes.
BERNSTEIN: This report already is the connective tissue that explains everything almost we have been reporting over the past two years. It's here--
CUOMO: Yes.
BERNSTEIN: -- in substance, in nuance, in context. And it's there for all people of good will in this country if they're not so dug in politically or ideology to process the information and make some sophisticated judgments about the behavior of everybody I have mentioned here.
CUOMO: Sophisticated judgments is the operative phrase because I don't know how in good conscious if you have a dose of shame in you and you want to support the president, that's fine, stick to criminality. Stay away from the word collision because there's a ton of collision.
There's a ton of clever secretive behavior. And Mueller lays it all out. The idea that there's nothing in here or that it was a witch hunt or that this is a hoax, I don't know how they make that case in good conscious anymore, Carl. Tell me how.
BERNSTEIN: I don't either. And it goes back to something my colleague Bob Woodward wrote in his book about this president. And the reason why Mattis, McMaster, Tillerson, others left serving this president because they believe he is not capable of serving the national interest of the United States.
[15:35:00]
Not capable -- in fact he's a danger to the national security of the United States and that too comes through this report so you have to ask, at a certain point, when does a political party become beholden so much to a kind of self interest of one man, that it abandons its own principles about putting the country first in terms of what our system of laws has always been about in this country.
This is an opportunity -- a real, smart able Republicans read this report, I think they can make some sophisticated judgments about their president. It's not pretty, it is an ugly, damning piece of business.
CUOMO: Carl Bernstein, thank you very much. Let's get back to the panel.
You know, it's interesting what Carl was saying there. The idea of how does the party do it, I think that's -- you know, Carl's a little bit of an idealist, right? He's one of the best journalists that we have going today, let alone one of the high marks of his generation.
But politics is not sophisticated, politics is ugly and obvious. And the move is if we go against our own we lose -- and if we abandon someone whose at 90 percent in the party, my guess is Sarah they do polls after Easter, after Pass Over, after Spring Break which this was all timed to coincide with -- the numbers will be about the same, so why go against one of your own?
MURRAY: You know, there is a way to do this without going against one of your own if you are a Republican. There is a way to go out there and say, look at this chaos that Russia unleashed on our election -- we cannot go through this again. If you are running a campaign you cannot be in a position where you are willing to take a meeting with someone who is offering you dirt from a foreign government.
We cannot be put in this position again, we need to know better -- we need to act better. And this time around we're going to do that, this time around President Trump and his aids have done this once -- they're not going to make those same kind of errors (ph).
CUOMO: But Sara Murray ask that question to me, I am typical Republican Congressman and I say yes you're right Sara -- we cannot do that, we can't do it it's dangerous to the democracy we have to know they're (ph) out to get us. Your follow question is 100 percent, well then what do you say about what the Trump campaign did? And I'm going to say --
MURRAY: And they're not going to say anything.
CUOMO: Well, there's no crime --
MURRAY: But they should say --
CUOMO: And I think that there was a little bit of rush to judgment there.
MURRAY: But they should say they shouldn't have taken that meeting -- you shouldn't have taken that meeting. Don Jr. you should not have accepted help from the Russians when you guys were getting these offers, you should have called the FBI. You've now done this once, you were in politics before -- there was no crime, fine. But there's not an excuse for this anymore.
We have now been in this chaos for years, and there is a way to avoid it. There would have been a way to shave half of this report off which is for the president not to go out of his way over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again to try to end the investigation. But Republicans are not going to wade (ph) in on that.
When it comes to our election security, there is a way for them to at least dip their toe in the water, I'm like -- I'm not living in an (ph) alternate universe, I don't necessarily expect that to happen but I think that there is a way to do it.
CAMPBELL: And here's the clash between I think politics and the law enforcement side too is, I hear the political angle -- the one thing that I think folks have to also understand is just because you're bad at potentially committing a crime that doesn't mean that you've done something wrong.
And then obviously that then kicks it over in to the political discussion folks have to decipher this for themselves is what happened here worthy of additional political action? But you look at the president's actions as it related to trying to obstruct (ph) the investigation.
Mueller says, "well he would have done it but those around him stopped him," OK, but he still tried. You go back to, as you mentioned taking the meeting at Trump Tower -- you look at, for those following at home page 76 of volume one, it talks about this effort to go after Hillary Clinton's stolen e-mails -- going so far as to reach out to foreign intelligence services to figure out of her server was hacked.
They didn't end up getting her e-mails but that's just one -- and another pattern, just because you're bad at being a criminal doesn't meant that there's criminal intent there, and that's what the American people have to decide for themselves. CUOMO: But look, here's the thing -- and again, Shimon I don't mean
to be a cynic about this I'm just being a realist about it. Unless the American people feel that things that they will learn and hear to the extent that they even take the search to know (ph), what would change the political calculation right now that is people know what Trump is?
They know what he is from an ethical perspective, what he is from an integrity perspective, what he is from a character perspective. But those are all political questions that get decided at the polls, nowhere else.
PROKUPECZ: And this report obliterates him, I mean in terms of his credibility, in terms of his character time and time again this report obliterates it. He essentially is painted as a liar, someone who misleads, will do anything to win when he feels he's in trouble or if someone's going to say something bad about him -- he was concerned that when they fired Michael Flynn that he was going to say some bad things about him so he reached out to him, made sure he was OK.
Even Michael Cohen he went through cut outs to talk to him (ph) to make sure he was OK. Always concerned that something perhaps -- someone is going to say something bad about him.
[15:35:00]
And the other thing that this report did is that it really corroborated a lot of the good journalism that was done in this entire-you know he went after all of us, every single day. The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN. And when you go back and you look at this report and you look-all these stories that were fake news.
Well, Mueller shows that this was actually going on.
CUOMO: No they weren't fake news they were fake views, because they were the viewpoint of what we were getting from people who wanted to protect the President. And they were trying to put it on us.
And now it is all clear. I got to take a break though, let's leave it there right now. Please stay, you must. All right...
CAMPBELL: For you, anything.
CUOMO: We're going to keep our coverage going but remember this, this is not something that is finished. One we haven't gotten through the whole report yet. Some people are farther along than others.
But then you're going to get the huge pressing questions that are all about you and your will. What do you do with this information? This will not be a prosecution. It will not end in a court room. So how does it end? We'll be back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:45:33] CUOMO: All right just in House majority leader Steny Hoyer weighing in on the Mueller report and whether it would lead to impeachment proceedings. With that Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash.
So, what's he tell you Dan?
DANA BASH, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Not at this point, that's the answer to that question. I did speak with the House majority leader because the obvious question that you were talking with James Clapper and others up there.
We've been wondering all day since we saw just how specific of a road map Robert Mueller provided to congress on the question of obstruction. Here's what Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader, said to me.
He said the following, based on what we have seen to date, going forward on impeachment is not worthwhile at this point. Very frankly, there is an election in 18 months and the American people will make a judgment.
So there you see it. There-he and his caucus are obviously still digesting as we all have been but both he and the house speaker for the past several months, Chris you know this, have been trying to take the air out of the impeachment balloon preventatively, ahead of time.
Because of this very thing. They understand, they lived through the last impeachment proceedings. They saw how it helped them politically how it hurt the Republicans. And the big difference between then and now in addition to how it hurt politically is the American people the voters have a chance to weigh in.
And that was the point that Steny Hoyer was trying to make. So I thought that was very note worthy and frankly, little surprised he was offering that so quickly after we'd gotten this report.
CUOMO: Yes, me too. But that's why you're the best is that you get people to speak truth in the moment when we need it. Let me ask you something. Let me get your take on this. So what is the political alchemy on the timing here?
The suggestion that Bob-Bill Barr was trying to buy the President time. He's been slow walking this process, he's been tainting it now short term that may have helped control the messaging but now that it's out is that going to add another layer to what the Democrats will as a cudgel against the Republicans in this upcoming election?
BASH: Absolutely it's such an important point because the other point that leader Hoyer made to me was it's not like the Democrats are going to give up their oversight responsibility. And the things that they've already started to do beyond Russia but even including Russia.
And the process by which Bill Barr went through this since he took over leading up to the release, nevermind the way that he drafted the summary and of then of course the way that he drafted his press conference today, there's no question that that is going to be a very big political and over sight but mostly political talking point and question that they are going to ask publically and even specifically to the Attorney General since they're going to have him up on Capitol Hill.
CUOMO: Dana, great stuff, thank you so much. I'm sure we'll be talking a lot. Let's keep our energy up. CNN legal and political commentator Ken Cuccinelli. Ken I have Cuomo Prime Time on regular basis. We've had this conversation before about what this moment would mean.
That criminally there's one set of implications that are favorable to the President, not a Russian agent. Nobody around him including him committed a crime of conspiracy to help Russians interfere. Obstruction, open question now seems pretty clear that Mueller wanted to leave it up to congress unlike what the AG said.
But the idea that his supporters and maybe even his lawyers we'll see hopefully tonight, are still saying that these weren't real questions. That this was a witch hunt. How can they justify that given all of the proof in this report about things that were done that were wrong if not criminal and lied about.
KEN CUCCIINELLI, CNN LEGAL AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, well, I've been listening to some of the conversation about the use of the word collusion and so forth and the reality is this report completely make clear that there was nothing of what has been called collusion.
I'll leave the legal discussion for a second which has been the back patting here of the performance of the media I've been hearing for the last 30 minutes is incredible given the factless baseless advancement of the collusion theory no matter what information came out in the course of the 23 months.
CUOMO: How are you defining collusion?
[15:50:00]
CUCCINELLI: Collusion, so when I was an Attorney General my-a mistake that I made as a lawyer frequently was talking like a lawyer. And I think the negative smears directed at the attorney general about using collision, which is how this has been discussed since the beginning--
CUOMO: Not by the--
CUCCINELLI: -- by ordinary Americans, by ordinary Americans--
CUOMO: Right.
CUCCINELLI: -- is press conferences in a courtroom, Chris, it's for ordinary people. And one of the mistakes I often made as an AG was talking, using phrases like summary judgment and so forth. Instead of just explaining to people what actually happened. And that's all that attorney general Barr did this morning. I watched that entire very short--
CUOMO: Reasonable people can disagree about that.
CUCCINELLI: He wasn't even up 20 minutes. He wasn't even up 20 minutes, so--
CUOMO: He didn't need 20 minutes to make it clear that he was acting as the president's advocate.
CUCCINELLI: Yes. You have your strongly held and frequently repeated position on that sort of thing.
CUOMO: I mean I think it's pretty obvious, yes.
CUCCINELLI: And I just think Bill Barr is a more objectively operating person than he's being given credit for in this discussion. And then you get to the report which really does speak for itself.
And if you're the -- and Chris on your show so many times I have said the president's people and the president would be better off just getting through this, helping get it to the end and here we are at the end. And there's 448 pages here.
And I don't care who you are and what you've done, when the government spends 450 pages about writing about you and your organizations and that's all it's about, there is no where to go essentially but down.
There is no -- other than there is no collision and it was very clear factually that there was nothing that even comes close to trying to coordinate between the Trump campaign and Russia. Did Paul Manafort--
CUOMO: But that's not true, Ken.
CUCCINELLI: -- meet with a guy who done business with in the Ukraine and give him polling? Yes he did.
CUOMO: Let's be plane speak about it. Then you're wrong, you just busted your own premise. But let's just be clear about it for people. Is there proof of a criminal conspiracy where Trump or people around him, the president or the people around him acted as an agent for Russia involved in their interference?
No says Mueller, I haven't seen proof that would make that a specious conclusion. We agree on that. Criminality, I don't see it, they weren't part of the interference efforts. Were they open for business? Yes. Did they take meetings they shouldn't have? Yes. Did they seek benefit from places they shouldn't have? Yes.
Did they lie about all of those things repeatedly? That is bad behavior. And the idea that it's a witch hunt and a hoax because you don't find that they're all felons I think is an absurd standard to regular people thinking with common sense and not in a court--
CUCCINELLI: No. Chris, you don't use the Department of Justice and the compulsive power that comes with government to go run down dirty politics. You use it for crime. And there is no crime here. That's the conclusion. That was the--
CUOMO: But how do you know if there's no crime if you don't look?
CUCCINELLI: -- the witch hunt argument coming from-- CUOMO: When people are taking meetings with Russian inference agents and lying about it.
CUCCINELLI: No -- no. You're jumping on two sides of the line here. I mean--
CUOMO: Please.
CUCCINELLI: -- either one way or the other.
CUOMO: Which way?
CUCCINELLI: This began to investigate Russian participation in the 2016--
CUOMO: Yes.
CUCCINELLI: -- election and any coordination with--
CUOMO: Yes.
CUCCINELLI: -- the Trump campaign. There was no coordination with the Trump campaign.
CUOMO: Agreed.
CUCCINELLI: Period, end of discussion.
CUOMO: Agreed.
CUCCINELLI: You seem to want to stretch that in to--
CUOMO: Never.
CUCCINELLI: Oh, but even without crime or any criminal basis we should investigate this stuff anyway. That is an incredible abuse of power--
CUOMO: No -- no.
CUCCINELLI: -- that you're suggesting. I can't actually imagine I've interpreted your comments correctly--
CUOMO: You're making the assumption that they knew that going in to the investigation. Hold on Ken, respectfully, you are making the assumption that they knew the answer before--
CUCCINELLI: I'm listening.
CUOMO: -- they did the investigating and we know they didn't. And they had a lot of reason to look. Papadopoulos was telling a story. Carter Page was telling a story. The story smelled bad.
They knew that the Trump campaign were taking meetings and having conversations and lying about them with the wrong kinds of people, looked bad. Rod Rosenstein who know is once again a hero goes from hero to zero back and forth with his administration based on the vague degrees of perception.
He says wow, we can't look at this, the president's trying to can everybody who's involved. They're saying crazy things. We need a Special Counsel. That's how this started. And the questions were legitimate then, and now you have your answers. Criminality, no. If people said there were crimes, they were wrong.
If they said this would end the presidency in a courtroom, they were wrong and shame on them for saying so if they did it for bad reason or irresponsible. However, Ken, you can't read these pages--
CUCCINELLI: (Inaudible) congress according to Steny Hoyer.
CUOMO: Well, you can't -- well look he said they don't want to impeach. Well good for him. He's going to beat up by some of his parties--
CUCCINELLI: Great, I'm agreeing. I'm agreeing.
CUOMO: -- but at least he's being straight early on.
CUCCINELLI: I agree. I'm agreeing with that.
CUOMO: But for the president--
CUCCINELLI: I'm not arguing with you.
CUOMO: -- to say this was a witch hunt, I'm totally exonerated, he couldn't be... CNN - File 1550
CUCCINELLI: ...a mistake that I made as a lawyer frequently was talking like a lawyer. And I think the negative smears directed at the attorney general about using collision which is how this has been discussed since the beginning--
CUOMO: Not by the--
CUCCINELLI: -- by ordinary Americans, by ordinary Americans--
CUOMO: Right.
CUCCINELLI: -- is press conferences in a courtroom, Chris, it's for ordinary people. And one of the mistakes I often made as an AG was talking, using phrases like summary judgment and so forth. Instead of just explaining to people what actually happened. And that's all that attorney general Barr did this morning. I watched that entire very short--
CUOMO: Reasonable people can disagree about that.
CUCCINELLI: He wasn't even up 20 minutes. He wasn't even up 20 minutes, so--
CUOMO: He didn't need 20 minutes to make it clear that he was acting as the president's advocate.
CUCCINELLI: Yes. You have your strongly held and frequently repeated position on that sort of thing.
CUOMO: I mean I think it's pretty obvious, yes.
CUCCINELLI: And I just think Bill Barr is a more objectively operating person than he's being given credit for in this discussion. And then you get to the report which really does speak for itself.
And if you're the -- and Chris on your show so many times I have said the president's people and the president would be better off just getting through this, helping get it to the end and here we are at the end. And there's 448 pages here.
And I don't care who you are and what you've done, when the government spends 450 pages about writing about you and your organizations and that's all it's about, there is no where to go essentially but down.
There is no -- other than there is no collision and it was very clear factually that there was nothing that even comes close to trying to coordinate between the Trump campaign and Russia. Did Paul Manafort--
CUOMO: But that's not true, Ken.
CUCCINELLI: -- meet with a guy who done business with in the Ukraine and give him polling? Yes he did.
CUOMO: Let's be plane speak about it. Then you're wrong, you just busted your own premise. But let's just be clear about it for people. Is there proof of a criminal conspiracy where Trump or people around him, the president or the people around him acted as an agent for Russia involved in their interference?
No says Mueller, I haven't seen proof that would make that a specious conclusion. We agree on that. Criminality, I don't see it, they weren't part of the interference efforts. Were they open for business? Yes. Did they take meetings they shouldn't have? Yes. Did they seek benefit from places they shouldn't have? Yes.
Did they lie about all of those things repeatedly? That is bad behavior. And the idea that it's a witch hunt and a hoax because you don't find that they're all felons I think is an absurd standard to regular people thinking with common sense and not in a court--
CUCCINELLI: No. Chris, you don't use the Department of Justice and the compulsive power that comes with government to go run down dirty politics. You use it for crime. And there is no crime here. That's the conclusion. That was the--
CUOMO: But how do you know if there's no crime if you don't look?
CUCCINELLI: -- the witch hunt argument coming from--
CUOMO: When people are taking meetings with Russian inference agents and lying about it.
CUCCINELLI: No -- no. You're jumping on two sides of the line here. I mean-- CUOMO: Please.
CUCCINELLI: -- either one way or the other.
CUOMO: Which way?
CUCCINELLI: This began to investigate Russian participation in the 2016--
CUOMO: Yes.
CUCCINELLI: -- election and any coordination with--
CUOMO: Yes.
CUCCINELLI: -- the Trump campaign. There was no coordination with the Trump campaign.
CUOMO: Agreed.
CUCCINELLI: Period, end of discussion.
CUOMO: Agreed.
CUCCINELLI: You seem to want to stretch that in to--
CUOMO: Never.
CUCCINELLI: Oh, but even without crime or any criminal basis we should investigate this stuff anyway. That is an incredible abuse of power--
CUOMO: No -- no.
CUCCINELLI: -- that you're suggesting. I can't actually imagine I've interpreted your comments correctly--
CUOMO: You're making the assumption that they knew that going in to the investigation. Hold on Ken, respectfully, you are making the assumption that they knew the answer before--
CUCCINELLI: I'm listening.
CUOMO: -- they did the investigating and we know they didn't. And they had a lot of reason to look. Papadopoulos was telling a story. Carter Page was telling a story. The story smelled bad.
They knew that the Trump campaign were taking meetings and having conversations and lying about them with the wrong kinds of people, looked bad. Rod Rosenstein who know is once again a hero goes from hero to zero back and forth with his administration based on the vague degrees of perception.
He says wow, we can't look at this, the president's trying to can everybody who's involved. They're saying crazy things. We need a Special Counsel. That's how this started. And the questions were legitimate then, and now you have your answers. Criminality, no. If people said there were crimes, they were wrong.
If they said this would end the presidency in a courtroom, they were wrong and shame on them for saying so if they did it for bad reason or irresponsible. However, Ken, you can't read these pages--
CUCCINELLI: (Inaudible) congress according to Steny Hoyer.
CUOMO: Well, you can't -- well look he said they don't want to impeach. Well good for him. He's going to beat up by some of his parties--
CUCCINELLI: Great, I'm agreeing. I'm agreeing.
CUOMO: -- but at least he's being straight early on.
CUCCINELLI: I agree. I'm agreeing with that.
CUOMO: But for the president--
CUCCINELLI: I'm not arguing with you.
CUOMO: -- to say this was a witch hunt, I'm totally exonerated -- he couldn't be less innocent, he's just not guilty of a crime.
[15:55:00]
There's a huge swath of behavior between those two things -- I don't think it's wrong for me to point that out.
CUCCINELLI: OK, but you're going from legal to not legal, and you're holding by the way the Attorney General Barr -- not former attorney general to a standard of a lawyer in a courtroom with the respect to his language, as have numerous of your guests on the panels that I've been listening to.
And that is not what you and I are now talking about, and to expect any part of the administration -- once this is all done, meaning the report is done and coming out, the work is done. And it's now all about everybody's understanding of it, and then what they do politically.
We've heard from Steny Hoyer for instance about what he thinks ought to be done politically with which I personally agree, I don't always agree with Steny Hoyer but I think he's right.
CUOMO: Of course you do because to leave the president alone --
CUCCINELLI: (Inaudible) a lot of ways -- we can have a legal discussion and then we could have a separate political discussion.
CUOMO: Yeah, you have to have both that's the responsible thing to do. You know our politics and our political culture isn't about if it's not a felony it's fine, Ken. You are an outstanding public official, it's not just because you weren't on the take (ph) -- it's because you acted with integrity --
CUCCINELLI: I agree.
CUOMO: And you made right moves, even when you knew you could get away with things you didn't do it -- you're a man of integrity. That bar was not met here, no pun intended. But Ken, let me go -- you and I are going to discuss this for a while, and you're always welcome to do so --
CUCCINELLI: Now then Hoyer, (inaudible) all of this becomes part of the next election --
CUOMO: Maybe so.
CUCCINELLI: And there's accountability for all of this in the eyes of America. I would suggest that for those who would like to see the president pay a bigger price for any of this, that the story spun for 23 months by the mainstream media undercuts the credibility of that possible outcome. Because it hasn't played out the way its been pushed, and pushed, and pushed --
CUOMO: Yeah, we disagree.
CUCCINELLI: In terms of the big picture.
CUOMO: We disagree, and you know from coming on my show --
CUCCINELLI: Yeah, well we'll find out.
CUOMO: Well look, you know from coming on my show --
CUCCINELLI: We may disagree (ph) --
CUOMO: On a regular basis, I always knew we would wind up exactly where we are. I'm actually surprised at how accurate this report is of pursuing the different things that you and I have been talking about for months and will continue to because the answers should (ph) matter to the American people.
Ken, you're always welcome and I appreciate it, all right?
So everybody's processing this in real time, some of us do it more quickly than others -- one of those who does it quickly is CNN's Chris Cillizza. So you hear what the state of play is going to be, I'm not going to let people say, that CNN, or the media or whatever have been creating a false narrative.
CHRIS CILLIZZA: Yes.
CUOMO: This report is plenty of proof that the questions that have been asked repeatedly were legit, and that the answers we were getting consitently were not -- especially once you get past the line of, "hey, are you a felon?" Once you move past that -- the things they did, the meetings they had, the explanations they gave were wrong consistently what are your takeaways?
CILLIZZA: All right, Chris let me run through my takeaways -- but one other point that I want to make too. The reporting was almost in every case correct -- read the Mueller report. All that reporting we, and a lot of other outlets did had it nailed.
OK, but let me run through these -- I'm going to do these quick. Bill Barr did a lot of heavy lifting for Trump, look -- you and Attorney General Cuccinelli went through this, Barr did everything Trump would have wanted him to do at the press conference. Sometimes it sounded like he was quoting Trump verbatim.
OK, let's go to the next one no collusion explained. So this -- you talked about this with Attorney General Cuccinelli. It's not about that the Trump campaign thought they would benefit and that the Russians thought that Trump would be a better president. That's in the Mueller report for them -- that's in the Mueller report. It's that there was an express agreement for that to happen.
OK, let's keep going. Trump was even more involved in the investigation (inaudible) -- look, go to CNN.com read my takeaways on this. There is a laundry list of things that Trump did from telling Jeff Sessions that he'd be a "hero," if he un-recused (ph) himself -- let's keep going.
Mueller didn't exonerate Trump on obstruction because he couldn't -- very important. He does not say that Trump committed obstruction, he also doesn't say Trump didn't commit obstruction -- that's important. Let's keep going.
Trump was very worried about the special counsel. I'm not going to quote what Trump said because I can't, I'd get fired on this air -- but Donald Trump was really concerned when he found out there was a special counsel. Usually you're not concerned about things that you don't worry about.
Is there another one? I can't remember. The next fight will be an (ph) obstruction in Congress, that is where this is going to move. Even though Hoyer said no impeachment -- I do think there will be a push to follow Mueller's lead and look in to obstruction -- in to Congress, particularly in the House. Back to you, Chris.
CUOMO: Chris Cillizza you're so smart you can't even keep up with your own ideas, thank you very much --
CILLIZZA: I never know how many are in there, I just keep going until they tell me to stop.
CUOMO: Best in the business, there's plenty more to come. Thank you for joining me all of you, there's so much to unravel here -- so many implications. "The Lead" with Jake Tapper starts right now.
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