President Trump tests the limits of executive power, latest on the Democratic presidential race

ROBERT COSTA: A showdown over

executive

power

and the rule of law. ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM BARR: (From video). I'm not going to let anyone intimidate or influence me. COSTA: The attorney general asserts his independence following a crisis of confidence in the Justice Department, but the

president

insists he has the legal right to intervene and pursues revenge. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) Where's Comey? What's happening to McCabe? It was a whole setup, it was a shame for our country, and everyone knows it too, everyone. COSTA: We delve into reporting on this critical showdown and the

latest

in the Democratic

president

ial

race

as it moves west and south.

ANNOUNCER: This is Washington Week. Once again, from Washington, moderator Robert Costa. COSTA: Good evening. Following his acquittal in the Senate, a confident and vengeful president is testing the

limits

of

executive

power

. But President Trump's efforts to protect his friends and punish his enemies have sent the Justice Department into a storm, prompting resignations and forcing the attorney general to answer questions about the department's independence and integrity. In short, it began Monday when prosecutors in the Roger Stone case recommended that the Trump adviser receive a prison sentence of seven to nine years for his conviction on charges of obstruction of Congress and witness tampering.

The next day, the president denounced the move and the Justice Department presented a lighter sentencing recommendation, leading four prosecutors to drop the case and one to leave the government entirely. Democrats were outraged and Republicans were mostly quiet. HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): (From video.) This is an abuse of power: the fact that the president is once again trying to manipulate federal law enforcement to serve his political interests, and The president is what he is. He thinks he is above the law. He does not respect the rule of law, but where are the Republicans to denounce this blatant violation of the rule of law?

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): (From video.) The president made a big decision when he chose Bill Barr as attorney general. I think the president should listen to his advice. COSTA: Attorney General William Barr, who has been a deep supporter of President Trump, decided to speak with ABC News' Pierre Thomas on Thursday. He said he planned to modify the sentence before the president tweeted. Barr then told the president to stand down. ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM BARR: (From video.) And whether it's Congress, newspaper editorial boards or the president, I'll do what I think is right. I cannot do my job here in the department with constant background commentary that undermines me.

COSTA: A new development on Friday has further challenged the bond between the attorney general and the president: The Justice Department will not press charges against former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe for lying to investigators about a media revelation . We are joined tonight by Molly Ball, national political correspondent for TIME magazine; Josh Dawsey, White House reporter for The Washington Post; Josh Lederman, NBC News national political reporter; and Amna Nawaz, senior national correspondent for PBS NewsHour. Let's start with the president. Josh, you've been posting all day about Andrew McCabe and the president. What is the last? What is the president's response?

JOSH DAWSEY: Well, the president has deep hostility toward Andrew McCabe. He believes Andrew McCabe's wife worked for Hillary Clinton and Andrew McCabe was one of the officials who went after him. Some of this is obviously in dispute; Some of this is not true. But anyway, the president wanted Andrew McCabe to be charged, and today, when the Department of Justice said that Andrew McCabe would not be charged, the president received no notice from the Department of Justice. He was very upset and Pat Cipollone, his lawyer, came to explain what was happening, then the president and Barr spoke this afternoon.

It's been a pretty tense few days, as you said in your opening, between the president and Attorney General Barr, and it's an interesting dynamic because Barr is his favorite member of the Cabinet, with the exception of Mike Pompeo, the secretary of State. Barr handled the Mueller investigation the way the president wanted him to. He has repeatedly done what the president wanted, and this is the first tangible rift we've seen between these two men. COSTA: You just said that President Trump spoke with the attorney general today, Friday. What do you know about that conversation? DAWSEY: We're still trying to figure out all the details.

What we know is that Attorney General Barr has been trying for several weeks to tell the president: please stop tweeting, stop making these public comments about the Justice Department investigations; You are hurting me inside the building, these comments are not useful to you, they are not useful to me, could you just walk away? We know the president wanted McCabe impeached. We know that the president has wanted James Comey impeached for a long time. We know that there have been a series of disagreements between these two men and that Barr has apparently tried in recent days to distance himself somewhat from the president.

COSTA: Amna, you've been talking to former federal prosecutors all week on NewsHour. What do your reports tell you about how career officials, former and current Justice Department officials, are interpreting all of this? Do you see the attorney general claiming the integrity of the institution and protecting it or do you see him at risk? AMNA NAWAZ: First of all, I think it's worth pointing out how extraordinary it is that AG Barr had to go on a public television interview to convey exactly this message that Josh just reported shows he was trying to convey behind the scenes. I mean, there's obviously an incredibly strong relationship between those two men.

We know they are very, very close. So I think the fact that it had to go to that extreme shows where the relationship is. But we know there were consequences that he was also trying to contain. You know, when he weighed in on the prosecutor's recommendation for Roger Stone's sentence (they said seven to nine years), he came in and said that's too excessive, we have no idea where that's going to go until sentencing. next week, that upset a lot of people, rank-and-file prosecutors within the Justice Department. Even though it's totally legal, even though it's absolutely within your power and competence to do so, it's totally unusual and it's very, very rare for that kind of thing to happen.

And for many prosecutors within the Main Justice, that undermines their ability to pursue similar cases. Why would you risk your neck if you don't think your boss has your back? When they came out en masse from that case, he sent a huge signal to Attorney General Barr that he had to do something and probably informed why he felt he had to come out and make that statement publicly. COSTA: Molly, what do you read as a reporter about the attorney general? On some level, he is sending these messages to the president. But it was still reported this week that she appointed an outside prosecutor to investigate the Flynn case—former national security adviser Michael Flynn—and if that was done appropriately, the lightest sentence ever issued against Roger Stone.

Where do you stand now in this cabinet with this president? MOLLY BALL: Well, he has... you know, like Josh and Amna said, he's had a very strong relationship with the president. He's been trying to walk this fine line, a tightrope that may not actually exist, between being the president's personal lawyer, which we all know is what Trump wants from his attorney general, and at least keeping some kind of sheet of paper. vine of respectability under the mandate. disguise of - and he is a true believer in a very expansive theory of executive power. He has given many speeches to this effect.

He truly believes that the president can do almost anything he wants and has justified many of his actions on that basis. But he doesn't see himself as a subordinate. He doesn't see himself as simply carrying out the president's orders. So when the president is out in public doing things like these tweets, he undermines not only Barr's credibility in the building, but also the ability to say, you know, I'm acting on the basis of the law. I'm not acting on the president's whims. It's much harder for her to have credibility when he says that. And, you know, when he does this, he sends this public signal, it's obviously an extreme step when you don't pay attention to private signals.

But for these prosecutors who are concerned about the president's behavior, it is simply a rhetorical measure. In reality, he has done nothing to contain Trump and he did nothing about this case when the prosecutors resigned. COSTA: Josh, welcome to Washington Week. He has reported on the White House, on the Mueller investigation. We see the president, as Josh Dawsey reported, frustrated by McCabe's decision. What's next for this president after his acquittal? Will he continue to vindictively pursue his enemies of the Russia investigation? Will he lean on this Department of Justice and call for action? JOSH LEDERMAN: Everything indicates yes because, look, this is not happening in a vacuum.

This has been part of a flurry of activity since the president's acquittal that has suggested he is seeking revenge. We saw, obviously, the dismissal of Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and the ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland. The president seems emboldened by the fact that there were no real repercussions other than perhaps some political repercussions for the actions he took in Ukraine, and one of the challenges for his critics is that there is not much remedy left. There is very little desire among Democrats in Congress to impeach him again. There's concern that that makes it seem like Democrats are just going after the president instead of going after things that really need to be looked at, and short of that, what are Democrats supposed to do?

COSTA: Josh? DAWSEY: Well, you didn't hear palpable frustrations from Republicans this week either. I spoke with Senator Cramer of North Dakota, who said he agreed with all of these steps. He thought the president was right to fire him. He thought the president was right to tweet about Roger Stone. I spoke to several people close to Mitch McConnell. He has no desire to get involved. You've certainly seen Kevin McCarthy. He has no desire to get involved. The president has a Republican Party in which he has more than 90 percent approval. He has complete control over it in districts across the country.

There are few people on his side who are really trying to take advantage of it, and as Josh says, what are the Democrats going to do outside of the election and the campaign? They have attempted impeachment. They have tried it because of the Mueller report. I feel like they also feel like their hands are tied a little bit. I mean, it's a - it's a point where for the first three, three and a half years of his presidency, he's somehow in the strongest position yet to do what he wants, to run the White House. as you wish.

This week we saw that he brought back Hope Hicks, one of his first senior advisers who was on the Mueller investigation. She put one of her former assistants in charge of the personnel office. They laid off a large number of people there. I mean, now he runs this, in a way, like Trump Tower. All the people who were trying to stop him, who were trying to stop him, are no longer there. It's a different show. NAWAZ: He's getting the band back together. I think that's clear, and during these last few months of his first term, that's clear.

But also, to what Josh pointed out earlier about none of this happening in a vacuum, you have to remember how absolutely furious he was when his first attorney general - when Jeff Sessions recused himself from that investigation, the Russia investigation and the special counsel's investigation into the 2016 Interference, because you feel like this all grew out of that, right, which led to the Flynn indictment and the Stone charges eventually, and eventually the impeachment as well. And so all this has been building up for the president up to this moment. COSTA: And he has always asked his advisors: where is my Roy Cohn?

And at this point, do you think the attorney general may at some point be forced to resign or step away? Is it a breaking point or not? Because, on some level, you also see Durham's investigation into how the CIA and other officials have handled the Russia investigation and other issues that are still working their way through the Justice Department. NAWAZ: You know, there are few categories of people who really publicly disagree with the president on the Republican side. For example, Democrats, yes, and political parties, yes. But there are people who have left the administration and feel comfortable speaking out once they are out of its purview and outside its circle of power, and there are people who are very confident in their relationship and know that the president trusts them. who may publicly disagree with him on some things, people like Mitch McConnell and people like Lindsey Graham.

Attorney General Barr is now in that category of people. ButIn what Molly pointed out earlier, he does see himself as a true believer. There are certain things he believes are true about the rule of law. We don't know where that will go. COSTA: Molly, you're writing a biography (should be published in a few months) about Speaker Pelosi, "Pelosi" by Molly Ball. It is a great looking book. She has already gone through the impeachment process. She will take Attorney General Barr on March 31 before the House Judiciary Committee. He will testify. But what happens now with the Democrats in the House of Representatives?

MOLLY BALL: It's a real question and, you know, Pelosi spent months resisting impeachment, partly for exactly this reason, because it was very clear from the beginning that Trump had completely tamed Republicans in the Senate and that the trial policy was not going to produce any tangible results and, in fact, could only embolden this president, and that is exactly what has happened. And I think that for someone like Speaker Pelosi, who is an institutionalist, who cares deeply about the Constitution, this is not only a problem in holding this particular president accountable because any remedy has been shown to be ineffective, but it is a challenge to the Constitution and the rule of law itself, as she sees it, because she's basically said that the only accountability measure in the Constitution now simply doesn't work if partisanship doesn't align.

COSTA: What about the Roger Stone case? He is now demanding a new trial because of concerns about the jury. LEDERMAN: And there are several people close to the president who are in some kind of legal situation where the president seems to want Attorney General Barr to intervene. Again, in terms of looking at this not in a vacuum, we have this development with Roger Stone at the exact same time that we have these developments with Michael Flynn, and a real eagerness on the part of Attorney General Barr to take a heavy hand. focus on how those cases play out, as long as it doesn't publicly appear that the president is ordering-COSTA: But does he think pardons could come before or after the election?

LEDERMAN: I think the president will probably see some advantage in waiting until just after re-election. DAWSEY: And that's the point. The president has repeatedly criticized these cases against Michael Flynn, against Roger Stone, against Paul Manafort. He has defended them vociferously at different times. But he hasn't done anything about it, and it looks a lot like him, you know, most... COSTA: He's tweeted about it. DAWSEY: He Tweeted, but he didn't do anything about it. But if you're Paul Manafort and you're in solitary confinement or in jail... COSTA: Are pardons, when pardons are, on the table right now?

DAWSEY: I think the president hasn't ruled them out. But all I'm saying is that so far the president has made a lot of noise about these cases. But when the matter hits the road, he hasn't actually done much about it legally. If so, after an election the dynamic changes politically. Everything - it's all different - I mean, there will be a lot of people around him heading into re-election who would say don't forgive these guys - it could hurt him politically, it could hurt his poll numbers, it could turn people off. . Once the elections are over, things change;

Win or lose, things change completely. COSTA: All of this plays out as the Democratic

presidential

race

enters a new phase after Tuesday's primary in New Hampshire. Senator Bernie Sanders won the race. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg finished close behind, followed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden. SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): (From video.) This victory here is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump. PETE BUTTIGIEG, FORMER MAYOR OF SOUTH BEND, INDIANA (D): (From video.) Vulnerable Americans do not have the luxury of pursuing ideological purity. SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): (From video.) Hello, United States.

I'm Amy Klobuchar and I will beat Donald Trump. We've beaten the odds every step of the way. COSTA: But former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is looming and making overtures to African-American voters. FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (D): (From video). I think we will do very well in the African American community. They need a good economy, they need better schools, and those are the kinds of things I can contribute. COSTA: Josh, you've been campaigning with Mayor Bloomberg all week. Can he overcome his stop-and-frisk policy from New York and win over African-American voters in South Carolina, but more importantly perhaps in the Super Tuesday states in early March?

LEDERMAN: I was very surprised to see the number of African-American fans who attended his events this week, as we were with him in Tennessee and North Carolina, even after these tapes were released. And I asked them, you know, is this something that bothers you?, and they largely said no. I think there's a Joe Biden-like element where people feel like they know Mike Bloomberg because he's been around for so long. They say things like I know where his heart is. But look, there's... Mike Bloomberg is a double-edged sword in a couple of ways. The same elements that make him attractive as a former Republican, because it seems like he could convince some Trump voters (center-right Republicans), make him anathema to the part of the Democratic base that wants a progressive agitator to advance their interests. . cause.

And the same part of him that is something of a technocrat, who relies on data and lets statistics inform his policies makes him attractive - and successful as a businessman and mayor - also means that he has said a lot of things in his career which may be numerically accurate, but they are also very risqué and really irritate people. COSTA: And Mayor Bloomberg isn't the only one facing challenges with African-American voters. Mayor Buttigieg still faces questions about his police record in South Bend, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, rising from New Hampshire, faces some scrutiny of his tax record.

NAWAZ: Yeah, look, Iowa and New Hampshire are very different states than Nevada and South Carolina. (Laughter.) COSTA: Ninety percent white. NAWAZ: Very different from the states that will also dominate Super Tuesday. And despite all the support that we're seeing nationally, if you look at the African-American vote in particular, right, no Democratic candidate has won the nomination without winning a majority of those votes; It just doesn't happen. Everyone has been looking at former Vice President Joe Biden, but when his entire message is electability and he comes in fourth and fifth in the early races, he starts to lose ground, and we are already seeing that in South Carolina.

Who benefits from that? So far in South Carolina, Tom Steyer is picking up some of those voters, but Bloomberg isn't running there. COSTA: Is he spending a lot of money on television? NAWAZ: He is spending a lot of money. He is sending messages the right way. He's realizing people are realizing their own doubts about Biden. But nationally, in the same national polls that we've seen where Biden's support among African Americans has been falling, Bloomberg has stepped in to pick up some of those votes. So he remains a very fluid race. DAWSEY: I was in South Carolina last weekend doing a story on Joe Biden there and his campaign certainly sees it as a firewall.

It's a place where he has to change things, he has to appeal to African-American voters. COSTA: Can you? DAWSEY: A lot of people in the state believe they can still do it. I spoke with Jim Clyburn this week, who is the state's most prominent Democrat. He says if the election is held today, Biden wins. If you look at the polls in the state, Biden still has a lead. But... NAWAZ: But he hasn't endorsed it, has he? DAWSEY: He hasn't endorsed it. But Steve Benjamin, the mayor of Columbia, the capital there, told me that if his whole argument is electability and you come third, fourth and fifth in these states, voters will start to look differently at different states. people.

He has a firmament in South Carolina of black pastors and state legislators and others who are with him right now. The question is, if they see the momentum fading, what do they do? COSTA: What about Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont? He won New Hampshire. Can he form a coalition, especially now that Senator Elizabeth Warren is fighting on the left? MOLLY BALL: Well, he won New Hampshire and he almost won Iowa (he won the popular vote in Iowa), so from his perspective he should be the overwhelming favorite or be considered that way. . If he wins the first two states, he should be on the right path to the nomination.

However, I think there are many warnings about this from the so-called Democratic establishment, right, that... COSTA: Is there already a Democratic establishment? MOLLY BALL: Absolutely there is. There absolutely is, and they fear that a Bernie Sanders candidacy will be unelectable, and that's on the minds of many Democratic voters as well. That's why people flock to Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and Mike Bloomberg, because they so desperately want to beat Trump that they're willing to forgive almost anything else. Now, that's not true for all Democratic voters, but it is true for many non-Bernie supporters. And so this faction of the Democratic Party - the sort of mainstream Democratic Party - is saying, you know, just because he's able to win in a fractured field with 25 percent of the vote doesn't prove that he can be the standard bearer. for the entire party, who can broaden his appeal rather than just being a candidate for one faction.

So his challenge going forward will be to see if he can further consolidate the party around him. COSTA: Josh, I remember when I met you it was at Pete Buttigieg's campaign announcement in South Bend, Indiana, a year ago. You've also been covering his campaign closely. A close second place finish in New Hampshire, how is he capitalizing as he looks not only at South Carolina and Nevada, but also at Super Tuesday? LEDERMAN: Well, it has really started to ramp up its operations in other parts of the country. He says he will now have staff in every state competing on Super Tuesday.

COSTA: But what is the message? LEDERMAN: The message is that he is a coalition builder, someone who can bring people together, and that as some of these other candidates start to drop out and the field clears up, he will start to consolidate some of that support from these other moderate candidates. . But one of the things that we've heard over and over again from voters this cycle as we've talked to them across the country is that, you know, in Washington we talk about sort of the progressive lane and the moderate lane, and we don't. They are thinking that way.

You talk to Bernie supporters who say, you know, my second choice is Pete Buttigieg, and you talk to Warren supporters who say my second choice is Joe Biden, so it's hard to predict how it's all going to play out as it moves forward. field. to get smaller and smaller. COSTA: What about Senator Klobuchar? We've seen minority candidates struggle in 2020 in this Democratic race, female candidates have struggled, but Senator Klobuchar suddenly emerges almost out of nowhere and finishes in a solid third place in New Hampshire. Can he take advantage of that quickly enough to make a dent in this race and be a contender?

NAWAZ: You know, we've seen her step up to seize the moment, in his own words. She sees that they have momentum. She believes her message is starting to resonate with people. COSTA: What is that message right now? NAWAZ: It's that message that makes sense, America - (laughter) - that you know, you don't have to go all the way to the left to go with a super progressive candidate, you have to have someone who can talk to some of those parts of America that voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and then opted for Trump in 2016? A person from the Midwest came to New Hampshire and did surprisingly well and that is a very strong message for her.

Whether that moves her forward or not, we don't know; she is not voting as well as some others in Nevada and South Carolina. But she has momentum on her side, and the best part: at this point in the career, that means a lot. COSTA: Real quick, Josh, you think about the White House watching Mayor Bloomberg. We've seen the tweets between the president and the mayor, but inside the West Wing, how do they really view Bloomberg? Is he a threat? DAWSEY: People around Trump are afraid of his money. People are divided on whether they could do it: Bloomberg could actually beat Trump or not.

What they do believe is that he could be some kind of kingmaker in the party, that he could spend so much money that it could shape the race, that he could shave percentage points off the president's numbers; that he could be a real factor in the race. And some people close to the president, and I think including the president, are totally worried about Bloomberg. I will say, however, that there is a different note that I have heard repeatedly this week: the White House loves to see Bernie Sanders as the front-runner. I think of all the people in the field,the people I talk to about Trump would love to go against Bernie Sanders.

They love that confrontation. They love the chipped field. They are crying out for a negotiated convention. I mean, so far, if you talk to Trump's people in these primaries, they're very happy with what they're seeing. COSTA: Last thing, Molly, real quick. You used to report in Las Vegas, head of the Nevada caucuses. What is the panorama there? Important demographic group, Latino voters in that state, what is the outlook? MOLLY BALL: I think it's absolutely up for grabs, I mean, and this is a state that historically has followed Iowa and New Hampshire, we've seen big swings in the polls and voting in Nevada after the first two states.

So the candidates are on the ground and I think everything is up in the air. COSTA: And the unions don't seem to make a firm decision about their support. MOLLY BALL: They're not; They have endorsed Bernie Sanders but have not chosen a candidate. COSTA: Let's continue like this. We'll have to leave it there for now, but stay with us for Washington Week Extra. We will continue this conversation about the

presidential

race. You can find it on our program's social media accounts and on our website. And thank you for spending your Valentine's Day evening with us, nothing could be more romantic, right? (Laughs.) Anyway, I'm Robert Costa.

Good night.