-You have made quite an effort to be here,
because I saw you live at 2:00 a.m.
on the White House lawn last night.
That's in D.C. That's not here.
-It's 3 1/2 hours away. -3 1/2 hours away.
So, talk me through -- 'Cause you were on
"The Today Show" this morning. -Right.
-So, what was your schedule, then,
after you wrapped at 2:00 a.m.?
-So, go home, pack a bag, hop a flight,
first shuttle out of Washington to come here, "Today Show,"
I did my show for MSNBC, and I don't know if you heard,
the President held a press conference today.
-Yeah, he did. [ Light laughter ]
-And so, we did special reports for that for NBC News,
2 1/2 hours. This thing was long.
It was his longest press conference ever.
And then, I was doing a pre-interview
with one of your producers for this show,
and Jeff Sessions resigned. -Yeah.
-And then, we hopped off the phone
and went back in it for that.
-There's so much to unpack there.
Let's start with Sessions, in that he did not mention it.
Donald Trump did not mention it
during a hour and a half press conference.
-Well, he was asked... -Yes.
-...about him very specifically. -And yet chose --
But there's obviously something he knew was happening.
What is your take on this? -Yeah.
-What are you hearing from your sources
as far as was this a forced resignation?
-100%, the President asked Jeff Sessions to resign.
Jeff Sessions handed him that resignation letter,
which said, "You asked me to resign.
Here is my resignation letter." [ Laughter ]
This is not surprising. This was expected.
This has been rumored, if you guys follow the news,
rumored for months and months.
That doesn't mean it's not still significant, right?
This is a really sort of critical moment here.
Because if you look at the arc of where Republicans were,
for example, back last year, remember when Lindsey Graham,
the Senator, said, "There will be holy hell to pay
if Donald Trump fires Jeff Sessions."
Lindsey Graham has certainly changed his tune
as Republicans have come to accept, I think,
kind of reluctantly that relationship is just broken.
It's broken beyond repair.
So, what I'm hearing, what we're hearing
from our team at NBC News, is that Jeff Sessions
may not be gone from the political world.
He's considering possibly, per people close to him,
running for his old Senate seat back in Alabama.
-That Doug Jones seat. Right.
-Going up against Doug Jones.
So he may end up back in Washington,
perhaps working with or against President Trump again.
-I don't think he'll ever work against President Trump.
That is my takeaway.
I feel as though most of the Republicans who've shown
any resistance to him ultimately are never going to
truly resist anything Donald Trump tries to do.
-The interesting thing about Jeff Sessions is,
there's a lot of headlines --
Listen, this all matters as it relates --
A lot of it matters as it relates
to the Special Counsel investigation, right?
Which Jeff Sessions recused himself from.
That was, in the eyes of the President, the original sin,
the thing he could never forgive Jeff Sessions for.
But here's the thing -- if you look at the DOJ,
they've actually implemented almost more
than any other agency, Donald Trump's agenda.
-Yeah. -Jeff Sessions has done exactly
what Donald Trump has wanted him to do.
So there's this really interesting, I think,
split or dichotomy between the political sphere,
the political side of it, and then the policy side.
-I want to ask about the fact that Donald Trump --
You know, the Russia investigation
is the reason he fires Jeff Sessions.
Obviously, that's a little bit more stressful for him now
that the Democrats have taken back the House
and they have this power of oversight.
Do you think --
Obviously, based on the press conference today,
it struck me that was a man who was a little stressed out.
Is it likely that that's what stressing him out?
-Part of it, yeah. -Yeah.
-Listen, for the first time, he's now in Washington,
he's inside the White House,
and he is facing a check on his power.
That has not happened for him before.
So, I think he's in this mode where he's looking around,
and that's what we're hearing from folks is --
[ Cheers and applause ]
And he's seeing, "Hey, now Democrats do control
the House of Representatives."
There will be an onslaught of subpoenas,
and that's a hassle for West Wing staffers.
You have to deal with that.
It's paperwork, it's time, it's energy,
and it's also something that Donald Trump knows
is going to be coming.
Now, what he did today was issue, essentially,
a threat to the Democrats.
Like, "Hey, I'll work with you on infrastructure,
I'll work with you on trade, but not if you come at me
about my tax returns," for example.
Nancy Pelosi didn't seem so keen on that when she spoke, so...
-Well the thing I would say why he wouldn't be keen on it,
and this is just based on everything
he's ever said or done, I don't believe
that he's actually gonna be honest on that deal.
Right? Do actually see --
Do you think if Democrats laid off tax returns
he would actually make a deal on infrastructure?
-So, here's what I can say.
This is a president and this is a person --
and I've covered Donald Trump for his campaign, his candidacy,
the transition, the presidency now.
He is somebody who has issued threats
and not always followed through with them,
and that's just the facts of the case.
So there's not a lot of past history to point to
that the President would necessarily follow through
on the threat that's he's making today.
-You've been in a lot of press conferences.
Were you watching today at that mayhem,
and was part of you jealous that you weren't there?
Or were you more super-relieved that you were safely far away?
-Oh, my God. I was crawling out of my skin
making phone calls this morning like, "I got to skip Seth.
I got to go back."
But I had to be in New York anyway for my MSNBC show.
We have an awesome team at NBC News,
and so they were out there repping NBC.
I will say this, though. Watching, and we were sort of
on set doing the analysis piece for NBC News for our stations
throughout the day.
There were moments --
That was tense and uncomfortable.
That's not a hot take.
That's, like, a very lukewarm take.
-Yeah. -A press conference
that is not normal for the East Room, necessarily.
But the attacks on the media and the way that he has
these sort of moments and interactions,
that actually does well for him among his supporters,
and that's something to remember,
that that actually plays for him.
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