[Lemon:] And we're back. I want you to take a look at this. This is the latest cover of Time Magazine. There it is. Is this the way President Trump sees himself, dressed as a monarch along with the words king me underneath them? King me? Well, the cover artist says Trump is also making eye contact with Americans. Back with me now, Molly Ball, Chris Cillizza, and Rick Wilson. I love that cover. It's a very interesting cover, Molly. And you cover it with the cover story, and for a guy who didn't know the history of the war of 1812. Does President Trump know enough to understand our entire system was built, so that we didn't put in place a king here in the United States?
[Ball:] You know, I have no idea what he does or doesn't understand, but the implications of what he is doing you know, we were talking in the last segment about this parallel, legal, and political strategy. And so we sort of are trying to lay it out with some original reporting in this piece about how, and why he is waging this war on Robert Mueller, and this investigation. One thing I think is interesting that people might not realize is that it is relatively recent this escalation of the war on the Special Counsel. He wasn't always in full frontal attack mode against the Special Counsel. In fact, he never mentioned Bob Mueller's name on Twitter until March, just a couple of months ago. So this is a real escalation. It mirrors the escalation in his legal strategy. And to your question, what distinguishes what he's doing now from say, the Clinton playbook against Ken Starr, which was also a P.R. strategy to discredit the Special Counsel so that when and if he came up with anything, impeachment would be impossible because of public opinion. What is distinguishing about this war that Trump is waging are these wide-ranging claims of imperial executive power. Very much, almost a liberalization of Richard Nixon's, you know, hair- raising claim that when the President does it, it is not illegal is basically what the President and his lawyers have been arguing in Giuliani, and his public arguments, and in the January memo that was recently leaked saying, you know, the President can pardon him, and all of these things. And this is somewhat worrying to not just, you know, the President's partisan opponents, but fans of the rule of law.
[Lemon:] Yes. So, I'm wondering about, look, themes here, Chris. I mean, between the President's interest in pardons, his claim that he can even pardon himself, his love of parades, military pomp, and circumstance. I mean, do you think imperial power is a theme of the Trump presidency?
[Cillizza:] Well, I think what he knows is, what he comes from, Don, is his way goes. Everyone in the Trump organization works for him. Donald Trump wants to get rid of you, you're gone. That's the experience he has. That's his form of experience is that, and a reality television show that was based on three people being in a board room begging him not to fire them, and him deciding up with of them gets fired.
[Lemon:] Right.
[Cillizza:] So that he has brought those experiences to the government is I don't think terribly surprising. That he has failed to either by choice or by willful ignorance, basically amounts to the same thing, chosen not to understand that the federal government does not work that way that. That, sure, you're sort of the boss of the Justice Department, but there's a long tradition of independence there. They don't they work for you in the broadest sense, but you can't just tell them what to do, and what not to do. He's never seen those lines. I hesitate to say he's never understood them. I don't know if he understands them or not. But he chooses no to regard them. And so it winds up being the same thing. So, yes, I think that I think it's his back ground, and his unwillingness to adopt to the fact that government, and being President is different than being the head of a company.
[Lemon:] Well, here is what they all don't understand. Rick, I want to let you get in here. And even him, he's doesn't going to want to hear this. It's that they all work for us, including him, right? At the end of the day, they all work for us.
[Wilson:] Exactly. This is one of the most fundamental elements of our government and our history. We fought a war to free ourselves of a monarchy. We built it into our constitution that we don't have titles of nobility. The presidency is a part of a tripartite government, where there is a balance of powers between three branches. The executive power was always treated with caution. George Washington, our first president, could have become a king, and didn't want to because he understood the peril of it. Donald Trump is as close to an imperial president as we've had in our lifetimes. And the fever dream of some of the people around him is that now we have a dynasty of Trumps, and they're treating it like a royal family. And Trump loves that because it also plays in, as Chris said, to the reality TV star, fake corporate CEO mogul, all of that stuff. And a lot of his base, and a lot of his fans, they're perfectly content with that. They like that strong man, you know, war lord deal, kind of thing.
[Lemon:] But now, he's, you know, reportedly crowing about attending the G-7 summit, the meeting, because he feels like he would be the odd man out. And maybe in part because, listen, this is he's, you know, at odds with Canada and France. Or because French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted this, he said the American President may not mind being isolated, but neither do we mind signing a sick-country agreement if need be. Because these six countries represent values, they represent an economic market which has the weight of history behind it, and which is now a true international force. Are our allies calling his bluff, Molly?
[Ball:] Well, they're certainly heading in that direction. But look, I think for Trump, and some of the more scholarly, or cerebral theorists behind some of his foreign policy, it is sort of the whole point to isolate America. They believe that that is good for our interests long term. And that all of these, however many country agreements of every sort, that the United States has been enmeshed in, haven't been in support of American interests. So this is going to be a test. Is that actually the case? When you have this has now gone far enough where other countries are starting to take him seriously. They are starting to realize they can't manhandle him, and flatter him into continuing to play America's traditional role. And so if he's going to walk one way, they're going to walk the other. They are, I think to your point, preparing to call his bluff, and then see where the chips fall. I mean, the problem is that these have been at least to the people who forged these agreements, these have been the idea of mutual interest, so within these countries' interests too. And so, are they going are they willing to disadvantage themselves if it comes to that in order to teach the United States a lesson. I think that's what we are going to see.
[Lemon:] I wonder if you guys ever do you guys ever go on peek at his Instagram?
[Wilson:] Yes.
[Lemon:] Because pics I don't know if you could call it sub it's like a sub-tweet, but sub-Instagram.
[Wilson:] Sub-insta.
[Lemon:] What was or sub-insta, what's happening at this White House every single day. And it's kind of amazing. I just want to put this up before we go. He posted in Instagram tonight. This is a photo of President Obama, and other world leaders, and it's captioned back when the G-8 leaders respected each other. You should go check his Instagram. Every single day he does it. And it's really brilliant trolling. Go ahead, Chris, quickly because I've got to go to break.
[Cillizza:] I was just going to say. I think two things are true. Donald Trump is a radical break from anyone who's been president ever before. The 43 people we've held before you say radical break. It is also true that that's what he ran on being, and that's what the people who support him like.
[Lemon:] Yes.
[Cillizza:] I can't square that circle, but he didn't pretend like he was going to be in a long line of how presidents have done things. He ran on the opposite.
[Lemon:] I've got to run.
[Cillizza:] This is what the opposite looks like.
[Lemon:] I've got to run. Rick, we'll talk more next time.
[Wilson:] Yes, sir.
[Lemon:] Thank you all, appreciate it. When we come back, you heard Kim Kardashian West talk about her role in convincing President Trump to commute Alice Johnson's sentence. David Axelrod has been critical of the President side stepping on pardoning process. And I'm going to get his take on that. That's next.