MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript: Russian Investigations

Interview

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MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

That was President Trump last week telling his supporters that if Democrats take over the House, they will try to impeach him. It`s part of a larger strategy, of course, as I mentioned earlier, to make the debate over the Russia probe political, not legal.

As former White House strategist Steve Bannon told Politico: "This is political. At some point in time, the American people are going to weigh in on this. The legal process is going to attune itself to the political process. They are inextricably linked."

So, what would need to happen for politicians to seriously consider impeachment?

I`m joined right now by U.S. Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York, who represents the 10th District of New York. It includes the West Side of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. There it is, a very interesting district.

Congressman Nadler is the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, the panel that would potentially initiate impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump.

Mr. Nadler, thank you so much for coming on.

REP. JERROLD NADLER (D), NEW YORK: Thank you.

MATTHEWS: I was thinking, and thinking about which situation you`re facing, of the great Peter Rodino back in 1974, who handled it masterfully.

People never had a higher opinion, I think, in our lives of the Congress than they were in the way that the House handled the question of Richard Nixon`s impeachment.

Tell me how your general thoughts are about what`s going on now, the way President Trump is talking about how the Democrats are out to impeach him.

NADLER: Well, I think, first of all, the president is making that up out of whole cloth, as he makes up so many other things out of whole cloth.

What`s going on now is that the Congress is failing in its duty. We have a system of separation of powers, and the Congress is supposed to keep the executive in check, and vice versa. And the Congress is not keeping the executive in check.

We are not exercising our checks and balances power. We`re not holding the administration accountable. We are not holding hearings going into all the things that they`re doing that we ought to be doing. We ought to be holding those hearings and holding the administration accountable.

And if I`m the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which is to say, if the Democrats should win the House in January, that`s what we will do. We will start holding hearings on the behavior of the administration, on what they`re doing, on their adherence to law, on what, if any legal changes we should make to promote the rule of law.

And we will see where it goes from there.

MATTHEWS: Do you think that the House Republicans have been doing anything like that? I have looked at the case of Nunes, chairman of Intelligence. They look to be rubber stamps for anything the president wants to say or do on the issue of this whole Russian probe.

NADLER: Well, no, the Republicans in the House have been extremely -- by and large, have been supremely irresponsible.

Nunes has been a complete lackey for the White House. And more to the point, they have refused to hold any hearings. Instead, they have participated in trashing the special counsel and trying to distract attention from what`s going on and trying to come up with a phony -- phony nonsense.

Now, one interesting thing about the special counsel has been the president and Republicans, some of them can say whatever they want, it`s terrible, he`s doing a terrible job. It`s all Democrats, they said.

Well, first of all, he`s a Republican. His superior is Republican. But, more to the point, we don`t really know what they`re doing. There have been no leaks. All we know is that certain number of people have indicted, certain have pleaded guilty, and we know court filings.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

NADLER: We will find out how good or bad a job -- I think good -- but how they`re doing when they bring prosecutions, when he issues a report, presumably later this year or next year.

MATTHEWS: What is the relationship between a report that comes out, say, it`s on obstruction of justice, it`s done piecemeal by Robert Mueller sometime maybe late this -- well, spring is almost up, but let`s say by this summer.

He comes out with a report that talks about the president`s obstruction of justice in this case. What would -- what does that say to the House? Is there a natural order of things where the House takes up that report, holds hearings on it, or what?

NADLER: Well, first of all, the statute under which Ken Starr operated mandated that the special prosecutor issue a report to Congress.

The statute under which Mueller operates mandates that he issue a report to the attorney general, in this case, the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein. It`s possible that he won`t release that report to Congress or to the American people.

I think that that report should be released. And I think we would make sure -- we would have the tools to make sure it would be. And then we`d have to see what was in it. And then presumably we would hold hearings and call witnesses to see how reliable that report was, how strong it was…

MATTHEWS: Right.

NADLER: -- and what else we should know before we decided what actions, if any, to take.

MATTHEWS: You`re a constitutional lawyer, as well as an elected official for all these years.

What do you make of this fight that may be coming more immediately where the president may decide he will not accept a court decision that he has to testify to Mueller? What would happen?

NADLER: Well, if -- well, he can appeal any such court decision.

But if, ultimately, at the end of the appeals, he is instructed to testify, he must do so. He cannot simply defy the court. That`s what Richard Nixon -- at the end of the day, Richard Nixon decided he had to obey the court order. The president must obey the court order.

MATTHEWS: Or else.

NADLER: Or else.

MATTHEWS: What happens? What happens?

NADLER: Well --

MATTHEWS: We have never been in that situation where -- see, Nixon was an institutionalist.

NADLER: Actually, we were in that situation.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Nixon did what he was told to do.

Go ahead. I`m sorry.

NADLER: We were in that situation once, I believe, with Andrew Jackson, who said, John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.

But it`s a long time ago. I think, in today`s world, if a president absolutely refused to obey a court order, then we would have to consider impeachment.

MATTHEWS: Well, Mr. Nadler, God be with you. You have got a challenge facing you.

(CROSSTALK)

NADLER: But that -- but I would hope and trust it would never come to that, even with this president.

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