Sam Nunberg, Republican policy analyst who served as an advisor to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, joined Ari Melber on The Beat tonight. They covered a variety of topics, from Bob Muellers' investigation, Fire and Fury, Paul Manafort, Mike Pence, and of course, Russia. Here is some of the transcript:
MELBER: Today Bob Mueller secured another guilty plea in the Russia probe. Four people potentially turning on Trump, his campaign in a rough period right now. Sam Nunberg was there at the beginning, in Michael Wolff's book "Fire and Fury". That's 19 times. We counted. Let's start with some of these reports.
NUNBERG: Okay.
MELBER: Number one, you hear about Mueller making progress.
NUNBERG: Uh-huh. Which he should by the way, I mean he's getting a lot of government money, I would hope he would.
POINT ONE:
MELBER: Let me ask you this, have investigators called you?
NUNBERG: Yes, they have.
MELBER: And are you cooperating?
NUNBERG: I have not met with them yet. I will meet with them, I have offered to operate and i'm not a subject or target and I have no problem with this. But here's the issue. The issue isn't whether I've been called, the issue is whether people have gone in.
Mueller has called and Nunberg is happy to cooperate. Whoopsie.
POINT TWO:
NUNBERG: Here's the issue what I think people have to understand is, having looked into this after I was contacted and I had to relook into this is, Donald Trump caused this investigation.
MELBER: Donald Trump? With his conduct and Comey and all that.
NUNBERG: So let me explain, though. It wasn't that he fired Comey. Because I agree with firing Comey. I think that Comey should have been fired the minute he didn't investigate Hillary Clinton. After he was fired, [Trump] gave an interview to Lester Holt and said it had to do with "the Russia thing," and then a couple of things, and I don't know why advisos told him to do this, but he had the Russians in his office. Whether it's Steve Bannon, who is a good friend of mine, or Jared Kushner, who is a moron, or Reince Priebus.
OMG, he not only blamed Donald Trump for the investigation but he called Jared Kushner a MORON. On tv. Literally, on LIVE TV (cackling)
POINT THREE:
MELBER: You know these people, you're an insider, you have worked with him. Let me ask you about Michael Cohen, who is by all accounts very loyal to Donald Trump. From a New York Times quote, tools of trump's fixer, payouts, intimidation and the tabloids.
NUNBERG: I worry about Michael. That's all I want to say. I worry about Michael.
MELBER: The question is do you worry -- let me ask you the question, and then you get to answer it. Do you worry that Michael Cohen in his loyalty could end up lying for Trump in a way that hurts him.
NUNBERG: I worry about Michael. I'm not going to say Michael's going to lie. I worry about Michael. Let me tell you something, whenever I hear anybody who calls me up and says I've been screwed by Donald Trump, and by the way, he's screwed a lot of people. I'm a supporter of his too, so that's a separate issue. Donald Trump is a personable guy, he screws everyone. You have nothing better to listen to Michael Cohen, he got screwed more than anybody I have ever seen by Donald Trump. And what I worry about is what Michael's going to say when he's called in by somebody like Andrew Weissman.
So he is worried about Michael Cohen being screwed by Donald Trump. Probably a fair assessment of what is going to happen, to be fair.
POINT FOUR:
MELBER: I'm going to ask you something else. The White House today is claiming that Donald Trump is tough on Russia.
NUNBERG: No, he's not. Here's where I come from. I am a supporter of Israel. Okay?
Pulls no punches. He flat out said that Trump is not tough on Russia.
POINT FIVE:
MELBER: But Donald Trump is not enforcing these sanctions brought on by Obama.
NUNBERG: But he won't do the sanctions.
MELBER: You're saying on record he should enforce the sanctions?
NUNBERG: 100%.
POINT SIX: And finally, the "L" word:
MELBER: Did anyone involved in the Trump campaign have any contact with Russians trying to meddle with the election?
NUNBERG: Absolutely not. I can tell you that all the contact by the Trump campaign and associates was with the American people.
MELBER: Were they lying or was it a mistake?
NUNBERG: First of all, I just want to say this before I answer your question. I never met Paul Manafort until game four of the Yankees. I respect him. That doesn't mean I respect Kellyanne or the Vice President, yeah, they were all lying.
MELBER: They were lying?
NUNBERG: They were lying.
MELBER: And why were they lying? Did they have something to hide?
NUNBERG: No, they were just lying.
Ari sent some tweets after:
I agree with this assessment - of all the bombs dropped, this one stuck with me as well
So that's it. Nunberg is gonna work with Bob Mueller, he thinks Kushner is a moron, Trump is weak on Russia and will never implement sanctions and Kellyanne and Pence are liars just to lie. At least someone is speaking the truth.
UPDATE: Apparently Robert Mueller tunes into MSNBC?
