John Heilemann, an MSNBC analyst and journalist, told Nicolle Wallace of "Deadline: White House" on Thursday that the president's efforts to interfere with and undermine the Russia investigation are likely to come to a boil quite soon.
The show's panel was discussing the day's intelligence briefing with congressional leaders, which sparked controversy after the president's attorney in the Russia probe, Emmet Flood, showed up — breaking all precedent and raising issues of serious conflicts of interest. Heilemann noted that this kind of behavior had gone unopposed by most of Trump's allies in Congress.
"The genuinely sick thing that's happening right now is the number of enablers the President has among people who used to be sober, responsible people," Heilemann said.
Heilemann noted that Sen. Orrin Hatch, the most senior Republican in his chamber, was recently indulging Trump by suggesting that the guilty plea of former national security adviser Michael Flynn might be illegitimate.
"The president thinks he's winning with this argument," Heilemann continued. "We may have gotten through this day and nothing cataclysmic may have happened — although it's still an ugly precedent and some ugly things happened with Emmet Flood showing up at that meeting, I think —but we are headed towards a bigger confrontation."
He added: "The president is going to push for another confrontation. There's going to be a moment where this thing is going to blow up. And I don't think it's that far off now."
Shares