On Monday’s broadcast of “CNN Tonight,” journalist, author, and CNN commentator Carl Bernstein argued that while it wasn’t “wise” for President Trump to fire Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, “There’s a big difference” between Trump’s actions and Richard Nixon’s during the Saturday Night Massacre, and Trump is “within his rights” and “has that ability.”
Bernstein said, “There’s a big difference, because the Saturday Night Massacre was really about firing the attorney general when Nixon was the target of an investigation and was actively obstructing justice. I think the president is within his rights here to fire the attorney general, that he has that ability.”
He added that what Trump did wasn’t “wise” and that what is happening is “that the president and his presidency is in chaos.”
Bernstein concluded, “We have a former president, his predecessor, who is encouraging people to go into the streets because what Trump has done here is obstructed American principles. He hasn’t obstructed justice. He’s obstructed the most basic of American principles of what we stand for as a country in terms of immigration, a nation of immigrants, these are authoritarian pronouncements that he has been making for days now, and it’s coming to haunt him.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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