David Gergen

It's just hard to know how you can put two people and conclude what's the truth, if you have no real information about what other parties say.

I mean, it's extraordinarily brave of her to come in and do this because she's paid this personal price already.

I think there's a real chance that each side will introduce ideas or conspiracies about the other side that are unresolved, but that push the public in one direction or another.

None. Zero. I think what we do know, Anderson, is they have entered negotiations and both sides seem to want to get the yes.

I think it's clear now, Anderson, that the Republicans have a point. This should have been brought up earlier in some fashion, so that it could be done as part of the regular process.

It's really essential that he go forward without a big cloud over him and without a sense he was ramrodded through on a partisan basis.

But, clearly, now, they've let this whole thing go on so long, they need to change course or eight or nine weeks here before the elections, the Democrats can only sit there and say, keep going. Keep going. Just do what you're doing.

the longer the president keeps tweeting about this anonymous and the search for that and tweets about the Woodward book and also keeps pushing the idea that the Justice Department now should investigate all of this, it shows -- it…

It's completely degrading. It's completely demoralizing. You do not do that to professionals.

This is -- they've embraced a communications strategy that is a loser. It's coming back to haunt them now. The fact that the president's personal approval among Americans would go down six points since last month, a sharp drop among…

The Republican Party leadership bears responsibility here. If they know and let this go on, the president -- the Republican Party is culpable on this and it could destroy the party if they're not careful.

I think that those that are calling for the 25th Amendment and invoking the 25th Amendment is premature.

I think this is in preparation for forcing Sessions out after the midterms, bringing in someone, trying to get it through the Senate who is going to be much more sympathetic to the president.

It's unrecognizable for anyone who has been around and understood what the values were.

I think one of the things we've learned in the last 48 hours is there is millions of Americans out there who continue to respect leaders of courage, of candor and of character.

I would imagine that the person who is appointed will vote to approve Judge Kavanaugh joining the Supreme Court.

There's a very real danger that Sessions will be out and Trump is going to fire Mueller or put somebody in to close down the Mueller investigation.

And one of the harsh lessons in life is that loyalty runs both ways. And Donald Trump is a guy who's never been loyal down, he's only loyal to himself.

I think, Anderson, that all four of us here tonight would agree that it's deeply offensive to have a president of the United States who is our guardian of our legal justice system, he's the foremost protector of the law, rule of law in the…

They're going to pay a price for this.

If he gets fired without the Republicans making that protection, they're going to be responsible, they're going to be jointly responsible for dismantling this investigation.

Donald Trump, you know, is a control freak in many ways. He wants to control everything and he controlled this epic battle against Mueller for month after month, because he alone had the platform and Mueller couldn't speak.

If Trump goes down, this party may go down with him.

This Republican Party is increasingly unrecognizable. It has become the Trump party.

Well, it brought back memories of another day in history. Back in the Watergate investigations. When John Dean went to Nixon and said, there's a cancer on your presidency.