president disagreed sharply, contradicted former fbi director james comey's description of a february 14th meeting in the oval office in which the president kicked everyone out of the room so that he could speak alone to james comey. in james comey's now public, under-oath account of that meeting and in his notes, james comey said that the president asked everyone to leave the room, including jared kushner, including vice president mike pence, and including attorney general jeff sessions. to "the new york times," the president says he doesn't remember kicking anyone out of the room. quote, i don't remember even talking to him about any of this stuff, mr. trump said of mr. comey. he said, i asked people to go. look, you look at his testimony. his testimony is loaded up with lies, okay? so jared kushner and the vice president and everyone else who was in the room is going to be asked under oath who is telling the truth. james comey or donald trump? attorney general jeff sessions is going to be asked under oath by the special prosecutor, did president trump order everyone out of the room

important here. james comey had a meeting with the president of the united states where he took information about this private meeting with the president, put it on his government computer, went to his government office and decides after he gets fired to leak a conversation he had with the president of the united states to a friend of his, to then leak it to a reporter for what purpose? for the sole purpose of obtaining a special counsel which was appointed a few days later. so the basis upon which this entire special counsel investigation is taking place is based on what? illegally leaked information that was a conversation of the president of the united states with the then fbi director. and that to me is problematic from the outset and i think that raises very serious legal issues as to the scope and nature of what really could take place. and i go back to the other statement, chuck, and that is, again, the meeting in and of itself of course not an illegal act. >> mr. sekulow, i didn't ask you about james comey. i asked you about the specific e-mail. can't reasonable people c

most focused on tonight. do you remember that when james comey testified in the senate about the president firing him, and the president pressuring him to stop the russia investigation, he said pressuring him to lift the cloud of the russia investigation that was looming over the trump presidency, when james comey testified about that, he testified that he contemporaneously shared that information, he described his inner actions with the president and the president's words to him with senior people at the fbi. >> and i discussed the lifting of the cloud and the request with the senior leadership team who typically, and i think in all of these circumstances was the deputy director, the general counsel, my chief of staff, the deputy director's chief counsel, and i think in a number of circumstances the number three in the fbi and a few of the conversations included the head of the national security branch. so that group of us that lead the fbi when it comes to national security. >> that group of us that lead the fbi when it comes to national security. that's the group of people, th

did this all start? that's important here. james comey had a meeting with the president of the united states where he took information of his private meeting and went to his government office and decided to leak a conversation he had with the president of the united states to a friend of his to then leak into reporters for what purpose? for the sole purpose of obtaining a special counsel which was appointed a few days later. this entire special counsel investigation is taken place is based on what? leaked information that was a conversation of the president of the united states of the fbi director. that to me is a problematic from the out set and that lead to serious issues of what can take place. i go back to the other statement is that again, the meeting in of itself, not an illegal act. >> mr. sekulow, i did not ask you about james comey. i asked you about the specific e-mail. >> can people conclude because of what was said in the e-mail between donald trump and mr. gold stone and what he claim of this information coming from russia, can people say that's enough to trigger a

your word and the leak that james comey, you know, leaking the conversation. why does that make the president's actions any more honorable? >> well, what was the president's action that's not honorable? what did the president do in the context of this that was not honorable? >> well, he fired -- he said he fired the fbi director and one of the motivations was the russia investigation. >> he said he fired the fbi director, which he has the appropriate -- james comey testified, chuck, under oath that he had the authority to fire him. >> no, he said he didn't have the authority, but what i don't understand is -- >> well, it's an article 2 power of the constitution. it's not an insignificant matter. he has the authority to fire james comey, and he did. look, this whole thing with if you're going towards the -- conflating the russia investigation with these allegations on obstruction, the position on that, and i've been on your broadcast a couple of times talking about this. the idea that the president of the united states fired james comey cannot raise to the level of obstruction of jus

after as donald trump's man to run the fbi, the man who followed james comey at the top of the fbi. we'll be talking about this and watching this hearing all day. senate judiciary committee, you see the camera crews and still photographers and reporters awaiting his arrival at the witness table. kasie hunt is on capitol hill for us, part of our huge group of correspondents and analysts to cover this story today. she will lead us off for this part of our coverage. kasie, set the stakes for everything we'll be seeing today. >> well, brian, i think the stakes really are centered around everything we've been talking about, about donald trump jr., the latest news about his meeting with this russian lawyer, his knowledge that they wanted to talk about hillary clinton, saying that he would love that, and that really sets the stage for the scene here where you're going to have an fbi director nominee who is pressed repeatedly about the president, who of course as we know has been almost in hiding the last couple of days, not holding public events. this is a post where he had asked the prev

seems to happen. >> do you remember the meeting with james comey, the house intelligence democrats, we met a number of times to make sure we didn't do exactly what you said. we wanted to make sure it was coordinated and we had a narrative so the american people understood in a public setting, the trump contacts, personally, politically and financially. i thought it paid off. >> can you make demand of a witness? we want to know right now. take all the time you want. this is an open exam. trey gowdy made a joke of it. ever since he saw dr. zhivago, tell me every russian you met with. >> put it all on the paper right now. give us the exhaustive list from the time the campaign started until today. who have you met with? let's just hear that first. that list continues to grow only when confronted with evidence. >> there's more breaking news tonight. and it is just out. the "new york times" reports, financial records filed last year in the secretive tax haven of cyprus where paul manafort kept bank bts during his years working with ukraine and investing with a russian oligarch, that he h

york times." the president criticizes his attorney general and robert mueller and james comey and draws a red line on where the investigation better not go. one of the times" journalists who covered that interview joins us live as "the 11th hour" gets under way on a wednesday night. >>> and good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york, day 181 of the trump administration brought a steady stream of late-breaking news, yet one of the late stories that broke tonight not about trump or the white house. it had to do with a huge figure in american politics. a short time ago, an senator john mccain's office revealed following surgery days ago, his doctored diagnosed the veteran arizona republican senator with brain cancer. we have much more on the senator's diagnosis, his prognosis and the battle ahead a bit later on in this broadcast tonight. we begin tonight with the lead story in terms of this administration. it comes yet again from one of this country's great newspapers after the president granted an interview to three journalists with "the new york times."

oval office. tuesday night it was the existence of a memo from fired fbi director james comey describing a conversation if which he says the president asked him to back off the fbi investigation of former national security adviser mike flynn. last night it was the appointsment of a social counsel to take over the trump-russia investigation. now it's the fourth day of the week and so now we've got a new one. tonight's scoop comes courtesy of michael schmitt at the "the new york times," a sorry that he's broken tonight. the front page of the "the new york times" website, in addition to the alleged direct pressure on bithe president on director comey, apparently the president called the fbi director and pressured him to put out public word about trump not personally being under investigation. nbc reports tonight that jared kushner is under scrutiny in the trump-russia investigation. those officials saying that jared kushner is a person of interest. >> well kochl back to another friday night of what seems like extraordinary news from the trump-russia inquiry beginning with robert mueller tak

to james comey under oath, which is to lay off flynn. flynn has always been the person, sally yates gets concerned and goes over there twice, they don't fire him. they fire him, and start defending him in public. he asked james comey not to go after them. the through line here between the two parts of this story, which is whatever happens with the russians and what they were doing about trying to stop james comey for what he was doing, michael flynn is the nexus of both of those. >> we believe although it's unclear, we bereave the requests the president made to them may also have been specific to the flynn case. rather than being in general about russia. that's a little -- we have much less information about that, because we don't have much public testimony about it as we do from comey. there's a lot that doesn't make sense about flynn in the first place. why did they hire him, healed on to him for so long. after they got hair on fire warnings about him from the justice department. why did they let him stay on for 18 days thereafter, and then they didn't fire him. they never collar

washington. >> thanks to all of you. christopher ray, the man who would replace james comey today on capitol hill senators got the chance to talk to him face-to-face under oath to pep per him with some tough questions. and this was more than just a job sper view. think about it. he's replacing a person who was fired for in the president's words this russia thing. as you might expect, the latest developments in this russia thing were brought up multiple tiemts. so how did he do? >> i will never allow the fbi's work to be driven p by anything other than the facts, the law and the impartial pursuit of justice, period, full stop. my loyalty is to the constitution, to the rule of law, and to the mission of the fbi. and no one asked me for my kind of loyalty oath during any point of this process and i sure as heck didn't offer one. >> if the president asked you to do something unlawful or unethical, what do you say? >> first i would try to talk him out of it, and if that failed, i would resign. >> i'm asking you as the future fbi director, do you consider this endeavor a witch-hunt? >> i do not co

fbi director james comey. "new york times" citing conversations comey had with associates report the dinner began with small talk but the president turned the conversation to whether mr. comey would pledge his loyalty to him. breaking news tonight, a blockbuster report from the "new york times." since confirmed by nbc news, that the president of the united states asked then-fbi director james comey to end the bureau's investigation of michael flynn according to a memo written by comey. we have absolutely massive breaking news tonight. "the washington post" reporting that special counsel robert mueller is now investigating the president of the united states for possible obstruction of justice. we here have lost count with the number of breaking news alert about the president and the obstruction and russia investigation and not even six months into this administration. joining me joy reid, nicholas confessori, jason johnson, politics editor, and from washington d.c., michael isikoff, and michael schmidt. michael in d.c., let me start with you. michael, you are a veteran investigation,

president threatened james comey to get him to drop the investigation regarding mike fl flynn. in may, he fired james comey and indicated he did it to curtail an investigation into russian collusion. it's true we may find other high crimes in misdemeanors. this is a long process, and the next step is for the judiciary committee to hold hearings, and we will not hold them unless we have substantial national attention thereon sdplp to do you con vens them to get on board with this? there was maybe one impeachment that brought it up made at one point, but that is as far as anyone has been willing to go. many of them called this a big witch hunt. >> it is hard now that we see the e-mails of donald trump junior. the immediate effect that i'm hoping for is that people in the white house will finally sit down with the president and say for a number of reasons, including the fact of the articles of impeachment have been filed. we have to stop and control the impulses. we have to make decisions in a careful manner. if they do that, amay nevi may t republican support. if this level of incompetence

after those lies were leaked to the press. the president asked james comey to back off flynn. asked other officials to lean on comey to do so. he fired comey when he did not comply. the president has defended flynn, despite firing him for lying. >> michael flynn, general flynn is a wonderful man, i think he's been treated very unfairly by the media. as i call it, the fake media in many cases. and i think it's really a sad thing that he was treated so badly. >> flynn himself has gone silent publicly, in march, he said he was willing to be interviewed in exchange for immunity. general flynn has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it. joining me now, rachel maddow who has been covering it better than anyone. >> i don't know, that was pretty good. >> i'm curious what you feel of this story. in terms of the waves it sent has not been as large as others. for me personally, the way i feel like i'm putting the facts as we know them into view, seems like one of the most significant because it puts flynn at the center of something, and it gives some plausible vision of what exactl

? the president lashing out. president trump in a wild new interview hitting james comey, robert mueller and his own attorney general for doing the right thing, recusing himself. >> if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and i would have picked somebody else. >> jared kushner, donald trump jr., and paul manafort now officially scheduled to be questioned by the senate next week. >>> and the fighter, senator john mccain diagnosed with brain cancer. the nation, the world rallying around this true american hero. >> this does has never had any more worthy opponent. >>> and she's here for a little sell participation. senator elizabeth warren joins us live with her report card on the president's first six months. today's the day. let's have a toast. did he drain the swamp as promised? senator warren will let us know. we'll begin, of course, this morning with that bombshell, dare i say bizarre-o interview from president trump with "the new york times" where he takes aim at one of his earliest allies and his own attorney general, jeff sessions, an

? >> ben, you're really close with james comey. there was an interesting portion of the new york times interview where it seems like are the president is saying that james comey was trying to blackmail him by revealing the dose yeah to him privately. take a listen to that portion. >> i didn't know what to think, other than this is really phoney stuff. >> why do you think he shared it with you? >> in my opinion, he shared it so that i would think he had it out there. >> as leverage? >> yeah, i think so. in retrospect. in retrospect. >> so was james comey trying to blackmail the president? >> so obviously i don't speak for jim comey, but i will say this. when donald trump makes a suggestion like that, the word that comes to mind is p projections. and jim comey did testify under oath that he felt like the president was trying to exercise leverage over him. and so, you know, you have two people -- >> so you think he just turns everything around, you're a puppet of russia, no, you're the puppet of russia. you're not qualified to be president, no, you're not qualified to be president, that s

investigation? the firing of former fbi director james comey and whether all of this is a witch hunt. >> do you believe in light of the don jr. e-mail and other agencies that this is a witch hunt? is it a fair description of what we're all dealing with in america? >> senator, i can't speak to the basis for the comments. my experience with director -- >> i'm asking you as the future fbi director, do you consider this endeavor a witch hunt? >> do you have any doubt that russia interfered with our elections. >> i will tell you have i no reason to doubt the assessment of the intelligence community. >> did the president do something unethical or unlawful. what would you say? >> i would talk him out of it, and if that failed i would resign. >> why did the president fire director comey. >> you know, senator, i don't know. >> can the president fire director mueller? does he have the authority and the law to fire him? >> i don't know the law on that. >> after a day of silence on twitter, president trump who has not been seen since returning from his overseas trip decided and says he expected

investigation. for what? i didn't do anything wrong." on fired fbi director james comey and that now famous and graphic dossier making allegations about trump's personal behavior in russia, there is this. "mr. trump said he believed mr. comey told him about the dossier to implicitly make clear he had something to hold over the president." quoting the president here "in my opinion he shared so that i would think he had it out there as leverage the times asked? yeah, i think so mr. trump said in retrospect. mr. comey also declined comment to "the new york times." president also offered us his version that have chat he and vladimir putin had over dinner at the g-20 summit. "i went down just to say hello to melania. while i was there i said hello to putin. pleasantries more than anything else. it was not a long conversation but it was, you know, could be 15 minutes. talked about things. it was very interesting. we talked about adoptions. you'll recall the subject of adoption was the cover story for meeting donald trump jr. hosted at trump tower and speaking of the president's eldest son, the se

back. the president is again lashing out at former fbi director james comey on twitter. this time apparently in response to a misleading report by the hill newspaper that more than half of comey's memos detailing his interactions with the president contain classified information. president trump tweeted, quote, james comey leaked classified information to the media. that is so illegal. comey gave some of those memos to his friend daniel rick man, a columbia law professor asking him to share with reporters. three of comey's memos were classified from the beginning and were never shared with him. rick man tells nbc news the contents of the one document he did share are not classified. a congressional source familiar with the matter says a small portion of one of the other memos rick man received has been retroactively classified. if that phrase sounds familiar it was because of retroactive classification that caused trouble for hillary clinton during her campaign. and it was, of course, james comey who accused clinton of being extremely careless in handling classified information. w

james comey. they should have known that would have ample -- amped up the search for robert mueller. now the smartest man they had ever met and knew, now donald trump is trying to throw just like they defended flynn nonstop, now they're trying to throw the attorney general of the united states overboard, a man who, by the way, a former member of the united states senate with friends in the united states senate and it looks like just as donald trump keeps making matters worse for himself by day trading, looks like he's going to do it again and there is no doubt as with the fbi director, the new fbi director, senate republicans aren't going to allow anybody like giuliani to get through the senate, are they? >> so he'll have no attorney general. you look at mccain, you look at susan collins, you look at ben sass. i could name you four or five republicans that aren't going to allow this to become a banana republic. is this a case, clint, he's just going to matter matters worse for himself again? >> i think the message is clear if you're not a family member or general, you're going to ge

, that's the way he treated james comey when he was director of the fbi. now, chris wray his nominee for fbi director whose nomination cleared the judiciary committee unanimously, that's not how he sees the job. if anybody tries to you know interfere in a political way he'd try to talk him out of it and if he couldn't then he'd resign. that's not how the new fbi director looks at it. the fbi director is not a member of the cabinet, not, you know, not seen as a political figure in today's age. that's what james comey found so uncomfortable about his relationship with president trump because they had several one-on-one conversations that he had never had with president obama when he was operating as the fbi director in the last administration. >> yeah. obviously, chris wray will have the benefit of watching the public demise of jim comey. he's now testified what all the encounters were like and he talked about a former fbi director, bob mueller. i'm going to play a part of the conversation about what he viewed inbounds and out of bounds and drawing some lines around about appropriate scope

james comey's credibility -- >> steve, hold on. just answer one question. >> all right. >> you say jared is really transparent about this but he wasn't transparent about the meeting on june 6th, 2016. he wasn't transparent about the meeting with gorkov. he hasn't been. >> i filled out f-86 for my clearance, there are things i forgot to put on there. there are things i just overlooked. i can relate to that. i can understand that. what did he do? he amended it, submitted the information. >> twice, maybe a third time. >> i think at times i did it a year later. so these things -- we're all human. i think there's a human element that we have to understand. there's no conspiracies here, no trying to hide the truth. all the president has tried to do with great opposition is get the truth out. yes, i'm sure he's frustrated. >> may i skrks why ask, why is congress has to go around the president to put sanctions in place. knowing russia even attempted to attack our election system why wouldn't the president now that he's in office say, let's get these sanctions in place. why does congress ha

more than half of the memos written by former fbi director james comey about the conversations he personally had with president trump regarding the russians contained classified information and the president via twitter is claiming james comey leaked classified information to the media. how might this complicate things? >> i don't think it complicates things at all. there is no evidence that cojam comey leaked to the media any classified information. i would expect in these memos there would be classified information and i would assume that james comey, knowing he cannot put classified information out in the public domain, would have redacted that information. i don't think necessarily the senate committee and the house committee will have redacted version bus to me that just seems like a nonissue. there's no reason to believe that any classified information was ever leaked. in fact, i don't know of any classified information that's appeared in the media. there's even arguably classified. >> guess what, neither of these stories are going away. nick, tom, thanks so much. we'll take

the president's own admission that the reason that he fired james comey was because of the russian investigation, done on network television, and then donald trump jr.'s first, shall we say, dissembling about the true reason about the meetings, that initial statement and then releasing his own e-mails that are as, you know -- really i do think not only breathe new life into this investigation bud made everybody say, maybe we have been just taking collusion off the table too soon. everybody had said well, maybe not collusion, but something happened. but, you know, you don't answer e-mails like that on campaigns, chuck. you just don't. >> you know, the other thing that's interesting to me is how it came out. we're now -- the reason it came out is because jared kushner corrected -- his lawyers, and he's got two very prominent ones, they clearly to me are giving him the advice, whatever you've got get it out and fix. so they find this e-mail, yet another russian they didn't identify, go fix your form. well, fixing that form means more people find out about it. now we know how this gets

prosecutorial chops, if you were going to guess who would get indicted, donald trump jr., james comey or ben rhodes, what would your guess be? >> i want to know what's in those comey memos and see if there's classified information. i don't think donald trump jr. will get indicted. he had a meeting. i don't think a criminal offense was committed in terms of the political judgment i think that's fair to criticize. i don't think there was a crime committed there. >> thank you, congressman ron desantis. it's been a real rough week for the trump family. i'll explain and talk about it after the break. after the break. stay tuned. ♪ more kinds of crab than ever, new dishes, and all your favorites. only while crabfest lasts. red lobster. now this is seafood. nitrites or artificial ham has preservatives.tes, now it's good for us all. like those who like. sweet those who prefer heat. sfx - a breath of air and those who just love meat. oscar mayer deli fresh. sweet! introducing the easiest way to get gillette blades noo text "blades" to gillette on demand text to reorder blades with gillette on deman

attorney general alone. >> let's listen to james comey. >> what was it about the attorney general's own interactions with the russians or his behavior with regard to the investigation that would have led the entire leadership of the fbi to make this decision? >> well, our judgment as i recall, is that he was very close to and inevitably going to recuse himself. for a variety of reasons. we were aware of facts i can't discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a russian-related investigation problematic. so we were convinced. i think we had mattered the career people were recommending that he recuse himself. that he would not be in contact with russia-related matters. longer. >> we were aware of facts that i can't discuss in an open setting. classified facts that had to do with what ever jeff sessions discussed which he didn't disclose when he was nominated to the attorney general. that would seem to make it worse. >> exactly. that testimony looks more interesting in light of this report. we don't know whether they're matching up. a way to think about recusal

which many people believe is the president's ultimate goal and he has shown in relieving james comey of duty he's willing to do something like that to stop the investigations that he views as unfair witch hunts. >> chris, i would see this as this should be the first set of dominos to have republicans in the senate show some courage, to show sha we are a co-equal branch of the -- that congress is a co-equal branch with the presidency and we are not helpless to what president wants to do to instruct the investigation. that's the opportunity of jeff sessions was fired. >> speaking of the investigation, today, jarrett kushner, son-in-law, chief adviser, i wouldn't call testimony, but answered questions to senate intel committee. we will have more later in the show. and you will speak with kushner tomorrow in closed session. can you explain for me because i'm unclear about how this all inded up. the he is not under oath but will talk to you and he can't lie to congress and lying to congress is a crime nonetheless, right? >> yes. i wish it was in public. i wish he today raise his right hand f

course, now former fbi director james comey having with been fired by the white house, president trump, and this would be his successor. so all of this, again, very much suggesting that these investigations are ongoing as health care continues to bubble in the background. >> and, azi, do you think a more seasoned political operative would have taken this meeting? do you think this would have happened if he had been more seasoned politically? >> hell bleeping no. but what about paul manafort? >> he was in the meeting, too. there's a lot of questions. >> the part of the meeting that would have triggered a warning bell is this is part of the russian government's effort to help elect donald trump. that is the part of the e-mail that someone who reads their e-mails, reads them all the way through, would have said what are you talking about and would not have let their brother-in-law, the campaign manager and other people into that room or would have at least asked what are you talking about with this effort? you would not have wanted to put yourself in had there or anyone else in there espe

where where he noted accusingly, very few republicans. and he continue to disparage james comey. according to president trump, he did a great thing for the american people by firing comey. he said comey told him about opportunity documented dossier filled with salacious claims to hold it over the president's head. let's listen. >> i didn't know what to think other than this is really phony stuff. >> why do you think he shared it? >> in my opinion, he shared it so i would think he had it out there. >> as leverage? >> i think so. >> this morning the attorney general sessions was asked about the president's attack. let's listen. >> i have the honor of serving as attorney general. it is something that goes beyond any thought i would have ever had for myself. we love this job. we love this department. and i plan to continue to do so. as long as that is appropriate. i am totally confident we can continue to run this office in an effective way. >> i'll joined now by the "new york times" peter baker who was part of the team that interviewed the president. hallie jackson is at the white house and d

firing of james comey. for those reasons he should go. but also, chris, you know, some people say why would you want to get rid of him? he is recused. when isn't that better than who trump could put in. how is the time for senate, republican leaders to put a check on the presidency, a true law enforcement official in there. no relation top president's campaign and allow this investigation to proceed. >> this is interesting. you are in line with a call made by the congressional black caucus that sessions is unfit to serve. top law enforce. of the nation should resign immediately. fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me. of course this would be the first set in dominos to get rid of mueller which many people believe is the president's ultimate goal and he has shown in relieving james comey of duty he's willing to do something like that to stop the investigations that he views as unfair witch hunts. >> chris, i would see this as this should be the first set of dominos to have republicans in the senate show some courage, to show sha we are a co-equal branch of the -- that c

from the investigation his deputy attorney general rod rosenstein was in charge when james comey was fired by the president as fbi director and then it came out that he had had this conversation or at least says he had this conversation with the president about whether to stop the investigation into mike flynn, that's when rod rosenstein as the acting attorney general in this instance decided he had to appoint a special counsel, robert mueller. from the sessions recusal and the president's view comes the investigation that he now faces from a -- a special counsel now looking at all sorts of things the president doesn't want to look at. >> eli stokols, what we haven't done is talk about the story in chief, the body of the story. very serious, if true. secondarily kind of confirms the russia obsession early on in the campaign. and the third area here is if this is indeed a hit. >> well, right and the irony if it is or even if it isn't is that what -- trump was mad about was he recused himself in the first place. this story even if it weakens sessions' position or stature atop the justi

day since james comey. >> absolutely. it will be quite a spectacle. i agree with david that he had better understand the implications of giving anything less than truthful testimony and also the implications of approaching such an appearance with the sort of devil maker attitude. this is serious business. and if his attorney is as smart as i think his attorney is, he will be told that. >> go ahead, david. >> moving back to that editorial, congressional republicans may be less willing to protect him than doing guard duty when james comey testify. >> thank you both for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> coming up, mitch mcconnell reached the enof the line with the health care bill. d of the lh the health care bill. of the li with the health care bill. of thh the health care bill. days and nights of laxatives, only to have my symptoms return. (vo) if you've had enough, tell your doctor what you've tried and how long you've been at it. linzess works differently from laxatives. linzess treats adults with ibs with constipation or chronic constipation. it can help relieve

the election of 2016. >> preet bharara, james comey. franco, preet bharara probably knows a lot about some of the questions nina brought up. he was let go, he was fired. also james comey saying he was going to write a book. there's so much information still to come out here, franco. >> it's true. i agree that, like, we in the press, we're getting a certain segment of this material. comey, mueller, they have a lot more details, and i think this is going to continue to really start to pour out. i'm pretty fascinated with how every day something new seems to appear. the fire just keeps continuing to spread and spread. >> can you keep up, franco? >> it's a good question. it's difficult to keep up. fortunately, i'm not alone. we have several people there that are looking into this and as nina says, looking into other threats and questions being raised about different types of possible coordination that, you know, that are serious questions, such as the, you know, the information sharing, the possibility that the administration, a, have been involved with the russian effort to use spe

had said to loretta lynch, i am disappointed that you abdicated your decision-making to james comey. you should act differently. it's likely many would have called for some sort of impeachment proceedings against him or called for her to resign. two, this president is a coward. he doesn't want jeff sessions to resign. he wants bob mueller. sessions is a way to get to him. to go on and on about sessions. if you don't want him, just fire him. sessions, i think, should resign for a whole range of reasons. this president has made clear, this is about russia for him. he threw in the leak stuff about, i want to find out where the leaks are coming from. he could appoint a czar in the white house to figure that out. for him this is about russia. i would respect him more if he weren't such a coward. if you don't want him, let him go. the president may be justified in believing mueller has maybe moved outside the scope of the investigation by asking for business records of his. if he does, he should take steps and deal with the ramifications of it as opposed to taking on the attorney general as he

, the man who could replace james comey taking questions from senators. now, remember the reason he's even nominated is because president trump fired james comey amid the russian investigation. today christopher rey pledged an independent fbi. >> my loyalty is to the constitution and to the rule of law and the mission of the fbi. >> if the president asked you to do something unlawful or unethical, what do you say? >> first i would try to talk him out of it, and if that failed i would resign. >> you don't think director comey is a nut job, right? >> that's never been my experience. >> do you consider this endeavor a witch hunt? >> i do not consider director muller to be on a witch hunt. >> so the president's pick to lead the fbi saying the russia probe is not a witch hunt, although just hours earlier president trump tweeted and said, "it is indeed a witch hunt." this is from today's white house briefing. >> why he calls it a witch hunt? >> because the president knows very specifically any action or inaction that he's taken, and so i think that's pretty clear. >> sarah huckabee sanders

someone to go fire the person like fbi director james comey who wasn't even in washington when he was fired. i want to get everyone talking about the president's personal legal counsel and the statement that i read in the intro to this where they're trying to put the blame on democrats saying a democratic outfit and that's the reason why this dossier was done and it's fake and all that. i just want to remind people that, correct me if i'm wrong, but i looked it up. that this, the so-called steal dossier was not started by democrats. it was started by a wealthy republican who wanted is to stop donald trump and their efforts ended once donald trump got the nomination. to say this was some grand scheme by the democrats to set up donald trump is ridiculous. david? go ahead, david. >> i've done a lot of reporting on this, of course, malcolm is an expert, too. but i got to say that they did put out a statement saying it had nuthing to do with the meeting. it was, indeed, working with an american law firm that was working with a russian person who had hired this russian attorney. so, there i

administration's new nominee to head the fbi. the man they want to replace james comey, who the president fired, he says, because of the russia investigation. imagine the internal dynamic that has to exist inside somebody nominated for that job, right? on the one hand, i have been asked to become head of the fbi. on the other hand, i've been asked to become head of the fbi, because the president just fired the last head of the fbi, because of the russia investigation. what's it like to make -- go through that decision-making progress to decide, yes, you're going to accept the honor of that nomination. so we will learn a lot more about christopher ray, the new fbi nominee, tomorrow. but at that confirmation hearing tomorrow, and also at the upcoming senate hearings on the russia investigation that we are expecting in the next couple of weeks, watch for republican senators to try to mount a counterattack on the main narrative of this scandal. the russian woman who came to trump tower and took this meeting with don jr. and paul manafort and jared kushner, at the time of her visit to the united sta

donald trump firing jim comey caused liberals to suddenly rally around james comey, who they previously hated because of his role in the 2016 campaign and hurting hillary clinton, now you've got not just republican senators but even people on the left who are suddenly rallying around jeff sessions, of all people, who is prosecuting the most conservative, aggressive, retrograde, pro-law and order at the extreme hyperbolic version of that part of trump's agenda that you could possibly imagine. he shall it's part of the thing that gives him some political cover with the administration in addition to the senators and republicans who are institutionally and personally fond of him. he's also someone who has this wiggle room to fight trump because the reality is that the trump base loves jeff sessions on the merits that they care about, on immigration, on these law enforcement issues, right? but it is certainly the case that trump seems to be -- just does not seem to care about any of that, at least so far. there is some reporting that suggests that he may be moderating. he may have spent his

the firing of james comey to the russia investigation and the efforts of special counsel, robert mueller. >> i would consider an effort to tamper with director mueller's investigation to be unacceptable and inappropriate and would need to be dealt with very sternly and appropriately indeed. when it's time to move to underwear toddlers see things a bit differently thanks to pampers easy ups while they see their first underwear you see an easy way to potty train pampers easy ups our first and only training underwear with an all-around stretchy waistband and pampers' superior protection so you'll see fewer leaks and they'll see their first underwear pampers easy ups, the easiest way to underwear. pampers i just want to find a used car start at the new carfax.com show me used trucks with one owner. pretty cool. [laughs] ah... ahem... show me the carfax. start your used car search at the all-new carfax.com. only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. tylenol® >>> do you believe that in light of the don jr. e-mail and o

that james comey's memos may have contained some classified information. do you have any indication that he disclosed classified information and have you seen the memos yet? >> i don't have any indication that he did. but i would say this. that there are very few people that would know better how to draft a memo so it wouldn't fall in the classified area than james comey. and he testified to that before our committee to a question that i asked him. i have seen these reports that there may have been after the fact classification. we don't know who may have classified those documents if they were classified. i want to get the answer to that. >> have you seen the memos yet? >> i expect to see them very shortly. >> is this meeting going to be part of the mueller investigation or is it already part of the mueller investigation? >> again, in terms of the witness list, the special counsel mueller has you have to ask him. i know this much, our committee intends to ask donald trump jr. as well as if we can find other people who attended that meeting beyond jared kushner and paul manafort who

certainly be the biggest hearing day since james comey. >> absolutely. it will be quite a spectacle. i agree with david that he had better understand the implications of giving anything less than truthful testimony and also the implications of approaching such an appearance with the sort of devil maker attitude. this is serious business. and if his attorney is as smart as i think his attorney is, he will be told that. >> go ahead, david. >> moving back to that editorial, congressional republicans may be less willing to protect him than doing guard duty when james comey testify. >> thank you both for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> coming up, mitch mcconnell reached the end of the line with the health care bill. it's something that's always present. you're always thinking about it. what if my cancer comes back? i've been working on this therapy for 5 years now and we're getting ready to go to the clinic. my son definitely keeps me fighting. i want to be there for him when he needs me. that's what motivates me. i want to see patients have gray hair. i see myself growin