department to tell rod rosenstein it was time for mueller to go because had he several conflict of interest issues. it was only after mcgahn threatened to resign that the president backed down on that. >> i want to go back to the red line. it's something that i've wrestled with how seriously to take that red line. that was your phrase in an interview with the president an audio interview we have audio of. you said the word red line and the president says yes it, didn't sound definitive to me. are you convinced he does consider that a red line. >> like probably a lot of red lines this one may be a bit faulty but i don't know. look, we were trying to get the president to give us a sense how he saw this investigation. how he saw mueller. what was mueller's mandate? and we pushed him on it. we pushed him really hard if you could hear in the audio. we tried to pin him down what was okay and what wasn't okay. because we wanted to have a guide as we looked at this and moved along to see where mueller sort of fell in if the president's thoughts.