less as direct orders, than as simply how the president talks. interesting. one former adviser said that people have become conditioned to wait until mr. trump had raised an issue at least three times before acting on it. he did say it out loud the other day. that, is that number one, two, or three, willie in. >> there was the same reaction we got from the white house when "the new york times" reported this in january. is that the president says a lot of things in the course of a day, we don't take them seriously all the time. "new york times" reporter michael schmidt joins us now. he contributed to this report. michael, there's a ton in here. we've said time and again on the show, as people have said, he'll never fire bob mueller. if for nothing else, than for his own self-interest. as he knows this would lead to a crisis and could cost him his presidency. it appears time and again in your now second report that he is entertaining the idea of firing bob mueller and in fact sarah sanders said from the podium yesterday, he believes,