Transcripts For CNNW At This Hour With Kate Bolduan 20170512

From him and from his white house. Were also getting new details right now about that dinner between the president and james comey at the white house back in january. For more on this, let me bring in right now, senior White House Correspondent joe johns, live at the white house. So, joe, some good tweets to start off your day. Has the white house said anything yet, had any reaction yet to the tweets the president sent out this morning . Reporter just a little bit of a reaction. I went back and asked the White House Press shop about the one tweet from the president , indicating that james comey ought not have made any recordings of his conversations with the president , and i asked them, is that a threat . What is that . What does that mean . And the word back from the press shop was, it is what it is, and were not going to go any further than what the president tweeted, which is not surprising, given the fact that theres been so much talk about the contradictions between the people speaking for the president and the president himself, and that last interview with nbc news. The other takeaway, i think, from the president s tweet was that, yes, it was a warning to james comey not to leak anything, and it also raised the question, clearly, of whether there might be recordings or any other type of record of the conversations between james comey and President Trump, kate. The white house saying the president s tweets speak for themselves is this administrations version of no comment, it seems, because we get that quite a bit. Great to see you, joe. Thank you so much. Well see what comes next. Joe will stay close to his camera. Joining me now for this and more, cnn political commentator and former Senior Adviser to president obama, David Axelrod is here. Cnn counterterrorism analyst and former kriie and fbi official phil mudd, cnn president ial historian and former director of the nixon president ial library, tim neftali, National Political reporter for real clear politics, Caitlin Hueyburns and retired fbi chief of staff and a man who knows james comey, know the second in command now in charge, james galliano. Weve got a lot to get to and a lot of voices. Let us begin. David axelrod, i had a whole other idea of how to start our conversation today, but once again, well start with some tweets, this tweet we get from donald trump this morning seeming to threaten james comey. Are these the two options available for what this tweet means . Either the president maybe illegally has recorded conversations with the fbi director or the president is not telling the truth . Is there another option here . I cant think of one. I would suggest the president release the tapes, if he has tapes. I think the country would like to hear those tapes. If he doesnt have tapes, then yes, hes lied. But listen, its just the latest of an incredibly peculiar, disturbing 48 hours, starting with the firing. When they say we dont have any comment on his tweets, these tweets speak for themselves. If i were a white house spokesman, i wouldnt want to speak for him either, because every time the white house speaks for the president , things change and they end up looking either dishonest or clueless. So, perhaps its best to let his tweets speak for themselves. But on the tapes themselves, the notion that there are tapes, and he did put them in quotes, let him release them. I think he should release them to the country. Phil, whats your reaction to this . Im not asking you to get into the president s head here. What do you think is going on . Please dont. Believe me, i know this is going to sound facetious. Im breathing a sigh of relief. You cant take this seriously. You could have taken this seriously from president bush or president obama, from president bushs father, from president clinton. You cant take this seriously. You feel like youve got to give the president of the United States a pacifier and a rattle and put him in the crib. Youre threatening the fbi, whos in the midst of an investigation of president ial aides . The fbis been around since 1908. The president of the United States has been around for 3 1 2 months. If you think youre going to intimidate the former fbi director and the dozens of people in the workforce who are conducting this investigation with the department of justice, youve got another think coming. Anybody outside the beltway, any everyday american who looks at this and takes in a breath and says im worried, id say, dont worry about it. This is a joke. And nobody in the investigation would take this seriously. Well, that james, you know comey, you know the acting director of the fbi, andrew mccabe. You know them. What do you think . How do you think they reacted when they, what they thought when they saw this tweet this morning . Both those gentlemen, kate, are consummate professionals, and im sure they brushed it off and went about their daily duties. What i found to be the most ignominious in a line of questionable actions by the president , to send this tweet out we tell subjects in investigations in the fbi all the time, you dont have to make a direct threat. Theres an implied threat. And in that tweet, it is an implied threat. You see it that way . Yes, maam, i do. You do this, sir meaning you divulge any information and i will do whatever. He has executive privilege, the president , but to flaunt it like that way i think is utterly repugnant and a disgrace. Phil, do you agree . I do. Look, if somebody suggests theres executive privilege here, my First Response would be the president of the United States has already tried to malign the former fbi director. I think its perfectly within their rights, not of the fbi direct yor director, but now jim comeys a private citizen, to defend himse himself. If you put up a twitter poll among the 320 millionplus citizens, who do you think wins the trust pool . Do you think its the president of the United States, who should win, or do you think it is the fbi director, who will win . Nobody believes the president of the United States from the day he came in and misrepresented how many people showed up at the stupid inauguration to the claims he made at the beginning about where the president of the United States, his predecessor, was born. Nobody believes this guy anymore, which is why i look at the threat, the tweet, and cant take it seriously. The man doesnt have any credibility. I have immense respect for you. We talk all the time. You cant call the inauguration stupid, but no, the crowd the claims of how many people showed up. That was ridiculous. Weve got enough to deal with in the present. Let us not go to the past, please, phil . I cant go to those tweets right now. Tim neftali, you have spent a long time studying a thing or two about taped conversations in the white house. Is this even possible . I want to say two things. First of all, we look a little bit like a 20thcentury Banana Republic at moment to the world. This is outrageous. Second thing, this is not 1973. In 1973, the president could have assumed that he owned the tapes. If for some strange, bizarre reason and weve seen so much thats bizarre lately donald trump put, installed or had installed a taping system, those are federal records, thanks to Richard Nixons court challenges. Not every moment on those tapes would be federal records, but most of them, they are federal records, so he couldnt even destroy them. In 1973, richard nixon, actually before the subpoenas, could have destroyed the tapes. I dont believe there are tapes, but if there are, this is not going to be a very long administration. Caitlin, the president has already made the white house David Axelrod spoke to this hes made the job harder with contradicting their reasoning, contradicting the message he had of why he fired james comey, and then you have this. How does the white house handle this . Well, whats really interesting is you have to think about this okay, take this out of the context of what the American People should care about with regards to the information the white house is putting out versus what the president is putting out. With foreign policy, those implications are huge. Whats interesting about the interview that the president gave yesterday was that he not only contradicted his own white house staff, but he confirmed the reporting that had been done through places like the washington post, the New York Times, other outlets. So, to then call the media fake news when youre actually confirming reporting that you saw is problematic. The reason that its important to have everything coming out at the podium as accurate as possible is because everybody is watching. You have to the credibility issue is on the line, not only here, but throughout the world. Lets get directly to that credibility issue, david. This is what were kind of talking about. Weve got the tweets this morning another set of tweets this morning. Let me read it for you. Ours tweetwatch today. You didnt know youre the twitter reporter. Here we go from President Trump as a very active president with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium perfect accuracy. Maybe the best thing to do would be to Cancel Press Briefings and hand out written responses for sake of accuracy. Forget about canceling the press briefing, its a threat theyve talked about in the past and hasnt happened. But its already been hard for the president and his Communications Team to be on the same page. My questions Pretty Simple why is it so hard . Well, its so hard i mean, when he says hes an active president , what it means is stories shift, and they shift very rapidly. I mean, the Vice President of the United States went out there and told one story and then had the president of the United States pull the rug out from under him. So, you know, the problem emanates from the oval office from the man whos sitting in that chair. Hes mercurial. He has spent a lifetime flouting norms, rules, and yes, truth. And hes conducting himself that way in the presidency. It is very hard to be the spokesperson for someone who, a, doesnt tell the truth. Often so, i think hes putting it he is destroying the credibility of everyone around him in addition to his own. David, you also wrote this on twitter this morning. You wrote, the first 100 days were intermittently stormy. The second 100 days have begun with this crazy, maybe sinister, episode. Can it go on like this . You spent a lot of time in the white house. Yes. Youve also spent a lot of time watching this campaign and the short time that this president s been in the white house. Do you think it can and will go on like this . Well, look, i mean, i pose that question back to you and everyone. I mean, i think the country is exhausted already, and were only 100whatever days in. And i just dont think that the country can take more of this. Now, what you would hope is that cooler heads, if there are cooler heads there, will prevail, the president will understand that he is really doing damage not just to himself, but the country, but he may be focused on himself. He is, you know, in his own parlance, hes not winning, hes losing, and if he doesnt change course and get a grip on himself and put the twitter account down and focus, you know, he is going to get into a deeper and deeper hole. But the thing that worries me, kate, is like policies come and go, but institutions have to endure. When you kind of wage war on the intelligence community, fbi, the media, the courts, on, you know, on congress at times, you are going right at the pillars of democracy, and youre supposed to be the trustee of those institutions, and that i think is very, very concerning. Yeah, where is the cooler head right now . I think thats a pretty big question. Great to see you, david. Thanks so much. Everyone, stand by. A lot more to come. But a programming note, everybody. Do you want more David Axelrod . You get it tomorrow night, 9 00 eastern n right here on cnn, of course. Heres a little preview. I do think that comeys public statements about the emails and hillary was a very bad and unprofessional and he never even acknowledged it. So, i think comey has real serious problems. What about the timing of it . No, but thats the other point, that he asked for resources to investigate the russia trump connection. So, yeah, that smells, no question about it. And where do you think this all goes now . Is this going to hang over trump . Well, its hanging over washington, thats all they can think about. I would like to see the senate restore some of its earlier l t luster. Think of the great giants in the senate in the past. And with truly bipartisan, democrat and republican, let them investigate. I think that maybe you bring the house in, too. But watergate was a lot the investigation there was driven by the house of representatives and by the committees. So, i think theyre capable if they can get off this circus of partisanship and polarization, which they seem addicted to, tragically. More of that tomorrow night. Coming up still for us today, the big question right now. Forget political trouble, did the president just enter the realm of legal trouble . Could what he said to james comey be obstruction of justice . Serious, new concerns after his revelations that he divulged in a television interview. Plus, he is the man the white house first leaned on as the reason the president fired james comey, but now his side of the story is starting to come out. Thats ahead. Well be right back. And, oh schmidt, thats a lot of dirt. But theres plenty of time for scotts outdoor cleaner plus oxiclean to work its magic. All while being safe to use around plants and grass. Guaranteed. This is a scotts yard. 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Made daily life a guessing game. Will i have pain and bloating today . My doctor recommended ibgard to manage my ibs. Take control. Ask your doctor about nonprescription ibgard. He wanted to stay on as the fbi head, and i said, you know, ill consider it, well see what happens. But we had a very nice dinner, and at that time, he told me you are not under investigation. So, he said it once at dinner, and then he said it twice during a phone call. Did you call him . In one case i called him, in one case he called me. And did you ask him, am i under investigation . I actually asked him, yes. I said, if its possible, would you let me know, am i under investigation . He said, you are not under investigation. President trump doubling down there on what he said in his letter firing james comey, claiming that the fbi, now former fbi director, assured him that he is not under investigation. Let me bring back the panel. And also joining the panel, laura coates, senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor. Laura, first to you. Asking the fbi director if youre under investigation when there is clearly an investigation by the fbi into your campaign. Did the president cross a line . Is this obstruction of justice . Whats your take here . I think he was certainly throwing his weight around. And according to the reports, that this conversation took place prior to comeys march hearing, where he confirmed the criminal investigation into whether there was collusion between the Trump Campaign and russia. I think its an issue of being improper, and of course, ridiculous, but it doesnt yet swing the pendulum back to obstruction, which is, of course, a very difficult case to prove, not because you dont have some proof of it, but because it requires a specific intent to actually completely undermine the investigation. And in that conversation, it sounded more like he was trying to throw his weight around and push his thumb on the investigation and say, do you want your job . I hope the answer is no, that i am not under investigation. Phil, when laura says throwing his weight around, does that mean abuse of power . I think so. I think theres a significant difference between a legal question and the appropriateness question. Theres been too much focus on single threads of what happened at this dinner, assuming we believe what weve seen in the press. For example, questioning whether the president can say, am i under investigation. You cant look at this, kate, without putting everything together. A new president meets an fbi director who has a mandated tenure tenure. Evidently, theres a conversation about whether the fbi director can keep his job, whether the fbi director is loyal to the president of the United States, and whether the fbi director and the fbi have an active investigation. If you put those two together, there is no way to look, assuming those are accurate, no way to look at this dinner other than the president of the United States pressuring the fbi director, if he wants to keep his job, to shut down the russia investigation. What does this do there are a couple of threads of this, trying to add another thread to this, if were going to take it in total, phil, james, because then youve got reporting from the New York Times and cnn, jake tapper, that comey, the president asked comey to basically pledge his loyalty during this dinner, and comey declined, saying that he would pledge that he would be honest with the president. The white house denies that characterization, just to put it out there, but you know james comey. Do you think that he how do you think he would have responded to a question like that from any president , trump or obama . Righteous indignation, kate. And i can tell you, all the way down to the most junior gman, all of us in the fbi, our focus, hyperfocus, is on faility to a mission, not to a politician or any person. How does this affect the mission, though . If people see this and say this is ridiculous even if theyre angry about it, does the fbi turn on the president . If you want to see a great encapsulation of what this means, kate, you saw it yesterday in full display when andy mccabe, the acting director, testified before the Senate Intelligence committee. The way that he took exception with two things that the president and the president s spokespeople have publicly stated about the morale in the fbi. And if you also noticed, the fbi acting director, when asked specifically, did you have how many meetings did you have with the president , said im not in a position to discuss that, because that is executive privilege that the president deserves. The president just doesnt give you that reciprocity. Heres the thing about all of this, caitlin, this all comes back to why was he fired. I dont think anybody can really trust any of the answers because theres been so many contradictions in the last 2448 hours. Its the president s prerogative, you can say, to fire the fbi director, but if you fire the fbi director, i would make the case, youd better have one good, clear reason and articulate it. The white house has not provided that. Everything theyve done, the president has contradicted. And just take russia for example. The white house says it had nothing to do with russia. The president has a different take. Listen to this. This absolutely has nothing to do with any investigation into russia . This has nothing to do with russia. It has everything to do with whether the current fbi director has the president s confidence. Let me be clear this investigation into that is not what this was about. Between Campaign Officials and russia . But thats not what this is about. The president took strong and decisive leadership here to put the safety and security of the American People first. And in fact when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a madeup story. Its an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election that they should have won. And the reason they should have won it is the Electoral College is almost impossible for a republican to win. Its very hard. President trump blew up that explanation very quickly. Do they have an explanation why they cant come up with an explanation for the firing . Its so completely muddled. I think what you have to do here is look at the commander in chief. He is the commander in chief, right . Right. So, he is the buck stops there. The buck stops there. Not only did he give that interview and talk about how he thought the russia investigation into collusion was a hoax, he tweeted that last week. Hes given this president is a president who has a paper trail on twitter and in public statements and from things that he said in the past. So, whats really interesting here is not only did he throw his White House Communications staff under the bus, but also his Vice President. This is the second time that the Vice President has gone out there without the right information. And also you have in the broader context republicans chairing these certain committees looking into this have not ruled out collusion. So, that also puts them in this difficult position. I would love to know what Vice President mike pence is thinking this morning after being after the position that he was put in. Whose words do you trust now, tim . As a president ial historian, as someone whos watched this so closely, do you see this as shortterm damage or longterm damage . I want to say this to anybody in congress whos working on a subpoena right now, the tapes are considered president ial records. They are public records. Then u. S. V. Nixon, you cannot keep president ial records secret under executive privilege if they involve a crime. Just for anybody whos thinking of subpoena. Just throwing it out there . Just throwing it out there. There you go. But i would like to say, i believe the president of the United States needs to think about his credibility. He is acting in a way that makes him seem guilty. Theres no evidence that hes guilty of a crime. Lets all say that. We are in in this country, we are innocent until proven guilty. But hes acting like somebody who has something to hide. Perhaps he might want to reflect a little bit on the effect not only on his credibility. This is bigger than him. Hes our head of state. He is our bald eagle. He represents our country. Perhaps there might be a time for a little bit of moment, a little thinking, a little reflection, that hes acting like someone who is engaged in a coverup. There is no evidence that he is, but he is acting like someone like that and perhaps he might want to think about his conduct more seriously than he has up until next. There is also a case to be made that the white house may be concerned when the president is left alone with his thoughts. We saw when the wiretapping tweet came out and we can see a little bit of what happens when he is left with that. Im just kidding, guys. Great to see you all. Thank you so much. Coming up, more with the breaking news, the president threat against james comey, ived saying that hed better hope there arent those tapes of their conversations. Im going to speak live with bob baer. But first, to hire sally yates and what that plays into this. Remember that . Seems like a year and a half ago. That was just monday. Plus, as the president throws his Communications Team under the bus, sean spicer is returning to the press briefing today. If he had a hard job before, he has a harder job today. And Melissa Mccarthy isnt making it any easier. His impersonator returning to the streets of new york just outside cnn. See what happened. Well be right back. Per roll more doing chores for dad per roll more earning something you love per roll bounty is more absorbent, so the roll can last 50 longer than the leading ordinary brand. So you get more life per roll. Bounty, the quicker picker upper start your day with the number one choice of dentists. Philips sonicare removes significantly more plaque versus oralb 7000. Experience this amazing feel of clean. Innovation and you. Philips sonicare. Save now when you buy philips sonicare. I count on my dell small philfor tech advice. With one phone call, i get products that suit my needs and i get back to business. The shlike a bald penguin. How do i look . [ laughing ] show me the Billboard Music awards. Show me top artist. Show me the top hot 100 artist. They give awards for being hot and 100 years old . Well take 2 [ laughing ] xfinity x1 gives you exclusive access to the best of the Billboard Music awards just by using your voice. The Billboard Music awards. Sunday, may 21st eight seven central only on abc. Another contradiction between the president and his white house today on what really was behind the firing of fbi director james comey. Listen to this. I was going to fire regardless of recommendation. So there was never any he made a recommendation, but regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey. He took the recommendation of his Deputy Attorney general who overseas the fbi that makes no sense. He made a determination that the fbi had lost his confidence, made a recommendation to the attorney general. The president took strong and decisive leadership here to put the safety and security of the American People first by accepting the recommendation of the Deputy Attorney general. The president accepted the recommendation of his Deputy Attorney general to remove james comey from his position. Wall street journal now has some very interesting, new detail on that Deputy Attorney general and his reaction to all of this, how this played out over the last couple days, saying that he was actually looking for the white house to correct the record as they were going on the record on this. Let me bring in one of the reporters behind this piece from the wall street journal. Aruna, thank you very much for coming in. Thanks for having me. Rod rosenstein wanted the white house, according to the report, to correct the record on how the comey firing went down. Yes. What is his version of events . What are you hearing from folks close to him . What was inaccurate . So, what weve heard is that he had this meeting with President Trump, with the attorney general. They laid out what they thought of comeys tenure at the fbi. And then the president asked him to write this memo. He writes the memo and its sent over, and its, obviously, ultimately the president s decision to make this call. And when you have the white house coming out immediately after the firing saying that this is all what Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein told us to do, and were only doing what he told us to do, he didnt think that that was an accurate representation of how this decision got made. And its a bit of a chicken or the egg kind of thing, because do you know you said that the president asked him to pen the memo. Theres kind of an outstanding question of why we know Rod Rosenstein did pen that memo, if he was asked directly, or would he have done this on his own in his first two weeks in his post . There was a lot of displeasure within the department of mr. Comeys actions at the time dealing with the clinton investigation. And so, i dont think he felt differently from how he describes the events in the memo, but the fact that it was done as one of his first acts in the job, i think that is something that he was asked to do, not that he took the initiative to write it. Fascinating stuff, aruna. Thanks very much for coming in. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Coming up for us, he lied to the Vice President of the United States about his contacts with russian officials, but according to President Trump still today, his former National Security adviser, Michael Flynn, is still a very good person. Well have details on that, ahead. Plus, more on our breaking news. The president threatening james comey, raising the possibility now this morning that there are tapes of their conversations. Clearly, more to discuss there. Well be right back. Im thomas and i quit smoking with chantix. I was very grateful to have chantix. At times when i would normally go smoke, i just didnt. 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Use caution driving or operating machinery. Most common side effect is nausea. Thank you chantix. Ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. Start your day with the number one choice of dentists. Philips sonicare removes significantly more plaque versus oralb 7000. Experience this amazing feel of clean. Innovation and you. Philips sonicare. Save now when you buy philips sonicare. President trump now defending and explaining why it took 18 days before he made the decision to fire Michael Flynn. President trump saying that former acting attorney general sally yates says she left the white house with the impression that it wasnt an emergency. Listen. My white house counsel, don mcgahn, came back to me, and did not sound like an emergency of any it didnt make it sound like he was, you know and she actually didnt make it sound that way, either, in the hearings the other day, like it had to be done immediately. This man has served for many years. Hes a general. Hes, in my opinion, a very good person. I believe that it would be very unfair to hear from somebody who we dont even know and immediately run out and fire a general. Let me bring in right now former republican congressman and former u. S. Attorney bob barr. He first hired sally yates as assistant district attorneyin 1989. Thanks for coming in. Always a pleasure, kate. Thank you. What do you think of President Trump not heeding these warnings from yates about Michael Flynn . What do you make of it . I think what he ought to do is take a very hard, serious look at his staff and how information gets to him, how its filtered, because, obviously, the system is breaking down. When sally yates, when she was acting attorney general, made the overture to the white house, it doesnt have to be that she puts red flags on it and says the world is going to end if you dont look at this. Somebody on the president s staff should have been in a position to look at that professionally, review it, find out more about it, and get it to the president. Yet, that didnt happen, and i think it indicates and the mess that weve seen with the white house and the communications over the last few days confirm to me that that system for getting information to the president how and when he needs it still is not working. You, as i mentioned, you hired sally yates as assistant u. S. Attorney in georgia way back when. Here is how sean spicer describes sally yates when asked about this earlier this week. Listen to this. Just because someone comes in and gives you a headsup about something and says, i want to share some information, doesnt mean that you immediately jump the gun and go take an action. I think if you flip this scenario and say, what if we had just dismissed somebody because a political opponent of the president had made an utterance, you would argue that it is pretty irrational to happen in that manner. What do you make of that, the white house calling her a political opponent . None of it makes any sense if what we are talking about is having somebody professional speak for the president who knows the judicial system, knows how these procedures work. This was not simply somebody off the street coming to the white house and saying, hey, i have some information. It was the acting attorney general of the United States, and that is far more important than a president ial press secretary or spokesperson thinks it is. There needs to be a better system. Sean spicer should not be in charge, whether he is or isnt, of how this Important Information from the department of justice got to or didnt get to the president. Yeah. Its not clear it came from sean spicer, but exactly, your point is taken. So, you have flynn you have the flynn firing and now you have the comey firing. The president this morning seemed to threaten comey about all of this in a tweet. Is there any legal, possible legal problem here that you see, congressman . Do you see this as abuse of power or obstruction of justice . I see it as very unfortunate, certainly, at a minimum, for the president to say those sorts of things and to publicly get into this battle between the presidency of the United States its not just trump, its the office of the president thats at stake here and the head of an investigative, the top Investigative Agency at the department of justice is unfortunate. Whether or not something rises to the level of a criminal offense, i dont see that at this point. The president i think did something that was very unfortunate that indicated very bad policy, unethical and so forth. And if, in fact, director comey responded to that by saying anything other than, mr. President , i cannot discuss ongoing investigations and who individuals are that we might be looking at, you know, i certainly would hope that would have been his response. Real quick, you helped lead impeachment proceedings against president bill clinton. Some democrats are now talking about impeachment with President Trump. Do you think theres a case knwh do you think theres something there . No. I think this is unfortunate talk. Its way too early to be talking about impeachment. Okay. And i think its very unfortunate that the democratic leadership, both in the house and the senate, dont exert a little bit of influence over their members and say, look, cut this out. This has nothing to do with impeachment. Lets focus on issues and the procedure here, you know, and not get off on these tangents and impeachment and calling somebody a traitor and so forth. I dont see that and i dont think it helps the democrats by focusing on these things. Bob barr, great to see you. Thanks so much for coming in. Sure. Coming up for us, President Trumps Approval Rating just hit a new low, that despite but despite that, of course, he says that his poll numbers are good, so, so good, are his words. Well discuss. Well take a look at what poll hes actually looking at. Plus, what is going on here . Despite the fun music. Is that sean spicer . Is that an illegal vehicle on the road, or is that Melissa Mccarthy in her nowfamous impersonator role, returning to the streets of new york city just outside cnn . Well take a look. s your daily. Go ahead, spoil yourself. The es and es hybrid. Experience amazing. Abreak through your allergies. . Try new Flonase Sensimist allergy relief instead of allergy pills. Its more complete allergy relief in a gentle mist experience youll barely feel. 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Add that premium channel, and watch the show everyones talking about, tonight. And the bill you need to pay . Do it in seconds. Because we should fit into your life, not the other way around. Go to xfinity. Com myaccount more on our breaking news. President trump fires off threats against james comey this morning after firing james comey, but rnc officials are shrugging it off, what happened. At their annual Spring Meeting in california thats been going on, the controversial barely came up, according to our reporters there. Officials there insisting regular voters simply dont care. Let me bring in right now doug heye, senior commentator, republican strategist and former Communications Director for the rnc. Angela rye is here, cnn political commentator and former executive director of the congressional black caucus. So, doug, does that surprise you, members of the rnc, theyre gathering for their annual meeting, they dont think the comey firings a big deal, it doesnt need to come up in their meeting . Why is that . Well, look, the rnc Committee Members are elected by their state parties. That means theyre going to be loyal to the president , just as Democratic National Committee Members were loyal to president obama. Come hell or high water. And weve certainly seen a lot of both over the past 100 days, so that shouldnt be a surprise at all. What they do want to talk about are jobs and the economy and health care. And i can tell you from the conversations ive had with members of congress, any day that were talking about james comey or tax returns or tax returns or some other crisis du jour is when were taking our eye off the ball and not talk about the issues where we can connect with the voters and effect change for the voters and thats a real problem. Its hard to keep your eye on the ball with all these tweets coming out, doug. Youd be a magician if you could. Clearly they think very differently than the rnc members that are gathering. Is that going too far too fast . No. I dont see why its not happened yet, why theres not been any proceedings, except for the republicans seem to be in control of the house, the senate, and, of course, the white house. So i think thats whats standing in our way. To dougs point, one of the reasons we actually get along is theres this threshold baseline standard called human decency, and we have violated it at this point. You brought up james comey. Heres a man hardly into his recent tenyear term. The reason there are tenyear terms to begin with is because of, you know, this guy named j. Edgar hoover. Lo and behold were talking about impeachment on this side. That is the only thing were talking about on this side. Heres another thing to talk about. I just got this in. The white house has leased a letter for the president involving business interests in russia. Questions surrounding that obviously have been going on forever. The president in an interview said he actually sent a certified letter to Lindsey Graham about this. Were told heres a little bit of what we know. They released this promise letter and heres what this letter says. With few exceptions the tax returns dmot reflect any income of any type from merchant sources or any debt owed by the president oer the trump organization. With a few exceptions thats going to make everyones ears perk up. The exceptions listed, the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. We knew about that. The president sold a property in 2008, florida property to a russian billionaire. We did know about that. The final exceptions would be ordinary course sales of goods and services to russian entities. Is this helping, doug . Does this help . Possibly. What i mean by that is if you wanted to disstraktd from the james comey news, theres no shinier object for the press than the tax returns which hes never going to release. But i think more importantly, kate, is what President Trump tweeted about maybe you shouldnt listen to my white house Communications Team at all. I can tell you as a former press staffer, ive been very fortunate when ive made a dumb come meant, believe me, my bosses have backed me up to the hilt. This white house has had a lot of crises, but not a lot of true crises. When that crisis hit, sean spicer, Sarah Huckabee sanders, they need support. The president hurt them. Thats a real challenge for the white house. Real, real quick, angela. Whats your advice to sean spicer because the president has put him in a bad position. He needs to go out. Its a job he should have never taken. Ive watched him on this network before he took this job and he was far more defendable. Its impossible to defend a lawyer. Im going to end where i started. Human decency is the threshold standard and we violated it on all fronts with this president. Sean spicer was away on Navy Reserve Duty and he comes back to a lot with the briefing. Thanks a lot. Coming up for us, Stephen Colbert firing at President Trump again after President Trump called him a no tlentd guy, and he doesnt seem to be too upset. The president of the United States has personally come after me and my show, and theres only one thing to say. Heeheeheehee. In kids chewab. Termites, were on the move. 24 7. Roger. Hey rick, all good . Oh yeah, were good. Were good. Termites never stop trying to get in, we never stop working to keep them out. Terminix. Defenders of home. Z282uz zwtz y282uy ywty nobody does underwater stunts, sylvia. Except me, of course. This is my stop. Adios if youre a stuntman, you cheat death. Its what you do. If you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. Its what you do. Numero uno two cnn heroes. Their goal, trying to rebuild their lives in refugee camps. Take a look at their you mean project. The problem is making welcome mats from the life vests. Theyre getting paid to weave these. We are going to sell these in the u. S. The idea is were laying down the welcome mat for them. We can do so much better welcoming people into our country. This is a direct way to give empowerment and hope in something as simple as purchasing a mat. Simple but so powerful. To find out more about their project go to cnn. Com\heroes. Thanks so much for joining us at this hour. Inside politics with the one and only john king starts right now. Captions by vitac www. Vitac. Com thank you, kate. Have a good weekend. Welcome to inside politics. Im john king. First President Trump changed his story about why he fired james comey. Now hes threatening james comey. He says, quote, james comey had better hope theres no tape of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press. That comes as the initial account of the white house why and how he was fired lies in shambles due to a heap of fallshood fall falsehoods of in new and