Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20170609

Tried to derail an investigation into his National Security adviser and preetdly lied in its aftermath. This morning well talk to two members of the Intel Committee who led that line of questioning, democrat joe manchin and republican Susan Collins. Good morning everyone. Its friday, june 9th, welcome to morning joe on capitol hill. With us we have columnist and associate editor for the Washington Post David Ignatius. Senior political analyst Mark Halperin and New York Times reporter michael schmidt. Good to have you all on board. What a fascinating day. It was fascinating. It seems like a bad day for the president , and the spinning by his lawyer and his press secretary or one of them was stunning to me, absolutely stunning. I said it all day yesterday. Ill say it all day today. If you want obstruction of justice you can look at what donald trump himself said to lester holt and what his spokesperson said, what he said to the russians, and then you can build around that if you want to try to get intent. We were never going to get that yesterday. But again, everybody going back and forth saying it was a great day for x, it was a great day for y. Terrible day for the country. Bad day for the country. Bottom line is, what happened yesterday is noise compared to whats happening right now in bob muellers office. Thats where it matters. Yesterday everybody can screech and yell and say hurray for our side. None of it matters. What matters is what bob mueller is looking at, the evidence hes gathering and the investigation hes running. Willie, what did you think . I thought when james comey id bob muell will look at and pursue the obstruction of justice charge. He didnt want to say obstruction of justice, but he indicated from what he had seen he was sure it was something mueller would pursue. When you listen to him lay out the testimony, from the one tweet saying he better hope there are not tapes to the appointment of the special counsel, he dug his own grave. We have a conservative guest on today whos wife taught carl carly. Cotton eddy. He wrote a fascinating article saying if trump is impeached, it will go back to one tweet. He was talking about that tweet, the tapes. The white house asked us why we obsess and cover the tweets. Because sometimes they lead to a historic decision, like the appointment of a special counsel. They also say theyre part of the official record because theyre statements, too. They still wont tell us whether theres tape of it. David, your takeaway from yesterday . I think the statement that this now goes to robert mueller, thats right. The table is set, the issues are clear. In terms of obstruction, there will be a lively argument as there was in the hearing room. When somebody says, i hope youll let this go, is that an order to let this go or is that an aspiration. And how many times . Repeatedly. David, can we talk about this for a second . Everything comes at us so quickly, you need to put everything in proper context. Certainly a judge or a prosecutor would look at the context around that and say, it all began these conversations with trump going, so, do you like your job, do you want to stay on at your job, after he had already been told he was going to keep his job. After that question then he starts peppering him, and he is the guy who decides whether comey stays there or not. Put in that context, i dont know many lawyers or many prosecutors that wouldnt see what was going on there. Thats precisely what will be argued legally. Im a parttime novelist. So i look at this in terms of the human drama, and to have this very moral, upright, deeply ethical man, walk into the white house for a oneonone dinner and feel he was being rolled, manipulated, intimidated by the president. To the point he had to write it down. The scene of him coming away from trump tower and going right into his vehicle and typing the report, you feel he was just deeply shocked. So we know more about donald trump and the way he behaved, the unpresident ial things he did. Whether we know more about actual illegal actions that could be sustained in an impeachment process, i think thats a different question. From parttime novelist to parttime oboist. Three things. Donald trump has said how he feels about a ton of people. We now have in james comey somebody who has publicly said back what he thinks of donald trump. Thats one. Number two, i dont think this is the last well hear about james comey on this story, although he talked quite a bit yesterday, theres more to come about what went on between them and how comey operated within the fbi and the Justice Department. Finally, the president is not going to be indicted. It may be thrown up to congress to deal with, but i dont think hell be indicted for anything related to the Flynn Investigation. I do think as significant the events around flynn are, as inappropriate at a inmany mum the president s behavior was, we cant loose sight of russia is the issue. Its going to be as big or bigger an issue for the president s faet fate, it will be more about russia than flynn in the end. We dont know whats going to happen. We dont know if anybody is going to be indicted about it. We think it is way too early. Thats why bob mueller is doing his work. Michael, your thoughts. Along the lines of what david said, i was surprised how much his job was being held over his head. When comey describes going to the white house and comey says they had already talked about his job. Like a lowlevel threat. I didnt appreciate how much comey thought that was hanging over him. Were talking about human nature, and sometimes we disconnect to human nature when covering these stories. I guarantee you, if im your boss and i call you in and i want something done but i dont want to leave any fingerprints, hey, mike, how are you doing . You do a good job. Do you like your job . Do you like your job . Then he said a lot of people really want that job. I hope you know how many people want that job. Its human nature. Okay, listen, could you do me a favor, could you see your way clear to drop that investigation youre having on Mark Halperin. I can tell you right now, that is not a request. Anyone who is a grownup that has ever been in a professional setting, certainly a legal setting knows that is not a request. Republican fools that are suggesting and fools on talk radio and fools blogging, suggesting thats just a request, you seriously embarrass yourself because you have been living in your mothers basement, eating cheetos and blogging your entire adult life. Go out and get some sun on your face and jog a little bit. Youre getting fat. Again, it was clearly a threat. Comey went beyond saying it was just a request, that he felt it was a directive. The other thing is that comey doesnt take the bait. Comey says he turns to trump and says im not reliable in the sense of a regular politician. The idea that we didnt see this coming, that comey and trump werent going to work out, independence versus loyalty. We want to show you this moment from the hearing that caught our ear when comey told senator martin hiem rick that President Trump was clearly concerned about michael fly but show no interest whatsoever in how to counter the kremlins influence in our elections. Did the president in any of those interactions that youve shared with us today ask you what you should be doing or what our government should be doing or the Intelligence Community to protect america against russian interference in our election system . I dont recall a conversation like that. Never . No. Do you remember not the President Trump. I attended a fair number of meetings on that with president obama. Wow. Well, thats not surprising at all. The truth is donald trump wasnt concerned about whether or not russia meddled in the election, he was concerned whether he would be wrapped up in the investigation. Cares about himself. Whether there would be heat on him, pressure coming into the west wing, into the white house. The fact he didnt stop, that should have been his first question. That should have been his first question, did Vladimir Putin try to manipulate our election on either side . Thats the biggest question out there right now. Not only was the president not curious what the russians were doing, but to the extent that information about their operations surfaced, he said bring it on. He said, id like what he leaks to get more documents about Hillary Clinton and put them more into our race. Lets have more russian influence. I think that is a genuinely troubling part of this. One thing that came across loud and clear from both sides of the aisle was this is a serious russian assaulted on our political system. The chairman, senator burr couldnt have been clearer about that. And the fact that trump from the beginning of the story until today doesnt seem to understand that, that our country is under assault from a major adversary, i think should worry people. The whole of the country. Priorities are way off. What about, Mark Halperin, how do the republicans handle themselves in the hearings. There were people like marco rubio that i thought would be tougher. I guess he went over for dinner. Someone said from little marco to trumps wingman. You wonder if it changes stance on trade if you bought him a ham sandwich and a twix bar. Netherworld party were tough on comey werent the republicans tipping the scale trying to push back at comey . It seemed like a very concerted effort by the republicans to circle the wagons. 100 , although they didnt challenge his credibility. One of the big losses for the white house they had a better day than they might have, President Trump wasnt devastated by anything from comey theres a tendency to say everything comey says is true, his accounts of the meetings are true. The president has pushed back on some of the things. I think the republicans, although they were not they were time is critical in carrying the white houses water, they largely praised comey, didnt try to challenge comey, he largely emerged unscathed. Rubio was a surprise to some people. I think the republican senators were factfinding as much as anything else. David, do you agree with that . I sense they were circling the wagons. Not as much as they could have. I thought they were trying to construct the beginnings of the president s defense, and i thought their statements fit right with trumps lawyer kasowitz. I agree with mark that trump had a better day than i thought he would. I thought the statement we knew it, yes, its true. When james comey left, donald trump was not personally under investigation. To have that stated in that forum mattered. I thought the revelation that comey, in effect, set up the disclosure that led to the creation of a special prosecutor. I thought that was a significant revelation. It will make it easier for people who want to undercut comey. The attacks on him will be coming. I think the white house probably is saying were in a little better spot. More to get to. We interrupt this programming because the president has broken his little record President Trump was silent on twitter yesterday, all three out the hearing, didnt hear from him all day. Hes now tweeted a minute ago, quote, despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication. And wow, comey is a leaker. Total and complete vindication. Speaking the football already. Only from the mind of donald trump could anybody see what happened yesterday as total and complete vindication. And then theres Jeff Sessions. James comey was asked why he didnt brief the attorney general on the president s request to drop the flynn probe. Comey says thats because the fbi knew weeks in advanced that sessions would be forced to recuse himself from the investigation. Our judgment, as i recall, was that he was very close and in evidence thatbly going to recuse himself for a variety o reasons. We also were aware of facts that i cant discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a russiarelated investigation problematic. Wow. What does that mean . We dont know. More information coming on Jeff Sessions and his contacts are yaush. A tantalizing comment. There were a number of things that comey said. He alluded to the fbis interrogation, questioning of Michael Flynn before he left the white house and came right up to saying that he had made false statements to the fbi, that that was part of this criminal investigation of him. I thought that was also significant. One of the many things we dont know enough about now thats intriguing, during the first months of this administration, when the russia investigation is being organized, going ong and intensifying, comey is working for three people he doesnt trust, its clear. The president , attorney general and Deputy Attorney general. Hes operating in a way imagine had he not been fired. How about the Deputy Attorney general who has been held up as paragon of integrity. Comey went to rod rosenstein, said ive got real concerns with donald trump. He keeps asking me to do things that are inappropriate, and he voiced his concern to him. Rosenstein then sat down after having that information and wrote a memo suggesting the firing of comey. Hes told by the director of the fbi, hey, rod, ive got real problems with the president. I think hes asking me to do things that are inappropriate. Im uncomfortable being with him, i just wanted to let you know. Then the president comes to him going, hey, rod, i want you to set comey up. I want you to draw up a memo because i want to fire him. What does rod do . He draws up the memo. Again, in a real world, a guy like that sure as hell wouldnt work for me. He had a responsibility, these people have an active responsibility to step out and do the right things. When you write a memo for a boss that has made the fbi director uncomfortable because of unethical actions hes taken, how do you then write that memo . The question with rosenstein now is he still has not recused himself from the russia investigation. Mueller technically reports to him. Theres folks in the Justice Department that didnt understand why right off the bat because he wrote the memo why he didnt recuse himself. They believe at some part hell have to do that and that will be another story. Is this a political win for donald trump, willie . I dont think so. What he got yesterday and what he can say, when he says vindication thats not sprained case, there was no evidence of collusion presented in this hearing, jim comey did not go as far as saying he colluded with the russians. He was called a liar. We take it for granted now this morning, but you had a former fbi director sitting in an open hearing in the United States senateesterday calling the president of the United States a liar. This was all set off he took the memo, why did you start writing these memos that eventually led to the tweet and the special prosecutor and all that . He took them because he was concerned the president of the United States might lie about their meetings because they were in a oneonone setting. We have objective proof that the president did lie. Yet the president is calling that a great day for him. His announcement that hes vindicated is wildly premature. There is a special counsel investigating every detail of this. This has a long way to go for donald trump most of all. One more thing struck me in yesterdays session was the question of why comey never turned to the president in person or raised his voice on the phone and said, mr. President , thats not appropriate. Mr. President , i wont do that. He kept trying to find a way to operate within Donald Trumps orbit, and he was asked by senator feinstein, do you regret that . Do you think you could have pushed back more . I felt listening to that, he should have pushed back. I think he felt that. You could hear it in his voice, maybe if i had been stronger i could have done that. Im not saying comey is not telling the truth. All of the discussion is presuming his account is 100 accurate. Do you think he would go out in realtime and me thi up out of thin air . Is there anything in his 30 years of public serce that would suggest that he would immediately get in a car after a meeting and write fiction . We have not seen memos. Theyre not carbon dated. Again, im not accusing him of making is anybody questioning the veracity of those memos other than you . The white house is. Im not questioning the content. Im saying comey yesterday was scathed a little bit on his accounts as we talk about his motives, et cetera, rather than stepping up publicly or confronting the president , he said he gave his friend permission to leak the memos to the New York Times. Thats an unorthodox way to behave. Where . There are a lot of unorthodox people in this white house and past white houses. That is how business is done every day. Thats how you write stories every day and everybody at the Washington Post, New York Times and wall street journal write stories every single day. Theres nothing unorthodox about that. Its the most boringly predictable thing that came out of yesterday. Not for an fbi director trying to get an independent counsel. Theres other ways to do that, stand up to the president , stand up to the attorney general, the deputy. I will say for kids watching at home and republicans behind me, theres something i never understood. This is whole, dont be afraid of your shadow. If james comey had stood up in one of those meetings, pointed at the president and said, mr. President , what youre asking me to do is unethical, and i will not do it. Fire me if you want to obstruct justice. Im not doing it. Hes holding all the cards. Thats the one thing i never understood in washington. There are times when actually doing what seems to be dangerous is the safest thing to do. The only way to go. If he had done that first of all, donald trump would have been too scared to fire him. You stay quiet i wonder that about everybody in the administration honestly, some of the people were so impressed with, that were holding on to hope for, but also especially his Communications Staff who repeatedly go out and repeat his lies. Sarah Huckabee Sanders yesterday, that was cringe worthy to hear her say the president is not a liar and i take offense to that. I can sit here for three hours and go over lie after lie after lie, it would be very hard to debunk every one. The Washington Post did a survey of, like, five lies a day. She simply was not telling the truth at all. Quickly and then we have to go to break. We do have to say, Jeff Sessions is the first person to go to the president and say, if you dont like what im doing, ill quit. That doesnt make me feel better. It should. But if i stay here, youve got to back off and let me do his job. Guess what . When Jeff Sessions said that to the president anood up to the bully, he said oh, no, no, i want you to stay here. Comey had nine times, nine interactions to do that, between meetings, the oneonone dinners and phone calls. We know hes capable, as senator tom cotton pointed out, he recalled the 2004 incident at john ashe crofts bedside where he did stand up and say im not going to allow this to lap for the good of our country and the good of the organization. He did not do it with donald trump. Still ahead on morning joe, House Minority leader nancy pelosi joins us in washington, plus two of the senators present during yesterdays hearing, democrat joe manchin and republican Susan Collins join the conversation. Well be right back with more morning joe live from washington. This is a story about mail and packages. And its also a story about people. People who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams theyre handing us more than mail theyre handing us their business and while we make more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget. That your business is our business the United States postal service. Priority you sfx engine revving silence whats the story behind Green Mountain coffee and fair trade . Lets take a flight to colombia. This is boris calvo. Boris grows mindblowing coffee. And because we pay him a fair price, he improves his farm and invest in his community to make even better coffee. All for a smoother tasting cup. 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Thats ted cruz getting an unceremonious send offer following his speech at the faith and freedom coalition. He was just going in for the kill, for that last line. And finally, let me say shut him down. Ask not youve got to go. Youve got to go. Goodbye. Lets head over to the white house to Nbc News National Correspondent peter alexander. Wed never cut peter off. You were there covering the comey hearing all day yesterday. We saw the trump tweet. Marc kasowitzs, the president basically saying that james comey is a liar and he vindicated me. So just thinkbout that for a second. Puts him in a challenging position as they try to make their argument. Strikingly this kweet coming out about 6 10 in the morning, if he had made it three more minutes, it would have been his longest drought since announcing his candidacy back in the day. That was striking as well. The bottom line yesterday is the message discipline, he was off twitter, didnt make any mention of james comey. He was pressed by reporters, ignored it as well. For marc kasowitz, and this was americas introduction to a man whos own website describes him as the toughest of tough guys, hes described as the donald trump of lawyering. He cherrypicked the parts of the testimony they liked saying, well, he acknowledged the fact he said i wasnt under investigation, the president wasnt under investigation, but then trying to dispute other portions of it like the idea of a loyalty pledge ever taking place or the idea that he ever told james comey to back off anything. So that was one of the fundamental challenges for the white house right now. Obviously the challenge for the white house is broader than communication strategy i think at this point. We did hear from don junior. He described the flynn story as bs. He said very far from any kind of coercion or influence and certainly not obstruction. Behind the scenes to give you some color at the white house, every television as you would suspect was watching this play out. The president was monitoring this with his advisors in one of the dining rooms. Here is part of what we heard from marc kasowitz. The president never in form or substance directed or suggested that mr. Comey stop investigating anyone include the president never suggested that mr. Comey, quote, let flynn go, closed quote. The president also never told mr. Comey, quote, i need loyalty, i expect loyalty, closed quote. He never said it in form, and he never said it in substance. Mr. Comey admitted that he leaked to friends of his purported memos of those privileged communications, although mr. Comey testified that he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the Public Record reveals that the New York Times was quoting from those memos the day before the referenced tweet. We will leave it to the appropriate authorities to determine whether these leaks should be investigated along with all the others that are being investigated. Reporter the disputes he presented there could easily be settled if the white house released the secret tapes the president has suggested exist but has yet to produce. We asked sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy press secretary, about this sterday, whether there was a recordingr taping system. She joked to reporters shell haveo look under the couches. Others in the white house say i cant talk about whether there are tapes. Nbcs peter alexander, thanks. Mark, i want to give you a chance to respond to what attorney marc kasowitz. The memo came after the tweet, not vice versa. The first story i did was on the loyalty dinner, the oneonone where they face off and he asked twice for the loyalty and he declines and he says honest loyalty. It was in the aftermath that twum tweeted, comey better watch out theres tapes. The following monday comey wakes up at 2 00 a. M. In the morning and say, hold on, this just dawned on me, if there is a taping system, maybe we can corroborate the conversations i had with the president and sets in motion the things that lead to the meeting about with trump about the Flynn Investigation coming up. That was a fictional account of what happened yesterday. The facts were not accurate. The donald trump of lawyers as they say. Lets talk about the february 14th article, youre Still Standing by it, that comey says was inaccurate. Why are you standing by the story . What can you tell us about it . What happened yesterday is the senator asked about this february 14th story. Comey said it was mostly not true. We spent an enormous amount of time on this story, including yesterday. Our reporting shows theres indeed been extensive contact between the Trump Associates and russian officials and weve cited wrote a whole story today that laid out the case of why we still think that is. Comey did not say specifically what issues he had with the story. We went to the fbi and asked them. They did not. We think maybe the fbi may be putting a fine definition on intelligence officials. They may be saying that the amount of intercepted calls that we think there were was wrong, but our reporting still supports it. Its also something that a lot of other outlets have reported. The reporting you stand by and the reporting that you continue to get and theres abundant evidence out there is that the overall view of the story, that there were an abundant amount of contacts between trumps people and russian official is still an accurate part of that story. Correct. We continue to report on this story because obviously theres questions about it. We continue to push. Were as upfront as we could be in the paper today, well continue to do that. Michael schmidt, thank you. Whatever you did yesterday we were watching in the hospital. Your facebook thing is a lwas good. It was a little different. I got cticisms about my tie. You have great presence. I dont know. That was some of the criticisms yesterday. Some. Dont beat yourself. Top political reporters join the conversation, Washington Posts bob costa and glenn thrush from the New York Times. Back in a minute. Wise man, im nervous about things i cant control. Affecting my good credit score. I see youve planted an uncertainty tree. Chop that thing down. The clarity you seek. Lies within the creditwise app from capital one. Creditwise helps you protect your credit. And its completely free for everyone. Its free for everyone . Do hawks use the stars to navigate . I dont know. Aw, i thought you did. I dont know either. Either way its free for everyone. Cool. Whats in your wallet . 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Hello, my name is watson. You know wine, huh . I know that you should check vineyard block 12. Block 12 . My analysis of satellite imagery shows it would benefit from decreased irrigation. I was wondering about that. Easy boy. Nice doggy. What do you think . Not bad. Theres a potential major shakeup in england following yesterdays general elections. In a surprising outcome, the conservative party has lost its majority resulting in whats known as a hung parliament. Jeremy corbyn celebrated last night after his labor party had a strongerthanexpected showing. Its a major blow to Prime Minister theresa may who called the snap election early in order to bolster her position during brexit negotiations, although now her future in power is uncertain. Within the next hour, may is meeting with the queen to ask for permissn toorm a government. With us, washington anchor for bbc world news america and morning joe special guest katty kay. Katty, we were talking about this before. I heard on the bbc last night that theresa may actually got 44 , which was about the same that tony blair got and Margaret Thatcher got in huge landslide victories. Why wasnt 44 enough for her to get a majority . What theresa may did, her majority expanded in safe tory seats. The labor Party Managed to encroach in conservative areas, scotland, london, southeast england and took away some pretty critical seats. Even kensington the places you stay in london, joe, which are looking safe oh, my god i may have nowhere to go. This was the revenge of young voters who failed to turn out in the brexit elections and turned out this time around and voted heavily for the labor party, who liked what they saw in jeremy corbyn, didnt like the stiff candidate that theresa may was. London was furious with the tory party. You have that. Did she ever recover from the socalled dementia tax . No. Up to when the Tory Party Manifesto after the manifesto her numbers plummeted. The conservatives started to get momentum to start pushing back against that, there was a terrorist attack. Those two terrorist attacks may not have changed votes. It did stop the momentum. The dementia tax hung over the heads throughout the campaign. Watching this from a great distance, i thought it was her inability to speak to the country powerfully that the terror attacks that hurt her. We went into the election with a female candidate who was supposed to win. She was far ahead in the polls. She was the heir apparent, running against somebody hated by his own party, seen as too far out there, seen as a useless candidate which is why we all thought she was smart to call this snap election, right . Sounds very familiar to the american voters. The wooden stiff candidate in an era where people want authenticity failed to connect with voters and he managed to do so. What does this mean o for brexit . This is a huge deal for britain and how we negotiate britain is a very important question. At the moment it looks like well have to have another election in the uk, which means we could spend the two years of the brexit negotiations having nonstop general elections instead. Were like italy. How exciting. Mark halperin, if you look at what happened in britain, you can even say what happened in ance, whatsappening across the world, theres no doubt Younger Voters, especially in america, Younger Voters are not just going left, theyre going way left. Younger voters are energized by corb corbyn. Younger voters are energized by bernie, by socialists. Within the tory party they have to decide if she should remain the leader. Corbyn has some hold over his constituency nationally, but not a huge one. Part of it is young people are attracted to him at some level, but theres still a need to figure out a futureoriented agenda for young people. I dont think either of them has it there is no anti brexit party. Voting labor was not a vote against brexit because labor is also in favor of doing the brexit negotiations. Coming up, the top democrat in the house, Congress Woman nancy pelosi joins us. Morning joe is coming right back. Be the you who doesnt cover your moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. Be the you who shows up in that dress. Who hugs a friend. Who is done with treatments that dont give you clearer skin. Be the you who controls your psoriasis with stelara® just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. Stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. Some serious infections require hospitalization. Before treatment, get tested for tuberculosis. Before starting stelara® tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have symptoms such as fever, sweats, chills, muscle aches or cough. 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Time now for the mustread opinion pages. We picked Erick Erickson who writes, quote, the president seems to prietd himself on his ignorance. He has taken at face value that people rejected politics as usual and politicians as usual. He has doubled down on that and refuses to learn the boundaries and parameters of his job. The president is not supposed to be king. He is not above the law. Congress is a coequal branch of government. The republicans there need to make sure the president knows there are boundaries, there are parameters. And if he does not learn them, he needs to turn over the office to someone who will. If your goal is to stop the left, all trump is doing is both emboldening them and driving independent voters to them. Soon he will be a catalyst for a left wing resurgence if republicans do not sort this out themselves. I did speak slowly hoping that he was listening. Eric im sure not talking about eric. Its not really eric. Its not even whoever you want to listen. Its the republicans behind us. You can look, mark, poll after poll, and it shows that independents who helped republicans win big in 2016, one year to the democrats. You look at you know, theres a reason why donald trump has 75 Approval Rating in the Republican Party but only a 36, 37 Approval Rating nationally. The left is emboldened and independents are deserting the Republican People as quickly as possible. And the lock is ticking to the mid terms and number of legislative days left. The bet that Mitch Mcconnell and paul ryan are making, that despite everything that Eric Erickson cites there, they will have passed legislation, the stock market will be up higher and they will be doing better. That is the bet. David ignatius, what are they going to pass . A Health Care Plan that the cbo says kicks 24 Million People off health care . I know conservatives hate that line. Thats what the Congressional Budget Office is saying. Now Mick Mulvaney can say its irrelevant but thats the refuge of the truly desperate. I hear people talking more and more about tax legislation that seems to give people money that is stimulative. Subject of the week today for the white house, i think republicans realize that with this cloud, the mueller cloud continuing through next year, they need to pass legislation. This has been a Republican Congress that h done nothing with its joriti. And if that continues, theyre going to get clobbered. Quite apart from the scandal issues. And, katty, they are working, Mitch Mcconnell, ted cruz and others, on the Health Care Bill in the senate quietly because all the talk has been about russia and our focus is on the comey hearings and other things. They would like, this summer, to get something done before the recess. Theyve been having those secret meetings that we keep hearing about. The trouble is that as soon as they stop being secret, the chances of moderate republicans, theyre still in the same position in the senate. How are you going to get enough moderate republicans to sign on to get the bill pass bid the house passed . That was not in making that bill more conservative, in making that bill satisfactory for the freedom caucus, its very hard to see how they get that through moderates. Theyve still got the same problem in the senate. You know, theres some talk, mark, that rob portman and senator caputo from West Virginia are moving towards getting rid of the medicaid guarantee. But, again, even if they try to pass that through the senate, that cuts against the very people who voted for donald trump. Well, look, this is a multistep process on both the legislative front and on the pr front. Mitch mcconnell wants to get this done. Hes very crafty. He has a pretty good hold over the conference. What they say they need to do is get a bill out of the senate, go to conference and then they need to do a significantly better pr job, trying to explain to their own constituents why this is the National Interest even though lots of people will be worse off if they pass it in the short term. We have this ad on the dccc on health care. Take a look at this. I mean, thats what republicans are going to be watching for the next year and a half, if they pass the Health Care Bill. The House Republicans are already strapped with that. I understand sometimes you jump first, ask questions later. I have it hard to believe that rob portman wants that hanging over him the rest of his career, that pat toomey wants that hanging over him in the philadelphia suburbs for the rest of their career. They dont and i dont see them voting for a bill that the Congressional Budget Office says kicks 20 to 25 Million People off the roles. They can say thats garbage all they want. If you have cbo on your side, youre in pretty Good Standing on the 30second ads. The alternative is that the promise that every republican made for the last seven years is broken. By the way only 28 of americans support trumpcare. 66 disapprove. He and the congress have done almost nothing to sell the benefits of this in the long term. What are the benefits of this . Are there any . They believe im telling you what their argument is, marketoriented Health Care System where more people will have better coverage. Even conservatives dont believe that. Whats the truth . Thats the oblem. But im telling you,he problem is that many people in capitol hill believe this, the legislative agenda could be dead if they dont pass health care. And if you receive health care through obamacare, republican or democrat, hearing that there will be, down the road, marketdriven opportunities that will help you get health care, all they know is theyre taking it away from you right now. Theres no guarantee im going to have it down the road. And President Trump is making our lives terrible again. All they need to do is look what donald trump promised himself in the campaign. You cant really look at anything he says because he means nothing. In the 30second commercials, mika, in the 30second commercials, having donald trump promising expanded health care and then having the Congressional Budget Office saying its going to cut 24 million. You just go down the line. He made five or six promises repeatedly. Every one of them is broken. Every one of them, sarah Huckabee Sanders, is a lie. Despite what he promised in the campaign, thats what republicans will see, along with ads like that. They will be destroyed. And it wont require demigoguery, just facts. No, just facts. Its over. Ive found a permanent escape from monotony. Together, we are perfectly balanced. Our senses awake. Our hearts racing as one. I know this is sudden, but they say. If you love something set it free. 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Its Sonic Technology cleaning deep between teeth. From the most recommended sonic toothbrush brand by dental professionals. Switch to Philips Sonicare today. Philips sonicare. Save when you buy now. So it confused me when i saw on television the president saying he actually fired me because of the Russian Investigation. I also was confused by the explanation offered publicly. Although the law required no reason at all to fire an fbi director, the administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the fbi, by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple. Lets start with the january 6th meeting in trump tower. What was it about that meeting that led you to determine you needed to start putting down a written record . A combination of things. I think the circumstances, the subject matter and the person i was interacting with. I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting and i thought it really important to document. That combination of things, i had never experienced before, but it led me to believe i have got to write it down and in a very detailed way. That was the former fbi director, accusing the president of lying. Pretty persuasive. Yeah. This morning, the president is up and tweeting this morning. Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication. And, wow, comey is a leaker. Welcome back to morning joe. Its friday, june 9th. Let me tell you something. If i ever get to the stage in my life where what happened yesterday is vindication for me thats a bad day. Just going to dig a hole in the backyard and bury myself. David ignatius if thats vindication for you, my friend, things have gotten especially bad. Joining us, National Affairs analyst john heilman, glenn thrush and political reporter for the Washington Post and moderator of Washington Week on pbs, robert costa. So, bob, the republicans seem to be circling the wagon yesterday, seemed to be trying to defend trump as much as they could. Was that your take . I think the line of questioning was pretty partisan. Its reflective that most republicans know that trump still has the base, the Republican Party core voters still pretty much with President Trump but privately on capitol hill a lot of them are starting to feel unease about how this is proceeding. The president did wait until 6 10 am this morning to tweet. Glenn and maggie over at the times, my colleagues were writing how the president was not tweeting. When i was filing that story yesterday i was hoping that that would stay the case, at least until deadline. A couple more hours. Its surprising. Marco rubio, a guy that trump humiliated through the entire campaign, called him little marco. Trolled him, tortured him. Trolled him, tortured him, said he sweated so much, he thought he was going to knock him out or thought he was going to pass out. Marco gets invited over to the white house and then the next day, hes somebody said i read on twitter he went from little marco to trumps wing man. It was surprising. It was quite a turn. It must have been quite a dinner. What do you think what do you think they had . Senator rubio, having covered him in the last few months as he returns to the senate, hes trying to rebuild his political profile nationally. Rubio is indicative of a lot of senators. Theyre not really spoiling for a fight with trump. This isnt august of 74 for the Republican Party. This isnt people really grappling behind the scenes with the president they think is out of line. Do they have concerns . Yes. They think the president has many problems and controversies that could suffocate the entire republican agenda. At the same time theyre still taking up for him publicly. Why . Behind the scenes theyre not concerned about him being a loose canon . Firing an fbi director to kill an investigation into russia meddling into the election . They know the question of obstruction of justice does hangover this entire situation but theyre not sure if comeys comments lead into that becoming any kind of criminal right but donald trump himself said i fired james comey correct. To get the pressure off of me, my dear russian friends. Are we speaking a different language than everybody here in washington . Now he is fired and the pressure is off of us. That doesnt disturb republicans . The way they saw the comey testimony was this was one obstacle to get through. At the end of the day, bob mueller and the special counsel will bring down the hammer on President Trump or not. What does a republican like marco rubio or paul ryan get out of jumping in the bunker with donald trump . This is new for the president. This is new . Thats not what i want to hear. To what end . Whats the strategy if there is one . You talk to republicans. They say that the country is so divided, the political esblishment and media have seen their capital diminish, that breaking with trump has an immense political cost that we dont always calculate in our reporting. If they break with trump, their career could be truly threatened not just in a primary but in terms of the entire national reputation. That is so backwards. There are so many careers to be made right now by being a thoughtful conservative that actually opposes the thuggishness. Republicans, its your time. If you have the courage to come out and oppose the thuggishness of donald trump, thats a big one. Talk about a huge lane for a good conservative to drive down. Trump said he was vindicated yesterday. What say you, jon heilman . To me look, youre on the cover of the New York Daily News with the giant word liar on your face. He reads that. He does and you have the fbi director calling you a liar. Its not just the daily news. Im using one example zblfr major paper. Look at that one. Its hard to say complete and total vindication i think its been said that yesterday could have been worse for trump. One thing that trump maintained that people doubted was that comey had suggested to him that he was not under investigation, and that turned out at least to be true. In that sense, he was vindicated on that. True at that time. True at that time. Not necessarily true now. In trumps mind that was an important thing. He had claimed that was true. Comey backed him up on that point. Putting aside the question of vindication, it seems to me almost totally irrelevant what was true in february and january and march and april. The only questions now is what is true today and Going Forward . Again as you have noted on the show, it was almost now were almost certain on the basis of two things. One, what comey said yesterday and suggested yesterday about mueller and obstruction of justice and, secondly, the fact that comeys notes, his memos, have been turned over to mueller and theyve not been turned over yet to the senate. Theyre squarely in muellers crosshairs, the obstruction issue. Going today the president is almost certainly under investigation for obstruction of justice and possibly collusion, much more relevant than what was happening in february. Thats the reality now. Yeah. It certainly looks that way. These are the newspapers that donald trump reads from every story written. And cares about. Trump trying to seek inquiry, comey says. Peter baker, respected reporter for trump, a looming cloud just grew that much darker. Front page does he read beyond the headlines . Front page of usa today, comey calls trump a liar. Washington post comey says trump ed about him. The New York Daily Newshich he reads, liar across his face. Glenn thrush, doesnt sound like any vindication for donald trump. Sounds like things got more complicated for him. I think, as john pointed out im happy they raised the chair. We did that for you. First time in my life im taller than john. You look good today, glenn. Much better than youre portrayed on saturday night live. I know. Its not fair. I dont get it. I dont either. But go ahead. I think he you brought this on yourself. I did. I think theres no vindication. As john pointed out, legal issues are significant for him. Comey said he had no insight whatsoever into what mueller was looking into. As for the senate, its it said more about marco rubio than overall conditions. This is the guy who was born without the audacity gene and he doesnt want to challenge the president. You cannot change president s like spark plugs. If you pull trump out of there, its not like the cars going to just keep running. Their fate is tied to him. As long as they can kind of keep him running, patch him together and keep him rd worthy, they have at least some possibility of getting something done. Here is the thing. A lot of them walked the plank for him yesterday. A lot of them put themselves in an awkward position. They are going to demand some sort of payment, in terms of change of behavior or capacity to dictate terms. Thats just not going to happen. Why would you walk the plank for someone who has proven over and over and over again to the point where theres no other option that hes going to bully you. Hes going to betray you. Hes going to lie to you and hes going to undermine you with a tweet the minute you think youre getting anywhere. Like paul ryan. I wouldnt do this. Im begging you not to do this. Dont say hes new at this. Youre acting like he can learn. Lets take a look at the past six months. And anyone name a moment when this president has evolved in any way. If anything, what you have seen is someone who has devolved, who has really turned himself into a complete i think he called the media like turning themselves into a pretzel when he would make fun of them. Im not trying to be funny. He has literally devolved to the point where there is concern about his health or about his ability to take in information and use it correctly. Its like a child almost. Lets look, jon heileman, at whats happened over the past two weeks. How do you walk the plank for that . If youre walking the plank now for donald trump, you have to have some reason in faith that he is going to get better. The last two weeks have been the worst. Look what he did with qatar. He had no idea that one of our most important air basesn t world is qatar. He let them know b tweet storm that were no longer an ally. He tweeted about the travel ban. Thank you, mika. Thats idiotic. Thats self destruction. George conway, himself, has said you have just basically lost the case. In a second. Because he couldnt help himself. And i have so many more, mika. Thank you so much. Article v of the nato guarantee that mattis wanted stripped out. The way he treated our nato allies. What a joke he is abroad. You could literally go down and find 15 things over the past two weeks where its shown that he has devolved in his ability to control himself or his outbursts. Not well. Given the things youve cited and the trajectory that were on, on the legal political front, you then cite the things you just cited and look forward and look where we are on the status of health care reform, tax reform, the way in which all of this has consumed the capital. Bob, to your point, i understand that right now, republicans in Congress Look at the calculus and say it would be too expensive, to costly for us to up end trump right now. There will bel come a moment where trumps numbers will reach a Tipping Point and its too expensive to stick with trump. What moment is that . We see his poll numbers now in the high 30s. We think the trump base is, what, about 25 or 27 of the electorate. He has another 10 points to drop. What is going to stop that, given the behavioral we see the behavior joe just cited and the state of where his legislativ agenda is right now. What is the thing that will put the brakes on declining poll numbers that if they drop low enough, get to 30, say, Senate Republicans say its now more expensive to stick with him than to leave him. What poll is that . Our timecode is blocking that. What poll is that, alex . Quinnipiac . Quinnipiac has a 34 Approval Rating, 57 disapproval. Horrific. Gallup has him at a 37 Approval Rating. People like to get in their cars and drive out to, you know, my hometown or somebody elses your hometown and talk to three guys in a bar and say, look, theyre still with him but, you know, you have people that my dad im not being facetious. My dad was with Richard Nixon until august 6th, 1974. He resigned, what, august 8th . He resigned two days later. This is not the story. Its the independents that are flooding away. Its the democrats who are getting energized. What about the shredding of our constitution . I would venture the republicans are not watching the polls as much as you think. Theyre not driven so much by ideology. Most republicans privately will acknowledge that their party is in the thrall of the celebrity antiestablishnt populism, that they dont really know how to handle. So its not about breaking from trump. Its that the whole party has become this antimedia, really nonideological, very partisan but not for an ideological reason political organization. How do you deal with the its about resentment. Grievance party, how do you break with the party if the president is the king of grievance . Shoveling more things like taking away their health care. If youre the Grievance Party because the guy at the top of the ticket is the grievance candida candidate, and youre attacking the media nonstop, the fbi, the cia, and freaks on cable news late at night are talking about deep state conspiracies that the fbi and cia have against you, but youre embracing people that work for russia, if thats where the conservative party is now, what is the future once donald trump leaves the stage . They are setting themselves up for an ultimate collapse. I also think what youre looking at when you look at those poll numbers, David Ignatius is a party, a group of conservatives who voted for donald trump because he was a middle finger to the establishment, because he offended the media, progressives and offended the establishment. But they also wanted jobs, health care. They wanted their lives made better. Under this cloud of russia and Everything Else that donald trump has brought on himself, there has been no progress in that direction. The people may still be with him. We talk about this floor he has, 36 or 39 . Theyre not going to be there forever. People want accomplishments from their president , from the Republican Congress, if theyre republicans. One of the most interesting set of poll numbers i saw over the last week came from nate silver, looking at the sharp declines among strong supporters of donald trump, the real trump base. Numbers suggesting that there was a tenpoint drop in support from white males without college education. Other numbers like that, suggesting real erosion among these core supporters who were the angriest. People have to get more of that up raised middle finger as we head into the mid term elections. Republicans have to pass legislation. I do think republicans may have an issue if they can run against bob mueller, against the elites who are attacking the president , if they can characterize this investigation as illegitimate and attempt to take away their president , their victories, i think thats going to be a very divisive, difficult issue. Basically they need legislation. They will not be able to run against bob mueller. What did the president say yesterday at the faith of Freedom Conference . He said we are under siege. Everyone is taking you on, theyre taking us on. Siege. Sorry. First time he said the word. Everybody else is fighting you. Im with you. Whats the market here is the question. You talk about 28 . Whats the actual market for that, right . How many people, how many of his supporters weve seen this enormous erosion on independents. 70 of independents dont believe trump on any of this comey stuff, extremely dangerous number for the white house and one theyre actually considering. Once you get past this grievance, where are people going to be energized . Energy is not on the right. The reason why trump is up there, screaming, saying im with you by the way, the irony ive seen this. I was with him in lynch burg a couple of weeks ago. Trump is appealing to his core being evangelical christians is noan inconceivable irony, considering where he was last year. He is out the doing that because he needs to fire up a base that isnt energized. I talked to a friend from south carolina, who was astounded that all her friends who grew up in very conservative christian schools, all of her friends on facebook were all in for donald trump during the campaign. So i just asked, are they still going up on facebook . She said no. Its gone quiet. Ive had that experience. Theyre not now, listen, if they had a chance to vote for donald trump and Hillary Clinton a thousand times more in their life, they would always vote for donald trump, but theyre not at the barricades for him anymore. And, in fact, theyre embarrassed and they wish he would stop tweeting. And this is the sort of thing. It is the intensity of support. We see this all the time. We saw it with george w. Bush in 2006. Its war. Its us against them. In 2001. In 2002, max mccleland is not a real war hero. He beats john kerry, who is weak, flip flopper. In 2006, they all kind of wander away. A good friend of mine who say pastor from pensacola, florida, actually told me in 2004 he had to sit down with people in his Baptist Church and explain to them, seriously, that you could be this disease let me finish, please. That you could be a christian and still vote for john kerry. Like this has infected this party before. It didnt just start with donald trump. Its definitely there now. Just going to say, i think its terminalhis time. Go ahead. Glenn . I was out in cincinnati with him a couple of days ago. It was a handpicked crowd. By the way, he cant go to a big city. It has to be on the exurbs of the city, get in, fly out quickly. It was a fairly small crowd, 400, 500 people. I talked to two, three dozen people. The level of intensity of support compared to the rallies we saw last year, way, way down. Antagonism toward the media i identified myself as a New York Times reporter, did not have a bodyguard with me. And the antagonism toward the media is less intense. Thats because they recognize you from saturday night live. If you have the energy, you have an opponent, especially if you have a flawed opponent, the campaign setting, one on one in the ring every day. When you get into this setting, the threat of the opponent is much more diffuse. You dont have an individual. Its hard to make bob mueller the enemy. Much more diffuse set of challenges. If youre just running on grievance, its harder. The energy is not still that energy when the opponent is that diused. Theyre struggling at the white house. Theyre trying to turn to infrastructure this week. Republican cease infrastructure as tax credits and democrats see it as spending. How do they reconcile that . The white house doesnt seem to have an answer. By the way, we all talk about this like its just politics. Its just politics. We like trump. We like this team, that team. We keep forgetting that donald trump won, in part, in wisconsin, michigan, and upper midwest states because people that voted for barack obama, one in five voted for barack obama five years ago, voted for donald trump. When donald trump promised he was going to giving People Better health care, they believed him. Right. When donald trump promised he wasnt going to give more tax cuts to the rich, that he was going to help working class american, they believed him. Right now let me show you who they are. This is who they are, right here. You know, you can be an aide, sit there in the oval office, think this is all fun and games and you can do analytics and manipulate this and manipulate that. At the end of the day its human beings with children who voted for you because they believed you were going to make their lives better. Thats why they didnt vote for bush or clinton. The bushes and the clintons, if hillary had won, would have controlled the white house for 34 out of 48 years. They saw their lives going down. So when working class americans suddenly say, wait a second. Im reading the news im going to lose my health care. Suddenly, that cuts to the quick there. Its not just about james comey or a Russian Investigation. Its about their lives. Thats a choice democrats are going to have to make. Are you really going to run on the obstruction cloud, russia collusion or against the republican Health Care Plan . I think the problem many republicans have, they look at history. They look at an outsider president. Jimmy carters first year in 1977, bill clintons first year in 1993. Even president obama struggled. People thought he would lose because of how health care was unfolding in 2009. They wonder, based on history, could trump, even if the house majorities get swept away in 2018, does he come back . President s come back. At this point, 140 days in, despite of everything youve laid out, joe, theyre not walking away. I will add, that ad will hold up whether or not health care becomes law, whether or not they repeal obamacare. Donald trump flanked by mostly white men, republicans standing behind him in the rose garden where they cheered for a bill that the cbo says takes 24 Million People off the Health Care Roles for 20 years. That die iscast. Whether or not it becomes a law, he voted for that, supported that, advocated for that idea. Still ahead on morning joe its not a republican thing or democratic thing. It really is an american thing. Theyre going to come for whatever party they choose to try and work on behalf of. And theyre not devoted to either, in my experience. Theyre just about their own advantage, and they will be back. Thats my observation. I dont think put sin a republican or democrat. Hes an opportunist. I think thats a fair statement. Well be joined by two senators who questioned the fbi director yesterday, senator Susan Collins and joe manchin. Plus, House Minority leader nancy pelosi joins us as well. Sfx engine revving silence [ eerie music playing ] it takes a monster. She did something to me. To defeat a monster. The essence of evil calls to you now. The mummy. Rated pg13. Its the simple things in life that mean the most. Boost® simply complete™. No artificial flavors, colors or sweeteners, plus 10 grams of protein and 25 vitamins minerals. It doesnt get better than this. Boost® simply complete™. 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Tthats why at comcast,t to be connected 24 7. Were always working to make our services more reliable. With technology that can update itself. And advanced Fiber Network infrastructure. New, more Reliable Equipment for your home. And a new culture built around customer service. It a adds up to r most Reliable Network ever. One that keeps you connected to what matters most. The russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did it with purpose, with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts and it was an active measures campaign, driven from the top of that government. There is no fuzz on that. It is a high confidence judgment of the entire Intelligence Community and the members of this committee have seen the intelligence. Its not a close call. That happened. Thats about as unfake as you can possibly get. Joining us now, member of the select committee on intelligence, democratic senator joe manchin of West Virginia. Senator, good morning. Good to see you. Joe. How are you . Im doing well, thank you. What was the biggest thing you learned yesterday . What was your takeaway . Something you walked in that room that you didnt know and after hearing director comeys testimony, you now know . Mika, i want you to know that my wife, gayle and i, our family, our thoughts and prayers are with you today and your family as you say goodbye to your dad. I just want you to know that were thinking of you very, very deeply. Thank you. We are saying goodbye today, actually, after the show. Were all going to church. I know. Senator, thank you. Thank you so much. I know. Thank you. So now to willies question. Okay. Wi willie, let me just say, russias involvement, russias intent, how doing ggedly they t humanly possible and how they will continue to try to change how we do business in america, how we have confidence in our government. They are not our allies, our friends. We need to work with them, have a working relationship. Im the first to say that. But i also know their purpose and what theyre trying to do and were not going to tolerate or stand for it. I want the public to know about it. That was the point, senator, that director comey made over and over again. Yes. This is not a republican or democrat thing. Russia has attacked us and will be back for more. Theyll be back in our next election so we have to be vigilant about it. In terms of the relationship between the russia investigation, this white house, what was something new that you learned . What can americans take away from that hearing . Theres an awful lot of us on both sides of the aisle that are very uncomfortable with this relationship that they seem to have with the white house. It goes all the way the day comey was fired to date after the russians were there, not allowing the United States of Americas Press in, the free press of america but let the controlled press of russia in. Those are concerning things. People have talked about that. Let me say, first of all, i thanked former director comey for coming openly. He came twice. He came, as you saw the open meeting we had. Then we had a classified, closed meeting. And he stayed for that. And if you saw his answers on some, he says i cant speak about that in this open hearing. We did go into a closed hearing. Also he has put under oath when he first came in. He is a private citizen now. If he would have been an elected official out of courtesy, they dont do that because theyve already taken their oath. Thats how that started that meeting and sometimes people wonder why its done that way. I wanted to clarify that. Hearing that Jared Kushner is going to be meeting with the Intelligence Committee staff, do we have any idea when thats going to happen . Do we know if he has turned over any documents . Let me just say that everything that i know, jared has been very forthcoming and willing to help and sit down. He has not been saying im not coming. He has not been difficult at all. He and the people that work with him have been very cooperative. We appreciate that very much. Mika, i said if everyone would just come forth if you saw the meeting the day before we had with the four highest intelligence people we had, as far as the fbi director, and now the acting attorney general on this Russian Investigation. We had mike rogers and also dan coats. That was painful. It was painful for us to get any information from them. They just said were not going to speak about that. I felt that absolutely horrible that they would take that position. It was almost on the brinks of contempt, because it was not classified information we were asking in an open meeting and so they did say and i was very appreciative of this. I asked point blank mike rogers and dan coats would you answer diven ly differently if you came into the secured closed meeting we have . They said yes. And they couldnt come that afternoon. It couldnt be arranged. Katty . After hearing white House Counsel basically saying that the president didnt ask for loyalty and didnt ask mr. Comey to back off on the Flynn Investigation, and you heard the director yesterday, you were there. Who seems more credible if this is going to come down to he said, he said, who do you believe, jim comey or Donald Trumps lawyers account . Lets just set the stage of what we were in. We were in an open meeting. He was sworn in under oath. He is a professional, Law Enforcement officer of the highest degree, knowing the consequences if you lie under oath to a senate committee. So, i would think that mr. Comey is basically explaining to us and giving us his reminiscing of the events that happened in a most accurate way. There would be no reason for me to believe anything other than he was being as honest and straightforward as he possibly could. Does that mean you dont believe the white House Counsels account . Everybody seems to have different opinions of this. We dont have the white House Counsel under oath. They werent there. If they want to make that statement in front of us and go under oath and give us the same recollection of what they have. That would be the way that you could find out. Until that happens we only had one person under oath and that was james comey. And, you know, he knows the consequences. You cannot come in front of a committee, raise your hand and be sworn in and tell us something coletely false o lie to us. It just doesnt work. Mark halperin . Well see. This is troubling, very troubling. You know that. Weve got to get past this and find out the facts and move on. I was hoping, all of you there mark, ill go right to you, but i was hoping that everybody came away yesterday seeing that that was a bipartisan, professional approach to what we should be doing in the committee. I always felt so strong and so good about being on that committee. Both richard burr and mark warner have done a gentlemans job of holding it together in the most professional manner. What was the current theory of the case about what was going on with Michael Flynn in russia and Michael Flynn in turkey . Michael flynn, all of a sudden, shut down. First of all, he wanted to tell us his story. That came out first. I want to tell my story, tell you exactly what happened. All of a sudden he got lawyered up and now we have to subpoena just to get his records, if you will. Based on what you know, whats your theory about his relationship with them . With the russians . And with turkey. Is that the question . Turkey . Whats tyour view of his relationship with russia and turkey . Yeah. Well, its one that we didnt know was as in depth as it is. We did not know the financial ramifications of this and his financial wellbeing, if you will. That was not given up front. Were starting to find that out and pulling that up as records come out. Its all troubling, especially put at the highest level that he was. And they intended to keep him there. That was not something that was comforting for any of us. And were waiting to get michael before us. I mean, i knew mike flynn when he was in his capacity as department of defense. Had no problem whatsoever. I cant tell you what happened. This is not the Michael Flynn i knew before, from what im hearing and seeing and also his for hire type attitude. Its one thing to want to go out and make a living for your family. Its another thing to do it and jeopardize the wellbeing of the United States of america. Senator joe manchin, well end it there. Thank you very, very much for being on this morning. Well and thank you for your kind words. Well, thank you. Thank you all for what youre doing. Its been a tough day yesterday, couple of days has been tough but were going to get through this. This country is resilient. Its stronger than that. We have faced more challenges than this and well come out of this. We will. The senate Intelligence Committee will get the facts and the fact also lead us to the truth and the truth shall set you free. All right. Senator joe manchin. Still to come, under the radar. The house took a big step to undo major portions of dodd frank under the heat of the testimony. Nancy pelosi joins the table just ahead. We, the tv loving people, want our whole house to be filled with entertainment. Roooooaaar easy boy. But we dont want annual contracts and hardware. You scoundrel ugh we just want to stream live tv. And we want it for 10 dollars a month. raspy wow. Id like that in my house. Its a very big house. Yeah, mine too. Look at us. Just two bros with sick houses. High five. Directv now. A big streaming deal for 10 dollars a month. Its entertainment your way. Whuuuuuat . Rtgage offer from the bank today. You never just get one offer. Go to lendingtree. 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Youre saying the new app will go live monday . Yeah. With help from hpe, we can finally work the way we want to. With the right mix of hybrid it, everything computes. Then there are moments it become clear, together always was, and always will be, a better way. Hey youve gotta see this. Cno. N. Alright, see you down there. Mmm, fine. Okay, what do we got . Okay, watch this. Do the thing we talked about. What do we say . Its going to be great. Watch. Remember what we were just saying . Go irish see that . Yes im gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. Find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. This is exciting. You would have thought people would have picked that up. I would have thought so. What are you talking about . Seems pretty obvious to me. The front page of the daily news . This is exciting. Senator Susan Collins of maine. Great state of maine. I love mainers. You have good taste. I know. They dont hold back. Thats true. Yes. Sorry. Every question now is an easy question. Lets start with jon heileman. John . Weve been talking about the attorney general and what unfolded in the testimony that related to him, what jim comey said. In closed session its been reported by nbc news that senators learned there was an undisclosed third meeting betweensions and the russians and then yesterday after that meeting, senator manchin, who was just on the show came out and said, quote, theres one meeting we dont know about and people would like to know about it. What can you tell us about that . Well, in a closed session, of course, i cant tell you much about it. Let me say this. The committee is going to be requesting documents and an interview with the attorney general and there are some unanswered questions. The attorney general clearly made the right decision in recusing himself from the Russian Investigation in light of the report of these meetings. And he made the right call. I thought it was fascinating is it right, though, that theres a third meeting, that thats what you want to get more information about . I truly cant answer that question because of the good try, john heileman. How fascinating, David Ignatius, that jim comey said that because of information i cant tell you here, the attorney general had no choice but to recuse himself. He knew something was i want to ask senator collins, one of the interesting issues that was discussed of yesterdays hearing was the question of taping in the white house. When come y realized that sudden suddenly it may have been taped, his deviant changed. What can you do to get a holdf them . We need access to those tapes and special counsel needs access to those tapes. I have doubts whereabouther the exist or in attempt by the president putting pressure on mr. Comey or raise some doubts. Should the white house tell you whether they have tapes or not instead of playing games with us all and everyday. And pushing republicans to show for the white house . We have the right to know whether there are tapes. This reminds me of the taping system, of course, it reminds of all of us of Richard Nixon had and he press was ordered to turn over the tape. That president has been established and we do need to know whether it exists and we do need access to them. I cannot imagine special counsel mueller is going to want access to those tapes. The president tweeted this morning saying james comey is a leaker. Hes talking about the testimony where he gave over the questions and who then gave it to New York Times. Is that a leak as what you understand it per se . I consider that to be a government work product. After all, it was produced on an fbi computer. It was immediately aft his various meetings with the president. He memoralized them in each memo. When i asked him that question, i did out of curiosity because there is been so many reports in the press about these memo memos how did it get there . I asked him never dreaming that he would say that i gave it to a columbia professor with expressed direction for him to get it out in the press in the hopes of prompting the appointment of a special counsel. Did it concern you that he passed that document on . James comey i believe to be an honorable individual and a person of integrity. For him to turn out to have leaked a document was it a leak . I view it that way regardless of his motivation. I think his motivation may have been a good one. How could you call it a leak . It was not a classified document. It was not a classified document to the best of my knowledge. If it is a governments work product, it belongs to the fbi and not a prite citizen. A better way was to give it to our committee or to the special counsel, since a special counsel was appointed. I find him to be a credible candidate and thorough. He testified under oath. The follow up then do you find the president to be an honest and trust worthy man. I put more credance in testimonies thats given under oath. I think he should have told the president when he made an outrageous and unacceptable request that he dropped or let go the Michael Flynn investigation. He should have said mr. President , i cannot do that and you should not be asking me to do that. All right. I will take that an answer. Susan collins, thank you very much for being with us. Is it remarkable when you ask a question and you got an answer from james comey. Fun, is it . Still ahead, nancy pelosi is joining us live and well play more of james comeys testimony yesterday from capitol hill and why he says the president requests of an oath of loyalty made him feel so uncomfortable. The statute of justice has a blindfold out because you are not supposed to peak out with your patrons see what you are doing. woman one year ago today mom started searching for her words. And my brother ray and i started searching for answers. vo when its time to navigate inhome care, follow that bright star. Because brightstar care earns the same accreditation as the best hospitals. And brightstar care means an rn will customize a plan that evolves with moms changing needs. woman because dad made us promise wed keep mom at home. vo call 8444brightstar for your free home Care Planning guide. And its also a story mail aabout people and while we make more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget. That your business is our business the United States postal service. Priority you be the you who doesnt cover your moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. Be the you who shows up in that dress. Who hugs a friend. 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Most people using stelara® saw 75 clearer skin and the majority were rated as cleared or minimal at 12 weeks. Be the you who talks to your dermatologist about stelara®. Youre going to be hanging out in here. So if you need anything, text me. Do you play . Use the chase mobile app to send money in just a tap, to friends at more banks then ever before. You got next . Chase. Helping you master whats now and whats next. [vo] what made secretariat the grwho ever lived . E of course he was strong. Intelligent. Explosive. But the true secret to his perfection. Was a heart, twice the size of an average horse. The president is new at this. Hes new to government so hes not steeped of protocols. Hes just new to this. Welcome back to morning joe it is friday june 9th. We have our senior analysts m m huffin and joining us is nancy pelosi. Mike barnicle , you got to be pleased, Michael Flynn is your guy. All right, we have speaker to be, nancy pelosi. How are you doing this morning . Well, how are you ing . The country is great and can withstand anything and god is always with us. I think we can survive. Lets talk about that. There is a lot of people who are concerned and again we have a lot to talk about and a lot of news yesterday. I am so glad to hear you say that. Our system has been challenged and our courts have been challenged and the independence and the judiciary has been challenged. So many institutions that we have always taken for grant it have been challenged. Yet six months in, they stood some heaard attacks. Everything you described is our system of checks and balances. Right. And freedoms of our bill of rights. We have to recognize what is happening because this is not a strengthen of our country. It is not bringing our country together. No. We have a bigger responsibility bigger than politics aof republicans and democrats to put these places in place. How do we get out of these political tribes. Every two years we hear somebody comes along and we are going to figure out a way for both sides to work together. How do we ever get to that point . One of the biggest divisions of the congress of the United States is triple down economic verses middle class and income. That economics thats everything you see when republicans disagree with trump. Trump is an enable for them and they are an enable for him for that economic principle. You know it well. They sacrifice everything on that alter. Abraham lincoln, to the extent that we can take this argument and debate to the American People and we come up with a compromise, respect. I always grant people their position and i respect they believe something. I dont know what the president believes. Hold on, you may not agree but you respect. And mike pence. And where can you guys meet then . Can you think of an issue that you can work with donald trump . We have always worked on infrastructure together and never political until president obama made some suggestions. I think we have to step back and observe what one of the branches of government are doing. We have someone in the white house who really is disrupting the checks and balances system whether it is the courts or commons or not. New yorkers have said to me, you watch this behavior, this is how he operates and you judge it. First he will try to charm you and if that does not work, he will bullies you and walks away from you. If that does not work, he will sue you. I find his charm rather offensive. No. We are here because of what we believe and what our responsibilities are to the American People. Part of that responsibility is to find Common Ground and not to just say i didnt know what was going on here and didnt know it is so hard. Your description of him and this question is not meant to be exaggera exaggeration in any way. Yocan e comeys testimony that every exposure he had with donald trump he was growing more and more concerned. Do you have any concerns . Any of you have been in the oval is a very intimidating place. The president of the United States t leader states, the leader of the free world. When the leader of the free world calls you in the office and clears the room says what he hopes what you will do. First, he turns and asks, do you like your job . Do you your job . Are you going to be loyal . Do you like your job . That sets the tone of the conversation from the beginning. Thats a pattern. Do you loo i can your job, i want loyalty. I hope you will do this. The speaker says hes new at this . No, hes not new at obeying the law. Is he abusing his power . I think that he could say that hes given reasons to believe that this should be looked into. Many democratic colleagues and yesterday and others are mentioning, we are not going so far to suggest that this is obstruction of justice based on what they know and theyll leave it to bobueer to sort out. Do you see it is something inappropriate . It is certainly inappropriate. Let megge get back to your question, yes, i do think it is an abuse of power. In terms of obstruction of justice, i believe mueller should look into this. Nobody is prosecuted because of what they said what they hoped. It is certainly in the court of Public Opinion very in criminating. I want to show you that moment you were describing where the president cleared the room, here is comey describing it. My question is Something Big is about to happen and i need to remember every single word thats spoken. The attorney general knew, he should not believing. I knew something was about to happen and i need to pay close attention to. A significant fact to me is so why did he kick everybody out of the oval office, why would you kick the attorney general, the president , the chief of staff out to talk to me if it was about Something Else so that to me as an investigator is a significant fact. Nancy brought up abuse of power, what we are focusing on is obstruction of justice. The president on his words and the intent there. But, i am not saying hes ever going to be impeached. There is talk of 43 of americans want him to be impeached. Article 4 of bill clinton was abusive of power. You are using your office to try to intimidate him to doing it and you are talking to other people and using your office to intimidate them in killing an investigation which indicates you are criminally . Read that article. In violation of the constituti constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of the president of the United States. We can stop there, mike. They can just lift that from 1998. Joe, whats interesting about this being in this town today and yesterday afternoon after the conclusion of the hearing that you can literally hear a gasp of release coming from the white house that oh, we dodged the bullet that there is nothing thats a surprise and that. Now, the stuff gets serious. Bob mueller has it. Hes an honorable guy and if there is anything there and a use of power there, bob mueller will find it out, he will get to it. My question to you, miss pelosi, of the expectations of this country and what bob mueller does, what is going to happen to the agenda that both you and republicans have on tax reform and healthcare and anything. This is infrastructure and a whole bunch of stuff. Whats going to happen. Well, lets go prior to this for first few months of ssion of congress and the president few months in office. We have not seen anything. We thought we are going to see infrastructure, and jobs built right away and an over turn in terms of tax reforms. We thought well see some positive agenda coming from the white house, jobs, jobs, jobs, thats what the election was about. When they say this stand in the way of his agenda, what agenda . He says his tax bill is moving to congress there is not a tax bill. He loses millions of jobs and hospitals are closing. What hes done for climate, loses new green jobs for the future where america has to be prei am mea preimmine preimminent. Hes a job loser and he has not has androgen da. What are the what do the republicans want to hide from donald trump . They are tripling down economics and that means everything to them. If he came to you and said i got this problem with russia and i want to get back to the peoples business. What would you advise him to do . Go to sleep. Get some sleep. Bring yourself to a place where s sysnaps are working. He was going on and on, it was like midnight and i said why dont you go to sleep. I think there is somethin something more sleep maybe a solution for him. Expand on that. He does not sleep and he wonders around the white house and he bangs around there like steve bannon and hes obsessed with the news and he sits there and watches tv six hours a day. I am just saying. Hes not in a good place. Well, we are not in disagreement with that. What i would say this is important. I say to my members, if you want to talk about making judgment about his presidency, you have to have the facts. Lets have an independent outside commission to have the facts about what the russians try to do. Why didnt he ask any questions about that . Why would he be holden to putin to put him on a pedestal . Why would he question whether he will do sanctions and what does the russians have personally and financial financially. More importantly, we have to find what hes suggesting to take our country forward so we can agree or disagree or compromise but hes got to get to work on his job. For some reason he thinks his job is a reality tv show. It is so true. We now learned that the attorney general now has had a third meeting with the russians that was not revealed. Reportedly revealed and coming from private sessions yesterday. The questions we were asking before, why is it . Why do they lie all of their meetings with their russians. Well, mueller, as you mentioned a highly respected guy he will do a good job inside the Justice Department, nonetheless, a great person. We have congressional investigation from the Intelligence Committee house and senate. Hopefully, theyll be useful inside Republican Congress. We need an outside independent commission to look into this. It is bigger than donald trump and bigger than democrats and republicans. It is about your direct examination. So when you talk about all these things, remember that there are something thats strange thats connecting now. I cannot confirm or deny the issues of the third meeting. I should say given the fact of very few people other than you are more familiar with the stress of the job of the presidency, given your remarks of a few moments ago. Are you concerned of the president s health . I think his family should be concerned of his health. The fact is this is hopefully not reparable. Hes the president of the United States. You hope it is reparable. It is not it is about facts and the law and there is nothing else. We need to get the facts. Didnt you hear yesterday that the white house says hes not a liar, does it sound like i am not a crook . That was painful. Lets hear the truth. Why would republicans stand in the way of an independent commission to investigaten intervention into our election, an adversary. Part of the deal and all those things when i get to washington, i want to be on the phone all the time and making things happen and pulling things together. Has he been a good deal maker and has he brought people together and getting things done . I will give you this as an example, the first meeting we had, house and senate, democrats and republicans leadership in the white house, this is a big deal. I mean it feels you with some pride to have a seat at the table and a new president , i have been at that meeting with president george w. Bush as a leader and same thing with president obama and now here we are with a new president , first thing he says, you know i won the popular vote. [ laughter ] well, i thought since hes being unconventional so will i. I was respectful with president bush and we worked closely with him. I bet you are missing him now . I would. That was a long time ago. I wish he was president now wishing that romney was president or john mccn were president. As far as the people voted for him is like any mammals will do. They were just voting in a certain way. Thats a good way of putting it. When he said that, i said, thats not true, there is no evidence to support what you just said and if we were going to work together, we have to stipulate to a certain set of facts. We all have to start at a place where we are dealing with facts, evidence and data and you can compromi compromise. You cannot make up i said well, thats not true. And he said and i am not counting california. Oh my god. So, that was pretty sad because he did not understand his place in history. You cannot expect people to respect the office of president anymore than the occupant of the job does. I do respect the office of the president , i hope that he will rise to that occasion. The fact that he has not so far. Hes gotten worse. His first week of obsessing ton popular vote and the crowd size of the inauguration. He still obsesses o f the crowd size and he even had multiples and dozens of pictures of the crowd all over the west wing instead of pictures of the president with veterans or the president with children and connecting with people. It was the crowd to show how big he thinks his crowds were which is i am sorry, kind of sick. Was kind of sick. He knows he was trying to invent something that did not happen. He knows the power of ceremony, he knows the power of the oval office and thats why had he knows what that is. This one question i had, if you are the president of the United States, with all that goes into this historically and current events, why would you go to saudi arabia as your first country thank you. President bush went to canada. President bush went to canada. President george h. W. Bush went to mexico. I think we have plenty of friendly country he could have gone to. He went to saudi arabia. Why do you suspect this . I am looking into it. I want to clear something up. What advise and you said, he needs more sleep. Are you concerned about his health or not . I am concerned about his fitness for office and thats really is a question and i think as i started to say and we got into repable a in into i said if you want to go work in the white house, know your blood type because he will throw you over board in a second or under the bus. Thats right. Do they have the confidence to say to the president some of these things bringing the country together which is what we all have a responsibility to do. Unless you have the facts and not just to say it. Right. Not to in flame the situation. Correct. I am sorry, can you say anything more about the comment that you made about saudi arabia and what you are looking into. I dont know, i just think it is a strange choice to go there in light of having served on the committee and investigated 9 11 and knowing the suspicions that exist s in our country and amon his people. Not to go too far down this path. He also asked palestinians to clear the room there. Wow, thank you very much and thank you for honoring my father today. One of my friends and my College Roommate of all the things that have happened in congress, thats wonderful that you are invited to speak. Oh, thank you. Doctor berzinsky when he came out in the iraq war were isolated. So many were coming out aggressively against him, hes not fearful but concerned about coming to the hill because even democrats, lotf democrats were shutting him. He said you invited him to the hill and you embrace him when it was not a popular thing to do and being aggressively against the iraq war as he was. I will never forget it. He likes barack obama. Still ahead on morning joe. If the president were impeached, will it be a specific tweet to blame . Well get a live report from the white house about how the Trump Administration is trying to pivot from the bad press. You are watching morning joe, well be right back. Okay. Got it. Rumor confirmed. 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Joining us now benjamin witty, a friend of james comey and editor and chief of the law firm law and also with us, former Justice Department spokesperson now for msnbc, Matthew Miller and nbc news capitol hill kasie hunt is with us. David is back with us as well. And when you put an i mage u there. I think it would be great if we can start with a big image of the law firm. Give us the break down of yesterday, what did it mean at the end of the day . The significant of yesterday is a person of whatever you think of james comey of judgment and decisions and his integrity and a person who does not lie went on the record, under oath and talked about the president lying about the bureau and talking about the president misrepresenting his interactions with him,e talked about the president putting pressure on him for investigative matters and he talked about a significant pattern of completely inappropriate contact between the white house and the fbi. I think to have someone of comeys stature and i dont mean that just literally going on record under oath and make those allegations, it should provoke a crisis for the president. Was there anything in the testimony that made you believe to be more likely of obstruction of charges that could be brought or less likely . The question of the conduct of the president as a technical legal matter amounts to obstruction of justice is a question that a responsible prosecutor would probably never evaluate at the end of the day without hearing from the president first. With that said, there are some shocking allegations in that oral testimony and the most important of them and two of them are that, first of all, the president asked the fbi director to and the fbi director received it as a directive to drop a pending investigation of the formal National Security adviser. You have to go along way back to u. S. History before you have an allegation that shocking of the public conduct. And then he was fired. Thats the second one. Comey said explicitly yesterday that he believes he was fired because of his conduct of the russia investigation. Of course, it does not matter what he believes because we have admission not only from the white houses spokesperson who said we wanted the russia investigation to end, comey was fired and we believe thats the best way to end it and you have the president admitting it to the foreign minister of russia as well as the Russian Ambassador of the United States. David, you have a question format. For matt. I want to ask matt and ben. Matt knows the bureau of the department well. What would comey say today, the day after if he would evaluate what happened yesterday and where things stand . I would think that the direct wentnto this thinking himself as a fact witness. He was asked quite blank in the first question senator burr whether or not this man is of obstruction of justice. You know it is not for me to evaluate. His opinion have changed. Hes gone from being a chief investigator to the chiefs witness of an obstruction case. One of the big take aways, if you look at him as a chiefs witness and thinks of himself as a chiefs witness. He said i am not going to draw that conclusion but i am sure thats the conclusion the special prosecutors are going to work towards. If you have been in the Justice Department, if you look at what james comey said about that yesterday and he turned his memos over to mueller already. It is clear hes obviously investigating the president for obstruction of justice. Thats the biggest take away from yesterday. Kasey, a couple of interesting thing to talk about with you as you covered the hall of congress yesterday, you were up there early and late. Basically lives there. You end up shopping there that Jared Kushner will appear and speak to the staff and senate Intel Committee and reports that senator collins d collins there was a third meeting that we did not know before of Jeff Sessions and some russian entities. What more can you tell us about it . Well, look, first of all, as far as you know what this means in the context of youre talking about the Justice Department and where republicans are going to be on this, i think there is real nervousness that has emerged and was kind of under current among the republicans that i talked to after this hearing concluded. Democrats, the one i spoken to, republicans are becoming more nervous, i think. There is a real growing sense that they think that there is a shoe that shoot is going to drop here. If you look at marco rubio of the different posture he had in the hearing and the one he had yesterday, he came out after the hearing to explain, hey, those tough questions i wanted to ask and they have been asked before. Look, what the president did in this case is inappropriate. Theyre going to be caught at some point if that shoe drops between their electorals and their party and all the demands and of where the president is. Very quickly, what do you make of an attorney general who now has three meetings with russians that he did not report. Wee the president s closest adviser had meetings with the russians he did not report. We have a National Security adviser having phone calls with the russians he did not report and you can go on and on. What do we make of the fact that they dont report, they do not testify truthfully. They did not report anything to russians. The short answer to that is nothings good. I dont know what it means. There is this obligation when you fill out an sfa 86 which is the form for your security clearance that you report those meetings. Sergei kislyak must have this effect on the people he talks to, they all seem to not remember meetings with him. I dont know what to make of it. But, if i were a member of the Trump Administration, that would make me very nervous. That one person after another seems to have not met with the person and forgot about it. I am not really good as you know. You would not confuse me for a statistician. I would like a statistician to tell me at some point, what are the odds of kislyak meeting five or six or eight people at ten times, a matter of forget fullness or lacks of reporting that they would forget in the testimony and in their disclosure forms in every other way that they would all forget they met with the Russian Ambassador . 538 on that to get an exact number. It seems extraordinary unlikely. Matt, i want to ask a clip that you play from paul ryan that he said the president is new into this. You can be new at a job that you are asking the director of the fbi to shut down the investigation. Come on. Be new is not an excuse of obstruction of justice. How about a business of power . The interesting thing about that defense is it takes for granted that the president lied. The president said he never did it or asked him that. Every time paul ryan talks like that, he misses an opportunity to get real and be honest with his supporters and not walk the plank which hes doing. It is really sad to watch. I will tell a potential problem for the speaker, every single time this happens, hes creating a if this ends back for the president , you can push play on that and thats what snl hit on that. Thank you both, with ell gee latest reporting out of the white house, story ahead on morning joe. A Millie Dresselhaus doll happy birthday, sweetie oh, millies. 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We replaced it all without touching our savings. Yeah, our insurance wont do that. No. You can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Do you have any concerns . Of course, this is the classic scandal. It is not the same as watergate but it has the same earmark of a new revelation every few days. Thats senator john mccain yesterday and joining us now halie jackson. Good morning, the president is breaking his silence on twitter, he went all day without saying much about it letting his personal attorney goes out and giving the briefing and his son, donald jr. Let me start there, what you saw and not just on twitter, this show, it is time to move on. Here is the deal. Nobody else is moving on. The senate Intelligence Committee is still looking enin this and it is our reporting that Jared Kushner is going to come in and talk with that committee and although the third source says the timing discussion is ongoing with that. What we are seeing o f this tweet and what we are seeing the way the responses happening here, it is almost likeampaign deja vu coming back out again. Look at who hes putting out on tv . You see more of Corey Lewandowski who was on the today show this morning with matt a savannah insisting that comey whos the one thats not credible. Two Big Questions moving for ward, is the president here holds a press conference in the rose garden as we look ahead of that. Number one, ton the matter of these tapes that triggered his whole action releasing the tapes, if there are a tapes, will you release them. Will the president testify under oath. My question is will republicans do the same and will the president take it up on that offer . Othhes everything thats wr in washington, Corey Lewandowski talking about james comey this morning. Halie jackson at the white house. Thank you very much. So the white house who is aggressively pushing lewandowski, pushing out some somebody dthats now walking through the swamps of conspiracy theorists of the all rights. And criticizing for comey passing the documents to columbia reporter because he was not manned enough to give it himself. Again, not classified documents. Still ahead, trumps twitter habi habits helped him win the presidency and now it may help him lose the presidency. More on that ahead. Deartheres no other way to say this. Its over. Ive found a permanent escape from monotony. Together, we are perfectly balanced. Our senses awake. Our hearts racing as one. I know this is sudden, but they say. If you love something set it free. See you around, giulia whats the story behind Green Mountain coffee and fair trade . Lets take a flight to colombia. This is boris calvo. Boris grows mindblowing coffee. And because we pay him a fair price, he improves his farm and invest in his community to make en bter coffee. 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Jonathan turley, you are like the rational buzzard. The buzzards flying around the caucus saying lets go, devour, devour, devour. Youre saying, wait, hold on. Lets think through this rationally. You are basically the one that just keeps saying over and over again, no obstruction of justice. Nothing to see here yet. Are you still there after yesterdays hearing . Pretty much. I actually thought that comey helped himself and hurt himself in that hearing. He helped himself a great deal by explaining how he reacted to and spoke to the highlevel aides and pervasive he felt he couldnt go any further. He hurt himself in a number of respects. Frankly, as a defense attorney, i think hes pretty damaged goods ever put on the stand. Why is that . A couple of things. First of all, he said in the hearing that trump did tell him at one point or agree with him that the russia investigation should continue to its natural conclusion. He agreed that he only asked him whether he could drop the Flynn Investigation. Trump said if anybody around me yeah. He described this colloquy with trump saying play this thing out and the president did agree with me it should go down that road. Its the lack of clarity on intent where those comments really hurt. The biggest problem for him is the leak. I mean, by leaking that information, first of all, it takes away from his image as this sort of eagle scout if youre engineering a special counsel investigation through a leak. The second thing is thats problematic. The fbi has very clear rules on the handling of fbi material. This is not some diary. This strikes me as a fbi document. He wrote them on a fbi computer. About an issue that was core to his responsibilities as a director. With a pending investigation. He wrote it like whats called a field 302. He wrote it much like a lot of agents write it. To say that thats your material that you can leak to get into the media, pretty problematic. Heidi, talk about the reaction, kasie hunt earlier said republicans afterwards not feeling any better about their situation. Well, you know, i heard those comments and my observation of it was, yes, they did toe the line in the sense to establish what the president said all along, he was not under investigation is true but no one really went out on a limb. You saw all of us saw the day before the rnc put out the lking points. They wanted to go hard after comeys credibility. None of thos republicans did that. I think that is a sign of just the nervousness upnderneath and why are none of them being more aggressive . Joe youre saying none of the republicans went aggressively after comey. Correct. Its interesting Nicole Wallace said yesterday if this was any other president you would have had former attorneys generals, former prosecutors all of these people going out supporting the president during the testimony. He had don jr. Well, there was also zero Crisis Management coordination on this. Right . Usually when you had the Monica Lewinski scandal or scooby libby scandal, there was coordination of outside groups, the white house, capitol hill an you did not have that here. Matt, you made a point in the writing for the freebie con that he made at the top of the show, however it ends, ends badly for donald trump, you may trace it back to the may 12th tweet where he said the director better hope there are no tapes of our conversations and what we learned yesterday was that the director took that as, oh maybe, there are tapes. And i got to get this mem row out, i have to get my side of the story out in the hopes to lead to a special prosecutor which it for me thats the most riveting part of the testimony with Susan Collins about the process. Friends of his were talking to the New York Times. That was the first story about the loyalty pledge. And then the following morning the president tweets out i hope he he better hope there are not tapes and according to james comey set in motion the release of the contents of the memoso the New York Times in the express purpose he said of getting a special prosecutor appointed, bob mueller, who he spoke very highly of and i believe thats the train of events to end badly for the president and other people in this administration. How badly . Well, i mean, i agree with professor turley. Im not a lawyer. I dont think what we have seen so far rises to the level of obstruction of justice but there are many democratic and liberal lawyers who disagree vehemently already. Abuse of power. That, too. Obviously when this is a long process, and in that process there are plenty of other opportunities for the president and his team to make mistakes. They need to be on guard and what the problem for them is i think theyre isolated already in terms of the legal fight and they could soon be isolated politically because of whats happening in georgia and the health care fight on the hill. Heidi, agree . I think part of the reason why back to your point of republicans, why this isnt breaking through is, frankly, and the democrats tell you this, theyre not pushing it out there. When you look at their advertising, when you look at the messaging, theyre a little nervous on russia. Why . They know the republicans control all of the levers of power here in washington. They control the committees where the investigations are going on and they also were burned from the past election not staying focused on issues Like Health Care so this is the issue in the bubble but out there and other than the democratic hard core base, its not yet breaking through. Theyre pushing health care which i think is very smart. Final word. What is your takeaway . All in bob muellers hands now . It is. I mean, theres still a lot of road to be coved to get this nearimpeachment and referred to article iv of impeachment and did not get through the senate. It did not. It was rejected and article i impeachment of nixon was much more detailed. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, guys. Matthew, you get a cplus. What . Room for improvement. Working harder next time. Didnt fail. Exactly. She is a is there extra credit . Take that home with you. Best line i have heard since the doctor passed away. Tributes of bobby. She said, he read an article that he wrote and the doctor wrote him a quick note and said, very well argued. Weak conclusion. Bobby said it was the greatest compliment he ever got. We are heading to church to re