Welcome to squawk alley. Joining me, mike santoli as both john forte and sara eisen are off today. Downgrade thats hurting the market somewhat. First up, lester holt exclusively interviewing the president after his firing of the fbi director james comey. Take a listen to what he said about that process and his decision. Regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey, knowing there was no good time to do it. And, in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a madeup story. Its an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election. For more, were joined by jared bernstein, former economic adviser to former Vice President joe biden. Gentlemen, good to see you. Good morning. Good morning. Jim, we would like nothing more to talk markets, earnings and macrodata, but this washington, as cramer said, sideshow, keeps distracting the market. How do we tie what was said with lester yesterday as to how markets and i