reporter: and i should say that langford sits on the senate intelligence committee, which is conducting its own russia investigation. now, president trump s lawyers have said that they expected the special counsel investigation would wrap up by the end of 2017. clearly, that hasn t happened. in fact, there are strong signals that the special counsel and his team of prosecutors could have several more months of work ahead of them. the question is, as the president shifts to a more personal attack on mueller s work, is his patience running out, alex? that is a question. we shall see if that gets answered. jeff bennett, thank you so much, on this sunday. joining me now, erin delmore, senior political correspondent for bustle.com, and alexi mccanon, deputy news editor for axios. ladies, good morning to you both. let s start with the president s latest tweet from this morning in which he brought up robert mueller s team and went after his entire team. do you think the gloves ra s ar,
summer of 2016, kept trying to set up a back-channel communication with putin s own office. why is that significant? well, because at that point in time, it was publicly reported that the russians had hacked the dnc and were behind the dumping of material targeting the clinton campaign. so think about this for a second, alex. while the russians are waging an information warfare campaign against american democracy, the trump campaign is reaching out to putin s own office, that would clearly indicate to the russians that trump didn t mind and could be seen as a signal encouraging them. also in the book, we have a lot of material, particularly our opening story in the very first pages, that indicate that trump had deep, deep paranoia about the fbi. he thought that they were trying to blackmail hum. and that is kind of evident in his tweets today about mccabe and it indicates that no matter what the facts on the ground may
country and to try to stop the special counsel. that is unacceptable in a democracy. it seems like the president feels bolder now that he s surrounded by fewer people, who are willing to speak the truth to him about what this investigation really means and what s happening in the future. this morning s tweets, alex, are almost inexplicable. it s really difficult to see where this ends, at least where it ends without a constitutional crisis. and after one of president trump s personal lawyers floated the idea of ending the russia investigation, republican congressman, trey gowdy, had this to say. i think the president s attorney, frankly, does him a disservice when he says that. and when he frames the investigation that way. if you have an innocent client, mr. dowd, act like it. also new today, president trump taking it a step further in his attacks against the russia probe. nbc news white house correspondent, jeff bennett, has more on this for us. jeff, with a long-distance goo
hey, there, alex, the preside president s most direct attacks yesterday on the special counsel russia investigation certainly indicate a shift in strategy, which to this point had been pointed at cooperating with robert mueller and indicated that showdown might be brewing over the president s potential next steps. you asked about what he said. take a look at what he posted on twitter earlier this morning. the president writing, why does the mueller team have 13 hardened democrats, some big crooked hillary supporters and zero republicans? another dem recently added, does anyone think this is fair? and yet there is no collusion! now, we should point out that robert mueller himself is a republican and was nominated to be fbi director by a republican president, george w. bush. but in other tweets, alex, the president questioned the integrity of former fbi director james comey and of former deputy fbi director, andrew mccabe. now, at this hour, the president is at his private golf club
conversation. i hope it has whetted the appetites of our viewers to pick up the book, russian roulette, david and michael, good to see you both. thanks, alex. coming up next, why the president is growing frustrated with the mueller probe and may be taking steps to shut it down. man: i was born in a hurry. the world made war, my parents made love. and i screamed into life. did mom give me too much freedom? did dad make me lust for too great an adventure? my scars and bruises tell their own story. so here s to you, mom and dad. freedom and adventure.