as a legal correspondent, even when charged people are innocent until proven guilty. i have to flag this language that the white house is not disputing, nicolle, i mean, we ve had friday afternoon stories of all kinds and flavors. here s one the white house through sean spicer is not disputing as of 4:27 p.m. on the east coast, reads from the new york times according to american officials the president said, quote i face great pressure because of russia. that s taken care of. that is the president basically drawing a line from himself to the termination of jim comey to the russia inquiry in as direct a way as we ve heard. the fact that the white house is not disputing it right now is, itself, galling. and i want to get you don t go anywhere because i want to understand the legal implications of that. i was struck by spicer s comment as well but we got mike viqueira on the hill with reaction to these two breaking stories. hi, mike. nicolle, we have reaction from speaker ryan s
you re seeing a lot, krystal, of the language trump is using. you have speaker paul ryan who came out with a statement that interestingly enough didn t come from ryan itself. it came from his spokesperson, ashley strong, who said our democracy relies on confidence in election results. and john mccain said the follow. i didn t like the outcome of the election in 2011. did so but not without reluctance. it s not just graciousness but an act of you have rchs really running way from this language. a couple of them. a few. not a lot. that s the thing to me. okay, you stood by him when he was denigrating the minorities and disabled and veterans and women and now you re going to stand by him when he denigrates democracy. i ve been amazed.
here? reporter: at this point no. we don t see anything in here like i said, i think many of them were interesting things from these speeches that had come out earlier. great. also following responses to what donald trump has been saying? saying it s a rigged election. we played a little of that earlier. you have any response on that? reporter: the clinton campaign responded quickly to this push for, from donald trump saying this election is going to be rigged. we got a statement from campaign manager robby which i think we have. campaigns should are hard fought and elections hard won. fundamental about the american electoral system is that it s free, fair and open to the people. participation in the system particularly voting should be encouraged not dismissed or undermined. that s campaign manager robby mook on this and we also just in, richard have a statement from house speaker paul ryan that puts him at odds with donald trump today. he says this is from the spokeswoman
ashley strong, our democracy relies on confidence in election results, and the speaker is fully confident the states will carry out this election with integrity. already starting to see some republicans, mike murphy, gop strategist, tweeting how this, about how trump s comments are anti-american, and undermining democracy. you ll start to see this evolve as another potential split between donald trump and the rest of the republican party. gets wider and wider with that new reporting you have for us there. kasie hunt, thank so much. happening now, nbc news learned the u.s. is contemplating an unprecedented cyber attack against russia for allegedly interfering in the u.s. election. joining us from the white house, hans, how close is the u.s. from launching a counterstrike what what you here? reporter: smart answer, sell
put together a really good team. he s hired good people in rick wily and ashley strong. sounds like he has your attention. he s a good guy. i m very excited about the debate which is about three weeks from this thursday because that s really going to be the first time where everybody gets a chance to see how they react. they better know their record better than their opponents know their record because that is the first thing that can trip them up. that s right. someone knows your record better than you do and they re bringing up questions you can t answer you re game over because you re not going to look prepared. i wonder if his crack team advised him to prepare about defeating unionists and isis. let it slide.