i will let you unpack that, margaret, since you cover the white house on a daily base. a very strong signal. strong signal of what? i m going to say a different strategic kind of impulse driving that response than driving the response to the putin and diplomacy expulsion question, but they both shared the same threat. which is that the president is sick of talking about russia. is sick of having all of this hung around his neck. and at the same time is understanding increasingly that this is real and not going away. we ve seen him retreat a little on mueller in terms of position. yes, did that yesterday. this is not forget about it. that s not happening. and look, two people to keep your eye on. michael flynn, the other paul manafort, people of interest where it appears that bop mueller s team is looking, and it s definitely in president trump s interesting to be signaling to both of them, i m not throwing you under the bus,
play hillary clinton lost a lot of e-mails and that hampered finding out information. in this case mueller is wise to say, make sure nothing disappears, that s part of the investigation. this is a broad scope of an investigation. wise to do but i wouldn t read a lot into it. that s what we do, alice! from the the political standpoint. talking purely political, the news we talked about also top of the hour. that the washington post and new york times reporting that the white house, the president, his staff, are looking to discredit. looking at ways to diskrez it bit discredit bop mueller and his team. looking to investigate the investigators. from a political standpoint, do you fault them for doing that? i, of course, wouldn t be under investigation about possible collusion with the russians and can t tell you what i d do because i don t think i d
it s hard to know why he d assemble such a team unless it was a deliberate effort to go after the president and the president s team. that was newt gingrich setting a an argument with bop mueller that the white house is following according to multiple reports this morning. welcome back to morning joe. joe and mika have the morning off. i m nicole wallace with john hailman. mike barnicle, donny deutsche is here fresh off his bar bar shop quartet concert. you used to be a friend. you have been suckered into this. i got to go with candy striper. he s a candy striper and chief. they re mean, not me. i got nothing but love for you, donny. the president of the council on foreign relations. richard hosz, eddie glad, heidi,
city filled with apersonality types who try to create narratives. trump s not the only one. and there is no exception for truthful hyperbole. it s the type of thing that can get you a criminal charge. it s a much more available tool than something like obstruction because it s a very simple crime to prove and that s what trips people up in washington. the person obviously investigating whose telling the truth here on this crucial moment of jim comey and donald trump on a loyalty pledge, on the general flynn investigation is going to be bop mueller and we just heard a friend of the president s just come out and say that the president in his view is considering firing the special counsel. let me replay that moment. i think he s considering perhaps terminating the special counsel. i think he s weighing that option. i think it s pretty clear by one of his lawyers said on television recently. i think it would be a very
subpoenaing documents that might get in the way of a criminal investigation. john cornyn said he believed this was the recipe for a train wreck. what senators are trying to figure out right now and leaders are trying to figure out right now how to grasp onto a single point of contact. leaders have been very clear i expect the congressional investigations to continue and expect the committees to continue their work in site. of or perhaps along with bop mueller. what does this mean for the congressional meeting moving forward? i asked about what does this drama have to do? he said we can walk and chew gum at the same time. the house obamacare passed and when you talk to aides, these are huge ambitious items they re trying to move through. if you want to do that you need the white house laser focused on those issues, out selling those