trump who exists today? anderson, i ll ignore how unkind that is and i ll say as president of the united states he needs confidence in his fbi director and he doesn t have it. when was the most he lost confidence? well, read this letter. read these letters. it s just a it s a confluence of events. what mr. rosenstein says is so important. he says, the fbi s reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage. quote, i cannot defend the director s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of secretary clinton s e-mails. quote, the fbi director is never empowered to supplant federal prosecutors and assume command of the justice department. quote, we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation. he also says that the dismissal of an fbi director, the firing of an fbi director should not be done lightly and 245 he doesn t take this he s not doing this lightly but he still thinks that w
to react like this. of course, it s not just democrats reacting like this. it s republicans like senator rich burr as well who was not given a heads up. he is the republican chairman of the intelligence committee here. the white house now trying to regain control of the narrative. they re making other phone calls. i asked the communications director a short time ago, when will we hear from the president? will he explain his view of this? there s nothing planned this evening. tomorrow there s nothing planned. anderson, you cannot imagine any of this going away or dieing down until he addresses this. he speaks to this. this is a firestorm that has caught them flat footed tonight. is there any talk or any word at the white house about who think may be looking at for to be the next director of the fbi? not that we have heard. i asked several officials that exact thing. they said that, look, this is something that is about a week
say somebody might have heard you saying that we can t complain or criticize tonight when the president of the united states has done something this outrageous. i think we have a right to criticize today. i don t care if he appoints anderson tomorrow i m totally not qualified. i would complain about that. everybody would. i wouldn t. here is the prom. let me say a couple things. number one, you can do the right thing for the wrong reason at the wrong time in the wrong place and manner. i don t think anybody here thinks that comey was doing a great job. perhaps firing him would have been the right thing. but you are doing it for the wrong reason. you are doing it in the wrong way. you are doing it the wrong place, the wrong manner. that is of grave concern. it looks like to most people objectively that this decision was made in a way that moves us away from rule of law and more toward the rule of a small click of people. let me push back.
put the story out, i think, shows distrust and puts real i think puts pressure on the administration to come up with a solution that not only not only do they need an independent fbi director now, but they do need to look at an independent counsel. i salute richard burr, the republican senator from north carolina, for having the guts to say as a republican, this is all very suspicious. it is significant that richard burr said that. we have heard from democrats who are very concerned about what is going on. but richard burr, who is running the senate investigation for the republicans, that s clearly a substantial voice. absolutely, anderson. because you keep asking the question in an investigation like this, where is the republican howard baker? where is someone who had his integrity and was willing to go
in america should be 2rub8d troy the timing and reason of comey firing, period. the word troubling keeps popping up including from richard burr. this is a test of the balance of power. that s right. it s going to be really interesting now to see what congress does when they investigate this because they will. because the american public will say we need to know what happened here. we will find out what happened. and they will call comey up to talk to them about it. and i wouldn t be surprised if you if you have a real investigation about this because this is what checks and balances david gergen, i know you wanted to say something. i think i want to follow up on gloria s point. i do think that we need to know how we got here and need to examine that more closely. anderson, we had two letters today dated today. and the president s response today. it is simply not credible that