but it doesn t. betsy in your report, i don t see in here that you re insinuating that john dowd called for the firing of bob mueller. that s correct. the initial headline written by an editor did use the word firing. we changed that headline and they get sort of massaged over the course of the story. in the text of the story, obviously, about in the text of the quote that dowd gave us, he calls for an ending of the mueller probe. honestly, i think you could use the word firing here, depending on the way that you intend to use it, as kelly said. this is a bit of hair splitting. the reality is that the attorney for the president said the mueller probe needs to be shut down. is shutting down identical to firing and identical to termination? it become a philosophical distinction. it s understandable that the distinction that dowd cares about. our headline doesn t use firing. what kelly is say something
rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the fbi office professional responsibility and attorney general jeff sessions and bring an end to the alleged russia collusion investigation manufactured by mccabe s boss, james comey, based upon a fraudulent and corrupt dossier. let s bring in betsy woodruff now, of the daily beast and msnbc contributor. is this a wish being put forward, in your view, by john dowd, or prelude to the president of the united states calling on rod rosenstein to end this investigation? i can tell you for sure that this is what john dowd wants to happen. just to be crystal clear, he followed up with me in another e-mail saying that he felt the mueller probe should be shuttered, based on the merits. he doesn t want to use the word fired here but rather shutting down. what i can tell you, what i just don t have evidence yet is whether or not there s a concerted effort to close down the probe on the part of the
not. but clearly what we re seeing is a situation of someone who may be having some second thoughts about their candor zblin deed. would you be surprised if we saw an official statement from the white house, disavowing what john dowd is saying? i wouldn t be surprised about anything. i guarantee you john dowd is standing right next to his client, donald trump, while all of this is going on. that s good. could you ever do this, this back and forth? to me you re on the job all the time. if you are trump s lawyer, you re trump s lawyer. you don t just go calling into tv shows or reporters and making statements about your client and then say, it s off the record. you don t do that. the only way that s done is because donald trump is his own lawyer. he is calling all the shots. he s calling all the legal strategy and he s basically pulling the strings on his various lawyers, telling them what to do. i would like to know when that statement was made, where was donald trump and where
o donnell, our white house reporter who is standing by. apparently kelly has new reporting to bring to us. kelly, what have you got? reporter: i ve also been in touch with john dowd. we are all covering this story on an ongoing basis and have had a lot of relationship with him during this process. and i don t want to be in the position of critiquing any other reporting, so let me be clear about that. he is saying that the daily beast used firing mueller is just wrong. and his statement does not say fire. he does say he wants an end to the investigation on the merits. so, is there some hair splitting there? well, rod rosenstein is the deputy attorney general, is the supervisor of special counsel robert mueller. he has a judgment call to make through the process about when it begins and ends. we have all the indications that mueller is still at work and perhaps even expanding his investigation base d on recent
but it s and it is hair splitting as to whether he s saying fire mueller or end the investigation. and the other possibility is he s saying i think that it is coming to its own natural end but it s clearly premature. we ve just had a subpoena for the trump organization. we have a lot of foreign governments that are being looked at. and i don t think it would be wise to end it. it s the same thing as what the house intelligence committee did, which is to terminate an investigation that was still being productive and that was definitely hadn t reached its natural end. and the american people deserve to have a full investigation. we can t close it down until we know all the answers, which we clearly do not now. so, john dowd is bad and wrong in this. i wonder i ll come back to my table here and start with you, nick, this feels like, from a lay perspective, the sort of