one source saying rosenstein is not inclined to make a change unless the fbi investigation appears to be imperiled and at this point fbi officials are confident that the investigation is moving ahead. let s bring the panel back. and we were talking during the break about the silence from the republicanside of the aisle and kristen i want to start with you because you re a republcan. are with the ben sasses and marco rubios of the world, people who have been critical of president trump in the past? this does seem to be a really shocking admission from the president, why he fired comey, because of the russian investigation. i believe in the last day or so you ve seen a greater openness from folks like john mccain, lindsey graham, who have come out and said that they are a little more open to the idea of needing i don t know if necessarily a special prosecutor but having concerns about the way that this is playing out, but i think for the most part republicans on capitol hill are just
self-inflicted wound, in a way, of this administration looking like, well, maybe, though, it was just a gut reaction? or maybe ivanka told him, isn t this terrible. the other thing that needs to be remembered or talked about is that this was not a clean, everyone agreed on this. steve bannon argued strongly against this intervention, and he was overruled in this circumstance. i think, again, the real question is, a, what comes next and, b, how does it change your overall philosophy which has been we need to stop doing this kind of thing and take care of what s at home. i can t stress enough this is such a fundamental shift from what donald trump has spent the last 18 months saying and ridiculing others who have this kind of view. the marco rubios of the world. jonathan, robby, thank you guys, appreciate you being here. coming up secretary of state rex tillerson just arriving in moscow for the high-profile extremely important meeting with russian leaders, a former
yesterday who are deeply worried about the effect this will have on the logical front-runners, the marco rubios of the world. ted cruz as well of course pushing that envelope. you are getting into self-deportation territory here when you talk about the general election. chris jansing, the other thing that was notable today was ben carson is not backing down from what has been derided not only from the white house, from susan rice and other foreign policy experts, but from anybody who knows anything about foreign policy, when he claimed in the debate the other night that the chinese are in syria. reporter: as a matter of fact, andrea, i got a look at three sets of papers that the campaign is putting out to defend what he said, and it s interesting, he actually told the media assembled sometime this weekend we will get those papers out. we were able to get them this morning. what carson said, i just want to remind people, i m quoting here, the chinese are there, referring to syria, t
weeks and he s got a whole lot of competition trying to knock him off stage. joining me now is former rnc chairman and msnbc political analyst michael steele. thank you for being here. hey rev, good to be with you. i want to get to the crowded field in a second. but first can jeb bush recover from his mistakes when there are so many other candidates who would like to see him fail early? you re right about the candidates who want to see him fail early. particularly those that have carved out the right flank on foreign policy. the marco rubios of the world. this real big mistake this week helps them and plays to that particular narrative. but i think carl rove is right. at the end of the day, bush will weather this. getting his sea legs if you will. he has not been a candidate for office for close to 13 years.