pressure on the russians because they interfered in our election. there is bipartisan consensus that the russians meddled in our democratic institutions in an unprecedentsed scope and scale and they are testing us around the world and then donald trump is saying to them that he was relieved because he had just fired an fbi director who was investigating ties between his campaign and that russian interference. i don t know if you heard but the new york times reporter was on. he said the president was joking with sergey kislyak. oh, nice to meet you. i appear to be the only person in my campaign who hasn t done so yet, joking. sean spicer is saying it was actually to your point he s saying comey s investigation was the problem. it was creating unnecessary pressure on the white house s ability to negotiate with
saying the threat to national security from these leaks of private and highly classified conversations. so the white house clearly not happy about this. but also not explicitly denying this bombshell report. this is all happening, erin, as you know, the white house team, sean spicer among them, are on a plane heading to their first stop in this high-stakes foreign trip. they re expected top land in saudi arabia early saturday morning, our time. a little before 4:00 a.m. we ll have to see what else breaks during the hours in the air. thank you, athena. they are fully wired on that plane. it s not as if they don t have wi-fi. they could be responding if they choose to. out front, alan dershowitz, john avalon, david chal on, julia and
these are a broad group of people seeing what s happening and they re horrified. that s why they re talking to reporters. people are seeing things that they think are wrong and that most people think is wrong. they want that out in public because there seems to be no way to stop it in private. we re back in a moment. i want to go to athena jones at the white house. these are stunning developments. what is the response from the white house tonight to this reporting? hi, erin. the white house is not denying this report, which is notable. white house press second sean spicer put out a statement that read in part, by grandstandingant politicizing it, james comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engaged and negotiate with russia. now he s referring there to some deals the president hoped to make with russia on syria, ukraine, defeated isis. he closes that statement by
he s someone who has consistently doubled down in the face of controversy. we have no reason to believe that the firing is going to bevy different. you can look at how the white house handled it on friday. sean spicer said in response to many questions about the quote/unquote tapes about trump tweeted about, sean spicer said, well, the president has nothing further to add on that. that s something that the president has done throughout his time in politics. he s always doubled down. never felt he needed to comment on questions. it s going ton an unapologetic search for a new fbi director. and really a dismissal of questions still remaining, although they re very valid, as to what led to the firing in the first place. president showing no signs of backing off. nbc s kelly o donnell at the white house. ali vitaly in lynchburg, virginia. thank you, both. the investigation lee mains a hot topic.
president trump and his team moving fast to pick a new fbi director as they deal with the fallout from firing james comey. but that is not the only change the white house may be looking to make. the wall street journal reports that the president is considering broad changes to communications team and strategy which he blames for failing to contain the controversy surrounding comey s firing. one of the moves could be replacing sean spicer. joining me now national political reporter at bloomberg, congressional reporter for politico. when it comes to the futures of the communications team. president trump had this to say. are you moving so quickly that your communications department cannot keep up with it? yes, that s true. so, what do we do about that? we don t have press conferences. you don t mean that? well, we just don t have