executive privilege that was claimed by the white house. instead saying there was some sort of department of justice policy that prohibited him from discussing this matter with the committee. democrats will point to that provision within the department of justice guidelines. jeff sessions struggled to do that and also would not commit to answering questions behind closed doors, so after the hearing democrats very frustrated he did not get their answers to some key questions. republicans trying to move on to other areas of his investigation. thanks. democrats fumed over sessions testimony, republicans used a lighter touch. here s senator tom cotton down playing the collusion allegations while nodding to sessions taste for espionage thrillers. do you like spy fiction, daniel silva, jason matthews. yeah. david ignatius. do you like jason bourne or james bond movies?
with russian officials during the election. sessions declined to talk about his private conversations with president trump leaving democrats fuming with frustration and accusing their former senate colleague of stonewalling. attorney general did confirm that he left then fbi director james comey alone with president trump in the oval office on february 14th. i was standing there and without revealing any conversation that took place, what i do recall is that i did depart. i believe everyone else did depart. and director comey was sitting in front of the president s desk and they were talking. so that s what i do remember. i believe it was the next day that he said something, expressed concern about being left alone with the president. but that in itself is not problematic. he did not tell me at that time any details about anything that
i can tell you that for absolute certainty. this is a secret innuendo being leaked out there about me and i don t appreciate it. reporter: now sessions did not respond to a number of questions that democrats had particularly about his interactions with president trump, what he discussed with president trump with regard to the firing of james comey, whether or not the russian investigation was discussed in anyway. question after question jeff sessions would not answer and he would not say if there was executive privilege that was claimed by the white house instead saying there was some sort of department of justice policy that prohibited him from discussing this matter with the committee. democrats will point to that provision within the department of justice guidelines. jeff sessions struggled to do that and would not commit to answering questions behind closed doors, so after the hearing democrats very frustrated they did not get their answers to some key questions. republicans tryi
tuesday. paper says the president was pleased by the ambiguity of his position on mr. mueller and thinks the possibility of being fired will actually focus the veteran prosecutor on delivering what the president desires most a blanket public exoneration. the man who directly controls mueller s fate, deputy rod rosenstein told a senate committee yesterday that as long as he holds his job, mueller won t be fired without good cause. the republican effort to repeal and replace obamacare may have hit another road block this one placed there by the president himself. at a lunch meeting with the republican senators the president called the health care bill passed by the house quote too mean and said the solution may be to quote add more money. the problem with that suggestion is that doing so would likely lose crucial conservative votes for the measure. that s right. too mean, the house bill that the president called a white house rose garden press conference to celebrate.
after the cameras left he reiterated that point over and over again, specifically referring to the house bill as quote mean, saying it didn t go nearly far enough to be generous to people. one source telling me the president made very clear what the house did wasn t sufficient and the senate needed to head in a different direction. at this point there s still no clear pathway forward. mitch mcconnell has made clear he wants a vote on this bill before the fourth of july recess. that will give them exactly 13 days to try and figure this out. i m told by multiple people they aren t there yet. no question they are working towards it. the bigger question might be what the president said in that closed door meeting, did he hind terrify entire process entirely? phil thank you. close call for former rnc chairman gillespie in his bid to become the next governor of virginia. he nearly defeated corey stewart in the state s republican primary last night. stewart made preserving