welcome back to the 11th hour. just the point jeremy was making. speaker paul ryan this morning speaking during james comey s testimony suggesting the president still learning the balance between his office, d.o.j., fbi, and the like. meanwhile, the reaction from the white house in response to questions about james comey s testimony today, quote, i can definitely say the president is not a liar. that was from sarah huckabee sanders. during an offcamera briefing. more on that later. she was also pressed on whether or not the has recordings, if there are any recording devices in the white house. quote, i have no idea, she said. when asked to look into the question, shshot back, sure i ll try to look under the couches. we are back with kristen welker, julie pace, peter baker, jeremy bash. jeremy, is this a real question? it s not a real question. i don t think the aides in the white house actually know whether there are recordings.
him to drop the russia investigation broadly. and then that point that you raise brian, the fact that comey acknowledged leaking out his own memo, that s something that i think the president and his surrogates are really going to be focused often in the coming days and weeks. in terms of how the president processed this entire hearing today, i am told that he was in and out of a dining room in the white house. he was watching it with his legal counsel, watching with some of his top aides but they really tried to keep him preoccupied today, brian. they scheduled a big speech, his advisors did, he started off the day meeting in the oval office with some of his top officials. and he didn t tweet. this was a whole new level of message discipline. the question is, is he going to be able to keep this going? what happens on sunday when he wakes up to all of the sunday shows? will he startweeting then? he left his messaging to his outside counsel, marc kasowitz today, and it was really a
comma, comey says . a lot of side bar coverage on the front page and of course the highlighted quotes. richard painter, same question to you. it s interesting. every day on social media, most days, you have dwelled on business and ethics. but there s also everything that was discussed today. so including all of it, how close do you think mueller or any investigation is to charges as the democrats want that will stick? well, with respect to obstruction of justice, we certainly heard a lot of evidence today that is very damaging to the president. still, the key factor is the answer to the question of why was jim comey fired. if he was fired in order to hinder or stop the russia
but the house and senate judiciary committees need to start investigating the obstruction of justice and abuse of power. i ve been a republican for 30 years. i am shocked to see what has happened here and to see members of my own party defend it. we need to have an investigation. once again, house and senate judiciary committee with respect to abuse of power and obstruction of justice. this is a very, very serious situation. our thanks to our law firm, steve vladdic, carry cordero, richard painter. thank you all. we appreciate your time after a long day. coming up a question of credibility. we ll difficult into who is telling the truth about the trump/comey conversations when the 11th hour continues.
from the very first day in office, first full day in office, president trump was sending his advisors out to skirt the truth about the size of the inauguration crowd. and you see this in poll numbers. when you ask americans about the president s whether they think he is honest and trustworthy, he s at a pretty low number there. comey again lays out this challenge. and i think that the answer to that question, who do you believe, may not result in anything that is related to the investigation or any legal implications for the president, but it s certainly going to hurt him politically. and to have that kind of damage at this point in a presidency, i think would be pretty difficult to overcome. peter baker allow me to quote from piece by peter baker in tonight s new york times. headline for trump, the cloud just grew that much darker. thanks to mr. trump s own actions the cloud darkened considerably on thursday, now seems likely to hover over his presidency for months if not year