meant by that. he really wouldn t. he said they did not amount to witness tampering. he wasn t trying to, you know, on instruct justice with them, but, of course, we asked him what he was trying to do, he says everybody has a right to free speech, in effect. we commended to everyone s attention who s watching, but do you remember any other moment that you kind of noted to yourself, well, that s new. or that s a change. well, a number of things, i think it was interesting to hear him say that rod rosenstein had told him or his lawyers, said it both ways at different points, that he was not target of the investigation. we don t exactly know what that means. that could mean simply that the prosecutor isn t going to indict him because justice department policy is you can t indict a sitting president. if that s the case, it s not that meaningful a reassurance. on the other hand, if it s meant to be they re going after people around the president but don t have any evidence the president
president, himself, was not a target. mr. trump said he never spoke with roger stone about wikileaks and the stolen democratic e-mails it posted during the 2016 election, nor did he direct anyone to do so. no, i didn t, i never did, he said, of speaking with mr. stone on the subject. did he ever direct anyone to get in touch with mr. stone about wikileaks? never did. he repeated, i ve always liked i like roger, he s a character, mr. trump said, insisting that the fbi agents charging a house like they did at 6:00 in the morning, i think that was a very sad thing for the country. earlier today, we got a new picture of the full scope of the special counsel s investigation into one roger stone and in plain english, they have a ton of potential evidence to sort through.
gag order against him, which he has said he may fight. also, tonight, a new poll giving us a snapshot of how the public views trump allies and campaign operatives. all of them caught up in mueller s dragnet. this is a new monmouth university poll. finds that 62% ofassociated with his campaign line manafort, cohen, even stone, tried to mislead government investigators are congress. same poll finds that just over half the public, 51%, say the mueller investigation should continue while 45% say it s time for it to be over. with all that, let s bring in our leadoff panel for a thursday night. clint watts, former fbi special agent and member of the joint terrorism task force. he also happens to be the author of messing with the enemy: surviving in a social media
i think they have to play it very cautiously. one of the ways you play it cautiously is by having a lot of agents, by doing a predawn, you know, court-ordered arrest. you re nodding vigorously. it s not even just about the weapons, it s also about the public hysteria around this case. roger stone has prolifically gone out, been combative both in terms of the fbi, this investigation, witch hunt. you don t know what his followers are like. don t know what his supporters are like. that s as much to protect the public, to protect the scene and be able to control that situation. you would have to bring in more people to do that. governor christie, you know, talking about, oh, standard practice with firearms, hey, how many standard practice
headquarters here in new york. it s another day of freezing temperatures across much of the u.s. and the record shattering cold weather is b being blamed for at least 12 deaths this morning. plus after launching insults, president trump now claiming he s on the same page as his intelligence officials. this ase top republicans weigh in. and in a late night tweet session, president trump goes off on the russia probe. that comes after he sat down for an intervow for t the new york time times . and he s thot a target of theer special investigation. good morning, it s friday,