e-mails. days later the president said exactly something different to lester holt. what i did is i was going fire comey. my decision. it was not you had made the decision before they came in the room. i was going to fire comey, and, in facti, wehen i decided just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story. okay. joining me now, clint watts, msnbc national security analyst and former fbi special agent. he s also the author of a new book set to be released later this month. messing with the enemy: surviving in a social media world of hackers, terrorists, russians and fake news. also back with me, elizabeth holtzman. i want to touch on the issue julia ainsley was talking about with respect to a federal wiretap on michael cohen. the bash for that is high, not like getting an injunction or stay. no, never did one on a federal level but as district attorney, i had to go get wiretaps. i had to personally read the
about the chinese policies that kept him in prison until his death. mark, president trump was asked, was also asked by reporters on air force one about his g20 meeting with putin and suggested if he challenged him more on that, twice then twice on hacking, that would have ended up in a fistfight. here s a quote. i told him, i said, look, we can t have now we have so hard to read, his quotes. we can t have now he said absolutely not twice. what do you do, end up in a fistfight with somebody, okay? a fistfight? just bravado on his part, you know, he s not gosh, who am i to say this, i m certainly hi not the most eloquent person in the world. that s not a very eloquent way to respond to a person when you re the leader of the free world wehen you re talking abou the biggest issue right now we re talking about in the united states. what i think is interesting, just to follow up on what david axelrod said about marron, this
foreseeable future. i don t know how long it s going to take to us replace this law. chris jansing just back in new york after a long day at the white house. nbc s kelly o donnell stationed on capitol hill all day and has made it as far as our nbc news washington bureau. and with us by phone, robert costa. national political reporter for the washington post who broke the story this afternoon. after speaking by telephone with the president. robert, we ll begin with you. how did it happen that you got on the phone with the president and wehen in that conversation did you realize that you would be the conduit, the vehicle, the one breaking the larger story? well, i wasn t surprised. i was sitting in an office in arlington having a meeting. i thought it was maybe a reader who was complaining about an article because sometimes readers hide their numbers when had he call me and get my cell phone number. i said what the heck, i ll pick it up. it was trump, it was the president. i said h