Current and former senior white house officials. It has now been confirmed by two other News Organizations and we have all of the breaking news for you but i want to get to maggie haverman and cnn as well. Thank you so much for joining us. This is bombshell breaking news. A huge scoop along with your colleague Michael Schmit talked about your reporting and what youre learning. We have four people who are familiar with what happened who told us that the president had ordered the firing of Robert Mueller to special counsel back in june of 2017 and don mcgann threatened to resign. The president ultimately backed off because of that. The president also planned to cite what he thought conflicts of interest. One was a dispute involving fees at the golf club that the president owns that mueller had belonged to at one point, which is creative and had never heard that one before. Second one was that he had been at the law firm which employed one of Jared Kushners lawyers and the third was that mueller had come in the interview as the interim director for special counsels role shortly before he was appointed to the special counsel role. None of those as far as anything i talked to would stand up as actual conflicts of interest. The latter two were pushed by white house advisers at the time. But they were not pushed in the context of mueller will be fired but were pushed in the context of the Information Campaign or a singing up muellers representation to sully his credibility. Its worth recalling that chris reddy speaks of him periodically, had said on tv in m midjune of 2017 that he had been told that the president was seriously considering firing Robert Mueller. The white house pushed back aggressively on that and now clear it was more than it was more than he was thinking of firing him. He wanted it done and there was an episode his reasoning, do you have more about his reasoning that there was a dispute about a membership or golf Club Membership . Any more to his reasoning . It doesnt sound very sound . It certainly does not sound legally sound but those were the three reasons cited. This order came in june and you mentioned chris rudddy was on television and talking about it and that was seven months ago. Are you surprised this stayed under wraps for so long, maggie . I am a little surprised at how effective people in the white house were at lying to us about what was actually going on at the time. And it was untrue to say he was not thinking of firing mueller, they all insisted ruddy was wrong. Ruddy was clearly right and there was even more there. It does make you wonder what else is happening. Yeah. You also report excuse me, you also report that not only did trump want to fire mueller but they also considered fired rod roseenstein. Can you talk more about that . Mike schmit, my colleague with whom we broke the story, had reported a couple of weeks ago or actually may have been days ago and feels like weeks ago, the fact that the president had been concerned about essentially the recusal of sessions and some level of oversight of the probe on the russia issue. The rosenstein firing and rosenstein president had not trusted for quite some time, and again hes in the campaign the president kept saying to people that rosenstein comes from baltimore, which is not true. And the idea that hes trying to suggest hes a democrat. But rosenstein has been in the president s crawl for some time and the idea if you get rid of rosenstein, then you would have someone else become the Deputy Attorney general in this case the number three, rachel brant and she would be a better overseer of the special counsel. Yeah. Maggie haberman, we appreciate you joining us on cnn. Thank you. This is breaking news tonight. Hugely significant. President trump ordered Robert Mueller, the special counsel heading up the russia investigation fired this past june and the only thing that stopped him when don mcgann threatened to quit rather than follow out the order. Lets bring in senior political analyst mark preston and Carl Bernstein and Caitlin Collins and john dean, who was of course white House Counsel, nixons white House Counsel and laura coates joins us as well. Mark, i want to get to you first. Let me read this from maggies reporting it says the west wing confrontation marks first time mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the special counsel. He learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interview current and former senior white house officials in his inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice. Whats your reaction to this breaking story . Unfortunately im not surprised by it at all and i dont think anybody at all watching should be surprised at all. He has been adamant about his opposition to this investigation, which leads you to wonder, why he has been so fervently against it. At the same time theres a track record. He fired james comey, because he wasnt considered loyal enough to him. He wanted Jeff Sessions to leave, his job as attorney general because he wouldnt recuse himself from overseeing the mueller investigation. Jeff sessions offered his resignation and it wasnt accepted. This is another very big red flag that i think those people out there watching who think this is going down rabbit holes and this is a partisan attack or a criticism of donald trump, they need to stop and start looking at the evidence right now. Of course, if youre only paying attention to conservative media, you might believe you may not even get the news on conservative media. I have to ask, the president didnt ultimately go through with it, okay . Can this be used as evidence against trump for obstruction. Yes, because its a crime of endeavoring. You can endeavor to actually obstruct justice and that can be enough to move that needle towards obstruction. Even if you did not accomplish that crime. And all of the things youre talking about, marks discussion about a pattern, these are all patterns of consciousness of guilt and context youll clues telling you you can inform what his intent to be and in one case, if his own statement to lester holt are to be believed. He actually accomplished one form by trying to fire and actually firing james comey because of his handling and continuation of a Russian Investigation that circled around him and his inner circle. John dean, i want you to hear the reporting. What do you make of all of this . Im sure this is reminiscent of when you served as special counsel. In a way it is. Laura is right in saying under the statutory law, this is clearly an endeavor. What we have is another set of laws called a law of impeachment, whatever that is what the majority of the house of representatives says it is and whether they decide it is an Impeachable Offense is a majority vote. But they often draw from statutes and make those the relevant standard but i think were just piecing another piece in this big puzzle as to what is intent and hes making clear his intent was to on obstruct. If this had taken place, would this be on par with the saturday night massacre under nixon . Absolutely. I think don mcgann threatened to resign because he had no choice. He realized he was engaging in possibly joining a criminal conspiracy to remove or to obstruct justice. And thats what a lawyer has to do in a situation like that, either threaten to resign or quietly resign in some jurisdictions, they have to make a noisy withdrawal when they do that. You were shaking your head in agreement, this is another piece in the puzzle, big piece. It is because we see the pattern above all things, donald trump through his first year in office has done Everything Possible to undermine, obstruct and demean and halt this legitimate investigation into his conduct, the conduct of his campaign, the conduct of people in his family, doesnt mean they are guilty, he doesnt want this investigation to go forward at all costs, he now has engaged the Republican Party, which is staking its future to some extent in trying to undernine the investigation. What weve seen in the last few weeks from republicans trying to demean muellers investigation is quite extraordinary. This has to speak to deeper concerns the president might have to this investigation, carl and where it could lead, no . Of course. I cant be in Donald Trumps head, thats a dangerous place to be but i think its obvious and he talked to other he hates where this investigation is going. He would he tells his friends oh, theres nothing there. That this is a witch hunt, want to get into my finances, but this is about his conduct. About his conduct in the campaign, about his conduct in the transition, about his conduct in possible obstruction as president of the United States. It is deadly serious and the people around him understand he is in legal danger. He may or may not understand he is in legal danger but thats what were dealing with here. Theres an extraordinary second element of that and that is what we are seeing once again with the white House Counsel restraining the president of the United States from following his instincts. What is going on in the white house now is trying to contain a president s a president whose basic instincts are out of control very often and to do things that are neither reputable, often not legal, and certainly not in keeping with the president ial oath to defend the office in a responsible way. With the tradition of president s who came before him. Whats the white house saying if anything tonight . The only statement they put out from ty cobb saying they respectfully decline to comment out of respect for the special counsels investigation and process. A very interesting comment in light of Anthony Scaramucci saying that its irrelevant because it didnt happen. Which is not how this works. If you look whats happened over the last 36 hours, the white house put out this information to reporters saying 20 people from the white house have spoken with Robert Mueller. Weve given them all of these documents and fully cooperated and putting on this front they are fully cooperating with the special counsels office. As maggie just pointed out, the white house has spent the last seven months lying to not only reporters but the American People because they have said that the president did not consider firing him. He did not threaten to fire him. It was not on his mind at all from sean spicer to Sarah Sanders to kellyanne conway, they have lied to the American People saying the president was not considering firing the special counsel when in fact he was. Thank you very much. Carl burnstein, john dean, stay with me. When we come back, much more on the breaking news. President trump tried to fire special counsel Robert Mueller last june and only threat by his own white House Counsel to quit stopped him. Did the president learn nothing over the firestorm over firing james comey. Can i help you . Its me. Jamie. Im not good with names. Celeste i trained you. We share a locker. Moose man yo. He gets two name your price tools. He gets two . I literally coined the phrase, we give you Coverage Options based on your budget. Thats me. Jamie yeah. Youre back from italy. [ both smooch ] ciao bella. [ both smooch ] with best inclass towing 2018 ford f150. 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Our breaking news, President Trump called for special counsel Robert Mueller to be fired in june but backed down when don mcgann threatened to resign rather than carry out that directive. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us here and continuing to join us here on the program. John, there have been multiple times since june that the president has denied that he considered firing mueller. Watch this. Mr. President , you thought about considered leading to the dismissal of special counsel. Anything bob mueller could do that would send you in that direction. I havent given it any thought. Ive been reading about it, youre saying im going to dismiss them. Im not dismissing anybody. I want the senate and the house to come out with their findings. Another question, you discussed special counsel the investigation, are you considering firing Robert Mueller . No, not at all. No, im not. So john his staff and attorneys also denied it, at least five other times and we know now thats not true. It is not true. And this all will be used or could be used against him at some point and could come up when hes questioned by mueller how could he make a statement that is 180 degrees from the truth when he clearly has evidence that the exact opposite happened. His staff had kplis it as well. Whether this is sufficient to join a conspiracy to obstruct is not clear but its certainly a willingness to play along. We need more evidence to see if they actually agreed to conspire. But this is serious stuff, don. And its a remarkable breaking story because it does show and complete the pattern that weve been seeing. Carl, ive got to ask you and i ask in the tease before the break, did he learn nothing . Did he learn nothing from the blowback from firing james comey . Has he learned anything over past year . Actually, hes been very successful in his own terms, which is to say, he acts as if nothing sticks to him. And in fact, very little has. And he if you talk to the people around him, they will tell you, this is his operating presumption. That if he can get his base riled up about a witch hunt, that is more important than the lying we just saw, more important than firing mueller or giving pardons. He believes on some level, im told, he can get away with just about anything and in fact he has in many regards. And this goes and now he has for the last two weeks the republicans on capitol hill tethered to him, tooting a line that is so much in his defense at a moment when they ought to be saying the president of the United States is not above the law. This investigation must go forward. We must find out what happened here and instead, mcconnell, ryan have done nothing to say to their members, let our position be we want this investigation to be completed. We support it. Lets find out what happened and then we can move on. Cnn confirmed that President Trump ordered special counsel mueller be fired and it wasnt followed through. Maybe they never worked for before or held positions in washington, that very little remains secret in the white house . You know that. Thats very true. While it can stayinevitably the, particularly, that he was going to have great trouble with leaks. It has born out. One of my earliest tweets about the presidency, how porous it was going to be watching the campaign. And so hes got to assume everything he does is basically going to be report d at some stage. He ought to be acting in a way that he does will not be any problem to be reported. One thing i can say for him, he speaks his mind, which if he was doing this behind closed doors, as nixon did and then it came out, it would be even more devastating. Its pretty devastating coming out the way it is but at least its not behind closed doors. Does trump now have to admit to mueller that he tried to fire him when he interviews in a face to face . Well, hes likely to be caught in a lie if he doesnt. Mcgann obviously got the instruction, understood it, realized the implications of that, criminal implications of it. Thats perjury right, if he lies . Well, it depends on whether hes under oath. He said hed like to be under oath. Its more likely hell be interviewed with mueller with other aides and fbi agents present as well. And there his threat is under 18 usc 1001 which is the false statement statute. You cannot make false statements to federal officials particularly in an an investigative setting like this. So yes, he has to tell the truth. Carl, i want to read more from the times. This is the president s argument for why mueller should go. First he claimed that a dispute years ago over fees