The decision to oust comey on rosensteins letter before conceding he had been contemplating it for weeks over the russia investigation. He made the recommendation. Regardless of the wreck m recommendation, i was going to fire him. I wish him well. Reporter comey did not actually reveal to sessions that the president pressured him to drop the flynn investigation. Thats because according to the new york times, comey didnt know who he could trust inside the Justice Department. Chris. Thank you, jessica. We will get the rest of the segment together and show it to you. Now to escalating tensions with President Trump and attorney general. A source close to Jeff Sessions said the two men had Heated Exchange was the attorney general offering to resign. This as the white house will not say if the president has confidence in one of his oldest supporters. Cnns joe johns live at the white house with more. Do you remember the heat that Jeff Sessions took coming out for trump in the campaign . Reporter it was tremendous heat at the very beginning. He was right there. On the eve, chris, of jim comeys testimony, the picture that is emerging is a president remained furious after losing control of the russia investigation. It happened when one of his most fervent supporters, attorney general, hand picked attorney general, removed himself from the process. Setting off a Chain Reaction that led to the appointment of the special prosecutor. Amid a series of Heated Exchange in recent weeks within President Trump and Jeff Sessions, sources tell cnn, the president s long time ally threatened to resign. How would you describe the confidence level . Reporter press Secretary Sean Spicer declining to answer when asked on tuesday. I have not had discussion with him about that. You said that there was development. Im answering a question which is i have not had that discussion with him. Reporter the white house still has not clarified the president s position. One official telling cnn they wanted to avoid giving a definitive answer. The president frequently contradicted his aides in the past. A Justice Department spokeswoman telling cnn sessions is not stepping down. I have recused myself in the matters that deal with the trump campaign. Reporter tensions between the two men have been brewing since sessions announced he would step aside from any russia investigation in march. After failing to disclose two meetings with the russian ambassador. I did not have communications with the russians. Reporter trump was furious with the recuse al believing it triggered a chain of events leading to the appointment of Robert Mueller last month. The anger on display this week when he slammed the Justice Department for watering down his original travel ban. Something the president had to approve. Sources say trump would not accept a resignation from Jeff Sessions. There could be difficulties finding replacement and backlash. In the shortterm, if sessions were to leave, he would be replaced by the Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein who by the way is a person who appointed the special counsel. Chris and alvarengisyn. Thank you, joe. We have a lot to discuss. Lets bring in the panel. We have analyst Maggie Haberman and jon avlon and chris cillizza. Dan coats is going to testify in front of the committee. The Washington Post reports that he, too, was asked by the president to intervene somehow in the Michael Flynn investigation. He was asked to have then director comey back off. What if he says this in his public hearing . This reporting does corroborate comey. It take the hesaidhe said to him. Dan coats has credibility as does james comey. The problem the white house has, they just dont have a credibility gap, but it is looking like the grand canyon. If coats corroborates comey, that a problem for the white house. Maggie, coats comes in in prelude to comey tomorrow. How do you see this as political fallout over legal fallout . Im less clear how coats will handle it under the guise of sur fa surveillance hearings. I think comey will not talk about russia specifically. Things that may overlap with the special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into. I think comey as i understand it and we have to wait and see, but if the reports are correct, he will say, number one, that he did not tell the president three times the president was not under investigation. Im curious to hear what he says about that. The president has hung his hat on that repeatedly. He will say he felt some level of discomfort with the president as related to whether to continue this investigation. I think that is completely consistent. I think jons point is right. When you have someone like dan coats who has credibility with the group of people and honest broker. The white house is big on saying fake news. This is not telling the truth. These are democrats. Et scetera, et cetera. Everybody is not part of conspiracy. Chris, so people can follow along, lets put on the screen what we cobbled together with comey and what he is expected to say and not say. As maggie said, he will dispute President Trumps interpretation he was not the target of any investigation three times. There are nuances to that conversation that comey can expound on. He will not conclude whether trump obstructed justice. He will be a fact witness as we called it. Not drawing conclusions. He wont be constrained in discussing trumgz. Unknown if he will read from his memos or hand them over. Can you imagine, chris cillizza, a dramatic reading . Normally i would say that is the tough of ficti on. Look, i think the most important thing is that the memos we know they exist and comey has them and they are contemporaneous accounts and Robert Mueller will see them. The public hearing is in some ways theater. The most important thing to Donald Trumps presidency is that special counsel. That Mueller Investigation. Comey obviously plays a large role in that. Those memos are difficult and you add coats. A guy in the senate two times. A guy whom donald trump picked. This is not schumer. This is not haters. I think it is problematic. Look. Just at the most basic level, if jim comey says tomorrow i never told the president he was under investigation. We have three options. Donald trump lied. Donald trump badly misunderstood something or james comey is lying. Two of the three are not very good for trump. The third is while a group of people who support donald trump who believe that, seems a little bit implausible. A lot of this will be a function of spin coming out of this hearing tomorrow, there is a fourth option. Heres what it is, jon. Yeah, it is what we think is going to happen, but it is not a Strong Enough declaration of wrongdoing to really change the equation for the main investigation. That is did i tell him he wasnt under investigation . No. It was more nuanced than that as jake tapper are reporting that sources are indicating. He may have taken that, but that is not how i intended it. Thats not enough to really run down the president on any level. The other one where it can happen. He told you to back off. Made you uncomfortable. So uncomfortable, i put it in a memo. So much i asked not to be left alone. The democrat says i have no more questions. The republican gets up, you were uncomfortable . You told no one . You wrote it in your diary . You never did anything . Did you mention it . And when we asked if you anybody impeded . Did you feel under pressure. Where does it leave you . First of all, a tony for onair performance. I was thinking about that a lot. That was a very strong oneact play. That was excellent. Did you ordinaer the code re . D damn i did. Obviously there is spin on both sides. Tomorrow transcendins theater. Comey is aware of what he can say that wont go into compromising an investigation. Because it will be live in public, that becomes an indelible marker the public can hang their hat on. The spin aside you will have his statements and more accumulation of evidence. Whether or not he offers a smoking gun or constrained in a way that could jump the guardrails on this. The white house ability to start to spin as they reflectixively. You have to think this is a conspiracy and conspiracy of truth. Maggie, tomorrows hearing is appointment viewing and today. We all said. What chris just did was appointment viewing. Dont leave that out. Indeed. Award winning. Thats what i do at 6 10 a. M. I appreciate it. It is hard to recreate that. Feel free to take a page from that. Tomorrow is comey. Today, Rod Rosenstein. Dan coats. Top intel chiefs. What are you watching . In terms of coats, i watch for exactly what he says. He will face pressure about what happened and feelings were about the president and what transpir transpired. You will see something similar with Rod Rosenstein. We have a purpose of the hearing. It will probably go in a bit of an offramp in the current events. In terms of rosenstein. It is complicated. Rosenstein will get pressed further about previous answers he has given about the firing of james comey. He will get pushed about Jeff Sessions and what he is aware of in terms of turmoil at the department and sense of frustration that Jeff Sessions has had that we reported on with the president. You know, that all leads to tomorrow. John is right. What we have had to this point is a president who, if we are being clear here, this president has a history of saying something is not true when it is. He said all of this is not true. We have had sourced accounts in news reports of what comey has supposedly said. There will be a lot of power in his words. I dont know it will impact the investigation. I dont know it will substantially impact the investigation. Right now, what is playing out is a credibility issue nationally. I think it will have impact. Something that will be under the radar today and interesting in a fisa hearing. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act. You will hear discussion today where the wiretapping claim is coming up on the democrats side and you hear the top intel chiefs to say how high the bar is to get the warrant. Cillizza, does the game change after tomorrow . So i think the answer is yes at one level. Which is i do think james comey i take your points, chris, we may not get the smoking gun. We may not get it was mr. Blue in the green room or whatever. With the candlecandlestick. Right. Maggie and john make the point. There is an issue with the american publics mind. I know when maggie sourced something. The average person is skeptical. You have james comey saying i was in a meeting with donald trump. Yes, it made yes uncomfortable. No, i did not tell him he was under investigation. Why did donald trump think that . I dont know. I think that maertstters. Also, remember, what you are seeing play out publicly is the tip of the iceberg here. It matters, but only in terms of public opinion. The Mueller Investigation and less so, but still true, the senate and house investigations. Thats where the rubber meets the road in a meaningful way for the trump presidency. That im not sure how much is impacted. Tomorrow, my guess is mueller knows everything comey will say. Panel, thank you very much for previewing all this with us. All maggie has to do is give me the look and i know shes right. There it is. I know that look. Thats all you need. We have to change the rundown. Maggie gave me the look. 6 15. That is the look. You all look great. Thank you for being with us. Tomorrows testimony any way you look at it is mustsee tv. New day is getting in 5 00 a. M. Eastern. We start with the best reporters in the business. The special coverage will begin at 9 00. An hour before comey breaks his silence. 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Heated exchange reported between President Trump and Jeff Sessions. Does the president still have confidence in his attorney general . That would seem to be an easy question to answer, but not so much for the white house. Well discuss. Im ryan and i quit smoking with chantix. I tried to quit cold turkey. I tried to quit with the patch; that didnt work. Along with support, Chantix Varenicline is proven to help people quit smoking. For me, chantix worked. It reduced my urge to smoke. Compared to the nicotine patch, chantix helped significantly more people quit smoking. When you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Some people had changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, agitation, depressed mood or suicidal thoughts or actions with chantix. Serious side effects may include seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking or allergic and skin reactions which can be lifethreatening. 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I havent had that conversation yet. Lets bring back the panel. Magg Maggie Haberman and john avlon and chris cillizza. That is the common phrase. Havent talked to him about it. It is highly indicative of a message from the white house. That is . It is two messages. We have to assume a claim no knowledge of conversation is now what passes for an answer from the Briefing Room podium which is a different point. Be peter baker and i reported monday night that the president has grown frustrated with Jeff Sessions. Complaining about him privately. It dates back one to the travel ban that wasnt a ban and now is a ban again. It has been blocked in the courts. The president despite the fact it was an executive order he signed and blaming the department of justice in terms of how this is played out and defense of it. This goes back to when Jeff Sessions recused himself from russiarelated probes. Coming on the heels of a report in the Washington Post that sessions had not revealed during the conversation hearing to become attorney general he had at least one meeting and might have been multiple with the ambassador from russia. Sessions did what any legal expert including attorney chris cuomo in the previous block, i suspect would say is wise. Recuse yourself. You may become a witness. The president felt blind sided. He learned about it from a reporter at an event. He hates feeling he is not in control as we know. It has led to this series of chain reactive self destructive behavior starting with the wiretap tweet and moving on to what we have seen since. John, why would the president say this about sessions . This hyperactive Court Intrigue is not remotely normal. Here we are months into an administration. It is stunning to hear the press secretary basically no comment whether the president has confidence in the attorney general. Especially the earliest and strongest supporter. That is having your legs cut out from under you. Whatever context he is upset by. Recusing yourself may not give President Trump comfort, but it was designed to give the American People comfort. This is all snowballing in realtime. You see the president s petulant tweets. If his allies are nervous. That speaks volumes in the white house. Chris cillizza, do you see tensions different than typical President Trump being at odds with dot, dot, dot. Not really. It is all born o