The Washington Post reports Robert Mueller is looking into the president s efforts to force sessions out last summer. And theres more. Jared kushner has heat on him. The president s soninlaw is now facing a damning report in the New York Times that says he secured hundreds of millions of dollars in loans for his Family Business after taking meetings with financial executives at the white house. The key here is the timing. Now, moments ago we spoke about all of this, all this west wing chaos, whether its real, with former White House Communications director Anthony Scaramucci. Listen to what he says about morale at the white house. Listen, this is a man with zero interest in saying something thats hollow in its negativity of the president. He says morale is a real problem. Its a big departure in the sense that this is one of the president s closest friends, aides, loyalists, somebody that understands the heartbeat of the president , understands his personality and also is shes incredibly good at guiding people. I will tell you this about hope washington is a rough place. We know that. Theres not a malicious bone in hopes body. Shes a wonderful person, always trying to do the right thing, cares about everybody, not interested in conflict, not interested in the ego rub. On the negative side, she says she did tell some lies for the president. She said that there was no communications between anyone from trump and russians. She underplayed the situation with that meeting and the drafting of the response thereto. The rob porter thing was a debacle of ep peck proportions. Lets unpack each of those things. Lets start with the white lies. I would submit to your viewers, anybody in america, tell me the person that hasnt told me a white lie, ill identify that person as the biggest liar in the room. Here is what happened in washington that i cant stand. Shes in a closed door session, its under oath, you know how important that is. The integrity of every sentence, every syllable. They asked her if she told any white lies. She said yes probably. I wasnt there. Then they pick up the phone and drop a dime on her. Its totally unfair. Its a closed session and in strict confidence. So now theyre trying to colorize this woman who is an extremely gifted professional as a liar. I submit back to everybody else, hold a mirror to your face and tell me you havent told a white lie. You think she was one of the good ones. High integrity, great person. What about the Robert Porter situation. I hold the white house chief of staff accountable for that. Kelly you hold accountable . He had the information related to porter. I dont understand why he would allow hope to date porter. How can he deep her from dating my point is he had the information, he tried to cover up the information, tried to get other people inside the white house to cover up the information for him. You believe kelly covered up the information about i do. Thats not what the white house says. The white house says as soon as he found out, he acted on it. I dont believe that. Is that another white lie . Youve got to ask him. Have him sit in the white chair and see if its a white lie or not. The rob porter situation for me, i liked rob. Ive been asked even by the president did i see any of that indication of rob. I didnt. But there was an fbi dossier on rob, and people knew about it. How does kelly survive then . Why didnt he get the berated that hope hicks got . This is how it works. Its going to be up for the president to decide that. I guess hes an honorable marine, so hes got to look at himself in the mirror and say what he knew and when he knew it. Ill tell you what i dont like about it. I talked smack about two guys we were trying to get rid of. He fires me in five seconds. These guys are smacking up their wives and hes trying to find a way to keep them in the white house. Is it a personal grievance motivating you. It isnt. Its a cultural grievance because ive sat in this white chair with you over the six months after he fired me and said nothing but good things about him. I have no problem with him firing me. Everybody has an opportunity and right to change their staff, particularly when theyre the chief of staff. This is a cultural thing. The morale inside the white house, youre a great reporter, you have great reporters on staff. The morale is terrible. The reason the morale is terrible, the rule of intimidation doesnt work in a civilian environment. Here we are. Its messed up. It will be up to the president to decide if he wants to fix it or not. The question is whether or not the president is contributing to the turmoil. I predict more departures. You believe we should be open to more people leaving the administration . If the Current Situation and the current culture inside the administration stays exactly the way it is, theres literally no change, there will be a lot more departures. Morale is at an alltime low and its trending lower. All right. Lets bring in cnn politics reporter and editor at large Chris Cillizza and cnn political analyst joshua green. Its good to have you both. We know Anthony Scaramucci well. So do you. He is completely not inclined to say anything negative about the president. Thats not where wes coming from. Hes not a critic. For him to say that morale is bad and getting worse, that it is destabilizing and putting meat on the bones of this ides of march notion that youll see more people leave the white house, ha is remarkable. Agreed, because he has his enemies, steve bannon, reince priebus, john kelly it sounds like. But donald trump is not one of them. Scaramucci knows where his bread is buttered at the end of the day. Criticizing donald trump is not something he does. I do think his comments are worth noting for that reason because there is a sense people say hope hicks staffer. This is a sense that this is one of the only originals left who were with him in june 2015, and someone who is not family, who he trusts and who has showed total loyalty to him. The less of those people, the more likely you get the trump isolated trump, angry trump tweeting, even more and more nasty. The more unpredictable he is, the more dangerous he is to the republican party, its prospects in 2018 and to himself politically speaking. Whats your reporting say about what the morale is inside the white house . In speaking to people inside the white house last night, that is exactly how trump was, angry, upset, furious. People ive talked to said theyve never seen things this bad. Its stunning from the standpoint of we were accustomed to this six months ago, eight months ago, a year ago. John kelly was brought in to assert order and hierarchy and to tamp this stuff down. Everybody i talked to last night said things are absolutely out of control. By the way, add to the fact that Jared Kushner is i dont know want to say its an untenable position, but his job overseeing the middle east peace process, liaising with china and mexico, im not sure you can do that job as currently constituted with the downgraded security clearance he now has. If Jared Kushner goes, hes never going to leave the trump orbit because hes married to Donald Trumps daughter, but if he goes, if that pulls ivanka away in in the nearer term, now you dont even have those family connections because don trump and eric are handling the business and not involved in the political emd of Donald Trumps life. Now you have dan scavino who is an original. Thats not going to be enough for someone who has always depended on that small group, mostly family. Why do you say that Jared Kushner would go . Doesnt it make more sense that john kelly would go . Thats up to the president. I think its a sign that theres a real effort out there this has been on going for weeks now, since the rob porter scandal, among a certain faction of trump loyalists to try to make that happen. At times we know that donald trump has lost favor with we do. On the other hand, he said publicly, trump did, its up to kelly who he wants to downgrade when it comes to security clearances and gave him tacit permission to downgrade Jared Kushner. This is bad for me, let me give it to somebody else. Then ill come in and weigh in when it suits me. Do what i want. On one level, i can get the frustration in hearing this. Its like a soap opera. Every time we have an episode, we need to end with one of those people with the frozen faces on the soap opera. Its called as the stomach turns. Thats good. On the other side, why do we care . This is going to have a direct effect on what gets done for the american people. Or not. Its not about he doesnt like this one or he depended on that one. Its about the president of the united states, how he views institutions. We havent talked about Jeff Sessions, but how he views institutions. How he treats his top Law Enforcement official, how he views his relationship between the department and the white house. How do you know that this ides of march thing, again, its not mine, im using it because i like it. This is this notion that, well, if kelly goes, mcmaster might be well, that was my affinity. If thats the way were going, im not here either. Then hes gone. Mattis and tillerson. If Jeff Sessions keeps getting beaten up, i dont need this, im going to leave, one after another, this is a problem. This is one problem the white house is going to confront right now in figuring out who will replace hope hicks. She came in basically because they couldnt find an attractive Communications Director. Shes the fourth. Fourth or fifth . Jason miller. Essentially she was a necessity because they couldnt get somebody else to come in. She came in, did a good job. Trump obviously trusted her. But the problem is still there. People dont want to come into this white house if its trump whisperer, thats a tough job to fill. Thats an impossible job to fill. Even in the coms job, its difficult. Trump considers himself his own Communications Director. If he doesnt like the tenor of the news conference, hell lash out at that person. You have to look ahead to november, this is going to be ugly. Trump is going to lash out. Why do i want to hop on board now, six months before that bloodbath and be part of the crew thats blamed for that . Ill just hang back and let somebody else take that job. The reality is there is no replacement for hope hicks in the trump universe. Theyll hire someone to be the Communications Director. Joshs point is well taken. Its not easy because a lot of potential people dont want to go into that. Its the replacing of someone he never listens to anyone all the time, or i think most of the time. But someone who he trusted, who he believed had his best interest at heart, theres not a person you can find on the street or in the republican affirment does that. Theres a reason there was a small motleyish crew in june 2015 because everyone was laughing at donald trump. He was the punch line of a joke. Hope hicks believed in him. Corey lewandowski, its why hes still around. He believed in him. Why dan scavino is still in the white house. Do you know who else believed in him . Jeff sessions believed in him before a lot of people. We interviewed him all the time. He came out in fullthroated support of donald trump. Sometimes when they talk about how important loyalty is in the white house, it might be a oneway street. I have a whole scene in my book about how sessions became the first person to endorse donald trump, the first setting senator to endorse donald trump, went way out on a limb. Had trump lost the election, sessions was afraid hed be blackballed by his own party. Well, he stuck with trump. Trump won. He was awarded with the attorney general job. Now hes become the whipping boy for the president. It hasnt been again, it hasnt been 18 months since donald trump said, out of everyone in this country, i want Jeff Sessions to be the top cop for my administration. And now its beleaguered, i would never telling two Different National newspapers, i would never have hired fim. Disgraceful. Barack obama didnt say, hey, im going to pick Loretta Lynch is going to be your attorney general, eric holder. This is who donald trump wanted. Here is why it became relevant. To policy, just had a big meeting, bipartisan, on tv, really great. We had it with immigration. The difference is what happens next. Sessions is important to that. The people in the infrastructure around the president are important to that, keeping the president on message. Who is going to be doing those things . If sessions is injured, so when he goes to people to talk about this policy, theyre like, please, like all of a sudden youre his guy . I heard what he said about you. He calls you magoo. Im not doing this with you. In the case of Jeff Sessions, he stays not out of loyalty to trump but because he has power. Sessions was a gadfly in the senate. Didnt get a lot done. Now hes the top Law Enforcement officer in the land with enormous power and discretion over things like criminal justice reform, how immigration laws are carried out. The only reason he would stick around and take the kind of hazing hes gotten which is more brutal and humiliating than any cabinet official i think in the history of the u. S. Presidency most people would leave the first time this happened. They would resign. They would go off sessions has stayed in and is taking it again and again and again because i think he has that power. As far as people listening to him or him being seen as somebody who speaks for the president , thats not happening. Josh green, Chris Cillizza, thank you for the analysis. To this point about what all this means for policy, the president was very ambitious in this meeting yesterday. He said he supports expanded background checks. That is a nogo zone for many republicans and certainly their friends at the nra. What dus it mean for policy . Thats where the man on your screen becomes very relevant. Senator joe manchin, democrat from West Virginia. He was there. He has a proposal with the senator to his left, toomey. What does this mean for change . We have him on. We spoke with a panel of gun owners with very different thoughts on gun control. Where do they stand on arming teefrpers a teachers and so much more . Thats ahead. Woah. Plus, netflix for the whole family. On us. Prrrrrrr. So, they get their shows. Lets go, girl youre gonna love this bit and you get yours. Watch however you want. On your phone, tablet, or tv. For a limited time, get 4 lines for just thirtyfive bucks per line, with no extra charges. Its showtime all on americas best unlimited network, tmobile. The smoother the skin, the more comfortable you are in it. And now theres a new way to smooth. Introducing new venus platinum. A premium metal handle boosts control. To reveal up to 100 smooth skin. 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Tell your doctor about all the medicines you take and if youre pregnant or planning to be. Otezla. Show more of you. We had another big televised bipartisan meeting event with the president and lawmakers on both sides. This time it was about gun control. And the lawmakers who were working on a bill to strengthen background checks. So the president says, listen, you guys, forget about the nra. Listen. In your bill, what are you doing about the 18 to 21 . We didnt address that. Are you going leave that . You have the case right now where somebody can by a handgun at 21. It doesnt make sense that i have to wait until im 21 to get a handgun but i can get this weapon at 18. Im curious what you did in your bill. We didnt address it, President Trump. Probably because youre afraid of the nra, right . It wasnt an issue five years ago. One of those lawmakers is democratic senator joe manchin, he worked with toomey, the republican senator on this bill. He tried to get a bill like this after sandy hook and he didnt have enough votes. Senator, in terms of the state of play coming out of this meeting, there were a lot of frowns on the republican side of what the president was saying. I want to show your democrats and what their responses were. Feinstein when he was talking about these different measures, they were very excited. Ive seen feinstein kind of like that before, and it was when the president kind of agreed with her about a clean bill on daca at the last big televised media event. After yesterday, do you believe you have a clearer sense of where the president is and what you can get done . Well, ive never seen him more determined and willing to do whatever he needs to do in order to try to bring some sanity and order to this whole gun issue. In 2013 when i introduced a bill, we started drafting that bill, i had tom coburn working with me. I wanted to make sure it was bipartisan which is what i try to do every time on a piece of legislation. Tom and i were working, and tom for whatever reason left the bill, and i got pat and started talking with pat. He brought his ideas. We formed a piece of legislation that had bipartisan support. We didnt have enough of mie republican friends, but we had some. We introduced that bill. The nra, we tried to talk to them. We tried to work wit