Thought its contents were too problematic. This memo is said to have preceded the justification drafted by Deputy Attorney general rosenstein that donald trump cited in the letter dismissing comey. The white house used that justification immediately after comeys dismissal to explain the president s action. But trump cast a cloud over what his motives were when he made these remarks to lester holt back in may. Regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey. Knowing there was no good time to do it. And in fact, when i decided to just do it i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story, its an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election. The Washington Post also reporting today that trump has been feeling uneasy at the white house lately. Lashing out at allies and cabinet members. Trump reportedly at odds with his chief economic adviser gary cohn as tax reform faces a tough congressional battle. Tensions between him and secretary of state Rex Tillerson are reaching a critical point as our relationship with north korea demands delicacy. The post reported that trump feels confined because of a new chain of command put in place by kelly. They dub him the church lady amongst themselves. Isnt that special . Joinings now to discuss this hour, hans nichols. Michael schmidt for the New York Times who coauthored that new york piece about comeys firing. The cowriter of the piece on the discontinue content, my friend, Ashley Parker and then sarah west wood. With me on set here associated White House Associated press White House Reporter jonathan lemire. The White House Briefing just ended, Sarah Huckabee sanders was asked numerous times about dreamers and when that decision from the white house would come down. She said tuesday. But she was asked what the president defines as having heart when it comes to how hes going to treat those dreamers that are in this country but she couldnt quite define that. Yeah. I mean, Sarah Huckabee sanders is having a difficult time explaining what the president s decision is before the president has made it because clearly the president is playing for time. This is a president that in the last three hours first said maybe this decision would come as soon as today, maybe over the weekend, then another photo spray with reporters at that point it was shifted back to monday. Then we just heard from Sarah Huckabee sanders saying its going to be tuesday. Listen to how she said and the way she put it in terms of what the president s guideposts on this would be. The president s priorities on immigration are to create a system that encourages Legal Immigration and benefits are our economy and american workers. The president s been very clear, he loves people and he wants to make sure that this decision is done correctly and so thats what hes doing now is finalizing that part. For a president for a president thats picked a lot of fights with his party it looks like in this case his party is picking a fight with him. Hes got the state attorneys generals theyre demanding he take action by september 25th and there are others who say that congress should take legislative action. So hes being his party is divided. Hes feeling the brunt of that. Hes playing for more time and now it looks like we may get this decision on tuesday. Hans nichols, thank you. Michael schmidt, you cowrote that piece about mueller getting the preliminary draft on President Trump firing james comey. It provides the clearest picture yet of what the president was thinking at the time. What can you tell us about it . Well, this was a letter that the president wrote with his aide Stephen Miller in the weekend before the comey firing. And when trump comes back to washington on monday, he had been at bedminster at his golf course. He tells his staff, look, i decided to fire comey and he hands this out and the white House Counsel is taken aback by the letter. What the counsel did was he found a way to substitute trumps rationale for firing comey with the just with one from the Justice Department from the Department Attorney general rosenstein who said that comey should be fired for his handling of the clinton email investigation. So the Washington Post has matched this. The a. P. Has matched it as well, you have matched it. Miller helped to draft this initial letter. Hes not exactly known for his soft touch. What more do we know about why the white House Counsel mcgann may have had issue with the contents of that letter . Youre right about Stephen Miller. Hes a fire brand aide, one of the architects behind the travel ban and some of to strict immigration proposals. The president had been stewing for days if not weeks about fbi director comey in particular that he would not say publicly what the president said he had been telling him privately. That the president himself was not under investigation in terms of the russian interference in last years election. He that was the thesis of the behind the letter, like the times we have not seen it ourselves but we know not just mcgann but others said this could be a problem. We dont want to go down this road. Lets substitute a different rationale for dismissing comey which is a decision that trump had already reached. How much of this letter is thought to have to do with russia, michael . Well, thats the thing. I mean, we know that at least one part of the letter holds up. Thats the letter thats a part thats actually in the final letter that trump sends to comey where he says thank you for telling me on three occasions that im not under investigation. That was really at the heart of what the president s frustrations were with comey. It was that he was angry and upset that comey was telling him privately youre not under investigation. And then trump as comey laid out in his testimony to congress came to him several times he called him and he said, look, when are we getting out word im not under investigation . And comey clearly didnt want to do that. He sort of punted it to the Justice Department. He kind of ignored trump. And ultimately its what trump its the reason that trump told folks at the white house why he really wanted to get rid of him. Now, if you know that, thats different than what the white house said when they fired comey. When the white house fired comey they said it was because of the way he handled the email investigation and they attached the rosenstein memo to the letter that they sent to sticking with the memo and this draft letter for one more beat. The wall street journal had a report on how the lawyers were in touch with Robert Mueller and they were laying out the reasons why an obstruction case wouldnt hold up, he can hire and fire and and comey is not a reliable witness. How does that complicate that argument at defense . Right, its a different track now. Lets not forget that he was frustrated for comey for not backing off the investigation into michael flynn, his First National security adviser. But the president has been frustrated that any time the russia subject comes up, the president it is a flash point with him. He lashes out. He wanted to react. He feels like if the whole probe into their interference last year sort of delegitimizes his election. He didnt win it fairly and squarely. Thats right. Thats something that dogs him day after day. Just like his defeat of the popular vote does. Ashley, you have a great piece out today about whats going on in the president s mind, how he feels a little boxed in by some of his advisers. Has the russia investigation dropped from his mind or still bothering him . The i think the russia investigation is never far from his mind. I mean, i think it sort of ebbs and flows in terms of news reports and as details drip out as to where the probe is. But this is something that other people mentioned earlier that is a tremendous flash point for him, a tremendous point of frustration and often when it comes up, we see him sending out tweets about it. Getting angry in private, lashing out publicly. So i think it occupies some mind space for this president. Hes also fighting with some of his advisers or it seems that hes feeling chafed by some of his advisers. Theres reports in your in your article right there that john kelly, the new rules that hes put in place, ashley, are making the president feel a little uncomfortable. That he misses the freewheeling days when folks could come in and out and gossip and chat with him. In response to that it seems that the president tweeted this morning, general john kelly is doing a great job as chief of staff. I could not be happier or more impressed. The frustration with kelly, what is the deal there . Because it seems like were widely wildly vacillating between the president s praising him on twitter and the truth of behind the scenes. Sure. I think what were hearing behind the scenes and what the president tweeted out today arent in conflict. The president does like general kelly. He respects him. He thinks hes a good chief of staff. A number of people in the west wing think that. This is not something against general kelly personally. Which is a problem the president has with other members of his team right now. But this is just hes chafing against sort of the discipline and the rules kind of, you know, liking a parent but not always liking what that parent makes you do. Thats how i describe the situation with general kelly. He is definitely more furious if were doing a president s fury against gary cohn for his response to charlottesville and feuding with the secretary of state actually on policy matters. They have a different world view on a number of issues. Secretary of state saying that the president speaks for himself on a sunday show this weekend when it came to his response to charlottesville. But you mentioned gary cohn, and that Financial Times article that he basically criticized the administration saying they didnt come out strongly enough against neonazis and hate groups after charlottesville. Gary cohn was asked on fox business whether or not the relationship between he and the president is still okay. Take a listen. The gossip is youre laughing. You know whats coming. That youre only staying in this administration to get tax cuts done. Is that accurate . Look, tax cuts are really important to me. I think its a once in a lifetime opportunity, we havent done tax cuts in 31 years. So to be part of an administration that gets something done that hasnt been done for 31 years is enormously challenging, enormously interesting to me. Sarah, tax cuts are really important to me. It sounds like his answer to that question there was yes. Whats the state of this administration when cabinet members feel okay to disagree with the president , dont seem to be completely in line with him. Well, its actually surprising that we havent seen this rift between gary cohn and the president spill out more publicly before because it would be hard to think of two people who are more different in terms of their world views and there was a lot of internal resistance to cohn from the steve bannon wing of the white house when it existed. Now that internal opposition may be gone. But the truth still remains that gary cohns world view is different from President Trumps and from the platform that he ran on. And people like gary cohn have reputations to think about who came in from positions of power before they were in the administration, who hoped to have a professional future after the administration. They look at whats being written about them and the criticism of their silence in the face of what a lot of people considered an indefensible comment from the president and maybe they feel compelled to speak out to kind of salvage their reputation, to explain and defend why theyre remaining in the administration. We saw treasury secretary mnuchin do the same thing when his alma mater was criticizing him. The same apply to Rex Tillerson as well . You know, it could. I mean, he also was facing criticism. Everyone in the cabinet was facing criticism for not speaking out so we were first seeing leaks of people internally being dissatisfied and then those specifically were being criticized for a cowardly way to handle it and then on the record criticism of the president s comments. So this is kind of an evolution to the response as people are watching the coverage of themselves and worrying about their own professional futures after the trump administration. Remarkable that were seeing this, remarkable to see cabinet members distance themselves from the president who put them into their position. Michael, i want to round this up with now. Anything to expect coming out soon, anything more on russia that youre working on . I mean, look, we continue to try and understand everything that went on around the comey firing, what truly motivated the president , what was he telling people . And, you know, it seems like the comey the decision leads up to comeys firing were really important to this administration. Its the reason that we have bob mueller and its the reason that theres a dark cloud from mueller over this white house. And that this is something that this white house really has had to confront and deal with. So were trying to understand as much as we can about that. And its not the easiest thing on the face of the earth. Remember, no matter what happens in the world, no matter where the president goes he comes back to washington and comes back to this russia investigation. It is just not going away. Hans nichols, michael schmidt, Ashley Parker, sarah westward and jonathan who is sticking around still, thank you. The president s decision on daca is expected on tuesday. Those voices urging him not to terminate the Obama Era Program though are getting louder including key members of his own party and business leaders. Is he going to listen . And that decision is just the beginning of what could be a make or break month in washington. The debt limit, a spending bill, tax reform and the federal response to harvey, my head is already spinning, can the president put his frayed relationship with congress aside and get anything done . I have a message for congress tonight. Your job is to represent american families, american people, american workers. Its your job. Im fully committed to working with congress to get this job done and i dont want to be disappointed by congress. Do you understand me . Do you understand me . Its time to rethink whats possible. Rethink the experience. Rethink your allergy pills. Flonase sensimist allergy relief uses unique Mistpro Technology and helps block 6 key inflammatory substances with a gentle mist. Most allergy pills only block one. And 6 is greater than one. Rethink your allergy relief. Flonase sensimist. Livestreat the airport. E sport binge dvrd shows while painting your toes. On demand laughs during long bubble baths. Tv on every screen is awesome. The Xfinity Stream app. All your tv at home. The most on demand your entire dvr. Top networks. And live sports on the go. Included with xfinity tv. Xfinity, the future of awesome. The white house response the that hes not going to release his tax returns. We litigated this all through the election. People didnt care. They voted for him and let me make in very clear. Most americans are very focused on what their tax returns will look like while President Trump is in office. Not what his look like. Well, thats one way to put it. The daily beast is reporting another wrinkle in the russia investigation. Sources familiar with the investigation telling them that the special counsel Robert Mueller has teamed up with the irs in his wide ranging investigation. Lets bring in our panel, joining me at the table, former spokesman for ted cruzs campaign, ronnarying. Chief of staff to al gore, my friend, jake sherman. Irs and the counsel teaming up. The last time they did it in the high profile way they took down fifa. Another mike schmidt story. I dont put a lot of weight into this. Mueller can talk to any branch of the government and he has a wide ron would know more than i do. But if theres pertinent information probably everywhere about donald trump. Kellyanne conway says nobody wants to see the president s tax, they want their taxes improved. While thats true, people want their taxes improved they want to pay less money, some people want to see his taxes. And one person who doesnt want them shared with bob mueller is trump. The criminal investigation divisions of the irs which is who bob mueller is consulting is the most elite crack squad of investigators, they always get their person. And if bob muellers working with them the small elite unit it does mean trouble for donald trump. It certainly has to mean a lot of psychological unrest for President Trump. Hes called it a red line a violation if bob mueller looks into finances of his family. He doesnt think thats okay. Ron, if the president cries foul because Robert Mueller gets access to his taxes, uses the taxes and he tries to go to republicans in congress we need to stop this investigation whats the response going to be . I dont think the republicans in congress are going to support any type of effort to short circuit the independent investigation here. The only way to get through this is to get through it. Now, of course it proves to be a huge distraction. Every time theres a leak it dominates the news cycle. We are going tax reform is a huge priority for the white house and here we are talking about the irs and russia and so on. We have to get through this and any talk about pardon, shutting down the investigation and the like is a distraction. We have to settle down, you know, get through this what do republicans do, they ignore everything going on and just try to move forward . Does the white house have a tax plan they have shown anybody . I think what