A story until donald trump made it one. Its actually more than that by now. Its deeply disturbing to most folks because it involves something all folks regard as sacred, the loss of our men and women in uniform and the gold star family members they leave behind. First the president compared his handling of gold star families to his predecessors and made false claims by doing so about president obama. Then last night came the story of the condolence telephone call he made to the widow of u. S. Army Sergeant La David Johnson who was killed in an ambush in niger in africa earlier this month. Johnsons widow, mieshia, is 24. They have two young children. She is expecting in three months. And about that telephone call, it was playsed two weeks after this ambush killed four u. S. Service members and wounded two others. Former democratic congresswoman fred rico wilson was in the car with the family. This is what she says happened. He said well, i guess he knew something to the fact he knew what he was getting into when he signed up, but i guess it hurts anyway. You know, just matter of factually that this is what happens. Anyone who is signing up for military duty is signing up to die. She was in tears, and she said he didnt even remember his name. That comment today got a straight up denial from the president and a vague threat that he has evidence to the contrary. Mr. President , what did you to the sergeants widow. I did not say that. She had a conversation with the wife that sounded like a lovely woman, did not say what the congresswoman said, and most people arent too surprised to hear that. Let her make her statement again and youll find out. Well, congresswoman wilson did ree peat her statement. She said quote, i still stand behind my account. If the president has proof of the contrary he didnt offer it today. And the woman who raised la David Johnson was also in the car and heard the call today shes saying its all true, telling the washington post, quote, President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband. With that lets bring off our lead off panel tonight making a rare visit to our new york studio starting with Philip Rucker and Kimberley Atkins, the chief washington reporter for the boston herald. Out in wisconsin where he is best put to work is our friend charlie psyches, long time conservative radio host. These days on author and always an msnbc contributor. 12 days of silence, and thats the first puzzle. After these four souls, four of our very best were killed, why nothing from the white house . The pentagon did react. But back to the headline, 12 days of silence, then a swipe at obama, how trump handled four dead soldiers. I want you to talk about this and beyond how the post reported out about other gold star families. He was actually asked why he hadnt commented for 12 Straight Days on this incident. Its the deadliest combat incident since he became president. And thats when he became defensive and started to bring up this contrast with obama. And ill tell you a little bit about what the post was reporting today. There was a family killed in june, and trump called the father and offered 25,000 a personal check to help the family. They said they never received that money. Tonight the white house reported that check is in the mail. I think this reporting brought something to fruition. There are about 20 of them, interviewed 1, and only half of them have received phone calls from the president. Remember the president said on monday he called all of these family members. Kimberley, this is getting litigated and relitigated on shows like this one like this one tonight is all on the white house. It is. The initial question he was asked as phil said is why hadnt he commented about this mission . He himself brought up these families, these gold star families and the way he contacts them, you know, as if it was some sort of contest the previous president s in the way he did it. Thats what stroke a sour note from the beginning. We know the president is counter puncher. And we saw him counter punching congresswoman wilson today. Its one thing to counter punch if you want to even gin up his base. But to use these gold star families, that video was just so heart breaking. How you can keep that going after seeing that, theres no political goal here. Theres no win, and we know he likes to get wins. Charlie sykes, i want to play a clip of a mutual friend of ours, jack jacobs. He was on msnbc this afternoon and was asked about all of it. To reduce the exchange between the president of the United States and the widow of a slain warrior to a public spat is not only the height of inepiitude like i said, it speaks to an ignorance thats extremely difficult to find anywhere else in public life. Charlie, thats tough to watch especially for us who know jack. This entire subject made people feel angry, sad, vaguely ill especially today across this country. No, the whole story is tragic. And its of course totally selfinflicted. George will earlier on this air said just remember donald trump is barely on speaking terms with the english language. But what i do think is very clear that donald trump does not speak the language of empathy. And we were in that car. We didnt hear the conversation. I by the way, i do think the initial account should have been treated with perhaps some skepticism. But here you have the intersection of this accountability and predictability gap. Its incomprehensible except in trump urld for him then to be asked about it and then make false statements about the way other president s had in fact handled this. And its really unconsciousable that he then politicized the death of general kellys son, something general kelly has gone out of his way to keep out of politics, a very deeply, private event. So take all of that of his tonedeaf conversation with this widow, and you have a really revealing and sad moment for the president but also for the country and the men and women who serve this country. Yeah, this is one of the few things we have traditionally and should hold sacred. Philip, charlie just talked about general kelly. That was kind of the Second Movement in this. It came up at the White House Briefing today. This is an exchange between our own Peter Alexander and sarah huckabeesanders. Can you describe how general kelly feels about it. I think general kelly is disgusted by the way this has become politicized, and the focus has become on the process and not the way american lives were lost. If he has any anger, its towards that. I guess its the fault of the media given that reading. And yes its the president that brought up general kellys son. Its been six or seven years since his son died in the line of duty. General kelly is a gold star parent. He doesnt want any special attention paid, and he doesnt want this to be politicized. And hes made that clear in his public remarks and in the speech that he gave a few years ago. And so for the president to invoke this as a defense in a political tit for tat with president obama, you know, kelly hasnt spoken for himself, but i cant imagine it sits very well with the general. Kimberley, this isnt the first time the president has failed to let Something Like a military uniform or military standing or heroism in the military stand between him and a good bout with someone. This is true. This goes back to the campaign he openly feuded with gold star parents he openly feuded with during the campaign. And perhaps he feels a sense of invisibility from that. Obviously that didnt keep him from being elected president. But i just i think this is one of the latest episodes where the point that charlie made about empathy, that was the main point about his trips for example to puerto rico. When hes tossing toilet paper. He sees a crowd in the room cheering and he thinks hes doing a good job when hes not talking about dozens of people who lost their lives, the people who lost their homes. Thats the disconnect there, and it doesnt seem to register with him. And i think when were dealing with issues involving grief, devastation, some ort of loss, thats where his achilles heel is. Charlie, you wrote a book about the deepening cleave in american palltication. But there you are thank goodness in america. And i have to ask you how is this issue going to fall . Do we agree on any one thing anymore . And why cant that one thing be the treatment and sacrifice of gold star families . If there is one thing that we still believe in, this would be it. If theres a ven diagram between the left and the right, this would be the over lap. I think the real scandal here is once again donald trump has taken something that ought to uite us, that we ought to have similar reactions to and what has he done . Hes made it about himself. Hes made this whole thing about himself and how he handled it opposed to the focus of those men and their mission and what they did and the needs of the family. I i think weve become accustomed to that, but i dont think we should become numb to that. Philip rucker, you know what we in the media are like. You also know about the president s power to end this like that. Probably with a tweet, even better with a statement. Well move onto the next thing. But that doesnt happen here either, why . It doesnt. And in part its because of the president s instinct to always want to punch back when he feels like hes on the defensive or under siege like he did this week, he wants to win as you stated the 12 days of silence. He mocked john mccain, vietnam prisoner of war, we saw him with this attitude the second day of president , and stood before that wall of where the 50 stars of of the members who died and made it all about himself with his inaugural crowds and his focus with the media. I dont think he fully comphands the magnitude of what hes doing. Kimberley, to question i always end up asking you, what part of the trump agenda advanced today in the white house and dapt . Not much. It seemed to go the other way. Were talking about this and at the same time the topic of Bipartisan Health care reform seemed to fall, the fix to make Health Care Reform affordable for millions of americans sort of died at the urging of President Trump who put that down. So were at another legislative standstill while we are, you know, unfortunately doing political analysis about how gold star families should be treated. Our thanks tonight to Philip Rucker, to Kimberley Atkins for joining us here in new york and to charlie sykes. His new book, by the way, is how the right lost its mind. Were so fortunate charley ae did not amid all of this. Still ahead tonight well go to our first break. Attorney general Jeff Sessions on capitol hill under oath. And today surprising answers from a trump stalwart. That and much more. Were just Getting Started on the wednesday edition of the 11th hour. Have you been interviewed or been requested to be interviewed by the special counsel either in connection with director comeys firing, the russian investigation, or contact with russian officials . Well, id be pleased to answer that. Im not sure i without clearing that with the special counsel. What do you think . Have you been interviewed by them . No. Lets call that a coy moment today. Jeff sessions testifying before the Senate Judiciary committee today. He did not answer many questions especially about the firing of the fbi director james comey citing confidentiality in his conversations with the president. But he did offer this answer. Specifically, what was your designated role in the decision to fire director comey . It is its a matter that i can share some information about because the president himself has talked about it and revealed that letter. He asked Deputy Rosenstein and i make our recommendations in writing. We prepared those recommendations and submitted it to the president. Senator feinstein, i dont think its been fully understood the significance on the error that mr. Comey made on the clinton matter. Critical answer there. More on that in just a moment. Heres the quote. As it has turned out, james comey lied and leaked and totally protected Hillary Clinton. He was the best thing that ever happened to her. Joining us tonight from washington, Michael CrowleyNational Security editor at politico and ken vogel, the New York Times political reporter. Two of the very best minds on this story. Michael, back to that second bit of sound from ag sessions. That excuse for firing comey has long been super seeded when the boss told lester holt it was because of russia. Yeah, overtaken by events i guess as people say. And even the original excuse, brian, didnt make a lot of sense. I think there were people, you know, who were willing to believe, okay, if trump came in on day one and said, comey, i hated the way you landled that thing a lot of people said and even some democrats said the way you handled the investigations was wrong and youre out of here. But it does it when he realizes how much jeopardy hes in. And that was incredibly strange and now for trump really foolish thing to have done. But you put your finger right on, which is compounding all this is the fact that sessions does not seem to have the most updated version of events in his testimony. And its a little hard to complain that except to say that the truth of what the president has really said is very uncomfortable for him to relate. And he probably would prefer to believe its not the case i suppose. So ken, two part question for you. Did you find that surprising that the ag is running on perhaps dated software and what was if not that, what was your nugget from today, your take away . Well, certainly that was a bit puzzling that he was essentially asked to, you know, write this recommendation, to give trump cover for something trump wanted to do anyway. Trump then admitted he wanted to do it anyway and that the recommendation was just cover. So theyre having trouble getting their story straight here. But this does, this sort of discordance does get that the discomfort within the white house about this key issue, the firing of james comey which in many ways at the center or at least one part of the Mueller Investigation and that is whether trump himself or this administration sought to obstruct justice in the investigation by getting rid of james comey. Of course trump blames Jeff Sessions for the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counselch he thinks if sessions hadnt recused himself he wouldnt be in this trouble because he wouldnt have mueller breathing down his neck. I think this question of executive privilege is interesting, which we heard Jeff Sessions sort of point to without invoking several times. This is going to be key in the sort of tactics of the trump white houses defense, whether and when they seek to invoke executive privilege and answering questions from mueller. We know at least in a conversation i overheard, theres some disagreement in the Trump Legal Team about what extent they should be relying on executive privilege. But certainly Jeff Sessions in his testimony today did nothing to disabuse us of the perception this would be potentially an important part of the trump teams defense. All those matters mr. Vogel just mentioned is precisely why we have a water crack lawyer in our next segment. Michael, i dont mean this to sound sarcastic, but its been 47 days. Think of what we have been through. 47 days since the last trump tweet on comey. Why now . Why today i wonder. Well, because comeys firing is front and center again with Jeff Sessions testifying. And the key one of the key issues that these senators were asking the attorney general about was the circumstances around comeys firing. And so, you know, trump as we know is watching television, and comey is back again. And hes on the president s mind. And so now now trump is reverting i mean trump as well is reverting to this Hillary Clinton context for the comey firing. It would seem to be the implication of that tweet and not the interview with lester holt you referenced earlier. So thats another zigzag. But, you know, its its striking to me ken mentioned the executive privilege issue. And i do think that is an interesting moment. Because theres a school of thought in the trump team that says you want to show as much cooperation as possible with the investigation. You want to get this over with as fast as you can and signal that you have nothing to hide among other things. At least the line coming from the trump camp of course is he has nothing to hide, he hasnt done anything wrong. These indications of executive privilege clearly do suggest to many observes there are hiding something. I saw the aclu tweeted today, echoes of watergate. And the more that Trump Officials take this line, the more theres going to be suspicion. And by the way, i dont think the trump team has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these matters because their stories have changed repeatedly. So i think theres a warranted suspicion when sessions takes attack like that. Ken, i call on you again as an explainer. Whats the difference between or the concert between a hearing like the one we saw today, the concurrent hearings going on on the house side and Something Like the mueller, what seems to be the overarching Mueller Investigation . Well, the hearing today was technically an oversight here hearing. It has oversight with sessions the attorney general is head of. So conceivably they could be asking about anything. They did ask about other subjects including the enforcement or the protection democrats asked about protection for the glbt communicate and whether sessions was doing anything to sort of dial back the protections and drug enforcement, opioid crisis. We heard a number of questions about that as well. Then you