the part of acting attorney general whitaker and it is designed to frustrate everybody in the whole world who s trying to get at the bottom. if you want the truth, you re not going to find it here today. that s what i m telling you. harris: there was one point where matthew whitaker was asked by chairman nadler pretty early on to comment whether or not he had spoken with the president about the robert mueller investigation. at first said not going to answer any of these questions but then he did answer the question. he did in a roundabout way. i don t want to say poor chairman nadler because he got us into this odd mess here but the reality is he is asking questions and it took him i don t know how many bites of the apple to get even something close to an answer from attorney general whitaker. harris: before we go on, i just want to acknowledge that the acting ag whitaker has just sat down. do you think democrats will subpoena him to come back?
legitimate argument to say, if in fact the president was doing something to obstruct the lawful investigation that s happening under the reges as an oversight authority, we have the right to question and determine whether we think that s happened. i wouldn t say it would leave him off the hook, it s just very clear he doesn t want to answer these questions, probably because there were some discussions about it with donald trump. the nature of them is different. even the fact of the conversations is going to look very bad. it s definitely in the public interest to know whether they happened. peter baker, it is quite likely that during his testimony tomorrow, acting a.g. whitaker will be thinking of viewer number one. since you cover viewer number one. tomorrow may not be his favorite day. he s got live whitaker hearings in the morning. followed by his physical in the afternoon. yeah, which will be more pleasant, right? look, you know, i think this is going to be a really important
under the regs as an oversight authority, we have the right to question and determine whether we think that s happened. i wouldn t say it would leave him off the hook, it s just very clear he doesn t want to answer these questions, probably because there were some discussions about it with donald trump. the nature of them is different. even the fact of the conversations is going to look very bad. it s definitely in the public interest to know whether they happened. peter baker, it is quite likely that during his testimony tomorrow, acting a.g. whitaker will be thinking of viewer number one. since you cover viewer number one, tomorrow may not be his favorite day. he s got live whitaker hearings in the morning followed by his physical in the afternoon. yeah, which will be more pleasant, right? look, you know, i think this is going to be a really important moment. they will explore these questions that whitaker probably won t want to answer and will try to get out of answering them.
something to obstruct the lawful investigation that s happening under the reges as an oversight authority, we have the right to question and determine whether we think that s happened. i wouldn t say it would leave him off the hook, it s just very clear he doesn t want to answer these questions, probably because there were some discussions about it with donald trump. the nature of them is different. even the fact of the conversations is going to look very bad. it s definitely in the public interest to know whether they happened. peter baker, it is quite likely that during his testimony tomorrow, acting a.g. whitaker will be thinking of viewer number one. since you cover viewer number one. tomorrow may not be his favorite day. he s got live whitaker hearings in the morning. followed by his physical in the afternoon. yeah, which will be more pleasant, right? look, you know, i think this is going to be a really important moment. they will explore these questions that whitaker probab
if you don t assure me that you re not going to subpoena me by 6:00 tonight, i m not showing up. let s go to abby phillip. she covers the white house for us at cnn. what did the president say about his acting ag? reporter: president trump took a couple of questions right at the end of that spray and he answered some questions about acting ag whitaker. he also answered some questions about the shutdown talks. he basically implied we ll see to the answer to the question of whether or not the how the shutdown talks are going, but it s not clear exactly what s going to happen tomorrow. the white house hasn t said a whole lot about this standoff but the white house is trying to play hard ball with investigators as they re seeking to do some oversight. president trump earlier this week warning that oversight would be an impediment to pog on other issues and this seems to be the latest effort for the white house to push back on some of the new face that s we re