maybe that s because he knew something about it during the campaign. but in either case, this is not a president of the if you think of a normal situation where a president is told about a hostile act by a hostile country, a hostile dictator, you immediately think, well, gee, i want more details. what do we do to stop it? how do we teach them they can t do this again and so forth. they seem to have gone through none of that thought process, which tells me he either wasn t surprised and/or he doesn t care. anita, meetings don t get more consequential than this. screen writers try to portray meetings like this in films. does this, to you, explain why comey and clapper and brennan have carried themselves and commented on this the way they have in all the intervening months? sure. there s actually another detail of that anecdote that i thought was really interesting. donald trump is asking,
would do things that he said bush or obama would never dream of doing. he felt like it was inappropriate, and he didn t respect the independence of the fbi. he said he went to sessions and he asked him about that, and sessions just sort of stared down at his hands and kind of his eyes darted back. that s exactly right. that s the phrasing. i think there are people in the building who probably would be disturbed about moments like that, who wonder like what is the president trying to do? and on that note, there s a moment in the book where john kelly, then homeland security director, calls comey after comey is fired, unceremonily when he s in los angeles talking to fbi agents there. no word from the white house. no word from the attorney general or the deputy attorney general. he finds out by tv. kelly calls and says he s disgusted by how this firing went down. he felt comey wasn t respected and he s going to quit out of protest. comey says to him, don t do that. this president in
he said he went to sessions and he asked him about that, and sessions just sort of stared down at his hands and kind of his eyes darted back. that s exactly right. that s the phrasing. i think there are people in the building who probably would be disturbed about moments like that, who wonder like what is the president trying to do? and on that note, there s a moment in the book where john kelly, then homeland security director, calls comey after comey is fired, unceremoniously when he s in los angeles talking to fbi agents there. no word from the white house. no word from the attorney general or the deputy attorney general. he finds out by tv. kelly calls and says he s disgusted by how this firing went down. he felt comey wasn t respected and he s going to quit out of protest. comey says to him, don t do that. this president in particular needs good people around him. you should stay. john kelly does stay, becomes chief of staff, but now we know that his clout seems to be rapidl
so either they didn t care much about what putin had done, and maybe because they thought had benefited them, and/or president trump wasn t surprised to learn what putin had done. maybe that s because he knew something about it during the campaign. but in either case, this is not a president of the if you think of a normal situation where a president is told about a hostile act by a hostile country, a hostile dictator, you immediately think, well, gee, i want more details. what do we do to stop it? how do we teach them they can t do this again and so forth. they seem to have gone through none of that thought process, which tells me he either wasn t surprised and/or he doesn t care. anita, meetings don t get more consequential than this. screen writers try to portray meetings like this in films. does this, to you, explain why comey and clapper and brennan have carried themselves and commented on this the way they have in all the intervening
one lucky guy, outnumbered on top of the hour, jon: right now the nfl owners and players association reps are in new york city for their annual fall meeting. it comes against the back drop of the growing national anthem controversy. rick leventhal live in new york city on that. rick. jon, nfl meetings don t always draw media attention. this year is different because of the anthem protests. over the next couple of days team owners, executives, players and league officials will meet to try to come up with solutions to address this controversy surrounding the demonstrations that have included players kneeling, sitting, raising fists, locking arms or staying off the field entirely during the national anthem. league policy states the players should stand with hands over their hearts during the anthem. it is not a rule and owners have been reluctant to discipline players saying