You know, and even if you think that james comey is kind of a showboater and showed questionable judgment in the handling of the clinton e-mails and perhaps went into areas he shouldn t have gone into, just step back for a moment and think about how remarkable that scene was last night. the former fbi director deputy attorney general, u.s. attorney, a republican appointee, talking about the president of the united states as a mob boss. talking about the president of the united states as being ethically unfit to be president. now, we ve had these conversations. it feels so many times over the last couple of years but this is not normal. this is an extraordinary moment, and frank is absolutely right. one thing that came through to me was that james comey could be wrong about a lot of things. he may have made a lot of mistake but is a man of extraordinary integrity who cares deeply about the rule of law and the principle that no one is above the law. i think that s the chapter we re about
Competent, capable director. he is not. he is a showboater. he is not doing the job. he s not the right guy. i hold director comey in the absolute highest regard, his considerable abilities and his integrity. and it has been the greatest privilege and honor of my professional life to work with him. joining me now is peter baker, new york times chief white house correspondent, analyst for msnbc and nick, reporter for bloomberg news. peter, let me start with you. put this in context if you could, the role that andrew mccabe played in the russian investigation, what he said about potential ties that russia may have had with the election. that s exactly right. andrew mccabe has been a thorn in the president s side, as the president sees it, for now more than a year. he has been somebody who has testified on the hill in ways that made the president angry.
Days before he was fired in early may that finally sealed his fate. comey was asked about his decision to publicly announce the reopening of the clinton e-mail investigation before the election. look, this was terrible. it makes me mildly nauseous to think we might have had some impact on the election. but honestly, it wouldn t have changed the decision. comey s concern that he affected the outcome of the election infuriated trump. he considered it a personal attack. he s a showboater, a grandstander. trump hears that and he hears, my presidency is illegitimate. you re questioning if i should be in the oval office right now. the russians did not affect the vote and everybody seems to think that. the president spent a rainy weekend at his new jersey golf resort stewing about jim comey s testimony. he came back and said, i m going to do it. i m going to fire james comey. among those supporting the
The committee. i want to know what donald trump is going to tweet if he the second afterwards. i don t know if he has the impulse control not to. this is a president you mean in realtime? well, after the fact. or maybe in realtime. maybe in realtime. this is a president who has shown a real lack of impulse control. he s been told by his aides, by his lawyers, stop tweeting. this can be used as evidence against you. i don t know that he will, in the end, be able to resist it. the trick of p.r., of course, and i do know some of them, is you find one thing that he said that wasn t true. james carver was a genius at this. the tapes were edited. they were edited. no matter what she said, they re edited. that just impeaches the whole argument. they do this very good character assassination, as you said, showboater, liar. but comey has his own personality he can present. if he doesn t look like a showboater, if he comes out there calmly stating facts, i don t think they
The tapes were edited. no matter what she said, they re edited. that just impeaches the whole argument. they do this very good character assassination, as you said, showboater, liar. but comey has his own personality he can present. if he doesn t look like a showboater, if he comes out there calmly stating facts, i don t think they can do that to him. i think he s going to be a tough nut to crack. to your point about the senators, it drives me nuts when they do this. they talk up their time, never let the guy talk. you know, i was actually impressed last time we had one of these hearings that at least the democrats had some cogent questioning. do you have some democrats who can carry out a line of questioning that is intelligible and that is actually helpful. but they never help each other. nobody gets an assist in this basketball game. nobody gets an assist. true. they re all gunners. to your point, i think that the focus is going to be from some senators on the other si