Is bbc world news. Its newsday. Glad you could join us. Its 8am in singapore, 1am in london and 8pm in washington, where President Trump has spoken about the appointment of a Special Counsel to take over the russia investigation into any potential ties with his campaign. He said the entire affair was a witch hunt which hurt the country, as he put it, and he denied ever asking the fbi director to end the investigation into his National Security advisor Michael Flynn. From washington, aleem macqbool reports. The president s just not happy with the scrutiny he continues to come under over his links with russia. The entire thing has been a witch hunt. And there is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign, but i can only speak for myself and the russians, zero. I think it divides the country. I think we have a very divided country because of that and many other things. Did you at any time urge former fbi Directorjames Comey to close or back down the investigation into Michael F