phone. the president thought whitaker should do a better job of overseeing the investigators in the probe. during recent congressional testimony whitaker would only say he won t discuss conversations with the president when asked if he spoke to him about the sdny investigation. i want to know whether you talked to president trump at all about the soern district of new york s case involving michael cohen. congresswoman, as i ve mentioned several times today, i am not going to discuss my private conversations with the president of the united states. in contrast he told the committee he never spoke about the mueller probe to president trump. at no time has the white house asked for nor have i provided any promises or commitments concerning the special counsel s investigation or any other investigation. but this latest reporting about trump fits into a pattern where he believes officials in doj roles should show loyalty to him and do his bidding. as you will recall the president
sources say that trump was upset about the cohen probe and how it implicated him in the payments to two women during the election. you will recall that, and that he did spoke with whitaker about it over the phone. the president thought whitaker should do a better job of krog the investigators in the probe that he oversaw as acting attorney general. during recent congressional testimony whitaker would only say he won t discuss conversations with the president when asked if he spoke to him about the sdny investigation. i want to know whether you talked to president trump at all about the southern district of new york s case involving michael cohen. congresswoman, as i ve mentioned several times today, i am not going to discuss my private conversations with the president of the united states. in contrast he told the committee he never spoke about the mueller probe to president trump. at no time has the white house asked for, nor have i provided, any promises or commitments concern
and a pro trump guy whitaker says are you kidding me? i ain t doing this, this is the dumbest thing i ve ever heard of since the square wheel. america won. but i get to your point, john, i can t figure out what the president thought whitaker was supposed to do. he can t pick up the phone, it s weird. do you see it that way, david? i do think it s clear that the president has said wanted a loyal attorney general. he wanted somebody who was going to look after him in the way that he thought eric holder, the attorney general for president obama looked after president obama. so in the president s mind he s not thinking about what the presidency s about. he s not thinking about the institutions. he s thinking like he s still a private citizen the way he s apparently done business his whole life, which is to have loyalists do your bidding for you. and he thought whether it would get leaked or not that he could call up and say, make this happen. because i need this to go away, i need this
investigation, a critic of robert mueller, was he being placed there in order to rein in the mueller investigation? something he had suggested in the past would be a good strategy for president trump. so i wanted to know whether president trump thought that was something that whitaker had the power to do or ought to do, whether he thought whitaker should leave the russia investigation alone. the president just didn t answer the question. he criticized me. but i think we still want to know the answer to that, so i really hope that s something that at some point in the near future reporters will have another opportunity to ask him. pretty strong suspicion it s not going to stop you from asking again. thank you so much. joining me now, cnn special correspondent jamie gangel. politics reporter chris cillizza, and shimon prokupecz. great to have you here. jamie, your reaction was the same as what abby just said. it s a really fair question. it s also in my view, isn t