Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom With Brooke Baldwin 20170517

President trump may have obstructed justice. Amid all of this, silence from the president except for these comments he made during a commencement speech at the coast guard just a short time ago. Never, ever, ever give up. Things will work out just fine. Look at the way ive been treated lately. Especially by the media. No politician in history and i say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly. You cant let them get you down. You cant let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams. All right. So lets begin with our White House Correspondent sara murray for us in washington. Lets talk more about these memos and even comeys testimony himself because the Ranking Member on the Senate Intel Committee would like both. Thats right. Not just the senate but the house and senate have both said that they want to see these memos. We know a portion of what is in them and some of the lines that are drawing concern but these committees want to see sort of what is in this memo. Im sure they want to see what is in some of the other memos that comey has written and the senate has also invited james comey to testify. Thats really sort of the next chapter in this saga whether comey accepts the invitation to testify or whether they get their hands on these memos in their complete form and what that tells us about the president s role and if he was, in fact, trying to meddle in this investigation into russia. From the great state of kentucky, a member of the House Oversight Committee Investigating the trump campaigns ties with russia, congressman, nice to see you, sir. Thank you for having me. We want to talk to you because its my understanding that you said you were skeptical about this memo about the conversation between the president and former fbi director. How so . Well, im curious why, when the deputy fbi secretary testified before congress, he failed to mention this action and im curious as to why, if it happened in february, that james comey didnt bring it to the attention of the department of justice. I think there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. I certainly support chairman chaffetz decision to request the memo so the House Oversight committee can look at it and proceed from there. I can respond to a piece from that. This is from james tapper on why he didnt go to anyone because it wasnt a successful effort and he would have been pushed back on it. So it was about having a good working relationship and things of that nature. I wanted to get that out there. If you were to think perhaps the president was joking, why, then, would he ask both the Vice President , who was initially in the room, and the attorney general who was in the room, to leave . I think thats a question that certainly the president needs to answer for himself. One of the things i said earlier today, do you think the way the president s personality is, he could have said that in a joking manner and i said he may have said that in a joking manner. A lot of times when you say a joke, people hear it and laugh but when you read it in print, its not very fun. Why ask those two to leave the room . Lets go with what youre saying. If it was a joke. Im not saying it was a joke. I was asked if it could have been a joke and i said it may have been a joke. I think well find out a lot when we get the memo and im certain that subpoenas and the president will have a chance to respond. Nobody is above the law. This is a very serious accusation. I think we dont need a rush to judgment and certainly need the facts to come before the various bodies of congress that are investigating us right now. Of course. We did hear from senator john mccain who was at a dinner last night honoring him. He said essentially that these trump scandals have, to quote him, reached watergate size and scale. Congressm congressman comer, do you think senators like mccain are overreacting . My father is al vietnam vet. I do think there are a few republicans in congress that are hitting the panic button right now. Certainly this is something too much so . Im sorry . Too much so . Are they hitting the panic button too soon and which one . I think Everyone Needs to step back and take a deep breath. Why wasnt this brought out by the deputy fbi director just last week when he came before congress . A lot of the same people i watch cnn all the time. A lot of people on cnn fussing about the president for firing james comey were calling for the president to fire james comey. This is a serious issue that every member of Congress Takes very seriously but there are a lot of facts still lingering out there. We cant jump to any conclusions. Its possible that perhaps mr. Mccabe has possible. Certainly the House Oversight Committee Chairman chaffetz, Ranking Member cummings that our committee will be able to answer for the entire press corps and the entire world. If a law has been broken, well go from there. Again, as i said earlier, no one is above the law. Some republicans are hitting the panic button a tad too early. We heard from House Speaker paul ryan today as he was heading out, do you still have confidence in the president , and his response, two words, i do. I do, too. You do . I just got back from a very successful town hall in kentucky and the majority of the people there support the president. He won my district by over 50 points. They are saying hes only been president a little over 100 days. Lets give him a chance to put his administration together. Hes made some mistakes and hes had a lot of unnecessary drama thats come out of the white house. But we have to remember, Donald Trumps not a politician. The American People didnt elect him because of his savvy political with all due respect, he is now the president of the United States. Hes in the hot seat. He is. Hes in the hot seat. I wish he would quit tweeting so much. I think the majority of people in congress say the same thing but thats who he is. Thats who the American People elected. A lot of calculated and older politicians, they speak with talking points and never get off message. The American People were sick of that type of political figure. They wanted someone to speak their minds outside the box. Donald trump is not very polished. Hes made a lot of mistakes early on. I hope that he can get things together because we have an agenda here to make America Great gbenga. We have to improve health care and make it more affordable and get americans working again. Congressman comer, thank you very much. Sho joining me is Shelby Holliday a and maeve reston. Talking about obstruction of justice and whatnot, its important to hear people who say slow your roll and dont hit the panic button. Absolutely. There is a lot to be said to that. There is no question about it, even if this doesnt turn into anything that is illegal or actually technically improper when we get all the facts. Right. It is not good for the president s agenda. What he went to the white house to do, at least what the voters said that they wanted him to do, from the issues to the demeanor and the notion of being a different kind of guy in draining the swamp. Thats not happening right now. But at the same time, you do have as you were doing the interview, you saw a note from Deirdre Walsh saying that the House Oversight committee has scheduled a meeting for wednesday. We dont know who the witnesses are and we dont know the details of it yet but that role is beginning to go. Slowly, but its happening. And you know what, it should go slowly. It should be done in a very deliberate and conscientious way because this is the presidency were talking about. This is i mean, this is corny, but it is true. This is sort of the cornerstone of democracy on all ends but, in particular, this i mean, theres so many crises that weve been talking about in the last 48 hours, but this whole notion of jim comey feeling like he was pressured to change an fbi investigation has changed the dynamic and the conversations that i and my colleagues are having with the president s fellow republicans like nothing has. What do you think of the congressman saying well why didnt the acting director say this in his testimony last week or why didnt comey go to the doj . Well, my question is, who is he supposed to go to to talk to about all of this . Jeff sessions . We live in a google culture. We want to know the answer right away. The dow and s p and nasdaq have fallen more than a percent today. So divorinvestors are worried a independents are not on trumps side right now. Those are the people who helped elect him. Its very hard to prove obstruction of justice and the i word. The toughest part is to prove intent. The fact that trumpb is joking could help donald trump. The very things that helped him be a businessman, his demeanor, jokingness, cut to the chase of speaking with people is hurting him here but if he was joking, its hard to prove intent. Maeve, what about for a president who likes to tweet or speak off the cuff. We havent heard from him on twitter in the last 22 hours other than the Commencement Ceremony for the u. S. Coast guard. What do you make of his silence . Well, at this point, he may need a lawyer. So he may be getting some legal advice about the tweets that hes put out in the past which getting to the point that yall were making, if we were looking at the president s intent here, he has a whole trail of tweets about comey and the russia investigation and then he went on to fire director comey. So theres a Bigger Picture here and trump may be at the point where hes realizing that its not in his best interest to be tweeting about something that is now a very serious legal matter. And, you know, looking ahead to next week, i mean, i think we all have to remember that while the i word is being tossed around, republicans did not have good answers last night about what their response was to this. You know, dana was making the point that this is a new level of seriousness. Last night it was like crickets. Called people and they dont want to talk right now. They dont know how to respond to this. So i think this is a different level of seriousness and well have to see how trump behaves Going Forward over the next week or so. So theres the president but theres also james comey, private citizen james comey. Im curious how many more memos get out. So am i. When he finally breaks his silence. What do you think . Well, look, we know that theres not one but two committees in the senate alone that are saying that they are asking for the memos. Not just this one that we know about, about this conversation that he supposedly had with the president where he asked him to lay off Michael Flynn but other conversations with the president , perhaps others in the administration that congress is looking. This is, again, the Republicanled Congress is looking for those. And there are negotiations going on to get james comey to capitol hill in a public setting. Lindsey graham, chairman of the subcommittee who oversees the fbi, hes trying. The full Judiciary Committee is likely to try. Well see what happens there. And on the intelligence committee, mark warner, the top democrat, he said he hopes james comey will come and speak publicly. So this is, again, things that weve been told about by sources to have james comey go and testify and speak publicly which will set this on a different trajectory. Maybe the joking would help the president but a he said he said unless there was some sort of hard evidence as far as what happened in that conversation. And as journalists, we write things down. Its a paper trail. To maeves point, his comments will matter because when you look at these things, he had a shifted story about why he fired james comey. He had different messaging coming out of the white house about why he fired james comey. Those things could matter when you look at intent. Can i touch on that, the whole thing about writing it down. I was hearing pushback from the white house when we first heard about this memo. If this was so alarming, why didnt he go to capitol hill and tell somebody about this . And that was criticism that we heard not just in the white house but elsewhere. I was talking to a couple of people who are trump allies, people who are very steeped in sort of how you prosecute obstruction of justice and all the things that go along with it who said james comey did exactly what he was supposed to do. He followed procedure to the letter of the procedure. He memorialized it, the conversation, as soon as he was done with it. And to do it contemporaneously is something that they are apparently taught, maybe not just in law school but in Law Enforcement in general because it could be and is generally admissible if it gets to that point. Yeah, it is. It is. Go ahead. Jump in. And to danas point, it carrys great weight. I think that there are a lot of legal issues that are really unclear. But in the end, the house would be deciding, you know, whether the president s conduct rises to the level of impeachment and thats a different standard than the Legal Standard for obstruction of justice. Well be having a lot of conversations about that over the coming weeks as we see, you know, additional evidence and whether this rises to that level. But there is a lot of explaining that the president needs to do at this point. And to your earlier interview, brooke, i think the most curious thing, if the president was joking, is why he would have asked the Vice President to leave the room. Thats why i asked the question twice. It doesnt make sense. So hell have to explain that. Right. Unbelievable conversation. Well have it in four minutes. Ladies, thank you very much. Lets get into the weeds on this, this motion of did the president obstruct justice, how could that even be proven . Well have two legal experts on, one from the nixon administration, to discuss. Also just in, one of President Trumps closest friends weighing in on this issue. Hear what the governor of new jersey is sharing. And Vladimir Putin coming to the president s defense today. Why the russian president says he has a recording that will help President Trump. Youre watching cnns special live coverage. Im brooke baldwin. The 1 rated ego power string trimmer, outperforms gas. Featuring a highefficiency brushless motor, it runs up to 45 minutes on a single charge. The ego power string trimmer. Exclusively at the home depot and ego authorized dealers. My belly pain i could build a small city with all the overthecounter products ive used. Enough ive tried enough laxatives to cover the eastern seaboard. Ive climbed a Mount Everest of fiber. Probiotics . Enough avo if youve had enough, tell your doctor what youve tried and how long youve been at it. Linzess works differently from laxatives. Linzess treats adults with ibs with constipation or chronic constipation. 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Whats in your wallet . A lower a1c is a lot witabout choices. Tes but it can be hard sometimes, cause different sides of you struggle with which ones to make. Well, what if you kept making good ones . Then . You could love your numbers. Discover oncedaily invokana®, a pill used along with diet and exercise to significantly lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. Its proven to lower a1c better than januvia®. Invokana® works around the clock by sending some sugar out of your body through the process of urination. Its not for lowering systolic Blood Pressure or weight loss, but it may help with both. Invokana® may cause dehydration, which could make you feel dizzy or weak when you stand up, so be sure to drink enough water. Important side effects to know may include kidney problems, genital yeast infections, changes in urination, or potentially serious urinary tract infections. As is risk of fracture, or increases in cholesterol or potassium. Ketoacidosis is a serious condition, which can be life threatening. Stop taking invokana® and call your doctor right away if you experience symptoms. Or if you have an allergic reaction, with signs like rash, swelling, or difficulty breathing or swallowing. Do not take if you have severe liver or kidney problems or are on dialysis. Taking with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. The choice is yours. Lower your blood sugar with invokana®. Imagine loving your numbers. Theres only one invokana®. Ask your doctor about it by name. Welcome back. Im brooke baldwin. Trump confidant Chris Christie will not weigh in directly about the news of trump requesting james comey to drop the investigation against Michael Flynn. The governor knows the president not only personally but comey also from christies time working in the justice department. Im not going to comment on leaked materials that no one who either wrote the memo or was in the meeting have yet verified. Its just irresponsible. Ive known jim comey for 15 years. As ive said over and over again, even when weve had disagreements at times, both when i worked for him and as tenure for the fbi, i have Great Respect for jim and my view is that if jim wants to be heard, jim will be heard. Hes never been a shy guy, in my experience. But thats his choice now. Hes no longer in Government Service and he has no obligation to do anything else. Im the only person in this room who can understand that they are very difficult cases to prove and you have to have the state of the mind of the person attempting to do it. So take a deep breath before everybody jumps to conclusions. Here are the comments, according to the source the president made to james comey about Michael Flynn. The president said, i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go. I now have two lawyers with expertise on the white house. John dean was the nixon counsel. He pleaded guilty to the watergate coverup and cooperated and received a reduced sentence. Also, richard painter who served as lawyer for george w. Bush. Great to have you on. Mr. Dean, those three sentences from this source from President Trump to mr. Comey, does that constitute obstruction of justice . Well, as youve mentioned, im very familiar with obstruction of justice and learned about it the hard way. There are two lines of cases when dealing with the fbi. One line says that those are not pending judicial proceedings, therefore, the statute doesnt apply. Other cases say you dont need a pending judicial proceeding. So the district of columbia law where this happened is kind of a mismash and not clearen oh the issues. Given the fact that we dont know what the facts are and we have jurisdiction law that is mushy, i cant really say that there is an obstruction of justice. I can say politically, nixon, however was impeached in article 4, paragraph 4, for interference with the fbi. So it is an i mpeachable offens. Richard, same question to you. Well, this memo in and of itself, if it were just existing alone probably would not rise to the level of obstruction of justice. You would need some form of coercion or implied threat to fire the fbi director if he did not go along and close down the flynn investigation. But when you look at all of the facts and the fact that the president asked for loyalty from the fbi director, that the president on several occasions made known his displeasure with the russia investigation, the fact that flynn was going to turn states evidence and was seeking immunity in return for testimony, the fact that director comey was in fact fired by the white house, the white house lied about the reason and then the president acknowledged that it had to do with the russia investigation, you put all of that together and i think there could be a strong case for obstruction of justice, at least in those course that would apply the obstruction of justice to interference with an fbi investigation. So thats, i think, a very serious situation that we have right now. Could be a strong case. John dean, back over to you. We went back to our archive. Take you back to march 1973 where you uttered those words, cancer on the president saying it to president nixon. Here it was. Within the presidency that is growing and its growing daily. Its compounding and its compound itself. I mean, relating to what that looked like and felt back in 1973 now to 2017, whats the biggest similarity to you . Well, i was trying to get nixon to end the coverup and trying to get his attention by telling him of the seriousness of the problem that was about a 50minute conversation with just he and i and then another 50 minutes in which bob haldeman joins us. I tried to raise every problem we had that i could think up off the top and i got a lot of information in a short time before him and i couldnt convince him. I couldnt turn him. I think thats hes not the man i expected. Wow. Rich rd richard, what do you say to folks like congressman comer and others who say, hold on a second, stop sounding the alarm bells so soon, the fact that, you know, this isnt quite as clear cut, why didnt he go why didnt mr. Comey then go to whether it was straight up capitol hill and raise the flag then . Well, i dont understand that argument. Whats he supposed to do . Report it to the fbi . Go to capitol hill . We had had enough of jim comey running up to capitol hill with all sorts of information. I dont think we needed that again. Telling jeff sessions, the attorney general, who himself had contacts with the russians and misrepresented that to the senate in his confirmation hearing, i dont think that would be appropriate. Comey did the right thing, just documented the conversation. The broader picture, however, is that this is about russian espionage inside the United States. Nixon may have been a crook but at least he was our crook. He wasnt a russian agent. He was actually tough on communism and on russian expansionism and this is a very different situation. This involves our national security. Its a serious threat to our country from a foreign power and the administration continues to engage in a coverup. Its not in the interest of the republicans. Ive been a republican for 30 years. Theres no way i would want to see the Republican Party stand up for covering up for russian espionage and the United States have been helping the russians. Its going to be a disaster for the republicans. Its going to be a disaster for our country. So we need the facts. We need a special prosecutor to look into all of this. So far we have these committees. We know that they want those memos and they want testimony from mr. Comey himself. This country needs the facts. Richard painter and john dean, thank you very much. We are also moments away from the White House Press briefing, the first since this bombshell comey report. Well take it live from air force one. Also, the russian response. Speaking of russia, their response to all of this, Vladimir Putin says, and im quoting, political schizophrenia is breaking out in the u. S. He is also offering a transcript of the russian meeting in the oval office that could help, he says, President Trump. Well take you live to moscow, next. Hi. And i know that we have phonaccident forgiveness. Gent, so the incredibly minor accident that i had tonight four weeks without the car. Okay, yup. Good night. With accident forgiveness your rates wont go up just because of an accident. Switching to allstate is worth it. Depression is a tangle of multiple symptoms. Thats why theres trintellix, a Prescription Medication for depression. Trintellix may help you take a step forward in improving your depression. Tell your healthcare professional right away if your depression worsens, or you have unusual changes in mood, behavior or thoughts of suicide. Antidepressants can increase these in children, teens and young adults. Do not take with maois. 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Invokana® works around the clock by sending some sugar out of your body through the process of urination. Its not for lowering systolic Blood Pressure or weight loss, but it may help with both. Invokana® may cause dehydration, which could make you feel dizzy or weak when you stand up, so be sure to drink enough water. Important side effects to know may include kidney problems, genital yeast infections, changes in urination, or potentially serious urinary tract infections. As is risk of fracture, or increases in cholesterol or potassium. Ketoacidosis is a serious condition, which can be life threatening. Stop taking invokana® and call your doctor right away if you experience symptoms. Or if you have an allergic reaction, with signs like rash, swelling, or difficulty breathing or swallowing. Do not take if you have severe liver or kidney problems or are on dialysis. Taking with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. The choice is yours. Lower your blood sugar with invokana®. Imagine loving your numbers. Theres only one invokana®. Ask your doctor about it by name. Just a quick heads up, were minutes away from hearing from the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Hes on air force one along with the president as the president heads home from speaking at the commencement at the u. S. Coast guard academy. Stand by for the live audio stream from that plane. Meantime, lets talk russia, Vladimir Putin offering to clear up questions surrounding the white house. He says he can prove that the president did not provide classified information in the Oval Office Last week. Hes willing to send congress the transcripts of his conversation. I want to play some sound first. This is Rex Tillerson reacting to being asked if this would mean, then, that the russians bugged the oval office. Mr. Secretary, Vladimir Putin is offering congress a transcript of that live oval office meeting. Do you think the russians were bugging the oval office . [ inaudible ]. What do you think of his offer . Well, that was quick. President trump admitted he shared information. Sources tell cnn that information was, indeed, classified. So lets go live to moscow to Matthew Chance there and so you tell us, what exactly did president putin say with regard to this offer and whats his motivation to even share it . Thats a good question. What he actually said, though, is that basically if the congress doesnt believe that there was nothing secret passed on by President Trump to sergey lavrov, that he has a recording, is what he said, of the conversation that took place in the Oval Office Last week, that he will happily send to them. The kremlin later qualified that wasnt an audio recording. We thought it was at first. It turns out it wasnt an audio recording. It was a transcript that they said they had. Still, its the first that any of us have heard that there was such a transcript of that very controversial meeting and, of course, if it ever is made public and it hasnt been at this point, it would obviously throw some questions about if he was seeking information that was put across. In terms of the motivation, there are two options, i think. The first is that perhaps putin was genuinely trying to help President Trump put pressure on the president at the moment, perhaps putin was thinking, well, if we release this transcript, it will show clearly that there was nothing secret that was discussed. Another perhaps less generous interpretation is that putin knows very well that the last thing trump needs at the moment is a helping hand from the kremlin. Hes already in deep water when it comes to his connections with russia. And perhaps he said these things suggesting there was a transcript, offering to help in this way as a way of causing even more discord in u. S. Politics because theres a sense in which Many Russians are enjoying what they are witnessing, the United States, their geopolitical rival kind of gripped in this chaos. So in essence, then, this quote unquote help wouldnt be help for the president at all. Matthew chance, thank you very much, in moscow. Coming up, just a reminder, we are moments away from the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer briefing the press on Board Air Force one. Well bring that audio to you live. Stand by for that. Also ahead, take a look at the markets here. All the red. Plunging on wall street. This afternoon, down 317 points. All of this chaos surrounding the white house. Is this putting, you know, your money at risk . Were back in a moment. If you have moderate to severe Rheumatoid Arthritis like me, and youre talking to your rheumatologist about a medication. This is humira. This is humira helping to relieve my pain. And protect my joints from further damage. 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Roundup for lawns is formulated to kill lawn weeds to the root without harming a single blade of grass. Draw the line with roundup for lawns. Without harming a single blade of grass. Sorry about the holdup, folks. We have some congestion on the runway and im being told itll be another 15, maybe 20 minutes, and we will have you on your way. Runway models on the runway . Surprising. Whats not surprising . How much money evan saved by switching to geico. I would not wear that lace. Hmm, i dont know . Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. Were moments away from the audio streamed in live from air force one from the White House Press secretary. Stand by for that. This is the first time were hearing from him since President Trump is facing accusations that he asked the now fired fbi director to end the investigation into then nsa Michael Flynn. Its interesting to watch how the media has covered all of this. Take a look at this noteworthy moment from good morning america. George stephanopoulos looking directly into the camera telling viewers the fate of President Trump is at risk. Comey notes the modern nixon takes, comey will testify. Whether trump holds the white house will depend on how comey describes those notes, who congress believes, how the country responds. That was this morning. Lets talk about last night when all of this was breaking. Fox news had to tell its viewers not once but twice. Youve tried tonight to get republicans to come out and talk to us and they are not republicans to go on camera tonight as of yet. Well see if that changes. We have asked republicans to come on to talk about this breaking story. And we wait to see whether we can have someone on the air during this hour. One more bit i want to share with you. There was a new editorial in the conservative wall street journal. The title loose lips sink presidencies. It reads in part, quote, mr. Trump needs to appreciate how close he is to losing the republicans he needs to pass the agenda that will determine if he is successful. With me to discuss senior media correspondent brian stelter. As were on the topic of conservative media, back over to fox news for a beat, are they living in an alternate universe . The short answer is yes. The message from a number of conservative news outlets has been, this is not a big deal. Dont worry. An example from the 8 00 p. M. Hour on cnbc and fox as a bombshell story, a major situation, a crisis for the white house. On fox, lots of other stories instead. The clinton foundation, late night comics criticizing trump, et cetera. I dont want to paint with an entirely too broad of a brush. Its been downplayed. Its about proportionality, brooke. And theres been an attempt to say this is not a giant problem for the president. What about, you know, i read your newsletter you hand out to all of us. You quoted if anyone doubt ds t ed, this, talk about great capital j journalism. The New York Times the Washington Post on monday, its been so long, the Washington Post on monday, New York Times on tuesday, its like they are trying to leap frog each other with big scoops about this president whether about the meeting with the russians or about the comey memo. Who knows what well see today, tomorrow or the next day. Reuters and other outlets have been able to confirm these stories. That means there are sources willing and able to verify this information. Its all beginning with an Anonymous Sources. In some cases, whistleblowers trying to alert the country into what is going on. In other cases, maybe sources with axes to grind. There was a great column by Eric Erickson saying i happen to know who one of these source is. One is a trump supporter trying to help the president by sounding the alarm. Not all Anonymous Sources are created equally and many sources are leaking to the New York Times and cnns and Washington Posts right now. And they are doing the work that congress is not, doing the investigative work to find out what is going on inside the oval office. Kudos to those newspapers. Lets listen in to the live feed from air force one. Heres sean spicer en route home with the president. And lastly, the president will continue to meet with candidates for fbi director this afternoon. Andrew mccabe, frank keithing, richard and Joe Lieberman. That will happen upon return to the white house this afternoon and then again obviously i mentioned yesterday there will be additional logistical guidance that will be given to the press close to the pool and to the traveling journalists as far as logistics and questions. The time has been provided on the guidance. It will be an opportunity to make sure both with the pool and with members that are planning on traveling guidance in terms of that will occur so with that, ill take your questions. Testifying to congress about his recollections of their conversations and the investigation and would he be willing to waive the executive privilege about their conversation to discuss fully the nature of those discussions . The president wants these to remain confident in the event that hes maintained in a truthful that he wants the truth to get to the bottom of this situation. Theres two investigations going on inside the senate and he wants to get to the bottom of this. What took place in the meeting between the president and comey . What is the president s side of this . We know that he said he did not ask about the flynn investigation. Can you tell us what else took place at this meeting . The president has been very clear that the account thats been published is not an accurate description of how the event occurred. Could you confirm what else weve made it very clear. Im not going to get any further comment on that. Do you have any evidence to back up is it just that the president says that this conversation didnt happen or is there any the president has been very clear that this is not an accurate representation. He said in a tweet last week, are there records or information regarding that. Is the president considering having any discussions about the allegations that have come up . Some of the characterizations that he had with the Russian Foreign minister, it sounds like the russian president has said that their side is going to release a transcript of the conversation. Do you support the russians releasing a transcript of that conversation to congress and were you aware that they were recording the conversation . Im not aware of anything like that. I dont have an update. Again, i think we put out a statement very clearly about the president that he does not believe thats an accurate representation. Are you would you make it public. They have been very clear with their recollection of that meeting, their account of that meeting. The president spoke to netanyahu yesterday. Can you discuss more about what they talked about, the specific allegations that Israel Intelligence was behind it . That phone call was purely logistical in preparation for the trip. The president has been quiet in the last 24 hours, at least on twitter, in making any public remarks outside of the official events. Is there an effort to scale back or any kind of other comments about the issues that have been going on in the white house until he takes off for his trip . Ive been clear what our position was and the white house has put out a statement very clearly with our account. Comments of some of the republicans in congress are making saying that this is starting to approach watergate proportion. We are focused on the speech today, giving widespread praise for what he just talked about, the role of the coast guard and the young people who will go out there and defend our homeland and hes preparing for the meeting with the president of colombia. Thanks, guys. Im not going to give a statement on that. Did he see the video and i know the state department put out a statement on that. [ inaudible ] . That was the audio from air force one of sean spicer who we normally see each and every day. Hes heading to the white house. A quick gaggle on the plane. Im mark preston and Gloria Borger standing by. Approaching watergate size issue or responding to republicans or why has the president been so quiet and dodged all of those questions . Right. Didnt answer it at all. In many ways i dont know how he would answer it and hes been put in a difficult situation going out there and protecting the president , his boss, the leader of the free world being put in a position of indefensible on many different things. Not even john mccain, as you said. And we saw paul ryan come out and say that he wants to see this investigation through, so to speak, and last night on our air, we saw the governor of ohio, john kasich, come out and say this isnt a time for republicans to hide. Right now youre seeing a white house that is in absolute crisis mode because they are not only losing independence but now were starting to see fissures with the president. Also he dodged the question on whether president putins offer of the transcript from the other meeting which could help or maybe entirely opposite effect. He totally dodged and starting speaked about the president s commencement speech today. He wasnt there to answer a lot of questions, obviously. He was very interested in not answering questions. One thing that struck me is that i believe he was asked about whether the president had lawyered up. And he didnt answer that question either. He said he would get back to the reporter on it and i think, you know, that gives you an indication, i mean, if i were in office and had this issue, i would certainly get outside counsel. And we know i reported yesterday we know hes been unhappy with the white House Counsel for assorted reasons but hed clearly need a separate lawyer for all of this and would not surprise me if he is hiring one. You know, brooke, its worth noting, too, that over and over again sean spicer said that the president has been very clear about it, we put a statement out that weve been very clear about it. The fact of the matter is that the white house has been very ambiguous about everything, quite frankly, all the way down to whether or not President Trump records conversations in the oval office. We still dont know if thats true, which is absurd that we dont know if thats true. Being clear, we havent heard specifically from the president , twitter, 22 hours. Unusual silence period. It really is. The first time in weeks that the president hasnt been tweeting over the course of the day. The president is, quote, confident in the events. Hes been very clear but hes not been very clear. And whats notable about last nights statement, the one denial of this initial bombshell story about the memo is that it wasnt signed by anybody or by spicer or any other official. It was just an unsigned statement. Increasely, trump aides are wary about having to defend their boss. What about Joe Lieberman being interviewed for this fbi job . Youve got me. Thats interesting. I dont know that hes ever run anything like the fbi. And i think democrats would be opposed to Joe Lieberman, probably, even though he was a democrat at one point. He gets along with a lot of republicans and he is an independent. I think he would you know, he would be controversial. One thing i want to get just to what brian was saying about the president not tweeting, that leads me to believe that he has hired Legal Counsel because maybe the only one who can tell him to stop tweeting, which would be a smart move, is his actual attorney. The bottom line is that spicer said nothing and hes boxed in. Spicer boxed in the same way the president is right now. Mark, what do you think about Joe Lieberman as fbi director . I believe before he became a senator he was attorney general of connecticut but thats not the same thing as running the federal bureau of investigation. Joe lieberman has fallen off of the national spectrum, so to speak, the last couple of years. I actually ran into him on a flight between d. C. And new york. Hes very involved in this bipartisan effort to get rid of political parties, so to speak. But his own Political Party abandoned him when he ran as an independent democrat and run. But there was bad blood at that point. If his name were to be put forward, his closest allies are john mccain and lindsey graham. So a couple of interesting political names that donald trump is looking at now. Trump is having these four meetings this afternoon with candidates creates the veneer, the sense of normalcy, the semblance of normalcy for the president as all of this is swirling around. I think theyd like to get this done before the president leaves and they dont have a lot of time. Originally they said theyd get it done by the end of the week and im not sure that that can happen right now. Theres been a lot of names floated and a lot of names talked down and i think the bottom line here is that the white house is looking for somebody who is acceptable to republicans and somebody i talked to who talked to donald trump, that the question that the president asks people is is soandso a team player. Is soandso a team player . What does that mean in terms of the fbi . Because he probably thinks comey wasnt a team player, one of the reasons he fired him. Exactly. Thank you all so much. Weve got to move along. Thank you. Im brooke baldwin. Thank you for being with me. The president wants to get to the bottom of this. But reports of conversations between President Trump and james comey are, quote, not