Here is the clip in question with janine pirro of fox news for an interview to air saturday. Are you moving so quickly that your Communications Department cannot keep up with you. Yes. Thats true. What do we do about that . We dont have press
elliot necessary found it so hard the believe that he would have reassured the president that he is somehow not under investigation note once, and certainly not three times. Lets bring our Kickoff Panel on the, the veteran New York Times chief White House Correspondent peter baker is with us, who happens to be our newly minted msnbc political analyst. Vivian solana, and matthew nussbaum. Good evening to you all. Peter, i was watching you on Live Television slight after 4 00 p. M. Eastern time. Micolle wallace played the clip. That i cant talk about. I wont talk about that. All i want is for comey to be honest. Im sure he will be, i hope. You reacted in real time. Im not going to talk about that. You think this is a very serious moment right there. I do. Its very striking. Its been 40 years since we had a president that we knew of anyway who wasrd recording on any regular basis, Tape Recording his conversations. There is a reason why other president s havent done it. Because it Didnt Work Out well for Richard Nixon, obviously. The idea that he is putting out there is either he is in fact taping conversations with the fbi director of all people or he is bluffing or misleading in order to intimidate somebody who might have conferring that he considers to be damaging i guess. Either scenario is stunning i think for any white house. Vivian, this would appear to be a second straight interview done perhaps outside the authority and track of the press shop in the west wing. Lester holt, and then janine pirro in two straight interviews the president has made news n. Three separate depictions of the west wing, i have read about a dark place this week a place where people who did not want to encounter the president had their doors closed. What can you speak to the mood
him since the very, very beginning, relative and closest advisors, the original staff of his campaign his inner circle is getting smaller. He is apparently getting very, very tense with the situation that they cant sort of shake off the whole russia allegation. So its really an interesting time. And definitely can be felt, the tension, throughout the white house. And matthew, Lets Talk About the comey angle, respectfully he would insert the word integrity in every sentence he utters publicly if he thought he could. He has now been accused of what the president has ascribed to him, and that is saying three times, reassuring the president , you are not the subject of an investigation. Lets talk about, call it comeys revenge and how you think thats going to play out now . Well, basically what we have is Donald Trumps credibility versus that of james comey. Im not sure if thats a fight
donald trump wants to pick. James comey, for all the controversy he has been a part of, remains a respected figure certainly among the fbi and among Law Enforcement and among some on capitol hill and the idea that hes the one pushing these false narratives and the its the president who is the one delivering the truth on this seems a little dubious to a lot of people, all the more so because the president has been acting so defensive making this veiled or not so veiled threat about recording their conversations. And then of course the quote you showed, someone close to comey saying i hope there are tapes. So, again, in a Credibility Battle im not sure if thats one that trump comes out on top. Peter we have been talking 16 weeks now of this administration that the president is not, shall we say an institutionalist. He is not among those of us who have been steeped in history in the ways of the presidency because we have learned about it and find it interesting. He came from another world. Does that explain the fact that
he apparently did not know what his words in neither confirming nor denying recording the kind of scrutiny that the brief papers with janine pirro would bring . I think you need to remember this is the first president who never serve admin in an elected office and never been in the military. This is all new to him. It is a strength and a weakness. A strength obviously because people who support him and love the fact he is shaking up the system and when they see Everybody Pile on Like Washington is doing they get defensive and say thats because he is trying to drain the swamp. Its also a weakness in that he doesnt understand where the pitfalls are like politicians would. Most politicians understand hinting at the idea of a secret Taping System would raise echos you dont want to raise. Most administrations try to avoid it. Now its unavoidable. And who does he listen to. Is there anybody out there who can get to him and make him understand why there might be consequences to the thing he does on twitter and in these interviews . The answer seems to be no at the moment. Vivian, what steps were taken to further enhance the Trump Legislative Agenda Today or at any time this week . It is a hard to say, a lot of the communications have been surrounding this issue about firing Director Comey. As far as any of the major items on the agenda that he is trying to carry out sort of further his health care bill, you know, the tax plan, things like that, everything is sort of they are still rolling but there isnt a lot of attention because so much energy and effort is going into this whole issue of Director Comey being abrupt lee
fired and the russia investigation. I just want to point out something that peter said earlier. Its really important to remember that again, is it a bluff or there really evidence of something secret . This is at same president who threw out serious wiretapping allegations against president barack obama. Yet we have never seen those claims substantiated. Again we have a situation now where there is so much energy going into these claims that have no evidence to back them up. Its engaging people on the hill. Ow lawmakers are being engaged where you are having to reopen investigations and dedicate so many resources into these issues. And then President Trump gets really angry when they get so much attention. Its sort of a vicious cycle we are leading. Thats where we are now. Its fascinating to watch, but also very troubling for a lot of people who do want to see him fulfill his campaign promises. Our whole panel is going the stand by. We are going to fit a brief break in here and continue our
conversation. Coming up, new reporting tonight on former Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Former National Intelligence director James Clapper weighs in on the russia investigations that as we mentioned keep dogging this white house. We are back with all of that right after this. Show me the top hot 100 artist. They give awards for being hot and 100 years old . Well take 2 [ laughing ] xfinity x1 gives you exclusive access to the best of the Billboard Music awards just by using your voice. The Billboard Music awards. Sunday, may 21st eight seven central only on abc. There is new reporting from the Wall Street Journal about the sweeping russia investigation of it says, quote, the justice last month requested. Bag records of Paul Manafort as part of a widening probe related to Donald Trumps former Campaign Associates and whether they concluded with colluded with russia forgive me in interfering with the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the matter. Manafort has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and in the past he said any suggestion that he coordinated with russia is unfounded. When the white house talks about the russia investigation he often points to comments made by former director of National IntelligenceJames Clapper. In march he told chuck todd to
his knowledge there was not the intelligence to definitively answer whether there were improper contacts between the Trump Campaign and russian officials. Today Andrea Mitchell asked him about that again. Its not surprising or out of or abnormal that i would not have known about the investigation or each more importantly the content of that investigation. So i dont know if there was collusion or not. I dont know if theres evidence of collusion or not. Nor should i have in this particular context. Our panel remains with us. Peter, vivian, and matthew. Matthew, well begin with you. On this week where we had the socalled two sergeis in the oval office, where we had the Russian News Agency wandering around the oval office and taking what stood for hours as the official photoers. Henry kissinger shows up in the oval office and the man running the Russian Investigation is fired. This is about optics. Is it another lost week to this matter. This week was a disaster for the white house. No other way to put it. From the mess anning perspective they were all over the map. They had the president undercutting communications staff, his own vice president. Tweeting out this morning that his Press Secretary cant always be trusted to give accurate information. And you have all this when they could be pushing Health Reform in the senate, when they could be laying the ground work for tax reform and they could be preparing the president for his foreign trip. Instead we have another week consumed by russia and with this Wall Street Journal report you are referencing its more of a drip, drip, we know the president hates the story but its a not going away. And it Doesnt Go Away when you fire the person leading the investigation. As one wag put it tonight, how many coal mines were reopened today . Zero. Peter, among your travels covering four president s you were also the former Moscow Bureau chief. How much of this, given what you learned about the soviet and
then later russian mentality, how much of this is deja vu and how much does it inform your reporting . Its deja vu. Its not surprising that the russians would try to meddle in the affairs of other countries. Its part and parcel for what they have done for many years. There is a feeling on their part they are simply retaliating. This blame us, blame the United States for meddling in their neighbor when ukraine and the ballotics and georgia and so forth. And even the election of vladimir putin. They blame Hillary Clinton for rousting out protesters in the streets. They said that was Hillary Clinton personally doing that. Thats one reason why you saw them take off after her in last years election. It is deja vu. Its surreal seeing it now on this end as opposed to that end. That does not mean there is necessarily links with the trump people. Thats still something thats an uncertain part for us. We are still waiting for real conclusions by investigators on that. Vivian im guessing the Sunday Morning Shows will be something to watch. We may have some democrats actually passing out from Hyper Ventilation over this. It started today. They just cant believe they may get a shot at the possibility of recorded phone conversations. What is next week supposed to feature . Next week is jam packed actually from the beginning. We have visits from the crown prince of the you united arab emirates. We have a visit from the president of turkey, which is going to be a very significant visit because obviously he is a very controversial figure. He is basically just won a referendum to gain more power, monopolize more power in his country. Then eventually his president will make his way to the middle east, saudi arabia, israel, and europe for his first foreign trip. That was supposed to be very significant. This week, in fact, was supposed to be a planning week for him. And thats why the white house originally said he was going to
scale back his public appearances today was to prepare for the foreign visits. Unfortunately he has been consumed by other matters as weve seen. Its going to be interesting how this plays out. Even with Sergey Lavrov coming to down this week a lot of reporters asked him what do you think of the firing of james comey and he joked and said oh, my god was he fired . He kind of blew it off but im sure a number of foreign leaders overseas are going to be asked because there are a lot of eyes on this situation. Russia and the United States have been basically in a struggle for power, especially in the middle east, for many, many years now. The syria situation is a very significant one and on the mind of a lot of people. A lot of people want the know is he going to give russia a free pass or not . This is not something that is just impacting washington or the United States. All eyes around the world on this issue and everybody is going to be asking about it. Three terrific journalists to start us off late on a friday night as we put Trump Administration week 16 in the books. Peter, vivian, matthew, thank you all for coming on with us tonight. Coming up after our next break, jim comey in his own words and in the eyes of his coworkers will be joined by two former colleagues of his when The 11th Hour continues. Hey allergy muddlers
one of my daughters said dad the problem is you are the man. I thought that was a compliment. And i said thank you. She said i dopamine that as a compliment. You are the man, who would want to work for the man . I get that but the truth is if you know what this man and woman were like, you would want to be part of this. Hey guys thank you for hard you have been working. You have been killing it. You are one of the things that i have in mind when i tell the American People look, dont freak out, right, let us do our work. Thank you for that. That was from a show called inside the fbi on u. S. A. Network that Airs Thursdays at 10 00 p. M. And that comes close to portraying the james comey a lot of his associates know. This is what donald trump said about james comey yesterday. Look, hes a showboat. Hes a grand stander. The fbi has been in turmoil, you know that. I know that. Everybody knows that. Comments like that from President Trump about james comey cannot sit well with his defenders or the more than 36,000 employees and the 56 Field Offices of the fbi. We learned yesterday from comeys replacement, the acting director Andrew Mccabe what the vast majority of rank and file employees at the bureau in his view have deep and positive connection with comey. Many have quietly replaced their facebook photos with a photo of their old boss as a show of solidarity. James comey and as we mentioned a source close to comey told nbcs ken dlanian he hopes there are tapes saying that would be perfect. Joining me, stacey plastic ket. Importantly, she was senior
counsel for then Deputy Attorney general james comey. With me, ron has kell, former 30year veteran of the fbi and former Assistant Director at the bureau. Welcome to you both. Stacey, well begin with you. A lot of the president s narrative n plain english, didnt sound like the james comey people knew at the bureau. The desire to have dinner with his boss, for starters. But then asking to stay on four years into a tenyear term. And then reassuring the president he wasnt under investigation. Did you have that same reaction . That does not sounds like the james comey that those of us who worked with him at the deputy of justice during his tenure as Deputy Attorney general know. James comey was a man of you had most integrity. Almost to a fault. And we saw that earlier this summer with the way that he conducted himself, may in some instances seem to have
overstepped the line. But i think that was based on his belief in his public servitude and his idea of having an honest and open dialogue with the people of america to whom he feels the greatest bit of gratitude and servitude towards. In your day job as a member of house oversight, what was your reaction to hear there may be recorded conversations . Well, you know, back in april, myself and congressman ted lou as well as Kathleen Rice all being former federal prosecutors wrote a letter to the Department Of Justice requesting that a Special Prosecutor be put in place because of what is now happening. There cannot be any seeming politicizing of this investigation which is exactly what is happening. And the notion there would be tapes are something that the oversight committee, both the Ranking Member and i think think that chairman chafe, et cetera would want to dig into at this
time. Ron, i have referred to former Director Comey as kinds of an elliot necessary character, affectionately. As a catholic, i can also say he has the bearing of a member of the college of cardinals. Talk about the Director Comey you knew and worked under. And talk about the hit his reputation has taken this week. Well, first, like stacey said, i saw a person of impeccable credentials, trustworthiness, smart as a whip, so experienced. I had said to many people when he was the nominee that the fbi is getting a rock star. And i fully believe that and when i came to work with him, you know, i saw the human being as well as this incredibly capable boss. You know, ive told others a store on when we had the Government Shutdown when i was Assistant Director. His secretary called me the first day that the nonessential employees were allowed to come back to work. And i got a call were the directors secretary asking
me saying mr. Hosko the director would like to come down and visit the criminal investigative division. He came down with, you know, one Support Employee with him and walked the floors of my division, several hundred strong, meeting in small groups with people, apologizing to those who had been sitting out as unessential or nonessential, and just saying thank you for what you do. And he has done that on a regular basis, with sick agents, agents who have put great cases On The Boards can get a call Out Of The Blue from jim comey telling them what a great job they have done and what an asset to the organization. You know, i think what his dismissal to me and i think to a lot of my former colleagues is nothing less than obscene. This is a great american, a patriot, a Public Servant who felt like this was the pinnacle of his Public Service career. To me and to a lot of other people is a disgrace the way this has been handled. Stacey, yes. Brian did. Yes. We have the remember this is the james comey who was willing in the Bush Administration to stand up against the white house, during the torture memos. And with that was able to ask his staff each to prepare their resignations and willing to leave the job. The idea of him begging to keep his job as the fbi director doesnt ring true to most of us who worked with him. But i think we need to really the idea of him begging to keep his job as the fbi director doesnt ring true to most of us who worked with him. But i think we need to really expand outside of just james comey and really look at what this investigation is about. We need to allow Special Prosecutor be put in place so that the work of congress can still go on now. You know, we talk about the investigations that are happening, the intel. Of course tell continue to have their investigations, but they
cannot do that if in fact those agencies that requiring information from are tainted by invex from the white house and other political individuals trying to steep into it. We are trying to do work in congress. My district, the Virginia Islands is looking for equity. We have issues of health care, tax reform, infrastructure, the growth and the future of our young people. And thats this is a distraction from the American People. Whatever the outcome, no american is going to believe and feel confident in it unless a Special Prosecutor is put out in place. The Honorable Stacey Plastic Ket gets to go home to her district in a beautiful place, the virgin island. Come on down. Dont tempt me ill be down there for breakfast. And veteran fbi agent john hosko. Thank you for appearing with us. The question arises, can conservatives be pro trump in this environment or are they more successful being the antiantitrump . Well explain with Charlie Sykes right after this. They are totally suffering from a syndrome. Trump derangement syndrome. The Democrat Party is going bananas, completely totally unhinged on the road to literal insanity. The democrats are convinced the russians stole the election. Conservative media reaction to the firing of fbi Director Comey. More broadly, Many Republican lawmakers avoided commenting on the firing this week. According to nate silvers 538, of 52 republicans in the senate 25 either gave an ambiguous reaction or gave no statement at all. Only a quarter of them defended the president s decision. Similar story in the house. They have been home on an 11day recess. Here with speaking paul ryan today shielding questions on the firing. Im not going to comment on their private conversations. Ill let the president speak for himself. The president made his decision. There is nothing i can do about that. Im going to focus on what i control, which is my job. Joining me from Wisconsin Conservative Commentator and msnbc contributor, Charlie Sykes. His new op ed in the New York Times is titled, if liberals hate him then trump may be doing something right. In a moment we will make him account for that headline. And jeremy alter, msnbc analyst. Charlie, what is your Central Holding about what conservativism has been replaced with . Its been replaced by this Viralent Loathing for the president , antiantitrumpism. They have three choices. You are going to have some people who go to the mat to defend President Trump. Sean hannity. The never trumpers who will break with him. But the reality is this is a
difficult moment for republicans as long a as the Republican Base is supporting trump. The safe space is not to necessarily support or defend trump. Its to change the subject and attack his critics. In some of the sound bytes you play, notice how they pivot. Its not about trump. We are not going to defend trump. But lets beat up on liberals. Its talk about the hypocrisy of the liberals. Things that make the liberals heads explode. Thats what the Conservative Media is talking about right now. That means rather than focusing on ordered liberty its turned into a party dedicated to trolling the leif. Whatever upsets liberals is good enough for them. Im not sure thats a winning streep. Jonathan, the three of us are of a similar age. Having said that, when you say
the word tapes, when you indicate recordings of private conversations, it gets your attention. Is this sustainable . And how does this end . Well, i personally dont believe there are tapes. I could be wrong. But i think that what will happen is pretty soon the Conservative Media, after its clear that trump was just saying this in order to, you know, bluff and hold some cards over comey, that the Conservative Media will say, see, trump was punking them, he punked the liberal media, the gullible liberal media believed there were tapes. This is out of the trump playbook. He will make it seem lying he has something on one of his political enemies. I find it hard to believe that trump so stupid as to keep tapes. Charlie, we do talk about him, the plight term is antiinstitutionalist, someone who came to office not with the
reading and learning background in the trappings of government and the machining of government that most do because he came from another world. Thats why people so often look at him and listen to him and say you cant say that. Or if you say that, you will exposure entire press teams efforts this week. If you say that, you will invite subpoenas from the hill and it keeps happening. Yeah, and even by the standards this president , this really has been a stunning series of days. Look, we know that in fact as you point out that he is he has displayed his ignorance about, you know, the constitutional form of government and about the norms. We have seen how erratic he is. We have seen how he is unburdened by much allegiance to the truth. You have to wonder whether or not the president is too addled to know how corrupt he looks or his behaviors that become. We are at the point now where this is no longer a parlor game. What we are seeing i think it
is a dawning on a lot of people and a lot of republicans are genuinely horrified or ought to be horrified by this. We are actually seeing a president coming out and all but acknowledge he is engaging in the Obstruction Of Justice of thats what is so breath taking about it. Because you want to say do you understand what you just said, you are threatening somebody, you are implying you engaged in nixonian taping, you are trying to blackmail the head of the fbi who was in charge of investigating your campaign . So we are seeing openly something that none of us i think ever imagined we would see out of president. Jonathan, something i repeat all the time. Republicans were the heros of watergate. Right. Having said that, who are you looking to these days. Well, i think we have to look to
john mccain and lindsey graham. Maybe ben sass richard burr. Richard burr, ben sass and some of the others are like charlie, principled conservatives. This is a Character Test for the republican party. Its going to go on for a while. I think a lot of them are failing the Character Test. They are putting their integrity and principles in blind trust. Its about one of the only blind trusts that we have in washington right now. But they are making their loyalty to this man, this very flawed, impetuous, incompetent, and you know, possibly incriminated man the bases of their political future. It is a very riskly political strategy for them. And i cant there wont be some others who will rise as Barry Goldwater and others did during watergate and come out of this looking good because they went to conscious and principles over partisanship and loyalty. The top of their ticket goes into the weekend at 38 pop layer. Charlie sykes, jonathan alter, gentlemen, our thanks for appearing with us. Coming up after thebreak on the week Len Rehessinger is invited to the oval office, they might be looking for micro phones in the oval office. Back with more after this. Getscreenednow. Org it only takes a minute to take care of yourself, and nothing rhymes with org. Programs regularly scheduled for this time will not be seen today in order that we might bring you the following nbc news special report. Watergate, senate hearings. Romantic titles back then. That was july 16, 1973, very important day in american president ial history, important because thats the day we learned from the Senate Testimony of former Nixon White House aid Alexander Butterfield. Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of installation of Listening Devices in the oval Office Of The President . I was aware of Listening Devices, yes, sir. If i can move on to telephones. Are you aware of the installation of any devices on any of the telephones, first of all in the oval office . Yes, sir. Unbelievable moment. Fast forward to today and the president either hinting or bluffing or threatening to have recordings of private conversations in the white house. For more tonight we are joined by michael and among his many
works and nine books on president s two books on the recorded conversations of president Lyndon Johnson taking charge and reaching for glory and point of personal privilege but if you buy the audio books you get the Johnson White house Tape Recordings as narrated by michael beshlaus. There is a scene when nixon comes to the white house. He is going to move in. And johnson is showing him around the place and they both get down on their knees. What did Johnson Want To show Richard Nixon . There is nothing i can say that is going to match that build up. Thanks for the kind word, by the way. What happened was that johnson was showing nixon around the private rooms of the upstairs of the white house and says come into my bedroom. Johnson gets down on his knees and as the story is told sort of almost crawled under his bed and nixon wondered what is going on here. Johnson apparently pulled out a lot of wires and said these lead to my Taping System. Dick, you really should have a Recording System the way that i do records my telephone calls, records even here in my bedroom, records oval office conversations. When nixon went home he said thats the last thing i want to do is record all of these conversations. The second im president pull all of this stuff out. Then about a little more more than a year in he began to think the idea was a good one because nixon was worried the people who work for him might take all sorts of credit for things that nixon felt that he deserved so
nixon felt that to record all of this conversations essentially wall to wall because it was not a system with a switch as johnson had. He could use this to protect himself. The early system used a dictaphone recording mechanism. It was pretty primitive. Today the president says tapes in quotes meaning recordings perhaps. Michael, i know lbj wanted in part for leverage to remind people what they had said or promised to him over the phone he always had the transcript if he needed it. If this current president is recording private conversations in the white house other than making himself a huge subpoena
target, is there anything wrong with it . Is there anything illegal . Illegal is a question. In terms of shattering precedence and shattering things that president s have been doing before ever since that day that you just showed with Alexander Butterfield in july of 1973, nixon had to immediately stop taping and pull out the system and later president s have all said i will never do such a thing because it reminds people of nixon who behaved badly, but it violates peoples Civil Liberties to record conversations with the president that are supposed to be private without their knowledge. And the other thing is that president s have felt that if people even had the suspension that when they go into the oval office or talk to a president on the telephone that they are being taped they are not going to give a president unvarnished advice and that will wind up hurting the president. Our thanks for joining us late on a friday night. To our viewers to hear what the recordings sound like the books are taking charge, reaching for glory. Try the audio books. Thank you. A final break for us. When the boss makes news on twitter in the morning what do you say at the News Briefing in the afternoon as The 11th Hour continues. You just said a minute ago that what president was but you stood at the podium and said the tweet speaks for itself. When do you decide when a president s tweets, when his words are open to interpretation and when they stand on their own . Last thing before we go that was back in march Hallie Jackson ask ag question a lot of us have had about the White House Press shop and that is how do you decide who to defend what the president says on twitter and when to deflect. Sean spicer has held 49 press briefings. In 31 of those there have been questions about what the president on twitter including two biggies that he was somehow wire tapped by president obama and that there might be a recording of his Dinner Conversation with james comey. Throughout sean spicer has
relied almost exclusively on a goto response. I think the president s tweet speaks clearly for itself. I think the tweet is pretty clear. I think the president made clear in his tweet that he was referring to the fake news. The president was clear that it was wire tapping. I will say the president has tweeted about this and is clear he believes there is surveillance. I think the tweet speaks for itself. Sometimes you dont have to read too much into it. Referring to the tweet. The president has nothing further to add on that. He simply stated a fact. The tweet speaks for itself. Im moving on. Just today comedic National TreasureMelissa Mccarthy was spotted driving her sean spicer podium all over the streets of new york. It is clear she is hosting Saturday Night Live less than 24 hours from now. That is it for us for tonight. Happy mothers day