what the president s intentions are, but it looks like he s making a move to end the mueller investigation. ied can call upon the members of congress who are going to be leaving soon to do the right thing on the way out the door and pass the legislation that would protect the independent counsel s office. i think that protecting the mueller investigation is more important now than ever. do you think it s i actually talked to nadler about that. he actually suggested democrats should hold up funding the government at the end of the year in order to get that passed. do you support that? you have a lot of federal employees in your district? i do not support shutting down the government. but i think that they need to try to push it through as soon as they can. this is a real opportunity for all of those members who declined to run again to do the right thing on the way out the door. congresswoman elect slotkin, we re talking about whitaker. he has made no secret of his criticism of
officials weren t aware he had made these comments critical of the probe and they were taken aback when there was so much scrutiny on matt whitaker s past comments and they re worried about what his future is going to be going forward. now, brooke, that last statement from the president was key. he said he did not discuss the russia probe with matt whitaker before he tapped him to become the acting attorney general. that s something critics say they do not believe from the president, democratic critics mostly. but that s something that s going to come under intense scrutiny, whether or not the president talked to him and discussed whether or not he would recuse himself before he picked him to take over this job, brooke. kaitlan, thank you. kaitlan ahead of the president there in paris. we have much to discuss on matthew whitaker, this acting a.g., including his view that judges should have a biblical view of justice. and coming up, the one thing
of. i didn t speak to matt whitaker about it. i don t know matt whitaker. matt whitaker has a great reputation and that s what i wanted. i also wanted to do something which, frankly, i could have brought somebody very easily from the outside. i didn t want to do that. when sessions left, what i did very simply is take a man who worked for sessions. you heard the president say several times the president doesn t know matt whitaker. so how does he explain this clip from a month ago? i never talk about that but i can tell you matt whitaker s a great guy. i know matt whitaker. but i never talk about conversations that i had. let s go to kaitlan collins. she is in paris where the president is expected to arrive shortly. kaitlan, you report several senior officials are concerned whitaker may be in jeopardy of keeping his new job. reporter: that s right,
of course they knew and they re just saying you guys are exaggerati exaggerating. we didn t think it was a big deal, but in this administration, i can t really say i m that surprised. i don t think this is a strategy. we have seen donald trump seek to elevate other people, ronny jackson being one, with seemingly very little of the even bare bones background opposition research that would go into these sort of high-profile picks. so i m not surprised they were surprised, which in and of itself is somewhat surprising. the wordsmith, chris cillizza. shimon, president trump, one of the things he also hit on over and over again as he was heading to marine one was that matt whitaker is highly respected. highly regarded by law enforcement, highly regarded in the legal community. what are you hearing, though? he s been working at the justice department now under jeff sessions. what are you hearing about that from people over at justice?
kellyanne conway husband, george conway, co-authored an op-ed that said it was unconstitutional to have matt whitaker in there. so he s getting hit from all sides. go ahead, greg. if i could just clarify. i personally don t know the extent to which the president knows matt whitaker or as any sort of relationship with him but it is clear to me that given matt s prior status as the former attorney general chief of staff they likely would have had interactions at the white house. moreover, i think what s surprising to all of us is that the president, that any president would pick even an acting cabinet member without having met that person first. and that i think is what is just not passing the smell test for most people observing this. i m looking at both of the ladies, all nodding with you. yes, you should meet that person before selecting them. a little job interview maybe. this is the job he cares about the most.