campaign, the re-election in november, and apparently, wolf, does not want to say anything that could infuriate the president. perhaps one reason he did not want to answer that question. but no doubt about it, wolf, republicans did not want to embrace these concerns today perhaps because the president is so about the mueller probe. manu raju on capitol hill. joining us now, republican congressman chris stewart. he s a member of the house intelligence committee. congressman, thanks so much for joining us. good afternoon. the president has told his attorney general, jeff sessions, to stop the russia investigation right away. is that in your opinion obstruction of justice? i think it would be very, very difficult as a prosecutor to make the case. i m not an attorney but common sense would tell me it s going to take much more than that to prove any kind of case towards what you ve indicated there. the president can voice his opinion. i don t deny him that ability. but in this cas
served, what, 40 years in the u.s. military, becoming a general. you were the director of national intelligence on behalf of all of us, we want to once again thank you for your service to our country over these many, many years. thank you very much for that. we ll continue to follow all the breaking news. there s other important news we re following right now up on capitol hill. democrats are demanding that president trump s u.s. supreme court nominee recuse himself from any future cases regarding special counsel mueller s investigation. democrats are deeply concerned, manu, about brett kavanaugh s disdain for the ruling of the confidenti confidentiali constitutionality. reporter: this is different than the special counsel robert
wolf, and it goes to the supreme court, how will he ultimately come down on that decision, too, if judge kavanaugh becomes justice kavanaugh? raising concerns about the independent counsel and about a president not being able shouldn t be indicted. that may make him skeptical about a subpoena demanding he testify before the mueller investigation. the question, of course, wolf, will he be able to answer any of this? nominees typically tend to avoid these types of answers to get pinned down. we ll see if he decides to reveal anything in his thinking. very quickly, manu, where do republicans up on capitol hill stand on this right now? reporter: the nomination right now is very close. we expect it to come down in a party line vote, almost certainly. a handful of republicans and democrats in the middle are uncertain where they re going to come down. this will be a very close vote.
in an office, they re in in the course of their day, they re coming across information that is helpful to the fbi when it comes to this type of investigation. jeffrey toobin, nada bakos, thank you. any minute house speaker paul ryan is set to take questions from the press. this less than an hour after lawmakers were briefed on current threats to u.s. elections. manu raju on capitol hill. what are you expecting to hear? that s right. secretary nielsen actually just came out, the dhs secretary, to discuss what they discussed behind closed doors, about 40 and 50 members of the entire house body who showed up to the briefing about election security, talking about things they wanted to do, the federal and state level, concerns about russia and other state actors may try to infiltrate the 2018 campaign, the way that russia meddled in the 2016 elections and she briefed about her the actions there. we also had a chance to talk to her about another issue, the
airissaliggara sent trump a birthday gift after the june 26th meeting and it was an expensive painting and he responded to aguilara a week later saying there are few things better than receiving a sensational gift from someone you admire and that is what i received from you. jake. manu raju on capitol hill. now to pamela brown at the white house. and the president held a press conference this afternoon alongside german chancellor angela merkel and not asked about russia and yet still managed to bring it up himself. russia was clearly on the president s mind today during the joint press conference. he brought up what he called the russia collusion hoax when asked a question about dr. ronny jackson who was of course his pick for v.a. secretary who with drew his nomination. the president said he sympathized with dr. jackson and the fact that in his words that he faced false allegations because the president said that he also has faced false