over the late summer, early fall when there was speculation that the president could be thinking about firing the special counsel. but it died down because not only the president, but his aides, his lawyers insisted he was not considering firing robert mueller. it wasn't even on the table. and we now know with this bombshell "new york times" report that the president not only made the decision to fire robert mueller but order the white house counsel to do so and only backtracked because the counsel threatened to quit over it. that actually was not true. the president was actually considering it. senator mark warner is a democrat and the leading democrat on the senate intelligence committee. and he actually had something to say about this after "new york times" published this bombshell report. >> i think if the president had gone through with this or tries to go through with it on a going forward basis, we're into unchartered teratir. we're into the real question of the fundamentals of our democracy. are we still going to be a country where rule of law