I think we having criticized for doing things too quickly in our being criticized for dealings to slowly. Maybe im right in the middle of the sweet spot, but the president hit the timing perfectly and i will tell you i. One of the block and tackle things was get the money right. He has picked a cabinet full of people that no Business Operations and business functions youre listening to the white House Homeland Security adviser while we await the question portion of the daily press briefing. How to bring and frank gordon from washington. Kevin is live as well from capitol hill. Greg, the president signed an executive order earlier this afternoon focusing on protecting federal agencies to develop a plan for cybersecurity. Office throughout this executive order is about . Of the most unprotected pieces of u. S. Government infrastructure after 9 11 has an the cyber part of it. It is shocking, shocking to a lot of americans how antiquated a lot of the government equipment is around town. The fbi computers in particular. Saying wenald trump have put up gates outside pennsylvania avenue and physical structures, but now its time to take care of the cyber. Scarlet before we move on to jim comey, was originally in rolling out this order was there a delay enrolling at this order . Craig im not sure exactly what the delay was. I think if you fellas at the back of the line in this vitamin one of them. Scarlet kevin scarlet we have Sarah Sanders starting now. Sarah sanders a few announcements and has promised it will get to all of your many pressing questions. I would like to invest the president also just signed another executive order establishing a bipartisan president ial Advisory Committee on election integrity. This will be cheered by Vice President mike pence. The president is committed to that the rope of registration and voting issues and federal elections. That is exactly what this commission is tasked with doing. It will be made up of around a dozen members, including current and former secretaries of state, the kansas secretary of state serving as vice chair. It will also include individuals with knowledge and experience in elections, collection management, Election Fraud detection and voter integrity efforts. Five additional members that have been announced as of today, connie lawson, secretary of state of indiana, bill gardner, secretary of state or new hampshire, matthew dunlap, secretary of state of maine, kim blackwell, former secretary of state of ohio, and critical more rick desperately mccormick and christie mccormick. And provide a president with a report that identifies system vulnerabilities that will lead to improper registration and voting. We expect the report will be complete by 2018. The experts and officials on the commission will follow the facts for they lead, meetings and hearings will be open to the public for comment and input, and we will share updates as we have them. Secretary news, perdue is in cincinnati to enough the agriculture departments plan for reorganizing to provide Better Service to the American People as the president directed in his march 13 executive order. With the barges of the ohio river behind him, many with containing products that are beginning a journey that will ultimately take them to markets overseas, secretary perdue will announce a new mission area for trade and foreign agriculture affairs, recognizing the growing importance of International Trade to the Agriculture Sector of the economy. United states immigration and Customs Enforcement will hold a press conference at 2 15 today. Not too far away. Announcing the result of a highly successful recent gang search operation. The president made enforcement of our nations Immigration Law top priority and todays announcement will underscore not only that commitment but his focus on targeting transnational gangs and prioritizing the removal of criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety. Mattisoday, secretary met with the turkish prime minister. The secretary reiterated the United States commitment to protecting our nato ally in both leaders affirmed their support for peace and stability in iraq and syria. One other thing i wanted to point out, last night obamacare severed another serious blow. It is pulling out of the nebraska and delaware theirplaces, which ends participation in exchanges completely. They have sustained hundreds of millions of dollars of the last several years and is projected to lose more than 200 million in 2017. The company attributes those losses the structural issues within the exchanges, the atlantic coop failures and carrier exits and subsequent risk pool deterioration. Adds to theews mountain of evidence that failed theas American People and is no time to waste in repealing and replacing this law before it brings our entire Health Care System down with it. I know we have sent out a timeline regarding the former the firing of former director because of her misperceptions about the meeting between the president and the attorney general and the Deputy Attorney general on monday. I will read it to you all again just to make sure were all on the same page, because of what the sequence of event to be perfectly clear to everyone. The president over the last several months lost confidence in director comey. After watching director comeys testimony last wednesday, the president was strongly inclined to remove him. On monday the president met with the attorney general and the Deputy Attorney general and they discussed reasons for removing the director. The next day, tuesday, may 9, Deputy Attorney general sent his written recommendation to the attorney general and the attorney general said his recommendation to the president. Hopefully that clears up some of those things. With that, i will take your questions. Why did the president think james comey was a showboat and grandstand or . Sarah sanders probably based on the numerous appearances he made and i think its probably pretty evident in his behavior over the last year or so with the back and forth. I think it speaks clearly. Those words not leave a lot of room for interpretation. I think its pretty clear what he meant. Reporter when were these three conversations the president had with james comey about if he was under investigation . Was that since january 20 . Sarah sanders that is my understanding but i dont have exact age on the phone call to waste. Phone call took place. Reporter regarding the interview the president just did, isnt it inappropriate for the president to ask the fbi director directly these under investigation . Sarah sanders i dont believe it is. He said they happen at a dinner where the fbi director was asking to stay on his fbi director. Is that a conflict of interest . The fbi director sankey was to keep his job and the president is asking whether or not he is under investigation . Sarah sanders i dont see that as a conflict of interest and neither do the legal scholars and others that have been commenting on it for the last hour. No, i dont see that as an issue. Reporter i ask you directly if the president already decided to fire james comey when he met with the Deputy Attorney general. You said no. Also the Vice President of said directly to the president acted to take the recommendation of the Deputy Attorney general to remove the fbi director. Sean spicer said directly it was all him, meaning the Deputy Attorney general. Now we learn from the president directly he already decided the fire james comey. Why were so many people giving answers that just were not correct . For you in a dark . Was the Vice President misled again . Sarah sanders i know you would love to report we were misled and we want to create hold on. I let you finish and read up every single one of those ailments. Statements. Unless you want to trade places, i think it might turn out. I have not had the conversation directly with the president to say. Several conversations with him but i did not asked directly if he made the decision. I went off the information i had money answer your question. I have since had a conversation with him right before i walked on today. He laid out clearly. He already made the decision. He had been thinking about it for months, which i did say yesterday and many times since. Wednesday i think was the final straw that pushed him. The recommendation i guess he got from the Deputy Attorney general further solidified his decision. Again, it reaffirmed he made the right one. Reporter was the Vice President in the dark . Sarah sanders nobody was in the dark, jonathan. You want to create a false narrative. You want to talk about contradicting agents and people that were maybe in the dark, how about the democrats . You want to talk about them, here is what democrats said not long ago about comey. Gary reed said comey should be investigated by the senate. Chuck schumer said i dont have confidence in him any longer. Senator Bernie Sanders said it would not be a bad thing for the American People if comey resigned. Antipolice he said he was nancy pelosi said he was not in the right job. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said she thought comey was no longer able to serve in a neutral and credible way. Just yesterday representative acting waters that Hillary Clinton would have fired comey. You want to talk about people in the dark . Our story is consistent. The president is the only person that can fire the director of the fbi. He serves at the pleasure of the president. The president made the decision. It was the right decision. The people in the dark today are the democrats. You want to come out, they want to talk about all these they love comey and how great he was. The facts dont lie. The statements are all right there. I think its extremely clear that, and frankly kind of sad. In washington we finally have something i think we should all been able to agree on and that was the director comey should not have been at the fbi. The democrats want to play partisan games and i think that the most glaring thing being left out of all your process stories. John roberts. Reporter he said from the podium yesterday the director lost confidence in the rankandfile of the fbi. Directlyl hill, mccabe unpredicted that. What lead you in the white house to believe he had lost the confidence of the rankandfile of the fbi when the acting director said exactly the opposite . Sarah sanders i can speak to my own personal experience. I spoke to countless members of the of the at the yard that are grateful and painful for the president of the decision president s decision. We have to agree to disagree. Im sure there are some people that are disappointed but i heard from a large number of individuals. That is just myself and i dont even know that many evil in the fbi. People in the fbi. Really the democrats in james comey after the october 20 announcement he was reopening the investigation as far as a clinton emails. Their point is timing is different. This was in the middle of an investigation. Do they have a point . Sarah sanders not at all. I think mr. Mccabe made a point better than i could today when he said there has been no impediment to the investigation. As i said before, any investigation taking place on monday is taking place today. I think that is again another sad story by the democrats they are trying to peddle. Comment fromther the hearing today. The acting Deputy Attorney general said that im sorry, mccabe said he considers the investigation into russian meddling in the election to be highly significant. He said the investigation was a hoax and he questioned recently whether it mightve been china. Has the president consider this to be highly significant . Sarah sanders i think he would love nothing more for this investigation to continue to its completion. Thatnk one of the reasons the hoax component is the collusion component, the false narrative you guys have been pushing for the better part of a year. I think that is the piece he is repeatedly talking about being a hoax. Reporter in terms of threats to National Security, he takes that security seriously. Sarah sanders of course he takes National Security seriously. Is toints he does not misunderstand this president completely. From the very moment he stepped onto the Campaign Stage to the day he took the oath of office to become president , he has talked about National Security. He made at one of the biggest priorities of the administration. You just saw tom talking about cybersecurity on all fronts, whether it is securing the border, protecting people abroad. The president has been focused on that. I have not had the chance to ask him about that. I think we are waiting on the final conclusion of that investigation. I think any time we have somebody interfering with our election, that would be considered a problem. I think the president would certainly recognize that. Vice president pence yesterday said the firing was based on the recommendation of the attorney general and Deputy Attorney general. We know that is not true. Was the Vice President misled again or did he mislead the American People . Sarah sanders i believe i have answered that question. Reporter i dont think i caught it. The Vice President said yesterday the president supports the decision of the Deputy Attorney general and attorney general. Sarah sanders he certainly accepted the that doesnt mean he would not still except his recommendation. They are on the same page. Why we arguing about the semantics of whether or not he accepted it . They agreed. Im not sure how he did not accept the Deputy Attorney generals recommendation monday agreed with one another. Reporter let me switch topics. If the president knew he was going to do this, why ask for the memos to begin with . Why not fire comey . Why have the memos put out the next when he did it because of the memos, but he was going to do another way . Im confused we even got the memos. Sarah sanders i think he wanted to get the feedback and the Deputy Attorney general, the director of the fbi reports to him. And further solidifies the decision he made. The only person that can fire comey was the president. He made that decision. It was clearly the right one as evidenced by all the comments, both by house and senate democrats, republicans, and many people within the fbi. I think instead of getting so lost in the process that this happened at 12 01 or 12 02, he fired him because he was not fit to do the job. It is that simple. Did should not be a collocated process. The president new director comey was not up to the task. He decided he was not the right person for the job. He wanted somebody that can bring credibility back to the fbi. That had been lost over the last several months. The president made the decision. He made it, moved forward, it was the right one. I dont think the backandforth makes it much difference. Reporter did you call on me . Thank you. Going back to what you said. Some democrats said comey should have been fired, but why now . Even though the Deputy Attorney general recommended it, the question is why now . Sarah sanders i think i have answered this. I hate to again just keep repeating myself, but we are getting lost on the same questions. He decided he was not fit. There was never going to be a good time to fire someone. Whether its on a tuesday or friday. He decided he wanted to get director comey a chance. He did, and he felt like he was not up to the task. Reporter monday, sean spicer at the podium said after the he saidy of yates, there was no collusion. He also said they need to be a timeline for the Russian Investigation and said yesterday it should continue. Which one is it . Should it end . Yesterday he said it should continue. Sarah sanders we wanted to come to its completion. We want to continue until it is finished, which we would like to happen soon so we can focus on the things we think most americans frankly care a lot more about. I think the people in this room are obsessed with this story a lot more than the people that we talked to and we hear from every day. We would like to be focused on the problems they have. Thats the point. We would love this to be completed but we want to be completed with integrity. Thats one of the reasons frankly i think the decision the president made was the right one, because i think it at credibility and integrity back to the fbi for a lot of people were questioning it. Reporter we know the president fired the fbi director with six years left on a 10 year contract. How important is the next fbi director not be a show boat or a grandstander . How important is that this person show loyalty to the president . Sarah sanders i think the main factor they are looking for is there loyal to the justice system, loyal to the American People. This president is looking for somebody who can come in independent and has the support across the board, whether with republicans, democrats, members of the fbi and certainly the American People. It was not just one thing that caused the president to make the decision. A large part of why he made the decision was he did not feel like director comey was up to the job. It was just an erosion of confidence he had in his ability to carry out the tasks that needed to be done. He is looking for somebody to do that. Jordan . Reporter i want to follow up on