Mr. Trump also reportedly called the former director a real nut job. Deputy attorney general Rob Rosenstein tells congress he stands by a memo that he wrote that preceded the firing of james comey. In remarks to congress, he says firing the f. B. I. Director was appropriate and listed concerns over the handling of the clinton email investigation. The Congressional Budget Office will release a cost estimate for the Health Care Bill that passed the house next wednesday. Speaker paul ryan has not sent the bill to the senate because the c. B. O. Report could force another vote. I am mark upton reporting from new york. Emily i am emily chang. And this is Bloomberg Technology. President trump takes off his First Official trip overseas but leaves behind a white house in damage control. We will analyze the potential impact of the drama on tech. Uber in another p. R. Nightmare, this time the fury coming from within. We will dig into that and the latest on the court battle with waymo. Streaming domination. We will get the inside track from c. E. O. Anthony wood later this hour. But first to the lead. Donald trump is embarking on his First International trip as president while controversies continue to swirl at home. His eightday odyssey will take him to the middle east and europe where he will meet with the saudi king, pope francis, and newly elected french president emmanuel macron. News reports surfaced over the firing of f. B. I. Director james comey. The New York Times reports President Trump told russian officials firing comey relieved pressure on him and the investigation into his campaign ties with russia, reportedly going on to say comey was crazy and a nut job. We are joined by Shannon Pettypiece from the white house. What is the reaction to the latest revelation . The white house is pretty much empty at this point. I could have told you about door slamming and people scurrying into meetings. Right now they are all on planes. If they were hoping for a couple of quiet days before the coming testimony on wednesday and the budget on tuesday, i think this will be the question all of the reporters are asking on saturday when they land, throughout sunday, who knows what the week weekend has in store. It changes the agenda from the things they want to be talking about to the things being talked about back home. As they go to meet with foreign leaders who know officials are watching the reports closely as well. These things will be at the top of their mind. Emily sean spicer released a statement saying the investigation would have continued and obviously the termination of comey would not have ended it. The real story is National Security has been undermined by the leaking of highly classified conversations. Talk about what we are expecting when it comes to the home front over the next few days. Potentially a new f. B. I. Director could be named any moment. It is interesting you mentioned that statement. That part of the statement was his defense. Earlier in the statement, sean spicer basically acknowledged comey was fired because of the russia investigation, because of politicizing the russia investigation. He said remember the initial story about the comey firing was supposed to be it was based off this memo from the Deputy Attorney general. The president said he already knew he was going to fire him going into it. This statement from sean spicer says it was because of this russia investigation, they did not like how he was politicizing it. The story keeps evolving over comey. Wednesday, we are expecting to hear testimony from comey. Huge headlines that day and the day leading up to it and likely the days afterwards. All this going on as the president is in the middle east meeting with european leaders and trying to develop new relationships for this young presidency. Emily specifically, a statement from sean spicer. He says by grandstanding the investigation, james comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with russia. To what extent do we expect these issues at home are going to overshadow what is happening abroad . I doubt nothing else is going to come out this week. I think the domestic issues at home will be the issues abroad. If you are a foreign leader sitting across from President Trump right now, you will have all of these things in the back of your mind. You will have in the back of your mind that he reportedly leaked intelligence, intelligence given to him by the russians. About how this would relieve pressure from the investigation around russia by getting rid of comey. You are going to have in the back of your mind that he tweeted about potentially having tapes of the conversation. All of these things in deciding if i can trust this person, if this is going to be a friend or foe. All of those domestic issues will be on foreign leaders minds. Emily Shannon Pettypiece live from the white house. Thanks so much. A busy weekend likely ahead. Lets get more perspective on the administration and how chaos in the white house could impact Silicon Valley. With me in the studio, Roger Mcnamee, cofounder of elevation partners. Silicon valley cannot widely came out widely against trump. What has been the reaction over the last several months as the revelations have unfolded . Roger the stock market has had no problem with any of this. Especially not for tech stocks. At some level, people in Silicon Valley are very happy with what has happened to their stock valuations. Where i think the challenge comes in is with all of the focus on fake news, there has been a failure to appreciate the real challenge from the russians came with manipulating Public Opinion around things people may have believed, reinforcing them so strongly it caused some people not to vote and other people to get into various emotional states that were not healthy. The thing we do not want to lose sight of is that is still going on. There was a report this morning about the russians putting bots into twitter to influence Public Opinion in the united states. I think the Tech Industry has to this point gotten a free pass on all of this stuff. We are talking about the folks in the persuasion business. This is google, facebook, to a lesser extent twitter. Others in the ecosystem in the persuasion business, their tools are being exploited by unfriendly people in ways that are not helpful. This is not the result of a strategy by any of these companies. This is an unintended consequence of an incredibly successful business model. Emily as you say, the stock prices of google and facebook continue to rise. What are their responsibilities when it comes to fake news and these concerns . Roger i dont worry so much about fake news. I think it is a convenient way of distracting attention from the real problem. That is the techniques of persuasion necessary to make an advertising model work, those techniques are not just between facebook and its users. But any advertiser that uses facebook. Bad things have happened. Many unintended. My point is, lets have a conversation about it. I dont pretend to have the answer. I know these are good people. This is not like we have these bad guys in a castle throwing thunderbolts at the people. I dont think it works that way. I think this is a model that when these companies were small could not do harm to anybody. But when you have 1. 9 billion members in facebook or one billion in instagram or 1. 4 billion in google or 1. 3 billion in youtube, you have the influence of a large country. Billion in instagram or 1. 4 in the case of facebook, several large countries. At that level, there is responsibility. I want to have a conversation about what the limits of that responsibility might be. Emily how does it play out in a highly politicized and polarized environment . When i tweet anything about trump on twitter, a neutral story or a factual story, i get rained down on by the twitter trolls. Roger peoples positions have become hardened because the tools of persuasion have become so effective in reinforcing existing beliefs and making them less flexible. I dont have the answer. I just want to have the debate. This is not about good people versus bad people. This is about a technology that began with the best of intentions that has inadvertently put us in a place where we do not have control of it anymore. The people to do have control of it do not have as much control as they thought they had. Emily there have been a lot of concerns about trumps impact on the tech agenda, whether immigration or net neutrality. Do you see those things coming to fruition . Roger i think the immigration issue is a huge problem. They have already taken steps. The one part of this administration that has worked effectively has been the department of justice. It has been doing it by attempting to take us back to a time when we were a less balanced, less fair country. I think in awful ways, we are hurting ourselves as well as the people affected with immigration status issues. I think it is terrible for the economy. It will be bad for the agricultural economy. It will be terrible for the tech economy. You have already seen a big impact on College Applications from people coming in from the outside. You have seen a huge impact on tourism. For what . What possible benefit are we getting from this . That part scares me because this country, our culture should be better than that. We have to stop pretending our economy would be better if we take these amazing people out of it. Emily a lot of tech giants were counting on a big Corporate Tax cut, bringing cash home from overseas. There is now uncertainty around that and the entire agenda. What does that mean for tech . Roger i dont think Tech Companies needed to repatriate cash. I know they did not. I dont know that they were counting on it. I think there were shortterm shareholders hoping to get a big windfall from it. Whether it happens or not is less an issue for tech than the other direct impacts on employees and customers, and frankly, on trade. To the extent Global Market are jeopardized in any way, that is terrible for tech. These are global companies. They operate in china and mexico and canada and africa and europe and asia. Emily we have yet to see these gentle terrible consequences. Roger i would argue you see the beginning of it when we see College Applications down dramatically, tourism down genetically. Those are direct impacts of these policies which will ripple through to the entire economy. Maybe it will not affect iphone sales on the first day, but eventually somebody will have a problem with this behavior and they will have a reciprocal response. That response may be something we dont like. And then you are in a trade war. Who benefits from that . Nobody. Emily every day brings something new. We will be following trump as he travels the globe over the next several days. Roger mcnamee, you are my guest host for the hour. An update on toshibas sales of its chip unit. Broadcom at a private group are emerging as the two leading bidders. The talks are still fluid. Toshiba may not decide on a buyer before the Shareholder Meeting scheduled for june. Coming up, another day, another p. R. Nightmare for uber. Details next. Bloomberg technology is Live Streaming on twitter. Check us out. This is bloomberg. Emily bitcoin continues its record run. It crossed 1900 for the first time marking its fifth day of gains. Bitcoin has more than doubled in value since the beginning of the year amid global uncertainty and increased interest in asia. Skeptics have said there may be a bubble in the making as it has repeatedly broken records without showing any signs of slowing. Another week, another problem for uber. Drivers are voicing their anger over the widening gap between what they are paid and customers are charged, this on top of new developments in the startups court battle with waymo. We are joined by Eric Newcomer who has been busy over the last several months. Still with us, Roger Mcnamee. The pricing story. What is happening now . We have upfront fares where riders set the price. It was still fundamentally rooted in time and distance. Now we are seeing we can do Machine Learning calculations, figure out what you are willing to pay, and charge you. We will bucket people and say you are going from here to there. There are people willing to pay on that route. They are calling it routebased pricing. We are moving to a world where uber can say, what are people willing to pay . We will charge them that. It is also an opportunity for uber to take more for themselves. Some gets reinvested in bonuses, but it does seem like a move to take more of the money rather than give it to the drivers. Emily i ride lyft and uber a lot. Every driver i speak with prefers lyft over uber. These are just my rides. They are not happy with the way uber treats them. I wonder if they can get over these issues. Roger i think uber has a culture that is so deeply flawed that i wonder how they come back. They have the scale, and they have a lot of cash on hand. But the way the invest cash and their daytoday Business Practices are horrible. My partners are invested in uber. I understand why. I passed on it because morally i cant. I come from a different place. That is a judgment for me. I look at them and cannot go there. Emily small issues. The driver yesterday, a lyft driver switched because he said uber would not reimburse him for the tolls. I dont understand how there is any excuse for that. Roger i think in the long run if you treat your most important asset, in their case, the drivers, really badly, karma is going to get you. I have noticed this with friends. When we are at an event, they are all using lyft now. One of the reasons is because it comes faster and drivers are not responding to the uber calls. That is local in the bay area. If there is an issue for uber in the bay area, that is really bad. Emily we know lyft has better coverage in the bay area. Is this happening all over the country . Lyft is gaining market share around the united states. Uber is fighting back. At the end of the day, uber holds the majority of drivers and rides. I hear the same thing. Drivers will say i prefer lyft. They preferred the lyft brand but still go where they make money. Uber knows with this pricing, they are redirecting money to bonuses and other incentives to keep the drivers on their platform. Some of the bonuses are you need to drive 100 rides for us. There are ways to lock in drivers through compensation to keep them on their platform rather than going to lyft. Emily i was speaking with fred wilson, the venture capitalist, earlier this week. He said it will not be winner take all. Is uber still a 70 billion company . Roger i dont think it ever was. The challenge is to establish a profit model that justifies any highlevel of valuation. If you think about it and apply a google priceearnings multiple, they have to have net income of 6 billion. To apply the apple model, they have to be in double digits. They are nowhere near where they have got to get if they want to have from a terminal value point of view. More power to them. They may see something i am missing. When we get onto this issue of driverless cars, one of the challenges i think uber has faced is they are always trying to do more things today than their income statement can handle. If you are in investment, the dream of making those big ideas work has got to be powerful. But at the same time, the probability of making it work is low. That is how uber thinks of it. We have been able to raise this money. We are going to build and invest in selfdriving cars. We are going to make those investments. We will be a huge company. But it is risky. Emily look at the balance sheet. Eric newcomer, thanks so much. Roger mcnamee of elevation partners, we will talk about it at the break. Stick with me. After selling Virgin America, what is Richard Bransons next act . We will hear from him in an exclusive interview next. This is bloomberg. Emily we had a spirited emily we had a spirited conversation about uber in the break. We are still here with Eric Newcomer and Roger Mcnamee. Give us an update. Uber sent a letter to levandowski saying you have to testify or we will fire you. That is not a surprise. They need to show they want him to testify in their defense. Emily the Ongoing Court battle over selfdriving cars. Roger, you think this is a big deal. Roger i think it is a huge deal because i think selfdriving cars are further out than conventional wisdom. As a consequence, it will not come soon enough to save uber. They are much better taking money they would invest and buying cars. In china where the great move was to get 10 of the biggest chinese Ridesharing Company and exit the market rating billions, i think exiting selfdriving cars will be a profoundly positive thing if and when uber chooses to do it. Emily they already have selfdriving cars they are testing. Roger so what. You have selfdriving cars that can be the core of the fleet still 10 or 15 years away. I dont know how long it will take. We have to change the way roads were, the way cities work. There are humans in the front seat. How they get to know drivers where they change the economics of the business. I agree, the distance is out. I say the uber defense is they need the story of someday they will be selfdriving. There will be growth. They think they need to make the human drivers business profitable. The idea is selfdriving if them this story that at some point we will have a new business even better and you should keep investing on that. Roger it also causes the risk of bankruptcy to go to nonmaterial. I think they are nuts. At the beginning, they should have bought cars that was literally the same for everybody. Like southwest airlines. Every plane is exactly the same