Acted upon the recommendation of mr. Rosenstine and mr. Sessions with whom he had met on monday evening, who then put their recommendations in writing. He said that he had made up his mind to fire mr. Comey before those gentlemen had met, number one. And number two, that he was basically not following their recommendations. He was acting on his own, so that raises some questions. The question of turmoil in the ranks of the fbi, something that has been raised several times and the president raised right there, was knocked down today on capitol hill by acting director mccabe who said that mr. Comey had the very strong support of the majority of the rank in file at the fbi. He certainly painted a very different picture of that. Reasonable minds obviously can disagree and from where the president the attorney general and the Deputy Attorney general sat they may have come to different conclusions on that but certainly that would be another sort of series of questions that i expect youll hear a lot more about throughout the rest of the day and into the evening. It was interesting, tyler, when the president told lester holt that he said that he asked director comey point blank if youre able to tell me am i under investigation and the president saying that he was told by the director that he was not. Its been a certain point of controversy over the last several days as well. And there were three separate occasions, again, that had been part of the record, part of the record in the letter that mr. Trump sent to mr. Comey telling him that he had been relieved of his duties, that it was on three separate occasions. Apparently one time was at a private dinner that where mr. Comey and mr. Trump talked about his continued tenure at the fbi. And i believe the president s words were well see how it goes and it came up at that time whether he was personally under investigation. It came up again during what the president said were two subsequent phone calls, one apparently initiated by mr. Comey to mr. Trumps recollection. The other initiated at the president by the president to mr. Comey and it was in one of those where he asked am i if you can tell me, am i under investigation. And mr. Comeys answer is, no, you are not but mr. Trump obviously understands that his campaign and associates and members of that campaign are in deed under an investigation regarding their connections with and dealings with russians. You had mentioned as well, tyler, and this is certainly a point that people are focussing on as well, whether the president s answer as to whether around why he fired director comey, how it squares up with what the white house put out itself just two days ago on may 9th. The white house statement saying, quote, President Trump acted on the clear recommendations of both deputy a. G. Rod rosen stine and a. J. Jeffrey sessions. The president telling lester holt just moments ago that he planned to fire comey regardless of the recommendations that he got from those two individuals in those letters. Well, yeah. There is a little bit of maybe each are talking past one another here, but the president was declarative, as you point out, in seeing that he had made up his mind to fire director comey before they he met with mr. Rosen steen and attorney general sessions on monday night before he received their written endorsements of the firing of mr. Comey. So obviously theres a little bit of untidiness or message squaring that will need to happen over the next few days. Obviously, as i said, at the start, scott, and i think you would probably agree, not a lot of questions this will spawn as many questions as it provided answers. Yeah. Remember, this was just a small part of that interview between lester holt and the president , which youll see more of on nightly tonight. I know the issue that you guys will be discussing today, tyler, you, brian and the rest of your gang, is what all of this means for the president s agenda as it relates to the way we talk about the stock market and the Way Investors have been so optimistic about what mr. Trump plans to do and what its ultimately going to mean for the markets. Yep. Theres been such little volatility and such Little Movement as if the markets have been waiting to see what the next step is, the next catalyst, if you will. Wasnt the answer nothing . Excuse me . Isnt the answer nothing . No impact on the agenda. Why is that the answer . Well, i think if you looking at all the Research Reports that have come out, the market as you guys talk about every single day on halftime the market is priced in not much expectation. Would you guys agree with that . I think the market has come to the point it has now all on expectation. The reason it hasnt been able to do anything from here forward and why its been in such a tight range and volatility has remained nonexistent is because there are concerns over where the next catalyst is going to come from. Absent of that, why would stocks move . Because the market took 15 months off, scott, for the campaign and was in a sevenyear up trend before then and the rate of ascension after the election was just correlated to the sevenyear up trend, according to some people. Thats not my opinion i should have thrown out some names on that one. I just wonder everyone thinks it will derail the trump agenda. Do we think that it will . Its not a question for me to answer, i suppose. I just dont know i may not derail but it certainly will delay. If you have an even more toxic and poisonous atmosphere in washington between democrats, republicans and visavis the president , it certainly could make parts of the planned agenda more difficult now than ever. Obviously white house are always called upon to walk and chew gum at the same time, and one is not necessarily at the exclusion of the other. But one thing i would observe, scott, is that the president is known to be an extremely effective salesperson. And his salesmanship is going to be called upon with respect to healthcare, it will be called upon with respect to infrastructure, it will be called upon with respect to trade and most importantly tax reform. If his salesmanship is in any way called into question or he becomes a less effective in that realm because of what is going on in this other realm, that directly impacts seems to me the trump agenda. Scott, gentlemen, thanks very much. We appreciate your time. Thanks for your coverage. Brian . To scotts point, can it get more toxic in washington . Sure it can. Sure it can. So if youre watching us right now, welcome, by the way to power lunch. And youre wondering what were talking about. Lester holt just releasing part of his exclusive interview with President Trump, an interview that was conducted not very long ago. The majority of that interview will run tonight on nbc nightly news. Lets get a listen to what President Trump had to say when lester holt asked him about the firing of fbi director james comey. Look, hes a show boat. Hes a grand stander. The fbi has been in turmoil. You know that. I know that. Everybody knows that. You take a look at the fbi a year ago, it was in virtual turmoil, less than a year ago. It hasnt recovered from that. Monday you met with the Deputy Attorney general rod rosen steen. Right. Did you ask for a recommendation . What i did is i was going to fire comey. My decision. It was not you had made the decision before they came in the room . I was going to fire comey. Theres no good time to do it, by the way. They because in your letter you said i accepted their recommendations. So you had already made the decision. I was going to fire regardless of recommendation. He made a recommendation. Hes highly respected. Very good guy. Very smart guy. The democrats like him. The republicans like him. He made a recommendation. But regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey. There you go. Regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey. Some people may dispute that. More with reaction from washington, d. C. Rod rosen steen is the longest serving u. S. Attorney, hes been through five different administrations. He operated for the majority of the career under his radar. He has been cast under the very bright spotlight and i think a lot of questions around rod rosen stine are also going to pop up. In other words, why did he write this memo. Reporter yeah, thats right, brian. He is a longserving u. S. Attorney but a very shortserving Deputy Attorney general. Hes only been that position for a matter of days at this point. Theres a loot of pressure on him now. Theres been reports that hes been very upset this week about how this was handled, but you talk about the question of turmoil at the fbi and i can tell you there certainly is some turmoil at the fbi now. I just got off the phone with a person over at the fbi a few moments ago who told me that the reaction to the comey firing was that it was shocking. Disappointing. People are sad. They had a sense that comey was the one of the few adults in the room here in washington, d. C. , that he wasnt beholden to any Political Party and that made him the right guy in this moment. So this idea from the white house that comey had lost the faith of the building is clearly not true, at least according to some over at the fbi. And were also witnessing now an evolving set of explanations from this white house as to why the president decided to fire james comey. Initially they held it right on that letter from rosen stine. Now, though, the president said he decided to do it any way and that he felt that the fbi director was grand standing and a show boater. Refresh my memory, amen. Was mr. Comey did mr. Comey grow up as a republican . Thats a good question. I have to go back and look at his political affiliation. He did serve in the Bush Administration and there was a famous moment in the Bush Administration where he showed independence of that administration as well. So, this is a guy who doesnt have a lot of partisan loyalties in his core, and is viewed very much inside the fbi as somebody who is willing to stand up to both parties, as we saw last year certainly. Amen, much to coverage there in rainy washington, d. C. We thank you. Well be back with you im sure during the remainder of the afternoon. You bet. Joining us now on the phone is former Vice President dan quayle. Mr. Quail, you said mr. Trumps chief of staff will be of critical importance and i assume you still feel that way. Let me pose the question this way to you as you observe whats going on in washington these days. Obviously we in the media are disliked because we can be nitpickers and maybe were nitpicking this one to death as we so frequently do. But you in your capacity have to spend and have spent over the years a lot of time evaluating managements of the companies in which you invest, how they operate, how the leadership works or doesnt work in tight situations like the one that the west wing finds itself today. Would you invest in this Management Team right now . Well, let me step back here. Theres two things right away that the white house has to do, in my opinion. One, i wouldnt be giving a lot of interviews until there is an agreement on exactly what has happened. What are all the facts . There have been different variations of facts, even in todays papers, on your show, you know, what are the facts . Get everybody in the room. Understand what the facts are and then get it out and get it out as soon as possible. It may take a little while, but find out all the facts. Raise all the questions that youre raising and get the answers. The second thing, as soon as possible, they have to put forward a new director of the fbi. And then that will change the story to some extent on who the new director is going to be rather than this. The investigations lets your viewers should be reassured, the investigations are Going Forward. The fbi does the investigation, but the Justice Department is the one that does the prosecution. Those are going to be Going Forward. I mean, these are down two, three, four levels. Nothing is going to stop since comeys now been removed. Thats the state of the situation right now. Let me come back. I dont mean please, with all respect, i dont mean to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like you believe that there has been some messaging disconnection between the oval office and his Communications Team at the very least because you said, you know, you need to get all the facts straight and have everyone speak with the same voice, and it doesnt seem like that is what has happened here. Am i understanding you correctly . I think that is a fair assessment. And thats why its probably going to take some time because theres a lot of questions. I mean, youve raised some questions. Everybody, theres more questions today than there were yesterday. So you have to sit down and get all the facts out. You cant have this dribble out with, you know, a press conference here, a statement over here, a leak over here. Get the facts out. And i think once the facts come out, you know, its going to be they can start getting back to their agenda because quite frankly the way i look at it is that President Trump was he was going to get rid of comey. He was frustrated with him. The wall street journal for months, which is sort of the editorial page at least is somewhat the bible of the republican party, theyve been calling for his dismissal, so this is not totally shocking. I think what has shocked the community and the people in washington is the way that it was done. Yeah. Dan, its brian sul vin. In business you have a Business Plan, well the Business Plan is not any good unless you execute that Business Plan. Well, they made a decision but the execution of communicating that, you know, people are going to go back and assess this and i think theyre going to find a lot of, you know, a lot of a lot of problems with it. Now, i think quite frankly i think what happened is that they thought that it was going to be well received on both sides, republicans would support a republican president and the democrats didnt like comey because some of them believe he was hurting Hillary Clinton and her election. So it would be bipartisan reception in a favorable way. Did you feel do you feel, dan, this is brian sullivan, a little bit of hypocrisy from the Democratic Party many were calling for his firing after the Hillary Clinton revelation came out right before the election now suddenly everybody is rallying behind comey because of russia or do you believe that is deserved because of the Russian Investigation . Look, of course theres double standards and hypocrisy. Its politics, look. Well said. President trump is a business guy. Hes not a politician. He, im sure in his mind probably thought and so did the people around him and most of the people around him dont have a lot of political experience. Okay, well the democrats have said this, so theyll fall in line. Theyll support us. Its not the way washington works today. It is highly partisaned. It is you know, very polarized. And so the democrats are going to oppose everything that donald trump does. I think he has finally figured that out or the administration ought to figure out that theyre going to oppose him in every way they possibly can. Look, you set aside the carter page and general flynns situation and it looks like theres not much else there. The hearing Lindsey Graham had, which is a Sub Committee uhhuh. Had ms. Yates and clapper, nothing came out of that three and a half hour hearing, nothing. And both of them said that theres no evidence that theyve seen that theres any collusion between the Trump Campaign and the russians. Yeah. I believe, dan, there are now five active investigations into possible collusion with russia. To your point, none of them have generated anything. Listen, for our audience, however, mr. Vice president , theres two stories here. Number one, there is the comey firing and the investigation around russia. Then there is the idea, which we were just debating you might have heard with our colleagues scott wopper in about what exactly this may or may not do to the donald trump agenda. The cnbc audience, our viewers right now are looking for tax reform. They may be looking for Corporate Tax reform, for health care reform. Does this shadow that has now been cast over the president because of this, does it in any way impact what the gop knows it needs to do . I dont believe it does because the gop members ive spoken with have said weve got to get this done with or without the president. What do you think . I think that he can go full steam ahead with his agenda, but hes got to right the ship and do the two things i just said. Theyve got to get this under control, find out what the facts are and get them all out as soon as possible. And dont let this stuff dribble out. They have to get on with a new fbi director. I read in one of the papers today where the senate luncheon, the caucus that they have which would they last anywhere from an hour to two hours. I dont know how long this one lasts. And i think like two minutes was spent on comey. The rest of them health care and tax reform. So the legislatures, you know the senators, the congressmen and women, they want to go ahead with the agenda. They want to go ahead with tax reform. They want to go with health care reform. On your show today talking about the latest Health Insurance company that is just dropping out of the obamacare. This thing is in a death spiral. Something has to be done. But this is a temporary setback, but hopefully they learn a lot about this and they can figure out the execution of this communication process once the president makes these decisions. Right. If you would bare with us, i want to play and then ask a question, i want to play a sound bite from moments ago, senators richard bur and mark warner, the chair an Ranking Member of the intelligence committees met with reporters after meeting with Deputy Attorney general rosen stine on capitol hil