Mcgahn. He says that sessions made a huge error, hes very frustrated. A couple people have said one of the few times theyve seen him get genuinely angry as opposed to the blufter that we know the president is prone to was about Jeff Sessions. Hes upset about the russia recusal situation and feels angry and hamstrung about the fact that the Executive Order that the president himself signed related to a Ban On Travel a temporary ban, quote unquote, from muslim majority nations was struck down by the court. This was within the first week of the administration and set the tone Going Forward and in the president s mind, Jeff Sessions is tied to everything. Lastly, your colleagues just broke some news which is fascinating about jim comey asking Jeff Sessions not to be left alone again with the president or that he didnt want to be left alone with the president. Its quite striking. Essentially you have the fbi director concerned about the position apparently that the president might put him in, based on any kind of inappropriate conversation. And it recalls an instant several months ago where the u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york had been asked to stay on by the president during the transition. He got a call from the president the night before a broad dismissal of a number of Obama Appointees in federal Prosecutors Office and bar rar ra did not return the president s call only to say it would not be appropriate. So i think youre seeing this is an elitist in a number of instances where people have been concerned from outreach from the president about what it could mean given all of the investigations going on. Two big developments. Maggie haberman, thank you very much. I want to go to sara murray who was at the white house. What are you hearing about the tension between President Trump and Jeff Sessions . Reporter well, we know its been a frustrating relationship. Sessions decided to recuse himself and it came as a surprise to the white house and since then, as maggie pointed out, the president has been fuming in his conversations about the fact that sessions recused himself, which led to a Special Counsel. And once youre in a Special Counsel, theres no way to unring that bell that could delve into the campaign and weve already seen the way the investigation has touched the inner circle. Its touched Jared Kushner, his own soninlaw. When the president appeared very briefly if front of the cameras today, he couldnt even get beyond that. He was saying that Jared Kushner even now is more famous than i
am and im a little bit upset about that. But, could ha of course, its b the russia probe. When we get closer to james comey testifying On Capitol Hill where the president tends to get more spun up. He tends to get angrier about the fact that hes now in this position because, as he feels, one of his closest allies decided to recuse himself from this investigation. So these tensions certainly arent going away, anderson. You know, when he said to Jared Kushner, hes more famous than i am now, didnt he also say that to Director Comey at some point . Reporter he did also say that. Its not a Good Development if youre somewhere between President Trump and the media limelight. He likes to be the most important person in that limelight. We saw him get angry with steve bannon when he appeared on the cover of Time Magazine and saw him mention to comey, this is a guy more famous than i am. Certainly thats not the position you want to be in if
youre Jared Kushner. Hes the soninlaw. Most people say hes position is relatively safe but thats not necessarily a compliment. Sara murray, thank you. I want to bring in my panel now. The idea that the president doesnt want to be in a room with Jeff Sessions who is a longtime supporter of President Trump. He didnt disclose certain things he should have with his contacts with the russians, hes a little more institutionalist. He was on the Judiciary Committee for years. He hammered Justice Department officia officials and how solid is the notion that sessions offered his resignation . Sorry. Go ahead. He knows these rules in a
way and obviously comey who has a very, you know, strict wall that he believes should be placed between the white house and the fbi, especially when the fbi is investigating something that involved the white house. You understand where they are coming from. Stay away from the president. Sessions saying, if you dont let me do my job, i need to resign. And then you have trump who knows none of these rules and doesnt understand that even though these people technically work for him, theres a degree of separation and he violated that norm again and again. Spicer today saying he hasnt asked when asked if the president has confidence in Jeff Sessions, i mean, most answers would normally be, the president has confidence in his Attorney General. Sean spicer said, well, i havent had a chance to ask him that. It seemed like a very telling omission. And i think, you know, as ryan was saying, trump uses people who work for him, not people who work for the country and Jeff Sessions views himself as
someone who works for the United States and the constitution. For him to be put in this position where hes being told by the president , you have to be loyal to me, thats a difficult position for him and were seeing, i think, an increasingly enraged president who wants all of these people to be loyal to him personally and to put that above everything else. And so none of us know what james comey is going to say on thursday, but these are all of the questions that are going to come up about whether the president is demanding loyalty to him about loyalty to what does it tell you about things at the white house, matt . Look, i think everyone here is right. Its about loyalty to donald trump and the president carries very deeply about an independent fbi but i think this speaks to sean spicer, that any other Press Secretary has full confidence in the attorney
general, even if they were lying they would have said that because they would have assumed i would have heard about it if it wasnt true or that they would have to be loyal to the president. But i think sean spicer realizes the president might take that as a slight, that he was off the reservation. How dare you say that i have full confidence in the Attorney General and might even tweet about it to contradict it. Gloria, if sean spicer faced any other version of that question, about the Vice President or secretary of state, hard to imagine sean spicer would say i havent specifically asked him about that. Right. So we knew something was up or sean would have said, of course the president has full confidence in Jeff Sessions and he didnt say that. So, you know, people began raising eyebrows and saying, wait a minute, what is going on here . And i just want to bring this back to this question of loyalty that you were talking about earlier. I talked with a source recently
whos known the president for 20 years at least. And this source said to me, you know, everybody says donald trump is a really loyal guy, but i will tell you this. He is not. He will fire somebody. He will cut someone off if he believes that they are not loyal to him. And that its a oneway street. And so the president has been badmouthing Jeff Sessions to anyone who will listen and hes badmouthing his counsel, his inhouse counsel, don mcgahn. Hes badmouthing people on his staff all of whom have been quite loyal to this president , including sean spicer, i would say, and to his own detriment. And yet the president doesnt have any compunction to restrain himself when criticizing these people quite openly to people he
speaks with. Maggie haberman said that the Attorney General offered to, you know basically said i need to be able to do my job and i can resign. How do you read that . Well, for starters, its important for people to remember that ive heard a lot of talk about loyalty here. Thats very appropriate, i think, for all of the other cabinet positions but the Attorney General is unique in the cabinet in having an independent role it in enforcing the law and that may at times involving undertaking that the president doesnt appreciate and may involve protecting investigations from outside influence or even knowledge that the president may not appreciate. That is part of the unique role of the Attorney General, the first obligation is to the constitution and to the law. Not to the president. And thats not as clearly the case of course, they are all obligated to obey the law. But for all of the other cabinet
members, they are implementers of the president s agenda and thats not necessarily the case with an Attorney General. So if Jeff Sessions believes that that element of independence that is necessary for an Attorney General who believes in the rule of law and the constitution to be able to do their job correctly, it shouldnt surprise anyone that he might offer to resign. Now, it may just be, youve got a president here whos never been in government before and still hasnt learned a lot of these things, frankly, and that may be going on on a rolling basis, even if it may not be pretty and right in front of us. Steve, is it possible that its the president s Learning Curve . It might be. Anderson, i think were burying the lead a little bit. Jeff sessions recused because he didnt want to have this air of pro pry tea if the president is angry for recusing, its
because he doesnt have the ability to control the investigation into russia. Thats the irony here and the tie into mr. Comeys testimony on thursday. The real concern is, has President Trump been involved in Obstruction Of Justice. You know, lets not lose sight of the Forest For The Trees here. Hes upset about Jeff Sessions recusing himself because its an ability that legally he shouldnt have had in the first place. Weve got to take a quick break. Were going to devote our next hour to a preview of thursdays Testimony By Jim Comey and the impact it could have. Next, more on Attorney General sessions and his Working Relationship with the president and the continuing question of what happens tonight. Also, my conversation with the family of the woman who has been charged with leaking information from the nsa. I am totally blind. And sometimes i struggle to sleep at night, and stay awake during the day. This is called non24. Learn more by calling 8448242424. Or visit your24info. Com. I wanti did My Ancestrydna and where i came from. And i couldnt wait to get my pie chart. The most shocking result was that im 26 Native American. I had no idea. Just to know this is what im made of, this is where my ancestors came from. And i absolutely want to know more about my Native American heritage. Its opened up a whole new world for me. Discover the story only your dna can tell. Order your kit now at ancestrydna. Com. She switched to the best deal in America Total wireless. She gets the largest, most dependable 4g lte network, and 5 gigs of high speed data for 35 a month. Make it rain, beth. For 35 a month. Yet up 90 fall short in getting key nutrients from food alone. Lets do more. Add one a day 50 a complete multivitamin with 100 daily value of more than 15 key nutrients. One a day 50 . We cut the price of trades to give investors even more value. And at 4. 95, you can trade with a clear advantage. Fidelity, where smarter investors will always be. And at 4. 95, you can trade with a clear advantage. [ barks ] radio scorching heat today, staywalter ut there stop suffering with hot ac. Cool it yourself with a c pro. In just 3 easy steps, enjoy the comfort of 2 times the Cooling Boosters from the 1 selling coldest air. Nothing cools like a c pro. Well, theres no shortage of Breaking News tonight. Evan perez reporting on tensions between trump and sessions including that sessions offered to resign. All of it as tensions rise with jim comey about to testify before the Senate Intelligence committee on thursday. Were going to preview the comey hearings in a moment. Gloria borger has exclusive reporting on that just ahead. Back with the panel right now. Gloria, the idea of Jeff Sessions offering to resign, he left his career in the senate for this job. Hes the top Law Enforcement official in the United States. Hard for him to imagine even broaching the possibility unless tensions were pretty high or he felt this would really impede his ability to do his job. Absolutely. Dont forget, he was the first senator to come out and endorse donald trump. He traveled with him, he was a close adviser and he had a difficult confirmation. It wasnt as if it was a cake walk getting to this job. And he knew it was going to be difficult. And so you can imagine the tensions that arise and its specifically because sessions feels that perhaps the president was trying to stop him from doing his job, which is, as was stated earlier, to be independent. And donald trump believes that everybody works for him and that
the people who work for him ought to be able to fix things when things go awry. Thats not the way government works. People work for the government and the country and not in particular for the president of the United States, particularly when it comes to questions of Law Enforcement. And that was his trouble with james comey and i gather thats his trouble with Jeff Sessions. Well, also, ken, its interesting again, according to the new york times, they say it happened sometime in the last eight weeks. We dont know the exact date on this. If Jeff Sessions did resign, then the Deputy Attorney general would take over, who is the one rosenstein, who aint ppod the Special Counsel, not something that the president was obviously all that thrilled about. Right. And i would also point out that when they fired Director Comey, that left Andrew Mccabe in charge of the fbi who what evidence exists suggests he has democratic leanings, not
something youd expect to be favorable to the president either and at the same time, a lot of us have been calling for the resignation or firing of comey for over a year now on both sides of the aisle. Its a different situation with Attorney General sessions where presumably the only reason he might offer a resignation is if he didnt believe that he could be left free to do the job the part of the job where hes supposed to be independent of the president to do it independently. And, you know, who knows when well know that. But that would be the only reason i can think of for former senator Jeff Sessions to give up a choice slot in the senate if that is, in fact, a concern about his ability to do the job independently, thats a cause for concern, obviously. Sure it is. Absolutely. Its also extremely rare for
tensions between the president of the United States and his Attorney General to get out in public like this. Yeah. Yeah. You have to wonder if sessions wanted this out, if he wanted it to be known. Because frankly, this story makes sessions look good. The fact that hes trying to keep the firewall between the Justice Department and white house in tact, the fact that he has actually offered his resignation if it cant be in tact, that is to his credit, right . That means hes trying to maintain some independence from trump. Either he or the people around him wanted the public to know that. So far what we know is his mistake in his testimony not disclosing his conversations with the russians and then not actually recusing himself including recommending that the actual investigator get fired. The other thing one other thing, most of the actions that trump has taken to sort of bottle up this investigation,
they all have backfired. Hes done it in a sort of hamhanded way. If he hadnt fired comey, we wouldnt have this Special Counsel. Same thing with the house intelligence