To speak with the president about, the firing of james comey and firing of Michael Flynn. Explain. We did some digging to figure out when thisnterview with the president is going to happen. We learned investigations with bob muellers team are expected to begin soon. What they want to know, two pivotal points. Why did President Trump fire mike flynn and how did he explain the firing . And why did he fire jim comey . What were the precipitating factors around that . Who was involved in the decision . How did the president explain it privately . Weve been able to discern investigators are interested in the numerous repeated efforts to oust Jeff Sessions as attorney general on at least two different occasions he asked for his resignation and why did he do that . It seems to us that the investigators are looking for a pattern of behavior to try to figure out what was the president thinking at all of these things, they want what are you going to ask him . Can some of the questions be done in writing . Will it be videotaped . The two main pivotal points are flynn and comey and a lot of others to be determined. First of all, welcome to cnn, youll get less sleep than you do breaking this news. Were glad to have you. Another story you broke yesterday is andy mccabe formally for a piod of time running the fbi now the deputy there being qstioned by the president , who did you vote for in the 2016 election . Of course that made him uncomfortable but theres more. What can you tell us . Right, so the president summoned andy mccabe for a get to know you meeting after james comey was abruptly dismissed. What he wanted to know, who andy mccabe voted for and criticized the acting director for donations tied to a top clinton ally. He then again talked to andy mccabe, permanent job and andy mccabe did not get the job. What were you able to learn, conversation created some reverb races at the fbi because it was unusual for the president to ask a Civil Servant and investigator officer his political leanings and affiliations. My colleague who cover this more intimately than i do, i cover the white house, really were able to discern and in this case that these are not questions the president normally asks to an acting fbi director. Stick around if you will. As for the president s reaction, what were hearing from the white house, kaitlyn, what has the reaction been. Reporter the white house was asked if the president would be willing to sit down with special Counsel Robert Mueller and ough the psident himself has said in the past he would detely be willing to sit down with him and happy to tell him what hes telling us of us in the media, the white house has since backtracked on that and will no longer definitively state he would be willing to sit down with him. Only that they are fully cooperating with the special counsels investigation. Then on another front, the white house is also asked if the president does truly believe that this is a hoax, created by democrats and its a waste of taxpayer money, why not just fire the guy and the White House Press secretary Sarah Sanders says it is in part because they know what the reaction in the media would be, essentially saying it would create this pr headache. An interesting comment from a white house that is used to dealing with a scandal nearly every other day. Its safe to say they are drinking from a fire hose right now. Thanks so much. Fire hose doesnt stop day by day here. Phil mudd is with us, formerly with the fbi and cia and cnn legal and National Security analyst josh dausey is back with us. He broke what the special counsel wants to ask the president about, apparently has to do with james comey and circumstances surrounding the firing of Michael Flynn. How will the special counsel team approac that when they get in the room . Well, the special counsel is going to have a series of questions to which theyll already know the answer but they are going to want to get the president s account in his own words this is a really bad situation for the president. Its essentially a perfect trap for him because again, mueller has more information on his side than the president has. Its an unknown situation. I do think you can look out for two things, one, he says hes not going to have the interview and forces mueller to issue a grand jury subpoena. I think thats a real responsibility. The other is that i think he could legitimately assert executive privilege with regard to those conversations because they did involve essentially decisions that were made president ial decisions made about his staff. Not that that privilege couldnt be pierced but he could make that claim. The president is very eager to sit down with mueller and phil mudd who has been all over the board whether this is a witch hunt or what have you, you think the team would want to do anything it could to prevent the subpoena and testifying in fron . You would think so. Look, the white hse has been saying along they want to cooperate. Now youre saying you dont want to have a conversation, you want to force a grand jury subpoena . They are talking out of both sides of their mouth here. I agree, this is really interesting in terms of what gaps the president can fill in because as she said, the team, the mueller team knows a lot more than we know. For example, one thing we havent talked about, flynn evidently is cooperating. He will have told the special counsel what white house conversations there were about dealing with the russians about maybe some sort of deal with the russians on sanctions, which is what he got fired for. That team is going to have a theory of the case. They are going to walk in with an incredibly detailed timeline about what happened through the campaign and into the first month of the oval office and beyond. They are going to ask the president questions where they already know the answer. If he slips up in a couple of hours and given his lack of discipline, i think thats a high probability, hes got a problem on his hands. I wanted to get both of you on this because you both worked for the fbi. We learned overnight through joshs reporting that andy mccabe was an accounting director at the fbi meeting with the president and the president asked him who did you vote for in the 2016 election, phil . Is that appropriate . Appropriate . Any time you join government, i worked for everybody from reagan through obama, republicans and democrats, whether you go to war or conduct intelligence against al qaeda and try to dismantle that network, i dont care who the amerins workfor. They can work for a republican democrat, independent, once you leave that polling booth as a citizen, you go into the office as a professional and serve whoever gets elected, completely inappropriate for the president. He should assume the people who work for him once he gets elected will do what he asked them to do as long as its legal and ethical. I cant believe he did that. Andy mccabe whom i know personally will take the president s orders and try to security them. You dont have to try to ask who he voted for. Just digging in your reporting more, what can you tell us about folks that would be questioning the president in all of this . The team that mueller has assembled . Mueller has a High Powered Team of about 16, 17 lawyers, focusing on different parts of the case, some on the paul nan ma fort part of the case and others have been kind of honing in on the white house, asking for emails and documents, often when folks go into interview, its led by prosecutors and investigators but bob mueller will sit along the wall and introduce himself to the witnesses and you can imagine from what weve been reporting on on these different interests views with bob mueller, its a rotating cast of prosecutors who come in and ask a series of different questions and mueller will sometimes interject as well. Another Interesting Development overnight, in addition to what josh reported, what mueller wants and mccabe stuff, rick gatesay have brought in this newawye who has been meeting with the special counsel in our reporting is potentially maybe trying to work out some kind of plea deal here. Also indicted with along with paul manafort. What does that mean for the investigation . Well, prosecutors always want people lower down the toet totem pole to flip and cooperate and helps get information on people higher up the totem pole. Gates is relatively speaking lower down, he has information he can give on manafort which could increase the pressure on manafort to flip. Doesnt look like hes indlined to do that. But gates as manaforts close colleague may also have a lot of information about other aspects of the campaign that could be very useful to mueller in going after higher targets. And hes facing 12 counts and thats a lot of time in jail. So i can totally see he may be reconsidering his position right now. Thank you all very much. We appreciate it. Phil mudd josh dawsey, thank you. Can they nail down the president on what he even wants yet alone what he would sign . After being confronted by dozens and den and dozens of survivors of his sexual abuse, exusa gymnastics doctor larry nassar about to be sentenced. 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Overnight President Trump lashed out after senator schumer withdrew money offered for the paul. The president wrote in response, crying Chuck Schumer fully understands after the humiliating defeat, there is no wall, there is no daca. Where does this leave us . Joining us now, Jackie Kucinich and National Political reporter for the Washington Examiner and jamie gangel. This is hardly special this morning, not to make light of this. This feels like you say deja vu all over again. Have you been looking at my notes. Thats exactly, pick your cliche, back to square one, going to get worse before it gets better. I think theres no question that were in a mess and its going to take a while. Lindsey graham, yes, the gang of six is now the gang of 25. They are sitting in senator Collins Office trying to work it out. That group is not really talking to president tmp and wants a lot of money for his big beautiful wall and the hard liners like tom cotton and purdue, they expect they want some movement on immigration and until these people Start Talking to each other, as someone said to me when the shutdown ended, were right back where we started. You know the definition of insanity . Even with the talking stick. And broken glass elephant. Thats another story. How is this not insanity playing out . One person said a member of Congress Said to me this morning nothing is going to happen in february, the march 5th deadline, lets wait and see. Maybe that gets extended. I think we could see this going out not just weeks but months. Its interesting, you studied this president for a long time and talk to him as well. Getting pressure from different sides to come out and do more, say more. Particularly from Lindsey Graham is temporary golfing buddy, when Lindsey Graham says to the president repeatedly, youve got to tell us what youre for, not just what youre against, do you think it has any impact . Do you think it reaches the president . How do you think he would receive the megsage . He has shown he consumes news vicarious vicariously, he takes it all. Im sure that message got to him. But you know, how it impacts him, i think a lot of people impact him and the person that has sort of the most influence at times is the last person that talks to him. I had an interesting conversation with the voter on my way down here today. A woman voted for Hillary Clinton and i asked her, what do you think of whats going on . She says honestly, i think whats going on in washington is the new normal. And you cant cure normal. This is who we are and the country is polarized and theres a level of expectation from voters that they look at this and say, this is what they do. At some point they are going to get it figured out. Its not just, jackie, that the gang of 25 as jamie puts it is up against senator purdue and cotton and President Trump. They are up against the house and Steve Scalise in the house said whatever you decide in the senate, basically has no bearing on what we do in the house. His words, there were no commitments made in the house. He said nothing is going to make it through that allows any sort of amnesty, what he calls the path to citizenship for d. R. E. A. M. Ers and doesnt include funding for border wall. Even if you get through the senate, then what . Mitch mcconnells promises are nontrans perable when it comes to the house. In terms of what happens, its a tough spot for d. R. E. A. M. Ers. The fact that republicans have decided to tie this and call them Illegal Immigrants and and change the tone of the debate is problematic. Were seeing that turn and democrats turn on each other which is even more problematic for the democrats. They are angry at the house house is angry at the senate for caving, activists are angry at democrats in both chambers for what they think is not pushing hard enough, not going far enough. I would keep your eye on the state of the union and see if there are any demonstrations as a result of whats going on in the house and senate right now. At a selenas point, one of the things the daily beast reported today. The white house is actively trying to keep the president away from Chuck Schumer for the very reason that he tends to agree with the last person he spoke to. Since Chuck Schumer is prodaca and different point of view from general kelly and steven miller, they are trying to keep him away from the Senate Minority leader right now. Taking him all the way to switzerland. Neutral zone. Not messing around, john. Jamie, in addition to what weve been talking all morning about the dizzying number of velopments in the russia investigation overnight, whether it be he asked andy mccabe who you voted for in the election or Jeff Sessions spoke to special counsel but we know the areas where they want to speak to President Trump when they sit down. Where do you see things standing this morning at 10 21 knowing they could change by 10 23 . I think the number one thing we have to think about is this. Look at the time line. Its almost a year since the president fired james comey. That was february 14th. Then in may, he said 100 he was going to talk to the special counsel if asked. The special counsel is knocking on the oval office door right now. And he doesnt know what the special counsel knows. I think they are very nervous. I think this is a big cloud. And all of these pieces that you just said and whatever happens at 10 23 now, is adding to that anxiety. One year ago today where Michael Flynn spoke to the fbi, february 14th, when Michael Flynn was let go was may when james comey was ultimately pushed out. Were in that time frame now where its boom boom boom in terms of developments. Selena, you spoke to interview not only the president in the oval office but so many of his supporters and you know, we have this new cnn poll and what it shows us, eight in ten americans, eight in ten americans wt thisredent to testify under oath in the russia obe. This is not just along party lines. S, more democrats than republicans want it but this is