Big interview. Good evening. Evening. It is going to be huge next week, with the fbi. The former fbi director james comey testifying before a Senate Intelligence committee. He was asked whether he felt the president pressured him to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn. Hes going to be asked that. So how do you think this showdown is going to go . I think it is going to be one of the most explosive moments of the Trump Presidency so far. And thats saying a whole lot. One cautionary note, it is possible this will be postponed. The white house is working, as you know, trying to claim executive privilege to stop him. Also, the special prosecutor, mr. Mueller, his investigation is metastasizing so quickly. I can see a possibility that one of two things happens. He asks the former fbi director to delay his testimony or truncate what he may otherwise be saying. Something to look at between now and next week, either of those two things happening. This all can and probably will change by the time the day comes that he is to testify, you think. Do you think it is going to be since you mentioned the president asking for executive privilege, is it better to block him or let him do it . If the optics of blocking him may be worse than him actually testifying. No good answer to that question for President Trump. Either way he goes, it is going to be big trouble. Look, it doesnt take anybody out of Elementary School to realize President Trumps presidency is in a heap of trouble. Today, these bombshell revelations keep cascading. Its been 24 hours at most since the president said he isnt going to abide by the paris accord. You had the stories today, the special prosecutor is widening his investigation. The russian banker close to putin who met with the president s soninlaw tells one story about what the meeting was about. The soninlaw tells another story. One of these two people is not telling the truth. It keeps going. The difference between now and watergate, during the time of the mid70s and Richard Nixon, we thought things were moving fast then. If we had one big Bombshell Development in a week, maybe ten days, things were moving quickly. That rolled out over, what, a twoyear period. This is all rolling out in a matter of days. Every day, theres not one but two or three new developments. Yeah. That tells you inside the white house that no matter what the appearance on the outside looking in is, theres chaos inside. Theres also big split, different people with different views of what the president could do, should do in order to get out of it. Lets talk about that. Theyre putting on a good face or not talking about it. Sean spicer saying, you have to talk to the president s lawyer. But Maggie Haberman of the new york times, interviewed the president a number of times, says she thinks the president is looking forward to the speckle of it, the show of it. Do you believe it . This person has a lot of experience so i listen carefully when that talk gets out. On the one hand, because he is a showman, a great showman, loves a speckle, loves a show, loves a television circus atmosphere, i can see why hed say, boy, thats great. Trumps name is up there. On the other side, what the former fbi director has to say cannot be good news for him. Yeah. Maybe do you ever wonder if he understands maybe there is no collusion, that he thinks of, in the way he thinks of collusion. Right. But its often the coverup of or not being worth coming wi forthcoming. At the president s level, it is almost always the coverup. If President Trump gets in much deeper trouble and that is an if. We dont have the facts. One of the things we really need are the facts. Exactly. If it turns out that he didnt know or it wasnt outright collusion, then everything pift pivots around. Thats not the way to vet it. When you have this many people doing this many things in secret, telling this many different stories, you have to believe there has been law breaking. You dont know other peoples actions or what they said. Exactly. Cant be for sure. You cant be for sure. You have on top of this is business with the paris accord, the president pulling out, which only happened hours ago, really. It got pushed back on the second page. This is momentous. Can we talk a little more about hacking . Vladimir putin weighing in today on intelligence reports that say russia meddled in the u. S. Election. Listen to that. Okay. Translator a girl, a 3yearold, can do this attack. They pass it off like this. The specialists can invent anything and they will blame someone else. These are not proofs. Theyre trying to shirk responsibility. Just yesterday, putin said socalled patriotic hackers, remember, could have meddled in the election. Many people are saying this is the closest hell ever come to admitting there was some sort of interfering in u. S. Elections. Whats your reaction . I think that is a widespread belief. Second, i want to make clear, this is not necessarily my opinion, but im convinced Many Americans think Vladimir Putin is about as trustworthy as a dog with a roast beef sandwich and wont believe anything he has to say. If the special prosecutor is left alone to do his job for long enough, well eventually find out. As you said, we need to find out the facts. Exactly. There are so many different stories being told. Thats why i think talk about obstruction of justice, perjury. Somewhere in this mess, you have to believe theres some of that. You have too many people telling different stories. That raises the question, what is it the Trump Administration has to hide . If you didnt have anything to hide, hed be coming on and saying, listen, i want all the people to come out publicly and talk about the meetings. Ill tell you what i know about it. Thats not what hes doing. Thats not what anyone at the white house is doing. Now lets talk Climate Change and the paris accords. He visited europe last week. Then he had the announcement yesterday. You wrote on facebook you think while President Trump cozies up to president putin and president duterte, he is losing influence on the stage with his America First policy. The only people standing with you against the paris accords are syria and nicaragua nicaragua who wanted more actually. They wanted more. What President Trump is at risk of doing with himself as a person, with his presidency and with our beloved United States of america, is appearing to be yesterdays man and yesterdays country. Like some of the people who still like disco. Theyre stuck back in the 070. Or the men who wears the belt and slacks. Its yesterdays stuff. The United States of america has always been seen as going forward, progressing, always moving forward. Now, under President Trump and with this act, he sort of said to the world, you know what . Were yesterdays country and im yesterdays man. Im wearing beltless slacks right now. Just listening to disco on my run earlier today. Not double knit. Something on the facebook page, you wrote, a reckless action. Why is this a blow to americas standing on the world stage again . Because we set the example. Not only world opinion, American Public opinion favors the paris accords. I do think it was reckless. That flows into a whole other conversation about whats going on in the white house with President Trump himself. I think by pulling out of the paris accords, it was a matter of anger on his part. I think hes bewildered, enraged, and this happens to president s when pressure gets on that trump has. You can argue no president has ever had that pressure. Again, to use Richard Nixon, when things began to press in on him, when he got the feeling im angry, outraged, i cant control things, Richard Nixon got mean as a wolverine. Theres some of that in President Trump happening now. I think it is one of the reasons he pulled out of the paris accord. He doesnt like what the leader of germany or leader of france says. He thinks the europeans are all slightly elite, and he is angry about it. Angry, enraged, bewildered president running a chaotic white house is not just bad for his presidency, its really bad for the country. Bad for the world in this case, pulling out. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Always a pleasure. When we come back, did the Trump Administration try to drop sanctions against russia . Vladimir putin gets testy when pressed about hacking. Well bring that to you next. This is a story about mail and packages. And its also a story about people. 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I want to play something we heard from russian president Vladimir Putin today on accusations that russia meddled in the u. S. Election. Listen. Translator its easy to say it is not our fault. Oh, its the russians. They intervened. They interfered. It is like antisemitism. The jews are no blame. You are an idiot because the jews are to blame. What do you make of that strange comparison and putins denial his government was involved . This is one of those cases where the joke has gone a little too far. It was funny in the beginning. Moscow was enjoying the discomfort of the Trump Administration and the democrats versus the republicans. Now, its starting to really have blow back on them. They had hoped, at least, since trump won, that they would see a warming of relations. Now, theyre looking ahead to possibly four years of this administration under investigation, defending itself with very little chance of some of the warmth and cooperation they were hoping for. So is he getting annoyed . Well, he is getting a little taste of what sean spicer and Trump Officials have been getting for the past several months. Well, its fair play. Michael, im glad youre here. Your reporting, as i understand, for yahoo news, there was a behind the scenes effort, unsuccessful, to drop the sanctions against russia. The state Department Official you spoke to was on cnn ingi sae russians doing anything strikes me as a bad, bad idea. My colleagues were concerned about this. So was i at the time. What i was reacting to was simply a rumor that some people in the new in the Incoming Administration were going to make a very bad decision. So, michael, also told cnn off camera that he heard something was in the works about relaxing sanctions but didnt know if it was true. What can you tell us about this administrations efforts to ease sanctions with russia . What we know is that in those first couple of weeks, there were taskings to state Department Officials to develop proposals for easing of tensions with russia in exchange for its cooperation in fighting against isis in syria. And that the steps that were falled f ed called for, in terms of easing tensions, would include or be considered for inclusion the lifting of sanctions, the easing of sanctions and possibly the return of those diplomatic compounds that had been shut down by president obama in its last couple weeks. Kim, our correspondent in russia, matthew chance, confronted the russian bank chairman, gorkov, with questions about why he had a secret meeting with the president s soninlaw, Jared Kushner. Heres how that went. Mr. Gorkov, quick question, what did you really speak to Jared Kushner about in new york when you met him in december . No comments. Did you talk about sanctions . Excuse me. No comments. What was discussed . The white house says it was a diplomatic meeting. That kushner met you as part of the transition team. Your bank says it was a business meeting. Sorry. Were you a conduit to the kremlin, mr. Gorkov . No comment. Kim, why cant we get a straight answer about what was discussed at that meeting . Because it probably veered all over the map. Maybe it was a little bit about Jared Kushners business dealings in russia. Maybe it was a little bit about what would happen with the upcoming white house, hopes for the future. You know, the more we watch this play out, this drama that keeps unfolding, the more i think the worst thing that could happen for all sides is if theres no evidence of either wrongdoing or nothing that can exonerate either side. So what is not clear is why was the Trump Administration, its campaign members, more comfortable with moscow than almost anybody else, at least on the foreign side of things . Possibly it was because they felt embattled. Theyd already been doing business with some russian businessmen. It was just a natural fit. But at this point, we dont have anything that says collusion, but we dont also have a really good explanation of where was this loyalty here . Why were they leaning so far forward into this relationship . Another development, michael, we know the House Intelligence Committee chairman nunes by this point. Everybody knows who he is. Hes concerned about the unmasking of americans in classified reports. The Washington Post is reporting that his committee engaged in the same practice late last year, and it is something President Trump is accusing the Obama Administration of abusing. It seems there is a whole lot of or at least some hypocrisy here. The whole unmasking issue is murky, or at least what is driving nunes and some of the other republicans on this. As we know from everybody weve spoken to, current and former administrations, republicans and democrats, it is not all that unusual for Senior Intelligence officials, Foreign Policy officials, to request unmasking, to understand what u. S. Persons are having conversations with people that are under that are being monitored by the u. S. Government. As it relates to the russia investigation, cant we call it for what it is, a deflection . Maybe there is investigating that needs to be done for unmasking. When it comes to this, its not the same thing. Right. Look, the point is, unmasking in and of itself, theres nothing wrong with it. It is perfectly permissible. What would be wrong is if somebody after requests an unmasking for political reasons and then discloses the identity of americans. Now, it is conceivable that that did happen here. After all, Michael Flynns conversations with the Russian Ambassador were disclosed. His identity was disclosed. Somebody may ultimately be charged with a crime for leaking that. We have no evidence that anybody senior in the Obama Administration,