I want to get to Justice Department correspondent evan perez. Evan, lets talk about what youre learning. The new reporting that you have on some of the growing tension going on over at the Justice Department, over at the Justice Department over this russia probe, what do you know . Thats right, don. Everything goes back to Rod Rosensteins decision to bring in Robert Mueller as a special counsel. Look, that has unleashed the anger of the president , as you saw from that tweet that he sent out earlier today. And it also applies to his fellow colleagues at the Justice Department where the attorney general sits a floor above him on the fifth floor of the Justice Department. A lot of consternation and, frankly, anger at the way that rosenstein has handled this. The attorney general was surprised, to say the least, that they were going to bring in mueller. At that point, it looked like mueller was going to be interim fbi director. He was surprised by this announcement by rosenstein and now we know that rosenstein himself may end up having to be a witness in this investigation. So listen, is there a good chance that we could see the Deputy Attorney general rosenstein recuse himself in what do you think . Look, i think were walking very quickly towards that point. As i mentioned, he very well may become a witness in this investigation because he wrote the memo that President Trump used to fire james comey, the fbi director. And its widely believed that the firing of comey is going to be a part of muellers investigation into whether or not the president was trying to interfere with or obstruct the Justice Departments investigation. So all of this is going to come to a head pretty quickly, pretty soon because we believe that mueller, once hes done staffing and looks at all of the evidence, will make a decision as to whether or not this becomes a fullblown investigation of the president , don. Evan, thank you. Stay with me. I want to bring in cnn political analyst Carl Bernstein, senior White House Correspondent jeff zeleny, laura coats and tara pamieri. Here we go. Were seeing a frustrated president today, at least on twitter. You could see that hes frustrated. Writing this, i am being investigated for firing the fbi director by the man who told me to fire the fbi director. Witch hunt. What do folks around the president say about his complaint . Well, don, theres no sort of guessing what his mindset is. We all know what his mindset is. We can see it here in realtime. Im being told that the tweets that weve been seeing particularly on this matter are less spontaneous than you might think. The fact of the matter is, hes basically trying to take the reins of the communication strategy here, the talking points, if you will, and send the message out early in the morning about this and that witch hunt message, he wants his core supporters to believe and in many respects they do. But the challenge here is this. I mean, this is a different type of fight that hes ever been in. According to one person he spoke to in the last 24 hours who i talked to today said this is a political fight and he wants to win the political fight and take the matter into his own hands. The more serious matter in this is not political at all. Its legal. So that is the challenge here. All of his lawyers have advised him to stop talking, you know, to stop commenting on this sort of blow by blow. Clearly, he was sending a message or talking about his displeasure for Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney general here. This is definitely and perhaps the president is trying to urge this towards a recusal. Hes weighing in on this here. Well see how he tweets over the weekend here. But the president is basically now a oneman Communications Shop leading the strategy on his own and be damn the consequences. Carl, id like to know what you think about this because Dianne Feinstein is concerned that President Trump may try to fire bob mueller and Rod Rosenstein. She put out a warning. She said, the message that the president is sending through his tweets is he believes the rule of law doesnt apply to him and that anyone who thinks otherwise will be fired. So what happens, carl, if the president fires the special counsel or if he fires Deputy Attorney general . First of all, he has the authority to do so. And we seem to be heading towards a constitutional crisis approaching one, if were not already there yet, because we have an authoritarianinclined president who is taking the reins, as jeff just told us, and his political strategy is to act in an authoritarian way rather than see the legal lawful procedures proceed. And there has been certainly what fbi believes and reporters covering the white house believes a coverup in the white house because this president has not told his people, okay, theres this investigation going on. Lets see the facts. So were heading toward a real collision here and at the same time, he has the authority to do this. I dont think theres any question that rosenstein is going to have to recuse himself and the president , i think, would like to see him recuse himself and in which case rachel brand would become the acting Deputy Attorney general. What is mess this is. Well, its a little more than a mess because the real question is and i believe and said last night on the air, that trumps strategy that trump just outlined playing to his base is probably a smart one from his point of view if he doesnt give a damn about the country and trying to unite the country in some way but playing to his base and were going to play into a constitutional crisis if this keeps going because the only thing that will stop the collision is the congress of the United States looking into impeachment in some way and republicans are very reluctant to do that and especially reluctant as long as the president can keep this base aroused. So far, hes kept them aroused. Evan, i have to ask you, what do we know about rachel brand . Shes a longtime republican official, obviously. Shes not known, however, as any kind of ideologue. President trump picked her. In the last few years, she served on a privacy and Civil Liberties board that overlooked the surveillance and intelligence agency. So shes an expert in National Security. Shes not an expert in prosecutions and in doing these types of cases. So its going to be interesting to see whether or not she has to assume the role of overseeing this investigation. Certainly, don, not what she was expecting when she decided to take the number three job at the Justice Department. Laura, lets talk about the House SpeakerNewt Gingrich weighing in. Listen to this. Technically, the president of the United States cannot obstruct justice. The president of the United States is the chief executive officer of the United States. If he wants to fire the fbi director, all he has to do is fire him. Laura, this is coming from the man who voted to impeach president bill clinton for obstruction of justice. So what gives here . Perhaps the word he meant instead of cant is shouldnt try to obstruct justice. To suggest that the president of the United States is somehow immunized from all criminal conduct or allegations against him would be entirely false. Yes, he has the absolute prerogative to fire an atwill employee who serves at his pleasure and that was the fbi director james comey. However, he does not have the bandwidth in order to fire for an unlawful purpose or certainly one with a criminal purpose or wrongdoing. We dont yet know whether or not in fact he had that criminal intention but we do know that he suggested not only to the russian ambassadors and also to lester holt that he did it because of the handling of the russia investigation and it alleviated a great deal of pressure on himself. The hypocrisy is dripping from the words of Newt Gingrich. The idea that the president of the United States can do no wrong is a fallacy that democracy does not allow. Yeah. And here he is, this is him on nbc news talking about what laura said. Listen. I was going to fire comey. My decision. It was not you had made the decision before i was going to fire comey. Theres no good time to do it, by the way. Because in your letter you said i accepted their recommendations. So you had already made the decision. Oh, 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 knowing there was no good time to do it. Okay. So if you listen to that and you look at todays tweet, hes contradicting himself, because originally it was said, well, he fired him in his letter because Rod Rosenstein and then he said, no, i was going to fire him anyway. It didnt matter. And now i know. Well, President Donald Trump is obviously punching into the air. Hes punching at whatever is around. This is a typical crouch for him. Lets not forget when he was in the private sector as a real estate tycoon. He was often the subject of inquiries. He was investigated for Trump University for allegations of sham and fraud and he tried to discredit attorney general schneiderman on twitter. He would often tweet things about him before an event to reporters would have to ask mr. Schneiderman about it at the event. In the new York Observer which was owned by his soninlaw kushner at the time that actually alleged a lot of things about schneiderman but basically said he was not a scrupulous person and said to the point that he was wearing eyeliner. They were trying to assassinate his character. This is part of the trump playbook. According to my source in the white house, this is typical of trump. He feels theres no one out there defending him and the words that he wants. Hes unhappy with the way his Communications Department is dealing with this and in fact they really cant deal with this because theyve been instructed by lawyers not to comment. Because if they do start commenting, theyll get thrown into this whole legal disaster and they are not making enough money to afford lawyers at the hourly rate that they cost. But trump feels like hes out there on his own fighting his fight on his own and hes punching into the air not knowing who the enemy is. At a certain point, its always good to listen to your attorneys. Thats why you hire them. Today his lawyers were actually surprised when they saw the tweets. They didnt know what was going to come. Theres some consequences to this, potentially, for the president. And trump is adding another highprofile attorney to the russia legal team, speaking of, you know, what are you learning . Well, were learning tonight that hes adding more fire power. John dowd is the lawyer hes hired. This is a longtime prosecutor in one life but he was hired by Major League Baseball to investigate pete rose, the betting scandal. It went on from there. He also defended senator john mccain in the keating five scandal. More than three decades ago. He has deep experience in prosecution and defense. Hell be joining the president s growing legal team here. But the question is, no matter who the president brings on, can anyone sort of persuade him or dissuading him from engaging in this respect . And the reality is, probably not. Politically speaking, him doing this probably is, you know, keeping his support high among his base and his core supporters. Many who believe there is a witch hunt going on, but hes sending out those talking points. But the president talking to roger stone and other friends of his who believe this is a witch hunt, you know, hes hearing their advice. Not necessarily taking the advice from his lawyers. Roger stone says that he should fire bob mueller and fire Rod Rosenstein. Well see if he does that, but interestingly, roger stone was in new york and used the same word the president has been using, witch hunt. Thank you, appreciate it. Breaking news off the coast of japan. Seven u. S. Soldiers are missing after their Navy Destroyer collided with a merchant ship. At least four have suffered injuries, including the ships Commanding Officer is hospitalized in stable condition. Search is under way for the missing soldiers. The uss fitzgerald suffered damage to its starboard side above and below the water line. This resulted in some flooding. Im going to linger on these pictures for a bit. The ship is operating, i should tell you, under its own power. U. S. Naval vessels and aircraft on hand to assist. Well continue to update you. When we come back, will the president fire Robert Mueller, the man investigating him, or the Deputy Attorney general. And what will the consequences be if he does . Expert legal advice, next. To its roots. Brewed only in golden, colorado. And nowhere else. Ever. Coors banquet. Thats how its done. Briathe customer app willw if be live monday. 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The only hotel where you can redeem loyalty points for a free nightinstantly and win at business. Z286oz zwtz y286oy ywty President Trump tweeting that hes being investigated as part of the russia probe angrily blaming Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein for what he calls a witch hunt. I want to bring in the former prosecutor for the Southern District of new york, Matthew Whitaker and cnn analyst Richard Benveniste a former watergate prosecutor and john flannery. We brought the heavy hitters here. Were not measuring around today. Seriously. Richard, i want to start with you. Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of when five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National headquarters. Theres been so many comparisons to watergate over the past weeks. Do you think were on the verge of another saturday night massacre . 45 years since then and it sure looks like it. It looks like weve got a simmering tea kettle here and the president is testing the waters here about whether he should fire bob mueller. Hes received bipartisan acclaim. You look in the dictionary for Public Servant and you see bob muellers picture. He was an outstanding choice and is doing his job. Hes doing nothing other than doing his job. The president just cant pick the opposing team, you know, if youre playing baseball, you dont pitch you dont pick the person who pitches for the other team. You dont say you can only have three infielders. You dont mess with the criminal Justice System in this way. And the fact that he wishes to test the waters on firing mueller has gotten a lot of attention in congress and you saw senator feinstein today make the statement that there should be consequences in the congress if the president goes ahead and does that. And watergate, archibald cox, the man who was investigating nixon, was fired for no reason that passed muster causing the resignation rather than doing that deed. The president is on very tenuous ground here, don. Ive got to ask you, john, Richard Nixon considered