Election system. And i think as well our institutions under assault internally. Internally from the president . Exactly. Reporter the former inte intelligence chief James Clapper says the president is undermining the american system. The Founding Fathers and genius created a system of three equal branches of government and a builtin system of checks and balances. I feel thats under assault and eroding. Reporter clapper rejecting the president s repeated use of the Senate Testimony to dismiss the russia investigation. The bottom line is i dont know if there was collusion. Political collusion. I dont know of any evidence to it. I cant refute it. I cant confirm it. Reporter United NationsAmbassador Nikki Haley comes to the white house aid. The president is the ceo of the country. He can fire or hire whoever he wants. Reporter condemning the reaction and suggesting that recordings may have conversations taped with comey. The white house denies it was a threat. I would advise the president not to tweet or comment about the investigation. If there are such recordings, those will be subpoenaed. We want to make sure the tapes are preserved. We want to look at them in congress. Reporter the top democrat on the Intelligence Committee asserting that comey should have the opportunity to address the allegations in public. I think jim comey deserves his chance to layout to the American Public his side of the facts because how he was treated was awful by this president. Reporter some democrats saying they will refuse to confirm a new fbi director until a special prosecutor is appointed. I thought this would be a popular thing that i did when i terminated comey because all of the democrats could not stand him. Because i terminated him, they said ah, we get political points. Well go against trump. Reporter President Trump insisting an independent investigation is not necessary. There is no collusion. We have nothing to do with russia. Reporter the backlash coming as the president scrambles to replace comey. A decision could come after eight were interviewed by Jeff Sessions and deputy over the weekend. Lawmakers urging the president to look beyond washington when selecting a new director. I urge the administration to pick someone completely apolitical. The president has a chance to clean up the mess he created. Reporter today, the president will tentertain a vist from the crown prince from the United Arab Emirates and tomorrow, another visit from the foreign head of state. Turkish president erdogan. Thank you, joe. Joining us is David Gregory and David Drucker and editor a. B. Stodda stoddard. David gregory, what was the Biggest Surprise of the weekend for you to start off the week . As we look forward, we have a president who still doesnt get it. Playing this kind of petty politic game around. I thought everybody did not like comey. I thought it would be celebrated. Not realizing the act of how he fired comey with the pretext reason with contradictory answers. Is this abuse of power that clapper is talking about . I think that is significant. Whatever your feelings about the future of the investigation and about an fbi director is the right thing for the country, the fact you had a president fire the guy investigating him and we know through reporting, demanding a loyalty oath and recording, this is an attack on the democratic system. It has nothing to do with collusion. It is about a president who is so insecure and so feeling his legitimacy is questioned. He is not looking after the presidency or checks and balances of our country. David drucker. When clapper says he thinks the u. S. Institutions are under assault externally and internally, is he being alarmist . He sounds alarmist and it sounds alarmist coming from a former intelligence official. These are the statements you dont hear from people who served at that level. You know, it makes you think. Is there something to be concerned about or is this part of the opposition and pushback to donald trump because he does things that are so abnormal for a president. David gregory got to this. The president is still running the country like a brand instead of a team. It is a transition that he has not made from his time in business through the campaign to the white house. Ea even though he had every Legal Authority to fire the fbi director, he hasnt bothered to explain it. He made it all very personal. Not about the country. I think that if he wants to enjoy broader support for radical moves or bold moves, he has to learn. This goes for pieces of legislation and his agenda. He has to learn how to talk to the country and explain what he is doing because the people that he hires and fires may serve at the pleasure of the president. He doesnt have full control. A lot of people get senate confirmation. The democratic process gets to put imprint on administration. We have two good reminders, a. B. , clapper reminded people not to use him as the case of the strength of the collusion. He did not know about the case. He doesnt know what has been investigated. He doesnt know what they have or do not have. He has been used as a real red herring. The other one about james comey and the interview with scott pelley at cbs in 2014. The first as the newly appointed fbi director. Here is a critical piece of it. I believe americans should be deeply skeptical of government power. You cannot trust people in power. The founders knew that. That is why they divided power to set interests against interests. He said in the interview, he recounted this famous moment for comey ten years earlier when he was acting as deputy ag. He had to race to the white house. There was fight over surveillance. He was willing to go to the mat. I remember that moment. Feeling queasy. It was reminiscent about interrupting the election. It was interesting contrast, a. B. A man so worried about power wound up getting caught up the way he did. Right. We know that james comey because of the way he acted both in july and then october before the election in november. Really sullied his reputation. He was above everybody in d. C. Because of that exact anecdote you described. He stuck his neck out and wasnt influenced by politics. He was a man of integrity and took the risk all those years ago in the hospital room. It turned out he actually was protecting himself politically because he did not want to recommend prosecution for hillary clinton, but he indicted her politically on the 5th of july. In october, reopened the investigation and gave it to congress knowing it would be leaked. It was all really and he admitted this in testimony to protect himself politically because he did not want hillary to win and people to leak out later potentially from the fbi in new york. Thats the branch he was most worried about where the leaks were coming from that he knew there was something that needed to be reopened 11 days beforehand and he didnt tell us. Hes protected himself politically and felt the impact of politics all along. It really is a lesson for whoever becomes the next fbi director. Not only is there pressure on them not to be politically influenced by the president who is interested in politically influencing anyone who works underneath him and that includes the fbi director. Any kind of other outside politics concerning their reputation. James comey is really an interesting figure. As much as this whole mess has made him look like a victim here, he breached proptocol and messed up last year. David gregory, that leads us to today. President trump saying james comey better hope there are no tapes of the conversations they had sochlt now, lawmakers on both sides are saying are there types . If there are tapes, mr. President , you should release them. Give us some context here. Dont we know that president s in the past, not just nixon. Other president s is tape oval Office Conversations . Why should we assume there are not tapes that donald trump has . Right. I think we know about donald trump taped people at trump tower and one party states. You dont need the party you are taping to agree to it. Lbj certainly had tapes that proven over the years fascinating and embarrassing to him. Yes, we should assume there are tapes. Apparently according to reporting over the weekend, comey would be happy to have the tapes come to light. He said he would testify, but testify out in the open. The president has picked a fight with a guy who has things to say in response which i think will be a further embarrassment to the white house. You heard from across the board over the weekend that if the tapes are there, theyll be subpoenaed and part of it. All of this is just so irresponsible on the part of the president and the people who work for him who have sacrificed their integrity to say things that whether they knew or didnt know were untrue about all this. When nikki haley, our ambassador to the u. N. Says it is his right to fire the director. Thank you for the obvious. It has nothing to do if it was the appropriate action to take. It has nothing to do if it was done inappropriately to undermine an Ongoing Investigation and undermine the independence of the fbi director. We need to get back to the fbi director. The fbi director has a tenyear term to take the political heat. They are independent from politics. James comey was celebrated in 2004 for the independence and somehow lost his nerve last year. Nikki haley saying he is the ceo of the country. She bought into the party line. She has to remember she was regarded highly because of her independence. Well take a break. We have a lot more to talk about. So stand by. Some Republican Leadership shying away from defending the decision to fire james comey. Is it time for the gop to stand up . Are they choosing party over country . We discuss all of that next. You might not ever just stand there, looking at it. You may never even sit in the back seat. Yeah, but maybe you should. laughter can we at least analyze customer can we push the offer online . Legacy technology can handcuff any company. But yes is here. Youre saying the new app will go live monday . Yeah. With help from hpe, we can finally work the way we want to. With the right mix of hybrid it, everything computes. At crowne plaza we know Business Travel isnt just business. Theres this. a bit of this. Why not . Your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. Which is what we do. Crowne plaza. Were all business, mostly. beckin einstein since he hange started eating beneful. The number one ingredient in it is beef. einstein the beef is fantastic becky he has enough energy to believe that he can jump high enough to catch a bird. vo and now try new beneful grain free, simply made with wholesome ingredients, and no grain. This i can do, easily. I try hard to get a great shape. Benefiber® healthy shape is a clear, tastefree, 100 natural daily fiber. Thats clinically proven to help me feel fuller longer. Benefiber® healthy shape. This i can do Senate Minority leader chuck sh schumer calling out republicans for staying silent over the need for a special prosecutor. The silence of my republican colleagues is choosing parties over country at a time when we can ill afford it. It is one of the things the Founding Fathers most warned about. Our republicans should be stepping up to the plate and joining us in asking for a special prosecutor. Where is the howard baker of 2017. Schumer referring to the senator who asked during the watergate stan ccandal. We have our panel David Gregory and David Drucker and a. B. Stoddard. It is worth noting, we tried to get schumer on the show, but we invited all of the Republican Leadership. Hear me . We tried to get dozens of republican lawmakers to come the show. We are often chock full. Not right now. We are over this weekend. Lets discuss. David gregory, yes, it is a pickle the president has put his party in here. Thats what leadership is about, right . If you choose to ignore, you are in effect, empowering whatever you ignore. Well, and particularly in this case. I said before i think it is demeaning to reduce the conversation and controversy to partisan politics and allowing a conversation to unfold that the democrats are being hypocrites because they wanted comey out all along. Come on. Focus on what was done. They made up a reason to get rid of comey. The idea they cared about the treatment of hillary clinton. Nothi nobody believes. They did it in the middle of the russia investigation. Now they tried to get him to pledge loyalty. You know trump was thinking, this guy, comey, he will feel about about how he handled clinton. Now he will go after the russia thing harder. And he was mad about the leaks and the rest. Trump walks around the white house thinking clapper and the Intelligence Community of the identifi United States is conspiring his presidency. He is holding the map with all of the red on it. That is driving President Trump and that is sad. Republican leaders are missing something. They should go to him and say you are endangering everything you said you cared about. Health care legislation. I talked to people in meetings with no real care of the health care. Big sweeping tax reform. Hard to get a budget passed. Democrats are on the sidelines. The failure of leadership is not only to speak up for the right thing, but the failure to confront trump and say you will not get the big things everybody expect because you cannot get out of your way. David drucker, explain this. If President Trump is putting some of the republicans in jeopardy of their political careers or their agenda,culus t out . Why are you asking me to explain the unexplainable . I think they are trying to weather the storm. They have been in the strange position with President Trump. He is not of the party and not conservative. To try and navigate the hold he has on the good segment of the party. If you look at the polling. Some of it was problematic. You have a Broad Community of republican voters. Not just trump base. That is not sour. They are afraid of losing base. People sound angry, but the base isnt. He is a vocal critic. You could have the president of the United States come at you in your district. That would come off funding. That is correct, chris. Not only that, if you made your deal with the devil, so to speak, you think to yourself, if i let this evolve into a food fight, i get nothing. I dont get health care reform. I dont get tax reform. Who knows what he starts to do on judges if he thinks that is not serving him properly. I think they are trying to weather this. Now one thing i will say when you talk to republican members of congress on capitol hill, they will tell you on the record, they dont like the comey firing and how it was handled. They are concerned about the facts concerning comey. This comes from republicans in safely red states that like donald trump. They are not silent. I think what they are trying to do is communicate through back channels to senior members of the staff. Can you guys try to reel this guy in. I dont know why they bother. You cannot reel him in. This is how they are trying to handle. The best proof is what we hear about what may happen going forward. A. B. , what do you hear about anybody wanting to step up on the republican side for any type of special anything when it comes to investigating russia and what are you hearing about pushing the Merrick Garland idea or someone outside the box choice for fbi . I think on the fbi director replacement the Merrick Garland idea sounds like it is the new republican idea. Mitch mcconnell loves it and senator mike lee is pushing it. Senator orrin hatch was the first to bring it to the attention of the white house. It sounds like someone to get bipartisan support. I think senator graham is correct. If you elevate someone from within the ranks, that will actually end up being a pick who gets more support. This really looks like an agency that needs to be run by someone who understands its challenges right now and turmoil during comey and postcomey. I think that promoting from someone within will be more popular than Merrick Garland. Thats not to say he wont get democratic support. We will see how that plays out. In terms of the other thing, republicans i spoke to this weekend are really unhappy. They feel that they are in a catch22. Without trump, if they throw their hands in the air, they dont get anything done before the midterm elections. And they just tell the voters, sorry. We made all of these promises. It is all for naught. This is mayhem. Thats what they think it is. They think in the environment, they cannot imagine getting tax reform done. It is such a challenge. It is such a heavy lift. They see a white house in chaos. A president that will not learn and will not change. The job has not changed him. It has not centered him. The gravity of it. He has someone absorbed it, but hasnt changed the way he acts emotionally on anger and impulse. The way he threw mike pence under the bus last week really worries them in terms of a staff shakeup. They think who would go in to the sharks waters at this point. They are very, very unhappy. Not ready to really heave ho him publicly. David said hoping they can weather it. They dont know what that means. They are prepare for the next explosion. In terms of calling for independent commissioner or special counsel, they are not ready to do that. I think this is a turning point. Where they really have almost universally decided to privately decide this will not get better. Quick point. The inside washington talk about who would succeed comey. Take Merrick Garland. I said here before im close to him personally. I have no knowledge of anything in particular with regard to him. Think about this. If you are Merrick Garland, would you go work for a president who just fired the fbi director . How do you know you would se