Tapes. Lordy, i hope there are tapes. He has undertaken assaults. The president is new at this. He is new to government. President trumps pattern of the contempt for justice disgraces the office of president. This is new day with chris comey and alisyn camerota. Welcome to new day. President trump is up early and fighting back against fired fbi director james comey. The president calling comey testimony false analyzd lies. James comey went so far as to say President Trump lied about why comey was fired. Another major news event. The uk is thrown into political cha chaos. Prime minister Theresa Mays Conservative Party losing majority in partmenliament. We have a lot to cover. We start with cnns joe johns at the white house. What is the latest . Reporter alisyn, it was a long silence on twitter, but not destined to last. The president echoing the words of marc kasowitz. Despite false statements and lies, complete vindication. Comey and attorneys seizing on the fact that comey did say in his testimony that he did not tell the president he was under investigation. Nonetheless, that testimony seriously undermining the credibility of the man in the oval office. Comey asserting the president of the United States is a liar. Although the law required no reason at all to fire an be fbi director, the administration chose to defame me and more importantly the fbi. Reporter james comey repeatedly calling the president of the United States a liar. Both when discussing President Trumps initial explanation of why he was fired. By saying the organization was in disarray and poorly led and the work force lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies plain and simple. Reporter and when explaining why he decided to start taking meticulous notes. I was concerned he may lie about the nature of our meeting. I can say the president is not a liar. I think it is insulting that question would be asked. Reporter during almost three hours of testimony, comey recounted the events that ultimately led to his dismissal. It is my judgment i was fired because of the russia investigation. I was fired in some way to change or the endeavor was to change the way the russia investigation was conducted. Reporter confirming for the first time his memos are now in the hands of special Counsel Robert Mueller raising the possibility that obstruction of justice may be part of muellers investigation. It is not for me to say whether the conversation i had with the president was to strou obstruct. Reporter comey did layout a number of interactions that concerned him, including the president clearing the room before allegedly telling comey he hoped that he could let the Flynn Investigation go. Why did he kick everybody out of the oval office . Why kick the attorney general, the president , chief of staff out, to talk to me if it was about Something Else . So that to me as an investigator is a significant fact. Reporter but was it an order . I took it as a direction. This is the president of the United States with me alone saying i hope this. I took it as this is what he wants me to do. I did not obey that. Reporter the president s attorney flatly denying that this interaction took place. The president never in form or substance directed or suggested that mr. Comey stop investigating anyone. Reporter while simultaneously celebrating other parts of comeys testimony. Mr. Comey has finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told the president privately. That is that the president was not under investigation as part of the probe into russian interference. Reporter still unclear whether the president actually recorded their conversations as he suggested on twitter after firing comey. I have seen the tweet about tapes. Lordy, i hope there are tapes. Reporter the president s lawyer sharply criticizing this admission from the former fbi director. I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. I did not do it myself for a number of reasons. I asked him to. I thought that may prompt a special counsel. Reporter comey raised concerns of the discussion he had in 2015 with former attorney general Loretta Lynch about downplaying the significance of the fbis investigation into Hillary Clintons private email server. At one point, the attorney general directed me not to call it an investigation, but to call it a matter which confused me and concerned me. Reporter comey also said lyn lynchs tarmac meeting with former president bill clinton led him to announce the outcome of the email investigation. Today President Trump is expected to hold a News Conference in the rose garden with the president of romania. The first opportunity in about three weeks to get a couple of questions to the president. Not much, but still an opportunity, perhaps, to gauge his reaction to the comey testimony. Alisyn, chris. Joe, one of the big developments from the fallout from yesterday is the gop ral rallied behind the president. House Speaker Paul Ryan said oh, thats just the president not knowing much about politics. Cnns Phil Mattingly live on capitol hill. If you combine the excuse from ryan with the intense interest in Loretta Lynch during the comey testimony, the president has to feel pretty good about where his party is. Reporter certainly. No mass defection, chris. When you talk to the house and senate, they understand the gravity. They also want to focus on the agenda and legislation. They want to focus on the things they said they were going to do on the campaign trail. They thought think wouey would to do with a republican president , but have been stymied thus far. The question so far is what is the rationale to move on . Speaker paul ryan making clear it is because the president doesnt know any better. That led to the followup question i asked. The president is new at this. He is new to government. So he probably wasnt steeped in the long running protocols that established the relationships between doj, fbi and white house. He is new to this. The president is new at this. He has a staff. He has a white house counsel. Why is that an acceptable excuse . It is just my observation. Im not saying it is an excuse. It is my observation. Should you be corrected . He is new at government. I think hes learning as he goes. Reporter guys, that is something we heard from multiple republicans. He should have been staffed better. He probably did not know better. The big issue for republicans on capitol hill. They recognize what yesterday is and what yesterday represents. They recognize it has gotten in the way of what they want to do. It is a difficult balancing act. One im not sure how long it will last. At this point, they are planning on keeping going. Phil, thank you for that. Lets bring in the panel to discuss. We have cnn senior legal analyst Jefferey Toobin and david gregoy and we have chris cillizza. Jeffrey toobin, i want to take your temperature. When you read the opening statement, you thought it could approach obstruction of justice or qualified. Now that you have heard james comeys actual answers. What do you think . I think it is even clearer this is a case of obstruction of justice. This is essentially in the political arena now. You know, what matters is whether the Republican Party sticks with him more than anything. It seems like the Republican Party will. When you look particularly at the february 14th meeting in the oval office where he shoos everyone out of the oval office which prosecutors call conscienceness of guilt and ask to drop the investigation of michael flynn. That to me is just a classic obstruction of justice in the mold of watergate. If you have any doubt of that, when comey declines to drop the investigation, what happens . He gets fired because of that. Its straight forward to me. Yet, chris cillizza, the republicans yesterday when hearing all that from comey, did not push back, but brought up Loretta Lynch. In the aftermath, many were quoted as saying, that may be obstruction. Im not concerned about what comey said about the president. How do you believe those two things. How can you be concerned by what Loretta Lynch did and not concerned all that comey discussed with the president . Because you are a politician and good at compartmentalizing, chris. The thing i was most struck by yesterday was how people who have been openly critical of trump. Marco rubio who ran against donald trump for president. Roy blunt. Face of the establishment. Former leader in the house. These people were john mccain. Im not totally sure what john mccain was doing. I think he was trying to defend trump. These people were still largely on board with donald trump. Again, this is another example of compartmentalizing. With the exception of tom cot n cotton. James comey, you are a great guy. Appreciate your service. At the same time, they stayed in support of the trumpian view of all this. Donald trump is on record saying james comey is a showboat and grandstander and everyone at the fbi hates him. Now james comey is under oath saying donald trump is lying. So im surprised particularly given Donald Trumps poll numbers which are not good. Im surprised you are still seeing paul ryan, marco rubio and roy blunt, john mccain, largely on board still with this president. There was no one who threw no republican threw donald trump under the bus yesterday. Susan collins. No one who went out and said this is really troubling to me about the president of the United States. David, is that being on board with President Trump or is that agenda, agenda, agenda. We want obamacare repealed. Thats what we promised. We want tax reform. Lower taxes. The nice vote yesterday pulling back the protections to keep people safe from crazy financial practices. We are sticking together to get the agenda forward. Im sure they are thinking about that. They are doing two things. They recognize he has enough power among republicans and he wields a big enough stick that they will not buck him at this point. They will argue the case the way trump is arguing it. He himself was not the subject of the investigation, although that appears to change based on interactions with comey and now it is the realm of the special Counsel Robert Mueller. They are arguing he may have done these things and it was inappropriate, but the investigation goes forward. He did not completely derail all that. I think they are trying to walk a fine line until and unless support craters for donald trump. They are afraid of what they should be afraid of which is credibility contest with comey and trump. Trump brought us the birther lie against barack obama and rode that to political prominence. Now wants a faceoff of who you believe between he and james comey. Comey has credibility issues for sure. This is the president who threatened the fbi director. He had tapes. He better not hope there are tapes. Put up or shut up. Where are the tapes . You can win this credibility fight. Put forward the tapes. All this tough talk from lawyer and the president and how he will fight. Put up. If you read into presidethe have not heard tapes. That may be an indication it was more talk than walk. Jeffrey toobin, if comey is right because he gave himself wiggle room because he thought mueller would look at obstruction with the president. If that were true, why would mueller, the guy who has to be the main witness go out in the senate and get slapped around and have credibility called into question . Mueller understands that consequen congress has a role here. Think about the scandals in history. Watergate. Iran contra. They both had independent counsel investigations and congressional investigations and the same witnesses testified in both. The special counsel does not have the right to say to all of the witnesses, dont say anything. Also, james comey has testified many times. He has notes indicating what went on between him and trump earlier. His testimony is not going to change. I dont think mueller had any right or reason to tell comey not to testify. I think thats just how the system should play out as the congress as the interest. Chris. Just quickly i would add to jeffs point. Comey and mueller know each other and have for a long time. I think comey wanted this. Every indication is he wanted this opportunity. He quite clearly believed that donald trump had run him down politically. He wanted this chance to defend his reputation. You saw that repeatedly when he talked about the fbi and what trump said and that was not accurate. I wonder if some of the sticking with the president isnt just political tribalism, but function of comeys behavior. The guy did seem to do everything that was good for him. Preserved what happened in the memo. He did not speak out the way he did in the clinton situation. Why . He does not get to that. He did leak information out. We are debating if it was a leak. He is not in office. It wasnt classified. Whatever. He did it in his own words because he wanted a special counsel appointed to look at in part what the president did with him. Im sure that didnt win him a lot of friends in the gop. No. I think it does fortify that view against it. This is a skilled inside washington player. Knows how to look good and say im so sorry i did not get a chance to say goodbye to my colleagues properly at the fbi. He knew how to use that stage and strike back at the president of the United States who embarrassed him and fired him and acted incredibly inappropriately for a president of the United States. Comey seized that ground and knew how to use it. I think these are questions about if you thought this was so bad and you thought it was inappropriate, why didnt you report it up the legal chain . I dont think he had an incredibly well thought out answer other than i was stunned. You can argue this is part of the problem. He is a human being too and made to feel uncomfortable by the president of the United States. The fact he leaks, the white house leaks, all white houses leak when they want something out to influence opinion and influence the public. That is what comey did. It was not classified information he leaked. One point. I think about this argument that you know why didnt comey do x, y and z. Why departmeidnt he continue tt up the chain . The reason he did not report and continue this is because he got fired. So the idea that republicans can claim he should have done x, y and z. We will never know how he handled the investigation because donald trump preempted it by firing him. Panel, thank you. James comey also taking on the clinton email probe and gop jumping on that part of the testimony. We have clintons former running mate. Senator tim kaine with this thoughts on that next. Hi. When you clock out, ill clock in. Sensing and automatically adjusting to your every move. There. I can even warm these. Does your bed do that . Im the new sleep number 360 smart bed. Lets meet at a sleep number store. Bp engineered a fleet of 32 brand new ships with advanced technology, so we can make sure oil and gas get where they need to go safely. Because safety is never being satisfied. And always working to be better. America by simon and is that good . Strumental yeah its perfect. 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Those were lies plain and simple. That was fired fbi director james comey testifying and it has shaken up washington. Comey questioning the president s credibility and laying out the events that led to comeys firing. Lets bring in senator tim kaine. He sits on the Armed Services committee. He was the democratic Vice President ial nominee. Good morning, senator. Alisyn, good to talk to you. What was your take away . The strength and just clarity of his testimony. He says the president fired me because of the russia investigation. He made it plain in the written testimony and articorally. He felt the president was so likely to lie, he felt it was necessary to document interactions with him. I believe the hearing will prove ample fodder for the Senate Investigation and special prosecutor. Senator, republicans have seized on different moments and what they heard in comeys testimony. One being he testified that then attorney general low lretta lyn under then president obama asked him to characterize the email investigation in a dafsifferent way. At one point the attorney general directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead call it a matter which confused me and concerned me. That was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude i have to step away from the department if we are to close the case creditably. How is that different . Asking him to state it differently. Asked him to characterize it. The same thing they are looking at now. Alisyn, thats ridiculous. Where is the action . President trump fired the director of the fbi. The guy leading the russia investigation. You know, i thought that was an interesting piece of testimony. The Senate Intel Committee wants to look at it. Basically with director comey, the president took an action that had an affect on the investigation. He fired the guy heading the vehicl investigation. What is his intent in taking that action . Yesterdays test