Not vote which is not unusual in that community. But he also said he found the conversation disturbing. Joining us now is the reporter who broke that story. Cnn political analyst and White House Reporter for the Washington Post josh dossy. Lets start with the question that predent trump put t Andrew Mccabe which was, w it as simple as who did you vote for in 2016 . It was a gettoknowyou meeting. He was thinking about making mccabe acting director. It was clear he was looking for loyalty. He wanted to know who did you vote for, berated him about his wife taking contributions from a clinton supporter and made clear to mr. Mccabe, i want to know what your affiliations are. The people are telling me theyre democratic and i dont like the sound of that. Was he that specific. Did he say i want to know what your political leanings are . He said who did you vote for in the election. I think thats a pretty specific question. He wanted to know did you support clinton or did you support me. The reason i ask and i press on this is because you see it or he saw it, i guess, as a loyalty test. Lots of people do. But we just had the rnc chair in who said hes just making conversation, that was just a gettoknowyou meeting he had with Andrew Mccabe. I heard that. Its unusual our sources said to us last night for a president to ask a civilian servant, a nonpartisan person who they voted for. That was followed up for criticizing him for his wifes political donations for democrats. I guess he could be making small talk. Those two things together i understand mighted to us he was looking for some sense of how he felt pligolitically. How did mccabe take it . It wasdisturbing. There was a conversation with the president ,e went in and the president asked a number of political questions. Several people in the fbi described it to my colleagues as he was disturbed by the conversation. It was interesting to hear Andrew Mccabe, as you report, say that he didnt vote. Right but thats pretty normal. A lot of top fbi officials just like many journalists who are involved in this world dont cast ballots in president ial elections or are not affiliated with a party so you wont have the concerns of partisan political activity. As you know, when the concerns are there it taints the findings and taints the work. You learned from our legal experts today that is customary because if youre involved in an investigation, you dont want to be seen as partisan somehow, so you sit it out and dont exercise your civil duty or your civil right. Did that satisfy the president when Andrew Mccabe said he didnt vote . Its unclear. He brought him back in again for a perfunctory interview to become the permanent fbi director and obviously chose chris ray. Since then he talked about the money he took, the fact he thinks hes a democrat. Weve seen seen him taunt Andrew Mccabe on twitter. Hes far from the president s favorite person. And i dont think his answers satisfied him if all the president s subsequent comments are an indicator of that. Lets talk about your other reporting that Robert Mueller is preparing, getting ready to interview President Trump and vice versa. Do you have any sense of what that will look like . Is that a sitdown in person, a submission of written questions and answers . Well, the negotiations are at pace now. President trumps lawyers are looking to make an interview as accommodating to him as possible, whether its some written, whether part is videotaped. What bob muellers team has told the president is theyre interested in two parts, the firing of mick flynn early in the administration and the firing of james comey later in the administration. Those are kind of the bucket areas, what the president was thinking, the preceding events, what happened afterwards, what precipitated the president to take both of these moves. The negotiations are beginning now. His lawyers are obviously going to the president and saying here is what we want. Plulers team saying here is what we want and we expect this to happen in the coming months. Coming months, not couple of weeks . Well, it depends. These negotiations could go well. I think President Trumps lawyers are expecting to talk talking to muellers team as early as next week. It depends how they could go. They could in a few days figure it out or it cou take some time. Thank you very much. Joining us reynaldo mariotti and senior political analyst david gregory. Renato, the timing of moving in to want to interview trump, having done comey and sessions, what does that tell you . It tells me as to the obstruction piece of muellers investigation, hes getting closer to a conclusion. A prosecutor does not interview a key subject in a probe like this until very close to the end, after hes already gathered all the key documents, spoken to the less important or more peripheral witnesses. Whatever the president says about his firing of james comey will dramatically impact muellers investigation of obstruction. So this is sort of where all of the rubber meets the road, so to speak. Obviously weve heard and cnn has reported over the past months of various other aspects of muellers investigation, from facebook to the trump tower meeting and so on. This doesnt mean that mueller is going to be investigating the other meetings, but it means as to this portion of the investigation, its very far along. David, its interesting to think about the president sitting down with Robert Mueller. Thats an interesting scenario to imagine. Polls suggest that most americans want Robert Mueller to get to the bottom of this. If the president we to somehow avoid a facetoface interview, do you think there would be political consequences . I dont necessarily think there would be political consequences. I think the president very much wants to meet with Robert Mueller. I think his lawyers may be concerned about how undisciplined he is. I cant imagine a more undisciplined figure to be deposed or interviewed which is why im sure they want a combination of written answers and facetoface. Lets also remember, the obstruction area is certainly an area of inquiry by the special counsel, but its not only that. Whatever hes doing with regard to Paul Manafort and his deputy, mr. Gates, there is a wide area here that the president could be questioned on, and i think thats important to remember. And i also think in fairness to the president , we have to point out that he could do himself a lot of good. There may be things that he can corroborate, that he can help the special counsel with that will validate what the president has said about not knowing certain things, being removed from certain questions. Remember, Hillary Clinton of course, as other figures have been, was interviewed as part of the email probe and that didnt lead to any charges. So i think we have to consider all sides of this. Renato, what piques your interest in terms of questions for the president . And are you interested in this latest anecdote about how he interviewed mccabe when he was in his office as acting fbi director and said who did you vote for, whats up with your wife and all this democratic money . I will tell you let me start with the second part of that question first. I thought it was very interesting that the president apparently asked mr. Mccabe about who he voted for. That is very unusual, and i have to say, i find it absolutely unbelievable that theres a suggestion that this was just small talk, like asking about baseball or the latest movie you watched. It is very unusual to be asking people in the fbi who they voted for, who their partisan political leanings are. He clearly according to the reporting we just heard a moment ago followed that up with questions about his wife and her political leanings. The president later called out mccabe on twitter for alleging he was partisan. What it suggests is that the president believes that people should either be on his side or not on his side. Youve used the fbi as people who are either for him or against him, and thats not what the fbi is supposed to be. Theyre supposed to be neutral investigators of the law. Thats very concning. And think its something mueller could ask him about because itoes to the idea of loyalty that comey talked about when he testified before the senate, the Senate Committee where he said that the president wanted essentially his interpretation was that the president wanted him to be personally loyal to him. Now, in terms of questioning i think really what mueller is going to be asking about is the decisionmaking process that called the president ultimately to fire comey. Hes going to ask about the conversations with comey in great detail to see what areas of true disagreement are there between trump and comey about what was said during those meetings. Trump may ultimately agree with comey as to many of the points about what were said during the meetings. That ultimately could aid in his investigation. Lets also remember, i think its patently ridiculous that the basis for the president firing comey, since he made it so clear that he was unhappy with the russia probe, but as it pertains to the investigation, the president and his lawyers may assert and may be right that, look, they had a basis for removing him from the Deputy Attorney general who basically went through the underlying causes to do so. Except trump said he was going to do it anyway. This is why the investigation would have to happen. But i think its important to remember that he had that basis, according to the administration. Renato, what do you see in the fact that rick gates, this Top Campaign Official aide to donald trump at the time has now hired this highpowered attorney that suggests that something is closing in on rick gates . Well, it certainly suggests that gates may be wanting to go in a different direction in the way that he is handling the investigation. I will tell you that as somebody who has been both a federal prosecutor and now on the other side of it, given the array of charges against gates and the years hes facing in prison, cooperation is very much logically the best move for him given that federal prosecutors usually secure convictions. It doesnt surprise me that gates might be cooperating, and i think thats really bad news for Paul Manafort because that just makes the evidence against him Even Stronger because mueller is going to know everything that gates knows. When i say everything, thats really important i think for everyone in trumps camp because gates was obviously part of the campaign and gates will be sharing with mueller his knowledge on a variety of subjects. Not good news for manafort, thats for sure. David gregory, you advanced a theory early on that now has more meat on the bones. Boy, political moves to discredit the Justice Department may wind up leading to a crisis when the special counsel delivers his findings to senste rosenstein. Sure enough, now we see the memo released that there was bad surveillance by the Justice Department, the president redoubling his efforts by saying it has the worst reputation ever and everything is toxic there. The missing texting between two of the people involved in the probe, ron johnson, sitting wisconsin senator little irony, thats where joe mccarthy came from says secret society meets off campus. Thats what an informant says, but no real proof. How high is your concern now . Your interview with former attorney general gonzalez i thought was interesting. It is upsetting to anybody connected with the Justice Department, the fbi and to american citizens to hear this kind of thing, because theres so much innuendo, and we cannot forget what good and important job fbi agents do and employees political and nonpolitical of the Justice Department. Its important for citizens to have faith in those institutions, faith that is wellplaced, by the way, even though they make mistakes. They could very well have made mistakes here. Lets also remember this is a political process now, just as the Clinton Administration and their allies beat up on ken starr and his investigation, so, too, are they going to do that here. This is where mueller has got to account for his investigation. But remember, the fbi chief who trump put in place has stood up for his people and so have people at the justice much for all the analysis. Ry lawmakers say theyre ready to tackle immigration reform. Will there be a bipartisan solution. Senator joe manchin met with President Trump this week. Well talk about that meeting next. You do all this research on a perfect car, then smash it into a tree. Your Insurance Company raises your rates. Maybe you shouldve done more research on them. For drivwith accident forgiveness, liberty tual wont raise your rates due to your first accident. Switch and you could save 782 on home and auto insurance. Call for a free quote today. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. The commute is worth it. Me, the more you know for all the work you pour into this place, you sure get a lot more out of it. You and that john deere tractor. So versatile, you can keep dreaming up projects all the way home. Its a longer drive. But just like a john deere, its worth it. Nothing runs like a deere. Now you can own a 1e subcompact tractor for just 99 dollars a month. Learn more at your john deere dealer. New signs that the special counsel is heating up his investigation. Sources tell cnn he does want to question the president and soon, and he wants to talk to him specifically about decisions to fire former fbi director james comey and former National Security adviser michael flynn. We also now know that recently the special counsel has interviewed the attorney general, jeff sessions, and the former fbi director jim comey. Lets bring in democratic senator joe manchin of West Virginia, member of the senate intel committee. Joe manchin, weve known each other a long time. Ive seen you be a true advocate for your people as governor and senator in West Virginia. I have never heard you say that anything sucks before i read that New York Times piece. Obviously youve had it. What sucks, my brother . Senator, tell us why you said that. Chris, i got to the point so many good people up here, both democrats and republicans. Theyre all my friends. I work with them. When you get us together, it sounds like we make sense. We want things to work. And all of a sudden all the power transfers to two people, the majority leader and minority leader who makes a decision what moves and doesnt move. The majority sets the agenda. I keep thinking my be loved robert c. Byrd laying in his grave, hes got to be twisting and turning thinking how did we get to this. Weve got to come back to regular order and where other senators have input and our voices are heard. Were able to move the dialogue. Thats where you saw the Common Sense Coalition come together with Susan Collins and so Many Democrats and republicans. We had 25 senators about equally divided, ds and rs who want the place to work and make sense and understands theres a pathway forward. Thats what weve been working on. I said the place sucks when it doesnt work. I get a little frustrated at times. I let it fly that day. I probably shouldnt have. I like it. Its good for people to hear the frustrations and more importantly see why, see whom to blame, who to ask for better. Hold on, hold on, second. The blame game is whats the problem up here. The blame game really destroys the trust we should have in each other. Its nobodys fault, but its everybodys fault. If i blame you, youre never going to try to fix it with me. Im not going to blame my democratic or republican friends im just talking about transparency. It doesnt make sense to anybody who is not initiated in the process because it doesnt work like the way you guys do it anywhere else in society. It doesnt work in running a household, running a relationship with a spouse or in a business. On immigration, whats the suck factor . Theres not a person up here, 100 senators that i know, that does not want these children to have their home which is the United States of america. Talking about the d. R. E. A. M. Ers . Talking about the daca children. Those children that came in undocumented, no powers of their own, and they came here with their parents at very young ages. Theyre here. Everyone realizes this is the only home they have. Were not going to send them where elsewhere they dont know and put them i jeopardy. Weo from there . Said, where do what aut the parents . They called them migration with many more people in the family. That needs to be tightened up and vetted properly. Just because you might get a pathway to citizenship, United States citizens and our whole citizenship is based on family. Is pathway to citizenship even on the table . For daca, it is. You saw its a 12year pathway. Two years credit for daca and its still a tenyear process. Do the parents that are trying to work things out . Thats whats holding it up. Its not holding up do these children belong in america or not. Its what else can you close. Then you have the border, border security, border wall, whatever you want to call it. Theyre getting into a tiff about this, chris. We have to have border security. If the president calls it a border wall, we do need wall. We need to repair some wall, build some new wall. We need other technology, too. Its messaging you guys are going to have to swallow him rubbing your face in it saying i got the wall, you lost. It doesnt matter. It matters politically and that can create energy. You have the president also fighting your assumption a little bit. Youre saying the men and women up there want to help these people. Nick mulvaney was on here and the president echoed his own statement that im going to give on daca only as much as i get in rern. Theres no such thing as calibrated