Im rene marsh in for christi paul. Im victor blackwell. Good morning to you. Another round of a fight we have seen before. The president versus the fbi. President trump going on the twitter attack on the agencys Deputy Director. Trump reupped accusation is that Andrew Mccabe is bias because of political donations his wife received in the past. Mccabe is one of the agencys most senior officials and oversaw the investigation into the Hillary Clinton emails. Also, the white house is fighting against claims President Trump made derogatory remarks about immigrants. The New York Times is reporting that during a meeting with Top Administration officials, President Trump claimed that all haitians have aids and nigerians would never go back to their huts once they saw the United States. More on that in a minute. We start with shimon porkopes and the attacks on the fbi. Reporter good morning. Trumps tweets taking aim at several fbi officials, including Deputy DirectorAndrew Mccabe came with word that mccabe told senior fbi officials months ago that he was planning on retiring. The two sources familiar with this plan told cnn. Now a couple of months ago, he told senior agents he was eligible to retire in march and that he had planned to do so, but there is a chance that under fbi rules, that he has accumulated enough time where he will be able to retire sooner. The criticism here of mccabe, you know, for the past several months has been growing as a number of republicans are questioning the credibility of special counsel Robert Muellers investigations and Chuck Grassley has called for mccabes removal but democrats argue that the republican criticism of mccabe and the undermine mueller as his investigation ramps up and give trump cover should be remove mueller. As to mccabe he is a critical person and runs the daytoday operations of the fbi and he was also a key person overseeing the Hillary Clinton investigation. Her use of a private email server and just this past week, he spent over 16 hours on the hill before Congress Testifying before three congressional committees about the clinton and russia investigations. We have done some reporting on that and we learned he backed up some of what the former fbi director said about his conversations with the president. He was also questioned extensively about his role in the Hillary Clinton investigation. Shimon prokupecz, washington. Thank you, shimon. Let me start here by just reading the tweet that is getting so much attention from the president. Ill look at my screen here. A few errors there, factual errors that we have talked about this morning. But i want to point out that this isnt a new narrative for the president. Lets go back to july and quickly read what he tweeted then. Now about that time, that is when he was still acting director then, but, also, it was about the time that paul manafort, his former campaign chairman, his home was searched by the fbi. Is this tweet really about the email investigation, or is this more about russia . Margaret . Well, look. This comes when you look at the timing, at a time when House Committee just interviewed the president s personal assistant of 30 years and it comes at a time when its very clear that the Mueller Probe is not going to wrap up neatly by the end of the as the white house had been hoping and intimating for several weeks and months now. It also comes at a time when we are learning that the Deputy Director had told folks that he planned to resign in the coming months. The timing of this seems very clear it is connected to some of the president s frustration about the Mueller Probe and his inability to shake this. The whole reason mccabe was serving as acting director is that the president fired jim comey. Gop senator Chuck Grassley has called for Deputy Director mccabe to be replaced. He said that this week is not the first time. This is what he said. The president isnt, himself, replacing mccabe or firing him. Possibly he cant do it because he is a career employee. How does this tweet shape the perception of his involvement with mccabes departure . Well, the president has not refrained from weighing in over twitter on a lot of things that he either should not or cannot directly control. Whether it be the ultimate arbitrator of the fate of bob mural, rod rosenstein, the deputy a. G. , the president could probably fire rosenstein if he wanted to but he hasnt done that. Democrats are bracing for what the president might shakeup to get rid of bob mueller. Mccabe is another figure, though, in this long narrative that stretches back to the clinton email probe to the era of when the president was getting rid of jim comey. We have seen various reports, you know, of different aspects of what is going on with the russia probe and different revelations what was going on with various fbi personnel at the time the russia probe woo running and clinton email investigation and gives the president plenty of things to latch on to if he wants to make a political point. We know that the russia probe which, you know, is generally borne out of the fbi and doj has been a thorn in his side since the beginning of his presidency. He does not let a moment about or let an opportunity go to try to cast a shadow over the people and the places that, you know, are potentially vulnerable to be targets when he gets frustrated with the way that probe is going. Margaret, the president also tweeted that the mccabe is racing toward the clock to get his full benefits which he is eligible for in march. 90 days, question mark, exclamation point. I dont really like trying to figure out if its a typo or not but the way the president communicates through twitter. Is there any indication the president will or can take some action to prevent him from getting to that 90day mark . It seems like the president is acting like mccabe is doing something wrong or squirrely by thinking about retiring when his time comes up as many federal agents do. This does seem to be much more about discrediting and making it seem like there is something wrong which is a little bit ironic. The president wants mccabe to go. Your instinct is like he must be happy. Maybe Something Like congratulations on a long career of service but that is not the response that we saw yesterday. Yeah. The other text kind of gives this a bit of context. Fbi Agents Association has felt compelled the last several weeks to release two statements defending the integrity of the special agents in which they write just a couple of days ago, attacks on our character and demeaning ghents about tcommenti will not deter what we are doing. The white house says the president s criticisms are of Political Leadership and not the rank in file. Is that list clear here as this goes on, criticisms of the cia and the fbi and doj at large . I was just going to say it remains me of the episode when he was not endorsing the intelligence communitiess report and speaking questionably about their report and there is backlash to that as well. Look. These are career fbi officials that you are talking about have been there for decades. Yes, things are coming out about their actions that are becoming lightning rods for this political controversy but they also have a lot of allies and the fbi does, you know, stick up for its own. You do find that, you know, its very difficult when the president is talking about an organization at large or, you know, singling out members that represent that organization and not taking pains to distinguishing things. It is an impression that is left on people about that organization, whether its the fbi or the cia or other intelligence community, they have been frustrated by a lot of the rhetoric that is coming out of this president that is not tempered oftentimes in order to kind of differentiate what the white house then tries to say later which is we are just talking about political criticism with one person not the organization at large. And youre seeing them speak up for themselves and that is what this is. There is always the tweets speak for themselves explanation which they often dont. This is only one of the big stories happening of the administration this weekend so, please stay with us. The white house is denying a the New York Times report that says President Trump allegedly said all haitians have aids. Cnns dan merica is following that story. Dan . Reporter thats right. Forceful denials from the white house on President Trumps first day, full vacation day here in florida. More on that after the break. Hey honey, how was practice . Good must have been hot out there today, huh . Yeah yeah why dont you go put that stuff in the laundry room right now . Okay. Do your athletes bring home big odors . Tide sport is super concentrated to beat even the toughest stains and odors. Hey buddy hey oooh somebody ran laps yeah. The new tide sport collection its got to be tide mans inner voice listening to all of this . Here . Talking about what hurts and property taxes, eating dry pie. Woah. Go over there the kids will accept you, eventually. Add experience to the table. Then, make a mountain out of that reddiwip. Im out. Made with real cream. You have your permission. Reddiwip. 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Tell your doctor before all planned medical or dental procedures. And before starting xarelto®about any conditions, such as kidney, liver, or bleeding problems. Its important to learn all you can. To help protect yourself from a stroke. Talk to your doctor about xarelto®. Theres more to know™. President trump had some very angry words about immigrants at an Oval Office Meeting in june. According to the New York Times he said the following. The white house says the president did not say these things. Cnn politics report dan merica is in west palm beach, florida, close to where the president is staying for christmas and the new year holiday. What else are we hearing from the white house about this report . Reporter good morning. They are not saying much beyond a very forceful denial. The New York Times reporting, yesterday, that President Trump in a june Oval Office Meeting with some of his cabinet members and white aides, he said, as you mnd mentioned, immigrants from nigeria wouldnt go back to their huts once they saw the United States and immigrants from haiti have aids. White house president secretary said they never happened. Here is what she said in a statement to cnn. The New York Times is standing by their reporting. Cnn has not verifyived these comments were made but President Trump has he ran a campaign that was very direct on immigration. He made it a super point of his campaign in his first year in the white house and he has proposed the travel ban and wants to build a wall on the u. S. mexico border and he has made some proposals to change the immigration system including ending the visa lottery. President trump will be in front of the camera twice this week and see him do a teleconference with troops in afghanistan and iraq. And also watch the norad santa tracking system that tracks santa across the globe. Dan merica near maralago, thanks so much. Let me bring in our panel. We have margaret and karen. Thanks so much for joining us both this morning. The white house pushing back really hard on this story. Press secretary Sarah Sanders essentially saying the New York Times is printing lies. But i want to play this reaction from one of the reporters who broke this story. Take a listen. We stand by our sourcing. We confident that that story is true. The white house did push back very aggressively late last night and early this morning, and sending us a note saying several of cabinets secretaries in the meeting say it didnt happen. Not the meeting didnt happen but the inflammatory comments were not said, but we stand by our reporting. Margaret, to you. As a reporter, i mean, you know, how this anonymous sourcing works. What do you make of the white houses reaction there . Mike and julie are fantastic reporters. The problem for the white house is going to be that the continuum of the president s remarks on the campaign trail and an office of make these remarks seem plausible in that greater context between the immigration ban and then, ultimately, earlier this year, within the last couple of months, but after that meeting, the policy ultimately was reached in terms of haitians. The decision to have those 60,000 haitians have come since that terrible 2010 earthquake be told they are going to need to go back, even though a lot of aid experts in this country and around the world saying haiti is not ready to absorb them. I want to talk more about that in a moment. But even his own republicans, a congresswoman from south florida, granted she is a representative of south florida, a large haitian population there but she tweeted about there. We want to throw that up on the screen. I also want to play this. This is when the president was on the campaign trail, september of 2016. He mode a stop in south florida and specifically speaking to a group of haitian americans. Whether you vote for me or you dont vote for me, i really want to be your greatest champion and i will be your champion. All right. That is what he said at that time in 2016. Fast guarforward. He made the move for remove protections for haitians in the United States living and working and came here after that 2010 earthquake. My question for you, karen, in light of this new reporting, should we be looking at the president S Immigration policies or policies overall that impact immigrants through a different lens . Well, i think that a lot of people were looking at it through a lens that was a little bit skeptical. I mean, look. The president has made Public Comments too about different groups of people. There is the mexicans and rapist comment made on the campaign trail and the border wall. People have connected those dots, even though the people at the white house say they shouldnt. The haitian comment that was reported connected to the ending of the tps status, that is also connection you can make. We have seen that the president has made moves to change things like the visa lottery after certain terror attacks in different parts of the world. The idea that there is, you know, an impulse and then a reaction is not novel. This one is shocking just because its such its such a statement its such a racist statement to say, yeah, all of one group of people have aids and that is just casting aspersians right and left whether it is the nigerians or haitians he is talking about and the comments are shocking the way we read about them in the New York Times. To connect those dots seems the more troubling if youre connecting that to a policy versus there is something less shocking about a terrorist attack and the president reacting to that by choosing to change the immigration policy but he has been facing criticism for multiple friends about these shifts being made to be more restrictive and to let fewer people in, and people are criticizing him by saying those decisions are often seemingly being made from an ideologic concept. We saw what happened in alabama, minorities showed up, as well as women. What kind of impact does this sort of rhetoric have on politics, you know, overall . Are we going to see that wave kind of reacting to what they are now associating with the president . Certainly those kind of comments are divisive. There is an element of nationalism or nativism to the base politics of this administration, and, look. This is day two of the president s vacation that is going to extend all the way through the end of the year, into the new year. The president is going to have som