Close to call. He has a pretty clear path thats center left. They are not friends. We can see which way the president jumped. Announcer this is new day with Alisyn Camerota and john berman. Good morning. Welcome to your new day. This morning we are preparing for the release of the grease prequel which we are told is imminent. Thats the headline. There is other news as well. William barr will be back on capitol hill after his first day of testimony there. There are several major questions unanswered and several questions that he notably raised with his nonanswers. Namely, what has he told the white house about the contents of the Mueller Report . Barr refused to answer whether the president and his lawyers may already know more than congress and the public about whats inside the report. Barr did tell lawmakers theyll have a redacted version of the report soon, within days. Democrats in Congress Want more. They are vowing to issue a subpoena for the full version. Meanwhile it appears the irs will miss the deadline today that was set by House Democrats to turn over six years of President Trumps tax returns. Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin sparred with democrats over the demand and revealed his department has been in touch with white house lawyers about the president s taxes. He then got into it with Maxine Waters over the hearings length. Joining us now, David Gregory and sun mi nrkn kim from the washington post. Well see the report within days. We knew that. The other headline was when barr refused to answer whether or not he has been talking to the white house about the contents of the report. Lets play the exchange. Did the white house see the report before you release your summarizing letter . Has the white house seen it since then . Have they been briefed on the contents beyond what was in your summarizing letter to the Judiciary Committee . I have said what im going to say about the report today. Im not going to say more about it until the report is out and everyone has a chance to look at it. So he said quite a bit in the hearing before he got to that point but held the line on whether or not hes been talking to the white house. He said they didnt speak before barr released the summary. Have they been talking since . They really opened the door to the possibility. It does raise questions. This is the puzzling thing about barrs refusal to answer. Its that other people involved whether its the president s lawyers or the president himself and even barr in other contexts have said at different points that he hasnt briefed the white house on the full Mueller Report. He hasnt handed it over. He said at one point he didnt believe he needed to do that at any time. So the fact that right at this particular moment when we know the full report is likely to come out soon, that hes sort of drawn a line and says im not going to answer that question anymore, im not sure what to make of that except perhaps he doesnt want to box himself in by being forced to answer, you know, when hes briefed the white house at any point between now and when he release it is report. I think it is to be expected though that the Justice Department probably will brief the white house shortly before they release the report publicly. Thats kind of what happened in the past just before the summary came out. There was a phone call between someone at the Justice Department and the president s attorneys briefing them on the contents of the summary letter. I think maybe barr is trying to not have to answer when that does, in fact, happen which i think is likely to happen within the coming daiys, especially if we think the report is coming in the next week or so. David . If the answer was, no, i havent briefed anybody that would be simple to offer. The attorney general said in other places why he didnt write more. Why he didnt summarize more, that he didnt want to be ov overinclusive or underinclusive. In this case he would rather put out whatever part of the report hes going to put out with redactions and have everyone analyze and digest and dissect that rather than answer the question now, yes, well, i shared with the white house this, but not that. It was appropriate. It wasnt inappropriate. I dont think he wants to face the scrutiny which is only inviting more scrutiny. He appears through his answers to have shared something. Its just not clear why he would avoid all of this now. I think what he wants to do is put out the breadth of the report hell put out, whatever that is. And have everyone take a look at that and take a little bit of the heat off of him in that interaction with the white house. I dont think its anything illegal necessarily about briefing the white house on whats inside it. There are political issues here which is, number one, the white house and his lawyers including Rudy Giuliani and jay sekulow, they may now know the full contents of the reports and may be able to prepare responses weeks before Congress Gets to see it. Thats why congress would have ethical issues with it. They may have their spin ready on this. Plus, if the white house has been briefed, pushed back and said, hey, wait a second. We dont want that to be public. The third issue here is maybe the white house knows and maybe this gets to the president s mindset the last few days. Hes been lashing out at mueller again. Hes been hot on the immigration issue. Maybe this is driving other decisions. Exactly. There is no doubt that while there may be nothing technically wrong with sharing information before the actual release, clearly there are political issues and how far the fight between House Democrats and the administration continues over the mueller investigation. One of the big takeaways from yesterday as well is if a subpoena werent going to be issued for the report its almost certainly definite now. Mitch mcconnell put it concisely yesterday when he said you either trust bill barr or you dont. He says he does. Its clear House Democrats dont. They have been trying to get as much information out there to kind of make their case for the entire Mueller Report to be shown. There is the issue of barr not being able to answer or refusing to answer whether he has talked to the white house about the contents of the report since his letter. There is also him telling lawmakers hes not willing to go to a judge to allow congress to see the grand jury information. Because Congress Wont have access to the information theyll ramp up the fight over getting the report out to the public. Democrats said i dont know whether he can trust bill barr. Given the 19page unsolicited memo. He said they are trying to determine if hes impartial. Right. Thats the issue for bill barr who essentially auditioned for the job, many people feel, by writing the memo saying he could never the president could never be charged with obstruction of justice. He sent the memo as one of his credentials. We have to remember this morning the jim comey standard. The former fbi director who was fired by President Trump because he didnt like how the russia investigation was going. Comey got hit initially in the investigation of the Clinton Emails for saying at the end of the investigation, look, nobody is going to charge her. But she did these bad things. But nobody would bring a case against her. No prosecutor would charge that. When it relates to potential obstruction of justice here you have the case for and the case against thats apparently in the report by mueller. The Justice Department saying, well, no, you wouldnt charge this. Now are they going to try to keep the information hidden . When congress has a specific duty to evaluate whether there was obstruction of justice. Again, we keep heading for the same place of tension. All right. For your viewing pleasure, what was one of the more awkward moments that i have seen in a Congressional Committee hearing. Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin testifying, making it clear treasury and the irs is not about to hand over the president s taxes. At the end of the hearing there was a back and forth with the chair and Steve Mnuchin about how long it was going on. It gives you a sense of what we are going to face in this country for the next two years. I sat here for over three hours and 15 minutes. I told you i will come back. I dont believe we are sitting here negotiating when i come back. Well follow up with your office. How long would you like me to come back for next time . I told you i will accommodate you. I appreciate that and you reminding us of the length of time other secretaries have been here. This is a new way and its a new day and its a new chair. I have the gavel at this point. If you wish to leave, you may. Can you clarify that for me . Yes, clarify is this if you wish to leave, you may. We are dismissed, is that correct . If you wish to leave, you may leave. I dont understand what you are saying. You are wasting your time. Remember, you have a foreign dignitary in your office. I would just say that the Previous Administration when the republicans they did not treat the secretary of the treasury this way. If this is the way you want to treat me, i will rethink whether i will voluntarily come back here to testify which i have offered to do. Mr. Secretary, i want you to know that no other secretary has ever told us the day before that they were going to limit their time in the way that you are doing. If you want to use them as examples, you have acted differently than they have acted. As i have said if you wish to leave, you may. If you wish to keep me here so that i dont have my important meeting and continue to grill me, then we can do that. I will cancel my meeting and i will not be back here. I will be very clear if thats the way you would like to have this relationship. Thank you. The gentleman, the secretary has agreed to stay to hear all of the rest of the members. Please cancel your meeting and respect our time. I have a foreign meeting. Whos next on the list . You are instructing me to stay here. You just made me an offer. No, i didnt make you an offer. You made an offer which i accepted. I did not make you an offer. I just want to be clear. You are instructing me to stay here. You are ordering me to stay here. No, i am not ordering you. I responded, i said you may leave any time you want and you said okay, if thats what you want to do, i will cancel my appointment and i will stay here. I am responding to your request if thats what you want to do. Thats not what i want to do. I told you what would you like to do . I told you i thought it was respectful that you would let me leave at 5 15. You may go any time you want. Please dismiss everybody, i expect you are supposed to bang the gavel. Please dont instruct me as to how i am to conduct this committee. Its a gavel first of all. He didnt want to take yes for an answer there when she said you can go if you want to. That was fascinating, abby. I dont know if it shows us perhaps how this administration will respond to this new democratic oversight, if it is a sign of more things to come. It does show you that this is an administration that has over the last two years really gone pretty aggressively in the direction of not giving any ground to congress on anything. I think that especially in this democratic house, you have seen cabinet secretaries, frankly, be so brash and in some cases clearly disrespectful to Committee Chairs in a way i have never seen in this town in such a blanket fashion. Im recalling Mark Whitaker when he came to the committee serving as the acting attorney general. He was telling the chair how to do his job. Thats not usually how these things go. But it is a reflection of who they work for. They are working for a boss that requires them to push back, not give ground and to not sort of give any sense of dignity to a congressional hearing. This administration believes they are part of a harassment of the president. Youre kind of really i think this is really beyond the pale what we just saw there. I thought it was interesting. It seemed Steve Mnuchin was surprised Maxine Waters took him up on his offer. He wanted to backtrack and she wouldnt let him. Thats why we ended up where we were at the end where in frustration he was like, i think you are supposed to bang the gavel and she just looked at him like, im the person in charge here. There was some grandstanding by her as well, by congresswoman waters. Of course. He was there testifying for several hours. You know, there is no pure politics here. Democrats are setting the agenda here. They are going to be tough in their accountability, try to push hard on this administration. I think what he didnt want was the picture of him getting up and leaving a hearing while it was in the middle of the hearing. That would look bad for him. He doesnt have a lot of experience doing this. So i think abby is right. The administration is taking a hard line against what they see coming which is a lot of oversight and tense oversight at that. Not until you hit that gravel. All right, david. Abby, thank you very much. We are following breaking news. Benjamin netanyahu is poised to win an historic fifth term as Prime Minister of israel. His challenger is also claiming victory this hour. We have more from jerusalem. Whats happening now . Reporter with more than 95 of the votes counted it appears that Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu is emerging with a clear path to victory. The head to head between him and former chief of staff benny gants remains close. Perhaps too close to call with Something Like a couple hundred thousand votes to go at this point. Crucially, the all important question of who is it that can form a government, put together a governing coalition, that advantage very much in netanyahus favor. His rival saying the odds are against them at this point. Netanyahu has said hes already spoken to the other right wing parties who offered support for his government. That means he has the clear path to putting together a coalition and in all likelihood it seems like hell win a 5th term in office and this summer will become israels longest serving Prime Minister, outlasting, surpassing israels first Prime Minister, a legend in the country. That record, that period would transfer if netanyahu secures the victory. You may ask how he was able to secure this with corruption investigation over his head. Based on the results those investigations didnt really affect him at all. Hes been working against them for two, three years trying to delegitimize those and this is very much netanyahus golden age. He has President Trump in the white house so in the last few weeks trump gifted him Major Political victories. It certainly looks like it helped. Thank you very much. Keep us posted. So she grilled the attorney general at a congressional hearing, what questions does the House Appropriations chair still have . She joins us next. 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Television is back now through april 14, enjoy free access to the best shows and movies from hbo, showtime, epix and more. What so, you can get more into what youre into. Whether its more laughs, oops. Epic escapes, or highflying thrills, get more into what youre into. Just say watchathon into your x1 voice remote, or download the Xfinity Stream app. Xfinity watchathon week, free. Now through april 14. Attorney general william barr grilled by House Democrats over his handling of the special counsels report. One exchange raised new questions about what the white house knows about the report. Did the white house see the report before you release your summarizing letter . Has the white house se