Special counsel Robert Mueller. What do you base that belief on . Guest im a journalist in addition to running newsmax. I have some good sources in the administration. I think its an accurate statement. I have not spoken to the president about the matter. I believe its an accurate statement. Its really not different from what the president s own attorney said this past sunday. Where he said the president is leaving open the option to terminate the special counsel. Host youre a friend of the president. Youre at the white house yesterday . Guest correct. Host what did you talk about . Guest i didnt deal with president. I met with other white house officials yesterday. I usually dont discuss conversations i do speak to the president from time to time. Unless theres some go ahead from him to reveal something publicly. I dont put that out there. Host did you offer any advice when it comes to special counsel . What advice did you give . Guest the advice i give is the same advice i give on publicly. I thought it was a mistake to fire the special counsel. Ive been saying that for the past couple of weeks. This issue has been out there for a while. I think the president himself tweeted a few weeks back, he still have the right to terminate. He was reserving that right. He certainly has a legitimate case to terminate special counsel Robert Mueller. Always remember, john, theres no underlying crime thats been committed. Theres no evidence of a crime. Theres not even a serious allegations that a crime committed that has been committed. Theres nothing. Thats against the president or anyone else in his administration. Why on that basis just because theres smoke, theres some wild claims on certain Cable Networks being made. Why would you appoint special counsel to begin with. The whole thing sounds odd. I can understand the frustration the president and senior officials the white house has. That this thing is being dragged out i think for political purposes. He calls it a political witch hunt. Im a person that thinks that the press should do a job of being fair. I was listening to one of your callers i was in the green room here. Talking about President Trump bringing dictatorship. The press has been so negative to the president , they are creating hysteria among the public. I think its perfect legitimate for you and me and rest of the press to criticize the president when its appropriate. But to say things that are completely untrue, i think its damaging. Host bring it back to Robert Mueller. Newt gingrich tweeting that he doesnt think Robert Mueller will be fair in his investigation. Do you agree with that . Guest i dont know mueller personally. I think he was a very good director of the fbi. I think he has a history of being fair. Lets run through some of the issues here. Wasnt one is a day or two before he was named special counsel, Robert Mueller met with the president. The president and him had a conversation about mueller being the next fbi director. Isnt it odd that you would meet with someone that would not reveal theyre under consideration to be the counsel and they maybe investigating you. Theyre having a private conversation about your most intimate and candid thoughts about the bureau and the investigation. We dont know what was discussed in that meeting. It seems ethically challenged for a lawyer to do Something Like that. Im just little shocked that mueller, i reported that yesterday on pbs show, they had this meeting and the trump was seriously considering it. Im shocked that mueller took the job after he had that meeting. He was being a candidate. The second thing is, the special counsels exist any time one of his appointed, they typically go well beyond their initial jurisdiction. I think theres an effort for them to justify the huge amount of expense and time they put in these investigations. They end up trying to indict the infamous ham sandwich at the end of the day. We see this time and again. I was there in the 1990s when i was critical of the clintons. I believe journalist like me overhyped. There was too much political hype. There was some legitimate concerns and questions, i think at the end of the day the special counsel came in, there was no significant results. There was lots of indictments and lot of legal issues raised. Host this focus on Robert Mueller. Your comments making the front page of the new york times. Do you think it makes Jeff Sessions testimony any harder today . Does it impact what were going to be hearing . Guest nice to know im on the cover of the new york times. Thank you for pointing that out. I didnt know that. I think Jeff Sessions coming before congress is part of the whole administrations approach to this. Which has been from the very very beginning, we have nothing to hide. This investigation has been going on six months into the president s Campaign Activities with russia. Everybody keeps saying theres no evidence or collusion. Theres no evidence of obstruction. Yet, everybody keeps on suggesting theres something theyre hiding. If you go look through white house has been very cooperative with the senate and house committees. They could have tried to pressure them to be closed down or slow them down because republicans control them. There has been none of that. Sessions testimony tomorrow is part of the administration which has been very forthcoming. The president has been very forthcoming. I think theres not going to be many surprises here. Host chris ruddy is ceo of newsmax and also friends of the president. Guest i like to say im a friend. I dont think i need to go more than that. I support the president. Even though sometimes as a journalist i criticize him. Ive known the man for 20 years. Ive known him for well for the past 10 years. I think hes an incredible guy that has done not only remarkable things in his career this is a guy First Six Months office reset the needle for a president like no other president in history. Nobody is talking about any of these achievements. Host for folks who dont know what newsmax is. What is it and whos your audience . Guest they can go to newsmax online where they can download our free app from their android or iphone store. Newsmax is a multimedia web Media Publishing and broadcast company. We reach about 50 Million People online. Our total reach according to com score. We have many different platforms. People stein up for email alerts. We have over six million individual subscriptions. Our newsmax tv channel is on verizon fios 20 cable system. We had bill oreilly on last week. We expect to be in 35 million homes by this summer. The channel is growing. What we try to do, we dont advocate the truth. Were in search of the truth. We try to get both sides. Youll see very fair balanced approach to the news. We let the American People decide. Much like you guys do here at cspan. Host lets let the American People talk to you. Rich is up first, marion, ohio line for republicans. Caller interesting discussions. Its very interesting how we decide to have witch hunts on whats russia is up to. For the last 50 years, weve all known that russia trying to get into different situations where they can actually have old programs about we had to deal with that. Suddenly, last four years, weve become aware of it. Because its convenient for them, theyre into it. The other part is, were tiring ourselves out from other things. The economy and that. We are not being fair when obama said in the election, with russia, confidential solution collusion. We could talk about this better and we can do more for you after the election. Im on on a hot mic. Nothing came of it. Its amazing. Its wasting our time when we should be dealing with this economy. Host thanks for the call. Guest theres to question that the russians tried to interfere in the u. S. Elections. Even the president has said thats true. I actually think its backfiring on them. I think hillary outperformed obama in most states. If you look at the election results, 20 points better than obama did in california a blue state and red state like texas. She cut the republican lead trumps lead by half over what romney did in that state. Hillarys problem was, in states like ohio, michigan, wisconsin pennsylvania, she didnt show up. Her campaign didnt do a good job there. If the russian effect had helped trump, you would have seen it all across the country. His performance in those states would have been higher. I dont think it really matters at the end of the day. I do think it was bizarre that the fbi director, comey issued a press conference in june where he said there was not going to be indictment against hillary clinton, which the fbi never does. That was a violation of fbi protocol. Supposed to let the Justice Department handle that. He two weeks before the election reopens the investigation. Has another statement about it. Its a violation of Justice Department rules to get involved in the election of an investigation. The democrats were extremely angry at that time. It may have had an impact on the election. Then, for him to meet with the president and write memos after meetings with the president like he was creating a file against the president. Seems to be very strange. I think when you look at the picture, the president was justified. I think he should have fired comey upon taking the oath of office earlier in january. Im not sure the timing of when it happened. This time was good idea. I think the president s instinct about firing comey was generally a good one. Host go to john in michigan. Line for democrats. Go ahead. Caller i have a comment to make and i havent heard previous callers address this issue. When you have 17 independent intelligence agencies saying that the russians colluded in our election. That in itself is enough for an investigation. Other issue is, why is it Paul Manafort carter page and general flynn all meeting with the russians. They werent meeting with allies, united kingdom. I like to hear mr. Ruddys comments on that. Guest i will answer your question. I think that all of these intelligence agencies, you didnt need intelligence agencies, the russians were open they were involved and they were trying to influence the election with fake news and all of this other stuff. The question is is there any evidence that the Trump Campaign work order colluded with the russians. People have suggested that might have happened. But theres no evidence. Theres no evidence from those 17 intelligence agencies. We have repeatedly gone before congress, both republicans and democrats and said theres no evidence. We know that for example, James Clapper who was the director of national intelligence, you look at all the agencies, hes the highest guy on the pole he said on meet the press after he left the job when donald trump was becoming president he said we found no evidence or collusion. Why would you have a further investigation if theres no evidence . Just because somebody makes a suggestion, i think that merkel got involved in the electronic. She really liked hillary. Im shocked the intelligence agencies are not investigating. We need a special counsel to determine if merkel got involved in this election. You look at me like youre looking at me now. Is this guy crazy. I think thats how the president i dont want to speak on his behalf. Any normal person, i think people in the white house look at this and saying, why are we going through this . Host Christina Line for independents. Oakland, michigan. Good morning. Caller good morning. This is mr. Ruddy who is a media person and is protrump. Im not sure that call into thing. I love to the horses mouth. I watch all kinds of hearings and cspan constantly. I dont listen to pundits. I dont listen to the news. I listen to mr. Trump and all he has said for years. That was on him. I listen to so much on what mr. Trump said. Thats where i form my opinion. Its not on the media. When you talk about mr. Trump saying yeah, russia was trying to do this. I heard mr. Trump say, it could have been some 400pound kid in a basement. I have never him say, i heard him say a lot, i listen to him every time he tweets. Thats where i form my opinion. Host thanks for the call. Guest im really glad that christina is making her own judgment. I would ask her to consider the following. We hear a lot of negative things about donald trump all the time. You hear the press every night talking about how he has made jobs a priority if this country like no other president . Im shocked by the impact hes had just by the bully pulpit. In a positive way im shocked. Every boardroom in this country now considers, we outsourcing jobs, might the president attack us on twitter. Is this a good thing for us. Host thinking twice . Guest thinking twice, hes made that. Look what hes done. Hes getting nato increase their spending. American kids and families go bankrupt putting their kids in college. If youre a german student, the government pays for your College Constitution tuition. Donald trump said south germans why you pay such a small percentage of your economy. If they were paying the same percentage that we americans pay, they would be paying they would not have the money for college for their kids. If america paid the same percentage that the germans were paying for their security, we would have over a trillion dollars in extra spending. We would be able to pay for every kids college in america and private colleges is public colleges. We are paying for the security burden of nato countries. Donald trump goes over to nato said hey folks, the game is over. Im not going to be paying so you can send your kids free to college while American Kids are going bankrupt. When i watched the morning shows, christina all theyre saying is nato hated trump, they dislike him. He was mean in and that. I like hes over there mean and shaking things up. I think its good. Whatever you think about donald trump, i know some people think he says things. You cannot question that this guy loves america. I think everything hes been doing as president is an effort to improve the standing of this country to improve its economic condition and really make the American Dream alive again. I think this is the guy that can do it. Host christina concerned about the stake news. Ceo of multiplatform News Organization. What is your policy specifically on when you can use unnamed sources and stories . Guest we can use unnamed sources like any other media organization. As a News Organization, we tend to like things on the record. If we feel that its a very credible source and confirm well go with it. I think fake news is not about using unnamed sources. Host theres unnamed sources are one of the big concerns that callers call when they talk about sighting fake news and stories they dont trust. Guest its very important that a free press exist. I dont think theres anything wrong with unnamed sources. I think each News Organization should develop its own credibility on those issues. We have a good track record. I think the new york times, i disagree, i think theyre editorial pages seep over into their news pages all the time. I also think theyre credible quoting unnamed sources, i generally think its true. I think they have some credibility. My issue is that fake news exist. Its always existed in this country. Its up to intelligent, informed American Public to make decisions. Not whats fair or right. We see from your caller, this country is filled with people that are smart and they dont buy the party line whether the media giving it or political party. Host about ten minutes left with chris ruddy before you have to continues your work here in d. C. Bob waiting in texas, line for republicans. Caller good morning mr. Ruddy. Im doing fine. Doing great. I wanted to talk about a couple of things real quick. Number one, people out here in flyover country are so sick and tired of this ghost of an investigation regarding russia. It happened on obamas watch. I can remember when mitt romney in 2012 brought up the problems with russia. He was laughed and snickered at by eeverybody in the media. I dont know weve had it. Weve had it. I dont know where the disconnect is between the media. People like me Joe Scarborough they couldnt fly over the country with a map. They better wake up. We go to cspan because we see the unvarnished truth. I dont have any clown at the new york times, trying to tell intrigue to interpret what i saw. You guys have a good morning. Guest i like bob. Bob, youre my heart and soul the public should be informed. I like mika and joe i been on their show. Caller we dont. Guest i find their show entertaining. They accuse the president of being obsessed. Theyre guilty of it. Theyre obsessed with him and theyre constantly attacking him. They dont really show any other side. Just remember i was talking with christina earlier shes saying, i hear President Trump and ive made an opinion of him. Yeah your opinion is shaped by all these people constantly giving the negative side. Bob makes a really good point. Hes in flyover territory. You know that the president one poll was out that showed he would do better in ohio if he ran again. Host which poll was that . Guest i i was told recently theres a poll. I spoke to the tip poll. It was the most accurate poll. He told me that the president enjoys about 40 favorability rate which he found amazing considering the incredible negative press barrage that the president has been under. When you look at that, 40 and everyday you turn on the tv and theres another negative story. I think people like bob and other americans in flyover territory are making the judgment about the president based on their thoughts. Not what mika and joe are telling know. Host heidi is in oakland edmond, line for democrats. Caller hi mr. Ruddy. The question for you. Host go ahead. Caller you run newsmax. Have you ever heard of Vanessa Molina . Host why do you ask . Caller talking about the fake news. Shes illuminati. Host well skip that question this morning. Lets go to roc