Generated bipartisan praise. I think it was perfectly appropriate to do that. The action shows the urgency of investigating trumprussia possible collusion and interference in our election. There is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign, but i can always speak for myself and the russians, zero. Meanwhile, rod rosenstein, the man who appointed mueller, and wrote a memo critical of comey, briefed congress behind closed doors. Take away the takeaway i have is that everything he said is that you need to treat this investigation as if it may be a criminal investigation. And former National Security advisor Michael Flintstone walls a congressional committees request. General flynns lawyer said he would not honor the subpoena. Thats not a surprise to the committee. We explore it all, with Julie Hirschfeld davis, of the New York Times, Michael Scherer of time magazine, Alexis Simendinger of real clear politics. And manu raju of cnn. Celebrating 50 years, this is Washington Week. Funding is provided by. [music] their leadership is instinctive. They understand the challenges of today. And research the technologies of tomorrow. Some call them veterans. We call them part of our team. Additional funding is provided by. Newmans own foundation. Donating all profits from newmans own products to charity and nourishing the common good. The yuen foundation. Committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. The corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you once again, live from washington, moderator robert costa. Good evening. Just as donald trump was taking off for his first president ial trip, two big stories broke that have upended the white house. The New York Times is reporting that President Trump told Russian Foreign minister, sergei laf rof, that firing f. B. I. Director comey, who he called a nut, relieved great pressure off him about the russia probe. The conversation was during the same Oval Office Meeting where the president shared highly classified intelligence about isis. The Washington Post then broke the news that a Current White House official has emerged as a significant person of interest in the russia investigation. The latest report capped an already chaotic week and have raised questions on pennsylvania avenue not only about order but about credibility. And michael, there is this specter that hangs over this administration of russia. And its influence. But its not just about the russia cloud. Its about what i find and in all my reporting this week, a disconnect between how President Trump sees the issue and how many republicans see it, and theyre alarmed. Yes. And its really a drama thats playing out within the president. He is incredibly, and he has been for weeks now, emotional about this issue. He feels wronged. Hes telling everyone around him theyre not doing enough to protect him and he is making decisions that are just not based in clear thinking. One of the parts of the New York Times story today was that he told the russians, the day after he fired comey, that this russia thing is now going to go away for me, which in retrospect is a crazy thing to say. But i think he really believed, when he came back from his weekend in new jersey, and decided he was going to fire comey, that there would be, as he said in his press conference yesterday, bipartisan support for this and that he could actually help himself in the russian investigation. That reporting actually seems to be true. And it was just so far gone from what the way washington works, the way we know this situation is. And i think thats because hes not comfortable yet in his position. He doesnt fully understand how washington works. He doesnt fully understand the boundaries of the presidency. And theres nothing that gets him as agitated as this allegation that there was somehow collusion between his campaign and the russians. And it has led to a series of mistakes that keep making it worse for him. Julie, knowing that he wants to avoid the appearance of collusion, why would he, as your paper reported today, why would he tell the russians in the oval office that comey now has relieved great pressure by being fired and that hes a nut . Why would he do that . Well, he seems to be obsessed with this issue of the legitimacy of his own presidency. And one of the things that came out in the story about what he the classified information that he shared with the russians was that he was essentially boasting that i have access to great intelligence. The best intelligence. And let me share what i know. And it almost feels like this was in that vein, that ive taken care of this. This was going to be a bad thing for me, but this guy was crazy, and i just took care of it. Now im fine. But perversely, of course, by saying that, whether or not it is the case that he was trying to obstruct justice by firing jim comey, by asking jim comey before he was fired to drop the investigation of mike flynn, whether or not any of that is the case, what he has said to the russians, what is now public appears that he was trying to do that. By saying that the pressure on him was relieved, hes essentially given new life and new breath to the story line that he was trying to shut down. By dismissing jim comey. So its sort of all worked the opposite way for him. Alexis, the pressure wasnt really relieved. When i was calling my white house sources today, theyre alarmed by this new Washington Post report that someone inside of the white house, a senior official, may be part of this federal probe. Yeah. The reason why theyre alarmed and the way it was explained to me, and i think this is the first thought i had, is that the white house had been saying, arguing that all of this may have been for nothing, but it also had to do with the campaign, something in the past. Now, the discussion publicly is that it involves people who are now in the government and very close to the president. So that changes the dynamic for the investigation itself, whats to come with the investigation in terms of witnesses and demanding information and documentation and perhaps interviewing the president in the future, and it also creates a new thought about how to do communications, how to do crisis communications, because it now involves people who are under the roof with the president. Yeah. And no question about it. The focus of bob muellers investigation, the new special counsel that was named, will almost certainly focus on the circumstances around james comeys firing, what james comey apparently is alleging, in that conversation that he had with President Trump that the president urged him to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn, thats going to be a key part of the investigation that has significant, very broad latitude. And were gonna hear from him. Yes, we are. Were gonna hear from james comey when he testifies now. He agreed to testify before the Senate Intelligence committee in an open session, after the memorial day holiday. The question is, how far will he go in his testimony . But the real concern is that for the white house, is that rosensteins authority is sweeping. And he made that his authority is sweeping, and rosenstein made that clear in conversations with house and house members and senators over the last two days, that his purview in this investigation, muellers purview is as far as he wants to go. That means those conversations that occurred with james comey and around his firing, which, you know, as julie mentioned, could be potentially obstruction of justice. And mueller is so widely respected, he seems to separate from the congressional investigations, which are still ongoing. Thats right. The question is, what impact will that have on the congressional probes . I was talking to Lindsey Graham this week, who is on one of several committees, who is looking into this issue of russia meddling. Hes concerned that his judiciary subcommittee will no longer have access to key information, because it will be shut down, mueller wont tell him as much as the Justice Department would. The senate and house intelligence committees believe they can still look into the issue of russian meddling, but if mueller wants to interview key witness, perhaps those witnesses may not want to talk to the house and Senate Intelligence committee. Its a real question about whether their roles are diminished. Muellers authority will be pretty expansive. Michael, this flurry of stories today, those are not the only stories. Youre such a student of President Trump. Youve interviewed him several times. Theres also the lingering issue of general flynn, the former National Security advisor. A grand jury has subpoenaed his business records, looking at his lobbying work, money he received from the turkish government and allies of turkey. Hes stone walling. He says he doesnt want to perhaps give over those records. His lawyer says that. Yet the president continues to defend flynn behind the scenes. Why is that, and how much of a problem is flynn for the administration . Two issues here. One is who knew what about flynn when, which could be a problem for the administration. The second is how the flynn issue fits into this russia anger that the president has and whether the people around trump can mitigate that going forward. I think we know we can walk through all the mistakes that trump has made over the last couple of weeks. What is unclear is whether theres Anyone Around him who can, at this point, sit him down and say, wait a minute. If you continue to make these decisions by yourself or by talking to people outside the white house or by just talking to a couple people around you, who are really representing you in the white house, as opposed to the presidency and the institution of the presidency, then things will get worse. And flynn was a great example. Trump fired flynn. But the day he fired flynn, he came out and he said, flynns a great guy, i really like flynn. And he has never backed down from that. That was a decision where clearly the presidency, the officoffice of the white house, needed to fire flynn. Hed done too many things that were too suspicious, become too big a liability for the building. Trump never bought into the decision. That tension between the presidency and the president has to be involved, if the president is going has to be resolved if the president is going to get back on track. And where is Vice President pence in all this . He seems to not always know about these decisions being made, what general flynn was up to. How is he helping the president , if at all, when it comes to russia . Well, i dont think he is. The only question now really about mike pence is whether he is willfully sort of pushing these erroneous story lines that the white house will put out there and then walk back a minute later, or whether hes being sort of duped. Being asked to Say Something thats not true, and he doesnt know that its not true. Its now been three times that hes come out and said something to sort of further the administration story line on a tricky issue, only for the public to find out later that hes actually given the wrong version of events, that jim comey was not fired because of his handling of the emails investigation. He was fired because of the russia investigation, that the president felt that, you know, that relieved a lot of pressure on him. He went out to reporters on capitol hill and said exactly the opposite, as did other Top White House officials. And so, again, the question is, is he allowing himself to be used, or is he simply not in the loop . And neither one is a particularly good position for him to be in. But the other issue, and i think michael raises an interesting point, donald trump really sees thing in an us versus them way. And he thinks about youre either on my side, youre with me, one of my guys, or youre not. And he thinks of Michael Flynn as one of his guys. He still thinks of him that way. Now that its coming to light what james comey was thinking in the weeks after trump was inaugurated and he was having phone conversations with the president , being invited to dinner, having other meetings that we are only now starting to learn of, he felt that the president was trying to push him and influence him. And in a lot of ways, it seemed that he was trying to feel him out. Is he with me, or is he against me . Seems like he concluded he was against me and thats why ultimately he had to go. Alexis, when youre sit tbhg that Briefing Room in that Briefing Room every day, its not just Vice President who has its h. R. Mcmaster, White House Press secretary sean spicer, are they aware of, beyond russia, the credibility gap they face with the president and Many Americans . Theyre well aware of it. The challenge for them is, youre between a rock and a hard place. You do or you dont. The pressure from the president himself is i need people to help explain this. Hes irate about it, i need someone to cover for me. And the president gets into a mode of trying to argue, you have to get out there and Say Something for me. Whats interesting about whether its mcmaster or the Vice President to me is, look at how many people are circling around the Vice President. Its not just his staff, concerned that he has to keep that halo above his head, because theyre not sure where this is going. That is one of the interesting stories to watch. And also politically, if the president s credibility continues to erode, as his Approval Ratings continue to erode, the harder it is going to be to convince his own party to walk the plank for him on key issues. With all these controversies, there are still some huge things that he wants to try to get done. Is health care stalled, is tax reform stalled . It could be. Were not quite there to say theyre dead yet, but theyre still trying behind the scenes to cut a deal in the senate on health care. They are at square one on tax reform. Not even. Not even on square one in tax reform. Its going to take a lot of president ial involvement to get this done, especially since these bills, particularly the health care bill, is so unpopular. If the president continues all these controversies, if they continue to overshadow him and he continues to get more unpopular and his credibility continues to erode, as they change their stories on all sorts of thing, this has an impact on his domestic agenda. On capitol hill, it wasnt just about health care and taxes that could be affected by all this. Democrats are bringing up the word impeachment and possibly moving forward with that. Michael . Yeah. Were not at the point yet where thats likely or republicans are going to sign onto that. I dont think theres even going to be a discussion of that, until we get to a point where the investigation actually comes forward and says there was a crime committed here. And then theres a discussion about that. During the campaign, we often got around this table and talked about how this was really unprecedented, wed never seen Something Like this, he was making big mistakes. And he was always able to overcome them, because he was able to connect with the american people. Politically, he could win with messages. The politics could matter at some point in congress. But right now, the things that are threatening him are not politics. And he doesnt seem to have internalized that. Hes still trying to tweet himself out of this box in the morning and message his base. If you have a special counsel coming after you, if you have jim comey coming after you, you cant groom your way out of that. It was so interesting, because it came after he fired b. A baha, the new york federal prosecutor. He said, he never told me why he fired me. And between the time he said keep your job and the time he said he was fired, he called me a few times. But i think trump came into office thinking he could run comey felt uneasy about how he was treated. Comey tried to blend into the curtains inside of the white house, but the president still tried to embrace him. When i hear from my sources on capitol hill, republicans and democrats, and they talk about mueller, you know why they really like mueller . Because comey had credibility questions with both sides. The Trump Administration has obvious questions about russia interference and its own role. But mueller is at least seen by most people as a steady hand here. And it reminds me, theyre still searching for a new f. B. I. Director. Looks like lieberman is going to be the frontrunner. But the administration decided not to name that person on friday. Well, thats interesting, because i wondered, when our story came out about what he had said to the russians in the oval office about firing comey, i know that they were given some notice for the story so that we could get a comment from them, and i had to wonder whether their decision, which was a fairly lastminute decision, they were saying all the way up until this morning that they were still hoping to name someone on friday. I wondered if it had something to do with that, that they didnt want the new story line, because i think they are looking for something of a reset with whoever they announce, to be all caught up in, you know, this backward looking, why was comey fired, was it about russia. But for sure, i think its sort of an extraordinary circumstance, the president finds himself in. His white house now, we know, a top member of his administration in the white house is being investigated by the f. B. I. And he is now has now fired the f. B. I. Director and is naming another one. That