The president and by his senior aide Steven Miller in may explaining the president s rational for firing james comey the fbi director t. Letter was never sent, the white House Counsel believed it was quote problematic. According to New York Times which broke the story quote a different letter, written by the Deputy Attorney general, Rod Rosenstein and focused on mr. Comeys handling of the investigation into Hillary Clintons private email server was sent the day before he was fired t. Multipage letter enumerated trumps longsimmering complaints with comey, including comey was unwilling to say personally trump was not under investigation in the fbi inquiry into the russian meddleing in the 2016 election t. Letter quote did not dwell on russia. Also today, President Trump responded to that Washington Post report last night that he may be on a collision course with his new chief of staff, according to post, trump chafes at some of john kellys moves to restrict access to him. He dubbed him the church lady because they considered him strict and morally superior. We have a lot to get to. Joining me chief White House CorrespondentHalle Jackson at the white house t. Washington post ashley parker, matt welch. Matt, you have this story in the Washington Post again the post and the times reporting on this letter the letter that was not sent detailing the president s ratiall rational fo james comey. How much was this original letter aimed at comey and his investigation of trump and trumps world . Was it a passing reference, do we know . Was it more detailed than that . How much does this letter suggest that was on the president s mind . Reporter sure, so again, we havent seen the letter. We have just spoken to people familiar with it. But our understanding is that this letter sort of laid out the president s frustrations and grievances with director comey. As we said, the story was very little explicitly focused on russia, other than e other than the language we actually saw in the final statement that the president put out, where he expressed frustration that comey had told him privately several times he was not the focus of the investigation, but he would not say that publicly. So our understanding is that little portion was in the original draft made it into the final version, but the draft, itself, was really an outline of the president s sort of wide ranging grievances with his fbi director at the time. So when we have the white house lawyer the white House Counsel vetoing apparently that letter you are describing saying it was problematic. Do you know was it specifically the references to not publicly stating pump u trump, himself, wasnt under investigation . Specifically russia, were those the things the lawyer mcgan looked at and said thats a problem . Reporter i think without knowing everything, i think mcgan was worried partially about the tone of the letter, which was described to us as a rant and mcdependant was this person in the meeting in the oval office said, tried to slow down the process, he said, you know what, attorney general session and his deputy Rod Rosenstein are coming by the white house for lunch. Lets talk to them. Lets hear what they have to say. Lets solicit their opinions. So there was sort of an effort to get broader buyin on this than just the president being frustrated with his fbi director and having soured on him long ago. All right. Let me bring Halle Jackson into this. You are standing in front of the white house. Let me ask you about whats going on inside that building. You had that report last night, that Washington Post support, the president chafeing under the new white house leadership of john kelly the new chief of staff the president on twitter trying to send another message, what is going on inside the building behind you . Reporter look when you look at the palace inteeg, there are a lot of moving pieces, i think some relates to john kelly and how the president is interacting with him. Let me highlight a guy im in gary cohn . A top economic adviser at the white house, focused on tax reform, has been out trying to push the administrations line on this and talk up the white houses position and how he wants to get it done and continues to be dogged whether he will stay, whether the white house has confidence in gear cohn. Whether the president has confidence in him and while publicly the line is yes, that is also something that we have we heard in the past about people who ultimately are no longer inside the building behind me, steve. You mentioned one other thing at the top of your show about what is happening inside the white house. That is this decision over daca. While we know this wont be announced formally until tuesday, although, that does not preclude some tweets between the president when the now and then. It has been a subject of the internal consternation here when you talk about what is happening behind the scenes. Multiple sources has told nbc for days the president is leaning towards ending daca. Now Hurricane Harvey changed that, some in the west wing worry about rolling back, rescinding daca at this moments, given what happened in texas and louisiana, state by the way have 126,000 dreamers or Daca Recipients in them. I also want to tell you about senator john mccain has been a bit of a thorn in the side of this administration, now out with criticism. Telling foley le senators, quote, we have to respect each other or at least respect the fact that we need each other. That is never been truer than today, when Congress Must govern with a president who has been poorly informed and may be impulsive. We must, where we can, cooperate with him. We are not his snowboard thats. We dont answer to him. We answer to the american people. Pe must serve as a check on his power. Let me ask you what mccain is say income light of the reporting we are getting halle was talking about, about the relationship between trump and his new chief of staff. Because one of the things kelly was supposed to do is create an environment where donald trump wasnt going to be quite as impulsive, where he was going to be surrounded with a sound counsel before he went and made decisions, mccain seems to be saying in that letter i can not seeing it yet. Also since kelly has been on board the president picked fights even more so with jeff flake the junior senator in arizona, that has gotten under the skin of the caucus in the senate. Trump has been burning his political capital. Its easy and fun to watch john mccain vs. Donald trump. They have been going after each other. There are a couple lines worth dwelling on, one is the senate and the Congress Needs to do its basic minimal work and it has not been doing that. Theyre not passing budgets. Theyre not going through the appropriations process. So as trump goes through a new phase, hes this outsider president , wageing war against his own white house in a way, congress is playing into his hands by not doing anything. He can run against congress, talk against corporation because congress isnt doing its minimal work in addition to the president not doing a whole lot to work to pass this legislation. We mentioned the president vouching for his chief of staff on twitter today, also using twitter to take a shot at james comey, mr. Has been some reporting. Youve written about this. What the president was basically trying to say on twitter, he was going after comeys credibility. You put it up on the screen. Okay. This tweet is a reference to something you reported on. Take us through what you know about james comey the Hillary Clinton email investigation last year and the president saying he made a decision long before he announced it. Reporter sure this tweet seems to be news that broke yesterday which basically came from two senators on the Judiciary Committee who found and then wrote a letter to the director of the fbi saying comey had begun drafting a letter to basically clear Hillary Clinton before the fbi had even finished the investigation and interviewed her, i believe. And so he was basically saying what he has maintained for a long time, which he put in a tweet. This is a rigged system, of course, now, it certainly behooves him to do anything he can to undermine comeys credibility because comey is going to be the key, but one of the many key people in this expanding russia probe. Halle, this is something we saw, we were talking about yesterday. Yesterday the news was trumps legal team had met with mueller, the special prosecutor had submitted paperwork to him, basically trying to impeach the credibility of james comey. You see a legal strategy, now a public strategy. Reporter sure. Its not a totally surprising one nor a totally new one, steve. Look at what the white house is saying about this special counsel probe repeated from the podium, hey, we want to cooperate. We want to do what we can to work with the special count sell, to work with bob mueller. Other than that we wont say much and will refer you to our comments several months ago on this. That said, clearly, you put out publicly now, a direction this liam team appears to be moving in. Again i would point out this is something before ty cobb came on board, when you saw, for example, john dowd, the other lawyers take over, a hint that that is the direction that this administration this team would be move income when it came to the president here. Matt, we are talking about a situation within you have a special counsel mueller in place. Im not sure how much Public Opinion matters on who is more credible. I am curious, obviously, trumps critics are out there saying, look, there is all sorts of reason to believe he went after the fbi director. This could be obstruction of justice, we know mueller seems to be looking at that question. On the other hand, you look at james comeys public credibility. It wasnt that long ago. Every democrat hated him, every republican hated him. This is somebody, im curious from a pr stand poipt. Its clear a lot of the part of the case that the trump team is most worried about is the potential obstruction of justice charge relating to his dealing with comey and whether he pressured comey to drop the investigation and at various points here. And so what do you in those situations, you try to impeach the credibility of both witnesses. The in fact that we are talking at the beginning of a Cable News Program about two different sets of draft memos shows me that somehow we have gotten to a stage in this investigation in this thing where its going to its getting somewhere kind of fast. These are legal strategies aired in the court of Public Opinion in advance of something. It feels to me by the tone of seduction, something is faster than previous thought. We keep getting these glimpses that erupt. It makes you wonder how much more is going on, maybe behind the scenes, we dont know about. Maybe no. Again these will be revealed with time certainly. Halle jackson, ashley parker, matt welsh. Thank you for joining us. It has been a busy day, it has been a rough summer for trump. Congress is coming back on tuesday. They havep big issues, the republicans have been loyal, the question, is that about to change . Heres a cleanup from Hurricane Harvey begins. Are there enough construction workers to rebuild that part of texas . Analysts say many workers fear being deport and might not show up in obama versus trump. More evidence the president s Number One Mission in public may be to undue a lot of actions of his predecessor. Finally, stick around for three things you might not know tonight, courtesy of the hardball roundtable. The is hardball where the action is. Well, right now in texas, we have been watching a massive fire at a Chemical Plant outside of texas, in crosby, texas, this is the second fire in two days. Th in within the past hour, huge plumes of plaque smoke shot into the sky t. Plant lost power after Hurricane Harvey, an executive says there are up to eight containers at the site that could burn and explode. We will keep an eye on that situation, of course, be right back after this. These days families want to be connected 24 7. Thats why at comcast were continuing to make our services more reliable than ever. Like technology that can update itself. An advanced fibernetwork infrustructure. New, more Reliable Equipment for your home. And a new culture built around customer service. It all adds up to our most Reliable Network ever. One that keeps you connected to what matters most. I am still going to look into corrupt judgment. Its unique right now. Regardless of what he truly wants to get done, whatever that may be, he has got to be his own worst enemy. He couldnt be any worse at achieving goals in politics. Welcome back to hardball. Those were actually trump voters. They were describing their disappointment with President Trump in his first few months in office. That was a focus group a few days ago. As the summer ends, it may bring a stormy fall for the president. There is the ever present russia investigation. There are reports today special counsel bob mueller is looking at that early draft, that draft not sent of a letter in which trump outlined his rational for firing james comey, and as Congress Returns from its summer break tuesday, those congressional investigations into Russian Election meddling will continue t. Senate Judiciary Committee are expected to introduce donald trump junior. A date has not been disclosed. I am joined by non john nichols, author of horsemen of the trumpocalypse. And a former bushcheney Senior Adviser and ms nbc political analyst. Thanks, for joining us. John, let me start with you. Its been about a month since republicans and since democrats for that matter have been together in washington. Theyre coming back after charlottesville. Theyre coming back after this storm. Theyre coming back after further revelations of russia we are talking about in the last few minutes. I guess my question to you is specifically the republicans. We know where the democrats are. The question is the republicans, does the past month, be, away from walk, do the events weve seen, does it change anything towards their posture towards their partys president . I think it does, i will complete on you. The democrats will come back super charged because before you say . No, many of them were still, they were against trump, they were resisting, now they have been back with constituents in these drivenlths i have been to some of the town meeting, the second and third top sick impeachment. The democratic electorate does not want to hear about Common Ground . Thats one element of it. Then you bring the republicans back. There will be some republicans who will come back you know still to beg towards trump. But heres what i have seen. A tremendous number of them have had town meetings, anecdotal gatherings with folks on main street, where theyve had an awful lot of people saying what the hell is going on. They will come back and be much more tougher on the administration. What does that mean, what does that look like if thats the mindset . If we go back to the meeting mcconnell had with trump. Which ended up with yelling, right . At the end of the day, i thiere will be more yelling, i dont think they want to be on your show, there will be people saying this cant deep e keep going this way and also do you understand that the speaker of the house, paul rienyan, who i d has been too much of a facilitator, he grumbles but backs him up. He now faces probably his most serious election challenge of his career and many other republicans feel that as well. So when they get together, suddenly i think this august break shifts them towards a lot more 2018 discussions, those discussions make them say to President Trump, you have to have a coherent agenda, and it cant but know shifting from daytoday. All right. Let me get a republican here ask him, robert, what do you make of that . You got john nichols saying the republicans will come back with a different posture towards President Trump. Do you agree with that . Yes, but i agree for different reasons. The reality is we control this town, we control all the branchs of the government t. Reality is you got debt ceiling, looming of the a government shutdown, harvey back there. So i think what President Trump is going to hear from a lot of Congressional Republicans is please stop talking about building a wall, lets talk about the reality in front of us. We have to fund the government or we will go into the red. We have to raise the debt ceiling or if not, we will default on our credit. These are real things that have to happen between now and september, between now and the end of the month or the government will shut down. So i think will you have two postures here, one some real policy coming out of the congress. You will have the other side of pennsylvania avenue talking about tax reform, perhaps talking about immigration, perhaps talking about daca. That stuff is important. But thats not what the reality is on the ground. I think you will have a lot of republicans saying, mr. President , what is our strategy on north korea, specifically . What are we going to do here . The reality is they have a weapon. They clearly are testing this over japan, what is our Foreign Policy here . But lets be Crystal Clear here, i think to my colleagues point, yeah, 2018 is looming the reality is again the government could shut down, we co