Said that Trump Campaign officials had frequent contact with russian intelligence officials. Worth noting our reporting at the time dialed that story, that initial New York Times story back a little bit. Heres the white houses version of events. They say when that New York Times story broke, chief of staff Reince Priebus had a separate meeting with top officials at the fbi on a separate matter here at the white house and then Deputy DirectorAndrew Mccabe asked for a pullaside with mr. Priebus after that meeting. During that pullaside, according to the White House Deputy director mccabe said that New York Times story is, quote unquote, garbage. And then according to the white house, priebus said what do we do about it and let it be known the reporting is not accurate. Ultimately the fbi told the white house theyre not going to do anything about it, theyre not in the business of calling balls and strikes. The question becomes was it inappropriate for the white house and fbi to have any sort of conversation about the New York Times report . Senior Administration Official when i asked about that called that notion insane, saying that, look, t bottom line is they never discussed an actual investigatio instead they just discussed the New York Times report. They say that conversation was perfectly acceptable, legal and within bounds. Theres no doubt, though, that, hallie, this is sparking a lot of debate just as the president prepares to speak before cpac in just a few moments from now. And kristen, the comparison between youve heard some people talk about, listen, when Loretta Lynch and bill clinton for example, met on that tarmac, republicans were furious about it and its your report that the white house called that comparison absurd. Reporter again, their argument is there was never a discussion about an actual investigation, it was about the reporting. The pushback on that is that, wait a minute, that New York Times report was about an investigation. So it gets very murky and very complicated. The tone here very significant. The pushback, as you pointed out at the top was vigorous. Senior Administration Officials became very agitated in discussing this. Sean spicer expected to discuss this with the press. I anticipate hes going to get a lot more questions about all of this. Kristen welker up and caffeinated since 5 00 this morning. I want to go over to kasie hunt in the room at cpac. A lot of people are looking ahead to the president s speech. He wasnt there last year. Cpac in 2011 was when he sort of delivered his diatribe, his agenda, years before he ran for president. Can you walk us through what you think hes going to say today and then the mood in the room. Reporter its funny, i actually was at that trump cpac speech in 2011. At the time it was a much different universe, mitt romney was sort of the presumed republican nominee and he wasnt conservative enough and donald trump seed like an oddity. It doesnt work out well for romney, he didnt have an excited base of support for this group, went on to lose the general election. Trump, on the other hand, has been able to flip that script around. He was not supported by this group in the primary, even more so than romney was four years earlier than that, and the activists here, i was sitting down in the front yesterday as steve bannon and rnce priebus were having their conversation, you could see about half of the crowd was just watching and listening, not necessarily very excited about what was going on. You can tell from the way Reince Priebus in particular handled himself, they know they have some work to do with some the conservative ideologues, if you will, who typically show up here to cpac. Thats going to be Donald Trumps challenge. Hes the first republican since Ronald Reagan to come to cpac in his first term as president. If what steve bannon said as his strategist, i think were going to hear fighting word from now President Trump. One thing to watch for is how much influence do people like priebus have over this speech, the more moderate, establishment wing of the party. How much does President Trump talk about his Supreme Court nominee, for example, or is he spending time focused on these big ideas, this new world view laid out by Stephen Bannon yesterday, economic nationalism was a key buzz word, he talked about deconstructing the straigadministrative state and thats part of his priority. Thats what were watching for to give us clue as to who President Trump is listening to right now. Kasie hunt there or cpac for day two. With me is Michael Steele, lucky to have a couple of the best in the bis. Thanks for being here. Hi. Does donald trump walk into that room like a rock star or is he coming in like a new artist who has to prove himself to these conservative activists a year after he didnt show up. Hes president so hes automatically going to be the rock star. I think youll see that response generally. What im curious to see is this the beginning of the transformation of the Republican Party . Does it begin here in the setting of young, libertarianleaning conservative republicans. What you heard from bannon yesterday was a call to economic nationalism. Deconstruct the status quo. That has not been the Republican Party. Were not about tear iarifftari about controlling the means of production to get a particular outcome. You ask the question whos going to have the ear, who is he listening to, what is reinces influence . I think the influence here is all bannon. It is not traditional republicanism. Let me get your take, jason. I want to play you a little what senator ted cruz said to me about his speech. Reporter is this the president s party now . Is this the president s cpac . This is conservative cpac and these are conservative activists. Theres an excitement here because we have the opportunity to accomplish what weve been talking about for years. Reporter donald trump wasnt here last year. How does he win over the conservatives in room . Is there a fight happening right now for the Republican Party . Listen, the first month of the Trump Presidency i think on substance and policy has been very strong. So do you agree with the senator there, jason . And then, michael, ill get your take because you were shaking your head. First off, id like to dispute this notion that he has to win over conservatives. The man won the election. Hes now our president. What hes doing in the office and what weve seen so far is exactly what he said he would do on the campaign trail. Even in the conservative party, not everyone was behind him. There was still a never trump movement. That was always the folks, the more establishmenttype folks, the folks that didnt want to disrupt the system. When you have the president and steve bannon dismantling government as we know it, i think thats a good thing. If we get too far finto the wees saying what does that mean for this policy or this policy, i think well lose sight of what dismaning the government means. I think thasexactly where we need to be, though. Because at the end of the day, from those weeds hopefully grass will grow. And that means the party is going to stand for something and about something. You have an administration thats talking about spending a trillion dollars in money that republicans in the Freedom Caucus and elsewhere throughout the house are going where do we get that from . These are guys i helped elect in 2010 now going to spend a trillion dollars unaccounted for . Im saying philosophically and politically it is inconsistent with where the party has been. Im not saying they cant go there or that they wont go there. Its just that theres got to be a reconciliation over all the rhetoric and all the noise that was made between 2010 and now and how you go forward from here when youve been saying one thing and now youre going to do Something Else because you have a republican president who, by the way, has not adhered to those very Core Principles youve advocated. We know that the president is in that room. Were looking at it on the split screen. Hes waiting to deliver his speech to this conservative conference. Matt schlapp we are told, the organizer behind cpac is going to be introducing the president. I want to ask about the news of the day, what we led this show with, which is this news that Reince Priebus asking the fbi or the fbi bringing up it Reince Priebus some of this reporting on tru staffs and their connection to russia. The white house very intense pushback this morning on this story. Saying, listen, we didnt ask about an investigation, we asked about reporting. Is this troubling to you that this happened at all . I guess im not too bothered by that. Ill take at face value, reince will tell you what he asked about. He said i didnt ask about a report, i i didnt ask about an investigation, i asked about a report. It was a report about an investigation, as Kristen Welker said. And id go a step further and say it is absurd, this idea that if somebody comes to Reince Priebus, President Trump, anybody in the white house and says what you read today is complete b. S. Or whatever language they used, the natural response in any setting is to be like, okay, i agree with you, what can we do about this . Thats the point that sean spicer made this morning. I completely agree with it. Youre right in pointing out the republicans were upset about the Loretta Lynch and bill clinton meeting. If the argument is priebus and Deputy Director of the fbi didnt talk about an investigation, they talked about a report, on the flip side you might see democrats arguing that the Loretta Lynch bill clinton conversation wasnt about an active investigation either. But everybody knew there was an investigation between into bill clintons wife and her dealings. In this case you have, from what ive seen, youve had an fbi official telling the white house chief of staff, by the way, what you just read yesterday is complete b. S. And the white house appropriately saying, well, we need help in this. And in your role, what can i say, what can you say . Pull back for a second. John conyers, the House Judiciary CommitteeRanking Member is out with a statement. Given the conversation we jt had, hes saying there should be th inspector general, department of justice, making sure whistle blowers should be protected from retaliation. Should Congress Look into this conversation . Should be there an investigation here . Speechless, both of you. Because theres not a there there yet. And if there is, then well have the investigation. If its just about a New York Times story, i mean, the bill clinton situation was different. It was an ongoing we all knew ongoing investigation. And that is just an inappropriate contact period. Nobodys alleging that reince said tamper down the investigation. All hes saying is relaying information from the department who is saying the story is false. And all these saying can you say that because everybody time somebody from the white house says this is ridiculous, nobody believes it. Let me get the take from republican the arkansas, asa hut hutchinson. I want to get your reaction to the headline of the morning, the white house pushback around the reporting of the conversation between Reince Priebus and the Deputy Director of the fbi. Whats your take. First of all, theres too many important issues to deal with. We dont need to get sidetracked into an investigation about that. Ive been head of the dnc. A. , a u. S. Attorney and theres always a strong independence in the department of justice to manage investigations. There has to be a separation from the white house and guardrails to not discuss things inappropriately. I think theyre trying to determine where those guardrails are. Obviously the department of Justice Needs to have entire independence on any questions about wrong doing or investigations. So hopefully we just turn the page from that. I agree with michael, we dont need to simply respond to a New York Times story on this. Governor, were watching here and waiting for the president to make remarks at cpac, as you know, conservative conference here that happens just outside washington. What is the message that you think the president needs to send to help either unify the party or energize the party today . Well, he wont have any trouble energizing the cpac audience. These are activists, theyre going to be enthused. Theyre excited about the opportunity and the message of disruption of government appeals to this audience. So it going to be a very that bannonesque message. Hes got a lot to talk about what hes done. But let me emphasize whats important. He does need to shape and begin shaping his views of trade policy. Thats where its contrary to traditional republican philosophy. Im opposed to the border adjustment tax, it hurts us in arkansas, were global traders. We have to be careful about that. I would expect him to try to shape that today. That speaks to something that former rnc chairman Michael Steele was speaking of earlier, the idea of economic nationalism that steve bannon pushed yesterday. Are you concerned that the chief strategist of the white house used that language and pushed that message . Imot concerned about that specific rhetoric as i am about th specific policy. Hes talked about congress, a border adjustment tax, high are te higher tariffs and talking about protecting u. S. Businesses. Theres a balance there. It would hurt consumers if we had a border adjustment tax that guarded against the imports. Were doing trade with china, we have walmart in china, we have tysons food in china. So we dont need to get into a trade war. We are Global Trading partners and leaders. We need to compete with that environment. And i listened very carefully to his words. Whenever he says we need to have a tough trade policy, we say amen. To me that is looking out after our interests. But dont put us in a position to be penalized by our foreign trading partners by reescalating trade barriers that would only hurt the United States of america. Governor, i have to say weve been talking a lot about arkansas these last 24 hours or so after a pretty feisty town hall that senator tom cotton was at with folks in your state. Theres been some discussion that these protests were manufactured, thats what you heard from republicans, despite evidence there are no paid protesters or without presenting evidence these protesters are actually paid. Do you think these people,any of whom are constituents in arkansas, have voices that dese to be heard in these town hall settings . Ork, absolutely. I commend senator cotton for having that. Over 2,000 people show up. People are energized. The on thing frustrating is it not really a good venue for an open exchange of ideas, which is what town halls are designed for. They need to be very respectful and do as much listening as yelling. But it really reflective of a very organized, grass roots effort that is not happy with a Trump Presidency, but you got to remind yourself, trumps favorable numbers in arkansas are higher than mine. Hes at 60 . Even though had you a lot of protests there, antitrump, look at those poll numbers as to how popular he is in that state and policies. Theres a couple of other subjects in terms of policy. Were watching matt schlapp walk out on stage. This means at any moment we should be seeing the president , right . Reporter yes, were expecting matt schlapp to introduce President Trump, who has been here on site for a couple of minutes. Were told me helicoptered over here, landed in a nearby parking lot. This is a really sprawling Convention Center complex down in national harbor, maryland, just about a half an hour from where you are in washington, d. C. This ballroom is at capacity. Theyre not letting anybody leave, theres an an overflow crowd standing here in the back. Theres clearly quite a bit of excitement waiting to see President Trump. There a lot of young people that come to this event. They come from all across the country in buses. Some have been here for multiple years. For a lot of them, theyve never had a chance to see a republican president. Thats driving some of the excitement as well. Kasie, hang out for a minute pip want to bring back in jason osborne, Michael Steele. We heard the desire to hear about trade policy. That was my point. The governor made my point. And that is something that has to be reconciled within the party. Were talking about a fundental shift away from policy. And philosophy, if you will, where the party has been. Im not saying thats a bad thing. I was a deconstructing kind of rnc guy which got me in all kind of ish. To say the least. But the reality is it got to be with a purpose and consistency to where the party is headed. It clear that every time President Trump spe