Its again what the president says on social media by night, and then early in the morning that overwhelms anything the administration attempts to do by day. Today, for example, was supposed to be about infrastructure and the need for a new air Traffic Control system. It is instead tonight about the president popping off on his phone. This morning, a twitter storm which read in part i am calling it a travel ban. The Justice Department should have stayed with the original travel ban. We are extreme investigate people. The courts are slow and political. Then just a few minutes ago, this again tonight on twitter. Thats right, we need a travel ban for certain dangerous countries. Not some politically correct term that wont help us protect our people. And this was interesting, Kellyanne Conways husband a washington lawyer, actually said on twitter this morning in response to the president s first comments quote, these tweets may make some people feel better but they certainly wont help office of solicitor general get five votes in the office of the United States which is actually what matters. Sad, he ended. There was also disagreement among white house officials today about the importance of what the president says on twitter. Here now comments from both Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee sanders. Thisson obsession of covering everything he says on twitter and little of what he does as president. It gives him the ability to speak directly to the people without the bias of the media. You are covering tweets. I think social media for the president is extraemly important. Thats his preferred method of communication with the American People. Thats not true. I think its a very important tool for him to be able to utilize. This weekend, meanwhile, it wasnt exactly america first, but it was an american first when the president of the United States attacked the mayor of a city that had just suffered a terrorist attack. It started with this, the mayor of london, a man who we point out because its germane is a muslim to who today spoke out against any act of violence in the name of his religion, this weekend london mayor is a defect khan warned the people of london they are about to see way more Police Presence. Heres how he put it. Like terrorists are trying to find new ways to destruct us and attack us and harm us, the Police Officers are looking for new ways to keep us same listen derers will see increased Police Presence today and over the course of the next few days. No reason to be alarmed. President trump took that last bit out of context plaply and repeatedly attacked the mayor on twitter. At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and mayor says there is no reason to be alarmed. The president s First Response after the London Attack was to retweet the initial bulletin on the bruj report. And finally, it may be generated by an automatic bot but a new tool on social media converts the president s tweets to the format of official white house statements from the president. While neither the president nor his aides want to preent tend that what he says in his late might and Early Morning twitter rants is by any means official policy, we have no other choice but to take it as such, especially considering they are words from the president and the president has largely stopped talking to the news media. Its been 109 days since his first and only official solo News Conference of his presidency. Lets bring in our starting panel for tonight. Anchor of bbc world news america. We welcome caddy kay to our broadcast for the first time tonight. Chief White House Correspondent upon the New York Times, peter baker. White house correspondent for reuters. And to round out our sib subcommittee of White House Press corps, White House Bureau chief for the washington post, Philip Rucker. Welcome to you all. Peter im going to begin with you, you were the last to file of this group. You filed a story tonight that says, among other things, what appears to be the president s simmerin anger lot of it goes back to aorney general ff session. Please explain how that is. Well, if you look at todays twitter storm, there are lots of things you can take out of it. One of the things is the president s seeming dissatisfaction with his own Justice Department. It acts as if it is another branch of government not under his control, the Justice Department shouldnt have done this, should do this. What that reflects is this resentment, this unhappiness he has with jeff session, the attorney general, who had been one of his earliest supporters. That goes back to the decision Jeff Sessions made to recuse himself from the russia probe. President trump didnt like that decision, wasnt informed before it was made, thought it was unnecessary and blames it according to people close to him for a lot of things that happened since then, including now the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the matter. Caddy kay, another day, some argue another week lost to russia despite any and all plans the Administration May have to the contrary. Yeah. I think thats the problem the faces right . However he might try to distract i dont know why he took on the mayor of london. I dont know why hes repeating his allegations against mayor of london and the travel ban but i think there is a feeling in the white house any day where they are not talking about russia is a good day. And yet here we are at the end of the even and russia has come back to them. Its going to come back in spades by the time we get to thursday. This is going to be the only issue this weeks and the only issue the next few weeks until we get how many meetings there were, who said what, lets get it out on the i believe at that. Until they can level on all the russia issues its going to carry on being an issue. Aeesh audio wrasse coyou were briefed by the administration for their plans for their ongoing agenda, which of course rebound as strong as the president s weakest tweet going into the next business day. Yes, thats the white house right now, they are trying to get a focus on their legislative accomplishments. They are complaining that no one is focusing on what they are trying to get done. Now, of course they havent had any really major legislative accomplishments other than passing Health Care Reform through the house. But they havent had any major bills signed into law. So they are trying to change that. They are saying they are going to do health care over the summer, before the august recess. And that they are going to start on tax reform after labor day. Philip, your colleague and our mutual friend, robert costa, is reporting for your newspaper, ill read the headline as trump lashes out, republicans grow uneasy. That may be the understatement of the century. Is it not . Yeah. And its something tha you could have had that headline every wk this president sooechl it is a an ongoing problem for President Trump in dealing with this congress on capitol hill. The republicans have the majority there. There is a substantive agenda of legislative items that the republican would like to advance in this majority. Its something that President Trump would like to do, too, and nothing is getting done because we have controversy after controversy after controversy. Trump wants to move on taxes. He wants to move on health care. Now wants to move on infrastructure. This week as we were just talking about is going to be all about russia and comey and getting some of these questions answered and dealing with the president and what happened in that campaign. Speaking of comey, philip, was there ever a there there on the question of executive privilege . Or do you know not think it would have stuck had they tried . Im not a lawyer. I cant answer that exactly. But i just dont politically. You are being congrate lated for that, by the way. I dont think politically it would have worked if he had decided to exert executive privilege. It seems like he made a good decision here. Peter, i want to read reporting from the intercept. Headline is top secret nsa report details russia hacking effort days before the election. It reads, quote, Russian Military intelligence executed a cyber attack on at least one u. S. Voting Software Supplier and sent spearfishing emails to more than 100 local election Election Officials days before last years president ial election, according to a highly classified Intelligence Report obtained by the intercept. Report indicates that russian hacking may have penetrated further into u. S. Voting systems than was previously understood. It states unequivocally in its summary statement that it was Russian Military intelligence that conducted the cyber a, at that. We are reporting that the leaker behind this story has been arrested tonight. Peter, this makes wider the chasm between what we know and suspect about russian involvement and kind of baked in complacent see that a lot of us are feeling and hearing. Thats right. I think what weve been talking about publicly is the hacking of dnc emails, john podesta emails. Those created political headaches for Hillary Clintons kahne campaign. Whether it actually changed an election seemed somewhat questionable. This suggests a more ambitious effort on the part of the russians if this is true that goes beyond mischief making and tilting the odds a little bit. This is in fact what the Obama White House was really worried about in september and october of last fall. One of the reasons why obamas aides gave for the fact they did not go harder publicly against russia in this period was there were more concerned about tampering with election machines, taemp tampering with election day processes themselves. That was sort of their First Priority up until that point. We havent seen evidence until now that that succeeded in any way. I havent done any report, on this report so i cant vouch for it but it obviously raises important questions. Caddy, a piece of work that Philip Rucker posted over the weekend came with the headline, trump reacts to london terror by stoking fear and renewing feud. What has the Global Reaction been that you have sampled to this president s latest war with the mayor of london, of all people. The mayor of london is very popular, brian. He is being seen to have done very well for the people of listen done not just in this attack but in the attack a couple of months ago as well. I think frankly there is a broad feeling in london and in britain that people are kind of fed up with the president and these tweets. The mayor of london said this each on British Television said that the president s state visit to britain in the fall should be canceled. We shouldnt be rolling out the red carpet he said for somebody whose position weiss so funny disagree with. I suspect you will hear more of that you also had the acting ambassador to london also coming out and saying the mayor of london has been doing a very good job which puts daylight between the embassy in london and what the white house is saying. We diplomat know whats behind this. We do know during the campaign the mayor of london criticized the travel ban and said it was i go norpt of the president , then the candidate donald trump then to propose that travel ban. Donald trumps reaction to that, hearing that the mayor of london who criticized him was you wait, i wont let him forget this. Eye eye isha, we are reporting journalism that keeps rolling in while we are on the air. Russia white house war room idea. The president has decided any of those questions can go to his counsel based out of new york. The old Campaign Hands he was going to bring in are going to remain outside surrogates, i guess. And so another change in plans within the west wing. Well, im just hearing that. But it just seems like the white house right now is trying to figure out how to handle this. They are saying that they are going to, you know, put all of their requests in with this outside counsel in new york. But i think its going to be difficult for them to hold on to that strategy, especially if President Trump keeps tweeting about these issues. I mean, you can tell your staff not to talk about something. But if the president himself is going the keep talking about something, i dont know how much of an impact it has to try to focus on or to try to lean on having outside counsel deal with these matters. Mr. Rucker, other than bringing in a juggler during the testimony how are they going to avoid the president in eeffect leave tweeting of the response of comey. Second a serious question, people like me ask people like you this question, what is the pulse inside the white house. I dont know they are going to keep the president from watching this. We know he likes to record the hearings on the dvr and watch them in full. Im sure we will have a reaction of some kind on thursday. He is planning on being in washington on thursday. With regard to the mood, there is frustration from the srs senior officials that they cant seem to get the president to focus on the agenda, they cant seem to get him to control his impulses and his emotions. He is sometimes getting advice he is just not listening to. It is a frustration for people. He doesnt seem to be growing in job. We are well past the 100day mark. And the behavior stays the same. And there is only so much that the staff are able to do. Imagine being the majority leader of the senate or the speaker of the house. Everyone is going to remain with us. Well fit in a first quick break here. When we come back, are we calling ate travel ban or not . Seems to be some disagreement. But at the same time the boss seems to have spoken. You doyoull see whatet but in youre really made of. After five hours of spinning and one unfortunate ride on the gravitron, your grandkids spot a 6 foot banana that you need to win. 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When we use words like travel ban that misrepresents what it is. Its not a travel ban. It is a system to keep america safe, thats it plain and simple. This was President Trumps tweet yesterday, if the ban were announced during a one week notice the he says it is a ban. He is using the words that the media is using. Those are hid words. Welcome back to the 11th hour a. Look at some of the Trump Administration officials on the notion of whether it is or isnt a travel ban. We have assorted members of the pros corps with here. Those are your words, people, i hope you are hearing that. By the way its too easy to repeat this. Again, the president s tweet from tonight, within what, the last 90 minutes, thats right, we need a travel ban for certain dangerous countries. Not some politically correct term that wont help us protect our people. Caddy, are you going to go with travel ban . The president says it is a travel ban, i guess it is, right. The smartest person i know talking about this is a professor of law at harvard, joke gold smith, who actually worked in the Bush Administration on terrorismrelated issues. He came out with a theory early on that actually maybe the president wants this defeated in the courts so for the rest of his presidency he can explain the courts are against him and anything he doesnt get done he can pin it on obstructionist courts is probably what he would call them. I cant think of another logical reason why the president would at this stage be still calling ate travel ban when he knows this will be used against him in the Supreme Court. Peter baker, i trust you are not a lawyer either, but can you explain to our audience how his tweets hurt his case exactly . Well, among other things, you know, he uses the phrase politically correct watered down version to describe the revised travel ban to use his phrase that he signed when the first one got blocked in court. And you know, that undercuts him because it tells the judges that in fact this is not any different than what he originally intended and allows people who are challenging it to make the case he just dressed it up. Its just as bad legally and therefore you should treat it like the first one. Any lawyer is going the argue will tell you they dont want their clients out there talking freelance because they can create issues like this. While judges may or may not take into account things outside of the actual written document, you know, reality is reality. And you heard even as you