Committee. Attorney general Jeff Sessions will be sworn in and give testimony about russia and then some. Our speaks guest couldnt, bob kerrey here with us in the studio this evening. The 11th hour begins now. Good evening once again from our headquarters here in new york as we start a new week. Day 144 of the Trump Presidency. Late in the day it was dominated by an idea, the idea floated by a friend the president that donald trump has considered or is considering firing the special counsel, terminating Robert Mueller. The president has the power to do so. The question, what would happen to the president and his presidency if he did so . Especially having already fired one prominent investigator, the head of the fbi. The notion of a mueller firing started to get floated out this past weekend. Most recently, it was trump friend and news max publisher chris rudy in an interview with Judy Woodruff over on the pbs news hour. Is President Trump prepare to let the special counsel pursue his investigation. Well, i think he is considering perhaps terminating the special counsel. I think hes weighing that option. He was not the first trump surrogate to hint at this same idea. I think that what republicans ought to focus on is closing down independent counsel because hes not independent. He apparently is very close to comey. Will the president promise not to interfere, not attempt at any time to order the Deputy Attorney general to fire Robert Mueller . Look, the president the president of the United States, as we all know it is a eun terry executive. When the president is going the seek the advice of his counsel inside and government as well as outside. I am not going to speculate on what he will or will not do. This comes as we gear up for the next round in the russia investigation that once again has the potential to dominate the days news tomorrow. For that matter, the upcoming week. Attorney general Jeff Sessions will be sworn in tomorrow afternoon in Public Session by the Senate Intelligence committee. It is as of yet unclear in sessions will answer every question thrown list way or perhaps perhaps employ executive privilege to avoid talking about some of his conversations with the president. Sean spicer was asked about that in the press briefing today. Sean, to that end, do you think when Jeff Sessions testifies tomorrow, do you believe he should invoke executive privilege on conversations between himself and the president as it relates to jim comey. It depends on the scope of the questions. To get into a hypothetical at this point would be premature. In any way did Jeff Sessions, folks at the d. O. J. Ask for the white house permission in essence for him to testify publicly tomorrow . I dont know the answer to that question. I know congress generally speaking sets whether a hearing is open or closed based on the sensitivity of the subject. Is the president then okay with him testifying in the open setting tomorrow . I think hes going to testify. We are aware of it. Go from there. They are aware of it. Among other things, sessions who took himself out of the russia investigation, you will recall, will be asked tomorrow about a potential third meeting he had with the Russian Ambassador to the u. S. , the now rather wellknown sergei kislyak. Arizona for the president , we know from comeys testimony he believes the russia investigation is a cloud over his administration. At the president s first Cabinet Meeting here is pat of what he said about his own accomplishments in office thus far. When i ran, it was make America Great again. Thats what we are doing. We are doing it at a faster pace than anyone thought 678 i would say never has there been a president , with few exceptions, in theis calf fdr, who had a major depression to enwho has passed legislations and done more things than we have done. Between the executive orders and the job killing regulations that were terminated, 34 bills, the Supreme Court assignment, going to be a great Supreme Court justice, and many other thing we have achieved tremendous success. We have been about as active as you can be at just about a recordsetting pace. Our colleague at cnbc was not having any of that. He quickly wrote this in response, quote, never has there been a president with few exceptions who has passed more legislation, done more things, trump declared, even though congress, which is controlled by his party hasnt passed any major legislation. He haled his plan for the single biggest tax cut in American History even though he hasnt president proposed a plan and congress hasnt acted on one. He said no one would have believed his election could have created so many new jobs, 1. 1 million. Even three though 1. 3 million were created in the previous three months. But the part of that Cabinet Meeting that was instantly compared to the adoration that surrounds the man they call deer leader in north korea. We will show this more later, but the president went around the room as member of the cabinet took their turn. Greatest experience of my life. He is keeping his promise to the American People assembling a team. I cant thank you enough for the leadership you have shown and the privilege you have given me. Thanks for the tune to fix the trade deficit. Mr. President we thank you for the blessing you have gerver given us to serve your agenda. On that, Michael Schmidt is here with us. Reporter for the New York Times. Aneeda kumar, White House Correspondent for mcclatchy newspaper, and we welcome kimberly cat kins, from the boston herald, a lawyer by training we assume she is in recovery from that. Welcome to all of you, michael, home field advantage. Well start with you. Back up to the top of your broadcast a little bit of a nondenial denial from trump even considering firing Robert Mueller. How would it work . I know he has the ability, the power to do so, it would normally go to the attorney general but for the fact he recused himself on all thing russia. It would go to Rod Rosenstein the guy who played the central role in the firing of comey would now have to make the decision whether to get rid of mueller. Some folks say rosenstein would stand up and would resign and would leave himself. But this is the guy who didnt do that for comey. He was willing to go along with firing of comey. Hes already down this path. It would obviously create a huge crisis at the justice department. But we thought that firing would create a huge crisis, and largely the president has survived it. Obviously, there has been some political impact, but on capitol hill the republicans are staying with him. I know this might call for a mini judgment on your part. Perhaps you are not comfortable. Do you fundamentally, knowing what you do about this president , his processes or lack of them, believe this is plausible, this is true, that he is considering or has considered the firing of this special counsel . Well, the white house hasnt knocked it down. They you know, there is this weird back and forth tonight where trumps lawyer and the white house were sort of saying hot potato, i dont want to answer this, you have to answer this. And then eventually you get something from spicer thats a none denial denial. So i dont know. The firing of comey was such a thing how could he ever do that, you know, with the russia investigation going on . In a way he has kind of moved forward. Yes its been incredibly damaging to him. But at the same time, you know, the show goes on. Anita, we have attorney general sessions tomorrow. We have a white house that has ducked a couple of opportunities to express the president s full confidence in the attorney general. For a brief time tomorrow he is going to be the most powerful member of the administration except maybe for his boss. Give us a preview. Sure. I mean, i think that the white house clearly doesnt like that this is happening tomorrow they dont like that its out in public. But hey its better than it was last week. Its better than james comey. They did not know what comey was going to say. They have a much better idea what session is going the say. Sessions should do pretty well. Hes a former senator. He has been there before. These are his former colleagues. The white house is going to know what hes going to say, and they know what questions are going to be asked. So they are feeling much better than they were last week. They were very nervous at the beginning of the comey testimony and by the end of the day they felt much better. They wish allist would go away, they are trying their best to change the subject, but i dont think they feel as bad as they did last week. Kimberly, happen to have you join us this week. What are the critical questions to fire at the attorney general tomorrow . I think what we will see, particularly from the democrats on that committee are asking the attorney general to fill in a lot of the blanks that may have been left by former fbi director james comey. A lot of critical points like that day where the president asked everyone to clear the room and leave him alone with comey. Im sure they will ask the attorney general did he linger on . Did he give a signal to the president that that was perha inappropriate . After he left the room, did he stay by the door and try to listen in . They will also ask him what he did after james comey weapon to him and expressed concern about being left alone with the president. The former fbi director said he sort of shrugged and said what can you do. Well see what the attorney general himself says. And of course they will be asking him about this particular problematic connection that the fbi director thought he had that would ensure his recusal. Well see how much of that he answers in the open session. Michael, on this subject of tapes, which will not go away, someone today reported the u. S. Secret service has no tapes, has no knowledge of any railroad roing. But that doesnt clear it up at all if the president has his own means. What do you expect is going on here . I dont know if its trump to bully is he trying to bully comey into this . But this is what i find to be the most interesting part of it. It was trumps tweets about the tapes that led comey to leak the information that he did. Yeah. To try to get this special down sneel theres a Straight Line from that one tweet to a special counsel. Directly to that. Its another example the president s tweets really undermining and hurting him. And i just i keep on making the point over and over again. But we wouldnt have bob mueller you wouldnt be talking about firing bob mueller if it hadnt been for that tweet and james comey woke up that monday at 2 00 in the morning and said hold on, there may be a way to corroborate my conversations with the president. What about the expectations they have built up in the meantime. It was like a reality show tease when he said in a very short period of time you will learn. Im sorry to keep hitting you with these. You are a professional. It continues to shock me. But it doesnt at the same time. Aneeda, whats the chance we are going to hear the phrase executive privilege tomorrow . We might hear it. We might. Depends what the questions are. It definitely depends. But you know, i think there are some thing they want to get out there and have him talk about. Its just a question of what the questions are. The biggest things of course are going to be, you know, as you mentioned, did he have that third meeting . He could easily say with james comey he didnt know a lot of these things. He was outside the room. He didnt know what happened. So he can easily get away with saying that. Kimberly, about the west wing, our friends at the New York Times wrote a story over the weekend about the president s personal attorney kind of Walking Around the west wing and making contacts with staffers. There is a white house attorney named dop mcgahn, our friends at the New York Times i believe it was the times its tough the keep track of them these days reported that the president may not see mcgahn as a peer of his a few weeks back. Then politico over the weekend says the president has threatened Reince Priebus yet again with dismissal. July 4th, unless things are running swimmingly by then. Thats a lot of tension in the west wing, especially when there is a big target testifying on the hill tomorrow. A lot of palace intrigue. I think one thing weve seen from this president is he expresses loyalty, he takes loyalty very seriously, but he is loyal to the people close to him until it seems not to be working out that well for him and then that loyalty disappears. There were a lot of Campaign Staffers left in the dust basedan that. It is a tense time. And it is a time where you need to be listening to your attorneys, both your internal white House Counsel and external counsel. I hope members of the white house all have their own counsel the way that the president is assembling his team. You need to be listening to what they are saying. It seems clear thats not happening, at least with the president. Estill continuing to tweet which im sure is giving his lawyers agita. Michael, do you think sessions has the capacity to surprise us, all of us watching tomorrow . And what happens when this comes down to he said he said . Who do you believe more, comey or donald trump . As we unravel all of this, comeys credible and other people that back him up will be very important. In sessions says yes, indeed, i did have this conversation with comey, or indeed i was kicked out of the oval office, that goes towards building up what comey has said. If he says, no, that didnt happen, or no, comey never said that, then that hurts comey. So at each new witness that we have will provide another piece of the puzzle to figuring out whether trump or comey is telling the truth. This could be a harrowing day. Yet another harrowing day tomorrow on hill. Great thank to our starting off pam, michael, anita, and kimberly. Appreciate you all coming on. Coming up after our first break, is the president worried about the threat say russia poses every day to our democracy . A former fbi agent is with us next. And later, if you think you had a case of the mondays, again, try being one of the cabinet Members Around that table in that room, the 11th hour back with more after this. . 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No. Do you find it odd not with President Trump. Right. I attended a fair number of meetings on that with president obama. James comey there before the Senate Intel Committee last week. Its an he can change that one former fbi agent skpribs as the most shocking of his appearance that day. Quoting from her piece in the washington post. Quote n the nine times trump met with or called comey, it was always to discuss how the investigation into russias election interference was affecting him personally, rather than the security the country. This contrast alone between trump and obama underscores trumps disregard for for his fundamental duty which is to ensure the security of the nation its government and its citizens from foreign entities. The author is a former special wagt the fbi and is now associate dean of yale law school. Also with us from the west coast, jeremy bash, former chief of staff at cia. Welcome to you both, asha, ill begin with you. For people whose thinking hasnt been affected by all of this, the coverage has almost had a corrosive effect of normalizing russia, which is what a whole bunch of people are being accused of doing. What is your view of the damage assess men so far to our country, and the stakes starting tomorrow . I think that when you have every Senior Intelligence official saying that this is an unprecedented attack on our democracy, this is when everybody and especially the president needs to stand up and listen and figure out what were going to do to stop this. Weve already been attacked. This is not something we are preventing from happening. If this were happening in a terrorism context we would be responding immediately. Im just astounded that we are just continuing as though life is normal. So you view this as an on going attack. Comey said during the hearing they will be back. And someone gently corrected him the next day and said they are not leaving. They are going to stay here. No. Do you think its fair to say that most of the 35, 36,000 people employees at the fbi and most of them working in the Intelligence Service hold your unreconstructed unnormalized view of russia and putin. I think defin