The man who may be closest to this presidency. The 11th hour begins now. As we start a new week, good evening once again from our headquarters here in new york. Day 151 of the trump administration, and today an aggressive strategy from the president s legal team on russia on full display as it was this weekend. Jay sekulow, who was already a fairly familiar figure on cable news and who is one of the newer members of the president s legal Team Handling the russia investigation, made the rounds on the sunday shows yesterday. And on morning tv again today. He set out to assert flatly that the president is not under investigation despite what the president said about being under investigation. And with Chris Wallace on fox news sunday, the conversation got interesting. I want to be very clear here and very direct. The president has not been and is not under investigation. And now hes being investigated by the department of justice because the special counsel under the special counsel regulations, reports still to the department of justice. Its not an independent counse so hes being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general and Deputy Attorney general recommended him to take by the agency who recommended the termination. First of all, youve now said he is being investigated after saying that you didnt no. You just said, sir you just said that hes being investigated. No. Chris, i said that the let me be Crystal Clear so you completely understand. We have not received, nor are we aware of any investigation of the president of the United States. Sir, you just said two times that hes being investigated. Let me ask you this. Sure. As a matter of law, does the president think he can be indicted under the constitution . The president i havent had that conversation with the president. But the president cant be indicted under the constitution for the activities alleged in Something Like this. Of course not. Why is that . Because theres not an investigation, and theres you dont know whether oh, boy, this is weird. You dont know whether theres an investigation. Kind of went on from there. Sekulow also said that the president s tweet was only responding to the Washington Post report that mueller is investigating the president , a report that it is worth noting has been confirmed by several other news organizations, including nbc news. And about the claim or question from the president that there could be tapes of his conversations with james comey, today sean spicer said he would probably have an answer on that by the end of this week. There are also new questions tonight surrounding mike flynn with House Democrats trying to figure out if flynn misled officials on his security form, omitting two trips to the middle east, one trip reportedly involving a, quote, joint u. S. russian Business Venture to develop nuclearacilities in and financed by saudi arabia. A deal said to be worth 100 billion. The white house is also still struggling to get any kind of policy message to rise above the noise being made by all of these russia investigations. Possibly as a result, there are multiple reports yet again that sean spicer may soon be leaving his role as press secretary for a more behindthescenes role in the White House Communications shop. And along those lines, there was this from todays white house briefing. [ tone ] having a little fun with you there. We should explain that todays white house news briefing was off limits to camera and sound. So to get this straight, the news briefing in the peoples house, designed to answer questions for our president about our government presided over by a press secretary whose salary is paid by the taxpayers, that news briefing was blocked from tv coverage or any audio recordings today. Reporters and news organizations will now have to decide if the briefings are worth attending if theyre going to be blacked out. With that, lets bring in our starting panel tonight. Eli stokols, jonathan lamrkts ir. And anita kumar, White House Correspondent. Jonathan, you write tonight, trumps legal plan built on his image. Fight, fight, fight. I think an accurate depiction of his image. It does run up against the special counsel and his slen this case. Thats exactly right. The special counsel haseen buttoned down. Theres been sort of silence, no public proclamations of what theyre looking to do here. This is a president whose instinct is always to be pugnacious, to if not hit first, hit back much hard or than he got hit. That has gotten him into trouble. We have seen the tweets. Theres confusion about are you under investigation . He says he is. His lawyer said he isnt after said he was, and then he said he wasnt again. He is sort of getting in his own way sometimes, but he is urging his team to hit back. We saw it the first day when former director comey testified. He had his attorney go up to the National Press club and deliver a scathing indictment of the former director, suggesting also trying to muddy the image by saying that its the leaks are the issue, not the content of the leaks. And unfortunately for the president and perhaps that lawyer, that statement also was riddled with misspellings and typos, including spelling the word president wrong. If you think that kind of thing is important. So, eli, the americans watching the sunday shows fathers day weekend, they watched morning television. They see this lawyer guy saying Something Different from what the president said on twitter. Give us a viewers guide. How do we figure out whats going on here . At least weve had 151 days to get used to the whiplash, i suppose. I mean jay sekulow is out there on sunday morning and again on monday saying there is no investigation. And the reason he is out there working for and representing this president is because there is an investigation, and that is why hes been hired. But its another instance of somebody sort of defending the president and playing to that audience of one that we always talked about, that being the president. If donald trump himself was not pleased with mr. Sekulows performance on sunday morning, theres noay he would have been out there again on monday. And so the president , even though hes not going to always listen to his lawyers, hes going to do his own thing, punch back on twitter, not really have his tweets or public statements vetted by his lawyers or anyone else, he loves seeing people like Jeff Sessions last week and sekulow go hard to the mattresses for him even if theyre ridiculed by the public, even if they get themselves tied up in knots trying to explain something thats really inexplainable. I always say about the american political system in a democracy, the people are the customers and the boss of their government. So having said that, take it out of the woe is me news media. What is going on, do you think, with the white house briefings, which are the way we get to learn things about the administration and the government. So what happened today actually wasnt unusual. They have been doing offcamera or, you know, briefings not on camera or for audio since the beginning of the administration. I will say a few things have changed. One, they seem to be coming up a little bit more frequently. Sean spicer or his deputy oftentimes give up the podium to cabinet secretaries or other people in the administration that they would prefer, you know, give out their message. And the other thing that has been very noticeable the last few weeks is that the briefings are much shorter. And so, you know, they might even be 20 minutes. And if youve watched one of the briefings, you know that the first five or ten minutes are them putting out their message. So its a limited number of questions. And, yes, youre right. People hear this and say that were complaining. But the people have the right to ask questions, and we are not being able to do that. And so i i felt Something Different today even though whats happened today has happened before. There was way more frustration than ive seen recently, and i think its all sort of coming to a head. Its been a few weeks of this. Jonathan, i heard cnns senior White House Correspondent tonight say that cnn was not included in the questioning today. But sean spicer took a question from a reporter with a Russian Media affiliation. But an honest, simple question what do they fear more . The questions these days or the answers . I mean i think its a great question. In terms of the white house, they are getting into more trouble than they can handle with these briefings. Weve seen sean spicer trip over himself time and time again, creating a tempest out of a misstatement or a direct, at times, seemingly falsehood. They are trying and failing to change the subject from russia, and thats what it keeps coming back to. This probe is dominating. They cant get anything through it. And they get up there and because they seem ill equipped to answer simple questions about it or these days t and kick it to the lawyers, t story cycles and cycles andets worse for them. Eli, can you really do that . Can you say because we dont like the situation were in right now, however much of it is caused by the guy who lives in the residence portion of this building, were just not going to have that conversation . And by the way, what do you hear about spicer and his job . I suppose they can because they are, and until theres a big enough public outcry, and i dont even know if that would stop them. Its not just not being able to turn the page on the russia story, as john says, this is something where theyre choosing not to answer a lot of these questions. Sean spicer continues to say, i havent talked to the president about whether or not he actually believes in climate change, but i will. Well, week after week, he still hasnt talked to him, right . Its not that long a path from his office back to the oval, and yet somehow he cant come up with the answer. They cant say whether theres a taping system in the oval office. Youd think thats something that sean spicer, who has a blue pass and works in the west wing, could figure out. So theyre choosing not to be forthcoming with us and with the American People on a lot of topics. You can read into that what you will. It is difficult to be the messenger, the spokesperson for someone who is so unpredictable, changes their mind, gets himself into trouble and says things sometimes that are not necessarily defensible. I think that brings us around to why theyre having such a hard time finding somebody else who is willing to stand up at that podium. They have looked to the ranks of cable news for people, not been able to find someone there. They have talked to people who covered the campaign. They have talked to surrogates who have gone on television hundreds of times as advocates and spokespeople unofficially for that campaign. And i talked to someone night. They say theres still no frontrunner for this job, no inhouse frontrunner. And so, yes, theyd like to sort of let sean ref seed bacede bace Communications Job and put somebody else front and center. As much as theyve decided what theyre going to do, finding someone to fill seans shoes has still been pretty difficult. Anita, what of the business of the white house and the administration . Is there a theme to this week as there was with infrastructure, however much that was ignored . Yeah, theres a theme. This is the third week i think theres been a theme. Two weeks ago was infrastructure. Last week was apprenticeships. Youd forgotten that one already. This week its about technology. So the president and Vice President , Jared Kushner, all met with leaders of Technology Companies like apple. There are going to be other events this week. Were going to sort of see this messaging over and over this week. The problem, of course, is and while they got a lot of attention for that and most news organizations wrote stories, the problem is a couple things. One, you have the president continuing to tweet about the witch hunt investigation against him. You have stories like todays story about michael flynn, the former National Security adviser, possibly not disclosing Something Else when he was trying to get his security clearance renewed. And so it just there are all these other things that are sort of getting in the way of their policy. The other problem with the policy is the couple big things that he has promised, tax reform, health care, have not passed yet, and its been months. And, jonathan, it all goes back to your headline. Fight, fight, fight. An organization takes its cues from the man or woman at the top. This is what his style has been, this sort of this chaos, the aggression and the chaos that seemed to work for him during the campaign. He bounced from one thing to the other but always saeemed to kee his head above water. Here hes been unable to harness that. Weve seen him still stuck behind this cloud of scandal. Our great thanks to our leadoff panel tonight. Eli stokols, jonathan lemire, and anita kumar. Coming up, a former watergate prosecutor joins the conversation with insight on this evolving answer on whether or not the president is under investigation when our broadcast for a monday night continues. Will you be ready when the moment turns romantic . Cialis for daily use treats ed and the urinary symptoms of bph. Tell your doctor about your medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. Do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, or adempas® for pulmonary hypertension, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. Do not drink alcohol in excess. To avoid longterm injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. If you have a sudden decrease or loss of hearing or vision, or an allergic reaction, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. Ask your doctor about cialis. And get medical help right away. I feel it every day. But at night, its the last thing on my mind. For 10 years my tempurpedic has adapted to my weight and shape, relieving pressure points from head to toe. So i sleep deeply but feel light. And wake up ready to perform. Even with the weight of history on my shoulders. Find your exclusive retailr at tempurpedic. Com mr. President , are you under investigation by the special counsel . I would like to thank President Trump for the president of panama stepped in as our president , donald trump, chose not to answer whether he was under investigation by rert mueller in connection with the russia investigation. But leg team insists he is not under investigation. So why does a president who is not under investigation need three personal lawyers, and why if the president said hes under investigation should we listen to at least one of those lawyers . Joining our conversation here tonight, former federal prosecutor and assistant watergate prosecutor back in the day, nick ackerman. And Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson is back with us. Counsellor, you get the first question because youre a counselor. How should we view this . Again, were consumers watching sunday shows on the weekend. We catch along the way this lawyer with glasses insisting, no, the president s not under investigation at all. Of course hes under investigation. I mean i dont think theres any question that hes under investigation at a minimum for obstruction of justice, which hes admitted to. Well, then, where is he getting his information or lack of information . God only knows where he gets any of his information. Hes speaking with the authority of the president of the United States. How can he do that . Look at all these done already. I mean this president is a serial liar. He lies about everything. He has his staff out there lying about everything. You cant take anything he says with any kind of seriousness. What you do know is that there is an investigation going on by Robert Mueller. Any real investigator is gng to be looking at the Trump Campaign, who ran the Trump Campaign. It was President Trump. Theyre going to look at this alleged obstruction of justice. He has admitted on national tv to lester holt that he had the russian thing in mind when he fired comey. Hes admitted that the whole business about the rosenstein memo was a pretext. Hes admitted to the Russian Ambassador that, in fact, he got the Russian Investigation off his back by firing comey. I mean there is just a massive amount of corrupt intent here that would support an obstruction case. So obviously hes under investigation. Obviously the special counsel is going to be talking to the two National Security people, coats and helms, as to or rogers, rather. Thats a big deal. That corroborates exactly what the director comey said in terms of what the president was asking him to do. So, eugene, whats your viewers and readers guide to what were witnessing . You know, i think when the attorney, mr. Sekulow, went out yesterday and again today, i dont think he had information. I think he had instructions. I think he probably had instructions from the president of the United States to go out like the first spicer briefing . Kexactly. To go out and fight and deny, and by the way, my crowd was bigg than any oth crowd in history, right . Thats the sort of thing. And thats what you get when you go out and speak for donald trump. So nick is absolutely right. Its clear that the president is under investigation, and apparently its not just the obstruction of justice prong of the investigation. Theres also the basic question of possible or, you know, was there collusion between the russians and anybody in the Trump Campaign . And, you know, its a wideranging investigation that will also loo