the probe, but recall that this was the time that mueller was -- it was publicly reported that mueller was directly focused on trump in the investigation. he was actually investigating possible obstruction of justice as part of his broad russia investigation. i think the timing is quite interesting and despite mcgahn pushing back and not ultimately following through on what the president wanted clearly shows the president's intent to get rid of mueller and concern possibly about what mueller was doing. robert: that question of intent hovers over all of this. what's next for the white house counsel, don mcgahn, confidante of the president. should we be expecting him to be asked to testify on capitol hill? carol: i don't know if that testimony is the central point. there may be people who want to ask him that exact thing but what's interesting is what he already told special counsel bob mueller. we there were when we saw him enter the special counsel's office for his interview and it strikes me that what he's already told the federal investigators looms large over the president as he fac

mueller is way ahead of us. he knows a heck of a lot more than we do, but i think there is a lot of road ahead of us. >> two terrific guests. thank you, gentlemen, for adding so much to our conversation, frank fagliuzzi. more to come when "the 11th hour" continues. will bring. but our comprehensive approach to financial planning can help make sure you're prepared for what's expected and even what's not. and that kind of financial confidence can help you sleep better at night. with the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. (vo)just one touch.ith with fancy feast creamy delights, she can have just the right touch of real milk. easily digestible, it makes her favorite entrées even more delightful. fancy feast creamy delights. love is in the details. the winter of '77.uring i first met james in 5th grade. we got married after college. and had twin boys. but then one night, a truck didn't stop. but thanks to our forester, neither did our story. and that's why we'll always drive a subaru. >>> you know, loya

we got to fire mueller. how can we fire mueller? get rid of this guy. it was just the stuff that comes out of president's mouth. >> in that sense you're describing a workplace in which they don't take the guy saying this stuff seriously to the point where they have to execute it but if he pushes it up to an order then they have to issue threats to resign? >> yes. nobody wants to be there. the new york times curiously makes this sound normal. even if it makes it sound like there's a man that's thought through something and made a decision. there are no decisions here. it's just blather. when does blather -- of course blather can become a decision. the comey firing, nobody expected the comey firing to happen and then it happened because he did it on his own. he just went rogue and suddenly it happened. i believe expects a and continues to expect mueller fired. how that happens is a kind of a three dimensional thing. every day he's firing mueller. >> it's making that case for his lawyers to try to make that presentation of the character. the prosecutors an

if he fired mueller without cause. i mean, mueller's doing a good job. i have confidence in him to get to the bottom of all things russia. and don mcgahn, in the story is true in "the new york times" did the right thing. good news is the president listened. i know this, mueller should look at it. i have complete confidence in mr. mueller. when he found two fbi agents with a bias against president trump, he fired them. all this stuff about the fbi and doj having a bias against trump and for clinton needs to be looked at. i have never believed it affected mr. mueller. i'll do whatever it takes to make sure mr. mueller can do his job. we're a rule of law nation before president trump. we're going to be a rule of law nation after president trump. i haven't yet seen any evidence of collusion between mr. trump and the russians. the investigation needs to go forward without interference. and i believe it will. >> you believe the stories about mcgahn? about president trump? >> i don't know. i believe it's something that mueller should look at. we're not just goi

mueller. >> we will eventually -- when the movie is made of this, when you write the best selling book about this somewhere down the road, my friend, we will learn more about the sourcing of the stories and the strategy behind the sourcing of the stories why we're learning about it in january if it was in june, why there are four sources who are willing to talk to the times about this, the kind of worries the individual white house staff have about their own liability on these things. in hindsight this will become clear but right now we're living through it minute by minute trying to understand how serious this stuff is. >> if one witness tells the special counsel something, that might not leak out. but this is a story that more than one witness has information about. so you have, you know, reince priebus, former white house chief of staff, he was chief of staff at the time this was happening so he would know this was happening. he has spoken to the special prosecutor, don mcgahn has spoke --

mueller is way ahead of us. he knows a heck of a lot more than we do, but i think there is a lot of road ahead of us. >> two terrific guests. thank you, gentlemen, for adding so much to our conversation, frank figliuzzi and chuck rosenberg, appreciate it very much. more to come when "the 11th hour" continues. in no hurry to make anything happen. neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair® works in just one week. with the fastest retinol formula available. it's clinically proven to work on fine lines and wrinkles. one week? that definitely works! rapid wrinkle repair®. and for dark spots, rapid tone repair. neutrogena®. see what's possible. hi, i'm the internet! you knoarmless bowling.lt? you got this, jimmy! you know what's easy? building your website with godaddy. pick a domain name. choose a design. you can build a website in under an hour. now that's a strike! get your domain today and get a free trial of gocentral. build a better website in under an hour. i love you. jimmy's gotten used to his whole yup, he's gone

the people for saving mueller are no longer for saving mueller. any clues as to why that's the case? >> i mean, i think at this point, one of the things that's sort of baffling, sort of take another step back and look at is the fact that donald trump should by now have learned the lesson that firing someone isn't going to end this investigation. it's not going to end the investigation. >> it could have opened up a new one. >> exactly. >> it could have been the firing of yates, firing of comey, the lackadaisical firing. the firings are all flash points where you bring everyone into the white house and interrogate them. >> exactly. all it has done so far is take it up a notch in terms of the importance and intensity. so, i think that at this point, i think one of the things that was very revealing about the "times" piece yesterday, it seems as though ty cobb has put a lid on donald trump's emotions about the investigation. this thing is wrapping up soon, chill out, we're going to get through this, right. that seems to have worked. donald trump has b

we know mueller. do we know anything more about the president speaking to mueller's team. >> we don't, in terms of how the internal negotiations are going between the president's legal team and robert mueller's team. what we have reported and do still believe is the case for fr our sources is that there is a real split among people who have influence with the president on whether or not this is a good idea. i've talked to several people who have told me that they have made it clear to him and those around him that it would be horrible for him to do -- to just sit down with robert muchlt eller in any way, shape or form for a whole host of reasons. one, because they think that it would be a perjury trap for him and also because the president and a whole other list of reasons. but there are those who think that he should try to cooperate. and one of those people who are suggesting that maybe it's a good idea, we're told, is the president himself, who thinks, you know what? i've done hundreds of depositio

and now we know he tried to get robert mueller fired. this is a pattern. >> the fact that the president wanted so badly to get rid of jeff sessions and why? because jeff sessions recused himself. and why did that bother the president? because it led to the appointment of bob mueller. >> msnbc's kristen welker has more on why the white house is fighting back on the reports which overshadowed the president's trip to davos. >> reporter: in davos, president trump lashing out at reports he ordered the firing of special counsel robert mueller last june. >> fake news, folks, fake news. >> reporter: a source with firsthand knowledge of the matter tells nbc news mr. trump ultimately backed down when his white house counsel, don mcgahn, threatened to quit over it, saying the move would be catastrophic. the news first reported by "the new york times" said it all happened amid the first reports mueller was looking into a possible obstruction case. the white house on defense. >> we know that the president is not considering firing mueller. we want to

bob mueller knows they're the known unknowns. let's look at one of the places where they dug themselves a hole in terms of the veracity, the truthfulness, if you will, of those comments, was around what was behind the decision to fire jim comey. let's watch some sessions testimony. >> specifically, what was your designated role in the decision to fire director comey? >> it is -- it's a manner that i can share some information about because the president, himself, has talked about it and revealed that letter. he asked that deputy rosenstein and i make our recommendations in writing. we prepared those recommendations and submitted it to the president. senator feinstein, i don't think it's been fully understood the significance of the error that mr. comey made on the clinton matter. >> so, chuck rosenberg, that would be a fine and good thing to say under oath if it were true, but we know from donald trump's interview with lester holt that he fired jim comey because he didn't like the way the russia investigation was going. what does

because he thought mueller would be fair. this puts the white house once again scrambling to control the narrative, and trump isn't making it easy for them. >> what does if say that the president was willing to fire mueller after all that came out from the firing of comey? >> it shows somebody who is impatient with the process, if he feels he's being held to a certain standard, he doesn't want to be put under scrutiny, he says i don't like this process, i want to change it, i want to do something different. he's always been an incredibly impatient man, whether on the campaign trail, whether running his companies, whether firing people on "the apprentice." it shows how when things don't go his way, he's very willing to question the entire underlying system and say, hey, let's change it, let's shake up the narrative and make this a better process for me. >> i'm curious, alexi, with regard to political fallout, does the mueller story this week, does that at all change the narrative for the president politically speaking? will re

trump has faced many lawyers but none quite like mueller. chris hayes who has done a few russian interviews of his own, is here to talk about potential cross-examination and what's next in the probe. at social med. she buys stocks in companies that "stand for something." you like her. she's always up on the latest trends. she got in early on the whole goat yoga thing. and her sunsets are always #nofilter. you like her. but you'd like her better if you made more money than she does. don't get mad at @just_marea. get eátrade. it happens when reality exceeds expectations. sail with the #1 cruise line in alaska, princess cruises, come back new. (gasp) (singsong) budget meeting! sweet. if you compare last quarter to this quarter... various: mmm. it's no wonder everything seems a little better with the creamy taste of philly, made with fresh milk and real cream. with the creamy taste of philly, i no wondering, "what if?" uncertainties of hep c. i let go of all those feelings. because i am cured with harvoni. harvoni is a revolutionary treatment f

>> -- mueller? >> no, there's no conversation about that whatsoever in the white house. >> that highlight reel goes to why the president's legal team and why people inside the white house are so skittish about the idea of the president sitting down and saying what he knows under oath to the special counsel's office. it's one thing for the president to come out in front of the cameras here in davos and call the story fake news. it's quite another to do that if he special counsel's office. he could open himself up to charges of perjury if he gives false statements to the special counsel's office. that's perhaps one of the biggest reasons why his legal team is so worried about him going through with his words he expressed the other day and saying he would sit down with the special counsel's office, wolf. >> jim acosta, thank you very much. coming up, much more on the reaction on the blockbuster news that the president tried to fire robert mueller. and could a pair of figure skaters ratchet down the ten

we know that mueller knows this. mueller has known this for some time because of interviews with white house staffers. how does that figure into his thinking and to your point now. we saw example of this what you're talking about yesterday. the president wasn't when asked about what he asked andy mccabe, the acting fbi director at the time in the oval office about whom he voted for in the election which is inappropriate. you're not supposed to talk to people about politics. that's why bob mueller didn't talk to the attorneys that he hired about whom they supported politically. you're not supposed to. however, the president said when asked. i don't think i asked him that. i don't remember. if i did it's not really that important. you can say that to the media. you can say that and it's up to us to be able to check it. the white house has not backed off the suggestion he said that to andy mccabe. mccabe hasn't said it didn't happen. if you say that in front of these investigators, you expose yourself to questions that

mueller. the president ultimately backed down, though, after the white house counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive. this west wing confrontation marks the first time mr. trump is known to have fired -- excuse me, the first time mr. trump has known to have tried to fire the special counsel, which makes me think were there other times he tried and failed to fire the special counsel? this confrontation marks the first time he was known to have tried to fire the special counsel. you're saying okay, the president is being investigated for obstruction of justice by robert mueller who he didn't succeed in firing. does robert mueller know about this incident when the president tried but didn't succeed in firing him? does robert mueller know about this episode? according to the times, yes. mr. mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and senior officials in his inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice. remarkab r

mueller. what do you think about the possibility how would that work if you would to remove rosenstein? >> you want me to answer that question. >> please, thanks. >> i think that would have similar political ramifications. rob rosen sign is a career respected deputy attorney general. he's been a u.s. attorney in both republican and democratic administrations. to remove him in that scenario without any just cause i think would cause a lot of alarm and panic. i don't know that it would be any better than firing robert mueller because it would suggest you're trying to elevate someone who obviously might be more sympathetic to your views in overseeing the investigation. so i think that too would be a disaster for president trump. >> swen, talk about the mood in the white house with respect to this investigation because we know the president's obsessed with it. he watches a channel that talks about these sort of conspiracy theories. we know he's been railing against mueller and sessions publicly an

president why did you fire robert mueller? why did you want to fire robert mueller? >> fake news, folks. "new york times" fake story. >> in the nixon era that's what they called a nondenial denial. joining us with his first reaction to the public reaction is the author of the best selling book in the world right now, michael wolff, the author of the "new york times" best-seller "fire and fury," inside the trump white house. thank you for coming back. >> thank you for having me. >> your book is filled with versions of the president complaining about the special prosecutor, making references to wanting to fire the special prosecutor. the special prosecutor has talked to reince priebus, the special prosecutor is going to talk to steve bannon, who you spent a lot of time talking to. the special prosecutor has been talking to many of your sources in this book. has the special prosecutor reached out to you to talk to you about either the firing of the special prosecutor or any other elements of this story? >> he has not. >> and if the special prosecutor does want to interv

mueller. mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and former senior white house officials in his inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice. the washington post adding, quote, trump's ire at mueller rose to such a level that then white house strategist steve bannon and then chief of staff reince priebus grew incredibly concerned that he was going to fire mueller and sought to enlist others to intervene with the president, according to a trump advisor who requested anonymity to describe private conversations. both of the men were deeply worried about the possibility and discussed how to keep him from making such a move, this person said. the president woke up to the news in switzerland and responded with what has become a reflex for him. >> mr. president, why did you want to fire robert mueller? >> fake news, folks, fake news. typical new york times fake story. >> but no denials from his attorney ty cobb, from don mcgahn or anyone el

mueller was appointed. we see why the president has been so frustrated with the investigation and his attorney general. who he pressured publicly to step down. and wouldn't have picked him -- >> the central role don mcgahn layed through the this sfwl restraining the president of the united states. what an extraordinary discussion we're having here. talking about the seen your leadership of a presidency. which is spending its type trying to restrain the basic instincts of the president of the united states day after day. trying to restrain involve breaking the law. that's what this investigation, that's what the last year has been about. she talked earlier about trump being trump. in this instance. part of what the whole mueller investigation is about is trump being trump. the way he conducts his business. the way that he conducted his campaign. the way he has responded to these investigations. we have never had anything quite like this. where the white house staff, those who are in daily kalkt with the pres

he was saying fire mueller the time. i want to fire mueller all the time. michael wolff said it was like wallpaper so people did not take it seriously and it might, in the president's mind, have never been a specific order. and since it wasn't carried out he may not believe he issued the order. >> apparently don mcgahn took it seriously and was willing to resign rather than carry it out. i wouldn't describe this as wallpaper based on what the "new york times" the "the washington post" and others have reported. what leaps out at me about this disclosure, this new report, is how much in common it has with the comey situation. with the firing of comey what the president had at his disposal were memos from rod rosenstein and from jeff sessions that provided a pretext, another explanation to give to the public for why comey was being fired. that is, he treated hillary clinton unfairly. now that is obviously not very plausible and the one who made it clear that was not the real motivation was the president himself. but similarly here with the attempt to fire bob

he has no right to fire james comey or bob mueller. he's already fired comey, he said because the russia thing is nothing. but in fact, if he fires mueller, because he similarly wants to stop an investigation, or intimidate witnesses or withhold documents, that's obstruction of justice. and the excellent summary that you've just given makes for a credible case of obstruction of justice against the president of the united states. >> so if that is true, then what? i guess the question is what more -- given what we already know, what more do you need to know? >> the first point we need to know is that this investigation will be permitted to conclude with completeness and integrity. that is why we need the bipartisan legislation that i and others have introduced that will stop the president from firing robert mueller, and protect thein teg -- integrity of the investigation. and that is second. and number one, we need to have the evidence subpoenaed and produced to the special counsel and the judiciary committee, including donald trump and

on whatever timeframe mule certifica mueller is working on. no one knows except mueller what the timeframe is. >>> let's talk about the president in davos. he rubbed shoulders with the world's economic elite. he opened the door to some version of the tpp. saying america is open for business. what are your thoughts on the trip? >> i'm glad that the president stood up and said that he was open to reengaging with tpp. i thought it was a strategic blunder to pull out of that agreement. basically that agreement was designed to help the united states in our partners in the pacific rim position ourselves against china. we want to set the rules, write the rules and set the standards of trade, rather than the other way around. we want to protect the american workers. i'm glad the president has come around on that a bit. on the rest of davos, i think the president went out there and made a chamber of commerce speech. he went up there and sold america, regulatory reform, tax reform. and america is open for business, i thought that was a good message. it

wanted robert mueller to be fired here. this is something the white house cannot move beyond here as he tries to address business matters here at davos. the reality here for the last six or seven months, the white house has said it is not true. the president did not want to get rid of robert mueller. this, of course, is not the case. so the white house lawyers are not commenting on this. they are saying they are cooperating with the office of special counsel. the reality here now is this potential obstruction of justice investigation still going on here is centering more on that moment last june when the president, we are now reporting, and told wanted the firing of robert mueller. christine. >> bombshell. you are right. the russian investigation -- every development casting a long shadow to davos, switzerland. jeff zeleny, thank you. >> joining us on skype is senior analyst areeva martin. thank you for staying up late. a lot to discuss regarding the president's desire to fire the special counsel robert mueller. his counsel

>> i have confidence in mueller. i have questions about others within the fbi and the doj, especially what's come out in the texts, especially what it's been based on. i think it's the responsibility -- we have an intel committee. that's raced a great deal of question. >> is there a red line the president could cross with you in his treatment of bob mueller? >> the president and his team have fully cooperated. you're making hypotheticals. right now -- >> it's not a hypothetical. we have records that he ordered to do it and don mcgann threatened to quit if asked to carry out the order. >> this is a place i have not been a part of. i have not heard that. the only thing i have seen is cooperation is where we intend to end up. >> would you open if there's bill that protects -- you know, there's a couple of bills in the senate, one would be having a three-judge panel review a decision if the president did fire mueller to see if it was done on fairgrounds. would you be open if that bill is attached to the budget bill, woul

so there are sort of two big buckets mueller is looking at. one of them is obstruction, did the president try to obstruct the russia investigation. the other one is russian meddling in the election. in terms of the first bucket, comey is the central player in that. >> michael, did we lose you? >> i'm still here. can you hear me? >> let's talk about obstruction. today we have the news, first reported by axios, not confirmed by nbc news, but this idea that the white house, jeff sessions, are pressuring christopher wray, the now fbi director, to remove people inside the fbi. problems with some of that reporting, because andrew mccabe can't be fired. he is a career agent so he just can't be fired willy-nilly. there's got to be a cause there. but the "washington post" is confirming at least a portion of it saying that it does seem like this administration is trying to put pressure on the fbi director. we have seen it frankly publicly, michael, with the president's tweets saying andrew mccabe shouldn't be there. how much is that going to factor into

think about what mueller did. when i turned out the political opinions of these with particular political agents were expose in the texts, again, they're humans. they have opinions. what did mueller do? he immediately took they will off the investigation. which is probably exactly the right thing to do. but wolf, this is all part. and the famous house memo is just the latest and most dangerous installment of trying to save this president's bacon by damaging and throwing mouth a storied institutions. >> they are probe yg five months of text messages between those twoe individuals apparently have gone missing. do you have confidence the fbi ends up being fully transparent? >> i don't know. i have no way of knowing. we've seen a lot of these text messages. the fbi has produced a lot of text messages would indicate they're not trying to hide anything. it is hard to imagine. these people had opinions. they expressed them to each other. there's no scandal there. of course the right wing and republicans will do their bes

why doesn't the president just fire mueller. here is what sarah sanders said. >> i think we all know what everybody in this room would do if the president did that. i don't think that's helpful to the process. >> oh, my, bianna, you're a journalist. she's saying part of the reason is because of how you guys, the press, would respond. >> we've been talking about this and speculating for months now as to whether he would or wouldn't fire mueller. i think a lot of people were surprised by hearing that mueller interviewed sessions and will be potentially interviewing the president in the next few weeks, how far along mueller has gone in this investigation and how many people he has actually interviewed, he and his prosecutors, over the past few months which maybe gives you a sense that mueller possibly thinks he's on borrowed time and wants to conclud ts sooner rather than later. >> the way, she may not be wrong. if the president did do it, there would be a reaction, but that's not the reason. >> she's certainly right there would be

mueller first. tom, six months ago when the president was supposedly thinking about firing mueller, here was the reaction from some republican senators. >> any effort to go after mueller could be the beginning of the end of the trump presidency. >> i think it would be as explosive as anything i can think single act that the president might take. >> we would certainly advise that step not to be taken. i think this is a man who many believe on both sides of the aisle has tremendous integrity and will do his work in a very diligent way. >> we have not had the same sort of reaction from republican side of the aisle. it's been much morewell m look, happen and we'll worry about it if it does. you heard leader mccarthy there claiming he has confidence in mueller but -- >> well, i think two things. one was, i was here for the saturday night massacre and the nixon white house thought that was going to unleash their ability to deal with what was going on and it was another nail in the coffin. there ought to b

he has no legal basis to fire mueller. there are specific regulations that govern mueller's conduct. the good cause that maggie reports on would not have cut it and rosen stesteen would have q. had the president not been sort of well-served by mcgann, he would be facing either respective indictment for obstruction of justice. a sitting president can be indicted or a referral for article of impeachment. i think this would have been a camel-breaking straw for even those republicans who are pretty much lined up in his favor at the moment. >> i just want to play, now that we have this new report from the "new york times," the president's friend, chris ruddy, the ceo of news max talking last june to pbs, the same month the "new york times" now reporting the president ordered mueller to be fired. let's play this. >> suggested, i think i heard you suggesting that there's a question about the purpose of his investigation. i want to ask you about that, because there are some republicans out there saying that robert mueller shouldn'

president, did you seek to fire robert mueller. >> fake news, folks. >> the plot to fire mueller. >> typical "new york times" fake stories. >> tonight new concerns the threat to the special counsel hasn't passed. and yet, one republican is backing off his plan to protect robert mueller and what all this means for the russia investigation. >> i haven't given it any thought. >> then. >> yeah, maybe donald trump wanted to fire the special counsel for conflict. does he not have the right to raise those questions. >> can trump tv sustain the president through his latest crisis. >> the president says it's fake news. what do you think? do you even care? >> the finance chief for the republican party faces new allegations of sexual

my point, if he wanted to fire mueller, he would have just sacked mcgahn and fired mueller. i'm curious to know what else happened around this situation that the president didn't go through with it -- >> he wanted to give an order on the ban of immigrants. sally yates refused. it did not go through. so that doesn't mean just because he didn't -- it didn't happen, that he didn't try to do it. his intent was to do it. >> i'm not disputing the reporting. but he has actually gone through with other things. i mean, he obviously fired comey. there have been moments where he did things and there have been moments where he didn't do things. i think the interplay there is important context for this conversation tonight. >> robbie? >> he had -- comey, he had someone at the justice department as a sort of fig leaf and an excuse to do it, right? the rosenstein memo. i think he was probably hoping he would get the same thing here where mcgahn would go through it and he could say oh, my white house counsel did it. he said it was fine. >> go ahead, robbie. i know you want to weigh in on th

trump can fire mueller. he's allowed to fire mueller if he thinks he's going too far. the investigation will continue. best thing, welcome questioning, try to have it done as soon as possible so you get the probe wrapped up. president trump can return to fighting about infrastructure and immigration reform. >> john you're an interesting fella. i got just a couple more questions. i have to. what terms should the president and his attorneys agree to in terms of answering the questions by mueller? >> mueller is a very experienced prosecutor. he was head of the fbi himself. he was attorney out here in san francisco. he is not going to want to let anything be written down first. prosecutor wants to have the questions oral. he want to see where they go. mueller is going to resist letting the president has lawyers to put anything in writing. president's lawyer doing great job. they're getting investigation done fast. >> what should they push for? >> i think what they should try to do is try to get everything down in writing that might cause perjury. that's what they're worrie

president, why did you fire robert mueller? why would you want to fire robert mueller? >> fake news, folks, fake news. typical "new york times" fake story. >> the report has been confirmed by nbc news, "the washington post," cnn, "the wall street journal," even fox news. it does raise troubling questions. is it obstruction or at least part of a pattern of obstruction to do what he did and where are republicans? hasn't the president crossed a line here? >> will trump try to do it again. if he was willing to before, why not now when it appears the investigation is sniffing close er and closer to trump. then there's the question of honesty. if the reporting it true by multiple news organizations, president trump wasn't telling the truth, was he, when he said this last august. >> mr. president you thought about or considered leading to the dismissal of the special counsel. is there anything bob mueller could do that would accepted you in that direction? >> i've been reading about it from you people. i'm not dissing anybody. i want them to get on with the task. >> michael sc

face-to-face if mueller wants to go there? >> i think it will either be in person or he'll find himself being questioned in a grand jury. i think that mueller will want to have an interview with him face-to-face. that's the kind of thing prosecutors live for, that is to get the adversary or the suspect or target on the other side of the table and have a shot at him to see where they're at. i think trump is going to find himself there. let me say this. rod rosenstein is a good guy. i served with him in committees, on the u.s. attorney community. i think if trump is waiting on him to do his bidding, he's w t waitishiwai waiting on the wrong man because he's got too much credibility to take an action. >> thank you all. >>> coming up, the man who reportedly told the president, don't fire robert mueller, but who is white house counsel don mcgahn. and why is he at the center of so many controversies? >> and later, what we're learning about how first lady melania trump spent her week amid salacious headlines about her husband and a p

president trump did not fire mueller. mueller is still on the job. and -- >> that's not what has been alleged, stephanie. it's been alleged that he called for his firing, said i want him out, and that don mcgahn said, no, basically you're going to have to go through me if you want to fire him, i will resign. >> exactly. it was alleged. alleged. we don't know that for a fact. >> it's been independently confirmed. nbc news has confirmed it too. >> okay. well, a lot of these things have been independently confirmed and they end up having to be retracted and then we have all these news organizations apologizing for it. mueller is still on the job. if president trump had a private conversation, bouncing maybe these ideas, wondering if there was some sort of conflict with the mueller team, we know a lot of the mueller team had donated to the hillary clinton campaign, the full amount of donation than they possibly could. some of them were lifelong donors to the democrats. so there was question whether there was conflict. and we know one of the biggest scand

>> i don't think it matters whether it was mueller's investigators or mueller. from my reporting, i do not know whether mueller actually did the questioning himself. mueller typically comes in and will speak with the witnesses at different times. come in and talk to them, sit in on the questioning. i'm not sure how significant of a role mueller played in it. at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter. mueller's investigators are out there doing the interviews, collecting the information, sifting through things and figuring out what they're going to do. they're at the front lines of this. he can't, obviously, do everything. >> does sessions have an outside lawyer? >> yes. he has an outside lawyer. this long-time washington lawyer, chuck cooper, who has represented him since all these question came up over a year ago. mr. cooper is someone that has known mr. sessions for a long time. >> i know this is tricky, but i remember last week when steve bannon was speaking with members of congress, and there was this executive privilege. he could talk about things up

what is mueller looking at? why is mueller focusing on certain issues rather than others? and in the process of that, we kick up different things. we're just trying to follow the facts and understand as much as we can about this presidency. >> michael schmidt, good work tonight. you know you're always welcome on this broadcast, michael schmidt, co-author of the "new york times" story. eli stokels, kimberly atkins, chief washington reporter for the boston herald, and gerald bash, also former counsel to house intel. kimberly, as both lawyer and journalist and a unique dual role in this conversation, how big is this? >> this is very big. i mean, this is an important piece in what we've been seeing over time which looks to be a concerted effort by this president to push back or stop efforts to investigate what is going on in the russia investigation. we saw first the pressure on james comey to get him to publicly say there was no investigation, then the firing of comey, then the pressure on other officials including members of congress, to message the frustration about this in

we have no idea what mueller knows. what mueller knows is a great deal more than any of us. for the president so say, look there has been no collusion, therefore, i'm cleared. that pre supposes that mueller has actually reached that conclusion and he does not. think about an examination done in a jigsaw puzzle of sorts. you have to have enough pieces in play to understand what the ultimate image will be. when you have the president of the united states looking to be interviewed by mueller and mueller would like to interview him. he is trying to put in the remaining pieces. trump has no idea. he is probably trying to get ahead of it in his media-related commentary. he like everybody else is thinking what do you know or can i avoid saying? >> jim, i need to get this in. sorry. we will run out of time. cnn is also reporting mueller's team has interviewed attorney general jeff sessions and former director james comey. what do we know about that? >> well, look at this. jeff sessions was just last week. comey was the end of last year. it's natural that the special counsel would sp

mueller. and the under oath portion, robert mueller is an fbi agent. >> so it doesn't matter? >> you can't lie to an fbi agent when they're questioning you. >> but can you cut a deal before you go into that interview that, you know, not just that it's not going to be under oath but that you aren't exposed to that kind of criminality? >> sure. i'm certain you could cut whatever -- there are a number of options in terms of cutting deals. i think for the president's sake, he's got to go in, and he's got to show the american people that he's telling the truth, that he did not obstruct justice in this matter. >> he didn't have corrupt intent. you both used that term. always a safe assumption that i don't know what you mean. norm eisen, corrupt intent, what does that mean? >> corrupt intent means that you're doing something for a wrong purpose. it literally, when you instruct a jury, chris, the jury is told was the reason that the defendant committed the action evil, wrong, or bad? examples. if pres

it will just be mueller's team and the president. who is going to stop donald trump from saying 16 times as he did in a recent interview, there was no collusion. trump can eat up a lot of time by simply talking about what he wants to talk about. and that's why i think the duration of this testimony is going to be extremely important. if it's just an hour, if it's just two hours. the president could just talk for that long and mueller could wind up with virtually nothing. so i think the amount of time is going to be a very, very important part of this negotiation. >> i want to quickly go back to our senior white house correspondent, pamela brown, who was in this extraordinary exchange with the president and other white house correspondents just moments ago. what are you learning, pamela? >> right, just more about what the president said regarding robert mueller, his willingness to sit down and do an interview with him and he actually said to the reporters, i'm look iing forward to doing it actually. that is a direct quote from him. sa

trump has made only one comment regarding the reports about mueller. >> did you fire mueller? >> fake news, guys. typical fake news. >> but it is not fake news. cnn has learned he ordered mueller firing last june. it didn't happen because don mcgahn refused to tell the department to do so because he disagreed with trump. two sources tell cnn that mueller wants to interview trump specifically focusing on the firing of james comey and michael flynn. is mueller now building an obstruction of justice case against the president? we know, according to "the washington post" that mueller is looking specifically at a quote pattern of behavior on trump's part. a pattern that began very early in trump's presidency. let's take a look. february 13, 2017, flynn resigns admitting that he lied about his conversations with the then russian ambassador kislyak. the very next day trump means with then fbi director james comey. comey takes notes of the meeting and writes that trump said, quote, i hope you can see your way to letting this go, to letting flynn go. comey does not let it go. may 9th,

robert mueller was not fired, obviously. so in and of itself the act isn't grounds for obstruction or anything else. but could the intent, how does the intent tell you about the president's mind-set and might that seep in other parts of the investigation? >> well, first of all, you don't have to succeed in obstructing justice to obstruct justice. that he didn't ultimately fire mueller doesn't mean anything. in and of itself, it is a conclusive piece of evidence. it is one more piece in the puzzle as we try to discern what the president's motives, intent was. that is actually quite important because he does have the legal authority to fire government officials. and in this case it would be indirect. you would have to pressure somebody at doj to do it. but he can't do it corruptly. you would have to look at intent to see if he was trying to prevent himself from being further investigated. he certainly told us that was his intent in firing mueller -- comey. so this fits with that. he said i haven't even given getting rid of mue

to fire mueller. in fact mueller may already have, just like ralph nader there, a legal challenge written to his own potential future firing, after all, this is news tonight, but the times reports mueller himself learned about it long ago during his interviews and if don mcgahn didn't personaler himself, he presumably would have told mueller about it in his own november interview. and the battle took a lot more turns, another prosecutor replaced cox and because that prosecutor had a different law that he was operated on than what mueller is operating on today. it is possible that the court could interpret it this way on the facts and on the president. just like nixon era, the -- mueller can only be removed by the personal action of the attorney general, which is now rod rosenstein, since sessions is recused and he can only fire him because of misconduct, dereliction of duty or for cause which has to be in writing. that part is important too, because if righit's in writing, court is more likely to rein

i don't know where team mueller is on this. it would seem to me that at some point they would want to have a face-to-face interview with the president. trump's team talks about ronald reagan and what happened during iran contra, and ronald reagan gave written answers to questions during iran contra. so they clearly would like that to happen. i don't know if that's enough for mueller. >> jeffrey toobin, "the washington post" is reporting that mueller wants to question the president in the coming weeks, specifically about the firings of michael flynn, his former national security adviser, around former fbi director james comey. what does that tell you? >> well, that to me has always been the heart of the case. even more than collusion. collusion is not a crime. the president's supporters have been pointing that out from day one. there are possibly crimes associated with involvement between the trump campaign and russia. but it is difficult to shoehorn that behavior, whatever it might be, into the criminal horn. however, obstructi