this year. added a kitsch then year. it's worth it, because we get to be with all the other davos men, right, andrew? >> we get to hang with becky. >> worry about the stockholm syndrome while we're there. we come back being socialists after being in europe. >> i don't know what say. watch comey all day. we'll talk about it tomorrow. "squawk on the street" begins right now. one of the most anticipated congressional hearings in decades takes place today. former fbi director comey testifies before the senate select committee on intelligence nearly one month to the day after being fired by the president. good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street" i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber. the yields have ticked higher. ey -- ecb stays steady.

and james comey on the hill today. the released testimony making waves. we'll go live to d.c. >> shares of alibaba are surging in the premarket. we'll dig in on those numbers and the impact on yahoo. >> voters headed to the polls today in london today. we'll look at the latest and how the markets are reacting. first up, james comey due to testify at the top of the hour. the stocks did rise yesterday after the release of the former fbi director's prepared testimony in which comey says the president sought his loyalty and urged him to quote lift the cloud surrounding the russia probe, but many suggest there's no smoking gun. it's being called the rorschach test of sorts but the bar to obstruction is high in large part because the republican hold that key. >> thank you, that's it. i think that we have to -- it's a political issue. i waffle between comey-geddon

and comey those. >> that was good. >> i have worked on that all night. it's like -- like focused on general mills and kellogg. >> i have not heard that. >> thank you. thank you. but my problem here is that when i read the note -- after i read the note, the note is not -- if you're republican, i think you just say okay, look he was calling -- he was just saying, hey, listen, honest, loyalty. but if you're a democrat you're saying it's loyal honesty. these are literally it hangs on the words. almost like the definition of is. >> that goes back a ways to another investigation. of course kenneth starr. that's the point i wanted to make which is you do have the special prosecutor here in the form of mr. mueller. and just as though ken starr moved far beyond whitewater, a real estate deal -- >> you're really going there. >> i'm saying this is still going to be going on. regardless of what we hear from comey today. it's not going to end. so it's going to be a continued

potential distraction to the trump administration. regardless of whether it gets to any point that moves the republican majority to make a move against him in some way. it still will be a distraction, enough so that you do wonder about the future of his legislative efforts to the extent he has any efforts. >> exactly. that's the focus of the -- of what he was trying to get comey to back off on. the agenda. the agenda -- the cloud. >> not the cloud we talk about. >> no, this is a chance to buy service now -- viva, you're laughing. but this a chance to buy the salesforce. because this market is going up. those stocks are going up because this is a logjam. if you listen to draghi talk about no growth, you watch what's happening with some people -- we had the dr. woo fella on earlier, talking tab recession in two years, the cloud has to lift or people are going to huddle in the cloud

stocks. i'm going for everything today. >> you are. i love i. it's great. >> if we can all agree this will be a sort of low grade fever, right, a long overhang on the agenda, does that change your view of stocks or no? >> no, it does not. it just says that you're going to get more and more people in the funnel -- in the funnel of stocks that have growth regardless of the economy. and that's where people are going to go. periodically you're bog to see -- you're going to see there's a nordstrom where they'll go private and people lift all boats on speculation. then it goes right back to yes, the new 15 that i have. it's no longer faang, because everybody obliterates faang. >> we want to get to that jim is referencing a dow jones headline -- >> actually, a press release as well, carl. the nordstrom family is announcing that it has formed a

group to explore the possibility of pursuing a going private transaction involving the acquisition of 100% of the outstanding shares in nordstrom. >> it's huge. we're mad as hell and we're not taking it anymore. every store is profitable. >> i don't know what the ownership stake is in nordstrom. certainly a very difficult time for retail. a go private transaction which would involve of course putting more debt on a retailer is one that you would have to think long and hard about. for example, think j.crew and the troubles they're having in part because of that money that was -- that was borrowed heavily by the company to take it private some time back. but that is having an impact on the stock you see it right there. >> the family -- >> they own a lot. i don't know what the numbers are. >> i interviewed bruce not that long ago. look, these are guys -- if you were on the nordstrom conference

call, you basically heard them saying they're not going private, but will people stop saying we're dead? we are not dead. well obviously they want the whole, they want what they see, which is -- they have a very good e-commerce. they have profitable stores. and they just think their stock got too cheap. that is something. >> it's something. >> it is big. >> without a doubt, at least the idea that we want to step up and explore the idea of buying the company. i don't think that would be an issue for them. again, i don't -- i certainly want to see the stake is, how much they need to borrow. what they need to buy. we can assume a premium of some kind. >> this is big. >> but would expect that financing might not be the issue. the issue simply would be do they have the plan to be able to guide this company as a private one with all of that leverage on it and what is an incredibly difficult environment. >> well, look, i think that all of these guys -- when you look at the macy's presentation the

other day, listen, our cash flow is really good. look at kohl's where they're talking about a solid balance sheet. buying back a huge amount of stock. look at the bed, bath & beyond and the endless buy backs. what nordstrom is saying, even if amazon come out with both barrels we still have a business and if you don't like it, we'll take it. every time i have focused on the nordstrom people and when i sat down with bruce what they're saying is listen we're very profitable. we're just not liked in the market. >> we sat here yesterday and asked whether or not the private takeout of retail, whether that chapter is fading, ending. it's still legit. >> i thought it would be. because i think there's tremendous risk to what they're doing but if you're kohl's which is buying back the gigantic amount of stock you start thinking it. i sold macy's bonds when i was at goldman sachs and macy's went bankrupt. then it had to reformulate. >> but this is -- i think the big picture take away simply is hey, this is the founding family

which controls -- i have bruce at 15%. -- at 9%, the other brothers at 1.5. so we're talking about 40 some odd -- >> 48 -- >> not quite 40, sorry. let's call it 25, 30%. 26, 27% of the outstanding shares. they're saying, hey, we think there's value here. we're going to explore whether we can actually take advantage of what we think has been a beaten down sector. and obviously, operate no longer having to worry about quarterly numbers. no longer having to worry about getting punished by wall street in an unrelenting difficult retail environment. >> by the way this stock was at 60 last year. do you know what terms you used, don't have to take it from wall street anymore and we don't want to think about each quarter. >> right. >> in the end, nordstrom is a little white neiman, where is neiman in terms of the bonds? >> not pretty.

not pretty at all. not for j.crew either. shareholders may be happy to share them to go private. by the way, j.crew shareholders should be happy that was done years ago by tpg, even though they got sued in delaware for paying too little. >> thing is very, very important because it took us away from comey for 30 seconds. >> that was awesome. >> now -- >> it's -- >> i'm comey tose. >> we will be watching the arrivals this morning. eamon javers, reportedly some of the lines for the public seats began at 4:00, 5:00 this morning. >> yeah. that's right, carl. there's a real crowd up here on capitol hill this morning trying to get into the hearing. they generally rotate the spectators in and out so everybody gets a chance to go in and see a moment in history. i can tell you that reporters who are inside the room have been tweeting out pictures of the seat reservation chart, they put down a placard that's

reserved. one of them apparently has been reserved for preek fa regard a who was fired by president trump that can add a moment of drama to this. look at the crucial testimony, he details the moment in which the president told him he needed loyalty. the president said, i need loyalty, i expect loyalty. comey saying i didn't move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. that is a dramatic stare down in the greenroom inside the white house over dinner just comey and the president. and mark warner the top democrat on the committee has released an excerpt of his remarks and what he'll say to james comey. he says to james comey, i have never had any reason to question

your integrity, expertise or intelligence. you have been a straight shoot we are this committee and you have been willing to speak truth to power even at the risk of your career which makes the way in which you were fired by the president utterly shocking. we have asked the republicans on the committee to give us their statement as well. we haven't heard from the republicans yet. but we'll bring it to you as soon as we have it. back over to you. >> all right. i'll take it, eamon. thank you. we'll check in with you often as we know. let's get back to some corporate news. actually, very upbeat news at least if you're share owner of alibaba or any number of any e-commerce place. the shares itself, you can see they have been up -- even pore than that earlier. but up dramatically in the premarket. they delivered an upbeat guidance at the investor day in china. alibaba now seeing 2018 revenue up 45 to 49%. the analysts had been around -- in the mid 30s i think.

>> 14% higher. >> this is an incredible reacceleration of revenue growth for this company, jim. >> incredible. did you see when it was announced people were stunned. >> it's not having an impact not only on alibaba shares but yahoo shares. the yahoo is up at a new high i believe. but remember that plan to buy back stock as they get very close to the close of the sale of the core business to verizon and the creation of altaba which owns 15% of alibaba as the main asset. that's happening tomorrow on alibaba shares. remember, they set up a ratio between 0.37 to 0.42. and just the timing couldn't be more interesting. they're going to get hit without a doubt they're going to fill their tender now. may get extended a couple of days is what i'm hearing. by the way the shareholder vote on yahoo's deal is today. it will be of course in favor.

the deal will close next week, next friday is the last day of index trading before it gets dropped from the index. let's keep an eye on that. you have those who are short alibaba and locking in the spread between the shares that yahoo owns of alibaba and what they're actually worth in the open market. that's a big spread based on of course the discount for tax rate an a lot of other things. but people expect that will narrow over time. so they're playing that. today there's a bit of pain because alibaba shares are going up more than yahoo share. but that's all right. they're lokd in. >> let me -- pain today, but pleasure -- >> they think overall. >> agony then ecstasy? >> let's not forget i don't want to get town the weeds here on yahoo. alibaba reacceleration of growth. >> i don't think -- this is like walmart coming out and saying, we're going to do 2% comps we

are going to do much more than that. i think people are stunned because it says something about china. because the u.s. -- did you see the value for the u.s. did not go up. china and the ecosystem, david. remarkable. we have alibaba retail in china and we have nordstrom retail in the u.s. talk about the areas we did not expect upside from today. >> and there's a belief that the additional profits that will come with it will be plowed back to growing their "b" to "c" business. the analysts said that the largest e commerce platform should drive upward momentum in these shares and others. >> well, i mean, just to get perhaps to others so people get the whole thing. we did red fang on "mad money." we feel that -- most important ten cent, but doesn't trade here

and weebo. you will see those go up. jd is probably the best -- obviously it would be ten cent if they traded there. red fang just in case you were thinking -- >> not the band in portland. right? >> you know there's also apparently a volkswagen that's red fang. but i have -- what can i do? i can't patent it. i did not get credit for faang. i thought that was just fine. just fine. because you know what? you know how "the times" is doing. >> it's got the largest single increase in subscriptions. >> haven't you heard of twitter? >> when we come back, a lot more to get to, including the election in the uk. we'll go to london for a live report. of course we're counting down to james comey's capitol hill testimony. q&a with the senate intelligence committee. it was russia and comey and the president, all these leaks that led to the worst day of the year, may 17th. so we do expect it to perhaps move markets.

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you know by know the level of anticipation for the hearings at senate intelligence today with james comey on the hill.

but just to give you a sense of what the ion -- the lines are like to get into, we turn to ian mui. >> check out these lines here. it stretches out behind me from here in the senate office building into dirkson. people have been waiting in line for hours in order to get into this hearing. and it's one of the hottest tickets in washington. we are told that there will be several senators who will be attending the hearing even though they're not part of the senate intelligence committee. senator john mccain will be here asking questions of fbi -- former fbi director comey as well as senator jack reed. they're already letting people in here early even though typically it doesn't start until half an hour before this hearing. there's a lot of anticipation here, guys. people are waiting to get in.

>> a good reminder, ylan, senate judiciary, they may be weighing in today as well. ylan, we'll talk to you if a bit. voters in the poll in uk t general election, taking place ahead of the brexit talks. and wilfred frost has more on that. >> hey, carl, good morning to you. yeah, polls have been open here for around about seven hours. the letters themselves cast their votes some time ago. very early this morning. and this election campaign is really framed by a terrible campaign by the prime minister, theresa may who has seen the 20 point lead fall dramatically and jeremy corbyn capturing the imagination of many with such hard left points of view. but that slippage by may needs to be put into perspective. she given an eight point lead at 44% of the vote. the current conservative majority of 20 seats delivered

by david cameron in 2015 was achieved with a 4.5% and that's why people are confident that may does deliver another majority. on top of that n the last 48 hours she has turned things around a little bit. two days ago, the polls showed the lead at six points and now at eight points. if we look at the one-week chart of if british pound you will see there's correlation between may's performance improving and the pound improving. that is why in around eight hours' time, when the polls close an we get the -- and we get the first indication, the currency strategists expect the pound rise on a strong performance from theresa may and a pound fall if she does poorer than expected. guys? >> wilf, we'll be looking for those exit polls tonight and watching currencies in the meantime. wilfred frost in london.

we'll get cramer's "mad dash." we await the comey hearing. we're back in a moment. we created the ripple: the doughnut in a doughnut in a doughnut. right away, it was a success. i mean, it really took off. what people don't know is that it all started with points from my chase ink card. i bought the ingredients, utensils, even custom donut cutters. wow! all with 80,000 points. what will you create with your points? learn more about the ink business preferred card.

watching the arrivals, people are beginning to take their seats and the long line outside the senate select committee on intelligence. as james comey testifies before lawmakers today. we'll take it live, opening bell in 5 1/2 minutes. okay. got it.

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not bad. what's with the coffee maker? sorry. we are not on speaking terms. the opening bell is brought to you by brighthouse financial. established by metlife. >> all right. we're -- we have 2 1/2 minutes before we get to the opening bell. oil is down yet again. we want to keep people focused on that. but let's get to the "mad dash" here. we got hit with the important nordstrom news at the stop of the show. you want to call kohl's. >> there's companies that have

been very aggrieved at how their stock is trading. some people speak louder and some buy stock. kohl's have bought back 170 million shares in five years because they have an ongoing buy back. they felt their stock is undervalued. the cfo -- cfo of nordstrom, just retired. >> okay. >> he had been iron fisted in terms of being a fiduciary, trying not to -- he just retired. isn't that interesting that the non-nordstrom family member, cfo, tough guy, leaves. new cfo and bingo! so i'm staying focused on who feels that it's okay to go private, who is reserved. who is trying to keep cash. i think that kohl's are the ones that i thought was most likely to do it, not nordstrom. >> a couple of things on nordstrom, guys. i was able do a little bit of reporting. you know, this is early in the

process as 29% owners the family let's call it roughly that. they have got to notify the board and a special committee of the board has to be set up. they have done that. and i believe the nordstrom family -- i'm not sure who their adviser is may be moll es. oh there's the former u.s. attorney from the southern district of new york. attending the comey hearing. >> another man who thought he had the job, and didn't have the job. >> last night he tweets obstruction aside, it's never okay for a potus privately to ask the fbi director to drop a criminal investigation. extraordinary, wrong and dumb. his new found outspokenness. >> i don't know who can speak to whom. this retail is not a side show when it comes to our market. very important.

that group is the worst group. some the -- some of the guys are taking matters into their own hands. >> let's get the opening bell. the big board today, e.w. scripps celebrating the 2017 national spelling bee champion. ananya vinay. and then urogen, focused on urology treatments. retail has your attention. but is that private transactions big or small? >> well, look, the empire strikes back here. but david is right. this is the family business. most of the retailers are run by managers. we know that macy's didn't want to leave. we know that bed bath more family oriented has not levered up. they have been buying back. kohl's good balance sheet. macy's, a good balance sheet. but this is unique. because this family is fed up. they have to tell you over and over again, listen, we make

money. we're opening up a big store in new york. we have gained. stop it. but no one listens. and the quarter was supposed to be shortfall just so you know. >> it could be a moment to remember for retail. this is the moment at which at least the family doe sided to -- decided to step up. let's make sure people know, this morning nordstrom put out a press release, the family saying that in fact they are going to explore the possibility of pursuing a go private transaction under which they would buy the company. given all the different names here, and adding up at least according to fact set, they own around 29% of the equity of the company, but they clearly would have to borrow a lot of money to buy the rest that they don't own. they need to give preapproval to the board of directors to start this process. so that's what you're getting today. this is early. it's not as though they could do a lot of things. they need to get preapproval

based on stand still provisions and the board set up a special committee which in these cases will obviously negotiate with the family. and protect the rights and the fiduciary interests of -- >> why not just go private? why do they have to announce the committee? >> that's how you have to do it. >> okay. people at home -- i want them to know it doesn't mean they're going private. >> no, it does not. they're beginning -- we're going to see the process unfold here because they need to get preapproval from the board to buy any more stock and therefore they'd be buying all of it. 70% of. >> i give me a sense of how often you go to the committee and the committee will say, listen, this is not a good idea? >> no, the committee is going to negotiate with them. think dell. think dell. >> oh, okay. >> remember dell, michael dell trying to buy that company. special committee of the board of the directors. carl icahn says you're getting it too cheap. maybe he did. but that's the process we're talking about. >> wow.

i'll tell you this will be for -- you have to go balance sheet. who's been buying back stock. but the focus if you go over the last nordstrom quarter the last quarter was about profitability. a huge spend on e-commerce and how they're ready in the new word. they have been saying that for two years that they have been ready. and they have been missing quarter, missing quarter. so it's not like that nordstrom has been the retailer that is on fire. it is the one that the family has the most pride in. and when you sit down with them, they are saying, listen, who is our biggest enemy? the biggest enemy, amazon. they always talk about it. right down the road. why? because they have better customer service. they do rack -- rack doing very, very well. i think that this is a situation where literally they're tired of looking at what we see every day. every day we come in and we look at these stocks. and they have had enough. but mickey drexler had enough. >> yeah. that hasn't gone well.

at all. >> no. >> so i would say families want to put his money where his mouth is that fines -- that's fine. >> if you're a nordstrom shareholder, and they're willing to pay a premium, you may say sold to you, thank you very much. >> tell you this is a dicey thing if you're in the nordstrom family. this has only accelerated. amazon has only accelerated. >> well, to that point, after the alibaba numbers, jd and baidu doing well on the nas, along with leaders in macy's, kohl's and kors and ulta. >> well, kors, a terrible presentation. they're trying to be flat in 2018. well, that's like beer flat. their number's flat. >> talking tap -- the beer company. i can do kors -- i can do the

leather company. >> coors -- colorado coors. >> the coach deal, other retailers think that retail is too cheap. thing's a sense like the hoteliers universally came to me and you think that airbnb will wipe us out, that's nonsense. airbnb is 10% in new york, enough. we saw the core business. now will sears be up after a remarkable conversation with -- they have no plan -- >> former sears -- >> yeah. he's out big time. a professor at colombia. >> he's negative. >> lampert has no strategy to make the company profitable but there's very little common stock out. there everyone is running in fear -- there's a short squeeze on a lot of retailers. rth is not doing bad. i'm going to pose to you the biggest one of them all.

would the waltons ever say we have had enough too? >> no. . by the way, they own 50% but a market cap -- still, come on, you can't do it. >> is that bridge too far? >> yeah. go private when you own half of it, im's -- it's a bridge too far. the guys at jpmorgan might want to tell you differently. we can do $100 billion. >> what is being private allow them to do? other than stop having the losses, close stores more aggressively? >> that is a great question. because all their stores make money. i think what it does is allow them to do more spend if they have the cash flow on e com without hurting their earnings. one of the things that nordstrom felt awful about this, every time they spend to keep up with amazon the analysts hate them. what are you doing, why are they doing that? everybody feels like why are you spending, why are you spending? >> tell you, a big store right

here in -- >> here in new york. flagship store. i think they feel like, you know what -- >> still building it on 58th street. >> urban outfitters, just reported terrible numbers last night. >> yeah. >> fashion is -- we know style can always be in. fashion, david is fickle. >> it is apparently alibaba is not fickle when it comes to the chinese consumer. that stock is up 11%. yahoo shares are therefore up 8%. that's -- that is our big story of the morning. $340 billion market value on alibaba. that's far in of where it was that incredible day when it went public. and they haven't gotten started yet when they talk about health. when they talk about entertainment. when they see the ecosystem they're creating in terms how often their customers interact with them in so many ways on the site itself. >> machine learning. >> they're also in that. >> yes. fresh food. beauty.

mothers and babies. i mean, so many areas that when you speak to alibaba -- >> how about singles -- a big day for them? >> now with the revenue guidance, growth rate moved up to 45%. >> unbelievable. >> a lot of analysts had been mid 30s. they were stunned by that. >> i don't think they knew how strong their quarter was. geerg to cut to -- we're going to cut to comey, aren't we? >> no. we're going santelli. >> okay i wanted to talk about nvidia. >> we want to talk about the bond markets. and rick santelli is at the cme. no, rick -- okay. rick, i guess we'll come back to you in a bit. i was told -- >> i'm here. >> there he is. >> he's in. >> all right, rick, go ahead. >> listen, i'm sorry, i was reading some of the final comments with mario draghi to

make the long and short of it, taking out a few words. maybe the longevity, the horizon of keeping rates low. word changes and with respect to the portfolio in qe maybe a little more hawkish. but if we look at the two-day of tens we could see our tens moved up. one week of tens, they have generally moved up. if you look at one week of bunds this is big time. dropped rather substantially. one week of the two year shots it's moved down substantially. the markets are telling you everything you need to know. the difference between the two widening there's your opportunity. either our yields are going to come down or theirs are going up. because most likely it's not going up to 200, but back into the 180s so say traders. finally, foreign exchange we could see that the euro has lost some ground. but not a lot. and the dollar index even though it's up a quarter of a cent still well off on the year considering it closed at 102.20. back to you guys. >> thank you very much, rick

santelli. really quick on draghi, jim, what did you hear out of him today? >> i thought once again, i thought he would be talking about strength in the economy. but he talks about no inflation. you know, kind of an ideal world. to me i think he's playing the game all they ever cared about in europe since the 1920s, as long as there's no inflation, we can keep pedal to the metal. that's what i heard. i didn't hear end of accommodation. they're worried about inflation. you know what t italian two year is in a race to 2%. can you imagine? 2.21. with the government that may be shaky, okay? with the possibility that they may leave the euro with the slowest growth in europe. how do they -- the third biggest bond market. this is insane. it's insane. insane that you can have these rates. that's why you look at our rates. you say do i want to be an italian ten year 2.21 or us?

>> is the two or ten year? >> ten year. i look at this and i say, come on, there's money in italy and that money in italy should hedge the dollar and buy here. >> we should touch on oil. >> oil. >> 45 and change. >> going to 43. >> after one of the biggest builds ever. 3.3 -- >> i think it bottoms. because at 43 a lot of the permian it's not profitable. >> today, the forecast is cut to 42. >> 2018, that's going to be harder because schlumberger says that's when the oil runs out. the yield -- the curve out five years is right here. it's actually a little higher, but not much. oil is a terrible glut. but at 43, remember, we'll see a drop-off in the rig count. we will see less -- remember, they drill. they just won't pump. oh, my god, i think we have to

go to washington. oh, man. >> james comey has arrived at hart building 216 as the senate select committee on intelligence hearing is about to begin in about 20 minutes. we begin our special coverage now. we have all the bases covered this morning. eamon javers and ylan mui on capitol hill and john harwood is in washington. eamon, we'll begin with you. it is seth it up for -- it is. set it up for us. >> the big question is whether comey will say what he saw in terms of his president amounted to obstruction of justice or not. but in the q&a section we should get into the smaller issues. senators will have a lot of opportunity to question comey here. i'm wondering about a couple of things. the president told james comey, we shared that thing, you know, when he was saying that he was being loyal to comey. that comey doesn't explain what the president meant by that thing. i would imagine that some senators will be curious and want to know what that thing

meant. comey says that the president asked him if an open investigation. he says he didn't have an open investigation into the president personally. he said that was for a number of reasons. one of the reasons was because it would create a duty to go back and correct the record if in fact they did open the investigation. but i think senators will also want to know what the number of reasons were, why the fbi did not have an open investigation into president trump at that time. then of course so much of this is about the atmospherics. all the senators sitting on the dias know this hearing is being broadcast on all three national broadcast networks. it's one of the biggest audiences they'll have ever had in their political lives as well as comey in his life as a law enforcement official. all of them know that in some senses their legacies, what they're known for around the world and in history are at stake today. >> thank you for that. joining us morning, sara fagen of course, veteran of the bush white house.

sarah, good to have you with us. >> good morning. >> couple of things. one -- the rnc was using excerpts of the comey memo in the president's defense and this morning, lindsey graham said that mueller wouldn't allow him to appear if obstruction was in the cards. are we done having that conversation? >> i don't think we're done having it. but the silver lining, it does appear that comey did in fact -- at least intimate that trump wasn't under investigation. certainly wasn't a target of the investigation. and so in that regard, it's good news for the president. but the fact that we're sitting here having this conversation, the overarching day going to be bad for trump. the question is can he just let today ride out, get through a few bad press days and move forward with his agenda or does he make it worse and the fact that bob mueller is investigating the whole russian

affair including president trump, is probably because -- probably because donald trump couldn't keep his mouth shut. >> we're told there's -- nbc has learned that there is the possibility comey goes beyond what's written in his memo. if you're asking questions today, where do you go? are you more interested in what apparently a satellite associate means? where do you go? >> well, i think you want to find out a couple of things. you want to find out, you know, not only, you know, what mr. comey said and if in fact mr. comey, you know, knows with certainty that's what donald trump's intentions were. which i think going to be a big part of this investigation. what was donald trump's intention? you want to find out if there's more questions that need to be asked and particularly of donald trump and other trump associates. i think also something eamon said a few moments ago about we

shared that thing and what is the thing? and what does mr. comey think the thing is? i wondered if it was the event where he had many of the fbi agents over. if somehow he had been loyal to mr. comey because he did an event at the white house for members of the fbi and other law enforcement officials but there's big question around that. >> yeah. there's a difference, jim and david, between what one feels a thing is, and what the intent of saying a thing is. as we learned from yesterday's testimony. >> you said -- at the top you said the right thing. the republicans are going to find that -- what it was nuanced that says that comey didn't do anything. that comey did not try to influence trump. i mean, trump did not try to shake down -- >> in other words, you're back in your developer talking to the zoning official mode of thinking. >> exactly. that's what's going to come out. but it's going to dribble over time. i'm sorry i -- i was frantically

trying to get to this nordstrom story, because it was so important for us. but that plays out. that's the end game. i mean, we have to go all the way through every bit. the mueller -- >> it's been going on for a long period of time. >> you remember how long it took for president clinton to be cleared. >> yeah. >> it was with us forever. >> on that front, sara, i mean, some have tried to argue this morning that investigations like these are generally second term narratives. i mean, at least post midterm narratives. >> yes. >> this is going to be with us for a while. >> this going to be with us for a while and the challenge for donald trump with many of these prosecutors -- i know this having lived through both terms of the bush administration and having had to go testify before congress. which is that they start out often as one question. and then all of a sudden they grow. and they grow. and if you're a prosecutor, it

doesn't often look good, even though it should to get to the truth, but it doesn't look good if you end up with nothing to show for all of the time that you have invested in the investigation. they want to find wrongdoing. and that's a real problem in the justice system and a problem for anybody in the trump administration. this is likely to have more tentacles and ensnare more people, just based on past history. >> sara, as you're joining us, we talked to chris rucker, former fbi associate director. chris, good to have you on the show. welcome back. >> good morning. >> so what are you listening for today having obviously digested the memo like the rest of us? >> sure. i mean, the obvious elephant in the living room here is if former director comey thought this was an attempt to obstruct the or if he thought the president was leaning on him and using his leverage as his boss so to speak to get him to stop

the investigation, then why didn't he recuse himself and have either his other executives at the bureau make a decision as to opening up the inquiry or refer it over to the department of justice for the same thing. if anybody knew what obstruction looks like it's people at the fbi. >> so you believe comey's credibility is sort of on trial here because on the one hand, it's being attacked in some circles. on the other, he did in fact back up the president's story that he was not under current investigation. >> he sure did. i think what i saw with all of the verbiage in his opening statement was someone who is trying to hang on to his job. i really felt like he was parsing words throughout the whole -- all of these conversations and i want to know why he didn't make that referral. i suspect or i have a notion that he was simply trying to protect his job.

>> yeah, it's a delicate -- >> sara, go ahead. >> that was a delicate position. i think part of the question donald trump is going to probably ultimately going to have to answer is was it appropriate to even ask these questions of the fbi director? and was in fact he trying to intimate that he would lose his job if he didn't -- not in fact clear donald trump's name and that could present a real problem for donald trump legally. >> really? because you used the word inappropriate. not illegal. >> well, right. and therein lies the question. is -- did he fire him because he was under investigation? or did he fire him because he thought he wasn't -- you know, acting up to par in his job. and if he fired him because of the investigation and somehow there's e-mail -- by the way at some point the white house e-mails are likely to start getting dumped out into the

open. and justice e-mails. so are there intimations or conversations that people are claiming that the president had with them? we're in the very early stages of this investigation. >> yeah. seeing some more rivals, marco rubio among them. committee member. john harwood, nbc is reporting that bharara's reserved seat is courtesy of chuck schumer. >> well, he was told he'd be keeping his job and then he was fired by the president and then bharara had jurisdiction over the actions of the trump administration. if james comey's testimony is accurate, it's obvious that the president was trying to influence the investigation. now, whether that amounted to criminal obstruction of justice,

that's a legal question. on the political side though, this is something that members of congress are going have to interpret. and, you know, for most of the hearing, you're going to see democratic senators acting as the prosecutors and republican senators acting as the defense attorneys. but look to see whether there are republicans who have a different tone in their conversations to indicate that their support is weakening for president trump. you know t -- it's one thing to have the news reports about what james comey said that president trump had done. it's another level as we saw yesterday to see printed with the president's own words and then the question today is how much pop is there to seeing james comey discuss it directly? one of the things that has surfaced here, we have the ability to compare to what president trump did in james

comey's version to what president nixon did. remember what triggered nixon's resignation at the end, he had told his chief of staff in a recorded conversation that was released, he should tell the cia to tell the fbi to drop the watergate investigation. three days after that tape recording came out, richard nixon resigned. in this case, if comey's testimony is accurate, the president told the fbi director directly to -- or requested that the fbi director directly drop that investigation of michael flynn. that's something serious and you could tell yesterday that senators took the revelation seriously. >> jim, on that point, to john's point right now, nixon was doing a -- an evaluation of his political capital at the time. which some argue is nowhere near what -- trump is much higher -- >> goldwater turned against

nix nixon. there's no comparison. this was a major -- goldwater said he had to go. goldwater was the most important republican in -- maybe the most important senator. no. i think -- let's get -- >> but jim, that's the question. jim, that's the question is whether or not we -- you know, barry goldwater only did that two years into the watergate investigation. we are as sara indicated a while ago, we're get going on this. the question isn't have key republicans turned against the president now. the question is what plays out over the next few months, and sometimes support holds for a long time. and then the bottom drops out. don't know if that's going to happen. but it could. >> no, it's true. i'm just trying to put some realism -- it took forever. took many years before goldwater broke. >> two years. >> i just wanted to remember the time frame. i mean, it's true, nixon did not go -- remember, he did not want to go and fire the fbi director. two people who wouldn't do it,

the october massacre, he got bork to do it. that was a time ago. i want to put in perspective we're not as close to impeachment or guilty or whatever. i have to put some perspective on this thing, because having lived through watergate we're not there yet that's a very dicey analogy, okay? very dicey. >> well, the president's party controls congress or the one thing. >> yes. >> the dow is down, down 11. we hit a nasdaq record high. joining us this morning as well, former florida democratic governor bob graham. governor, good to have you with us this morning. thanks for joining us. >> thank you very much for the invitation. >> if you were on the committee today, what's your mission this morning? >> my mission would be to try to see what is the hard evidence that the president's words were intended to influence the actions of the fbi.

was this more than just a conversation between the chief executive and one of his employees or was this an effort to get that employee in this case the director of the fbi to take actions that would be beneficial personally to the president. >> and does the memo lead you one direction or the other? >> the memo i think to me seems to tilt towards the fact that the president was thinking about the president. his statements in the memos of mr. comey as well as what we know about for instance the conversation that took place with the russians in which the president allegedly said that he was relieved that now this case was behind him and that the fbi was not going to be further investigating the russians.

>> senator graham, jim cramer. i covered you when i was at tallahassee democrat in the 19 0s. know you're a straight shooter. does it matter that he doesn't know the lingo, does that play in favor of him? do me favor, flynn's solid. because he doesn't speak the language that you do, that you knew even from the '70s. does it matter how -- that his language isn't the same as a typical politician? >> no, i don't think it matters. the question is, what was in his mind, what was he intending to do? whatever choice of words that he happened to select to convey that is only relevant insofar as it speaks to what his intention was. in some ways the fact that he wasn't a politician, wasn't a lawyer. was speaking plainly is maybe even more important and

suggestive of what his real intentions were. >> okay, so let me make sure. what you're saying is that -- almost because he's a neophyte he didn't know the law. he didn't know what was right and that that cuts against him. because he simply tried to bully. and you can't bully the fbi director. >> i mean, he spoke the plain talk of a real estate guy who was used to making deals, dealing one-on-one with subcontractors and in some ways that very fact i think makes his statements more of an insight into what was going on in his mind, what his intentions were than if he had fancy or legal or political terms. >> chris swecker, let's talk about comey for a moment. we know his bio, obama nominee.

general counsel at lockheed martin and the journal today takes him to task for the history of breaking fbi protocol that's one reason they argue his firing was deserved no matter what you think of the president's intention. do you agree? >> there's no question that he did break protocol. look, i know jim comey, i've worked with him on a number of matters when i headed up the fbi's criminal division. he was a deputy attorney general he would not have allowed a director or an assistant director to talk about an ongoing investigation and then render a decision on that investigation. that's just not the way it's written up. in 25 years in the fbi, i never saw that happen. so it was a clear deviation from established rules and procedures and protocols and then he got on the slippery slope of confirming some investigations and not others. i hesitate to say this, but i

think maybe a bit of hubris crept in there because his explanation was that the department of justice could not make a decision because the attorney general was compromised. however, there's a number two or three that you can recuse down to do make those decisions. >> so you think -- >> could i ask, what's the relevance of comey's previous behavior in the private practice or as director of the fbi to the question of what was the intent of the president when he used those words and made those requests of mr. comey? it seems to me that that's the issue. if the question is was there an effort made to obstruct justice. >> that's for me, i think you have to read the obstruction of justice statute. yeah, his past history not relevant to all of the communications that he had with the president that we're talking about here. but if you ever