counsel if the deputy attorney general fails to do the right thing and appoint a special prosecutor. >> senator, i don't have to tell you, there are five congressional investigations into this, whether or not the trump team had ties to russia. you sit on one of those committees. so what's the point? i mean, what is the point of having all of these congressional committees if you are basically saying they're toothless and that the only way to proceed here is by changing the law somehow. and you would have to have the president sign off on that and creating a new special prosecutor or having rod rosen stein who you don't have faith in, you didn't vote for appoint somebody. >> first and your question is very well taken. the congressional committee can hold hearing, produce reports and possibly write new legislation. but they cannot bring criminal charges. and what i hear from people around connecticut is they want the truth uncovered and they want accountability. they want people who broke the

law by aiding the russians in their attack on our election system to be held responsible in court. and there is ample evidence involving roger stone, paul manafort, carter page that trump associates may well have been involved in colluding with the russians. and, so, what's needed is accountability. the grand jury is working. the fbi is doing its job. what's needed now is a leader and i emphasize insulated and protected from the president of the united states who may be a target here by a clear mandate, a written mandate from ron rosen stein, the deputy attorney general, saying you do the work. i'm going to protect you. >> do you think it is possible that rudy giuliani or chris cristie could be the new head of the fbi? >> predicting what the president

of the united states will do is among the host hazardous activities in washington, d.c. these days. but i hope not because they bring political baggage, for lack of a better word, that would severely undermine their credibility with the american public. it should be someone who has been above politics, unquestionably credible. someone of unimpeachable integrity and excellence and also a background in the criminal justice system who knows how to make judgments about whether to bring charges. and that's a difficult set, but i do think it is possible. and by the way, i really do believe that my colleagues, republican as well as democrat, want this constitutional crisis faced in a bipartisan way. we are going to be coming together i hope in a way that makes america better and prouder. >> that would certainly be nice. senator, do you believe that

former fbi director james comey will still show up to testify on capitol hill tomorrow as was already scheduled. he was going to be talking more about this on thursday. >> i wish i knew. i don't. i hope that he does because the public deserves an explanation from him as to what he thinks happened here. and james comey is the one who can best illuminate what any exchanging were between him and the president. i severely doubt that the president was informed in any authoritative way, that he was not, quote, "under investigation" potentially because the associates now under investigation could well have information implicating him and the way investigations go. they are a series of points and

witnesses and potential individual defendants in a chain that ultimately may lead to the top. >> senator, thank you very much for your reaction to this big breaking news this morning. thanks so much for being here. >> thank you. >> we've gotten the word from the white house. we have now seen where the democrats heads are. let's bring in the panel and see where that leads us. cnn legal analyst jeffrey due bin is with us all morning, chris cillizza, phillip mud and douglas brinkley. a point we have been coming back to a lot is the second paragraph in this letter, maybe the best window into the motives and problems in separating the executives have an investigation thereof with respect to russia. kellyanne wanted to distract and say it doesn't say in there the president asked him any questions, just that the fbi communicated to the president three different times that he w wasn't under investigation.

now, we're assuming this is true. you take issue with that because you don't think james comey would have these discussions. but, again, isn't this something that has to be reconciled? >> it is so -- the level of impropriety is so great at so many different levels. if the conversation took place as the president describes it in this letter, it is completely inappropriate because he should not be discussing a pending investigation with the person who is in charge of that investigation. that is a bedrock principal of the division of labor within the executive branch. on the other hand, if -- the fact that he fired comey in the midst of an investigation that obviously touched on president trump, that in itself is so wildly inappropriate. and his letter is like a confession because he acknowledges in that paragraph

that he is a part of an investigation that the fbi is involved in. i mean, it is like the operation of a guilty conscious. >> and, phil, that brings us to you. this is one of the burning questions americans have as they wake up this morning is what does this mean for the investigation? you know the fbi well. you served there. how do the good men and women of the fbi continue in their investigation with james comey gone and what if a president trump loyalist becomes the head of the fbi. >> how do you allow the fbi, not the sitting director -- i'll comment on him in a moment. how do you allow a new fbi director to participate in this investigation? that person would be loyal, i presume to the attorney general. it argues you have to move this out. but the investigators are dogs with a bone. interviews, investigations of financial ties to russia, travel

to russia, anything inappropriate, if you think they will operate differently today than they did yesterday, that ain't how the fbi operates. the second thing i'll say and finally is andy mckab, the acting director, don't write this guy off. very smart guy, very centered, very solid, believe or not someone you'd want to have a beer with. if you think he's going to roll over because there is pressure from the white house, that is not andy mckab. >> his wife ran as a democrat as kellyanne said. he is a decisive leader. she got caught up when i was saying to her but why now? she said why not? you know, that's a clever little semantic device, but it doesn't work well here because the why not is because you are under investigation by the same guy. >> right, right. you see time and again in the interview with kellyanne, sean spicer, it was a decisive action

by a decisive leader. but if that's true, and, you know, i think that's open to discussion, you need to provide the back story here. from what i can tell of the time line, ron rosen stein went and did this review on his own, not at the direction of jeff session, did it on his own, handed it to sessions on tuesday. sessions sent it to the president and then he was fired. it seems a little odd, given all of the underlying context here. the fact that the clinton investigation was wrapped up effectively july 5th. then reopened. donald trump praised james comey for having in his words the guts to reopen it. he said that on halloween 2016. it just doesn't really all add up or line up. if it was decisive, why not do it january 21st? if your issue was the clinton

investigation, decisive action would have been the day you get in, the day after, a week after. you said james comey served admirably, but the way he handled this lost the trust of me and the fbi and he needs to go. doing it now in the way that -- in a two-week review by a guy who's been on the job two weeks doesn't feel like it was properly -- i hate to say the word properly vetted but that the information gathering process worked the way it should. >> doug, as you know people are likening this bombshell to what happened during the saturday night mas masker. >> it does ring the bell when archibald got fired. but we had two patriots, and both of them resigned. and it started to become the

beginning of the end for nixon. the problem we have right now is where are the republican party. the republican party as a whole is not really serious about investigating this because it doesn't work well for their agenda. they don't want to hear paul manafort, carter page, michael fly flynn. the republican party has been playing ostrich for this. we are getting break out stars from the republican bench. richard burr yesterday questioning this. the senator from arizona questioning it. john mccain i think will come public in a forceful way. but the gof needs like a gang of eight or ten republican senators to say enough is enough. we need a special prosecutor. we need to look at this and get to the bottom of it with an independent counsel. after after, it was barry goldwater who told nixon to his face, i'm not going to damage my

reputation for you. we need to see more profiles encouraged coming out to of the republican party right now. >> yes, there has been so much dissembling, so much prevarication out of the white house that it is easy to call it into question. on its face, the timing doesn't make sense. if you are upset about the clinton investigation, you would have done it at jump. you had every reason to do it. everybody would have expected you to do it. and by the way, he is an obama appointee. the timing. take us through here. the guy has been on the job two weeks. that's right. he's only been there two weeks. the inspector general is doing the same investigation. you don't wait for it. you have no one lined up to take the job. >> and i think the dates on the memos are significant. you know, everything is dated

yesterday. so according to kellyanne ckocoy yesterday, the president made a considered judgment based on the conclusion of rod rosen stein. rod rosen stein sent him a memo yesterday. >> that's right. >> and he was fired yesterday. >> rosen stein, who doesn't even know. they weren't even saying his name right. >> that's completely implausible. the idea that somehow he handed him the memo in the morning and jim comey was fired at 5:00 in the afternoon, that's not how human beings work. >> by the way, jeff, to your point, trump said that -- the reporting is trump didn't know the memo was being written. so the first he would have been aware of it is tuesday. sorry to interrupt you. >> explain it. then what is this timing? >> i mean, i don't know. you know, the kellyanne conway, the why not argument, she's right in that he's the president

of the united states. he can make decisions when he wants. but if you want this to not be linked to russia, which kellyanne conway says cnn all you do is talk about russia, well, then you can't do it -- doing it now without any seeming other trigger or news that would make this happen, how can you not draw the conclusion? remember, again, jeff sessions, the attorney general, recused himself from this investigation, putting james comey in charge of the russian investigation because in his confirmation hearings in the senate he did not properly disclose two meetings he had with sergey kisly kislyak. it's very difficult for me to believe that someone who is as focussed on perception and focussed on how things look that donald trump and his

administration would not grasp it is impossible to extricate this firing from the russia investigation. no reasonable person -- forget partisanship. >> a deputy a.g. who is cited in the memo who worked for bush 41, his last name is aires says the reasoning is a sham that came out here in terms of saying this is why you fired him. you talk about the good men and women working at the fbi, but they take their direction from the top. if you want to talk about something that may corrode or corrupt belief in your director, whoever comes in now, what a tall task the president has put upon them to win over their people. >> that's true. you have a couple of options. you mentioned, for example, rudy gud yanny. i'll throw a friend of mine under the bus, john pistol. if you pick somebody like rudy ghoul yeahny, someone who went

over the edge after he lost the mayor ship and he became trump's man and later in some statements became unhinged, i think that would not only corrupt the investigation, that would corrupt the sense that the fbi operating independently from the white house. let me be clear here, i don't think the president just exercised bad judgment. i think he's a coward. if you are going to fire somebody with some experience, pick up the damn phone. if you are going to fire somebody when you get a memo in the morning, don't tell me the memo is the cause of the firing. the president acted cowardly in this case. he should have had the courtesy an the humanity to fire a man who's done great service despite the mistakes he's made. >> what phil is referring to is the fact that james comey was caught so unaware. he was in los angeles. he was in front of i believe a room of agents. he was giving a speech. he saw across the room on i believe cnn, the television was on, and it said fbi director

james comey fired. and it was so absurd that he wouldn't have been given a head's up and that he didn't see this coming that he said, that's a funny prank that you all are pulling on me. he had to be pulled aside to say, no, that actually happened. >> that's right. but it was why design. we were wondering about timing. president trump wanted comey out of washington. he didn't want him in delaware or maryland. he wanted him all the way across the coast in california. do the firing when he's out there. that gives them 24 hours to rifle through comey's office. he was left, you know, unarmed with documents that he might need. they were purposefully trying to wait to get comey way, way away. and i agree with what phil mudd said completely. this is the guy america vested in as a tv icon for saying you are fired to your face. there was some very face to face about it. here is a snibling, weezing way.

i think donald trump has lost a lot of his mystique by doing it that way. >> you don't have to view the president negatively to view the situation negativity. if it is going to be a decisive action, you should have somebody to replace him as soon as you make the move and as far as we know that ain't the case. gentlemen, appreciate it. coming up, we will talk to senator lindsey graham and alberto gonzalez. >> the president is set to meet with russia's top diplomat at the white house just hours from now. cnn has that angle. she's live at the state department with us. what do we know, michelle? >> blunt, broad and business-like. that's what the state department expects from these meetings. they're not talking about what kind of specific progress they expect to be made. but for president trump, of course, this is a precurser to

the eventual trump-putin meeting that could happen as early as this summer. the timing, though, another strange back droup. if you remember the last time tillerson met with them last month in moscow that was after the aftermath of that horrible attack in syria. russia slammed the u.s.'s strikes on a syrian airfield saying that was an act of aggression and a violation of international law. then they had this tense press conference. huge difference of opinion over syria's role in that chemical attack, as well as russia's role in the meddling in the u.s. presidential election. here they are again to again try to find some common ground. we expect syria to dominate this discussion. there is a russian backed plan to establish safe zones. but the state department says tillerson will bring up the fact that russia is still in ukraine

and this was never not going to be a difficult conversation. chris? >> all right, michelle. they had enough on the table already before the whole comey situation. it will be interesting to see how it's dealt with and how the press deals with the aftermath of this meeting as well. the white house defending the president, of course, saying that this is a decisive action, that it was done with deliberation and it is proper. so is it? let's get some perspective from former attorney general alberto gonzalez next. we're on to you, diabetes. time's up, insufficient prenatal care. and administrative paperwork... your days of drowning people are numbered. same goes for you, budget overruns. and rising costs, wipe that smile off your face. we're coming for you, too. for those who won't rest until the world is healthier, neither will we. optum. how well gets done.

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sglrchlts more on breaking news. president trump on the defensive this morning over his abrupt firing of fbi director james comey. the president said the democrats have said the worst things about james comey, including the fact he should be fired. but now they play so sad. >> good morning. >> i like that energy, jeffrey. and i'll get to you in one second. karen, you have just heard kellyanne conway on our air and certainly the president. you democrats should be happy. you don't like james comey. look at what he did to hillary clinton. you should be applauding this. >> so i guess that means that president trump is also of the mind and convinced that the comey letter, 11 days out, may have swayed the election in his direction. i assume he shares the same

concern since he's so concerned about the way former fbi director comey handled things. nobody believes this is really about hillary clinton. i mean, when you consider the timing of this. and i don't just mean, you know, the yates testimony, which was i think devastating for the trump administration, but also as cnn has reported, we know that there are, you know, other investigations that are making progress, the senate i believe has asked for additional financial information. and just this week you had trump trying to retract statements he mad made a couple of years ago about the cash flow from the russians or russia to creating golf courses. to clearly the more this investigation -- the longer this investigation goes on, the more is revealed. and, so, the timing is very problematic. i didn't hear kellyanne -- i know she tried to say well why not now. again, i think that's cute.

but that doesn't really answer the question. >> let's talk about that, jeffrey. do you think this is connected to the fact that sally yates talked about the fact she had tried to warn the white house about michael flynn? do you think this is connected to the russia investigations? >> no. i think this is connected to that letter from rod rosen stein, who is the deputy attorney general and is a former obama appointee as u.s. attorney for maryland. look, if you are the president of the united states, nobody seems to be thinking this, if you are the president of the united states and particularly this one who comes out of the world not of the swamp of washington or the legal profession, et cetera, but is an entrepreneur with no background in this and you get a letter like that from a prosecutor that says this guy has got to go and you sit there and don't do it, can you imagine the field day, if that eventually became public, that he got this advice and he didn't do it?

>> okay. go ahead, karen. >> the problem that i have with that is particularly those core paragraphs that kellyanne was so fashion passionately talking about, part of that references our campaign and there were quotations in there from eric holder. i mean, so the point being, i mean, so they're using, you know, sort of people who were defending hillarhillary, all of was out there by october. so these arguments were being made at the very same time donald trump was pushing back against those arguments, suggesting particularly once that letter came out, you know, he kind of took up for jim comey when so many people were questioning the timing. but here is the thing. i would just say if this is truly about restoring confidence, then the only thing to do is to restore the special prosecutor statute.

because that is the only way to ensure that there is an independent investigation. if it's really about restoring confidence. >> that's not so. >> we've heard a lot of lawmakers calling for that this morning. they want a body that is truly independent, that can't be intimidated or affected by the president. so why isn't that the answer? >> i would go with a 9/11 style commission. special prosecutors, as i would think that we have all learned by now, get out of control. i would love to hear hillary clinton's take on hiring another ken star. i mean -- >> i say that as somebody who went through that, by the way? >> i'm sorry? >> i say that as somebody who was working in the clinton administration during that time. >> i mean, is that a fair assessment? >> go ahead, jeffrey. >> i mean, i just think get a prosecutor out of it. get a 9/11 commission with

prominent republicans and democrats. people like condoleezza rice who was just on your show. get her on there. get the democrat equivalence of them and have them open this up and investigate everything. i would like to hear president obama testify on leaks. i would like to hear ben roads testify on links. >> i don't. >> there are stories out there. >> we know that you guys and the republicans some certainly the trump administration is more focussed on the leaks than it appears much of the ties were. >> do it all. >> fair it up. that's what you're calling for. are you saying, jeffrey, you have lost faith in the fbi to investigate this? >> no. i think the problem was with director comey. the fbi is a ma'am mouth institution. it will go on and survive and prosper. but i do think that the white house, i heard speaker gink rich saying this earlier today, i think the white house should instead of all due respect to my friend kellyanne and others, they should put the deputy attorney general out there and

have him answer questions from the white house press core directly. >> i would love to talk to him, you're right. go ahead, karen. >> it certainly raises the question and this is about who president trump will nominate. part of what makes this so disruptive in terms of the administration, to do this before the internal investigation has been completed seems odd and to do this without having at least a couple of names that you could put out there other than rudy ghoul yu that you could put out as the kind of person you would want to restore credibility. the trend we have seen from donald trump is that people who tell him things he doesn't like or that won't kind of just pump up his egothe end the end to g.

>> less than five seconds, jeffrey. who do you think the president will install as the head of the fbi? >> somebody like ray kelly comes to p mind, the former police commissioner of new york. but it has to be a serious professional and i would love to see rod rosen stein sit there with you and chris and answer questions. >> thank you. so would we. thank you very much for the debate. >> joining us now is alberto gonzalez. he was mentioned in rod rosen stein's letter about james comey. he is currently the dean at belmont university college of law and the author of "true faith and allegiance, a story of service and sacrifice in war and peace." sir, always a pleasure to have you on new day. >> it is always a pleasure to be with you. >> your baseline reaction? >> i was surprised. obviously there are serious questions about the timing and i think the white house ohs the

american public an explanation of why now. and quite frankly, if this firing was intended to intimidate or interfere with the ongoing russian investigation, i think that is terribly wrong and there needs to be -- there needs to be a full accounting and a full explanation of the reasons why. i know rod rosen stein, he was one of my u.s. attorneys. i have a great deal of faith in him. i have in issues with him coming out and speaking to the press and providing a full explanation of the reasons. but the timing is so strange. i have heard other guests on your show talking about the way in which this was carried out with jim comey out on the west house. very unprofessional and i think that was unfortunate the way the white house handled this. >> on the beautiful green behind you, you have all these law students. if they were presented with a hypothetical in class, if the attorney general has recused himself with any matter having to do with the russian

investigation and he then is seen as part of the process of removing the director of the fbi who was investigating russian connections, is that a proper move? they would all answer it is improper. how can jeff sessions be involved with the move to remove comey, especially now? >> well, of course, the fact that jeff sessions recuses himself from a particular investigation doesn't mean that he removes himself from complete oversight of the rest of the department. and so his involvement -- i'd be very curious to know in fact how much was he involved in this discussion and in this decision. typically what would happen here is the attorney general would check with itices individuals within the department of justice and get guidance as to whether it would be appropriate to weigh in on a particular matter. that may have happened here. that may not have happened here. so again a lot of unanswered questions about what may have occurred here. but let me just say this. i think the american people

should really believe this. and this is what i truly believe. we're going to find out what happened with respect to russia. it is going to either be through the fbi. it is either going to be through the congress and/or through the media. this has elevated the stakes here. so if the purpose of this firing was to stop an investigation, i think it is going to have just the opposite effect. >> i want to show you this paragraph in the letter from the president. can we put it up on the screen again? while i greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that i am not under investigation, i nevertheless concur with the judgment of the department of justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau. the idea that the director of the fbi would have those kinds of communications with a sitting president, have you ever heard of that before? >> it would be inappropriate. and i found the inclusion of that language very, very strange. and again, raising even more questions about the motivation about what happened here. there is still a lot of

unanswered questions. it could be the white house was simply incompetent in the way this was rolled out. so we need to find out what happened here. what was the real motivation? because obviously the timing has really raised some serious questions about what is really going on here. >> by their own reckoning, two weeks rosen stein has been on. this is not about assailing or assessing his credibility. two weeks he's been on. and for some reason he decides that his first official act should be a review of james comey, supposedly unsolicited. our reporting from white house sources was it was solicited. he was asked to do this. jeff sessions was involved with this. the president was looking for reasons to get rid of comey and they were tasked with finding them. but to think he takes over this oversight position at the same time he knows the i.g. is looking at the exact same thing and turns out a two page report and the president acts on it immediately when it took him 18

days to move on michael flynn despite the fact that the acting a.g. came with dispositive proof of their concerns of potential blackmail. does that make sense? does it add up? >> listen, if the deputy attorney general is asked or directed by the attorney general or the white house to give an assessment of the performance of james comey, you are going to do that. >> sure you are. but would you do that first if you weren't asked? does it sound like a reasonable initial undertaking when you know the i.g. is looking at the same thing? >> well, now you're asking me to get into the head of the deputy attorney general. from my perspective, early on, knowing there is an ongoing investigation by the i.g., i might prefer to wait. but there might be other reasons that might have motivated the deputy attorney general to make this review on his own. but again i just don't know all the facts here. >> and would you remove somebody like the director of the fbi

without having somebody ready to replace them if you wanted this to be a decisive action. >> yes, i would. if in fact you believe it is the right thing to do for the department, if that's the real motivation here, absolutely. because the department is structured like every other agency, to move forward and to continue its work on behalf of the american people without the top political head. so absolutely, yes. if that's the right thing to do, if it's a necessary thing to do, yes, you should go ahead and do it. >> thank you very much for your perspective. appreciate it. breaking news, secretary of state rex tillerson meeting with russia's top diplomat at the state department right now. let's listen in. >> i want to welcome the foreign minister to the state department and express my appreciation for him making the trip to washington so that we could continue our dialogue and our exchanges that began in moscow,

the dialogue he hosted on a very broad range of topics. >> does the comey cast a shadow of your talks, gentlemen? >> you're kidding. you're kidding. >> okay. a little russian humor there. >> i don't know if that was a joke or what. that's the foreign minister. he looked back at the reporters who were asking about the impact of james comey's dismissal on this meeting saying, you're kidding. >> he was feigning ignorance, i believe, about that. so he said nothing. and rex tillerson has earned a reputation for never speaking at these photo ops. but he did very briefly acknowledge it. >> again, the idea of the russian foreign minister making jokes about the fbi director being gone all related to this

russian interference that literally sent an election and now our democratic process into chaos. the irony should not be lost on any of you. >> so republicans are not on the same page. senate lindsey graham backs the president's decision and he joins us next.

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♪ you're only a day away. we are joined now by senator lindsey graham. good morning, senator. >> good morning. >> do you support president trump's firing of director comey and the way he did it? >> yeah. i mean, it's his right to do so. i think director comey is a fine man, but democrats called for his removal about two to three, four weeks ago and now he's gone and we get a chance to pick on a new director that hopefully we can all agree is above reproach. >> you heard president trump say during the campaign that he liked what director comey did. >> yeah, i saw that, yeah. >> i'm sure you did. so does the timing of this give

you any pause given that of course the fbi, we know is investigating the trump team's ties to russia? >> the one thing i could tell you without any hesitation is that the fbi's investigation of russia is not tied to comey's continued service. that will go forward with professional investigators. the senator will continue to do its job. the democrats have had their problems with comey. the president praised him at times. now he's let him go. yesterday i spent a half a day talking about how comey got it wrong between abedin and weiner about the information that she supposedly passed to anthony weiner. apparently it wasn't thousands of classified documents, which i was under the impression it was. so everybody has had a problem with comey. everybody said good things about him. he's being replaced and let's find a good replacement. >> but why do you think it happened yesterday? >> i don't know. all i can say that it has been building. you know, what he said about anthony weiner and abedin was

pretty unnerving. i didn't know there was thousands of classified documents passed which would have been problematic. apparently that wasn't right. we are going to move forward. the fbi will move forward. the intel committee is going to move forward and we'll find out. here's what i know about russia. they interfered in our elections. they need to be punished. i don't know if there is any collusion between the trump campaign and the russians. i haven't seen any evidence of that and i don't know if there was any wholesale unmasking of american citizens inappropriately, but i have seen concerns about that. >> you are more confident than some of your colleagues are that you will be able to get to the bottom of it. we have heard from all sorts of lawmakers this morning calling for an independent counsel. your dear friend and colleague, senator john mccain disagrees with your position on this. he says he's disappointed in the president's decision to remove james comey from office. >> well, that's john's right. i love john.

john is a great guy. the fbi investigation is not a criminal investigation. it is a counter intelligence investigation and you don't have special prosecutor for counter intelligence investigations. however, if it does mature into a criminal investigation of the trump campaign, then we'll talk about a special prosecutor. i joined john's call for a joint select committee where we have all relevant committees working together. >> he's calling for a special congressional committee. >> that's the same thing. same thing. >> so you're calling for -- but, i mean, this is what is confusing. there are five committees already, congressional committees. what is it that they're not doing? are you saying that americans should not have faith that they will be able to get to the bottom of it? why is this extra body needed? >> well, it is not an extra body. the judiciary committee had a hearing and i thought it was a good one. sally yates i thought she did a good job for the country when she talked about flynn being

compromised. the intel community is looking at a part of this. the judiciary is looking at another part. what john and i are saying, what if you had a committee made up of the four or five committees, where it was joint, where we were looking at the same thing, rather than compartmentalized. that's what they did during iran contra. i think that's what we should do here, is have the relevant committees working together, not separately. but i have a lot of faith in the intel community's investigation. i think the white house is doing a good job, but i don't mind a joint select committee. >> in terms of the motivation for why this happened and why it happened yesterday, do you believe that the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein was the imtus? do you believe it was he who prompted president trump, that he sent a memo to him in the morning and president trump decided, you know, within hours that, yes, comey had to go?

>> well, everybody says that rob is a good guy, so i don't know if somebody made him do it. i doubt he would do something he didn't want to do. let me tell you about director comey. great man. he's tried to do what he thought was right at every stage. but the bottom line it's not a specific intent or crime to mishandle classified information. so when he said clinton did nothing wrong, that really is an attorney general job to do, not the fbi director and i can see why democrats were upset with the letter in october. i think it probably did hurt clint clinton. so everybody has had their concerns. and the weiner/abedin misstatement, it just had a cumulative effect. so i don't know what rob did. but i know he signed the letter and i don't think anybody made him. and we're going to pick a new fbi director and the investigation will go forward. >> let's talk about who that new fbi director should be. if it were to be some of the

names such as say, governor chris cristie or former mayor rudy juliany, how would you feel about that fbi investigation? >> i think we should pick somebody that our democrat colleagues can rally around. >> such as? who would you say? >> i don't know. rather than me throwing out a name, let's throw out a concept. somebody who is trained in the profession. somebody who has practiced the profession of either prosecuting or investigating. somebody who has a reputation among both parties as being a good man or a woman and see if we can get that person confirmed. here's what harry reid did. he made it possible for republicans to pick somebody without any democratic input. that's what happens when you change the rules. but here is my view of this. i am not looking for somebody who can get just republican votes. i'm looking for somebody that

could get some democratic support, too. >> senator, do you think it's possible that president trump fired director comey because president trump doesn't like the investigation into the ties between his team and russia? >> i think whether he likes it or not is going to continue. firing director comey won't stop the investigation. i can tell you this. this is wednesday, may whatever day it is, i have yet to find any evidence of collusion between the trump campaign. i don't know of any improper business ties between the trump world and russia. but i am very curious about all things russia, what they're doing in our elections today. president is meeting with lab roth today. it is okay to want to work with the russians, but i hope you know who you are dealing with. a man that represents a government that is brutal. be careful. these are not teddy bears you are dealing with. >> did you see that photo op that rex tillerson, tesecretaryf

state just had? >> no. >> they were asked about this, and the reporters wanted to know what his response to this. we're playing it on our screen right now. and let me see if you can -- well, i don't know if it will get to the audio. >> describe it to me. >> okay. basically he feigned ignore mans. hetended he didn't know anything about it. >> did the comey firing cast a shadow of your talks? >> you're kidding. you're kidding. >> he says, you're kidding. >> can you translate for me? >> i will. because he says you're kidding, you're kidding and gives them a dismissive gesture. is this all sort of a laughing stock? what do you think of russia not taking this seriously? >> taking what seriously? >> the fact there is an investigation and that the director of the fbi who was spearheading this investigation was unceremoniously fired

yesterday. >> well, you know, i don't really care what the russians think about who we pick as fbi director. i think the russian government at the highest level authorized the hacking of the dnc and poe dead sta -- podesta. they tried to help clinton. i think they're doing this in france and they're headed to germany. so when it comes to russia, it is an auto cattic dictatorship they are complicit in the attack against the syrian people. i find it impossible to believe the russians did not know there were chemical weapons. i want to punish the hell out of russia. >> senator lindsey graham, we appreciate you being on "new day." thank you very much. >> thank you. thank you. >> even if that interview there, just such a confusion of intent here. senator lindsey graham saying i

haven't seen any proof of collusion. >> we hear that from others, too. >> yeah. except he just asked to look into more of donald trump's business dealings and bank records. >> maybe it's too soon to see collusion. >> that's exactly right. and anybody that understands the fbi and its process may say six months may be a long time to you. it's not a long time to then. and the senators involved all say the same thing. we're just getting going. it takes a long time. does that mean they're going to bear fruit? no. but it is premature to write off the lack of proof as dispositive on the overall situation. all right. let's bring in the cnn political director with the bottom line. some new cnn reporting that may be a hint as to why we had this greatly accelerated situation with james comey. what do you know? >> i'm not sure i know which reporting you are referring to. >> i will tell you. cnn is reporting that roger stone was among those pressuring

the president to do this to comey now. >> well, as you know, roger stone is one of the figures that is around this russia investigation. and he was tweeting his glee about comey's firing last night. so it wouldn't surprise me to learn that roger stone may have had an opinion about this and that he expressed it to folks. >> but roger stone is that powerful in the administration that roger stone's opinion about what should be fired or not actually gets action? >> we don't know that roger stone's opinion is what caused the action. we just know that roger stone offered his opinion, right? let's not suggest that that's the reason why donald trump took this action. i do think, though, guys, what has happened here all morning as i have been watching the show and throughout the night last night, something that really isn't partisan has become partisan and that is the way of washington. but i think we lose the larger point here that the president of

the united states fired the fbi director, who is overseeing an investigation into his campaign. full stop. like that small democratic problem is what we are discussing here. and to see it immediately sort of fall into these partisan lines to serve partisan interests, i think just clouds the enormity of what it is we're talking about. >> we have been saying this all morning, that this is not about left/right. it is about the rightful administration of justice and our democracy and the explanation from the white house right now objectively is falling under its own weight. the idea that a man named rod rosenstein who has a good reputation. nobody would be assailing that aspect right now. but that in two weeks they keep saying he's only been there two weeks. that's right. he's only been there two weeks and he hands you a memo dated yesterday and on that with a man that you don't know you fire the

director of the fbi. does that make sense to you? >> chris, let's add to the time line. our reporting is donald trump had been considering this for the better part of last week. so means rosenstein was only there for a week before donald trump started actively considering this even though the final memo was dated yesterday and arrived yesterday. it begs the question was this part of rosenstein's theory of alaska septemberi i-- accepting. the other reason why i think the sort of justification that's been given doesn't hold water is exactly to what alberto gonzalez was saying to you guys. he thinks this timing is so suspect and the explanation is to unsufficient while at the same time as you know, he's quoted in that letter because he had problems with the way that comey conducted his work last year. both things can be true. and i think that all those people, all those former attorneys general and deputy

attorneys general that are listed in that rosenstein letter, we're going to hear from all of them, no doubt, as they weigh in. and, yet, their words were used as the trust of the trump administration argument for firing comey and as you just heard, sol folks really concerned about the wacomy conducted himself find this timing really suspect. >> isn't it also ironic there were all of these congressional investigations going on and the fbi investigation all looking into what russia's role was. but you hear your lawmakers say we're going to need a special commission. it's starting to feel as though it might be hard for any of these current bodies to get to the bottom of it. >> alison, i agree. i think we are now at a point, anything sort of some independent investigative commission looking at this is going to -- anything sort of that is going to be undermined

by the political wins of the moment. this has become so highly politicized that i do think that if you're a lawmaker and you think that the way it's going now is fine, i have a feeling that your constituents are going to have a different feeling about that when you go back home. the ratcheting up of the calls for an independent investigation is only just began. that is going to get quite loud in the days ahead. >> i mean, look, it should have always been clear. whenever you have a lot of something, you probably have an insufficient situation going on. having four, five investigations proves that you just don't have the focus that you ever needed. and now the president provided the punctuation. in his letter he openly acknowledges that there was communication wean the fbi director and a sitting president about whether or not he's involved in the investigation. it is wrong on any level. and it is proof positive, david,

that you cannot do this, unless it is somehow removed from the influence of the president. >> exactly. this goes back to my very first point about what it is we're talking about here. president trump injected the russia investigation into his you're fired letter the fbi director, who is overseeing it, runs the organization overseeing it. that just doesn't hold water and it doesn't square with the other justification that the white house, which somehow is completely surprised by this backlash, which makes no sense to me, is providing. >> david, sergei lab rov is scheduled and heading to the white house now. i mean, the optics of all of this happening simultaneously. >> yeah. and, you know, obviously lab rov thinking this is some jovial matter at that point photo op with rex tillerson, you heard senator gram there issuing a warning to president trump. i think we've seen clearly a

shift in the way president trump has been talking about russia and dealing with russia since he's taken office, no doubt. and i am sure that that will continue to be on display today in the lab rov meeting. but today of all days to have that meeting, it is certainly iron ironic. >> the foreign minister of russia laughing, mocking the idea of what happened with james comey as the u.s. secretary of state sits mum is powerful, as well as ironic. the president watching us this morning as always. we appreciate the viewer ship. he says the roger stone report on cnn is false. he hasn't talked to stone. stone is not why he did this. so i also hope the president knows that he should be the one to call for a special prosecutor. it is in his interest and the american people's interest for him to guarantee the administration of justice. mr. president, you should say we need a special prosecutor,

endorse congress, passing that legislation, sign it and put everybody's fears to rest that this can be done without influence or conte gone. >> thanks to all of you for watching our special coverage on this. we continue with cnn news room. >> thanks so much guys. a hugely consequential morning, so let's get right to it. >> this is cnn breaking news. all right. this morning we are through the looking glass. in fact, we shattered the glass or the president did. president trump fires the person in charge of investigating his own campaign and moments ago he started tweeting about it. james comey lost the confidence of almost every one in washington, republican and democrat alike, when things calmed down they will be thanking me, the president said. as of now, things are not so calm and folks are not so