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tv   Erin Burnett Out Front  CNN  May 12, 2017 4:00pm-5:01pm PDT

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eastern right here on cnn. you will learn in the process. that's it for me. thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." and to all of the wonderful mothers out there, have a very, very happy mother's day. erin burnett "out front" starts right now. . >> next breaking news, the president of the united states hinting he may have secret tapes of jim comey. does he have them or is this a total bluff? plus a top official says there could be evidence of collusion between the trump team and russia. new details this evening. and the man that hand delivered the letter to fire comey. good evening. i'm erin burnett. out front, the breaking news, the tale of the tape. the president of the united states tonight suggesting he might have secret record hgs.
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trump upping the ante making this provocative remark. >> what about the idea that in a tweet you said there might be tape recordings. >> that, i can't talk about. i won't talk about that. >> well, the thing is he's the one who started this whole thing. i mean, he started it with a tweet, frankly, a threatening tweet from this morning in which he wrote james comey better hope there's no tapes before he start leaking to the press. the white house refuses to release the issue. watch the exchange yourself. >> did president trump record his kwvrgss with former fbi director comey? >> i assume you're referring to his -- >> the tweet. >> the tweet. i've talked to the president and he has nothing further to add on to that. >> why did he say that? why did he tweet that? >> as i said, the president has nothing further to add on that. >> are there recording dwieszs
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in the oval office or in the white house. >> as i said for the third time there's no more remark on that. >> from republicans, a very loud silence. let's begin with sarah murray. sarah, let's start with the big question. the president putting this out here. he started it. no one would have even thought about it. what secret tapes? >> erin, that is an excellent question. the white house isn't saying whether these secret tapes actually do exist. for a week, that was already filled with surprises and with controversies, today was filled with even more mplgts. >> president trump firing off an apparent threat to the ousted fbi director. trump tweeting "james comey better hope there are no tapes of our conversations before he start leaking to the press." trump's bashed warning coming at the president is facing scrutiny for his prieftd conversations with comey before he was fired. today the president is refusing to explain what tapes he was
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referring to and whether he is secretly recordings conversations in the white house. >> i won't talk about that. all i want is t for comey to be honest and i hope he will be and i'm sure he will be, i hope. >> as comey was overseeing the investigation into possible collusion between the trump campaign and russia, trump asked comey repeatedly for assurances that he was not under investigation. >> did you ask him. >> i actually asked him, yes. i said if it's possible, would you let me know am i under investigation? he said ush not under investigation. >> those conversations which quickly raised ethical red flags coming twice in phone calls and once over dinner when trump says comey was vying to keep his job. >> i think he asked for the dinner. he wanted to stay on as the fbi held. i said i'll consider it. we'll see what happens. >> a source close to comey disputes that account. saying comey did not request the dinner and had already been
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assured by the president that he would keep his job. during that dinner, a source says comey was taken abrack whether trump asked for a personal pledge of loyalty, which comey refused to provide, all this as the administration struggles to get its story straight about why the president ultimately decided to fire comey. now trump says it was his call and says he was thinking about the russia investigation when he made the decision. trump took to twitter to explain the discrepancies. saying "as a very active president with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy." amid all of this, white house press second sean spicer returned to the podium today after spending parts of the week at the pentagon on naval reserve duty. >> it's good to be back with you. apparently i was a little missed. >> after what was no doubt a very frustrating week for this white house communications shop,
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the president raised a new idea today. maybe he'll just end those press briefings all together and do press conferences of his own. >> thank you very much, sara. more breaking news at this hour. top democrats on capitol hill rl trying to call the president's bluch ability hits tweet over possible recordings of comey. what are democrats calling for? >> several top democrats say the white house preserve any recordings that may have occurred with president trump. dianne feinstein the top snoelt democrat on the judiciary committee saying that it's "a very serious matter" two democrats say it's a crime to possibly intimidate a potential witness to prevent them from giving testimony, that the threat may have been an attempt to silence comey. i talked to the top senate democrat on the senate zejs intelligence committee and this is what he said.
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>> first we ever heard about this was today in tweetage. if the tapes exist, it would be very disturbing if suddenly they disappeared. let's get them preserved. it may not even be the intel community's jurisdiction. whoever's jurisdiction it is we ought to at some point get a look at them. >> erin, that last reference into whether or not this will be part of the senate intelligence committee's investigation into russia and the trump campaign, warner is saying maybe it will not be but another committee will look at it. i talked to richard burr, asked him if he had now concerns about the communications between trump and comey. he said it's not in my scope, meaning it's something perhaps the intelligence communities will not look at. >> thank you very much. now jerry madeler, a member of the house judiciary committee. your colleagues are demanding trump hand over any recordings.
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what's your bottom line here? do you think the president actually taped the conversations with the then-fbi director or is this a bluff? >> i don't know if he taped those conversations. if he did, the tapes are -- the nixon precedent, the court precedent says the tapes are the property of the government and should not be destroyed and should be turned over. >> while there's no such tape that we're aware of, what you would hear would be trump asking comey for a personal pledge. over this dinner. comey said he refused to do that. the president has come out and responded to comey with this. >> i don't think it would be a bad question to ask. i think loyalty to the country, loyalty to the united states is important. you know, i mean, it depends on how you define loyalty. number one. number two, i don't know how it got there, because i didn't ask that question. >> so congressman, comey said
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trump asked for a personal pledge of loyalty and he said it was more a pledge to the country. is it possible that former fbi director comey misunderstood? >> i doubt it. remember we're dealing with a cereal l serial liar. he sent out to the vice president and others say he was fired because of his conduct with secretary clinton lost year. now he says no he was thinking of firing him before. and because of -- that rod rose steen, the deputy attorney general wrote a memo about criticizing his kuktsd with respect to clinton last year and that's why he was firing him. he said no, no, i was thinking of firing him before that. so asking for a loyalty of the fbi, which is supposed to be independent, especially when he just admitted that he was thinking of firing comey essentially because of the russian investigation, those two things combined make a very
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strong case for the president having committed obstruction of justice. that's got to be invested. >> i want to ask you about this on strubs of justice. you're making a strong case for that. the acting director of the fbi yesterday was asked this question as the whether tlump rp trump had basically interference with the election in any way. let me play for you the exchange. >> has the dismissal of mr. comey in any way impeded, interrupted, stopped, or negatively impacted any of the work, any investigation or any ongoing projects at the federal bureau of investigation? >> the work of the men and women of the fbi continues. there has been no effort to impede our investigation to date. >> so do you believe the acting director of the fbi? because if you take that answer at its face, there would mean there was no o obstruction of justice from this president. >> first, i believe that was said before it was known that the president asked for loyalty
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from comey and -- which is highly improper to ask for loyalty from the justice department or the fbi. they're supposed to be loyal to the constitution, not loyal to the president. when he's investigatesing allegations of collusion with between trump campaign and the russians, to ask for loyalty from him is to ask that he compromise the investigation. highly improper. and when he did that and subsequently fired comey, according to his own admission because he didn't like the way he was handling these investigations and the way he was testifying about them, that raises a very serious concern about ok instruction of justice -- about obstructing that investigation. >> so then how far are you willing to take it? some of your democratic can colleagues have talked about this issue and they are willing to say what obstruction of justice means and what obstruction of justice could mean if it really happened is people could push with impeachment proceedings. >> it may well produce impeachment proceedings,
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although we're very far from there. >> this president needs to be imfaechd. j do you think she went too far? >> i think it's a little too early for that. i think it's certainly the case that if this obstruction of justice possibility is investigated, a question of whether comey was required because he was conducting an investigation, we may very well come to the conclusion that impeachment proceedings are necessary or we may not. it's too early to answer that but we need an active investigation and i now think that it is time for the -- my republican colleagues who up to now vn shirking their duty to look into this, who have been defending the administration and defending the indefensible, really, it's time for some of them to step up to the plate and start investigating. i must say some of my republican colleagues on the judiciary compete have in the past shown they can put loyalty to country above loyalty to politics and they must do that now.
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>> rosenstein said comey must be fwierds. trump was going to do it regardless of what rosenstein said. it doesn't change the fact that rosenstein came to the conclusion comey should be fired based on the e-mails. >> first off -- >> 96-4 in the senate for his position. that's significant, isn't it? >> rosenstein did not say he should have been firedes in his memo. i read his letter, rather, this morning. dehe did not say that. he severely criticized comey for how he handled the clinton matter last year. i severely criticized comey last year. i said he should be fired. it was a different time and con b text. to fire comey now when he is conductings an investigation that might implicate the president is to compromise that investigation. you cannot have the investigate ed look like it's interfering
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with the investigation o and the president essentially said that. >> congressman, thank you for your time. >> you're welcome. >> next, the breaking news, does the deputy attorney general think the russia probe calls for a special prosecutor? he's speaking tonight. plus the white house announcing a commission to investigate trump's voter fraud claims. where is the evidence? can you believe we're asking this question again? and west sooifds story. was that sean spicer on a maurer trip outside cnn today? hi guys. it's great to be here. in the desert. at the mall. on the mountain. at school. at the beach. in the big easy. yeah. yeah. today i want to show you guys the next-gen chevy equinox. what do you think? that's pretty. pretty sexy. it's all-wheel drive. look at that. it looks aggressive. but not overbearing. it's not too big. not too small. it looks like it can go off-roading. but at the same time,
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open. >> i don't know if there was collusion or not. i don't know if there's evidence of collusion or not. >> we're "out front" live in washington. pamela, this has become a whole embroglio. what's the bottom line? >> the bottom line is that james clapper is saying that he hasn't seen all the evidence in this investigation that the fbi is doing, looking at russian interference in the election and possible coordination with trump campaign soerktsz. what's causing all the confusion is initially a couple of months ago he said before he left he had seen no evidence of collusion. of course, the white house pounced on that. president trump pounced on that, tweeted as recently as today, as you pointed out, saying this is a witch hunt because jail clapper and others have said there is no evidence of collusion. apparently james clapper tried to clarify that today by saying
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he would not have seen all the evidence because h that would have been within the fbi's hands. he said he saw some evidence but it didn't rise to the standarded that include it in the big report compiled on russia in january. basically, it's dirchtsd from what the white house is claiming in their argument that this is really nothing. this is just a witch hunt. >> so pamela, you also have some breaking news tonight from the man really at the center of the -- >> yeah. >> -- whole situation with jim comey which is the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and the special prosecutor. a lot of democrats have weighed in saying they want it. what's he saying? >> rod rosenstein, we're told, has no plans to appoint a special prosecutor to do so. he feels like there's no need to. of course he's become sort of the central figure in the controversy surrounding james comey's firing because he wrote that memo but he sees this all
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unrelated to the russia control. the doj is overseeing it. he's going to let him do his thing. if for some reason this investigation is imperiled he may appoint somebody to be a special prosecutor but no plans now. >> thank you. jacks kinksston of georgia, juliette kai a.m. and jeffrey tubin. congressman let me start with you. the former director of national intelligence james clapper. you know, he had at one point come out and said he had seen in evidence of collusion, but he's now coming out and saying let me be clear. that i didn't say i didn't see it, doesn't mean i haven't seen everything. the president is saying -- jim clapper is saying there's no cliegs, there's no "there" there. >> clapper is careful in what he says. i don't know why he's doing interviews to begin with. i think he's trying to stay
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noncommittal. he's seen what happened to his friend james comey. we have to ask, it's been eight months of an intense investigation fueled by very, very strong anti-trump sentiments and there hasn't been one shred of evidence yet. so far this is a hearsay and a lot of talk. but i think at this point, the critics owe it to the investigation and to the public to say here's what we know happened. they don't have a single thick. they haven't produced one piece of product yet. >> is that fair, jeffrey, at this point? >> we're talking about a bunch of different things here. james clapper supervises the cia, the national security agency, other agencies. he does not supervise the fbi, the department of justice. the investigation of this possible collusion was at the department of justice and the fbi. so the fact that he doesn't know what they found is of very little significance. he doesn't know the facts. as for whether an investigation
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can proceed, what -- or what it's produced, it's a complicated investigation. a lot of evidence has to be collected. there -- most of the key people are not testified yesterday before a grand jury. to say the fact that you know, we don't have a smoking gun at this point, you know -- >> yeah. >> -- that's not how investigations work. >> let me ask you, julia, some say if there was a smoking gun at this point, it would have leaked somehow because there are leaks as in in any investigation, there are a lot of them in this one. so do you buy that? do you think that would indicate that there znt one or do you think no, this is really proceeding and illustrate by be plodding or methodical but they may not know themselves yet. >> i think this whole knitology of a smoking gun, we have to get out of our heads. it may not get to collusion but may get to financial wheeling and dealing or other aspects of either criminal or corrupt
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behavior. those take a long time to create and to find and you want to do it methodically because you wants it to hold up in court. i think this pace has been relatively sort of normal. i don't know why people like jack is, oh, there's nothing yet. you have to show your hand. that's not how investigations work. and so -- wait, wait, wait. jack let me 23i7bish. there's real stuff going on. grand juries are meeting, right. subpoenas have been issued. the idea that this is just a mythology of the new york times, it's just not true. >> well, let me give you -- >> -- investigation. >> let me give you a comparison of the obama scandals, first of all, hillary clinton's e-mail, secondly fast and furious. then benghazi and the irs. there was something there. there were apparent crimes, there was apparent tragedies. there was harm done. we don't know anything done. >> that is the most ridiculous libel. >> did russia attempt to interfere? >> ok. >> that's --s.
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>> collusion -- >> hold it. >> the collusion is driven by anti-trump hatred. what would be good is for the trump critics to have one witness who said, you know what? i was sproe highsed and here's why around here's when. >> ok. go ahead. >> what a series of bogus scandals that produced absolutely nothing. >> bogus. >> benghazi, the way the republicans exploited the death of these poor people and spent millions -- >> a hard -- >> let me finish! spent millions of dollars, far more than congress has spent on this investigation, that is the real atrocity of benghazi is that you and your colleagues exploited their deaths -- >> not on the sly and on five different networks, the sunday after. it's lying to the american people officially as -- >> can we get back to trump? because i think it's -- >> if you're more comfortable talking about trump than obama but obama scandal is real. >> he's the president of -- excuse me, jack.
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he's the president of the united states who's -- >> obama was at the time, that's correct. >> -- this investigation. so jack, so it is possible looking at this week that the -- that the trump people, because there's so much madness going on with this spokesperson and that spokesperson that the way they do things is somewhat incompetent but what trump is doing is somewhat strategic. if you look who has been fired, sally yates and now comey, that appears to be strategic. you can say that's trump trying to move forward. nevertheless, those of us on the outside say that's really odd that all three major prosecutors are no longer working. and so if it turns outs that these prosecutions can continue and that these investigations do continue, its may not get to collusion, jack. i have never said collusion. it may not get there, but let it ufold as it ought to. you're a lawyer, i'm a lawyer, jeff is a lawyer. we know these things take a --
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>> actually, i'm not. but i'm fine to hang with you guys. let me say this. >> you work in a law firm. >> we just heard that nothing has changed in the investigation without comey. now, i think that's very important. i can go with you on the firing of comey. i see you have reason -- your reason for being concerned. frankly, the firing and the dismissal of sally yates, it was fuel for subordination. i don't think that's connected at all. i understand where you are on comey. >> we'll leave it there for now. thank you both -- all, sorry, two lawyers and congressman kingston. tonight, the man he picked to investigate, a man who said more than a million people voted illegally. he is going to come out and take questions next. and trump supporters weighing in on the comey fierk. >> i think he'd be better served if he were more presidential.
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. tonight, president trump moving forward on his attempt to prove his claim that millions voted illegally in the 2016 election. the president signing and
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executive order creating the presidential advisor commission on integrity and appointing crisco back to help head up that effort. is there any proof or is this yet another distraction. tom foreman is out front. >> reporter: despite her elek thoerl walloping, experts say she won the popular vote by about three million. not according to donald trump. right after the inauguration he said i will be asking for a major investigation into voter fraud, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal. >> we're going to protect the integrity of the blatd box and we are going to defend the votes of the american citizen. >> never mind that credible evidence of even small scale fraud is extremely rare. never mind that someone in his own party opposed the effort. >> there's no evidence that it occurred in such a significant
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number that would have changed the presidential election and i don't think we ought to spend any federal money investigating that. >> those who believe in rampant fraud often cite this research paper suggesting noncitizens may vote heavily enough sometimes to change results, but that paper's analysis has been strongly criticized by other experts. there is a respected pugh report saying millions of voters are registered in more than one state but the arthur says that's more a matter of sloppy recordkeeping. >> there's a big difference between administrative slop aniness and voter fraud. >> vice president pence and kansas secretary of state, crisco back, an unabarbed advocate for voting identification laws.
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>> my office prosecutes it. we've filed nine cases and have six guilty pleas. >> that may not sound like much, but he thinks a lot more could be found. indeed he has fully backed the president's unsubstantiated claim that millions of illegal votes may have been cast last fall and now he'll have a chance to prove it. >> "out front" the vice chair of president trump's election committee. i appreciate you you coming on the show, sir. i want to understand. the president promised to investigate voter fraud in the election. you just saw that there in tom's piece. this 0rd makes it clear he is keeping his promise. as you know, there is no evidence that this is a wild goose chase at this prointing. why are you doing it? >> well, i want to correct a few things. the purpose of the commission, if you read the executive order, is not to substantiate or debunk
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or investigate president trump's statements from january. the purpose of the commission is to get at all the facts that are available and present them to the public. there's never actually been a nationwide effort to look at this scope of provable voter fraud. so for example, we have -- we're now up to nine convictions in the last year and ten months in kansas. other states prosecute voertd fraud is over 670700. the purpose of the commission is just to present the facts. some people will probably look at the numbers and sad that's not enough to concern me. another person will probably look at the numbers and say that does concern them. why wouldn't we want to look at the numbers? >> let me ask you this, though, because the president, as you know, has said he would have won the popular both had it not been for massive voertd fraud, which would mean more than 3 million fraudulent votes in the country.
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you have 1 million registered voters. so that's nine convictions in the past three years. you think there's 3 million more in the rest of the country? >> when you look at the -- when you discover a case of someone who has, for example, one of the convictions was for a person who was a noncitizen who voted multiple times in kansas, you discover that case, most of the cases we discover it's more than five years after the person committed the crime, sots it's too late because of the statue of limitations to bring a prosecution. then on top of that, there's so many more cases that you can't discover because you don't have any outside evidence to show that the individual -- >> so you take that at face value -- >> prosecutions -- >> two years, three or four or five years ago, you're saying that went up to tens of thousands? just did magnitude is exponential for what the president alleged to even
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remotely be true. >> right. the commission is just going to go where the facts lead us, who knows what the total numbers will be and whether they will substantiate what the president said in january or not. why wouldn't we want to collect as much data as possible, let experts look at it, let people draw their own conclusions. i find some of the early criticism from today from some people who say we shouldn't have this commission, i find it puzzling why -- so you're someone who thinks voter fraud is not an issue in america. why wouldn't you want the commissioner to investigate and say look, i was right. the numbers aren't big enough. >> maybe it's because there's limited resources to spend to look into these things. the brennan center found voter fraud rates of .0003 points and .0025%. you heard mitch mcconnell.
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he's not the only one who says this is a complete waste of time and money. here are some others. >> there's no evidence of that, and i think that knows who allege that have to come up with some stashation of their claim. >> i would urge the president to knock this off. >> secretary, why do you think it is worth your time and resources, given these statistics, given others in your own party saying that it isn't? >> ok. couple of things. one is the amount of money spent studying this is pretty ma nis kuehl. they're not hiring people in the federal government. they're people being detailed to then commissioners. we commissioners are not get hg any salary to participate. it's a voluntary. there is a lot of evidence. so for example, in my state of kansas i can speak to what we know in kansas. we have identified 125 specific noncitizens we can identify by name who have either successfully registered to vote.
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so that's a significant number. that's just kansas. so when people say there's no evidence, i say, well, obviously, those people haven't good reading the newspapers, haven't been looking at the very significant numbers that just my little state has provided. i don't know about the other 49 states. maybe noers no vote rer fraud at all in the other 49 but maybe there is. >> a lot of people will say the issue is actually not about voter fraud. it's really about voter suppression. in your own state, the aclu points that your own expert you put north in a case that they had is that 6% of the voter pool in kansas is african-american. they represent 18% of the people in your state who lack i.d. that might be required if you went ahead with voter fraud wanted i.d.s. people who don't have a birth sir or a passesport. hispanics are down 7% in strict
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voter i.d. states kpashd to oltsz. do you acknowledge that voter i.d. laws request suppress minority votes? >> i will say that in kansas, the evidence is strongly to the contrary. because that's been the subject of the litigation with the aclu and the aclu is an opposing party in court now and they've mischaracterized the statement you just said. look, in kansas, for example, we put our photo i.d. law in place in twelve. if you want to test the effect on participation. you look at the twelve election and the twoift. which we did. in the rest of the country participation dropped severely between 2012 wand 2014. in our neighboring states it dropped. in kansas it stayed flat, when suggested in a kansas was doing better over that period. >> can you say minorities in kansas specifically? >> we have found no evidence that there was a disproportionate effect on minorities. the effect was positive.
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there's no evidence that minorities were unable to present the photo i.d. or go to a government office and get a free one. i find that argument almost racist when you suggest that a person's skin color affects his ability to carry an i.d. in a purse or wallet or go get a free one i don't see in my state the facts to sposh it. maybe there is evidence. that's one of the things the commission will be looking at, too. this article about voter suppression or suppression of voter rates. le. >> i appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you. le. >> next, fallout from firing combing. trump voters, here's what they think. >> after a couple of years, if nothing gets done and it's drama all the time, i don't think he'll have many supporters left. >> plus trump's long-time bodyguard, the same man who kicked jorje ramos out of a news conference handed the letter firing comey who is he? when you have allergies,
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. breaking news at this hour. we are learning four people will be interviewed tomorrow for the fbi director job. they are alice fisher, the
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assistant attorney general under president george w george w. bush, andrew mccabe who is is the current acting director, judge michael garcia of the new york court of appeals. the question, though, is whether trump supporters back the president on his dramatic firing of jim comey. we went to the field with ed lavendera. >> pick up trucks sell well. >> this is texas. >> for more than 50 years henry lewis has sold chevy cars and trucks in canton, texas. >> you wrote this book for -- >> for the grandkids. >> it's full of life lessons, right? in his spare time he wrote this book for his grand daughter. he says page 10 can help plain a lot these days, especially trump's firing of fbi director james comey. >> if your presentation is on a 6th great level, it will be understood, read, listened to
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and read. you think donald trump has done that? >> i think he'll agree with that? >> we may mail him a book. he's not boutted by the president's tweet seeming to threaten comey. but he acknowledges some of his antics are wearing thin. >> it bothers me a little bit. he would be better served if he'd take the high road and more presidential. >> your faith in him is -- >> no. that's great. he's a business man and that's what the country needs and i voted for him and i'd vote for him began. >> canton is the antique shopping capital of the world where donald trump won 85% of the vote. as we wajderred around town we found support still runs strong. carol runs her own antique shop and this exchange with her offered unique insight to why trump's most ardent supporters
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haven't lost faith. with the headlines, if you replaced the name trump and put in hillary or obama, do you think his supporters would have the same reaction? kind of dismissing things like the russia investigation? >> no. >> questions about taxes? >> no. [ laughter ] no. no. because -- there's so much hope with trump being in office. i think that's what drives people to believe in him because he's a business man. he gets stuff done. that's a proven fact. >> she voted for president obama in 2008, didn't vote in 2012 and then voted for trump. she says the clock is ticking. and that trump supporters can handle the drama as long as work gets done on issues like health care. is that a sign there's a crack in trump's armor? >> but after a couple of years, if nothing gets done and it's
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dama all the the time, i don't think he'll have many supporters left. >> donald trump's act might not seem presidential to even some of his supporters, but in the antique shops of this east texas town, the act hasn't gotten old. yet. >> and erin, we're going to bring it back to henry lewis's children's book. on one of the pages it said when he electricitied to an office if you're unsure if it's a conflict of interest, ask a second grader. you have to maintain a zero tolerance for conflict of interest. that's where it gets kind of muddy when you talk to trump supporters. we talked to a couple of ladies in a print shop, they said last year one of their most popular signs was a lock hillary clinton up sign. >> all right. thank you very much. signs that one day will be antiques. and they're in the right place. "out front," mark preston.
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mark, 46% of the americans disapprove of the firing of comey. 49% approve. you heard ed talking to people. they're frustrated but they are still giving him a leash. those people, 85% in that town are still supporting trump. >> yeah. a couple of things, we were at the 100-day mark. he hasn't been in office long enough for his supporters to abandon him. he hasn't had time to do everything he said he was going to do. let's look at public polling. not about the firing of comey but the handling of the communications strategy following the firing of comey, because i do think you're going to see an erosion even more so, erin, in the coming weeks. >> quickly, whites voters without college degrees, core group for donald trump. they had a 57% approval rating in april. now down to 47%. very big drop. >> do you care about average
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americans? also is president trump level headed? we're also seeing a drop on two key signature issues. the economy and as well as terrorism. he is now in negative territory on both. >> thank you very much. next, he's been by donald trump's side for nearly two decades. even in this access hollywood video with billy bush, who is trump's bodyguard and why was he the one who hand delivered comey's waking papers. and power trip. get out of herrer way. saturday night live stoosh driving through. it's the phillips' lady!
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come create your trio before it ends. tonight the man who delivered perhaps the most important letter of trump's presidency. keith schiler is now the director of oval office operations. if you look closely, you'll see his near constant presence, for the better part of two decades. >> reporter: it may be the most pivotal moment in a presidency still in its infancy, captured by cnn cameras. president trump's long-time aid keith schiller leaving the fbi after hand delivers the letter firing james comey. >> reporter: an act that put the
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former new york detective usually in the background, front and center. the shy father of two that once was in the navy, joined president trump as a bodyguard in 1999. >> i had a great rapport with president trump. >> we'll give you one more. >> if it doesn't work out well -- >> schiler is eventually made head of security in 2005. he now serves as president trump's director of oval office matters. he plays multiple roles for a president who prizes loyalty. >> you know, i have nothing but good things to say about him.
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>> reporter: frequently spotted by trump's side, the 6'4" ssc schiller has provided security for trump for years. a protester is suing schiller for a -- out of a press conference in iowa in the summer of 2015, for trying repeatedly to ask trump about immigration. and while schiller is not interested in celebrity in his own require, he took on vince mcmahon in 2007, but he's not likely to be jumping in front of
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television cameras any time soon. aides say hiller has become something of a sounding board for the president. but i can't stress enough the presence of loyalty in this relationship, that helps explain why schiller has been by the president's site for so many years. >> thank you very much, athena. next traffic stopper, this time not the president bringing things to a halt in manhattan. o. the all-new audi q5 is here.
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sean spicer, or was it mel poli melissa mccarthy. >> the president has nothing further to add on that. >> reporter: a credibility crisis intensifying this week. and making late-night comics rewrite their scripts right up until air time. >> all right, any other questions? >> yeah, just mentally, though, are you okay? >> are you kidding me?
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>> reporter: melissa mccarthy back this weekend, it's perfect timing for her to host "snl," partly in character. >> i came out here to punch you in the head, and also i don't talk so good. >> reporter: today, the same day sean spicer returned to his real podium, spicer was on his podium, mccarthy going the extra mile promoting her return. one likely punch line, spicer's impromptu press briefing among the bushes tuesday night. the internet's already had a field day with it. but just how long mccarthy will get to play spicer is in question. this as the president refuses to commit to keeping him. >> he's doing a good job, but he gets beat up.
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>> will he be there tomorrow? >> he's been there from the beginning. >> reporter: for now, "snl" fans are waiting for mccarthy's masterful impression. brian stelter, cnn, new york. i can tell you today on the streets of new york, i saw the stunt double, which means there could be some really cool action shots. and good evening, thank you for joining us, so what would you call a day in which the president of the united states issues a thinly veiled threat against the man he just fired while that man was investigating improper russia ties? what would you say of the day that he says he -- what would you call a day like that? around here, we call it friday. it began with the president tweeting about his dinner with