find your awesome and change the way you wifi. . the fbi director is fired, and the trump white house spirals into a credibility crisis. >> i was going to fire, my decision. >> angry, impulsivmpulsive, eve threats about white house recordings. >> i assume you're referring to the tweet the president has nothing further to add on it that. >> the acting fbi chief assures congress the russia

investigation is on track and says the president is dead wrong about jim comey's reputation. >> director comey enjoyed broad support within the fbi. >> "inside politics," the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters now. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. to our viewers in the united states and around the world thanks for sharing your sunday and happy mother's day. the white house is in contact with japan and south korea after the latest north korea missile test. here on the home front, president trump again turned washington on its head this past week in a commencement address yesterday, sounded quite pleased with himself. >> the fact is, no one has ever achieved anything significant without a chorus of critics standing on the sidelines explaining why it can't be done.

nothing is easier or more pathetic than being a critic. >> there are no shortage of trump critics after the bizarre week just behind us. remember on tuesday, the president fired the fbi director and then sent his staff and vice president out to repeat a lie about how and why that happened. on thursday the president gave an interview in which he shared the real reasons including his frustration with the fbi investigation of russia election meddling and possible collusion between the kremlin and trump associates. >> i was going to fire regardless of recommendation. he's a showboat, a grandstander. the fbi has been in turmoil, you know that, i know that, everybody knows that. >> then on friday another presidential tweet storm including one that threatened the now former fbi director james comey and raised the specter of a white house recording system. >> what about the idea that in a tweet you said that there might be tape recordings? >> that i can't and won't talk

about that. all i want is for comey to be honest and i hope and i'm sure he will be. >> the staff of an angry and impulsive president sent out to explain or in this case to refuse to explain. >> are there recording devices in the oval office or residence? >> as i said for the third time, there is nothing further to add on that. >> does he think it's appropriate to threaten someone like mr. comey not to speak? >> that's not a threat. he stated a fact. the tweet speaks for itself. i'm moving on. >> with us to share their ror reporting, jakie kusinich, sarah murray and jeff delany. you see him with judge ginny on fox saying i'm not going to talk about that. he tweets about the possibility of a spec center of a white house taping system. we know he's frustrated and blaming his staff, maybe my staff isn't handling this right.

where is his head right now and does he understand that this past week the mess of it was mostly of his making? >> well, i think his head is in a very angry and frustrated place. i don't think that he understands that this past week's turmoil was all of his own making. he went out with a rationale his people say a political winner, democrats were angry at comey for the way he handled the hillary clinton emails investigation as well. wouldn't they be happy he was being let go. what he did not do and doesn't seem to understand is that he didn't put in place sort of a conceptual case for why he was doing this now beyond his own anger the way the russia investigation unfolded. in his own letter that came out the day jim comey was fired the only thing that was mentioned was the fact that he himself was not under investigation and that tells you a lot. that tells you that a lot of this was about him protecting his own flank, him feeling

aggrieved himself and wasn't about anything else. >> at the same time he didn't protect his own flank because there was no communication strategy that anyone has talked about. there was no one out there defending him which is what made him angrier in the aftermath of this. what were they supposed to say? left people! scrambling and made things worth. he didn't bother to tell director comey he was fired. >> the merits of firing jim comey is a fair debate. whether this president should do it at this stage of an investigation led by that fbi director is another question. how they handled it and conflicting explanations of why. listen to the president yesterday in this commencement speech. the travel ban got off to a bad start, other things off to a bad start in this administration and people say he's never been in government, a lot of his team has never been in government. they'll figure this out, making mistakes and reset. this does not sound like a president who needs to fix anything. >> into my short time in washington i've seen firsthand

how the system is broken. small group of failed voices who think they know everything, and understand everyone, want to tell everybody else how to live and what to do, and how to think. but you aren't going to let other people tell you what you believe's specially when you know that you're right. >> by that he means the establishment, and he means us in the news media. i don't think we messed up the firing of jim comey in explaining it. i don't think we messed up the travel ban rollout but that's his mind-set. >> remember that donald trump is a 70-year-old man and feels he's been successful doing things the way he's done them. if something goes wrong it's the hate of the haters and losers and staff who couldn't keep him with him. some at the white house felt the president was giving a lifeline

saying my staff can't always keep up with me because i make decisions quickly or saying maybe we'll cancel the press briefing, some saw that because you're mean to my people i'll come out there and take it. this president makes snap decisions and he does tend to blame his staff in the aftermath when things don't go well. he's not really an intro spective guy looking there saying okay maybe i could have done this differently. >> before you jump in, jeff, i want to play last night on fox and what they tend to do is repeat what you have said and ask you if you believe it. the president tweeted he thought he'd cancel the press briefing. you get a chance to be the president that's what you repeat. >> are you moving so quickly that your communications department cannot keep up with you? >> yes. that's true. >> so what do we do about that? >> we don't have press conferences and we do -- >> you don't mean that. >> just don't have them.

unless i have one every two weeks and i do it myself. we don't have them. i think it's a good idea. >> does he think it's a good idea because he doesn't trust? we know this past week he was mad after the firing he sent kellyanne conway and others out on television. somebody get out there and defend me. does he think he's chief strategist, president, communications director, press secretary, vanadvanced guy? >> absolutely. you can blame the communications shop and reince priebus and you can blame everyone for everything. he is the one who did this. he bears the responsibility of this. there were a lot of lessons learned inside the white house, thinking back at what could we have done differently. i'm not sure that conversations with held with the president himself. the reality at the end of the day his stewing over the testimony of the last week at a

hearing james comey gave was so intense, what the president managed to do is shine an even bigger spotlight on this entire russia investigation. he managed to accelerate what was, sort of a slow burn, this was going to be sort of one of the sound tracks of his presidency but this was not a full bore thing. health care was going forward, tax reform was going forward. what he managed to do this week alone is stop his agenda at least temporarily and put a sharper spotlight on the thaing that drove him crazy the most. i don't see how he moves on from this. would have addressed the, we e - need new credibility, need new leadership with the fbi and my new director is here next to me, big ceremony, someone unassailable both sides got behind. that didn't happen. >> veteran voice in washington bob gates quoted in "the

washington post," when you have to do these things and they're stuff to do in the administration, there's blowback in public opinion you have a plan and rationale explained and you bring that person in, government people who bite the bullet and go. instead the president sends out a tweet that raises this nixon-and-specter of recordings in the white house. he said james comey better hope that there are no "tapds" of our conversations before he starts taking to the press. i know there are meetings in the trump administration with a meeting with jackie and having a conversation and donald trump's would beam in, on some speaker system lnistening from another room and he would know everything that happened in the previous meeting so some people who have been around him don't think this is out of bounds. >> but then you had comey's reaction via the new york times i think. >> it was not my colleague who

reports this but he apparently said he hopes that trump has tapes because that would be perfect. "the times" did report this dinner that president trump referred to in the interview was not as the president cashingized it but instead jim comey being summoned to the white house by the president and being asked do i have your loyalty, repeatedly, and refusing to say yes you have my loyalty, instead he said you have my honesty, and if if you think about that, that's a completely striking thing for a president to ask and for an fbi director to have to respond to. i think knowing that president trump has in his past recorded people, he is again with this tweet sort of rushed out with a sort of rash comment that then they have to reverse engineer the response to. >> and he's empowered democrats to say -- tell us they exist or prove they don't exist. that will be called into question which has this whole controversy in which i've talked

to several people who are on the president's side, they want this president to succeed. they hear him talking and trying to get his friend from los angeles to come from los angeles to washington to be the grownup at the white house. they think we're 115 days in, going on 120 days in and haven't gotten up to speed. >> is tom barrett the guy who says mr. president you're wrong, you can't do that. i don't necessarily know there is anyone who can have that conversation with the president. on certain occasions ivanka trump tried to do it, jared kushner tried to do it. >> disappeared. big thing happens, invisible. >> they maybe have the best opportunity to at least make their case and be listened to but i don't think and i think this was stunningly apparent in the past week, nobody who can go to the president and say this is not a good idea or this may be a good idea but we need another 48 hours to execute it. even that conversation was not something that got through to

him. >> everybody sit tight. we'll continue the conversation. up next the credibility crisis, the president says he's so busy you can't blame his staff when they get it wrong but maybe if he told them the truth is would help. and the epic return of "snl" white house press secretary spicy. >> that's right, spicy's back. sarah's out. [ cheers and applause ] let's do this. >> were you surprised he fired comey before he fired you? >> oh, god. does that answer your question? (flourish spray noise) (flourish spray noise) (flourish spray noise) the joy of real cream in 15 calories per serving. enough said. reddi-wip. (flourish spray noise) share the joy. this is the schmidt's yard. and, oh schmidt, that's a lot of dirt.

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welcome back. last tuesday night after firing jim comey the president got angry at the tv coverage and ordered top aides to defend his decision to fire the fbi director. wednesday morning it was the vice president, mike pence, who took up the baton. >> to accept the recommendation of the deputy attorney general and the attorney general, the president's decision to accept the recommendation of the deputy attorney general and the attorney general, the recommendation of the deputy attorney general and the attorney general to remove an fbi director who had lost the confidence of the american people. >> that's disciplined, focused, and false. on thursday, after the president spelled out the real reasons for firing comey, his spokeswoman tried to turn the briefing podium to make you believe tuesday night and wednesday never happened. >> was it a mistake for the white house to pin the decision to fire james comey on rod

rosenstein? >> i don't think there was ever an attempt to pin the decision on the deputy attorney general. i think his recommendation again it was extremely clear. the president though makes the decision. >> we talked a little bit about this in the last block. it's amateur hour. i don't know another word for it. they're smart people, they're public servants whether you voted for this president or not, people who come into the arena they're tough jobs but to send your counselor kellyanne conway out tuesday night, your vice president out to essentially take his credibility and whoosh after what he said and the president comes out and changes the explanation and he says oh we never did that. >> it was unbelievable and sarah and i were at the white house during the hours. when it first started you knew it was not planned when sean spicer was standing in the doorway of the press office surrounded by reporters. sarah and i were standing there and he was reading out this statement but it was not, you know, and that was supposed to be the final word, about 7:00

tuesday night the white house is saying not going to say anything else. 60 or 90 minutes after there was this flood of aides out to the north lawn to try and explain this decision. the more explaining the worse it got. so if you're explaining you're losing and this week they were losing but the vice president i think this is the most essential thing. we talked to someone in his orsit. he's not rattled very often and he was a little rattled by this. he was said to be involved in the decision. i'm not sure that he's involved in many of these decisions. this is the second time in the last couple months where he has defended and looked foolish. he has to be concerned about his vlue and credibility and he lost it. >> republicans in congress, mitch mcconnell, paul ryan based somewhat on the first white house scenario how this happened, defended the president based on that and had the rug

pulled out from them. listen to what people are saying about the president. he watches cable news. phil mudd, one of our contributors at cnn, former cia official. he saw the tweet about the recording system and threatening comey. this was his take. >> you can't take this seriously. you feel like you got to give the president of the united states a pacifier and a rattle and put him in the crib. if you think you'll intimidate the former fbi director and dozens of people in the workforce who are conducting this investigation with the department of justice, you got another thing coming. >> it's provocative television but phil used to walk down the driveway to the briefings of the president he understands how the process works. sume, a, people react like that to what the president did and the president see this is conversation and i think that's what starts this cycle. >> the bluster can only go so far. it's not like james comey can't go testify to congress. he could very well do that, and he has a lot more leeway now than he did when he was the fbi

director. but the other effect this has is that these aides are loyal to him and talking about him going on undermining them, this hurts morale and this closes the circle around the president in addition to that. >> and it also only undercuts their ability to do anything else. the credibility of this white house was already in question before this week and to see people repeatedly go to the podium and his vice president have a stake outon capitol hill and say things that were completely untrue and the only question is whether they knew they were untrue or whether they were misinformed and kept in the dark, neither of which is a good situation to be in. >> you pick a fight with the fbi as well. i was talking to someone who works inside the building who is a trump voter and was very happy at the idea of changing washington, he said the thing disspirits and frustrating was the loyalty pledge. they take their jobs seriously, they do hard work at not much pay by washington standards and

the fact that the president is in there doing this, he picked a fight probably with the wrong agency. he did it with the intelligence community earlier. now the fbi. they're going to outlast him regardless. >> if you look at public opinion about the president's credibility and i want to get to something the president said to lester holt in the nbc interview. quinnipiac university poll before the comey president, 66% of americans say he's not level headed, 56% lacks leadership skills. describe the president in one word, the number one answer was idiot followed by incompetent, followed by liar, then leader, then unqualified, then president, strong. the thirst three responses are pretty damning. your cleei incolleagues have a that stems from his continuing view that people in washington won't praise his win, recognize the legitimacy of his victory, they say hillary clinton was a bad candidate or russia meddled in the election. listen to the president, he's

talking talking to lester holt. did the russians meddle in the election and listen to the word the president uses. >> i want to get to the bottom. if russia hacked, if russia did anything, having to do with our election, i want to know about it. >> there's already intelligence from virtually every intelligence agency that happened. >> i'll tell you this. if russia or anybody else is trying to interfere with our elections, i think it's a horrible thing and i want to get to the bottom of it. >> three times in that answer he uses if russia hacked. there was a hearing on capitol hill this week the top five guys in the intelligence community including trump appointees asked is there any doubt and they said yes, yes, yes down the line. what does he say if? >> it's about legitimacy, same reason he passes out pictures of

the electoral map to reporters in the white house. he's always seen this through the prism of whether he is the rightful president of the united states. that hasn't changed. >> he is, but these questions will continue including credibility. up next the president promises a quick decision on a new fbi director. some inside the fbi worry change and turmoil will bring calls to dial back their election meddling investigation. life. intelligent technology can help protect it. the all-new audi q5 is here. if you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis like me, and you're talking to your rheumatologist about a medication... ...this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain... ...and protect my joints from further damage. humira has been clinically studied for over 18 years. humira works by targeting and helping to... ...block a specific source... ...of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms.

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welcome book. several candidates for the fbi director were interviewed yesterday. the president said he hoped it

would be a quick search. >> do you think you might make a decision before saturday? >> these are outstanding people that are well-known, highest level, so we could make a fast decision. >> before the trip next week? >> even that is possible. >> even that is possible, meaning in this next coming week before the president goes abroad. the one reason the president soured on james comey the former director refused to pledge his loyalty to the president. not long ago he was equating them with nazis because of leaks about the russia election med e meddling. "the white house has lost confidence of the fbi rank and file but the acting director one of the candidates to replace comey says the president and his team wrong about that. >> i can tell you that i hold director comey in the absolute highest regard. i can tell you also that

director comey enjoyed broad support within the fbi and still does to this day. i can confidently tell you the vast majority of fbi employees enjoyed a deep and positive connection to director comey. >> andrew mccabe there, who was comey's number two, now is the number one interim at the fbi and is among the candidates to be the next director although i suspect that was noticed, just going to guess based on the historiff of the last 100 plus days that was noticed at the white house, he said the president is dead wrong. what the president's team is telling you is dead wrong. independent, which we applaud, but i'm not sure he gets the job. among the candidates john cornyn of texas, andrew mccabe, the acting director and lawyers, alice fisher, couple of judges, head of the richmond fbi office,

alam lee. fran towns understand, homeland security director in the bush administration, former cnn contributor and mike rogers who is also a cnn contributor. when you look down the list does anybody jump out? what is the white house saying in terms of the who, the what they're looking for? >> we know the president is going to personally interview at least the finalists perhaps a couple top finalists. what a fascinating interview. i would assume he wouldn't use the loyalty word but who knows. i think the question here is the fbi agents association supports mike rogers. he's one of them. he was an agent. he's been on capitol hill. he would have an easy confirmation process or easier confirmation process. >> also he worked in the trump transition and that didn't end well. >> it didn't end well. that is the big question. why would you want your fbi director to be someone you do not want in the transition. that was caught up in its own set of politics. we might be beyond that.

i'm also told the president is again this was not fully thought through so he doesn't know all of these resumes but he likes the people on that list he's seen on television as television analysts and other things. look, this is difficult to get done before he leaves on friday for his trip because they need to get someone who can be confirmed. john cornyn i find a very hard to get around the number two republican in the senate would be leading the fbi in this investigation. that seems political. >> who also talked about the russia investigation is a valid investigation and a good line of inquiry, a valid point of inquiry. that could work against john cornyn. >> they are hoping to try to get this done this week. if they can put out a candidate a credible replacement this will help them turn the corner on the james comey news and set them up to go abroad and come back, putting this storyline behind him. it is a heavy lift and i can emergency democrats are going to put up a big fight even if we

see someone with good credentials for the job. >> the attorney general calls and says we want to interview you, most people if you're a public servant let's go have the conversation. i owe that to my country and my president and to the government. the question is could you want the job at this moment in the context of everything happening including this idea that from sources close to james comey, the president invited him to dinner, looked across the table, will you pledge your loyalty to me? in the middle of the russia investigation looking to the man who leads will you pledge your loyalty to me. the president asked on fox news if that happened. >> did you ask that question? >> no, i didn't. but i don't think it would be a bad question to ask. loyalty to the country, loyalty to the united states is important. it depends on how you define loyalty. number one. number two, i don't know how that got there, because i didn't ask that question. >> what about the idea that in a tweet you said that there might be tape recordings. >> that i can't talk about, i

won't talk about that. all i want is for comey to be honest and i'm sure he will be, i hope. >> two conflicting accounts, one guarantee is members of congress at least the democrats will see how far the republicans who are angry about how all of this played out will go along. they want to hear from comey in private, democrats prefer in public and a lot of people said normally if you have a conversation with the president and work in the government that's protected by executive privilege. lot of people said because the president is spilling out his side of the story, let's hear it out. >> he has referred to conversations that he had with jim comey about the russia investigation in a letter n several interviews, in tweets and so the idea that he could then come back the white house could come back sometime down the road and say those conversations were privileged is i think if you ask legal scholars they'll uniformly say that will not hold up. the other thing that the white house is eager to have even though as jeff rightly pointed out this is normally a process where you have someone in place before you start the search you

want an orderly dismissal from one person and here is a qualified and well respected replacement. trump likes the spectacle, all the candidates, who will come out on top in the interviews and even though this is one of the most sensitive jobs and given the circumstances it's not what you'd expect to see. i think the white house feels like they're on more solid footing having this be the focus of attention than the underlying issues the comey firing raised. >> except to the conversation we had earlier, if it you're about to fire the fbi director one would think they've gone to the earlier process. watch next hour on "state of the union" james clapper is among jake tapper's guests and the president of the united states, mr. trump often says there is no collusion, look at what james clapper told congress some time ago. that is out of context director clapper says. at the time he saw no evidence of collusion, he says he didn't know anything about the fbi investigation. listen now.

>> i don't know if there was collusion or not. i don't know if there's evidence of collusion or not. there was no evidence that came, that rose to that level at that time. that found its way into the intelligence community assessment which we had high confidence in. that's not to say there wasn't evidence. >> i'm dying to watch the conversation with director clapper with jake, but one of the things that happened, when the president keeps citing these people and saying things they believe are factually incorrect or out of context, they keep coming back out. people normally not talking about these things and that's not helpful to the president. >> this is why we've had so many questions, we've had since the beginning of the administration but particularly this week about the credibility of this white house. they know that citing clapper is disingenuous when you talk to them privately they acknowledge it is misleading and yet they continue to do it. we obviously saw earlier in the mccabe testimony he completely disagrees with the administration's view that morale is low at the fbi and we

saw sarah huckabee saying she's heard from countless fbi agents this week who support that. i think that is what when you're sitting in the briefings, going in day in and day out you watch this, what can we believe that you guys are telling us. >> it's not just credibility with the news media. we'll discuss lesson learned the hard way. paul ryan ask him about the president and james comey he'll answer with a plug for health care and tax reform.

it wasn't just the vice president and the senior white house staff who were burned when the president ended up telling the true story of why he fired fbi director james comey. the senate majority leader and speaker of the house used the initial white house account in their statements supporting the president's move. one can't blame speaker ryan for ducking. >> i'm going to leave it to the president to talk about and defend his tweets. i'm focused on what is in my

control, what is congress doing to solve people's problems, health care and tax reform. those are the things i got elected to do and within our purview in congress. >> within control. remember those words but selling that agenda is a heavy lift as we wait to see if the comey fire is working. 21% of americans support the new republican health care plan, just 30% back the tax cut plan outlined by the white house. smart speaker after being burned saying i'm going to talk about %-ps agenda. it was already tough. they wanted the president last week the republicans to talk about health care to help them sell this health care plan when they were home. the whole week became about the comey firing and the republicans are out there naked. >> so i got a call on friday from the top gop staffer on the senate side who was livid they're trying to hash through health care and trying to get

through that and they were stuck talking about james comey. one of the things you put the phone out here because they're so frustrated that they can't stick to their agenda, because the president refuses to stick to his. >> and paul ryan got a dose of that this week, in ohio on wednesday trying to do a speech about tax reform and chased around by reporters saying what do you think about the firing of james comey? this is a realish auto if you they want to move forward and the real sit, when you have this white house which is so focused on the president's mood and so focused on what the president cares about at this point they're trying to get through this comey stuff. they are not thinking ahead so the white house is back next week. there will be ways and means hearings on tax reform. things really do have the tendency to grind to a halt in the white house and be a controversy. >> they may have overplayed it with the rose garden ceremony. they had momentum. they did get a bill, 21% of american people support the bill so they have a problem with the substance but in terms of the process they had a train on the

track they were trying to get to the finish line and as they were home they were desperate for the president. dust-up in washington and republican members who had the courage to have town halls including a person who wrote one of the key amendments to get the health care amendment through. >> this is what you did to us, and this district you do not listen. and when 17% of the population said don't do it, you did it. >> my concern is what's go to happen to them when they are 17, 18, 20, 30, 40, 50, and they are denied health care? >> that's tom macarthur, in a swing district in new jersey, the most democratic part of the district. 2018 elections a long way off. members who did a tough thing need help from their president who has the bully pulpit and they didn't get it this week. >> doesn't have the bully pulpit this week one of the reasons

this the ratings are so low. he did not leave the white house one time the entire week when he arrived back on sunday evening until friday evening, not one time. he was not out selling something like only a president can, talking about tax reform and health care and there are people who still believe in the idea of his agenda but boy, he wasn't talking about it last week and only the president can change this conversation but up until now he seems consumed by this. >> and even before this comey firing mess this past week he wasn't out there selling the health care plan, he wasn't out there the way republicans need him to be in democratic districts where he needs to have changed minds in order to get a bill back through congress when, if that should ever happen and they also know that the problem with the health care bill the reason is collapsed the first few times was because they did not have presidential leadership, they did not have any presidential cover to do this hard thing. they know that they have to have that on tax reform if that's

going to get anywhere and looking at the situation now, it doesn't appear like they're focused on that at all. >> the democrats have a lot of energy, 2018 is a long way off. they had energy about health care, now they think the president is on his heels about hiring. out to iowa, rod blum did several town halls. give a congress mapp credit for doing that, but -- ♪ hey, hey, hey, good-bye ♪ nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, hey, good bye ♪ >> you can understand why most of his colleagues won't have town halls. plaud the members taking the heat but in this climate they need a president and the president is worried about himself. >> absolutely. therein lies the problem like blum in iowa. they're having to learn to fend for themselves at this point, which is why you see a lot more

retreating to the telephone town halls, things more controled and safer for them. >> a lot of republicans coming to the conclusion even though they keep asking and keep being told it will get better they can't expect the white house to give them the cover they want so they're largely on our own. stay with us, reporters from share from their notebooks. the debate at the white house who should serve as the u.s. ambassador to the holy sea. an w fast food drive thru lane. but what a powerful life lesson. and don't worry i have everything handled. i already spoke to our allstate agent, and i know that we have accident forgiveness. which is so smart on your guy's part. like fact that they'll just... forgive you... four weeks without the car. okay. yep. good night. with accident forgiveness your rates won't go up just because of an accident. switching to allstate is worth it.

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let's close as we always do, down the table, ask our great reporters to share something from their notebooking, get you out of the political news. >> keep an eye on rand paul. he's relaunching his push against mandatory minimum penalties for drug convictions after a.g. sessions came out and said that prosecutors should go for the maximum penalties. this is a push that was a bipartisan push, it was a ray of

light where members weren't coming together they were coming together on this issue. talked to his staff last week, they're not sure on the timing but that's coming up and it will be a strong bipartisan coalition. >> and a boom against the white house. >> there was an important development following the money in the trump campaign russia investigation. amid the chaos it got lost. the intelligence committee asked the financial crimes enforcement network the tracking agency of the u.s. government for financial crimes and money laundering to turn over any documents they have with regard to trump, his associates, his businesses, and russia, and we learned late last week it looks like it is going to do that and that could provide some important new leads in this investigation, it has a trove of hundreds of millions of records of transactions, financial networks that are not really gettable or detectable through any other means so that could actually speed up the process

here of identifying some of these networks that may be relevant to the investigation. >> progress would be nice. sarah? >> the president is getting ready to embark on this foreign trip that would be an ambitious undertaking for i had new president. he doesn't have a ton of experience on the world stage. it is high risk, high reward. lot of washington republicans flat out des upon dent about how the past week has played out and looking forward to this trip as an opportunity for the president to set the reset button for the zillionth time. he could appear presidential, and with that comes the risks factor making america look better than it is. number say he could create an international incident at any stop along the way so they will be holding their breaths until he returns. >> can't wait. jeff? >> one of the stops along the way is at the vatican, so interestingly of course last year during the campaign the president had some words

exchanged oddly with the pope, all about building the wall. the pope said it's not a good thing to build a wall. it's not a positive thing. the president, candidate called him disgraceful. all that coming to a head may 24th they are meeting. before then the white house will announce the u.s. ambassador to the vatican. callista gingrich is in the final discussions. it could be announced this week. she is a very devout catholic, she's very prominent on the world stage and with that it means newt gingrich would go abroad as well so interesting. >> newt gingrich who happens to be in the process of writing a trump biography. >> he can write that from vatican city. >> beautiful writing studies in the vatican. add anger management to the list of giant challenges facing the

house speaker paul ryan and his leadership team. this past week was a boiling point for veteran house republicans. moat home avoid willing town halls because of constituent anger over health care and the comey firing, asked to comment on another presidential tantrum and tweet storm. the more republican retirements the better the democratic odds of retaking the house next year and those who track the gop pulse say the talk of packing it in because of trumphaustion is spiking. thanks for sharing your sunday morning. catch us weekdays here at noon eastern as well. up next, "state of the union" with jake tapper. have a great sunday. if you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis like me, and you're talking to your rheumatologist about a medication... ...this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain... ...and protect my joints from further damage.

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"you're fired" a political earthquake as president trump cans fbi director james comey. >> wasn't doing a good job. very simply. >> and threatens to leak secret tapes of his conversations with comey. >> he's a showboater. >> with comey out who will take over the fbi leading the investigation into the trump team's potential collusion with russia. >> were those investigations getting too close to home for the president? >> democratis leader senator chuck schumer joins me in moments. plus, warm welcome. top russian officials pose for private photographs inside the oval office, as president trump insists the russia investigation is a witch hunt. >> i'm not under investigation. >>