that's more speed than at&t's comparable bundle, for less. call today. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing this very busy friday with us. u.s. officials say they have firm evidence it was a chemical weapons attack in syria, and the administration bluntly calls out russia for lies and cover-ups, saying it is protecting the assad regime. plus the president's personal lawyer asked a federal judge to toss out a warrant the feds used earlier this week to seize evidence that could include audio recordings about the evidence to protect the boss. and he calls the president annett cal liar and worse.

it triggers a tweet and a full-scale assault from the petition allies. >> this is president donald trump. as jim comey found out, the president makes his own decisions and has a right to. nobody should get ahead of that or in the way of that. remember, people, we are not under oath when you read these excerpts. >> back to that in a moment. we begin with big questions of truth and justice. some playing out in the court of public opinion, some in the court of law. let's begin with the court of law. a very important hearing today in federal court in new york. michael cohen, the president's long-time personal attorney, personal fixer, challenged that warrant earlier this week that seized his documents from his home. sh shimon, what happened? >> reporter: quite a lot

happened, john. we expected to hear arguments from shimon's attorneys as to why the government should not have access to these documents, citing privilege. then during the proceedings, we learned that the president's attorneys, he's apparently hired some new attorneys here in new york city who are now representing him in this matter, she came in and she argued or started to argue, anyhow, that his privilege, the president's privilege, could potentially be violated. it is his privilege. michael cohen with his attorney, and therefore, the president, donald trump, is the only one who could waive privilege in this case, and therefore, they needed to be heard as to why the government should not have access to some of this information. and then the judge proceeded to say she was basically going to adjourn some of this to monday. also we're going to hear further arguments this afternoon and some more information regarding maybe what is concerning this investigation, some other information the government may

have. and then stormy daniels' attorney, michael avenatti, who also showed up in court here also wants to argue to the court as to privacy issues concerning his client. so he's asked the judge to be heard this afternoon, and we're going to hear from him around 2:00 or so. >> and shimon, as all this drama plays out, new attorneys representing the president step in. any court filings, anything made public yet, either documents or in the testimony to the judge, the arguments to the judge about what exactly was seized? more evidence, more details, if you will, of what was seized? >> reporter: no, that's what we're waiting for. we're told by the judge, we're told by the prosecutors who are in court, these are public corruption prosecutors. they said that they filed a 22-page brief. they do expect it to be made public, at least portions of it made public sometime today. they said about four or five sentences and these documents are probably going to be redacted. but they expect to release a lot

of this information sometime today, and hopefully we can get some indications, maybe, maybe, of just what this investigation is about. i also want to note you had the senior members of the u.s. attorney's office here at the southern district, the public corruption prosecutors in court. and also the fbi agents, one of the lead fbi agents, who is a public corruption agent, he's a supervisor on the public corruption squad. he was also in court. certainly this is being treated very seriously, obviously, but the number of u.s. attorneys and some of the senior-level fbi agents that were in court was pretty interesting as well. >> shimon prokupecz outside the courtroom. shimon, come back if any of these hearings play out. to our panel, solomon wisenberg joins us from raleigh, a formal federal prosecutor as well as worked on the starr investigation in private practice. solomon, i have some questions you can't answer because it's still ongoing in court.

what does it tell you that they have michael cohen and his attorneys challenging the warrant, and then new attorneys come in saying they represent the president of the united states. not michael cohen, but donald trump saying they want to be heard on this? >> it doesn't surprise me at all. it's totally appropriate. you have michael cohen who is evidently under investigation. he has many clients, not just the president. he has every reason to be concerned about what appears to be a very broad, extraordinary seizure involved here. but the president is one of his clients, and he has the right to come in and protect his privilege. your reporter mentioned a very interesting point. it's the client's privilege to waive. and i don't know about these recordings that have been reported that michael cohen recorded people, but if he recorded information that he shouldn't have recorded without the permission of one of his clients and it's privileged information, then the president's attorneys are accurate.

it's for the client to waive the attorney-client privilege. >> so take me through how you believe this will work. normally the fbi or the justice department, it's a separate team that looks at the material and then makes the determination is this privileged or is this not privileged, and then the not privileged materials get handed over to the prosecutors and the team in the case at hand. in this case, it would not be privileged, am i right, if any client was talking with his attorney about the furtherance of a crime, that's not privileged, right? if he's asking for legal advice, that is privileged. so how will this play out? >> well, that's a separate issue in addition to the clean and dirty issue. you have an issue of the crime fraud exception, which is if you use your attorney with or without his knowledge, if part of your use of his services is to commit a crime. there the government typically only has to make a prima facie

crime fraud to be able to look at the documents. typically, john, those are done by subpoena. the standard way is for the department of justice to subpoena documents, and then if somebody has a privilege issue to come in to the judge and make a motion to quash saying they can't do this, and they will argue crime fraud deception. there will be a sealed hearing. the judge will look at stuff in camera, which means secretly, and a decision will be made. here what complicates it immensely and makes me wonder why the search was necessary, is they're already in there looking at the documents. i find that, as a white-collar defense attorney, very, very troubling. i know now it's pro-controversy and pro-fbi who wants to see the president in trouble, but this is a search that should concern all of us. and my view is unless they have pretty rock solid evidence that

cohen was in the midst of destroying documents, it would have been much wiser to go by subpoena. that's the normal route. >> it's an excellent point made by sol wisenberg. we'll bring you back for the answer to that question. we'll see if they're back in court on monday and i appreciate your insights with me in the studio. and further insights of manu raju. we don't know what's going to play out in this court, but just the fact the president's personal attorney is fighting a warrant, and sol makes a key point, some of it may have to do with his representation of donald trump, some of it may have to do with other clients. we know there was something about separate bank and tax records. but then another attorney says, i've just been hired by the president of the united states, now he has attorneys in washington and attorneys in new york fighting this. where this ends up, whether this

warrant is ruled valid or invalid is a giant question at the moment. >> and from a political perspective, if you're an american citizen watching this trying to understand what it means, it's creating tremendous emotional pressure at a time when there is a lot of other stuff going on from syria to north korea, and coming at the same time as the release of jim comey's book in this blockbuster interview that will air over the weekend. standing a few feet from the white house and watching it unfold, you get a real sense of how many plates are spinning at the same time and how nerve-wracking it is for this president. >> and how the interests separate. michael cohen has every right to worry about himself. i know in his career he worried about donald trump. now he has to worry about himself, which is why he has lawyers in there, too, to worry about the president. >> yes, because this is not the investigation being overseen by bob mueller, this is not an

investigation whether there was russian collusion or not, this is now an investigation regarding his client of many decades and he used this person to help decide whether they wanted to do foreign deals and it's essentially a fixer for him. now we're digging into the president's personal activities and business activities in terms of the fed going after michael cohen. that was something donald trump was worried about from day one. >> you heard sol kind of roll his eyes and then say verbally that michael cohen may have recorded these conversations. we haven't seen any evidence of that. but he's told people over the years in his business issues that he records conversations. a trump adviser said, we heard he had some proclivity to make tapes. now we wonder, who did he tape? did he store them someplace where they were actually seized? did they find his recordings?

>> this is probably troubling the president the most. there is a lot more that will come out in this proceeding. it was interesting that cohen could take this to court because there is a 22-page government filing and we haven't seen the details of that yet. the government wants to redact some sentences of this new filing today. what exactly has the government found or why do they think they have to go into michael cohen's properties and raid and gather evidence? no wonder the president is concerned, which is why he hired a new attorney to deal with it. >> there is actually evidence that michael jackson cohen had tapes, because michael cohen has actually played tapes of his conversations with the president, then-candidate trump and his associates, for other people. he's sort of flashed the tapes around to prove that they existed in some cases. >> and to make things more complicated, you heard shimon prokupecz say stormy daniels' attorney has jumped in as well,

saying she has privacy rights. a quick break. when we come back, the story we thought we would begin with, james comey versus donald trump. it's not pretty. patrick woke up with a sore back. but he's got work to do. so he took aleve this morning. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. tylenol can't do that. get all day minor arthritis pain relief with an easy-open cap.

with recurring constipation and belly pain if you feel like you spend too much time in the bathroom talk to your doctor and say yesss! to linzess. ♪ yesss! linzess treats adults with ibs with constipation or chronic constipation. linzess can help relieve your belly pain, and lets you have more frequent and complete bowel movements. linzess is not a laxative. it works differently to help you get ahead of your recurring constipation and belly pain. do not give linzess to children less than 6, and it should not be given to children 6 to less than 18. it may harm them. do not take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain, especially with bloody or black stools. the most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. if it's severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. other side effects include gas, stomach area pain, and swelling. so say yesss! to help for recurring constipation. yesss! to help for belly pain. talk to your doctor and say

yesss! linzess. with a $500,000 life insurance policy. how much do you think it cost him? $100 a month? $75? $50? actually,duncan got his $500,000 for under $28 a month. less than a dollar a day. his secret? selectquote. in just minutes, a selectquote agent will comparison shop nearly a dozen highly-rated life insurance companies, and give you a choice of your five best rates. duncans wife cassie got a $750,000 policy for under $22 a month. give your family the security it needs at a price you can afford.

welcome back. if we get any more details about the hearing under way in the court in new york, we'll bring them to you. now to the court of public opinion. in this case you're the jury whether you like it or not. the president lashing out today at james comey calling him weak, untruthful slime ball and a terrible director of the fbi. the president is mad, of course -- probably a tame word -- because comey's book is out and in it he paints the picture of a narcissistic

president and didn't seem to care that russia was meddling in the u.s. elections. the book tour -- take a deep breath -- just beginning. here is james comey with this russian dossier. >> how weird was that briefing? >> really weird. it was almost an out of body experience for me. i was floating above myself looking down saying, you're sitting here briefing the incoming president of the united states about prostitutes in moscow. i honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but i don't know if the current president was with prostitutes in moscow in 2013. it's possible but i don't know. >> the notes and other records that comey handed over to the special counsel robert mueller ultimately matter a whole lot more to the book and the president's nuclear response to the book. but the book is front and center now, and comey's portrait of the

president is jaw-dropping. is that the right approach for comey to go, to go tabloid? i don't know if there were prostitutes in moscow or not. i can't say there were or i can't say there weren't. or should comey be saying, i'm not going to talk about questions like that. here's what happened in my meetings with the president. here's what he did. here are the facts. i'll leave that to others. >> the more damaging thing for the president is whether or not he tried to get james comey to back off the investigation of his former national security adviser, michael flynn. of course, comey has testified publicly under oath that he did, in fact, do this and the president has denied not under oath that he asked comey to pull back. he provides some new details about exactly what happened but essentially provides the same information that we knew about that alleged interaction. this other stuff gives critics an opportunity to seize on him as being petty, as being just trying to sell books. so it's certainly a risk when he uses the personal attacks. i was on the hill this morning

talking to republicans who were actually not necessarily fans of the president, some who were in that camp, and they were taken aback by comey's attacks on the president. so maybe this may work to get headlines but maybe not to achieve his ultimate objective. >> there's sort of the substance of this, the substance of the problems of whether the president told jim comey to back off. that's all proceeding on a different track. jim comey doesn't need to talk about that as much. leaving behind the threshold of i was unable to prove this thing, but maybe it's possible, especially with this allegation. the comey book as a lot of stuff in there about the president's physical appearance. it has repeated references to the trump orbit as being like an organized crime family. he's clearly going the tabloid route on the book-selling part of this because he doesn't need to really get into the substance that much. there are multiple investigations that are digging

into all of this. >> some would argue, as we've seen with michael avenatti and the stormy daniels case, if you want to beat trump, you have to play trump. to your point, the conversations on capitol hill, here's trey gowdy. since he announced he wasn't running for reelection, he used a trademark trump term here for his take on comey. >> one thing director comey and i did agree on, we needed a better fbi. i can't think of anyone who is better politicizing the fbi than anyone else has. i'm really disappointed. >> let's go sell some books. >> oh, it's definitely going to sell some books, and you can see how some of the more important points of this book in terms of the future of the united states of america get lost when you're

talking about prostitutes and tan lines. when comey is recounting the president learning and the president's team learning that russia interfered in the 2016 election when he was then the presiden president-elect, and their first question is, did it impact the results of the election, and it turned into how are we going to spin this into we actually won this electoral victory, rather than saying how do i guard america's election system? we have midterms coming up in 2018, how do we make sure this doesn't happen again? that's an important part of the book, but i think it gets overshadowed in large part because people want to focus on the more sola cc irk krrksolaci prostitutes. >> the president gives a much more detailed briefing.

sara says that it didn't impact the election, can we make sure we get that out. the president admits he's not tough on vladimir putin. he kind of apologizes about vladimir putin. >> you're also struck by what they didn't ask. >> very much. no one, to my recollection, asked, what's coming next with the russians? how might we stop it? what does the future look like? it was all, what can we say about what they did and how it affects the election we just had? >> i think we're right to say that this is comey's strategy on day one and then comey's strategy on day 10 or day 20 or day 30 may change. i can think of one really skilled public relations practitioner that can manipulate the media narrative to suit his tactical needs, and that's president trump, and i can think of another and that's jim comey. you can say this isn't dignified behavior for an fbi director,

but if jim comey is taking a lesson from president trump, it is precisely that lesson about fighting fire with fire and the idea that the president of the united states himself, you can imagine, we've heard him say things like, i don't know if that's true, some would say that's true, some have said that's true. but jim comey's long-term reputation for the last year, year and a half, is as a law and order man, someone devoted to the fbi and sort of the parody of that practice, and i think we may see his discussions about this evolve. >> just for the public interest in this conversation, senior brian stelter reporting this. the printing was 800,000 copies. the michael wolfe book, "fire and fury," 150,000 copies. so they clearly think there is interest in the book.

> you won't like this, but this president has a constant problem with the truth. so many things this president says simply are not true. is he a credible witness in calling james comey a liar? >> the american public doesn't seem to think so. the new "washington post" abc poll out today said 32% trust president trump compared to comey. we got 48% for him. which aren't stellar numbers for comey, but better than the president. that's why the president's attack going after comey may not be that effective. we have to break here. the former fbi director james comey will sit down with james tapper next thursday on "the lead." coming up, the president's most military act in syria, his ambassador to the united nations in very blunt language calls out russia. hey! oh, that's my robe. is it?

when you switch to liberty mutual, you could save $782 on auto and home insurance. and still get great coverage for you and your family. call for a free quote today. you could save $782 when liberty stands with you. liberty mutual insurance.

if you'd have told me three years ago... that we'd be downloading in seconds, what used to take... minutes. that guests would compliment our wifi. that we could video conference... and do it like that. (snaps) if you'd have told me that i could afford... a gig-speed. a gig-speed network. it's like 20 times faster than what most people have. i'd of said... i'd of said you're dreaming. dreaming! definitely dreaming. then again, dreaming is how i got this far. now more businesses in more places can afford to dream gig. comcast, building america's largest gig-speed network.

welcome back. the president's national security council scheduled to meet again on the syria question. the trump administration said it is almost certain that the syrian regime used chemical weapons on its own people last week. with that came a public indictment of russia, ambassador nikki haley saying russia is repeatedly blocking action on the regime and repeatedly failing to keep its promises. >> our allies know who did this. russia can complain all it wants about fake news, but no one is buying its lies and its cover-ups. russia was supposed to guarantee that assad wouldn't use chemical weapons, and russia did the opposite. our president has not yet made a decision about possible actions in syria, but should the united states and our allies decide to act in syria, it will be in defense of a principle on which

we all agree. >> some new details on why the president is taking his time to decide. cnn is told that secretary james mattis warning the president that he risks heavy involvement in syria if he goes ahead with a bomb campaign he has asked the pentagon to prepare. that's where we are. a remarkably blunt, longer statement. we'll play it in a moment if we can from nikki haley saying this is not just on bashar al-assad, this is on vladimir putin and the russian government. quite striking how clear she was in the attack on russia. but the council meets again this afternoon. the president said he wanted to get out of syria, but now he says, if you do what you've asked me to prepare, you're going to be involved in syria for weeks or months. >> right. two things in nikki haley's statement. one is the president has not yet made a decision.

you wouldn't necessarily know that from the president's twitter account a couple days ago. and the other is, if we act, we're acting on a principle, presenting a legal challenge to the justification of his action. the biggest problem we have now is they have to gauge what will happen with russia. they have come out and said very bluntly, if do you this, if you go ahead with a missile strike, one, we'll blow the missiles out of the sky -- okay, maybe -- but we'll also target the launch sites. launch sites are either planes or guided missile off the coast of syria. that's where the risk of escalation comes in. how do the russians respond to this if the president goes ahead with military action? >> and yet one of the president's biggest criticisms of barack obama in terms of foreign policy was to get this close to a strike on syria in 2013 and then brake and make it congress' choice. and he didn't do it.

the president himself said, look out, russia, i'm coming. i'm paraphrasing, but intimated that within 48 hours everyone would know what he decides. and he was told to make sure you understand the implications of doing something like that, but it was the language on twitter that brought about this dichoto dichotomy. the u.s. acted unilaterally before in this case. the president now having continuous phone calls with leaders of the three countries but that has declared another movement in terms of unilateral action. >> he's also criticized for not having a policy afterwards, a

longer-term policy and a strategy. the position of the president with his own words, his own tweets, is excruciating. some members want him to act immediately. bob corker, the former senate relations chairman, says he's concerned the longer this drags out, and if there is military conflict, it's going to get much more catcatastrophic. the president may be risking more lies by waiting longer. >> and yet the former general, the man responsible for the troops, the airmen in the ships and in the skies, talking publicly about speaking with the president privately. >> our role in syria is the defeat of isis. we are not going to engage in the civil war itself. we're trying to stop the killing of innocent people. but on a strategic level, how do we keep this from escalating out of control, if you get my drift

on that. >> i think everybody should try to get his drift on that. you made the point russia has said we'll shoot down the missiles or fire back from where they came from. that could be an exaggeration, but if russia is responsible, or at least on the basis where anti-aircraft is launched at u.s. planes. if there is a provocative action in the sky with jets launching at each other, then you're talking about a military conflict with russia. >> i think the president learned from the first time around this isn't as simple as it's going to be. just fire missiles and russia and syria decide to back off and everyone plays nice after that. president barack obama may not have come anywhere near fixing the problem, but i think president trump is figuring out there are different avenues he may need to take.

>> we'll see if we get a decision today. coming up, why is the president planning to pardon scooter libby? >> many people think scooter libby was a victim of the special counsel. sensing your every move and automatically adjusting to help you stay effortlessly comfortable. i can also help with this. does your bed do that? oh... i don't actually talk. though i'm smart enough to. i'm the new sleep number 360 smart bed. let's meet at a sleep number store. so allstate is giving us money back on our bill. well, that seems fair. we didn't use it. wish we got money back on gym memberships. get money back hilarious. with claim-free rewards. switching to allstate is worth it.

topping our political radar today, the competition to replace paul ryan as the leader of house republicans. the freedom caucus member jim jordan now being floated as a possibility for that. ryan stepping down as house speaker. he says he'll leave at the end of the year. there is a possibility there could be an election before then. the chairman of the freedom

caucus says jim jordan, possible candidate. the president last night ordering a full financial review of the u.s. postal service. you can connect the dots. that review comes after a spree of presidential tweets attacking amazon. the president accuses amazon of taking advantage of the post office and thinks the post office is losing too much money on amazon deliveries. post office officials said they welcome that review and they hope some good can come of it. it will be led by secretary steve mnuchin. and the president may very soon pardon scooter libby. you may remember him from the george bush administration. he was convicted of perjury by releasing the name of valerie

plame. >> what he's doing is saying you can pardon somebody for national security. i believe he has three, perhaps more. and that would be paul manafort, michael flynn and jared kushner. >> why would a frequent critic of the george w. bush administration, meaning president, go back in time to pardon scooter libby? is he trying to put forth a list of potential witnesses today? >> it's possible. someone who leaked classified information should be prosecuted. well, now he's vying for the relief of an operative. at least someone in the administration is getting pardoned without any sort of

justice department review, which is typically customary. >> normally at the end of this, there is a file about yea thick of all the consideration. the president did this on his own. >> you're saying this person who wasn't on anyone's radar, right, this person who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice, if memory serves, we're going to pardon him, we're going to cut out the doj. we're going to pardon him and it's going to be okay for him. i don't know how you don't get a message if you're one of the many figures in the mueller probe. >> kellyanne conway gets a little gleam in her eye when she says he was one of the victims of the special counsel. coming up next, why the president might now want back in on a deal he once called a disaster, and yes, a rape of our country.

hey rick, all good? oh yeah, we're good. we're good. terminix. defenders of home. when you combine ancestry's with its historical records... you could learn you're from ireland donegal, ireland and your ancestor was a fisherman. with blue eyes. just like you. begin your journey at ancestry.com

- (phone ringing) - big button, and volume-enhanced phones. get details on this state program. call or visit

and accessories for your mobile phone. like this device to increase volume on your cell phone. - ( phone ringing ) - get details on this state program call or visit

the trans-pacific partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our count country, just a continuing rape of our country -- that's what it is, too. it's a harsh word. a continuing rape of our country. >> that was candidate trump. he followed through quickly after taking office as president trump, abrupting withdrawing from the tpp. now he's reconsidering that after he talks with farmers not happy over a trade war with china. the man tasked with looking at it again was surprised, to say the least. this is larry kudlow, the top presidential adviser says, there's out of the blue, and there's, i guess, out of the dark, navy blue. this was dark, navy blue. for that he means the

president's decision without warning. the president said they would join only if the deal was substantially better than the deal offered to president obama. so where are we? the president again makes a policy on the fly, stuns his economic team. number two, a lot of people have left meetings with the president thinking he greed to agreed to and then he does what he did last night, tweeting, well, maybe. is he just trying to humor farmers that aren't happy? >> there is one big difference and it is this. the president has very much hung his hat on being a good businessman and on being able to post gains and show strength for the economy. what we've seen over the course of the last few weeks, if you watch it, it tracks fairly closely when there is a lot of

threats over trade, a lot of threats over tariffs, the markets react. when there is easy rhetoric by the president and president xi in china, the markets go up again. so for the president heading into midterm elections, understanding that in the midwest and some parts of key tru country, you see why he would want to sell it as the tpp was weaker before, it's stronger now. holding back has made us stronger and we're in a stronger position. >> you mean you don't see the president coming out and saying, during the entire campaign, i was wrong. i kept seeing this as a gift to china. >> not going to happen. >> this is one of his stunning campaign messages. clinton did backflips trying to press herself into a pretzel getting away from the tpp.

and trump criticized her, saying, of course she's going to join the tpp. he said he would not. >> people say crap during campaigns. we know this. people say all kinds of things during campaigns, and what they're stuck actually having to govern, they're faced with the real world impacts. you have to bet in addition to watching the stock market go up and down, there are people in the white house, kellyanne conway included, saying, look, everybody is talking about russia, but as we get to the midterms and the reelection, the numbers that are going to matter are the job numbers. the numbers that will matter is economic growth, the stock market numbers matter. you should focus on those numbers there, and people can just feel good about what's in their pocketbooks. >> you need iowa again, you knees the farm states. but that's easier said than

done. the trade minister says we have a deal worked out already. it was called, like fine glassware. decisions have consequences. these deals are difficult to negotiate, and you can't just walk up and say, never mind. >> right, and this is not the first time the president has entertained rejoining tpp. he dropped the rhetoric from the campaign for the most part since taking office. he wants to run under explicitly better terms. it's really, really hard. he's trying to negotiate nafta. that's not going anywhere. and these other countries are basically pricing out a lot of american producers. they would have to be making concessions that they don't want to make to the united states, which is the acting party this time. >> i think the press corps was

in for a portion of the meeting with these midwest leaders, bunt didn didn't -- >> because those lawmakers remember the dhaka kids and guns or wherever the president has gone from minute to minute. up next, the white house plans to discredit two key players in the russia investigation. but first, let's hear from one person who absolutely does not miss questions about the president. that would be the former house speaker, john baynor. >> are y -- boehner. >> are you worried about the white house? >> i don't have one regret. every morning it's hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. this is not my problem. centers of america.

the evolution of cancer care is here. learn more at cancercenter.com/experts

welcome back. two very telling headlines out of the trump white house in just the past 24 hours. one, a west wing campaign to discredit the former fbi director. two, a west wing campaign to discredit the deputy attorney general. that's james comey and rod rosenstein. together they have a combined nearly 50 years in federal law enforcement across democratic and republican administrations. both have republican pedigrees. but team trump says they're the enemy, not to be trusted. comey is enemy number one because his book is out. here's kellyanne conway on fox this morning. >> we find that mr. comey has a revisionist view. he was fired, it's not like he came to the conclusions that's in his book while he was on the job as fbi director. he said to the president, i must resign. i can't deal with thi anymore. i must resign. >> she was in the driveway of the white house on fox this

morning. this is a doctored book cover, a mock book cover. "a higher loyalty" by james comey. i get that the president has every right, every reason on the merits of dispute to challenge james comey and rod rosenstein. but when you talk to the people behind the campaign it's perfect. they're not perfect, they've both made mistakes, they've both done things that could be called into public debate. but to say we're going to call for tax dollars to protect the president by discrediting people who have given five decades of their lives combined to federal law enforcement tells you what? >> it shows the big distraction this is causing no matter what happens with the mueller probe or where this goes from here. this is a major distraction in a

key election year when they are trying to get ahead and could lose the house. this is why the senate has a political impact no matter how effective they are in ultimately discrediting comey. rosenstein is separate because he's running an investigation to the president, and that could run into legal issues if you were to interfere with rosenstein in any way. >> the cast with rosenstein is too conflicted to oversee the investigation. already a number of trump's associates have called for rosenstein's firing in appearance on television and in public remarks over the past few days, but not all of them did so at the request of the white

house. >> now there are people in the white house saying he's too conflicted to comment on the investigation because he wrote about james comey. thanks for joining us on "inside politics" today. we'll see you sunday. wolf starts right now. hello, i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. in washington. wherever you're watching from around the world, thank you so much for joining us. the president of the united states and the former fbi director he fired, they are now at war. president trump calling james comey a slimeball as comey breaks his silence with a devastating takedown of the president and his behavior. among the explosive revelations, president trump didn't care about russian meelddling in the u.s. presidential election, he was obsessed with the