>> heather: thank you very much for coming us. >> jon: are you coming back tomorrow? >> heather: i will become a very busy day. >> jon: and busy at the white house press briefing coming up, "america's newsroom hq" starts now. >> fox news alert, the white house news briefing expected to start any minute now come hello, everyone, i am melissa francis. reporters standing by in the brady briefing room for press secretary sean spicer and they are expected to ask him about the search for a new fbi director and reports of a possible shakeup at the white house he right now, president trump is meeting with the crown prince of abu dhabi. chief white house correspondent john roberts is at the briefing, of course, so what is the white house focus today and heae reports of a potential shakeup there? >> good afternoon. first of all to the news at hand, the president meeting with the crown prince of abu dhabi just minutes ago asked by the

white house press pool how the search for a new fbi director is coming along. he very much the same what he said when he was on his way back from lynchburg, virginia. not sure how far along they are past that, but the president says this is a search that is moving along and could be over in the next few days or after he gets back from his trip to the middle east. in terms of this idea of a staff shake-up. the prospect of a massive staff shake-up that would involve a lot of members of senior staff and his cabinet is quote nonsense although there is some speculation that the chief of staff may be on the bubble but there's been talk of that since way back in june. also some talk about a shake-up at the communications slot. after the web of communications i think got tangled coming out of the announcement that james comey was being fired last tuesday. so nothing has been cooked yet,

i'm told, but there could be some moves coming in the next few days. >> melissa: what's next on the substance of that which is the replacement of the fired fbi director? >> reporter: there were interviews with eight people conducted by jeff sessions, the attorney general, rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general. those names include the acting director of the fbi, ail leck fisher in the justice department a number of years ago and judge michael garcia. federal judge from virginia, henry hudson, adam lee, former michigan congressman mike rogers who is reported by an association of fbi agents. some think that gives him an inside track. as well as frances townsend. i am all told the idea of merritt garland chief justice of the dc court of appeals as fbi director is something that's being kicked around although

some say that would be an extraordinarily bad idea. back to you. >> melissa: we want to show this to you. president trump is meeting with the crown prince of abu dhadi. let's listen. >> great honor to have sheik muhammad with us today. man i have known. very special person. highly respected. loves his country, i can tell you that. loves his country. and i think loves the united states which to us is very important. thank you very much for coming. >> thank you. >> thank you. thank you. very good. very good. we'll be wrapping it up. thank you all very much. >> melissa: so you heard that there. that was the president with the crown prince from abu dhabi. as soon as given a chance,

reporters jumped in with questions about the fbi. let's bring in chris stirewalt. you heard it. they want to know what's gonna happen next with the fbi. no? >> and then they're hitting him with the tasers. get outta here. go. >> melissa: that's the press. >> it's the press. you gotta tase them. do you remember how hillary clinton had them roped off in the parade. >> melissa: you have them cast as the ones being hurt here. they're pretty aggressive themselves. seems like it's equally match on either side. >> isn't that our job? there is no bigger question in washington now because so much of president trump's agenda and so much of the president hopes and dreams of holding on to the house and everything else descends out of the president choosing wisely and choosing well on this replacement for the ousted fbi director. >> melissa: what is more important in your mind for the

president continuing or improving on his past doing everything he wanted to do. kind of two balls up in the air. should he have a shake-up in the white house? or should he focus all his efforts on getting someone in that fbi post sooner rather than later? >> well, nothing is everything. i believe they said on kung foo. the goal for the president is to keep this in balance. he has to have a choice for fbi director that can get the support of all the republicans and at least get an acknowledgement from democrats that this is a qualified person. otherwise, the stuff ab special investigators and special committees, it quiets nothing. he needs that to be taken care of. once that's taken care of, he has to get back on the side of winning these fights. he has a big package of cuts to obamacare that he wants to put through. more importantly he has a tax plan that he wants to get

through. there's a dangling that's got to be finished by the end of september. so he needs to move on to those things. >> melissa: for those who join us every day at this time, you know the spicer briefing kind of goes back and forth. it was supposed to be at 1:30 today. it's 35, now 36 minutes behind schedule. chris, what do you make of that? >> nothing. >> melissa: you don't think there's a little behind the scenes trying to decide what's going on? nothing? no? >> i would imagine in any administration sometimes these suckers start late because things do develop. i would imagine in this administration where things develop quickly, i wouldn't be surprised that things are moving around. i would also say the talk about a shake-up is just beyond me. you can hardly have -- this would constitute even if it wasn't the scope that john was talking about. even if it wasn't that it would still be the second or third time a major staff for a young administration. at a certain point you gotta have loyalty not just from your team.

you got to have loyalty to your team. you've got to say, we can work together and get this done. this would not be a good time to have more on the job training in this administration. >> melissa: they're throwing cold water on it. there's folks inside saying absolutely no truth to the idea that it's going on. do you believe this story? do you think it was floated by someone else trying to do more damage to the trump team? >> you know about kids and mommy shopping and -- >> melissa: i did learn that recently. i didn't know that. >> the thing, if you don't get the answer you want, you go from dad, so on so forth. unfortunately for presidents you are surrounded by people who will say the reason it's not working is they're not letting you be yourself. put me in charge and i'll let you do everything you want all the time. unpopular for presidents are the people who say, i know this is hard but we'll have to ask you to do this the harder way. the president will all be around people who are back stabbing their rivals and telling the

president, just let me in there and i'll let you be you. >> melissa: you think that's what's behind the change and it's not real? >> it may be real. who would know about whether or not that was -- of course it's possible. if the president gets frustrated with the way things are going, i'm sure he would sack a bunch of people. the dynamic is true in every white house. they'll shove one tkpwraoeu and guy and tell the president once i get in there everything will be great. >> melissa: in my house the buck stops with mommy. >> i do not live and doubt on that question. >> melissa: let me ask you, in terms of who will be the replacement, out in front. what are you hearing on the streets. >> it is getting increasingly

interesting. as an ancillary benefit, fbi director takes it. it opens up a very appellate court seat that donald trump would love to be able to fill. democrats would hardly complain about merritt garland. how could they say anything bad about him and the fbi director? >> melissa: all right, chris. as entertaining as always, thank you. we are still awaiting the press briefing. leading experts desperately try to limit the damage with new reports of it spreading into asia. benjamin hall joins us live now with more from london. what has the global response been? >> global response from what is a global problem. governments across the world

reaching out talking to their intelligence teams to try to stop this virus and the damage that it has been causing. what this malware does, it freezes computers. it offers to return access if the users pay $300 in bit coin. up to 200,000 computers in 150 countries have been affected in all continents targeting major institutions, banks, including rail way services and national health services. in britain, countless hospitals were hit by the malware, some forced to cancel or delay treatment to sick patients leaving many doctors unable to access file, prescriptions, forcing many of them to revert to pen and paper. real effects on people there around the world. melissa. >> melissa: wow. what do we know about the source? >> well, analysts desperately trying to find out where it came from. at the moment they don't know. it could be week, months. they might never fine out where

this came from. the malware seems to be based on programs developed by the nsa and the cia which identified floors in a microsoft operating system. that malware was leaked by a source inside the security service and has been used by the hackers. in russia, where 1,000 computers were in the interior ministry affected the finger was pointed at the u.s. president putin blames the u.s. security services saying they were the original source of this virus. the head of microsoft also claims one of the big problems here, software is so readily available. almost anyone from high school students to criminal gangs can get their hands on it and really pushing cyber security at the moment. hopefully we hear more about this in the briefing that is coming up now. >> melissa: no doubt. benjamin hall, thank you very much. north korea said it successfully tested one that could carry a nuclear war head, a missile, and hit u.s. targets. all that and more sure to come up in the white house briefing. it's gonna start any minute.

we're gonna take you there as soon as i does.

ready or not, here i come.ek.) ♪ anyone can dream. making it a reality is the hard part. northrop grumman command and control systems always let you see the complete picture. and we're looking for a few dreamers to join us.

>> melissa: we are awaiting the white house press briefing. it should be starting any moment. they're about 45 minutes behind schedule. be interesting to know what took so long. we will bring it to you live as soon as they come out. u.s. ambassador to the u.n. nikki haley is raising the possible of new sanctions on north korea in the wake of the latest weapons test. north korea claims it successfully launched a missile that could carry a heavy nuclear warhead. the missile flew about 30 minutes and landed in the sea of japan on sunday. greg palcott is live in london. why is this latest test so significant?

>> we've been talking to experts. yes, they say it is the most significant launch we have seen from north korea. why is it so significant? first you mentioned the time aloft. 30 minutes in the air. that's the longest time any ballistic missile has been sent up by pyongyang. also, it went up 1500 miles and then back down. long-term, very dangerous. back to you, melissa. >> melissa: sorry to interrupt. here now is sean spicer. >> then i'll go on with the events of today and answer your questions. to tom? >> thanks, sean. thank you. good afternoon. i'm the assistant to the president for homeland security and counter terrorism. i'd like to start by acknowledging the fallen police officers that the president and vice president acknowledged today. they are on the front lines of our homeland security and the event today was an honor for me

to attend. on cyber security, as the president's homeland security adviser, part of my responsibility is to coordinate cyber security ef forts. i want to give you an up date on the ransom ware attack. we're monitoring this at the highest levels of government. we're bringing all of the capabilities of the u.s. government to bear and we're working with our partners. i spoke moments ago with my counter part in great britain and learned an update from them that they have a feeling of control over this ransom ware e srepb and that their affected computers seem to be tied to the effect that their healthcare system is so large. they are painfully aware of the fact that this is a global attack. as of this morning it has reached 150 countries and infected more than 300,000 machines. the good news is the infection rates have slowed over the weekend. we have been concerned about that when last we talked.

the ransom ware has affected hospitals and other organization. the uk health care service announce 48 of its organizations were affect d and that resulted in inacceptable computers and until phone service. but extremely minimal effect on disruption to patient care. that was something quite evident in my conversation. computers at the spanish telecommunications company were compromised. we had a small number of affected parties in the u.s. including fedex. secretary kelly, department of homeland security continues to lead operation and public/private coordination. his team is issuing daily situation reports. holding multiple calls per day. among experts and operation centers managing our response. as of today, no federal systems are affected. overall the u.s. infection rate has been lower than many parts of the world but we may see additional impacts on additional areas of the world as these

attacks morph and change. it appears less than $70,000 has been paid in randsomes. the cyber threat intelligence integration center is also keeping us informed of the classified insights concerning the investigation into these hacks. let me talk about the way ahead. it's important for our business and individuals to know three variants have emerged. we talked last i was here about variants of this malware. if you follow the advice published by the fbi and microsoft and patch your systems you are protected against all these variants. it's also important to know pirated stolen or unlicensed version of affected software will not receive patches. it is important to not use that unlicensed software. if you do, you will be subject to susceptible infections.

it would be satisfying to hold accountable for responsible for the hack, something we are working on quite seriously, the worm is in the wild, so to speak, at this point and patching is the most important message as a result. business and government have responded to upgrades and patches and this is dramatically reduced the vulnerable population over the last three days. this needs to continue to be our focus. let me finish by repeating advice that all organizations be vigilant in updating their software and that the only computers that can be compromised by the wanna cry virus are ones that do not have the latest security patches available from microsoft. >> this is one episode of malware or ransom ware. do you know from the documents and packing tools if there is se o essentially more out there. >> there's a little bit of a double question there. part of that has to do with the under lying vulnerability

exploit used. i think if i could, i'd rather instead of directly answering that and can't speak to how we do or don't do our business as a government in that regard. i'd like to instead point out that this was a vulnerability exploit as one part of a much larger tool that was put together by the culpable parties and not by the u.s. government. this was not a tool developed by the nsa to hold randsome data. this was a tool developed by parties, potentially criminals of foreign nation have put together in such a way so that there are deliberate phishing e-mail, put it in embedding documents and cause infection encryption and locking. i think i have said this morning the problem of the under lying vulnerability is something that is a little less of a direct point for me. >> shorter way to put it is, is there more that you worry about that could lead to more attacks in the future? >> the united states more than any other country is careful about how they handle any vulnerables that they are worried about.

this is something we know about the vulnerability. i think that's a key distinction between us and other countries and other adversaries that they'll provide any such considerations to people, customers and industry. >> you mentioned your british counter parts are feeling this. was there any time that you monitored this in the states where you felt there was any lack of control over this, or that this could get out of hand here? if not, what is it about what was here that was protected that didn't exist for example in europe or other parts that have obviously taken a much bigger hit. >> no compare teufrb control but my conversation today led me to believe that he felt quite comfortable and my counter parts felt quite comfortable where they stood today. >> was there any time you felt here that things could spiral out of control? >> as we were gathering more information, that was important for us to determine the parameters of this. once we got our hands around the parameters, that's the beginning moments we were trying to get

hold of. get malware, analyze it. in that time frame you don't entirely feel in control but you're searching for information. once we got it and realized what the situation was, we realized there were patches available and had been available since march. operation centers and communication become the key. they're imperative to how we handle the response. from the british rer speckive i felt it was important to pass along two point. one that they thought it was an extremely small number of patients that might have been inconvenienced not necessarily a disruption of their clinical care as opposed to their administrative processes. two, they thought some of the reports might have been misstated or overblown given how they've gotten themselves into a position of patching. we'll have to do the analysis and investigation later as to why certain organization systems or sectors were more greatly affected than others. that's the point i'd like to elaborate. >> bottom line, for the average consumer, what are you going to do to make sure it doesn't get out in the open? >> bottom line for the consumer is patch your software, provide

automated patch support. turn that on. make sure your i.t. service providers or i.t. folks within your organizations are patching your software. that's the bottom line. and this particular malware and the three variants that we've seen since are all fixable with patch. that's something that you can get from microsoft. that's our bottom line. i don't want to encroach too much into mr. spicer's time. with that, maybe one more question, sean, okay? >> who did this? >> we don't know. that's the information we're after right now. it will be satisfying for me and all of our viewers i think if we find them that we bring them to justice. attribution can be difficult here. as i stand here i feel we're working on that. thank you very much. i'll let you know. thank you very much. >> the president was pleased to see this morning the national

association of home builders and wells fargo announced that recent reports show home builder confidence continues to rise with their numbers the strongest since the housing bust. according to the nabh chairman, quote, this report shows that builders optimism in the housing market is solidifying. we've already seen tremendous response in the economy in the wake of the president's pro growth agenda. unemployment rate is at the lowest it's been in a decade. manufacturing job openings are higher than they've ever been since 2006 and the future of the american economy looks very bright. the president glad to see businesses once again making significant investments in america from intel to general motors to wal-mart to apple who specifically just announced earlier this month that they will start a $1 billion fund to promote advanced phfbing jobs here in the united states. it's not just the president's domestic policies that are

generating optimism, last week we announced the 100 day action plan initiated by president trump. as i noted last week these arrangements are major wins for american companies across many different industries in sectors. this morning the president and the vice president joined tens of thousands of officers and friends of law enforcement at the annual peace officers memorial service at the united states capitol. this is the 36th year the fraternal order of police has honored the memory of the brave men and women who have lost their lives in the line of duty with this service and ceremony. in the president's opening remarks, he reiterated the trump administration's commitment to standing with the men and women of law enforcement, quote, without apology.

and the president said that these men and women are, quote, the thin blue line between civilization and chaos. words can not express the depths of our gratitude but he hopes the actions of this administration will show our men and women in blue, quote, how deeply we care and how strongly we feel about protecting those who protect us all, end quote. earlier today the president had the honor of meeting with officers and guests from police departments that recently suffered the loss of a police officer from phoenix police department and the new jersey state troopers. he also signed a proclamation in honor of peace officers memorial day and national police week. the president was honored to just welcome recently last few minutes the crown prince of abu dhabi to the white house. his highness is a strong partner of the united states and a leader in the middle east on a number of important topics including defense cooperation, regional security and counter terrorism. the united states and the uae

recently conducted a defense cooperation agreement that will allow us to work more closely together to address common security threats. the president hopes to work together even more closely to resolve regional conflicts that raged across the region for too long. this is the president and his highness' first meeting and they have a lot to discuss including bilateral trade and investment as well as regional security issues. at the conclusion of the meeting we will have a readout. later this afternoon the vice president will swear in robert lighthouser as the united states trade representative. ambassador lighthouser has spent decades working on american trade policy including under president reagan. the president's glad to finally have an unquestionably qualified individual in place as we fight for better trade deals that will put the american worker first. and now that he's officially on board this afternoon, ambassador lighthouser is getting straight to work. tomorrow he will have a series of meetings on capitol hill. thursday he will travel to vietnam for the asia pacific

economic cooperation meetings. with ambassador lighthouser swearing in after historic show of obstructionism by senate democrats the president will finally have his entire cabinet in place, able to fully implement the president's america first agenda across the entire spectrum of the federal government. other cabinet news, secretary chow kicked off an e srepb with the u.s. chamber of commerce noting the newly reopened i 85 bridge in atlanta as an example of what can be better accomplished with federal state and local governments working together. secretary chow will be traveling to lean thursday for the ceremonial ribbon cutting. secretary perry is in texas today as part of va research week to announce the vets project, a joint effort between the veterans administration and department of energy to help data map veterans health rorsd and solve health related issues of veterans. this partnership part of the attempt to modernizing the systems we use to care for our nation's heroes brings together

the va healthcare and genetic data from its million veteran program with the department of energy world class technology to improve health care and quality of life for our veterans. secretary shulkin will also be traveling to commemorate va research week speaking at the brain trust path ways event in boston wednesday. this brings together public and private experts in research, prosthetic, i.t. and other specialties to focus on new ways to support veterans coping with the effects of traumatic brain injuries an head trauma. the state department also had a few briefings today on the next step in addressing the assad regime and the horrors it has committed on the syrian people. the trump administration believes syria's political future should be decided by syrians in a free, credible an transparent process. however, we all believe in a free process, it's unimaginable syrians would choose to continue under the assad leadership. syria will never be stable and secure as long as assad is in

power. it has done so with seemingly unconditional support from russia and iran. for these reasons we continue to support the political transition process contained in u.n. kurt resolution 2254 and support the political process taking place under u.n. oversight in geneva. as we've said before the united states remains open to work together with russia and iran to find a solution that leads to a stable and united syria. but in order for tows work together to bring an end to the violence in syria, russia and iran need to acknowledge the atrocities of the assad regime and use their influence to stop them. as you can see, it's going to be a busy week for the president, the cabinet and the staff leading up to the president's first foreign trip that launches this friday. we take off for saudi arabia later on friday. i plan to have general mcmaster here hopefully tomorrow to walk through the trip with further detail. with that, your questions. >> thank you, sean. just in china, how many of the

senior director say the u.s. is forming a working group and u.s. companies have much to offer. so what's the per spebive of the u.s. future collaboration? >> as i mentioned with respect to the 100 day plan, i think there's a lot of areas that we are going to continue to work with china to develop a way forward. i think the relationship that the president established with president xi down at mar a-lago is continuing to pay dividends to our country. whether it's this policy, trade or market access, we'll con to see all of those individuals from the president's cabinet that were down in mar a-lago continue to work with their counter parts to have a path forward. >> sean, first of all, back to what you said about syria. the official policy of this administration now regime change in syria? >> i think i have made it very clear what our policy is.

>> over the weekend lot of talk from democrats about the comey replacement process. first of all the jeff sessions is leading the search. lot of democrats think he should recuse himself from the russia investigation. secondly, some democrats in the senate are saying that before they will consider the president's next nominee they want a special prosecutor appointed to look into the russia investigation. can you respond? >> i think this is a process that's running completely as it should, as being headed by the deputy attorney general and the attorney general. as you've noted in the past the fbi director trorts the deputy attorney general. they continue to move through a series of highly qualified candidates and it's obviously this is a huge priority for the president to make sure that we have someone that has the ability to administer the proper leadership to the fbi. >> how about a special prosecuteer? >> there's frankly no need for a

special prosecutor. you have two senate committees looking into this. the fbi is conducting their own review. i think if you even look at what acting director mccabe said last week, he made it clear they have the resources that they need and that the work continues. but the bottom line is, again, part of it is there's a difference between what we've talked about and that and it's been made very clear that there's been, with respect to the president himself, both senator schumer, senator feinstein, senator manchin that have been briefed on this, have been clear there was no collusion with respect to the president and no investigation there. >> let me pick up on where he left off. in the short term, short term question and long term question. in the short term is it the advice of the administration should somebody have their computer system expected not to way the ransom. >> people should use the patches

to ensure those things don't happen. prevention is the key we're spresing. >> as it relates to the long term, at the end of the day this is extortion from likely hostile foreign actors. might the administration set some sort of guidelines or policy as it relates to u.s. individuals, u.s. companies, should they be approached as to what to do and maybe what not to do? >> yeah. i think we can -- our immediate goal is to make sure we're protecting our both individual, commercial and government enterprises. that work has proved to be -- the prudent steps that have been taken have proven to be fruitful. right now obviously that's the number one priority. >> do you know what other companies. he mentioned fed ebg. do you know if that was something specific happened to fedex? >> i don't. jim? brad, i'm sorry.

>> the president's goal is going to be looking for recommending reform or looking at cleaning the roles or will it be more of the 2016 election? >> the executive orders that the president signed and the vice president and secretary of state are leading is a bipartisan commission of the state election officials. they'll look at all aspects of election integrity including voter fraud and proper registration and allegation of voter suppression. i think they're looking at this wholistically. >> one more. as far as north korea goes. with the north korean government, does administration advise against their reaching out toward the north korean regime -- >> i'm sorry.

>> the north korean government. is the administration advising in south korea reaching out to north korea after this? >> i think the president looks forward to having a conversation with the new president and discussing a way forward, but i'm not gonna get ahead of that discussion at this point. john? >> thanks, sean. on the search for the new fbi director and president today said that it's moving rapidly. one name that was put forward over the course of the past 24 hours by the senate majority leader is that meritt garland. is that a name the president would possibly consider in the move to name the new fbi director? >> the search for a new fbi director is being handled by the department of justice. my expectation would be that once they've conducted that search, they'll present names for consideration to the president. they're the ones leading that effort. >> can i follow up on the

question from last week. as you know, several republicans have joined democrats in seeking additional information from the white house in writing about the existence of any tapes, producing the tapes and any further information about the potential taping of conversations. is the white house planning to cooperate with those requests and furnish that information as requested? >> i think i made it clear that the president has nothing further on that. hunter. >> wait. does that mean the president will deny the request? >> i was very clear that the president would have nothing further on that last week. >> by the legislative branch's request. >> alexis, i made it clear what the president's position is on that issue. hunter? >> people clearly thought concern about russia's role in the election even though the president said there's nothing to it. if there is nothing to hide, why not back a special prosecutor or independent commission just to

settle it beyond any doubt? >> well, again, it's not a question of -- it's at what point you have a house, a senate, a house committee, a senate committee, the fbi. i don't know why you need additional resources when you already have three entities. >> we saw polling from nbc news and the washington journal. 80% of people want this and they don't have confidence. >> with all due respect the bottom line is you have three entities already looking into this matter. the president's position's been very clear that there is two issues at hand. one is the involvement of russia potentially and the president's involvement. the fbi director and others have made it clear. we have plenty of entities looking into that. >> on north korea, is there a new sense of urgency for president trump to act following the successful pwa threubgs missile test over the weekend? >> i think there's no question

that north korea continues to threaten the united states and its allies including china and russia. we are calling on all of the folks in the region particularly china and russia to do everything they can in terms of sanctions to help resolve the situation and bring stability to the peninsula. >> quick domestic issue. what characteristics is president trump looking for in an fbi director? >> i think obviously he wants someone with high integrity and the leadership skills. i have not specifically discussed the qualities with him. richard? >> thank you, sean. two questions. you told us over and over that for nafta we were waiting to be confirmed. can you give us a better idea on the pace of the negotiations? negotiation of nafta now that we have a trade representative? >> i'd have to check the calendar but i think we have an hour or two before he's sworn in.

you may want to give him a little bit of time. until he's sworn in and assumes the position, he's going to immediately go up to capitol hill and off to apec and vietnam. so i'm sure we'll get around to it. but right now we still need to go to the process of getting him sworn in. >> last week quickly, they touched on the topic. when the president will be with nato ally, is he going to ask for a larger bigger involvement in afghanistan with troops on the ground from the members? >> i'm not going to get into what he will say or not say. he'll have an opportunity to make his position very clear. he hasn't even, i don't think we have announced the afghan strategy yet. there's two issues. one is he'd like to see a greater effort placed on counter terrorism, combatting terrorism. two is to see more of the countries live up to their financial obligation they agreed

to. jim? >> two par question. is president trump still committed to his 15% corporate tax rate? he's also under pressure to keep existing loopholes such as the eliminating the state income tax write off for highest state taxes such as california. is he committed to the 15%? also full steam ahead getting the write off for all tax >> secretary mnuchin outlined the principles of his tax reform plan. that conversation continues. as i said, they're continuing to meet with individuals. those are part of those talks. his plan has been very clear from the beginning as far as what he wants to see and the frame work on which it's being guided. >> places like florida and tennessee can write off zero income tax.

>> again, i'm not going to get ahead of that debate. principles that were outlined explain where the president's starting point is. he's going to have those discussions. >> there have been critics that said in this political climate, who ever it is shouldn't be a current politician. we see at least two of them are either current or former political figures. does the president have a feeling on whether or not having held elective office is a plus or minus to hold that job? >> i have not talked to him about the qualities he's looking forward to seeing. we'll have to see who they put forward. >> i have two questions. i guess i'm just looking for clarity on one of my colleague's questions. why won't you explain whether or not there are recordings? >> the president's made it clear what his position is. >> that's not my question. >> that's what the president's position is. >> given you refuse to confirm this, how is any senior official

supposed to feel comfortable having a conversation with the president? >> the president's made it clear. >> even with congressional lawmakers -- >> i have answered the question over and over again the same way. >> second question that i have is on the argument you're having now 9th circuit regarding the travel ban. one of the lines has been why the president has not disavowed his muslim ban. will he do that? >> the executive order is fully lawful and will be upheld. we fully believe that. there's no question. in one of the arguments in the previous cases it was made clear that if anyone else had proposed this, which just shows that it is legally sound people are misinterpreting this. this is based on the law and the right the president has. >> my question is will he disavow it? he's never said it. never has. >> the point is the measures that he took in that executive order are fully lawful, fully compliant and make it clear that they seek to keep this country

safe. >> is there any indication the president will say, yes, i disavow the ban -- >> right now the president is focused on making sure we make the appropriate arguments to get the ban in place. >> thank you. considering contrast to much of the expressions during the french presidential election and that has been reported in france especially. there may be a lot more in common between president trump and the new president marcon of france. both former successful business men. two of the oldest allies. knowing this, would the president look forward to an opportunity to bring this young president closer to him maybe meeting on the borders at the g-7 or bringing it here in the

next few months? >> if we have updates to share on additional individual leaders that he will be meeting with are meetings he'll have during his trip, we'll be sure to give you an update on that. but with respect to whether it's the french president or any other head of government, the president looks forward to reasserting america's role in the world and re-establishing some of the relationships. what you've seen so far, whether it's president xi or president abe or other individuals, you can see by the week we're having, turkey, colombia, the president has made it very clear that he's going to do everything he can to re-establish relationships around the globe to help protect and advance our national interests. >> is it special? >> there are a lot of relationships that the president wants to strengthen for the good of his country. john? >> thank you. two questions. first, there are reports and it may be confirmed by now that

mrs. calista gingrich will be the third woman to be u.s. ambassador for the holy sea. official? >> nothing's official until it's announced. >> has her name been vetted with the vatican? >> i have nice back try. the answer is we have no personal announcements. >> the other question is not related to personnel but process with the fbi director. sarah spoke last week about an interim or acting director of the fbi, but with the interviews that you describe with the department of justice, can we expect that the name nominated from the position from that podium will be for permanent director and probably submitted to the senate? >> that's what i believe the expectation is, yes. >> no interim or acting? >> well, you have an acting now until someone's selected. the reason that the president's team is going through this

process is to select the next directo director. >> i have a healthcare question. as it goes to the senate. i'm wondering if the president's negotiating strategy will change. does he want to get involved earlier? does he want to wait until the senate comes up with something. does he have anything in particular that he wants to see from the house bill, get rid of from the house bill. what's his approach to this new chapter in the repeal part? >> he feels very strong about what came out of house but recognizes the senate has a duty to review i. if it can be made stronger then great. he's continued to have conversations with members of the senate. our legislative team and others are in communication with the senate. they are an independent body. if we can make the bill stronger in any way, that's something

he'll support. >> came in to close the deal on the house because he wanted to get involved more with the g-7 or stick with the same process? >> the president by several accounts was involved in a way that people hadn't seen on capitol hill in a long long time. >> going back to the fbi director search. should we expect the president begin interviewing personally the short list before he leaves for the trip? >> i think that's going to be driven by the department of justice. as soon as the department of justice has a recommendation for the president, then we'll move on. but at this time, i don't have -- there's no update on when that is. >> you referred about syria that the state department announced the syrian government has apparently been carrying out mass killings, burning thousands of prisoners. i'm wondering if that is any kind of red line for the president and whether you should

see any military response to that. >> the president has always been clear that he's not going to telegraph actions that he takes. number two it was important what the state department did today was enumerate the atrocities and human rights violations that have been committed and further ask the world community to join with us to put pressure on syria. >> can we expect any direct action by the president? >> the president's made clear over and over again that he doesn't telegraph his actions. he's going to be continuing to raise this issue. when he's ready to act, he'll let everyone know. >> when it comes to vetting the fbi director after the experience with michael flynn, is the white house recommending doing anything differently with vetting the fbi director? are you already doing something different? >> i'm not gonna get into internal processes that exist. but obviously, we will -- you'd have the full resources of the fbi. i'm not going to get into how that process is handled.

i'm not going to get into the processes of how that's being done. >> sean. >> okay. >> two question. one to follow up on halle's question. how has the president made it clear what his position is? >> i have answered that. >> how have you made it clear? >> that's his position. he said he has nothing further to add. i understand. there's nothing further to add. >> has any made any requests to the russian inquiry. one small follow-up. last week you said you would get back to us on who requested the dinner with him and comey. >> i apologize. i will follow up on that today. one of the things that's important with respect to that just to clear something up. i think that there was clearly bipartisan support that jim comey wasn't up to the job. the president has every right to fire a person because he

believed director comey lacked the judgment and the decision making skills and wasn't up to the job. the president's reaction to this, to what his position has been completely misrepresented. you think ab what he said to nbc news. he said, one, he didn't care this action would make matters worse for him. it might even lengthen out the investigation because he would take action against jim comey an firing him. he said the investigation wanted to be done absolutely properly and might even confuse some people he would take this action knowing it would make matters worse for him. the actions that he took he knew could be detrimental to himself, but none of those things mattered because the president had to do the right thing for the american people because he believed that jim comey was the wrong man for that position. and i think that we've got to be very clear as to the reason that the president took the actions that he did. he knew that what he did could be detrimental to himself and could lengthen the investigation. but he knew it was the right thing for the country, the right thing for the fbi and the right

thing to get to the bottom of this. >> why is he the wropb person for the american people? >> because he didn't have the leadership skills necessary to lead that institution. and as he said in a statement at the time, the fbi is the crown jewel of law enforcement and they deserve a leader that can properly lead the institution. thank you very much. >> melissa: okay. so that was press secretary sean spicer there answering a lot of questions, some of them multiple times. jessica tarlove is a democratic strategist and senior director of research for bustle.com. mercedes schlapp is a strategist and former spokesman for g.w. bush. pher samercede mercedes, what did you make of that? >> i think that's a style that works better when you're less combative with the press. yes. i think what you found in this press briefing was sean basically staying calm and not

letting the reporters get under his skin. and also having the homeland, deputy homeland security adviser come out and speak before sean, talking about the serious nature of these global cyber attacks really helps to keep the message where it needs to be, which is in this case where the president has been focusing on dealing with these cyber security attacks and figuring out what we can do to ensure it doesn't happen in our country. i think it went a lot smoother for sean spicer and obviously i believe you're going to see something with his communications team where they know that their performance is key and important to make sure the president's message comes out effectively. >> melissa: yes. jessica? >> i agree with what mercedes said there. towards the end he was reading from a statement about why james comey was removed from his position, which i think was smart for him to be doing considering how many questions there still are about the circumstances with which he was removed from that post. obviously, the press corps is not buying the argument that the

president has made his position clear on taping conversations in the oval office, the implications of that for high level official, lawmakers, etc, those that are meeting with him. i think that will be a point of difficulty for him going forward. i think this russia investigation, going back to the james comey issue an what's going to happen with the appointment of a new fbi director is not going to go away. >> melissa: it's not going to be resolved in the press room. all of those things are absolutely true. i think the public wants the know more and democrats want to know more. >> 78% want an independent commission. >> melissa: hang on. but it's not going to be settled in the press room. >> here's the deal. democrats want to make this a distraction. make it that a special prosecutor becomes their central theme. why? because they want to obstruct the president. they want to obstruct the president's legislative agenda. that's their goal. so i think in the case of comey, it is very clear that the fbi director serves at the pleasure of the president. it was time for comey to go.

if hillary clinton would have been president, comey would have been out of there day one. this russia investigation continues because as mccabe has said and several others have said, it is the career prosecutors in the fbi are the ones who continue this investigation. >> melissa: real quick, jessica. i'll give you the last word. there are already three bodies doing an investigation. we really need a fourth? >> seems like the american public wants that. i have seen arguments on both sides. all of the points that have been made today by mercedes are well taken. i'm interested to see where it goes going forward. democrats will stand in the way. it is not altogether clear that while it is the pleasure of the president to keep the fbi director, that doesn't mean it was the right chance. >> melissa: okay. we gotta leave it there. we gotta leave it there. thanks, guys. homeland security adviser to the president answering questions at the white house press briefing on this weekend's massive worldwide ransom wear attack. he emphasized the u.s. has the situation under control.

let's bring in adam meyer, the vice president of intelligence at crowd strike, who's calling the ransom ware a weapon of mass destruction. it's that serious? >> it was pretty serious. it had the ability to self-propagate which meant it could spread from computer to computer without any user interaction. and that made it exceedingly dangerous compared to previous ransom ware we've seen. >> melissa: he made it sound like it was relatively contained that it hadn't been quite as big a threat in the u.s. he emphasized if you were just putting in place your microsoft patches that you would be fine and that it was mostly about phishing. did you agree with that assessment? >> i think the patching is the most critical thing. making sure that you have those patches in place is the best thing that you can do to keep your system safe. >> melissa: he also made the point that it is ransom ware and $70,000 has been paid out so far by people trying to cooperate with the ransom and that no data was recovered as a result. does that sound right to you?

>> that's what we're hearing. there's mixed reporting that's been coming out in the last half hour from security researchers that i have been talking to. but we haven't seen any confirmed recovery of files that i'm aware of. >> melissa: yeah. how dangerous is this? they're talking about it delaying care in hospitals and the effect that it was there. doctors not being able to get the information they need to save lives. >> yeah. i mean, it's incredibly dangerous. some of the most sensitive files. there have been 179 different files that were targeted. and what it does, it encrypts them and makes them unrecoverable without a proper backup. so it's pretty dangerous. >> melissa: so this is from brad smith from microsoft. the governments of the world should treat this attack as a wakeup call. they need to take a different approach and adhere that the same rules apply to weapons in the physical world. we need governments to consider the damage to civilians that comes from hording these vulnerables and the use of these exploits. adam, the administration tried

to make it sound different there. they were saying we're the only ones that share patches and share our information and the ability to deal with this. did you buy that? >> yeah. i have seen plenty of instances where the u.s. government's been involved in providing patch notification and working with the community. so i think there's a time and place when they need to make sure that those things are patched and there's certain times where they can use to it their own advantage. >> melissa: yeah. definitely was very scary as it spread, but it turns out that we didn't see it rampant across the u.s. that's a good reminder to do the update, to do the patches, and to also make sure you don't click on those e-mails when they come. there's a link from somebody that just doesn't make sense. >> and backup. got to have backups. >> melissa: you're right. lot of people have been writing to make sure about that. backup as well. that's a great mention. adam myers, thank you so much for coming on sharing your intelligence today. we appreciate that. >> thank you. >> melissa: thank you all for

watching and sticking with us through that press briefing. another exciting one. we will be back here tomorrow. join us then as well. i'm melissa francis. coming up next here's >> shepard: it's noon on the west coast. 3:00 in d.c. where we're watching new fallout over the firing of the fbi director, james comey. now some republicans are refusing to defend president trump or call him out. lawmakers talking about who they want running the bureau next. a professional, not a politician. also, new accusations that the syrian dictator bashar al-assad is carrying outs executions and has built a crematorium to hide evidence. and north korea marks a dangerous and new milestone with its largest ballistic missile flight so far. the north koreans claim this thin