we got this picture from a beautiful setting at the white house today. there's the first couple with the snow behind them. melania sending that out today. first lady on her official twitter account. share that with you. great day. >> see you at 2:00, by the way. "happening now" starts right now. >> jon: a fox news alert. the austin bombing suspect recording a video confession before his death. hello, everybody. welcome to "happening now." i'm rick leaven thall in for jon scott. >> they were closing in on the accused killer and he is the suspect who later blue himself up. the footage shows how troubled he was, all 25 minutes of it but doesn't explain why he did it. >> that's why is so random and i think everybody in my hometown is asking why? why these victims? is there any interconnection between the victims? we also know, bill, he had a

target list of future targets. residences, addresses that we found. i think he had pulled these addresses to -- these were his future targets. >> jonathan hunt is just outside of austin where conditt lived. what can we expect next in this investigation? >> good morning, rick. the investigation is ongoing. investigators, of course, probing the methods and the motives of mark conditt and this is ground zero for that investigation. that is the house behind me there, the small yellow home where conditt lived with his two roommates and where he apparently prepared some, perhaps, all of the bombs he used. a.t.f. officials tell us that they have inside that home found bombmaking components. they would not describe it as a bombmaking factory. but they do say that the components matched those used in each of the attacks.

they're also pouring over every minute of this video that conditt left behind. made on his phone. now, we first got word of the existence of such a thing about 24 hours ago from our sources. but for various reasons, we held off reporting until the police chief confirmed the existence of that video. he says on it, conditt explains why he -- how and why he came to this point in his life where he felt he needed to carry out these attacks. he also explains exactly how he built each bomb. listen here to the police chief. >> on this recording, the suspect describes the six bombs that he constructed with a level of specificity that he identified the differences among those six bombs. we have told you all along they all had similarities which they did as far as specific components. but there were also differences between them. and on this recording, he identified what those differences were.

>> officials also tell us that they are now relatively confident, in fact, have a high level of certainty there are no other bombs out there in the public, as they put it. a huge sigh of relief for the people of austin who have been terrorized by these six attacks in total that first began on march 2nd. the final bomb, of course, set off by mark conditt as he sat in his old model nissan pathfinder outside a hotel just north of downtown austin as police closed in. his final act taking his own life with one of his bombs. rick? >> rick: jonathan hunt, thank you very much. >> a fox news alert as the president gets ready to take action against china, signing a memorandum about an hour from now that will slap trade sanctions on that country for stealing american technology.

chief white house correspondent john roberts is live on the north lawn. john? >> good morning to you. president less than an hour from now expected to sign a memorandum that could impose possible tariffs amounting to somewhere between $30 and $50 billion on select chinese goods. u.s. officials here at the white house say that these are not punitive tariffs. they're describing them as protective tariffs designed to recover damages from what the white house says are china's unfair trade practices including forced technology transfer for companies looking to gain access to the chinese market. china is responding to just the threat of tariffs indicating it may be willing to compromise on the massive u.s.-china trade deficit. chinese premier earlier today, listen here. >> what i hope is that we can act rationally rather than being led by emotions in order to avoid a trade war. our import tariffs, by world standards, are at a medium level. we are willing to adopt an even more open posture and gradually

reduce tariffs for some popular consumer products. >> the president also expected to announce today investment restrictions on china. these are being imposed to prevent china from capturing the technology businesses of the future and stealing american intellectual property. the national association of manufacturers urging the president to go ahead cautiously on this. in a statement this morning saying "tariffs are one proposed response but they are likely to create new challenges in the form of significant added costs for manufacturers and american consumers. in addition to these challenges, tariffs also run the risk of provoking china to take further destructive actions against american manufacturing workers." the threat of tariffs not sitting well with the stock market today either. the dow down more than 400 points now. but as we saw with the imposition of tariffs or at least the announcement of tariffs a couple of weeks ago, the dow was down for a while and then rebounded. the president also giving his stamp of approval, somewhat grudgingly to the $1.3 trillion

omnibus spending bill that congress is going to be voting on. president tweeting this morning got $1.6 billion to start wall on the southern border. the rest will be forthcoming. most importantly, got $700 billion to rebuild our military. $716 billion next year. the most ever. had to waste money on dem giveaways in order to take care of military pay increase and new equipment. while the president did get $1.6 billion for some 90 miles of border barriers and technologies, he did not get the multiyear, multibillion dollar funding that he was look for for that massive concrete and steel wall that he saw prototypes of last week. nor did he get the money for an additional border agents that he wanted. at $1.3 trillion or more, this is a lot more than what the president wanted but didn't have much choice. here's legislative director earlier today. >> there's no doubt that it provides more nondefense spending that we would like. but the alternative is to shut down the government, not provide our military the resources they

need, not provide the border security we need. >> and a possible preview of a potential 20/20 matchup. president going to war with joe biden, the former vice president who is rumored to be a potential 2020 candidate. on tuesday, in a speech at the university of miami, biden said if he and the president were in high school together, he would have "beaten the hell out of president trump over his treatment of women." in response, the president tweeted this morning. crazy joe biden is trying to act like a tough guy. actually, he is weak both mentally and physically and yet he threatens me for the second time with physical assault. he doesn't know me but he would go down fast and hard crying all the way. don't threaten people, joe. julie, if those two go up against each other in 2020, what we saw from 2016 will pale in comparison. >> i love a good cat fight. all right, john roberts, thank you. >> thank you. >> rick? >> rick: the white house is now calling it a "fireable offense"

that someone leaked president trump's briefing materials warning him against congratulating russian president vladimir putin on his re-election. this breach raising concerns that some members of trump's own staff could be trying to undermine him. >> you know what i like even less, there's somebody close to him leaking this stuff. if you don't like the guy, quit. to continue to leak things out, it's dangerous and so i don't like what he did but i really hate that there's someone in his inner circle willing to leak this stuff. if you don't like to work for the president, you should resign your job. >> rick: joining me now, white house reporter for the associated press. thanks for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> rick: this isn't just about flipping the script, that he wasn't supposed to congratulate putin. they're calling this a serious security breach. >> absolutely. look, the first day of fallout on this story was the concern over the fact that the president actually congratulated putin on this win, and undemocratic election. but the fallout continues now

for the fact that this piece of guidance for the president, written piece of guidance was leaked and this is something that has infuriated chief of staff kelly and also really, really angered the president who feels we have had endless leaks in this white house especially in the early days. you saw a pattern before where those leaks were often intended to embarrass somebody if you're a staffer who is up against another staffer, you would try to leak damaging information about them. you'd try to leak damaging information about a particular policy as part of your fight to kind of make the policy that you wanted actually be implemented and taken out by the president. this is different. and the president really feels like the reason this was leaked was an effort to embarrass him and effort to undermine him and part of his concern that he's had now since he got into office about this, what he calls this deep state of career officials who he feels like are trying to undermine him. >> rick: we heard from senator rubio and heard from former national security counsel official in the obama administration who said if you're leaking talking points, you're not serving the president and should not be at the white

house. >> yeah, there's very few number of people who would have seen this document and been responsible for writing it or understanding that it was done by aides to h.r. mcmaster. we know that the president is not happy with mcmaster. he has been considering now for a long time replacing him. at this point, we're want sure about the timing and not sure about who he's going to replace him with. the president has not made that decision yet, the anger here is palpable. and this just is kind of one more strike against mcmaster and his staff right now. >> rick: lots more to discuss on this, jill colvin but we're out of time. thanks for being with us this morning. >> thanks for having me. >> it is being called facebook's worst crisis yet after a firm linked to the trump campaign accessed the data of millions of its users. the impact this could have on the social networking giant. plus growing concerns about russia. yet again interfering with our now upcoming midterm elections and what u.s. lawmakers can do to try and stop it. and do they have enough time to fix it? senator lindsey graham will join

me next live. but first, here's senator john cornin. >> we know what they did in 20167. we don't know what they might do in 2018 which could, in a close election, affect the outcome and that would be a devastating for our country. ♪ ♪ keep your insights from prying eyes, so they won't be used by anyone but you. the ibm cloud. the cloud for smarter business.

>> julie: get this, russia may already be trying to interfere with the midterm elections. that's right. the c.i.a. saying it already is seeing russian activities. the senate intelligence committee suggesting ways to stop it like, for example, using voting machines without wi-fi. but whatever the solution may be, it needs to happen soon. listen. >> the threat of interference remains and we recognize that the 2018 midterm and future elections are clearly potential targets for russian hacking attempts. in 2016, we know that russian actors targeted state election

systems. we have no evidence that votes were changed as a result of their efforts. however, the threat of interference remains and we recognize that the 2018 midterm and future elections are clearly potential targets for russian hacking attempts. >> julie: joining me now is senator lindsey graham. senator, great to see you, as always. >> thank you. >> julie: this is so disturbing that we're actually talking about this. i mean, we haven't even punished russia for interfering in our presidential election, and here we are, ahead of the 2018 midterms, and they somehow have a hand in that, too. what is emboldening russia in order to give them the power to do such a thing? >> the lack of consequences from what they did in 2016. the sanctions we imposed are not enough. when they invaded the ukraine and took krimea back, the world basically gave them a pass. they're up to no good and syria is basically awol when it comes to pushing back on russia. if i were president trump, i would call putin up and say this will stop. if you continue to interfere in

our democratic process, we're going to declare economic war on you. we're going to grind you into the ground economically and the cost of doing business in america is going to go up when it comes to your misadventures and if you don't talk to putin that way, you're wasting your time. >> julie: speaking of talking to putin, as you know, the president had a conversation with him. i'm wondering how might the president's relationship as he calls it good chemistry with vladimir putin possibly stop this from happening again not just 2018 but the next presidential election. i mean, this is really threatening stuff. russia has attempted, apparently, to infiltrate voting systems in at least 21 states. >> what's coming next is changing voting totals. they actually can do that. we've had some demonstrations where they can actually go into a voting machine and change the tally. 600 votes, how easy would it be to change the election where florida presidential was decided by 500 votes. all i can say is when it comes

to russia, president trump is not getting the results we want. when it comes to north korea, he's been awesome. north korea fears trump. when it comes to iran, he's defined the iranian deal as unacceptable and it is and i think the iranians are afraid of trump. when it comes to russia, what he's doing is not working. and he needs to be as tough on putin as he's been on kim jong un. >> julie: the senate intelligence committee released some disturbing information yesterday, but also proposals to prevent this from happening in 2018. some of their ideas include implementing stronger channels of communication between federal, state and local election officials. that seems like an obvious must. but also to increase cyber security measures on election systems. recommending using voting machines, not only that don't actually have wi-fi but that actually have some form of a paper trail. and i believe, you know, one of the committee members, democrat senator harris put it in the best way possible. russia can't hack a piece of paper. do we just need to go back in

time and maybe go back to the chad system? they can't certainly mess up the chad system? >> well, here's what i would suggest that we do. all we can as soon as we can. i have legislation to form a 9/11 style commission where the leadership of the house and the senate and the president can appoint people to look at hardening the 2018 election in the private sector in 60 days, tell us from a private sector point of view what we can do. right now, there is no federal standards when it comes to voting machines. the states are in charge of elections. that's fine. but i'd like somebody to build a voting machine that can't be hacked. the cyber savvy. right now, there is no federal standards or state standards on how to protect the voting system from a cyber attack. we need to build a voting machine that can't be hacked into or go back to paper. one or the two. >> julie: take it off line until you can figure it out. >> totally. >> julie: all right. i want to talk to you about a

change of topic here, a bill that is very near and dear to your heart. the taylor force act named, of course, after taylor force, an american hero who was brutally murdered during a visit to israel at the hands of terrorists. now, if this legislation is passed, it would push back against the palestinian authority which actually pays monetary rewards to martyrs and their families for committing heinous murders. i can't understand why democrats are slowing a bill down that would actually end american taxpayer dollars going to the palestinian authority if they don't stop rewarding terrorists. >> well, we finally got into the bill. i want to thank senator schumer for getting it in the bill. but they wanted to make changes our democratic friends to basically take the teeth out of it and we resisted most of those changes. taylor force served a tour of duty in iraq and afghanistan. he graduated from west point. he was going to israel on a -- in a graduate program studying

at israeli university. went out to dinner. got stabbed by a terrorist. they sent the body back to ramala because the i.d.f. killed the terrorist and welcomed the body back as a martyr, his family, the terrorist's family got a big payment from the palestinian authority. if you go to jail in israel, they pay you while you're in jail. if you die as a terrorist, they give your family a bunch of money, free health care and free education. so we're stopping all financial aid to the palestinian authority until they change their laws that incentivize young palestinians to kill jews and americans. and we're no longer going to put up with it so taylor force did not die in vain. their mother and father were driving force behind this legislation, and this is going to bring about change, i hope. no more money to the palestinians until they change the way they do business. >> julie: as it should be. senator lindsey graham, thank you very much, as always. appreciate talking to you. >> thank you. >> rick: forecasters on high alert in california as the state

braces for a powerful storm. why they're concerned about more than rain. plus facebook founder mark zuckerberg responding to criticism after an outside company is accused of accessing information for millions of users.

>> rick: fallout from the facebook scandal involving data mining with employees of the social media giant meeting today with aides to the house judiciary committee. where they'll be asked to explain how cambridge analytica, a firm working for the trump campaign, improperly accessed the information of millions of facebook users. this comes a day after mark zuckerberg, the c.e.o. and

founder of facebook acknowledged this was a major breach of trust. >> we have a basic responsibility to protect people's data. if we can't do that, we don't deserve to have the opportunity to serve people. we need to make sure there aren't any other cambridge analyticas out there, right? or folks who have improperly accessed data. so we're going to go now and investigate every app that has access to a large amount of information from before we lock down our platform. and we detect any suspicious activity, we're going to do a full forensic audit. >> rick: joining us now, fox news media analyst, host of "media buzz" and author of "media madness, donald trump, the press and the war over the truth." howie, good to see you. these sound like things they should have done already. >> exactly. i mean, look, mark zuckerberg has mishandled this from the beginning. he said nothing for five days. he was weak in that interview. he was vague and tentative and

hemmed and hawed when asked if he testified before congress. a memo to zuck, you're the c.e.o. and face of the company. when congress asks you to show up, you don't yamer on maybe i'll send some underling that knows more about it than i do. you show up or face a subpoena. >> rick: this has been called facebook's worst crisis yet and appears to be basically a betrayal of trust for all those people that use it. >> it is by far facebook's worst crisis. facebook doesn't seem good at crisis management and always seems sort of a day late and a dollar short to coin a phrase. and part of this, i think, is mark zuckerberg's stubborn refusal to admit that facebook is basically one of the world's most influential media companies, not some neutral platform and at the same time, being unwilling or reluctant to spend tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars it would take to fix some of these problems. and i think that it is opening the door now to government regulation which in an interview, even zuckerberg

acknowledged might be necessary. >> rick: i saw that israel is opening an investigation because privacy laws may have been broken. we also know that the senate intelligence committee ranking member mark warner wants zuckerberg to testify on capitol hill. here's what he said. >> i think it's important that facebook executives testify. mark zuckerberg should testify. but i'd also like to see the other social media companies, c.e.o.s testify as well. i think we still don't have all of the facts about how their tools were misused by russians and others and frankly, now that this information is out, how potentially other adversaries, whether other foreign states or for that matter, fraudsters could manipulate the social media platforms. >> rick: there's been so much talk about getting tougher on the social media sites, howie, is this now the catalyst snoo --? >> i think so.

this has really broken through. look what happened, facebook knew about this cambridge analytica mess a couple of weeks ago. said nothing. pushed back hard against "the guardian" when it was breaking this story and haven't notified the more than 50 million users, could be more whose data was breached. so all of this, it reminds me, you know, the russian infiltration of facebook in 2016 where, again, first zuckerberg minimized it. it wasn't a problem and back tracked on that. and by the way, william shatner has just complained that facebook promoted some guy's page saying that he was dead. he got it taken down. so you have the 86-year-old captain kirk saying don't let this happen again, facebook. i don't plan on dying. >> rick: there are critics who say this is part of facebook's business model, exploiting the value of user data. >> well, sure, i mean, facebook's whole, you know, zillion dollar value is based on the fact that people like you and me and billions around the world, you know, share a lot of information knowing that some of it can be used and then advertisers use it to target people. and that's fine if you are doing

that willingly but when you get into the fake news and the foreign propaganda and the exploitation of some, like cambridge analytica, maybe there are other firms that have done the same thing, then it is a betrayal of trust. i think zuckerberg is starting to recognize that. the question is, is he willing to take finally aggressive action to do something about it or will that trust continue to erode? >> rick: one way to avoid all of this. don't go on facebook. >> a lot of people i think are start to go have that idea. it's difficult especially professionally when so many people operate on that social network. if it starts losing users, that market value will drop. >> rick: i'm guessing you'll talk about on this sunday. >> absolutely. >> rick: good to see you. >> same here. >> julie: fox news alert and fox news now confirming john dow, the president's lead lawyer in the special counsel inquiry has resigned. apparently, dowd who took over the president's legal team last summer had actually considered leaving several times in recent months and ultimately concluded

that the president was increasingly ignoring his advice. in one instance, the president said he wanted to sit down with the special counsel and sit down with robert mueller and show his openness and honesty. and the lawyer did not agree with that. the special counsel's office wanting to sit down with the president. unfortunately, his lawyer disagreed and so the two have been sort of butting heads for quite sometime. so now we are learning that, in fact, john dowd has officially resigned. yet, no word as to what or who will replace him and president trump's attorney so we will, of course, keep an eye on this. the director of the f.b.i. says politics was not the thing that got his former deputy andrew mccabe fired. we'll tell you what christopher ray is saying about that now. and the house is voting on the spending bill today. house speaker paul ryan is set to address the media any minute now. we'll take you there live whether it happens.

>> julie: fox news alert, john dowd, president's lead lawyer and special counsel inquiry has resigned. effective today. fox confirming this isaac wright is a partner at forward solutions strategies inc. and democratic strategist. david avela is the chairman of go pac. thank you both for talking with us. paul ryan will be holding a news conference any moment now. if i have to jump in, we'll get to that. let me start with isaac that we just learned that the lawyer for the special counsel investigation, john dowd has resigned. the president had called for an end to the inquiry, that's number one. number two, david had considered leaving several times in recent months after the president was ignoring his advice. dowd did not want him to sit down with robert mueller. president wanted to sit down with mueller and the special counsel's office. the two were out ahead on that one. isaac, what do you think of this decision? >> look, donald trump has to be

hot under the collar, right? the investigation is closing in. there have been 19 individuals and three companies charged with felonies so far. some of trump's own senior officials that have come to the grand jury pleaded guilty and are now cooperating witnesses. now, his own attorney who is paid to defend him doesn't want to defend him anymore. and obviously, based on what come out about his advice, his own attorney was afraid of what donald trump would get caught with if he had to answer questions under oath. this is bad for donald trump. and clearly, the investigation is closing in and he must be really worried right now. we should expect to see him lashing out on twitter in the next 24 hours. >> julie: david? >> donald trump has contended from day one that there was no collusion going on between him and russia which is what this investigation started out as. to date, there is no evidence that is still the case. if john dowd doesn't think the strategy he has presented to the president is the path the

president wants to go, he owes it to the president to step down and for the president to have a legal team around him who can go present the evidence that, in fact, there wasn't collusion which, again, it cannot be said enough, to date, there is no evidence that says that president trump colluded with the russians to cost hillary clinton the election which thank goodness, we got to talk about this because i had a wager that today, isaac couldn't get through the segment without saying russia at least three times. >> let's correct david for a second. >> julie: that's the whole point. hold on a second, first i have to step on. that is a bit unfair. the whole point of this whole segment, first of all is his lawyer is leaving because he doesn't want the president to go down, sit down with robert mueller and express his -- what he calls honesty and openness. he wants to essentially say there was no collusion. he's not afraid to sit down with robert mueller. if he did have anything to hide, one could argue, perhaps, he wouldn't want to sit down with

special counsel but his own legal team, it's not just dowd. he had a legal team inside and outside of the white house who is on president trump's side. it seems that dowd was among the only ones that disagreed with the idea of sitting down. the president has actually recently hired joe and is expected to make more additions outside of his legal team. i mean, isaac, this is a very critical phase in the mueller investigation. and whether or not the president sits down with the special counsel, he needs to have a legal team that's behind him. >> yeah. and attorneys don't want to represent him. it's obviously that there are problems here that are likely that he's going to turn out to be guilty of something. it's a question of what. we know that there was collusion despite what david said about rolling the sanctions back with the kremlin that were illegal that michael flynn then lied to the f.b.i. about and that's what he had to plead guilty about and is now a cooperating witness. we know there's at least that much collusion because that's already been reported. he's pled guilty for lying about

it. that's how he wound up a cooperating witness. that's why attorneys don't want to represent the president right now because look at what -- look at what he's doing with mccabe. i mean, he's literally trying to force witness intimidation against the same people who could corroborate comey on a case for obstruction of justice. there were three different people at the f.b.i. who could have corroborated that, they were fired. >> julie: we have someone who lied or leaked information to the press and he got fired over it. how is that politically motivated, david? >> julie, we can't let isaac's comments go unanswered there. this investigation started about did the trump campaign collude with the russians to cost hillary clinton the election? and there's not a single answer that isaac or a democrat that gets on television that has anything connected to that. not one these days! not one about this investigation! as far as that --

>> that's why there's an investigation, david. >> the firing of mccabe, gosh, we now have an f.b.i. director who is actually focused on law enforcement and not using the justice department or any other government job to use as a political weapon. and mccabe finally got -- happened to him what should have happened to lois lerner, valerie jarrett, eric holder, susan rice, james clapper, every one of those obama stooges that use their government job as a political weapon. >> julie: isaac? >> look, david is faking this anger to try to distract from the facts of the obvious, right? there are three people at the f.b.i. who could corroborate comey on the fact there was a case for obstruction of justice from the president. those people have been reassigned or fired in every instance. the president openly said on twitter -- no, david! david, i didn't interrupt you when you were lying. you can let me tell the truth uninterrupted.

what the president said months ago on twitter that his goal was -- >> julie: two separate issues! isaac! >> get mccabe out. >> julie: we're talking collusion and obstruction of justice. two completely different things. collusion being legal, obstruction of justice is not. if there was collusion but not an obstruction of justice meaning the president did not try to take that information and somehow hold somebody accountable or somehow put pressure on someone to stop an investigation, that would be obstruction of justice. the presidents there was no collusion with the russians. let him talk to robert mueller. why not, david? >> he should be able to talk to robert mueller. he has always contended he did nothing wrong. but let's keep in mind here and isaac brought up comey and mccabe. even they don't agree on the facts of what has happened. and how this came about and whether comey's investigation was ever done fairly. there is plenty of evidence that the justice department was used as a political weapon and again,

the new f.b.i. director is trying to clear it out. and after eight years of having an obama administration that used the government as a political weapon, it is refreshing to see folks getting in and trying to actually have the government focused on the task that's assigned to do. >> julie: all right, david and isaac. >> one thick we can agree on, trump should answer questions under oath. >> julie: if he wants to talk to the special counsel, that says a lot. he won't be going in there and lying. you have to give him that. appreciate it. thank you very much. >> rick: what does this resignation of john dowd, the president's lead outside counsel mean for the administration moving forward? we'll have more coming up after this.

>> rick: more now on this breaking story out of washington. john dowd, the president's lead lawyer and the special counsel investigation has resigned.

john dowd, the lead attorney for the president, the lead outside counsel resigning. and john roberts is at the white house with more on this. john, what more do we know about why john dowd is leaving the president's side? >> well, i think the writing was kind of on the wall, rick, when the president announced last week that out of the blue or was it earlier this week, i mean -- what was it gary cohen resigned? last year or the year before? it was earlier this week that the president hired the noted former u.s. attorney, also believes that the f.b.i. had a conspiracy at the highest levels to frame president trump with a false crime. when he was brought in, the writing was kind of on the wall that, you know, it was starting to get very crowded in the president's legal team. i know that john dowd has been really making the case that the president should be very cautious about sitting down for

an interview with robert mueller. that over the objections from some of the president's other attorneys who think that it would be a good idea to do it as long as the parameters for such an interview were very narrowly cast. in order to try to get this whole thing off the table. so it just looked like the situation for dowd was becoming uncomfortable, perhaps untenable. and he decided today to call up the president and give his resignation. now, in terms of the president's outside legal team, that leaves the latest addition to the legal team as well as jay seculo familiar with many people here who watch fox news. he used to appear on fox news a lot as the president at the american center for law and justice. and i'm told that they are planning on adding even more folks to the president's outside legal team as the mueller investigation reaches what they believe is a critical juncture here that now appears more likely, may include an interview

of the president by robert mueller. but again, rick, with the parameters of what mueller can talk about with the president very narrowly defined. one of the things that john dowd has been doing over the last couple of months is building a legal case to say to mueller and his investigators, look, if you want to interview the president, you have to have a strong case here that only the president can give you information that you can't get from anywhere else. and it was dowd who compiled the list of documents that the white house in the transition have produced to the mueller investigation. it was dowd who was cooperating fully with the mueller investigation. but also suggesting that if you want to interview the president, you've received all of these tens upon tens of thousands of documents. you have to demonstrate that there's something that's not in those documents that you can only get from the president. now, i don't know if they're still going to pursue that particular avenue in terms of negotiations with the office of

the special counsel for an interview with the president or if they were relaxed that somewhat. but as judge napoliatano has said time and time again, you don't want to sit down with a guy that owns a grand jury. mueller owns two. whatever it is that the president's attorney inside the white house decides to do, they need according to legal officials to proceed cautiously of putting the president in front of mueller. >> rick: based on your reporting, you believe this was a difference of opinion between dowd and the president. >> i think it was something -- i don't know that it was a difference of opinion between dowd and the president. i think it was a difference of opinion between dowd and some of the other members. >> rick: rest of the legal team. >> of the legal team. and the president was sort of leaning towards the idea of doing an interview. he said that he would be happy to do one last year. again, reaffirmed that. a question i asked him, he said i don't know why there would be an interview. there was no collusion. but i think it was friction within the legal team. dowd, perhaps, thinking that the

president wasn't really listening to his advice. was listening to the advice of others. and i mean, you know, dowd has been involved in this thing since june of 2016 when he took over from the president's long time personal attorney. and i think it's just -- it's been a long and wearying process. and i think he probably kind of felt that he had enough. >> rick: all right. john roberts at the white house. we'll be following this very closely. thank you. >> thanks, rick. >> julie: as the mueller investigation reaches an extremely critical stage which could, in fact, turn down and turn into an interview with the president, his lead attorney has resigned. john dowd. so what happens next with the investigation? we'll have much more after the break. i wanted to get new blinds, and i was talking with my mom

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>> julie: fox news alert. john dowd, the president's lead

lawyer in the special counsel inquiry has resigned. that news coming down just today. fox news politics editor joins us now. this is big news for the president's legal team. but not much of a surprise considering the two had been sort of at odds over whether or not the president should sit down with robert mueller. what's your reaction? >> pretty jaded up in new york. i was surprised! >> julie: we're talking about -- >> i know what you mean. >> julie: we're talking about the trump administration here. >> i know just what you mean, my friend. but in this case, i would say it was pretty preposterous that dowd or anyone would argue that the president of the united states, the chief magistrate of this federal government was not going to sit down and talk to the special counsel in order to bring the matter to a close. and, you know, i think dowd in this case is guilty of something that many of the president's supporters are which is acting like he's guilty.

they have to take the president at his word. he says that he is immaculately innocent and unflecked, untrammelled by even one footprint of any scandal on this. so let the man talk! >> julie: i mean, that's what one would think, right? you hire and lawyer up and been accused of something and don't want to take the stand, let's say, in your own trial, then clearly you're wondering maybe they have something to hide. here, the president wants to come forward and sit down with robert mueller and this president is unlike others. he doesn't need people to speak for him and i believe he wants a legal team that will essentially follow his orders and not the other way around. what does his legal team do now considering this is a critical phase in this special counsel investigation? >> you know what abe lincoln said which is that a man who represents -- a man who represents himself in court has a fool for a counsel. so you have -- there's a fine line. if you're not listening to your lawyer, what are you going to this lawyer for? why did you hire this person?

at a certain point, that's where you have a case like this that you part companies. there's a fundamental recommendation made by dowd trying to protect the president and wants his client safe. and you have a president who says i'm the president. i can't back down from this. i can't hide from this. i'm going to have to talk to him. and, of course, the president is very confident, of course, as always ever, ever, ever or expresses a lot of confidence in his ability to make mincemeat of mueller and trump doesn't want to be seen backing down from that challenge. >> julie: what do you think about joe who is expected to make more additions to the president's legal team? >> you know, it's interesting, donald trump that we saw in 2017 talked differently than a traditional republican president. but governed substantially alike and his cabinet and administration came to reflect it. in 2018, we are getting original trump, and joe and guys like that are a big part of that. >> julie: all right, chris, never a dull moment. i love when you get to come on and talk about it. you have plenty of opportunities. >> you bet. >> julie: great to see you. we'll be right back. stay there.

legal team is going to be hunkering down. thanks for joining us. >> we will hear more about that coming up. >> we're going to go to breaking news and give you more. fox news alert, breaking news, less than an hour ago the president's personal attorney, lead lawyer, john dowd, has resigned. he was the president's guy in charge prepping the president and robert mueller's russia investigation. chief white house correspondent john roberts joins us live with new information in the last few minutes. john? >> harris, good afternoon. john dowd was the lead attorney for the president's outside legal team, he has an attorney inside the white house dealing with the mueller investigation in terms of document production. after the president added joe degentlemen noef arc the writing