captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: new eruptions in the storm following the trump presidency, with reports that a senior white house advisor is a person of interest in the russia investigation. and, president trump boasts to russian officials that firing f.b.i. director comey eased "great pressure" on him. then, new insight into the saga surrounding the russia investigation. we sit down with a friend of comey's. >> the color of wallpaper was that these were not honorable people, and that protecting the f.b.i. from them was his day job. >> woodruff: also ahead, millions in iran went to the polls today in a high-stakes presidential election with

global implications. and, it's friday-- mark shields and david brooks analyze a whirlwind week of news. all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and foundations. and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: president trump faces new revelations tonight over the investigation of alleged collusion between campaign aides and russia. the "new york times" reports

that the president told russian diplomats last week that f.b.i. director james comey was "a real nut job" and that firing him removed "great pressure" on the president over the russia probe. separately, the "washington post" reports a current senior white house adviser is now a person of interest in the investigation. the stories broke just after the president and first lady boarded air force one and took off for saudi arabia. it's the first stop on a nine-day trip to the middle east and europe. for more, we turn first to mark mazzetti of the "new york times." >> , thank you for being here, the story in your newspaper that broke a few hours ago is interesting because it's what the president said in that meeting he had with the foreign minister of russia and the russian ambassador to the u.s. >> it is an extraordinary moment

this meeting we already knew happened the day after trump fired james comey as fbi director. one of the reenls he fired him he has -- he b reasons he fired, he got rid ever this, quote, nutd job which has relieved pressure from him. which it's sort of amazing that the president said that to the russians in the oval office. >> woodruff: and the faculty that of course, it is the russians that are the subject of the trump connection to the russians, of the investigation. >> that's right. so there's a tremendous amount of irony here, maybe intentional maybe not. but it also -- i think most importantly probably reinforces the idea, the russia probe the play a pretty significant factor in the president's decision to dismiss comey. as you know, over the last week since comey was fired we've heard a number of justifications

for the firing. and the president has said once that the russia probe played a part but this is another example of the president saying that the russia fbi investigation did play a big role. so this is what gets to the central question here whether there's really something improper in the firing. people have raised the question of whether i.t. was obstruction of -- it was obstruction much justice and him bringing up the firing is a different data point here. >> woodruff: at one point the white house originally saying it had the do with the way jim comey handled the hillary clinton e-mail investigation but also referred to russia. i found it striking mark mazzetti what the white house had to say that they basically acknowledged that the president said this. and they said at one point once again the real story is that our national security has been

undermined by the leaking of highly private and controversial conversations. they're not disputing this was said. >> no, they're characterizing it differently, what they were saying is he had been united lot of pressure from the russian investigations, that the investigation had put him under pressure, and he's using this as bargaining chip, saying you guys put me under pressure on this, so let's do a deal, using it as justification or not, that's the white house is saying, although they're not disputing the contents of away were reported. >> other thing mark mazzetti, the criticism of originally it has gravitated all the way to he was a quote real nut job. >> yeah, we by now know how the president speaks or tweets. so frankly none of that, the

characterization sounded off base. you could hear the president making a comment like that. >> woodruff: mark mazzetti for new york city times we thank you vex. we turn to our own white house correspondent john yang. separately the washington post has a story about a senior advisor to the president currently in the white house who is now a, quote, person of interest in this russia investigation. >> that's right judy, the significance is someone still in the administration is reported to be a person of interest in this investigation. before we knew about subpoenas for mike flynn, the fired national security advisory and for manafort the leader of the campaign. the postsaid their source wouldn't describe that any further give them any more details. there are also indications of

the postsaying this investigation is beginning to intensify, moving to a new phase of actually interviewerring witnesses issuing subpoenas, justing a grand jury, and sean spicer responded to the pos story saying any investigation will prove there is no conclusion between the campaign and the other government. >> woodruff: after the president takes off on air force basair force1. how are they dealing with this? >> there is an interesting, chaotic beginning to the administration. but the people i talked to, the past two weeks does feel different. sort of bombshell revelations every day every afternoon, just keeps coming. now you saw a little bit of a difference in the response this

week, which i thought was interesting, when the new york times broke the story about the comey memo, about saying that the president asked for his loyalty, his personal loyalty. >> woodruff: right. >> there was really a paper statement but then that was it. you didn't see anybody going out to defend the president or to give their version on television after that. there was even someone booked, kellyanne conway was booked on fox to do that but then cancelled. >> woodruff: all of it's interesting, john yang thank you. we'll get the analysis of mark shields and david brooks on all this, later in the program. in the day's other news, former new york congressman anthony weiner pleaded guilty to sending sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl. the scandal spilled into the presidential race when the f.b.i. found some of hillary clinton's emails on weiner's computer.

she had sent them to her personal aide, huma abedin, who was then married to weiner at the time. f.b.i. director james comey then reopened the clinton email investigation, days before the election. she has since blamed her loss partly on that decision. prosecutors in sweden today dropped their long-running rape investigation of wikileaks founder julian assange. paul davies of independent television news reports from london, where assange is holed up in ecuador's embassy. >> reporter: looking pale after so many years without sunshine, julian assange emerged briefly from the embassy that's been his home and prison. there was a gesture that reflected the fact that one investigation into him had been dropped, but rather than celebrating, his words were bitter: >> seven years without charge, while my children grew up without me.

that is not something that i can forgive. it is not something i can forget. >> reporter: his mood not helped by the metropolitan police saying he faced arrest if he leaves his refuge. the saga began in 2010 when wikileaks released vast amounts of american secrets. in november, a swedish international arrest warrant was issued, following allegations that he'd committed sex offenses there. he wad detained in london and jailed, but later bailed when he fought a series of court cases, before eventually losing his extradition battle two years later. fearing deportation to the u.s. by sweden, he quickly fled to the ecuadorian embassy, where he's been ever since. >> thanks, guys. >> reporter: tonight, he is still there, back out of sight, while his legal team try to negotiate a deal that will allow him to travel to the airport and on to ecuador-- a deal that this balcony is just six feet above street level, but julian

assange fears if he steps down where i am, he'll be arrested very quickly and put on a plane to america. for now, no sign of a breakthrough in the impasse. the world's cameras still wait for a departure that's not looking imminent. >> woodruff: a u.n. report sheds new light on atrocities committed in south sudan. it says that government forces killed 114 people in a single village last year. others were raped and brutalized. meanwhile, the president of sudan, omar al-bashir, will skip an islamic summit in saudi arabia this weekend, that includes president trump. sudan is one of six muslim nations included in the trump administration's travel ban. back in this country, a new york city man has been charged with murder and attempted murder after driving his car into pedestrians in times square. one person was killed, and 22 hurt.

prosecutors say richard rojas deliberately drove onto a busy sidewalk on thursday. he allegedly told police that he wanted to "kill them all." investigators are waiting for lab tests on whether he was using drugs. president trump has nominated marine corps general joseph dunford to stay on as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. the pentagon made the official announcement today. he will continue to serve as a top military adviser to the president and defense secretary. dunford was first tapped for the job by president obama, and has served in the post since 2015. a federal appeals court says that owners of recreational drones will not have to register their devices. the court today struck down a federal aviation administration rule. drone owners said it was too burdensome, while the f.a.a. said it was to improve safety. the three-judge panel said it is ultimately up to congress to change the law. there is word that goldman sachs banker james donovan has withdrawn as the nominee for

deputy treasury secretary. he told the treasury department he wants to focus on his family. and on wall street, stocks ended this week on a high note. the dow jones industrial average gained nearly 142 points to close above 20,804. the nasdaq rose 28 points, and the s&p 500 added 16. for the week, all three indexes were down a fraction of 1%. still to come on the newshour: an insider's view on how former f.b.i. director comey tried to distance himself from the president. iran votes in a closely-watched presidential election. new orleans removes a final monument memorializing its confederate past. and much more. >> woodruff: we now take a closer look at james comey's final months at the f.b.i., through the lens of a friend. william brangham sat down with

benjamin wittes, editor-in-chief of lawfare.com, to gain some insight into the former f.b.i. director's dealings with president trump during that volatile period of time. william began by asking wittes about the nature of his relationship with comey. >> it's really simple. we're friends. we've been friends for a long time. and contrary to a sort of mythology that has developed, i'm not among his closest friends by any means, or one of his, sort of, intimate advisors. so, i am in no sense talking at his behest. i'm talking about it because i read the "new york times" story the other day that the president had asked for a loyalty oath from him. and that story put, in frankly, sharply menacing terms, a set of comments and anecdotes that he had told me, and i saw them,

in light of that story, very differently that i had seen them before-- >> brangham: sharply menacing? >> yeah, i think so. and so i thought about it overnight on fri-- thursday night, and i decided that the public should know about what he had told me. he really spent an enormous amount of energy in the time that both he and trump were in office, trying to protect the f.b.i. from political interference from the white house. >> brangham: you described comey's concerns as "improper contacts and interferences from a group of people he, comey, did not regard as honorable." what gave you that sense that he didn't view these people were honorable people? >> it was written on every line in his face. it was evident in the disapproving tone that he took when he described them.

>> brangham: including the president? >> oh, very much so. but the color of wallpaper was that these were not honorable people, and that protecting the f.b.i. from them was his day job. >> brangham: you write about the famous hug, when comey was asked to come, with a bunch of different law enforcement agents to the white house, soon after the inauguration. >> yeah, so, comey really did not want to go that meeting. and there were a lot of democrats who kind of blame him for trump. so, he was particularly sensitive to the idea of a show of intimacy or closeness with trump. that said, he didn't think he could say no to an invitation from the president, particularly one that went generally to law enforcement senior officials. he really wanted to kind of blend in and not be singled out. and he's 6'8".

>> brangham: so it's kind of tough to do that. >> and when you're 6'8", it's really hard to blend in. and he stands in the part of the room that is as far from trump as is physically possible to be, and also against blue drapes >> brangham: he chose that spot? >> he chose that spot because it was almost like a chameleon, and then at the end, right at the end, trump singles him out in a fashion that he regarded as sort of calculated to maximally drive home this sensitivity of democratic voters-- --and he extends his hand kind of preemptively, and trump grabs the hand and kind of pulls him into a hug, but the hug is entirely one-sided. and comey was just completely disgusted by-- he thought it was an intentional attempt to compromise him in

public, in a way that would sew, and emphasize concerns that half of the electorate had about him and the bureau. >> brangham: you also recount a story of when rod rosenstein, who is now the deputy attorney general, was being nominated or about to have his hearings? can you explain? >> rod rosenstein is a respected career prosecutor who's been in government a long time, and served in both the bush and obama administrations. and i was rather surprised at how unenthusiastic comey was that there was going to be a senate-confirmed deputy attorney general. and what he specifically said was-- and i'll never forget it-- he said, "rod is a survivor." >> brangham: meaning he's lived through democratic and republican administrations. >> yeah. and, you know, you don't get to survive that long without making some compromises. and so he said, "i have-- so i have concerns." and i think what he was thinking

at that moment was that "if i was asked to give a loyalty oath, and the president has done these things to undermine me and to sort of bring me into the fold, what was he asked to do?" >> brangham: what do you make of the criticism that many people have made about comey, that if all of these things were happening to you-- if you were asked for a loyalty oath, if the president had approached you about dropping the flynn investigation, if you felt like they were treading uncomfortably on your territory-- why not blow the whistle? why not quit? why not raise more hell about this, if it was so bad? >> well, so first of all, one possibility is that it was not so bad. that it was-- and i actually think there's some evidence of this-- that this was a situation that he thought he was going to have to manage.

but that he could handle that. >> brangham: in the end, why do you think trump fired comey? >> trump fired jim comey because the most dangerous thing in the world, if you are donald trump, is a person who tells the truth, is dogged, you can't control and who is as committed as comey is to the institutional independence of an organization that has the power to investigate you. >> brangham: benjamin wittes, thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. >> woodruff: and you can watch william's extended interview with benjamin wittes online, at

www.pbs.org/newshour. >> woodruff: voters in iran went to the polls today in a tightly-controlled, but still hotly-contested, presidential election. poll closing times were extended by several hours, as tens of millions headed to the 63,000 polling places throughout the country. officials reported 70% turnout, and vote-counting has now begun early saturday morning there. npr morning edition co-host steve inskeep has been reporting all week from iran, and i spoke with him earlier today. i began by asking him where he was, and to remind us who the main contenders are. >> i am in hosan rvetion everythingar arshad a very fakous mosque in tehran.

it is a polling place that people are behind me waiting to vote and if you were to follow that line it would go out the door down the steps around the corner all the way down to block and off into the darkness. and as i've been driving around the city judy tonight i see lines like this all over the city. mosques are polling places, stations are polling places for one or both of the candidates, hassaan rouhani the incumbent. >> what did you mean by that? >> when a president runs for reelection, it's really about rerecollection, the people are happy with the job he's done, hassan rouhani is such a different figure.

he's not an outsider, he's been a member of the clerical inside for decades. but he has opened up iran to the world to improve iran's impression to the other countries. he made a nuclear deal that included the united states along with other world powers, a profound changes in relations at least on that one issue with the united states and there's been some small signs of opening here in iran as well although there are other people who are frustrated that more has not happened, as well as the state of economy. >> woodruff: but he has also faced what i'm reading is a pretty stiff challenge from the conservative cleric who's run against him. >> they're both clerics, both from the same world, both close to the guy who holds the most supreme power, khomeini, and

positioned himself as a more moderate figure who changed the rut that iran had gotten itself in. the isolation that iran had gotten itself in and now ibrahim raisi has positioned himself to very close to the supreme leader and seen as far more conservative. although i should add he has been also very populace pop li , increasing the small cash payments that are given oeach iranians. >> woodruff: how much is the relations with the united states is clear deal part of the election? >> it is a part of the election but only a part. voters who support rouhani, when i've interviewed them over the past several days in various

cities around iran one of the things they say again and again is better relations with the world, and the nuclear deal is part of that. negative for president rouhani because he made what was seen as extravagant propositions. propo. ds promises. but the unemployment rate remains very, very high. the economy has not created jobs rammedly enough for a very large very young very rapidly growing and pretty well educated population. >> woodruff: and finally steve you mentioned the supreme leader a moment ago. how much does this election matter in the theocracy that iran is? >> it matters, rouhani's election in 2013 brought a change, brought a nuclear deal.

i've seen in many visits to iran over the years. people are a little more fearless each time. but many people have to be extremely careful what they say and what they write. there is more omness there is a tiny bit more freedom than there used to be and rouhani's election in 2013 could be seen as the reason for that. this election could bring change to this country which has been a pretty big story over the last couple of decades. >> woodruff: steve inskeep. thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: mark shields and david brooks analyze a week of constant breaking news. and, an author pays tribute to his parents' lives. but first, how we continue to

wrestle with american history. new orleans is just the latest city to start taking down historical but controversial monuments that many say celebrate slavery and the confederacy. william brangham is back with that. >> brangham: the robert e. lee statue in downtown new orleans came down today, the fourth confederate monument to be removed by the city in the past month. new orleans mayor mitch landrieu: >> for that matter. to drive by property that they own, occupied by reverential statues seems perverse. >> brangham: the city dismantled this statue in the broad light of day, but three others were taken down in the cover of night-- with no advanced notice. because of threats of violence, city contractors wore masks and bulletproof vests, and were guarded by police snipers. >> it's cheap, it's low.

it's cowardly. if there ever was cowardice, this is an act of cowardice and treachery, right here. this is american history, whether you like it or not. >> brangham: this all goes back to a december 2015 city council vote to take down these monuments, following an op-ed by city native and jazz musician wynton marsalis. many have argued it was an appropriate response to the killing of nine black church parishioners that year in charleston, south carolina, by avowed white supremacist dylann roof. weeks after that attack, south carolina removed the confederate battle flag from its state capitol. back to today, new orleans plans to store the statues until it finds an appropriate location for them. but, their removal has angered opponents, who see this as suppressing or rewriting history in the service of political correctness. >> many years later, when historians or politicians declare a war unjust or immoral,

does that negate the ultimate price these soldiers and families paid? soldiers do not make policy; elected leaders do. don't understand that you know our culture, and a lot of people even from here, don't know they're history -- their history. >> brangham: last week in baton rouge, the louisiana state house passed hb-71, which would require a referendum before any military monument could be renamed or removed. in a show of defiance, black caucus members walked out. meanwhile last weekend in charlottesville, virginia, torch-bearing protesters-- including white nationalist richard spencer-- marched against the removal of a robert e. lee statue there. and just today, alabama the southern poverty law center counts more than 700 confederate monuments and statues on public lands across the country, the vast majority in the south. so is this the right approach for dealing with the darker sides of u.s. history? i'm joined now by two men who've wrestled with this very

question. bryan stevenson is the founder and executive director of the equal justice initiative. he's helping build a national monument to the victims of lynching in montgomery, alabama. and, walter isaacson, he's a historian and writer and president of the aspen institute. welcome to you both. walter i'd like to start with you first. you are a native of new orleans. you were there when they were bringing robert e. lee down off his pedestal today. what do you think of their moves? judge i think it's very, very good. these confederate monument statues was not put up to honor these people, it was you put up in the 1880s, 1890s as a way to try to reassert white supremacy. new orleans has had a history, we have just gone through a hurricane, you should honor

people not confederate generals,. >> bryan stevenson how does this sit with you? >> i think it's long overdue and a very important step for one of america's great cities that wants to be open and inviting to all the people in the world. i think this legacy of racial inequality and segregation has put a cloud more than anything. these totems are made of concrete and steel and bronze but they have been screaming at african americans for decades and what they have been screaming is this narrative of racial difference this history much white supremacy. i think it's long overdue. i think not only the great evil of american slavery was enforc enforced, but the ideology of white supremacy that we made up. we said that black people

weren't wholly human, the courts held that blacks were only three-fieftz human. it didn't do with the ideology of white supremacy around because of that, i don't think it ended in 1860, it just evolved. the proof of that was the erection of these narratives or these monuments or totems, after violent resistance to racial inequality. screaming that narrative that resistance to the end of emancipation to integration is something worth honoring. that has to change if we're going to be a country that makes progress in racial inequality. >> the discussion bryan which helped this city, when i was first asked to be on the tricentennial commission here, winton marsalis said i'd be

there with you. that helped us do a dialogue down here which is now pretty complete. >> walter you heard bryan say that they were screaming, these statues were screaming about inequality and white superiority. but people are furious that these monuments are coming down. how is a mayor or a governor anywhere in the country to wrestle with the boiling anger over these exact moves? >> i think what happened in new orleans, we spent a lot of time talking about it and the anger among citizens receded, i just came from lee circle, there is a brass band there playing the national anthem. i think once we have this catharsis of talking about it, there are people who protested the monuments coming down but they were all outsiders who had come in from these weird groups

around the country. in new orleans right now it was a day time very peaceful thing to get this monument down, and i think the whole process of talking it through, and realizing that we don't need to put the confed erase on confeda pedestal. >> i'm talking you from washington, d.c, jefferson's memorial, monuments all over the country that honored people who held slaves. where do we draw the line as to what stays and what goes? >> well i think it's important to have a conversation about what we honor and why. but i think there's a huge difference between robert e. lee and jefferson davis and people who were the architects and defenders of slavery. people who were actually

considered traitors and treasonnists. who people thought should be handling after the civil war. a radical difference in the american south, my state of alabama, where confederate memorial day is a holiday, that's very far away from the conversations we're having in other parts of the country. i think it does matter. we talk about memorials a lot. we have a 9/11 memorial because what happened on 9/11 was significant to the nation to its history and culture. we believe in the power of memorials to say something about who we are. that doesn't mean if a nation put up a statue honorrings osama bin laden, that would be acceptable. we think what we honor is who we are moss significant. the most influential person of the 20th century was arcably

adolph hitler, that doesn't mean there should be statues of him in germany. but on the question of the confederacy and the architects of white supremacy symbols of integration, there cannot move forward if we think there is something acceptable about honoring that legacy. >> walter, is there a slippery slope, a line to you that is clear what stays and what goes? >> wim all slopes are slippery, that's why you try to find a moral ground, what is the purpose of this memorial, we have a memorial in this city right behind me look over my shoulder to andrew jackson. that's base it was put up in 1840 in the square where jackson's statue is that's where he mustered the troops to win the battle of new orleans. he was a bad slave owner. he had a lot wrong with him but

you have to say, is this a symbol of white supremacy and dpreatcy or because he won the battle of new orleans. people say these are slippery slopes, of course they are slippery slopes. that's why you have a moral heading where do i put my footing where do i draw the line. >> walter isaacson and bryan stephenson many thank you very much. >> woodruff: now, back to the swirl of news surrounding the white house, the f.b.i.'s russia probe, and more, with the analysis of shields and brooks. that's syndicated columnist mark shields, and "new york times" columnist david brooks. >> welcome gentlemen so much to talk about what a week, i will

mention that cnn has judges been reporting from several sources that white house lawyers are beginning to at least research the mechanism of impeoplement. they don't believe the story that anything like that is going to happen soon but they are looking into it. david this week again there is so much to talk about but let's talk about the appointment of a special counsel, robert mueller, amidst the speculation of russia, what does this do to the cloud hang being over the white house? >> well it's interesting that after a year spent campaigning against the insiders, the swamp, the beltway establishment, when you have a crisis everyone wants someone with experience, with credibility, this eent has been greetby republicans and democrats as a sign that okay fine we're going to get straight answers. it strikes me from this

morning's news that he got comey to relieve pressure, we used to have a better class of criminal when you want to obstruct justice you try to hide it. but he goes around bragging on tv that he's obstructing justice. he's certainly acting like he did and that justifies a special counsel. >> woodruff: what do you think of the special counsel pick? >> i think it's a life saver i really do. olie north one of the central figures, in the iran contra-investigation, was convicted but that testimony had compromised his own deans, olie north's own defense. so ever since then there has been a apprehension or leeriness

of anything shaping a criminal investigationful national security investigation, the kind that robert mueller, very respected, investigator of 13 years is about to launch. so we won't see paul man manafo, carter page in the public much. the hearings will go forward -- >> woodruff: in the senate? >> in the senate and the house but not with the same kind of intensity, perhaps, just passion, that we've had. and for republicans, it takes it off the front page, and it guarantees that there's going to be an investigation. but there's no timetable. and let's be very frank. i mean bob mueller is a consensus all american choice here, he really is. it's hard to criticize him. >> i disagree with one thing. >> okay. >> i don't think it's going to

go off the page. >> not if we continue the president telling the russians, the american people did it because of hillary clinton's emmys and comey's firing and 16 hours later he privately tells the russians there's no american press around. >> what a couple of things hatched, the special counsel, the russian thing, there's an investigation of a person of interest but to me the most interesting thing is that the white house staff and the people under donald trump at least some portion of them or some large portion of them seem to have turned against donald trump. i have not talked to the reporters that broke the story but if i read this correctly, some senior white house official read the readout to the law, that means you need to be deep throat, you need to get the truth out about this guy. in the nixon administration there were a couple of deep throats, a couple of people from

the fbi who was willing to leak. but there are squads of deep throats and so that means this story's not only a legal investigation it is a dissolution of an-m. >> woodruff: and mark talking about not only talking about what the president had to say about comey but also sharing the fact that the president shared intelligence with the russians. >> shared intelligence with the russians. >> woodruff: a remarkable story in and of itself. >> i could not agree with you more judy. what looked like a generous offer from vladimir putin, i'll offer the minutes of the meeting, turned out to be a veiled threat. the revelation of the mince of the meeting are devastating. i don't think this is any question this is a body blow to this administration, i'm not going to say it's dead man walking but you cannot pass a

legislative program on capitol hill, with a president who has absolutely no attention span no clout no credibility, and his is diminished to the point where it is just nothing believable that's coming out of this white house. >> substantively that's sort of what's happened. we've had administrations that have had scan disals before but the nixon administration by the time the scandal hit, they had very qualified administration. but with this administration they have had time to staff up and therefore they do not have people in the jobs to do the normal work of administration and at this point who's going to want to go into those jobs? no one is going to want to go into those yob jobs. we are looking at an administration that is going to be porl served running the country. >> woodr i heard paul ryan giving a talk last night and he says this is alt white noise,

we're going to focus on the business of the country, get health care done and get tax reform done later this year. >> tax reform is, guess about the infrastructure bill, we are approaching memorial day judy, if there isn't a health care bill out of the senate then that's on life support. paul ryan, a lovely man, you are running in 2018 and now it's nothing but a number on donald trump. you wouldn't have a legislative program to go back and talk about. i cannot overstate, how unbelievable, literally, this administration has become. i meaning it was said that george washington was the president who could never tell a lie and richard nixon who can't tell the truth, donald trump is the president that can't tell the difference.

he did on the russian meeting and on the firing of jim comey, depending who he's talking to whether it's nbc or whether it's his own staff and picking up on david's point about the staff, judy, the morale is absolutely at low ebb. you are now facing legal fees. i remember maggie williams hillary clinton's chief of staff facing over $300,000 in legal fees. srve lawyering up. is david talking to somebody else? distrust, it's an awful situation. >> woodruff: to add a little fuel to the fire i've been told by our executive producer sarah just that the chair and vice chair mark warner and virginia, jim comey, the fired fbi director has agreed to testify in open session. i believe i'm hearing that correctly, i believe it's coming from the senate. so that will be something everybody will be listening to. >> we just heard earlier in the

program with his interpretation what comey thinks, to hear it directly from comey would be a secinematic cecil b. de mille moment. >> woodruff: the president pulling him into a hug. >> the contemporaneous notes he took. fbi director, there were whole subject areas he couldn't discuss. now donald trump has opened it up. donald trump has made it possible, he is no longer the fbi director, all he's doing is responding to charges, unsubstantiated charges, if in fact the senate intelligence hearings are open and jim comey is there it will be a ratings bonanza.

>> till be a coincidence that donald trump called him a nut job a few hours ago and then this comes up. >> woodruff: as we said, the president has just taken off on a nine day first trip overseas into the middle east, meeting with so many leaders of the of western europe. does this -- >> compartmentalization is high. they would like to pretend this is not happening. but as mark said they can't in their heart of hearts be sanguine about it because a lot of them are leaking. a lot of them don't know who's going to write the memoir against one another. a lot of them there's a target of interest in the white house and the washington post and the russian inquiry. they can't they are trying to pretend that all is normal and that's the pretense they are trying to pull off.

>> woodruff: mark you have been in the city almost as long as i have -- how does this city deal with the situation and how does the country deal with a situation like this? >> we've never had one like this. there is first of all, there's no reservoir of shared experiences with this president. we have shared values, they have been through, there is no accomplishment you can point to and say i'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt so that's missing. but as far as the white house staff and i have great sympathy for people working in the white house. they work long hours. they miss birthday parties, they miss children's recitals. what you get is the sense that i'm involved in something larger, the sense of a psychic income and now you have a boss who has absolutely no loyalty. who is disparaging his staff many who is abusing his staff according to reports in major papers. this again saps all morale.

in fact, i don't want to go to the meeting i don't care, please don't let me in the meeting. everybody who has been associated with this man has been diminished last had his own reputation whether it's rosenstein or general mcmaster. westbound talking about the appointment of robert mueller as the special counsel has somewhat called the waters. >> i don't think too much. i think this is a reality tv show and people everybody in this town, going to want to write the book, leak the memo, get their own self preservation out there and the reality tv show involves the public unwinding. not a private investigation. >> woodruff: mark shields, david brooks.

>> woodruff: finally, an essay by author richard ford. his latest book, "between them," is a memoir of his parents' lives, and tonight he shares his humble opinion about the power of testimony tonight. have a listen. >> goodness knows, there are lots of reasons to write a memoir. to render testimony. to bear witness. to make sense of a recollected life that had failed to make sense before. to turn to the mysteries of memory and improvise a continuous narrative of our own life, and in that way, substantiate ourselves to ourselves, and others. st. augustine told us: memory is a faculty of the soul. writing a memoir about my parents, parker and edna ford, didn't seem so much to be writing about myself, as about them. although, i was their only child, and the only one remaining to say that they'd even existed. so, here is another reason to write a memoir: to utter what must not be erased. i wrote about my parents because, decades after their deaths and when i was no longer

young, i realized that i plainly missed them. and wished, in some way, to draw them near me again. writing about them would do that, i thought. and it is worth saying that such an emotion-- missing them-- is possible, and can be acted upon, even long after it might be supposed that enough time has passed for longing to subside. my parents were wonderful parents. though, other than causing me to happen, and making each other blissful for 32 years, they set little in motion and were, as most of our parents are, all but unnoticeable to the world's disinterested eye. and yet. it's fair to say that, because they were who and how they were, being their son seemed a privilege. and almost mysteriously, they opened for me a world of immense possibility. the choice to make fictional characters of my parents-- which would seem to be what many novelists do-- simply didn't occur to me. fiction's reliance on artifice, its necessity to suspend

disbelief in order to assure trust, its engrossing arbitrary- ness, and its foundation in the provisional-- all these forceful orchestrations of fiction threatened to overpower my parents. what i wanted, as their son, was not for disbelief to be suspended, but for it to be abolished, and for belief in my parents and their lives to become absolute. facts, with their blunter, more specific hold on truth, seemed to me the better way to represent my parents as they were, and a better way for me to say that because of how they were, not in spite of it, they merited the world's attention. that's worth saying, too. age is a winnowing process. and sometimes, what gets sifted out as we seek to know the important consequence of lives, is the actual lives themselves. odd to think that we could, even for a moment, overlook such rudiments, or take them for granted.

memoir is for that, too; its great virtue being to remind us that in a world cloaked in supposition, in opinion, in misdirection and often in outright untruth, things do actually happen. my parents' lives did take place. and it is here, in the incontrovertible truth which facts provide, that our firmest beliefs must first take hold. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now: the influential, cult-favorite tv show "twin peaks" is returning, after almost three decades off the air. we visit the real towns that helped give the show its iconic creepiness. all that and more is on our website, www.pbs.org/newshour. and, robert costa is preparing for "washington week" this evening. robert, what do you have in store?

>> well, judy, we'll have the latest on the developing story that one day after firing f.b.i. director comey, president trump spoke with russian diplomats about his decision. plus, reports that a current white house official has emerged as a significant person of interest in the federal probe. we'll make sense of a monumental week for the trump administration, later tonight on "washington week." judy? >> woodruff: it has been quite a week. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. have a great weekend. thank you, and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> you're

hello and welcome to kqed newsroom. i'm thuy vu. coming up on our program an anchor joins us to talk about politics and media. plus enounced french chef and tv personality jock le pen returns to kqed to talk about his career celebrating the love of cooking. but today more lawmakers talk about the possibility of impeaching the president. they both say it's time to look at the process for removing trump from office. meanwhile, cnn is reporting white house lawyers have begun researching impeachment procedures. this capped the week of bombshell political developments. on monday "the washington post"