>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin with continuing coverage of president trump. he held a joint press conference with the president of are you mania today and addressed the testimony of former f.b.i. director james comey to the senate intelligence committee yesterday. and we talked to jonathan karl of aives who was at that press conference. >> when his lawyer yesterday responded to the comey testimony if the president's lawyer but also the president would accuse comey of lying and, if so, would the president be willing to sit down under oath and give his version of what happened in those conversations that he had

with comey, and i was quite struck, charlie, when he said that he would 100% be willing to testify under oath, even to the special counsel robert mueller. >> rose: we continue with mike schmidt to have the "new york times." >> if the president were to go under oath and bob mueller were to look at all the evidence and conclude comey was telling the truth and the president wasn't, then that would set up a perjury investigation, an investigation into whether false statements were made under oath. you can't lie in an f.b.i. interview or before a grand jury. you know, those are things that the government takes very seriously. >> rose: and then turn to mike allen, the co-founder of axios. >> it's a declaration of war, charlie, in both words and at you just quoted the president as saying is fitting with their strategy and posture. so after yesterday's back and forth, the amazing cinematic testimony by former f.b.i. director comey, somebody sent me

a text and they said, i think aaron sorkin wrote his opening statement. it was like an hobb show. >> rose: and we conclude this evening with a look at thursday's snap election in the u.k. with gillian tett of the fiemedz and the roger cohen of the "new york times." >> this is a huge setback and hue affiliation for the prime minister. the way she said britain needs continuity, she doesn't have a lot of credibility and i think she's vulnerable. certainly, she does not have any kind of mandate for the negotiation on a hard brexit that she seems to have enviesened in calling this election. all of that, when we continue. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by the following:

>> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we begin this evening with developments following former f.b.i. director james comey's testimony yesterday. earlier today, the president responded to reporters' questions during a press conference with the visiting romainian president. president trump accused comey of lying under oath to congress and enassisted comey failed to prove any collusion or obstruction of justice. in intense exchange with jonathan karl of abc news, president trump sawed he would be willing to offer his version of the events under oath.

>> go ahead, john. be fair, jon. >> oh, absolutely. remember how nice you used to be before i ran? such a nice man. >> always fair. mr. president. going to get back to james comey's testimony. you suggested he didn't del the truth in everything he said. he did say under oath that you said you hoped the flynn investigation, he could lit it go. >> i didn't say that. so he lied about that. well, didn't say that. i mean, i will tell you i didn't say that. >> and did he ask you to plij -- i did not say that. did he ask for a pledge of loyalty. >> no, he did not. so if he said those things under oath, would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version. >> 100%. i didn't say under oath. i hardly know the man. o would ask a man to pledge you allegiance under oath? i mean, think of it, i hardly know the man.

it doesn't make sense. no, i didn't say that and uh i didn't say the other. >> so if robert mueller wanted to speak with you about that. >> i would be glad to tell him exactly what i told you. >> you seem to be hinting there are recordings of those conversations. >> i'm not hinting, i'll tell you about it over a very short period of time. obstruction.aid no collusion, >> no collusion, no obstrtion. he's a leaker, but we want to get back to running our great country. >> rose: for the latest on this developing story, here's the report from the "cbs evening news." >> today the president volunteered to testify to the special council investigating russia's tampering with the u.s. election. in a rose garden news conference, president trump denied yesterday's testimony by james comey, the f.b.i. director he fired last month. comey told the senate intelligence committee that the president directed him to drop the f.b.i.'s investigation of

former national security advisor michael flynn. well, today, mr. trump said comey lied under oath, but he insisted comey's testimony still proved that there was no collusion between anyone in his campaign and russia and that the president himself did not obstruct justice. our coverage begins with margaret brennan. >> president trump said he would be happy to speak with special counsel robert mueller about his conversations with james comey. >> i would be glad to tell him exactly what i just told you. >> it would be a significant moment in an investigation that has gone from examining the trump campaign's ties to russia to whether the president possibly committed obstruction of justice. the president denied comey's accusation e pressured the then f.b.i. director to drop the investigation of michael flynn. the president also said he did not ask for comey's loyalty. >> and there would be nothing wrong if i did say it according to everybody i've read today but i did not say that. >> the president attacked comey

for leaking details about their conversations to the press. >> i was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting. >> comey testified yesterday that shortly after he was fired he gave memos documenting his conversations with the president to a friend who in turn gave them to a reporter. >> because i thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. >> the president's lawyer mark caseo quits plans to file a complaint, arguing comey released sensitive information. threatening legal action is a tactic often used by mr. trump. according to a tally, mr. trump threatened suit 24 times in his cam uh pain but followed through on two. the. >> lordy, i hope there are tapes. >> today the president would not confirm the recordings but said he'll discuss the tapes in the

near future. >> you will be very dpis appointed when you're the end so don't worry. >> rose: joining nee from the white house is jonathan karl, the abc news correspondent. i listened and the viewers saw what you said in the questioning of the president, give me a recap of what you think was you heard from him and what he intends to do. >> when his lawyer yesterday responded to the comey testimony and said really point whrarchg that comey lied on two critical points, it struck me comey was under oath when he said that before the senate intelligence committee, and i wanted to see if the president, not just his lawyer, but if the president would also accuse comey of lying and, if so, would the president be willing to sit down under oath and give his version of what happened in those conversations he had with comey, and i was quite struck, charlie, when he said that he would 100% be willing to testify under

oath, even to the special counsel robert mueller. i also thought i bet his lawyers didn't like the fact that he just came out and said he would be willing to testify. >> rose: it seems to me, though, it was something he had thought about and it wasn't so much a surprise because he said it with such emphasis that it seemed like something that, you know, he wanted to make clear. now, whether he has some nuance to this that i didn't appreciate, i don't know. >> it sure seemed to be blunt and straightforward, both in terms of his accusation that comey lied about those conversations and that he's willing to go under oath and tell his version of events. and then there's the question, the odd question that was first raised about a month ago when he tweeted about it about whether or not there are recordings of his conversations with comey, and, in the question that came before mine, he said that, at some point, you will see, you will have an answer to that

question about whether or not those recordings actually exist. that seemed to me to be at least a hint that these tapes actually are out there, that he actually was recording the conversations. but when i followed up with him, he didn't answer, he said you will see shortly, you will see shortly and then in tend he said you will be disappointed in the answer. so i guess that means there isn't recordings, but i don't know. that's such a big, looming question that i haven't been able to get an answer from anybody at the white house, that's why i was eager to ask the president himself. >> rose: well, didn't know whether it was that or the fact that you will be disappointed because you don't think he has them and in fact he does have them, therefore you will be disappointed that he was right and you were wrong. >> right, right. but can you imagine if there are recordings? >> rose: it's going to be -- you know, just think about watergate for one moment. >> what's interesting was the conversations he had with comey took place in a number of

different venues. >> the conversation at trump tower during the transition. the conversation they had over dinner in the green room to have the white house. there was the conversation that took place on february 14 in the oval office, and there were several phone conversations. with the watergate tapes, those were oval office conversations because the oval office -- >> rose: was wired. yeah, was wired. so if there are conversations, if he was recording these conversations, was it all offthem? what kind of system does he have? it raises all kinds of questions. >> rose: a very interesting question. what kind of system does he have to record conversations. is his phone the way he can record conversations or is the green room particularly wired for that kind of thing. so where do you think this is right now, being as close as you two are to covering the investigation? >> well, i will tell you that my sense from the president's team, both his legal team and the team here at the white house is that they did genuinely seem to be

relieved by comey's testimony. i think that there was a fear that it was going to be a lot worse for them. i think the president, you see kind of in his feistiness in the way he was answering my questions, in the way he was today when he was at the department of transportation and even in the speech that he went to right towards the end of comey's testimony, he seems to have a little bit more of a bounce in his step following it like he thought there was going to be something worse. he does -- they do -- or at least he seems to believe there is some vindication. i think there's a big question about whether there is any vindication at all. of course, he's taking part of comey's testimony and saying it is true and claiming vindication, and the rest of it he is portraying as a lie. so he's cherry-picking facts from comey's testimony, but my sense is they do feel that they donald a bullet. but overall, charlie, this is very early in this process. i think the comey testimony and the president's response both

from the president directly and from his legal team shows that we are in for a long, protracted investigation and legal battle. >> rose: it's been a long day for you. thank you for joining us. a pleasure. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: jonathan karl, chief white house correspondent, abc news. back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: joining me from washington is michael schmidt, a "new york times" reporter and msnbc contributor and i'm pleased to have him back on this program. michael, let me begin with not only how you assessed the comey testimony but what the president said in his press conference and his declaration that he's prepared to go underoath to confirm what he's been saying recently and i assume all along. >> well, we saw from comey yesterday a pretty thorough sort of laying out of the facts of his relationship with trump and how truly uncomfortable comey said he felt during that time.

we learned about how uneasy he was from the beginning with trump, how, even after that first meeting he had with him at trump tower, he gets in his suv and he starts pounding out a memo to memorialize it and how he memorialized all the meetings, and i think that, you know, certainly a lot of the senators left that meeting yesterday on capitol hill fairly convinced by what they heard from comey. now, today was the first time we really heard from trump, and he sort of picked and chose what he wanted to sort of believe from what comey said. he said some of the things comey said were accurate and some of them, like how comey said he told him that he wanted to drop the investigation into michael flynn, were not true. then he went so far as to say he was willing to go under oath and testify that -- you know, to provide essentially what would be contradictory testimony and to give his side of the story. now that sets up an incredible

thing because if you're bob mueller and let's say you interviewed trump or put him before a grand jury, you would then have opposing stories, two different stories about this, and it would mean someone was lying. as a recovering sports reporter myself, i can only think of roger clemens versus brian his accuse when were they went before congress and told completely different stories about whether clemens used drugs. >> rose: so suppose the president's termed to be lying. what then? >> well, if the president were to go under oath and bob mueller were to look at a all the evidence and to conclude that comey was telling the truth and the president wasn't, then that would set up a perjury investigation, an investigation into whether false statements were made under oath. you can't lie in an f.b.i. interview or before a grand jury. you know, those are things that the government takes very

seriously, and the f.b.i. in particular, when they get lied to in an investigation, tends to turn over -- even if they're not going to charge you, they turn over every rock in your life and really look at everything. >> rose: explain to me now, as much as you can, about the fact that the trump response was delighted about the notion that the fired former f.b.i. director james comey had taken these memorandum and then he sent them to a friend, and the friend released them to the "new york times" in part, and it's unclear whether he just read them or read some of them and gave some of the others. what can you help us understand about that and what the "new york times'" response is to the accusations by the trump administration? >> so what comey said yesterday was that his friend who he told to put out this information had

a copy of one of the memos. from comey's understanding of it, these memos are not classified. these are simply his recollections of his interactions with trump. we have never had copies of the memo. as we pointed out in our stories, we've written three or four stories about the memos. parts of them were read to us. contents of them were read to us, and we cited parts of them in our story, most prom fiently the story on back in may about how trump had asked comey to end the flynn investigation, which led to a day later bob mueller being appointed. but we ourselves do not have any of the memos. there was an incorrect accusation out there yesterday from trump's lawyer that said that we had had the memos before trump tweeted. basically, he was sort of accusing us of colluding with comey, but that was not true. >> rose: the only thing you had was a reading of the memos

by a friend of james comey who was at columbia university. >> i'm going to leave it at what comey said yesterday. comey said he asked his friend to put out that information and that friend had done so, but i don't want to get into the particulars of the sourcing on our stories beyond that. i feel we have a duty to try and talk about this as much as possible and as transparent as possible about it and we certainly ask people we cover to talk about it, but there are just some things i can't get into. >> rose: i'm not trying to get you to tell source or methods. i am asking the "times" response to what the lawyer said and what donald trump said talking about leaking today. the "times," as i understand it, essentially says the story we reported we stand by. >> well, there were accusations about another story of ours, a february 14th story comey said

had been mainly false, and today in the paper we wrote a full story about why we were stand big our story and believed it was true. this was a story we wrote about contacts between trump associates and russian intelligence officials, and we laid out why we believe the story to be true, the information we've learned suns then about contacts between russian officials and trump associates, including statements on the record by the former c.i.a. director john brennan, and we pointed out what others have reported on this, how others' reporting has backed up what we said. but in regards to that, we stand by that story. we stand by all our stories that we've written on this matter. >> rose: bob woodward -- bob woodward of the "the washington post" complimented the "new york times" as well as "the washington post" for the coverage of this story. but bob pointed out that, in terms of the russian probe, we are hardly 10% in understanding what actually happened. would you share that?

>> no, i think that's true, and i think that's something that the public haas to keep in mind here. last week, mark warner, the ranking member on the senate intelligence committee, went on tv and basically said there is a lot of smoke here but we don't really have fire. so here we are session will you into the investigation and this leading democrat who's leading one of the investigations into it says there's a lot of smoke here but we haven't found actual collusion, and that's something really to keep in mind as we go forward. a collusion investigation is very difficult. it will require the f.b.i. and department of justice being on the ground in russia and doing interviews and we know that's certainly not going to happen, and even in the public sphere there's been an enormous amount of reporting about trump and his associates in russia, and none of that public reporting has shown any type of collusion either. that's sort of the interesting thing here about what's happened with trump.

as we know from comey's statements, trump was not under investigation as part of the russia meddling in the election, but the question now is whether mueller is looking at obstruction, the coverup, how he tried to influence comey, and that's something we always sort of have to remember how we got to this place in the story. >> rose: you were listening to these people come forward. who is it you most want to hear from? >> who would i most want to hear from? i think that i probably want to most hear from michael flynn, who had these contacts with the russian ambassador during the transition, those conversations were picked up by the f.b.i., then he was interviewed at the white house by the f.b.i. comey said yesterday that there is an investigation into whether flynn made false statements.

then flynn is fired for misleading the vice president. at least that was the story that the white house put out about it. and then we learn that it was ump to ask comey to end that.led so i would really want the hear from flynn because what was it trump was so concerned about? was he concerned about being loyal to one of his lieutenants and trying to simply say, look, he was fired, he shouldn't be investigated? or is there something more that michael flynn knows? he's had this relationship with russia that dates back some time. he went there to speak a few years ago, sat at a table next to vladimir putin, and he's also someone we rarely heard a lot from when he was in the white house, and certainly we haven't heard from since, and my guess is that, at some point, particularly in the congressional investigations, he will testify, and i think that would be particularly dramatic and insightful. >> rose: someone said earlier to me on this program at the they're pretty confident bob

mueller in his investigation will get donald trump's tax returns. >> i guess that's the question of how much will mueller look at trump. as we know, as part of what comey said, trump wasn't under investigation. so if he wasn't under investigation, it's hard to believe that the f.b.i. would be looking directly at his taxes. they can't just rummage around in your files and look for different things and look into your taxes. so i'm not sure that this is somethinthat would become the focus. if mueller starts looking at financial advertise between russia and himself the tax returns would probably be part of that, but even if it was an obstruction investigation into trump, i'm not sure how his taxes would relate to that, and i think the federal government, especially mueller, who's going to have a lot of scrutiny under him, is not going after documents he doesn't have a reasonable reason to basically have them, to have a subpoena to

have them. so i'm not sure about that. >> rose: they might be relevant, i assume, if, in fact, there's some case to be made that somehow because of financial transactions, the russians had some leverage to use against the president. >> correct. but that would mean that the facts would have had to have changed since when comey was essentially running the f.b.i. that would men there are new facts about trump's relationship with russia. we know the f.b.i. has a dossier complied by a former british spy that has a lot of allegations about what the russians may have on trump, and we know that itself was not enough to prompt an investigation of trump. if that were to happen, it would mean that there would have to be new information here that would lead f.b.i. investigators to believe that there was more there on what the russians have on trump. >> rose: is it your impression that the dossier is hardly

relevant because of its questions about its origin? >> i think the dossier was initially dismissed as this very salacious document that had pretty off-the-wall accusations in it. but my sense from talking to folks at the f.b.i. since then is they didn't necessarily dismiss it as much and that they were actually able to corroborate significant portions of it right off the bat based on intelligence they had. these were not the most salacious parts of the report. it was more basic stuff about things going on inside of russia and russia's attempts to meddle in the election. so a certain part of it was corroborated and the more headline grabbing things had not been corroborated. but i've always thought the f.b.i. was taking it more seriously than the media was. >> rose: that's an interesting point. are you -- when you look at comey's testimony and, other than those people within the white house and those people

surrounding the president, have you seen people who've risen up to say either off the record or on the record that they have doubts about james comey's testimony in his opening statement and the q&a, as far as they know, because we don't nee what he said behind closed doors? >> the only statements about the accuracy of comey's testimony have come from the white house and trump's very close trump supporters. but even the speaker of the house yesterday sort of tried to explain donald trump's behavior saying he was new to being president and may not have understood the lanes of the road and the unique place that the f.b.i. has in the executive branch and sort of the independence of the f.b.i., but you haven't had folks at the department of justice or f.b.i. folks or other folks in town calling us and saying, we really think jim comey made all of that

up. there doesn't seem to be a lot of accusations about that except from the most ardent trump support snores at the same time, i've had people on the -- >> rose: at the same time, i've had people on the program interviewing people like admiral raven who used to be head of special forces and special operations and saying he's known jim comey and would believe anything that james comey told him. >> yeah. >> rose: got a lot of character testimony for comey. >> the problem if comey had a problem in washington was his extreme independence and his willingness to be transparent in public. it was that he maybe told the truth a little too much. he holds the press conference about hillary clinton last july and not only says we're not recommending charges but also lays out a series of facts that the bureau had found in the course of their investigation. those facts were never in question. the question was did comey disclose too much.

>> rose: michael schmidt, thank you. >> certainly. >> rose: stay with us. >> rose: we turn to mike allen, co-founder and executive editor of axios media. today the president said no obstruction. he basically said that he was prepared to, as i suggested, under oath for robert mueller and investigators what he has said before. so this seems to be a declaration by the president that he's prepared to meet this head on. >> it's a declaration of war, charlie, and in both words and manner, what you just quoted the president saying is fitting with their strategy and their posture. so, after yesterday's back and forth, the amazing cinematic testimony by former f.b.i.

director comey, somebody sent pea text and they said, i think aaron sorkin wrote his opening statement. it was like an hbo show. so you had this memorizing testimony where people were watching it on their phones, everybody catching up with the amazing detail. he's such a great story teller down to the grandfather clock that was in the room when he was meeting with the president, and then after that, you have the president's lawyer out saying that comey had said something that was untrue, and accusing him of being a leaker. so, charlie, what i said after that is, game on, that both sides here want to have a war. this is so surprising for us, charlie, because, in washington, right, we're used to people rounding the edges, we're used to people backing away from confrontation. but here you have two sides going at it. like james comey making it plain that he is bitter about being fired. he has a motive for really

inflicting pain on this white house, and he's not afraid to twist the knife. he's not holding things back. he's piling on the detail that could be damaging to this president. the white house, on the other hand, is saying what comey is saying is untrue, a leaker himself, and we're going to fight him and we saw that continued today with the president's willingness to go under oath. charlie, i can tell you the question around here is are there tapes. >> rose: yes, indeed. and i can tell you there is a lot of speculation the fact that both in the statement yesterday by the president's lawyer when he flatly denied saying something that comey said the president said, that is asking for his loyalty, there is a suspicion that there's not tapes. does the president really want to get into a fight with the former f.b.i. director if there are tapes? whereas comey, of course, is saying i hope there are tapes and, if so, i give my permission

to release them. >> rose: why would the president say, you know, why would he dangle the idea that there are tapes out there if there are no tapes? >> who, know charlie, right? maybe there are from some parts of the white house i thought it was -- it's not surprising, given how they have been doing things, but is illuminating instructive, but from the podium. the white house press office isn't willing to say whether or not that's tapes. you would think that would be something fairly easy to clear it you were, you would think they would want to clear it up, but, in fact, this is part of the president's strategy. you've watched this with his own staff. he likes to keep people off balance. it's part of his own thing. here, i think he might be paying a big price for that. some people wonder if he's playing checkers and james comey and bob mueller, the independent counsel, are playing chess, because we have the fascinating revelation this week that the

reason james comey leaked the account of his memo and the account of his conversation with the president was after the president had put out his tweet threatening him and raising this idea of tapes. so the president has brought a lot of this on. think a lot of the information we know now that we wouldn't if he hadn't canned james comey. look what's coming next week. as you pointed out in your top, attorney jeff sessions will be on the senate side to havethe capitol at what was going to be bawjt hearing for the justice department, pretty routine and not exciting, but now jeff sessions questioned by senators, that's going to be high drama. >> rose: he's a form senator among other things. >> great point, a member of the club who's coming back who has huge questions about him

including -- so during the testimony this week with the intelligence officials wednesday, director comey on thursday, so many times they tantalizingly said i can't say that in public session. they're inviting conversation in the private session. yesterday, director comey, after his gripping, amazing testimony in front of the cameras, he goes behind closed doors and we very quickly learn quickly a leak that he said that there was yet another contact with the russian official that the attorney general hadn't disclosed. so now the attorney general has his own issues. we had the surprise the week, the news that the president wasn't happy with jeff sessions, that he apamptly had been yelling at him about recusing himself on this russia probe. the attorney general so unhappy that h he, depending on the telling, either threatened or offered to resign. now more problematic information

about himself. the "new york times" reporting this morning that one of the things that the independent counsel bob mueller is looking at is whether just the conversations that the president had with comey, could those be obstruction of justice. so it's like we have a big sweater, and the president has been pulling all the threads, and now investigators both on the hill and the feds are going back and looking at each of those threads. >> rose: bob woodward told us on "cbs this morning," in terms of the whole investigation, we probably only know five to ten percent of what's out there to find out exactly what happened between the russians and they're hacking and the contacts they may have had with americans. >> coming from bob, that is so fascinating, and as you know, charlie, bob woodward's theory of journalism both when he was a

young metro reporter at "the washington post" who pulled off the story of the century and the amazing books he's written and, by the way, crazy stat that bob woodward told me is that he's written books about 20 percent of the presidents who've ever served. that's how long he's been on the public scene. but, charlie, as you know, his theory is the mosaic theory, that you fill in the tiles and then, eventually, you see the picture. that's why we only know the 10 percent. we have some of the tiles, so many more to come. a report this week that jared kushner, the president's son-in-law, west wing official meeting also behind closed doors with some staff on the hill. so there is so much more to know. one theory of this is that, during the transition, they weren't used to government. they didn't expect to win. they were maybe having some of these conversations during

transition. the way they would do in their business, and donald trump had never had a board there. he's not used to public scrutiny, and now he's in the most scrutinized job in the world and that's why maybe some of this they didn't account for. but, charlie, i can tell you something that our reporting including by axios's jonathan swann is that comey was inside of the white house, processed much more as a nuisance or a distraction but is a grave threat to the office. they're worried about bob mueller. they know that that could be a huge problem for them. the view in the white house about the comey testimony is that, yes, it was a devastating visual but that it had no cataclysmic effect on the president's hold on the office. i think we've thought maybe jim

comey would hold back a few cards, but, charlie, if you agree with this impression that what he said in the hearing -- and this is probably due to a lot of great reporting that's gone on -- but what he said in the hearing was basically what we expected. >> rose: exactly. a lot more gripping and a lot more colorful, but the problem for the white house was optics, not substance, not new substance that's important. >> rose: and this is not only an issue of questions of legality and criminality, but it's also issues of questions of public opinion because public opinion, if you cannot hold the public in terms of support for your position, then you begin to lose at every level. >> well, charlie, that's right pseo aggressive both in the statement that you just referenced and why this white house is on a war footing in general. charlie, for your viewers, this is an important insight that you

don't necessarily pick up from the daily coverage, and that is that, when this white house looks back to the campaign and when they got in trouble and goodness knows this campaign had plenty of low spots, what did they do? they doubled down, they were aggressive and they went after their base, their supporters. they kept those people with them. so that's why you see the white house on the permanent war footing. that's why you see the president being so aggressive and basically saying you want a piece of me? i'll talk to you under oath. that's 100% aimed at his voters because, charlie, i know that you agree that so little has been done by this white house to talk to or court the 54% of people who didn't vote for the president. i can tell you the mood, the view in the west wing is they absolutely have to keep those core voters, and if they get impatient or that gets soft,

that's when you could lose the hold on the office. but right now, republicans on the hill continue, including speaker ryan yesterday, with a little firmness that was surprising to me, the reason republicans are still with this president is that at the moment he's not hurting them in their states or districts or he h's strong back home for many of them and as long as he's strong back home, he's going to keep that hold on these legislators even though they may be frustrated with the distractions that are going on, the other things that are going on and probably frustrated or unhappen put about how little is getting done. like still the possibility that we go in the fall with -- you have the huge accomplishment to have the supreme court, justice gorsuch, but after that you don't have a signature police piece of legislation. so there's a lieutenant of

frustration about that, but they will stay with trump till he starts to fall in their districts. that's why you go more on the media, it's all after going after the media and going after comey as a leaker is big and that's all to talk to their people. >> rose: as i said, public opinion is crucial in this. let me just go through who will be up for committees next week. the attorney general will clearly be there. he's coming before the senate intelligence committee, right? i'm asking. >> yeah, he's going to be going before a budget and appropriations sub chitty. so that's -- subcommittee. so it's the fun, even boring administerial topic but he will be asked about the russian probe. >> rose: when will jared kushner be called? >> ncb news reported soon, within the month. we're told the timing may not be worked out. at the moment, the agreement is just to talk to staff, so this

isn't even a closed hearing. there is no guarantee we'll see him in public but the point is these conversations are continuing and i think next week soon we may also see the here's the thing, charlie,aw this is why for months even years the president is going to be living with this because if you look at past scandals, if you look at past independent prosecutors, if you look at the time line for them, nothing is rush, and real peril for the president is one thing we know about federal investigations, and, charlie, you've covered so many over the years, one thing we know about them, they take time, they don't rush, and this is the thing people in the white house worry about and why they say they worry about mueller so much more than comey, a federal investigation never ends where they start. they start with a topic and that gives them license to look at your email and in this case we're told they're even looking at the president's business, i

bet they'll wind up with his tax returns and your viewers know how much of a price he's willing to pay to avoid that. >> rose: mueller's most likely to end up with the tax returns, iis hoe not? >> i would be shocked if he doesn't. he may already have them. >> rose: you are great. thank you, mike. >> happen put weekend, charlie. >> rose: mike allen from axios. back in a moment. >> rose: early elections took place thursday night in the united kingdom. in a surprising upset, prime minister theresa may and her conservative party lost a majority. she called for early election to strengthen her mandate in brexit. >> what the country needs more than ever is certain to you. and having secured the largest number of votes and the greatest number of seats in the general

election. it is clear that only the conservative and unionist party has the legitimacy and ability to provide that certainty by commanding a majority in the house of commons. we will continue to work with our friends and allies in the democratic unionist party, in particular. >> rose: joining me is roger cohen of the "new york times" and gillian tett, u.s. managing editor for the financial times. i am pleased to have them both here. gillian, tell me what happened. >> well, essentially, theresa may scored an extraordinary goal, and what you had were the three things happening. first millennials calm out in force and had a howler protest, similar to what happened with bernie sanders last year. secondly, you had a lot of the professional people who were against brexit who indicated their unhappiness as well because they wanted a vote

really for a much more open form of brexit. one of the most telling moments of the vote was kensington chelsea who traditionally is a conservative bastian is so close to call because the vote hasn't gone to labor so we don't know the result of that. >> no, it's gone to labor. has it. extraordinary. that's basically international people who are wealthy saying we want to remain very much part of the european union. in addition you had the anti-establishment, if you like, almost freedom party of the people who wanted more independence not going for theresa may and splitting between labor and the conservatives. >> rose: and interestingly people we know in british politics lost their seats. nick craig, alex sammons from scotland and a couple ofthers who don't come to mind right now. was it the vote millennials, the vote about brexit, did you think

manchester i and london, the terrorist attacks made a difference? >> i don't think they did initially. i think if they did they would favor the incumbent and theresa may would say enough is enough and come over in time of crisis and do you really want change? on the other hand she'd been secretary for six years and had done nothing to reinforce police, in fact the opposite. so i think those things balanced out and didn't have much impact in the end, but this is a huge setback, really a humiliation for prime minister may. i think the blithe way she went ahead and said print needs continuity, she doesn't have a lot of credibility, and i think she's vol official. certainly she's not have any kind of mandate for the negotiation on a hard brexit that she seems to have inviesened in calling this election. >> rose: will she be challenged in her own party is

this. >> she could be. i think if there's a moment of vulnerability. she led a disastrous campaign, inept, flat. all she could go on saying was britain needs a strong and stable government. she repeated it like a mantra till people were morning her. she refused to debate the other candidates. people saw her as brittle and ineffective. so that's the image she's going to carry forward and she could, at some point, become vulnerable. >> i'd say parallels between the campaign theresa may ran and hillary clinton lost last year, her mantra was strong and stable. hillary clinton was stronger together. in theory they both sound great. in practice, they're all about saying, i am the status quo and let's carry on with the status quo, and if there's one thing we've learned very clearly from the electorate right across the wwestern world in the last year or two is actually trying to sell yourself on the basis of

being the status quo slimple doesn't work. >> to use gillian's phrase, we've had two on goal's from the conservative party, and it seems in government. but it's a very weak government, buttressed only by the democratic unionist party from northern ireland and even there its only a majority of two, i think. >> and if you went back a couple of years to s015, the conservative party won an unexpectedly strong victory in the last election and only two years ago they seemed to be almost untenable as a lesson as to how to mess things up with extraordinary speed. historians are going to be asking how were they so stupid. >> rose: they were expecting a majority. >> she's flip-flopper. she said initially she was for

remaining in the european union, now leading the brexit negotiation. she said she wouldn't call a snap election and then she did. the conservative party was completely unable to benefit from the collapse of ukip, the far right party, and the big setback for the scottish national party in scotland because that, as gillian suggested, was completely offset by a title wave of young people, of millennials who want change, who want disruption at any cost and were prepared to vote for the radical leftists that jeremy corbyn is and it has to be said corbyn ran a pretty good campaign, he really made no mistakes, and his slogan for the many not the few which he borrowed from tony blair captured something about our moment, why is there this disruption at any cost movement? it's because people believe that the systems are rigged if favor

of a small group of people who are able to get very rich and make our societies unequal. >> rose: jeremy corbyn wasn't popular in his own party. >> no, he wasn't. a lot of people were expecting the humiliation of jeremy corbyn in the election, and the left could have moved on, replaced him and tried to create more centrist, southeast-wing -- >> rose: tony blair-like labor party. >> and i don't know if gillian agrees, but i think it will be hard to dislodge corbyn at this point. >> it will be if the millennials stay involved. but one of the things students of politics across the western world need to look at when they look at the british experience is what's happening to the millennial vote because i have been going to college in the last years and saying are you political? yeah, we tweet. do you say, do you actually vote? they would be going, no, but we tweet.

this time around, the kids actually got mobilized, and there was a lot of social media activity. a lot of celebrities rallied the vote. americans should ask themselves what if that was repeated in america, if the millennials feet to the ballot box next time. >> there was a lot of idealism about corbyn. we with our experience of the 20th century and what marxism and extreme socialism produce may find that strange, but i think you have to respect this idealism of the young people and, you know, when you think that all these old people with ten years to live on the actuarial tables voted print out of the -- britain out of the european union and condemned people with 70 years to live to accept a britain that they don't want, i think that was terrible.

>> rose: they could have prevented it if they had voted, couldn't they? >> they could have helped, yeah. >> rose: let me read what roger wrote. >> this is always a delicate moment. >> rose: i dislike cosh bin's anti-americanism, his long flirtation with hamas, his core's left-over marxism and anti-zionism, n.a.t.o. bashing, his tax and spend promises. he's of the cold war left that actually believe soviet moscow was probably not as bad as washington. >> and i conclude that column by saying he was the better alternative. so elections take place in the real world. that was an agonizing choice for me because a lot of what corbyn has done and a lot of the people around him, their attitudes towards israel, their flirtation with hamas, troubles me deeply.

i don't like it. i don't like it at all. but i really felt that theresa may and what the conservative party had done in this british exit from the european union, their responsibility for that, the campaign she ran, i felt in the end that the fact that the young people were behind corbyn and power would temper the extremes, at least i hope so, i felt that he was marginally the better choice. i took a lot of heat from my friends in britain on that. >> rose: and one thing he said, the the next line i think was something like still he has not been coddling donald trump. >> the fact that theresa may -- of course, print -- theresa may said she wants global britain. well, is the first step for

global britain really to take britain out of the single patrick o of -- single market? to offset that she comes here, coddles donald trump, invites him to a state visit which is supposed to happen in october and i found all that shameful. and why, after president trump withdrew the united states from the paris climate accord, why was there scary a british whimmer from the government, even though people like foreign secretary boris johnson if anybody believes a word he says claims to believe strongly in the need to combat climate change, why was there not a whimper? because the british under theresa may or the british government is falling over itself to coddle the u.s. president as a possible alternative to the european union, hoping for some kind of trade accord with the u.s. >> rose: so where are the negotiations? >> frankly a complete mess. this morning a tweet from donald, who is not donald trump

but donald tusk who is head of the european commission, summed it up very nicely. he said basically there's a two-year deadline. people know when the clock will run out of time for the negotiations with britain's relations with the european union, no one knows when they will start. they were supposed to be starting on june 19th. in the current confused mess, it's not clear whether that can actually happen. it's going to be hard for theresa may to have a clear substance. is he is relying on the d.u.p. to keep control of parliament. the d.u.p. made it clear they wanted to keep borders open with the rest of ireland and that means the ideas about having a hard brexit are going to have to be revisited. >> and also, already, i saw her chief negotiate, mr. gave has conceded, well, after what's happened we may have to stay in the single market after all, which raises the question if you want to be in the single market, what do you do about the free

movement of people that's supposed to do with that? >> rose: on that note, roger, thank you. >> thank you. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide.

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