support -- she did refer to us as pioneers when of course that's not the truth. i also don't agree that, you know, this was, you know, being with all the controversy about, you know, financial aid, hhbcus this was an event she should have spoken at. >> reporter: the consensus it is this about the students, the class. many won't forget who their commencement speaker was and what she represented today. >> perhaps for the wrong reasons. mariana alenci at bethune-cookman. that wraps it up, another busy day at the white house north lawn. i'll see you back here tomorrow afternoon from the same perch. as always, find me on peter @peteralexander and instagram, @peteralexand @peteralexander. "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace begins right now. hi, everyone, thanks for joining us. i'm nicolle wallace. it's 4:00, do you know where your president is an more

importantly what he's doing? we posed that question at this hour yesterday and so much has happened since. an ousted fbi director, a white house staff largely out of the loop and startled by the news according to reports and a russia investigation in question. here's the president today in the oval office publicly addressing the abrupt firing of jim comey for the first time. >> why did you fire director comey? >> because he wasn't doing a good job, very simply, he was not doing a good swrjob. >> here's how the white house deputy press secretary sarah huckabee sanders reported this afternoon. >> the president had lost, again, like i said, he'd lost confidence in director comey. and frankly, he'd been considering letting director comey go since the day he was elected, bullet elected. but he did have a conversation with the deputy attorney general on monday where they had come to him to express their concerns. the president asked that they put those concerns and their recommendation in writing which is the letter that you guys have received. >> the white house's assertion

that rosenstein decided on his own after being confirmed to review comey's performance? >> absolutely. i think most of america had decided on their own that director comey was not the person who should be leading the fbi as evidenced by the numerous comments that we've seen from democrat members in the house and senate, republican members, members of the fbi and people across the board. i think -- >> senator dianne feinstein said she was told something different from the president, the president said he asked rosenstein and sessions to review this. is she lying? >> he asked them for their recommendation based on the conversation they had on monday. he asked them to put that recommendation in writing but they came to him on his own -- again, the president had lost confidence in comey from the day he was elected. he wasn't sure that he should fire him. >> on may 3rd, sean came out to the president, has full confidence in his fbi director. why did he say that? >> i think, again, he questioned director comey's reason for needing to stay at the fbi. he had countless conversations

with members from within the fbi. i think one of the big catalysts we saw was last week on wednesday, director comey made a pretty startling revelation that he had essentially taken a stick of dynamite and thrown it into the department of justice by going around the chain of command when he decided to take steps without talking to the attorney general or the deputy attorney general when holding a press conference and telling them that he would not let them know what he was going to say. and that is simply not allowed. >> since i saw this briefing, i have been dying to ask my friend, kelly o'donnell, who joins us from that white house briefing room, the following question. kelly, this was the first time i have heard the white house say that since election day, donald trump who has in the interim air kissed the fbi director, he's praised him, he has tweeted that what he did was the best thing to ever happen to democrats. were they keeping it a secret? or do you think that the white house made up this explanation today that he has been thinking

about replacing jim comey since election day? >> well, also the vice president mike pence said today on capitol hill when asked about this, the president was decisive. well, if he's been thinking about it since election day, that's six months, a very long time. >> not very decisive, right? >> exactly. it's hard to understand what the thinking behind that is. certainly comey had been criticized. the president was aware of that. he might have considered making a change upon taking office, but didn't do that. as you point out, he praised him, certainly on the campaign trail repeatedly. since then talked about having confidence in him and then it seemed quite abrupt that this came about. and part of the reason i say that is even if the president had been thinking about it, typically as you well know, there would be a bit of a rollout plan. there would be some explanation prepared so that the public would understand what was happening. top officials would know what they wanted to say, what was the rationale, what was the background story. and perhaps even james comey, himself, could have been notified in a way that was more dignified than finding out on

television while he's at an event as his capacity as fbi director being pulled into an office and told after a long career of public service. given the fact the president had praised him so often, you think there might be a more subtle way to handle that. so it's hard to understand how it could go back six months. certainly he serves at the plrn of the president, the president has the ability to do this, but only the second time in the history of the bureau that this kind of thing has happened and the previous time was for a specific identifiable cause. this, we still don't really know why, and why now. >> perfectly put, kelly o'donnell. undignifiy to say the least. the story sent shockwaves through a justice department facing intense public scrutiny on many fronts. no one knows that better than ore veteran justice correspondent, pete williams. what are you hearing this idea? >> a different version but consistent with what the white

house is saying this came to be. the final steps began monday, attorney general and deputy were meeting with the president and according to the justice depart, the president basically said i've got some concerns about comey, i think he ought to go and rosenstein and sessions said, yes, we agree. the president said, well, can you put your thoughts in writing? and that's what is the genesis of the rod rosenstein memo that criticized director comey for the way he handled the clinton e-mail investigation. the fbi is still in shock about this today. there is a pretty widespread feeling at the fbi despite what justice and the white house saying is that they believe that the reason the fbi director was fired is that he would not stop the russia leak investigation. rather, the russia investigation in looking at russia's connections to trying to hack into the election last year and also whether any trump campaign officials were involved with that. that they believe that's the real reason he was fired. now, the russia investigation will go on.

there is a deputy fbi director who is now in charge of the bureau, as the justice department looks for somebody to be interim director and while the search goes on, or begins to try to find someone to replace jim comey, who, of course, would have to be senate confirmed. >> thank you so much, pete williams. you' stephanie, you, though, have breaking news for us from the white house. i heard some of this, too, but tell whaus what you're hearing. >> frustration. 2 you think about this, so many white house officials who are working on tax reform, health care reform, they've got a day job to do. they only found out moments before or while watching it break on television that the president decided to essentially fire james comey. whether he's allowed to do it or not, whether he should have done it, isn't fessly what they're so frustrated and angry about. it's to what kelly o'donnell referenced. >> right. >> it's about respect. the fact that the president had his personal bodyguard who he brought from his personal life hand deliver the letter --

>> pause on that for a moment. personal bodyguard from a previous life. keep going. >> he doesn't trust anyone around him. one can say, well, he does the "i'm fired" "apprentice style," it's more like "survivor" style. he didn't have to find out that way. think about, the president has surrounded himself with high-level people like steve mnuchin, mcmaster, people who have very good reputations. do they want to now try to go back to the work at hand that they need to do when this rodeo -- listen, look at the people who've gone on tv in the last 24 hours. where's reince priebus? i don't see reince priebus standing there at the all-important press conference. you've got the campaign rodeo is back. not the senior white house advisers. >> stephanie, my own reporting suggests that the president, himself, is pretty exasperated by what you described. we know he watches a lot of television. i heard he would very much like to see the author of this extraordinary letter, deputy attorney general on television defending him. has anyone stepped up to the

challenge? i know kellyanne conway had a very uneven performance yesterday. anyone other than his press secretary defending this? >> we haven't seen this. kellyanne conway going on "anderson cooper" last night, she was not referencing the hillary clinton e-mails. she was referencing the last six weeks, james comey's relationship with the president, so they're not telling the same story over and over and this is adding to sort of that strife inside the white house. think about the markets. they're starting to pull away from president trump because his ability to get stuff done is not getting done. >> not so much. stephanie, thank you for running in here. we literally grabbed her from the hallway. vy a great panel here. first i'm joined by michael sheerer, white house correspondent at "the new york times," and michael mcfall, former ambassador to russia, now an msnbc contributor. micha michael, i want to start with you. take us through -- i followed along with nbc's incredible reporting, i followed a lot of yours last night on twitter, overnight, into the morning. take us through -- give me the last 12 hours, at least, of your reporting on this story. >> look, i think that it's been a remarkable 12 hours.

i think that one of the things that we're -- that we're still doing is still digesting the details because what we've got is this remarkable event where the president for the first time in -- the second time only in the bureau's history firing an fbi director, but what we don't really understand yet, what kelly talked a little bit about, is the reasoning behind it. we have the sort of stated reasoning that the president and his aides have sort of described. the president said today in the oval office, well, he was doing a bad job. i think there's a lot of suspicion, a lot of doubt in official washington. certainly among democrats. even among some republicans. you saw statements from some republicans all day today suggesting that they want fuller explanations, they want to understand exactly what this is. i think that when -- if you spin this story forward, somebody asked me today, are we going to be asking about this tomorrow, the next day, the day after that? ultimately these things die out a little bit. i think we're going to be talking about this for a long time and trying to figure out the connection between the

firing and the russia investigation and the tick tock about, you know, who said what to whom because i think, you know, as a reporter trying to get to the truth, i don't think we know all that yet. >> ambassador mcfall, you are on our airwaves as often as you are because the russia story won't die, and to me, this seems like another example of a fuming president sort of, i don't know if he sort of rages around the oval office or how it goes down, but accepting the recommendation to remove the fbi director, at least in part with the hope that it might change something, change some of the dynamics in this drip, drip, drip over russia. what do you think the net effect is of firing an fbi director when the bureau was in the midst of a counterintelligence investigation into russia's contacts with trump and russia's involvement in our election? . >> well, first, congratulations on your new show. >> thank you.

>> i hope to be here often. i can talk about other things than russia. >> i know you can. i know you can. >> it's the story that won't die and it won't die until we know the truth. i mean, i think that's the problem that president trump hasn't fully engaged with. that we don't know the truth. i have 100 questions still. the american people have 100 questions still. our members of congress do, and the firing of the fbi director, in my opinion, will not stop that train from moving forward. if you're at the fbi today, i used to work with the fbi, when i was in the government, you are all the more animated to move forward with that investigation. you're not thinking, oh, well now we're just going to shut down. he just took out in a historically unprecedented way the person that was leading the investigation, and no maert wtto other story you put on it, that's the bottom line, that thor. leading the investigation of russian involvement in violating our sovereignty, interfering in

our elections and possible collusion with trump advisers, was just removed from that job yesterday. and so if you're concerned about the russian story, you are going to work with more vigor today. >> and if you are vladimir putin, who shares one thing with donald trump, we know they both pay attention to polls, we know they both pay attention to media coverage and we actually have later in the show, we call him or popup pundit today, vladimir putin very aware of this news. how does vladimir putin sort of process this news of more chaos in the american political system? >> victory for russia. victory for him. i mean, he has other objectives. he has other foreign policy issues that he wants to discuss with president trump. i would call them concessions. but disarray in america makes us look weak. that's good for vladimir putin. there's no doubt about that. on the initial score, this is a win for the kremlin. >> michael shear, do you think

that any part of the small group of people that we're starting to understand was aware of this decisionmaking warned donald trump of what this would look like? hey, mr. president, if you fire the director while the bureau is investigating russia connections, this is going to look terrible for you? >> well, yes, think that there was that kind of debate -- >> who would have -- just -- i'm not asking you to -- who -- what kind of person would have given him that kind of feedback? >> well, look, you've had -- you've actually had two camps inside the white house, we've talked about this endlessly, right, they call them the nationalist, the globalists, whatever. one of the divisions inside the white house are the people that are willing to blow things up and they don't care what they look like. that's the sort of steve bannon -- >> the bannon wing. right. >> steve miller kind of wing. right. you've got the ivanka/jared/reince, you know, group of folks who have a little bit -- either a little bit more experience in washington like reince does, reince priebus does, the chief of staff, or jared and ivanka who sort of have a sense of the president's brand, his family, the tradition he -- they're protective of what he -- how he comes across and i

think to the ex-temtechbnt that was that fight within the white house, what clearly happened is the wing that said, you know, go with your gut, mr. president, go with your instincts, do what you want to do, those are the people that want out here and the people that might have counseled him, you know, look, this is going to blow up as michael said, this is only going to embolden your adversaries to the extent that you feel like there's an adversarial thing on this russia investigation. the people that were urging caution to the extent that they were doing it, they lost in this one. >> all right. ambassador michael mcfaul, michael shaeear, thank for bein with us. much, much more on an extraordinary 24 hours in washington. up next, we'll take you to capitol hill where vice president pence insisted the firing of comey's firing had nothing, nothing, nothing to do with the russia investigation. even some republicans are skeptical about that. plus the popup pundit i mentioned, even vladimir putin is offering his political analysis of the comey bombshell. we'll play that for you a little later. it's a treat.

also ahead, some concern that comey's firing come at a crucial time in the actual investigation. so where do things stand and will that investigation continue unfettered? we'll be right back. phone with our allstate agent,

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>> that was kristen welker earlier today. my panel is here. heidi, senior political reporter with "usa today." and an msnbc political analyst. steve kornacki, nbc and msnbc national political correspondent. chief legal correspondent at msnbc, ari melber. and matt schlapp. i was dismayed today, matt schlapp, going to you, back by popular demand, fan favorite. for a president so obsessed with how he's covered in the media. >> right. >> there's not one person other than i think we can agree, a very uneven performance from kellyanne conway last night on cnn, there wasn't anyone, not the author of this memo, not the attorney general, not anyone from the justice department, not arguably any of their supporters in league circles. i don't know, i'm sure they have some, right? why wasn't anyone defending this decision? >> they don't really do rollouts. that's now how this works. they make announcements.

>> to say the least, their staff didn't know. >> you know this, senior staff often know big decisions but the rest of the white house staff aren't going to know. >> you think the whole senior staff knew -- >> there were plenty of times in the bush administration i learned what happened by watching television. as embarrassing as that was. the president didn't see the need -- >> wars and stauff, that wasn't about personnel announcements. >> i don't think that's right. i actually think -- >> you think this could have happened in the obama or bush administration, we would have fired the fbi director and no one on staff would have known, no one would have been prepared to defend the decision? >> this is the point you're making i completely agree with, this is pretty cataclysmic to fire the fbi director. in order to do that, you have to have people who are well versed into what the rationale was. on a lot of issues, they just haven't put that team together and, you know, i think it weakens their case when they don't have that and they need to do that. this is a clear case of that where i actually think -- i said yesterday on your show it was

time for jim comey to go. i didn't know my words were as powerful as they turned out to be. >> we know we have a viewer in donald trump, heard you say that -- >> your point was that jim comey lost the right and the left. he add lohad lost a lot of credibility. let's be honest about it. >> heidi, the reaction was interesting to me because it's the democrats who have every reason in the world to want him gone, many democrats not just in congress but around the country. i still hear they think comey cost hillary clinton the election, yet they became his most staunch defenders in the last 22 hours >> i think they can be consistent in that despite everything that happened during the campaign, in this context where republicans control every single lever of power, comey became the only person who was in a position to be independent and they had to cross their fingers and hope because a lot of democrats said, despite everything that happened, our nightmare scenario would be exactly this because whoever

gets installed there will be a trump appointee, will have no one left, comey is so steeped in the investigation. >> sanders was asked in her briefing today who would be in charge of running the investigation now. we have her answer. we don't have it, but what she says, that would fall to rod rosen ste rosen steen. >> this isn't about democrats and republicans. obviously the stakes are different. look what james comey has done since the election. he announced a russian inquiry into whether a foreign adversary colluded with associates of donald trump to tip the campaign, tip the collectielect. flatly contradicted the president's bizarre and baseless claims that his predecessor criminally wiretapped he. some trump allies declined to announce, we don't know what secret, declined to announce any

great leak inquiry. he's repeatedly rebutted this president which is what he's supposed to do. it's not an accident sometimes the fbi director ends up in more public confrontations with the people in power rather than out of power. i don't see anything inconsistent or odd about the fact that the obama era, when you had a democratic secretary of state under a criminal cloud over an investigation because she was exercising power. now you have more republicans in power and that's where the inquiry is. so the fact that there is some swish swash if i can make up a term. isn't surprising. >> i was startled by how sort of feeble most of the republican reaction was to this because i think, i feel, like republicans used to want to know exactly what vladimir putin was up to. jim comey was the director of the fbi who was going to get to the bottom of this. you have a slightly different take, something he might have strum bl e stumbled into.

>> sometimes this gets presented as this is an elaborate scheme donald trump, a clear goal he's trying to achieve. the chaos you're describing of people in the white house not knowing, nobody prepared to make the case publicly about the russian foreign minister being at the white house today. there's all sorts of things, if this was planned out in any degree, thought out in any degree, you wouldn't see this. i think what we know about donald trump, how impulsive he is, how peevish he is, can be, at least, and you think about some of the things that have been in the news recently regarding jim comey. what drives donald trump absolutely insane? the suggestion -- >> bad press. >> in particular, it's this. the suggestion that he didn't really win the 2016 presidential election. and his opponent was out last week saying i only lost because of jim comey and jim comey was out last week saying gives me a sick feeling that i might have affected that election. the donald trump i observed over the last year in and a half in politics, that alone, i could see leading to him saying, you

know what, i'm getting rid of this fbi director. >> there's one data point we need to keep coming back to and back to on this, this is the timing about a week ago that comeyrosenstein, author of the ledder and asked for significantly more resources so investigate the trump/russia connection. that's something we have to come back to. that's when the wheel went into motion as best as we can tell and that letter started to -- >> in two sentences -- >> real quick. >> -- if steve is right and this person was fired over a political grudge about 2016, that's inappropriate, and if you're right, he was fired over the russia inquiry, that's inappropriate and worse. >> all right. as we go to break wooer, we going to listen to republican reaction. surprised me how few there were. here they are. >> the timing and the reasons for this decision did -- made little sense to me and i don't think i've heard anything since last night that would clarify that in any way. >> i think the administration owes us some real explanations. >> when you fire probably

arguably the most respected person in america, you better have a very good explanation and so far, i haven't seen that. you think traffic's bad now, the future's going to be a nightmare! does nobody like the future? c'mon, the future. he obviously doesn't know intel is helping power autonomous cars and the 5g network they connect to. with this, won't happen in the future. thanks, jim. there's some napkins in the glovebox. okay, but why would i need a napkin? you could have just told me a bump was coming. we know the future. because we're building it.

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i have been authorized by the department of justice to confirm that the fbi as part of our counterintelligence mission is investigating the russian government's efforts to interfere in 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the trump campaign and the russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russia's efforts. as with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed. >> that was james comey appearing before the house intelligence committee back in march. comey's dismissal is raising

plenty of questions about the future of that investigation and whether he was fired because of it. we're also getting new details about what happened in the days before president trump decided to remove comey from his job. nbc news investigative reporter ken dilanian is joining us. you've got all the breaking news on this investigation. where do things stand? >> well, nicolle, the big development today is we're being told that james comey asked for more resources for this investigation just before he was fired. and this information is coming out of congress. senator dick durbin of illinois just went on the record with this not so long ago. the odd thing about it is that the justice department is flatly denying it. they're not allowing for any nuance. they're saying it didn't happen and members of congress are saying it did happen. obviously more investigation needs to go on there, but if james comey did, in fact, ask to expand, you know, asked for more agents and more resources for this investigation just before he was fired, that obviously raises huge questions about why he was fired and where this investigation goes from here. now, the other development today

was that we learned that the senate intelligence committee has requested from a treasury department anti-money laundering agency information about donald trump's business transactions and those of his associates. and that's significant because it shows that the senate is interested in whether trump associates were doing business with russia, whether russians were investing in trump properties and the backdrop of that is whether there was any collusion or any reason that trump was some howe indebted to russia, nicolle. >> thank you so much, ken dilanian, for being with us. matt miller, nbc news justice and security analyst joining us nou now. ma matt, you and i have been covering the testimony of this week including yates. i wonder you can stitch together in your mind any kind of cause and effect? the fbi director is fired, his bureau is running an investigation into russia. the effect is? >> the effect is uncertain. i think, you know, i think there will be a mix inside the fbi

right now. i think most of the employees there will continue to do their job, will continue to investigate. some may even want to double down and go harder. but we don't yet know who's going to be in charge of the fbi. we don't yet know who's going to actually run this investigation for the department of justice. is it going to be a special prosecutor? seems unlikely at this point, but it's unclear. there's not a confirmed head of the national security division yet. and that matters because the people at the top of these investigations get to make really important calls. if you're investigating one area and you see a lead that takes you to another area, do you go after it hard, do you expaend the investigation, as apparently comey is requesting to do with more resources? or do you pull back and say we've looked at enough and don't need to do anymore? those are the big questions that will be made, or the big decisions that will be made by the leadership and i think, you know, what trump was trying to accomplish by doing this is sending a cig masignal to every doj, at the fbi, if you stand up to me, if you investigate the things i don't want to

investigate, i don't want investigated, you could be fired. just like jim comey. >> all right. matt, stick around for the rest of this conversation. matt schlapp, i want to put into the conversation the other side of the story which was that there were things that were bungled. obviously -- >> worse. >> -- jim comey wasn't going about his job perfectly, nobody in government ever does, particularly under the bright lights and scrutiny that people at that level get. why were -- i mean, i think there were only a handful, there were four -- i wrote down four. senators burr, senator mccain, senator flake. but why are republicans squeamish about the timing? let's just leave it at the question of the timing of the firing. >> well, because if you take the chain of events that this investigation is going on with this politically charged question of collusion, potentially, with our enemy, russia, vladimir putin, into our election, that there could have been some trump involvement in that. that's pretty -- it's a pretty damning charge. the fact that that investigation

is going on, if there's nothing to hide, why are you worried about the investigation? just let it happen. >> why can't they say that? why can't republicans -- i get the feeling they see a reporter with a camera and they all go scooting for the little train. >> i kind of feel like in the era of trump, there is so much news. >> right. >> and they do things sometimes in their own way, own unorthodox way, that republicans are kind of like, they don't view it as their job always -- >> to defend him. >> i don't think that -- i think mitch mcconnell, plenty of people defended the decision. i'm fine with the decision. i can understand there are reverberations of the way it looks that trouble people i'm absolutely fine. this is the same thing with alberto gonzales. how republicans get themselves in a position where somehow they've done something wrong to exercise the presidential prerogative to fire people when they want, which is how the statute reads, which is how the u.s. attorney -- >> who made the decision, though? who made the decision? >> that's a great question. in the end, it's the president's decision. in the end, the president has to approve a decision like this. did he do it on the recommendation of this memo, the leadership of the department of

justice? it doesn't really matter. in the end, this is a perfectly legal thing to do. the american people are smart. if they think that donald trump did this because he's going to hide the ball on the investigation -- >> it doesn't matter whether -- >> he won't get away with it. >> doesn't it matter whether the letter is truthful or not ? it said it originated with the justice department. either it's true or not. >> i'm fine with the content of letter. i'm fine with the -- >> you're fine with the outcome. >> totally fine. a lot of democrats are, too. they did not like jim comey. when hillary clinton said that was one of the reasons she lost, most democrats on the hill agree with that. he's been erratic in his public performances. some things he talks about very eloquently, other things that would help prescription more lig would help bring more light to the conversation, it's been frustrating for both sides. what jim comey has done throughout his career, made democrats feel like he's a democrat, made republicans feel like he's a republican. he's an every man. in the end, he had nobody

standing on his side. >> we keep coming back to why now. there's an i.g. investigation under way right now and if it really was about clinton e-mails, and that all of a sudden donald trump had a night mare that they mistreated hillary clinton, i need to act on this now, that still brings us back to the fact there's an i.g. investigation -- >> which will continue. >> okay. okay. pause everything. we're not changing the subject. it's too good but we're going to make it better because steve kornacki is going to the great big huge giant board when we come back right after this. more people than ever are making the move to nissan. ♪ because of rogue,

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what's the best way to get v8 or a fancy juice store?s? ready, go! hi, juice universe? one large rutabaga, with eggplant... done! that's not fair. glad i had a v8. the original way to fuel your day. huge story that broke just minutes ago, like, less than ten minutes ago, fbi director james comey has just been fired by donald trump. wow. huge, huge donald trump fans here tonight. that shows no gratitude at all. man. i mean, what -- did trump forget about the hillary e-mails that comey talked about? i mean, thanks to the

presidency, jimmy, don't let the door hit you where the electoral college slplits you. >> now to a segment that only steve kornacki can make sense of, he'll explain to you how the public is so divided along partisan lines when it comes to the fbi director, that they simultaneously cheer and boo news of his firing. steve? >> i just -- i'm so glad we played that clip, nicolle, it's the ultimate demonstration of how tangled the politics of jim comey are and also how tribal politics are. this is stephen colbert, a show the resistance watches. he says donald trump just fired james comey, and the crowd erupts in cheers. then they have to be told by stephen colbert why that's a bad thing. what is driving this? check this out. we have numbers here on james comey, his standing with the public. this is from about six weeks ago. myse he's not that popular overall. half the country doesn't know who he is, but there's a big partisan divide. it's not that surprising when

you consider democrats, hillary clinton last week said this is the reason i'm not president, this is the reason donald trump is president. you can see republicans about evenly split on james comey. 26%-27%. democrats, though, overwhelmingly unfavorable. so think of that moment last night. democrats who have been prime to say they do not like james comey, he's the reason trump is president, stephen colbert comes out to a big anti-trump audience, says ladies and gentlemen, comey's just been fired. they cheered. then he started to explain it and i think that phenomena might be going on across the country right now in the grassroots. democrats maybe who didn't like comey now sort of learning on day two, oh, wait, but we still shouldn't like this decision. it's a complicated entang t tat politics on this one. >> so interesting. heidi, how do you think that sets up the confirmation process for the next fbi director? >> oh, i think it's going to be a heck of a show. i mean, if we do not make any progress on the special prosecutor, i think democrats

are just going to go -- they're going to go ballistic. >> the white house might have to give up, say fine, agree to a special prosecutor to get someone through? >> i don't think so. look at the comments today from not just the leadership but from members like the question that you asked this morning to senator lindsey graham. now, if anybody was going to take that and run with it, it would be folks like john mccain and lindsey graham. and yet lindsey graham did not. >> all right. heidi's talking about senator graham voicing ambivalence about special prosecutor. all right. we're going to squeeze in one more break. our panel will be here when we come back. ♪ fun in art class. come close, come close. i like that. [ music stops suddenly ] ah. when your pain reliever stops working, your whole day stops. awww. try this. for minor arthritis pain, only aleve can stop pain for up to 12 straight hours with just one pill. thank you. ♪ come on everybody. you can't quit, neither should your pain reliever.

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welcome back. i'm going to bring into the conversation jim, co-founder of axios, and ron, a senior national security analyst for nbc news and chairman and co-founder of the financial integrity network. so, you're actually here in your past incarnations because along with matt schlapp and i, we all lived through and witnessed james comey's rise to national prominence. it was a moment for matt and juan and i, we were inside the bush administration. jim, you were the reporter who was calling me every day telling me to follow the story. i remember sort of meeting you in person because republic chance aare paranoid about e-mails and phone calls, that's how we did all our business back then. i'm sure people message on twitter, i don't know how they do it now, the young kids. i wanted to go back in time to when he sort of became a media

darling because i spoke to former colleagues of jim comey's today who said he was the classic example of -- he was the best u.s. attorney to ever come out of the southern district, now memorializing billions as a great gig. he also tended to fly too close to the sun. i wanted to ask you guys for your recollections as people who are well aware of comey, what you think this moment is like for him. i'll start with you, jim. >> it's funny you say that, n k nicolle, you exposed yourself as a source. >> it's too late, right? >> i watch that dick cheney bio that's been on on show time or hbo and he's in it and you -- it's striking how this guy, both figuratively and literally, has been towering over american politics now for almost 20 years. and he was intimately involved in all the investigations around the iraq war and weapons of mass destruction and scooter libby and he was involved in all of that then and to see him

reemerge, and not just reemerge in this campaign, he was a huge figure. a lot of democrats think he's the reason hillary clinton lost. now he could be the reason that donald trump spends months and months and months being investigated, everybody lawyering up and i think being the dominant story for this summer. and very rarely does that happen for somebody even at the fbi. you have to go back very few times in history to somebody in that position loom this large over the moment. >> juan, i wanted to bring you into the conversation because you and i were inside the administration and you were in the national security apparatus. you were particularly affected by the debates, by the leaks, frankly, about our counterterrorism policies and i wonder what your views are, if you could sort of give that analysis jim did, sort of the sweep of jim comey history as we witnessed it. >> yeah. nicolle, this is a bit sad for me. i consider jim a friend, a colleague. i watched him as part of the southern district of new york, as you mentioned, prosecutor's

prosecutor. very much seen as a man of integrity, a white night in the prosecutorial world. i dealt with him a lot when he was the deputy attorney general. we worked a lot on the usa patriot act. the the deputy attorney general. when i was at the treasury department and then white house. and he was a seminole figure. he was seen not only as a man of integrity but someone who could articulate what the administration was trying to achieve with great balance and great nuance. and he certainly had ambition. no doubt about that. but he was a man of great intellect and integrity. and so to see him caught in the middle of all this. not only difficult to watch in terms of his arc and history, but no doubt he is in shock now. and this is not where he wanted to be. i imagine he imagined serving the full ten years and being able to do important things. on the counter terrorism side.

the counter espionage side. major crimes and issues affecting the country. he is not able to do that now and obviously, his reputation is now stained in a way by this whole episode, like it or not. >> i want to go back to you one more time with. this remember pat fitzgerald? i reached out to someone who was a friend of his. they came up in the same legal circles at the same time. he prosecuted the valerie plame investigation. i said, compare their arcs and this friend of both of theirs said that fitsy, he called him. that he said he was a prosecutor's prosecutor. he was mortified during that period. he said comey is the opposite. he sought out the limelight and ultimately it was the limelight that sabotaged him. do you have any thoughts about that? >> there's no doubt he liked the limelight a heck of a lot more

than fitzgerald did. and throwing himself into the middle of the campaign. throwing himself into the middle of this russia investigation. both of which he had to deal with. i think he made some decisions he didn't to have make that put himself in a jam at different places. it is so striking when you think about the last 24 hours. one of the defining characteristics of this administration, defined and motivated by impulse and improvisation. and why did he do it, who gave him the advice? it was him. he did it. he was filled with grievance. he wanted comey out. the moment he saw an opening, he did it. he surprised his staff. they weren't toward explain it to republicans or almost anyone. the com shop was clueless. a lot of messages of the white house are furious. they feel even by trump standards, they kind of looked foolish today.

even if there is nothing to hide. it gives off the appearance it is. once again with comey in the middle of all of this, we have a moment. this is going to side line nominations and herring. the decision he made impulsively will echo for a year and maybe forever. >> you aided the cia director and his transition during the transition period and the election. i wonder fits unnerving to the people you know in the current, serving in current national security capacity to watch what appears from the outside like very unsteady leadership from the oval office? >> well, i think what concerns the national security establishment is the oxygen being taken out of room. pre slice what the other guests said. the reality that this is now going to take up the

administration's time when there are so many other issues that are pressing and important. also, the way this is unfolding creates the perception of suspicion. it drives the coverage, it drives the activities, it will drive the energy in the room. now it is not going to distract folks in the intelligence community from doing their jobs and i don't think it will stop the investigations at the fbi. these are issues that will be handled and continued. the perception of the oxygen taken out of room is a concern no, doubt. >> okay. thank you for being with us. up next. putin as pundit when we come back. this is the new new york. we are building new airports all across the state. new roads and bridges.

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pundits. how are the firing of comey affect u.s./russia relations? >> there will be no effect. >> translator: we have nothing to do with that. president trump is acting in accordance with his competence, with his law, the constitution. what about us? >> that was russian president vladimir putin off to the hockey game but playing pop-up pundit

with cbs news on the sidelines. vladimir putin with sergey lavrov met with putin at the white house. they were not allowed to take any pictures or shoot any video in the meeting. the pictures you're looking at were distributed by the russian foreign ministry. what is supposed to happen is that the americans are supposed to negotiate on behalf of the press. is this a sign of the new normal? >> i don't know what happened taflt i don't understand what putin is wearing. i don't understand so much of this. >> do you like putin? do you have an official position him. >>? yeah. we think as he bad guy, that he meddled in our election, in our culture constantly. and i'm glad the president is like president obama trying to at least start off on the right

foot. i think eventually we'll be averse to each other and that's the way it goes. vladimir putin is a bad guy. >> and that was the last word. that does it for this hour. nicole wallace "mtp daily" starts now. i promise i'll get better. >> you're doing fine. if it's wednesday, what's the real reason that trump said you're fired? >> tonight, the motive. >> he wasn't doing a good job. the president said the reason for comey's ouster is simple. then why fire him now? >> the president made the right decision at the right time. >> we'll get reactions from senators on both sides of the aisle. >> it is still happening today.