if you can't watch live, set your dvr. follow me on twitter @greta because you get to write mean things about me anonymous. go to my facebook page. "hardball" with chris matthews starts right now. moscow on the potomac. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in a city bouncing with news about donald trump and his attempt to kill the russian investigation. here's the latest cover-up. today the substitute white house press secretary said it was attorney general jeff sessions and deputy a.g. richard rosenstein who came to trump with the call to fire fbi director james comey, the man leading the investigation into possible ties between the campaign and russia. here was sarah huckabee sanders at the briefing today.

>> did the president direct rod rosenstein to write this moment mow? >> the president lost confidence in director comey and he'd be considering letting director comey go since the day he was 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. >> that's not true. they didn't come to him. the truth is as nbc's pete williams reported today, trump called those two to the evil office and informed them he wanted to fire comey and asked if they would agree with him. why does the trump white house continue to put out stories that cover up his determination, his personal will to kill any more progress in digging into his russian dealings during the election? well, the question of course answers itself. if president trump expted bipartisan praise for firing fbi director james comey, he was certainly mistaken on that point. the news hit like a bomb late

yesterday, and in the 24 hours since the president has come under mounting criticism from democrats and several republicans. today, the president defended his decision. >> mr. president, why did you fire director comey? why did you fire director comey? >> because he wasn't doing a good job very simply. >> it's because he was doing a good job. meanwhile of course democrats today dismissed the firing as an effort to impede the russian investigation. they called for a special prosecutor beyond trump's reach. let's watch. >> there is little reason to think that mr. rosenstein's letter is the true reason that president trump fired director comey. >> i don't think anyone thinks this is unrelated to the russia investigation, and that's exactly why i think a dramatic step needs to be taken to restore public confidence, and that step ought to be the appointment of an independent counsel. >> is it coincidence that we found out yesterday that grand juries have been empowered? you know, it certainly feels

like this is in response or in connection to a growing scope of the russia investigation. >> i will vote against any confirmation of an fbi director unless there is support for a special prosecutor. >> well, the president's response, democrats have been complaining for months and months about director comey. now that he has bn fired, they etend to be aggrieved. phony hypocrites. there was more news from the senate today. the intelligence committee issued a subpoena to michael flynn for documents related to russian interference in the election. the committee had already requested them, but flynn declined to cooperate. i'm joined by the moderator of "meet the press" right now, chuck todd. "the new york times'" glenn thrush and carol lee. thanks for coming on, chuck. you've got a lot of reporting. i'd love you to share with me now if you could background about what is trump -- what do you think is the atmospherics, finally to sort of blow his lid on this thing and saying we're

getting rid of this guy? >> i think the fact that comey was everywhere over the last week. that comey became synonymous with the russia investigation now. that comey was being trotted up on capitol hill a lot to update various committees for normal reasons, accountability reasons. we know that. and he was essentially, with each appearance, appeared to be making it clear that this investigation was gaining steam, was getting more serious, that there was more to it. and i think the constant, you know, throw in the fact that when director comey said it made him mildly nauseous that he somehow became part of the presidential campaign there the end, i don't think that sat well with the oval ofce. we now have this reuters repor that fleshes it out even more tonight, chris, which indicates that the president was

particularly peeved that director comey wouldn't give him a heads-up on what he would say on capitol hill. so i think it's that whole combination there where he felt as if comey was just not going to be someone that was -- i don't want to say let him off the hook, but was going to give him the benefit of the doubt. >> yeah. i was wondering. i mean in your position, maybe i'm have more freedom to express opinions in this role at "hardball," but i think is analysis i'd love your answer on because you're pretty smart about this. here's the question. he probably knows what comey knows about the russia connection to the extent there is something to it, the relationships involving manafort, certainly flynn. >> right. >> he would know all the conversations he's had with those gentlemen in the roles of his surrogate and campaign advisers. so he knows what he knows. but he also must wonder what comey doesn't know and will find out. and he made a calculation.

i'm getting rid of a guy now. i can handle what he knows now. he can't destroy me with what he knows now. but if he keeps up with this with 20 or 30 investigators, and he keeps digging and digging, he will reach a point where what he knows is too much for me. that would explain to me a politicalssessment of why he fired the guy. an take what he's got w. i don't know what he's going to have in a year. i don't want him to get to there. >> well, let me throw in one more angle here, which is he may not know what comey knows because he may not fully know the extent of what some of these folks may -- you know, we don't know for sure that if folks acted on his behalf to work with the russians, it's possible they kept trump himself out of the loop. maybe trump himself knows this. maybe he knows that there was -- they tried to give him plausible deniability. there's a lot of if's on that. but let me go to the other aspect of this. if you watch donald trump through the years, he doesn't run away from controversy.

he will run toward it, especially if he believes it is almost a way to muddy things up, cloud things, or delay things. >> yeah. >> what does the comey firing do, chris? right now it -- you can't help but ask yourself while it may give new momentum to more people wanting a look into the investigation, it actually stalls it right now. and perhaps this entire cloud over the investigation into why will delay it even further. just follow the way he handles the tax returns. some days he says, nobody cares about that anymore. other days he will say, well, as soon as they're under audit, i do want to release them, and they'll come out in due time. but all of it is a delay, delay, delay. >> right. >> so i wouldn't underestimate that being part of this motivation, knowing eventually this could come home. but if you delay things long enough, you don't know what might interrupt it in between. >> okay. >> i think there's a delay

aspect to this that i think is part of the calculation. >> thanks, chuck. nbc news reported today a senior congressional official with direct knowledge told nbc news that james comey briefed congress in recent days that he had requested more staff and money for the russian investigation from deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. i spokesman for attorney general jeff sessions said the report is entirely false. let me go to glenn thrush on that and carol lee. thank you, gentleman and lady. this newspaper thing, i keep telling people there's nothing hotter than print right now. you first, carol. what do we know about the pressure on trump generally? what are the pressures on this guy who may be guilty, who may be thinking he might look guilty? he may worry about what his people might have done to make him guilty. >> there's a number of pressures. this has something that has been hanging over his administration from the start. by all accounts, anyone you talk to in reporting out this russia investigation story, things were heating up. it was getting more intense. obviously there's subpoenas

being issued. there's grand juries. that was not lost on the white house. what we don't know is how much of that was connected to this, directly connected to this decision. we do know the president was increasingly frustrated with director comey. there were a number of things going back to when he wouldn't defend his tweet saying that president obama had wiretped trump tower. he was annoyed by that. he jt lt like he wasn't his guy. this is a president that really doesn't like that and feels totally fine taking action. >> we were ready to go to press last night at 7:00 before the comey firing with all kinds of examples of what trump has done to deflect attention from what this problem is. but if you look at what carol just mentioned, glenn, look at this. news about the extra people that are going to be put on, testimony by congressional people. have said that comey said he was going to add more forces to this investigation. the word of this northern virginia special -- rather, grand jury. certainly i thought the power of maybe i'm just a political romantic, but i thought the power of sally yates' testimony

on monday just blew me away. i said wait a minute. trump doesn't like hard news reporters and he doesn't like public servants. he doesn't care about opinion people like me. he worries about straight reporters who give us the news because they're his enemy because the facts are his enemy. he doesn't like public servants because they play it straight. he says, get them out of here. i want politicalable acolytes d me. look at the store he gave today. he gave it to tas. i grew up with tas. they're the bad guys. their official moscow news agency is the only reporter allowed in the room while he's meeting with two russians. the only three people defending him on the russian connection are the two russians here and the one in moscow, vladimir putin. >> look, he doesn't want james comey running around with a blank check to investigate him. this is a guy who has proven to be entirely out of control.

there's some reporting out there that comey in meetings with trump refused to give trump his full loyalty. can you imagine the president asking an fbi director for loyalty? this is a guy in terms of the president of the united states who has requested non-disclosure agreements from his private employees. i think what we're seeing here -- >> but comey knows this now. >> of course. >> comey has got this to take with him in his next role in this life, which this guy may ask for a vow of obedience from me. >> the calculation that the president made is comey is less dangerous outside complaining about him -- >> i think it is the calculation. he's worried about what he can do inside if he keeps working. >> if you look at the president's statement where he said comey told him on three different occasions that he was not understand investigation, there's a real question there whether the president doing that gave his executive privilege and frees comey to talk publicly about that, for the hill to subpoena any documentation on that. so he kind of -- there are a number of ways in which they expanded a story that they were trying to contain. >> chuck, part of this -- i have to call it a cover-up.

i think it is one. but bringing in the a.g., the deputy a.g, building the case, having them write the letters at his direction. and all the letters just happened to focus on last year, not on the russia investigation. and then getting out the word to somehow the people over at the fbi don't really have faith in this guy. the story has bounced back today that they do have f in him. the word i'm getng today is that special agents believe he was one director who would look out for them. he wasn't a bad guy as they see it. >> i want to pick up on something glenn said because i think it is an important part of this story. look, president trump was considering this for a bit of time, and a lot of people -- the more people told him, you can't really do this right now, the more people tell him he can't do something, then that makes comey appear more powerful. the more people tell him he can't do something, the more likely he is going to do it almost in defiance. >> exactly. >> and while politically this makes no sense, it was his way of sending a message, hey, i'm

not afraid of doing something like this. and i think the question that some have is does this send a chill down the spine of other sort of, you know, non-partisan or less partisan government officials as they go in? i -- i think that's a message the president hopes that it sends to some. >> yes. >> when it comes to this thing, this whole idea of, look, he's the boss. and i can tell you this. a lot of people told him this was a can of worms, that you -- you know, this is not the time. your window had passed. and it was like wait a minute. i'm the president. i can do it. >> that was the message they put out today after the fact. chuck just made the point here that they want to send the message, i'm the boss. then his people, the vice president on down,verybody put out the word, he's strong and decisive. my wife had an uber driver from ethiopia last night. he said this is like our

continent where all the leaders want to stay in power. that's all they want. i'm the strongman. don't mess with me. that's the lesson they formally put out from the vice president on down. i'm strong. i'm a strongman. >> speaking of strength and relative weakness, let's just talk a little bit about what mike pence did today. mike pence was trotted out -- by the way, our reporting shows that mike pence was one of the people who really drove this, who encouraged trump to fire comey. pence goes up on the hill, spins this tale which we know from our reporting is demonstrably untrue, that this was all done at the behest of the department of justice. this was not true. when pence was making this statement, there was reporting widely that it wasn't true. then sarah huckabee sanders, who is sitting in for sean spicer, goes out and essentially discredits the story that the vice president is saying. chris -- >> well, she did say that they came to the president with the call to fire the guy. >> right. but she also said like three seconds later that the president had been mulling this for months and months and months and --

>> you're right. that was contradictory. so the real story is he wanted to get rid of comey in the worst way, and he took all the heat for it knowing the heat is better than what he wants to keep secret. again back to if you make a calculated decision to take a lot of heat, you know what's being kept secret is worse. >> but the thinghat's baffling about this is that there was a way to fire james comey that would not have had this sort of backlash. you could have had your stories straight. c they just went about it in this very ham-handed way. their stories correct each other, and it adds fuel to the fire that they're trying to cover something up. >> very trumpian. anyway, thank you, chuck todd. you can't not be yourself. carol lee and glenn thrush. anyway, chuck, thank you. it's great to have you on. >> got to be me. >> i think i know that song. coming up, vladimir putin. here's another gotta be me. reiterates that russia had nothing to do with comey's firing. this comes as trump hosts the russian ambassador and russian foreign minister. three people in the world agree

with trump it had nothing to do with russia. they're all russian. less than 24 hours after comey is given the boot. plus sally yates, pretty bahar ra and james comey. besides all three being fired by donald trump,thy also have one thing in common. they were all investigating trump and his campaign ties to russia. were they getting a little too close for comfort? i think. and later the fallout from trump's decision to ax comey continues. democrats are furious while the republicans don't know what to make of the shocking decision. finally let me finish tonight with trump watch. he won't like it. this is "hardball," where the action is. what's that?

p3 planters nuts, jerky and seeds. i like a variety in my protein. totally, that's why i have this uh trail mix. wow minty. p3 snacks. the more interesting way to get your protein. "how to win at business." step one: point decisively with the arm of your glasses. abracadabra. the stage is yours. step two: choose la quinta. the only hotel where you can redeem loyalty points for a free night-instantly and win at business. when james comey was investigating hillary clinton's e-mails during that 2016 campaign, then candidate trump had nothing but glowing words to describe the now ex-fbi director. in his latest last month, he said he had confidence in comey. let's take a listen. >> it took guts for director comey to make the move that he

made in light of the kind of opposition he had where they're trying to protect her from criminal prosecution. you know that. what he did, he brought back his reputation. he brought it back. he's got to hang tou because there's a lot of -- a lot of people want him to do the wrong thing. >> i respect the fact that director comey was able to come back after what he did. i respect that very much. >> oh, and there's james. he's become more famous than me. [ applause ] >> was it a mistake not to ask jim comey not to step down from the fbi at the outset of your presidency? is it too late now to ask him to step down? >> no, it's not too late. but you know, i have confidence in him. >> what's going on here? hard to believe he was talking about the same man he announced as could not, quote, effectively lead the bureau.

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a day after firing the man in charge of investigating the president's ties to russia, president trump rolled out the darpe for russia's foreign minister sergey lavrov. first up, a meeting with the secretary of state rex tillerson in the state department where my colleague, andrea mitchell, asked the two about the firing of fbi director comey. lavrov feigned ignorance. let's watch. >> does the comey firing cast a shadow over your talks, gentlemen? >> you are kidding. >> what about the -- what about the russia investigation? >> well, the next stop for lavrov was a sit-down meeting with president trump in the oval office. he was joined by none other than sergey kislyak.

of course the same person whose meetings with michael flynn led to his termination and to jeff sessions' recusal. the only photos available of that meeting is care of the russian foreign ministry severity account. -- twitter account. we have these photos taken by tas. the white house press corps was denied access to the meeting altogether. but in an ironic twist, the press corps was welcomed into the oval office for a brief meeting between henry kissinger and the president. for more, i'm joined by dan rather and john meacham, the author of the great book on the first president bush, destiny and power. dan, shades of watergate clearly. the president taking the heat for firing the man investigating him. that's the simplicity of it. your thoughts?

>> it is. well, first of all, there's something very nixonian about all of this, not the least of which being what you pointed out, that president trump fired the acting attorney general, ms. yates. then he fired the federal attorney in new york, mr. bharara. then he fires comey. what they all have in common, they were all investigating donald trump. look, it's no secret about what's going on here as several people have already pointed out. what's going on here is an effort to cover up the facts. why they're so desperate to cover up the facts, we do not know. and whether one's a republican or democrat or what have you, it's an important point in american history because our whole system is built on justice. and the idea that no person is above the law. president trump, because he has the powers of the presidency, has great powers to slow down any investigation, if not indeed to stop it. what's absolutely imperative

here, it's very obvious, is a bipartisan, independent commission to get the facts on what happened with the russians and the trump campaign. what, if anything, actually happen e. and, two, get a special prosecutor to prosecute those, if any, who committed crimes. it's simple. it's deep. it's important. it's a very important moment in our history. >> you know, john, you've written about all this history, and i think going back to when this country turned sour, i think it was during vietnam, and dan was covering it. then of course watergate. i think it's all connected. this spiraling down of confidence that public officials will do their jobs and not just look out for themselves. i don't care if you're a trumpite or anti-trump, people seem to fall into those categories pretty easily now. i don't see how in either category would you think this was something that was done for the nation. this is don for donald j. trump, not for the nation or for a class of working people. >> unquestionably. i think the white house talking

point all day has been this was a decisive action as if an action itself is a virtue. i think it's the act of a strongman. the other thing, i think, not to be overly cute about it, but this is as though seven days in may were remade with frederick march with the president plotting as a russian stooge. it's been seven days. comey testified on the 3rd of may to congress. the yates testimony. and then within a week, you have comey dispatched. and i think dan's right. i think that there is an anxiety here. my own sense is that president trump simply cannot handle the idea that there's an uncontrollable element that might pose a threat to him. so he's doing everything he can to neutralize those threats. >> his aides banned together and delivered this same message, as you say, about the president's

decisiveness. let's watch. >> the president has made very clear he's going to act like a leader. he's going to make decisive actions when he is faced with evidence. >> people in the justice department made a very strong recommendation. the president followed it, and he made a quick and decisive action to fire james comey. >> yesterday president donald trump provided strong and decisive leadership. that's not what this was about. the president took strong and decisive leadership here. >> the deputy -- >> the leadership here i think represents the kind of strong leadership that the american people expect. he took decisive action. pr provided strong leadership to act on the recommend agsz. >> you know, dan, back in the day you were covering the white house, i remember nick van hoffen talked about these people, these spokesperson, these clock figures, they came out like cuckoos and they come out and repeat the same phrases over. you just saw the vice president of the united states reading from a script of two words

"decisive" and "action." he had to say it over and over again because he didn't have a longer leash. >> well, it's strong and decisive action to continue and deepen a cover-up which accentuates the question, what is it the president is afraid is going to be found out about his campaign and the russians' campaign to be involved in the presidential election. look, they must be hiding something because they're working so hard to hide it. and the cover-up continues. and it's been successful for the last 24 to 36 hours because in many ways he's changed the conversation from what is it that they're hiding, what is it they're afraid of, to, well, comey deserved to be fired, and e-mails from a year, year and a half ago, all of that. it's smokescreen. it's cover. i'll be very surprised if it fools very many among the american people. chris, you know what's needed here. what's needed here are some republican leaders.

the republicans have the white house. they have the supreme court. they have the congress. this is going to require some republican office holders with guts who say to themselves, i want the trump administration to succeed. i want my party to succeed. but more importantly, i want to do what's good for the country. and they know in that secret place behind their hearts what's good for the country is an independent, bipartisan commission with a special prosecutor. >> well, we had sam ervin in your day and my day, we had sam ervin from north carolina. i think it's richard burr this time. cbs news caught up with president vladimir putin today and asked him about the firing of comey. the former kgb agent defended the president's decision over here. let's watch. >> how will the firing of james comey affect u.s.-russia relations? >> translator: there will be no effect.

your question looks very funny for me. don't be angry with me. we have nothing to do with that. president trump is acting in accordance with his competence, with his law and constitution. and what about us? why we? >> anybody who grew up in the cold war has to think of this as the biggest hoot in the world. there we have the president of the russia, technically the victor in an actual election, which is really not exactly the way we do it. they're in a hockey costume during the stanley cup finals. there he is showing up on american television through a translator, saying that the president of the united states is innocent of the scandal to which he's accused. this is -- it is an enigma wrapped in a riddle, whatever. look at this stuff. >> i was so reassured that he said we have nothing to do with that. the fact that the russian president has to say that is a

sign of where we are. dick cheney said that if russia is guilty of meddling in our elections, it's an act of war. >> yeah. >> and that's where we are. and it's going to -- as we were just talking about, it's going to get put in the cuisinart of our current political culture, and it's going to be -- the whou white house wants it to be about strong, decisive action. that's the talking point to the trump base that the washington bed wetters are being hypocritical. you know, hypocrisy is the air that most human beings breathe, but that's not dispositive here. what's dispositive is, is a foreign power continuing to have a disproportionate influence over our policy, over our country, over our sovereignty for god's sake? and why conservative republicans aren't obsessed with this is one of the enigmas of the era. >> well, it's not very nationalist to allow this to happen. thank you, dan rather. it's an honor to have you on as

always. john meacham, thank you, sir. i love your books. the one on george herbert walker bush is really a piece of great work. anyway, up next, there it is. take a look at that. you got to get that book this weekend. they still sell these books at bookstores too as well as amazon. up next, the hunt for a new fbi director begins with calls from the white house to drop the russian investigation. will comey's successor, if there is one, meet the same fate as he's faced? is he going to keep this thing alive? i wonder. when you keep firing people, some lose their morale, their desire to get the job done. i think that's what trump's up to. this is "hardball," where the action is. because of rogue, the best selling suv in america. ♪ titan, with america's best truck warranty. ♪ and the most advanced safety features on altima and other best selling models. ♪ that's why we're america's fastest-growing auto brand. get 0% financing

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welcome back to "hardball." three individuals overseeing investigations of president trump have all been fired now. former acting attorney general sally yates, who was collecting information on members of trump's team who had connections to russia was dismissed on january 30th. there she is. former u.s. attorney preet bharara was investigating health and human services secretary tom price and also corrupt russian business officials. he was fired on march 11th. and former fbi director james comey was also investigating trump's ties to russia. he was fired yesterday. carrie ca darrow is a former department of justice national security lawyer, and u.s. congressman sean patrick maloney is a democrat from new york. congressman, i want to start with you. where are we going with this? you're up on the hill today. you hear everybody talking. is this a bipartisan concern for

what trump did, or are the republicans acting as if the words that trump is using, defending his firing of the fbi director, they actually believe the stuff they're mouthing? >> well, look, i think democrats have well documented complaints about the way director comey did his job. and we were upset when he was beating up hillary clinton, but of course she couldn't and didn't fire him. she took her lumps. the chips fell where they did. he issued a report, and the rest is well known. here you have a case where he is investigating the president of the united states, and the president has fired him. and he's fired him abruptly. and that is of course what jim comehas in common with people like sally yates and preet bharara. they were fired summarily, without warning, which is a bizarre thing to do. and i think even republicans are deeply concerned about why. the question is what changed with each of these individuals? and maybe you can explain sally yates, but how do you explain preet bharara who was assured his job? how do you explain jim comey,

who was fired without warning? the only thing that makes sense is that they were investigating this guy, and the president wanted to stop it. and that is an unprecedented abuse of power by the president if it was, in fact, to deter an investigation. and that's why we need an independent look at this. >> thank you. carrie, what do you see as the difference among these firings? >> so institutionally within the justice department, there are differences between these positions. the fbi director has a ten-year statutory position. so it really has to be gross malfeasance, something really, really bad that he did and a record established to justify the firing of an fbi director. he has a statutory term. on the other end of the spectrum, the u.s. attorney, it's pretty traditional during a presidential transition for u.s. attorneys to be fired or to be sort of slowly aged off of their position. so that's not so unusual. what was unusual in preet's circumstance was that he

president-elect in the fall actually told him he was going to get to stay on. that was sort of unusual. he actually told him he was going to stay on before they made the nomination for t attorney geral. as a former doj person and a doj watche that was sort of an odd sequence of events. >> what's a more important position if you're being trailed? we know they're investigating the president and his people. it may be flynn, manafort, who knows. it may be roger stone. it was certainly carter page. all these possible connections between trump and vladimir putin, intermediaries. who is more dangerous to trump if he is worried? let postulate he's worried. is he more afraid in detective work of the investigative work by the fbi or the prosecution work by a special prosecutor? my hunch is he's more afraid of what they haven't dug up yet than he is by what they have now. he's much more worried about comey than he is about any prosecutor. what do you know? >> he certainly wants this investigation to go away. i mean every public statement, every tweet, he wants this

investigation to be done, to be behind him, and to go away. >> who's more dangerous, the fbi or the prosecutor? >> an fbi director in this kind of sensitive investigation is hands on. >> that's right. >> so director comey was running this investigation. he would have been briefed every single day if not at least multiple times a week. any major decisions or surveillances, fisa warrants, he would be involved in the decision to go forward. >> congressman, do you believe -- it's my belief, but i do believe that the fbi director is more important because he or she will have to get out the information. they've got to get the goods before a prosecutor brings the case. >> you know, that's absolutely right. they have enormous resourc and they're highly professional. by the way, this is deeply disrespectful of the fbi and the important work they do. think about the thousands of counterterrorism investigations, the organized crime investigations. you know, you knock out the director with no notice. how is that transition supposed to occur? but the fbi, when focused on something, can bring enormous

resources to bear, and that's of course what we count on it for. and all of us know that one of the glories of our democracy is that we have a great independent federal judiciary. i'll tell you what, i represent west point. it's the only other organization i know or institution i know where there is a dedication to service that is like that you find in the united states attorney's office. that's people want to do justice. and if you put them together with the fbi and leave them alone, you're more likely than not to get a just result. we should do that. >> well, i tell you one thing. bobby kennedy, i'm working on a project now for years. bobby kennedy was really respected by the lawyers, all the attorneys at the justice department because he did stick up for them when there was political heat applied. a lot of them hadn't had that kind of a boss before. carrie, thank you so much. and u.s. congressman sean patrick maloney of new york. james comey is only the second fbi director in history to be fired from the job. the "hardball" roundtable joins us next with more details on trump's historic decision to sack the guy while he's trying to investigate him. you're watching "hardball."

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welcome back to "hardball." james comey's dismissal from the fbi was today's biggest story of course, making headlines throughout the country. with so many unanswered questions, it's not likely to die down soon. one question is what changed between the campaign when donald trump frequently praised comey and this week, yesterday? here's what the president's spokesman said today. >> i think the president's position, one, he was a candidate for president, not the president. those are two very different things. once you take over leading the department of justice, that's very different than being a candidate in a campaign. i think also having a letter like the one that he received and having that conversation that outlined the basic just atrocities in circumventing the chain of command in the department of justice, any

person of legal mind and authority knows what a big deal that is. >> well, let's bring in the "hardball" roundtable. ayesha. ruth marcus, and howard fineman. i think we've got all the bases covered tonight. i guess the question is what hasn't been said today. howard, you were telling me something. i want you to get first shot at this. >> i think one of the motivating factors here is there is a grand jury involved now, and i think the basic strategy -- >> for flynn? >> yes. and the basic strategy here, like any investigation in washington usually, is to follow the money. this started out as a counterintelligence investigation, and it still is a coterintelligence investigation with no end in sight. >> what were the russians up to in our election? >> exactly. there also could be a criminal side of it. the way you force the action on the counterintelligence side is to follow the money on the potentially criminal side. and i think that's one of the things that the people in the white house are worried about. you squeeze flynn. maybe you can squeeze paul manafort. you can squeeze other people. you might be able to learn other

things as you move out and in. >> if i were trump, what i would be worried about is conversations i had with any of those people howard said because all it takes is a conversation where he said, you know, maybe we can work something with the sanctions and let those guys know we're on their side, we like what they've been doing for us in this releasing of all this documentation that's hurting the democrats. some sign that we're interacting. that's a killer. >> and and in some ways, trump obviously knows more than james comey. he knew maybe he was getting hot. this idea that james comey was asking for more resources and then out of nowhere, actually i've lost confidence in you. so there's of course something there. there has to be something there. i think it's illogical for someone to be operating in this way and to be completely innocent. >> why would this substitute for sean spicer, who has had his own problems, come out and say something that's not true today? she must have been given the wrong briefing to. the reporting i'm getting here

is he called them in to see him and he said how about me firing this guy? oh, that's not a bad idea it's a totally different dynamic. >> well, the wte house can't really seem to pick a narrative and continue to stick with it. so we're told simultaneously that this bubbled up from rod rosenstein, but also that this was in the president's mind all along and he's just been waiting for the appropriate moment, which just happens to be as the investigation is heating up. >> well, the deputy attorney general hoseenstein singled out comey's handling of the investigation last year. last night, kellyanne conway's pegged comey's problem as his performance since january. as you said, they're getting the story all screwed up. some saying -- huckabee sanders, oh, they came to him like the two wisemen and say you got to do this. let's watch. >> why now are you concerned about the hillary clinton e-mail investigation when as a

candidate donald trump was praising it from the campaign trail? >> i think you're looking at the wrong set of facts here. in other words, you're going back to the campaign. this man is the president of the united states. he acted decisively today. this has nothing to do with the campaign from six months ago. this has everything to do with the performance of the fbi director since the president has been in the white house. >> kellyanne did not read the letters. it was all about the campaign last summer according to the reason they fired him last night. >> it was all about that, but to me what's even more is thatou have both sarah and kellyan talking about this person from the campaign as if donald trump was some character and he's not someone that was actually in existence. now that he's president, he's a completely different person. it's insane, and it's really, i think, it goes to the credibility of this white house and this idea that there are hours of tapes of him saying he has confidence in james comey, saying how great he is and then -- >> i think we're missing the point here. this is meant to be a signal to the investigators as one former fbi guy told me today, this is a chill wind blowing at the fbi.

this is horse head in the bed kind of thing. this is right out "the godfather." >> give sinatra the job. put him in the movie. >> you send your former bodyguard, who is now chief of, quote, oval office operations, over to doj to personally deliver this letter to comey, who i think they probably knew was in los angeles anyway. but it's to send a message. no more money. slow down. you got it. >> he got the message out in l.a. over the tube, over tv, and thought he was being punked or something. he didn't even know because they didn't give him the courtesy of a phone call. >> that was an amazing moment where he didn't know. i'm wondering if this horse head in the bed scenario could have the opposite effect. fbi agents get really mad when they think you're trying to lean on them, even if you're the president. >> the roundtable is sticking with us. up next, these peopl will tell me something i don't know. this is "hardball," where the action is.

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voter id to show that people to vote most likely led to 200,000 people not being able to vote. of course trump won that state by about 20,000 people. so it made a big impact. that's according to priorities usa, a democratic sierp pac. >> a little late, aren't they? howard? that's almost under the category of useless information, but go ahead. >> you didn't know it. >> next person on the trump hot seat not necessarily out, but it's going to get hot, is h.r. mcmaster. >> i here he's on the hot seat. >> the thing is, he's too anti-russia for this crowd. >> okay. >> and he just hired a staffer who is an expert at putin's -- what are the words, atrocities used before? >> the real atrocities. >> president trump ends the practice of making the white house visitors logs public. why does that matter? two economists looked at the corpate executives who went in there. what they found is you go into the white house for a meeting. your stock goes up more than

other comparable companies, and your number of government contracts also increases. >> wow. yamiche alcindor, howard fineman, and ruth marcus. when we return, let me finish tonight with trump watch. he won't like it. you're watching "hardball." ♪ ♪ ♪

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trump watch, wednesday, may 10th, 2017. well, the three people in the world today who defend the president on covering up his 2016 involvement with russia are russians. two of them foreign minister

lavrov and ambassador kislyak huddled with trump today and the only media person allowed in the room was from tas, the moscow news agency. the other russian defending trump was back in moscow. that would be vladimir putin himself. the rest of the world, if you check the world headlines, see it clearly. trump was under investigation by the fbi director. trump fired the fbi director. what else do you need to know? today's "new york times" ran the banner right across the top of the front page, page 1. trump fires comey amid russia inquiry. but the cover-up continues. the stand-in white house press secretary said today it wasn't president trump who called for comey's firing. it was attorney general jeff sessions and deputy a.g. rod rosen stieb. that's not true. it was president trump who called those two men over to his office and told them he, their boss, the president of the united states wanted comey fired. when rosenstein agreed with him, trump asked him for aette to state that. he's not making this clear, is he, how it happened, what happened. trump hates the straight

reporting of what he's doing. hates that sally yates and james comey are not puppets on his string. i have enough faith in this country's public servants to expect a lot more firings. that's "hardball" for you. thanks for being with us. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> why did you fire director comey? >> because he wasn't doing a good job very simply. >> james comey was asking for more resources to investigate the trump campaign in the days before he was fired. >> the president, over the last several months, lost confidence in director comey. >> tonight, beyond the white house spin, what we now know about why comey was fired as the president hosts the russians in the white house. then, democrats fight back. but will republicans ever break with their president? >> if there was ever a time when circumstances warranted a special prosecutor, it is right w.