>> thank you so much. >> when you were at the white house, who would have played you? >> someone played me in your movie. that does it for this hour. how am i doing? two seconds. >> i think you're doing great and i'll cast you in my movie any day. >> if it's friday, it's tiapes and friends. tonight, tale of the tape. the president said he may have recorded their conversations. did he? >> the president has nothing further to add on that. >> plus the back lash. how the comey firing is revealing a new crisis in the white house. >> i have real concerns about a cover-up here. >> there are so many flaws with the current law that we would like to fix. >> i talked to two republican

senators who said their patient freedom act is the real reform the country needs. and it is not a full repeal of obamacare. this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. >> good evening. i'm chuck todd in washington and welcome to "mtp daily." quite a week. after firing james comey, the white house finds itself battling an historic credibility crisis at best and an obstruction of justice charge at worst. compounding matters, comey has declined for now though he has agreed to appear in principle at some point. here's what the president tweeted. james comey better hope there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press. he did put tapes in quotes.

we know in the past there's an indication that quotes aren't necessarily for accuracy. the spugs the president is recording conversations with the fbi director is mental news today and has a lot of people raising their eyebrows wondering, does this really exist? it came amid conversations about a conversation on january 27th amid a trump investigation into the campaign. comey asked during a couple of times whether he would be loyal to the president. this came after "the new york times" report that he wanted comey to take a loyalty pledge. here's what he told fox news in an interview that was tamed earlier today and will air in full tomorrow. >> i think it is inappropriate. >> did you and that question? >> no. but i don't think it would be a bad question to and. loyalty to the country? to the united states is important. it depends how you define

loyalty. >> in a tweet you said there might be tape-recordings. >> i can't talk about that. all i want is for comey to be honest. >> so there you go. not quite a denial on either with one of those charges. here's why the meeting is significant. the day before that dinner meeting with comey and the president, january 26, the acting attorney general sally yates told the bous the fbi had interviewed the white house security adviser about a conversation he had with which flynn lied about to the white house. we know this because yates disclosed this information under oath. >> we also told the white house xoun general flynn had been interviewed by the fbi on february 24th. mr. mcgann asked me how did he and i declined to give him an answer. >> she said february 24th. she meant january 24th is our

understanding. did the president know of the i have the when he asked comey to dinner and he met with comey? is that why he met with comey in the first place? that's one of the unanswered questions. yesterday my colleague lester holt -- >> he wanted to have dinner because he wanted to stay on. i said i'll consider it. we'll see what happens. >> at the same time. he wanted to know what comey might have on him. >> i actually asked him, yes. i said if it is possible, would you let me know, am i under investigation? i said you are not under investigation. >> the president's claim that comey told him he was not under investigation is now being disputed by fbi officials. but folks birgs the president's own he accounts he essentially sent comey two messages. your job isn't safe and what do you have on me? it raises the question, it was president trying to interfere in

the investigation or simply intimidate comey or both? i'm joined by kelly o'donnell, pete williams, and ari. pete, i start with you. the fbi officials are disputing what the president asked of comeyful are they disputing it because they can't believe comey would say that? or do they know for sure because comey has assured that he didn't? >> this is not coming from fbi officials. we don't think mr. comey told many officials that he was going to or that he went to this dinner. the information we have about what mr. comey said are from people outside the fbi comey talked on around the time of the dinner. that's the people we're talking to. we've heard nothing from mr. comey. they say number one, he did not and for the dinner. one of they will said, people don't call up the white house and say can i come to dinner?

so secondly, that he didn't ask, he didn't want to know whether his job would be extended. he had a ten-year term. and then they say during dinner, the president asked, will you say that you're loyal, and what comey said is i can't say that but i can say that i was honest. so in many ways, they say that his recollection and mr. comey's are different. these same people today, we went back to them they say if there are really tapes, they assume mr. comey would love to have them come out because they would prove his version of what happened. >> kelly o'donnello'donnell, i and you, this revelation about tapes and now the president saying it won't talk about that. call it a nondenial, denial, he doesn't want to get rid of the appearance that maybe every conversation that people have with the white house is being recorded. what's the reaction on the hill? >> well, i'm at the white house

now and i would say that there have been strong surprise at the fact both sean spicer who is very care tofl say to us in the briefing room that he had spent on to the president about this issue of his tweet that invoked the idea of tapes and there was nothing further to add. then we saw the clip of another interview the president gave where he said i won't talk about it. i can't talk about it. what comes to mind is the president's strong desire to maintain leverage on his business life. that all options in miss perceived tool kit should be on the table. perhaps without the full sense of how this is heard around washington and the kinds of things that it evokes. like democrats on capitol hill saying they want the white house to produce these tapes and the oversight they want to do would be the expected response. and a typical president that had more typical conventional

experience would have no use of those words or suggestions would prompt response. each struck by the president does not want to discuss it. that leaves open the possibility there's some kind of recording going. on does he not want to do that because he inadvertently made his own mess or does he want to preserve the power of having people think they might be speaking with him? >> you bring up an important point for people who have spent a long time covering donald trump in any walk of life. all right. the definition of obstruction of justice. has he made it? >> the republican evidence does not provide that term. i mean, to be clear and careful, obstruction of justice involves direct interfering or tampering with an investigation. but your introduction to this, chuck, does frame it very well. you point out the time line.

the swirl questions about the pace of the russia inquiry and what could be construed, depending on which account you believe, as an attempt on pursue a quid pro quo regarding the future of director comey's tenure. that would be the direct effect of the and challenge. the president has put out multiple conversations. i would put out another comment about the loyalty discussion. that's pretty absurd gechbl public federal officials take an oath as part of their job duties. it is not something that can be misconstrued as a personal loyalty pledge to the white house. the other thing that is important to watch, there is more deputy on the attorney general, is what happens to this letter? this three-page letter of memorandum that was offered as a recommendation the president responded to. we know that's changed. does that letter just sit out in

public the way it is? or does the do jmpbl feel need to amend or clarify in. >> i would imagine when he goes in front of the full senate this week, there may be an answer tom question. kelly o'donnell at the white house, ari melber, pete williams. folks the white house has done irreparable reputation. >> the intelligence officials have said there's intelligence investigation into potential ties between campaign officials and russian officials. >> that's not what this is about. >> in fact when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, this russia they know with trump and russia is a made up story. >> because of the pakss the deputy attorney general outliened to the president, that were endorsed and agreed with by

the attorney general, the president made the right decision at the right time. >> in your letter you said, i accepted their recommendation. you had made the decision. >> i was going to fire regardless of recommendation. regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey. >> let's bring in our panel. i want to start with the contradiction of now the president, not just what he did with vice president yet aga ving to say something that turns out to be contradicted. but then he just tweets, you know what? my entire white house communications staff can't keep up with me. don't take them at their word. that's a problem. >> president trump has a team of people and a cabinet that he hired to do jobs to help him.

and his first line of defense on wednesday was the vice president of the united states, his press team starting tuesday night, and he was frustrated with the performance of his press team. and this follows a very familiar pattern. he took the reins himself. he began communicating this and in doing so, he undermined the people loyal to him and in doing so, disincent vitsed the people from going out because they know they can be contradicted by the president at any time. if the opponent was to shut down the rush investigation, he is drawing more attention to it. if the goal was to have a better communications strategy by taking the raenls from his aides, he frustrated that. he created a communications crisis. >> how would you advise the vice president to handle this situation right now? >> well, i think he needs to cover his own rear end. i know that's not usually the role of the vice president in an

administration. i think highly of him. he has an incredible political future. this is the second time he's been compromised by the russia investigation. first by the flynn investigation. now this is the second time. so he has to figure out what his role is. as he surrogate for the president. >> i think he is his best policy surrogate out there. >> he has great credibility with main stream conservatives. the only reason maybe stream conservatives are hanging in there are they think the policy will get done. the less that gets double, the harder it will be for people to stick with him. >> you worked in the cleanse white house where -- in the clinton white house where they didn't stick on the agenda. which white house was at? >> i want to say clinton 98, gore 2000. >> that's not a good place to be

if the vice president doesn't feel comfortable. >> yeah. i think that for about, i can only imagine within the whole white house, if i was advising mike pence, i would say you have to protect yourself. you should refuse to be out speaking for the administration until you have had the clearance. it makes for a difficult, i think that the president has, it makes the place inoperable. i've seen situations where you're backward engineering decisions made and you're trying to backward engineer rationale for why the decision was made and then to have it blow up the way that it did. i don't see how they can repair that. >> but you now have the president heinting at times. it is only going to accelerate

the investigation. now congress, are they going to start subpoenaing the white house for tapes? i don't know if they can. will we have a fight over executive privilege? >> the negligent strikes me, had president trump on day one of his administration asked for the resignation of james comey, i think there would have been bipartisan support for that. it may have been somewhat controversial. the republicans i talked to on both the house and the said this should have been done on day one, editorialize it. the root action is not, was not necessarily controversial. it was the manner in which it was carried out and its timing. and once there was a controversy, the president has managed to escalate it and it is now mushrooming out of control. >> it gets to the fact the president can't believe disciplined himself. if he could have disciplined himself and taken an extra week. i wt to fire comey but i need

oneore week to replace him. he seemed impatient. >> that would have taken care of this whole probable. if he had said, i'll firing him and here's his replacement. it gets back to the expectation. do we think the president will behave in a way different from how he behaved during the campaign? do we believe this person will have a new set of behaviors simply because he has a new office? i would argue we shouldn't have expected that in the first place. >> you tweeted you had mixed emotions when the comey announcement went out. do you still feel that way? >> no. it was sort of stunned and then my second thought was, he must, the fbi must be getting very close on russia. and that freaked trump out. >> i'm going to pause it here. there's an interesting new advocate for special counsel. speaking of special counsel,

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welcome back to the show. sense president trump fired the fbi director james comey on tuesday, many democrats have called it nixonian and many of them have called for a special or independent prosecutor. some are even trying to use it as leverage before a new fbi director can be confirmed. one of the loudest voices calling for a special prosecutor, a special counsel, joins me now.

richard blumenthal. he sits on the committee. welcome back. >> thank you very much. >> i'm still sort of shell shocked, the day we talked, 30 minutes before the announcement. comey firing, we talked and you had actually expressed, you wouldn't quite express confidence in comey but confidence in the fbi, in hindsight, how would you answer that question now? >> i still have confidence in the finish. i think the filibuster is going to be one of the heroes when the history of this era is written, along with the press that is uncould have gone this story he have day. what i said about my confidence of the fbi uncovering the truth means we have an additional obligation to get a special prosecutor who can lead to investigation and bring charges where appropriate. >> i want to and you about this. i want to get you to react to

what your democratic colleague, sheldon whitehouse, an argument he made against asking for a special counsel. take a listen and i want to get to you listen on the other side. >> if you have something going like that, if you look at the special counsel rule, you have to bring in somebody new. bring them in from outside the department. and they have the choice to make their own decision that they want to start from fresh, perhaps. i want to work my way through that. to bring someone in new and try to start from scratch, that's a huge stepback for what could be a good ongoing investigation. >> so respond to senator whitehouse there. are you concerned? what about his concern that a special counsel would make everything start over? >> i've come into investigations as a federal prosecutor, as well as state attorney general and

yes, there is a learning curve when someone starts from scratch. but there is an enormous value here to having someone with a fresh perspective. hopefully the right determination to uncover the truth and to bring charges where they're appropriate. and the independent special prosecutor is really necessary here. as we see these contradictions and confusion mount and the possibility there may be tapes to be subpoena in the question, the investigation. the need for more resources all point to the need for someone with credibility and speaking with britain independent special prosecutor would have. >> there is been some reporting that there was this idea that director comey went to the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, looking for more resources, people took as money. it turms out, no, he was looking for more prosecutorial help.

he needs to help more u.s. attorneys to help subpoena. he needs subpoena power. or more subpoena power. would that satisfy you? if the fbi investigation, you have a couple of extra u.s. attorney offices helping out with subpoenas? >> i think that what is needed is an attorney who will bring together, coordinate and coorate all of the lawyers and the agents and other staff who are uncovering the truth here. it is not enough to have more lawyers thrown at this case or more agents or other resources. there has to be an independent voice and face and mind that will make decisions about whether charges are appropriate and have the credibility, so that the public almosts it.

and there's confidence that it is nonpolitical, nonpartisan, and nonbureaucratic. that's why having another assisted u.s. attorney, as much as i respect them or even another u.s. attorney involved will not be sufficient. it has to be an independent counsel who is under the regulations, i think, perfectly appropriate now for the deputy attorney general to appoint. and the burden is really on rod rosenstein. >> it's interesting, he has to redeem his career. why do you say that? are you taking the president's word on this? or could it be the white house maybe misconstrued what rod rosenstein said to him? >> what the president said, he made the decision after the white house in effect said it was the recommendation of the deputy attorney general, and that recommendation was based on

actions ten months old in connection with the hillary clinton tape. i think that rod rosenstein, as a career prosecutor, more than 20 years, in this professional career capacity, has the opportunity to in effect restore his reputation by appointing a deputy, by appointing an independent special prosecutor now. and i've said this to him. i said it to him at the hearing. >> he will brief the full senate next week, we understand. is there anything short of that that he could do that would satisfy you? >> i think number one, he has to come before the judiciary committee. i have called on the judiciary, testify under oath in open forum which will not happen in that meeting so the public can

evaluate what the reasons were that these steps were taken. who said what to whom, what the time line was, and why the letter was written if the president had already made up his mind. >> had the president made a decision in january based on what he wrote about comey's handling of the clinton situation, would you say he made good case against comey? >> no. because the case against comey in that letter was based on information ten months old. but even more important, as much as i disagree with the way that then director fbi james comey, saying he had been extremely careless. i believe he was leading an

investigation. and that firing potentially impeded the investigation in a way that could amount to improper interference, maybe even obstruction of justice, and particularly sense the president talked about the russia thing, meaning the focus on his campaign's potential collusion with russian interference in our election, i think, was very problematic. whether it was done the day after his inaugural or last week. >> all right. senator blumenthal, a little short on time today. i appreciate you rushing in to do this for me. >> thank you. still ahead, as senate republicans work on their version of the health care bill, as i told you yesterday. they have a plan. senator susan collins and bill cassidy did the comey stuff yesterday. today they'll get into the substance of health care. this is the new new york.

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welcome back. we interrupt all of our comey coverage wh some issue coverage. the push to pass: it is in the senate. they already met twice to start drafting a version of its own. the working group has come under fire for not including any female members of the senate and for excluding two senators who actually were the first two to introduce a plan of their own this legislative cycle. louisiana senator bill cassidy and maine senator susan collins. they drafted a patient freedom act which would give the option of keeping obamacare or forming

a new alternative. four additional senators have signed on to this plan. as you can see, one is a former governor, three are considered fatherly moderate. i sat down with them this week. >> you get the first bill out of gate. and i think a lot of us that have followed this debate closely were swlokd this working group came out and neither one of you were on it. >> well, the leader has the right to appoint whomever he wants. the leader has brought us into some of the discussions now and i'm really not that concerned about who is on the working group. we do have our own bill. we have six people on our bill. six republicans. we've had expressions of interest from moderate democrats. and i'm hopeful at the end of the day that we're going to be able to craft a workable

alternative to the house bill that doesn't leave people behind. that lowers premiums. that will be a far better piece of legislation. >> senator cassidy, you were pretty tough on the house bill. you seemed to imply it is just a cover for a tax cut. a little rough. >> whether by intent or by effect, it sets the stage for tax reform. that's just empirically observable fact. number one. number two. i think what we have to be concerned about are those middle americans paying incredible premiums. under obamacare, $20, $30, $40,000 a year with deductibles on top. if we take as our goal to lower premiums, then we're going to achieve something. there's a lot of stuff that goes into that. the house bill is scored as

raising premiums. ours needs to be scored as lowering them. >> there are so many flaws with the current law that we would like to fix. and one of them is that if you make just a dollar over 400% of the poverty rate, you lose your entire subsidy. how does that work? that discourages people from working more hours, from getting a promotion. so there are so many flaws in the bill. the bill is going to, in my state, hit people between the ages of 50 and 64 particularly hard. one of the problems is the house voted without having the congressional budget office. we still don't have it. we were supposed to have it may 22nd. we don't know for certain the effective on coverage, on cost

on individuals and families and to the federal government. and that's such a flaw that we don't have the impact of what the risk orders would do. so that is something that to me, we can't go forward without. >> can i praise the house bill? it does begin to remove power from washington back to states. and that is part of cassidy collins. to think that louisiana and maine and california and alaska could thrive under the same set of rules. that again was the could not seat of obamacare. the fact the house bill begins to move back to states. >> i guess i don't understand about the state differential. are pre-existing conditions the same way you live in alaska or louisiana or maine. >> i was going to say to add to what bill said, one huge difference is while we move power back to the states, give states a lot of freedom to

decide how to descene their plan or even keep the current law, we require are states to follow consumer protections that are in the aca. and that includes protections for people with pre-existing conditions, no lifetime or annual caps, allowing, two people to stay on their parents' policies until age 26. no discrimination based on gender, race or national origin. those are key consumer protections. >> let's look to the politics of this. you're going to have to do this with only republican votes. how do you do it? >> i don't think we should do it with only republican votes. >> i'm living in the world we're living in.

>> i'll tell you at 7:30 this morning, i had a call from democratic senator who is very interested in our bill. we've had good conversations with our colleagues from across the aisle. and i think it is worth a try to see if we can identify common grou ground. >> i'm not saying this will be easy. we owe it to the american people to try to come one the best possible plan we can, that fixes the flaws of the affordable care act. and yet does not decimate coverage. and does not lead to premiums going sky high. so it is worth an all out effort to do that. and there will be compromises along the way. but i'm certainly going to try.

>> and ted cruz said he thinks there will be lower premiums. president trump ran on lower premium ts. >> it is the chief complaint about obamacare. the cost. not the coverage. >> right. how can anybody in the spectrum right to left oppose the policy which reasonably speaking is sustainable. can't be like dump the treasury problem. it is sustainable and lowers premiums. >> how many -- how is this going to work? has it been decided yet? there will be could not current bills? will it be one bill? >> i suspect the leadership will come up with bill that will be a substitute for the house bill. all of the senate leaders have said, their going to start from

scratch. they're not bound by what's in the house bill. they'll be respectful of it and take a look. we'll draft our own bill in the senate. we'll take a look at that. i hope it will be a free and open amendment process. that not only will we have the opportunity to get some of our ideas into the leadership bill, but we may end up offering our own bill. and i home it might be bipartisan. >> you're still going to work on the bill while leadership does its thing? >> we have adapted, and it is a work in progress. i don't want to suggest there -- working with her staff, taking the cost did i collins bill and making it combpatible the rules of reconciliation. we think it is a good-faith effort. >> yes. there's even more of that interview. the ever definition for what

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republicans, urban will and city voters. we should have learned by now that president trump plays by and is judged by a very different set of rules. after all, what other politician could have survived calling mexicans rapists, drug dealers, denying john mccain was a war hero, saying megyn kelly had blood coming out of her whatever, saying that muslims openly celebrated 9/11, mocking a disabled reporter, duping trump university, the "access hollywood" tape and accusing the former president of wiretapping him. for those of you in blue territory who are waiting for the other shoe to drop, just remember, president trump seems to have an inexhaustible number of shoes. many have dropped already and he is here rewriting the play book. once bitten, a how the times

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you have a lofl of sara huckabee is a lovely young woman. you know sean spicer. he's a wonderful human being, he's a nice man. >> is he your press secretary today, will he be there tomorrow? >> he gets beat up. >> will he be there tomorrow? >> he's been there from the beginning >> that's president trump talking carefully about his press secretary. the panel is back, the lid. welcome back all. nothing like read thing concurrently. president trump weighs shake up of press team. senior communication staffer was reaching out to a people from supportive cable tv surrogates to gauge their interest in joining the team. jennifer, you've been a member of white house communications that must be awesome to read

about your job being on the line. >> sean spicer is basically sean spicer exists. that was basically -- when the president of the united states says he is here, he has been here from the beginning -- >> i'm sorry. >> they should never have taken the job because you know that is an impossible job because you work for somebody who doesn't believe in the truth and you are never going to be able to reconcile that if your job is to talk to the press and tell them the truth. >> some would say not -- >> it's impossible. >> that donald trump likes to speak for himself and isn't very good at getting others to speak for him. >> yes. >> they're uncomfortable. >> tell the truth. >> he is constantly undermining his own communications people because i think he has mistaken belief that he does the job best. but underlying this view is, you know, he's a media president. he's not a d.c. president, he's not a law maker, he's not a policy guy and views everything through the prism of television and media coverage and so as a result he thinks everything is a press problem and there is

enormous pressure on his communications aide they're never going to meet the mark for him. >> donald trump is donald trump. he believes it, by the way on that score he's right. >> to your point, your previous point about all the near misses, he has managed to manage his way out of them through the way that he deals with the media, through the way that he deals directly with -- >> sheer force of nature. >> it is him. it is entirely about him and his interactions that has enabled him to get to where he is. >> i want to switch, i did a nice little tease, wait till you hear who is calling for a special council next. wait till you hear. here it is. >> we wanted a special prosecutor on the hillary e-mail scandal. why is this any different? >> i actually agree with you. in other words, i think jeff sessions because of his partisan ship is the wrong person to pursue this and he would welcome a special prosecutor. i think the president should pick the right woman to do that. >> there you go, there it is. case closed. roger stone wants a special

counsel. >> what's he doing on the view, i don't know. why do half the people go on the view -- sometimes i don't understand either decision, why they book them and why they go on, but roger stone, who we know does whisper into the president's ear, there might be a nefarious reason why he's for a special counsel and let me lay it out. which is the sheldon whitehouse point he made earlier on the show that i played for richard blumenthal, a special counsel actually slows down the investigation because you start over. >> i'm skeptical that a special counsel will be appointed. i think both republicans and democrats have seen these things go sideways, and the motives of them are just not good. and i'm not sure i believe that roger stone has as clear-cut a motive as you describe, but we've been talking a lot about nixon and stone is a nixon era figure who has reappeared.

i'll give you the benefit of the doubt. >> how about this, the fact he openly says jeff sessions, yeah, because of his partisan ship he's the wrong person to pursue this. >> i don't think that's a controversial statement. >> no, it's not, but it is coming from a trump surrogate. someone close to him. >> these special counsels end up being perjury traps, they end up meandering into areas that they maybe really don't need to be getting into. >> is that -- >> they find hammers and they find nails. might take awhile, but be my guest. >> someone -- >> they get somebody. >> in a normal situation we would say this is the job of the congress. the congress should be conducting appropriate oversight when this sort of thing happens. so, i still think this is congress's obligation. >> but they can't do charges. the fbi can pursue this, they can bring it to the courts, but congress can only look into it, they can't do charges. >> my guess is the initial compromise is rod rosenstein is going to agree to give the fbi more access to u.s. attorneys.

subpoena power. >> roger stone's thinking is flawed because this isn't -- you can't isolate this issue because it is not just about one issue. he has -- he is obsessed with russia. he's going to continue to do things in office that are going to make it an issue. you can't isolate it until he stops talking about it. >> i'm going to end it there. you guys can keep talking after the break. thank you very much. after the break, lights, camera, executive action. stay tuned. listen up, heart disease.) you too, unnecessary er visits.

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as developments in the russia investigation piled up this week, president trump's attempt to dee escalate the expect cal only put him further in the center. in case you missed it, he let us know he'd be the center of this show for a long time, and he said so a long time ago. in fact, here's one of our favorite moments from my time interviewing candidate trump. this was back in 2015 on "meet the press." >> i sort of was amused about your play boy interview in 1990. the questioner asked, what is all this meaning, your yacht, the bronze tower, the casino, what does it really mean to you, you replied, props for the show. and i said, what show is that? and you replied, the show is trump, and it is sold out performances everywhere. >> and it has been for a long time. >> are we all a part of a show? i mean, there is something -- you know some of the criticisms, we all feel like -- are we in a reality show in >> no, this is not a reality show, this is the real deal. our country -- >> did smile when i read the show stuff because it resonated

with you. >> it's fine. my life has been an interesting life. >> anyway, just it felt like something that was worthy of remembering this week. of course if it's sunday catch "meet the press" on your local nbc station. this will be a good one i promise you. for the record with greta starts right now. >> chuck, i never miss "meet the press" on sunday. >> i appreciate that. >> see you sunday. breaking news tonight, former fbi director james comey says, no, he will not be testifying on tuesday. the answer is no. he will not testify before the senate intelligence committee. that committee had invited comey to testify and that invitation coming after comey was fired on tuesday night. the leaders of the committee say they do hope to hear from comey soon. so for now, no response from comey to president trump's early morning tweet. this morning's tweet has rocked washington. james comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press. now, that tweet