obstruction of justice. senator john mccain said the russia probe is reaching the point of watergate size and scandal. here's just some of what we've heard from lawmakers today. >> this is where i stand. i will not be moved. the president must be impeached. >> whether it breaks the law or not is not the point here. the point is he was trying to interfere with an investigation. >> there's been a lot of reporting lately. i think that requires close examination. let me tell you what i told our members just this morning. >> it seems like we are learning new allegations with president trump, not just every day, but ladies and gentlemen, every hour. >> nobody likes what we're hearing in terms of the reporting that's coming out in the last few days. obviously we want to make sure we get this train back on the track. the president is the person best positioned to do that.

>> the ground has shifted dramatically. how many of a shift? i don't know. i do know this. people are very concerned about the ability of our government. >> it has now accelerated. watergate took nine months. this thing seems to be taking hours. >> we just learned the senate judiciary committee is requesting all memos relating to comey's interactions from trump from the fbi. democrats ramping up calls for an independent commission to they had russian invtition and it isot just democrats talking impeachment this time. congressman justin amash told the him, if the details in the comey memo were true, it would merit impeachment but added, everybody gets a fair trial in this country. earlier at the coast guard commencement, the president spoke about being treated unfairly by the media. >> never, ever, ever give up. things will work out just fine.

look at the way i've been treated lately. especially by the media. no politician in history, and i say this with great, has been treated worse or more unfairly. you can't let them get you down. you can't let the critics and the nay sayers get in the way of your dreams. i guess that's why i won. thank you. i guess that's why we won. the president's he 117th day in office wasn't busy enough we're following news that russian president vladimir putin chiming in, offering to turn over transcript of last week's meeting between president trump and russian officials. meanwhile, i'm keeping a close e on the markets. the dow is down over 300 points.

the markets are down, why? because there are no signs of the republican agenda anywhere. and i want to get to thought news. peter alexander conversation reaction from the white house. lucy is following the latest on putin offering up those transcripts from london. also with us, "new york times" reporter, michael schmidt. the man who broke that bombshell story, amazing, about the comey memo last night. john finer, former chief of staff for john kerry, and the former head of the office of legal counsel for president reagan and george h.w. bush. we have a full house. michael, yesterday was a pretty big day. do you think you can double down and give us another one you? >> i don't know. i guess the real story is how will the republicans respond? it looks like these letters that have gone out were signed by both parties. it didn't seem like yesterday the republicans had really

changed their tone many regard to mr. trump in these investigations. certainly the idea that this letter went out is a sign of bipartisanship. and it remains to be seen in the days that come whether the republican there's push hard and ramp up these investigations. >> we just heard from the white house press secretary from sean spicer for two days in a row, they have done off camera audio only briefings. and this is after, we know that in speaking to erdogan, he said maybe some of these journalists sthog jail. there was talk that maybe we won't have these press briefings. the president is landing. he was giving the commencement speech. two days in a row, sean spicer not on camera. i miss him. >> the president is traveling back from connecticut. it is not unusual for a gag tol

take place. we did their xofrgs took place. and sean spicer did make news in his unwillingness. when asked about this james comey memo scandal, as it were, he said that the president has been very clear in effect, indicating that the representation, the important trail in the comey memos is not accurate. what struck me is the fact president hasn't said a word that this yet. so while he said the president has been cleared, we haven't heard a single tweet from him. in fact will habthere hasn't be an on camera statement. we asked and they said do you think we'll get on camera and deflectnonymous soued reporting that is simply false? so their pushback has been strong this one. there was some other news breaking during the course of

that flight as well. we've now learned the president had hold his first four meetings with potential selections to be the next fbi director, with some new names included. the four names include the acting fbi director right now, andrew mccabe, frank keating, the former governor of oklahoma, a man by the name of richard mcfeely who is formerly is special agent in charge of the baltimore field office for the fbi, and one name that will be notable to a lot of people. joe leaieberman. all of them expected to meet with the president here at the white house as they are among that list of names being considered to replace james comey as the head of the fbi. >> give us the reaction if you've seen today from last night. what we've seen today is, i think what the story did, which was different. it brought mr. trump into the question. up until this point, the

reporting from us and other outlets had been about mr. trump's associates and their ties to russia or what the federal government may be looking at with regard to the fbi investigation, our story brought mr. trump's behavior into question and it gram mr. comey, the man that he fired. the man after having ts interaction with mr. trump on february 14th in the oval office, in which he asked him to look the other way, he went back and memorialized this in a detailed memo that exists today and can be subpoenaed by the hill. it moves the ball forward in a way we hadn't seen before in this story. >> assuming that this memo is authenticated, look back a week to president trump sitting down with lester holt around why he said in his own words, he fired james comey.

take a look. regardless of recommendation i was going to fire comey knowing there was no good time to do it. in fact when i decided to do it, i said to myself, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story, an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election, that they should have won. >> come on now. how is it president trump is not, he is admitting that he fired james comey over the russia investigation. now we're learning in this memo, the president said, hey, can you move on from this? does this not read to you like an obstruction of justice? >> well, it is coming very, very close to that line if it is not already over it. one thing is clear, when we talk about impeachment, we're talking about abuse of power. if the statements made to mr. comey temperature dinner suggested that he was under some

pressure, some intimidation, some real consequence for him if he didn't drop the investigation, clearly that would be obstruction of justice. the language says to influence or impede. i looks pretty serious. >> kristen welker spoke to a member of the freedom caucus who earlier today, i quoted him. he said if this james comey memo is true, it is in fact grounds for president trump's impeachment. take a look. >> if the comey memo turns out to be true, will you call for impeachment is this. >> i have nothing further to add. >> do you stand by your comments that you would call for impeachment is this. >> i have nothing further to add. >> whose word do you trump more, president trump or former fbi director james comey? >> i have nothing to add. >> earlier you said that the president should be impeached if it is true. >> i have nothing to add.

>> do you think the president may have obstructed justice. >> do you still have full confidence in the president? >> i have nothing further to add. >> and you also reported, i mentioned it about president trump saying that comey should consider putting reporters in prison. so you've got justin amash who is not adding any comments now, saying maybe this is impeachment worthy. the president, talking about putting reporters in prison and john mccain said all of this noise is receiving watergate size and scale. what can you tell us about this environment? >> what mr. comey was concerned about was leaks. there were a lot of leaks. about mike flynn's investigaon th the ambassador, mr. trump's qualls the foreign leaders have leaked and mr. trump wanted the fbi to do something about it.

he was really frustrated by it. and he talked about the details and mr. trump said, look, when we were putting people in prison for this many years ago about, ten years ago, there were some results here. and that was the suggestion about putting reporters in prison. >> whether we're talking about leaks from the intelligence committee or leaks within the white house, is it not iron hike the first businessman to president, wasn't new managing a company, the issues he is facing about are about managing people. >> yes. and he has not assembled a team that either he is listening or the or that is capable of directing the president's actions. there are three things here. one is, has he committed a high crime or misdemeanor that justifies his removal, one is has he violated the criminal statutes that justifies his criminal punishment, and the third as suggested in your question srgs he capable of

governing? that's an issue squarely ratsed by the 25th amendment which allows the vice president to get the approval of the cabinet to set the president aside if he is disabled, and it is clear that many people are starting to wonder, when you see these stories changing constantly and these explanns bei only good for the minute in wch they are given, whether or not escapable of carrying out the functions of the office, and whether or not the 25th amendment should be invoked. we lost peter. lucy, it is amazing that with all the noise going around, vladimir putin, of all people, offering up transcript about last week's meeting. in addition to saying that we were dangerous, we were fools, we were making big mistakes, wlornl vladimir putin wanted president trump to be the

president, the russians wanted to create chaos and day sos what th , chaos is what we got the scandal over president trump sharing classified intel as political schizophrenia, then offering to clear the air saying have you ever been ready to provide a transcript of that conversation between lavrov and president trump to the u.s. congress and the senate. mr. putin was speaking at a news conference in sochi today and he started off sarcastically making light of this uproar in washington, saying that he would have to reprimand the russian foreign minister for failing to pass along these classified secrets to him, to russian intelligence agencies. lavrov was in the audience. the cameras showed him bursting out laughing and now we see this kremlin theme, that russia is a victim of anti-russian hysteria in washington. that russia unfairly gets blamed for everything that happens.

mr. putin said of the washington establishment, either they don't understand the damage they're doing to their own country, in which case they're simply stupid, or they understand and everything they're dangerous is that corrupt. some very strong words there. whether this was a gambit to w. the optics don't look good, especial ahead of mr. trump's first trip abroad as public. there are a lot of questions about what went ons behind closed doors. snth vladimir putin certainly no friend offering a helping hand. i want to you break down for us how significant putin offering up a transcript and i want to put into perspective, lavrov who was there last week. john mccain said that guy is a thug kgb guy who has been hanging around putin for 30 years who never should have been in the oval office to begin with. >> i think it is very important to point out that vladimir putin is not making a good faith offer

here. the truth is the trump administration has exposed to this mockery which in large part was one of the big motivating factors in the intervention in 2016. one reason was to help trump. the other was to make our democracy essentially lose its credibility. on that score, they seem to have accomplished what they set out to do. since we won't get this information directly from the russians, i wouldn't recommend that. i think it is important to say that these facts need on come out. what we have are ironically both republicans in congress is that the administration saying they want the facts to be known so it can be cleared up. but both entities have the power to make these facts known. the publics in congress could authorize open hearings and drag documents is that administration officials up to congress to make these arguments in front of congress. and trump, rather than essentially shutting down, or attempting to shut down these investigations, should be

facilitating them if he has nothing to hide. i them to facts come out but not from russia. >> should the united states sfonld vladimir putin? we know the president has changed his positions on so many things from lock her up to china as currency manipulator. but he has never quite changed his opinion or said anything or aggressive against vladimir putin or russia. to your point, it is not offering a helping hand in good faith. i don't consider this a serious offer so i'm not sure it deserve as serious response. but even as other members of trump's administration, from nikki haleiy of the united states, they've made strong comments about russia and president vladimir putin. the president himself has been conspicuously quiet on that score. why? why the incident like the oval office the other day always seem to involve russia with this president? >> a lot of distractions, a lot

of noise. thank you very much. up next, the i word. impehment. that's the word being floated around d.c. by not just democrat republicans alike. stand by, everyone. we have a republican lawmaker waiting in the wings. ♪ you might not ever just stand there, looking at it. you may never even sit in the back seat. yeah, but maybe you should. ♪ (laughter) ♪

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welcome back. happening now, house oversight head jason chaffetz announcing a meeting next wednesday morning and he is calling for james comey to attend. it is unknown if comey will be there. he jokes that comey's number has changed. this all going on as calls grow louder for president trump's impeachment. i am joined by the congressman, what should go forward? a lot of impeachment word out there. from your perspective yorgs want to get ahead of things. what should be done? >> i support chairman chaffetz' call. everyone has talked about the memo but no one has read. i look forward to seeing it.

i think that while that goes on, there are already investigations going on with the house intelligence committee, the senate intelligence committee. we were briefed by the craft, the director of national intelligence, nsa director a few months back with regard to an active investigation that they're all doing. a lot of faith in our intel community. their investigations are multifolded. >> this is taking a huge amount of your time. do you think there needs to be an independent commission so you can get this off your plate and focus on the republican agenda? >> i'm not a fan of an agenda in search of a crime. i have not yet, from those briefings with the heads of these four law enforcement intel agencies, i have not been presented with a shred of evidence against the united states of a crime.

if anyone ever wants to provide that information to me, i'm certainly happy to see it or read it, to hear it and act accordingly. >> so for you at this point no, independent commission. you believe the current set-up, there is the capacity to cover it all. i'm looking at the markets at the same time down almost 300 points. the republican agenda doesn't seem to be in sight. the last time we spoke, we talked about infrastructure, tax cuts, deregulation. is that ever going to happen? that's what people voted for in president trump and no one seems to be talking about that. >> you're right. they're not talking about it but there are many different bills. gned by congress, the house is legislating. >> hold on a second. the house may have pass ad health care bill. that things barely in the senate and it will take a huge amount of time. and the markets are directly

responding to the idea that a lot of executive orders have been signed but they just call for reports to be written. we're not actually seeing changes that will create jobs. >> i can do an interview on sxhark we will get criticized that we're moving too fast and then we get criticize that had it is not moving fast enough. the way the legislative process works. the bill just passed the house. the senate is now working on it. i would need to get a clear understanding of whether or not congress is supposed to rush to pass health care or ensure that we get it right? >> it is not a matter of rushing to get health care through. but it is a matter of, can you focus health care? today, for example, we expected will gary cohen, steve mnuchin to be on the hill possibly talking tax reform. that's not happening. right now it is all things comey. and in congress, this morning i was a inside of a meeting with my entire house republican conference where

we're talking about tax reform and talking about health care and other issues as well that are important to the american people, when i walk outside of the room, and there are dozens of cameras waiting for us, all they want to talk about is comey. and they want to talk about president trump. and there is a strong desire amongst people who have pledged to resist on, pose, obstruct entirely, they say you can't work the president because if you work with him at all you'll normalize his presidency. even though i'll spend my day with my colleagues working on zpairm the ways and means committee is having a hearing and that process is moving, that's a reality. we can't ignore it as if it is not happening. you and i are having a discussion on this other topic. while you and i are talking on args literally the ways and means committee is on the ways of moving a tax reform process that will hopefully move our economy and protect the american worker and increase gdp. that's a good discussion to

have. by the way, republican that, democrats, liberal or conservative. it doesn't matter your stripes. those conversations that are going to and should be going on, they're great. and they should be praised even if they're not will worthy of the headline right now. >> i'm here talking about it. i would love to give you the headline. when will we see the tax reform bill? >> well, the president just a few weeks ago released his plan. it is a little different than what the house plan, the house released a bill with a former chairman. over the course of the last material they have offered up something a little different than what the president proposed so now the ways and means committee is having a hearing. we're moving into as a next step, the choice act which is related to dodd frank. hopefully if that passes in the next couple weeks we can move to health reform. choice act now and hopefully tax

reform after that. >> in your heart of hearts, that bill, that summary the president put forward a few weeks ago, could you show that to your constituents as a real bill? >> the proposal wasn't in legislative form. so i can show what the president proposed as a proposal that's on paper and different ideas reted to e corporate income tax rate, for example, reducing the number of brackets the seven to three and so on. but what i wouldn't do is present a piece of paymeper andy that's a bill craft. that comes out of the house ways and means committee as it completes its hearing and mark-up over the next few weeks and moves toward the floor. as far as tax reform goes, an exact time line, i don't know. it could be as little as a few weeks. it could be a couple months down the road. we go on recess in august. i would love to see it pass before we leave for august recess. >> before we go, joe are

lieberman's name has been floated as possible fbi director. our own joe scarborough reached out and said i would rather not say. would you like to see joe be in that seat? >> joe lieberman, no offense to joe scarborough. i think he might like his day job with you more. as far as joe lieberman, highly respectable. a lot of great names have been mentioned. senator leeieberman, that's a n one but he is very highly regarded on both sides of the aisle. >> coming up, meeting the burden of proof. is the explosive comey memo enough to prove president trump violated h oath of office or even the law? still to come, i'll be joined by the democratic congressman who is part of the growing momentum for the loud calls for impeachment.

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when the president does it, that means it is not illegal. by definition. >> exactly. >> no sex of any kind of any matter, shape or form was an

utterly false statement. is that correct? >> it depends upon what the meaning of the word is. >> can't tk about impeachment without bringing up nixon and clinton. by the way, tha legendary frost/ 9/11on interview, are you ready for this? happened 40 years ago this month. here we are today discussing the merits of impeachment. i want to bring in jeffrey rosen, president and ceo and professor at george washington university's law school. impeachment is a serious thing. i hate to jump and get ahead of ourselves. can you please tell us about the legal burden here and how the comey memo cosmetic even begin to advance to that conversation? >> the constitutional standard for impeachment is a high crime or a misdemeanor. but impeachment as a former president gerald ford famously said is whatever congress says it is. so if the house decides that the

comey memos are kind of obstruction of justice that constitute a high crime, they can vote for articles of impeachment. if they're not convinced, they won't. the legal standard, an intent to obstruct or impede an official investigation, requires a specific intent that the president would have to be trying to shut down the russia investigation, rather than just protect a friend like mike flynn, who he didn't think was guilty of anything serious. but the house doesn't have to be bound by those legal technicalities. could it decide if the political heat is so great, that they want to vote out the articles. it is a political more than a judicial act and congress decide a high crime is whatever it thinks it is. >> if it is a given act, it seems up likely, two presidents have been officially impeached. andrew johnson in the 1800s for

what was the reconstruction after the civil war, and president clinton in the sex scandal. richard nix only resigned before he could be impeached. although there is little doubt he would have been convicted, do trump's actions hold weight compared to these exam wills? >> well, nixon would have been impeached and that wasn't obstruction of justice. there were tapes that showed he had ordered the shutdown of an investigation into the watergate break-in so. if a smoking gun emerged that not only did the president tell comey to not look into the investigation, but also that he believed unless vehicles was shut down, he would be implicated, that would sound a lot like watergate. on the other hand, if he didn't have that specific intent, it wouldn't. watergate shows you 97 know when the political tide will shift.

nixon didn't lose support in the house until the last months. so things can turn very quick will. as new drips in the story emerge, the political tide could shift quite quickly. >> more than drips. senator joe lieberman will be interviewed officially for the position of fbi director. peter, what are you hearing? >> we now heard this information from sean spicer within the last 45 minutes or so. information that he broke on board the flight the president was taking on board the flight from connecticut. the president just arriving at the white house moments ago. we've learned that joe lienorman, the former senator from connecticut, will be interviewed by the president today. our colleague joe scarborough of "morning joe" happened to be on that flight and he had the opportunity to pose the question

to him. asking him specifically, if offered the fbi director job, he would accept it? the words of leeieberman sayingi would rather not say. he said it was not a position that he was seeking. suffice to say he will be here at the white house this afternoon. one of four individuals who will be meeting with the president. the first four interviews, names that were provided by the department of justice. the attorney general jeff sessions and rod rosenstein doing vetting. those four interviews taking place today. among those, andrew mccabe and frank keating, the former governor of oklahoma. stephanie? >> moments ago we were showing images of joe lieberman arriving into d.c. i spoke to a republican who by the way, i want to commend for coming on tv right now. i recognize this is not an easy

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that bombshell new york time report that claims president trump urged james comey to close the michael flynn investigation. democrats are increasing calls for a special prosecutor in the russia investigation. earlier today, republican senator lisa murkowski floated the idea of an independent commission. in general, i would say everybody is all over the place when it comes to retook this comey story but few reactions bl more spirited than the ones from my next guest. the democrat from california joins me now. i want to start with the word impeachment. there's so much drama and reaction out there. in terms of of getting something done, impeachment seems somewhat far off. if you look at what the president has done. it is not necessarily a high crime. would you not be better served working with republicans to work the president to say it is comey, lavrov, going back and forth on so many different agenda items, and if you're

paubl, you won't get to any agenda items. shouldn't you maybe look to republicans? >> i sit on the house judiciary committee which is where any impeachment proceeding would start. if the president engaged the in that, it is a high crime. recall we absolutely need a special prosecutor the investigate the president to see if he violated federal law. >> do you believe you can get enough republicans on board? until now they basically got in line behind the president but they have on toonls their constituents. many people voted for the president based on health care, tax reform, deregulation. can you get the republicans to get on board with you for the great ger greater good?

>> yes. more and more republicans are calling for a special prosecutor. and keep in mind, deputy rosenstein makes call. he can either appoint a special prosecutor or he can flush his integrity down the toilet no. one believes that deputy are director rosenstein can do this without a conflict of interest. >> then why rush to impeachment? if you can get a special prosecutor, an independent commission, why not give republicans the time on look through this and work on it, rather handle the bulldoze it through? you'll have a much harder time with you. >> i agree. i have time investigate obstruction of justice as well as dereliction of duty. when the president leaked highly classified information to the russian ambassador, that was a dereliction of duty. he threw our ally israel under the bus and he gave highly sensitive information to our adversary. and we need investigations on

both those counts. >> congressman, you know president trump likes the watch cable news, if you have a moment with him, what do you want to tell him sf. >> tell truth, mr. president. the american public deserves it. >> there you have it. congressman ted lieu, thank you for joining me today. >> up next, russia is back at it. meddling in our democracy again. vladimir putin says he has a tra transkrimt of that private oval office discussion. we'll take you live to moscow after this quick break. ready or not, here i come. ♪ anyone can dream. making it a reality is the hard part. northrop grumman command and control systems always let you see the complete picture. and we're looking for a few dreamers to join us.

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do you think the russians were bugging the oval office? >> i have no way to know that. >> what do you think of his offer? >> that of course is my hero, andrea mitchell from earlier today, asking secretary of state rex tillerson about vladimir putin's offer to provide a read-out with the conversation with are sergei lavrov. and of course, rex tillerson knows will have a recover quite

well. joining me, the senior fellow at the council for foreign relations. andrew, come on now. vladimir putin is clearly trolling us easy to see that th kremlin is taking advantage and they're trolling us and then donald trump with this offer today. that said, i would say that the trump administration isn't making it very hard. if we look at the trip by lavrov, we can see that the kremlin really controlled it everybody step of the way, from getting the visit to the oval office in the first place, to the appearance of sergey kislyak, the russian ambassador, the photographs that were put out, the russians being the only people who held a press conference, so you can see that the kremlin is sort of taking advantage of this sort of aura of secrecy but/leaky administration right now in washington and today was the last, or latest step in that not exactly diabolical, but the sort of trolling that the kremlin

likes to do. >> max, senator mark warner said this afternoon he's very concerned about that putin transcript on the top of trump saying he might have recordings of comey. do you agree that the two biggest problems the president is dealing with right now are essentially about transscripts? people were prepared for him to not necessarily understand tax reform or health care, but transcripts, running a business, keeping it running, a tight ship, that's his problem? >> well, i think his problems go to potential high crimes and misdemeanors. the question of whether he has committed obstruction of justice in firing fbi director comey and now as we learn in asking comey to end the investigation of mike flynn as well as the other recent revelations about how trump has shared code word secret information with the russians. i mean, those are pretty big problems, and i mean, you can say they go to a lack of

management, perhaps, but i think it really goes to trump's desire to squelch this probe into connections, possible connections, between the trump campaign, and the kremlin. i mean, he is obviously besides himself. he's desperate to exonerate himself. in the process, it's quite possible that he has committed obstruction of justice. >> well, as a person who has just run a family business, not been in government, or run a large corporation, he's not necessarily familiar with account b accountability and you're held to account when you're the president. andrew, max, thank you both so much. so much to cover. next, dow having the worst day since september as the buzz of the comey memo on president trump rattles the markets. standby, everybody. we're going to go live down to the exchange, next. ...it starts a chain reaction... ...that's heard throughout the connected business world. at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time

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let's talk about the markets. today we have seen the worst markets since september. an extreme drop, over 300 points. we're going to dig into why. i want to bring in cnbc contributor ron insana. ron, markets waking up to the chaos in washington? >> reporter: i think yesterday's headlines put the market over the edge with respect to this. the dollar, stephanie, already has been declining over the last several days amid some of the concerns not the least of which was the sharing of code word, sensitive data, with the russians and last night's revelations from various news sources about whether or not the president asked former fbi director comey to go easy or to abandon the investigation of general flynn. that rose to a much different

level, really, if you will, of intransigence on the part of the president. i think the market here is just beginning to play catchup with what's been happening in washington. the market is lagging. it's been supported by strong economic data, strong profit growth and other things much more germane to the stock market's value, but now this is the type of interruption, type of uncertainty clearly the market doesn't like. >> the strong economic numbers had the market chugging along for the last eight years. that trump boom was based on those promises, pro-business, deregulation, cutting taxes. the fact that this disruption, the comey disruption, the lavrov disruption, is only getting bigger, is it making investors suddenly feel like we're never going to see the day when these trump promises come to fruition? >> well, never's a long time, but certainly we've gone from anticipating tax reform getting passed as promised by treasury secretary mnuchin by the august recess. now everybody is talking about 2018. the fate of health care reform is uncertain. infrastructure spending, uncertain. deregulatory efforts, uncertain

as well. so, that's a type of thing that the market had priced in immediately after president trump was elected in a surprise result and so the market favorably -- was favorably predisposed to his election because those things were likely coming down the pike through a republican-controlled congress. now the timing of that is uncertain to say the least, and so the market is now rightly, i think, catching up to the notion that the president may be h hamstrung for a longer period than anticipated. >> if the market would be hamstrung, uncertainty is the last thing the market likes. would the market prefer it if the president stepped down and made way for mike pence or impeachment seems so unlikely and would take so long, i think the market would hate that. >> reporter: yeah, i think to the extent if this were to be dragged out as long as something like watergate or was a spectacle like the impeachment of president clinton, that's a considerable overhang. having said that, the market did reasonably well in 1998 after the impeachment proceedings were over. i think you don't want that type

of overhang and to the extent that a president perhaps should something like that ever come to pass would have the backing of congress to pass all these pro-business measures, then the market would get over that hurdle of being upset by the political disruption that we're seeing right now, but since we're creating an uncertain timeline, since there's an uncertain resolution, since this process could drag on, the think the market's starting to catch on. the market is starting to take these items a little more seriously than it has in the past. >> president trump has never been a markets guy. he's not somebody who even did business with a large u.s. investment banks. how much pressure is there, how many eyes from the street's perspective are on gary cohn? the white house economic adviser, former president and c.o.o. of goldman, a lifetime trader who truly knows the markets. if gary cohn were to throw the towel in and say i can't get it done here, what would that do? >> reporter: that would

accelerate the correction in the stock market that began today. any departures from the administration would be problematic insofar as you have a lack of confidence in an existing government, you typically have some market response to it. so this may be the beginning of it. we're about closing on the lows of the day. certainly the selling is catching up to the reality. and so there could be more downside pressure and it really depends on what the headlines look like in the next 10, 2 12, 24 hours. >> markets go up, they go down. this noise, this distraction doesn't seem to be going away. ron insana, thank withdrew you . this wraps up my busy hour for me. see you back here tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. thank you for watching. my friend, nicolle wallace, starts with "deadline white house." >> we've been watching the markets and listening to everything you had to say, it's your analysis that wall street may be losing confidence in the white house. >> remember, it wasn't wall street. you didn't see big finance backers pro-trump, it was when trump won and it was those