tweet in particular? >> reporter: yes, they're saying the tweets speak for themselves. in this case, the president's personal lawyer, john dowd, says he crafted the language for that tweet. he says he dictated the language for that tweet to dan scavino and that dowd mistakenly conflated flynn's lying to the fbi with flynn's lying to the vice president. and we should note that this is not the first time that dowd's name has emerged in the news. you'll rear a couple months ago, he and white house special counsel ty cobb were having lunch at a restaurant here in washington, and the two of them, david, were speaking so loudly about the russia case and how jared kushner figured into it that a "new york times" reporter seated nearby could hear the conversation -- ken vogel -- and ken did what any good reporter would do, took a picture, tweeted it out and i believe wrote a story about it. in this case, john dowd is telling us, because we asked him, how many other tweets have you written for president trump?

because as you point out, there is no clear and concise and consistent social media policy that this white house has put forward, so we asked, how many other tweets have you written? the response was, david, one, and this is my last. >> there you go. and no off-the-record policy at blt steak, i get it. the president also tweeted talking about the fbi, writing "after years of comey with phony and dishonest clinton investigation and more running the fbi, its reputation is in tatters, worst in its history, but fear not, we will bring it back to greatness." former attorney general eric holder now covering in washington, d.c., writing in response to that, "not letting this go. the fbi's reputation is not in tatters. it's composed of the same dedicated men and women who have always worked there and who do a great apolitical job. you'll find integrity and honesty at fbi headquarters and not at 1600 pennsylvania avenue right now." jeff, tell us a little bit about this story that was reported yesterday involving an fbi investigator on bob mueller's team. he removed him from that team

for something he had texted. the fbi coming into focus again in part because the president is introducing it into the focus. >> reporter: yeah, removed him over the summer, in fact, because of course, the special counsel wanted no signs of partiality surrounding that investigation, so it was really some time ago. we just got word of it not too long ago, and so the president is seizing on that issue to sort of recast the narrative here on his own terms, showing that, in fact, the overall russia investigation is in some way what the president is trying to project here, is biased. >> jeff bennett joining us from the white house. if the president's tweet from the firing is true, it calls into question this explanation he gave to lester holt days after james comey was fired. >> my white house counsel came to me. they had, i believe, two meetings, and we ultimately fired, but we fired for a different reason. >> you're talking about general flynn. >> general flynn, yes.

>> because of lying to the vice president. >> yeah, but everything plays in. everything plays into it, but we fired him because he said something to the vice president that was not so. >> many democrats and legal experts, of course, say the tweet is also evidence of a crime. among them, congressman eric swalwell who sits on the house intelligence committee. he tweeted "exhibit 1," including that tweet from the president. congress man swalwell joins us now. let me is have you explain what you thought as that tweet came across the transom yesterday. congressman, what questions did it raise for you? >> good afternoon, david. well, it shows, again, just as the president had told lester holt, that he had gotten rid of james comey to, you know, relieve the russia investigation, again here he so blatantly is admitting that he knew that general flynn had lied to him and he wanted james comey to look the other way. and so, i think, you know, the president has very, you know, boldly told lester holt, has now

tweeted, told the russians when they were in the oval office and he was meeting with them, that the actions he took with respect to james comey were because of the russia investigation and that it now looks like he knew general flynn lied. and i think he is a target for obstruction of justice, and i think -- i hope that all of this moves the house intelligence committee to take seriously our investigation into the contacts that the trump team had with russia because we now know at least one of them has pled guilty to lying over those contacts. >> does the genesis of that tweet matter to you? we just heard from my colleague, jeff bennett, about what the white house is saying here, that one of the president's counsel dictated the tweet to a social media official at the white house, then the president tweeted it out? does all of that matter to you? do you take what's tweeted on that account as gospel? >> i take what's tweeted under the president's name as the president's tweets. those are -- you know, our committee had asked the white house for further proof around

the president's deceitful claim that president obama had wiretapped trump tower, and the white house sent us a response that the president's tweets are the president's statements, so i take that tweet as a statement by the president. if the lawyer was a part of writing it, i think that's even probably worse, even more da damning for the president because lawyers are particularly careful with their words. but i think we know what happened here. he knew general flynn had lied. he wanted the russia investigation to go away. he got rid of the person leading the investigation. that's pretty clear now, i think, in all of the forms that the president has admitted to that. >> of course, there are all these investigations happening on parallel tracks, and i wonder how the news from friday, michael flynn's plea, affects your inquiry on the house side of things. does it change what you're interested in knowing in any marked way? >> well, we certainly want to know, you know, what did the president know about michael flynn's dealings with the russians? he had a longstanding

relationship with the ambassador. he had gone to russia during the primary in december 2015, and also, i want to clear up, you know, this peter smith interaction with russians who were offering the late peter smith information on hillary clinton's e-mails, and peter smith said that he was acting on behalf of general flynn. so there's still a lot of questions about what general flynn knew about efforts by the russians to get dirt on hillary clinton and whether he shared that with donald trump or anyone else in the family. but again, this should be a wake-up call for us to finally start kpeening witnesses and being able to confront them with third-party-compelled documents. >> you mentioned that one case in particular, of course, "the new york times" reporting today there was an effort, soft outreach to the national rifle association, through a member of the national rifle association, rather, to the trump campaign to establish some connection between the campaign and the russian government. what do you make of that report in the "times" this morning? >> yeah, i read nicholas fanos'

story, which demonstrates a clear effort by the russians at all levels to try and reach out to members on the trump team. and as we've seen with the don trump jr. response to the june 9th e-mail, clinton/russia private confidential. he said, i love it, can we hold it off to the fall, to michael cohen, engaging with felix sater about engineering the election with vladimir putin for donald trump. we saw a willingness and eagerness at all levels on the trump side to work with the russians. so, i think we have proved here they were willing and eager to work with the russians. and now we just need to i think look at all the evidence and understand what that relationship actually amounted to. >> what's the sense that you have now about a year into this administration of what that transition team's foreign policy apparatus was like? there's another piece in the "times" this morning, look at k.t. mcfarland's role. she's talking about rogue individuals. we think of george papadopoulos who was characterized as working as a coffee boy, somebody who

was a voluntary on the foreign policy advisory board. what's your sense of how cohesive that team was, particularly on the transition team? >> it certainly appeared to be a rag tag, ad hoc foreign policy team that did not respect the norm of one government at a time. it does now seem that they were working not just with russia but with other countries to undermine the existing administration's relationships and policies. you know, that's not a violation of the law. that's just, you know, reckless and sets back our foreign policy. and you know, they may find that that may happen to them as a new administration comes in. i hope it doesn't just for the country's sake. but you know, the k.t. mcfarland e-mails reported in "the new york times" are also disturbing, because again, she acknowledges that russia had thrown the election, you know, toward the trump team. and so, it does seem now, i think as more and more of this comes out, there was a clear acknowledgement that the russians had helped them.

and what i fear is that this administration has been seeking to help the russians. and if you just look at the sanctions that congress has put in place that we voted for, that this administration has still not executed against russia, it shows that they're not willing to really stand up to russia, and it's likely because of what k.t. mcfarland said, they knew that they were helped. >> congressman, i can't count how many legal experts have sat around this tame taibl and said when you look at a plea like that announced on friday, you've got to look up the food chain, you've got to look at what big fish might be next. you and your colleagues are set to speak with donald trump jr. in the coming days, certainly mentioned by a lot of those legal experts. what do you want to hear from him in the coming days before your committee? >> david, you know, we don't acknowledge exactly when witnesses come in, but we have acknowledged that donald trump jr., because of the june 9th e-mail, is a relevant witness. and i'll tell you this, we want to know what exactly did he tell his father about his interactions with the russians. because just minutes after his june 9th meeting wrapped up, his

father, candidate trump, was tweeting out about hillary's e-mails. so, he had a meeting where russians were offering dirt on hillary clinton. and then right when the meeting ends, donald trump sends an e-mail, again, going at hillary about deleted e-mails. it seems like donald trump jr. also, because of his interactions with wikileaks, again, was eager to receive and work with anyone that could get their hands on ill-gotten e-mails. and so, i want to understand what he told his father and also, you know, any other russian relationships he had through the course of the campaign. >> in the spotlight now is robert mueller's decision to excuse or take off his team an fbi agent who had been, i guess tweeting pro clinton statements during the course of the campaign. is he somebody that your committee was interested in before? in other words, how new a development is this for you and your inquiry? >> i just heard of this. i think it was the right call and i think it shows how objective bob mueller is in his pursuit. you know, even if there's the

appearance of favoritism, and it's not even clear, you know, if that is the case, but he has pulled that person off the team, and i think that's so that, you know, when he puts a case forward, he wants it to be impenetrable and above reproach. so i think that was the right call. >> i'll ask you lastly, just for your sense of how the house investigation is going. again, when you look at all of these, in parallel, there was a sense for a while that yours was a bit behind the others in part because of challenges with leadership of that committee. where do things stand now? how would you characterize the house intelligence investigation? >> well, i'll give chairman conaway credit for the number of witnesses we've been able to bring in. however, the real problem here is that they're all coming in voluntarily and they're not being asked to bring in -- they're not being required to bring in documents that could corroborate or discredit what they're saying. and so, it's a take them at their word investigation. we had eric prince in earlier this week, and he abruptly said that he didn't want to answer

any more questions, and we, because he was there voluntarily, couldn't press him or compel him to do so. we have a subpoena power in congress that has the same meaning as bob mueller's grand jury subpoena power. so, if we want to be serious, we can actually get these answers. and i'll just, finally, david -- >> sure. >> george papadopoulos in january of this year was confronted by the fbi about his russian contacts. he lied. he was confronted in february. he lied. they were able to get through subpoenas facebook logs and skype logs and confronted him at the end of july. he finally came around and told the truth. that shows these individuals are willing to lie, protect the president, and only when confronted with third-party documents are they going to come around and give you the true sto store. and i hope we are as determined as bob mueller and his team as what we need to be. >> thank you for joining us. election interference. new reports about how russia may have tried to interfere with the 2016 election. the latest kremlin connection to

the national rifle association. plus, what the president is calling the biggest miscarriage of justice. ♪ spread a little love my-y way ♪ ♪ spread a little something to remember ♪ philadelphia cream cheese. made with fresh milk and real cream makes your recipes their holiday favourites. the holidays are made with philly.

welcome back. i'm david gura. an intriguing, new twist in the trump campaign and its possible pre-election connection to russia. in a new report in "the new york times," an operative with close ties to the national rifle association offered to arrange a back-channel meeting between then candidate donald trump and vladimir putin. an e-mail exchange received by a

trump campaign adviser in may of 2016 contained the following message -- "russia is quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the u.s. that isn't forthcoming under the current administration." joining us to discuss the potential kremlin link, political contributor jason johnson and julie ensley. walk us through here, julie, what was being proposed by this conservative operative, a republican member of the national rifle association? >> first, i just want to say the context here is really important, because what we're seeing is a pattern that's developing over these may 2016 e-mails. nbc reported just last month that a russian banker by the name of alexander tomorrrctorch to use that same meeting to set up a meeting on the sidelines between candidate trump and vladimir putin. we are learning from "the new york times" report today that an nra member with ties to the kremlin tried to reach out to

jeff sessions and rick dearborn, again to try to set up this meeting. what all this is really showing is that it's part of the kremlin's plan. there was really a three-pronged approach to be able to infiltrate the conservatives and the trump campaign through their kind of pet issues, one of which, of course, is guns. they also tried to do this through veterans rights groups and christian organizations. "the new york times" lays all this out, that as part of a plan to get to trump through channels of people that he knew would be supporting him and to try to set up a back channel for him to communicate with vladimir putin. >> jason, we pieced together where these investigations are heading, and indeed, this "the new york times" report relies on documents that were obtained by senate investigators. how much of their attention is this kind of soft outreach occupying, do you think? >> well, david, it lays out the entire story, as your other guest mentioned, that this was an ongoing process, that you had too many people receiving too many phone calls that claim that they didn't know what was going

on. for jeff sessions to say he didn't know, for jared to say he didn't know, for donald trump jr. to say he didn't know, for michael flynn to say he didn't know. you had so many different people who were speaking on behalf or claiming to speak on behalf of the russian government getting in touch with key members of the trump campaign. it's hard to say that they didn't know anything. but i always think, david, it's important to remember in all this that these associations aren't necessarily causation. the fact that russians were trying to talk to trump is not the same thing as collusion. that is something that's established later on when it becomes clear that there is material that's being offered and that members of his campaign team were interested in getting that material, which may or may not have been hacked e-mails. >> jason, we spent some time today talking about the potential legal ramifications of that tweet that was the president fired off yesterday. let me just ask you about the political ramifications of it. we don't know -- heretoforedidn't know a whole lot about the way the president tweets. we're under the impression that he fired off that tweet while in his motorcade yesterday. now we're learning about

dictation from counsel to a social media official within the white house. what does this say about the way the white house is being run, the way that the social media wing of this administration is running things, how this tweet was fired off? >> yeah, trump's explanation about dictation is like when a celebrity says, i was hacked! i was hacked! that wasn't my instagram post. let's be honest, if it's in the president's name, it's his words. but it's been abundantly clear, david, from the very beginning of this administration, that they don't seem to have a clear and organized communication plan. if they did, the first part of that plan would be take the phone out of the president's hands. so, he tweets things all the time that certainly make him look bad, things that suggest that he's broken the law, things that suggest that he's engaged in obstruction of justice. and since these are his words, i'm sure there are some constitutional scholars who will be digging through this foreyears, but you can take any of these tweets as statements from the president. they're not law, but they're statements from the president.

so there are political consequences to this, but also legal consequences, and especially with this investigation, where he makes it consistently clear that he's engaged in behavior that could be problematic, and certainly is obstruction of justice. >> julie, i want you to react to that as well. indeed, so many of his tweets attract a lot of attention, this one in particular getting a lot of scrutiny and from legal scholars in particular. >> of course. and while it's going to be getting a lot of scrutiny from legal scholars, we also know that the way this white house has reacted to pieces of this investigation that have come out are not left alone by the special counsel. we reported earlier, probably in i think september, that robert mueller was looking at president trump's reaction to the june 2016 meeting, where of course he said on air force one, he dictated that statement to say, oh, no, no, we were just meeting about adoptions, and it later came out they were getting dirt on hillary clinton. so just because the president's attorney, dowd, is saying i dictated this, let's not make this his official statement, this is not his reaction, my bad. this doesn't mean that it can be

dropped. >> right. >> this is something that came out as a presidential statement, just as sean spicer, the former press secretary, said that tweets were meant to do. they were supposed to be a window into the policy of this white house. >> yeah, this was something that senator lindsey graham was asked about on cbs' "face the nation" this morning. let's listen what he had to say about this tweet from the president yesterday. >> there is an ongoing criminal investigation. comey may be part of it. you tweet in comment regarding ongoing criminal investigations at your own peril. i'd be careful if i were you, mr. president. i'd watch this. >> jason, over the past many months, we've seen members of the president's party expressing trepidation, occasionally frustration with the president's tweets. what do you make from the reaction of the senior senator from south carolina? >> it amounts to nothing because plenty of republicans say they don't like trump's behavior, but they're not willing to do anything about it. let's be honest, if this were anybody else at this particular

point, you could already move forward with impeachment hearings if you wanted to. there's already enough evidence that the president and members of his campaign may have been working with the russians, while that's not against the law, it could be impeachable. they'll say this is a problem, but they're not going to take any concrete steps to rein this presidency in. so whenever lindsey graham or bob corker or jeff flake, or heck, john mccain comes out and says these are bad behaviors, they still vote with this president and protect this president, so i don't put much stock on what lindsey graham said. >> jason johnson and julia joining me from washington. a shift of power in the senate with nine days to go. will allegations against the embattled gop candidate impact the election? the latest poll results after the break.

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at sofi.com. welcome back. i'm david gura. we're nine days away from a senate race that is a toss-up, according to the latest poll. the "washington post" has democrat doug jones leading republican roy moore by three percentage points, but that is within the margin of error. moore has been hit with and denied several allegations of sexual misconduct, including one with a 14-year-old girl when he was in his 30s.

nbc's vaughn hilliard is joining the candidates on the campaign trail in tuscaloosa, alabama. i mentioned that poll. how with people reacting to that polling data from the "post"? >> reporter: david, after being here for three weeks on the ground now, it's really come down to the fact that i, frankly, don't trust really any polling in this race at this point, just because when you're talking to particularly republican voters here, the ones, the crossover voters that doug jones, the democrat needs in this race, there's a big gap between the number that are saying, hey, maybe we'd be willing to vote for doug jones. then there's those that are saying maybe we'll write in or not vote at all and then there are those saying we're sticking by roy moore. but when you look at this campaign on the ground, if not for alabama, you'd have to think doug jones was far ahead in this race purely on infrastructure. i was just down the road in tuscaloosa at a campaign field office that doug jones has set up, one of many in the state. they have canvassers going around. i just met them. compare that to the roy moore

operation, which doesn't have canvassing going on or phone banking. the candidate himself doesn't have public appearances. for the first time in three days, he showed up at a church in birmingham, predominantly black church, interestingly enough. he has nothing else on his campaign schedule until tuesday, but this is where this race comes down to. and it's interesting to hear. i want to play you a sound bite from the senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell, the republican who has long called for roy moore to step aside in this race, and perhaps his answer this morning is telling as to where this race is going, and in republican minds, ultimately what roy would mean to the senate. this is what mitch mcconnell said this morning. >> i think we're going to let the people of alabama decide a week from tuesday who they want to send to the senate and then we'll address the matter appropriately. i've already said in the past that i thought this is a matter that would have to be considered by the committee. ultimately, it'd be up to them to make that decision and they'll make it, depending on whether a judge moore ends

upcoming to the senate. >> reporter: it's interesting to hear mitch mcconnell say that david, because this is a candidate who has not engaged in debate with his democratic opponent. this is a candidate who has not answered any press questions since that initial "washington post" story came out on november 9th. this is a candidate, if it weren't for alabama, david, that we would be talking and focusing on a lot, who has removed himself from having to address these allegations and is simply running out the clock, just nine days out. david? >> set the scene for us. where are you right now? where are you waiting to hear from the candidate? >> reporter: yeah, this is the democrat doug jones event. this is the band of brothers brewing company. this is a candidate in doug jones that we've been with almost every single day on the campaign trail over the last week because he is out in force, there is an energy with his campaign. whether it's enough to make up the difference in this campaign is a major question, but this doesn't feel like typically what democrats here are used to. i told you i was down at that field office in tuscaloosa, and there was an energy, a sense of excitement.

there was a gal that walked in and picked up hundreds of campaign signs to deliver to five counties over in the western part of the state. democrats hadn't had much of a reason to get excited. they haven't won a statewide race here, david, since dating back to 2006, so it's definitely an opportunity for democrats to be excited, i guess, for once. and we'll see whether that actually translates into a victory on december 12th. >> quickly here, are you going to be headed to pensacola, florida? president trump headed down there december 8th for a big event, so right across the state line. and give us a sense of what we could hear from the president there in a couple days? >> reporter: exactly, there are reports of phone calls coming in to voters here in alabama letting them know the president was nearby. pensacola's about 20 miles away from the alabama borderline. he said he wasn't going to campaign for roy moore but has been very specific in directing attacks on his opponent, democrat doug jones. steve bannon, i should also mention, is going to be in the southern part of the state on tuesday. so between those two, suddenly,

roy moore has two high-profile individuals that he's hoping can help him move past those allegations that have plagued him thus far. >> sober analysis there at the brewery from vaughn hillyard in tuscaloosa, alabama, as we approach that election. new reports suggest the president is going to great lengths to undermine efforts by his chief of staff to impose discipline in the white house. how the moves could affect order within his administration, next.

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everything plays into it. but we fired him because he said something to the vice president that was not so. >> that was part of president trump's explanation back in may for why he fired national security adviser michael flynn, a firing that came just days after this "washington post" report detailing what flynn had told the fbi a month earlier. confirming that what he told federal agents was a lie and that he was not acting on his own when he spoke with the ambassador before the president became the president. joining me, a former spokesman for breitbart news. also former u.s. attorney joyce vance and former deputy campaign manager for martin o'malley's presidential campaign, liz smith. joyce, let me start with you. i want you to react to the tweet we saw yesterday, the tweets subsequent to it with regard to speculation here. we're seeing obstruction of justice, and the plea that we saw as well. what do you make of this moment? >> so, it's important to remember that it's very unlikely

we will ever see an indictment of stating president of the united states. there's a little bit of back-and-forth between constitutional law scholars, but most of them believe that the president can only be held accountable via an impeachment proceeding on the hill or a subsequent election. so i don't think that we'll see this used as evidence in front of a jury, but whether it's evidence in front of the court of public opinion is an entirely different story. and this tweet seems to indicate in the president's own words, or perhaps his lawyer's words, that he had knowledge that general flynn had lied when he asked jim comey, the fbi director, to protect him. whether that's a crime or not, it's a startling lapse in judgment and something that i think potentially the president gets held accountable for by the people. >> all right, some legal reaction there from joyce. liz, let me ask you for the political reaction. you saw the tweet. >> yes. >> you've seen the fallout since. you've seen the subsequent

tweets. what do you make of what president trump is, i assume, trying to do today? >> well, look, he's clearly trying to say, hey, nothing see heerks but having a full-out meltdown on twitter is not helping his case. you know, generally, if you're doing all caps and exclamation points, it is the opposite of inspiring confidence. and what's sort of ironic about which whole thing is that donald trump likes to say twitter helped him become president, but twitter could actually now be the undoing of his presidency. and we've read all these reports about general kelley trying to get him under control and everything like that. he should really start with the president's twitter account, because it's a disaster and making all the republicans have to go out and defend these unhinged tweets is not helpful to his party. >> let me ask you about that. you could debate the efficacy of the president's twitter usage during the campaign and during the early days of the administration. are we seeing a diminution of the effectiveness of it over the last few hours? >> yeah, if anything, it's his

biggest liability, and certainly when a legal standpoint when you put these out in public domain, under your words in the first person, it's hard to say that was my lawyer that was somebody else. no one's going to buy that. the white house has made a standing policy that any time sara hh huckabee sanders has to explain for something he tweeted, rather than backing up his tweets, she says the president's tweets speak for themselves. well, here he is, yesterday tweets out what he does, raises an entirely new specter about what he knew, when he knew it what this means going forward, and now that the spotlight's on him around his twitter, he wants to say, well, it was someone else, my lawyer did it. he wants to disown ownership of it. it's impossible to do at this point. >> kurt, we could have this conversation until the cows come home about how the president might or might not be reined in by his chief of staff or other members of the white house administration, but let me just ask you about the need for that in light of all this. once we get into this legal territory, do things become notably different? >> well, i mean, if you're the president right now and you're the president's legal team, you want him to exercise as much restraint as humanly possible. that's never going to happen.

that's not who he is. i don't care who the chief of staff is, who he surrounds himself with. he believes, ultimate lay, that he is the smartest person in his own inner circle. he keeps his own counsel and constantly tries to find ways to undermine the structure surrounding him, a structure put in place by john kelly to impose more discipline on this white house. he doesn't care about that. he'll continue to blur the lines, do what he wants and i think a lot of people who work in the white house have resigned themselves to that reality. >> liz, i want to know how this normally works on a campaign or with an elected official, how does the social media operate? how rare is it to have the principal, the candidate, the elected official doing all this for himself? >> i've worked for a lot of candidates and i had to deal with this over the years, and my preferred -- and i think most, the way most people prefer to deal with this is to take twitter out of the candidate's hands, because sometimes it can get too personal for them. they can be too impulsive. and if you have staff controlling it, they can mete out tweets according to a plan

and avoid this meltdown like we see from donald trump. going on what kurt said, i would advise everyone around donald trump to rip that phones out of his hands because he is not helping his or the white house's case with this. >> joyce, from a legal perspective, we're hearing the white house say the president was merely tweeting something that was dictated by his counsel to a member of the white house staff. in other words, there's a chain that leads to that tweet being sent. does that matter from a legal perspective? is there a plausible deniablity issue here? >> first, i have to say, i agree with liz 100%. if i were the president's lawyer and if i had access to his twitter account, the first thing i would do would be to delete it entirely, because these sorts of conversations he's having are really hurting his own interests. look, presidents make statements all the time, and they don't write them themselves. their staff writes them, their lawyers write them. a tweet is no different than a paper statement. at the point in time where the president adopts it, it's his statement and he's accountable and responsible for it, no matter who drafted it.

so, this may well cause him some legal problem down the road. >> thanks to all of you on this sunday. kurt bar della, joyce vance joining me in new york. the "wall street journal" says the president is undermining chief of staff john kel kelly's attempts to impose discipline in the white house. several sources told the newspaper "the president on occasion has called white house aides to the private residence in the evening where he makes assignments and asks them not to tell mr. kelly about the plans." listen to what kelly told my colleague, kristen welker, when asked about his role as the chief of staff. >> do his tweets make your job more difficult, general kelly? >> no. no. i mean, the job of the chief of staff is to staff the president, give him the best advice or go get the best advice i can give him, help him consume advice, help him work through the decision-making process in an informed way, but that's my job. and that's what i do.

>> we're bringing in chris wickle, author of "the gatekeepers: how the white house chief of staff define every presidency." great to have you with me here in new york. >> good to be here. >> the word you hear time and time again about john kelly is discipline, he has imposed discipline on the white house. when you look at history, is that what the role of the chief of staff historically has been? >> john kelly famously said when he took over, it was not his job to manage the president. he would only manage the west wing and make the trains run on time. the truth is that that's the easy part of the job. the hard part of the job is to tell the president what he does not want to hear. you have to be like james baker or leon panetta. you have to be able to walk into the oval office, close the door, and tell the president hard truths. now, one of those hard truths is that trump's addiction to twitter is not only politically counterproductive, it is dangerous on many levels, including to national security. when you're tweeting taunting

the dictator of a nuclear power, you are strengthening that enemy, and it's a dangerous situation that kelly needs to get control. >> john kelly has a trip to asia and said something astonishing to reporters. "believe it or not, i do not follow the tweets." when you look at the information the chief of staff has to digest, you believe he can't control everything that's happening in the twitterverse. >> well, he can't, but if he ignores them, that's malpractice. the chief of staff has to be in charge of the message, has to be in charge of discipline. this is a white house that for nine months was broken. they couldn't pass legislation, couldn't issue executive orders that were enforcement, couldn't get the president on the same page with his senior officials. you know, none of that has improved, and when you look at the president's just inhinged use of twitter lately, in the past 48 hours, it almost makes you nostalgic for reince

priebus, you know? priebus tried to take away the twitter account, by the way. there have been family interventions. they have all failed. but it's clearly a critical problem. >> how much of a chief of staff's job is just maintaining or bolstering the structural integrity of the bubble that surrounds the president of the united states? i mentioned that from michael bender's piece in the "wall street journal" today that there have been lapses, there have been private individuals have made their way to the private residence. there have been phone calls that have gotten through. how hard a job is that just to reinforce the structures around the president? >> trust me, it's a job that you and i don't want. >> happy not to have. >> it is politically -- you have to be -- the tool kit is astonishing. you have to be not only tough, you have to be grounded, you have to be confident, but you have to have political savvy. and it's not unprecedented, for example, i mean, leon panetta had to deal with dick morris, who used to come into the residence, kind of a ghost, who would undo everything panetta

had done during the day. valerie jarrett used to go into the residence alone and advise obama. so, you have to be able to deal with those kinds of things. and you know, kelly at this point, let's just say that it is still the most dysfunctional white house in modern history. >> how do you strike that balance? you've got a president here who clearly likes to hear, wants counsel from those he had before becoming president of the united states. i gather john kelly's implemented a system which you have to make a appointment, phone calls have to be on the books. is there more that one can do to wall off some folks and let some folks in? >> well, no question about it that kelly has by all accounts made the west wing a more disciplined place. people have to go through kelly to get to the president one on one. but the larger problem is, again, that you have to be the person who can walk into the oval office and tell the president what he does not want to hear. that also means you have to be

the honest broker. you have to be, for example, if i were john kelly, i would be in the oval office right now and i would be telling the president, not only does he need to get rid of twitter, but the tax bill, the tax cut bill could be a real danger, not a win, but a real danger if it's put through in its present form. it is going to become an attack ad for the democrats when the trump middle-class voters find out that they're getting a miniscule tax cut and losing their health insurance, as millions were. so, you have to be not only a speaker of truth to power, you have to be the honest broker who tells the president the truth. >> all right, chris. thank you very much. appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. still ahead, president trump focuses in on a controversial case out of california. how he's connecting an acquittal to one of his most famous campaign promises. >> now, the an instructionist democrats would like us not to do it but believe me, we have to close down our government. we're building that wall.

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welcome back. i'm david gura. the president's tweetstorm this morning was not all about the russia investigation as he weighed in again on the verdict of the kate steinle case, calling it a "total miscarriage

of justice." thursday, a california jury acquitted jonas garcia zarate, an undocumented immigrant who had been deported from the u.s. five times of the 2015 shooting death of kate steinle. the president called the verdict disgraceful and once again called for the wall along the southern border. it's not the first time he's linked this murder case to the border wall. joining me to discuss this and other news of the day, former governor of new mexico, bill richardson. governor richardson, let me ask you to react to what you've read here, the parents of this young woman saying they'd like to move on, no longer be in the political spotlight here. is it having an effect as the president rings the clarion of wanting to build a wall on the u.s./mexico border? is this helping his cause? >> well, first, i'm not going to defend somebody that was deported five times, charged with first-degree murder. i really feel for that family. they've gone through so much. what i object to is the president using this verdict, which i'm very troubled by, to

say that we've got to build a wall, which is not going to work and is too costly and unnecessary. he attacks sanctuary cities. i mean, i live in santa fe, a sanctuary city, where because of the sanctuary city status, there's cooperation between the immigrant community and law enforcement, and then to basically a big, broad brush that all immigrants are like this individual. that's not the case. most immigrants are patriotic, they serve in the military, they want the american dream, they're trying to live a human life in america. so, yes, i'm troubled by the politicization of this huge tragedy to a very fine family. >> i want to ask you about deferred action for childhood arrivals, known as daca. jeff flake, the senator from the state neighboring yours, was offered a promise during the course of these negotiations over tax cuts, that it would be brought up by the congress

shortly. how confident are you that lawmakers are going to deal with this in short order? >> well, they should. and i commend senator flake. i mean, the guy is really, i think, becoming in my judgment a moral and political hero, because he's doing what's right. march is the deadline or these kids, these young people, many that are enormously contributing to this country, are going to be deported. i would hope that congress, the democrats and republicans, stand up to fix this problem. the president said it should be fixed. the leaders of the house and the senate should be, and the democrats, my party, i hope stands behind this as an issue that, a defining moment for moral authority and for the party. >> draw upon your experiences as former u.n. ambassador to the united nations as the conversation about north korea continues here. you hear from the secretary of state, rex tillerson, that he wants to pursue diplomatic avenues. he's going to come up for a u.n.

security council meeting. let's drill into that a little bit here. when you look at what diplomatic options are, what they might look like, what do you see at this point? >> well, i commend secretary tillerson. i think he's pursuing the right path, and mcmaster, too, in contrast to the president, who's attacking personally kim jong-un, and kim jong-un attacks him back. here's the diplomatic solution -- short term, a freeze for a freeze. in other words, the north koreans stop their missile tests. and by the way, they had stopped it for 74 days until things fell apart. the united states maybe reduces military exercises, just reduces, with the south koreans until talks for maybe 30 days on the next step forward, which might be long-range denuclearization. but i think what we have right now is the north koreans have demonstrated a capability to hit with their missiles the united states, not necessarily with a

nuclear warhead. so, i think they've reached the point where they're ready to negotiate. i think kim jong-un is unpredictable, erratic, but i think he has an end game. i think he's rational. i don't know. but unless we talk, unless there's diplomacy, a dialogue, you know, i think tillerson's moving in the right direction. i think that's the only option. sanctions don't seem to be working as much as we should, although they've increased. the military option, david, is in the viable. you've got 25 million human beings in south korea, american troops, 150,000 american dependents, japan. that's my thought. >> great to get your perspective, a former governor of new mexico and former ambassador to the united nations, bill richardson.

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well, that's it for us. i'm david gura. the news continues right now with yasmin vossoughian. >> thank you, david. let's get started, everybody. i'm yasmin vossoughian. a blame game. president trump back on a tweetstorm this sunday, taking aim at the fbi while his personal lawyer says he's the one who drafted that controversial tweet suggesting trump knew flynn lied to the fbi at the time of his firing. and as robert mueller's investigation inches closer to trump's inner circle, new details raise new questions. was trump's transition team running a rogue foreign policy operation? and double standard. why are the rules different when it comes to sexual harassment, powerful men, and politics? here we go, everybody. >> i would just say this to the president, there's an ongoing criminal investigation, comey may be pt