let's gets get to it, president trump took to twitter and held nothing back with strong words directed at james comey. and the white house press briefings >> this is the hottest story at 6:30. >> he said it once at dinner and twice during phone call >> did you call him? >> in one case, i called him. in one case he called me >> did you ask him am i under investigation. >> i asked him. i said if it's possible will you let me know? am i under investigation? he said you are not under investigation >> that was the president speaking last

lester holt but he had this to say about the former fbi director, james comey better hope there are no quote tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press >> joining us to talk more about the president's tweet, whatever else we can squeeze in here to talk about this is richard levick, thank you very much for joining us, you wrote a great piece about this just a short time ago. lt's start with this tweet this morning. this sounds like a threat to me, and it sounds like an implication implying that we have tapes's don't you go saying that you didn't say this to me. what is your take on this >> i agree. sounds like a threat. i don't understand why it would be necessary talk you know, the last that time we had a president in tapes it didn't end very well it certainly doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

president needs to do is put down that phone. >> we have seen in the past that sometimes what's said in these tweets doesn't necessarily hold truth. how seriously do you think we should take some of these? the president is known for kind of saying anything off the top of my head. >> i believe that's right. there's no filter or discipline, ronald reagan had whether education, environment, housing and urban development. you don't have that here, you have the exact opposite. you got sean spicer saying one thing, then you have the vice president trying to support that. you have members of the republican party in congress tryings at the consistent line only to then have the president once again shift. i'm getting whiplash trying to remember what's the story today about why the firing occurred. >> and it does seem -- you know, you dealt with crisis management and t

the lines of communication don't seem to be clear at all, and the president complains about how spicer and how it's treated then he puts them in a difficult position of trying to maneuver and figure out what he's supposed to say about the tweets >> i think that's right. the same is true for the vice president, i think probably most challenging thing for this president and i know a lot of people voted for him thinking what a great advantage to have an outsider. he clearly does not understand administrative procedure. this is not the first time that a member of his cabinet, his spokesperson, his white house, vice president didn't know the direction that he was going. and people will forgive mistakes. they don't forgive the inconsistency. first it's about hillary then about the assistant attorney general's memo then

comey then he didn't, then it was his decision. we don't know what to believe. there has to be consistency. one of the great powers of the presidency is his soft power. and this president seems to be giving it away for free. >> we saw just a moment ago video of james comey testifying. we learned that mr. comey declined to testify before the intelligence committee. what do you think that says about him not testifying? a lot of times we see these officials or former officials come out and say absolutely i'll testify. what does this say to you? >> i'm only slightly worse at predicting what james comey will do than i am at what president trump will do. but i think that -- i think for now, former fbi director comey he got in trouble because of commenting on hillary, then he got in trouble for commenting again, but we don't really know there may be a legal decision, he may feel that he's

director. this is a question that we'll learn in time. i think there are too many factors, variables but i think he's that the truth will see the light of day in time. he's a much more patient man than the president is. >> thank you very much for joining us. we appreciated the insight. the president also had harsh words this morning about the daily white house press brief -- suggested possibly getting rid of the briefings altogether >> he tweeted as an active president with lots happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy, maybe the better thing to do would be to cancel all future press briefings and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy. here's what sean spicer said today when he was asked about the tweets. >> we come out here and try to do everything we can to provide you and the american people with what he's doing on their behalf, what he's doing to keep the nation safe and grow jobs.

again an attempt to parse every little word and make it a game of got you supposed to figure out what the updates is, i think there's a lot of dismay and it's not something just alone the president feels >> joining us to talk about this is someone who was at today's press briefing, john giz zy white house correspond for news mag. it has been awhile >> this notion of cancelling press briefings altogether is quite unheard of. correct >> it certainly is. you would have to go back to at least the presidency of herbert hoover when reporters submitted questions in writing, the press secretary handed it to the president and he took his time giving his response, sometimes spoken, s

the modern press briefings has been in fine form since 1933. i don't see it going away after that long. >> let's bring us up again, he was saying it is not possible for a staff to speak with perfect accuracy. how much this is speaking to the fact that president trump, history story changes and the words he chooses change from minute to minute? how much is he really making it difficult for them to speak accurately? >> sarah, this is a president who gets up awfully early and doesn't require a lot of sleep. so he has his staff on their toes. of sometimes holding their breath with things that he's going to say, but in the end, remember something. of this is a president who also likes ratings. the last time i checked. the press briefings were drawing such ratings that people came up to him and said i saw you

sean spicer. they'd say i saw you on csi. >> what you're saying is these press briefings are not likely to go away if he's looking at the ratings and that's what he thinks is important they're not going away any time soon >> the last time i checked 4.6 million americans watch spicer every day. i don't think he's going to shutdown a show like that with ratings. this is his new apprentice. >> every president, every administration has issues with the press. they all feel like at some time or another they're not treated fairly. you've been around a long time. does this administration have a different take on that? they seem to be -- they seem to in some cases not understand what the job of the press is, and why there are so many questions about some issues when these issues are kind of coming out of the white house itself. >> with respect tony, i have to say this, sean spicer is an

watched him in action since the bush administration, watched him on capitol hill and for last six years with reince priebus. he knows the reporters well and his personally liked by reporters no matter what they may think of the straying itself. ditto for sarah huckabee who's worked in her father's presidential campaign, arkansas mike huckabee, former governor tim put a lend tea and did work bono who talked about ending starvation. i think my brethren in the press understand them >> since you're in these press briefings, what is sort of the take away or what are some of your other colleagues saying there? is there really this fear of when the president says things like maybe these press briefings should go away? or do you take it with a grain of salt >> we take it with a grain o

salt and i think we'll say that's donald trump right there. at one point, he said that he could still do his job as a developer in new york and be president at the same time, which is why he took his time divesting himself of his assets in new york. well, i don't think he really believed that for a minute. he knew it would be almost a mohammad ally, i'm the greatest and his followers would enjoy it and his enemies would cringe and he would go on just like any other president. i didn't believe you him that he would try to run his business from the oval office. i don't believe he'll cancel the press briefings >> chief columnist, with news max, thanks for coming in today's great to see you. let's get updated on the weather. it is an issue tonight as we're going to go see rain some of it heavy at times moving in. here's gwen with that >> some of that on our door

like unwanted house guest, not going anywhere for tonight or tomorrow. take a look at the wide swath of rain across the area and it is going to continue tonight into tomorrow. looks like the heaviest rainfall however is going to be to the east of us, and we still have coastal flood advisories and watches in effect until saturday. be aware of that. turn around don't drown, never venture into any roadways where water is rising. just can't estimate how deep it is. too dangerous, low pressure system is what's bringing us this. good news is, mothers day war serving up sunshine, much drier day, ridge of high pressure builds in and we're warming up from the 50's and headed to the 70's for mom. that's going to be lots of fun if you're taking her out. here's a look of what you can anticipate. well, saturday we're talking chilly and rain but plenty of sunshine for mothers at 75. breezy on sunday however, but still not

let's have a look at the fox 5 accu-weather seven-day forecast. warmup coming your way, next week, headed to the 90's and the upper 80's. back to you. can you believe this was the scene at the white house one week ago? >> president trump celebrating with other lawmakers after they passed the repeal of the affordable care act. where do things stand as the bill heads to the senate? we're breaking it down when 5at630 returns. police are looking for two people who hung a noose. >> an 8-year-old boy killed himself after bullied at school. check out this temperature. sky rocketing to 83 on thursday. ♪ ♪

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pretty crazy. a week ago, the house voted to protest new american healthcare act. >> where does the bill stand now? after heading to the senate? adam healthcare reporter for politico >> tony mentioned that he is seems like ages ago. the last thing we knew, of course this is it now in the senate's

where does it stand or kind of stalled >> it's not exactly stalled but the senate is taking a much slower approach. they're waiting on a few things, first is the score from the congressional budget office essentially says what this bill actually would do. if you remember, the house ended up passing the bill without knowing two crucial things, one how many people would more would go insured over the next decade and number two, how much if at all, the bill would save in taxpayer money. so the senate is not going to go anywhere, they're not going to make any major decisions without knowing the numbers. also, overall, there's just a general feeling that they want to take their time and make sure they have a concensus before they put anything else publicly >> it make sense to wait until you get the numbers, you have more to work with, meat there to kind of go over. is it still likely that

in the senate will want to start from scratch as many of them said when the house approved the bill? >> yes. i think that's what the idea is. right now, they formed a sub group essentially a group of 13 lawmakers who are charged with hashing out some of the major details. essentially, things like how are they going to can you have peanut butter with preexisting conditions? what are they going to do to the medicaid program that covers tens of millions of people of low income and disabled and elderly. essentially saying they want to get their ducks in a row, they want to understand the issues and get consensus on them before they put anything out publicly. the idea is to do almost the opposite of what the house did when they actually do in out with a proposal. they don't want to then have to try and get the votes together. they want to already have that ready to go >> how frustrated are they, do you believe, the senate, maybe they're not, that all this other side show seems to be going on with the fbi and the tweets and/or are

that this is not being focused on as it takes some pressure off of them >> there's good and bad. one, you know, these lawmakers aren't being hassled constantly in congressional hallways about what the latest is of the bill. i can assure you that both politico and other publications are continuing to do that. on the other side, there's a reason for democrats to say, let's slow everything down. let's slow everything down until we get special prosecutor, safe to take a look what happened at the russian investigation, to kind of say, look, we don't think things are in order really with this government and we're not going to allow anything to proceed until we're satisfied. so a good and bad to kind of everything going on around us >> interesting. you wouldn't necessarily think one thing would affect the other. adam healthcare r

politico. the president loves to brag about his poll numbers >> but with the latest controversy surrounding healthcare, james comey and more we'll take closer look at what voters currently think of the president and the job he's doing. ♪ ♪'s doing. ♪♪ ♪ every tv doctor knows that when it comes to hospital romances, the more complicated, the better. i love you. but i love him. i love him, too. so do i.

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. winning is what the president promised once he was elected there would be so much winning >> how does the public feel now after four months of the president calling the white house home? chris jackson vice president for ipsis public affairs helps us break it down, before the james comey announcement, healthcare was the number one issue for americans with 21% of americans concerned about healthcare. it was the highest level we'd ever seen before, where do things stand now? >> it's not really

healthcare still number one issue. we've seen particularly democrats have been energized by it among the democrat voters it's about 30% who feel healthcare is a number one issue. >> how do they feel it is being handled by the president and congress? >> they're not thrilled, not happy and it's interesting because we're seeing a bit of inversion of what we saw back in 2010 when obama got the republican base fired up. now looks like the ahca is getting the democratic base fired up while the republican base is at best ambivalent. >> let's talk specifically about approval rating now. that's a very different from when we're talking about healthcare. it was holding steady in the low 40's at 43%. you know, that was wednesday, i believe. do you expect that to change with the news >> we doxp

little bit. what happened is donald trump came into office with the lowest approval ratings of any modern president and slowly losing ground over the course of his presidency and particularly among independent voters. the republican base is stayed with him. they haven't changed. democrats have been opposed to him. that hasn't changed. independents slowly sort of lost faith in his ability to deliver on campaign promises, that's where you've seen a lot of loss and he still has room to lose with independents >> with the republicans what's the approval rating among them >> among his base, it's about 85%? wow >> the republicans still quite happy with things. >> is that all just got to go along party lines? they're just trying to be very loyal just to the party? >> it certainly seems that way about 85% of democrats opposed about 85% of republicans in favor, only about 30% of independences in favor >> to put things in perspective,

from this week? >> yes, from the latest polling. >> chris jackson to at all poll numbers, appreciate it. >> we'll be right back. awesome. yeah! first, let's check out the aluminum bed of this truck. wooooow!! holy moly. full on crack here. now let's check out the steel bed of the silverado. i'd expect more dents. no holes. current qualified lessees can get this silverado all star edition for around $249 a month. plus, find your tag and get an additional $1,500 lease cash on select silverado pickups in stock. find new roads at your local chevy dealer.

apologizing on behalf of you to me. how you have treated me these last two weeks. and then apology is not accepted. >> comedian melissa mccarthy is playing sean spicer on snl. the actress will be back to host this saturday. >> she definitely got into character again this morning in new york city and took to the streets of manhattan for all to see. >> this is video that was shot this morning.

manhattan as the press secretary, of course, with the moving briefing the podium. driving places in traffic. yelling come on, watch out, obviously, they were shooting something for a saturday night live this weekend, when she will be hosting. >> it will be great. ok. it will b hilarious. >> before we go, tonight we wanted to say good-bye for a very special member of the fox family. retiring after 40 year >> this is sherry h ancock, was. >> it's been great and make as little bit harder to leave because all the people have made fantastic here >> good group of people >> sti

as i'm having fun. >> come on in. we got folks here -- what was the -- do you have any great particular memory of anyone you've met here? anything special that's happened >> it's all been a blur. >> do the honors, some behind the scenes folks, technical folks >> go for it. here we go. >> yeah. >> yeah. very nice. very >> who is going to make sure we don't show up blue? >> right >> you're going to be in good hands >> you were here when fox 5 was metro media. >> i went through the whole maury poe vitch days, came up through film, written the wave to the top. poe

through film, written the wave to the top. po >> great working with you all >> we'll see you tonight at 10:00, 10:30, 11:00 >> is it it >> for now, thanks folks, see you later.

announcer: today on "tmz" -- >> ok, kim kardashian and kanye west's got a big problem. there little girl wants no part of the family business. >> a kid! >> no pictures! >> she sounds so cute just going, no pictures. >> she got in the car and kim said, one thing you never say -- >> i know! >> you get those pictures! >> "american idol" lost kelly clarkson to "the voice." >> if you're "the voice," you want to get kelly clarkson because it's the ultimate you know what to "american idol." the singer you made is coming to our show. >> is this a sign "american idol" doesn't need to come back? when "american idol" can't get kelly clarkson. >> we talked to wwe legend mick foley about the rock becoming president. >> i think he would make a great candidate. he would have my vote for sure. >> remember the rock, he had the people's elbow, the people's eyebrow he used to do.