investigation on a possible russia collusion in the trump campaign. i sat down with secretary of state rex tillerson and asked him whether he agrees with the president the russia story is fake news and a witch hunt. >> chuck, the president, i think, has made it clear that he feels it's important we re-engage with russia. the relationship with russia, as he has described and i have described as well, i think at an all time low point since the end of the cold war with a very low level of trust. i think the world and it's in the interests of the american people and russia and the rest of the world we do something to see if we cannot improve the relationship between the two greatest nuclear powers in the world. the president, i think, has committed to make an effort in that regard and he has certainly asked me to make it an important effort as well. >> i understand that. you look at what's happening in the western european nations, france and germany and italy and accusations of...

>> happy mother's day. >> appreciate it. >>> to the other side of the aisle, senate democratic leader chuck schumer of new york. i hope you're a little more enthusiastic about being on than senator graham was? >> i didn't see senator graham. but i want to join him in wishing all the moms of america, yours, chuck, and particularly mi mine, god willing, who will turn 89 in three weeks. >> all right. let me go to the issue of a special prosecutor. why do you believe it needs to be done? as you know, senator ben sass indicated if you do that it is sending a message you don't trust the intel committee to do their work, a vote of no confidence there. shouldn't you let them do their job to see if they can do it without a special prosecutor? >> well, there are two separate lines of activity here. one is the oversight function of the intelligence committee, they're doing their job. mark warner has done a very good job. i had some differences it would senator burr and in the last week, some...

questions about why the president chose to fire fbi director james comey when he did. >> no one from the white house. that was a doj decision. >> he took the recommendation seriously and he made a decision based on that. >> president trump made the right decision at the right time. to accept the recommendation of the deputy attorney general. >> but in an interview with lester holt on thursday, the president said not only had he already decided to fire comey before getting deputy attorney general rod rosenstein's recommendation, he had the russia investigation on his mind when he did. >> when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story, an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election they should have won. >> reporter: mr. trump also said he pressed comey in a private dinner on january 27th to tell him if he was under investigation. the dinner was held three days after the fbi interviewed now former...