don mccann talked with senior staff to talk it over. >> the general feeling of the special counsel is let them do their thing and we'll do ours. so far, aides are not saying what president trump's reaction is other thanes from administration. one official telling us it is sinking in with how the white house is doing. jim acosta has more. >> reporter: robert mueller has been tapped to be the special prosecutor in the russia investigation. insisting there was no collusion with his campaign and russia. the administration officials say the white house received almost no advanced notice of the news before it was announced by the justice department. same for jeff sessions who was here at the white house when the news came down. it is unclear how it impacts the white house. one white house official describes staffers e s exha. >> plenty of capitol hill insiders caught off guard by the special prosecutor. paul ryan was alerted before the announcement. the entire rank and file was not. still lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are applauding the choice of robert mueller. >> that goes for repu

i called don mccann and told him i had a very sensitive matter i needed to talk to him about that dayneeded to be in person. his off is just a skip. >> so he would have been unaware to have the acting attorney general coming over and doing this on such urnlent notice in a skich. >> sure, mr. mccann knew it was serious and important. >> just last week president trump saying he didn't believe sally yates was informing them of an emergency. >> my white house council came back to me and didn't make it sound like a emergency like it had to be done immediately. this man has served many years, he's a general, he's a very good person i believe it would be very unfair to hear from somebody we don't even know and immediately run out and fire a general. >> president trump he also said, quote, she actually didn't make it sound that way either in the hearings the other day. is he misinformed? >> well, i wasn't there for the meeting between mr. mccann and the president so i don't have way of knowing how that meeting went but i know we conveyed a sense of urgecy when we met with the white house coun

when sally yates who will testify today, went to don mccann on the 26th of january, she wasn't just saying hey, here's a head's up about something that may be going on. she was informing the white house there was a federal criminal encounter intelligence investigation. before that they did not know that. on the 24th of january, just a few days into the administration, the fbi interviewed mike flynn and he misled them the same way he had misled the vice president. basically she was saying there's a criminal investigation, counter intelligence investigation, talked to the national security adviser he didn't tell the truth to us or the vice president. instead of firing mike flynn they fired sally yates and kept mike flynn for 17 days. >> sally yates only technically worked for the administration about ten days and sounds like the white house is already trying to paint her as this democratic operative. if she's got facts like this to back her up, what does that mean for the white house? >> she came into the justice department as a career prosecutor in georgia under the administration of george

that's don mccann, and president trump is going after sally yates, attacking her integrity on this issue, even in advance of her testimony today, chris. >> in the middle of all this, there's sure to be news out of this testimony, peter. we have this visit coming up, tell us what the mood is there at the white house about all of this? >> reporter: well, we're anticipating the meeting will take place between sergey lavrov, the foreign minister of russia, and it will also occur with the secretary of state, rex tillerson, the topics we are being notified of they will discuss will include ukraine but most certainly syria will be high on the list as well as there has been continued pressure from the u.s. on russia for the role that russia played in the civil war taking place in those attacks, specifically the chemical weapons attacks on individuals inside syria. chris? >> nbc's peter alexander at the white house where a lot is going on. we have so much to talk about. let's bring in msnbc national security analyst evelyn farkus who work in the obama administration, former fbi agent clint watts

there is an interesting timeline of when sally yates actually told don mccann, the white house counsel, about flynn to be compromised and blackmailed by the russians and 18 days they took to act on it within the white house. then after he learned of that information, he took comey to dinner and framed account of who asked for dinner. the reporting shows comey told associates of the fbi. he was afraid to turn the president down, but was concerned of being chummy with the president. loyalty is everything to trump. people need to realize the way the west wing operates. it is all based on that. people are given an extraordinarily long leash. michael flynn was always on the plane and supporter at the rallies. michael flynn could do no wrong. he continues to compliment him. the story in the daily beast, they have been desperate to reach out to him begging him not to speak with a witness under investigation investigations. >> you know you hear that? the sound of republican leadership standing up and talking about the interview. crickets. they were asked to come on the show. we asked them on a

she had gone to don mccann, the white house counsel and said we've intercepted some calls between michael flynn during the transition who at that point had been named as the nominee or the designee as the national security adviser, come conversations between him and the russian ambassador, sergey kislyak in washington. it turns out that what flynn represented that it was just hall greoliday greetings was no case. they had discussed the sanctions that had been put on russia. vice president pens was given bad information. the upshot is michael flynn lost his job. so the interaction between yates and mccann, we can expect her to expand on that. everyone from the president down in the white house has been talking about this publicly. that will give yates for mewmory to talk. we saw the fbi director here on the hill last week tightlipped about it. we can expect yates to be tightlipped as well as jam clapper. he the director of national intelligence during much of the obama administration, he will be testifying alongside yates. we can. them to say the unmasking can go to the intelligence gather

met with the white house counsel don mccann on january 26th.d, right? had been compromised. the dinner that "the new york times" is reporting about where the president asked james comey to pledge loyalty happened the very next day on january 27th. what does that say to you? >> well, that tells me that, one, obviously it was prior to his congressional hearing where he confirmed that there was in fact a criminal investigation into collusion. and it also suggests to me that you have a president who was pushing his weight around at the time and was trying to put his thumb on the scale to figure out whether this person would actually go forward with an investigation perhaps, and whether the answer to that question had to be no for you to keep your job. now, again, that's if comey answered that question. the interesting part about this, however, is we all want to hear from james comey. the question is going to be, listen, will there be the assertion of the executive privilege by the president to say, huh-uh, i said there was a conversation, but you c

was on shows, elizabeth warren, john lewis, we have some of our nation's greatest artists, colin mccann, don revitalize and remind people of president kennedy's vision of america as a great civilization, not only a powerful nation but great civilization. >> douglas, part of our great concern day in and day out, is what type of message this president is sending the world with jfk, you, of course, had the opposite. you had a goodwill warrior who sent a message across the world about what the united states -- >> absolutely. no question, joe. and keep in mind, in jfk's first 100 days, everybody says that he had the bay of pigs, but he admitted to his mistake. at his 100-day mark he had an 83% approval rating and created the peace corps and created the alliance for progress already, he was trying to find ways to heal the world. doesn't mean there weren't working mistakes but may 25th, 1961, that soon into his presidency, he said 1960 we were kind of divided nixon or me and pulled the country together going to congress saying we're going to put a man to the moon by the end of the decade and starte

don. >>> when we come back, the mystery that's become a worldwide obsession. the disappearance of a 3-year-old madeleine mccanns the latest on the case. cation... ...this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain... ...and protect my joints from further damage. humira has been clinically studied for over 18 years. humira works by targeting and helping to... ...block a specific source... ...of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. it's proven to help relieve pain and... ...stop further joint damage in many adults. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas... ...where certain fungal infections are common and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. talk to your doctor and visit humira.com this is

don. good to be with you. >> thank you. >>> when we come back, the mystery that has become a worldwide obsession. the disappearance of 3-year-old madeline mccannandi kaye has the latest on the case. albreakthrough withyou back. non-drowsy allegra® for fast 5-in-1 multi-symptom relief. breakthrough allergies with allegra®. >>> this week marks ten years since little madeleine mccann vanished while on a family vacation in portugal. despite the decade long search and millions of dollars spent looking for her, madeleine's parents are still waiting for answers. cnn's randi kaye covered the story when it first broke and is now back on the case with a new special report, missing madeleine mccann. it airs tomorrow night at 10:00 eastern. here's a preview. >> back home in england, a decade after their nightmare began, the mccanns faced another somber milestone. ten years come and gone without any sign of their daughter. >> inevitably on anniversaries and on her birthday, they are by far the hardest days, by far. >> i think it's important, though, because despite how difficult these days are, just keeping in mind how much progress we have made, and while