be open to being staffed, and i think that's potension hi what was worrisome here. >> woodruff: greg jaffethe "the washington post," one of the reporters on the story that has just broken within the hour. greg, we thank you. >> yeah, thanks for having me. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, president trump says the white house is "moving rapidly" to replace fired f.b.i. director james comey. at least eight candidates were interviewed over the weekend. they included, among others, acting f.b.i. director andrew mccabe, plus republican senator john cornyn and republican congressman mike rogers. meanwhile, the white house press insisted today the president wants a full f.b.i. review of russian meddling in the election, no matter what it concludes. >> the actions that he took he knew could be detrimental to himself, but none of those things mattered, because the president had to do the right thing for the american people because he believes that jim comey was the wrong man for that position. >> woodruff: the president himself has called the investigation a charade. spicer also refused, again,

greg jaffe. mr. jaffe, congratulations on this scoop. thanks for being here to help us understand it. >> thanks for having me. >> i'm not going to ask you to talk about your sources. but can you tell us about when you started chasing this story down, how long after the president's meeting with these russian officials did the work on this story start? >> you know, not that much long after because the meeting wasn't that long ago. but we've been working on it for the last several days. >> what is code word information? a u.s. official familiar with the matter saying this is code word information. from the placement of that in your article and the way you describe it, it's clear that's supposed to indicate to us this is very highly protected information, for us laymen trying to figure out this out, can you explain that? >> that's right. very highly protected information they don't distribute to allies that is even restricted within the u.s. government. this intelligence came from an ally, and that made it additionally sensitive because they

it's a great story by my colleagues, greg miller and greg jaffe. and you know, it's interesting to note that a lot of the defense that you saw from h.r. mcmaster, the national security adviser today, was not over specific facts in this story. rather, it was over the suggestion that the president may have done something wrong. he said, there was nothing wholly inaccurate about what the president was doing in that meeting, but he did not contest the crux of our reporting, which is that the president shared information that was classified, that had been given to the united states from a partner. >> and to your point, he went on to say that that was spontaneous, and not only did he not refute it, he kind of leaned in. so congratulations on another scoop. thank you to both of you. thank you, phillip. thank you, peter. let me bring in jeremy bash and juan zarate. juan, we have been talking all day, off-camera and on, about how what holds up this administration's credibility in a lot of ways are the essential pillers of mattis at the pentagon, mcmaster at

>> in this case, our reporters, my colleagues, greg miller and greg jaffe, were dealing with a rangeacross the government. but the white house was very clear in saying today that they wanted some parts of this reporting not to get out, and, you know, that's something we've all dealt with before. you have a piece of national security reporting and the white house asks that it on behalf of whatever agency elsewhere in the government asks the news organization to withhold it, which then occasions a conversation i know you're familiar with where people decide -- >> gut check. >> yeah, exactly. >> of what you do. that it seems, cornell, is the hardest thing for the white house to overcome. >> i think the hardest thing -- >> as far as this specific part of the story. >> i got to go off script a little bit here, chuck. the jim jordan interview was amazing to me because you have him bringing up benghazi. you have -- can you imagine for one second if barack obama did what donald trump did. they wouldn't be out in full force and attacking him. the freedom caucus would have been drafting articl

reporting you're talking about is the big story from about 24 hours ago from my colleagues greg miller and craig jaffenone of the stories have been denied or contested by the white house. they're contesting president trump did nothing wrong in what he said in that meeting with the russians, but they're not contesting the facts of the story, the crux of the story which is that the president shared highly classified sensitive information that had been given to the u.s. by one of our partners with the russians in that meeting. and to take off the second piece of your question there, about that meeting, it was really a remarkable meeting. it's something that mattered a lot to moscow, to russia. they wanted to have lavrov come to the white house. they wanted the backdrop of the oval office to try to bring credibility and a sense of normalizing of u.s./russia relations. he had not been at the white house for several years now since the annexation of crimea and trump agreed to do it at the personal request of vladimir putin. putin and trump had a phone call on may 2nd where putin said would you be willing to