"the president's personal lawyer john dowd, initially declined to comment for this story. however, after this article was initially published, dowd said, quote, totally false! and he went on with 16 exclamation points. 16. so the white house tells politico, yeah, we want president trump to talk with robert mueller's prosecutors. trump's lawyer on russia then swallows his tongue and starts gargling, no, no, no, that's a terrible idea, with 16 exclamation points. and then another one of the president's russia lawyers, ty cobb, he calls up a conservative website to drop some further legalese on this sensitive subject. his comment on this matter was, quote, nobody in the white house would be this stupid. well, you never know. well, this is a president facing the most serious counterintelligence investigation ever levied against a u.s. president ever. actually, it's probably the most serious investigation ever levied against a government official and it's not who you would expect to represent a u.s. president in a fight like this. just a little touch of the carnival act to these

his team what the other witnesses have said. >> so then darren, given the response you got from john dowd have any clarity about how the president's legal team wants to handle the special counsel's investigation from here on out? >> well, they're trying to be cooperative. they're trying to avoid subpoenas and going in for voluntary interviews. the last thing they want is for the president of the united states to appear in the same way bill clinton appeared in that grand jury testimony in 1998 that ended up becoming some of the prime fodder for his impeachment. so at this point they want to be cooperative. they obviously know bob mueller, they know his team. these are lawyers very experienced in white collar criminal cases involving white house investigations that go back decades. so they would like to stay out of the controversial space, but know full well that donald trump with one tweet can really ignite this whole thing. of course as well with those donald trump tweets, that's fodder for mueller as well. donald trump's tweets going back years really could become questions that bob muel

john dowd did email politico after the story was published explaining totally false with 15 exclamation points which seems to happen any time there is a juicy presidential story. but mueller has been investigating potential ties between trump's campaign and the kremlin. would it be a good idea for the president to open up to mueller? america in the age of trump. jessica tarlov is here along with the host of the tom shillue show on fox news radio. listen every day from 12:00 to 3:00 on the east coast. and dolph ziggler. should the president agree to sit down for an interview with the special investigator? >> i do. i don't think president trump knew what was going on. i think he will probably say a few things that are -- that interview with lester holt saying i don't want james comey look into this. kennedy: he will be with his lawyers. when he sits for those interviews and the press knows how to box him in now and go ahead him in -- and to goad him into releasing juicy nuggets. >> no testifying it's a trap it's a mistake. i know he had nothing to do with it. city just want to hear what h

john dowd did email politico after the story was published explaining totally false with 15 exclamation points which seems to happen any time there is a juicy presidential story. but mueller has been investigating potential ties between trump's campaign and the kremlin. would it be a good idea for the president to open up to mueller? america in the age of trump. jessica tarlov is here along with the host of the tom shillue show on fox news radio. listen every day from 12:00 to 3:00 on the east coast. and dolph ziggler. should the president agree to sit down for an interview with the special investigator? >> i do. i don't think president trump knew what was going on. i think he will probably say a few things that are -- that interview with lester holt saying i don't want james comey look into this. kennedy: he will be with his lawyers. when he sits for those interviews and the press knows how to box him in now and go ahead him in -- and to goad him into releasing juicy nuggets. >> no testifying it's a trap it's a mistake. i know he had nothing to do with it. city just want to hear what h

but on the other side of that you've got ty cob and john dowd and jay sekulow saying we are playing nice because there is nothing in it for us to antagonize the special counsel right now and to draw this out. so they're saying we're producing the documents, you've got to do it this way. so the president you can tell is really being pushed and pulled here because his natural instinct as we all saw with his tweets this morning, his natural instinct is to punch back as people always tell us. and they are saying, no, you cannot punch back right now. it is not in your self-interest. so they're going to have to figure out a way to work this out. and i'm not quite sure whether they have and how they do that with the president who really is upset about all of this. >>> coming up, how will the first criminal charges in the russia probe affect the investigations in congress? we'll ask the member of two influential house committees when our special report continues after this break. stay with us. blpz you wouldn't do only half of your daily routine, so why treat your mouth any differently? complete

incredible sit-down next to ty cobb and john dowd, that's a fight inside the legal team.ou have don mcgann, the white house counsel. he doesn't want to set a precedent of turning over things you don't have to. the flip side is ty cobb, the president's personal counsel that says no, we should be totally cooperative and try to get as much to them as possible. nothing happened is what they say. therefore this should be over soon. but the flip side of that, as you point out, this is a special counsel investigation. this could go any number of directions. >> shepard: tom lobianco, nice to see you. thank you. >> thanks. >> shepard: president trump's tax plan passing major hurdle today. the house of representatives approved a budget frame work that gives senate republicans the power to pass a tax bill with 50 votes instead of the 60 you normally need. they also have the power to pass a healthcare bill but didn't manage to get it done. our season capitol hill producer, chad pergram reports if the house had not approved this budget frame work, the republican tax plan probably woul

going to be hearing and one more point about that joe, remember, the president's lawyers ty cobb john dowd more disciplined on twitter. we'll have to see what his reaction is. of course as you point out over the weekend, we saw some angriest tweets we've seen from him in a long time. >> certainly, nick, far more disciplined than many would expect saying that special counsel is acting deliberately. also performing actively performing its duties. see if the president can stick to that line. as you looked at manafort. there are a lot of favors that this man owes certain russians and a lot of debts. no doubt have compromised through the years or because of the fbi say compromising. >> look, if you're looking for a line that connects the trump campaign and his work for these oligarchs over the years, one possible answer "the washington post" reported in september that as trump was nearing the nomination, manafort had offered to give private briefings to a putin aligned billionaire in russian on the campaign. that's a window, but it tells you perhaps he was looking for ways to repay some obligat

dowd. eliana johnson. perry bacon jr. and commentator for abc news cokie roberts. i want to go back to john kelly. it was a big week. the debate would have ended there after his emotional briefing on that. but there were aspects to his remarks that you, matt dowd, found especially troubling. >> i thought the initial part o soldier comes home after they're killed was very emotional and touching. you ask the question, does he know who he works for? he talks about the sacredness of gold star families. and we lost that when he work frd a guy who attacked gold star families and soldiers. the sacredens of women when someone said on tape things that are at best predatory. me says we lost the sacredness of religion and he works with someone who wanted to ban muslims. and so, i think, part of what john kelly did was, it was touching. but also it left wide oaf the question of, does he really know the guy that he works for? >> eliana, do you think he possibly was talking about president trump or not? >> i said this right after the fact. i think john kelly is smart enough to know that the least effective way to communicate with