thanks to kristin welker.ant to turn to the doj and play a clip of, phil, your colleague detailing her reporting, exclusive reporting, which broke this wide open last night. >> at least starting in early spring, the department of justice started to swing its attention fairly forcefully towards team trump. in april, the department of justice obtained -- sought and obtained phone records, call data logs, if you will, for a series of trump aides, allies and senior officials in the white house, people with him and overhearing what he was saying and taking orders from him after the election until january 6th. and also include his chief of staff, mark meadows. >> phil, the reporting goes into detail on two tracks. the doj could talk to the witnesses about this. they seem to be talking to them. clearly, there's information coming from somewhere, not from the doj. we know that meadows' phone records have been obtained as long ago as april by the justice department. phil? >> that's right, andrea. those are the phone re

kristin welker, i'm told you had something to add. >> yes. senior administration official tells kelly o'donnell in addition to all of the calls that the president says he has been making, he is talking to top officials within his administration. he has reached out to the vice president, his chief of staff, his national security advisor and others. i think this underscores the point that peter was making about the optics. the optics are going to be so critical right now. the white house continues to show to the public that his symptoms are mild, he is able to carry out the duties of his office. i go back again to former president trump. you recall how powerful the optics were when he tested positive for covid, when he went to the hospital. the fact that he walked to marine 1 and reporting told us officials essentially had to push him to go to the hospital at that point so that he could walk on to marine 1. when he left the hospital, you will recall he walked into the residence himself. walked up the steps of the residence himself. stood and so

kristin welker, bring us up to date. president's doctor, who has not appeared in the briefing room, that is protocol when the president is ill with anything in the past, but in any case, he issued another update. talk to me about that. this is in letter form. >> reporter: that's right. he has been issuing these daily letters to update people on the status of the president. let me read this to you. there are a couple of significant developments. president biden he says completed his five-day course of paxlovid last night. to break that down, when you take paxlovid, you take it for five days. the president has now completed the entire course. according to the doctor, his symptoms have now almost completely resolved. his pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remain absolutely normal. his oxygen saturation continues to be excellent on room air. his lungs remain clear. this is significant as well, andrea. the doctor goes on to say the president now feels well enough to resume his physical exercise regimen. h

joining me now are kristin welker and cnbc senior economics reporter steve leaseman. white house trying to control the narrative on this economy. inflation continues to be a major drag on their messaging. >> reporter: you are right. they are trying to put the focus on the fact that the labor market is strong, that the unemployment rate is low. but it is a complicated argument to make, because you do have an economy that has now shrunk two quarters in a row. because of the soaring inflation that you mentioned. the fact you have americans really feeling the pain all across the country. yesterday we saw president biden come out. he made those comments you played at the top of the show. really touted what he sees as the strengths in this economy. again, this messaging is universal across the administration. we are hearing it from treasury secretary janet yellen who was out a week ago pre-butting the numbers we were anticipating seeing this week. of course, you have republicans saying, this is just spin. this is not accurate. the bottom line is, it's not up to the presiden

and you saw kristin welker's package show the press corp chasing sinema trying to get her to comment on this yesterday. her spokesperson saying she's still reviewing the 700-page bill. so that is another thing we're trying to follow up on today. how she feels about that. but another complicated factor possibly impacting this looming vote that could come next week are the rising covid cases among lawmakers. you have even joe manchin is back home in west virginia recovering as this deal is dropped. you have senator dick durbin announcing that he's tested positive for covid. senator leahy is recovering from a hip injury and saying if the vote does happen, he will be there in person to -- to vote on this. but still, this is a big question here on capitol hill, whether this could pass something that democrats and president biden definitely is hoping will happen. >> and they need every last one of those votes and every last one of the senators to be in washington. nbc's ali raffa, athe capitol, thank you so much. >>> joining us now, sam stein and presidential historian and roger's chair in

evidence for the justice department to bring charges against the former president >> all right kristin welker, thank you. >>> now a lot of focus after that hearing could turn to a new allegation from committee vice chair liz cheney about mr. trump. ali vitale joins me from the capitol what do we know about this >> reporter: yeah, lester chaney says former president trump himself tried to call a witness who the public has not yet seen or heard from the witness declined that call and alerted the committee. but nevertheless, cheney and others now trying to paint that outreach as part of a part of witness tampering from those in the former president's orbit. a trump spokesperson accusing cheney of trafficking in innuendos and lies that go unchallenged and unconfirmed. meanwhile, we've learned the next and possibly final hearing for the committee is expected july 21st in prime time lester >> all right thank you. >>> here in new york, a boat capsized off midtown manhattan, sending about a dozen people into the hudson river as they cried out for help nearby ferries came to the rescue along with fire

joining me now, senior washington correspondent hallie jackson and kristin welker. >> three key pieces of information here. first, for the first time we saw pat cipollone. the trump white house counsel interviewed behind closed doors last week coming out and making a lot of revelations. he thought trump should have conceded when the vast majority of other aides testified, they also thought that is when president trump should have conceded. including a series of advisers who thought that was the end point. because the december 14th, the day that the electoral college did its thing, had come and gone at that point and now the writing was on the wall. four days later, there was bucket number two. that is the absolutely bonkers meeting as described here in this testimony that happened in the oval office, in the white house, between sort of donald trump's allies who were at the time pushing these frankly outlandish conspiracy theories to keep him in office, and pat cipollone, his counsel and others, a couple others, eric hirshmann who you saw literally using expletives. it turned into a bra

. >> let me bring in kristin welker. there had been a big buildup to pat cipallone's testimony. what are you thoughts about his importance? >> i think that former white house counsel pat cipallone is critical, particularly on a night like tonight when the committee is trying to make its closing argument for now, because he bolsters everything we have heard in all of these other hearings. the bottom line that on january 6th there were a chorus of voices, including from him, saying that former president trump needed to do more. cipallone couldn't get specific about what he said, but he made it very clear that ivanka trump was involved, that a number of top officials were urging the president to get out there and call off the rioters. he was one of the top officials at the white house. sarah matthews, as a juxtaposition is a lower level press aide. she went back and tried to convince her boss kayleigh mcenany that the president needed to do something. i was at the white house on january 6th after that tweet was sent out by former president trump attacking his vice president, sarah