"new york times" reporter michael schmitt, one of three reporters who broke this really blockbuster story tonight. congratulations, michael. really appreciate your time tonight. >> thanks for having me. >>> responses are pouring in to this breaking news, including from the white house. we just got this moments ago from white house press secretary sarah sanders. this is absurd, she says, james comey was fired because he's a disgraced partisan hack and his deputy andrew mccabe who was in charge at the time is a known liar, fired from the fbi unlike president obama who let russia and other foreign adversaries push america around, president trump has actually been tough on russia. that's the if first official response. joining us now is barbara mcquade. thanks for joining us. that response from the white house does not address any of this, oddly enough. there are a lot of add home numbs in it, but it doesn't address really what is in this story that is incredibly blockbuster. what sands out to you as being the most important thing from the standpoint of what robert mueller is clearly looking

michael schmitt, one of the authors of it said they've really been working on if for a year and a half because they've had bits and pieces of this information for a year and a half. it says as the fbi officials debated whether to open the investigation, some of them pushed to move quickly before mr. trump appointed a director who might slow down or even end their investigation into russian interference. here is the key sentence to me. many involved in the case viewed russia as the chief threat to american democratic values. and david, ultimately that's what this comes down to. >> yes. you know, we use the word meddling, interference, intervention, russia attacked american democracy in the 2016 campaign. they attacked it with social media. they attacked it by hacks and releasing material that arguably had an impact on the election itself. they did so with -- to disrupt and cause american democracy to look messy and at some point they also decided helping trump would be part of their aims as well. so this was information warfare. this is the most serious matter that one can thing of beca