thanks, mick mulvaney and ari. we discussed the possible -- potential obstruction of justice and violations of the espionage act, which we'll continue to dig into. that's what we're being told is the is reason, the impetus, although we don't have the affidavit. back to david spunt now with the latest at the justice department. david, what are you learning now? >> martha, you said it yesterday on one of the shows that i mentioned things are quiet at the justice department. believe it or not with this going on, things are business as usual here at the department of justice. attorney general merrick garland is at work. i checked again today and asked about the affidavit. that's something that we want to see. a this point, the justice department not moving forward to put in a motion to release that. the former president overnight on truth social or before midnight specifically talked about the national archives and records administration accusing former president obama of taking all of these archives and documents to c

mick mulvaney, thank you so much for being here the morning and thomas hoenig.row morning right here on fox business, 6-9 a.m. eastern. let's get right to "varney & company." suh, take it away. stuart: i shall. the most important indicator of the month, everybody's affected by this, so here is the consumer inflation report. in the last month, no change. how about that? but in the last year, consumer prices have gone up 85. you -- 8.5%. you strip out the food and emergency prices, you get the core rate, and that is up 5.9% in the last year. all of this tells us that the rate of price increase is slowing, it also tells us that with the core rate still

joining us now is former trump white house acting chief of staff mick mulvaney. mick, it is great to have you on this momentous morning. i want to first start with your reaction to this search, because you did mention that there are two ways to see this unprecedented move. tell us about those. >> sure. i can think either it is a legitimate investigation into classified documents, or it is a political hit job. i think it is important that people understand why they're seeing the reaction they're seeing from the right. keep in mind, if you're republican in this country, what do you know about the fbi? they misled the fisa court about the 2016 election in order to spy on donald trump's campaign. you know they misled the public in the media about the hunter biden laptop in the 2020 campaign. you know chuck grassley had whistle-blowers call him about misdoings in the fbi that jim jordan got whistle-blower reports just last week about padding data on domestic terrorism. there is a lack of trust on the right, right now, with the fbi. and i think the way they went about t

another chief of staff, mick mulvaney, flatly dismissed the idea and told me, not aware of a generalnding order when he was chief. former national security adviser john bolton called it "a complete fiction." and jake, as they say, but wait, there's more. olivia troye, former homeland security official to mike penls, called it ludicrous. another senior official laughed and said, it's ridiculous. and a very, very senior trump administration official called it "bullshit" and there were a couple other words. more officials who called it b.s. >> so jamie, obviously, any president, including donald trump, has broad powers to declassify materials when he's in office. but you have to create a record of it. you didn't just like wave your hands and say this is declassified. anyone seen or found any record of this? >> no, not yet. as one senior white house official said to me, show me his signature, where is the proof? and to your point, it has to be memorialized and there is a process. it's frequently a complicated process that requires multiple agencies. >> they might push back and say please

among them, former acting trump white house chief of staff mick mulvaney, who i spoke with a short timego. >> thanks so much for being here, mick. >> alisyn, thanks for having me. >> mick, are you worried about the 20-plus boxes of classified material that was sitting in donald trump's basement and who might have seen it? >> worried? not worried. i'm curious. i saw the list that -- of things that were removed from mar-a-lago. and the one thing that caught my attention, along with i think the attention of most people, was that one list that said there were various items marked ts sci. that's the serious stuff. that's top secret and compartmentalized information. that's not supposed to be there. that being said, it's really hard to sort of understand how it gets there in the first place. these things are not sort of accidentally moved anywhere. these documents are marked. they are clearly known to folks to be ts sci, and they're supposed to be, folks, sort of tracking where they are. so, the fact that that document or it could be -- it says various documents -- were there is a question to

. >>> i talked about republican congressman mick mulvaney. congressman, mulvaney, it's been a couple weeks since you and i talked. in this time, has anything become clearer to you about why the former president would have had 700 pages of classified material, some of it more classified than we even realized? >> no. in fact, i think things are probably just murkier now than they were the last time we talked. the volume of the documents doesn't necessarily concern me, anderson. a lot of documents, when you work at a white house, are confidential or classified at some level, at some of the lowest levels. in fact, i could show you documents, and you'd go, why is that confidential, why is that classified? but what gets my attention are these documents we understand have been labels as tssci, which is the very highest level of top secret information, or sap, special access programs. that's the really intense stuff. that's the stuff you have to sign paperwork on to see. people are supposed to be tracking the custody of those documents. it's really,

so the quick sort of reactive response from my fellow republicans to say this is no big deal, mick mulvaney but he is wrong on this one, i'm just going to be wrong. i held a ts/sci security clearance when i was in government. the information marked as ts if it gets into the wrong hands could pose grave threat to national security. this is potential american lives, ally lives, sources and methods that we use. this is an extremely serious, serious thing that we're facing. >> no question. david axelrod, i just want to ask you by comparison, how did you, how did your colleagues in the obama administration treat such top secret, particularly top secret and the categories we're speaking about in those documents removed from the former president's home, how did you treat them? did you take them into special secure facilities when you were using them? did you take any of them home? >> yeah, i mean there's a prescribed procedure for dealing with these materials, jim. whether you served in a democratic administration or previous republican administrations, i'm sure that you behaved -- i'm not surpris

this i from mick mulvaney.ads "if the mar-a-lago rate is really about documents, it makes me wonder if the local police will kick in your front door to get your overdue library books." >> the law says you have to preserve everything. that is everything. it is a scratchpad, the newspaper a president had seen, it could be something really serious, i could be something trivial. it could be the menu of a dinner, for example. if that is all they are looking for is just technical violations of the law, then this is a tremendous overreach by the department of justice. if, on the other hand, it is somehow tied to a very serious charge of trying to interfere with transition of authority to the biden administration, and if the doj thanks there might be documents that the president retained at mar-a-lago that speato, say, conversations with the right wing extremists and the rioters, that is serious. but as we sit here today, we don't know. this is either the most egregious hit job in history or part of the most significan

listen to mick mulvaney talking about what he knew when he was chief of staff to the former president. >> i didn't even know there was a safe at mar-a-lago and i was chief of staff for 15 months. so this would be someone who was handling things day to day, so somebody very close, my guess is probably six or eight people had that kind of information. i don't know the people inside the circle these days so i can't give names of folks, but your instinct is a good one. if you know where the safe is and the documents are in ten boxes in the basement, you were pretty close to the president. >> and there is a huge guessing name now inside trump circles about who this person could have been because clearly this person knew a lot about where things were. >> evan, thank you. >>> as is customary, attorney general merrick garland has not said anything about the fbi search though cnn has learned that some believe that garland should break protocol and make a public statement as trump and his allies are filling the void with conspiracies. caitlin pkatelyn polantz is tras for us. >> reporter: and ev

and where they were, former chief of staff mick mulvaney was asked. >> really close, i didn't even knowre was a safe at mar-a-lago. and i was the chief of staff for 15 months. this would be someone handling things day to day, knew where the documents were. somebody very close to the president. my guess is there's probably six or eight people that had that information. >> anna, as we're mentioning, there's a lot of fuss around this, not just in trump world but political circles in general. what do we know about that? and what about the reaction from trump world, does it tell us anything? >> well, certainly, when donald trump, over the last week, they were coming outside of his administration all the time, kind of finger pointing. but we see that also through the january 6th committee, with people coming forward that were very close to the president. had a lot of information when it came to cassidy hutchinson, in terms of what was happening on january 6th. it's just another manifestation of that, right, when you have potentially somebody who has very inside access and scrutiny in trump's

we know they spoke to mick mulvaney who was a special envoy to northern ireland, and you know, he resignedry 6th. we know they spoke to eugene scalia, who was the labor secretary and highlighted some of their testimony in the hearings, him explaining to donald trump that he thought that the former president should concede after he lost. i think that's what they really want to try to get to the bottom of with mike pompeo, what the sentiment was around january 6th and afterwards and what the concerns were. >> absolutely. it's good to see you, sara. back with me now, kaitlan collins, paul callan and cnn's dana bash. specifically on the conversations around the 25th amendment, what does that tell you about where the committee is -- what path the committee is headed down now as it's now kind of entering this next chapter. >> so much of what we've seen is about connecting the dots and giving new information and testimony about what actually happened in the past on january 6th and what it means for donald trump as -- as a president. looking at the 25th amendment and the notion that some of his ca

. >> stephen: mick mulvaney tweeted in response to the testimony he saw that meadows will have to comepartment. not increase the pressure, but provide revelations the justice department can see as justification for the indictment? >> i certainly think so. we have these two investigations-- and again, i don't know what justice is doing or not doing, but assuming they're investigating, we have our investigation that's very public. this all kind of feeds together. and even though we are not the committee that goes out and indicts people criminally, we can bring forward important information. and i think the case we're making right now is the president knew that he had lost the election and he attempted to overcome the will of the american people. and, by the way, we never want to get in a position where we're just prosecuting last administrations. that's another thing you see in failed democracies. but when you try to overthrow the will of the people, and you try a coup in the united states government, you have to pay for that, period. that's what we require. ( applause ) >> stephen: now.

mick? mr. mulvaney quickly, i think you've got a much better argument if you are doing it anyway, if you are sitting down anyway outside of the boundaries of the debt ceiling to talk about fiscal responsibility, if you've done that a couple of years, then you say we don't need the debt ceiling because we are doing it anyway. right now, you get it of the debt ceiling, you have and satisfy the needs of many of my colleagues here. i am all for that discussion. but you've got to prove that you can sit down and have those talks in a reasonable fashion. rep. jackson-lee: i am glad you're open for that discussion because i think we need to move to eliminate the debt ceiling and see how congress can behave on behalf of the american people. mr. chairman, thank you. chair yarmuth: recognizing the gentleman from iowa for five minutes. >> thank you, these hearings are interesting. it is all about accountability. the federal government being accountable to we the people. we are governments, and yet i think a lot of

mick mulvaney saying, he was not aware of the general order like that. cut something out like that have gone around the chief of staff? >> the only guy who is not weighted is mark meadows. now meadows might say, this is just fine with him. i happen to know that mark meadows, i know what he was doing the morning of january 20th, and i don't think he was packing boxes for mar-a-lago. and you can read about it in my book on the biden white house. but, you know, mark meadows is just about the only person i could think of who might have said, this is just fine. >> the idea, though, that all these people were packing boxes at the last hour is just shocking. -- >> listen, i gotta tell you, that is slightly plausible to me, considering he thought he was going to hang on to power. and he may have thought that he wouldn't have to move that -- >> on january 20th? >> -- who knows. >> it reminds me of a scene from argo in the mob is at the gates of the u.s. embassy it is everybody's burning things as fast as they can, throwing them into boxes. this is keystone cop st

outfront now, mick mulvaney, former chief of staff and omb director for then president trump. uments in general, how they worked in the white house. obviously you saw a lot of this. did you ever see former president trump ask to keep documents like that? >> i did, erin. by the way, it's good to see you again. thanks for having me. we saw it from time to time. the comment from bolton which i'm hearing for the first time is sort of surprising because it was his job to sort of keep track of those documents. but that's fine, we'll have to deal with that as we can. but yeah, from time to time the president would say can i keep this? but we had entire teams of people to make sure those documents didn't get left behind, didn't get taken up to the residence. he would use them. that was his right as the president of the united states. but to draw a direct line from that to somehow those documents ending up in the basement of mar-a-lago doesn't sit well with me. i know for a fact that most of the documents he saw that were classified or higher than that, ts/sci kind of stuff was electron

one of them, mick mulvaney, spoke to our allison cam rata last night.>> i saw the list of things that were moved from mar-a-lago, and the one thing that caught my attention along with i think the attention of most people is that one list that said there were various items marked tssci. and that's serious stuff, top secret and compartmentalized information. that's not supposed to be there. now, that being said it's really hard to sort of understand how it gets there in the first place. these things are not accidently moved anywhere. these documents are marked there, clearly known to folks and supposed to be folks sort of tracking where they are. so the fact that document or various documents is a question to me and concern to me. >> now, john, mulvaney did go onto question whether that's enough to justify the search warrant, and i think that raises one of the questions you've heard. does the public need to see what's in that affidavit, or should the justice department's desire to protect its investigation come first? >> well, i think it's a unique situat

is there any reporting that suggests the specifics of who mick mulvaney would've been referring to? >> referring to you, in terms of those who would've had access to knowledge about the same. >> yeah, well, down at trump has a pretty clothe team of advisers that are working with him. he has a staff that works there at mar-a-lago and his private residence. and, secret service agents that are around. and so, i can imagine that it would be a very small group of people that would be aware. eric, trump and trump's own attorney said that they learned that the safe was broken into because they're watching cctv and security footage while the search was unfolding. but, that would be a pretty small group of people that probably would have that information and knowledge of the safe. >> one last question one last on question on contents, contacts, meredith. meredith. you know the the washington post has washington post is reporting on the reported on the potential nuclear potential of information being nuclear information stored at mar-a-lago. being stored in now, donald trump himself, mar-a-la

many people including former white house chief of staff mick mulvaney believed that investigators mustd an informant to know what they now. everyone, including us, wants to see the affidavit in support of the search warrant if there is an in fact a search warrant in his inner circle, joyce, does not affect the validity of that search warrant? >> well the search warrant was reviewed by a federal judge, who evaluated the affidavit against the charges that the doj was bringing and determined that there was probable cause to execute the search warrant. pete made a really important point earlier than i want to underline. when the doj selected the charges that it was investigating, it was careful to defect charges that -- charges that didn't hinge on whether the information was declassified, there are mishandling a defense information, presidential records, and most industry treating, late obstruction of justice which would include destroying records pertinent to an ongoing federal investigation. by the time federal judge is looking at the search warrant affidavit, he understands the context

joining me right now for more on this is former trump white house acting chief of staff mick mulvaney. thank you for being here. you heard the reporting just in from evan as i just did, 15 boxes that we know were retrieved from mar-a-lago in january. 700 pages, more than 100 documents deemed classified. what do you think of that number? >> well, the number is certainly large, the classified is an important part there, kate, by the way, thank you for having me. classified covers a whole range of things, this could be low classifications, medium collaborations, stuff that is tssci, top secret, et cetera. that catches my attention, including the stuff that is designated as sap, special act tess access programs. the sap materials is stuff that you are supposed to sign in for, sign out for, go to a special place to read, it would be very, very difficult to accidentally walk off with those documents. so i would be curious if we learn any more. we probably will not see what those documents are, because they're so sensitive. but any information might shed in slight on how they ended up in mar

the person ran for the south carolina congressional seated held by mick mulvaney who won handily in thel election. president biden received some mixed economic news today inflation at the wholesale level cooled in july for the first time in two years even though prices for every day necessities remain at multi decade high and application for unemployment benefits rose last week to their highest level since november. white house correspondent jacqui heinrich reports from the president's vacation retreat in south carolina. >> the white house plans to send team biden on a victory tour after data showed inflation didn't get any worse from june to july and prices for wholesale items dropped. >> what we're going to do is continue to have the president out, making the case, you know, a lot of these things that we are seeing congress pass in these last couple of weeks are things the president campaigned on. >> the data giving the white house juice to promote what democrats dubbed the inflation reduction act even though experts admit the health and climate plans won't reduce inflation for a year

from another chief of staff, acting chief of staff mick mulvaney, he flatly dismissed the idea and he told me, quote, not aware of a general standing order. and former national security adviser john bolton, wolf, called it, quote, a complete fiction. it goes on and on. olivia troye, who was homeland security, called it ludicrous. a very senior intelligence adviser said to me he just laughed and he said it's ridiculous. and several very, very senior officials called it bs. >> very interesting indeed. and while a president does have broad powers to declassify very sensitive material, the president at the time, a sitting president would have to have a record to show that, right? >> as one source said to me, show me his signature. there is a process to declassify. it is frequently a complicated process that requires lots of agencies weighing in. bottom line, donald trump can't just have this idea in his head. he can't just, as one source said, wave a magic wand, especially not after the fact. the sources i spoke to said that they felt this was just a very transparent way for trump to try

. >>> ahead we are going to speak to the trump administration's former acting chief of staff mick mulvaneyon to the fbi's search of mar-a-lago. >>> and republican senator tim scott dodging questions on whether former president trump should run again. his interview with cnn's dana bash is next. and for us at booking.com this means - free cancellation on most bookings. it's a bit functional. but we'll gladly be functional. so you can be frfree. bookoking.com bookining.yeah ♪ ♪ wow, we're crunching tons of polygons here! what's going on? where's regina? hi, i'm ladonna. i invest in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me acces to the nasdaq-100 innovations, like real time cgi. okay... yeah... oh. don't worry i got it! become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq in order for small businesses to thrive, they need to be smart. efficient. agile. and that's never been more important than it is right now. so for a limited time, comcast business is introducing small business savings. call now to get powerful internet for just 39 dollars a month. with no contract. and a money back guarantee. all on the

here's a little bit about what mick mulvaney said about that.. >> from time to time the president would say, can i keep? this we had entire teams of people to make sure those documents didn't get left behind and get taken up to the residents. does this make sense? does this make sense of you? if you are on the teams. had a 27 boxes of material and up on a box in mar-a-lago? >>. i >> would say that john bolton nick mulvaney were both correct. every effort was made when they were not behind, let's say the situation room, -- even hally left on a table people would come in from an upper level and clearly with things off. it is true that the president was asked to keep things and i was a situation where it's the president of the united states. are you arguably the most powerful man in the world and sometimes the argument would be made, so we would prefer to keep this, but it doesn't always work, what are you going to do. at the end of the day if the president said to his body man or someone in the outer oval i would like to take these to my residents

f-chief of staffs and john kelly saying nothing approaching an order that foolish was ever given and mick mulvaneying, quote, he wasn't aware of a general standing order like that. second, even if you accept that the standing order thing to be true, it is legally irrelevant based on the three federal criminal statutes listed on the search warrant that was unsealed last week. that is because none of the statutes depend on whether documents contain classified information. now, it's likely trump's legal team knows all of this, but how else can you mount a defense for this ridiculousness? it may also explain why yesterday why a judge was hearing arguments over why parts of the search warrant affidavit should be unsealed allowing us to see some of the evidence backing the fbi's actions. now, trump's legal team did not make any motion to unseal it. they only watched from the public seating area. we're going to talk about that, too. let's bring in clint watts, a former consultant for the fbi counterterrorism division and a distinguished fellow at the research policy intuit and we have with us bradley mos

given the fact that apparently, what, maybe 6 to 8 people at most, mick mulvaney speculated that is the most that would have access, or know about certain things, the safe, it set, or were donald trump kept these papers. the process of elimination could go pretty quick. >> it will go very quick. because again this is information for those who do not know what information is, including affidavit. trump and his team will be able to figure it out. once they figured out, you can isolate people who are talking. here's why that is a big deal. we have seen people for that new members of federal law enforcement. they want to show you agree with law enforcement on, is anyone who will turn the kabul threaten anyone. once people start to feel the pressure of talking about information that likable to trump, that affects every investigation going into him. in terms of all of his legal woes across the country. >> ryan, and the conventional wisdom on when we are going to see this redacted affidavits? we know we have to do it by thursday, even though we're gonna go right up to the line. >> typically th

i am most want to vote against this mick mulvaney and myself, we were gonna vote against increasing the legislation. i had somebody come to me item member on the floor come to me and said what you doing and i said i'm voting no, you should to and they stopped and they said it's a bad vote, i've not been in the military like you. >> i thought to myself, have we missed it so bad that you cannot explain good boats or bad vote because of the perception out there that they feel like they cannot control. >> there is a great thread that you draw in this. i really enjoyed it because i saw through your eyes and is so interesting to me. we really started dealing with all of these issues when there was an investigation. hillary clinton's e-mail and a group of us were asked to interview the different witnesses from the fbi and i worked in federal law enforcement for years and the fbi was a great agency. i cannot fathom that they would go rogue and be engaged in partisan activities. i want you to talk a little bit about that but then i want you to talk about how the group, the top of the fbi became

so, some of them, like mick mulvaney says he was not aware of it. john kelly, trumps former chief of staff, says nothing approaching an order that foolish was ever given. and another official says, where is the order with his signature on it. jim, you were in the white house? did you ever know of any standing order? >> i was the first year long before any of this came about. but i do think that all of those folks are right. i mean, there is a process for declassifying documents. it involves dni, the cia, the agencies that classified those documents. and in addition to that, could you imagine the outrage on the hill because it would have gotten to the hill. could you imagine the outrage on the hill if such a standing order existed? the hill would have everybody down there having oversight hearings right away. so, no, i don't see it. i don't see it. >> governor, when you were governor of montana, could you just wave a wand and say, poof, i declassify you? >> no, you couldn't. and look, you know, we've known all along, when trump doesn't like the facts

. >> i do want to raise one thing that is starting to bubble up in conservative circles, mick mulvaneyng chief of staff saying that maybe the classified documents from mar-a-lago might turn out to be from crossfire hurricane. that's the russia investigation, the russia investigation which conservatives have been so focused on. that seems to be maybe a way that republicans are saying well it's about russia so it doesn't matter if they were classified or not. >> or it's about hillary clinton's email. that's what warren davidson was saying when he said it wasn't connected to the internet. republicans are trying to throw everything at the wall in terms of the fence to see what sticks, before this information came out we were hearing republicans admitting that, yes, if there were highly classified tumts, that would be problematic. now that we know that there were highly classified documents, including information about human spies, they have been silent. it's recess, they're not in town. which is probably to their advantage. but this is a problem for a lot of republicans, even if they won't

just make one comment on mick mulvaney's point. it's not just documents. the documents themselves are a roadmap to how the united states governments collects information. anyone can look at these documents could be reviewing it document that reviews to multiple forms of intelligence collection around the world. the whole system depends on people not doing what trump was doing here, and that's why there are laws that he has violated, and keeping information at mar-a-lago. >> you have to wonder how countries that have worked currently with united states are reacting to this, wondering if any further work with the united states will be protected and safe. there's all that fallout. let me get to, charlie, with you, with the affidavit looks like under this heading we're showing here. there is probable cause to believe that documents containing class of fide -- remain at the premises, almost this entire sections blacked out except for these last few lines seeking authorization for the search. this part, is this where you might expect details on the sources, the

households with assets of more than $100 million would face a minimum tax of 20% so here to discuss is mick mulvaneyormer office of management and budget director and today i am pleased to welcome him as a cbs news contributor. so happy to have you here. thank you so much. you're the guy to ask about this >> seth: no, he's not. he's donald trump's former chief of staff he's not just some budget wonk who's giving nonpartisan advice. calling him a former office of management and budget director and leaving out the trump part is like saying, "there were a lot of jokes at the oscars that will smith did like. [ laughter ] we're facing a litany of serious existential crisis right now, and one of our two major political parties is consumed by imagined moral panics and unhinged conspiracy theories there are so many of these crazy people, it's hard to keep track of their names, whether it's matt or sara or marjorie or -- >> jackalin' [ laughter and applause >> seth: this has been "a closer look." [ cheers and applause ♪ >> we'll be right back with sienna miller. [ cheers and applause ♪ >> announcer: for more

mick mulvaney, he told me earlier today that the sheer volume does not concern him as much, because people listen to their walking or classify documents all of the time, i think it is good stuff today boxes there moving out of the white house. is that how you see it? >> i really don't see it that way. i think particularly special access program documents are generally numbered and monitored quickly. they are closely where they are and who has them. along we have had them, the president had them they would know where they are. that is why one of the reasons the fbi began looking at this they recognized documents were missing because they have a lot of these documents were not returned. so this letter is very telling and it is not just released by the national archives, it was released in response to john solomon,, who posted his form on his website. and they wanted to put out the original so we can all see what wasn't it. it is a very damning letter for the trump people, and the detail it explains of how they didn't do anything for a year or more before the archives finally decided they had

mick mulvaney, another former chief of staff at the white house said he was not aware of a general standing order, erin. >> pretty clear and important that they put their names on the record on this. thank you so much, sara murray. i want to go to a former principal associate attorney general and the general counsel to the national intelligence director. also with me stephanie grisham and john dean. one of the documents we got today, it's something we didn't have, more specific information on the potential offenses being investigated by the justice department. let me just say that the mar-a-lago search was related to a violation of willful retention of national defense information. also to concealment and removal of government records and obstruction of a federal investigation. what do you think this means for donald trump, john? >> well, to me what happens, and i agree with the others who have reached this conclusion, that it looks like trump is not necessarily the target, but clearly at this point a subject of the investigation. in other words, you wouldn't have taken these extraordinary

former acting chief of staff mick mulvaney met with lawmakers for two hours last week.aid they asked him about a text he sent in the days after the 2020 election. when he was serving as special envoy to northern ireland to ronna mcdaniels and others in the trump campaign. mulvaney's text reading i'm getting the sinking feeling that everyone other than me thinks we have lot this election. i'm out there telling everyone we haven't. if people know something i do not, i would appreciate it if you would let me know. it is better for me not to do tv and keep my mouth shut than to do tv and say we have a chance when people in the know, know that we do not. mulvaney said someone else gave the committee that text message, he also said he never got a response from mcdaniel or then chief of staff mark meadows. meanwhile, the department of homeland security top watch dog reportedly abandoned plans earlier this year to try to recover deleted secret service text messages. sources tell "the washington post" that after learning of the missing messages in february, inspector general jos

meanwhile, trump's then acting chief of staff mick mulvaney had this to say yesterday about who couldthe fbi. >> i was the chief of staff for 15 months and this would be someone who was handling things day to day, who knew where documents were, and it would be somebody very close, inside the president and my guest probably six or eight people had that kind of information. >> now, trump's former personal ter attorney michael cohen told the insider that he thinks the reported informant could in fact be in fact one of trump's children or his son-in-law jared kushner. who else would know about the existence of a safe and a specific contents kept inside? >> well, chaining us now, former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official chuck rosenberg. goods to speak you with. you've been all over the story. talk about the search of trump's home and the report that the search was possibly tied to nuclear related documents and other classified documents may have also been uncovered, so the question is, what would this mean if classified documents were found and removed? >> well, i think so alex, a bunc

in jamie's article it includes quotes from john kelly former chief of staff, mick mulvaney, former chieff staff. these were people who would necessarily know about a standing order. >> that's right. olivia troy, the national security adviser to vice president pence. all of them are saying on the record this didn't happen. this couldn't happen. which is, i guess, more to the point, that you can't say that something is going to be classified in washington, d.c. but once you put it on a plen and take it to his vacation home now it's declassified. it doesn't make sense. and to the extent that the president does have broad declassification powers, those don't exist in a vacuum. you have to tell somebody, you have to tell the national security adviser, you have to tell the cia, you have to tell somebody that this document is declassified because that's the meaning of it. everybody in the government knows that this document has been moved from one category to the next. >> which makes it clear that's not a real legal defense, that's just about a message that he's putting out to his supporters. i

we also spoke to acting chief of staff mick mulvaney, he flatly dismissed the idea and told me, quotelso spoke to former national security advisor john bolton and he said, quote, it was a complete fiction. just to go on and on, olivia troye, who was a former homeland security advisor to mike pence, she called the notion ludicrous. another very senior intelligence official laughed, said it was ridiculous. and a very, very senior trump administration official, arouar anderson, called it, quote, bullshit. he was not the only one who said that to me today, anderson. >> gloria, what are your sources telling you about how declassification actually works compared to what happened in the trump white house? >> the source i spoke to familiar with this process in the trump white house said that, look, the president can say i want something declassified. that's fine. but what has to happen is it has to be memorialized. there has to be a record of it. it has to be run through the paces of various agencies, and this source said to me, so as a practical matter, you know, the president has to be able

it's certainly an -- a question we're trying to get an answer to, but take a listen to what mick mulvaney, former president trump's former chief of staff in the white house, told our own brianna keilar this morning. he said this had to have been somebody really close. let's take a further listen. >> i didn't even know there was a safe at mar-a-lago, and i was the chief of staff for 15 months so this would be someone who was handling things on day-to-day, who knew where documents were, so it would be somebody very close inside the president, my guess is probably six or eight people who had that kind of information. i don't know the people on the inside circle these days, so i can't give any names of folks who come to mind, but your instinct is a good one. if you know where the safe is, and you know the documents are in ten boxes in the basement, you are pretty close to the president. >> we know that when federal investigators arrived at former president trump's mar-a-lago estate on monday, that they did look at a safe that was being contained in his primary residence there, and that is par

chief of staff "if the mar—a—lago raid let's talk to president trump's former chief of staff, mick mulvaneyike that, it's about the documents, isn't it. we know donald trump, the national archive said back in february, they received many boxes of documents. i was wondering why the president felt the need to take these documents from the white house when he knows it's the wrong thing to do.— it's the wrong thing to do. things for havin: it's the wrong thing to do. things for having me. _ it's the wrong thing to do. things for having me. and _ it's the wrong thing to do. things for having me. and very - it's the wrong thing to do. things for having me. and very familiarl for having me. and very familiar with that law. i was in charge of running the west wing we had to make sure we preserve those documents. you have to preserve everything, that's everything. that is a scratchpad, newspaper the president has seen, something that's really seriously could be something that is relatively trivial. for having me. and very familiar with that law. i was in charge of running the west wing we had to mak

. >> mick mulvaney said he had no idea there was a safe in mar-a-lago. all right. let me ask you this, paul. trump and his team want to get a hold of the affidavit from for specific information. could he his team get ahold of that? is that possible? >> it is possible if he's prosecuted for a crime. but probably not unless that happens. katy, a search warrant has to state the crimes that there is probable cause to think there will be evidence found and in a place that is searched. it doesn't necessarily mean that the property owner committed the crime. but often it results in an arrest or prosecution. so doj's purpose might have been just to get the documents out of danger. and they still would have neede stealing government information, reminder this material belongs to the american people not to president trump. or concealing documents that might be used to obstruct a proceeding. the main question the prosecutors have now is what on earth was trump holding on to those documents for? what legitimate purpose could they serve and how could trump already have used the

mick mulvaney was among the witnesses. kentucky democrat john yarmuth said the debt limit should be abolished. it is about two and a half hours. >> this hearing will come to order. good morning and welcome to the budget committee's hearing on why congress needs to abolish the debt limit. without objection, share the

"the wall street journal" and mick mulvaney asking, is this all there is?i need to go over the 184 classified markings on documents, the 25 top secret documents? the highest classification. the 67 documents marked confidential. with hillary's emails, people were looking, that's a "c." does it stand for confidential? i don't know. let's talk about it another year. the documents marked secret, it's not a close call. what "the wall street journal" editorial page is saying is, in trump's america, trump is above the law. for anybody else, the same editorial board would be demanding they immediately get sent to prison. >> "the new york times" editorial board had a piece that really laid it out. it was the board itself writing that, actually, donald trump is not above the law. not at all. not even because he is a former president. and that, in this case, yes, yes, there may be more violence. there already has been violence. many argue, because of this president, instigated by this president, promulgated by this president, and there will be more if he is held to ac

mick mulvaney urged, mark, he needs to stop this now. fox news personality brian kyl mead said, please get him on tv, destroying everything that you guys have accomplished. wembley -- when we interviewed pat cipollone he, he said he knew that the presidents to tweets were not enough. let's listen to what he said. >> what did you think about not using your advice to the president. >> i believed more needed to be done. i believed it -- i believed a public statement needed to be made. >> when you talk about others on the staff again more should be done or telling people that they need to go home, who would you put in that category? >> well, i would put eric hirschman, overall, mark meadows, ivanka, once jared got there, jared, general kellogg, i'm probably missing some. dansk aveeno. >> and who on the staff did not want people to leave capital -- capitol? >> on the staff? >> in the white house, how about. >> i can't think of anybody, who didn't want to get out of the capital once the violence started. i mean -- >> what about the president?

i've been texting with mick mulvaney, he was president trump's chief of staff in the white house, andbears on the attorney general himself. what mulvaney says is merrick garland has got to know if this raid is about ordinary documents, he's going to get fired. you don't invade a former president's home looking for overdue library books. he think this is has to be about something much more significant than basic document retention policies that seems pretty clear. we're seeing this political reaction from republican allies of the former president of the united states, kevin mccarthy, the republican leader, also with a message for merrick garland, the attorney general, suggesting that republicans would investigate the attorney general if they take the majority in the midterm elections in november, saying attorney general garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar. so a direct message there from republican leadership to the t attorney general and department of justice, that they had be under investigation themselves if republicans take the majority all this speculation abou

mick mulvaney, thank you so much for being here the morning and thomas hoenig. great conversation, everybody, thank you. that'll do it for us, we will see you tomorrow morning right here on fox business, 6-9 a.m. eastern. let's get right to "varney & company." suh, take it away. stuart: i shall. the most important indicator of the month, everybody's affected by this, so here is the consumer inflation report. in the last month, no change. how about that? but in the last year, consumer prices have gone up 85. you -- 8.5%. you strip out the food and emergency prices, you get the core rate, and that is up 5.9% in the last year. all of this tells us that the rate of price increase is slowing, it also tells us that with the core rate still strong, inflation will be around for some time to come. now look at the market reaction. terrific, right in the dow industrials will be up over 400 points, and the nasdaq will be up about 300 pointings. that is a very -- points. that is a having solid -- can very solid rally. that's because inflation is moderating, and the market li

trump's former acting chief of staff, mick mulvaney, said whoever revealed the information had to bettorney for palm beach county, dave aronberg. what do we know now to be true, given the warrant that was issued and -- i mean, we're waiting for things to be revealed more, but what can we conclude so far? >> mika, we now know why the department of justice didn't just issue a subpoena. it's because they already did issue a subpoena. they did months ago. kudos to the doj for keeping all this stuff a secret. you don't see that very much. they did, which shows you this is not a political witch hunt. they didn't reveal any of this stuff in advance. we know a subpoena was issued and, yet, afterwards, someone really close to trump, someone within his inner sanctum, spilled the beans. said that not only are there some highly sensitive pieces of information, perhaps nuclear secrets, but where it is, inside the safe. it had to be a credible source. there is no way that garland, an institutionalist, christopher wray, appointee of donald trump, and there is no way a federal magistrate would be wa