let's start with one of the reporters' byline on that story, mike schmidt, who joins us by phone. mike, take us through -- the piece is so sweeping in nature, but let's start with the new reporting on matt whitaker and what was desired of him. take us through it. >> well, the president sort of went back to one of his old plays. if you remember in march of 2017 when the president was just in office, his attorney general, jeff sessions, recused himself from the investigation. this drove trump nuts and he actually tried to get sessions to unrecuse himself and put back control of the investigation. that failed and ultimately became something that mueller was looking at and whether the president obstructed justice. there was no lesson that appears to have been learned from that. trump wanted to do the same thing here, raising this idea, saying could they get berman back in control of it? berman's someone who had donated to his campaign. and had volunteered for his campaign. and trump looking for -- going back to the two central things of him, one of the biggest, loyalty. wanting loyalty

in july of 2017, for instance, the first time i interviewed him with maggie and my colleague, mike schmidt, and he went off on jeff sessions. it was sort of the beginning of what would become a year and a half of badgering jeff sessions until he finally got fired. we didn't expect that to be part of the interview, yet he just sort of introduced it. we didn't have anything quite that surprising today but a lot of the things he said were significant, are important and will be examined, i think, as part of, you know, the understanding of what these investigations are telling us, where we are with things like the border wall dispute. >> this president still sometimes not used to the scrutiny or everything being shared. also seems to wear his feelings on his exterior, like his tell that he's uncomfortable is often to wrap himself up in his own arms, which your piece notes he did when the subject of russia came up. i'll read an excerpt from your writing tonight with maggie haberman. "president dismissed the importance of the proposed trump tower. his team was seeking to build in moscow at the he

so eager not having his private business looked at from the first place when maggie abraham and mike schmidt and i went to see him in july 2017, we asked him if it would be a red line if robert mueller looked in his business other than relationships to russia and he said yes, it would. this isn't robert mueller but it is federal investigators but you can see this make him very uncomfortable. we don't know why but nobody's very happy having investigators look through their business no matter what, but it does tell you that the issues on the table from this president are wide ranging. >> this story revoleals how troubled the president is, he wanted matt whitaker to oversee these investigations, not career prosecutors. what do you make about this line of questioning we learned about it in "the times" reporting over the weekend? >> i read it the reason why the president so worried about michael cohen, not because of how long he worked to it, but he really was involved in every aspect of his life. he was involved in the business and campaign, transition and inaugural. >> he was in the bedroom if

>> at first i think he was trying to distance himself from what rudy giuliani had told mike schmidt and me as well as other reporters that are indicated this conversation had gone on up until the fall of 2016. which seemed to suggest that he thought rudy was talking about their written answers to the mueller investigation. but i think he was trying to minute plie minimize the project which he has done all along but he was saying it was michael cohen's project and nothing to do with me. he was specific about that. >> he called it unimportant. >> right. >> but he was press. you guys pressed him a little bit on even just the optics of it and what this is like to see it going on and talking about it, what could have been happening behind the scenes that. doesn't seem to phase him, maggie. >> no. and he said some version whaef said befo of what he has said before, i was running for president, why would i shut out any option? he's right there is nothing legally problematic with tipping to run yocontinuing to run your business as you're running for president, but appearance going to raise ques

vice president mike pence visited the former concentration camp oh schmidt's on his flight from poland to germany he accused iran of conducting itself with quote the same semitic hatred as the nazis. and their place for nonstop coverage of the munich security conference you can go to our website www dot com to see the live stream and updates and of course we will be tracking major news from the conference right here streaming as well on our program throughout the gathering . meantime in other news things prime minister petro sanchez has called the snap general election after his budget was rejected by parliament the vote will be on april twenty eighth and will be spain's third election in less than four years sanchez was replying on the report of cattle and separatists for his budget to pass they voted it down in protest after sanchez cut off talks with the separatists who want greater self-determination for catalonia. the day began with an emergency cabinet meeting the outcome had already been decided new elections after parliament rejected the draft budget put forward by the minority