stoddard and analyst phil mudd. let's show the clip from the nbc interview. >> sally yates testified that the white house notified he was compromised and at risk of blackmailed. 18 days later he was finally fired. during the 18 day, he had access to the nation's top secrets. one day you meet on the issue of comey and you fire him. in a humiliating way. he is sitting in the room with colleagueses. >> my white house counsel not sound like an emergency of anything. didn't make it sound like anything. she did not make it sound that way either in the hearings. this man has served for many years. he's a general. in my opinion, he's a very good person. i believe that it would be very unfair to hear from somebody who we don't even know and immediately run out and fire a general. >> your acting attorney general at the time. >> phil mudd, the difference in disposition to the president was one guy he liked. so he took it slow. one guy he didn't like so he did it right away. >> i think it is more basic than that, chris. if you

phil mudd, what this reporting is according to u.s. official familiar with it according to "the washington post" was this was code worded information. talk about why that matters. and also there's two options here. either the president did know he was doing something that jeopardizes the safety of the united states and u.s. allies, et cetera, and seems to boast about it, breaking about it, got great intel, he said, or he didn't know it was problematic what he was sharing. aren't those both really big problems. >> you've got two issues. let's cover intelligence issue. there's typically three tiers, confidential, top secret, code level is above top secret. it's super secret intercepted communications that tell you whoever is reading that, whoever is cleared for that information is reading something that if it's compromised could be highly damaging to u.s. intelligence. on the issue of what the president revealed, there's two different elements to that. one is should the russians know there are different threats to civilian aviation out t

does this make it okay, phil mudd? >> hell, no, all you have to do to go into that meeting is have national security apparatus say it's appropriate to talk to the russians who lost a plane to isis in 2015. it's appropriate to they will them about airline security. i agree with the president, we should tell them. when you take the information to someone you pledge secrecy you owe them the courtesy to tell them. by the way, this isn't the biggest news out of the meeting. why isn't everyone talking about the fact he's more courteous to the russians than american people. first meeting secretary of state, can't say, shouldn't be meddling in our elections but fire the fbi director for investigating that. you've got to be kidding me. >> when i read the white house readout of that meeting last week, in it it doesn't talk about election meddling at all. >> doesn't mention kislyak was there. >> also doesn't lay out this. he also doesn't say in that white house readout they were talking about these -- it does say humanitarian iss

phil mudd what are the questions you have about the white house? >> when a justice department official goes to warn you in the white house that your security adviser is having inappropriate conversation with the russians, that's not a heads up. i want to know what the urgency of the warning wasment i want to know if it was persistent over time. i want to know background on why she thought the relationship was so substantial. the one thing i'm watching for is she was privy to an investigation conducted by the fbi. she has to be careful talking about general flynn personally because it is the subject of an ongoing investigation but her responsibility to keep her access to that investigation private. >> there you go. that's the issue. she has to be careful because there's all sorts of classified information. it's hard to know how much we'll be able to learn today. >> and how pointed the questions are and what she can talk around and what she can tell us ch. we'll have to see what it changes what we know. the fact that the president is tweeting about t

stoddard and counterterrorism expert phil mudd. abby, there was a lot of information. there were headlines that came out of this. we will boil down suzanne's piece. he felt mildly nauseous. we never heard him about releasing that letter to congress. that as you heard him, the lynch clinton meeting compromised the doj. the russian influence on the election. what did you hear? >> he had a lot that he wanted to get off his chest. i was struck by what he didn't say. so much of his behavior was motivated by fear that the department would undermine itself. leaks would really reveal things that were part of the investigation that could be kept secret and should have been kept secr secret. especially the last one. he wasn't sure how long it would take to go through the e-mails. it ended up taking three days. in retrospect, people said you could have waited and found out what was in the e-mails before you came out publicly. the reason he didn't wait was because he was very, very sure the information would come out one way or another. a lot of agents within the fbi who wanted th

joining us is senior counterterrorism expert phil mudd. they say john brennan just said it. place. no evidence of actual collusion. this is a hoax. the president is right. your response. >> chris, it is painful you are the first person i speak with in the morning. >> you laugh. >> it is funny. >> then he turns -- >> chris, let's watch over the next day or two. sean spicer and the white house misportrayed what officials are saying. let's give you a clear distention. the intel guys will get the i intelligence. russian interceptions showing one half of the story and significantly less than one half. they do not have visibility that is intel guys like the dni, director of national intelligence and cia director, into the significant part of the investigation that's conducted by the fbi. interviews of american citizens. looks into travel and financial. the intel guys will say i saw smoke when russian people talk about the interactions with the americans. there's no way you can look at one half of the conversation and draw conclusion of collusion. >> i hear you, phil. i understand

there are some excellent people here, phil mudd, dana bash, former attorney general of the united states, michael mukasey, phil mud, you worked at the cia, you know about these issues, you have read it now, you heard ellen, what is your reaction? >> you see thing over 30 years in washington, d.c., and you never think you'll be surprised, and history proves you wrong, this is not surprising, stunning, if this is true, let's step through a timeline, in the summer of 2016, somebody receives a presidential nomination, in this case, in the republican party, it's donald trump, he's cleared to receive top secret briefings. in early december, his son-in-law, if this report is correct, decides to go to the russian embassy, which has a primary responsibility of spying on america, and saying i want to subvert the american bureaucracy. >> there was actually a conversation at trump tower, talking about establishing communications, outside the u.s. bureaucracy to talk to the russians, remember, less than a month later, president of the united states, president obama sang shctions the russians. remembe

david gregory and phil mudd and editor for real clear politics, a.b. stoddard. >> we learned this doesn't just cover the campaign and the campaign advisers. now it reaches into the white house. what is the significance? >> the last point. it reaches to the white house. jared kushner emerged as the president's most important adviser and also family. those authority goes in multiple directions and who has business interests that raise real questions on behalf of the trump family that could have made the campaign vulnerable to being compromised by the russians. again, we don't know what all the facts are so we wait for investigation. we know through kushner's attorney he is happy to talk to all investigators. i think we can make a broader point right now about the attitude vulnerability. cavalier attitude by the trump campaign. russia is not going to do anything to us. there is something of concern here and kushner appears to be the person who had enough contact and meetings or knows enough to be able to really help investigators or though he is not a tar

phil mudd, mueller. tell me about him. right guy for the job like this? >> best i ever saw.1 years i have been around government and in government and outside. i never saw anybody like this guy. integrity, brains, drive, commitment. he also would kill me for saying this. he has a heart and sense of humor. you won't see it. he is not anti-media. he will not talk and he won't leak. when i saw this announcement, i was thinking of the variety of people i worked with in my life. secretaries and kings and fbi directors and presidents. never saw any better. if you have a kid, this is who you want to point that kid to and say if you want an american hero, i know it is pollyanna, but you want robert mueller. >> tom fuentes, when you think of the assessments of mueller and amount of power and if you look if anybody wants to google the order is from the ag, this is his bio. obviously the headline is he was appointed by bush and at the fbi during and after the 9/11 stuff for 13 years. he can look at anything he wants. a tremendous amount of power. he can pick his own staff. fuentes, why

. >> the because you know, phil mudd, whenever the u.s.oes pick up a conversation like this, they have to make sure that it's the real thing, that it wasn't just phony trying to it, you know, screw around, knowing that the u.s. was listening in. >> you nailed, that wolf. look, handle with care. any fbi investigators got to look at this, but there's a phrase you use in the intelligence business, chain of acquisition. you're listening to the russians. do you believe them, especially if you think they might believe that that chain -- that avenue of communications is already compromised? remember, chain of acquisition. they are talking to somebody who is talking to somebody. when we did this in fourth grade we -- we referred to this as a game of telephone. once you get three or four steps removed and it's the same in the intelligence business, seriously, you're saying i don't know who they acquired it from and who the subsource, is so when you're three or four steps out, you don't even know if the russians are accurate or honest in their portr

. >> phil mudd, the only thing i could imagine they would want to setup this secret line of channel of communication through the transition and flynn and the fired national security advisor were afraid they didn't want obama administration officials to know what they were telling the russians. >> that's right. if you want to me to give you an explanation for this, it's not credible, but i will give you an explanation. we haven't heard kushner's side. that assumed, let's say this is all accurate. we're going into a presidency where the president of the united states said repeatedly that alleged that trump towers was not only wiretapped by federal officials but wiretapped by the president of the united states. so you have antirement where people want to work with putin, that environment was created during the campaign but they don't trust the administration. i don't trust the american bureaucracy, and remember i think we're being wiretapped thinking by jared kushner. >> because he was still being wiretapped and -- >> david, what do you make of this reporting from your colleagues at the "

phil mid-'d mudd, i'm intrigued and wonder what you think.lect in early december know about these conversations that michael flynn and jared kushner were having with sergey kislyak, the russian ambassador? >> boy, you've got to be kidding me. son-in-law, national security adviser incoming within six weeks or otherwise until inauguration seven weeks. we have an issue that's prominent during the campaign, russian meddling during the campaign. we have the president who has repeatedly spoken, something that's controversial, about improving ties with a dictator that's vladimir putin and his team, people who are next to him every single day on a prominent national security issue are going and saying i want a special channel with the russians and the president-elect doesn't know. can you sell me a bridge to brooklyn, i don't buy it. >> you probably knew about the backchannel and all of that, but the fact that they were going to use russian embassy equipment and make conversations -- make phone calls from inside the russian embassy in washington to t

. >> we have chris cillizza, jeffrey tubin and phil mudd. what is the answer? why the 18-day lag and only when the washington post broke the story did mr. trump get rid of michael flynn. >> let me throw one other thing ton time line. donald trump does a press conference in which he talks about the conversation he had with don and says he was just doing his job. not a big deal. when it suggested unless don mcbegan pulled punches and didn't tell the president what sally yates told him, it wasn't just about doing his squlob. it is about not telling the truth about it, about the justice department having concerns that he was blackmail bait given what the russians knew about him. there is just a lot of questions there. we either have to believe that donald trump didn't -- was not told, didn't believe what he was told or thought sally yates was lying or not telling the truth because otherwise there is no obvious solution for why it took so long, why in the wake of it he continued to defend michael flynn publically. he knew what yates told mcdltcg >> we also learned t

and joining them is analyst phil mudd. the media perspective is this, phil, they want to keep some information hidden. you learn about things you would not learn about otherwise. what is the other side when it comes to intel? >> chris, are you correct, but in half the cases. when we see embarrassment is not a national security leak. let's give you a definition of a national security leak. when adversary gains advantage. in this case, it did. somebody in the u.s. government decided "the new york times" should know what the brits revealed secretly. when you reveal the name of the bomber, you thought you had a day or two to escape or destroy evidence. now i realize the british security services and services are on us. i have to act more quickly. you may not believe that scenario, i saw terrorists do stupid things like they assume they had more time. when you see the word leak, you differentiate embarrassing and what gives the adversary the advantage. that is why the british are angry today. >> david, phil lays out the case fro

. >> i want to bring in the panel, matthew rosenberg, gloria borger, phil mudd. il, you worked both at the fbi and the cia and you know the acting director. what do you make of the testimony from him tonight? >> you can take him to the bank. he's a soft spoken man. i knew him when i was at the bureau. he's there to represent the bureau and to represent a tradition that goes back to 1908 of integrity. i don't care what the american people see, if you are working at the fbi you cannot view this intervention as anything but an intervention in investigation into the presidential office. there's two issues that are being confused here. people at the bureau routinely might say and many of them told me i agree the actions of the director over the past ten months many were inappropriate. he should not be in front of the microphone. that said, that's fundamentally different as saying do they see him as decent, a man of integrity, a man who brought thoughtfulness to the office. that answer is yes as well. they're looking at this saying the president wants to undercut invest

this raises lots of questions for our specialist phil mudd. nterpret that tweet as a threat? >> i sure do. add two words or else. phil in, unless you do this or else. i don't think that's the heart of the story though, wolf. i think the story is more fundamental and it's about presidential credibility. i've been in the situation room with the president and opinion in the oval office and in the residence with the president of the united states. you feel a sense of power that's incredible. when i heard this story this morning i was in the studio here hat cnn and i laughed. the president is transitioning in fewer than four months from having tremendous credibility and power by a man who spoke directly to the american people and broke the republican/democratic standards of decades and said someone who is almost an independent can win the white house toss someone who is transitioning believe it or not to be a laughing stock. you think anybody in the white house took this seriously? of course it's a threat. the question is whether the president has t

cnn commentator errol louis and we have former cia analyst phil mudd. here we are hearing from hillary clinton in the wholesome way with christiane amanpour. let's play with more sound bite here with what she says went wrong with her campaign. >> if the election had been on october 27th, i would be your president, it wasn't. did we make mistakes? of course. did i make mistakes? oh, my gosh. yes. read my confession and my request for be absolution. i think the reason we lost were the intervening events in last ten days. >> errol? >> i don't know how relevant it is for the rest of the country. she can say whatever she wants. i look forward to reading the book. there is a sense of denial. october day was n27th was not e day. they had issue on the ground in wisconsin and pennsylvania and michigan. that is what should keep her up at night. these other questions are important. the trump russia connection. >> the letter that james comey sent to the congress was not as important as wisconsin and those loose ends? >> however you weigh it. the democratic party ne

i want to go to phil mudd. i want to start with the images the new york times obtained. one appears to be a detonator. the new york times said it appears to contain a small circuit board. it was found in what they believe to be the hand of the terrorist. they also found a battery that they say is one more powerful than one often seen in whatever backpack bombs that these teams have seen in backpack bombs or suicide vests. when you put this all together do you think this is the work of a sophisticated bomb maker? j from the new york times analyst, there seems to be some cities can indication in these devices. always difficult to make a determination based on a few pictures. one thing we know about salman abedi, who was basically flurnging out of university, didn't have any background in chemistry or anything suggests that it would be obvious that he would be the type of person that could put something like this together. i'll not impossible. he could have got some training in libya or somewhere else. given that there appears to be some degree of sophistication in this dev

unless the fbi vex als to be imperilled back thement kersten power aimed carpenter be jeffrey toobin phil muddp the whole notion of tapes in the white house. obviously we have been done this road before. is that legal now? it's certainly legal and i think as a matter of course every president tapes phone calls with foreign leaders for example. i mean i would think err responsible not to. what did about every day conversations? this is something could be cleared up very easily it would be an interesting test of how serious these investigations are. have the mouse and senate committees write a letter send us a subpoena, have the fbi in their investigation send a subpoena for any tapes that exist that are relevant to the investigation. the supreme court in 19749 to nothing said the president would have to answer a subpoena like that. so in question can be answered this doesn't have to be a mystery. but the committees have to show they're serious in order to find out that answer. >> i mean we haven't talked to you this week or at least i haven't. the end of in week how do you -- where are things i

. >> phil mudd, your take and also your take on the news about attorney general jeff sessions and his lack of disclosure on his form. his team says they were advised by a legal expert they did not have to put the russian meetings down there. what is your take? >> on the first one. let's look at the flip side. british should shutdown intelligence sharing. if they find something that links people to the united states. e-mail or phone call. they cannot pass that. over the course of the days and weeks, intelligence sharing will restart. i guarantee it. threat always unifies security services. if that threat leads back to libya that trained or advised the individuals. they will turn back to the united states and say can you help us develop those threats in libya? this is a 50-year marriage. there are fits and starts. there will be intelligence sharing in the future. on sessions, there are two piece, chris. let me clear something with you on the air in public. i frequently did not declare on that form contacts of foreign nationals. >> why not? >> because i met people all day every day. you

. >> phil mudd, james gagliano. good to see you again. >>> attorney general jeff sessions recused himself because of his failure to disclose a meeting with the russian ambassador. why does he have any part of firing the man much less choosing the replacement? we'll look at that ahead. you we. to progress. to not just accept what you see, but imagine something new. at invisalign®, we use the most advanced teeth straightening technology to help you find the next amazing version of yourself. it's time to unleash your secret weapon. it's there, right under your nose. get to your best smile up to 50% faster. visit invisalign.com to get started today. how if guests book direct ater, choicehotels.com and stay twice they'll get a $50 gift card? summertime. badda book. badda boom. got you a shirt! ...i kept the receipt... book now at choicehotels.com that when it comes to hospital romances,nows the more complicated, the better. i love you. but i love him. i love him, too. so do i. they also know you should get your annual ch

let's bring in phil mudd.urprisingly we didn't hear the president called the attacker radical islamic. >> you learn one lesson. reality is a pain in the ass. you want to tear up the nuclear deal? what's your alternative? you want to bomb them? you want to move the american embassy to jerusalem? you want to confront russia and europe and you call nato obsolete? if nato is aggressive, who are you going to call on? if you want to call this islamic terrorism, you tell every person who practiced islam that these individuals who conduct attacks like this represents islam. the president is realizing that when he transitions to the oval office, what he said on the campaign trail can't be used in real life. >> do members of isis really care what the president calls them? >> yes, they do. they want to be called terrorists. the reason is simple. they know they don't have nuclear weapons, they don't have aircraft. terrorism is viewed as an acceptable tactic. what you need to do is use terms they don't like. the term i wou

joining us now is phil mudd, of the fbi, what's going on the ground? >> living here for ten years after 9/11, you see this in two ways, the first is the immediate event, the eyewitnesses will not be reliable, but questions like the forensic analysis? >> not reliable because people see things from a different vantage point? >> it's not confusing, people will air it was a yellow shirt, it was a blue car, and it was n wrong. i want to see the device, for example, not only what kind of device it was, but was it a device you have seen elsewhere? and the people who train you to do this kind of thing are not going to train you on ten different kinds of devices, but people who conduct that kind of training are going to have a standard type of device that they train you on. >> the possibility of a suspicious package and not out of the realm of possibility that somebody would want to plant multiple devices. >> that would tell me did somebody bring in two devices, that brings to my mind, that there were two people, that it wasn't just a lone wolf, do we have a co

phil mudd, i want to play for you some -- the words of the president as a candidate when he was complainingbout hillary clinton associates taking the fifth, pleading the fifth. listen to what he used to say. >> now the people who destroyed the e-mails are all pleading the fifth amendment in front of congress today. fifth amendment, fifth andment, horrible. like you see the mob takes the fifth. if you're innocent, why are you taking the five-day amendment. >> the man that was given the fifth, remember? whatever happened to him? where is he? what happened to him? where did he go? he pleaded fifth. that's the end of him. ay, yi, yi. when you have your staff taking the fifth amendment, taking the fifth so they are not prosecuted, when you have the man that set up the illegal server taking the fifth, i think it's disgraceful. >> now his former national security adviser, the man who worked closest with him hon most sensitive national security issues, is about to take the fifth. >> look, who do you believe here? i think americans should go on the cnn website. i wish we had a twitter feed of cnn we

. >> phil mudd, if, in fact, you know, kushner wanted to have a dialogue with someone in the kremlin,wanted to get on the phone, can i come over to the russian embassy? you have secure communications. we can dial this individual in moscow and i can have a private conversation with this person. kislyak may or may not have thought that was strange but maybe kushner thought it was a legitimate idea. >> darn right he thought that was strange. forget about sensitive information saying, i don't trust this going through american communication channels because the white house is using this. i want to talk via your channels and the white house won't see it. one thing that hasn't been mentioned is a word that's come up repeatedly in the past couple of months and that is unmasking. if this story is untrue and you want to understand why the national security adviser under president obama, that is susan rice, wants to understand which americans in the trump campaign are talking to russian ambassadors and saying, who is that u.s. person number one mentioned in that communication, this story today t

. >> that was former cia officer phil mudd reacting to donald trump releasing highly classified information most republicans in congress silent on that? one by one, some are starting to speak out. senator bob corker, he told cnn after the news broke, "they are trying to come to grips with all that's happening. the same of this is, there's a really national security team in place. there's good, productive things under way through them and through others. but the chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that i think it creates a worrisome environment." so i have a republican lawmaker with me making time for us. congressman lee of new york is with me now. he's an iraq war veteran. thank you for being with me. thank you for your service to this country. >> thank you. >> before we get into the politics of all of this, when you heard the news, your reaction to all of this and lives of u.s. servicemen and women at risk because of it. >> over the course of the last several hours we hear more about the conversation may have been focused on laptop bombs and ter

phil mudd, one of our contributors at cnn, former cia official. he saw the tweet about the recording system and threatening comey. this was his take. >> you can't take this seriously. you feel like you got to give the president of the united states a pacifier and a rattle and put him in the crib. if you think you'll intimidate the former fbi director and dozens of people in the workforce who are conducting this investigation with the department of justice, you got another thing coming. >> it's provocative television but phil used to walk down the driveway to the briefings of the president he understands how the process works. sume, a, people react like that to what the president did and the president see this is conversation and i think that's what starts this cycle. >> the bluster can only go so far. it's not like james comey can't go testify to congress. he could very well do that, and he has a lot more leeway now than he did when he was the fbi director. but the other effect this has is that these aides are loyal to him and talking about him go

. >> phil mudd, you know robert mueller. what do you make of this appointment? >> boy, on a personal and professional level, this is profound for me, i had an office, director mueller was down the hall, i must have been involved in 1,000, 2,000 meet wgs him. i never saw anybody like him, ever. for any american who looks for integrity judgment, i saw him do personnel, political investigations that involved corruption, i watched him make decisions in thousands of cases, when you had to decide whether to arrest a kid who was a potential suicide bomber or let the investigation go. anderson, i don't know what to say. i never saw anything like it. judgment, character, integrity, humility. if you have a kid and you've despaired that there's not a hero in america, robert mueller is it. >> jeff, i heard you talk about leaks and this is something the president and republicans have been focusing on. it's not likely that there would be a tremendous amount of leaks coming out of this office. >> despite our best efforts. we will try, and the fbi will still be involved and the

. >> phil mudd, you worked at the fbi. and one of the headlines is that rod rosenstein has been on the job for two weeks and that they are saying he was tasked with doing this, but that this is about a lack of confidence within the ranks. the hidden headline seems to be in the second paragraph of the letter that the president put out, do you believe that there was a lack of confidence within the agency and do you believe that the director of the fbi would have one, let alone three conversations with a sitting president and that a sitting president would ask whether or not they were under investigation and be told? >> no way. look, this is a painful day for america. this story is simple, it's not about confidence in the fbi, it's about politics over the rule of law. there are two investigations here. one of on yus i will the e-mail investigation into the rival of the president of the united states. the other the russia investigation. let's presume the department of justice brought charges against somebody in the clinton tea

and i agree with what phil mudd said completely. this is the guy america vested in as a tv icon for saying you are fired to your face. there was some very face to face about it. here is a snibling, weezing way. i think donald trump has lost a lot of his mystique by doing it that way. >> you don't have to view the president negatively to view the situation negativity. if it is going to be a decisive action, you should have somebody to replace him as soon as you make the move and as far as we know that ain't the case. gentlemen, appreciate it. coming up, we will talk to senator lindsey graham and alberto gonzalez. >> the president is set to meet with russia's top diplomat at the white house just hours from now. cnn has that angle. she's live at the state department with us. what do we know, michelle? >> blunt, broad and business-like. that's what the state department expects from these meetings. they're not talking about what kind of specific progress they expect to be made. but for president trump, of course, this is a precurser to t

phil mudd, you spent time in the cia but also spent detail in the fbi. what jumped out at you? >> something very little talked about, how to prevent this in the next election. i thought he said too much about huma abedin, too much about what they investigated of her after they closed the investigation. >> why was it too much? basically what he said is that they discovered thousands of e-mails from her to her husband, anthony weiner, including some classified e-mails that sparked a lot of interest. that's why they reopened the investigation. >> sure. but he's got a u.s. citizen and chose to talk about her in a private forum. the investigation is closed. don't mention people involved in it. >> he also said classified information was taken from her laptop. >> yes. >> and forwarded. i mean, it was on anthony weiner's laptop. she forwarded information to anthony weiner's laptop. that's going to be a discussion among republicans. >> exactly. let it go. >> all of this is public to begin with. >> but this is the fbi director talking about an investigation where they chose not to press

stoddard, david fun, phil mudd.u are going to get smarter, your iq will go up just from watching "new day" this morning. >> we can't get any smarter! we're all set. >> well, right. not you guys. >> and i just heard john berman's there, so you have the bermanator! that is something. >> can you believe this show? >> speaking of raising the intelligence bar, yes. >> that says nothing about chris cuomo being on vacation. you're going to get smarter because chris cuomo's on vacation. >> those were your words, not ours. we didn't say that. didn't say that out loud. >> i'm sure you're not going to be in big, big trouble christine. >> all right. nice to see you guys. >> thanks, guys. see you in a bit. >> and the breaking news there is it is friday. it is friday at "new day" and "early start." first it was volkswagen and fiat chrysler, now another cheater on diesel emissions. that's "cnn money stream" next. finding time to get things done isn't easy. but we've got the digital tools to help. now with xfinity's my account, you

cnn counterterrorism analyst and former kriie and fbi official phil mudd, cnn presidential historian and former director of the nixon presidential library, tim neftali, national political reporter for real clear politics, caitlin huey-burns and retired fbi chief of staff and a man who knows james comey, know the second in command now in charge, james galliano. we've got a lot to get to and a lot of voices. let us begin. david axelrod, i had a whole other idea of how to start our conversation today, but once again, we'll start with some tweets, this tweet we get from donald trump this morning seeming to threaten james comey. are these the two options available for what this tweet means? either the president maybe illegally has recorded conversations with the fbi director or the president is not telling the truth? is there another option here? >> i can't think of one. i would suggest the president release the tapes, if he has tapes. i think the country would like to hear those tapes. if he doesn't have tapes, then yes, he's lied. but listen, it's just the latest of an incredibly peculi

. >> phil mudd, how does the fbi approach someone like jared kushner in this situation? he's, as david said, doesn't seem to be a target but he certainly has the ear of the president. the president who has called the investigation a witch hunt. >> let's be clear about this and we'll get to the issue in a moment about why it's taking them so long to speak to him. if you're looking at this, i'm going to give you something that sounds like white house talking points. we're in the midst of a russian investigation that involves white house advisers. one of the closest advisers obviously is jared kushner. he's been involved with the campaign from day one. he's interacted with people we know are involved in this problem, including general flynn, and he's had meetings with the russians. if you're the white house, you're stepping back, if i were them, and saying of course he's part of this investigation, we support the investigation and you should speak with him. the reason it's taking so long for them to speak with him is understand when the white house walks into your office do

this, even the "washington post" story -- >> a right to declassify is different than should -- >> phil muddt night made an excellent point that the russians have been victims of isis attacks. we know 220 russians died on a plane in october of 2015. so, perhaps the president declassified this to warn the russians. >> but follow that one step further, this might not have been the president's information to declassify. if this was given from an ally, this was an intelligence-sharing moment, this was intelligence that was shared with the u.s. government, so classified that it was held so tightly that they didn't even share it broadly amongst those in some of the top layers of the u.s. government. should the president be handing that out? >> look, i think if his rational is what was tweeted today, which is that i want russia on board in fighting isis, if he shows the russians, you're as much at risk as is western europe, as the united states. >> even if it means a stream of intelligence will now dry up? >> well, h.r. mcmaster seems to be convinced that it won't. he believes -- >> john mccain cal

here back obviously monitoring events with paul cruickshank, with michael weiss, tom fuentes, phil mudd as well. paul, in terms of the resources that the british have compared to what we have seen in france, and the problems we've seen in france, the problems we've seen in belgium, it seems like the british intelligence forces an also law enforcement have a better handle on things than we have seen in some other countries in europe. >> yeah, anderson, i think there's some consensus that the brits are best in class when it comes to dealing with these sort of counterterrorism issues. they've been dealing with it really all the way back to the ira threat from the 1970s onwards. that meant they had to get very smart very quickly when it came to dealing with terrorism threats. they developed a lot of expertise. they made sure that their domestic security services and their police services worked hand if glove, that they had staff working in each other's buildings, that they were sharing intelligence in real time. and this has really resulted in the uk thwarting plot after plot since 9/11, th

maggie haberman joins us again, jeffrey lord, general psaki, matthew rosenberg and phil mudd. said he wouldn't comply. he said now he will comply if there is a subpoena. but he says basically that there is no there there. >> that's my sense of it. i got a message from him earlier saying he has not been subpoenaed but if he is he will gladly comply, "as i have nothing to hide." michael schoen a very familiar face to most of us who cover the trump campaign. he's been an aggressive defender of the president for a very long time going back to -- my dealings with him go back a long time but including 2011 when trump was first thinking of running for president in recent history. he has been pretty aggressive against this probe. he's been pretty aggressive that there is no there there. i don't know expect him to go sort of quietly into that good night. and we will see. it's an interesting contrast in terms of how he is handling this. because it is very different than, say, what michael flynn is doing, which is that he was subpoenaed and resisted it for quite some time and i think now

. >> phil mudd, you worked at the fbi as well as at the cia. to those in the white house who say why didn't director comey release this earlier on? why didn't he go public right away? could you also make the argument from the fbi standpoint that this was an ongoing investigation and if you have somebody like the president of the united states trying to interfere in that investigation isn't that just inherently then part of the investigation? isn't that why you would take notes and sort of let it play out? because if a potential suspect in an investigation, the guy who ran the campaign you're investigating, is telling you to lay off, doesn't that then become part of an fbi investigation? >> anderson, i think the story's even simpler. i've heard the conversation about why jim comey didn't speak. let's remember, the fbi director is unique in washington, d.c. that's a ten-year term. he's going into a conversation in the oval office in a dinner with the president thinking that he will be there for another whatever it is, i think about six years left