Return to Transcripts main page

AT THIS HOUR

Democrats Call for A.G. Jeff Sessions' Resignation; Paul Ryan Takes Reporters' Questions on Jeff Sessions. Aired 11:30-12p ET

Aired March 2, 2017 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[11:30:00] KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Congressman Lieu, thanks so much for that. I appreciate your time. A lot going on. We'll get back to you on that.

REP. TED LEIU, (D), CALIFORNIA: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk about -- the congressman was quoting the law. Let's talk to a lawyer. Joining me now, CNN contributor and former general counsel at the General Elections Commission, Larry Noble is joining me now.

Larry, I have now got members of Congress quoting statutes at me. I need some help. How much trouble, in your view, is Jeff Sessions in right now?

LARRY NOBLE, ATTORNEY & CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think he's, potentially, in a lot of trouble.

Let's back up here. We know what he said, especially to Senator Franken, was not true. And he volunteered. He said he had not talked to the Russians. We now know that wasn't true. Was that intentional, was it intended to mislead Congress, did he know it at the time and lie about it? That's a very serious problem. That could end up with him being criminally prosecuted.

He should have an opportunity to explain more than he's explained. If he doesn't want to explain, then I think further action has to be taken. If the explanation isn't good enough, further action has to be taken. It has to be done by a special prosecutor.

The question of whether or not he should recuse himself is a simple question. He has to recuse himself. He should have recused himself a while ago. He was involved in the campaign. And now we know he talked to the Russians. So any investigation is going to necessarily involve him. Now it's going to involve whether or not he lied to Congress.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: To the point of recusal, you have Republicans like Lindsey Graham who say it's a no-brainer.

You know what, Larry, hold on, I've got to go back to Capitol Hill right now.

House Speaker Paul Ryan taking to the podium.

PAUL RYAN, (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: -- country. President Trump has already signed a number of important pieces of legislation. This week he signed two bipartisan initiatives to expand opportunities for women in science. This includes Barbara Comstock's bill to encourage young women to pursue careers in the STEM fields. Also, the president has already signed three bills into law that block harmful regulations. This includes protecting coal country from rules that would have wiped out thousands of good paying, family supporting jobs. This is the first time since 2001 that Congress has reversed harmful regulations under the Congressional review act. The House has already passed another ten of these bills. So more relief is on its way.

We're also making progress on our work to repeal and replace Obamacare. Working very closely with the Trump administration, we will soon introduce legislation to help lower costs, increase choices, and give people more control over their health care. We are united and we are determined to rescue people from this collapsing health care law and to keep our promise to the American people.

Lastly, I want to take a moment to echo the president's strong condemnation of the recent anti-Semitic incidents that have been taking place across the country. Across the country, we've been seeing vandalism, acts of desecration and bomb threats. In whitefish bay, Wisconsin, right outside the district I serve, a community in north side Milwaukee, there are two threats of a Jewish community center there, a community center I've been to, one as recently as February 20th. To think about parents getting those calls in the middle of the day makes your stomach turn. This is wrong. These threats and these attacks on Jewish Americans are vile and disgusting. They are rooted in a poisonous ideology of hate and must be wholeheartedly rejected. On behalf of every Republican and every Democrat in Congress, on behalf of the whole House, I want our friends in the Jewish community to know that we stand with them. We stand with you. We may stand -- we've got to stand to help root out this evil wherever it may surface. These are disgusting acts of violence and vandalism and bigotry and they must be rejected.

Questions?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Did the attorney general mislead the committee regarding his contacts with Russia and should he recuse himself?

RYAN: OK. Two questions. First, I'll refer to the Senate Judiciary Committee. I checked the transcript and all of that. I can't speak to what the judiciary transcript - frankly, I haven't read that. Should he recuse himself? I think he answered that question this morning, which is, if he himself is the subject of an investigation, of course he would. But if he's not, I don't see any purpose or reason to doing this.

Let's take a step back for a second here. Number one, we know that Russia tried to meddle in the election. Why do we know this? Because we in Congress and the intelligence community did an investigation after the election which discovered Russia was trying to meddle in the election. This is something we all well know. Here is another thing. We have seen no evidence from any of these

ongoing investigations that anybody in the Trump campaign or the Trump team was involved in any of this. We've been presented with no evidence that an American was colluding with the Russians to meddle in the election.

This is something we also know. We're still doing investigations. You've got to remember, in the House and in the Senate, the Intelligence Committees have been investigating this. The intelligence community itself, not the committees but the community, did an investigation after the election and gave us the results of that investigation before the inauguration. The House Intelligence Committee just finished coming up with its oversight plan to continue investigations.

We will always make sure that we are making -- that we are protecting our sources and methods and getting to the bottom of a of these things. But we have seen no evidence, been presented with no evidence that anybody on the Trump campaign or an American was involved in colluding with the Russians.

[11:35:34] UNIDENTIFIED REPORT3ER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION) -- information that was coming out about Russia because they believed it influenced the election. Secondarily, that was, A, an effort to keep the story alive because they don't like the outcome of the election, or, B, contributes to what we're seeing now, these inquiries.

RYAN: Yeah, I think part of what is happening, I think Democrats are lighting their hair on fire to get you to cover the story, it keeps repeating the same story. They're trying to get the coverage going. It's nothing new here. This is something we've been investigating. By the way, we'll leave no stone unturned. That's why our Intelligence Committees are conducting the investigation. And that's where it should be conducted, because you have to protect your intelligence-gathering methods, which is why we have Intelligence Committees in the first place.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)

RYAN: I can't speak to what -- I'm not going to speak to the motives of the I.C., the intelligence community. But all I can tell you is, you know this as well, they did an investigation, intelligence community wide, many of us went down and got the briefings from Clapper and Brennan after the election, before the inauguration, and never have we ever seen any evidence presented to us that an American or a person on the Trump campaign was involved or working with the Russians.

Yeah?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The Senate appropriations bill was filed today. Will that go to the president by itself -- (INAUDIBLE)?

RYAN: I would have to defer to the Senate on that one. We're pass that go bill off the floor here in the House. Whether or not they can take it up or they're going to do something with it, merge it with something else, that's more of a Senate question. For Senator McConnell, his problem is calendar. It takes a lot longer to do things over there than it does us. So he's got to manage his calendar. So whether or not that goes separately or is added is something you'll have to ask the Senate.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

RYAN: We're moving it. You already know, we're moving our bill. Are we going to have 11 bills moving? No, for FY17, we don't have that time as well. We're going with defense first. Defense is important. The reason we need to move defense as quickly as possible, is a continuing resolution is uniquely bad for the military, because a continuing resolution for the military, they have to buy exactly what they bought last year, this year. That's not how the military operates. Whether it's munitions, whether it's supplies, they need to have the flexibility through an appropriations bill that you don't have in a continuing resolution to be able to customize what they need, whether it's supplies, munitions, bullets, missiles, you name it.

Someone in the back.

NIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) -- Two questions. One on the attorney general. I want to make sure I understand your position. You're saying there's nothing new here. I understand you're deferring to the committee transcript. But we now know that he did meet with the Russian ambassador. And in addition, he at least implied and some believe he stated that he had not spoken with the Russians. Do you think there's no questions to be asked there?

RYAN: Sure. But -- ask him questions. But honestly, we meet with ambassadors all the time. I did a reception about a hundred yards that way with like a hundred ambassadors last year. I don't even remember all the ones I met with and took pictures with. It's really common for members of Congress to meet with ambassadors. I met with the Indian ambassador yesterday. That kind of thing happens all the time.

As to the rest of it, I would just defer you to Jeff Sessions and the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Yeah?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: On the issue of immigration, there have been reports of immigrants in the country illegally but who are otherwise long-time residents and have been living law-abiding --

(CROSSTALK)

RYAN: You mean don't have criminal backgrounds? Right.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: They're getting caught up in raids. There was a case yesterday of a young dreamer who was arrested and detained right after a press conference where she was speaking with clergy about her concerns about immigration. Is there any role for Congress to check in and take a second look a (INAUDIBLE)? RYAN: Sure. No, no. I think there's always a role for Congress,

under every instance in every administration, to conduct oversight of the executive branch and how they perform in all of these cases. I can tell you this. The priority of the Trump administration, and we've spoken with this, I spoke with Secretary Kelly a couple of days ago about this, is to secure the border, and deport criminal aliens. People who have -- not just here illegally, but people who are here illegally who are violent criminals. That's the goal. Now, you saw this kind of thing happening in the Obama administration as well. Sometimes people slip through the cracks. But the priority and the goal is to not go out there and deport Dreamers. The priority and the goal is to secure the border and deport violent criminals who are making our communities less safe.

Manu?

[11:40:38] MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: If there really is nothing "there" there on the whole Russia issue, why not just allow a special prosecutor to investigate --

RYAN: First of all -- second of all, you have to protect the sources and methods of our intelligence gathering capabilities, especially with adversaries like Russia. That's why the committee of jurisdiction, which is supposed to protect those methodologies, should be the Intelligence Committee. So you know, Manu, they've been doing an investigation for some time now. They just recently added more scope to that investigation on a bipartisan basis. So you have Adam Schiff, the ranking member, Devin Nunes, the chairman, agreeing to the scope of an investigation going forward. That's exactly where, from the Congress' standpoint, that investigation should occur.

Remember, at the end of the day, we have to protect our intelligence assets. We don't want to compromise our sources and methods of getting intelligence from any adversary, let alone Russia.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

RYAN: We don't even have a law.

Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

RYAN: Who are you?

UNIDENTIIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

RYAN: From where?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLWE QUESTION)

RYAN: OK. Sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) -- to investigate the leaks themselves. I'm sure some of my colleagues will be concerned that that would cross the line and will create a degree of insecurity among journalists. Can you talk about how you --

(CROSSTALK)

RYAN: Sure. Leaking classified information is a crime. And if we have evidence that someone in the executive branch is committing a crime, we should prosecute that person.

Yeah?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) -- Republicans and how your office -- (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- I'm wondering, what are you doing to get them on board? (INAUDIBLE)

RYAN: Let me give you a quick refresher of history. We've been running on repealing and replacing Obamacare since 2010. In 2016, the House, in a bottom-up way, set a working group together, the Commerce Committee, the ways and means committee, the Education Workforce Committee, and any member of Congress who cares about this issue participated in a working group to come up with a plan to what to place Obamacare with. Much of it was modelled off the Tom Price legislation, which we in conservatives have always seen as the gold standard for replacing Obamacare. He's now the secretary of HHS. That is the bill, the plan that we ran on in 2016. We told America, here is our vision for how we replace Obamacare after we repeal Obamacare. That's the bill we're working on right now. That's the bill we're working on with the Trump administration. We're all working off the same piece of paper, the same plan. So we are in sync. The House, the Senate, and the Trump administration. Because this law is collapsing. And you can't just repeal it. You have to repeal it and replace it with a system that actually works. And that is exactly what we're doing. I am perfectly confident that when it's all said and done, we're going to unify, because we all, every Republican ran on repealing and replacing, and we're going to keep our promises.

Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: All right. House Speaker Paul Ryan speaking there with reporters, getting a lot of questions, of course, on what he thinks about the situation right now with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Paul Ryan is not in the category of calling for Jeff Sessions' recusal yet, at least. He says if Jeff Sessions is the subject of an investigation, then he would be in the area of wanting him to recuse. And Paul Ryan saying, right now, he doesn't see that.

A lot of people here to discuss this.

Let me bring in David Drucker, congressional correspondent for "The Washington Examiner."

Paul Ryan seems to be trying to put the brakes on this, David. What's the message from Paul Ryan? DAVID DRUCKER, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:

The message is they have big things to work on with the Trump administration. I don't think they want distractions. They've got health care reform, tax reform. They don't want to instigate or provoke the Trump administration. I do think Republicans believe that a lot of this is hyperventilating by Democrats who naturally want to try and trip up Trump any way they can. Now, Jeff Sessions' contacts with the Russian ambassador, not disclosing it, now it coming out, of course gives them ammunition to do so. But it's not in Speaker Ryan's interests politically and from a policy standpoint to give this oxygen by jumping in and inflaming things by calling for Jeff Sessions to recuse himself.

[11:45:34] BOLDUAN: Amanda, you've had a lot to say about this today, drawing from your experience on Capitol Hill. When you look at it, when you've got -- if Jason Chaffetz and Al Franken are in agreement, it seems like that's going to be a bad day four you. What do you think about this?

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Recusal was always going to happen. The letter of the law is clear. Someone involved in a campaign can't investigate that campaign. Here is why I am troubled by this. This should be something that's relatively easy to clean up. If Jeff Sessions didn't talk about the election with the Russian ambassador, tell us what you talked about. Did you talk about the Iran deal? Did you talk about sanctions? You have to tell us what you talked about. This should be an easy cleanup.

But beyond that, I am uncomfortable with the fact that Jeff Sessions did not disclose a meeting with a known Russian spy. Rather than asking other Senators on the Hill do you think he should be recused, I think they should be asked, are you comfortable that he hosted a private session with a known Russian spy and wasn't forthcoming with it. That's what I am concerned about at this moment.

BOLDUAN: Kirstin, what do you make of this? You now have Republicans in conflict with Republicans about this. Paul Ryan, he's thoughtful in his process in what he's trying to say, but you have Lindsey Graham, Rob Portman, equally as thoughtful, when they say it's a no- brainer that he should recuse. They don't say he should resign but they think he should recuse.

KIRSTIN POWER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: The writing is on the wall, a lot of Republicans say, just recuse yourself and we can move on. He should have already been recusing himself, as Amanda said. For a person so intertwined with Trump --

BOLDUAN: It's not admitting guilt.

POWER: Exactly.

BOLDUAN: It's saying I was part of a campaign that is under investigation.

POWER: Exactly. If he would just do that, people would try to move on. It's a fair criticism that Democrats are trying to politicize this, no question.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: They went from recuse to resign in a hot second.

POWER: And "lying," Nancy Pelosi went right guy to "lying," that goes to intent. Jeff Sessions in many ways is the intellectual godfather of the Trump apparatus. So to take him out would be a very big deal. Democrats also have a lot of other issues with him anyway. That doesn't mean they don't have a good argument. But we have to be risk that this is political.

BOLDUAN: Kayleigh, I assume at the very least you want the story to go away. This is taking from the glowing reviews of President Trump's speech. I mean, Sean Spicer did an interview with FOX, and they're defending Jeff Sessions, saying Sessions was 100 percent straight with the committee and people are choosing to play partisan politics with this. What do you want to see happen here with Jeff Sessions?

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I agree with Speaker Paul Ryan. If he becomes the subject of an investigation, then he absolutely should recuse himself. And I think Speaker Ryan said something very significant --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Do you think other Republicans are jumping the gun? Because other Republicans are saying, short of being subject of a probe, he should still recuse.

MCENANY: I do think they are jumping the gun, and for Democrats, Loretta Lynch did not recuse herself when she met on the plane --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: She took herself out of the decision-making process.

MCENANY: She did not recuse herself. They gave her a lot of leeway. Now they're jumping the gun on Jeff Sessions before the facts come out. Let's wait for more facts to come out. Republicans who have called for recusal are jumping the gun.

BOLDUAN: What do you make of this, Paul? Where is the law and where is this more politics here?

PAUL CALLEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: We have to start by saying making out a perjury charge against anybody is a very, very difficult thing.

BOLDUAN: Because?

CALLEN: Because you have to establish that there was an intent to lie and that the lie was regarding a material fact being investigated by Congress. Now, Senator Franken, I guess this is kind of an example of why standup comedians shouldn't do cross examination. (CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: He's a smart guy.

CALLEN: A good prosecutor would have followed up and pinned Sessions down. He gave a vague answer. You want to pin him down if you want to nail him for perjury. Instead, Franken moved on to another subject.

Now, Senator Leahy, in soliciting a written response from Sessions, who is a former prosecutor, was a lot more specific and did pin Sessions down, and Sessions said he had no contact with the Russians regarding the 2016 election. But I think, nonetheless, it's a difficult perjury indictment.

However, on this issue of recusing yourself, this is clear as day. What's being investigated are contacts between surrogates of the Trump campaign effort and the Russians.

(CROSSTALK)

[11:50:04] CALLAN: And he says I'm a surrogate for Trump. And now we know he had contact. He is the subject of the investigation. That's automatic recusal under the lawyers' code of professional responsibility that he is bound by as attorney general.

BOLDUAN: Matt Miller, you are a former spokesman for the Justice Department under the Obama administration. What do you -- respond to what we're hearing from Republicans, though. No matter where they are on recusal, Democrats are trying to churn this up. That's what Paul Ryan was saying this is being churned up by Democrats who are hyperventilating. And this is hysteria, is how one Republican said it this morning, from Tom Cole. What do you say to that? Are Democrats going too far?

MATT MILLER, FORMER SPOKESMAN, U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: Democrats are concerned and are expressing them. This wouldn't keep being a news story if Trump administration officials didn't continue to mislead Congress, the press, the public. This keeps coming back into the public eye. This thing with Sessions today. Had he just disclosed he met with a Russian official, that wouldn't have been such a big story, although it is odd, he's the only member of the Armed Services Committee to have done so.

I can tell you, I've done a lot of these hearings with attorney general holder and others, they would have been expecting that question, prepped for that question and for him to give that answer when he knew it was coming, leads you to believe he's likely misleading the committee. Even if you give him the benefit of the doubt and say he wasn't thinking in that context.

When they got the written question follow-up, that was the time to clean it up. It's the kind of question heavily vetted. Look at the schedules. Make sure that answer is bulletproof. And they came back and said no again. You can say that Democrats are trying to make hay of this, but the facts are the facts and they are very, very difficult for the attorney general.

BOLDUAN: Specifically, the question in the written testimony has to do with, did -- was there a discussion of the campaign? Was the campaign discussed in the election discussed in those conversations? What was discussed in those conversations is, of course, a big part of this.

David, where does this go from here? You have Paul Ryan as you said, as we were discussing. He's saying slow down, guys. Other Republicans who aren't. Republicans like Jason Chaffetz who would have some -- could investigate some of this if he did recuse. A lot of Democrats saying if he recuses is he going to have to investigate him for perjury. What do they do?

DRUCKER: The Intelligence Committees are looking into this. Just yesterday -- and it's been overshadowed -- the House Intelligence Committee on a bipartisan basis laid out its parameters for now it's going to investigate Russia as it relates to the election. I think that, overtime, if the Trump administration and the president really wanted to get out in front of this and tamp down not the information won't continue to leak and the reporting would stop. But if Trump would start jawboning Putin and treating him like he treats China and some other U.S. Adversaries and if the administration would take steps to show that they weren't apologizing for Russia or excusing their bad behavior in the Middle East, or Europe and the Ukraine, I think that it would stop fueling this idea that somehow Donald Trump has a soft spot for Vladimir Putin. Because this, Kate, goes all the way back to the Republican primary when Donald Trump decided to apologize for Putin's bad behavior in a way we've never seen from a Republican. I feel that is underlined everything about this issue that we continue to see.

BOLDUAN: Amanda, in terms of tamping things down, that's one issue you've got here. What you're saying is, Amanda, where is -- where is Jeff Sessions on this? He made the statement this morning. If you can clear it up, clarify, why hasn't he done it yet?

CARPENTER: That's a big question. To me, he is surrounded. He is a lawyer. He is surrounded by very smart, high-powered lawyers in this capacity as attorney general but also as a former Senator. Like Matt Miller was saying, all this material should have been vetted. There are people that not only had access to this information. There are people who knew this meeting happened. I've worked in the Senate office. If a Russian ambassador, if someone comes in for a private meeting, there's lots of other people on staff that know about it.

I think that Sessions was going to have to ultimately talk about how this meeting came about. Who initiated it? On what terms? If he is a Russian spy, what was he doing there because --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Even if he just clarifies it, I feel the need to say, as a Senator, having a meeting with an ambassador, regardless of what country you're from, that is not wrong.

CARPENTER: Absolutely. That's why this should be so easy to explain. They could have been talking about the Iran deal. But to say there's nothing co campaign related in September doesn't pass the smell test. The biggest things happening at that moment had to do with the leaks that was directly related to the campaign. It would be odd if it didn't come up in some way, that they didn't talk about that question.

I'm going to keep going back to the fact that if our government recognizes this person as a spy, what were they doing meeting, and why did he not talk about it? Because spying isn't some clandestine thing all the time. Sometimes they just want to get inside a Senate office and collect information and see what staffers are doing. It isn't this high-level thing. I find that very problematic. And I cannot believe that the Sessions team is not more out in front of this and is letting this story get more and more air because it's going to eat him alive before the end of the day.

[11:55:44] BOLDUAN: I'm getting this in from the control room right now that we've got Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, she was, in a series of tweets, speaking out this morning. She's now trying to clarify some discrepancies in that series of tweets she sent out about this issue, the Attorney General Jeff Sessions. It started with this one. We'll put it up. She tweeted this this morning, "I've been on the Armed Services Committee for 10 years. No call or meet with Russian ambassador ever. Ambassadors call members of Foreign Relations Committee."

People quickly pointed to this tweet in 2013 where she mentions going to a meet with the Russian ambassador. Ms. McCaskill responded a short time ago saying she was in a group of Senators when she spoke with the Russian ambassador a few years about the Iran deal. She's also blaming the character limit tweet, saying "140 characters are tough. The word "from" should have been in there but I don't have room." That's another tweet she put out.

But she's still insisting she never had a one-on-one meet with the Russian ambassador.

That was a big lead-up. But can I just say, speaking to Senators -- they can meet with the Russian ambassador.

POWER: They can. "The Washington Post" reached out to the all 26 members of the committee and asked them if -- the Armed Services Committee.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: 20 came back.

POWER: 20 came back and zero had met with the Russian ambassador. And considering what was going on in the news and the allegations that were made and the fact they looked like they were interfering with our election, it makes it a little stranger and he probably would be something he would remember, I would think. So that's the problem.

And the other thing, McCaskill, that's very embarrassing what happened but it was a meeting four years ago, not in the last year which is what we're talking about. It's a lot easier to forget a meeting four years ago than to forget a meeting that just happened in the last year. BOLDUAN: We want to continue the conversation. I just want to point

out to our viewers, what you are seeing on the screen is President Trump leaving marine one at Joint Base Andrews. He is going to be heading to Virginia where he's going to be promoting his agenda that he laid out in his speech that seems so long ago now. He's going to be talking about building up the military. We are watching this. Of course, we'll bring live coverage of that event when he lands in Virginia and takes -- and begins to speak.

This reminds me, Kayleigh, again, of what I was just asking you about. The White House is defending Jeff Sessions. I assume President Trump does not enjoy when a story like this, a problem with anyone in his cabinet, his attorney general, is stealing the spotlight. What should the White House do right now?

MCENANY: Of course, he doesn't like it. And I think the Trump administration has to be so careful because Democrats are going to use any gap in the facts or in this case, a vagueness in a response during Congressional testimony to insert suspicion and to try to take over the narrative of the day. So what I would advise the administration to do is, as Amanda said, get Jeff Sessions out there. Let him tell his side of the story. There is more context to this. The first meeting happened at a Heritage Foundation event. Many other ambassadors there. They talked in passing. He would point to the fact Joe Manchin met with an ambassador. Mike Rogers said he met with the same Russian ambassador.

If you get out in front of it, as Amanda suggested, and give context to it, your side of the story is on the record and it doesn't appear you're hiding behind some shroud of secrecy.

BOLDUAN: Matt, as someone who worked in the Justice Department, what is it like with that kind of -- I'm not going to call it a cloud or, any but with this happening if you working at the Justice Department. What does it do to the folks there?

MILLER: It's tough. It's very hard. It consumes the attorney general's office and it consumes every senior person inside the Justice Department, which is why for Sessions' own good, he needs to get out of this investigation as soon as possible. He ought to recuse. Let the deputy attorney general appoint a special counsel that takes it out of the entire chain of command. Until he does, this will be a cloud over his head. He won't get questions on anything else until he gets himself out of the middle of this investigation.

BOLDUAN: All right, guys thank you so much. We're going to be watching.

Again, we have President Trump, he will be speaking in Virginia. We'll bring that live event to you when it begins.

That's it for AT THIS HOUR. Take a look at Air Force One there.

"Inside Politics" with John King starts right now.

[12:00:05] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news. JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Kate.

Welcome to "Inside Politics." I'm John King. Thanks for sharing your day with us.

Day 42 of the Trump administration --