From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is the day.

Today, the Times is reporting that President Trump tried to have special counsel Robert Mueller

fired until his own lawyer threatened to quit. And Senator Chuck Schumer on entering

another round of negotiations with a White House that he said is like negotiating with

Jello. It's Friday, January 26th.

Hi. How's that water siphon going?

You're good. You must work in audio. You come here often.

Every day. Really? Yeah. Around this time.

Mike Schumer covers national security for the times.

So Michael, what is the latest in a special counsel investigation?

In June, as the Mueller investigation was intensifying and it was becoming increasingly clear

to the president that his own conduct in office may be in question. He turned to the White

House Council, Don McGann, and told him to fire Mueller. Wow.

This is the first time that we've learned that the president actually followed through

and tried to get rid of the special counsel.

And when you say, follow through, I'm assuming you mean follow through with what we all thought

was his desire, his intention, his maybe wish to not have a special counsel.

For a long time, we've heard about the president telling his friends and his advisors about

how he wants to get rid of Mueller. But we never knew that he actually tried to do it.

But that's what happened in June. The president claimed that Mueller had a series of conflict

of interest issues that made him unable to oversee the investigation of Russian meddling

in the election and whether the president had obstructed justice.

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