Labor pick Puzder drops out; Trump slams leaks over Russia contact reports

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• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  President Trump's Cabinet in the making is reeling tonight from another body blow.

  Andrew Puzder withdrew today as the nominee for labor secretary, two days after National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigned under fire.

  Our Lisa Desjardins is at the Capitol, where she's been covering this story.

  Lisa, what happened?

• LISA DESJARDINS:

  Well, it was Republicans. They didn't have enough Republican votes to pass this confirmation — to have this confirmation happen. And it was fast-moving today, Judy.

  Just this morning, John Cornyn, who is in charge of the vote counting for Republicans here, told reporters he will be confirmed. Just hours later, they didn't have the votes. Why?

  I spoke to one of the senators, Jeff Flake, who wasn't yet a yes vote, and he said the main problem was Puzder's revelation that he had hired an undocumented worker and had failed to pay back taxes until he was nominated. Flake told me, Judy, for a labor secretary, you just can't ignore that.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  So, Lisa, with Puzder now out of the picture, we're hearing from Republicans, from the White House that they think Democrats are slow-rolling all the rest of the president's Cabinet nominees. Where does all that stand?

• LISA DESJARDINS:

  That's right. This is the slowest confirmation process in history, but Democrats point out that, in fact, many of Trump's nominees did not get their paperwork in as quickly as in the past.

  Let's look at where we are right now in the general. So far, the Senate has confirmed 12 of President Trump's Cabinet nominees. One has been withdrawn, as we mentioned, Mr. Puzder tonight. Judy, that leaves eight more Cabinet nominees waiting in line to go through the Senate.

  The next one is (AUDIO GAP). There was a hiccup on Mick Mulvaney just today, as Senator John McCain of Arizona said he, a Republican, will oppose him. Looks like he will have the votes, but that's not something — they want all the Republicans on board his nomination. They don't have them.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  So, Lisa, we know that's not the only set of issues that's roiling Congress right now. The aftermath of the departure of General Flynn at the White House is certainly still drawing reaction.

  What are you hearing about that?

• LISA DESJARDINS:

  Another wild day. Until just three hours ago, the main issue dominating the news up here on Capitol Hill about the Trump White House was Russia.

  After a tumultuous 24 hours, President Trump ignored reported contacts between campaign advisers and Russian intelligence. Instead, at a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he went after the media and those giving the media information.

• PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:

  Papers are being leaked. Things are being leaked. It's criminal actions, criminal act, and it's been going on for a long time — before me. But now it's really going on, and people are trying to cover up for a terrible loss that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton.

• LISA DESJARDINS:

  Meanwhile, Mr. Trump also defended ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The initial concern surrounded Flynn's phone calls with Russia's ambassador last year, but after revelations that he misled the White House about those calls, Flynn was forced out this week.

• PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:

  I think he's been treated very, very unfairly by the media — as I call it, the fake media, in many cases. And I think it's really a sad thing that he was treated so badly.

• LISA DESJARDINS:

  The president got no direct questions during the news conference about the new turn in the story, and ignored shouted questions afterward.

• QUESTION:

  Mr. President. can you guarantee that nobody on your campaign had any contacts with the Russians? Mr. President, any questions on Russia?

• LISA DESJARDINS:

  That followed a report in The New York Times that aides working in the Trump campaign had — quote — "repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election."

  Reporter Matt Apuzzo worked on that story.

• MATT APUZZO, The New York Times:

  It's really the volume of those calls that really caught U.S. intelligence by surprise, because they didn't see anything like that in other countries. And, of course, it's the timing that's the issue. Is there collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russia hacking efforts?

  They don't have evidence to back up, you know, any charges of collusion.

• LISA DESJARDINS:

  While the White House said relatively little, Capitol Hill was abuzz. Democratic senators canceled their schedules to hold a quickly convened meeting. Their leaders emerged calling for an independent counsel at the Justice Department.

• SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER, D-N.Y., Minority Leader:

  And the reports of constant contact between the top officials in the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence are chilling. I have been in Congress for a long time. I have never seen anything like this.

• LISA DESJARDINS:

  Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is pushing for three things: preservation of all White House e-mails and records dealing with Russia, public testimony by Trump officials like Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, and for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a top Trump supporter in the campaign, to recuse himself from any Russia-related probe.

• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi:

• REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-Calif., House Minority Leader:

  It just points to the need for us to have an outside independent commission, nonpartisan commission outside, with subpoena power to find the truth and what this means to our national security. The president is flirting with danger.

• LISA DESJARDINS:

  Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers are watching closely. Senator Lindsey Graham told FOX News today that, if there were inappropriate contacts, Congress should launch a bipartisan investigation.

  For now, Republican leaders are signaling they don't want any new investigations. On MSNBC, House Speaker Paul Ryan endorsed the Intelligence Committee investigations already under way.

  REP. PAUL RYAN, R-Wis., Speaker of the House: Russia has been trying to meddle with our country in our last elections. That's established. We know that. No one has — no one has made evidence, no one has made the claim that evidence exists that Donald Trump or his people were in on it, were involved in that.

• LISA DESJARDINS:

  The issue is made more difficult for Republicans by the large number of unknowns and unanswered questions about relationships between Russia and the Trump world.

  Again, Matt Apuzzo of The New York Times:

• MATT APUZZO:

  Was anybody in Trump world aware of or colluding with Russian efforts to hack Hillary's advisers or the DNC and influence the election? What were these people talking to senior Russian intelligence authorities about? Were they knowingly talking to people in the intelligence world?

  One of them, Paul Manafort, told us he never knowingly spoke to anybody in Russian intelligence, and said, you know, it's not like these guys are wearing badges.

• LISA DESJARDINS:

  As for the Kremlin, Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters today, "Let's not believe anonymous information."

  Now, there does seem to be some potential bipartisan agreement. Senators, Democratic and Republican, that we talked to today seem to agree that they want to have Michael Flynn come to the Capitol to testify in public.

  When could that happen? I asked Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, and he said he hasn't been invited yet because — quote — "We don't even know what we would ask him yet" — Judy.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  All right, Lisa Desjardins at the Capitol.

  Meanwhile, our own John Yang is at the White House.

  Now, John, it was noted — and Lisa just reported this — the president today, when asked about Michael Flynn, went out of his way to praise this man who essentially he just fired yesterday, and we were told he'd lost faith in him.

• JOHN YANG:

  That's right, Judy.

  He made it sound as if the press had fired him. And Sean Spicer, the press secretary, said that there's no contradiction between admiring a man who served his country in the military, but losing trust in him.

  He also went after the media, calling it fake news. We asked Sean Spicer, if it hadn't been for the stories, would Michael Flynn still be in the job? He said no, because he had misled the vice president, never mind that the vice president only learned about that from reading it in the newspapers.

  Asked what was fake about the stories, Sean Spicer responded, "I will have to get back to you on that."

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Now, John, we know separately that — now I'm trying to remember what you and I were going to talk about — separately — oh, I know — about the successor to General Flynn. What you have learned about that?

• JOHN YANG:

  Indications are that the leading contender is former Vice Admiral Bob Harward. He's a former Navy SEAL. He was a deputy to the current defense secretary, James Mattis, when then-General Mattis ran Central Command for President Obama.

  I'm told that an announcement could come as soon as the end of this week.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  John Yang reporting for us from the White House, thank you.