Kelly Considered Quitting over Comey Firing, Los Angeles to Host Olympic Games.
HARLOW: Exclusive new details this morning about White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. Sources tell CNN Kelly was so upset by how President Trump handling the firing of FBI Director James Comey, he actually called Comey and told him that he was considering resigning over it.</s>BERMAN: All right, let's bring is CNN's Shimon Prokupecz, who broke this story. And, Shimon, this is really interesting, this phone call after Comey was fired.</s>SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes. So this dates back to May 9th, when Comey, obviously, was fired. The day he was fired he was in Los Angeles speaking to FBI agents at a scheduled meeting. And it's when he first learns, you know, watching the news in this room that he's in, that he's been fired. So, you know, they kind of get their act together and then they leave. And while he's on his way back to Washington, we've been told by at least -- by two sources that he gets a phone call from John Kelly, who was the head of Homeland Security at the time, basically expressing his outrage at what Trump did and how he fired him. There was a lot of talk about how angry he was, the frustration he felt in the way the president fired Comey. And then, during the conversation, we're told, that Kelly even suggested, perhaps, quitting, resigning from the top job at the Homeland Security, and we're told Comey kind of calmed him down saying, you know, this is not necessary. But the sense that everyone sort of -- who is familiar with this conversation got was that, you know, Kelly wanted to do this kind of in solidarity, to show his support for Comey.</s>HARLOW: What's interesting is the two were not particularly close. These are not like best buds from way back in the day.</s>PROKUPECZ: Right.</s>HARLOW: But they had a deep, mutual respect for one another.</s>PROKUPECZ: Yes, that's exactly right. So they developed this relationship working together basically. You know, he's the FBI director, Comey, Homeland Security. They worked together on terrorism cases, cyber cases.</s>HARLOW: Yes.</s>PROKUPECZ: So there was a mutual respect for each other. It did catch us by surprise when we learned of this because we -- no one certainly expected this. And certainly now that he's, you know, the chief of staff over at the White House, it's very interesting.</s>BERMAN: Well, look, because it begs the question, does the new White House chief of staff not think that the various investigations into possible collusion with Russia, does he not think they are a witch hunt like his boss, the president of the United States, does?</s>PROKUPECZ: Right. Right. I mean that certainly does. I mean he clearly believed what happened to Comey here and how he was fired was wrong, and he expressed it.</s>BERMAN: Fascinating. All right, Shimon Prokupecz, thank you so much for that report. You know, it got lost a little bit over the last 24 hours in a lot of the things going on because there has been a lot going on.</s>PROKUPECZ: Yes.</s>BERMAN: Thanks, Shimon.</s>PROKUPECZ: Sure.</s>HARLOW: What are you doing in like 11 years? The Summer Olympics are coming back to the United States. It took a lot of wheeling and dealing, though, to get this done. We'll explain. A live report from Los Angeles is next.