Transcript for Sasse: 'A lot that's troubling' about Comey firing, Russia meeting

senator Ben sasse. He's just related a book, the fannishing American adult. First, the news of the week. You heard general Mcmaster right there. His reaction to the meeting with the Russians. Where the president was apparently freelancing when he talked about James Comey and said the pressure was off after he fired them. Was it appropriate for the president to talk to the Russians about that? Well, I mean, let's be clear. Obviously, we don't have aligned interests with Russia. Putin in particular is an enemy of free spech, religion, press, assembly. He's the enemy of many things at the beating heart of American. We have to be clear we don't have lined interests with Russia. There's a lot in the last segment that is encouraging for the people of America. General Mcmaster is a special guy. The president should be applauded for having him in place. I heard most of your segment. He said the biggest problem between U.S. And Russian relations is Russian behavior. That's a good thing to have the administration acknowledges. I agree. It sounded like the president didn't confront Russia on the election interference. This was the first meeting with high level Russian officials. Yeah, no, clearly, we need to know a lot more about what happened in 2016. Russia has bad motives toward the U.S. Past, present, and future. We need to know more about 2016. And the American people should applaud the appointment of Bob Mueller this week as special counsel. We need to look to the future. What comes next in 2018 and 2020 is more aggressive Russian behavior. Augmented by technology. We, the American people, in the legislative and executive branches, need to be confronting the challenge we face from Russia as we go forward and see the investigation play out about last cycle. It's been a remarkable ten days of news coming out of the white house, since the president fired James Comey. Reports that the president asked Comey dpr a loyalty pledge in January. In February, he told Comey he hopes he'll close the Flynn investigation. The firing of Comey, saying Russia was on his mind. He tells the Russians the pressure is off the next day. When you put that all together, you see that pattern, what does it tell you? Yeah, I mean, there's obviously a lot that is troubling about that. There's a lot that we don't know yet. I want to underscore how good it is for America that Bob Mueller has this position. This is a decorated marine, through to U.S. Attorney, to head of the criminal division, to bipartisan applauded head of the FBI for 12 years. Lots of good stuff for the American people to put hope in. Frankly, we all need to be looking forward to the task of trying to rebuild trust in a lot of these institutions. The FBI doesn't take loyalty pledges to a individual. The FBI is a special institution that is supposed to be defending the American constitution by letting investigative paths go where they lead and obviously, when you're an agent at the bureau, all the way up to the director of the bureau, you don't take a loyalty pledge. That's a specific agency that has really hard job. We need the American people to know they can trust the FBI in the future. Everybody needs to take it upon themselves to say what am I doing now to advance the ability of the American people to trust in that. You to think the president is is doing that? You're a Republican. You made no secret dug the opposition to candidate trump. You said he displayed no understanding at the time of our constitutional system. Are the fears you expressed in the campaign playing out now? Listen, the problems that we face in terms of not having a shared understanding of why America has limited government and what the constitutional structure of checks and balances are supposed to protect, that not just a problem in the last four months. Not in the last 18 months. We have had an erosion of an understanding of basic American sif IX for decades. I am concerned that now, there is not enough long-term thinking about how to restore an understanding of the American structure of government. I wish everybody in government, including in particular the president, would spend a lot more time and energy saying five and ten years from now, am I going to have contributed to a world where American kids understand why the first amendment is so glorious? Because right now, there's a ton of data. Our kids don't understand it. We're not teaching them. That starts all across the federal government. No one is doing enough to restore that. That's one of the things you write about in your new book, "The vanishing American you adult." I have to you have toughen up my kids more. Listen, we have far too many of our kids that are stuck in a state of perpetual adolescence right now. That's more our fault than theirs. We're not doing enough to celebrate scar tissue together. Our kids have huge potential. They're going to have a demand, a necessary necessity of becoming more resilient than the generations before them. They're entering an economy where they're likely going to get disintermediated out of their job and firm but out of their entire industry. That's never happened before in human history. We have to build a civilization of life long learners. At the same time as we should be toughening our kids up, we're trying to bubble-wrap them too much. A lot should be happening as our kids come of age that right now we're not spending enough time attentive to habit formation for our kids. This is a constructive book. It's about one-third stage setting. To the degree there's blame to be laid, it's on we, the parents and grandparents who are not attentive enough to what experiences are formative to our kids. I have to share a tweet. You and senator Schumer. You were just coming out of the gym. You said it looks like senator Schumer and I are smoking reefer outside a wedding. A joke. One of the things you have talk about. You have compared Washington to a kiddie soccer game. No cooperation across party lines. Some are saying now is the time to abandon the partisan effort on health care and work toward a bipartisan proposal. Is that the right way? Let's say a prior point first. When I say Washington is like kiddie soccer is, there's a whole bunch of frenzy. And almost never strategy. The American people don't really know what the priority set is for Washington. I'm the third or fourth most conservative guy by voting record in the senate. I'm not making an argument for a mushy middle. I'm saying how do we priority advertise what core issues we should be focused on for 5, 10, 15 years from now. This city is obsessed with short-termism. I think it's clear that the 5, 10, 15-year agenda for America should be that WRE we create a health care system where the American people can buy the policy they want and take it with them. I think Obamacare right now exacerbates more problem than it sols. We Republicans need to admit that the American health care system wasn't doing what it needed to do preobama care. The problems didn't originate there. As we transition to a more mobile, portable economy, the American people need to be able to buy a policy that goes with them. Right now, Washington is not focused on that. It's more shirts and skins exercise on who wants to be more for or against Obamacare. The challenge is longer term than that. Senator sasse, Su for joining us. Thanks for being in Nebraska, George.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.