Transcripts For CNNW CNN Tonight With Don Lemon 20180301

Jared kushner, the president s soninlaw, his Senior Adviser got big loans for his Family Business after he met with top wall street executives at the white house. Thats according to the New York Times. Kushner also described as acting paranoid. A cnn source says he feels everyone is out to get him after losing his top secret security clearance. And in the middle of his pitch battle with chief of staff john kelly. A white house insider saying the president is increasingly frustrated with all the enemies general kelly is making. And also the latest crisis of the president s own making. The president s public shaming of his own handpicked attorney general. The president tweeting today, why is ag Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive fisa abuse, will take forever. Has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on comey, et cetera. Isnt the i. G. An obama guy . Why not use Justice Department lawyers . Disgraceful. To answer questions, Michael Horowitz is investigating because thats his job, and none of this is really what the president is steamed about. Thats not what hes steamed about. He continues to blame Jeff Sessions for the Mueller Investigation. And now tonight we have learned mueller is looking into exactly why trump wanted to oust sessions last summer. And here we go again. News that on any other night would be our top story. President trump holds a live televised meeting and ends up sounding an awful lot like a democrat. Calling for a ban on bump stocks, strengthening background checks and raising the age of gun purchases from 18 to 21. Remember when gun advocates loved to say, obama wants to take away your guns. Now trump actually does. Listen. Take the firearms first, and then go to court. A lot of times by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court to get the due process procedures, i like taking the guns early. So a recap just on the open of this show, bombshell resignations, white house infighting, guns, all of that and its only wednesday. Lets bring in senior White House Correspondent jeff zeleny. Jeff, where do we start . The white house under a barrage of bad headlines tonight. Whats the latest . Don, certainly a busy day on a variety of fronts here at the white house, as you covered there. There was this dramatic session in the cabinet room of the white house this afternoon that seemed to really be the driving story of the day here, if you will, with the president having this session with democrats and republicans sitting down trying to broker a deal on guns. He said, do not be petrified by the nra, he said now is the time to do something. Literally minutes after that meeting broke up, news came from the white house that hope hicks, the Communications Director, one of the closest advisers to the president , said she was resigning, so, of course, that in some ways overshadowed that entire nra meeting, again, this morning, the president going after his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, once again. Which has become this repeated series of events here, always going after Jeff Sessions, who was, of course, an early supporter, early adviser on the campaign, so, don, as we end a busy wednesday here, the white house still pushing guns, but there is this staff shakeup, this resignation that is different than all the others, weve been through this before, weve been here before saying this person resigned, that person resigned, hope hicks is different, don. Who has five Communications Directors in just over a year. I mean, i hate to laugh. Its not its laughable. I just cannot who could believe this . Its even more than that, yesterday the title of Communications Director, but it is much more than that. Hope hicks was more than a Communications Director. She was the trump whisperer, she understood him, and she in many respects, her voice was not known outside. We see a lot of people on sunday talk shows, we see them advising president s and sort of out here on the lawn giving interviews, this was not hope hicks. But her voice inside was very loud and very clear. She was involved in virtually every big story the president was involved in, every big speech. She traveled with him. And im remembering tonight, thinking back to a trip last july when the president was flying back from hamburg, germany, the g20 back here to washington, hope hicks was on that plane, i was on that plane as a Pool Reporter after this long foreign trip. That was the time we didnt know it at the moment, where they were devising the Communications Strategy for that trump tower meeting from 2016. Hope hicks was in the room as they were talking about, wait, this wasnt about adoptions for russia, it was about dirt on Hillary Clinton. So that i was thinking about that again today, hope hicks was present for every station of this situation, which is one of the reasons she spent eight hours yesterday before the house intelligence committee. She spent two days before bob muellers team at the end of last year, so all that builds up to is it why she resigned today . We dont know. She said she wanted to pursue other opportunities, but, don, i can tell you, there was a Ripple Effect that was felt here. I was told that people were crying when she was saying she was leaving. She is a force here in the white house that will be leaving in the coming weeks, and my question, how will the president deal without this aide next to him being caught this was a bigger deal than without a lot of these other resignations. Without his trump whisperer as she is called. I want to bring in chris alizza. Joshua green, cnn political analyst and cnn political analyst april ryan and ryan lizza. So, chris, you know, its interesting when he talks about her being the trump whisperer. And shes been will for him. She was very low key. I remember inauguration night was the first time i ever met her and heard her name besides reading it on a statement from the white house. She was not very visible. You dont know hope hicks . I said, no, i dont know hope hicks. But youre not buying her resignation, are you . First, to your first point about her low profile, to go from Anthony Scaramucci to hope hicks, literally the biggest contrast in profile you could ever have. No, jeff touched on this, she said she told Maggie Haberman or aides told maggie that she left because this was the perfect time to leave. Its the opposite of the perfect time to leave. You just went through the number of stories, don. Thats just today. And really thats just this afternoon. Yeah. Because yesterday a similar open to the show, there was so much news, four or five stories, either of which could have been the big story or the only other story. And would have been in any other administration. So to me her leaving now, a day after the testimony in the house intelligence committee, a few weeks after the whole security clearance issue with rob porter who she was romantically linked. Shes leaving at a time when donald trump is increasingly isolated, has fewer and fewer of that core group that he started with. Let me ask you this, then why would he berate her after her testimony, because she said she told white lies. I want to say that was trending because they do matter. If you lie about little things, you know how that ends. Yes. My guess is, because he was upset at her because he is smart enough to understand that it is very hard for a Communications Person whose job is to deal with the media to be saying, well, yeah, i mean, i tell some things that arent true. Its nothing substantive. How do we know what to believe . Credibilitywise, youre left in a lurch. Trump himself adheres to the roy kohn standard of always attack, never admit any wrongdoing. Trump himself will never admit hes lied, never apologized, and he expects that from his staff too. April, this is your beat, what are you hearing . Im hearing she was forced to resign, that she and general kelly yeah, i mean, no surprise. That she and general kelly have not been seeing eye to eye particularly since this rob porter issue. When she wrote that statement about rob porter and his leaving and what was going on, and my sources are telling me that she had she delivered a tentative resignation at that time, but they said, stay, you have some more things you have to do, youve got these hearings, so stay. Yesterday was the nail in the coffin, that white lie was the nail in the coffin for the president and the administration. So whats next, we dont know, but we do know that this white house is trying to act like everything is okay. We know that everything is not okay because they knew this was coming, they purposefully strategically cancelled a briefing today, because they were fearful we would get information about this and Start Talking about it to overshadow the gun issue, the other story. Well, one of the other stories of the day. So this has been a very interesting day, we have to see how it plays out. But hope hicks is leaving. But the president has other people in the administration that he can definitely have as a whisperer. I said it before, kellyanne, when the president gets in hot water on the twitter, kellyanne says, sir, how can i help you meaning, how can i help you fix this . The president , he likes people one minute, but once they do something, hell throw them away for a minute. Then they start calling him on his cell phone and theyre friends again. Well see what happens. How do you fix this was a hard blow. How do you fix that, because one of the people you mentioned, there are others, theyre so gaffe prone, how do you fix something . Sometimes they try to fix it, and they end up making it worse, at least hope hicks was not enamored by cameras and fame. She was the Perfect Communications director. Everyone else who seems to be in those roles want to be they never met a green room they didnt like. They never the roughest place, the most dangerous place to be was between them and a camera. Even still. I dont know how theyre going to fix it, because they often end up shes now sick of washington. Shes now sick of washington, because shes been the eye of the storm at least three times. And so young, this is not what she signed up for. She signed up originally to work with ivanka trump and her fashion line. Let me bring in ryan. Remember when President Trump lashed out at john kelly, and kelly told other white house staff that in his 35 years of military service, he had never been spoken to like that, and we have seen this story before, this time it looks like its a dramatic consequence. Well, i mean, sometimes it feels like half of white house reporting is just about who trump is mad at that day. Right . Every senior white house official goes through some cycle of, you know, trump venting at them, so that was kellys time in the barrel. This job of White House Communications director, its sort of become like the drummer in spinal tap, if you guys remember that movie. People just sort of leave in unusual circumstances, some more spectacularly than others. Scaramuccis was probably the most spectacular, he was the shortest and maybe like that sort of like the drummer who selfcombusted in the movie. Hope lasted a long time, i mean, she was doing this job even when other people had the title. But at the end of the day, trump is his own Communications Director. And thats why this job is so impossible to fill in the way that previous president s have had Communications Directors because he is very difficult to work for in any capacity but especially when it comes to press and communications, which he thinks hes a master of. Yeah, i want you to look at this graphic. This is the president s original inner circle that went with him from the early days of the campaign to the white house. Actually, theres just a couple from the early days, some of those people are not early. I mean anyway, how many are left here . The president is increasingly isolated. If you take away family members, theres not a lot left. The real shock with hope hicks leaving, i was speaking with a former white house official today just after the news broke. He was really stunned. As tough as that job is on people, you know, i expected hope to be the one to turn out the lights on the trump administration, that she would be there for the full four or eight years. I dont know if that was realistic but i think it speaks to how jarring it was for people who work with her to see her arbitrarily decide to leave, especially in the middle of all the crises that are ongoing. The other issue that came up in my reporting was, look, shes spoken to mueller, maybe thats a reason shes left. If she has reason to believe that perhaps she is a target of this investigation, maybe now is the time to leave and get some distance from the white house if things are going to go in a bad direction. Chris, i have to take a break. Quickly, how much of this i was sitting in my office and watching all the news channels, right trump tv or state run tv, theyre not even reporting this. So trump supporters, they dont even know about these stories, it doesnt register, thats the amazing thing. We cover all of these things every day. The white house imploding behind him, and hes standing there going, nothing to see here. His supporters probably dont even realize the extent. Yes, theres no question, particularly when he tweets about, why dont we Pay Attention to hillarys crimes. Number one. Number two, though, i actually think for people who are just consuming news generally, the top of the show, don, i would think theres an episode of the simpsons where mr. Burns, the old decrepit guy stay with me, he goes to the doctor and he has a checkup, the doctor comes in and says, youre perfectly fine. He said, i knew it, i was healthy. He said, no, its not that, you have every disease known to man, but theyre all blocking one another from attacking your body. I sometimes think about that with the news cycle. I wonder if hes doing it on purpose. People say, yes, he is. I dont know if thats true, but i know that ben carson and the stuff going on with the furniture in his office, Jared Kushner, were talking about hope hicks, but the russia investigation. Theres so much, you could literally do on just the guns hang on, guys, we are coming back. Stand by, dont work ahead in the textbook. I used a lot of time there. Well be back, we have to talk about all that stuff he mentioned. Dont go anywhere. New family connections, every day. Llion thats more ways to discover new relatives. People who share your dna. And maybe a whole lot more. Order your kit at ancestrydna. Com hey, sir losealot thou hast the patchy beard of a prepubescent squire thy armor was forged by a feeblefingered peasant woman. Your mom as long as hecklers love to heckle, you can count on geico saving folks money. Boring fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. And lose weight with contrave. 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Our breaking news tonight, the bombshell resignation of hope hicks just one day after we learned Jared Kushners security clearance has been downgraded. Thats not the only bombshell coming out of the Trump White House. Theres news on Robert Muellers investigation. And questions about President Trumps feud with attorney general Jeff Sessions. Back with me now, chris cilzza. Joshua green, april ryan and ryan lizza. Because chris read ahead in the notebook, im going to give this to ryan. As were dissecting all the news about hope hicks and really everything thats come out in the Washington Post reporting that mueller is examining trumps apparent efforts to oust sessions in july, and whether this is a pattern of obstruction of justice. What do you make of it . I think its entirely predictable. As predictable as the earlier story this week that foreigners were trying to gain an advantage over kushner by figuring out what kind of what his weaknesses are with respect to his financial dealings. Just as that is entirely predictable, it is predictable that given his financial endanglements and given the nature of his job, he was inevitably going to meet with officials who then had some business relationship, right . So sometimes these things are totally innocent. Maybe he met with this guy from citigroup and then the company got the loan as the post is reporting and one had nothing to do with the other. But that is the problem when you dont divest. That is the problem when you have these kinds of financial entanglements. It is the appearance of frankly corruption. And thats why we have previous administrations who have been very, very stringent about divesting themselves of these kinds of relationships, and making sure or at the very least making sure they dont take a meeting with someone who may have a financial relationship later on with one of their business interests. So entirely predictable. And another sort of nail in the coffin, hes had a very difficult month. To me it doesnt its difficult to see how he remains in that job without a top secret clearance with mueller breathing down his neck and with increasing stories about financial entanglements that are making his job very difficult. I want to read this graph. Its from the post story. It says, behind the scenes trump has referred to sessions as mr. Magoo, a cartoon character who is elderly, myopic and bumbling according to people with whom hes spoken. Trump has told associates that he has hired the best lawyers for his entire life but is stuck with sessions who is not defending him and is not sufficiently loyal. What do you make of that . He doesnt feel hes sufficiently loyal. Another loyalty oath. It says to me he doesnt understand the role of attorney general and the attorney generals relationship to the president. Jeff sessions job is not to be President Trumps personal lawyer. And i dont think trump has ever reconciled himself to that fact or wants to. He sees the job of Jeff Sessions to go out there and defend him. To investigate and attack his enemies. He tweeted just today, why isnt Jeff Sessions having Justice Department lawyers go out and investigate Hillary Clinton who hasnt been a political figure in 18 months and isnt going to be one. Loyalty is the lens through which he views everything, but especially lawyers. I have to get to this gun thing, okay . Today was meant to focus on president s roundtable with lawmakers, focusing on gun control. They even cancelled a briefing to highlight it. Once again, the white house steps over their own message with this resignation. Do you think this is another selfinflicted wound, april . Yes. But even more so than that, im waiting to hear what the nra has to say, this is the first time in modern years in the most recent president s that weve seen, for a republican president to not stand in lockstep with the nra. It was very strong. The president said he wanted something stronger than weaker. He was talking about issues of background checks, mental health, he was doubling down again on certifying those who can handle a gun in schools. I mean, he really went in and the question is, is that will the nra go against this republican president . I mean, you know, theyve talked about many years before with democratic president s when they were talking about the gun show loophole issue and different thing, you know, that theyre trying to take your guns away. Well, now, this president , this republican president , who just became republican not long ago in the last couple of years is now saying, we need to do something. He even said he had dinner or lunch with members of the nra about this. So i mean, yeah, this is this hope hicks issue is a big issue for the moment. But i think this has more tenticles and a longer battle, if you will, to come. Yeah. My mouth dropped when he said, take the guns and then due process. I said, wait a minute, did he just say . Yep. Im going to take your guns away, which he said about Hillary Clinton and barack obama, which by the way, barack obama, there was no legislation, nothing to say barack obama said i have no interest in coming to your house and taking your guns away. You and every republican lawmaker in the room, don, in terms of your jaw dropping. In watching it, i couldnt escape the tuesday immigration open meeting that we saw where donald trump said in his own unique way, we can do comprehensive about comprehensive Immigration Reform by thursday, that was off the table and they werent doing anything. What he says in an open setting, he is not someone bingo. He doesnt care that what he says wait a minute. But he did say what he says today hell Say Something else on thursday or friday. But today, i kept thinking as im watching this, honestly, our lawmakers are completely out of touch with what the American People really want. These kids, many of them, what these kids, a lot of them are older, the younger generation, i think, theyre not part of, they dont really sort of get it, and just about how little this president knows about everything. We want something powerful, we want something big, we want something strong instead of coming up with details. I left not feeling he knew anything about this. I saw this as performance art. On legislation . You need to understand what the republican partys reaction to donald trump broadly speaking is. I would urge anyone to go find the video of john cornyn, the texas republican senator, sitting next to donald trump. John cornyns face tells it all. He looks like this half the time. Like that did i hear that right . Thats just the reality, and thats what trump the great opportunity trump represented in some ways. The break with the orthodoxy, the ways in which things used to be. In words, but not necessarily in policies. The difference is but wait a minute, don, he says he wants to deal with bump stucks, he says he wants to deal with bump stocks, hes going to write some executive order to deal with bump stocks. He wants them to deal with everything else. Im not taking up for him, but he says he wants to deal with the issue of bump stocks, the rest of it, the congressional leaders can handle. He doesnt understand a lot of the legislation, but he wants some action. Well see if that happens. And how long this bump stock thing will take. Im going to get bumped out of here if you guys dont hold your horses. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. When we come back, with all this chaos swirling in the white house, how does the administration get anything done . Is their agenda on the line . Were going to ask Mark Mckinnon right after this. Imagine if the things you bought every day. Earned you miles to get to the places you really want to go. With the united mileageplus explorer card, youll get a free checked bag. Two united club passes. Priority boarding. 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At t doesnt. We offer more complete reliability with up to 8 hours of 4g Wireless Network backup. At t, no way. We offer 35 voice features and solutions that grow with your business. At t, not so much. Get internet on our gigspeed network and add voice and tv for 34. 90 more per month. Call 18005016000. We said it before but team trump proves it over and over, this will in this white house, all this chaos, the Communications Director hope hicks, one of the president s closest aides the latest to go through the revolving door. This after she says she sometimes tells white lies for the president. Mark mckinnon is here. Good to see you, sir. Mark, on most days, the president sitting down with lawmakers for a televised bipartisan meeting would be front page news. Instead the white house is dealing with headlines like trump calls sessions handling or Mueller Investigation examining trumps efforts. Jared kushners ties to banks under scrutiny. The white house denies trump berated hope hicks. We have all those headlines on the screen there. Thats just from the last few hours. How can this white house get anything done . Its dizzying, don, and as you know, this isnt just today, this is every day. And i talked to your producers this morning. We talk about what were talking about tonight. By late afternoon, its a completely different set of issues. You know, working in the white house, i call it the human microwave under normal circumstances. And so i just want to echo something maggie tweeted out, the surprise should not be that anyones leaving, the surprise is that anyones staying. But in this case, hope hicks, it is a big deal for everybody. Because for a lot of reasons, i mean, one is that shes so close to trump. Two, everyone assumed she would be there for most of the ride, anyway. And she and his former personal assistant Keith Schiller were such security blankets for him, that people are worried whats going to happen in a pretty chaotic white house and executive with them there, what its going to be like without them there, so hope hicks is an interesting person, particularly intriguing to those of us in the Communications Business as a Communications Director who in a couple years of a campaign and more than a years Communications Director in some capacity in the white house has been seen on camera once which is which i commend. You know, she facilitated the press but tried to stay out of it, as we saw in the last couple weeks, shes suddenly in the hot glare of the spotlight. And i dont think she liked it. If you met her, like i said, in the beginning, i only met her once, could not be nicer, but i mean, she was really in the mixer there, in the grinder. But, listen, our pamela brown has been reporting that the president has made clear he needs jared and ivanka to stay on board, since theyre the only ones he feels he can trust. The president has publicly criticized mcmaster, sessions, tillerson, reportedly publicly berated hope hicks, one of the most loyal foot soldiers. Do you think trumps loyalty is going to hurt him . Yeah, i think i think it already has. And i think you know, im not one of those who says that nobody connected to a family should work for a president under any circumstances. I think there are circumstances, although in the bush administrations, in eight years of george w. , im not aware of a Single Family member that worked in any capacity. There may be some that im not aware of. If they were, certainly low level. The problem with that is, even if theres no conflict of interest, we saw that with Jared Kushner today. He gets a couple loans from large corporate interests. How could there not be at least the appearance of a conflict. When youre president and trying to get stuff done, you dont want the appearance of that, so how theres an agenda with this kind of chaos for this year, i dont think its going to be much of one through the midterms. The president pointed to john kelly to deal with the security clearance problem. In the wake of rob porter and kelly prompted downgraded kushners clearance. Do you think its going to end up hurting him with the president . I hope not. I mean, i think that a lot of people believe that even those who have become skeptical, that john kellys presence is a good presence there because he is concerned about those kind of conflicts, although he didnt raise it as early as he should have. I think hes been i think from the beginning hes been concerned about the relationship of the family with trump in the white house. Yeah. I think those are the kind of conflicts that hes that as a military guy, he instinctively got, so i think that thats going to be an ongoing problem until its resolved one way or the other, until their roles are either diminished or exported or kelly goes. I always ask you questions that i want to. But i want to know what questions do you have . Whats important to you . Is there something that were missing here . Theres so many stories. Whats on your mind tonight . Well, im whats on my mind is ramping up the circus here in a couple weeks with 18 new episodes of season three. And how were going to cover this. You like that segue . I do. I like that shameless selfpromotion, but go on. Yeah. I appreciate that. But it just reminds me that there are so many sort of arrows coming at us every day that what we failed to understand, i think its because its so scattered shot and so asymmetric, what is the Bigger Picture of the Mueller Investigation for example. We dont know, but we get so drawn into all these other things, so my questions are kind of, whats the Bigger Picture for the presidency, for the executive, for the country long term, and are these guardrails of democracy going to hold up over time . You cant go live on showtime, can you . You may end up having to do that this season. Yeah, we keep changing, the executives see the show sunday morning and it goes on sunday night. Oftentimes were changing stuff late saturday night, given this administration. When does the new season start again . April 15th. Thanks for asking. Well see you then. Thank you, Mark Mckinnon. Thank you so much. When we come back, the president and his attorney general publicly feuding over the Justice Departments Inspector General. Why cant they just get along . And who is right . Im going to speak to a former Inspector General for the nsa about all of this next. Its a lot easier to make decisions when you know what comes next. 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No. The vaccines do not contain live bacteria. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist about how to help protect yourself. Tonight sources telling cnn aides to attorney general Jeff Sessions marks his first year in office gave him a bulletproof vest as a gag gift. This as sessions was pushing back today after the latest of many broadsides from his boss. Slamming sessions in a tweet asking the Inspector General to investigations of surveillance abuses by the fbi. The president claiming the i. G. Is an obama guy, and calling the decision disgraceful. Sessions responded saying the department will do its work in a fair and impartial manner. I want to talk about this now with joel brenner. He is a former Inspector General for the National Security agency under president george w. Bush. Its an honor to have you on. Were seeing him once again publicly shame his own attorney general. Jeff sessions fighting back more than he ever has in the past. First, why do you think sessions is pushing back so strongly on this one now . I think Jeff Sessions knows that his public career at some point is going to be over. He wants to go home to alabama. And be able to look in the mirror and say to himself that i kept my integrity in very difficult circumstances. Jeff sessions did the right thing. Inspector generals were created for exactly situations like this. We have we got them in the civilian part of our government after watergate in the late 70s, because the congress wanted independent officials within the executive branch who could examine the possibility of wrongdoing, alleged wrongdoing. Weve now got serious allegations. Im not really impressed with their merit, but we have serious allegations relating to the fbis behavior before the fisa court. The fbis part of the Justice Department. The fact that the president is upset that sessions is playing by the book is yet another indication that the president is profoundly ignorant and indifferent to the purposes of the institutions of our government. Its astonishing. Youre the former nsa Inspector General. An Inspector General, right, is the right person to investigate this, correct . Exactly the right sort of person to investigate it. Igs as we call them are in charge of internal investigations and internal Program Audits in various departments of government. And just about all of our departments of government right now. So when sessions looks at the landscape here and sees the politicization of our intelligence committees on the hill, especially in the house, and he says, i have a mechanism here to resolve this, its the i. G. If i do it as a political appointment of the president , were not going to get out of this political tangle. So, hes looking for an official who can do the job in a credible way. And when the president attacks that institution, because the i. G. Is not his man, then were really in difficult straits when the president is one after another attacking the institutions of american government. He attacked the courts because he didnt like the ethnic background of a judge. He attacks the intelligence agencies because they present him facts that he doesnt like. Hes now attacked the fbi because he cant control the fbi, and hes now hes attacking the i. G. Because he didnt appoint the guy. Thats the actual point. We have institutions in our government that act independently, thats what limited government is about. And not one of those institutions he attacks quite frequently is the press as well. He does attack pretty much every established institution we have. I have to ask you this before we run out of time, do you think the president is trying to force the attorney general to quit rather than fire him, because hes concerned about the optics of it . Thats hard to say. I have to think that the president s been advised that firing sessions right now would create a firestorm on the hill, even among people in his own party. And sessions, i think, realizes that he is a bulwark now between the president and robert mueller, whos been another target of the president s attacks. One of the most respected people in Public Service in our time. So i think sessions is hes hardly flinching under repeated nasty personal attacks. But i think hes there now to do a job. And well just have to see how that plays out. Im not privy to his private thoughts. Joel brenner, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Pleasure. When we come back, much more on hope hicks resignation and the curious timing of it. Plus, the New York Times reporting that Jared Kushners Company Received money from businesses after he met with them in the white house. Is there a connection to him losing his security clearance . Directv gives you more for your thing. Your toprated thing. 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Schedule a complimentary goal Planning Session with td ameritrade. Our breaking news, White House Communications director hope hicks announcing a resignation today, the latest in a long line of departures from the Trump White House in a little over a year. Lets discuss with National Security analyst, samantha a former Senior Adviser under president obama. And rick wilson a republican strategist. Good evening to both of you. Rick youve got a saying that everything trump touches dies. Is that what happened with hope hicks. Absolutely. The rule always applies no matter who they are or what their position is or how solid it looks. The trouble trump brings people destroys their career. Its like game show where you get high legal bells, personal reputation destroyed and other than the lovely parting gift is National Headlines about the fact that youve been booted out of the white house. Its a real mess for. And but its this white house is firing people at a rate that is you know quite astounding. And it doesnt seem to be changing. And it always comes down to the fact that these folks are defending trump or helping trump or trying to push his agenda and always end up unthe wheels of the passing train. Sam is here dsh be you say the timing of the hope hicks resignation is the crisis of the administration strategy. It feels like every time the white house is under pressure we have reporting about Jared Kushners business contacts, undisclosed meetings, another shoe drops. We have hope hicks resigning last weekend in the midst of all the scrutiny on the clearance. All the sudden the memo comes occupant and donald trump launch it feels like a little bit too much of a coincidence. Everything trump touches dies except Jared Kushner, the least qualified person to be running policy in the white house is still there. So i wish that kushner would be pushed out of the white house and would resign and wed have the kind of Crisis Communications to deal with. Intsd he is there working on the heavy issues. Interesting. Rick, yesterday is about 20 breaking news stories ago. But you wrote in the dailiy best you said the deep state takes out the white houses dark clown prince. You pull no punches talking about Jared Kushners security clearance and tide to his fortune and more importantly his debts. Now we herron he met with top wall street execs in the white house who then lent his business money. Sure. I mean, look, in any other human being on earth would be in prison by now because of all this. Jared kushner is so compromised and so compromisable the article i wrote in the daley beast yesterday basically ran through the fact that american intelligence was listening in while foreign nations were basically astounded at how easy it would be to bribe and manipulate this guy. And the fact of the matter is the president you know, he is listening to ivanka saying but daddy keep him here. Thats unacceptable for a president to do. The nepotism problem would be a problem no matter what. If he didnt have any investments or anything else. But this is a guy who is basically been trying to sell himself and sell his influence in the white house in order to fund 666 fifth avenue, the white elephantabling the family is invested in new york. And this is a guy who the president has given this vast portfolio of assignments and opportunities to influence American Foreign and domestic policy. And the problem is he is utterly corrupt, doesnt need to be in the white house. You know, the guy is going to end up spending more time in a federal correctional facility than the white house at the end of the day because its so obvious how cheaply he was trying to sell himself to anyone who walked in the door. Yes. This is a guy who might as well had a for sale tattooed on his neck. You talked did you say it was the daley beast because sam has a similar article in politico. Sam you wrote foreign governments are always looking for potential intelligence targets. They look to recent assets that have access to information that they need and influence over policy they look for assets which with manipulation points, adding that the final element that makes the perfect foreign intelligence target inexperience. You say jared checks every box. Most definitely. Inexperience or kushner was pursuing another agenda. He made every National Security mistake in the book. Unprepared for meetings didnt work with the National Security councils. Typically when you go meet with the chinese you bring a friend to take notes, a translator so there is another read out of the meeting. And you also did he brief everyone when you goat out so that there is an official record for the u. S. Government and youre not, again, relying on a foreign country to tell everyone what actually happened. And so Jared Kushner is not special in many ways. He was a powerful figure that would have been targeted by a foreign intelligence service. But this hubris aspect makes him very different. Hey, rick, quickly, because i have to get to brake. Kushner lost his security is this a sign that the president is mad that kelly is winning the knife fight at the white house. It definitely does. Reducing jared to walmart greeter clearance in the space of a couple of days has shone john kelly has control and hand in the white house. That may not last 37 but he is doing his best to try to eliminate the possibility of jared putting up the president s daily brief for sale on the dark web somewhere. House wares on aisle four to the back and right. Thank you. I appreciate it. When he come back with hope hicks planning to leave the white house, is the president losing his inner circle, his mouft trusted aides . And should he be worried . You can switch and save time. It pays to switch things up. 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