Disciplined or removed from office only by the personal action of the Attorney General. But according to the white house, the president has been advised he, he can terminate Robert Mueller all by himself. Does he believe he has the power to fire Special CounselRobert Mueller . Certainly believes he has the power to do so. Most legal experts believe he would have to order Deputy Attorney general rosenstein to fire mueller and corefuse. I know a number of individuals in the Legal Community and including at the department of justice said he has the power to do so but i dont have any further announcements. They told me, ive asked. They said its rosenstein oversees is the Special Counsel and only he has the power to fire the Special Counsel. Again, weve been advised that the president certainly has the power to make that decision. I cant go anything beyond that. Weve been advised the president certainly has the power to make the decision. To be clear, the warrants that were executed against cohen
yesterday were not as far as we can tell from the available reporting related directly to the russia probe as far as we know now. They appear to be part of a separate investigation referred by the Special Counsel to federal prosecutors in new york. But if it the raid provoked the president to take some kind of action to stop mueller, it would not be the first time hes tried to do so. Remember a few months ago the New York Times reported the president gave the order directly to Fire Mueller Last June and backed off only after his White House Counsel Don Mcgahn apparently threatened to quit rather than carry out the order. Tonight, a new report from the times. Again, that he tried to do it just in december. Telling advisers that muellers investigation to to be shut down following reports that a bank he did business with had been subpoenaed. The president once again backed down after it became clear that those reports were misleading. But last night during a public in response to the cohen raid, he did not rule out
giving it another shot. Why dont you just fire mueller. Why dont i just fire mueller . Well, i think its a disgrace whats going on. Well see what happens. Its a sad situation. Again, they found nothing. And in finding nothing, thats a big statement. If you know, the person who is in charge of the investigation, you know all about that, deputy rosenstein, Rod Rosenstein. As you know, he also signs the fisa warrant. So Rod Rosenstein who is in charge of this signed a fisa warrant and he also he also signed a letter that was essentially saying to fire james comey. Now, according to the Fox News Radio producer who asked that question, you heard shouted about mueller, the president mouthed thank you at him as he was ushered out. In the same clip you may have noticed the president quickly pivoted from mueller to deputy
Attorney General rosenstein. Nobody asked. The president just brought him up. That was no coincidence. According to the New York Times reporting the president S Tirade Last Night copied in private at the white house as he fumed whether he should Fire Rosenstein before the times broke the news today it was rosenstein himself who was the one who personally signed off on the decision to raid cohens office. Mike the schmidt is one of the reporter whos broke that story as well as tonights Breaking News the president sought to fire mueller a second time in december. Michael, im trying to get a clearer sense of what exactly happened in december as your reporting indicates . Into there were several reports at the time that a there was a mueller subpoena that had been sent to Deutsche Bank for records directly related to trump. Now, if you remember, trump talked last summer about a socalled red line, an area that he said mueller should not be looking at. Thats finances outside of russia. So trump sees this, sees this
report and he loses it. He gets very angry pop we talk a lot how angry he got but he got angry again this time and really wanted to get rid of mueller. He said it was time to end the investigation. What happened was that his lawyers who know where his Bank Accounts are and where his things are realized that the report was wrong that there was nothing to it. The reports were actually ultimately corrected. But this was this instance. And as we know, Firing Mueller is not just something that is front of mind for the president just now. This is something he has thought about as far as back as may when mueller was appointed. Hes obviously also thought since then about Firing Sessions and Firing Rosenstein. The other big incident that we know about where trump really walked up to the line of Firing Mueller was last june asking account White House Counsel Don Mcgahn to call the Justice Department to tell Rod Rosenstein it was time for
mueller to go because had he several Conflict Of Interest issues. It was only after mcgahn threatened to resign that the president backed down on that. I want to go back to the red line. Its something that ive wrestled with how seriously to take that red line. That was your phrase in an interview with the president an Audio Interview we have audio of. You said the word red line and the president says yes it, didnt sound definitive to me. Are you convinced he does consider that a red line. Like probably a lot of red lines this one may be a bit faulty but i dont know. Look, we were trying to get the president to give us a sense how he saw this investigation. How he saw mueller. What was muellers mandate . And we pushed him on it. We pushed him really hard if you could hear in the audio. We tried to pin him down what was okay and what wasnt okay. Because we wanted to have a guide as we looked at this and moved along to see where mueller sort of fell in if the president s thoughts. Now, we knew at the time that we knew where the investigation was going to go but we knew there would probably be subpoenas at some point, probably be requests for documents and interviews and that other issues would come up. We were trying to figure out okay, what in the president s mind would be okay and what wouldnt be okay. I just want to be clear. That determination of what is and isnt okay ultimately is something that is answered in a more profound and global sense than what the president does or does not allow although well see how this plays out as he considers what he is going to do next. Michael schmidt, Great Reporting as always. Thank you. Back in december, senator mark warner, advice of the Senate IntelligenceCommittee Gave a Barn Burner Speech that seemed to come out of nowhere in which he warned the president not to the cross a red line by firing muler. Moments ago the top aide to that senator said when he delivered his red line speech to warn back in december, a lot of people asked why now, this is why. She linked to the story breaking from the New York Times we just discussed. I happened to speak to senator warner tonight just before that story broke. Senator, what do you think about Sarah Huckabee sanders saying is the white house has made the determination the president himself has the power to fire Robert Mueller . Well, this white house and this president seem to think he can in effect support some laws and ignore other laws. Im not the legal expert here. But i would actually agree with republican senator Lindsey Graham that if mr. Trump tried to fire mr. Mueller, that will be the beginning of the end of the trump presidency. The president also said this yesterday about the raid where he called it an attack on this country. I want you to take a listen and get your reaction. I have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now. And actually much more than that. You could say it was right after the won the nomination it started. That its a disgrace. Its frankly a real disgrace. Its an attack on our country in a true sense. Its an attack on what we all stand for. Do you think the raid was an attack on our country . Absolutely not. What this president doesnt seem to understand is that there is no one that is above the law including the president of the United States. I would remind the president that mr. Rosenstein who is his Deputy Attorney general longterm republican, mr. Wray, the fbi director, a trump appointee, throughout this whole investigation, mr. Mueller, a lifelong republican somehow the notion that it is being caused by political purposes, it is being caused because there are serious questions that need to be answered about Trump Campaign and affiliates, affiliation or collusion with russians and i think this investigation has to finish. I believe our Senate IntelligenceCommittee Investigation has to finish. And the American Public deserves
the truth and what scares the dickens out of me is when the president basically depending on his mood wakes up and makes these in effect add whom nen broad based attacks against the integrity of the Justice Department and the fbi. That gets into very scary territory that might give license to some to say consequently, they could then cloos choose which laws they want to follow and which they dont. My fear is mr. Trump is trying to undermine it the Mueller Investigation and the integrity of our justice system. Is he succeeding . I believe fongs amongst some of his allies who reinforce this message. Were getting into uncharted territory here. I worry. Were a nation ive never seen anything like this in my whole life. I know a lot of my republican colleagues have privately expressed real concern and consternation. My hope is for the sake of the
country that was someone would rein this president back in and that he would not take the kind of inappropriate action as Firing Rosenstein or Firing Mueller which i believe would put us into a constitutional crisis. You just said the word privately to describe the concerns of our republican colleagues. Ive been monitoring public pronouncements today and largely from republicans theyve been Essentialliquiv Cal or we dont need to do anything because im confident theyll say he wont fire mueller. It wont happen. Dont worry about it. Do you think thats good enough . You know, i went out before the holidays before christmas and gave what i hoped was my red line speech that Firing Mueller, Firing Rosenstein, going off and pardoning Family Members or others would be a bridge too far. Most republican who have been on gone on the record have said yes, they thought that would go too far, as well. But we seem to be fast approaching that point. And my colleagues are going to
need god forbid if we have this event to move past private conversations and take a public stand. I think all of us will as americans have to take a public stand and decide whether were going to continue to be a nation of laws. And that no one including the president of the United States is bobbit law and he cannot arbitrary stop a duly constituted investigation. But i can tell you from at least where i stand as a as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence committee there are a lot of questions that still need to be answered. Your counterparts over in the house Intelligence Committee who some critics have said are sort of conducting a Counter Investigation of the investigation, they this comes from robert costa of the west who says House Intel Chair devin nunes privately told several colleagues its time for house the gop to hold rosenstein and wray in Contempt Of Congress should they refuse to hand over docs according to two people
familiar with the discussions. What do you think of that . I think its fairly typical of the way the House Majority has operated. Frankly, outside the boundaries are of what most of us would view would be appropriate, obviously, not in any sense bipartisan, and im going to continue to say grace over what were trying to do on the senate side which is weve got to follow the facts, keep this effort bipartisan. And at the end of the day, this is about what happened or didnt happen not only. 2016 but in some of the aftermath and also how we make sure the American Public gets the truth because they deserve the truth. Senator mark warner of virginia, thanks for your time tonight. Jill winebanks, former watergate prosecutor, matt miller chief spokesperson at the Justice Department kund president obama. Matt, ill start with you. I want to zoom out for a second
and just note or ask you how you feel about a news cycle thats driven about will the president act to interfere in the investigation into himself and into his allies. Yeah, its odd because in a way it gets framed as if theres some legitimate choice the president is facing as opposed to there being one acceptable choice which is allow the investigation to proceed to allow the rule of law to stand. And one which is to try to commit a crime and obstruct the investigation which is what hes trying to do. For people at the department of justice looking at this, you know, none of them are stupid. They see what the president is trying to do. If he fires the rosenstein they know exactly what hes trying to do. For him to try to you fire mueller, he may be able to do it but he will have to burn that building to the ground before he finds someone willing to carry out that kind of order. Jill, do you agree with that. I do. And ive seen this play out once before. Right. And It Didnt Work Out so well pore president nixon. And i dont think it will work
general. With everything i know about him, i dont think he would carry out such an order where he knows the president is trying to commit a crime by obstructing justice. Then it goes to the u. S. Attorneys. If you look at the u. S. Attorneys, a lot of them are longtime career prosecutors, some are people are respected partners at law if i weres. He may find someone eventually. I dont think these are people who want their legacy for the protest of history being at a real critical moment in our history, when they could stand up for the rule of law or help donald trump obstruct justice, i dont think theyre going to want to be remembered in history as the person who helped donald trump break the law to cover up crimes he committed. Jill, heres the other question i have. If the president were to say and i know were gaming out the future. Were getting multiple reports the president is stewing and thinking about how to move against this. If the president were to take to twitter and said i am Firing Mueller it seems theres an open
miller, thank you for being here. Tonight Michael Cohen, you remember him, from such fbi raids as yesterday at three places that he tends to occupy, is responding to yesterdays fbi raids on his Home Office Room telling Emily Jane Fox the feds were respectful. He said he has not spoken to trump since the raids. Were getting a clearer pictures of what agents were looking for, records of payments top women including daniels and mcdougal. They searched for records relating to mr. Cohens taxicab business. As we learn more about the leads theyre following, remember Robert Mueller is not involved in this investigation not directly. He handed it off. Mueller filed a memo in Court Last Week that states that a Special Counsel may conclude investigating otherwise unrelated allegations against a central witness in the matter is necessary to obtain cooperation. With me now barb mcquaid and Adam Davidson staff writer for new yorker. I want to follow up on something
you said on twitter that i thought was very smart. What precipitated the president s second outburst and attempt at least to sort of talking about removing mueller was what proved to be an errorious report about your subpoenas to Deutsche Bank. You said what about that. I want to know what he thinks Deutsche Bank has on him and why it freaks him out so much mueller might be looking into Deutsche Bank. It seemed to me like heres someone drawing a Big Red Arrow like no crimes in here. Its like his attorney jay sekulow telling me, i dont want anyone looking at the georgia deal. That i think any prosecutor hearing a lawyer or someone under investigation saying please dont look at there one deal, youre going to look at that deal. So barbara, what do you make im having a hard time sifting through the various reports were getting what the feds were or were not looking for in the case of Michael Cohen yesterday. Weve seen a bunch of different
things. Taxicab medallion business, possibilities of bank fraud. Items pertaining to Stormy Daniels or karen mcdougal, payments thereof, campaign finance. What would this Search Warrant look like and could it applausely have a variety of different areas listed together . What we do know is a judge made a finding of probable cause that evidence of a crime would be found at these premises. You have to articulate what the crime is and the facts in support of that probable cause determination. Theyd have to specify. I imagine that in Robert Muellers investigation he has come across some evidence that supports this finding of probable cause. He would have to articulate those things. It could list several different schemes. There could be the Taxi Medallion Scheme and another relating to Stormy Daniels. It could be a number of things in the same affidavit. Its just probable cause. This is not a charge, not an indictment and its not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Still efficient to go in and search for these things. It is something that had to be found by a judge. Just to be clear, there would have to be sort of, if you had different domains like taxicab business, paints related to Stormy Daniels, et cetera, you would have to furnish probable cause for each of the sort of like portfolios of things you were searching for, correct . Absolutely. Every scheme that you described, every crime that you described would have to have a description. Plus you have to be able to be able to look for that thing. If you find a file that says taxi medallions youre allowed to take it. If you find a file unrelated you cant. You want to specify all the schemes for which you have probable cause. Youve written a lot cohen. Theres a link between the Deutsche Bank and Michael Cohen whi. If youre looking at mueller
must be at International Deals that brought the Trump Organization and donald trump himself in the orbit of the kremlin, of the former soviet union, youre talking about three people at the Trump Organization who were central to those deals who handled those deals, ivanka, don junior and Michael Cohen. Michael cohen is the most important nontrump trump, Nontrump Person involved in the Trump Organization. He was central to many, many, many of the deals that brought the Trump Organization into the kremlin orbit. So i think many people who are sort of trump watchers Trump Organization watchers have been waiting for this moment. This has always seemed like Something Like an end game because this is the guy. This is the he has all the information we might want to know because hes the person who would have told trump, heres the partners were dealing with, heres the Money Laundering they did or i did research and theyre not money launders. Theyre perfectly innocent. Dont worry, boss, ive done the due diligence. Everything is on the up and up. That doesnt seem to be the case based on my reporting and lots of others. We know he was actively pursuing kts contact with the kremlin for donald trump. If you want to study collusion specifically, you have to look at Michael Cohen. So then the question becomes the vector by which we have the sdny carrying this out, execute it, the degree to which it relates or does not relate to mueller, whether this is an attempt to pressure someone who could be a we witness. What do you make of all that. I think you know, it was handed off to the Southern District of new york to handle it because Robert Mueller or Rod Rosenstein, someone believed it was not within the scope of muellers investigation. That does not mean Michael Cohen could not be a cooperator for mueller. It does happen someone is prosecuted in one district and
agrees to cooperate and cos actually cooperate in the Mueller Investigation even though hes he may be prosecuted in the Southern District of new york. So theres still that possibility of cooperation. Barbara mcquaid and Adam Davidson, thank you for joining us. Coming up, why Michael Cohens raid is a big scandal for the entire Republican Party that goes beyond his connection to just the president. Ill explain that ahead. We use our phones and computers
thats why Xfinity Mobile comes with your internet. You can get up to 5 lines of talk and text included at no extra cost. So all you pay for is data. See how you could save 400 or more a year. And get 200 back when you sign up for Xfinity Mobile and add a new line of unlimited. Xfinity mobile. Its a new kind of network designed to save you money. Click, call or visit an xfinity store today. The office and residence and hotel room of the rncs National Deputy finance chairman. Because remember, Michael Cohen isnt just Donald Trumps fixer hes currently a major republican fundraiser and hardly the only republican official mired in scandal. Another is accused of dangling access to trump in exchange for business and steve wynn, the former rnc finance chairman and alleged serial sexual harasser. The rnc has been silent about all of this even as we called and emailed several times today for any kind of comment. Political analyst jennifer ruben, contributor and Business InsiderSenior Editor jose barro and former assistant u. S. Attorney maya wiley join me. Jennifer, there is an attempt by the republicans on the hill and in the party more generally to be just sort of cordon this off like trump is the way a trump tweet happens. Its like he 2003ed about steph curry and everyone spends their day going i didnt read the tweet or thats the president. That seems so preposterous. Fbi raid on the Partys Deputy National finance chairman. It is. You have to pinch yourself because it is so outlandish. Youre right, chris. Not only that, but you know, the number of plots and the number of areas in which there is abject corruption, you have 150,000 payment from a
ukrainian oligarch to trump foundation. We have instances of his lawyers trying to put the screws on the panamanian government for trumps benefit. All of this is a scheme of corruption and personal manipulation and selfenrichment we have, that, does exceed watergate. The republicans are just whistling through the graveyard thinking they can keep their heads down. Maybe theyll get away with that. I suspect if they are still there and trump is still there in november, its going to be a bloodbath because the republicans are very, very vulnerable to the charge that they are not exercising any oversight. They are come police nit this corruption. Not just in russia but all these other financial schemes. They have no interest in fulfilling their obligations under their oaths. If you want real oversight, you got to the elect democrats. Thats a compelling argument. I believe theres going to be some crisis point. Theres some standoff between
which institutions hold. Which i think will happen before the midterms. Weve gotten 65 of the way to the midterms. A year ago, i would have bet on it happening by now. I dont know. Thats true. Theres not that much time left to run out on the clock. We might get there before the midterms. The idea of sort of like that members of congress, republicans all had this line today dont he wont fire mueller. Dont worry about it. I want to play this montage. This is what you heard from capitol hill today. Take a lis. I have confidence in mueller. And i think to answer your question, it would be suicide for the president to want to talk about Firing Mueller. Im not concerned that fire mueller. I dont think hell Fire Rosenstein. I cant think of any reason. Im confident that would be the beissing of the ends of his presidency. I think the president s too
smart to fire mr. Mueller. If he did, it wouldnt end the investigation. Yeah it, wouldnt end the investigation. Thats it in a nutshell. That doesnt mean he want to fire him. Im sure he do does. Im sure he does. I think this is the way i read these statements was this is the republicans way of saying dont do it. Like were going to publicly tell you not to do it. Too smart to do is an audience of one kind of comment. This is the republicans line for months. So far theyve been right in that he has not done it yet. I think theyre hoping he will run out the clock to the midterms on this. That lets him off the hook too easily. He has pressured them. This is like hes committed the sin in the sense that he tells the Justice Department to prosecute his political enemies and warns them to back off. That is an infraction. He complains when his appointed Attorney General recuses himself from the very investigation he thinks he should protect him from. Its remarkable how it hasnt worked. This raid yesterday wasnt ordered by mueller. This was this very formal process where there was referral that went to the Southern District of new york. Rod rosenstein signed off off on the idea they would raids the offices of the president s lawyer which would cause the president to react in the way he had. This is another reason for the president not to fire these people. A lot of this has been the Bureaucracy Operating in the way it is supposed to. When they can get a valid warrant they execute it and he fires a few people and by and large, that bureaucracy will still be there doing the same thing. Thats right in the sense it will still be there doing the same thing. That doesnt make he cant make them it more difficult for them if he were to go the Nuclear Option which would be deeply deeply inadvisable to say the least. That doesnt mean he couldnt find ways to make it more difficult for it to happen. Chris, one of the issues here
is that if he now has his eye on firing Rod Rosenstein which apparently he does, thats almost a bigger challenge than Firing Mueller because the Deputy Attorney general so long as Jeff Sessions is there has the ability to curtail this investigation. And i think thats what we should keep our eye on. He fires rosenstein, then he can put in whoever and that person can say youre not going to look at Michael Cohen, youre not going to look at all of these business deals. All youre going to look for is direct evidence of collusion. If trump didnt pick up the phone and call putin, i guess were done with that. That is Something Congress had better be wise, too. If anybodys interested in doing any oversight, call mr. Rosenstein up to testify, ask him whether the president has the authority to fire mr. Mueller directly. And what his attitude would be if he was told to go fire
mueller. Although you ended up getting him fired. The weird thing about this entire inessential like through the Looking Glass environment is the president watches cable news. I cant tell where the circle begins and where it ends. Is he getting the idea from cable news . Are they getting it from him . Is he just sitting there absorbing it all. Theres another crazy aspect that goes back to why the Rnc Doesnt Feel The Need to distance itself. Its stipulated that hes some sort of criminal. Youre exactly right. Theyre not trying to make the argument hes not corrupt. Part of the Argumentyear Mueller Needs to be kept in the box if mueller is allowed to get too many mings things, hes going to find criminal activity. Its like everyone stipulated to the idea that there is some unrelated to the dispute is was there a crime related to russia. Police are admitting there is a bunch of criminal activity that has nothing do with the election. Whats problematic from a
public standpoint is that 40 of trump voters get all their news from fox news which has actively been driving the narrative that this is a witch hunt. Sean hannity just to name a few. And actually what we saw is that the Disapproval Ratings for mueller have actually gone down since january and i think its as a result of this kind of news bubble echo chamber that has been actually pushing a false narrative, what is clearly a false narrative. And i think from a political standpoint, one of the things that i think the gop is looking at is how much is this going to hurt us really and trying to figure that out. Can they wiggle out of it. The q poll still shows people widely approve of mueller. The question is how strong is that. Jennifer, josh, maya, thank you for your time. Mark zuckerberg testifies in front of congress and says facebook is cooperating with the Mueller Investigation. That story ahead. Plus tonights thing 1, thing 2 starts next. Of your retail business. So that. If your customer needs shoes. Hes got wide feet. With edgetoedge intelligence, youve got near real time inventory updates. Hell find the same shoes in your store that he found online. Hell be one happy, very forgetful wide footed customer. At t provides edge to edge intelligence. It can do so much for your business, the list goes on and on. Thats the power of. If your customer also forgets. Socks . You could. While saving for the things play [music plays]his. When everythings connected, its simple. Easy. Awesome. Thing 1 tonight, president trumps new National EconomicCouncil Director larry kudlow is on the other side of the table and its an adjustment. He appeared on hugh hewitt as a radio show this morning where he found out his own deputy at the nec is apparently considering leaving. Its reported in playbook this morning that Shahira Knight is leaning the nec. Is that correct . If she is, she hasnt told me. Its a possibility. Ill ask her. I dont know. And okay. Well, hes new here. Later when asked if he thought trump could put aside anger at Special Counsel mueller and the doj and focus on other issues he went for the tried and true tactic of praising his boss. Yes, of course he can compartmentalize. Im going to bet you he holds his regular schedule today. Ill bet you he gets stuff done through meet anxious decisions. Ill be traveling with him with the group going to Latin America. I dont think its going to stop him. It never stops him. Nothing is going to stop him. Hes going to stick with the schedules, go on the trip. Do what he was going to do. Just one small problem with that assessment of his new boss. Things that thing 2 in 60 seconds. At thing 2 in 60 second. Agents in to seize cohen, can he compartmentalize and focus on other issues . Of course excompartmentalize. Im going to bet you he holds his regular schedule today and ill bet you he gets stuff done through meetings and decisions. Ill be traveling with a group with him going to Latin America. It never stops him. Hes a tough guy. Hes a tough guy and a smart guy. And this place washington, d. C. Aka swamp, they underestimate him. A solid defense of the president but about that Latin America trip, its not happening. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announcing barely 30 minutes after kudlow confidently predicted would happen, that trump was canceling his trip citing the crisis in syria. A tough lesson for kudlow but one everyone has to learn eventually. The president doesnt care if his decisions leave his own people looking like fools. Welcome to the white house, larry. I bet im the first blade maker youve ever met. Theres a lot of innovation that goes into making
our thinnest longest lasting blades on the market. Precision machinery and highquality materials from around the world. Nobody else even comes close. Its about delivering a more comfortable shave every time. Invented in boston, made and sold around the world. Now starting at 7. 99. Gillette. The best a man can get. Composes of at least 18 fulltime agents. Today, two Senate Democrats said the Secret Service has not identified a single threat to justify his lavish travel and security detail and an internal epa report disputes his claims that the nature of the threats against him justify his expenditures. That, of course, totally undermines pruitts justification for his spending. Instead of addressing at issue, the epa responded by reportedly remove poog the Career Staffer who had okayed that report. And this if is a pattern. Last week the New York Times reported at least five epa officials were sidelined after questioning pruitt. Another is the news pruitt bypassed the white house to give big raises to aides that pruitt brought with him from oklahoma where he repeatedly sued the epa as Attorney General. In an interview on trump tv last week, pruitt claimed he had known nothing about those
raises. If youre committed to the trump sandy, why did you go around the president and give raises to two people. I did not. I found about it and for that . That should not have been done. Who did it . There will be some accountability. Acareer person . I found out about this yesterday and i corrected the action. Okay. So i didnt do it, staff did it and i found out about it yesterday. Well, it sure looks like that was a lie and pruitt has been caught redhanded. One of those aides that got the raise had written an email to hr where she definitively stated pruitt approved of her getting a raise. Despite these ballooning scandal, trump has stood by his epa chief who one imagines is now hoping everyone gets distracted by todays headlines and forget all about his cascade of ethical lapses. But those ethical lapses are not
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at what they do is indispensable, and i couldnt ask for a better partner. Would you be comfortable sharing with us the name of the hotel you stayed in last night . Um, no. If youve messaged anybody this week, would you share with us the names of the people youve messaged . Senator, no, i would probably not choose to do that publicly here. I think that may be what this is all about. Today for the first time ever, Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire ceo of the social media giant facebook, went before congress after a succession of scandals that have called into question a Business Model in which that company monetized its users very private information. So he faced questions from 43 senators over five hours. One of those senators was amy klobuchar. Senator, welcome. Thank you. What did you learn today . First of all, we learned that facebook has admitted that this is a major Breach Of Trust and that Mark Zuckerberg believes that we should have some Privacy Rules in place. I think there were a lot of questions still out there. He said he would follow up with me about whether any of the information from Cambridge Analytica was housed in russia. It was something that the whistleblower at Cambridge Analytica raised on Meet The Press this weekend. He said he would follow up. As to whether or not theres a disproportionate number of records from certain states, i asked for a statebystate breakdown. Obviously we know how close this election is and we want to know how much the russians were meddling in certain states. But one significant thing that you and i have talked about before is they are now supporting the honest ads act. Go figure. And twitter is as well today. And facebook has agreed to
voluntarily put every single paid political ad, issue or candidate up in an archive so you can see it, chris, so opponents can see it in campaigns, and that is a major shift from the last election in 2016. Yeah, you sponsored legislation that would essentially regulate ads on facebook and other social media platforms in a manner similar to how they are in broadcast. They have to be identified as such. You know youre viewing an ad, et cetera, and theyre supporting that as of today. Right. I want to get your reaction to the reaction to the hearing. I saw a lot of this. Basically it was like, oh, these you know, these senators dont really understand how the internet works and theyre median age is high. Not you particularly, and again its no ones fault thank you, chris. That theyre a senior, good for them. But it was interesting to me to watch the dynamic. People were watching saying, you guys dont get it, i dont like Mark Zuckerberg, but i dont trust the members of the u. S. Senate that they actually have a
grasp here. Whats your response to that . I think, first of all, no matter how old someone is, you need to have some rules in place. Hes admitted that, the senators believe that, the republicans are starting to say it. And i thought, you know, maybe Senator Durbin has been in congress for a while but no one could have said it better than that question to Mark Zuckerberg. Do you want your private information revealed . No, he doesnt. That is the basic question that we have to answer. Our laws have to be as sophisticated as the people that are breaking them and the products they are putting out there. Its not as hard. Its a simple bill of rights for users. You have to be able to make sure that your information is private in a simple way, not in 30 links on a website, one place. Do i want to give out my information or dont i . You have to have the right to have a breach, be notified so that if youre a user and your information has gotten out, you Shouldnt Have To Finding Out after a tv station notices it. You should be able to know, say, within 72 hours, which is a question i asked him. So we need to put those things in law, and they certainly need to get their act together with taking on the bots and verifying political ads for truth. I think we could have a whole new world here. But you cant just have one platform saying theyre going to do it. It has to apply to all of them. Is there a deeper question here about just the very basis of this Business Model . This is the largest entity sort of ever constructed, i think, outside the Catholic Church or empires, right . Youve got a billion users. Its hard to come up with an analogy for Something Else that has that. Are they too big to regulate . Is there something sort of profoundly difficult about getting your arms around this company and what they do . I think that they wanted to act at the beginning, that no one could regulate them. Theyre just simply a marketplace for ideas and democracy and cat videos and happy stuff. And what has happened, as time
has gone on, is they have gotten more and more complex in how they are putting their information out there, how its being analyzed and the way theyre targeting these ads. But the bottom line is theyre a media company. Theyre selling ads to make money. And they took information that, for instance, your station wouldnt have been allowed to put out there and gave it to people, to bad guys that shouldnt have had it. So, yes, we could step in and put rules in place. Now, we have to get through the house, we have to deal with the administration. Theres all kinds of things. But i think that this can be done. And by the way, senator shotts, hes a pretty young guy on the committee. Mark warner made his fortune in this area with telcom. Hes not on this committee but hes ranking on intelligence. Theres a number of us who have been in law or been in business who i think will be able to navigate this. Weve had some republicans interested in working with us. Im going to be putting out some Bipartisan Legislation tomorrow. Senator amy klobuchar, thank