Transcripts For MSNBCW AM Joy 20170528

Administrations dont get a head start. Welcome back to a. M. Joy. Now that donald trump landed back state side after his nine country world tour, hes experiencing a bit of political turbulence. This week the russia investigation got its second wind or third or fourth. Honestly, its easy to lose count at this point. When news broke that Jared Kushner had asked Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about creating a secret channel of communication between the Trump Transition Team and russia, with kushner officially a person of interest in the investigation and the white house setting up a warroom to combat the endless russiagate news, what happens next . Joining me tnow to discuss this mindboggling week in washington, congresswoman Maxine Waters. Congresswoman, good morning, first of all. Good morning. I should say hello. This morning on meet the press john kelly who is the director of heland security was asked to respond to what people are calling a backchannel. I dont know if its a real backchannel. But kushner did this with the russians. Letlisten to what he had to say. All right. Our own Intelligence Community had collectively said this is a country that infiltrated or election. Did this show good judgment . Wroyou know, it was before t government was in place during the transition period, i think from what i understand, and i think any time you can open lines of communication with anyone whether theyre good friends or not so good friends is a smart thing to do. Congresswoman, in the time youve been in the federal government and seen the transition of power from one party to the other in the white house, have you ever heard of a back channel such as the one were hearing that Jared Kushner set up . Absolutely not, and as it was just said, you know, president obama was still the president of the United States. Jared kushner was not even a government employee. He was a campaign person. Adviser to trump. And so for him to talk an setting up this back channel and using the russian facilities to do it, for me, i never heard of that, most people never heard of that and it seems unseemly that he would be involved in that kind of relationship with the russians given Everything Else that we know about these relationships between trump and his allies and russia. So much attention, so much involvement, so many connections with the kremlin and with putin and all of this certainly demands investigation and better understanding of what theyre doing, why theyre doing this, what is going on. You know, i was on meet the press earlier and the question was brought up of whether or not this was a back channel which is sort of the normal course of doing business when an administration is changing over. By december, by the time Jared Kushner was having these meetings with kislyak and also with a russian bank, the head of a russian bank, the Trump Administration had already decided that they were going to hire jim mattis to be their secretary of defense, yet he was not involved in any of these discussions. It was just kushner and mike flynn. I want to let you listen to one other thing mr. Clapper said on meet the press about how the meetings struck him because at the time he was still working in office. He was still in office. Go ahead. You were still the director of National Intelligence in december. Are these things you would have known . Well, yes, they would have, and just to reinforce john brennans, former dirtor of Central Intelligence agency, his comments, i have to say that without specific specifically affirming or confirming these conversations since even though theyre in the public realm, theyre still classified but just from a theoretical stand poichb point, i well tell you my dashboard warning light was clearly on and i think that was the case with all of us in the Intelligence Community. Of course, former cia director brennan among his comments were sometimes those going along a treasonous path that may not know it. It was said earlier on meet the press that perhaps the reason the Incoming Administration did not want to do things in the open, that they wanted to do things secretly so they couldnt be viewed by the Intelligence Community, is they didnt trust the Obama Administration not to jur undermine the Trump Administration. In your experience was either john brennan, the former cia director, or mr. Clapper, hyperpartisan democrats out to undermine the Trump Administration . Well, no, as a matter of fact, you know, ouf been thinking while all this has been going on, we have to trust our intelligence agencies to protect us and to be able to identify those who are placing us at risk and harm. And so we know that the russians were hacking into the dnc and two other elected officials, United States elected officials. We knew about meetings. They knew about them. I am just a little bit unnerved that between the Obama Administration and our Intelligence Community that none of this came forward in a way that we should have been dealing with it even before the election took place. The election date. We knew enough. They knew enough. What happened to all of this information . Yeah. And yet, you know, you know there have been many analysts whove said that the key to try to uncover and unravel at least one key to trying to understand whats going on here, why there are so many contacts, so many connections, would be to see Donald Trumps tax returns and yet Lindsey Graham, senator from south carolina, was on state of the union earl yier today. This is what he said about whether or not the senate or house intelligence committees ought to is a fesubpoena those returns. Take a listen. Is it time to subpoena the senat president s tax returns, senator . Were not there yet. I want to know where they got ma th their money in 2008 and 2009 when people were struggling with real estate why is it too soon to look at those and use your power in congress to subpoena them . Number one, i dont have any business dealing before we, the Trump Organization and russia, that seems to be inappropriate. Do i want to look and see if they are . Yes. Now we got the special counsel. I dont want to get in his lane. Congresswoman, what do you make of that response from Lindsey Graham . Well i think, again, theyve dragged this out so long and i dont quite understand why there a peer appears to be fear or a rhett zaeticence to learn more the president , his allies and family given all that we have seen. I mean, we have been given enough information about their operations, about their connections, about their meetings, to be able to delve further into these connections and what they all mean. We, on my committee, were going to Deutsche Bank because Deutsche Bank has been lending money to this president when no other bank would touch him because of his bankruptcies, because of his debt. We know theyve done a review. Theyve done a review on what is known as mirror trading where they turn rubles into dollars in a special way. And that the Deutsche Bank and their corrupt traders are involving with this. Hes very close to all of this. Theyve also done a review on him and his family. They have a lot of information about his business connections, about his taxes, and we asked the chair of our committeea republican, to investigate. He wouldnt do it. Weve done straight to Deutsche Bank. Were asking them to release certain information and were asking mnuchin, our new treasurer, to look into all of this. We know theres a lot of smoke and where theres a lot of smoke, there certainly is fire. We should be more aggressive in finding out about all of this. And lastly, congresswoman, on the sunbject of being more aggressive, you openly talked about the fact this president has put himself in a position where impeachment is on the table, but your party, the democratic party, is very reluctant. The New York Times has an article out last week about hesitant democratic leadership in particular and Many Democrats are to call for Donald Trumps impeachment. In closing, why do you suppose that is . I dont know what the rhett answ reticence is, but i know this, the American Public is getting wary of all of these actions without enough being done by the elected officials who theyve elected to represent them. I believe this man has done enough for us to determine that we can connect the dots. That we can get the facts that will lead to impeachment. I believe there was collusion. I think we have enough information about the meetings, about the lying, about those meetings to help us to understand that something was going on. There was inction there. And certainly, i believe it was collusion, but if they just do their work and do their job, they will find out it was collusion and i believe this president should be impeached. I dont care what others say about its too soon, we dont know, we think. I think that theyre letting the American Public down by not delving deeper into what is going on with Jared Kushner and this back channeling, about the lies and his failure to disclose that he had had these meetings. The same thing with sessions. Failure to disclose about the meetings. What more do we need . Yeah. Well, pulling no punches as usual. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, joy, so much. Thank you. If you dont follow congresswoman Maxine Waters on twitter, you should. Check her out maxinewaters. And next, setting the record straight on the white house and the history of usie ining diplo back channels. How if guests book direct ater, choicehotels. Com and stay twice theyll get a 50 gift card . Summertime. Badda book. Badda boom. Got you a shirt . I kept the receipt. Book now at choicehotels. Com m thinking, my friends know me so well. They can tell what im thinking, just by looking in my eyes. But what they didnt know was that i had dry, itchy eyes. I used artificial tears from the moment i woke up. To the moment i went to bed. So i finally decided to show my eyes some love,. Some eyelove. Eyelove means having a chat with your eye doctor about your dry eyes because if youre using artificial tears often and still have symptoms, it could be chronic dry eye. Its all about eyelove, my friends. But weve got the get tdigital tools to help. Now with xfinitys my account, you can figure things out easily, so you wont even have to call us. Change your wifi password to something you can actually remember, instantly. Add that premium channel, and watch the show everyones talking about, tonight. And the bill you need to pay . Do it in seconds. Because we should fit into your life, not the other way around. Go to xfinity. Com myaccount this morning, i got the chance to be on nbcs meet the press and had this very interesting interaction with the wall street journal columnist kim strassel. I think we are having a discussion that is absolutely divorced from reality this week. It is astronishing. Let me set the scene for you. Its 2008. Were having an election and candidate obama, hes not even president elect, sends William Miller over to iran to establish a back channel and let the raup iranians know should he win the election, they would have friendlier terms. Okay. This is a private citizen going to foreign soil, obviously in order to evade u. S. Intelligence monitoring and establishing a back channel with a sworn enemy of the United States who was actively disrupting our efforts with the military in the middle east. Judgment, a bad thing that happened . Back channels are completely normal. They happen all the time. Reagan did them, obama did them. Everyone did. Im not quite sure why supposedly having at least the president s now elected setting up a back channel with the russians is somehow out of bounds. Well, heres one key difference. In october, months borthis latest neetings, it was one of 18 separate contacts we now know of between the Trump Campaign and russia, primary adversary in the world and superpower. In october, the collective judgment of the 17 intelligence agencies had been that russia had been taking active measures to interfere in our elections. Quite a difference. We dont think iran was doing that. We knew that was happening in october. So in december, the now president elect decides hes going to name james mattis to be his secretary of defense. He doesnt open a back channel. He sends his Real Estate Developer soninlaw, supposedly, decides to open this back channel. It isnt a back channel, by the way. This isnt how it works. You dont go to the adversary country and say lets set something up inside your embassy, so we evade our intelligence sources. We set it up inside your facility which takes them aback. Thats bizarre. The idea were going to do this in your facility. Without james mattis. Then if its a channel about opening up negotiations in terms of something realistic, i mean, in terms of something about Foreign Policy, why are they also back channeling with a bank, a kremlin connected russian bank . Why is the reuters report saying part of the decision was the possibility of opening up opportunities for financing for trumprelated we dont know the answers to those questions because what were getting here that is not a back channel by definition. You have to follow the money, have to follow the meetings, the lies, the attempts. We dont have any of that information. To derail this investigation. And the reality here is that Jared Kushner and the Trump Administration apparently trusted the russians more than the Intelligence Community. Look, how can this not be suspicious . Why would you trust im sorry, by the wary, like, we cant forget the Intelligence Services and also the Defense Department were being run by the Obama Administration. They had plenty of reason not to necessarily want the Obama Administration to know what they were doing. What did they want to hide . This is suspicious because they have at minimum. What did they want to talk about . Why would you use russian why would you not maybe want to have all of these people in these departments with this information, which they would go on to leak on a daily basis. The election was over. Try to derail your presidency. Sorry, in december, the election was over. In this country, we have a continuity of government. We hand over peacefully power from one party to another. All the time. Are you telling me the now elected Trump Administration didnt trust john brennan, that somehow the straightarrow guys in our Intelligence Services were going to now work to actively undermine . Are they now seeing them as some sort of disaccidesident to undermine thats never happened in the history of the United States. One of the interesting pieces of news that came out this week was the fisa court revelation, they said the Obama Administration had been actively engaged in abusing 4th amendment protections by unmasking peoples identities on a routine basis which they did not acknowledge to the court and which they said brought up major, major concerns. Maybe you wouldnt trust that team. Who said that . Do you know how difficult it is is to get a fisa warrant against an american person . Youre not talks about what i just mentioned. All right. Im going to pause this conversation because i do have to go to break because i do have to pay for bills. Okay. We wanted to reset this conversation. I just viewers, after that exchange, after that segment, i wanted to understand what kim was talking about because i wasnt familiar with the story that she told about supposedly the obama then Campaign Opening up this supposed back channel to iran and the only source i could find was a Breitbart News article, a Breitbart News article that claims that during his first president ial campaign in 2008, barack obama used a secret back channel to dtehran to assure th mu mullahs he was a friend of the islamic republican and they would be happy with his policies, dubious prospect to be sure, and the secret channel was William Miller who served in iran during the rule for the chief of staff on the Senate Select committee on intelligence. Supposedly according to breitbart ambassador miller confirmed the story to a guy named michael ledin, an extremist, antiislamic kind of figure on the far right. Its a breitbart story. Even if it were true or relevant, you see the quote sending a former ambassador who worked in iran, equivalent of sending your el estate investor soninlaw to chat with the are russians in their secure facility, again, not a back channel. One other piece of information before i bring in my panel, there is a new book thats out called alter egos by New York Times White House Correspondent mark landler and talks about what a back channel actually is. I want people to understand what that means and talks about the then incoming Obama Administration setting up an actual back channel to try to set up the preconditions to have an iran deal. This was done through the state department. Through hillary clinton. The incoming secretary of state in which you open up discussions with even an adversarial country, in a way you do so outside the public so they can set the conditions up to have an iran deal. Whether you agree with the iran deal or not, that is a back channel. Going and meeting in the secure facility of a country to which you have dubious links including financial in a secret facility that is theirs and that is out of the reach of american intelligence communities, is not a back channel. So, you know, not to correct miss strassl erke we she wasnt here, but thats important. I want to bring in my panel, kirsten mag lu kirst kirsten haglund. And political strategist karine st. Pierre. David, have i framed correctly the difference between this and a back channel . St even mo its even more ext you put it. The point to the William Miller story, if its true, it probably is not, even in it were true, you can cut him off. If things dont go well, you never knew who he was. The oman story, the United States was not talking to iran, the United States was talking to iran. The oman talked to iran. It was compartmentally. Finally, none of these people owed the iranians hundreds of millions of dollars. Correct. None of them accepted improper help from the iranians during the election. Thats not really the point to me as someone who comes from the republican world. What is significant of that discussion is not that this defense is flimsy and preposterous, which it is. Question, look how trump is changing the Republican Party. This is the hill were going to die on. To defend these actions. The you know, i joked on twitter the other day that by the end of next week, were going to be arguing about whetherreason is bad. Ye and not to call not to use such a powerful word, thats a twitter joke. Im not accusing anybody of anything. But just to understand, look where we are. Yeah. Look where we are. That this is a deep russian penetration of u. S. Government. Today we have the news that the chancellor of germany has said the United States, she regards, as no longer reliable that the supreme first soviet, in 1945, hassen to en tbeen to se link. Im sorry this is a long answer. One more sentence and ill shut up. Since 1991, managing the u. S. german relationship is difficult. Germany is whole and is no longer threatened. Their temptation to wander off is stronger than ever. It takes enormous sensitivity to manage the relationship, crucial to the peace of europe, and instead putin could not is achieved out of this thats right. Trip more exactly what he wanted if hed been paying for it. Kirsten, i mean, not you had donald trump go to europe and not reaffirm article 5. Which is only invoked one time in defense of us after 9 11. Right. For him to have these chilly, obviously chilly relations with our allies in europe and chummy relationships with the saudi you know, the saudi royals or the entire sort of it is bizarre to me that the Republican Party that i grew up understanding, that my father adhered to, now finds all o this to be okay and will defend it. Right. You think of Ronald Reagan and everything that he worked for and his entire stance on Foreign Policy during his eight years of president s and how republicans have lifted him up as this prime example and now the Foreign Policy outlook is so incredibly different. You know, it was on the front page of der spiegel after donald trump said germans are very bad, very bad. Just like you mentioned, the germans have a tendency to wander, a very delicate relationship, eight into the hands of putin, which they have many, many gas contracts as well. Very powerful. Sure. Putin is influencing the tide of political philosophy in eastern europe. Look at hungary, the potential for the ideologically this where i see the concern is that the moral credibility of republicans is going to be so damaged that they lose any kind of Political Capital that they have in getting the legislation passed that they want. More capital for the United States, karine, because at the heart of this charge, this accusation on the other side, is one couldnt trust the Outgoing Administration because they are democrats. And that essentially we are not one country, right . Were two countries in which theres a revolution every four years and a new regime takes power so john brennan and dni clapper, two of the straightest arrows in the world are a threat to the Incoming Administration. Just because the exadministration are democrat. And youre absolutely right. During that transition power, its supposed to be one government at a time. Peaceful transition of power. And youre learning these stories now which is questionable. Right . Youre like, why, why is a civilian meeting with an ambassador who, by the way, is known to be a russian spy . Right. Who cultivates spies . And there are all these questions that come about this, but yet, the republicans are Picking Party over country. And it just doesnt make any sense anymore. And its for what . Donald trump . Yeah. For somebody that they didnt even want. Right. Fundamentally rejected. In the first place. At this point, this is not a republican and democratic issue, not a left right issue. This is a question of americans sovereignty, period, and it is hard for me to understand how something as agust as the wall street journal would want to come down on the other side of this question. Anyway, thats my rant. It is done. Kirsten haglund, david frum are sticking around. Coming up, well take a closer look at the man who some believe is really running our country, steve bannon. Stay with us. How if guests book direct ater, choicehotels. Com and stay twice theyll get a 50 gift card . Summertime. Badda book. Badda boom. Got you a shirt . I kept the receipt. Book now at choicehotels. Com even if youre trying your best. 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Whats in your wallet . Were at the very beginning stages of a very brutal and bloody conflict. We are in an outright war against jihadist, islamic fascism. This war i think is metastasizing almost far quicker than governments can hadndle it white house chief strategist steve bannon has come a long ways since he made those remarks at a 2014 conference at the vatican shown here on the pbs front line documentarywaned w removal from the security council, and puppet master, snl portraying him as the grim reaper calling the shots in the oval office. Bannon reminded the world this week hes still here. He accompanied trump on the first leg of his foreign tour. Here he is surrounded by saudi leaders and looking quite uncomfortable for some reason. Awkward. Kirsten haglund, david frum are back with us. Joining us on the panel, david corn of mother jones. Thank you al for being here. I want to play one more clip from the frontline documentary, ben shapiro who used to be at breitbart, talking about what unites steve bannon and donald trump. Palin, trump, are all antiestablishment figures and appeals to bannon. More about destroying enemies. Thats where he and trump i think really meet. So, david, you know, does steve bannon view donald trump as more of a comrade or more of sort of clay that he can mold for his own use and ambition . I think a conduit would be a good way to put it. I think ben is right, that they have the same personality in terms of destruction of enemies, being a large part of their personal motivation. But steve bannon has an ideology which donald trump doesnt. Trump is totally situational. Right. He can blast muslims and then two its all fine by him. Bannon realizes hes within the enemy camp there and probably wasnt his wrd to run off to saudi arabia on the first trip. He does believe as we saw in the vatican clip that there is a clash of civilizations and he takes it very seriously. While wanting to also disrupt the elites here in the United States whether its cultural elites, media elites, political elites. The one thing i thought the documentary played down, which i thought was a good film, was that it didnt really get into the fact that he turned breitbart, a conservative outlet, into an outlet for the altright. We know from watching the show, white nationalist. Im proud at mother jones, question quoted him saying its a platform for the altright. They played that down. A lot going on with steve bannon. Also played down the extent to which the entity he took from, andrew breitbart, has become the home of the altright and blatantly bigoted and very ai antisemitic. This is to wrr point of the chaos theories of steve bannon, they were launched and krit crystalized around the travel ban. Take a look. They wanted to rush this thing through and get it out there and essentially take a shockandawe approach to changing immigration policy. Bannon and the new president sent a message, change had come. That was in the eyes of bannon the way to rupture the establishment. They knew it was going to be disruptive. They wanted the disruption. They knew that the protests would come. They knew the media would erupt. Its what they wanted. And so ill ask you sort of the same question, you know, do you get the sense that steve bannon views american muslims as merely sort of props in this play that hes created or do you think he as a genuine fear that american muslims are destroying the country or at war with the rest of the country . Thats a fantastic question e. You know, i wouldnt have had a clearer answer but after seeing Steve Bannons face when he was in saudi arabia last week surrounded by the way, saudi arabia i mean, the saudis are the largest exports of radical islam. So he was kind of surrounded by the person pification of his wot nightmare. Initially i would think he didnt have any idea about the muslims but i do think he is terrified. This moment right now is really a shot for him to redeem himself for trump. I mean, there are lots of rumors, you know, couple months ago that he was being sidelined and now that trump is doing the shakeup, hes kind of back in the fold and back in the mix. But what i think that bannon needs to understand, and maybe convey to trump, is that were done with the spinning and the misdirection and the misinformation. This is a real this is a real investigation and we need facts, not more its interesting, icone of t things we wereoing to talk to you about, we ended up with not as much time, theres a weird way in which the saudis in a way mirror the world view of bannon and trump, right, particularly in the way they view women and the way they view melania as sort of portraying kind of almost theyre calling it a kind of feminism on the right. But its really what the saudis want to see. A pretty face, quiet, doesnt really other than the hand slaps doesnt really speak up. Well, exactly. Exactly. You know, its interesting because i would say fake feminism. Really what mel mania does for e saudis. She was a hit over there. Everybody loved her, her fashion choices, how she was speaking through her Stella Mccartney black jumpsuit. Its important she does for the saudis what she does for trump is basely provide a beautiful silent and poised distraction to tyranny and missongny. I had to put that segue in. David frum, you were in one of Steve Bannons documentaries. What was that document, what was the documentary like and what did you make of it . I was a talking head in generation zero. I was in the famous breitbart townhou hall. We talked two, three i felt we were talking very much at cross purposes. That is i was talking id written a big history of the 1970s and i was talking about the events of that period. And bannon was interested in doing a cultural indictment of his own baby boom generation. Of course, the decisionmakers in the 1970s were not baby boomers. Right. So, but what i found was i found him intellectually ambitious, found him intellectually curious and i think one of the things that i would, one, protest about that, caution against that documentary, we all need to believe that the world is ord orderly and basically safe place, so its very common when we write about white houses to construct narratives of good aides and bad aides. And thats the battle. The president then becomes the arbiter. And for a while Jared Kushner was the right. The e ppitome of the good aide because he had the most people spinning for him. It is not going to make a difference if steve bannon steps down or Jared Kushner steps out. Although i dont think Jared Kushner will. What is driving this administration more than most is the character of the president. Yeah. Absolutely. Youre right. And yet, kirsten, he does there is this constellation of people around, because donald trump doesnt have a deep ideology of his own become incredibly influential. The bannon wing of the good aides bad aides is interesting. Becomes the only United States senator to endorse donald trump, close to rebecca mercer, paycer. Kellyanne conway worked on the Transition Team. Pushed flynn to take the nsa post in the campaign. Obviously Kellyanne Conway is with her. Theres a wing, you know, of them. See that little constellation there, that resolve around bannon. If he were to go, the other bloggers he brought over from breitba breitbart, if he were to somehow you go, would that go with him . The populism, to counter the walg weight of jared who consider themselves have connections to soros and Goldman Sachs that so many on the right villainize. It wouldnt necessarily go. That is the difficult thing because donald trump sees Steve Bannons messaging at the end of the campaign really worked to energize a base of his and give him admiration which we know he loves. What is very concerning to me is that he just, you know, bannon focuses so much on otherizing, even groups within the gop. Yeah. And thats really scary. When you try to think of the gop, okay, longterm strategy, how are we going to engage young voters, have a longterm governing philosophy . Just this kind of destruction that he promotes and his otherizing and naming and shaming enemies is not going to work as a longterm governing strategy and my heart is so broken over this. Theyre headed back on the road to do more rallies. He does seem driven by defeating enemies more than building a better country. Yes. I think thats a not what this country needs right now. So when he was at breitbart, he was about trying to take down paul ryan. Yeah. For whatever reason that was. Now when hes in there and trump has that style has that personality. Yeah. Its about your enemies, you know, the press is the enemy. Thats right. His enemies are the enemy of the American Public. Thats where they have a mind melt and he grants this ideological superstructure to trumps, you know, personality. The ironic thing is, there are things in the breitbart tool kit if repurposed could be useful. One of the big messages supposed debates of 2016 was that the United States republicans needed a more middle class economic message. Right. More emphasis on preserving some kind of social insurance state, having less immigration. Yeah. That content, thats valuable. It shouldnt be lost. Its not about content. Its about emotion. Its about the character of the president of the United States. All right. Thank you very much, kirsten haglund, david corn. Coming up, fighting racism in the final frontier, the backlash to the new star trek series. You do not want to miss it. Stay right there. What if technology gave us the power to turn this enemy into an ally . Microsoft and its partners are using smart traps to capture mosquitoes and sequence their dna to fight disease. There are over 100 million pieces of dna in every sample. With the microsoft cloud, we can analyze the data faster than ever before. If we can detect new viruses before they spread, we may someday prevent outbreaks before they begin. Brtry new Flonase Sensimists. Allergy relief instead of allergy pills. It delivers a gentle mist experience to help block six key inflammatory substances. Most allergy pills only block one. New Flonase Sensimist changes everything. Before fibromyalgia, i was a doer. 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Ask your doctor about lyrica. I can be more active. Is to always keep track of your employees. R micromanage them. Make sure theyre producing. Woo employee of the month you really shouldnt leave their side. Vita coco coconut water, hydration comes naturally. The fbi is now working with police in portland, oregon, to investigate a racially charged stabbing attack that happened on a light rail train. Police say two men were fatally stabbed and another man critically injure ed friday whe they intervened to stop a man who was yelling antimuslim hate speech. According to a witness the suspect Jeremy Joseph christian was targeting two young women, one of whom was wearing a hijab. The incident came hours before ramadan was set to begin friday at sunset. According to reports christian is a selfproclaimed nazi sympathizer, has a history of racist facebook posts and long criminal history. Hes being held without bail on multiple charges including two counts of aggravated murder and one count of attempted murder. The fbi says its too early to describe the attack as a federal hate crime. This comes less than a week after Maryland Police say are richard collins, a black college student, was fatally scabbed by a White University of maryland student, sean orbanski, according to police a member of a racist Facebook Group called altright nation. He has been charged with first and seconddegree murder and the fbi is investigating the stabbing as a possible hate crime. The university of maryland announced an antihate action plan aimed at preventing bias crimes on campus. Meanwhile, on tuesday, collins was scheduled to graduate from buoy state university. In his place, his father walked across the stage and accepted the diploma his son had earned. Up next, racist fans have a problem with the new star trek series. They do. George tikay weighs in after the break. Ut. How come no one likes me, jim . Intel does just think of everything intels doing right now with artificial intelligence. And pretty soon ai is going to help executives like her see trends to stay ahead of her competition. No more sleepless nights. Were going to be friends im sorry about this. Dont be embarrassed of me, jim. Im getting excited about this we know the future. Were going to be friends because were building it. Times up, insufficient were on prenatal care. Es. And administrative paperwork. Your days of drowning people are numbered. Same gr oes foyou, budget overruns. And rising costs, wipe that smile off your face. Were coming for you, too. For those who wont rest until the world is healthier, neither will we. Optum. How well gets done. The future isnt silver suits anits right now. S, think about it. We can push buttons and make cars appear out of thin air. Find love anywhere. Hes cute. And buy things from, well, everywhere. How . Because our phones have evolved. So isnt it time our networks did too . Introducing americas largest, most reliable 4g lte combined with the most wifi hotspots. Its a new kind of network. Xfinity mobile. Captain where with regoing . We have no map and you cant set a course without a star. Its hard to imagine you served under me for 7 years. I think it is time we talk about you having your own command. Two to transport. Now if youre a fan of am joy you already know that i am a huge treky. Captain kirk for life. Coming this fall is the latest iteration of the beloved scenes Star Trek Discovery and it features asian actress as the captain and sasha from walk dead if youre not aware as her first officer. Awesome, awesome, right . Well, some people not so happy as we are here on am joy and they have go so far as to call it White Genocide in space. Seriously. Joining me now to talk about these shenanigans is actor and activist george takei. Live long and prosper. Live long and prosper my friend. We live at a time with so much madness going on. We talked in a break before the segment of actual hate crimes, racist hate crimes taking place around the country and yet people are finding the time to hate on star trek for having diversity, what . Well, you know, today in this society we have alien life forms that we call trolls and they carry on without knowing what theyre talking about and even less about the history of what theyre talking about and some of these trolls go on to be president s of nations. If youre watching this show i hope youre a treky. But when he created star trek, diversity, having you on that set, having part of that cast, wasnt diversity kind of the point . Well, we had a guiding activities kro anymore, adic which stood for infinite diversity in infireworks denite combinations. These trolls havent seen the new series because it hasnt been aired. There you are on one count. They have never seen what theyre talking about and they dont know the history of star trek that as you said, he created this with the idea of finding strength in our diversity. Thats and also delight of life in the diversity so they dont know what theyre talking about or the history of star trek. You come to a fily that was subjected to the internment of japanesemericans because of fear of another group of people because of who they are and because of their ethnicity. Does it depress you that in 2017 we still have people that are so frightened of diversity and so frightened of the idea of not having every single character in a film or tv series be white and white and male and having the president always having to be white and male. Well we made tremendous hen douse progress. I was five years old when soilders came to our home simply because we happened to look like the people that bombed pearl harbor. Were americans. My grandparents were immigrants that came here. My mother was born in San Francisco but we looked like the others and there wasnt a single elected official that stood up and spoke for us. But when donald trump tried to characterize muslims as the other and wrote two executive orders massive numbers of american rushed to their airports to protest that and the Deputy Attorney general of the United States sally yates who refused to defend that executive order. So we have made progress. We still havent made progress in terms of the president. The president was totally ignorant of the history of internment here. I invited donald trump to come see allegiance, a musical that we did on that subject. He never came. So he is ignorant of that chapter of American History and these people that are claiming that star trek is racist genocide or whatever theyre calling it, White Genocide, dont know what theyre talking about. Theyre equal to the president of the United States. I think the president is as foolish and as uninformed and as ignorant as these trolls are. Well, george takei, you are wonderful. Just talking to you. I think you are. Thank you. And i wish you a wonderful happy memorial day weekend. Its always such a treat to talk to you. Thank you so much. Its always such a treat to be on here and even better watching you every morning. Oh, live long and prosper my friend. Take care. Thank you. And if you are in new york be sure to catch georges current show pacific overture a revival of the musical at the nonprofit classic Stage Company in the east village and it will run through june 18th. Be sure to check it out. Youll probably see me there because im going to be there for sure. Thats our show for today. Join us for mam joy. In the meantime keep it here on msnbc. Its how well you mow fast. Woooh its not how fast you mow. Its how well you mow fast its not how fast you mow. Its how well you mow fast. Theyre not just words to mow by, theyre words to live by. E John Deere Ztrak z345r with the accel deep deck to mow faster better. Take a test drive and save up to 250 dollars on select john deere residential ztrak mowers. Its not just a car, its your daily treat. Go ahead, spoil yourself. The es and es hybrid. Experience amazing. Im dr. Kelsey mcneely and some day you might be calling me an energy farmer. Energy lives here. Break news tonight the Washington Post reporting Jared Kushner talked with russias ambassador about a secret communication pipeline during the transition and outside of normal u. S. Channels. Plus the Senate Intelligence committee wants it all. All the documents team trump has pertaining to russia. Robert costa with that report tonight. He will join us as the 11th hour gets underway. Good evening, once again from our headquaters here in new york. The breaking news we have been covering on this friday night heading into the memorial day weekend. Another bombshell story in the Washington Post. Lets quote right from the paper, it says, Jared Kushner and russias ambassador to washington discuss the possibility of setting up a secret and secure Communications Channel between trumps Transition Team and the kremlin using russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their preinauguration discussions from monitoring. The post quotes u. S. Officials believed on this intelligence. This story means the man closest to the president allegedly wanted to tal outside of known u. S. Channels and u. S. Officials know this because they intercepted the Russian Ambassador reporting back home to moscow, along with the surprise apparently that the kremlin had been invited in so close potentially to the Trump White House. As the trump reports it, quote, ambassador was reportedly taken aback by the suggestion of allowing an american to use Russian Communications gear at its embassy or conciliate. A proposal that would have carried security risks for moscow as well as the trump team. The White House Traveling overseas did not comment on this story as of yet. There was a second report in the Washington Post that went up a few minutes after the first one. It says the Senate Intelligence committee is now coming after everything. They asked the trump Political Organization to turnover quote all documents, emails and phone records going back to his campaigns launch in june 2015 according to two people briefed on the request. All of this as we wrap up day 127 of the Trump Administration. The president prepares to head home from his first trip overseas. Kushner is already back in washington having left the overseas trip early and the headlines come hours after white house aids told nbc news the admisttion was setting up a war room to address all russia related issues reportedly to be run by one Jared Kushner. Lets bring in our starting panel on this eventful evening. National reporter for the Washington Post, robert costa that was the author of the second breaking story in the post on this holiday friday night. Jeremy bash is with us. Chief of staff to the director of the cia and secretary of defense and former house intelligence committee. A russia expert in her own right. Matthew miller former chief spokesman for the department of justice. He is an msnbc justice and security analyst and with me here in new york in our studios, rick, former under secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the u. S. State department in the Obama Administration. Also the former managing editor of time magazine. Homefield advantage on this one, want to start off with your reaction to the first of the two Washington Post reports tonight. Well at this point i caveat it by saying if true but it gets curiouser. My first reactions are its somewhere between extreme ignorance and something much more dangerous. If an Intelligence Officer had done what mr. Kushner had done he would be looking at espionage charges now. Talking about using an outside channel to talk way foreign hostile power. The other thing is that anybody thats ever been in the usg knows that the Intelligence Community monitors all the calls of the Russian Ambassador. You cant have a quite or innocent conversation with the Russian Ambassador and you can never have an innocent conversation with a russian in any case in government so thats just disturbing that that was not known or realized. That also speaks to the second part of this story and that is that they monitored him expressing surprise along the lines of can you believe our good fortune . I have befriended this young man thats married to the president s daughter and is a future Senior Adviser. In all his years in washington he never thought getting information could be so easy apparently but it does fit the pattern of what we have heard earlier in the year about how jared had met with the bank ceo, a sanctioned bank ceo. Obviously he forgot to disclose that as well conveniently throughout this campaign. We know that jared had been the top adviser to this president following each of the debates. The firstperson jared would approach would be the president , the firstperson that the president would approach after a debate would be jared. We know that jared had been very close with other russian billionaires as well. One of his best friends. His wife, in fact, was jared and ivankas guest at the inauguration. Now im not pinning all the blame and suspicion on every single rich russian however you do have to understand that unlike in the u. S. And business men in the u. S. , every single one in russia has the connection to one person and that is to Vladimir Putin. So his orbit includes a lot of russians all of those russians having a connection of course to the president of the country. Jeremy bash before i come to you i want to share with all of you a moment that transpired on air at this network tonight during the 8 00 p. M. Hour with chris hayes. For all those that would like to know how the people in our intelligence and counter Intelligence Community viewed this story tonight, listen to our own intelligence expert, a veteran. Some of these contacts are so suspicious that they would have warranted the wrong Counter Intelligence investigation. This nation is in a Counter Intelligence investigation. They are in a spy hunt over at the fbi and now we have this story. Should it prove true of an american citizen that is the Senior Adviser to the president of the United States attempting to establish what we call in the Intelligence Community Covert Communications with a hostile nations potential Intelligence Agency or senior leadership. That crosses the line to the espionage act of 1917. This cannot be explained. Put aside the other 18 contact with moscow. This one incident required Jared Kushner and all of his immediate staff to have their clearances pulled now and to have the fbi descend on them to determine whether this is hostile intelligence in the white house one step from the president. There you have it jeremy bash. How serious is this in your eyes if true. Its on the underlying conduct by jared and what he was talk about with the russians. If he was trying to engage in normal diplomacy, there could be a rational explanation for this. Now the thing and the fact that really is curious is that we dont kn why he would have to use a russian diplomatic facility to have that conversation. I cant think of any real good reason for that. I worked on the intelligence transition in 2008 where we handled all of the incoming diplomacy to the new obama team and i can never remember a circumstance in which someone that was coming at the government said i need to have a secret communication with a Foreign Government and i need to shield it somehow from the existing team. That is the fact that if its proved to be true is going to be the most troubling fact to explain. Robert costa, to the story of viewers that came out minutes after this one, is this proof that some people had been looking for in washington that where the Senate Intelligence committee is concerned and now were in the mueller era at the Justice Department where they are concerned they do intend to be the adults in the room, theyre going to strap on their saddle bags theyre going to the mattresses and this is unreal. The mueller probe, the special council and the fbi are certainly taking the lead when it comes to the russia interference investigation but there is another investigation on capitol hill and we have seen the chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee build a working relationship with the ranking democrat from virgi and they are moving forward with theirwn investigation. Its more public in nature trying to bring people to testify but its also about documents and records and theyre pushing the Trump Campaign itself. Now the trump camp, now the trump political operation to provide Everything Possible to the senate and back in 2015. Robert i talked to someone close to all the figures in this has intimate knowledge of all the personalities involved that said in effect you guys may be missing the larger story here. While there could be nepharious goals and named comingled this could be about the soninlaw of the president coming from where he came from, knowing he was going to be working for the boss hes working for, wanting control. Wanting to be National Security adviser, secretary of state, white house chief of staff and on and on. Robert does that match any of your reporting . Well, i could tell you that some of my sources within the white house not always in a positive way refer to mr. Kushner as the shadow secretary of state. His portfolio is perhaps too large. They also say his critics inside of the white house that kushner coming in from the new York Real Estate world did not rlize he didnt know and that as jeremy and so many others with de eerience are aware of is that so many foreign diplomats are constantly surveilled and for kushner not to recognize that in these exchanges is not only a stumble but a stumble that could have real consequences for this president. Matthew miller im trying never to use this construct but let me try this one on you, if mark met with the Russian Ambassador and said, my motherinlaw is about to become president and id like to set up a line of communications, lets get this out of the normal channels, we can use your server in effect, imagine our discussion tonight. Yeah. There would be impeachment hearings on the hill. There were 7 committees that investigated ben gatherigazi. The problem with his conduct is concealment. Thats the problem we keep coming back to over and over again. When he had this initial meeting with the Russian Ambassador they brought him in through the back door. Not through the front door of trump tower the way others came so publicly. He then didnt report it on his security clearance application form. Said it was an oversight. Its hard to understand now that we know the significance of this meg d what he requested that it was actually an oversight. We now find out tonight he asked for this secret channel and he had three other conversations with the Russian Ambassador dating back to april and didnt report those either. So its his pattern of concealment that will get the attention of investigators. They think its for something suspicious and i guarentee you thats what bob mueller will look at and the Senate Committee as well. You heard malcolm nance that feels at some level a personalprofessional insult. This is his lifes work. Intelligence, Counter Intelligence, throughout this he has been on the air with us a million times. Hes been in a state of disbelief that were having this conversation. He was the first to give voice to this tonight. I heard others since. The notion of pulling the security clearance while theres question marks here while an investigation is going on. Is that realistic . I would only mention the fact that there were omissions on mr. Kushners form that you do for the office of Personnel Management for high security. Having been a veteran, having gone through thats those forms many times where theyre asking you about every conversation you have ever had with with anyone that has a foreign activiticent is a troubling thing. If they find you have misrepresented things on that form you shouldnt have security clearance. Jeremy bash you live in the factual word. This may call for a judgment. If this had been anyone else would he lose his job . I dont know. It depends on what the underlying conversations were and if he said i want to use the facilities of the Russian Embassy or russian am bass doba home. If someone did that they would be under scrutiny and have their experiences pulled, yes. Remember everything about unmasking. Something you took great pains to describe for our viewers on the air. Is this not a classic kind of working example of unmasking where your, the National Security adviser for president obama. Its your intelligence briefing. Shared with you is intelligence that showed a u. S. Person inside trump tower having a conversation with the Russian Ambassador about setting up a separate channel for communications. Is it not incumbentpon you to say who is this person talking . Just to belear brian what the post report said tonight and the New York Times also said wasnt that they accepted a communication between Jared Kushner and the russians they intercepted communications between the russians and their home headquaters in moscow. So there could be a unmasking process if that information is necessary to understand the intelligence but they werent surveilling the actual communications. No, right. What i meant is in a quote to the home office he could say i met with, you know, redacted u. S. Person that wants to set up a line of communication . Yes. That would be a classic case where someone in order to understand that Intelligence Report would request that unmasking through the appropriate channel and that request i think would be granted. This gets back to the notion that every russian operating in the United States knows and can assume to ricks point earlier that theres no such thing as a private phone call back home. Theres no such thing as a private phone call to one another in their own country back home not to mention here in the u. S. Its interesting that the New York Times is also reporting that one of the topics discussed in these meetings was syria. So one has to wonder if Jared Kushner thought maybe if he could coerce the russians to help our fight in syria and put pressure on assad then maybe the lifting of sanctions could be a topic discussed in a Trump Administration. Obviously that isnt going to be a topic had Going Forward as we know it now but that could be rational as to why Michael Flynn said hold off to the russians and dont worry about sanctions. Well talk about that later and of course Michael Flynn very close with Jared Kushner together having this conversation about syria among other issue. So robert costa lets assume for the sake of argument that your newspaper and the New York Times locked in the great newspaper war of 2017 havent even broken a sweat yet and lets assume that perhaps the news gets worse. What if Jared Kushner gets taken out of the game even temporarily given his role and function in this white house . Well, i was at the white house until late tonight and kushner is very aware of his situation. He has offered to testify but in terms of really being out there as a Senior Adviser engaged in daytoday political affairse is a hot topic right now not only in the west wing but in american politics and republicans are wary of him tonight texting me and telling me that so i think theres no sign that hes leaving the white house at all. But there is a sign that he knows being out front isnt going to be the way forward in the coming weeks. Does it ever strike you probably arguably the closest man to the leader of the free world, we have never heard his voice . He does avoid interviews. He hasnt done a big sit down. He likes it that way. He doesnt mind the intrigue about who he is. But he is someone that likes being in the middle of power. Robert, let me run one more scenario by you. President of the United States comes home over the weekend jet lagged and returns to unlimited twitter use. What could go wrong . What is going to come next is the real question. Theres going to be a series of meetings at the white house, in particular on sunday and monday with the president thinking about what kind of operation is going to deal with the lush i cant questions moving forward with all of this talk mostly among senior aids about establishing a war room or response operation on russia to channel questions but i think the president is going to have to make a final decision on whether new people may come in. Robert costa i know we talked you into joining us late tonight on a friday night going into the Holiday Weekend. Thank you for your reporting and your contributions tonight. You have been excused for purposes of this broadcast only but well be talking along the way. Robert costa thats also host of washington week. Rick, the idea of a war room its been floated out there with existing names but again i heard it proffered today this should be legal professionals if youre going to do it and Communications Professionals perhaps with fresh eyes. Its not a terrible idea. And to me the thing that they should do is refer all questions to mr. Muellers investigation or all questions to the Senate Intelligence staff and in the background trying to bat some things down but the problem is is that in the case of mr. Kushner he is a person about whom stories need to be rebutted and he is meant to be in charge of it. What are the russians likely saying among themselves tonight . Well, they had quite a week. Banner leak, right . Look at the president and his interactions with nato colleagues there, ice cold. I really do think that the most at home seeing this president in photos is in the oval office with the two sergey thanks to the russian photographers allowed in. Theres one thing our allies in europe wanted to hear from this president and thats embracing article 5. That did not happen so a good start to the week for Vladimir Putin and obviously this news coming out. Were hearing that his ambassador to the u. S. Was stunned by what he had heard from the president s soninlaw and you piece all of this together and you have to go back to the story that we heard a few days after the former fbi director james comey was fired and you heard that Jared Kushner was one of those pushing for his firing and maybe just maybe this is making a bit more sense now. Matthew miller i want to read you one more quote. I dont think we made enough of the original reporting tonight. Yet again tonight by the Washington Post they and the New York Times kind of trade back and forth. Quote, how would this is a bit more of the reporting on jared. How would he trust that the russians wouldnt leak it on their side . Said one former Senior Intelligence official. The fbi would know that a trump transition official was going in and out of the embassy which would cause a great deal of concern he added. The entire idea seems extremely naive or absolutely crazy. Want to pick one, matthew. Both. I think extremely knee yoonaive great term for it and when you look at his actions it raises the question why was someone 36 years old with so little government experience. No real experience in politics other than this campaign and someone that clearly through the transition was in a bit over his head has been given so much responsibility at the white house. Its a question not just for looking backward but looking forward given all the things put in his basket. Lets bring in former department of justice prosecutor and professor at Georgetown Law School in washington paul butler and counselor, thank you for joining us. Yet again we made a lot of use of your legal talents of late. Lets talk about if this story is true the legal jeopardy that changed for Jared Kushner. Its a federal crime to with hold information from a security clearance. Its a felony. You get up to 5 years in prison. Based on his foreign Statement Today kushners defense is going to be i forgot and ryan i have seen these case where is people say they forgot things like getting arrested for marijuana when they were in high school or defaulting on student loans. When you say that you forgot that you tried to establish a back channel to talk to the russians so that the government of the United States wouldnt know about it, i dont know who is going to believe that. Paul i heard david tonight say she canadian. He was asked how many times he crossed the border and he said theres no way i can give you an exact number. We have family and we go back and forth all the time. That would fall under the banner of honest mistakes. Easy stuff. I guess what youre talking about is the other end of the scale. Yeah, you know, i had to get a security clearance when i was doing prosecution for the department of justice and they put the fear of god in you. You have to sign a statement saying you disclosed every material fact and you havent withheld anything under penalty of perjury and prosecution so theres no way you forget something as dramatic as this and that raises the question what is he trying to de . At is it that the senior aid to the president , the president s soninlaw didnt want the government to know . He has plausible denieblt if he says well i was concerned that the Obama Administration would find out. Thats why i wanted to be private but if thats true, why not admit that during your security clearance . You look like youre trying to hide something that raises the suspicions of prosecutors and not just any prosecutor but one of the best in the country Robert Mueller thats going to be all over this. We dont have a senior pure political guest on this broadcast tonight to talk about the trump agenda, the legislative calendar going into the next work week. What about the organization that they come home to . The president described it as a well oiled machine early on in the administration. What does this all do to that . Its a great question brian and also if you look at the Foreign Policy agenda and all the things they tried to do on the international stage. Russia has been looming large. It was the dominant elephant in the room in brussels during the nato discussions and when they come home theyre going to have to figure out what comes next in terms of the comey testimony. How is Congress Going to be dominated by this news . Congress is going to be in session almost all of jun and the Senate Intelligence committee will b at maximum velocity. Rick in your old line of work, not journalism but diplomacy try to encapsulate what the president did to precedent and standing treaties in the post world war ii era between the u. S. And europe yesterday. You have to endorse article 5. Which they invoked for us. He did not cite that himself and maybe thats an oversight but the fact is everybody was waiting for those words to come out of his mouth and they never came out. Whats your evidence that the story line changes between now and next week or now and mid june . The president s twitter feed. He would like to be talking about other things but that doesnt seem to be the case or likely to happen. There does seem to be this epidemic of russian diplomat amnesia taking place among his inner circle whether its jeff sessions, whether its Jared Kushner. For some reason they keep forgetting that they met with these russian diplomats. Another russian olthat had tieso Paul Manafort. Hes seeking immunity. I met him ten years ago and i remember what he wore. Thats how memorable these russian figures are and for Jared Kushner to i say i forgot i met these men three months ago at 36 years of age thats impossible but youre also dealing with a man that was credited with winning this election for donald trump for really knowing his voters and for knowing how to appeal to them so maybe he did get a sense of being above it all and knowing washington and how to maneuver around washington better than of course he actually does. Yeah. I was going to ask you about this New York Times piece with this gentlemans picture asking, wants to tell his story to congress but asking for immunity and he lives in moscow. Where did this come from . He lives in moscow. He had been denied a travel ban to the u. S. For ties with russian mobsters. He managed to come to the u. S. A few times over the past ten or 15 years and one of those times was when i met him back then he was considered russias richest connected closely with Vladimir Putin and has real estate deals in t country and around the world and sort o entangled in a riety of differe businesses but one of the links is to Paul Manafort and his ties with the help with the ukrainian election. He wants to get immunity and thus far Congress Said no. Paul butler whats the working rule on immunity . Dont you wait much later in the process until just about all the water has been squeezed out of the sponge . Yeah. Normally immunity would be out of the question for someone like Michael Flynn because he is a big fish. But if he can deliver even a bigger fish, like the president s soninlaw and Senior Adviser, or somebody even higher in the white house then the special council might offer him a deal. Its way too early for that. Paul, jeremy, thank you all. Well see you in a few minutes. Coming up, how will this latest news be received on the hill . The Ranking Member of House Foreign Affairs is here with us live in the studio when the 11th hour continues. Theres nothing traditional about my Small Business so when it comes to technology, i need someone that understands my unique needs. My dell Small Business advisor has gotten to know our business so well that is feels like hes a part of our team. With one phone call, he sets me up with tailored products and services. And when my advisor is focused on my tech, i can focus on my Small Business. Is to always keep track of your employees. R micromanage them. Make sure theyre producing. Woo employee of the month you really shouldnt leave their side. Vita coco coconut water, hydration comes naturally. How to win at business. Step one point decisively with the arm of your glasses. Abracadabra. The stage is yours. Step two choose la quinta. 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Anything and everything going back to the start of the campaign that refers in anyway to russia. And here to react to tonights story is the Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs committee, new York Democratic congressman elliott engle. Thank you for coming into our studio tonight. What do you make of any and all of this tonight . Well, i think once again i and other democrats certainly in the house have been calling for an independent commission very similar to the commission that was formed after september 11th, 2001. Theres so much coming at us every single day. Dt know what to believe and whatnot to believe and the American People really need to know the truth. And yet, arent you a bit satisfied that mr. Mueller is running things and that as of tonight at least the Senate Intelligence committee steems have gone up a notch. Yes. I think mr. Mueller is the Perfect Choice but mr. Mueller serves as the pleasure of the president. The president could fire him at any time. I warned an independent commission that the president cannot touch congress has to do that were still fighting an uphill battle for that. I hope that the Republican Leadership will understand that it would be best for the country. Malcolm nance that really did write the book on russias effort to hack our election said on the air tonight during the 8 00 hour and i hadnt as of yet heard anyone else say it, that Jared Kushners security clearance should be pulled. Is that a proposal you would share . Mind to tell you the truth. Y on the one hand it gets worse and worse with everything we hear and on the other hand youre innocent until being Proven Guilty and he hasnt been Proven Guilty of anything yet so it may be a bit premature but again thats why i think mr. Mueller has a job to do and hell do a good job but the best thing would be an independent commission. It couldnt be knocked down by anybody. Do the job and come up with whatever conclusion they can come up with and thats the best way to move forward and then well know what mr. Kushner did or didnt do. I dont understand this infactuation with the russians. It makes me scratch my head. First the president talks about nato as being obsolete as if to appease the russians. We know russians have been pushing to an end to the sanctions that were rightly imposed on them after the invasion of ukraine and there seems to be an infactuation with the russians and what is mind boggling is when you know theres all kinds of accusations abou ts between the Trump Campaign and russia the russians should be the last person that anyone would want to set up a topic of communication. Do you think this is all sustainable . I think its not sustainable. What else is going to come out . Were hearing these things every day. It certainly has to cripple the president s ability to govern, to lead the country because hes obviously preoccupied with a lot of these things but then he goes to nato and doesnt talk about section 5, an attack on one is an attack on everyone. Thats what we needed because theres a lot of question in europe. Theres a lot of questions about whether the president is really committed to the nato alliance. Congressman, thank you very much. Its going to be midnight coming up here in your district in the bronx and elsewhere. We did not. Thank you very much congressman. Coming up how will the white house and republicans on the hill respond to the latest breaking news on russia and the Trump White House . Some answers when we continue. How if guests book direct ater, choicehotels. Com and stay twice theyll get a 50 gift card . Summertime. Badda book. Badda boom. Got you a shirt . I kept the receipt. Book now at choicehotels. Com this clean was like pow everything well . My teeth are glowing. They are so white. Step 1 cleans. Step 2 whitens. Crest [hd]. 6x cleaning , 6x whitening a i would switch to crest [hd] over what i was using before. Was there any contact between trump and his associates or cut outs that they had. I joined this campaign in the summer and i can tell you that all the contact by the Trump Campaign and associates was with the American People. Im trying to get an answer. Of course not. Why would there be any contacts between the campaign . January 15th, you may remember that. Mike pence just before the inauguration saying no contacts between the Trump Campaign and the russians. So how will the white house and republicans on the hill respond to this latest breaking news . We have been covering and talking about tonight . Lets bring in our panel for this segment. White house correspondent for routers. You may recognize her from the Daily Briefing with us tonight. Hugh hewitt and host of the appropriately named hugh hewitt show and rick remains with us. Tell us about the reuters story that takes a slice of this tonight on the sam general topic of Jared Kushner and then a judgment from you, how do you think the white house which is tonight the traveling white house is going to react to tonights wave . Reuters had a great scoop that there were contacts between the russians and Jared Kushner that had not been disclosed. Theres been contacts and the fbi is looking into whether there was any sort of qui quid pro quo where you would have the russians saying look if you ease these sanctions maybe we could help out on some business transactions. But, that said, our story did report that there is at this point no evidence that there was anything inappropriate going on but they are being looked at so thats what we reported. As far as how the white house will respond, we were also reporting that theyre trying set up this war room and so thaer goi theyre going to try to bring in maybe some people and Campaign Officials and bring in others that might be able to help them to be more proactive and go more on the offense because all of these stories are coming out. The issue of course is that i guess jared was also supposed to be helping out with the war room so how he is going to help out when she also the subject of some of these damaging stories is the question. Hugh hewitt. Thank you for agreeing to step into the breech. Your reaction to tonights Washington Post story if true jared trying to set up a Communications Channel. It was february 21st, 1969. And the first. It was not known in the state department. Jared kushner was in the meeting in november and subsequently so who knows where the idea of a back channel is. Hang on im going to call timeout. Back channel. And in the cold war and he was sitting here at the veteran of the state department. And a safer world. Going around channels the communication that existed that could get muddled. So that is something quite different until we learn evidence that this was an effort for a safer world for all. Rick help me out. Yes i think theres diplomacy and theres some kind of thing that might be nepharious. I think the interesting point is is there a quid pro quo. Thats completely inappropriate conversation. You may continue. I would agree with that. I want to find out what they talked about. Theres precedent for back channel and three administrations in a row have attempted russian reset. The irony of course is that the war room is being set up. James st. Clair that was Richard Nixons special council came from the hold firm in boston. Thats the irony and then the perspective its been 20 years since mel gibsons Conspiracy Theory came out with his apartment full of maps and red lines and newspaper clippings. Im beginning to think theres some offices in Mainstream Media that have those kind of charts. Theres lots of paperwork and in the end there was a conspiracy. Tougher question, how does the trump agenda do next week on capitol hill when everybody is back . The agenda advanced with the conversation this week and the destruction of the socalled blue slip. Thats very good on the judicial side. Mitch mcconnell admitted also he has no current plan to get an obamacare package out by august. I hope that changes and the speaker told me this week that we have tax reform on the agenda in 2017. So i do not leave this helps but i do believe it is moving forward and id add one more thing, if the president wanted to cozy up to the russians the one thing he would not do is demand that the nato allies would pony up their 2 . Thats the last thing the russians wanted to hear an american president demand to his european allies is their fair share of the defense of europe against russia. At the same time it was roundly proffered yesterday that the president s message left out russia and the view so many nato members have of the clear present and renewed danger that russia represents to them. And he confuses it. Paying their rent somehow and doesnt make a world of difference on whether they paid 1. 5 or 2. 5 or 2 because americas gdp is so large 2 of americas gdp overwhelmed the contribution of everybody else but the most important thing as i said before is the fact that he did not cite article 5 of the nato agreement which is what hio do. Ayesha, before we scoot to a break, last word, this warroom and you have been among the news organizations reporting this, it could be staffed by these names we know who are also dealing with incoming subpoenas to put it bluntly. Well, and i think thats part of the issue with this is is the Trump Administration willing to go outside of its kind of loyalty circle and get an outsider for this warroom because at this point, it seems like President Trump really is only comfortable with those people that he knows, and that he feels are loyal to him and does this situation call for people who are outside of that . Who are outside of his circle . Heres looking at lewandowski. Thank you, all. Ayesha, lou, and rick. This late friday of a Holiday Weekend. Coming up, a president ial historian reacts to this breaking news. Pulitzer prize winner john meacham is with us next. Im dr. Kelsey mcneely and some day you might be calling me an energy farmer. Energy lives here. Present. Youralways itthinng aboutt. Hats always what if my cancer comes back . Ive been working on this therapy for 5 years now and were getting ready to go to the clinic. My son definitely keeps me fighting. I want to be there for him when he needs me. Thats what motivates me. I want to see patients have gray hair. I see myself growing old with my pink hair. That to me, is enough to keep going. Depend silhouette active fit briefs, feature a thin design for complete comfort. They say move it or lose it and at my age, im moving more than ever. Because getting older is inevitable. But feeling older . Thats something i control. Get a free sample at depend. Com. My friends know me so well. They can tell what im thinking, just by looking in my eyes. But what they didnt know was that i had dry, itchy eyes. I used artificial tears from the moment i woke up. To the moment i went to bed. So i finally decided to show my eyes some love,. Some eyelove. Eyelove means having a chat with your eye doctor about your dry eyes because if youre using artificial tears often and still have symptoms, it could be chronic dry eye. Its all about eyelove, my friends. Welcome back to the 11th ur. Th us for perspective tonigh a Pulitzer Prize winning president ial historian, latest, a the New York Times bestseller, dt destiny and power. Its a biography of bush john, a pleasure to have you back. Thank withdrew for joyou for jos holiday friday night. Im going to call you in on backup from what we heard from hugh hewitt. I predicted by someone tonight the b word would be used by someone smart who read theirken johnson and nixon. A back channel was used toward a safer world. It was used to avoid a Nuclear Holocaust and catastrophe. A back channel, this is not, as alleged. No. I think there are two examples. One, theres the nixon one. I think the better one is Robert Kennedy and georgie bulshibov. Our friend wrote a biography about Robert Kennedy that laid this out. Robert kennedy reporting only to his brother, the president , used a soviet cutout to Exchange Messages outside channels with kruschev, the most dangerous hour in human history. That was a back channel that was entirely about National Security and avoiding armageddon. That was a case where ts worked. A case where it did nork was in the middle of the 1980s when the National Security council under president reagan went rogue, went operational, and through the israelis, a number of reagan National Security staffers, tried to establish a secret channel to iranian moderates and we know how well that turned out. That led to iran contra. And this, however, i dont think is like the others. Neither of those examples ever potentially included the enrichment of the first family. And by also by my count, it never it was, if the conversations as reported, were never about entirely leaving them in the control of enemy intelligence. Or a 36yearold real estate sion from new york, married to the president s daughter. I was saying the other night it is as if fdrs aide, harry hopkins, had married the president s daughter and been born into a great privilege in new york. Right. And as we all know, as you say, diplomacy is full of back channels. Diplomacy is full of the great diplomatic chapters. The cuban missile crisis in many ways was resolved because there were conversations taking place outside the executive committee of the National Security council in october of 1962. But that was about a very complicated and essential theory of diplomacy. John kennedy in the fall of 1960 reviewed a become of war strategy. Basal little hart. I like to think are the only people right now who are thinking about him. The British Military strategists whose principle was always put yourself in the other guys shoes. Diplomacy works. Crises are defused when youre able to see the world through the other persons eyes. Back channels make that happen. Again, this is not that. Yeah. No one is accusing this of having anything to do with diplomacy, at least at this early hour. John, a question i just asked the congressman. Is this sustainable . And pick any part of it. The pace. The fact that it has sparked maybe absent people buying print newspapers but one of the great newspaper wars of our times. Just the withering, withering speed of it all. I think it depends on what you mean about what element of the order is sustainable. Im actually ive come through the last six or eight days and you and ive talked about this, actually feeling rather optimistic about the basic constitutional, cultural order of checks and balances. You have the courts taking on the travel order. You have, as you say, one of the great newspaper wars of alltime performing a check and balance on the administration. I think the system is working. The system is straining, but i think that anyone who followed 2016 expected a certain amount of a certain stress test. I my concern about the basic democratic, lower case d, culture, is that its so hard for people, particularly as theyre trying to meet their mortgages and find job and keep the American Dream going, is hard for a lot of folks to follow these events from moment to moment. And i do i do worry about the speed in that sense. John meacham, its a pleasure to be able to talk to you on this broadcast. Thank you very much. Thanks, brian. And that is our broadcast on this friday night of memorial day weekend. A busy day. 127 of this young administration. Before we go, though, two things. A major american figure has passed from the scene tonight. Zbigniew brzezinski. Played a part of peace at camp david and witnessed the unraveling of iran. Jimmy carters National Security adviser. Obviously Zbigniew Brzezinski was part of the extended family of this network. Our condolences with our colleague and friend, mika, and the entire family. Useful for all of us, this coming threeday weekend is about something, its about taking a moment and remembering as they did with the annual placement of the flags at arlington today, remembering those who have died in service to their country just as volunteers continue to serve in uniform around the globe tonight. We thank them. We thank you for being here with us. While wishing you a safe and happy Holiday Weekend, good night from new york. This sunday, the growing russia investigation. New reports that President Trumps soninlaw, Jared Kushner, tried to