And members of the trump team. Tonight we will talk with two members of the House Intelligence Committee who took part in todays hearing, one democrat, one republican if you can believe it. First a look at what we saw today. The president was at a campaignstyle rally tonight in louisville pushing the Republican Health care plan to an adoring crowd. He did not mention or go anywhere near the story that dominated today and will keep dominating the headlines into tomorrow. And thats comeys testimony. Todays hearing got under way with an Opening Statement from house intelligence chairman, the california republican, devin nunes, who had been a member of the trump transition team. Nunes, like many in his party today, concentrated on leaks of classified information to reporters, then it was congressman adam schiffs turn, the lead democrat on that committee. The months of july and august 2016 appear to have been pivotal. Its at this time the russians began using the information they had stolen to help donald trump and harm hillary clinton. So the question is, why . What was happening in july august of last year . And were u. S. Persons involved . Now, is it possible that the removal of the ukraine provision from the gop platform was a coincidence . Is it a coincidence that Jeff Sessions failed to tell the senate about his meetings with the Russian Ambassador . Is it a coincidence that Michael Flynn would lie about a conversation he had with the same Russian Ambassador, kislyak . Is it a coincidence that roger stone predicted podesta would be a victim of a russia hack and have his private emails published and did so even before mr. Podesta, himself, was fully aware his private emails would be exposed . Is it possible that all of these events and reports are completely unrelated and nothing more than an entirely unhappy coincidence . Yes. It is possible. But it is also possible, maybe more than possible, that they are not coincidental, not disconnected and not unrelated and that the russians used the same techniques to corrupt u. S. Persons that they employed in europe and elsewhere. We simply dont know, not yet, and we owe it to the country to find out. Congressman schiff is a federal prosecutor, formally, and looked and sounded the part today in the hearing. As for the fbi director, himself, weve compiled for you some of the more important moments from his testimony today. I have been authorized by the department of justice to confirm that the fbi, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the russian governments efforts to interfere in the 2016 president ial election. And that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and the russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russias efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed. Director comey, was the president s statement that obama had his wires tapped in trump tower a true statement . With respect to the president s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, i have no information that supports those tweets and we have looked carefully inside the fbi. The department of justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the department of justice and all its components. The department has no information that supports those tweets. This is the world were living in right now and while the fbi director was testifying, the president was live tweeting the testimony and at one point got the testimony wrong. In fact, on the larger issue of wiretapping, the Washington Post put it this way tonight on the 60th day of his presidency came the hardest truth for donald trump, he was wrong. With us this evening, as promised, two members of the select Intelligence Committee. Democratic congressman Joaquin Castro and republican congressman will hurd, both gentlemen from texas. Congressman hurd, youre in the majority. Well begin with a quote tonight from the new york times, the journalist glenn thrush. He writes mr. Trumps allies have begun to wonder if his need for selfexpression often on social media will exceed his instinct for selfpreservation with disastrous results both for the president and a party whose fate is now tightly tied to his. Mr. Thrushs colleague, maggie haberman, goes on to say, this was the start of confirmation hearings for a potential new justice on the Supreme Court yet thats not the lead story tonight. This is. Can you chock this up to an unforced error on the part of the president , the white house . The tweets . Or, look, this is the way i look at it, as a former undercover officer in the cia whos dealt with classified information, i spent a lot of time overseas, now that is confirmed that the fbi is doing an investigation. Everybody should give the fbi the time to do their investigation and conclude it however the fbi sees fit. And there shouldnt be any interference or talk about it and then once that investigation is complete, thats when the house and senate Intelligence Committees do it a review to make sure that federal Law Enforcement cross all the ts and dotted all the is. And i think its important that we everybody let this process proceed as it should. Congressman castro, you went late in the order today asking a series of questions that even you admitted and indicated the fbi director would have to bat away and not answer but your task was to get them on the record. But your part led a lot of people at the end of the day to say that it seemed like we were witnessing two hearings. The republican side going after something focused on leaks, the democrats going after the russia part of it, the wiretapping part of it. Can we try and experiment tonight because you guys share a delegation, if not a party, can you suggest to your colleague, mr. Hurd, any Common Ground after this day we have just witnessed . Well, i think its true that you saw folks from different parties focus on different elements of the investigation, but if you listen to the whole hearing, you also realize that all of those elements were covered. And so i believe, as somebody said today, that republicans are concerned about getting to the bottom of the question about whether any americans including anybody associated with the Trump Campaign may have cooperated or coordinated with the russians who interfered with our 2016 election. I believe that they care about that and that they want to know, and on the other hand, i also know that democrats are concerned about leaks and making sure that classified information is not just, you know, given out here and there in a careless way. So even though you may have seen parties emphasizing different things, i think that we all care about these issues. And congressman congressman hurd, go ahead. Could i add on that . You know, there are four a lot of what were talking about today is unprecedented. Its unprecedented that the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, the Ranking Member, publicized that there was an investigation by the House Permanent Select Committee on intelligence. It was unprecedented to talk about the four areas we were looking at. Those four areas are the cyber tools that the russians used to investigate or to try to manipulate our elections. Two, whether any americans were conspireing with russians. Three, we were looking at what was the governments responses to these and whether the responses could have been better. And four, whether there was leaks about that information. And when you look at the investigation based on those four pillars, many of the questions that came out today hit each, all four of those and i think Ranking Member schiff said it best when he said just because one individual may be asking questions on a particular topic doesnt mean that the other topics are not important. Well, congressman hurd, youre going dangerously close to raising the veil on bipartisanship. It is because because you have served your country overseas, because youre a veteran of the intelligencegathering forces of the United States, because the Intelligence Community has at one point been compared to nazi germany by this president , and the fact that this hearing took place at all today, is it getting tougher for you and be honest if you like, to defend this president , his actions and statements . Well, the bottom line for me is to be honest, right . And to try to bring some perspective on whats really going on. And for me, ive said from the very beginning, even back in october i said we should kick the Russian Ambassador out of the country because of russian involvement, trying to manipulate our elections. I think what is scary to me is that this effort is going to go down in history, in russian history, as the greatest covert action not because President Trump was elected, its going to go down as the greatest covert action because it created a wedge between the executive branch, the Intelligence Community and the american public. And i think American People should be happy with the checks and balances in their government. Many several days ago in the last week you had Republican Leaders in the house and the senate disagree with the white house. You have the director of the fbi talking about an investigation of people close to the white house. Even though sometimes it doesnt feel like the government is working, you have this these checks and balances that are in place and i trust my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, on the house Intelligence Community, to make sure to have the needs and the of the American People in the forefront of their minds. Congressman castro, because not all members are as generous verbally or otherwise as congressman hurd, it did come off as two hearings today and that did cause a whole other round of conversation about whether or not this should be either a president ial commission or a special prosecutor and what do you think about that, congressman castro . Well, ive long supported an independent commission to look into this. A few of my colleagues including representative swalwell whos on the Intelligence Committee have put forward a bill to do that. Democrats, again, are the Minority Party so we cant control the creation of that and so while this investigation is going forward, both on the senate side and on the house side, the best that we can do is work in a bipartisan way to make sure that we get to the bottom of these very important questions. Also, to make sure that we root this out now so that they dont come back in 2018 or 2020, whether its russia or some other country, and try to interfere again. And congressman hurd, were going to be ripe for distraction, it seems to me. First of all, the president is going to need everyone to suddenly concentrate on health care again. Especially your constituents back home. But second, are you worried that what the white house says and does starting now could start to look like obstruction now that this is getting to a froth in your committee and elsewhere . Well, i hope its not, and one of the questions i didnt get a chance to ask director comey is is he getting any pushback from anybody within the administration . And he didnt make any indication that that was the case. And so i think its important that the committee, we not get distracted by all, some of the outside noise. Do this investigation in a bipartisan and thorough manner. Wait for the fbi to conclude their investigations and then review that part of this entire scenario. It is it is too important for us to try to retreat to our corners and, you know, retread some of our tired talking points because this is about our institutions, this is about the heart and the soul of our nation and we must get it right. To our audience, i know for a fact both of these gentlemen had a long day. I know that because we televised every moment of it and we thank you both. To Texas Democratic congressman Joaquin Castro, texas republican congressman will hurd, gentlemen thank you for joining us on our broadcast tonight. Thank you. Coming up, which questions remain at this point and where does this investigation steer next . Among our guests well speak with the former u. S. Ambassador to russia when the 11th hour continues. We do not yet know whether the russians had the help of u. S. Citizens including People Associated with the Trump Campaign. Many of the Trumps Campaign personnel including the president , himself, have ties to russia and russian interests. This is, of course, no crime. On the other hand, if the Trump Campaign or anyone associated with it aided or abetted the russians, it would not only be a serious crime, it would also represent one of the most shocking betrayals of democracy in history. Welcome back to the 11th hour, there, again, Ranking Member, the leading democrat, california democrat, adam schiff, from todays hearing. With us to talk about this tonight, michael mcfaul, former u. S. Ambassador to russia. Hes with us from california. Mr. Ambassador, i know youre a diplomat by trade and training and yet you have you have shared with us your kind of coiled anger on what you see as an ongoing slowmotion attack on the United States from this country you know very well, from a leader you got to know well. Were you made to be a little bit more satisfied by what you saw and heard . Did it take on a little more urgency for you today . Thanks, brian, for remembering our previous conversations because youre right, i believe we were attacked, our sovereignty was violated. We were not allowed to choose our leaders without foreign interference. And today i think we had some clarity to that. I do think that was important. Most importantly, we learned, as you just said, that theres an Ongoing Investigation about alleged, purported, perhaps contacts between the russians and members of the Trump Campaign. What we didnt hear much about was more about the attack, itself. We moved quickly to the collusion between, the coordination between americans and the russians. We didnt hear a lot about the attack, itself, and i hope in future week and months we get to know more about that so we can begin to talk about the prescriptions for preventing it in the future. Name some of those for our audience. What would you recommend if you were called as a witness tomorrow by the Intelligence Committee . I would want to know more about the capacity of the russian government to interfere in our elections. We know they stole data from the dnc and stole Data Information from mr. Podesta then published it. It sounds like they also stole data from the republican party. Why didnt they publish that . We need to know more about that. Were they really as partisan as at the second go ahead. The second thing i would say is at the time remember there was lots of reporting about oh my goodness, they might actually be getting into the computer and Network Systems that are in charge of tabulating the votes. Now, they didnt do that. I think the evidence is very conclusive about that. But did they have the capacity to do it . Did they actually violate those systems and then chose not to use them . Those are questions that i would want to hear a lot more information about. And yet having taken in both of those points, at various times today, the russians were painted as an intelligence force the that really barely had to break a sweat to pull this whole thing off. It was economical. It was low impact. Low cost. And secondly, they were i think director comey used the word, they were loud about it. Yes. They didnt try to hide anything or cover their tracks. I thought that was an extremely important moment in the hearings because he did say that and in my world of people that have been following this closely including the companies that are involved, thats a conclusion that a lot of us share. Day werent trying to hide it. Theyre kind of laughing about it. They feel very brazen about it. They got off pretty easy, by the way, you know, some pretty minor sanctions. And they still have the capacity to do all of this again in 2018 or 2020. Secretary tillerson is rumored to be planning a visit to russia in april. There were reports, some of them disputed tonight, that he was not going attend a meeting of nato ministers. I know whatever you will say you will say with diplomatic respect. How would you counsel the new secretary of state to proceed on all things russian . First and foremost, he needs to reaffirm our commitment to our allies. That needs to be the first stop before you go to moscow. Where you go first and where you go second matters a great deal in terms of diplomacy. Now, ive read the alleged reports as well. It sounds like theres a conflict between the nato ministerial summit that ordinarily the secretary of state should attend and the visit by the prime the president of china. Maybe thats true, but, again, that shows that somebody at the white house should have been looking at the calendar and tried to deconflict those. From stanford where russian study students get to hear it from the man, himself, former ambassador mike mcfaul. Thank you for being available with us when the subject comes around to russia. Thanks for having me. Well take our next break tonight. One president ial historian is quoted tonight saying this is the most failed first 100 days of any president. Well look at what todays news means for the Trump White House when the 11th hour continues. Its spring, and we cant wait to open our sheds and get working on our yards. Scotts and miraclegro are here to help. We make it easy to grow thick, healthy lawns, spectacular plants, and bountiful flowers. Because when spring starts right, the months that follow stay perfect. Load up your shed with scotts and miraclegro. Its time to get outside. Tonight the white house is on defense fielding questions related to todays hearing into russias interference with our election. Listen to some of what press Secretary Sean Spicer had to say to reporters who pushed him on specific members of the campaign and on the president s claims that trump tower was wiretapped. He said that theres no information to support the allegations that the president made against president obama. At this time. So is the president prepared to withdraw that accusation and apologize to the president . No, were we started a hearing. Its still ongoing. I heard some names thrown around before that were hangers on around the campaign. We know there is an Ongoing Investigation by the fbi, does the president stand by his comments that hes not aware of any contacts that his Campaign Associates had with russia during the election . Yes. Okay. Then the second one is, has anyone from the white house can i just amend the first sure. Obviously, just to be clear, i know that obviously general flynn right, during the campaign. Right. Before the election. And im not aware of any at this time. Even general flynn was a volunteer of the campaign. And then obviously theres been discussion of Paul Manafort who played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time. A limited role. Remember those words. Let us take a walk back down memory lane to listen to Team Trump Talk about the role that Paul Manafort, for one, played. I have fantastic people. Paul manafort just came on. Hes great. I have a fantastic team. The original team, were supplementing. We have great people. Pauls had Great Success with reagan and with bush and with ford and, you know, Great Success. He doesnt have to do this. Like i dont have to. He didnt need to do this. He wanted to. Theres a reason pauls in the position he is today and coreys not. Ive heard other people asked oh, is the family on the out with paul . Total nonsense. We couldnt be more happy with the work that hes doing. And now one more time, we have with us michael crowley, Senior Foreign Affairs correspondent for politico and nbcs katy tur who followed the Trump Campaign from the very beginning. Back, before i allow a word out of either of you, back to spicer for what he said about manaforts role. I believe paul was brought on some time in june and by the middle of august he was no longer with the campaign. Meaning that for the entire final stretch of the general election, he was not involved and so to start to look at some individual that was there for a short period of time, or separately, individuals who really didnt play any role in the campaign and to suggest that those are the basis for anything is a bit ridiculous. Katy tur, the Gop Convention was called Paul Manaforts show. Contemporaneously at the time. There was no larger figure other than the candidate, himself, in the campaign. And that was in july. Not june. And Paul Manafort started in march. So the timeline that sean spicer just laid out is incorrect. He was there for much longer than that. He was there for five, going on six months. He was there for longer than steve bannon ran the campaign. Paul manafort was brought in to professionalize the Trump Campaign. To add some experience. You just heard don jr. Call it amateur hour with corey lewandowski