With the black boys, you know. The black boys not players so im not going to make it there. I kept playing and playing. I said one day im going to play baseball. Tonights last word. The 11th hour with Brian Williams starts right now. Tonight, the president swears he did not know about that Trump Tower Meeting in advance, while someone close to Michael Cohen tells vanity fair cohen is sitting on top of a Treasure Trove of damaging information and theres a lot more to come. For the tenth straight time the president ignored questions from reporters and thats since the trumpcohen tape came out on tuesday. Donald trumps First Ever NationalSecurity Council meeting on the topic of election safety was convened today hours after the president was invited to moscow by vladimir putin. All of it as The 11th Hour gets under way on a friday night. On a friday night good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 554 of the Trump Administration and the president escalates the war on his former lawyer and confidant Michael Cohen while denying he had any advance knowledge about the june 2016 meeting in trump tower. A source has told nbc news cohen is willing to tell Robert Mueller that donald trump junior informed his father about the meeting before it took place. Trumps son had the meeting with several russians after he was told they were coming prepared with damaging information about hillary clinton. The president responded so the fake news Doesnt Waste My Time with dumb questions, no i did not know of the meeting with my son. Sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam. Taxicabs, maybe. Well explain that one. He even retained bill and crooked hillarys lawyer. Gee, i wonder if they helped him make the choice. That last efrns of course is to cohens attorney lanny davis who has declined comment on the presidencys response or to the reports of cohens allegations. The president steered clear of this topic during his event at the white house today designed to highlight economic numbers. As trump wrapped up Kristen Welker asked him about Michael Cohen. Mr. President , is Michael Cohen telling the truth . Is Michael Cohen telling the truth . Mr. President , is Michael Cohen telling the truth . As we say, its been ten times now the president has ignored reporters questions since the Cohen Audio First aired tuesday evening. And for that matter there have only been three White House Press briefings in the entire month of july. On the cohen front politico reports the president s advisors have been taken aback by cohens no holds barred approach and his willingness to publicly reveal potentially devastating details of his private conversations with the
president s life. Donny deutsch, who recently spoke to cohen, appeared on this network and had this insight into the allegation about that Trump Tower Meeting. What michael has made very clear to me is number one and this is a man he worked for for over a decade. Nothing went on in this business without donald knowing about it. And he had led me to believe that he could bring trump back to russia, that he what came out yesterday to me was not a surprise based on Conversations Michael and i had had. Everything that was going on trump knew about. Did he reference this meeting in particular when you talked to him . Yes, he did. Robert mueller, for his part, has not yet spoken to donald trump junior but the two men were a few feet apart today. Politico published this photo of both men waiting for the same flight out of d. C. While seemingly unaware of each other at Washington National airport. There is another new development tonight regarding the special counsel. Muellers office says it plans to call 35 witnesses and financial crimes trial of exTrump Campaign chief paul manafort, which is slated to begin tuesday. This is the first of two trials for manafort. The witness list was made public just today. Biggest name on it no surprise is that man, rick gates. Manaforts former partner and onetime deputy on the Trump Campaign who pleaded guilty and is now cooperating with the Mueller Investigation. After all of that lets bring in our lead off panel on a friday evening. The aforementioned emily jane fox, Senior Reporter for vanity fair. We should add she just wrought book on the trump family. Its called born trump inside americas first family. Josh gerstein, senior White House Reporter for politico, and jill winebanks, attorney and former assistant Watergate Special counsel. Good evening to you all. Emily, here in new york, id like to begin with you. In this relationship hasnt soured, id hate to see a relationship that has. Seems a little chilly. Yeah. Help me go through the two camps of belief, will you please. How these recordings have entering the public domain. Theres belief number one that cohen has leaked these as a brushback pitch to say mr. President , theres a lot more where this came from. Theory number two is this is coming from the trump team, to go ahead, embrace and own some of the worst that they know is coming because that also takes an arrow away from cohen and his value as a flip target to the feds. Please. This is a both very important and very complicated parlor game that were playing here. Its difficult because both sides have credibility issues here. On the one side the cohen camp not only have people been saying, as you said, perhaps hes sending this as a signal to what he has and what he can
offer to donald trump but some people have argued that perhaps hes sending a smoke signal looking for a pardon. Now, people who are close to cohen and familiar with his thinking have flat out denied that time and time again to me. They have said the way that you would get a pardon is not by angering the president and sticking a thumb in his eye repeatedly. And even if he were to get some sort of prepardon then he would undoubtedly be subpoenaed and then have to testify and would not be able to plead the fifth. So that is something that according to all of my reporting he has taken off the table. On the other side you have President Trumps camp and there was a school of thought on friday when the recordings were first released and Rudy Giuliani was the only person on the record describing the subject matter. We quoted you on this broadcast. He was able to control the narrative for a few days until lanny davis did put out the actual recording this week. It was kind of a smart tactic to be able to define the narrative
even though we now know that in the very best case for Rudy Giuliani there are questions raised about the narrative he laid out there. What you have is a complicated set of motivations from each side. Characters on each side that are not necessarily the most trustworthy or have the greatest credibility. And so to try and determine who leaked what when is a difficult game. I will say that from my reporting in the cohen world of the past 24 hours particularly after this revelation last night about what Michael Cohen may know about the Trump Tower Meeting, they have said over and over again we did not leak this because this does not serve us. To have this out in the public was not our strategy. We wanted to be able to go to the special counsel, Robert Mueller, with this information. It doesnt serve us to have this out in the public. Its possible, in some way, that it does serve President Trump to have one of the most damaging things out there perhaps to control the narrative and make
own family had been told had some connection to the russian government. Theres no question this would injure his narrative if people believe it. I think the problem is as emily points out theres a need for some additional corroboration. You have a number of figures here whose credibility is not particularly high and who have made a number of statements that prove not to be accurate. And the real question i think is not whether Michael Cohen has stories that could damage the president but whether he can lead Robert Mueller or other federal investigators like the folks in new york to provable facts to other sources of information that can allow them to assemble a damaging case against the president. If its just stories that hes telling Michael Cohen, i dont think its going to be that damaging. And now to jill winebanks. Counselor, if theres a short version of this answer, if its answerable, in your view how has
if you believe the theory that the leaks have come from the trump camp, that would hold this is some of the worst, most damaging stuff cohen has to tell the feds. But your reporting tonight is that cohen is sitting on top of a, quote, Treasure Trove. Is that a promise or a threat or did they not characterize that . I think its both. I think theres a combination of things thats happening now. Cohen had been preparing since early july for the onslaught that we are now seeing. He had heard word from people in the president s orbit that this kind of Character Assassination was coming. He wanted to be ready to combat it. Because he, as he has said, he has a family to protect. He has a duty that he feels he wants to serve to his country. And he wants to smack back, if hes smacked. He feels right now hes the most under siege from someone who he
Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Landscaping and half Million Dollars that manafort spent on that. Its really going to be sort of a Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous episode i think with one after another of these individuals coming in and testifying not just that manafort spent Hundreds Of Thousands of dollars on their products but the method of payment was highly unusual. We had these exhibits come out publicly yesterday where people have written in in long hand these funds were transferred from some strangely named account in cyprus to cover these bills. Whether they be for Home Improvements or a mercedesbenz that went for 130,000. Probably not typically the way people pay for these kinds of purchases, even if theyre lucky enough to have the money to do so. Jill, were also going to be seeing something important next week. This the first of about 100 times i plan to say it. These are Public Servants who are going to be putting themselves and their argument forward at trial. Every one of the lawyers in this
case could exponentially improve their salary in the private sector, especially with the pearl of any association to the Mueller Investigation on their resume. Instead theyre going to lay it all on the line. This is a very closely watched trial. The first of the mueller effort. It is. And every one of them is dedicated to finding the truth and to presenting it to a jury for them to evaluate. And i think thats what we will have. Its going to be a very exciting week. If i could go back to something that was said, i want to address why possibly trump would have leaked this. Its because one of the first things that a trial lawyer learns is that if you have bad news or bad facts, its better to get them out yourself first. Dont wait to have to take it on crossexamination. Put it out on direct examination. Its much for effective in front of a jury for you to put it out and in the way that this has happened they did have a couple of days of their narrative sort of explaining away this very bad for example, the tape. Then you hear the tape and you go, whoa. Its nothing like what giuliani said. Thats completely off. But after two days of hearing it his base will believe that what he said is true. They will pay no attention to what they actually heard on the tape. So that is a reason why he might have gone ahead with it. The other thing is the value of cohen is not diminished by these leaks because he still has to be a witness in a trial. Its not enough even to have the tape. Someone had to explain the tape and someone has to say did the president say use cash or dont use cash. And hes the one who can do that because he was the other party to this conversation. So i dont think it hurts his value as a witness and he still will be valuable and if he wants to make a deal with mueller, i think mueller would find him very interesting. Our thanks to jill winebanks, to emily jane fox, to josh gerstein, the members of our leadoff panel late on a friday night. The good news ive been assured, its friday. There will be no more of this for this week. Coming up, more talk of another u. S. Russia summit. This time one suggested by vladimir putin. And the white house says the president is open to a visit to moscow. Lord knows hes been there before. And later, with midterms fast approaching, the Administration Says foreign interference in our elections will not be tolerated. Well try to arrive at a definition of that when we come back on a friday night. We mentioned this before the break, Vladmir Putin has invited President Trump to moscow just days after the white house postponed plans to have putin visit us here in washington this fall. White House Press SecretarySarah Huckabee sanders released a statement after the invite from putin that read President Trump looks forward to having President Putin to washington after the first of the year, read midterms, and he is open to Visiting Moscow upon receiving a formal invitation. Just hours after that statement went out, President Trump actually met with his National Security council on the topic of Election Security. That was a first meeting of its type for this presidency. After the meeting the white house released statement that did not mention russia but read this part, the president has made it clear his administration will not tolerate foreign interference from malicious
from any nation state or other malicious actors. All this as nbc news reports, as the headline says pretty clearly, Trump Administration has no central strategy for Election Security and no ones in charge. Thats pretty direct. Our own ken dilanian writes it this way, even members of trumps National Security cabinet have acknowledged the need for a central unifying effort, one that experts say is missing. Senior officials have also admitted that the government has failed to take steps necessary to give the russians second thoughts about intervening in american politics. Thats where these next two gentlemen come in. With us to talk about it, two guests, each with a book relevant to our conversation. First malcolm nance, veteran of naval intelligence, security ops, homeland security, and the author of, get, this the plot to destroy democracy how putin and his spies are undermining america and dismantling the west. Plus we have clint watts back
with us tonight. Former fbi special agent. Former member of the joint Terrorism Task force. His latest book, get this, messing with the enemy surviving in a social media world of hackers, terrorists, russians, and fake news. These guys are a lot of fun, trust me. So clint, are we getting played before putin ever dealt with our invitation to come to washington, which was smartly delayed after mcconnell and the speaker of the house visited the president. The president s now been invited to moscow, of all the places on the planet. As ive talked about on this show with you before, President Putin owns President Trump. Hes pushed him both directions and set him up in these scenarios. Im not sure that President Trump even minds because dorz President Putin it seems like so much. You could see this coming. I mean this play was going to be there and every time these overtures are made and pulled back, it puts russia in a very strong position where they can make these challenges. They can push these things. When you say russia do you have those emails . I think it was two years ago. When you make that statement it puts you in a very weak hand if you ultimately become the elected official because you have someone across the ocean who has been influencing the election, who is in a powerful position, and who is manipulating the system, whether its information in Foreign Policy around the world in ways that are to the detriment of the United States. It makes President Trump look like he has a weak hand in this scenario. And if he goes ahead and takes it, part of the reason they wanted to delay it for the witch hunt was they probably want to delay it for the midterms. The reaction was not good here in the United States, republican or democrat, to that helsinki summit. Now President Putin puts it out there. Do you go to moscow right before the midterm elections . Probably isnt a good political strategy for the president. Hey, malcolm, our friend clint is absolutely right. It was two years ago from today in response to a question from
katy tur, who just anchored the hour before us. Well take a look at what the president said then. Well talk about it on the other side. Russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Malcolm, we were all around back then and in the media, i think its fair to say, it was kind of passed off. It was laughed off. How do you think history will end up judging that moment in the Trump Campaign . Well, happy russia if youre listening day. And i think that it will resonate throughout history just like that. To be honest, just 24, almost 36 hours before on this network, we made the first warning that this was a russian attack on the United States and on the electorate. And i know by that morning we were taking it pretty seriously
on air. I dont think people understand the capacity of these foreign actors in this case, russia in creating not just a Social Media Storm where the media just took off after it but also creating the meta narrative around the entire election that Hillary Clintons emails were bad and they just played on our own investigations in congress and our own freedom of speech, weaponized it and then used it against us. And thats why we have a situation where we have a president of the United States now may in fact be beholden to a foreign power like clint said. Malcolm, hows it going to go down with your colleagues and members of your lifes work, that the National Security adviser in the white house is now kind of trolling the Mueller Investigation by using the phrase witch hunt . Yeah. Theres never been a National Security advisor who is so blatantly and openly political in this way. John bolton just came out and used witch hunt right out there as if this was a legitimate way of doing governance in his position. Its dimly looked down upon, believe me. Theres a lot of people in the community and im sure throughout the political world who just were astonished at this. But russia has to be delighted because now this means the narrative of the entirety of the Trump Administration from top to bottom, in every aspect of government from National Security all the way over to the guy who is cleaning over at the gsa, everything is now a witch hunt. And that of course plays to our opponents. Clint, i have to read you a headline from New York Times. David sangers piece. Russian hackers appear to shift focus to u. S. Power grid. That gets your attention. His lead sentence is state sponsored Russian Hackers appear far more interested, thats what got my attention, far more interested in year in demonstrating they can disrupt the American Electric grid than the midterm elections, and he goes onto say u. S. Intelligence officials and Technology Company executives. What do you make of that . They are trying to build essentially options, whether its warfare or negotiations. A lot of times youll hear people say, well, they didnt actually turn out the power, theyre not doing an act of war. But this is actually leverage that you can have. So we know about this now. What do we have to do . We have to check all of our electric systems to make sure there isnt a foreign adversary in those systems and we to safeguard against that. That can be used as a tool. Thats a Negotiation Tool they can use in terms of dealing with us. I think its important to recognize that hacking is going to continue but the targets will probably shift. In the 2018 midterms, sure, i imagine that the russians will
do some sort of audio sustainment. They will repeat the narratives that are prorussian. But what do they gain really . How much can they really gain with the election of one senator or one congressman here or there . What they can gain, though, is building additional capability and going after things like the power grid, water, other utilities. Looking into other sources of information or hitting even our financial system, which is a technique weve seen from other state actors. Going after u. S. Institutions. The Banking Sector maybe is a target. Those are things that are different capabilities they can try and build out. Weve seen them use these sorts of attacks in ukraine. Ukraine is almost always the test bed that they use for their cyberwarfare. They launched an attack called black energy during the middle of winter and actually shut the power off in that country. And they use these attacks very successfully both as a warning but also as ab interimmediate yacht step to full war. Our thanks tonight to two really smart guys who live and work in a scary world. Clint watts here with us in new york and malcolm nance, who has written all of the books behind him. Gentlemen, thank you both for coming on on a friday night. Coming up, i think wed all agree the House Of Representatives deserves a month off for good behavior. When we come back, the republicans who are heading home determined to hold on to their seats come the midterm elections. But the economy is the strongest ever. I think thats going to have a very positive impact. And i am going to work very hard. Ill go six or seven days a week when were 60 days out. And i will be campaigning for all of these great people that do have a difficult race. And we think were going to bring them over the line. That was a very important little thing right there, donald trump speaking in the friendly confines of the Sean Hannity Show with members of the house now back home in their districts on their richly deserved summer break. The president is trying to shift the focus slightly to the midterms. And as we just heard, he intends to play up the economy. We saw two things this week. The president supporting various candidates via twitter, this continued tonight, and the president willing to fix or back away from some potential midterm land mines. For starters and after that visit from the republican congressional leadership he postponed the invitation for putin to come visit washington. He deescalated a trade war with the eu and offered farmers have 12 billion Bailout Package in effect to offset the cost of tariffs. According to a cook analysis, this is important too. With 102 days to go democrats remain substantial favorites for house control. A big reason, republicans are defending 42 open or vacant seats, a record since 1930. Welcome to you both. Jonathan, is there way you can put the republican level of concern, put it this way, what do you think this president heard from mcconnell and ryan Behind Closed Doors in the oval office . Well, certainly House Republicans are very concerned about losing their majority. For Mitch Mcconnell theres an
outside shot that Senate Republicans would lose their majority. Certainly theyre trying build up as many votes as they can for the president. But this right now i think the president is treating the midterm elections as though he is on the ballot this time. Because he knows that if one of those chambers of congress flips his agenda will be put on ice between 2018 and 2020. As hes running for reelection, remember he filed for reelection on inauguration day, an unprecedented thing. Hes been Holding Political rallies earlier and more frequently than past president s have in advance of the midterms. Now he says hes going to be out on the trail six or seven days a week. He understands his own political fortunes and certainly the fate of his agenda rests on his ability to have a Republican House and senate going into 2019. Senate going into 2019. Nancy, i want to show you
three states nbc Marist Polling thats just coming in. These are not unimportant politically. Michigan, minnesota, wisconsin. Trump is under water in those three pivotal states right now. Let me ask the question a different way. Do you think the president accepts and is willing to be a realist about being a potential drag . Absolutely not. I think we saw that with his comments on Sean HannitysRadio Program today. Where basically he said he was going to go out there six or seven times a week. The irony is a lot of these candidates dont necessary will i want him to go to their states. A lot of them want to run on things that perhaps the Trump Presidency can take some credit for like conservative judges or the state of the economy or the tax bill but they dont necessarily want sort of the picture of trump in their district. So he is inserting himself in some races where its going to be much trickier. But as jonathan said, i think he
really has finally caught on to the idea that his political fortunes are very much linked with republicans staying in control of congress, and thats particularly true of the house which a lot of Election Experts expect will flip to democrats, at least at this point. If democrats, for instance, take back the house, theyll also take back the House Oversight committee. And they could really bury the president under a lot of hearings, subpoenas, and potentially impeachment proceedings. Jonathan, a senior lifelong democrat said to me yesterday, remember, no one can lose like the democrats. And since you are coauthor of one of the chronicles of the last major democratic loss, we should probably put a giant asterisk on this conversation and we should also emphasize to folks these are individual House District races. Your results may vary, correct . Thats absolutely right. I think if youre trying to get to add up the 23 seats the democrats need to take the house, you can see some pretty easy places for them to pick up
seats on the east coast and on the west coast. But in order for them to actually flip that chamber theyre going to have to win some tough contests in the midwest and in the heartland. And a lot of those prognosticators believe thats going to happen at this point. I think a lot of the battle that youre going to see over the next couple of months with the president hitting the is going to be in that center part of the country. The one difference i would say between a president ial election and Congressional Elections is that in Congressional Elections sometimes you can win just by being against the president of the United States because people want to put a brake on what that president is doing. In a president ial election usually you have to have both an argument against the other person and your own sort of clear positive agenda that youre offering. Nancy, i know you took Creative Writing as a Young Journalist on your way up. With that in mind, how does donald trump spin a loss of majority the day after the election . Doesnt that make it kind of a wartime footing and doesnt that just change everything . Yeah. It would really make it a wartime footing. I feel like its a little bit early to say how hes going to spin it. I think in the meantime what hes going do is what he started doing already in the last 24 hours. Hes really started talking about how democrats will abolish i. C. E. , how theyll raise taxes. And ee also starting to make the argument which Congressional Republicans have been wanting him to make for months, which is really focusing on the economy. And we saw that this morning at this Press Conference he gave where he talked about the great gdp numbers. Thats what republicans, they want him to stick on that message. Hes not great at staying on message and staying disciplined. We saw him at one tax cut touting speech, throw a Speech Up In The Air and say this is boring. Much to the chagrin of a lot of republicans in washington. But i think if he can stick to that progrowth economic message that could help republicans and a lot of these vulnerable districts. Two great writers and
reporters, Jonathan Allen and nancy cook, our thanks for joining us on a friday night at the end of yet another workweek. Coming up for us, 44 years ago today washington was consumed by a different controversy. It was the day house members started voting on whether or not to impeach the president of the United States. A look back when we come back. Im alex trebek here to tell you
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and its yours just for calling. So call now. It has been an extremely busy week of fastbreaking news on multiple fronts. With us to talk about where all of this leaves us, john meachem, the pulitzer prizewinning author and historian. His latest work is The Soul Of America the battle for our better age els. Jon, thank you for coming on. A gentleman we both know, one michael beschloss, has a very active and educational twitter feed. And he pointed out the following to us. Well put it up on the screen. House Judiciary Committee votes to recommend president nixons impeachment for obstruction of
justice. Today, 1974. He included the next days New York Times front page treatment. Jon, we dont have to draw any parallels, but the question to you is how much more real did things get this week . Then or now or both . Today in current time. Like beschloss, who is the gibbon of twitter, sometimes july 74 seems better. I think it got realer, to use a very elegant literary term. What we forget sometimes in the maelstrom of what we do, in the maelstrom of your broadcast and just the tsunami of information is that these things do take a good bit of time. From june 17th, 1972 until august 9th, 1974 was 27 months. Joe Mccarthy Rose and fell from
lincolns birthday in wheeling, West Virginia in 1950 until late 1954. Legal time does not work along the same geological spectrum as political time. Political time wants action immediately. We want a decision. We want to finish a news cycle. Legal time takes longer. And i think given, you know i dont know about you, but if i found out that my lawyer had been taping me and that a Special Prosecutor of the stature of Robert Mueller had access to those it would go down as not a good week. Yeah. Well, one of the great bromides of watergate is that the heroes of watergate were republicans. Its true. If you had to extend that to president day, venture any names youd care to guess . No. Im a little counterintuitive even on that. There were i think seven republicans on this date in 1974 who voted for article 1 of impeachment against president nixon, which was really the most significant one, and i suspect the one that had it gone to the senate would certainly have passed. Bill cohen was one of those republicans of maine. Hamilton fish of new york. You know, theres this weve talked about it. Theres this legend about how Barry Goldwater and hugh scott and john rhodes went down to the white house to tell nixon the support wasnt there anymore. But that was august 6th, i think, august 5th. One of the things, and i think this is worth everybody remembering, is though politics and law moving differently. Things do at some point start to snowball. What happened for nixon in july of 74 was the house judiciary
committee under rodino, who was doing everything he could to be quite fair about it and move with some deliberation, remember, in the middle of the month, this week, were also celebrating the anniversary of this. The Supreme Court said that nixon had to turn over the tapes. And of those tapes was the great Smoking Gun Tape where nixon actually says were going to use the cia to block the fbi from investigating the breakin. It led to the obstruction charge. And insofar as there is if not a parallel at least one of mark twains historical rhymes, you know, it Doesnt Repeat itself but it rhymes, i do think what we saw this week in trumpland was the beginnings, maybe even the middle of what an Obstruction Case might look like. We know weve always suspected he knew a great deal more about what was going on around him than hes let on. And i think were beginning to
see how an evidentiary trail may actually bring that home to us. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we make it a habit to invite jon meacham on our broadcast. Jon, my friend, thank you very much. Always a pleasure. Thanks, brian. Were back with more right after this. Utside. Pack in even more adventure with audible. With the Largest Selection of audiobooks. Audible lets you follow plot twists off the beaten track. Or discover magic when you hit the open road. With the free audible app, your stories go wherever you do. And for just 14. 95 a month you get a credit, good for any audiobook. If you dont like it exchange it any time. No questions asked. You can also roll your credits to the next month if you dont use them. So take audible with you this summer. On the road. On the trail. Or to the beach. Start a 30day trial and your first audiobook is free. Cancel anytime, and your books are yours to keep forever. No matter where you go this summer
make it better with audible. Text summer17 to 500500 to start listening today. Is part of a Bigger Picture. That Bigger Picture is statewide mutual aid. California years ago realized the need to Work Together. Teamwork is important to protect the community, but we have to do it the right way. We have a Working Knowledge and we can reduce the impacts of a small disaster, but we need the help of experts. Pg e is an integral part of our Emergency Response team. They are the Industry Expert with utilities. Whether it is a gas leak or a wire down, just having someone there that deals with this every day is pretty comforting. We each bring something to the table that is unique and that is a specialty. With all of us working together we can keep all these emergencies small. And the fact that we can bring it together and effectively Work Together is pretty special. They bring their knowledge, their tools and equipment and the proficiency to get the job done. And the whole time i have been in the fire service, pg es been there, too. Whatever we need whenever we need it. I do count on pg e to keep our firefighters safe. Thats why we ask for their help. An update we promised you last evening. After months of separation, the federal government has been told it has completed step one of family reunification. Federal judge in california said the government deserves great credit for being able to reunite over 1,800 children with their parents. Still in question, the 650 children considered ineligible for reunification. Of that number, 431 parents, most of those parents are already out of the country. The u. S. District judge in this case dana sabraw today told the government lawyers step two must be finding those parents. Also unclear what happens to be
1,000 families who have been reunited but who have been given immediate orders of removal. The judge has yet to rule on a request by the aclu for a sevenday Waiting Period before families are deported. A temporary halt on deportations remains in place. Aclu argued the Waiting Period is critical for parents to meet with lawyers to determine if they can seek formal asylum in this country. Judge sabraw told the lawyers theres a third step here as well. He says the federal government has to make sure a situation like this never happens again. He placed blame squarely on the departments of health and human services, homeland security, and justice for a lack of communication, protocol and procedure. He said today what was lost in this process was the families. Another break and coming up, the reason why so many people around the world were looking up today when we continue. Brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. This condition has not been reported with entyvio. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, experience frequent infections or have flulike symptoms or sores. Liver problems can occur with entyvio. If your uc or crohns treatment isnt working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. Entyvio. Relief and remission within reach. Last thing before we go tonight, something beautiful that happened earlier today. More specifically, something that was visible to a good portion of the earth for over an hour. It was a gorgeous and especially lengthy eclipse of the moon. While it happened at midafternoon here on the east coast, it was a spectacular show for those who happened to be in the eastern hemisphere. During totality, when the moon was cast in the shadow of the earth, it was illuminated by red