that the president has been acid wously denying for more than a year now, that there was a in fact a major russian operation to interfere in the 2016 u.s. election. and, you know, the intelligence community has been saying for a year now that they have high confidence that that is the case. and here you have the u.s. department of justice and a grant ju grand jury saying they can prove that beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, using admissible evidence. and that, you know, is a rod rosenstein today was extremely careful not to offend the president and make sure that no americans were witting participants in this plot. but that is a remarkable factual repudiation of the entire
he was very careful to stay within what is alleged in the indictment. but he did make a point on several occasions of saying that no americans are accused of participation in this. and i do think that was probably aimed at the president in a fashion that allows the president at least until such a time as there is an allegation of collusion, to say this has really very little to do with me. on the other hand, it's very hard to read this indictment and not think it has something to do with donald trump because the indictment is an allegation of a significant russian conspiracy to defraud multiple u.s. regulatory agencies, including the federal election commission and the justice department in order to fool americans to the
advantage or donald trump and the disadvantage of hillary clinton. as concerned as donald trump and as concerned as he is about the appearance that he had help in the election, all the rod rosensteins saying there's no allegation of witting u.s. involvement in this will not erase the top line from this, which is, you know, the premise is true, there really was a russian is conspiracy to affect the election to the advantage of donald trump. >> ben, the indictment names three different trump campaign officials. do we -- and as you and i are in agreement that deputy tone general rosenstein was making abundantly clear that these indictments today do not allege
that initiate on the trump campaign wittingly engaged. but we're giving persons one, two, and three. are you giving any suspicions that there are people cooperating with bob mueller, like george popadopoulos, or carter page, or could they be three people we have never talked about? >> either is possible. and i don't know. but i do think, you know--i do think as you said earlier that it is possible to read a little bit too much into the unwitting language here. indictments generally don't allege things that they're not prepared yet to prove, and something that is not an allegation of any witting collaboration of anyone on the trump campaign, doesn't mean one won't materialize over time. moreover, it's really important
to emphasize that this operation described in this indictment is not the hacking operation. so usually when we think of russian intervention in the election, and interference in the election, we're thinking of stolen emails, right? and those are the subject of, for example, the trump tower meeting, the, you know, the george popadopoulos saying, you know, hearing that there's dirt on hillary, right, these are references, at least we assume to emails that have been per loined by russian hackers. that is not the subject of this indictment. so this is a completely separate set of operations that allegedly involves these troll farms and these influence operations. so i don't think in any sense it precludes a collusion allegation, and i think it would be very hasty of people who were inclined to defend the president
to assume that there's any vindication in the absence of such an allegation here. >> thank you very much, and to viewers just tuning in and learning of sock puppets and troll farms, perhaps someday we'll have a chance to pull back and list these new definitions that are new to the american lexicon, i for one, can't wait to find out what they grow at these troll farms and could i bring my family to one? are they within driving distance of the new york metropolitan area. two pieces of business, number one, let me show you air force one on a rainy tarmac that those of a certain age will always call andrews air force base, rather than it's clunk i can new name of air force base andrews. you know what happens, the helicopter lifts off from the white house, nicole, seven minutes by air?
>> beautiful ride, you get to peek very closely at the washington monument, you go over the pentagon and you land about 7 to 10 minutes. >> 7 to 10 minutes, it will land and the president will walk from the chopper to the plane and will be air lifted to florida where the weather is more beautiful. >> something to keep in mind as we talk to bigger and bigger brain brains. >> he has tweeted that russian collusion was a hoax dozens of time, i'm sure someone can get us a better count than that. what i'm on the lookout for is for trump to look for arrest firmati fi affirmation from his circle of
pals, sean hannity and others, i'm right, right? >> a good day in america. >> and we have to always keep in mind that what's happening in washington is relatively unprecedented, in that you used to use the white house briefing room, the podium to speak to the world, you used to use the doj podium to speak to the world, about blowing up a big drug ring, about blowing up a big crime ring, terrorism. all these podiums are being used by one man and that's donald trump. we can talk about the legal significance and what it all means, but what e's going to happen on that airplane and what's happening in the helicopter and what's happening on donald trump's device is that this is a good day for him. >> ylet me just read something,
this is a report from the pool reporter on the south lawn at the white house, you're going to see the camera lens trying to pick up the first pictures of air force one there in the air, they're aloft and en route to andrews. president left the oval office at 3:04 p.m. eastern time, that's ten minutes away, we should be seeing the chopper, walk to air force one without the reporters assembled. he seemed to say something we couldn't hear over the rotor noise of the helicopter, he said something about russia and affairs with women. marine one airborne at 3:09, so that was roughly six minutes ago. matt miller has just joined our conversation, chief justice department spokesperson, matt, we have yet to get to you, what stuck out to you? >> let me pick up on this --
>> let me interrupt you as soon as i introduce to you, this is tape, but this is what we just watched transpire on the south lawn. >> mr. president, will you punish russia? >> will you put sanctions on russia? nothing on russia mr. president? >> well, he gave a thumbs-up. >> it's the same person who jokingly said join us for tea at the end of that. the first of two helicopters landing at the front end of air force one. three in all, though, those are different. that last helicopter is a
variant of the blackhawk, the first two are the standard secorsky's. this will be the last video we'll see of president trump going to florida. matt miller, please continue, i apologize. >> i wanted to pick up on this question that nicole asked about why rod rosenstein held this press conference today and why he used the d.c. oj podium. i think it's important, we have seen the white house come under a great deal of pressure, under attack by the president recently. i think he also held this press conference to talk to the american people and tell them two things, one russian interference is not a hocax. you see this in the indictment, but it's important to have not just bob mueller through papers filed with the court, but to his boss rod rosenstein, he's a republican who was appointed by this president. him standing up and putting his reputation behind it.
and two, rod rosenstein for the first time in this investigation, this hasn't happened, either the times they have announced indictments and putting his endorsement behind bob mueller. this is rod rosenstein's way of saying this investigation is getting results, it's showing fruit and i think it should be allowed to continue. this is an endorsement of that work by rod rosenstein, at a time when we have seen so many attacks on the president both from inside and outside the white house. >> i'm going through a lot of the reporting that i have seen in the hours since the rosenstein press conference, so much of this needs to be thought about and hashed out. here's a sub head from daily beast. kellyanne conway and donald trump jr. pushed messages from an account operated from russia's troll farm including allegations of voter fraud a
week before election day. this is just one headline as some of our colleagues wade through all of this, we have heard this at our own table today from nicole and ari and jill and the volume of information to wade through in this indictment is staggering. >> yeah, there's an extraordinary amount of information in this indictment and it's going to take some time to follow all the leads from a public standpoint that it produces, of course bob mewinger is already following all of them in secret as he suggests his investigation. i think that would be a sign, kellyanne conway tweeting this information of the kind of unwitting sup fort and unwitting actions that this indictment speaks to, they're speaking specifically in the indictment of the three campaign officials who appeared to interact unknowingly with russians. this was undoubtedly a conspiracy, it was a conspiracy to defraud the united states and to interfere in our elections
and some of the conspirators are named and some are not. so the question over the coming months are going to be, that kellyanne conway tweet looks like an unwitting interaction. but was there still americans in on the conspiracy, that's a question that has yet to be unanswered. >> the marine pilots have taxied the helicopter to a halt. the door will be opened both fore and aft. the president tweeted, russia started their campaign in 2015, long before i announced that i would run for president. the results of the election were not impacted. the trump campaign did nothing wrong. and a message we have heard from him before, to wrap this up. no collusion. ari melber, your off the cuff
reaction to reading that as we watch the scene at andrews? >> it's an extraordinary admission from the president of the united states from bob mueller of something that he has publicly denied, counter factual to the law, to the evidence, to his own appointees for what is now years. it is a remarkable statement, it is a statement made under pressure and during rez. it is not a legally significant statement because the president can state his opinions however he wants, brian, but we are witnessing as we watch the pageantry of the president's motions, the movement here, we watch in the newsroom, we're witnessing the american system asserting itself and working, i would say it this way and i don't mean to sound rude, but donald trump just coughed up a fact that's been very difficult for him to admit. >> but he says here no collusion. >> and he has ever right to continue make his legal defense. the big difference, brian, between no collusion and no
meddling is no collusion is up for debate, and we will see where the facts lead because it's under probe. no meddling was one of the most concerning statements we have had a parade of national security experts and the president's own appointees reput that. so the system is working because the facts are being pushed out there by the indictment, by the evidence an now the president having to close that circle. so that's striking. >> here's the president walking down the steps of a marine corps aircraft and this is the usual handoff that takes place. he is walking with an air force escort because he's now in the hands of a different branch of the service and that is the u.s. air force. we will turn and go up the steps to air force one. there's a small press corps out at andrews, questions cannot be heard over the jet noise. president very rarely comes over to a rope line in this situation. preferring instead on this wet
and rainy day to go up the stairs, into air force one for the flight to florida. joe winebanks, same question to you. >> i was struck exactly by what ari said, which was this is the first admission by the president that the russians did meddle. but i also want to go back to something that ben said, which was about the collusion, and there are two different collusions, there's the hacking of the dnc emails and then there's what we had an indictment on today. and the second that we could have paper ballots, i want to remind us that that led to hanging chads and to a contested election. so i'm not sure going back to hanging chads is the answer. but i think that we now have evidence of collusion on two different fronts because i think there has been, if we look at what the president has done in terms of the emails, which is
not the subject today, but look what he did? go ahead and get her missing emails, go ahead and get hillary's missing emails, he told wiwikileaks, go ahead and publish it. so we're seeing that form of collusion and what americans have to do to protect ourselveses and all of us who are new to social media, need to watch the sources that we are listening to on social media. >> among the bags that we just saw loaded on to the plane, the proof is that the president is for all of the marbles, the transfer of nuclear football when the helicopter lands prior to the helicopter taking off, the air stairs will now be rolled away and air force one will be on its way. the staff helicopter has arrived. you just saw chief of staff john kelly, there's the all clear from the ground controller, they are ordering the stairs back. everything is done with this kind of precision and pageantry every time our president goes anywhere.
back to the story at hand, as the front door is closed and the aircraft gets ready to taxi. ken delaney, our intelligence and national security reporter has been doing nothing but reading and rereading this document. ken, what should we know about that you have been able to see and tease out of this? >> well, i will get to that in a second, brian, i just wanted to make one point about the president's reaction to all of there, we have been talking about the political reaction, but also there's the geopolitical reaction. this is a covert action by the russian government to the united states. they didn't link it to the russian government because they didn't want to go into court and try to prove that. but this was a russian intelligence operation, with budget of a million dollars a month. they did things like hire actors for rallierallies, in addition
social media stuff we have known about for some time. normally you would expect the president of the united states have something to say about that, how is the country responding? what should we do with our adversary russia that has attacked us in this manner. we're sort of remarking on the fact is that he's finally now acknowledged clearly that there was some russian meddling. but no answer to the question of how will the u.s. government respond? we know from intelligence officials on the hill last week, that the russians are continuing to attack our democracy, what are we doing to respond to that? we have no answer. >> ken, underscore that point you just made, most americans are going to feel that we have been played, and most americans are going to have some sense of embarrassment, mixed with anger, that we were clearly played, this is all it took to get us to look elsewhere, to get us to think things we now know are false. >> the russians took advantage of the extreme partisan divisions in this country and
our elaborate social media structures to play us. we have known for a long time about the social media manipulation and we have known about the hacking of the dnc, which is not described in this indictment. we did not know that russians were actually coming to the united states under false identitie identities, gathering intelligence, interacting with americans, and we didn't know that they were using social media to set up rallies in swing states, in new york, in florida, in north carolina. in one case, the indictment talked about wiring money to build a cage, so an actor portraying hillary clinton in a prison uniform could appear. this is like something out of a drama of the americas rveg amer russian government paid for it right under our noses, a highly sophisticated intelligence operation and what is our response, brian? >> and what about the iceberg theory, about how much we can't see and what may be next?
>> could not agree with nicole wallace more on that. so we have now -- muleeller has now laid out a grand conspiracy of election meddling and that some americans participated in that in an unwilting fashion. but we know he's investigating vigorously as to whether anybody in the campaign participated willingly. one act that they did with the russians knowingly would change that. >> there's some poignancy and drama that the president is now taxiing down the run way at andrews air force base to go to his winter home in florida, perhaps even to visit the place where 17 souls lost their life in a mass casualty incident, a
mass shooting just this week. there he is all the machinery of the president traveling with him. and yet his presidency is in danger. and may be under existential threat. >> ken makes a great point that we are so accustomed to a style of reaction to the president to paraphrase a different president, the soft low expectations may be operative. it is a remarkable fact that should not escape us, but faced with his own acting attorney general, that these things happened, they targeted america, in an effort to defraud the united states, against our government, our institutions,
our democracy, the things we're supposed to agree on in this country, the things that are not a part of politics or ideology. the president says nothing about this. before you even get to policy, policy is a debate. he doesn't even speak to the problem of that, and he also failed to say something that most candidates throughout our histo history, when the kind of help that is offered is not legitimate. when you see people of hate who show up at a rally. he didn't say today if the russians were trying to help me as this indictment, as this evidence suggests, i don't want their help. he didn't say that. >> his silence speaks volumes. and i think it's something that we all ought to take note of. he should have said something, he didn't. and he also hasn't implemented the russian sanctions that have been voted by congress and we have to ask why?
is it connected to the fact that he did get help and is hoping for more help from them? that's another question that we need to an. >> it our friend clint watts, our former special agent with the joint terrorism task force has been with us and listening to our conversation. clint, i know you have strong feelings about what has happened on american soil that was caused by a foreign actor who just simply, for all the reasons ken delaney just listed, took advantage of our americanness, of our good nature, of our free press, of our social media and reached right into our election process. >> not only did they do, they came to us here in america, it sounds like from the indictment and they set up the system, they did reconnaissance, they set up some technical measures by which they could make it look like it was real americans, they stole real american i'd tdentities an they made other americans believe that they were americans
because they talked and looked like americans. and it's a whole new ball game, and not only does it undermine our democracy, which is the whole goal of russian actor measures, but it undermines our social media platforms. marine americans over this last year must wonder what i'm consuming on facebook, twitter, youtube, is this really what i think this is? is this a real person? is that a real american behind this and this hurts our american democracy and our way of life in a way we have not seen before. the question going forward is what is our government going to do about it. i know i have been researching this for four years, i've been talking about it for two and a half or three and at lots of public events and i haven't heard our government talk about
what we're going to do to preve prevent this in 2018. >> clint, this is no less creepy, especially to people of a certain age, of the idea that foreign nationals were in and around our country, operating as spies back in the era of world war ii, the kind of who can you trust? who do you purport to be? who are you really? it's just updated for the electronic age and twitter bots. >> that's right, and it's so much more effective today than it was long ago. >> clint watts, thank you very much, i want to read what has just come out from the white house. again, we have not received a briefing since tuesday. we may not until next tuesday. this has come out from the office of the press secretary and while we try to compile it into a graphic, i will read it for you. statement from the press secretary regarding the russia indictments. it's two paragraphs long. earlier today, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein announced indictments against 13 russian nationals and three russian entities for meddling in the 2016 presidential election, which began in 2014 before the president declared his candidacy. president donald j. trump has been fully briefed on this matter and is glad to see the special counsel's information further indicates that there was no collusion in capital letters, no collusion, between the trump campaign and russia, and that the outcome of the election was not changed or affected. that statement along with the capital letters will get a lot of attention as we go throughout the day. here is paragraph two. president trump says, quote, it
is more important than ever before to come together as americans. we cannot allow those seeking to sew confusion, discord and rancor to be successful. it's time we stop the outlandish partisan attacks, wild and false allegations and farfetched theories which only serve to further the agendas of bad actors like russia and do nothing to protect the principles of our institutions. we must unite as americans to protect the integrity of our democracy and our elections. that's the end of the statement. please note here, well, the presence of several phrases, wild and false allegations and far-fetched theories. among them, jill winebanks, a lot of people will define the entire indictment to be a
far-fetched theory in our current atmosphere. >> i can't believe that because the detail of it suggests that there is an insider that's cooperating. you cannot make up those details. you cannot disbelieve them. these are things dollar goingar have to be proved, whether the things happened the way they are stated in the indictment. h a not guilty verdict does not make you innocent, there may not be enough evidence to convict you, but it does not miean that you're innocent. and there was an american that pled to sharing information. and while it may sound i'm a fan
of daniel silva. anyone who reads it should be convinced that this is proof of collusion. >> to our viewers, you may note some new personalities around our table as we get ready for nicole wallace's broadcast coming up within the half hour, at 4:00 p.m. eastern, "deadline white house" as luck would have it an entire hour about this matter. danny, you have had a few hours to read and digest what we have seen, legal angle? >> there are two ways of looking at this, this is what we call in some ways a speaking indictment. so what's the motive? why indict a bunch of individuals that it's really not likely you'll ever get in the states to actually prosecute. what exactly is the mission then? is it to send out a message to get the word out and to make it
clear that, look, hey, america, if you've been wondering what we have been doing for all these past months, this is what we're doing, it's sort of their free opportunity to put out there some allegations that they may never really have to prove, because they may never get any of these defendants within their jurisdiction or get their hands on them to prosecute them. the other thing it does and i know this has been said in a few different ways, but it does establish, that american citizens, not a congressional investigation, but american, you would imagine dispassionate, not interested citizens sitting on a grand jury were convinced by a prosecutor, and admittedly, grand jurys are one sided affairs, but it does represent a citizen's interpretation of the evidence and this indictment is a product of that. so this is something to consider going forward. on the other hand, the white house, what they're saying essentially is that there was
russian involvement, but the fact that there isn't anybody named here, implies that we had nothing to do with it. because if there was anything, they would have indicted us. which is not that bad of an analysis. >> and you'll notice to our viewers that according to the expertise of all of our guests, everyone is stringing out different messages from this, malcolm nance, our intelligence expert was saying that what this does is expose a huge data mining operation on the part of the united states once we had reason to believe that bad actors were interfering in our election process. a u.s. data collection operation that included st. pepetersburst russia, but was hardly limited to st. petersburg in russia. we are also joined at this hour by richard painter, former white house ethics lawyer under george w. bush.
counselor, it's been a long time since we spoke, your reaction to what we're covering this afternoon. >> what we see here in the indictment is the social media side of the russia investigation. this is entirely different from the computer hacking side and we have yet to hear from bob mueller on that. the social media side of the russian operation took advantage of a very disturbing trend in american politics. identity politics where people identify with a particular ethnic group or religion, here it's white christians who feel threatened by nonwhites, by nonchristians, and the russians were aware of this identity politics, in american politics, they took advantage of this and they bought these facebook pages and engaged in social media operations, crimeinally to stir up these rallies, to stir up had
tre hatred, and against hillary clinton. this is what happens when people don't see themselves first as americans and where people want to blame their problems on others in our community. the best way to protect ourselves with the russians is first trust our fbi and our cia not to undermine our national security apparatus and move away from this whole notion of identity politics where people focus on minority groups where people feel threatened by others and realize we're one country, we're democrats, we're republicans, we have contested elections, but we should never allow another country to get away with this again and spread fake news through social media and convince americans to turn on each other. >> do you also see my argument that this takes advantage of our is good nature, at least, those americans left who display a good nature, we are different from other people on this planet. >> yes, it takes advantage of
our first amendment and our freedom of speech. just as a school shooter will take vacadvantage of our second amendments it is interpreted by the courts. but the problem is the russians also understood the troubling parts of our nature, the white identity politics, the white nationalism, the hatred of hillary clinton, the hatred of minority groups, of immigrants, of muslims, they took advantage of that, and we need to unify as americans and see ourselves as americans first. as one country, with two political parties, perhaps a third political party, but not with the russians able to interfere with our elections in a situation where we'll run to the russians for help and some people, yes, including the president of the united states when he was a candidate calling out upon the russians to hack hillary clinton's email. that should never happen again. we're americans first.
then we're democrats and republicans. we have our other affiliations, but we're americans first. >> when someone asks you or complains, especially in light of this, when folks get home from work on a friday and really start digging into this, when they ask, who can we trust? who should we trust? what's your answer? >> you need to get your news from reputable sources, i'm not saying everybody has to read the "new york times" and the wall street journal and watch nbc, but we do need to get reputable sources. we don't just go on the internet and look on various blog sites, look on facebook to find out the latest news on a presidential candidate. that's not the way you learn about your candidates. we need to be a lot more sophisticated when we consume news. just as we would with our money, we hopefully wouldn't hand our
money over to any old con artist, with a lot of con artists in the media, there is a lot of fake news, and it's not coming from nbc or "new york times," and we need to be a lot more so much fiphisticated as c of news if we're going to preserve our democracy. >> i want to read to our viewers what former cia director brennan, who by the way is one of our newest contributors here at nbc and in short order will be joining us on the air with his analysis of such things, this is what he has said on twitter. doj statement an indictments reveal the extent and motivations of russian interference in our 2016 election. claims of a hoax in tatters. my take, implausible that russian actions did not influence the views and votes of at least some americans. and that much i think is fair to
say is indicated in this indictment. another one of our editorial folks says this, worth noting this statement does not address a massive russian conspiracy to defraud the american democratic system was unleashed on our country, and there's no other way to put it really, julia ainsley, our national security and justice reporter continues to look through this, julia, what would you like to add to this consideration? >> i want to name richard panero. he's able to explain more about how these russian interferers worked. and one of the things he did according to the indictment is he was able to sell them bank account numbers. so there was a way that these people were -- the russian interferers were not coming from
russia and hacking in or creating bots where russia, they were actually able to use american bank accounts, american identities and even go through pay-pal to do exactly what they did. so that tells two things, one, it's going to be really difficult for tech companies like pay-pal, like these social media companies going forward to detect outside interference when these outside interferers are able to use american bank account. it also says that richard pineto may be able to hand over other people, particularly other americans. there are people known and unknown to the grand jury that were co-conspirators. this is crucial to understanding the way this could go moving forward and if there's other americans that could have worked in this interference effort. >> malcolm nance is continuing to stand by for us, a veteran of
the intelligence business. malcolm nance, when we read this white house statement and the two words in capital letters are no collusion, which has become the president's mantra, he said it for himself on twitter today. is that true if everything else in the indictment is true. >> well, this indictment was not about collusion. this indictment was about russia shaping the perceptions of the united states and of what russia wanted perceived by who ever would be their candidate come 2015, 2016. and according to this, which obviously comes from sources with inside russia, that was trump, so by creating the perception, and this is again, this is a russian strategy that is very old. the kgbs were masters of this, they have written thesises about how to do this long-term perception management shaping
well before an activity that you want to occur occurs. that means when donald trump became a candidate, there was a lot of information out there that shaped his opinion and views of the world that russia had already injected in there. i would like to make one point, brian. there are multiple lines of investigation here. this is about russia's social media warfare operation. this has nothing to do with american citizens who might have been coordinating with russia in conspiracy to distribute information that was hacked and it has nothing to do with the hacking itself. those are three entirely different lines of inquiries that the 18 prosecutors that mueller has on his staff are investigating separately. >> so malcolm, that's important, this is one strand, one trench, one aspect. and by its nature, we can't know the other areas this huge
federal effort is into, but please repeat the point you made earlier in this hour, about how robust, what you have learn it about the u.s., we'll call it counter spying for civilians, the sizable data mining operation, data collection operation we went back at the russians with. >> to tell you the truth, it was more human intelligence than data. if you read the indictment, and jill mentioned this a little earlier, it's very clear there's somebody who worked on the inside and named the names of everyone in this organization right down to their administrative remarks to when they were hired, when they did what, and this only involved about 90 ling wiuists and their management team to go at one of the many troll farms that russians are running. i think what you're seeing in
this indictment is what i've been saying all along is what internationally collected evidence becomes evidence in an indictment. >> score one for the home team, i guess, and we're down to way. malcolm nance, thanks. we're going to take a quick break, continue our live coverage, continue our conversation on the other side of this breaking news story, this indictment. we are devoting our air time to today. we'll be right back. little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable after just 4 months, ... with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. tell your doctor if these occur. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression.
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importantly for us he is a msnbc contributor. and, chuck, what -- to my point, what doesn't this indictment say? what's not written or spoken in this? >> well, there's a lot not written or spoken. but one thing that jumps out at me, brian -- forgive me, i'm about to drop a double negative on you. >> that's all right. we allow them. >> nobody should draw any comfort or suste nance from what's not in the indictment. there isn't a paragraph that says, the following people are all vindicated. the notion that you would say that this vindicates maybe because i'm not mentioned here is just silly. what an indictment does is it charges people with a crime. in this case russians and russian organizations. it doesn't vindicate anyone. particularly in a case like this, brian, where it is very likely you'll never get your hands on these individuals to prosecute them in a u.s. court, why would the prosecutors tell more than they have to?
this is a speaking indictment. it does go into some level of detail, but there's a lot we don't know, and i don't think anyone should draw comfort from what's not in the indictment. >> and, chuck, if anything, a professional like you looks at this just like as we were saying with malcolm nance. this is like fingers on a glove. this is one of the fingers, and mr. mueller is operating along a huge spectrum of activities, correct? >> oh, absolutely. and the analogy i've used before, fingers on a glove is one. imagine a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle and you only have three pieces, brian, and you don't have the box top so you don't know what it's supposed to look like at the end. we're getting more and more of the story at a time. this is just a chapter in the book. that's all it is. i don't think anyone can claim vindication because they are not mentioned in an indictment that charges russian individuals and russian organizations. >> we are so fortunate to have a
guy like chuck rosenberg. chuck, thank you for that. over to julia ainsley in washington, our national security and justice reporter. julia, i neglected to say earlier, you were at this event. and on top of the substance, as you listened to it unfold from rosenstein, and we had very little advance knowledge, we're not even used to hearing his voice. robert mueller, americans have not ever heard him speak since being named to this job. that's kind of the aura of anticipation around these officials. and to chuck's point, we just learned a small, a small part of this investigation today. >> it is a small part of the investigation. and, yes, i was there at that press conference. the deputy attorney general took very few questions from reporters. we all had a lot more questions, especially ones you're asking now, brian. what does this mean going forward? he would only talk really just about the indictment. he said that there is nothing in
the indictment that alleges this had an outcome on the election, but of course we know there is more to it than that. you can't possibly draw that conclusion from what's here. another thing i would point to, of the many prongs in the investigation that even began before robert mueller, we know the fbi was looking into as far back as the summer of 2015 how russia may try to meddle in the election. it wasn't until later that, about august 2016, that they really started looking into could the trump campaign have associates involved. so, what we're seeing today could just be the end of that first probe or the result of that first probe, because it's very possible to be able to influence people on social media without the help of another campaign. it's a little more difficult when you get into the hacking, when you get into the messaging that's coming from the campaign that seems to tie into some of the priorities that russia was pushing. those things we all still have
questions about and we're waiting to see in the coming months what robert mueller finds to answer those questions. >> chuck rosenberg, one last question and point if you can still hear me. are you reassured -- i don't know how to ask this. is this the fbi you knew? is there something in here that reassures you that they were on this despite all the talk and gesticula gesticulation on television, they were on this before americans knew this was an issue? >> they were on this before americans knew this was an issue. this is precisely the fbi i know. in some ways i find it oddly comforting because the level of detail in this indictment tells me that they have been doing this for a long time. they know precisely what they're doing. and this is only the tip of the tip of the iceberg. i am comforted by the fact we have men and women at the fbi doing this stuff. >> i understand that point
The latest news from around the world with hosts John Berman and Poppy Harlow.
18 times this month, 64 times in the last three months. i lay those numbers out because this is at the same time that the american public sort of approval of the mueller probe is declining. it was 48% approval in -- on how mueller is handling it in march. now it's 41%, the lowest it has been. is the president's strategy working? >> well, if his strategy is to undermine confidence in the justice department and the institution of the legal process, then, yes, it's working in some ways because he keeps calling this a witch hunt. he has the biggest bully pulpit on the planet. he is misinforming the public by saying mueller is employing 13 angry democrats. we don't necessarily know that any of these people are actually angry. the president is using his pulpit to punch down at the investigation. we are seeing the public react
to that. mueller, because he can't respond, that's why you see the numbers go down. the president is ratcheting it up, going from a witch hunt to a bob mueller-rigged witch hunt. he is being more direct in his attacks. >> you couldn't see my friend john, but when he said, a bob mueller-rigged witch hunt, went like this. it was a few months ago the president started naming bob mueller and now directly attacking mueller and doing it more and more. >> the president focuses on branding and creating earworm insults. by bringing to the the robert mueller witch hunt, he is trying to create a new phase. poll numbers suggest these attacks, rudy giuliani really playing to the court of public opinion, may be having an impact on undermining public confidence. having a president consciously try to undermine confidence in the justice department, not good for democracy. this is something about -- that's bigger than the court of public opinion. the mueller report will show
democrats to focus too much on this? >> i think democrats that are out on the campaign trail are mostly not campaigning on impeachment. they are focusing on the economy, the tax cuts, health care, people's pocketbook issues. they're looking at the same polling that shows even though the base of the party wants to impeach the president, there are so many other messages that can be used. >> just to jump in, isn't it hard to run on the economy right now if you are a democrat? given the strong economic numbers we saw on friday. >> yeah. what they are mostly doing is focusing on who are the winners in this economy. you look at the tax cuts and look at the fact that a lot of the benefits did flow to corporations and the wealthy and there are still people that are struggling to make ends meet. people struggling with healthcare costs rising because of how this administration is handling obamacare. they didn't replace it but they're trying to sort of basically allow it to die on the vine and allow people's costs to go up without having a
replacement in place. there are pocketbook issues that people are looking at. even though the tax cuts did pass six months ago, if you look at real wages, even though gdp is going up, real wages are going down. there are everyday people that have not benefitted yet. that's the message that a lot of democrats are trying to make. >> it's a fair point. i wonder how you think they effectively do it when every time the president goes to a steel mill, all the news cameras follow him and he is front and center making the message that -- he is saying, this is helping main street america. it's helping some not all. democrats say, it needs to help a wider swath of them. are they going to have a tough time making the case? >> they can't run against the trump economy. it's done very well to date. i think the key point here is that does it trickle down to main street? are there unexpected victims of a trade war with tariffs that may be in trump's base? trump's approval numbers are down. 36% in wisconsin and michigan.
trump has the bully pulpit. he will get credits. i think their hope is to say, is it wall street or main street? that's where we're going to focus. what mitch landrieu is doing, on one side of the democratic debate, is saying don't get over your skis, don't do something dumb like root for a bad economy. follow the law. someone needs to be the party of adults. >> government shutdown, the president threatened it. bluster? >> unbelievable. take people at their word, especially this president. that said, this is a republican president threatening a government shutdown with a republican congress. while trying to blame democrats. for his immigration fix. it's stunning. you can see republicans panicked on capitol hill. we're 99 days out. republican president threatening a shutdown with unified control, that's bad news. >> good news monday. thank you very much. i appreciate you both being here. ahead for us, the next time
you fly, someone may be watching you. newly released documents reveal a secret tsa program that is keeping an eye on unsuspecting passengers. we have the details. we are 99 days away from the midterms. new polli ining suggests the bl wave may be on the rise. wildfires continue to rage, little relief, especially when it comes to the weather. we're live with the story of one family devastated by the blaze. ♪ ooh, heaven is a place on earth ♪
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this is a stunning report. they have been doing this since 2010. >> reporter: absolutely right. now it's coming to light. it is raising eyebrows when you hear the list of things that these air marshals are looking for. tsa tells cnn that this is -- this previously undisclosed program which we know is called quiet skies has been happening for years. air marshals essentially whose core mission after september 11th was to protect the cockpit are focused on monitoring unsuspecting passengers who are not suspected of a specific crime, have not been convicted of a crime and they're not on any terror watch list. the tsa says this has been going on since 2010. federal air marshals, they are monitoring american passengers' behavior while in flight. are you abnormally aware of your surroundings, excessive fi fidgeting, rapid eye blinking.
i'm guilty of this, sleeping on a flight. the globe first reported the details about the program this weekend. tsa won't give too many details about how the program actually works. they say that the passengers who are tracked are selected based on past travel patterns like where they have traveled to terror hot spots, the agency says they get a lot of information from the intel community. we do have a statement from tsa on this program. they say that it absolutely is not intended to surveil ordinary americans. instead, its purpose is to ensure passengers and flight crew are protected during air travel. no different than putting a police officer on a beat where intelligence and information presents the need for increased watch and deterrents. i can tell you, i have been speaking to people over the weekend about this. there are privacy concerns. among some federal air marshals, they are concerned that if they are focusing on individual
passengers who have no obvious ties to terrorism, this is essentially distracting them from their core mission of protecting the cockpit. >> i know that they do push back and say, this is subject to intense congressional oversight. do you know if any terrorist plots have been thwarted because of the program? >> this is a key question. tsa will not answer. they will not say if as a result of this they were able to foil any plots. at this point, we do not know the success of this program. >> okay. thank you for the reporting. keep us posted. what is the number one thing that could influence voters this november? ahead, we will tell you. >> tech: at safelite autoglass,
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democrats are poised for quite a blue wave come november. what are the main ones? >> you hit on the number one which is the president's approval rating. i went over time since the 1946 midterm elections and looked at each president's approval rating. a president's approval rating at 42% is not very good for his party, would point toward a democratic wave. second, i would look at the generic congressional ballot. democrats are ahiead on that. we can look at how cnn is rating each race, the vulnerable seats. there are more vulnerable republican than democrat seats. that's been a sign. there are different factors i looked at. all five pointed towards democrats do well come november. >> chris, how could democrats blow this? could they lean too far to the left, for example? you note in your column about a week ago the five major questions everyone should ask democrats and one of them is, is
anyone too liberal. >> i think that that question, that fight is probably a post-2018 pre-2020 fight in the presidential race. as harry has noted, the most important thing here as it relates to midterms is the president's approval rating. it's been true for basically as long as we have had politics. there have been only three midterm elections since the 20th century where the president's party picked up house seats. 1934 in the midst of the great depression, 1998, bill clinton impeachment, 2002 with the after affects of september 11th. outside of a huge, catastrophic society event, we know the president's party is going to lose seats. it's a way that these elections work. the question is, can donald trump -- i don't know that democrats can do much. can donald trump get his approval rating from 41, 42 to
46, 47? would it potentially drop to 39, 38? that's a big difference in terms of the number of seats that could be lost or saved. >> it's a good question. harry, how could he do that? he has got this strong economy in his pocket. so many people vote on the economy. if he could have a major boon for the economy, that would tick up his -- you would think that would tick up his approval numbers. although, it hasn't, despite the strong economy. what else could he do? >> i would think my number one piece of advice would be to shut up. let the economy do the talking. every day he goes on twitter and there's distraction that's going on. if this election were about the economy, the republicans would be doing better than they are doing right now. i'm not sure there's very much he can do. i think if mueller came back and said, trump didn't collude, everything is fine, maybe that would help. beyond that, i mean, look, the president's approval rating, even though it has risen a little since the beginning of the year, has been stuck in the low 40s.
historically speaking, when that happens, good-bye to your majority. the two examples that were recent that chris cited where the president's party didn't lose seats, the president's approval rating was north of 60%. you don't have to be a mathematical expert to know 60% is not close to 40%. >> that you don't. let's listen to something you pointed out about a week ago, dark horse, possible 2020 contender, mix landrieu on with jake yesterday morning. this was an interesting question jake asked him. >> are you concerned at buall about your party lurching to the left? >> i have talked about goff he wering governing from the middle. there aren't many of us left. it is important for us to make sure that if we are given the responsibility to govern, we govern in a big tent way. >> is there room for 2020
dreamers to be -- to be radical centrists? >> i don't want to say no definitively. i will say no at least at the moment. what you see is for the most part, you have got candidates all moving as far left as they can. the embrace of ocasio-cortez by a number of them. you can't be too far left in a democratic primary. that's generally true. you want to be on the more liberal or if you are a republican more conservative end of things. i don't know how much talk of radical centrism will help mitch landrieu. he is not that well-known. the way to shoot up in a democratic primary is sort of the howard dean method of '04. run to the left. that was more than a decade ago. but i think if you are going to see a dark horse emerge, given
what we know of what's happened in the 2018 cycle, it's much more likely that that candidate is -- i'm throwing a name out there. chris murphy from connecticut who is very liberal on guns, very outspoken on the need for more gun legislation in the wake of new town, has a liberal record generally speaking. that's where i think the dark horse race is. >> i tried to get an answer on this from denny heck last hour. who is it? are you the party of pelosi or ocasio-cortez. he said, it's neither. we're all. you can't be all, right? >> you can't be all. at the end of the day, any political party when you have two of them has to have a relatively big tent. you can be sure that in the upcoming fall campaign and leading into 2020, the republicans will make democrats, force democrats to say who
exactly they are. they will try to -- either pelosi or ocasio-cortez, i don't think the republicans have a problem saying that's who the democrats are. democrats would be wiser to go towards the middle. i'm not sure the base will allow them to. >> thank you both. what did i call you, my mighty duo. >> we will take it. that's good for us. >> it's a monday morning. i'm a little tired. appreciate it. two young kids and their great-grandmother are among the six people that were killed over the weekend in the largest of the 17 wildfires in northern california. you will hear from their grieving great-grandfather. a live report ahead.
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a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! dead from the biggest of the 17 wildfires cutting a path of destruction across california. the search is continuing for seven others who are missing. fed by dry weather and triple digit weather, the carr fire has burned through 95,000 acres. 3,000 firefighters are on the front line. the fire is 17% contained. it's threatening thousands of homes and businesses. dan simon joins me live this morning. dan, i know not only are you seeing what the firefighters are doing firsthand, you are speaking to these families who have suffered devastating loss. >> reporter: good morning, poppy. i spoke to a 76-year-old man who
has lost the most important people in his life. ed and his wife, they were raising their great-grandchildren, 5-year-old james, who they called junior, and 4-year-old emily. on thursday night, ed left his house just for a short period of time. he wanted to run errands in town. he received a phone call that the flames were encroaching his house. inside were his wife and his great-grandchildren. i will let ed pick up the story from here. >> i talked to junior on the phone until he died. he just kept saying, grandpa, come get me. the fire is coming in the back door. come on, grandpa. i said i'm right down the road. he said, come and get us. emily said, i love you grandpa. grandma says, i love you. junior says, i love you. come and get us. come and get us. i said, i'm on my way. my wife was the greatest woman
in the world. my grandkids was excellent. she wrapped them in wet blankets and put them at the side of the bed and pull aid wet blanket over here. that's where they found them. >> reporter: as you can imagine, ed is feeling a tremendous sense of guilt over what happened. he never received any kind of warning that he should evacuate. that goes to show you how fast this fire has consumed the community. let me just point out where i am now. we are in redding. you can see this is one home that has been levelled. much of the neighborhood looks just like this. overall, we are talking about 874 structures that have gone up in flames. we should point out that fire crews are making progress, containment is up to 18%. that may not sound like a lot, but 24 hours ago, they were at 5%. hopefully, they will make progre progress. >> dan simon, it's heartbreaking. thank you for letting us know what's happening and bringing us
the latest. let's go to jonathan cox with cal fire. jonathan, thank you to you and your team that is battling this. >> thank you. >> what can you tell us about the progress being made? the weather forecast is dim. we heard last hour, rain is not expected until next tuesday. >> yes. we're looking at triple digit temperatures to continue. they have come down by at least ten degrees, which is substantial for us. it's a tale of two fires right now. we have the main body of the fire moving into more remote inacceptable parts of the northe northe northe northern shasta county. then we have the cooling down where your reporter was of the impacted homes. it's a multi-pronged fire. it's almost 100,000 acres. our containment has gone up to 20% this morning.
it's thousands of hours of work goes into every percentage increase. right now we hope to keep this momentum going of the number going up. >> we just heard from the family, you heard the grieving grandfather. he lost his 4 and 5-year-old great-grandchildren and his wife because he just left to go to town for a few minutes and the fire turned and consumed their home. what are residents supposed to do if they really have no warning about which way the fire is going to turn? >> yeah. we're seeing in california right now is more destructive, burnin never seen. our message is simply, if you feel like you could be in danger to leave the area when these fires are burning. this fire occurred and it was
that weather afnomaly that came through at a rate of spread we have not seen before. the best indicator of whether you should leave is whether that kind of feeling in your stomach or hair on the back of your neck stands up as to possibly being in danger. sometimes these fires are moving at such speed that they are hot and hop scotching through neighbors. >> how stretched thin are your teams? >> we have over 12,000 firefighter on the line in california. obviously, bulldozers, crews, hand crews and fire engines are our top priority for resources. luckily, we have 150 additional engines coming from throughout the united states. the furtherest being from even florida. resources are coming in. we're prioritizing where they go based on the risks to lives and property. we're early on in the season. this is the beginning of the typical fire season in california. we have a lot of runway ahead of us. >> jonathan, good luck to you
and everyone on the front lines. thank you for what you do. >> thank you. still ahead for us, u.s. diplomats reportedly meeting face to face with the taliban. this as we learn about a change in strategy from the trump administration when it comes to troops on the ground in afghanistan. we will discuss next. come away with me barnabas! but i am a simple farmer. my life is here... [telephone ring] ahoy-hoy. alexander graham bell here... no, no, my number is one, you must want two! two, i say!! like my father before... [telephone ring] like my father before... ahoy-hoy! as long as people talk too loudly on the phone, you can count on geico saving folks money. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.
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after he met him there he said the people of italy, quote, got it right. joining me now is john kirby. nice to have you. a few things i want to touch on. let's start with italy. we will see the president take questions at this joint press conference. when you look at italy and you look at the economic struggles it has had, it's an important economy in europe. it's the third largest economy. he is in line with the president op on limiting migration and on russia and forging a new path with russia. the fact that these two men are on the same page on these big issues, if you are giermany, france, what are you thinking? >> i'm concerned but not overly concerned. italy is a powerhouse in the european economy. they host tens of thousands of american troops at various bases throughout the country.
very important nato partner. mr. conte's political base isn't solidified inside italy. there were two populist parties that had to settle on him. the power structure is tepid. we will see how much he can solidify reforms he wants to put in place. he is fighting on trade and immigration. i'm watching this. i want a dialogue. but i don't think i will be overly worried at this point. >> you bring up he was a compromise. but you welcome at someone like his deputy prime minister who could have more power. he wants to convince eu partners to lift sanctions on moscow, readmit russia. should we expect similar language we heard from him from conte? >> you hit the nail on the head.
he is almost to the right of his boss. i think you will hear this refrain from italy, lifting sanctions like you said, going to be tough on trying to lift the belfast declaration, which makes european countries responsible for handling asylum seekers in their country. they want the eu to make more of a load on that. they are like trump, foes of a lot of multilateral trade deals. that could make it interesting for trump as he tries to renegotiate the tariff situation with the eu. >> we did hear the same thing from the president at the g7 about readmitting russia. on afghanistan, important reporting from "the wall street journal" and "new york times." american diplomats had a few days of meetings face to face with the taliban, at least representatives. this happened in qatar reportedly. lay the groundwork for peace talks, trying to capitalize and
build off of three days of cease-fires. a sign this is successful or the same thing in the bush and obama administration? >> a little bit of both. we tried to do this in 2015. this was really not negotiations. it was sitting down with taliban officials to talk about talks. >> right. >> the afghan government publically rebuked it and did not support it. we had to drop the effort. there was no support from the government. we couldn't go forward. now you see the afghan government saying, we think this is a good idea. keep the talks going. let us know how it goes. we want to be a player going forward. it's a positive sign. the devil is in the details. the devil is in what comes next and to what degree the afghan government is going to be brought into the process, when you really start getting down to the nitty-gritty of negotiating. >> "the new york times" reporting is that the talks happened without representatives from afghan's government. is it a signal -- a shift of strategy, if you will?
>> i don't think it is. this is kind of what we played around with in 2015, sitting down with the taliban without the afghan government there, just to get a framework going to try to think about what the talks would look like going forward. we said back then and the trump administration is saying now, there will be no afghan reconciliation process that isn't afghan led and managed. that's important. their policy is pretty of the same. >> thank you. ahead the board of cbs is meeting as the company's ceo is accused of sexual misconduct. we will have all the details ahead.
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this morning, the board of cbs will meet and consider the fate of the ceo after allegations of sexual misconduct by six different women. these allegations come in an explosive report by "the new yorker." walk me through what the women are saying and what the board of cbs has to weigh in minutes. >> the accusations all follow a very similar pattern. they say he invited them to their office at a time when they were young and ambitious and effectively used his power, his physical power to force himself on them and then used also his power and influence in hollywood to seek retribution when they rebuffed his advances. the board will get together on a conference call in just over an hour to come up with a committee to oversee the investigation into these accusations. one of the key things they will look for here, of course, do these accusations check out?
are there more accusations that we need to be aware of? are there grounds for firing moonves or forcing him to resign? when it comes to the journalist who exposed the he will gaalleg there doesn't seem to be ambiguity for him. >> we are talking about encounters in which women allege they were pinned down and struggled to escape. it's serious stuff. i want to point out that in some of the cases, more than the initial incident, these are women who said what was scarring was the threats of retaliation. there appeared to be a pattern of saying, this is going to harm your career. >> moonves has responded to the accusations. i want to read you a portion of what he said. i recognize that there were times decades ago when i made have made some women uncomfortable by making advances. those were mistakes and i regret them immensely. i always understood and
respected and abided by the principal that no means no and i have never misused my position to harm or hinder anyone's career. >> before you go, it's a question of the culture and what may have been happening at cbs over a matter of decades. you have 19 current and former employees also accusing the executive produce of "60 minutes" of not only enabling and allowing harassment to happen but making unwanted advances himself. what is he saying? >> that's right. it does go beyond moonves. it goes to the culture. let me read you what jeff is saying. it's wrong that our culture can be falsely defined by a few people with an ax to grind who are using an important movement as a weapon to get even. there's a reason these awful allegations have not been published before. despite the efforts of a few former employees who did not succeed. it is because they are false, anonymous and do not hold up to
faith in mueller. a lot of people. that is mueller saying, curious to see if democrats will accept this conclusion since that came from mueller. on obstruction, katy, i fully understand if there is a debate and dispute over this, because this was not mueller's definitive word. this was bob barr's word. this is where they'll be a fight. again, politically the toothpaste is already out of the tube as they say. >> yeah. >> so, you know, this isn't getting resolved in this country until november 2020. >> no doubt about that. i think what we can take from this is that the investigations will continue in congress, but ultimately and who knows how long it will take to potentially see the rest of this report, or what we are able to see, but ultimately this is going to go to voters in 2020 and what the president's going to do, chuck, and the steve bannon's made this clear and anybody who followed the 2016 campaign would assume as well, he's going to use this to his advantage and the way
he's used it already in the past two years saying that it's all a witch-hunt in respect was no collusion, there was no conspiracy. when they couldn't find conspiracy or collusion they moved on to something else. i am the victim here. >> it's been good politics for him. it is how he spins up his base. it is how he keeps his base devoted to him, how he's politically survived. no way to politically thrive, no way to govern. he's not going to ever get the 60% to govern but this is what he's going to do. survive the election and see if it's enough and democrats are going to be in this, get frustrated. perhaps by how this investigation is going to get perhaps how quickly they get to see the report, but there will be voter fatigue on this. and democrats have to be wary of that. and do they focus on the investigations or do they focus on other issues that perhaps voters want to see focused on? i think that will, that will have an impact here, too, hon ow
aggressive democrats are. >> we've seen the 2020 democrats on the campaign trail so far is they haven't paid a ton of attention to the investigation, chuck. >> katy, the voters out there don't care. >> they have been paying attention to issues. >> they care tab babout it but following it day to day. >> they're not. we've softened democrats and did well in 2018, they argue, they paid attention to the issues, paid attention to health care the economy and other things. if democrats in congress continue with the investigations into the president, continue with subpoenaing various members of his white house or members of his family or members of his orbit and go down the road of trying to determine whether they think he obstructed justice and whether that potentially is an impeachable offense for this president, do democrats risk overshadowing, drowning out what democratic hopefuls for 2020 are doing on the campaign trail?
>> i think that is a risk. at the same time, i understand the desire by other whose say wait a minute. you know, you've got to prosecute these things even when it's politically not, because if you don't, or if you don't attempt to, you're lowering the floor. you sgl you're lowering the bar again and it will only reward this, but, you know, i also have been having this conversation. what would the founders have wanted in this situation? he's in a first term. not a second term. there he is, and most would agree, it's always better to let the voters make a derman nation a democracy than a ruling group of elites. right? it is a first term and there's a lot to be said of let the public get all the information and let them make the determination themselves about whether they think he has the values to run the rule of law or not. to whether they trust him to be
in charge of the criminal justice system. things like that. so there is an argument to be said that perhaps if you think back what would the founders have wanted in this situation, given the time we're in, they might say, take it to the voters pap second term, it's a different situation. >> chuck, hang out one second. i want to reset for anyone tuning in. it's 4:04. about 30 minutes ago we receive add summary of robert mueller's findings. the two-year investigation into president trump and his presidential campaign condensed down to four pages. attorney general william barr has summarized that while the report does not conclude that the president comitted a crime, it also does not exonerate him. the evidence developed during the special counsel investigation is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense. that is per bill barr and rod rosenstein. not per robert mueller. also, the report identifies no actions that in our judgment
constitutes obstructive conduct. again that is per bill barr and rod rosenstein. finally, the investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated or colluded with the russian government in its election interference activities. chuck, year back with me. one other question on nancy pelosi. she had said a few weeks ago that she didn't believe impeachment is something the democrats should pursue unless there is bipartisan support of this. now that we know the principle conclusions from robert mueller per william barr, do you see any way that nancy pelosi might change her stance on that? >> i doubt it, and i just, we just got a statement from kevin mccarthy house republican leader, and just, if this gives a taste where congressional leaders are, then the idea of how, if whether we see this whole report you may start to ask that. he says, it is abundant think
clear without a shadow of a doubt no collusion and it's time we move on for the good of the nation. this case is closed. so if that is the sort of mainstream republican attitude on capitol hill, it may slow down the demands and calls for transparency and slow down -- i think we're eventually see the details of the mueller report, make the determination for ourselves, but by the time we see it, the -- the spin will have already sort of made its way around and there may be even a fatigue oral exhausti an exha flavor. you don't do something if you don't have the votes in an exercise like that. impeachment, while you may believe it's part of the rule of law, it is a political exercise. not a legal one. you have to count the votes. >> hallie jackson is also with us. hall hallie, the white house said all
along no collusion. the president greeted reporters on friday with no collusion, no collusion. the president's orbit has always said, no collusion. the president's children have always said, no collusion. today robert mueller found no conspiracy which essentially is no collusion. >> there is no gray area on that piece of it, katy. you look at the two buckets. the conspiracy piece you say, sort of collusion, and then the obstruction piece. on the conspiracy piece of it it is black and white. it is very clear that the special counsel did not find that it trump campaign conspired with russia. that is already what we're seeing and forgive me for looking at my phone. we've received reaction from the rnc. unsurprisingly now from the republican national committee falling in line with what chuck read you from those in the republican party, "for years many democrats and many in the media promised collusion between the trump campaign and russia. they were wrong." that is going to be the line from the gop i think from the white house as well.
keep in mind right now the president is getting ready to board air force one. jit where there are televisions. he will likely be watching coverage of all this as it goes down leaving from mar-a-lago to come back here to the white house. politically you have reaction from republicans, you can see air force one there. down in south florida getting ready to make its way back to washington. there is a chance by the way, let me note for vuters he evote president may stop and speak to those who gather underneath the wing. the president has done before. we don't know he will but obviously it's something we're watching clo ining closely for. we know rakz from republicans seizing on the conspiracy, no spawn kear conspiracy piece. obstruction a gray area. where you start to see reaction from democrats and where you will continue undoubtedly to see democrats pushing to see everything. everything that robert mueller put together. as relates to the 2020 re-elect you make the point correctly i think most democrats are not
focusing on the russia investigation out on the campaign trail. just not. talking about things like made c.a.r.e. f medicare for all, things voters want to hear about. president trump, goes to a campaign rally later in the week will be out in michigan for that. loves to talk about robert mueller. i see the president making a pinata of the special counsel, of frankly the media as well and you already starting to see that in a new tweet out from eric trump. the president's son going after the media. accusing the media trying to harp on what was overhyped and incorrect. that twofold attack you will see based on our reporting the president really hone in on the campaign trail. repeatedly. listen, he will probably do it thursday. probably do it for the next 500-plus days until this election happens because the president feels personally aggrieved by this. we know it because he tweets about it, talks about it. this has been the cloud hanging
over his west wing since the day he took office. a significant moment in time for this white house. why it's significant, by the way, after a huge week of twitter frenzy tweets, katy, nothing. two innocuous good morning make america great tweets. that's all we heard from the president so far. >> i wonder if he'll start to call robert mueller a good american here because he did not find conspiracy and say he was not partisan and conflicted. there aren't 13 angry democrats but did the president a service. same time, hallie, in this report or summary, bill barr make as point that robert mueller says the president didn't commit a crime, but it does not exonerate him. >> right. those words. does not exonerate him you will hear again and again from democrats. right? that is sort of the murky waters here. i think you're right. the president may change his tune about robert mueller. you may hear the argument, difficult for the president to
change his tune about mueller given just how sort of intensely he has attacked him in his investigation repeatedly in writing, publicly on camera. this is a president who has reversed course on people before as we all know well from the story of jeff sessions and other whose have fallen in and out of favor with the president at various times in his administration. the obstruction piece of it is, again, much less clear, because mueller, robert mueller, did not draw sort of a -- a final line here on the issue of obstruction. yes, the president. we have the quote here. does not conclude that the president comitted a crime but it does not exonerate him is already where you're seeing the question marks from democrats, from people with kearns about the president. again, all along, we've said this. there are two pieces of this. right? overall, step back big picture. a question of donald trump's legal the line and a question of his political liability bhand it me and what it means politically. robert mueller came to the
conclusion based on attorney barr's letter, no coordination or conspiracy which was the thesis, central piece of his investigation. the other obstruction. just not as clear. hoping to get reaction for you seen. it's interesting that we understand based on my colleague kristen well ill kerr a statemeg for that. >> the early reaction from the legal team is it's very good for us. so you can expect essentially just to build on what hallie is saying. they are prepared to take a major victory lap here at the white house within the president's legal team. they were sort of weighing a number of different scenarios. this scenario being politically speaking the strongest one arguably for president trump. so i think you're going see that expressed. i know they had sort of thought through some early reaction, but
clearly they're trying to determine exactly what that victory lap is going to look like when they put phone pad. just to set the scene at the white house, hallie standing outside. i'med in. ju inside where all the white house officials press staff works they are huddled in press secretary sarah sanders's office right now likely trying to determine next steps and what the official reaction, official statement is going to be here from the white house. not clear that sarah's in that office right now, because i know she was traveling with the president, but bottom line, they are hashing through what their reaction is going to be here. and, again, president trump set to land here at the white house in just a short time from now, katy. he usually does not talk when he returns home from the weekend. i think you might see him sort of break that streak and come and speak with us. we have to wait and see. i haeanticipate he want to weig in. he has a campaign rally later in the week and undoubtedly will
use this. i spoke to steve bannon the other day saying he's prepared to weaponize the mueller report. that tells usstaunchest supporters, they have meat on the bones to back it up. >> does this mean the president can use this to convince others that might have been on the fence about him. might not have enjoyed this investigation, might have had questioned surrounding this investigation to say, listen, i was right. it was a hoax. i am the victim. v vote for me. does had use that to broaden his appeal is an open question. sarah sanders says, the special counsel did not find collusion and did not find obstruction. although the special counsel did not find obstruction that was what a.g. barr and rod rosenstein found. attorney general barr and deputy attorney general rosenstein further found no obstruction.
a complete exoneration of the president of the united states. number one, special counsel did not find collusion, sarah sanders is trite say that. she not right to say they did not find any obstruction. they left that question explicitly up to both william barr and rod rosenstein, and william barr and rosenstein determined that there was no obstruction. she said it is a total and complete exoneration of the president. the mueller summary according to bill barr says while the president did not commit a crime, it does not exonerate him. expectly said in that letter. even in circumstances where the news is good for them they have to be incorrect. that's consistent, i guess, with this white house. >> and katy, why you are going to see such a pitched battle to get the actual report. jerry nadler earlier today on "meet the press" said essentially arguing that some of the documents are protected by
executive privilege isn't an argument because they've already been subjected to this investigation. you're going to see democrats really push to try to see the entire report. by special counsel robert mueller. now, undoubtedly what you might see also is a desire by the white house and some others for the entire report to not be released at least publicly, and they point to ironically, the case of hillary clinton. they say, look. in the case of hillary clinton, you essentially had james kocom, but saw misjudgment and critical how he handled that matter at the time. i don't understand even on a good day, news is good for them they insist on lying. still put out incorrect statements. why in the world would sarah huckabee sanders want to cloud what happened today with this summary, cloud the good news of it by putting out a statement full of two factual errors? >> she is seizing upon the final
conclusion by the attorney general. >> from bill barr and rosenstein. not mueller. >> by the way, when we hear from president trump, it's a little bit of a preview. right? of how they are going to spin, not unusual for white house's add min strait stragss s tstra administrations to do that. you're getting a good preview of what he's going to say. nike doubt about it, keep going back to this. even nikki haley earlier today before we knew the full results what barr would say was essentially saying it's time to move on. no more indictments. so you put all of these things together and politically speaking, this is a very good day for president trump, and they're going to be spiking the football today and right through election day likely, katy. >> yes. again, although i don't think we can call it spin. that is lying. go to ari melber, chief legal an
vist here at msnbc and host of "the beast." >> my reaction is the most important parts of this letter are the direct quotes from the mueller report. everything else is barr's views and conclusions, which are also significant, since he's mueller's boss but not the mueller report everyone's been waiting for. anyone in any field knows that there's plenty that could be done with characterization and conclusion. in those direct quotes there is clearly as you've been reporting good news for the trump campaign and president trump if inn that it echo what's we knew as a clue from friday night because it ended without indictments on collusion eviction conspiracy and here we see a quote of a finding that there was not a collusion election conspiracy between the trump campaign and associates. there isn't supposed to be one. but it is obviously after a 22-month probe a significant finding. second i think where we'll see a
huge fight what i've been reading into in the letter, is we see already gap distance between mueller's take on obstruction whashgt he carefull did and what we understand to be his conclusions and barr going further. what i mean and we can get into it more if you like or have time. we see clearly as you discussed with the overstatement from t white house bob mueller looked at potential obstruction, looked at that evidence, went through it and investigated it and said the president is not exonerated nor is he in the view of mueller guilty of a federal crime within the ambit of his probe. so that is to put it simply, a middle ground. this letter then goes well beyond that and accurately quotes. credit to barr we oenly know because he said it. he goes further saying now today after we know to be a short time, two days, concluded on his own that there's no obstruction by the president. if that rings in people's ears
it should because people may remember in the ways of president clinton or president nixon the questions around presidential obstruction as a potential high crime are genuinely dealt with or as lawyers say adjudicated by the house. not by the president's own justice department nap right there is a glaring sign. that i think is interesting. >> what they had with bill clinton, he perjured himself. a difference there. >> i'm not referring to the underlying facts. the comparison i'm making is that the house was the decision-maker on determining obstruction. meaning, whatever you think happened. say you saver the argument president a. didn't obstruct. president b. did. who decides that? in our constitutional system the reason probes are volatile without predetermining anything about this letter it is typically the house that deals with presidential abuses of power if they are investigated or believed to have occurred. so barr let's make no mistake here he's within his lawful authority. we've reported he's been doing
it by the book but making a judgment call that ultimately in cases there have been find buss of power it's not the attorney general with the last word. that's him coming out of the gates in the letter saying i'm quoting mueller found no election conspiracy. boom. quoting that mueller came to a middle ground, to say did not reach a final conclusion saying the president did or didn't commit obstruction and now i'm going to tip on that and say he didn't. whether our system of government and the congress wants to deal with that or not i think is a big open question today. >> ari, stick with us. hallie jackson, a statement from the president's lawyers? >> information. on the phone with jay sekulow while you had that conversation. he says he is feeling of course sekulow the president's outside attorney, feeling very pleased at this moment in time. we understand the president's legal team got the report, the letter essentially two minutes after it had been released out to the public essentially. sekulow was cagey, couldn't say whether he spoke with the
president tab but we expect a fuller statement from the president's legal time sometime in the next five minutes. my understanding kelly o'donnell traveling with the president in south florida spoke with rudy giuliani on the phone working sources and he tells nbc the result is "better than expected." if that should give you a clear sense of the mind-set of the president's legal team at this moment and of the white house in general and here's another piece. another clue that give us a fwhoind their thi window in their thinking. white house sent out a statement to reporters with key findings as they see it from the attorney general's summary from this letter. they seized on three sentences. three pieces of information. first won't surprise you. first one is that sentence about how the special counsel's invest gays d ga ga
igation spire e conspired with . the other two pieces of information that they're highlighting themselves, interesting. both relate to this issue of obstruction. they talk about it. plucked now these two passages from the attorney general's letter saying the report identifies no actions in our judgment constitute obstructive conduct and also highlight that part where barr says deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and i concluded the evidence developed during robert mueller's investigation that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense. that is barr's representation. not robert mueller's presentation of the facts. robert mueller did not come down one way or the other per the letter as related to obstruction and in fact explicitly said while no evidence the president comitted a crime related to obstruction this investigation did not exonerate him. the white house is, listen, in essence cherry picking pieces of the letter that they want to highlight, tout, get out there
and have people talking about and again, while it is fairly black and white on the answer of no collusion, no conspiracy that's not the case on the obstruction piece. these are among the questions we'll have for president trump as he starts to get ready to head back to washington. forgive me. looking at e-mails. they are blowing up a little and texts. looks though there is a call for bill barr to testify unsurprisingly. the next step of this, katy, our live coverage looking at bill barr perhaps robert mueller testifying to congress. we don't know if or when those things could happen. >> a tweet from jerry nedler. in light of the concerns sdreb discrepancies and final discussions at the justice department following the special counsel report where mueller did not exonerate the president we will be calling attorney general barr in to testify before house judiciary in the near future. again, mueller said that although they did not find evidence the president comitted a crime, they also did not
exonerate him. those words in the report. joining me on the phone msnbc legal analyst and former solicitor general neem catsall. it comes down to trust. do you trust the assessment of attorney general william barr and deputy attorney general rod rosenstein? >> i really wanted to trust them, but quite honestly this letter caused me much more concern, grave concerns, really. because remember mueller after two years of investigation doesn't draw conclusion one way or the other on obstruction of justice saying there's evidence on both sides and then you have attorney general barr within 48 hours of receiving this saying i conclude that the evidence isn't there and in particular not evidence of trump's intent. now how the heck does he determine that after 48 hours after a two-year investigation and without virinterviewing tru? i expect any prosecutor to get
that information and appears not to have been done. i think there is a, going to be a fear among the american public there's ban whitewash here. i think there has to be congressional testimony by barr. i think there will have to be mueller coming forward, too, and letting the american public see the report and absolutely the letter raises far more concerns than it does provide answers. >> how long does it take to go through the special counsel's report in order to identify material that cannot be released publicly, the grand jury material and anything else? >> such a great question. at the end of the barr letter today, it says i have to -- i want to release as much of the mueller report i can but worried about grand jury material and so i have to launch a process to undertake that. you know, it's amazing to me a guy who could conclude that in 48 hours that trudge didn't obstruct justice and look through all that evidence
couldn't also don't phi the material in a similar time frame. i expect them to apply the same expediency to the review process. eastern the review process can go to the court tomorrow i want the entire report released. that's not hard to do. this i think appears to be a little more of a delay than anything else. again, i hate saying that, but i have to say, given what barr found on obstruction of justice, i think all of us should be very concerned about the even-handedness of the way this investigation was treated. >> you were someone that said previously we should be trusting bill barr. what about those who may be listening now saying that because bill barr didn't come up with the conclusion that you might have wanted him to, not saying you had a stake in this one way or the other, thinking that now you say you don't trust him? >> first of all i never said every american should trust barr. i hoped he would do the right thing on friday when he released
the initial statement. i thought that was a good statement. but i don't think i've ever gone further than that. i do think that here we do, i think there is reason to be very concerned given what he wrote here. that you have a two-year investigation and mueller doesn't make the final determination. says there's evidence on both sides and then you have barr swoop in and within 48 hours make a decision. there is something deeply troubling about that, and it's a same troubling thing dents phied during the barr hearings. wrote a kooky 19-page memo saying presidents can't obstruct justice. i'm hoareds with is the same part of that ludicrous legal view. i don't know what his ultimate decisions were here because he doesn't tell us and that's the point. the american public needs to know, congress needs to know how exactly did he conclude there was no obstruction of justice and if it's really about the lack of intent on the part of
trump, how the heck could he know that when he didn't even try and interview trump? >> we should point out that on the question of obstruction, robert mueller did not make an assessment. he laid out both sides of the issue and allowed bill barr and rod rosenstein to make their own determination on that. they made it as neil said in less than 48 hours. neil, stick with us if you can. joining us, congressman of tennessee who sits on the house judiciary committee. congressman, your first reaction? >> i think ari and neil did a good analysis. the fact is what is in this letter to us said first mueller was not making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. those are interesting words. and then said as you well said, he did not draw a conclusion one way or the other on obstruction. does not draw that conclusion. it also does not exonerate the president. and when rudy says it's better than expected, they must have been expecting worse. the fact is, the judiciary
committee is the elected people's house. bill barr was not elected by anybody. trump attacking mueller said he wasn't elected by anybody. bill barr wasn't elected by anybody norman rod rosenstein. congress was elected. we need to so all the information to make a conclusion to get information to pub politic make a determination of obstruction of justice to have the trump team being involved with collusion. no collusion but obstruction. that's important. the people's house needs to know and it the people's house needs to have the complete report so that we can have hearings on this issue and pass laws to protect the american public. >> how many time are you willing to give william barr to get more of the report out to the public? he said end of the letter they'll go through and try to take out what they cannot release by law. grand jury material. and then release what they can. how much time are you going to give him to do that?
>> as ar as time to give him, go back to what you said to neil. i was never a naern thought bill barr should be listened to and respected. he was appointed by donald trump after he decided jeff sessions wasn't his roy comey. he wasn't his ace attorney looking out for him. not for the country, not for justice. bill barr was put in there for a reason. i don't doubt we went to a group like the federalist society, picked him as judges find me a guy and bill barr is that man. for them to make that statement. mueller wasn't part of it. mueller wasn't part of that decision that says we're not coming to a conclusion of obstruction. mueller said. they come to the conclusion, nothing there. well, barr is there because he's appointed by trump, not elected by the people and you can put legal credence in what he's saying. a trump appointee put in to protect trumpet and why they put
him in. there's too much out there to threat go. we need all the facts. transparency, release of the entire document and no sources or methods minimal amount. can be out in no time. grand jury, too. >> grand jury testimony is secret by law. >> it's secret but doesn't take long to do that and could probably do that in a classified setting. they can have a classified setting. we are all classified. >> declassify that information or -- subpoena the grand jury material? to try and make it public? >> i'm not saying make it public. saying the congress can get a classified briefing from the justice department on what's in there. and we can have -- know what the information is. we need to know the information and we have classified standing. we've been allowed, we hear all kind of classified material. this is no different. this is less important than
classified material we hear about the saudis and who killed the journalist and the russians and you name it. we hear that. this is only, classified but to protect the president and his administration. that's much less classified. >> and material is secret per the grand jury restrictions but can you get a court order to clear that. are you alleging, though, broader, speaking in a broader way, are you alleging there's a cover-up going on by the attorney general? >> i think we will know that better if we get to see the entire report and get to see the information from which he made his determination. because without that, there is at least a prima facie case that trump made clear he wanted his man in. he appointed bill barr after barr wrote letters and articles consistent whey the president want to see. i think is a prima facie case to be suspicious of any conclusions he draws that exonerates the president when bob mueller did
not exonerate the president. specifically did not exonerate him. for barr to do it, there's reasons to find the data, go to the best material, best evidence which is the entire report for the judiciary committee to look into to see what, or whether or not there was obstruction of justice. >> will you be calling bob mueller to testify? should he? >> i won't be doing it. jerry nadler will do it and i'll be supporting him and the entire democratic team and judiciary committee will. >> will you ask mr. nadler. i can ask but i don't have to ask. like asking the phillies do you want bryce harper. they got him, who do you want to see in front 6 i don't are committee? >> barr and mueller both. >> congressman cohen. thank you very much. appreciate it. >> you're welcome. the table, haven't been to any of you yet. all of our legal lines. first to you, tom winter. in reporting this out what have we learned about the special counsel's investigation?
>> i mean it's significant and frankly somebody who covers these investigations to explain to people the size and scope of what occurred here. 2,800 subpoenas issued. almost 500 search warrants executed. those don't have to be physical search wants, weren't going necessarily into people's homes or businesses but 500 search warrants approximately issued. 50 pen registers issued fairly extraordinary to me. pen register ability for the government to track where and when your cell phone is activated moop you're calling and how long that call is or who's calling you. if does not allow, did not allow the special counsel's office to listen in to those calls or to look at maybe a text message sent back and forth but does establish where people are at a certain place and time and what they're doing on that phone. that's significant to me. 40 fbi agents detailed to this, 19 attorneys and intelligence analysts other people involved. to me that speak tosin ain
investigation thorough from a law enforcement and investigating stantpoint. another thing to bring up. key and germane to the conversation you're having here, katy. the justice department typically almost never brings an obstruction of justice charge if not an underlying crime. in this particular instance they have determined there was no coordination between the trump campaign or the president as a candidate and the russian government. if there's no underlying crime here there's no typically no obstruction case that would be brought. what is interesting, what it doesn't explicitly say in the letter from a.g. barr is whether or not those efforts, potential efforts to obstruct justice, in some way hindered the investigation. something actually i'd like to know. that would be important here whether or not some of the things that this is referred to -- >> do you not think that was addressed yesterday or the day before when william barp said
special counsel mueller said that their investigation was not hampered? >> glad you raise that point. 's in that he said no prosecution, not stopped from making any indictments. from seeking indictments. that's what was in the letter. but whether or not he could have sought indictments if he was able to get access to certain information, that's one thing i think is still a little unclear and doesn't seem like that's the case but something i would like to know a little bit more about and then to confirm our reporting from friday, katy. the letter from a.g. barr explicitly states things we've known. that isn't investigations from mueller farmed out to for federal jurisdiction and no more indictments coming from the special counsel's office and the letter states no sealed indictments waiting to come out in the days and months ahead. >> talk about the point tom made. doj doesn't typically charge obstruction if there is no underlying crime and bob mueller found no underlying crime of
conspiracy or collusion. >> the statute says pending proceeding. to me that's not controlling whatsoever. the big, bizarre thing here is that bob mueller does all of this work and on obstruction, the most obvious happening in plain sight. apparently not allowed to give an opinion. >> are you saying not allowed -- or choose not to? >> i don't really know. that's the big question for me. as i looked at this, i was -- confused by that. why didn't he make an opinion about that? he's an experienced prosecutor. >> doug what do you think? >> i agree with the statement on the law. in other words, if you're investigating something and i say to a witness, go in there and lie that can be obstruction. regard l regard -- toms makes a good point. the main issue a question of coordination or collusion, and they conclude fairly strongly, face it, put politics aside a minute legally. obstruction is that much weaker
as tom explained. cynthia is right. legally it's not an absolute plat prohibition. >> and when barr came in, neil is right. always had a kooky interpretation of obstruction. why it's really important to have a traditional prosecutor's answer about if there's obstruction. >> joining us now by phone trump's lawyer, jay sekulow. mr. sekulow, thank you for joining us. give us your initial reactions. >> very pleased. both on, from the outset of this entire inquiry we had said that there was no collusion between the trump campaign and the russians and that determination proved to be correct. we also said there was no obstruction, and that also became correct. so we're very, very pleased. we think this is a complete victory for the president, and i -- i also would say that the process upon which this moved
this weekend was very, very good for the american people, that this amount of information so far has been released this quickly. >> what about the portion of the report that says although the president did not commit a crime is does not exonerate him? >> that goes to the statements from the special counsel's report. where they said, you have to point out the fact that you did, not evidence of any committable prime and didn't, the special counsel did not. theft to the department of the justice to determine there because they are part of the department of justice unlike independent counsel, and what happened was that the department of justice made the conclusion that there was no obstruction, because there was no underlying crime. and that the actions that were taken as they noted publicly, the report identifies no actions in our sdwlauchjudgment that co obstruction. >> can you tell us what robert
mueller asked donald trump at least on paper? >> i cannot discuss that with you at this point. that would be not appropriate for me to do. we did answer a series of questions in writing that they asked for and the president did respond to those. >> if congress continues this and at some point tries to talk to you or talk to anybody involved in this investigation, how do you expect to handle those requests? >> i'm the president's lawyer. communications that i have are attorney/client privilege. >> in terms of the report, and what will be released to the public, are you expecting to request that anything is privileged in the report, or will you allow it to be made public as-is? >> that's not a decision -- just to be clear. on the issue whether there's executive material or privileged material would be a decision that would be engaged between the department of justice and white house. not the president. that would not be me, ride you giuliani or our legal team nap
would be a decision made by the white house in consultation with the department of justice. i think everybody would agree that general barr moved very quickly here, gets the report on a friday at 5:00 and 48 hours later delivers what they call the principle conclusions. i thought that was impressive. and i thought it was well thought out and obviously we're very, very pleased with the result. with regard to what happens in the future is not really in -- not in the jurisdiction of the president and his private lawyers. >> have you request add copy of the mueller report in its entirety. >> we have not. >> are you going to? >> nope. >> why not? >> none of it -- because the way the regulations are written it is a confidential report between the special counsel and the attorney general. and we don't have, under the regulations, and i think -- we don't have the right to go in and demand access to the underlying report. >> do you believe congress should stop investigating?
>> i mean, look, yes. i think this whole issue of, i mean, i cannot count the number of times people on all the networks said, we have significant evidence of collusion. members of congress. between the president, himself and the russians, some called it treasonous, others collusion or conspiracy with the russians, interference by the russians knowingly made by the president. all those statements were made. the special counsel, the department of justice took a contrary view. there was not collusion. the basis upon which this investigation was launched, and the conclusion was unequivocal there was none. >> can you maybe shed light on this for us? a question we've been asking a lot. why did so many of those around donald trump on the question of contacts with russia lie about it if there was nothing nefarious going on? >> i cannot address that as the president's lawyer. it's not something we would know
or be aware of, but the president, and they said the campaign as well in the report, that there was no evidence of collusion, period. unequivocal. >> have you spoken to the president? >> if i did, i wouldn't tell you. >> why not? >> but i don't want to get into conversations i had with the president or have not had with the president, needless to say we're very pleased. >> what about the president himself? i'm sure you've talked to him about this. i have not asked him this -- >> just sent out a statement. >> i asked about this in the moment but maybe you can shed more light on this. why get on a stage and ask russia to find hillary clinton's e-mails? >> i'm not going to -- i'm not going to what we call relitigate facts or circumstances. all of these facts and circumstances that were out there were obviously evaluated by the special counsel and they concluded there was no collusion. >> the president tweeted, no collusion. no obstruction. complete and total exoneration. >> that's correct. >> keep america great. were you given advice over the weekend to keep quiet until this
came out? >> if i was your lawyer would you want me telling the advice i did or did not give to you? you would not want me to do that. i'm not going say. >> and lots of legal minds on the panel now who are questioning how quickly bill barr was able to determine that there was no obstruction. we know that robert mueller presented both sides of the issue. evidence to say he did obstruct, evidence that he did not. a lot in the public sphere already. we've been reporting on it. the comey firing. the tweets, et cetera. the behavior presumably to jeff sessions among those. that's what we're presuming. what do you say to those who say that, that, ask how quickly can bob barr, will william barr really get to the bottom of that? >> first of all, the deputy attorney general of the united states was involved in this from the outset and you saw in the letter he was not only consulted but specifically reference that both the attorney general and
the deputy attorney general, rob rosenstein and i concluded, reading from the letter. the evidence developed during the investigation is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense. also importantly said here our determination was made without regard to and is not based on the constitutional consideration surrounding the indictment and criminal indictment of a sitting president. that's important beaux it was not a declination because you can't indict a sitting president. a factual decision there was not evidence of obstruction. >> why did the president not sit back and allow this investigation to happen? why was he so involved? >> the investigation did happen. going an almost two years. bob mueller was not fired with all the attacks on that issue, and that were made. bob mueller was not fired. no fbi agent involved in the case was interfered with. the fact of the matter is, there was no collusion. there was no obstruction determination here. this is a vindication of the
legal position and also the factual position as we've advocated from the outset. >> mr. sekulow, the president of the united states is approaching reporters. we're going to listen in. >> so after a long look -- after a long investigation, after so many people have been so badly hurt, after not looking at the other side, where a lot of bad things happened, a lot of horrible things happened, a lot of very bad things happened for our country, it was just announced there was no collusion with russia. the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard. there was no collusion with russia. there was no obstruction and none whatsoever, and it was a complete and total exoneration. it's a shame that our country
had to go through this. ton honest, it's a shame that your president has had to go through this for, before i even got elected. it began. and it began illegally, and hopefully somebody's going to look at the other side. this was an illegal takedown that failed. and hopefully somebody's going to be looking at the other side. so it's complete exoneration. no collusion. no obstruction. thank you very much. thank you. >> the president saying no collusion. no obstruction. not taking any questions from reporters. you can call that a 2020 preview how he will use this investigation or try to use it to his advantage going forward saying he was unfairly victimized and a segment of washington and of the country that was trying to unfairly take him out of office.
he did say over and over again on the campaign trail in 2016 that there was a conspiracy to keep him out of office, because he was going to work for the american public and not work for the establishment. i imagine he'll use this in the same way he used it to, or used the various other conspiracythe 2020. joe scarborough, a question not asked are him whether he would acquiesce and release the entire report as he said he would a couple days ago? >> yeah, well, we'll see. again, what the president says one minute doesn't actually mean much the next minute. so we'll, we'll wait and see what happens, but it is interesting. the president said a few things, in ace very brief press conference that obviously, again, just requires fact checking once. the first thing he said was that
it was a complete exoneration and it certainly was a complete exoneration on the issue of collusion. and that is not just good news for donald trump. that is good news for americans sitting president of the united states did not, in fact, collude with vladimir putin and russia. so that's very good news. he said that it was an exhaustive investigation that also completely exonerated him on obstruction of justice as you've been reporting, as everybody has been reporting. that actually is a question that still remains up in the air. but there wasn't enough evidence for bob mueller to even say that even if a president could be indicted, that this president could be indicted for obstruction of justice. and so he didn't meet that standard. and so by justice department guidelines, that's that. and the justice department shouldn't be talking about it. he did say, though, that he was a victim of all of these
attacks. but many bad things happened on the other side. he, of course, was talking about the democratic side with hillary clinton's campaign. and said that they had not looked at the other side. i would suggest that hillary clinton and members of her campaign and i think a lot of people that cover the 2016 campaign like yourself would say that that -- that's just a ridiculous statement on its face. the fact of the matter is, the fbi conducted an exhaustive investigation for over a year on hillary clinton, her use of e-mails. a lot of information was leaked throughout the course of the campaign that damaged hillary clinton's campaign. the comey letter, of course, ten days beforehand helped elect her -- helped elect donald trump president of the united states. so, again, many things just not accurate on their face. but at the same time, this was a very good day for the president of the united states politically
and i would suggest also for americans who want to be assured that somebody like robert mueller could exhaustively look into this matter for two years and find that the president did not collude with russia, that's great news, as well. i will say, though, donald trump could have made things much easier on himself and the administration could have made things much easier on themselves if they hadn't lied repeatedly. this is something -- let's just -- everybody take a deep breath. great news the president did not collude. but this investigation did not arise out of thin air. the president of the united states lied on the campaign trail. he said they never had any contact with russians during the campaign. that obviously was a lie. mike pence said in january of 2017, nobody on the trump campaign ever talked to russians. that was a lie. jeff sessions lied in front of the senate during testimony about contacts that he had had with russians. that's why he had to recuse
himself. jared kushner, several times, lied on his disclosure forms regarding meetings with russians. again, i think one of the questions that will remain for quite some time is that if there was no collusion and we can be convinced of that today, why did donald trump and why did his administration and why did everybody close to him lie about contacts that they had with russia throughout the course of the campaign? and i guess the answer to that may just be pure basic greed. he wanted to build a tower in moscow. >> that was going to be my next question. why all the lying? because that's been the one consistent thing in the past two-and-a-half years, is when you ask anybody in charge about russia, they will obfuscate. or they will outright lie. 37 indictments in total from robert mueller over the course of this investigation. a number of guilty pleas secured, and one conviction by
trial. paul manafort was still lying at the end of it when he was -- >> right, yeah. >> he was cooperating with the special counsel, but also still had a joint defense agreement with the white house. why? >> again, katy, that's one of the great mysteries. people were sent to jail for lying about contacts with russia, their contacts with russian oligarchs. paul manafort got arrested, continued to lie. rick gates got arrested, continued to lie during his proffer. made matters much worse for him. a man that donald trump told the "washington post" was one of his top for teign policy advisers lied. you had -- you know, national security adviser. i mean, we haven't even talked about general flynn lying about a conversation that he had with the russian ambassador. and the list goes on and on.
and like you said, a lot of people indicted. a lot of russians indicted, almost 200 charges brought during the course of this -- during the course of this investigation. and, again, the mystery here is, if there was no collusion, and i think what reporters need to dig into is need to figure out why did donald trump -- why did mike pence, why did jeff sessions, why did the president's first national security adviser, why did the president's campaign chairman, why did the president's assistant campaign chairman, why did the president's son-in-law -- why did they all lie about contacts with russians? >> they might not have conspired directly with russians, according to mueller, who has exonerated the president and his team on that, but they definitely benefited from what
happened in the 2016 election. and there is still questions about why donald trump, why he would ask russia to find hillary clinton's e-mails. we know from a mueller indictment that that very night that russians did try to hack into her personal e-mails, why did he do that? why did he wave the wikileaks findings around so much? why was he so willing to use information that was potentially ill-gotten from a foreign government to slander his opponent? >> well, you know, the thing is, donald trump may just be a political version of mr. magoo. he may just stumble -- and you are too young to know who mr. magoo is. >> i know who mr. magoo is, excuse me. >> he may be a guy who just stumbles and bumbles around from one lie to -- from one thing to another. and in this case, as it pertained to russia, there were -- there were several lies that, again, probably centered more around donald trump's business dealings and his -- a
lot of people have said, if you want to understand what donald trump does, if you want to understand donald trump's foreign policy towards saudi arabia or his leniency toward the philippines or turkey or russia, you don't look to foreign policy. you look -- you look to his business dealings, and money that he's made in the past and money he hopes to make in the future. and i think at the end of the day, just simple, pure greed probably accounts for much of what we've seen over the past few years. >> joe, what do you think democrats should do now? because if you open your e-mail, as my e-mail is, it's full of rapid response from republicans -- republican national committee from the white house calling this all a witch hunt, sail they were vindicated, saying the democrats and the media lied about this for two-and-a-half years and we were right, and we've been the victims all along. they're trying to keep donald trump from making america great. if you were the democrats, do you continue investigating?
do you continue subpoenaing members of the presidential orbit? do you subpoena robert mueller? do you subpoena rod rosenstein? do you subpoena bill barr, or do you allow this to end and allow the 2020 candidates to take up all of the oxygen? >> i think the first thing you have to do is, as a democrat, you have to say, it is a great day for america that robert mueller is a man who can be trusted. even though donald trump tried to slander his good name and donald trump's right wing protectors in the news media tried to slander this marine war hero's name every single day. donald trump's right wing agitators in and out of congress tried to slander this good man's name, day in and day out. despite that fact, robert mueller completed his investigation, and he found that the president of the united states did not collude with russia. that is good news. but as jonathan turley said on
our show a year-and-a-half ago and as most legal scholars have said to you and ari and other people on this network, donald trump's greatest threat legally does not come from robert mueller. and you can look at the tape. this is not monday morning quarterbacking after robert mueller has come in and said there was no collusion. legal scholars have said time and time again, at least on our show and on your show, that the greatest threat that donald trump faces legally is from the southern district of new york. that was true before today. that's true after today. and there are a lot of questions to still be answered. and, yes, the democrats should conduct oversight, just like the republicans should have conducted oversight hearings. now republicans would say that democrats shouldn't conduct oversight hearings. many of them were the same hypocrites that continued investigating hillary clinton and benghazi until after the
groundbreaking events 100 years ago. and you can't get green. bicycles with friends. today is the 30th anniversary of the crackdown in beijing one of the most prominent critics of the chinese government since that time is the chinese artist ai wei wei who's lived here in germany since 2015 he creates works on a monumental scale and right now a museum is staging a monumental exhibition of his works. it's the biggest retrospective of ever seen in europe the new exhibition and dusseldorf shows his most important works of recent years. including $60000000.00 sunflower seeds out of porcelain each one handmade an individual but they all seem to
dissolve into one mass an emblem for chinese society everything is art everything is politics is an exhibition that delivers on its name. in the last years i way way has gone from a dissident chinese artist to an international celebrity the cameras crowd in to get his picture but he counters with his own lens his own view when i moved to germany many expected him to become more critical of beijing but he also turned the criticism on europe fighting for more acceptance for refugees who come here if not only brings a new but use humor i speak to anybody who has no freedom of speech will be grateful if somebody else client to cave don't use those big. eyes 2017 film human flow followed stories of forced displacement and migration
from afghanistan and iraq over the mediterranean to europe some see his efforts as heroic others accuse him of overstepping the bounds between art and activism. and also in the west this always saying art for our sake which i think it's a lie artists never are sick of artists always concerned about the human dignity and freedom of expression expression and the rights so those very. solid foundations arko artist become a superficial and a very decorative. in 2008 an earthquake in china's sichuan province left more than 70000 people dead including more than 5000 children i went away to travel there to see what the government wasn't saying he collected victims' names
begin investigating the collapse of poorly built school buildings he collected mangled reinforcing bars and had them straightened back out. 164 tons of the steel bars are on display here laid out in boxes there resemble coffins a mixture of memorial and indictment. looks amazing i'm joined now by my colleague david levitt stated that. actually go him arrested well it does seem that that is what led up to his famous 2011 arrest where he disappeared for 81 days basically the chinese government wanted this earthquake tragedy to go away but i kept it in the public eye so to speak and he was taken into secret police custody that's the subject of this work which is also on display it's called secret and now he of course wasn't supposed to talk about his arrest at all oh but that is what brought him to the world's
attention now he's also he's called himself a refugee and this long before he came to live in germany in 2015 what he always had a difficult relationship with beijing actually that goes back to his childhood his father was a renowned poet who was banished by chairman mao during the cultural revolution to the edge of the gobi desert and the family lived there and extreme poverty for a while they even lived in a hole in the ground for a time here is showing a picture of that hole on his cell phone so all that as a boy of course left him with very confused feelings about the chinese state now we're talking about this very way partly because of it's the 30th anniversary of the crackdown now how is it just now in china well china is still not a place where artists can make or exhibit whatever art they want but actually and actually things have been getting worse in the past few years rather than better
looking back that period of time before and after tiananmen the eighty's the ninety's was a relatively good and free time for chinese artists and really since china hosted the olympics and since she didn't ping to power things have been getting a lot harder now at the same time art is big money even in china and there's some chinese art that's worth a lot of money. that is also actually. critical if you look between the lines like this work the last supper by saying funds you which sold for $23000000.00 if you look judas is actually wearing a western necktie then there's the movement called cynical real ism also very popular with collectors spearheaded by you amy journal and fung the journey is creepy smiles read by many as critical of chinese society of course these artists are painting tandem and square and if they arrest everything is all everything is politics is it. reads be there or here.
thank you very much they relive it. it's the 100th of the fostering of the so-called constitution which crazy for the 1st time a democratic republic in this country after the commies are caged in $919.00 and it's the 100th anniversary of the founding of the bauhaus design school also invite to serve right the german national theatre of the world famous stuttgart ballet got together and 3 international choreographers have created new woakes inspired by the year of 04 or revolt that was 1919. to move is the starting point and every think revolvers around revolvers mean leanings. so the volume. can make a nice yes on the mechanisms of the revolution knobs. for example
a snowball effect it's like the cosmos in chaos on the big east where there is a visionary someone who stands up and says i am the people i am the face of this revolution to spin this. from. the masses those remains facing us at 1st. the choreo. her fur is quite subtle in her forms of dance expression her attitude to the topic is support forceful. trends commonly shmuck you can't make it on without democracy or freedom if i can't express my opinion there is no art for me that's the crucial point and this piece is being staged not only gart but also in weimar where germany's 1st democratic constitution was signed into law a fence i think this is such a special moment exactly 100 years later to put this play on stage environment on
the exact day that about last newseum was opened to. the 2nd coming out is from choreography cutter you know. and has a very special star a design classic the wagner felt powerhouse. in the beginning i so what's day achieved in bio house the stuff they built and then more and more i research it i think that they were interesting for me then i started getting into this creative process once they were the artist soul and then this was the moment and they said that's what's interesting for me the bauhaus from insight around this is how design looks from the inside in cozy our skills piece. so what was it like living and working at the bow house this is what interests our 3rd choreographer edward crew shows that those who started got
a certain justice license as well as artistic freedom and he has made this freedom to experiment a basic principle in this work. it's a study on bands using the principles above so i do that in a way naturally because what am i doing. in the work in general. it's a process of redox are. sure to. present 3 new dance pieces about the awakening of modernity hundreds of years ago. more and more people are riding bikes to try and be eco friendly make their own small contribution to help save the planet from c o 2 emissions but of course making bikes isn't very eco friendly is it all that still has to be produced however to enterprising guys in northern germany are trying to rectify that by
using bike frames out of bamboo mating gallina. keil in northern germany is a city of boats and bikes. but even here the 2 bikes ridden by maximillian shy and youngish don't stand out from the rest. their frames are made of bamboo. we were just used to it's people always ask does it hold up that many people knock on it of their homes close right and then they'll knock on it to see if it really is bamboo or just painted metal those are the top 2 reactions when people see these bikes. the 2 men discovered bamboo in 2012 as students today launched their my boo company their idea to help produce sustainable bikes in ghana and sell them in europe. the finishing touches are made in germany they say bamboo is ideal for bicycles almost also bamboo is
a long grained grass unlike other materials normally used for bicycles but the long grain allows for a tougher exterior but low weight and very high flexibility. the men from keel work with the local project in ghana helping to set up a bicycle frame factory. bamboo is a commonly used material in the region it's ready for harvest in just 3 years. about 80 man hours go into making each frame more than 40 jobs were created the profits go to finance building a new school the bamboo bicycles by my blue cross from 15024500 euros many buyers who use them as alternatives to their cars. lives i know that bicycles have their price but once i realised i'd be supporting a social and sustainable product the bike was worth every cent to me. it's all over the it's a great compromise to say it's a step in the right direction but on our social commitment is 100 percent and
ecologically ours are a cut above any other bicycle. bicycles made of natural materials. are both attractive and sustainable. and good on them of course they're very low to bamboozle a lot but since field daily dose of ops and culture a lot small on all these topics i and others of course on our website at v.w. dot com slash culture and on our facebook page as well as culture thanks very much for watching and join us again soon.
the darkest day chinese history. 30 years ago. today. it was followed by a relentless crackdown on dissidents. only a few are safe with the help of foreign secret services. operation for. the lifeline a connection to. the river of spirits to protect him. along the canadian amazon. the river still runs its natural claims. the county's government has big plans to develop the region. to the flood of
environmental indigenous peoples. who saw it. it's a double. kill that the volume or not hard and in the end this i mean you're not allowed to stay here anymore we will send you back. are you familiar with this. with the smugglers what alliances. what's your story. ready with numbers and women especially of victims of violence. take part and send us your story you are trying in all ways to understand this new culture. another visitor another guests you want to become
a citizen. in so migrants your platform for reliable information. this is live from our land on the 30th anniversary of the tiananmen square massacre witnesses look back on not darkest day and the purge that followed. the crowd to what they expelled me from the party they liberated me my brain and my mouth are free today. we talk to the father and
own business to put the superfood theme is in especially salads with nuts flowers and forage greens that will definitely be the trend this year. until washed down with of the can bare the way it has been brewed for over 500 years under the chairman bair purity law. that's all for now up next shift technology show this week the global success story of the e-sports thanks for watching you can always catch up on line it dot com you're watching t.w. . welcome to the book is the game here. to talk about.
your family cross the globe. to get. to the groups. like the. family from somalia live around the world the money needed urgent assistance. the family starts october. e-sports are a big part of mainstream culture millions of fans all over the world watch top gamers compete live online it's a huge market with lots of money which is why traditional sports clubs are also getting involved what does that mean for gamers our topic today on shit.
did you know the german economy holds the freefall world cup. and the real world what team went out in the 1st round in 2018 but in the virtual world we're number one mohamed how cool is from germany better known as malta became world champion in august at the fifa world cup. the biggest title in the shaka we asked him what he thinks of the latest words in all the game fee for $20.00. days sports has gathered a lot of feedback from the gaming community on their latest release 20. guys in the reason it's a huge difference from here for 19 years it's a really difficult game which is what everyone wanted especially the pros and the hardcore gamers if you feel like you're improving and learning to speak everyone is really happy with it defense strategies are more intricate in fee for $20.00. gamers can't rely on artificial intelligence as much as they could before just most
futurists the latest feature is a manual defensives. you have to select the player yourself and press the tackle button to get the ball in the previous version the computer helped out a lot. i think that's the feature that's changed the most of. the physics engine has improved to make shots more realistic and the game more authentic a new gaming guide helps to make free kicks and penalties more accurate the game also features more into the twenty's new street soccer mode you can create the players yourself and play in sport halls and soccer pitches all over the world with people online the 1st ride will grow pollution soccer from konami is now also offering a new game in football pez 2020. the developers created a dynamic juggling feature with help from soccer star iniesta they also wanted to give the game a more realistic feel stadium's of his partners have been integrated into the game
using 3 d. stands. in the master league mode there are now avatars of legendary managers from all over the world to choose from. even the algorithm for the transfer market is based on real world data. past 2020. has bagged the big one an exclusive contract with your vendors f.c. only passes allowed to use their name and jersey in favor 20 uva is called pm on the cultural the big clubs want to profit from virtual sorcha to spread their name in the world of e-sports and become popular brands there too and to reach a younger audience the gaming community also influences the pro soccer players of the day like when they celebrate goals with victory dances from the online game fortnight and arsenal striker even founded his own team m.t.n. eastport this isn't just fun it's also very lucrative these pose industry is
expected to turn over 1000000000 euros in 2019 that's 26 percent more than last year the big money comes from sponsors media rise and advertising so it's really no surprise that more than half the german bundesliga teams now have east sports departments how do you suppose players benefit from this. forest playing here to be a scene. and the game is literally in his hands. is currently one of the most successful pro in sports players for the german bundesliga team f.c. shell for. their overlaps between my game and the professional team for sure. i could definitely improve my often game if i'm being honest but at the back in defense i'm very good and that's something that shock often excels at horrific also. in the virtual going to sleep good luck to and his shocking team are now at
position 6 of $22.00 playing at this level is a full time job and he receives support from the club. the mission. it's a great advantage to play for charlotte. starting with the fact that shaka gave me an apartment that i don't have to take any responsibility for. i can just live there play and eat well that's a huge per month you know and if i have any health problems like with my back i can go to a physical therapist. and infuse european. truckman grew up near the stadium in guess incursion in western germany and has been a fan since childhood he started out playing real life soccer on the pitch but then he developed more of a talent for virtual sports. i really believe in digitalization with things like live streaming and presenting yourself on social media. the
digital world is just generally becoming more important for traditional soccer. but . i think soccer can learn a lot from east sports and we can also learn from real soccer. by going. to shark month spends half his time on p.r. organizing things like friendly my. professional soccer players and media tiffany's his you tube channel has 180000 subscribers he's already proven himself to be a great asset to his beloved team for. investing in a fee for team sounds like a logical step for a football club but f.c. shark 04 has now entered the world of strategy games it was the 1st german football club to put together a team for league of legends with huge success they become one of europe's top teams and compete in the league of legends european championship he went along to
a training session and. the sports players from south korea sweden and spain are all hard at work a very different kind of work to go for players out on the pitch. in fact this game has nothing to do with soccer for one of the target new fan groups. people love teams of league of legends it makes them want to become. in fact the 1st team to support again with absolutely no connection to soccer many traditional sika fans couldn't understand why they do such a thing but success has confirmed strategy league of legends connect gamers from all over the world and packs out entire venue's their psyche sports team now has a lot of fans who don't even know their business. as a business the business behind it is almost the same as the sports business in
soccer weekend income from sponsors from the media and from t.v. marketing from merchandising and digital content these are all things we're accustomed to from. so. very similar in terms of marketing but the. actual sports that's. a hot topic of debate but chess is recognized the big sports federations have a hard time accepting gaming consuls but why the german olympic sports federation recently decided that the sports do not meet the conditions of organized non-profits boards because they're too profit oriented 3 organization also objected to the content of some games that nor if i kill it. personally i think e-sports is sorely misunderstood to me that sounds like a bunch of prejudice but what does science think professor in before birds and his team are looking for answers. and victor it's
a competition it's very athletic your heart rate goes up your breathing speeds up and stress levels rise especially because the game is so relentlessly fast towards the extremes by the treaty. and it seems so fast because you have asymmetrical movements going on left and right before 23405 months a minute it was a fuel that that's really high performance and when you also consider the technical tactical aspects then you can't deny that this really should be characterized as a sport. let's go back to visit. professor in go from brazil and his team developed a performance test just for e-sports players their cardiovascular levels are measured by everything mask while the game arrives and. does being fit make gamers better. begin often almost as in or more resistant to fatigue you can perform
better for longer that's the 1st thing 2nd play or more stress resistant so in risky situations you're much more resilient cooler relaxed efficient and effective . thirdly you can stabilize your body better with active muscles. if your core is more well trained you have a quicker reaction times and more flexibility. to fix the beauty of. the player's reaction times are measured during this test. it records the stroke rates of the left and right hand can physical training help what does it take to become a good game or. they need high speed in all motor activities they need to be perceptive precise. everything has to run quickly and there's a skills that don't just come from talent they also come from hard practice those are the essential skills that make a good game. here's another interesting thing the study found those subjects played
around 25 hours a week on average so even when it comes to gaming you need discipline and regular practice but i wouldn't be surprised if the number of players keeps going up for all you body. he has some tips from tim love to go to mind it's important that you have fun playing the game and to be ambitious. just like all things in life. if you invest a lot of time you'll improve quickly i think in this game it's also important that you have a solid back for leave the midfielder standing rather than running after the opposition which. should be in the back of your unit is usually very strong in. my system either the stock or most of it and what's also important after the game take a look at your goals m. a goal scored against you analyze them to see where you didn't do well and where
you did do well and use that in the next match. as a player analyze your own game play and it will help you get better faster better players at the top of the game get to play against the best in the world but sadly the industry still lacks equality in some areas of africa and the middle east game developers would have to invest in more powerful service without them the players can take part in major international tournaments. how big is the sports where you live is it still an unknown hobby or is it all the rage and how do you feel about soccer clubs answering the world a few sports join the discussion on you tube a facebook c.e.o. so on and on so that.
on the 77 percent we talk about the issues that. knife waste away behind. is the nothing. to lose trial detention. to less human rights group helped him get a. deal. because. we're wondering how exactly footballers. one out of 6 goals is going to head or. is this lot. more a sophisticated mental calculation. in search of
anybody else. >> i'm going to read from the transcript here. why didn't you go to your direct report, mr. morrison, your response, because mr. eisenberg had told me to take my concerns to him. and then i asked you, did mr. eisenberg tell you not to report, to go around mr. morrison? and you said, actually, he did say that, i shouldn't talk to any other people. is that right? >> yes, but there's a whole -- there's a period of time in there between when i spoke to him and when he circled back around. it wasn't that long a period of time, but it was enough time for me to -- >> enough time for you to go to talk to someone who you won't tell us who it is, right? >> i've been instructed not to, representative jordan. >> here's what i'm getting. the lawyer told you not talk to any other people, and you interpret that as not talking to your boss, but you talk to your brother, you talk to the lawyers, you talk to scare keec kent and talk to the one guy schiff won't let us tell you who it is. >> representative jordan, i did my job. >> i'm not saying you didn't. all i'm saying is the
instructions from the lawyer was, you shouldn't talk to anybody, and you interpret that as don't talk to my boss, but i'm going to go talk to someone that we can't even ask you who that individual is. >> that is incorrect. >> well, i just read what you said. >> that is incorrect. zblis >> i shouldn't talk to any other people. >> i'm sorry, chairman, but that sequence is not the way it played out. >> i'm reading from the transcript, colonel vindman. >> let colonel vindman answer. >> the sequence played out where immediately afterwards, i expressed my concerns, i duty my coordination function, mr. eisenberg circled back around and told me not to talk to anybody else. in that period of time -- >> oh, that's when it happened. that's when you talked to someone. >> thank you, mr. chairman. colonel vindman, let's go back to that pair of meetings on pair on july 10th where you witnessed ambassador sondland inform the ukrainian officials that as a prerequisite to a white house meeting, between the two presidents, quote, ukraine yaia
would have to deliver an investigation into the bidens, end quote. you said that ambassador sondland was, quote, calling for an investigation that didn't exist into the bidens and burisma. is that correct? >> that is correct. >> it's that same afternoon that you went to mr. eisenberg, the counsel? >> that meeting occurred within the afternoon, and it was within a couple of hours i spoke to mr. eisenberg. >> how did he react? >> he was cool, calm, and colle collected. he took notes and said he would look into it. >> and did he not also tell you to feel free to come back if you had additional concerns? >> he did. >> ambassador sondland had told you that his request to the ukrainians had been coordinated with the chief of staff, acting chief of staff, mick mulvaney. did you report that to mr. eisenberg. >> i did. >> and what was his reaction? >> he took notes and he said he was going to -- he'll follow up or look into it.
i don't recall exactly what he said. >> colonel, you have also testified on the july 25th call between the two presidents, quote, there was no doubt, end quote, that president trump asked for investigations into the 2016 election and vice president biden's son in return for a white house meeting. within an hour of that call, you reported that to mr. eisenberg, did you not item >> i did. >> went back to him as he suggested would be appropriate. >> he's an assistant to the president, it was less a suggestion and more an instruction. >> did you tell the lawyers that president trump asked president zelensky to speak to mr. giuliani? >> yes. >> and the lawyers, it was at this point, told you not to talk to anyone else? >> that is -- that is not correct with regards to timing. they didn't follow -- they didn't circle back around. what ended up happening is, in my coordination role, i spoke to state win spoke
state, i spoke to a member of the intelligence community, and the general counsel from one of the intelligence bodies notified mr. eisenberg that there was, you know, that there was information on the call, on the july 25th call. at that point, mr. eisenberg told me that i shouldn't talk to anybody else about it. >> colonel, i want to go back to 2014 and iraq, when you were blown up. i presume that given the point in your military career and what else was going on in the world, that upon recovery there was the very real prospect or possibility that you might once again find yourself in harm's way. is that correct? >> yes, congressman. it happened in 2004, but yes. >> '04, excuse me, thank you. did you consider leaving the military service at that point? >> no. frankly, congressman, i suffered light wounds.
i was fortunate compared to my counterparts in the same vehicle. and i returned to duty, i think it may have been that same day. >> but you could have been subjected to additional harm. you chose to continue service in uniform. >> i continued to serve in combat for the remaining 10 or 11 months of the tour. >> you know, colonel, i have to say, i find it a rich, but incredibly painful irony that within a week of the president, contrary to all advice of his senior military officials, he pardons those who are convicted of war crimes, which was widely decried in the military community. within the week of him doing that, he's engaged in an effort, and allies on his behalf, including some here today, to demean your record of service and the sacrifice and the contribution you have made. indeed, sir, less than 20
minutes ago, the white house officially quoted out, out of context, the comments referred to earlier by mr. morrison in your judgment. i can only conclude, sir, that what we thought was just the president as the subject of our deliberations and this inquiry, isn't sufficient to capture what's happening here. indeed, what subject to this inquiry, and what is at peril is our constitution and the very values upon which it is based. i want to thank you for your service, but you know, thank you doesn't cut it. please know however that it comes from the bottom of my heart and i know on the bottoms of the heart of countless other americans. thank you for your service, sir. >> thank you. >> i yield back. >> mr. jordan? >> thank you, mr. chairman. sunday, sunday the speaker of
the united states house of representatives called the president of the united states an imposter. the speaker of the house called the president an imposter. the a guy 63 million people voted more. the guy who won an electoral college landslide, the speaker calls an imposter. that's what's happened to our country, to this congress. the speaker's statement says it all. the democrats have never accepted the will of the american people. democrats don't trust the american people. the american people who wanted to send someone to this town who was willing to shake it up a bit. they don't trust that. and they have tried to do everything they can to undo what the american people decided on november 8th, 2016. they've been out to get the president since the day he was elected. the whistle-blower's lawyer, the whistle-blower's legal team said
this! january 30th, 2017! the president had been in office about a week, "coup has started. first of many steps." next sentence, "impeachment will follow ultimately." i guess we're in the final step. started three and a half years ago. congressman talib started this congress, first day of congress said, impeach the president. representative green said, if we don't impeach him, the president is going to win re-election. we've got to do it. most importantly, most importantly, five democrat members of this committee voted to move forward with impeachment before the phone call ever happened. the truth is, the attacks actually started before, before the inauguration, even before the election. the ranking member talked about this in his opening statement.
july 2016, fbi opens an investigation into the so-called trump/russia coordination collusion which was never there. opened an investigation, spied on two american citizens associated with the presidential campaign. membership guess is, that's probably never happened in american history, but they did it! and for ten months, jim comey's fbi investigatied the president. guess what? after ten months, they had nothing! and you know how we know that? when we deposed mr. comey last congress, he told us they didn't have a thing. no matter. special counsel mueller gets appointed and they do a two-year, $40 million, 19-lawyer, unbelievable investigation and guess what?! they come back and they got nothing. but the democrats don't care. so now we get this. a bunch of depositions in the bunker in the basement of the capitol, witnesses who aren't allowed to answer questions about who they talked to about the phone call. we get this.
all based on some anonymous whistle-blower, no firsthand knowledge, biased against the president. these facts have never changed. we learned these right away. who worked with vice president biden. who wrote a memo the day after somebody talked to him about the call, but waited 18 days to file a complaint. 18 days to file a complaint. what'd he do in those 18 days? we all know. ran off and talked with chairman schiff's staff. and then, hired the legal team that i just talked about, that i just talked about, one of the steps in the whole impeachment coup, as his legal team has said. this is scary, what these guys are putting our country through. it is -- it is -- it is sad, it is scary, it is wrong. and the good news, the american people see through it all. they know the facts are on the president's side, as representative stefanick said,
four facts will never change! we got the transcript, which they never thought the president would release, shows no coordination, no conditionality, no linkage. we got the two guys on the call, president trump, president zelensky, who have said, nothing wrong, no pressure, no pushing here. we have the ukrainians who didn't know the aid was held up at the time of the call. and we have one witness to yet tell us any evidence from anyone that president zelensky did anything on investigations to get the aid released. those facts will never chaunge. the facts are on the president's side, the process is certainly not. it has been the most unfair process we have ever seen and the american people understand it. thoepz 63 million americans, they understand it and frankly, i think a lot of others do as well. they see this for what it is, and they know this is wrong, especially wrong, just 11 months before the next election. i yield back. >> mr. welch?
>> thank you. what this hearing is about, i think, was best stated by colonel vindman's opening statement. the question before us is this. is it improper for the president of the united states to demand a foreign government investigate a united states citizen and political opponent? c have well stated. i just listened to mr. jordan, as you did as well, and i heard his criticisms of the process. nothing really happened. a lot of people are out to get the president. i didn't hear an answer to the question as to whether it's proper for the president of the united states to demand a foreign government to investigate a u.s. citizen and political opponent. and to date, i haven't heard any one of my republican colleagues address that question.
colonel vindman and miss williams, thank you. i'm going to ask some questions that go through the background. what's come out during this process is that we had two ukraine policyies. one was bipartisan and long-standing. one was to assist itself which had freed itself from the corruption of russia. is that a fair statement? >> i think that's a fair characterization. >> and to give folks pa reminder of the extent of corruption. by the way, a legacy of putin's russia is that your understanding when your prior president, mr. yanukovych, fled to russia, into the arms of mr. putin, he took with him $30
billion to $40 billion of that impoverished country. >> there are different estimates, but it's on that scale, yes. >> vast scale for a poor country. and is it your understanding that powerless, but motivated ukrainians rose up in protest to this incredible graft and theft and abuse by their president. >> that is correct. >> and that was in the -- it was called the mayden revolution, the revolution of dignity, correct? >> correct. >> and young people went into that square in downtown kyiv and demonstrated for months, correct? >> correct. and a hundred died. >> 106 young people died and older people died, correct? that was in -- between february 18, 2014, and february 22. is that correct? >> correct.
>> 106 died, including people who were shot by snipers, kids, and yanukovych had put snipers on the rooftops of buildings to shoot into that square and kill, murder, slaughter, those young people. is that your understanding? >> that is correct. >> in our bipartisan support, and by the way, i want to say to my republican colleaguese scoll lot of leadership of this bipartisan support came from our side. thank you. but our whole commitment was to get rid of corruption and to stop that russian aggression. is that correct? >> that amounts to some of the key pillars. >> that's right. and the giuliani, sondeman and it appears trump policy was not about that, but it was about investigations into a political opponent, correct? i'll take that question back.
we know it. and you know, i'll say this to president trump. you want to investigate joe biden, you want to investigate hunter biden? go at it? do it. do it hard. do it dirty, do it the way you do it. just don't do by asking a foreign leader to help you in your campaign. that's your job. it's not his. my goal in these hearings is two things. one is to get an answer to colonel vindman's question. and the second, coming out of that is for us, as a congress, to return to the ukraine policy that nancy pelosi and kevin mccarthy both support. it's not investigations. it's the restoration of democracy in ukraine and the resistance of russian aggression. i yield back.
>> mr. maloney? >> thank you both for being here. you know, lieutenant colonel vindman, this may be one of your first congressional hearings like this, so -- >> hope to be the last. >> i can't blame you for feeling that way, sir. particularly when i've been sitting here listening to my republican colleagues, one of the advantages of being down here at the kids' table is that you get to hear the folks above you ask their questions. and i've been along closely to my republican colleagues and i've heard them say just about everything except to contradict any of the substantiative testimony you've both given. you may have notice, there's been a lot of complaints and there's been a lot of insinuations and there's been a lot of suggestions, maybe, that your service is somehow not, not to be trusted. and yet you were treated to questions about your loyalty because of some half-baked job
offer, i guess the ukrainians made you, which of course you dutifully reported. i guess mr. castor is implying that maybe you've got some dual loyalty, which is of course an old smear we've heard many times in our history. they try to demean you as though maybe you've overstated your importance of your job, but of course, you're the guy on the national security council responsible for directing ukrainian policy. we've heard them air out some allegations with no basis in proof, but they want to get them out there and hope maybe some of those strands of spaghetti, i guess, will stick on the wall, if they keep throwing them. we've even had a member of this committee question -- this is my favorite -- question why you would wear your dress uniform today. even though that dress uniform includes a breast plate that has a combat infantry badge on it and a purple heart medal ribbon. it seems like if anybody gets to wear the uniform, it's somebody who's got a breast plate with those congressmenatimmendations.
so let's do it again. let's do the substance. can we do that? because we've had a lot of dust kicked up. miss williams, you heard the call with your own ears, right? >> yes, sir. >> not secondhand, not hearsay. you heard the president speak. you heard his voice on the call. >> correct. >> and your conclusion was what he said about investigating the bidens, was, your words, unusual and inappropriate, i believe. am i right? >> that was my testimony. >> and mr. vindman, you were treated to a july 10th meeting in the white house where you heard ambassador sondland raise investigations conditioning a white house meeting on that, investigations that you thought were unduly political, i believe that's how you described them, and you went to nsc counsel and reported it, right? >> correct. >> and later you two were on the white house call, am i right, you heard it with your own ears? >> correct. >> not secondhand, you heard the president's voice on the call? >> i did. >> and you heard him raise that subject again, that ambassador sondland had raised before,
about investigating the bidens, right? >> i did. >> and i want to ask you, when you heard him say that, what was the first thought that went through your mind? >> frankly, i couldn't believe what i was hearing. it was probably an element of shock that maybe in certain regards, my worst fear of how our ukraine policy could play out was playing out, how this was likely to have significant implications for u.s. national security. >> and you went immediately and reported it, didn't you? >> i did. >> why? >> because that was my duty. >> you still have your opening statement handy? >> i do. >> can you read the last paragraph for me again, the second-to-last one, can you read that again for me? i think the american public deserves to have it again. >> the dad -- >> that's the one. >> i think my dad would appreciate this one, too. >> dad, my sitting here today in
the u.s. capitol, talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the soviet union and come here to the united states of america in search of a better life for our family. do not worry, i'll be fine for telling the truth. >> you realize when you came forward out of sense of duty, that you were putting yourself in direct opposition to the most powerful person in the world. do you realize that, sir? >> i knew i was assuming a lot of risk. >> and i'm struck by the word -- that phrase, "do not worry," you addressed to your dad. was your dad a warrior. >> he did serve, it was a different military, though. >> and he would have worried if you were putting yourself up against the president of the united states, right? >> he deeply worried about it. in his context, there was -- there was the ultimate risk. >> and why do you have confidence that you can do that? and tell your dad not to worry? >> congressman, because this is america. this is the country i have served and defended, that all of
my brothers have served and here, right matters. >> thank you, sir. i yield back. [ applause ] >> mr. demmings. >> thank you, mr. chairman, first of all. miss williams, let me thank you for your service to our nation. it truly matters. >> thank you. >> lieutenant colonel vindman, i had the honor of speaking to a group of veterans this past weekend. and what i said to them was that no words, no words are really adequate or sufficient to fully express our gratitude for their service to our nation. so lieutenant colonel vindman, today i say to you, there are no words that are sufficient to fully express our gratitude to
you, for what you have done for our nation and amazingly, what you are still willing to do for our nation. it is vitally important that the american people understand how president trump's unethical demand that ukraine deliver politically motivated investigations in exchange for military assistance created a security risk for our, the united states of america, national security. the president was not just playing a political game, by upholding military aid and meetings with ukraine, threatening the hundreds of millions of dollars of military assistance that congress had appropriated has real-life consequences, for ukraine and for the usa. in your deposition, colonel vindman, you testified, and i
quote, a strong and independent ukraine is critical to our security interests. could you please explain why a strong and independent ukraine is so critical and why it is so vital to us interest.s. interes? >> we sometimes refer to ukraine as a front line state. it's on the front line of europe, it's -- they have actually described it to me, the ukrainians, that it is a -- they consider themselves as a barrier between russian aggression and europe. and what i've heard them describe is the need for u.s. support in order to serve this role, in order to protect european and western security. >> lieutenant colonel, this is not just a theoretical conflict between ukraine and russia. you've already said this morning
that russia is actively fighting to expand into ukraine. that ukraine is in a hot war with russia right now, is that correct? >> it's stable, but it's still a hot war. >> and isn't it true, lieutenant colonel, that even if the security assistance was eventually delivered to ukraine, the fact that it was delayed, just that fact, could signal to russia that the bond between ukraine and the u.s. was weakening. >> that was the concern of myself and my colleagues. >> and was the risks of even the appearance that the u.s./ukraine bond is shaky, is that it could embolden russia to act with more aggression, would you say that's correct? >> i believe that was my testimony. >> just last month during an interview, president putin joked about interfering in our political elections. i can only guess that's what we
have become to russia and its president. i think he felt emboldened by the president's reckless actions, both attempts to hold critical military aid from ukraine and president trump's effort to blame ukraine, not russia, for election interference. miss williams and lieutenant colonel vindman, i can only say that every american, regardless of our politics, should be critically concerned about that. and let me just say this, yes, we do trust the american people. but you know what? the american people trust us, too, as members of congress, to support, protect and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic. and we intend to do just that.
thank you again for your service. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> mr. krishnamoorthi. >> good afternoon, lieutenant colonel vindman and miss williams. thank you for your service. lieutenant colonel vindman, i'm concerned that your loyalty has been questioned not just because you're bringing forward evidence of wrongdoing against the president, the president of the united states, but because you're an immigrant. recently, fox news host brian kilmeade said he, meaning you, were born in the soviet union, emigrated with his family young. he tends to feel sympatico with the ukraine. i find this statement reprehensible, because it appears that your immigrant heritage is being used against you. lieutenant colonel, i came to this country when i was 3 months old. your family fled the soviet union and moved to america when you were just 3 1/2 years old, right? >> correct. >> and i understand that your father worked multiple jobs
while also learning english, right? >> correct. >> your father stressed the importance of embracing what it means to be an american, correct? >> that is correct. >> all of your childhood memories relate to being an american, correct? >> that is correct. >> you and your family faced difficult times during your childhood, correct? >> yes. >> i can relate. that's my story, too. but your father went on to become an engineer, right? >> he reestablished himself in his former profession in the united states. >> i can relate. i got a bs in engineering. of course, some people claim i practice the bs part now. >> your father never gave up working hard to build his very own american dream, did he? >> he did not. >> well, lieutenant colonel vindman, your father achieved the american dream and so did you and your family. from one immigrant american to another immigrant american, i
want to say to you that you and your family represent the very best of america. i assume that you are as proud to be an american as i am. correct? >> yes, sir. >> sir, i want to turn your attention to uryou yuri lute lu, the former prosecutor general in ukraine has made various claims about various americans, right? >> corre >> correct. >> you are unaware of any factual basis for his accusations against yovanovitch, corre right? >> correct. >> he was also a source for an article by john solomon in the hill, right? >> that is correct. >> and you said that key
elements of that article as well as his accusations are false, right? >> correct. >> lutsenco is not a credible source, right? >> correct. >> sir, the other side claims that there was absolutely no pressure on this july 25th phone call. i think that's what we heard earlier, right? >> i believe so. >> and you have termed what president trump asked in terms of investigations on that phone call as a demand, correct? >> correct. >> and you've pointed out the large power disparity between president trump on the one hand and president zelensky on the other hand, correct? >> yes. >> there was pressure on that phone call, right? >> the ukrainians needed the meeting, the ukrainian subsequently, when they found out about it, needed the security assistance. >> so pressure was brought to bear on them, correct?
>> i believe so. >> sir, colonel vindman, last week, we heard a decorated military veteran, namely ambassador bill taylor come before us. you interacted regularly with ambassador taylor and you know him to be a man of integrity and he's a patriotic american, isn't that right? >> a superb individual. >> i asked ambassador taylor a series of questions based on his experience as an infantry commander. i asked him, quote, is an officer allowed to hold up action placing his troops at risk until someone provides them a personal benefit? ambassador taylor responded, no, sir. colonel vindman, do you agree with ambassador taylor? >> i do. >> i then asked ambassador taylor, quote, is that because they would be betraying their responsibility to the nation? ambassador taylor responded, yes, sir. colonel vindman, do you agree with ambassador taylor? >> i do. >> i then asked ambassador taylor, quote, could that type of conduct trigger a court-martial? ambassador taylor said, yes, sir.
do you agree with ambassador taylor, colonel vindman? >> i do. >> thank you for your service. >> that concludes the member questioning. representative nunes, you're recognized for your concluding remarks. >> well, act i of today's circus is over. for those of you who have been watching at home, the democrats are no closer to impeachment than where they were three years ago. and tin the process, the state department, the fbi, elements within the ic, the icig have all suffered long-term damage. the democrats can continue to put -- to poison the american people with this nonsense. we've sat here all morning without any evidence for impeachment. which would be a very serious crime, high cream and misdemeanors, as it says in the constitution. no such thing. policy disagreements and the democrats' failure to
acknowledge their involvement in the 2016 election. i would say it's astonishing that that would be putti inting little emphasis on their actions. with that, i yield back the balance of my time. >> i thank the gentlemen. i want to thank our witnesses today. miss williams, colonel vindman, both of you for your service to the country, for your testimony here today. and i just want to address briefly some of the evidence you presented, as well as others thus far in the impeachment inquiry. first of all, i want to join my colleagues in thanking you, colonel vindman, for your military service. and i should tell you that notwithstanding all of the questions you got on why didn't you go talk to your supervisor, why didn't you go talk to mr. morrison, why did you go to the national security lawyer? as if there's something wrong with going to the national
security lawyer. are you aware that we asked mr. morrison whether he went to the national security lawyer right after the call and that he did? >> i am. >> and are you aware also that we asked him well, if you had this problem with colonel vindman not going to you instead of the lawyer, naturally, you must have gone to your supervisor? and you know what his answer was, he didn't go to his supervisor either! he went directly to the national security counsel lawyer. so i hope my colleagues will give him the same hard time for not following his chain of command that he complained with you, apparently. the president may attack you and has. others on right-wing tv might attack you and they have. but i thought you should know and maybe you know already that this is what the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff had to say about you, colonel vindman. he is a professional, competent, patriotic, and loyal officer. he has made an extraordinary contribution to the security of
our nation in both peace time and combat. i'm sure your dad is proud to hear that. my colleagues have tried to make the argument here today, and we have heard it before, that the president was just interested in fighting corruption. that's our goal, fighting corruption in ukraine, this terribly corrupt country. the problem, of course, with that is there's no evidence of the president trying to fight corruption. the evidence all points in the other direction. the evidence points in the direction of the president inviting ukraine to engage in the corrupt act of investigating a u.s. political opponent. ambassador yovanovitch was known as a stronger fighter of corruption, so what does the president do? he recalls her from her post. ambassador yovanovitch, in fact, was at a meeting celebrating other anti-corruption fighters, including a woman who had acid
thrown in her face on the day she was told to get on the next plane back to washington. you prepared talking points for the president's first conversation with zelensky. he's supposed to talk about rooting out corruption. if this president had such a deep interest in rooting out corruption in ukraine, surely he would have brought it up on the call. but of course, now we know that he did not. we then see rudy giuliani not fighting corruption, but asking for an investigation of the bidens and my colleagues say, well, maybe he was acting on his own, even though he's saying he's acting as the president's lawyer, maybe he's really acting on his own, but the two investigations that rudy giuliani wanted come up in the meeting you participate in on july 10th at the white house, when ambassador sondland brings up the bidens and burisma in 2016. tells the ukrainians, if you want that meeting in the white house, you've got to do these investigation
investigations. now they would say, ambassador sondland was acting on his own, but that doesn't quite work either, because we have the call record from july 25th, which the president was forced to release, in which the president doesn't bring up corruption. he doesn't say how are those anti-corruption courts going or great work in the rota. of course not. what does the president say? i want you to investigate the bidens and this debunked conspiracy theory pushed by vladimir putin, that also helps me in my re-election. so much for fighting corruption. >> the message to ukraine, the real message to ukraine, our u.s. policy message is, don't engage in political investigations. the message from the president, however, was the exact opposite. do engage in political investigations and do it for my re-election. and it's also made clear, if they want the white house meeting and ultimately if they want $400 million in u.s. aid, this is what they have to do. the only lament i hear from my colleagues is, it wasn't
successful. they got caught! they didn't get the political investigations and they still had to release the money. now, they still haven't gotten the white house meeting, but they had to release the money. because a whistle-blower blew the whistle. a whistle-blower the president wants to punish. and pause congress announced they're doing investigations and very soon thereafter the president was forced to lift the hold on the aid. they argue, well this makes it okay, that it was a failed effort to bribe ukraine, a failed effort to extort ukraine. that doesn't make it better. it's no less odious because it was discovered and it was stopped. and we have courageous people like yourself who come forward, who report things, who do what they should do, who have a sense, as you put it, colonel, of duty, of duty. not to the person of the president, but to the presidency and to the country.
and we thank you for that. at the end of the day, i think this all comes back to something we heard from another career foreign service officer just last friday in a conversation he overheard with the president in a restaurant in ukraine, in which the president, not rudy giuliani, no anyone else, the president of the united states wanted to know, are they going to do the investigations? this is the day after that july 25th call. are they going to do the investigations? and he's ensured by ambassador sondland they're going to do it. and what does sondland relate to this foreign service officer after he hangs up that call? the president doesn't give a expletive about ukraine. he only cares about the big things that help his personal interests. that's all you need to know. and it isn't just about ukraine. of course, ukraine is fighting
our fight against the russians, against their expansionism. that's our fight, too. that's our fight, too. at least we thought so on a bipartisan basis, that's our fight, too. that's why we support ukraine with a military aid that we have. well, the president may not care about it, but we do. we care about our defense, we care about the defense of our allies. and we darned well care about our constitution. we are adjourned. i please ask the audience to allow the witnesses and the members who have to go vote to leave first. >> good afternoon. it's an emotional end to what we've been watching all day. i'm nicole wallace. we've all been watching the third day of public testimony in the impeachment inquiry into donald j. trump. the questioning of lieutenant colonel alexander vindman became increasingly acrimonious this afternoon as republicans sought to undermine his credibility, going after everything from his
request to be addressed by his military rank to his job performance. but in an emotional exchange just a few minutes ago, one that prompted spontaneous applause in the room, vindman made clear why he was willing to sit there today and endure those attacks. it was for the good of the country that he has served and defended, the country his father risked everything to reach after leaving the soviet union, seeking a better life for his family. colonel vindman was a firsthand witness on that july 25th call, along with jennifer williams from the vice president's staff, who testified alongside him today. that call, unbeknownst to them, would end up at the center of the impeachment into donald trump, putting them at the center as well. let me just read from what prompted that spontaneous round of applause. the only other time we've seen that was at the end of a day of testimony from marie yovanovitch. vindman saying, this is america.
this is the country i've served and defended, that all of my brothers have served and defended, and here, right matters. joining us today, msnbc chief legal correspondent, host of "the beat," ari melber. we're also joined by msnbc legal analyst, maya wiley, who previously worked in the civil division of the u.s. attorney's office in the southern district of new york. former democratic senator from missouri and current msnbc political analyst, claire mccaskill. former u.s. attorney, now professor at the university of alabama school of law. also an msnbc contributor, joyce vance. msnbc national security analyst, jeremy barb, who served as former chief of staff at the cia and the department of defense joins us. and msnbc national security analyst, ned price, who is a former senior director and spokesperson for the national security counsel, where alexander vindman worked. jeremy bash, let me start with you. all day long, a theme kept coming out with the republicans
wanted it to or not. lieutenant colonel vindman has a single ideology and it is patriotism and service to the united states. that seemed to be this inconvenient fact that republicans kept trying to squash and quash and smear. in your view, do you think they landed any punches? what do you think the impact was of this first session of testimony today? >> well, on the call, i thought colonel vindman was very effective. per his training, per the way he was taught in the united states army, he told the truth. he laid out the facts, he talked about the fact that gordon sondland had told the ukrainians that unless they investigated the bidens, they would not receive military aid. and right away colonel vindman reported that inappropriate, unlawful conduct to the counsel of the national security counsel, and further, when he heard the phone call by the president, he did the same. and he did something very courageous, perhaps even more courageous than his own service in the battle zone, he spoke out
today against the most powerful person in our country and possibly the world, the commander in chief, the president. and he did it because, as he said, here, right matters. i thought he was highly effective. the state of the republican defense also hasn't changed, nicole. in some ways, they have tried to defend this and said there was no quid pro quo. colonel vindman and others said, actually, there was. they've tried to say this wasn't a demand, it was a favor. colonel vindman said, no, it was a demand. so i think really the state of the defense is where representative stefanick said, which is, it was appropriate for the president to make this request to zelensky and i think that's going to be the heart of the matter, which is, whether it's appropriate for a president to use his office, to use taxpayer money, to use military aid to demand investigations of political rivals. if republicans think that's okay, they're going to stay on the president's side. if they don't think it's okay, they have a reason to break. >> we're watching jennifer williams depart.
she was from the vice president's staff. jeremy bash, she unequivocally testified today that there was no national security purpose for withholding the military aid. she also deprived republicans of any semblance of an excuse that there was a substantiative reason, that there was a policy check. even in the questioning of congresswoman stefanick, which was sharp and well prepared, both witnesses testified to the fact that the ukrainians had checked of all of the boxes. they'd been certified. i think it's by the department of defense that they had taken the appropriate actions to address any questions or concerns about corruption. is that your understanding? >> that's right, nicole. in fact, again, that's the heart of the issue, and jennifer williams, who is on the vice president's staff, on detail from the state department, a career professional, made clear, there was no reason any policy reason, no defense reason, no diplomatic reason, no economic reason for the united states and the president to launch
investigations of his political rivals. it's not only inappropriate, it's wrong. she said she found it inappropriate that the president would utilize this channel to demand investigations into political rivals. and i think, again, the republicans, that's the state of their defense. they have to defend the substantiative conduct by the president. they have nowhere else to go here. they can try to tear colonel vindman down, they can try to say he's not american or he's not a soldier, but that's what they're left to, is which is defending donald trump's conduct. >> nicole, just jumping in, we would be remiss on what we just saw on the camera for folks watching at home, which was jennifer williams walking out of this landmark day of testimony, going up against the president of the united states, along with colonel vindman, and she walked out and she hailed a cab. she hopped into a red washington, d.c. cab. which reminds you that these people, these are individuals, the colonel obviously still a member of the u.s. military and has extra security and a little different, but they're both
facing all kinds of pressure and some threats. the whistle-blower remains anonymous under the same type of concern. and yet they don't have all the support and power and prestige full-time of the presidency. she hops in a red cab and drives off with the rest of her day. before we get to the law and the bribery and conspiracy, i think that's such a portrait of the public service that we saw today and i think that resonates with people. >> and the window into what their lives are like now is also remarkable. colonel vindman saying, he's not sure that there's been any retribution, but there's some meetings that he hasn't been included in. so paying a price for his patriotism in realtime. >> paying the price. and that goes to this clear dividing line within the united states government under the trump administration as this plot escalated. donald trump jr. not known for his thoughts ton ambassadors around the world. the president not known to memoryize the names of ambassadors, let alone their background. and yet -- here we're looking at another cab hailing. so again, this is not people
jumping into secured, armored beast vehicles the way some of the top officials in the administration get to. these are public servants. they serve in both parties. senator, i wanted to ask you, looking at the hearing today, we basically saw the way the intelligence committee operates when the cameras are on. this is a committee that has been famously credited, perhaps in other eras, pre-trump, for a type of decency and bipartisanship, as nicole and others have noted, that was gone today. what did you think in particular of the roles of the two parties during an investigation, where i would note, they didn't land a lot of substantiative line of questioning against these witnesses. >> yeah, in the era of trump, more than just the norms of the white house, that have been so disrupted. so have the norms of congress. i think in the senate, the intelligence committee and the armed services committee are stild holding on by their fingernails to some bipartisan.
that's gone in the house. today was exhibit "a." you saw absolutely no one, even will hurd, has now jumped into the pool and no one is standing up and actually saying, hey, wait a minute, let's don't try to trash this guy. i'm just going to tell you this, i want this guy and his brother protecting me. i want them standing up for america. they may not have -- they may be hailing cabs, ari, they may not have the power of the people who roll up to the capitol with five or six suvs and people with guns. i'll tell you what they have that the president doesn't have. they have character. >> mm-hmm. >> they have character. and that was on full display today. and frankly, what became so obvious by the end of the hearing, the republicans had nothing! they've got nothing. they can't say hearsay anymore. they can't, like, say that the whistle-blower is on some kind of political jihad, because he's been corroborated or she has been corroborated over and over and over again.
they've got nothing left other than the media sucks and the democrats don't like the president. and that is not a very good defense of selling national security for your political purposes. >> you know, jeremy, i'm struck by the, as claire was just talking about, by the corroboration. and i think it leaves you wondering, the republicans are now willing to sacrifice the reputations of five patriots. ned price, you worked on that national security staff as its spokesperson. what does it say to you that juan vindman as the best of the best that when you work for a president on the national security counsel staff, you get to bring in the best of the best. vindman was the best of the best when it came to his expertise in u.s. ukrainian relations. what does it say to you as ari
is saying, every republican on this committee willing to question not just his expertise, but his loyalty. they did not repeat it, but nobody said hey, i take issue with my republican colleague's questioning of your patriotism and loyalty. >> as you said, i was fortunate enough to be able to serve on the national security counsel staff where vindman is now and i can say that we heard republicans today attacking lieutenant colonel for doing one thing and one thing only and frankly doing it well. that's doing his job as a director on the staff. that's because the national security counsel is really the fulcrum of the inner agency within the executive branch connecting the state department with the intelligence community and treasury department to make sure that within an administration, the left hand know what is the right is doing so when republicans try to smear and malign lieutenant colonel vindman for talking to someone
at the department of state, for talking to someone at the intelligence community, that is essentially smearing and maligning him for doing what he's e supposed to do and actually vindman i thought was quite explicit on that front. he said to representative jordan, i was doing my job. they also underlined another point that i don't think is exculpatory for the president. certainly not in the way they intended. we heard republicans underlune the fact that vindman has never met president trump and that is striking because this is the key person who's supposed to coordinate ukraine policy for the administration. y you krien policy is something that president trump has shown great interest in. i think that just underscores the fact that president trump is not in this for national security. he's not in this out of foreign policy interests. he's in this for his own interests and finally, if i could just say this is a dark moment for our country.
we are witnessing an impeachment of a president for doing something that i think is absolutely shameful but i have to say and it's almost ironic, that there have been moments in the course of this where it sort of stiffens your spine and you swell with pride at being an american and i felt that way today when i heard lieutenant colonel vindman talk b about america and his family's coming here and his brother's service and saying in america, in ameri america, here right matters. i think that was one of those moments. >> let's listen to that. >> frankly, i couldn't believe what i was hearing. it was probably an element of shock that maybe in certain regards my worst fear of how our ukraine policy could play out was playing out. this was likely to have significant implications for u.s. national security. my sitting here today talking to
our elected officials that you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the soviet union to come here to the united states of america in search of f a better life for our family. do not worry. i'll be fine for telling the truth. >> you realize when you came forward out of sense of duty that you were putting yourself in direct opposition to the most powerful person in the world. do you realize that, sir? >> i knew i was assume ago lot of risk. >> i'm struck by the word, the phrase, do not worry. you addressed to your dad. was your dad a warrior? >> he did serve. it was a different military. >> and would worried if you were putting yourself up against the president of the united states, is that right? >> he'd deeply worry about it because in his context, there was the alternate risk. >> and why do you have confidence that you can do that and tell your dad not to worry? >> congressman, because this is america. the country i have served and defended. that all my brothers have served
and here, right matters. >> thank you x sir. >> i yield back. >> incredible moment. >> it was so striking. it's a reminder of why these hearings matter. to see these people with our own eyes. that was really the moment where you saw the slogan eeering of me america great again with those who actually live the other dream. they serve and sometimes come from other countries. as long as they are loyal and serve america, that's the american dream and it's always been when we welcome those in. this is someone who is part of a jewish minority fleeing oppression that was welcomed here and presidents of both parties. indeed law and rhetoric have historically welcomed people.
the bush and reagan mrgss. that's wider for the narrower case that was being made through vindman and what i always thought was striking, today really dispensed with the euphamisms. you don't get that from the military and national security folks. these people make decisions that take lives. they kill people in battle. and then there are hard calls to make, they go through the chain of command. our first instinct, the first isn't go to lawyers. they make hard calls. drone calls, military calls, cia calls. when those folks go to the lawyers, it's because something's way over line. in this case, it was not a defensible explanation. a reason to condition anything in the u.s. government power. weapons, military money, government meetings at the white house. to help the incumbent president get re-elected. indeed that undermines a democracy in the view of these firsthand witnesses. that's what's so powerful.
does that mean that donald trump committed impeachable offense? i don't know. we have a system where congress adjudicates that but today was the most devastating day because of those people in blunt and plain english explaining why they stood up then and now with considerable risk. >> it's really hard when you work on a white house staff to sort of you know, the reason that there are so as few eye witnesses there are the because it's difficult to do what he did. to take yourself up to the white house counsel's office and sound the alarm about what we saw. but to ari's point, it's that really sharp distinction in colonel vindman's mind between right and wrong that propelled him up the stairs if it's still upstairs to the white house counsel's office. >> in a point in time in our country when we've looked at so much that comes out of this white house and felt it was quintessentially un-american, that today alexander vindman gave the country an opportunity
to reclaim patriotism. you watch his testimony. he's who you want your children to grow up to be. he's brave. he's righteous and i think to your point, a lot of folks in government see conduct that makes them uncomfortable. alexander vindman didn't just go back and sit behind his desk. he took it to the person in his chain of command who he was supposed to go to and we saw quibbling from the republicans on that point that he didn't go to morrison, his director. he went to the lawyers. that's where you're supposed to go when this happens and he can did it perhaps less because he saw illegality. he's not a lawyer, but he knew a strong ukraine was critical to the united states' national security and he stood up to protect our country. we should be standing up and cheering like the folks in the room did. >> and the republican attempt to make this about the president's authority seems to land flat when you consider the fact vindman wasn't questioning the president's authority, he was
questioning the conduct which was completely outside stated u.s. policy. stated u.s. policy toward ukraine was to stand with this fragile democracy against russia. his alarms went off because it didn't seem to be the case with the president. no one's questioning donald trump's absolute authority to set foreign policy. vindman's concern was that the president didn't seem to be following his own stated policy. >> i think that's absolutely right and i would add there's a, there's a two sides to this sword because on one hand, of course the president has the power to for on u.s. policy, but not against the national interests. that's why it's an impeachment. >> that's what's so devastating. he's not saying the president had the right to do it. he's saying third-degr ining th do with national security. >> as ned said, this actually flew in the face of our national security interest and there is no one in this administration, in the trump administration, folks that donald trump himself
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