Page 2 - Background Documents News Today

Personal polling service. >> reporter: the president has often relied on twitter to share his grievances and announce major decision. but those who study him say more and more, he seems to be using twitter to gauge the reaction of his base over the advice of his administration. a far cry, historians say from presidents who relied on polls, intelligence briefings and background documents. >> donald trump gives us the impression that he doesnt really use any of the work, or not much of the work th...

Media. >> i think the thing that matters most to the president is he be affirmed by the people who love him, the people on twitter who follow him and respond every time he says something. he uses twitter almost as a personal polling service. >> reporter: the president has often relied on twitter to share his grievances and announce major decisions, but those who study him say more and more, he seems to be using twitter to gauge the reaction of his base over the advice of his administration. a fa...

Polling, intelligence briefings and background documents. >> donald trump gives us the impression that she doesnt really use any of the work or not much of the work that the institutions provide him and seems to rely on twitter. not only for a sense of how well his policies are doing but for what those policies ought to be and thats unprecedented. twitter is where the president goes to take the pulse of his base before he makes a decision. its also a vehicle to validate his viewpoints. >> he has...

Available to us. let me just -- i want to really reinforce this incredibly important point. we have a confirmation process in which that has been extraordinary from the beginning. this is only the latest and very explosive nature of how extraordinary its been. for example, the fact that the democrats only have had 7% of the documents, background documents on judge kavanaugh, is not a small thing. particularly when he has had credibility issues raised even before these allegations. you know, we c...

>> -- that is no longer true. judge kavanaugh has a very broad view of presidential powers. for example, he would have the congress immunize sitting presidents from both civil and criminal liability. under judge kavanaughs recommendation, if a president shot somebody in cold blood on fifth avenue, that president could not be prosecuted while in office. also it is not clear to me listening to the testimony that he really believes nixon -- u.s. versus nixon was correctly decided. a second general ...

Life. they literally cannot leave the gaza strip. >> right. theres about 1.5 to 2 million in terrible condition. electricity running a few hours a day. under siege. they can leave in dribs and drab bs through egypt but basically, theyre trapped there. they need all the aid they can get. in israels position and ive got to say, you know, president trump has pretty much adopted israels position on this is that they are continuing the refugee crisis by supporting them and that has enabled and encour...

Ed, thank you very much. joining us now south carolina congressman trey gowdy chairman of the house oversight and government reform committee and house intel committee. you were one who saw some of the background documents related to this issue of whether or not there was a spy or informant in the campaign late last week. anything that you can share on a broad scale about what went down there? >> i think there are two things important to understand. number one, the source of president trumps fru...

Detail about what goes through. it is classified but we do understand there are multiple security checks, theres an in-person interview with someone from the department of homeland security, cultural orientation class as well. ultimately, i think what worry a lot of people, senator, is the fact that weve heard from isis. theyre going to try to use this particular refugee crisis to import more terrorists into western nations. we certainly would qualify. >> that is correct, steve. again, we have t...

The city council in bell, california, voting to cut the high salaries by 90% after angry protests by some locals. and now the states attorney general is stepping in. >> were looking within the next 48 hours for these employment contracts. in addition to that, were giving them more time to give us the background documents that go into how did this happen? what were they thinking over there? we want to find out exactly how they ever came to the conclusion that city officials should make so much mo...

Latest updates on this topic.