flight, an air canada flight, arrived in that very terminal on a flight from alaska earlier today, that he waited for his luggage along with the other passengers on that flight, that he retrieved his bags where he had checked firearms. these are firearms that you can legally check with the airline. and he legally was able to do that. he went to a bathroom, retrieved the firearm and came back out and started shooting. according to the initial investigations, it doesn't appear that he was targeting anyone in particular. he appeared to be shooting ram donnelly. there was no rym or reason to the shooting. but it appears that a lot of the people who he would have shot and some of the people that were killed might have been some of the passengers that were on this flight. again, he came on a flight, an air canada flight we're told, that came from alaska and landed earlier at ft. lauderdale international airport. again, this is a twist on something we've never seen before. again, we've seen shootings at airports where people come from outside the airport with
firearms. you don't normally see somebody coming from an aircraft that's gone through security, again, with secured luggage. and then retrieving a firearm. this is not something that we've seen before. again, this is still early in the investigation. there's still a lot of witnesses to be interviewed. there's surveillance camera footage to look at to see exactly how long this took. we don't know everything about his movements. again he appeared to arrive on this flight and then started shooting once he emerged from the bathroom. >> evan perez, stay there. i know you'll continue to speak to law enforcement sources here in washington. i want to go to cnn's boris sanchez, he is live at ft. lauderdale/hollywood international airport. i know that just after the shooting, there was a great deal of confusion and fear at the airport. we saw pictures of people after the gunman was taken, still running in fear. but now police are saying they're confident there was just a lone gunman here. >> that's right, jim. we actually heard from the
broward county sheriff about 20 to 30 minutes ago and he told us that reports of a second shooter were unsubstantiated, they were simply rumors. we heard people screaming and running shortly after we saw a group of about six armed and heavily armed uniformed officers running across from terminal 2. this is terminal 2, this is where the shooting happened. this is the second floor. the shooting happened on the lower level in baggage claim. we saw the officers running across into these parking garages here and that's what really kicked off just panic here. there were people running in all directions from terminal 2 on to the runways from terminal 1, down here to where we're standing now, and then on to the runways. it was sheer chaos. things are much calmer now, but as the sheriff of broward county said earlier, this is still a fluid situation. officers from just about every jurisdiction and the southeastern part of florida are here. there are helicopters in the air, tactical vehicles as you saw a moment ago driving around. this is still an ongoing
investigation. as you said, and as you heard from evan earlier, it appears that the shooter in this case arrived on an air canada flight, terminal 2 is the delta and air canada terminal, and then he apparently, sources say, went into the rest room, retrieved a weapon from his bag, and opened fire, killing at least five people, eight others were rushed to the hospital. there's no word yet on a motive. we understand that the shooter was put into custody without incident. he's being questioned as you said by local and federal investigators. one interesting point to note, especially because we saw so many officers go into these parking garages, i asked the broward county sheriff if, perhaps, they had identified a vehicle here at the ft. lauderdale airport that might belong to the shooter. he told me that at the time we were speaking to him he did not have a vehicle that belonged to the shooter that they were able to identify. again, this is a very delicate situation. still there are hundreds of people that are stranded. i believe we actually have one here now. sir, nice to meet you. >> nice to meet you.
hear the initial shots. i heard the commotion. i was actually -- i just had back surgery and i was in a wheelchair and just had gotten through security so i saw the commotion and heard the people. i thought maybe just a fight or something had broken out at security. i actually was at the first gate that the wheelchair stopped at and got a call from my mom saying, what's going on. and i had no idea. i just heard the screaming. and not five minutes later, people came running down the hall screaming gun, gunman was coming. so everybody, you know, ran and luggage flying, purses flying, and i can't move very fast because of my surgery so i got up and started hobbling and all the restaurants were closing their cages and getting people into hiding places and a woman frozen kind of in the middle of the hallway and her child made it into the gate, so i took her into a corridor. we were stuck in that corridor about the last 45 minutes or so
and then escorted out with guys with long guns and moved us away from the glass. so it does sound like maybe it was an unsubstantiated second threat. but people certainly weren't acting like it. >> ryan, it must have been horribly frightening for you, particularly you're injured. were people coming to your aid? what was the response from law enforcement and others inside the airport as this was happening? >> you know, a lot of confusion at first because people were aware that something has happened adjacent to us, but once everybody started running, i have to say the jetblue personnel, which is what i was flying, were great and the cops that came in initially the broward county sheriff local guys, they were great. i mean, since i was kind of stuck in a corridor with a woman who was frozen in fear, they just kind of guarded us on either side and stood there. and then like i said, finally escorted us out once some guys
with long guns came in and they were homeland security guys, fbi, and now escorted us outside and kept us away from the windows. still see a lot of helicopters, lot of action but it seems to be calming down, but they definitely are still riding by with -- on the trunk of the cars with long guns out. so definitely not giving us the clear. >> in the midst of it i'm told you shielded a child? >> there was a -- >> during the chaos? >> actually it was his mom. the child sat about ten feet from her and i handed -- the child to the chile's employee that was closing the gate quickly so they could hide and i ran back over, pushed the mom into a corner and laid on top of her. i'm a big guy, so it was easy to cover her up. she was frozen. >> ryan, i'm sorry you had to experience this, for anybody who went through this firsthand, but thank you for the help that you gave to others in need there. we appreciate it. i want to bring in the national
security analyst julia kayyem, former assistant secretary for homeland security and phil mudd, a former cry counter terror aficial, tom fuentes, assistant fbi director with me here in washington. tom, a couple of things i would like to run by you in light of your experience. one, if you want to find a police with a big police presence it's, of course, america's airports today. this shooter struck in one of the least protected areas, in baggage claim, outside the security perimeter. >> baggage claim is open because people are arriving and may have luggage checked in. family members and others help them. they drive up and park, go to baggage claim, help them carry their stuff out. so yeah, they don't go through magna tumors to get in. you can have a threat from outside the airport easily or true in this case, if he had a
gun in checked luggage, he can hide in a bathroom and go out on the sidewalk and come back in and begin shooting if that's what actually happened. >> julia kayyem, this is a situation, rare, that you have the shooter taken in custody unharmed. eyewitnesss have said that after firing these shots, he, in effect, laid down on the ground and waited to be taken. police able to take thhim, they say, with no shots fired. how unusual is that in your experience? >> it's very unusual for a preplanned attack. normally if this was something he flew across the country, at least from our understanding, you know, from alaska to florida, with a plan on doing this attack, you would think that his exit strategy was either to get out of the airport or to be killed. so this is very rare. so the other theory talking to law enforcement agents right now that i'm hearing, the other theory is that something happened at the airport that triggered this, an altercation
or something in baggage claim. those would be the only two theories, he didn't plan it, but he happened to have guns, or that the guns were, you know, sort of on the airplane and he planned to do this. because the rarity of getting someone who just sit downs and says here, take me away, has to be explained somehow and so those are the two theories of the case that investigators are looking at right now. >> and the suspect being questioned now. phil mudd if i can draw on your experience, i'm told by officials that he had possible mental health issues, but, of course, it's early. the department of homeland security telling us there was no known motive at this time. tell us, if you can, the kinds of questions, the kinds of work investigators are doing now to figure out why he did this? >> first of all, i wouldn't be asking the question why at the moment. the first question is who. is there anybody else involved. was there a co-conspirator. if he's not mentally stable my first questions would be where are his friends, family,
associates, does he have social media accounts that might suggest he was communicating to somebody about an attack. after that, i might get into motive. why did you do this. was it just a random act of violence. i'm with juliette. this is odd you would bother to go across the country and buy a ticket to engage in a shooting incident at an airport against civilians whom you don't know. if you wanted to kill people why wouldn't you do it at the point of origin. a lot of unanswered questions. the first one, is there a single other person out there. that takes a while to figure that one out. >> tom, it is a way, though, to get a gun into an airport, is it not? put it in your checked baggage, legally check it, declare it, and when you pick it up you have a gun in an airport. i suppose you could walk into the baggage area as well because that's a place where, you know, there might be police around but you don't have to walk through metal detectors. >> hundreds of people travel legitimately with their firearms to go on a hunting trip or off-duty law enforcement or other military that may have weapons and check them in.
there's procedures each airline has. tsa has for checking in a secure manner a firearm in your luggage, you know, making sure it has the right lock box and ammunition. the main issue is that firearm is not in the cabin. they're not in position to hijack the aircraft. when the plane lands they recover their luggage at baggage claim and once again they're reunited with their firearm. so yes, they could shoot on the front end of that through the detectors or ticket counter or on the back end when they recover it at the destination airport. >> julie ya kayyem, this is not the first time we've seen shootings or terror attacks in that unsecured part of airports, remember look back at the istanbul attack a number of months ago in that area and the check-in area, outside of the security corridor, whenever that happens there's discussion why don't authorities move that cordon out further, right.
is that something that homeland security has considered at various times and if so, why hasn't that step been take? >> well, it has been considered, but just to make it clear, so wherever you put the zone of security, there is going to be a zone of insecurity right next to it. you can move it out ten miles from the airport. mile 10.01 there will be insecurity. and the other aspect to this is, we are a global economy, global aviation. if you put too much security on any of these airports, you will -- i mean basically you're going to impede the movement of people and things. millions of people a day domestically fly and you're constantly weighing the challenge of security and flow. what we do see and i just, you know, to sort of say this looks like chaos, you know, look, sometimes there's organized chaos. this looks exactly how you would want it to look from a homeland security and public safety perspective. active shooter case you want
people to flee. you don't want them to stay put. you have them shelter in place to ensure things are good. it looks bad but this is the way you want it to work because you want to protect people. you will never make the airports perfectly secure. a lot of it has to do with weapons and the achlts of weapons that are out there and so we shouldn't believe that if only we put the security, you know, further back everything would be okay. there's more we can do to protect these unsecured areas, but at some stage you will have an insecure area. >> juliette, tom, fim, stay there. we're continuing to follow this story and we will come right back to this breaking story. but first more breaking news. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> as i said, we have more breaking news on a separate story. one we've been following for some time. the government has just released the declassified intelligence report blaming russia for cyber attacks during the 2016
presidential race. this has been a great deal of anticipation for this for some time. and i just want to draw your attention to a few headlines from this. it says that vladimir putin aspired to help donald trump win the election. that, the judgment of the u.s. intelligence community. i want to go to cnn's pamela brown who has the report. pamela, reading these pages here, first of all they make clear at the top, you know, that this is intelligence, it's classified, we can't lift the veil on everything, but we will in effect tell you as much as we can. that stood out to me. we assess that putin and the russian government aspired to help president-elect donald trump's election chances here. what other headlines come out at you from this report? >> well, it talks about the range of motivations here and as you point out, this report does not mince words. it comes out and says we believe vladimir putin med led in the election process and tried to hurt hillary clinton and help donald trump. it listed a few reasons why.
one of which putin publicly pointed to the panama papers disclosure and the olympic doping scandals as ways that the united states was trying to undermine russia and so in the view of the u.s. intelligence, putin wanted to do this to get back at the united states. it says, he sought to use disclosures to discredit the image of the united states and cast it as hypocritical and it talks about why he wanted to undermine hillary clinton, saying he most likely wanted to discredit secretary clinton because he has publicly blamed her since 2011 for inciting mass protests against his regime in late 2011 and early 2012 and because he holds a grudge, he almost certainly saw disparaging against him. it talks about why the u.s. believes he tried to help donald trump. it says moscow saw the election of president-elect trump as a way to achieve an international counterterrorism coalition against the islamic state in iraq and it goes on to explain
how the united states came to this conclusion. it says, we assess with high confidence that russian military intelligence, general staff main directorate, used the 2.0 persona and d.c. leaks.com as a way to release u.s. victim data. it says back in march that the military intelligence services stole these e-mails that we know were leaked from the dnc as well as john podesta, the clinton campaign chairman, and used this forum, the dcleaks.com and wikileaks in order to have the effect that the united states says russia wanted, which was to med dle in the process and help donald trump. it talked about the trolling operations, jim, and says it traced the likely financier of the so-called internet research agency, located in st. petersburg, russia, as a close putin ally with ties to russian intelligence.
these are the troll operations that were apparently pushing out fake news. you heard james clapper say in that hearing yesterday that the russians were responsible for pushing out fake news against hillary clinton and the report says that is continuing to help this day and to expect more of this type of behavior from russia in the future. it also makes the point, i think this is important to emphasize and you heard this in donald trump's statement, there was no indication that the russians compromised or got involved in vote tallying. it said while the russian actors targeted multiple state or local electoral boards as we have been reporting, there's no indication that the russians got in there and actually messed with the vote tallies. jim? >> well, it's interesting that you make those points this was a comprehensive information operation. not just the attacks on the dnc, but also fake news, all intended it seems to sow doubt about the election. they made the point that the targets included associated with both major u.s. political
parties. pamela brown, thanks very much. i want to bring in now california congressman adam schiff, the top democrat on the house intelligence committee. thanks very much for joining us this afternoon. >> you bet. good to be with you. >> so you have the advantage, of course, of having seen the classified version of this report as well, but without delving into the classified, now that this is public, what do you find the most convincing evidence to back up the intelligence community's assessment here? >> well, jim, the evidence is really what comprises the classified version and unfortunately i can't go into, obviously, paramount importance is protecting our sources and methods. i'm sure the russians would like to know how we know the contents of what's been released publicly. i will say i've been on the committee almost ten years. this is about as iron clad a case as i've seen on any major issue. i think the intelligence agencies really did great work here and i think those findings are well documented and supported and i hope their presentation today to donald trump will cause him to change
his tune about this because i think the facts are really undeniable. >> now, adam schiff, we have donald trump's statement, that followed his briefing earlier this afternoon we're told went for an hour meeting with top intelligence officials. in the statement, he doesn't say explicitly yes, russia hacked the election. he said while russia, china and other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through, he goes on to say, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election. seeing donald trump's response so far, in your view, is that sufficient? >> i'm glad you raised that statement. no, it isn't. in fact, that statement is demonstrably false. the report did not go into whether this russian action changed the outcome of the election. in other words, had the determinative impact on the election. that's beyond the scope of what the intelligence agencies look at. the fact that there was no evidence of tampering with machines, doesn't mean that it didn't influence the outcome of the election as donald trump has
said in his statement. in fact, quite the contrary. the daily dumping of damaging material to secretary clinton was enormously consequential in terms of her campaign, was enormously beneficial to donald trump and to ignore that, or to say it didn't happen, i think is quite inaccurate. and all of this was, of course, enabled by the russian cyber operations. >> let me ask you this, because you have been pushing for action on this for some time. the obama administration has come under criticism from republicans certainly, but also from democrats, for not acting earlier. because it was a month before the election when the intelligence community as you know expressed publicly they had confidence russia was attempting to hack and influence the election with a focus on dmtsic party. do you believe -- democratic party. do you believe the obama administration waited too long to act on this intelligence? >> i do believe they waited too long to act and this was point that senator feinstein and i
made when we released our own statement about the russian involvement in the elections even before the intelligence community did. nonetheless that doesn't let either the russians off the hook or anyone else and it certainly doesn't mean that democrats and republicans shouldn't come together right now to develop all the counter measures we need to confront this russian covert influence operation in the united states and in europe, and i think we need to develop stronger sanctions against russia on what they did already if we're going to have any hope of deterring them in the future. >> i think it's save to say looking at donald trump's statements so far it's not exactly a fulsome endorsement of the intelligence community's assessment and as you know, up until this morning, he was disparaging the intelligence and as you know as well, had he's also called into question the capabilities of the u.s. intelligence community. from your perspective what do you -- what does the american public need to hear from president-elect donald trump now after those expressions of doubts? >> well, what's really missing
from the president-elect statements today is, not just he had a good meeting with intelligence officials, but that he has looked at the evidence he looked at it now in detail, he knows the sources of that evidence, and he has convinced -- he is convinced the russians did this and there is going to be a price to pay for, he applauds the measures president obama took and we ought to do more and we're going to prevent russia from ever interfering in our elections in this way again. he hopes to have a different relationship with russia, that's fine, but he cannot continue to deny what has taken place and that is i think what he ought to be saying to the american people. >> congressman adam schiff, thanks very much. >> thanks, jim. >> i want to bring in now former california congresswoman jane harmon who served on the house intelligence committee and now president of the wilson center. jane harman, thanks for joining. you know intelligence matters very well. in your experience, have you seen the intelligence community lift the veil to the extent it has on its assessment that
russia hacked the election? >> i think this is unprecedented, and add to that, that yesterday, the senate armed services committee really on a unanimous basis, aligned itself with the intelligence community evidence that this was clearly a hack. it's not just a hack of this election in 2016, but it goes back a decade according to the portions of the report i've been able to read. that's three presidential elections. and it also, let's add in france and germany, as other targets of russia. most people think that where vladimir putin goes next is angela merkel to destabilize the last of the old generation of leadership in europe. so, with these tools, unfettered, russia uses offensive cyber to basically, as i see it, undermine democracy in the world. it's very serious. and i applaud trump's statement. i heard adam schiff, who now
holds the position i did for some years on the intelligence committee, but i applaud donald trump for moving in the right direction and hopefully he will move further. just one last comment, jim, as we watch these events in ft. lauderdale unfold, it should remind all of us how important it is to have seamless, connected intelligence. maybe we could not have found this particular person, but when you look at how this overlay of law enforcement and other response is coming together, lots of this has to do with the corrective actions we took in congress after 9/11. we're much better prepared. >> you make a good point there. again we don't know the motivations of the shooter in florida, it's too early but that's essentially the intelligence community's job is to find intelligence, prevent bad things before they happen. i want to quote from donald trump's statement the final graph here, he says that we need to aggressively combat and stop cyber attacks. i will appoint a team to give me a plan within 90 days of taking office. if you were advising the
president and his team, what steps would you advise them to take urgently? i know many republicans are calling for more severe sanctions than president obama imposed. what would you recommend? >> well a strong response against russia, even stronger than president obama's, is the first thing i would do. but you have to be careful. if we get into a tit for tat and we do something aggressive against russia in the nature that they did against us, we're ratcheting up danger to us. i don't know that that's where we go. some of this could not -- doesn't have to be public. i do agree with donald trump that not every move needs to be advertised. that would be number one. number two, i would encourage everyone in america to use the strictest cyber hygiene. a lot of this could have been prevented at the dnc if they had had better hygiene. i know at the wilson center, a think tank, understand that think tanks are targets, we have very strict cyber hygiene now and we train our people on it. if they can prevent this stuff
from coming in to the dotcom space and we can do better in preventing it coming into the.gov, and we're doing a better job of that, that's another defense that the trump administration ought to roll out as fast as possible. >> congresswoman jane harman, thanks very much. >> thank you, jim. i want to return now to our other big breaking news story this hour, a mass shooting at ft. lauderdale airport. five people are dead. eight others are wounded. the airport remains shut down. the suspect, however, is in custody. and sources tell cnn he had a weapon in his checked bag, which he retrieved when he arrived there at ft. lauderdale. i want to bring back cnn justice correspondent pamela brown, she has new information on the shooter. what are we learning? >> we're learning, jim, investigators are looking into a possible altercation on the plane that the suspect was on from an core rage, alaska, to
florida. there are been claims by witnesses, by some of those on the plane, that the suspect esteban santiago got into some sort of altercation on the plane with other passengers, and as we know, after he got off of that plane there in ft. lauderdale, he went into his checked bag, once it came through baggage claim, pulled out the gun that apparently he had filled out paperwork and declared before, and then opened fire, killing five people. we are still trying to get more information about this altercation and, of course, investigators, want to verify it. oftentimes as you know there are witness accounts, they want to corroborate that. the initial reports are that investigators are looking into this possible altercation between the suspect and passengers as a possible motive there for the shooting and in baggage claim at the ft. lauderdale airport. >> pamela, that would be enormously important, because it would imply, we want to caution our viewers these are early reports and facts, not conclusive at this point, it would be an indicator this was
not previously planned. right? >> right. >> that it was more spontaneous, perhaps, a reaction to what happened on the flight? >> and that's exactly what investigators are looking at because, of course, when anything like this happens you want to figure out is this terrorism or some other motive at play here, some sort of issue, and so that is why this is a critical piece of evidence that investigators are looking at or claim i should say from the witnesses, this possible altercation may be one of the reasons, as you point out, sometimes there's multiple factors, but one of the reasons at least why he got off that plane and went into his checked bag and pulled that gun. we also are learning today, jim, that the suspect apparently was in the military. we know we heard from senator nelson earlier he had a military i.d. they were trying to verify the authenticity and we are told from our sources that, in fact, he was in the army. no criminal record we're told. we're trying to piece together more about the suspect or more about him, and that's the very late west he know right now. >> pamela brown, thank you very
much. law enforcement officials saying there was some sort of altercation with the suspected shooter on the flight and after that altercation he went and retrieved the when and fired in the bag am area. i want to bring back julia kayyem, phil mudd and with me in washington cnn law enforcement analyst tom fuentes. with that new information, tom fuentes, possible altercation on the flight, what does that tell you at this stage. >> at this point we don't know who he was having an argument with. did he know them before. is this a group of people who were already friends or went hunting together or something and had a previous argument, continued on the plane with each other and then he continues it afterward when he has the firearm, or are they complete strangers and argued about overhead bin space or some other issue on the plane. so that will be determined hopefully pretty soon by the fbi and police that are doing the interviews of him as well as the passenger witnesses as to -- and the victims who he was arguing
with. why were you arguing. what was the cause of that. >> julewel julia kayyem, airpor are tense places, it can be a tense time. that is an argument for not allowing people to even check weapons when they travel? >> well, it will be very difficult. people carry weapons for a variety of reasons, hunting trips, or they're moving and need to move their lawful weaponry and so i think the clear thing that we're all picking up on now, it's still undetermined whether he entered the flight with the intention to do this in ft. lauderdale or if something triggered him. and look, something could trigger anyone in an airport and they could be armed even if they weren't a passenger and just come in through baggage claim. so we have a lot more to determine at this stage, but i have to say, the protocols for putting guns in checked baggage are pretty strict. you have to show that the gun is
lawfully yours, it can't, of course, be loaded, you have to fill out forms and that's actually part of the security process that someone like me never worried that much about and we just have to determine whether this was someone who used a potential loophole to attack an airport or actually was someone this could have happened anywhere. he's deranged or has mental issues and used a gun in his possession to kill people at an airport. >> to be clear, you may know this or tom, you can check both a weapon and ammunition? >> yes. >> tom fuentes shaking his head yes. >> yes. >> if you're going on a hunting trip you will have both with you when you arrive at the destination. the fact that he's coming from alaska might be why he was there. we don't know. >> that's exactly what i was going to pick up on. hundreds of thousands of law enforcement personnel who often travel with their weaponry. you have to fill something out. it's a protocol under the faa and tsa. you have to fill something out. you can't just do it. nonetheless it's a common procedure for people who own
guns. >> phil, phil mudd, i know i'm asking you this with a handicap because it's early, i'm just asking you in light of your experience as a profiler, you look at this person here, altercation on the flight, carrying a weapon, but also other things like shooting and killing, and then laying down, letting himself be arrested, as you look at that early and incomplete picture what do you take away? >> as somebody in the counter terrorism business let me take you behind the door for a moment. the first thing people in my business think about they hope it's not terrorism. you know, in some ways if you have to rank incidents of tragedy and violence in this country, as soon as you get an incidence of terrorism you're saying who organized this is there an immigration issue, connection to isis. if we have someone that stepped off the plane, what i see in the initial stages of this, is an individual who doesn't show the characteristics of the people i used to worry about when i chased terrorism. we talked about, for example, lying down on the floor.
the people i chased typically would want to have enough ammunition so they went down in a fire fight with law enforcement. that was not a suicide operation. that for them was a martyr dom operation. i look at this and say i think we might come to a conclusion over the next hours it was just one of those tragedies where you say i'm not sure there's anything you can do. >> and just for the sake of our viewers, that word terrorism there. we don't have any evidence yet and no official has told me at this point. the official word we're hearing from multiple sources is no known motive at this point although the newest information there was an altercation on the flight could be indicative. >> i would like to make a distinction. we haven't seen this because we're always broadcasting about terrorism events and jihadist events typically they're not taken alive. state and local police will tell you, i was a street cop six years, there are plane situations police arrive, someone has shot their family dead, thrown the gun down and surrendered or committed in
other serious crime with a firearm and when police arrive they surrender. so it's not uncommon in general circles even if we think it's uncommon in our circles. >> julia kayyem, as we're looking at this as well, what are the missing pieces at this point that you'll be looking for? the unanswered questions? >> well, during the press conference i thought it was interesting and this just having seen so many of these, the extent to which they are going to shut down the entire airport. that's, you know, that's better safe than sorry at this stage. they need to reopen it relatively soon. it's a major airport. and the faa and it tsa are working as we've heard already to divert everything. you will start to see a slow reopening of different terminals. that's part of the protocol. the unanswered questions i have is just the basic one, is essentially was this a cross-country from alaska to florida flight which seems less likely to me or an altercation where he happened to have a gun.
we don't know much about the assailant at this stage so we want to learn more. i have confidence that they believe, that the officials, just based on the press conference, they believe it's an individual assailant who got triggered by something only because they seemed quite confident and they wouldn't be, that the imminent threat was now over. >> juliette, phil, tom, stay there for a moment pap back to the scene of this shooting rampage, ft. lauderdale/hollywood international airport. boris sanchez is live just outside. boris, what are you seeing in the last few minutes from your vantage point there? >> jim, we're just waiting for a press briefing from the governor of florida, rick scott, set to start in about ten minutes or so. we've seen several helicopters circling overhead. broward county sheriff's and others. as we heard from the sheriff of broward county, about an hour or so ago, this is still a fluid scene. it does seem, obviously, like
it's way more under control than it was just a few hours ago. they just put up that yellow tape. we're seeing a very large law enforcement presence from all over the southeast part of florida here. the difficulty now is in canvassing all the passengers and people that are still here on the scene. there are several hundred people that can't go anywhere because the airport is shut down. and as you can see behind me this is terminal 2, this is where the shooting took place on the lower level in the baggage claim area. this is an air canada and delta terminal. and just to give you an idea this is the second floor, this is where the de par tours leave. the lower floor, the baggage claim area where the shooting happened is the arrivals. still, so much to piece together in this. one thing i did want to point out i asked the sheriff of broward county perhaps they identified a vehicle belonging to the shooter here at ft. lauderdale international airport. he told me they had not. we did see a large group of officials heavily armed going
through the parking structure, so we were he still trying to figure out exactly what details might give us an idea of what was going through the shooter's mind and if this was something that was planned or if he was responding to an altercation on the plane as some of our sources have been saying. >> boris sanchez on the scene. joining me on the telephone is senator marco rubio of florida. senator rubio, thank you very much for taking the time. >> thank you. thanks for having me on. a terrible situation. >> our thoughts with you. a tragedy in your home state. if i can begin, can you tell us if there's any uptated information on the shooting? what can you tell us? >> well, i want to be very cautious about what we share because i think it's a fluid situation. i think you've already probably reported the name of the assailant, i think you've reported. there are still some questions whether -- it's clear he was an inbound passenger. that seems to be some confusion as of 15 minutes ago still among the agencies about whether he was inbound on an international flight or domestic flight but
from outside the continental united states. i think, obviously, the other thing that's going on and you're probably seeing images of it, is they're just trying to make sure this thing is finished. there's always this concern if it were some sort of coordinated incident you would have one attack to draw in first responders and law enforcement and the secondary attack to target them. we know those are tactics that have been discussed in the past. that's part of what you're watching. then it goes to preserving evidence because if, in fact, this turns out to be a domestic prosecution they have to be able to prove it in court. so all of that is going on simultaneously. even as they are trying to run as much information as they can about this individual across data bases to try to begin to piece together what happened here. >> are you seeing any information, any indication, this was a coordinated attack, beyond a lone gunman? >> no. as of now, nor have any of the agencies indicated they suspect it. they've got to rule all of that out. they will take every precaution
on the ground. our immediate interactions with the fbi concluded that while their involvement because of the investigative capability and because it involves abation there could be -- aviation there could be federal criminal violations here, in fact there no doubt is, they do not at least initially see this as some sort of an act of terrorism in terms of what we normally associate with terrorizing. as of this moment anyway that's not the way they're approaching it. i'm not sure they've ruled that out. they have to gather information. >> we know throughout as we ask you these questions, it's early, the picture incomplete. we're hearing from law enforcement sources here in washington that this passenger had witnesses say he had some sort of altercation on the flight before he then retrieved his weapon from his bags and then carried out his shooting. are law enforcement sources there telling you any more about that? whether they believe that was the motivation? >> well, i'm not prepared to say
that was the motivation. i know that was mentioned as a potential cause and they wanted to kind of look into that a little further and get to that point. i think what they'll probably be troubled by the attack did not seem targeted at specific individual, but rather just kind of widespread across the baggage claim area. but that was, in fact, one of the potential causes that was brought up among several others. but we're not trying to be evasive. i certainly am not. truly they don't know. just a few hours removed from this happening and they have to piece all of this together before they know more. one of the things that's unusual about it is, if you wanted to shoot up the baggage claim area of any airport in america you don't have to fly there on an airplane, check it in your bag and wait for the bag to come out. you can just drive up, walk in and do it. so i think that's putting some doubt in their minds about premeditation in terms of that being a specific target. but again, we'll learn more, i
imagine, over the next few hours and days. >> we know the name or multiple sources have told us the name esteban santiago. we're also told that he had a military i.d. on his person. i'm curious if you know any more about his background? for instance, whether he was an active or former military service member? >> no. i can tell you that is the name, the name that i've heard from multiple sources now and the military i.d. component. i did ask the question whether it was an active military i.d. and they didn't have the answer at the moment. i asked local law enforcement, the first to kind of move on that front in terms of identification. my understanding he is in custody and injured, so i imagine he's been transported to a medical facility. i don't have any more. i would say one thing the name, if you ran that name on just a public data base, obviously, without knowing more about who it was that's not an uncommon name. esteban is not an uncommon name.
spanish. and santiago is not an uncommon name. it's not garcia or perez but it's not uncommon. i imagine they're trying to make sure they have the right person. through that i think the passenger manifest from the airline is probably brought into some high level certainty at this point. as of now there's nothing in what they know about this individual that has led them to change any of the assumptions that i've outlined to you earlier here in this conversation. >> well, senator rubio, we thank you for taking the time and we're sorry that you and your state have to have experience violence like this. >> well just know that our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those that have lost their lives and several others that have been severely injured and as a result of this attack and we pray for them and hope that they will be able to make a full recovery. >> no question. we'll be thinking of them as well. senator rubio, thanks very much. >> thank you. >> i want to go to cnn aviation correspondent rene marsh. rene marsh, can you tell us what you're learning most recently
about the shooter and the investigation so far? >> well, just to reset, jim. we know the name of the shooter is esteban santiago as you've been mentioning there. he flew from alaska to florida. we do know, again, that gun was checked in his checked luggage. he had declared that weapon. and then he retrieved that weapon and that's when he opened fire after getting off of his flight. now, you know, many people may not realize, but he went about this all very legally. tsa rules are very clear, they state what the rules are for carrying a gun on board. you can legally carry a weapon as well as ammunition only in your checked luggage. you cannot carry that in your carry-on luggage. that's exactly what this individual did. however, when you do carry it in your checked luggage, it has to be unloaded. it has to be in a hard, locked case. and again, you have to declare
it to the airline at that ticket counter. so to our knowledge, this traveler, esteban santiago, did all of those things and he did all of those things very legally. however, you have a problem which we've talked about time and time again, with these airports, we saw it happen in istanbul where you have the soft targets of the airport that essentially if you talk to any law enforcement official, it really is virtually impossible to get the vulnerability down to zero. anyone will tell you that. and so this particular area where he opened fire, the baggage claim area, of the airport, wit yit was not by the checkpoint that is considered the soft target and he essentially took advantage of that and that is why we are where we are where the latest numbers are that five people had been shot dead an and we do know
eight were transported to the hospital. >> to be clear we're showing live pictures there. we continue to see police activity on the tarmac. even on some of the highways leading into the airport terminal there, blocking traffic, et cetera. but also to be clear, a little less than an hour ago, police said they believe there is no active shooter still present, that it looks like this shooter who is in custody acted alone. have they changed that assessment? are they still acting as if there could be other assailants there? >> well, when we did get that update they did tell us that they had cleared everyone out of that vicinity because they had their s.w.a.t. team coming in and they were -- their s.w.a.t. team was going inch by inch throughout that area looking for others, potentially, but they did say they strongly believe they had their one shooter. however, they want a sterile situation so that not only can they make sure 100% that the threat is gone, but also looking
for evidence because they need not only physical evidence, but, of course, they're going to want to look at that tape as well, that tape is going tell a lot as far as how long did this all go on. that tape will tell them exactly where he was standing, who he was aiming at, how he went about this as he opened fire on these innocent travelers, jim. >> rene marsh, thanks very much. please stand by. i want to bring in niegel nelson, he was there. he heard the gun shots as he waited in the security line. niegel, you think you may have been close to the shooter as this happened? >> pretty close, actually. so i was in the line waiting just about to step through the screening area when we heard the shots and there were people running behind us and screaming, security personnel screaming run run run. we ran. we were led out by the flight attendants and so on on to the
tarmac. there we waited until about an hour or so when we got information as to what was happening. they tried to provide refreshments. >> i understand you may have heard more gun shots following that initial round of gunfire? >> this was about say 45 minutes to an hour after we were on the tarmac waiting when they got us all together and said that they they've pretty much secured the building or secured the terminal and they were trying to get us inside. get us back inside. >> understood. >> that's when we heard shouting and screaming again and people started scurrying away. i heard at least two more shots. then, of course, we started running. >> i understand in that panic, you lost your shoes, just a sign of how quickly people had to get out of there? >> well, actually, i was, like i
said, i was just about to step through the security screening. i put my shoes, phone, wallet, all my belongings into the trays. they were able to go through. that's when the shooting started and that's when everybody started running. i had to run without even a belt on my pant, with everything. i just had to run. >> now what are you seeing there right now, as understand you're still at the airport? >> i'm still at the airport. we're -- i'm in terminal d. terminal 2, section d6. we were let back inside. we're told they're doing some amount of checks still. they did confirm with us a while ago that they saw or they phoned -- found something suspicious and they're going to do a controlled explosion within five minutes or so, so the announcement just came over to tell us that we shouldn't panic or anything. so we're still waiting.
they -- the security personnel they're moving around trying to keep us calm, trying to, you know, give us a sense of security and all that. >> well, thank you very much, niegel nelson, we here at cnn are glad you're safe. we want to go back to evan perez. i understand you have new information? >> you're welcome. >> all right. >> the fact that the suspect had with the fbi in anchorage alaska, recently about a couple months ago, he showed up at the anchorage office of the fbi and apparently exhibiting sh some kind of mental health issues. there was concern there. local authorities or himself. at some point he has checked into a local mental health institution according to officials we've been talking to. this is still part of the early investigation still putting together a picture of exactly where he's been, what exactly might have led up to this shooting. but what we're beginning -- what's beginning to emerge is a
picture of somebody who was exhibiting some kind of mental health illness, issues. he apparently checked himself in or voluntarily was checked in to a mental health institution there for some treatment. after he showed up at the fbi office in anchorage, alaska. after that, we don't know what happens next. we know that he did get on a flight from alaska and was -- flew into ft. lauderdale today. earlier we i think mistakenly said he had come through canada, but i think partly because of some of his initial interviews and statements to investigators, in which he indicated that he had come from canada. we now know that he, indeed, had come from alaska, had flown into ft. lauderdale airport earlier today, before he started carrying out this shooting. again, mental health issues is the picture that's emerging here from this suspect. >> that's right. i heard similar from u.s. officials earlier. evan perez, thanks very much.
tom fuentes with me in washington and phil mudd still on the line. tom, as you listen to that, we're beginning to get a clearer picture perhaps of the suspect and the shooting. >> it could be serious mental health problems. we don't know the cause of it. you know, we've had other incidents where somebody severely mentally ill does have access or owns a gun. which apparently is the case here. but you have situations where if somebody already owns a gun and then later gets mental health treatment there's no real way to find him and take the gun away. that's the possibility in this situation, he developed this problem mentally after he already owned the sgloon it's an issue that comes up so frequently with shootings that we cover, mental health, and that's one issue you hear from republicans as well, maybe they need to address the mental health issues as tied to gun violence. phil mudd, a lot of experience profiling bad actors tell us your view as we hear more information about the suspected shooter? >> i would step away from this and i think we will come up with
the unavoidable conclusion we have another tragedy in america that's not preventable because we have someone that has mental health issues who didn't intend before he got on the plane on killing somebody. two quick things. did anybody know before he got on the plane that he had anger issues that might manifest themselves on the plane and did he talk about an incident of violence. my guess is no, but guess is not good enough here. there's a second bigger question. is there anything we can learn? we're talking about the issue of how do you think about someone who goes into mental health treatment who has access to a weapon. i think you to do an after action here but i'm afraid we're going to step away and say in the america of 2017 this is just going to happen periodically. >> sadly, we come on the air with stories like this more often than we can coun. juliette kayyem, based on evan's information, the idea he arrived on ap earlier flight than we believed initially, and might have had some time to think about this before he acted?
>> that's exactly right. what i'm picking up on phil's point. what are we going to learn from this? obviously, you know, we have another major mass casualty shooting and there are debates, political debates, about guns and access to guns, but the other question i have, is if there was some sort of altercation or disturbance on an airplane, or around the airplane, what -- did officials at the airport, certainly plenty of them, whether it was at airline industry or tsa or local or state officials did they do anything or what did they do? i'm curious about that only because we have to train these officials to be able to deescalate problems in a world in which we have too many -- lots of arms and unfortunately untreated mental health issues. and so that would be one of my takeaways from this as we started the hour, you know, i said this was a suspicion, that this was someone who got on a plane and didn't intend on doing this. and how can we deescalate these situations before they lead to a
tragedy like this. >> just to reiterate some of that new information, learning now that shooter, one, had previous contact with the fbi, he was known to the federal bureau of investigation. two, that it is believed that he had mental health issues, possible mental health problems. in addition to that we learn as well there might have been altercation on this flight, an immediate perhaps triggering event. >> right. at this point we need to do the investigation. we need to find out what exactly happened. to the extent we can know it. we may never know what was inside his head that caused this to happen. and, you know, what his background is. so it's going to take more investigation to even have an idea of what happened here. >> tom fuentes, thank you. new information that being a photo of the shooting suspect here. i'm going to go to our evan perez. >> that's right. this is a photo that we have of the suspect. you know, there was not a lot of -- we checked his criminal background. not a lot in his criminal background. very minor stuff that he -- that showed up in the records.
and so this indicates that, aside from this recent visit to the fbi office in anchorage, alaska, there's really not much contact that police have had, law enforcement has had with him. we're told he has not shown up on any radar of anybody who is potentially extremist or radicalized. that's one of the first things unfortunately these days that law enforcement does when one of these cases happens, they check to see whether or not there's anything that comes up with regard to extremism. we haven't -- they haven't found any indication of that at this point. again, very few -- very minor criminal history is what we have in his background. and apart from just a couple months ago showing up at the fbi office in anchorage and exhibiting signs of mental illness that appears to be the extent of the law enforcement contact. significant law enforcement contact that this suspect had until today. jim? >> you're looking at the face there in that photograph of esteban santiago, the suspect in
so drop by and seize the savings! walgreens. at the corner of happy and healthy. if you have an image in your head for general douglas macarthur, it's probably this one, right? the iconic hat, the awesome sunglasses, before biden, right? douglas macarthur's sunglasses, obviously the giant corn cob pipe when he was the commanding general for u.s. troops in the korean war china sent hundreds of thousands of chinese troops over the border into north korea to help the communist side in the korean fight and general douglas macarthur went to president truman when that happened and he told president truman that he wanted the united states to wage war on china in response.
this is how the defense contractor, fat leonard, bribed officers of the u.s. navy's seventh fleet. in exchange those officers would allegedly give him classified information about the movement of u.s. navy ships and confidenti confidential information about other contractors that fat leonard would use to undercut them so he got the contracts. they even reportedly fed him information on criminal investigations into the bribery by his company so he could keep beating the rap, so he could stay ahead of the criminal investigations. fat leonard built himself a $200 million business supplying u.s. navy ships in ports abroad and he built himself that business by stuffing u.s. navy officers full of foie gras and cognac and other stuff. for example there was in may 2008 what the indictment describes as a "raging multiday party with a rotating carousel of prostitutes in attendance
party historical memorabilia related to general douglas macarthur were used by the participants in sexual acts." thankfully the indictment does not spell out which memorabilia was involved or which acts. i what do they have of macarthur's in the suite? i will say pictures of at least one hat and one corn cob pipe have been put on the internet over the years who say they have been been to the douglas macarthur suite so there's that to go on. but i feel like this story, the fat leonard story is amazing in its own right but because it's so amazing it's a really specific piece of evidence as to where we're at as a country right now because it seems impossible that a scandal this lurid with details like this hasn't taken over your newspar. it's impossible that somet this big and over the top d
ridiculous is not a scandal of national fixation. but it's really not. it's really not because honestly, where we're at as a country, as scandals go this thing can barely compete. there's no room in the scandal-absorbing part of our brains anymore because so many things are cooking all at once right now. for example there's the case of the health secretary tom price who bought and sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock in health care companies while he was writing and sponsoring and voting on legislation that would affect the price of those stocks in some cases he was buying stock in multiple companies then days later taking action as a congressman that would have the effect of inflating the value of affect of inflating the value of that stock he just bought. aspects of his stock trading while he was chairing an important health committee in congress were reported by the "wall street journal," by cnn, by propublica, by "time" magazine, tons of places but republicans still confirmed him
as secretary of health and human services well, sometimes that stuff comes due, news becomes history and now tonight propublica has a hair raising report that when preet bharara, the u.s. attorney in manhattan, when he was fired last weekend unexpectedly and suddenly by the white house, one of the cases preet bharara was overseeing at the time according to prublica was a criminal investigation into tom price and his stock trades while he was in congress. propublica is citing one source in their report. we tried all day to get further comment from anybody involved. the white house told us they weren't aware of any criminal investigation into health secretary tom price. despite repeated efforts to reach tom price himself and ask him if he has been notified he is the subject of a federal criminal investigation we got no comment from tom price or his department, from hhs about it. and, in fact, we didn't even get a no comment.
we literately got no comment. we got dial tone, nobody home. nobody even there to tell us no. usually what you get is "i'll call you right back" and then they never call. we got nobody. if anybody out there knows how to reach the department of health and human services, let us know. we couldn't get a single freaking person to answer the phone all afternoon long today. www.sendittorachel.com. this tom price thing this is the kind of thing that will hopefully result in congress making inquiries, it's no small thing for a cabinet secretary to be under federal criminal investigation just as it's no small thing for a u.s. attorney to be fired when overseeing an investigation, if that is what happened here. so that's a big potential scandal and we can't get anything out of the administration on it. maybe congress can. that said, congress is busy
right now on monday morning in a normal universe the biggest thing going on would be the start of the confirmation hearings for neil gorsuch, the nominee to be the next supreme court justice. that is obviously a big deal. those hearings are expected to go on for four days. starting monday democrats will likely oppose him in large numbers if not unanimously. they may act procedurally to slow roll his nomination as long as possible. substantively democrats appear to be focusing on his work defending torture and his enthusiasm for guantanamo during the george w. bush administration, but lines of inquiry can be hard to predict before these things get started. so we will see starting monday morning. that said i have to tell you even the confirmations for a supreme court nominee are likely to be overshadowed bthe other hearings that are starting on capitol hill at the same time on monday morning.
monday morning 10:00 a.m. eastern we get the first public congressional hearing into the links between the new administration and russia. former intelligence director james clapper and fbi director james comey are due to testify monday morning in the first open session testimony that we've got about the russian intervention into the election to help donald trump and any ties that may exist between russia and the trump campaign. we have reporting our hearts out on this all day and i can tell you there are a lot of rumors circulating right now as to what director comey will testify about on monday. what he will or won't describe in terms of ongoing investigations into links between trump and russia but despite our best efforts it's rumors only, nothing we can report with confidence as to what comey is going to say. in this case we'll learn what he has to say by waiting.
he's going to be testifying monday morning. also today the other inquiry in the senate they made their first announcement about what will be their first public hearing into the russian attack on our election. senator richard burr on the left, senator mark warner on the right announced today about a week and a half after we get comey and clapper testifying on russia on monday, a week and a half later on thursday, march 30 we're going to get the senate starting their inquiry into russia as well and the senate hearing, something i would sign up for if it was a college class and i was still a surly college student. look at the title. i have to say, this sounds awesome "disinformation, a imer in russian active measures and influence campaigns." really? and it's in two parts, the first part in the morning is going to be the history and characteristics of russian disinformation campaigns and the second part is the role and
capability of cyber operations in support of those activities. yes, please and can i sign up for office hours now with the t.a. and the professor. that sounds great. what's the title again? "disinformation, a primer in russian active measures and influence campaigns." i would read that if that was a novel. but that was just announced today. that's going to be on thursday, march 30. and we also got a related big piece of news today in the form of something that basically in the form of something that wasn't announced. you might remember earlier this week the nsa, fbi and cia all got a letter from the top republican and the top democrat on the house intelligence committee. that letter asked about this guy, michael flynn. you know, it's a scandal in itself. it is a scandal surpassing and
even eclipsing the alleged use of douglas macarthur memorabilia in a u.s. navy sex and bribery ring in manila. it's a scandal of immense proportions that the national security adviser had to get fired 24 days into his tenure because of the content of his communications with a foreign government, with russia. that's an enormous scandal in its own right. one that has a lot of unanswered questions still around it. one of the important things that remains unexplained about michael flynn's firing as national security adviser is how anybody knew what he was talking to the russian government about. michael flynn's calls with the russians were apparently listened into by u.s. agencies who were surveilling those calls. it's one thing to listen in on russian government officials but americans are not supposed to be surveilled by u.s. agencies unless there's a court-ordered warrant that says it's okay to do so. michael flynn was surveilled. why? was michael flynn the subject of a warrant?
if so, tavis warrant for a criminal investigation? was it a warrant for a counterintelligence investigation? and in either instance, if he was on the warrant, if there was a court-ordered warrant to surveil him because of one of those types of investigations, how did the white house end up appointing him to be national security adviser under those circumstances? so the cia, the fbi and the nsa all got a letter demanding that information about michael flynn by today. why was mike flynn surveilled? why was mike flynn -- why were his contacts with the russians surveilled by u.s. agencies. tell us by friday, march 17. tell us by today that letter sent to the nsa, fbi, cia, sent to them by one of the committees that oversees those agencies, fbi, cia, nsa, they can't refuse to hand over this information to the intelligence committee. but apparently they're not doing it.
i almost can't believe it. this is really, really not normal. the intelligence chair p out a statementoday crcally worded but what it says is that of these three agencies who were sent this letter told to explain this michael flynn thing, of told to respond to this, of nsa "partially responded." they say they will fully respond by the end of next week but the cia and fbi haven't responded at all. they haven't said beep, at least not by 9:00 p.m. eastern time. that's nuts. that's impossible. that's at least not normal. that is at least a really big national security deal. i know it seems like an arcane thing about who you you agencies like the fbi and cia won't hand over information like this to the committees that oversee them, that's a big national security deal. that's not the way things work
. those agencies may not want to hand it over, but they have to. they certainly may not want to release that information publicly but they really do have to release it confidentially to the committee. these agencies are overseen by congress, they cannot say no to a request like this from congress, but apparently they're not answering. that's really strange. what's going on with that? one possibility is that mike flynn ended up on that surveillance in error. that it was done improperly or illegally they shouldn't have in that case the fbi and the cia may be trying to get its ducks in a row because it may be people who work to those agencies are about to get in big trouble.
another darker possibility is that there is some damming information about michael flynn, about him being the subject of a warrant and maybe the trump administration folks who head up the cia and department of justice are impeding because it will look bad for mike flynn and the administration. i don't know. we don't know. but the fbi not responding to the intelligence committee? that doesn't fly. our constitution doesn't work that way. they have to respond and their non-answer is a big deal. the russian attack on our election last year, the unexplained connections between the trump campaign and russia during that time, during the time of the attack, the strangeness, particularly, the strangeness of the fbi in its treatment of this matter, it's unsettling it's unsettling not just because this is one scandal among so many scandals for this young administration, so many scandals that some are being
ignored because they're not big enough to warrant attention amid other scandals. right? this is unsettling not because it's one scandal but because if the worst is tru if the presidency is effectively a russian op, if the american presidency right now is the product of collusion between the russian intelligence services and an american campaign, that is so profoundly big we not only need to stay focused on figuring it out, we need to start preparing for what the consequences are going to be if it proves to be true. we need to start thinking about how we're going to deal with the worst revelations if they do come to light, if they are proved true. so tonight we're doing a special report. tonight what we're going to do with most of the rest of the show is we're going to start to try to do that thinking. tonight we are going to talk to some of the people who were the first victims of what happened to us as a country when the russians launched the attack.
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new staffer got there his job got suddenly very weird because something weird started happening in the campaign and it became his beat, his unexpected responsibility to try to make sense of it, to try to explain it, this thing nobody planned for which is that russian government hackers had broken into the democratic party's computer servers, helped themselves to anything they wanted. those lifted documents and e-mail stolen from the democratic party and ultimately from the chairman of the clinton campaign ended up becoming ammunition in an attack on the u.s. election, an attack designed to weaken the democratic candidate, weaken the democratic party, disrupt their strategy, disrupt their communications and ultimately help the republican candidate, donald trump, win the election. it's easy enough to say that now but in the moment, in the chaos of the campaign it was hard to persuade the public to pay
attention to that bigger picture, that the election was being disrupted it was being tilted. it was being externally operated on by a foreign government in favor of the candidate that that foreign government preferred. but for that new clinton staffer whose job it was to deal with this, this was his life. he was living this everyday. as that campaign nightmare was playing out it became this new staffer's job to learn everything there was to know about this hacking so he could explain it to the world and answer everybody's questions about it. he watched this hijacking of our election in realtime, he saw clues about what was happening early on, he had to figure it out fast, firsthand, live, and now as the country is woken up to the magnitude of what happened to us last year that staffer is ready to talk about it and i think his perspective on what happened is valuable in terms of us really understanding
what happened and starting to unravel it. joining us now for this special report is glen caplin, his responsibilities included answering questions about wikileaks and russia. thank you for getting a babysitter and coming back. >> thank you for having me back. >> i want to hear this so i'm glad you were able to come back so you started to tell thus story last night. i want to start again at the beginning. from your perspective what happened first? what was the first thing that got weird? >> well, the first thing that got weird was the "washington post" broke the story in mid-june that the dnc had been hacked and that was the first it started to get weird that -- >> you didn't have any indication before that report? that that had happened? >> we had indication once the report was happening, they
reached out to us for comment and we were aware of the story a day or two before it broke but that contact was the first we were aware of the dnc hack, that was the first time it got weird. where it got disturbing was when a couple days later guccifer 2 through d.c. leaks started dumping that information. >> and guccifer is -- guccifer 2.0 is like a hacking nom de guerre? it's a persona? >> it's a persona that is believed to be russian intelligence by cyber experts. >> and the guccifer 2 leaks ended up on d.c. leaks web site which is something that didn't exist prior to the campaign. nobody ever heard of. >> correct. and that dump was a massive amount of data, of documents that was not user friendly and was very harto get your arms
around. it didn't get an enormous amount of attention. >> what kind of documents was it? it was all internal to the democratic party. was it donor lists? >> donor lists, research, books, which is a compilation of clips of vulnerabilities of yourself and your opponent, a donald trump research book. >> so democratic oppo research on donald trump. >> right, but remember at that time donald trump wasn't paying for self-research so the fact that that research book was in there was quite interesting to us. and we believed very -- from the first dump that this was intended to help donald trump and undermine hillary clinton and the democratic party. this wasn't about her -- trying to hurt both sides or just undermine the election itself. >> i remember reporting at the time that in the case of the oppo dossier -- the democrats oppo dossier on donald trump there is -- that being published in june meant that any
ammunition the democratic party politically had against trump was then spent. was this out there. >> it felt like a gift to donald trump. . >> yeah. >> that research book being out was not hurtful to donald trump. that was a gift to donald trump. that was one of the tells that very early on this was about hurting us. >> so that happened when? >> mid-june. >> what happened next? >> well, what happened next was the wikileaks dump on the eve of the democratic convention. so if you think about it, this is sort of three shifts, the first is a dump of information in the first place. the russians have done espionage for decades. that's not new. every campaign for going back for years has probably been surveilled and there's been espionage. it was the information actually being weaponized and put into the public arena that was new. >> what do you mean by weaponized? >> put in the public arena as opposed to collecting
information for a foreign government's information and knowing what campaigns are thinking and things like that, which is the normal -- >> rather than them stealing it to use for themselves as the russian government, they were redeploying it into the american bloodstream to have an effect on the way we were dealing with each other as americans. >> correct. >> you talked about how there was a big shift, an operational shift that you saw between that guccifer -- the first leak and the wikileaks one, that it was more sophisticated in terms of how it could be weaponized, how it could be used here. >> correct. >> i hadn't i want to get into more detail with you on that in just a second. glen caplin, senior spokesperson for the hillary clinton campaign specifically on the issue of the russian attack at the time. we'll be right back with more. you have access to in-depth analysis, level 2 data,
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>> meaning? >> meaning traces on the actual documents. you could tell there was russian language on. it. >> so you could tell it was russian hackers? >> correct. now we're going to last week timed on the eve of the convention, highly searchable user friendly search function, we could very easily cull the wheat from the chaff in terms of the e-mails and reporters were able to very quickly search for the bernie e-mails or the dws e-mails. that got metastasized very quickly. >> you said in the earlier leak you talked to somebody who was an expert in these things who told you the russians were good at obtaining stuff but bad at deploying it for propaganda purposes. the second round, the second level of the attack cured that problem for them. >> correct, and the guccifer 2 persona claimed publicly to have given that information to wikileaks at the time. >> what was the affect on the campaign?
obviously the timing was insane i'm going to? this all happened the day after the end of the republican convention, the weekend -- literally on the eve of the democrats convention. what was the effect? >> it created a lot of stress on the campaign at the convention, there's no question about that. but it's hard to overstate how disturbing it is to have this unprecedented intrusion in our democracy. and we tried very hard to tell that story from the candidate herself, she spoke about it in all three debates. campaign chairman john podesta spoke about it, campaign manager, robby mook. communications director, all down the line. we tried to tell the story of this unprecedented disturbing intrusion in our democracy and unfortunately -- >> didn't stick.
>> the coverage tended -- was more about what was in the e-mails as opposed to why the e-mails existed, who is responsible for putting the e-mails into the public discourse and why. and that was frustrating. >> and your job was to try to explain this to people in a way that would make them get it, it was just a completely unreceptive media environment. >> i think there are a couple lessons that need to be learned. i think political campaigns have a lesson to learn because this is not a theoretical threat, this is a real and present danger for every campaign going forward. this is something they have to deal with. so political campaigns have to learn the lesson of how they protect their information going forward. i think 3w45ed needs to learn the lesson of how do you cover something like this when an adversarial foreign government wants you reporting on the details of this information.
in the end, none of the e-mails themselves were particularly damaging but for the last 35 days of the election it was a head wind that was constantly in the news and what does government do? and that's why it's disturbing to see a president who rather than taking this issue on doesn't believe the intelligence. >> did you feel like you had support from the administration in terms of dealing with this as a national security concern or a crime? >> the administration on october 7 attributed this hack to the russian government but what happened on october 7 was after the announcement you had the "access hollywood" tape and then an hour later you had the first dump of podesta e-mails. >> from wikileaks. >> so one wonders if there's a coincidence or not.
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i want to bring in his boss, rob -- robby mook who ran the clinton campaign. mr. mook, thank you for joining us tonight. >> my pleasure. >> let me ask you about this point glen was make about how frustrating it was to feel like you guys were describing this accurately, you were putting appropriate emphasis on what was going on here about the outrageousness and the unique nature of the fact that russia had interfered in the campaign but it just couldn't be heard. i know you well enough to know from our conversations on the air to know you were frustrated. looking back with a few months in hindsight do you feel like there's anything different you could have done? is there something you wish you could have changed about the way you handled it to make people understand better? >> it's a good question. i think we were frustrated because as glen said, when the story first came out in the
"washington post" it was a one and done. i know when that first leak through wikileaks happened at the dnc i was on tv sunday morning trying to point to the fact this was the russians and part of a strategy and i think most people just treated it like spin and i think part of that is just because it was so unprecedented. it seemed like something out of a spy novel or something. in retrospect, i wish we could have tried to muster more national security officials to work with reporters and background them to really understand how it wasn't just that this was very possible but it had to be true based on, as glen said, there were russian -- there was russian language in the metadata, the hackers that went into the dnc, they were observed for a little while before they pulled up the drawbridges and they were working russian hours. they weren't working on russian holidays. it was totally clear that this is what's happening and i wish
we could have done more to provide that information so it didn't seem so fictional really. >> and it's partly that maybe people didn't believe it, they weren't prepared to believe it but also even if they did believe it, i'm not sure people understood just how unusual and radical a departure this is from the way things go. we all hear about there being data breaches in private companies or government agencies all the time and we've sort of -- it's become background noise. this was an international atta by a foreign power to try to change our politics. >> that's right and to be honest with you, to this day it's not being taken as seriously as i think it should in some circumstances and i don't know that the urgency is there to try to root it out. because it's not just the fact that they steal information and selectively leak it out, there's also a network in place through social media to disseminate disinformation as
you said russian active measures to create confusion or spread things that aren't true. if we allow these sorts of behaviors to remain and become entrenched in our political process it could have enormous impact on the legislative process. that's what i'm worried about we complain about super pacs and how they over time through punishing legislators who don't vote the way a corporation or wealthy people like that legislators start to fall in line and they make a decision on how to vote with the idea that punishment could come and i'm concerned a legislator could say i'm not going to take that vote against russia because they could hack into my personal e-mail, the e-mails of my family, into my campaign, we cannot allow that to happen, we . that's why we have to take action to flechbt in the future. >> the prospect that this wasn't
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jen paul mary, one of your colleagues on the campaign, she said on msnbc about the trump campaign and the russians, i believe that there was collusion. i believe that the trump staff, trump associates in some form, were at a minimum coordinating with wikileaks. in the timing of the leaks they were way too prepared. when wikileaks came oud with their leak du jour in the morning the trump campaign was ready to go with their statement about that." she's saying her impression. what is your view on that point, what did you observe in that regard? >> there is a lot of connections to the trump campaign and russia that we need to fully understand. so yes, what jen is saying, i agree with. i think every american, whether they're a trump voter on are a hillary voter, deserves the answer to this very, very important question and we need
to get to the bottom of it. >> when you were seeing stuff happen in realtime, did you feel the wikileaks stuff that was happening and the trump campaign stuff, did it seem coordinated? did you see evidence of anything -- >> we were seeing rt tweethe wikileaks dump of the day before wikileaks did. >> that's collusion between russian government and wikileaks. >> roger stone ding the campaign said that he was back-channeling with julian assange. he seemed to predict the podesta e-mails. >> not a formal campaign adviser but a long-time associate of mr. trump? >> a long-time confidant who has publicly taken credit for paul manafort getting the job as campaign manager. there's a lot of connections here. follow the dots and the puzzle's coming together. we need to understand the full picture. but every single american deserves an answer to this question. >> robby, same question. obviously collusion is the big scary possibility here.
nobody said that they have direct evidence of collusion. in your experience of it, did you see evidence for that? >> well, as glen said, i think we've got to answer this question. it can be pretty simply done. congress can get to the bottom of this and they seem to be beginning that process, that's good. you know, as glen mentioned, roger stone admitted that there were some communications there. i would also just say, you know, let's step back for a second. the whole reason we're having the discussion about michael flynn and this wiretapping is because the nsa was tapping russian agents. and in the course of tapping those agents, those agents were speaking to trump aides. and so we know that there were conversations, we just -- we're waiting to find out what they were about. as i said, congress can solve this pretty quickly. the last thing i'd say about it, though, is it's so important that this not be seen as relitigating the election or partisan witch hunt. we've got to get to the bottom of this to make sure it doesn't happen again.
i've been encourage at least very much on the senate side, and we're starting to see on the house side, by partisanship to do this together. >> robby mook, glen kaplan, both formerly of the clinton campaign, thank you very much. i have a feeling we may ask you back on the same topic as we learn more. thanks, gentlemen. i will never wash my hair again.
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understand it. still it is an explosive way of looking at it for many people. you can fall mie on twitter and facebook. our coverage continues with mr. wolf blitzer in the situation room. thanks for watching. happening now, still under attack. top u.s. intelligence and national security officials warn russia is still targeting u.s. elections with an eye towards dividing the country before the upcoming mid terms. does the president still think russia's interference is a hoax? cnn learns that special counsel robert mueller is pushing to interview a russian oligarch and his pop star son. flat broke. prosecutors reveal former trump campaign chairman paul manafort
with congressman of the armed services committee and our correspondents and specialists are also standing by with full coverage. first, let's go straight to our chief white house correspondent jim acosta. given the dismissive rhetoric about russia's election attacks what is behind the latest white house display? >> reporter: the white house tried to show the world today it is serious. the top administration officials who insisted they are on the case had to grapple with one key question that kept coming up over and over again, whether the president takes the threat to american democracy seriously. >> the president has made it clear -- >> reporter: it was a show of force as the white house and now top administration officials from the director of national intelligence to the national security adviser to the fbi director to ensure they are ready to combat russian interference. >> we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by
be successful. we may not get that answer until well after the november elections are over. >> jim acosta at the white house. thank you very much. let's bring in our crime and justice reporter. what are you learning about how the fbi is now trying to investigate this russian threat? >> i think the fbi director took a much more serious, went further today than he has before in talking about this threat. i think it is also important to understand for him to go before the white house to stand on that podium and to answer questions is certainly significant, as well. for the fbi this is a top priority. the concern is that there are russians in this country that they are tracking that are in our institutions, are in our banks, are working at different companies, think tanks all working to gather intelligence and gather information much like we saw with the woman who was recently arrested here in washington, d.c. for working for the russians. this is a major concern that has been ongoing for the fbi for
quite sometime. certainly people inside the fbi feel given what happened in 2016 there is certain escalation that is almost touching or perhaps touching every fbi office in this country. the fbi director explaining how each of these offices is handling these investigations. >> you know there is a whole school of thought that says the only thing the russians will understand if they are doing this to the united states the united states has to do something to russia. a lot of e-mails, russian e-mails involving putin's money, that is something they might understand. >> of course. you talk to people, there is concern they are in our grid systems and some people say we are in their systems. we heard the presidents hint that we do this to other people, as well. that is an action that the intelligence community for all we know may have taken. it is not something that they will ever talk about publically.
A look at breaking news, politics and reports from around the world.
on the ms. universe pageant and his son is a pop star who recently released a new video which some have taken to be mocking the special counsel's investigation by poking fun at the elements of the investigation of potential russian meddling in the election. what this tells us now that mueller is still trying to set up this interview and they are still having negotiations is that the special counsel's team is very much interested in the con tours of the trump tower meeting and perhaps other relationships between donald trump and russian oligarchs. >> there are a lot of questions about whether then candidate donald trump knew about that meeting with the russians at trump tower in new york. what are you hearing? >> last week we reported that sources told us that michael cohen was saying that he had knowledge or information that trump may have known about the
meeting with the russians before it occurred. we asked the attorney about that and he told us that they were not aware and had no reason to believe that president knew the meeting was happened or that it happened before it was publically disclosed. cohen is claiming that he had knowledge of that according to our sources but at least the agalarovs are saying they had no information to shed. >> we are showing the viewers this video. it is interesting that the president, agalarovs, michael cohen all featured in the video. it's all so intriguing. thanks very much for that report. joining us now democratic congressman of arizona, a member of the house arm services committee. let's get right to your reaction to the news that the fbi
director christopher wray, the fbi's foreign influence task force is now working across all 56 fbi field offices around the united states. how significant is this development in the overall russia probe? >> it's a great development. first of all, it is a great development for democracy. we need to make sure the american public understands their vote is sacred and will be counted. i think it needs to be backed up by actions by the republican house and senate by putting money in election integrity bills and funding actual programs which we have not seen happen. >> is it possible, congressman, for the national security apparatus in the federal government to counter the threat while the president continues to undermine that effort with his own rhetoric? >> well, the best way to counter any type of threat is to create
a deterrent. the problem we have right now is we have a president who is not a part of our deterrent package. we have our apparatus pushing hard against russia and russian interference. the president comes out all the time and basically under mines that. that is where we find ourselves in trouble. i believe russia will take in calculations to start figure out we can probably get away with it because they will have president trump there at least for two more years to make sure that the blowback is not as harsh. >> it's interesting the national security agency director seems to suggest today that he has been authorized to strike back against foreign influenceers. is it possible that the president is taking the threat more seriously behind the scenes even if his public rhetoric clearly doesn't match? >> if it is possible, yes, it is
possible. i hope that is what is occurring. i would love nothing more than donald trump to start standing up to russia, to putin and the interference here. i think that would be a great thing for this country. he needs to match his actions publically, too. the russians have always been -- they only understand power. power projected by the person at the head of government -- trump needs to follow up with actual words and rhetoric and try not to undermine congress especially when trying to pass sanctions against them. >> offensive cyber operations, what does that say to you? what does that mean? >> well, i don't want to go into details. from the briefings we have had on the armed services committee there are tons of ways we can create deterrents for them to actually stop them. nothing i will say is a secret. there has been conversations
about where we release how much the oligarchs and putin have stolen from the russian people which is upwards of a billion dollars. that kind of threat usually is a good deterrent for many of these nefarrious actors. >> and you think the u.s. government should specifically tell the russians if you continue to interfere in the u.s. democratic process this is what will happen to you? >> yes. i have always been extremely foreright about that. the only way to stop russians is to say you are willing to go to the mat and fight. we need to show that there is going to be an offensive capability that will strike at them if they strike at our critical infrastructure and our democracy. >> today at the briefing the director of national intelligence dan coats said he is not in a position in his words to either understand fully or talk about president trump's
meeting about 2 1/2 weeks ago with vladimir putin in helsinki. do you think the president is deliberate lly leaving his director of national intelligence in the dark? >> what we have seen so far, yes. we have then this not just with dni coats but with others of national security apparatus whether james mattis or secretary of state making announcements and policies without talking to the relevant department heads. he runs wild. he thinks he is a 42-year-old ceo of a company that builds buildings when instead he is running this country. he needs to do it in an appropriate and mature manner. cnn has learned that the special counsel robert mueller wants to interview agalarovs, the russian pop star who encouraged the 2016 meeting with the russian lawyer promising
dirt on hillary clinton. could they be key witnesses in the overall probe? >> it can be. it is hard to tell where the probe is going right now. i think i respect mueller. i respect what he is doing. i can't peer into what he is trying to build out. but clearly there is something that happened here. the fact is the story around that meeting has changed multiple times. first the meeting didn't occur and then the meeting did occur. and now we know that there were eight people there. one was a former kgb spy. and then there was a phone call after the meeting. we don't know who donald trump jr. called because the republican parties had stopped us from getting the records from the phone company. so there is something that is there. we do need to follow it through. whether the pop star is relevant i don't know. the fact that there were so many
lies created tells me there is something relevant that is important. >> thanks for joining us. we have urgent breaking news coming into the situation room right now. a senior administration official is confirming that a russian spy worked at the u.s. embassy in moscow for a decade. we have details. we'll share those details with you right after this quick break. with an ingredientr brain originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.
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what are you learning? >> this is a russian woman who has been working at the u.s. embassy for almost a decade. she is hired by the state department as these so-called foreign nationals are. she worked for secret service and had access to a lot of information going on at the embassy. and officials at the embassy, regional security officers started to realize that all of these foreign service nationals have some relationships with russian government agencies. they seemed to find that a lot of information was going to the main russian security apparatus. and they realized they were getting a lot more information than they should have. the regional security officer found this about 2016, reported it up the chain and seven months plat later she was dismissed. >> she was a russian citizen working at the u.s. embassy, not a u.s. foreign service officer.
>> a russian citizen. >> how exactly was she caught? >> she was caught basically they did a sting on her. they started giving her information and she ended up giving it to the fsb. once they caught her red handed she was quietly dismissed. they weren't able to arrest her because she was a russian citizen. certainly the russian government wasn't very happy about it. >> when she was suspected of being a spy presumably they gave her information to see if she would distribute it to the russian intelligence community. >> originally -- it wasn't a lot of information here and there. it was just in drips and drabs. they realized the fsb was getting a lot more information. she had access to the intranet of u.s. secret service, the e-mail system.
we asked the secret service whether any national security information was compromised. one official told me that this woman didn't have access to classified information. the secret service laid out a statement that said the duties are limited to translation, interpretation, cultural guidance, liaison and administrative support. at no time did any secret service office had foreign nationals provided or placed in a position to obtain national security information. she had access to the intranet, the information that all secret service employees that aren't on a specific detail have access to as well as the e-mail system. >> she has worked at the u.s. embassy in moscow for nearly a decade. we will continue to monitor this story and see the latest information. thanks very much for that reporting. coming up, there is more breaking news. the white house brings top intelligence and national security officials in a dramatic show of force warning of russian
attacks on u.s. democracy continue right now posing a direct threat to the upcoming mid term elections. is the president on board? she was aggressively flirtatious and sources say boasted of ties to russian intelligence when she drank too much. now there is new information on the alleged russian agent arrested in washington. stay with us. you are in the situation room.
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we are following multiple breaking stories including officials in the briefing room earlier this afternoon warning about russia's continued attempts to weaken and divide the united states ahead of the upcoming mid term elections. our political and legal experts are here to discuss. what do you make of the show of force at the white house? >> it was most noticeable by who wasn't there which is the president of the united states who doesn't seem to believe this is a problem at all. the senate republicans, too, just voted down $250 million for security for the election. so there does seem to be a very substantial divide within the republican party about whether this is a problem at all. certainly, those of us who care about the integrity of our elections were encouraged by the show of force, but there is something about it that rings pretty hollow when the president
who is the boss of all of these people has said repeatedly especially in helsinki that he doesn't think this is a problem. >> dan coats was asked why the president's rhetoric on this very sensitive issue doesn't necessarily match their own rhetoric, the rhetoric we heard from coats and the others today. listen to coats. >> how do you explain the disconnect between what you are saying, his advisers and what the president has said about this issue? >> i'm not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened in helsinki. >> that is a pretty shocking statement from dan coats 2 1/2 weeks after helsinki and the summit between president trump and president putin. he says he is not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened in helsinki. >> it opens up the possibility that donald trump knows something that we don't know
about russian interference because of his conversation with vladimir putin. i think that it extremely unlikely. i think the truth of the matter is dan coats is asked a great question that is fundamentally unanswerable. the u.s. intelligence community, mike pompeo, chris wray, dan coats, anyone that you can name not named donald trump will say the russians interfered in this election to help donald trump and hurt hillary clinton except donald trump. that's the problem. dan coats can't answer that question which is why is donald trump the one not reading off the same song book? >> does it look more like the president is keeping his director of national intelligence in the dark? >> yes. it is shocking that this person, the director of national intelligence is not in the position to understand an
intelligence matter related to a geopolitical rival since the 1950s. it is astounding. you can almost hear his own voice saying to andrea mitchell again, say what now? really the fact that the intelligence community has this high burden of proof they have never had before to continuously convince the american public through the mediums and especially the president of the united states that there is credibility in the findings of these major agencies is shocking. we are less than 100 days away from the mid term election when everyone has promised everyone that there is continued interference. how can we not have a plan and that the people in charge of this are in the dark. >> why don't we hear the same narrative from the intelligence national security officials earlier this afternoon? we don't hear that from the president. >> that is the million dollar question. why? is it obvious the president is not engaged at the level that you would expect of a president. we wouldn't have needed to have
this show of force today if president trump hadn't cast so much doubt on what he believes, why he has these reservations about the conclusion that was reached by pretty much everyone in the intelligence community that russia medalled and did it to help him. if the president cared about the issue you would expect to have seen him there today and you would expect that he would have tweeted something about it today. his silence has been deafening on the issue. why? we don't totally know the answer. >> i think that is a super important point which is the reason that you have a show of force is because the president of the united states three weeks ago was in helsinki and said both sides are to blame and was asked directly the next day in a cleanup effort and said i believe the findings of or intelligence community, pause, could have been someone else. then you don't believe the assessment of the intelligence community. the reason he keeps saying this
because he doesn't believe it. for whatever reason whether conflated with his election victory, he doesn't believe it. it doesn't matter how many times dan coats, chris wray, mike pompeo, doesn't matter how many times they say it, he can't wrap his mind around it. is it something more nefarrious? we know he cannot do it. >> there is a bigger show of force. there has been indictments through the department of justice that rod rosenstein, well over 100 charges talking about the fact that the intelligence community is able to have a proof in some way. that is a huge show of force. >> button this up for us, your bottom line. >> what does vladimir putin have on donald trump? and what went on in that meeting? no one knows. apparently, the director of national intelligence doesn't
know. the core of the issue is what is the relationship between donald trump and the russian government? not just us in the news media but apparently the director of national intelligence, too. there is more news we are following including new details about the alleged russian spy arrested as she was about to leave washington. sources say some of her tactics were so alarming that people reported her to law enforcement. also, today's surprising testimony in the trial of former trump campaign chairman paul manafort. we'll have details.
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prosecutors are making their case against the former trump campaign chairman paul manafort charged with tax and banking crimes. they are laying out his record of luxury expenses revealing he spent millions of dollars on home electronics and landscaping. evan perez is over at the federal courthouse. what are you learning about how manafort was financing this truly lavish lifestyle? >> reporter: wolf, we are getting a clearer picture now from his book keeper, from his tax preparer about the greater financial picture that paul manafort had beginning in 2011 and 2012 when he was making over a million dollars from ukrainian clients to 2016 where he was apparently nearly broke almost
being without health insurance because he couldn't afford it. that is the picture we learned today. we also learned from them they spent pretty much all afternoon on the stand. they described not knowing of over more than a dozen of bank accounts that paul manafort had. these are secret bank accounts to the government, that he never declared on his taxes, never told the i.r.s. about. these are the accounts that they say were being used to fund this lavish lifestyle. we learned a little bit about his taste in custom tailored suits and saw a photograph of a jacket and vest made from ostrich skin, python vest, landscaping on a pond, apparently one of the biggest in the hamptons for his home. we heard from his landscaper who described how he spent more than $400,000 a year on maintenance of this landscaping at his home. really, what this is all
building to is the big witness that we expect the government to present which is rick gates. rick gates is going to be testifying that he helped paul manafort move some of this money from overseas, hiding it from the i.r.s. and from his accountant and book keeper. this is all part of the strategy here to show that he lied on these bank loan applications. as you said, he is facing charges of tax evasion as well as bank fraud. >> day four continues tomorrow. thanks very much evan perez for that. coming up, new information on the alleged russian agent arrested here in washington. she boasted about her ties to russian intelligence when she drank too much. more details emerging about the russian pop star and his wealthy father. will they speak with the special counsel, robert mueller's team?
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seemed to be a little bit sloppy when it came to her trade craft, so sloppy that own two occasions classmates reported her to law enforcement. experts say that doesn't mean she was any less valuable to moscow. >> i would like to present russia -- >> her skills weren't particularly impressive. she liked to communicate via platforms like twitter. her overly flirtatious approach left men wondering what she was really after. sources say she bragged about her ties to russian intelligence when she was intoxicated. two classmated repo es reported law enforcement. she pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent. she insists she's not a spy and says she won't cut a deal with prosecutors if it means saying she is one. >> if you're not an agent for a foreign government, you can't lie and say you are in order to
get rid of this. >> intelligence experts see the approach as just one of the tools in moscow's arsenal as vladimir putin tries to meddle in american democracy, an ongoing effort. >> we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by russia to try to weaken and divide the united states. >> past russian spies have adopted fake identities, used invisible ink, but the under the radar approach didn't seem to suit buttina. she had a racy gq photo shoot in 2015. she questioned donald trump about sanctions against russia at a nevada political event. as an american university student, she defended putin and
even claimed in class to be a liaison between the trump campaign and the russians. people who met her through school and political events say she was a little too friendly. she was quick to start playing footsie under the table and sidled up to older men at political events and asked them to be facebook friends. her lawyer admits her activities caught the attention of one of russia's security services. >> i think that anyone who is russian has to meet with the sfb when they go back and forth. >> experts say she was probably a valuable asset for russia. >> i think she would have been very valuable to the russian government despite the fact that she wasn't a classically trained intelligence officer. i would expect to see other versions of maria buttina. >> when investigators searches her home, they found a note in
her boyfriend's handwriting, how to respond to sfb offer of employment. it's unclear which of them it was for. her lawyer said sexism and skepticism about russia are tarnishing the case against his client. we will see what happens when she is back in court in september. >> u.s. officials are saying they don't necessarily believe this is an isolated incident. >> no. we saw so many administration officials out there today talking about russian election meddling. when i was talking to experts, they said there could be hundreds of maria buttinas walking around the united states and people who are operating a little more out in the open trying to execute on these influence operations. they said russia isn't just interested in defense secrets anymore. they want to create a propaganda operation and that's going to
require more people in the u.s. to help them. >> good reporting. thank you very much. coming up, there's breaking news. top intelligence officials warning that russia is still targeting the u.s. elections with an eye toward dividing the country before the upcoming midterms. does the president still think it's simply a hoax? and a senior official confirms a russian spy worked at the united states embassy in moscow for a decade. my mom's pain from
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A look at breaking news, politics and reports from around the world.
collusion, wikileaks collaboration, or any other impropriety related to the 2016 election, which i thought was the subject of this probe. i understand she appeared voluntarily. i am highly confident she will testify truthfully if called upon to do so. davis once ran a high-end prostitution ring and went to jail in the scandal surrounding then democratic governor eliot spitzer. >> the remorse i feel will always be with me. >> reporter: she has worked with stone over the years. and in late 2016, she joined his payroll to help him with clerical tasks. mueller's team has been looking into possible contact between stone and wikileaks founder, julian assange, as well as stone's contact with russia during the 2016 campaign. stone admitted to trading direct twitter messages with guccifer 2.0, which is now known to be an online persona for russian intelligence officers. but stone says the messages were innocuous. >> i certainly acknowledge that i was in touch with trump
it back. >> yeah, i followed assange's twitter feed very insidiously. i had a google alert and read every interview that he gave. you could foreshadow what he's doing miami not involved in any collusion, conspiracy or coordination with the russians or anyone else. and there's no evidence to the contrary. >> reporter: investigators have also been probing stone's finances and his personal life. people familiar with the situation say at least two witnesses were asked whether stone was actually the father of davis' son. earlier this week, stone posted a photo of davis and her child to instagram, with this caption. "why do fbi agents dispatched by robert mueller keep asking a number of my current and former associates if i am this baby's father? what does this have to do with russian collusion and the 2016 election?" now, andrew miller, another former associate of roger stone, has also been ordered to testify in front of mueller's grand jury. just another indication, wolf, of how prosecutors seem to be circling in around roger stone. >> they are really moving around that area. all right, thanks very much,
sara murray, for that report. now to the criminal trial of president trump's former campaign chairman, paul manafort. on the stand today, accountants who testified that manafort falsified financial documents as part of his alleged scheme to commit tax and bank fraud. our crime and justice reporter, shimon prokupecz, is joining us. shimon, what were the biggest developments today? >> certainly, not a big day for paul manafort and his defense team. this accountant, she's one of the people who was given immunity by the special counsel to testify, because essentially she said she helped forge some of these documents, she put together fake documents to help manafort to try and get him some loans. she also says that during -- while manafort was working on the trump campaign in 2016, he had asked her to fake numbers and some documents in billing, saying that he had received some money from an overseas client. so all of this really coming out today, at the trial, an important witness clearly for the prosecution. she was on the stand for most of
the day. she will be back on monday. she's expected to take the stand at 1:00. >> what can you tell -- what can we tell, shimon, where the prosecution is heading, based on what we've seen for so far the way they're setting up evidence of double bookkeeping, for example, fudged loan applications, and hidden offshore accounts? >> right, so, look, it's clear they have a pretty strong case. they have e-mails from paul manafort to this accountant, to other people. there are notes, there are conversations, that they know all about. it's a tight case, it seems. it seems like they have a lot of information. and really, what they're doing is, each witness is kind of supporting other theories, other witnesses, and in fact, i think what today shows us is this is all a buildup to next week when rick gates is expected to take the stand. >> shimon, prosecutors also questioned his claims about that apartment that he had in trump tower. what's that about? >> right. so that has to do with tax issues. he claimed that this was not a
rental property or that this was a rental property and not a personal property. it really has to do with how he was paying taxes, trying not to -- trying to avoid, essentially, paying some taxes, or paying less taxes, and the accountant testified he basically asked her to lie about that apartment, what the purposes of that apartment at trump tower was for. >> shimon prokupecz with the latest on that front. thank you, shimon, very much. >> joining us now, congressman mark beesy. he's a democrat and serves on the armed services committee. congressman, thank you so much for joining us. >> hello, wolf. >> when you look at all of these developments with roger stone and paul manafort, what do you think it means for president trump, big picture? >> oh, i think that it's bad news for president trump. and with his latest lashing out on twitter, you know, asking for the attorney general to fire mueller and end the investigation and put this to a close, it appears that the president is lashing out. he knows that this is serious business. he has proclaimed his innocence over and over again, but i think
that it's getting ing tting toe he's getting desperate. he seems to be very angry about this. lashing out at the media, trying to denigrate the media and say that the news that they present is not real. i think that he's in a lot of trouble. >> the president's perm lawyer, rudy giuliani, says the upcoming midterms in november, he says, they're really about impeachment or no impeachment, his words. at the end of last year, you voted in favor of an effort to launch impeachment proceedings against the president. right now, what evidence do you have that impeachment, high crimes and misdemeanor is warranted? >> yeah, and of course, you know, when we had the vote on the house floor, voted president to representative green's amendment that he had. but i will tell you, i don't think that the midterm elections is just about impeachment or not impeachment. as a matter of fact, i think that's an issue that's not that relevant at all. i think people are concerned about what happened in helsinki.
i think people are correspond about the economy and these tariffs. and just going back to helsinki very briefly, people here in texas were embarrassed by what they saw. and i thought the president had a chance to turn the page. many people think, was he compromised? is there something to that dossier? and when he was with putin on the world stage with cameras in front of him, he had a chance to be tough. instead, he let putin walk all over him. and i think it just further reinforced that there's a lot of fire to all of this smoke that's happening around this investigation. and he didn't do anything to move on from this. and with the latest revelations and everything that's going on right now with the manhattan madam, paul manafort and roger stone, it just appears to be getting worse and worse for him. and it also begs the question, why in the world did the republicans on the house intelligence committee think that now was the time to end the investigation? the american public just, in my opinion, don't have confidence in congressional republicans and
their integrity anymore. >> we'll see how that plays out in november, in the midterm elections. as you know, congressman, russia has now officially publicly responded to that news conference over at the white house yesterday, by the nation's top national security and intelligence chiefs. russian spokeswoman denying that russia had anything to do with cyber warfare in 2016 against the u.s. she says the two-year hysteria -- her words -- she says, the two-year hysteria mocks the entire political system of the united states. what do you make of that? and do you feel that the government is doing enough to counter the ongoing threat, right now, from russia? >> obviously, the russians will say anything to strengthen their position. and it's sad that in many cases, it seems like the president is also going along with this, trying to downplay what they did in the elections. and you know the history, wolf. before the 2016 campaign, the russians have always tried to influence our elections to try to undermine our democracy.
but they've found, in my opinion, players within the trump administration that may have -- that like the guccifer 2.0, that had contact with roger stone and it's really unsettling that they're not taking this more seriously. again, when he was with putin, he had a chance to be firm, be tough, and say, no, you can -- you have to stop meddling with our interference. and what's scary about this is that with the social media platforms that are available out there, it really gives the russians more opportunities, more tools, and a much easier way to communicate and infiltrate groups of people and organizations within america and they're just not taking it seriously. and what's so ironic about that, wolf, and sad at the same time, the same party, the republican party, that has gone around the country, trying to implement oppressive voter i.d. bills, everywhere, saying that they're concerned about the sanctity of the ballot. they're just letting the
russians walk all over our electoral system and the security of our election system. they voted to zero out dollars that would have gone to voting clerks all around the country to help protect our elections and to make sure that the russians can't hack into our systems. and they had the opportunity to vote with democrats on the house floor here recently. i spoke on the house floor about it. and they voted, again, to zero out that money that would have been helpful in these efforts. >> i want to switch gears for a moment, while i have you, congressman. i want to play for you a moment from the president's rally. he spoke for more than an hour in pennsylvania last night. listen to this. >> you know who the new star -- you know who that new leader is? maxine waters. [ audience reacting ] >> very low iq. low iq. no, no, maxine waters is like, she's like their new star. >> he's been attacking her for
weeks now. certainly not the first time he's attacked her. but he goes after her iq. a few weeks ago, he said her iq was in the 60s. what duo you think about that? >> oh, i think that it's absolutely terrible. and again, president trump has shown that he just doesn't know how to bring the country together. he continues to attack people, the same way how he did throughout the entire republican primary process, the same way how he attacked secretary clinton and others, even after he won the campaign, when most people historically in this country move on and turn the page. and it just shows just how childish and petulant he is. i believe that in his own words, that he says that he has the temperament of an 8-year-old. and he just proved it in pennsylvania. but what he really needs to be concerned about in pennsylvania is his bad poll numbers. of course, he narrowly won pennsylvania in 2016. but now people there are roundly rejecting him. and with the type of behavior and the way that he attacked representative waters, it's not
a big surprise. >> so you're from texas. i want to ask you about the situation on the border with mexico. as you know, more than 500 kids, children, are still being -- are still waiting to be reunited with their mothers and their fathers. the trump administration is now arguing that the aclu and other private organizations should use their resources to help locate the parents who have already been deported. and the federal judge is calling that simply unacceptable. what's your reaction to that, that there are still more than 500 children who have been separated from their parents? >> wolf, that is absolutely insane, that they would ask on nonprofit organizations to try to clean up a mess that they caused. i was down there with the -- on the border, of course, with senator gillibrand, not too long ago. and we saw kids as young as 2 years old that were separated from their parents. what the administration did was
also tonight, the kremlin is now weighing in, get reaction to all of that from a former white house cybersecurity official. to most, he's phil mickelson, pro golfer. to me, he's, well, dad. so when his joint pain from psoriatic arthritis got really bad, it scared me. and what could that pain mean? joint pain could mean joint damage. enbrel helps relieve joint pain, helps stop irreversible joint damage, and helps skin get clearer. enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events including infections,
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unified message sent by his own intelligence and national security chiefs. our chief white house correspondent, jim acosta, is in new jersey for us. jim, you're right near the trump golf resort where the president is staying. >> reporter: yep. that's right, wolf. and president trump is taking some time off at his country club in new jersey, with the storm clouds hanging over his administration, have also made the trip along with his smartphone, i suppose, along from washington. and one question the president is likely to work on during his jersey vacation is whether to finally talk with the special counsel, robert mueller. president trump arrived for a summer vacation at his new jersey golf club facing a potential hazard, that's nowhere near the putting green. the prospect of sitting down for an interview in the russia investigation. the president is receive nothing shortage of advice, as political strategists warn it's a trap. >> i'm not an attorney, but my political advice to the president would be not to sit down with bob mueller. the opportunity to make a misstatement, potentially, or to potentially get caught up on the word "is" is too great of a --
of something that could happen there. >> reporter: while the president's legal team is keeping the door open. >> i'm not going to give you a lot of hope it's going to happen, but we're still negotiating. we haven't stopped negotiating. >> at a campaign rally in pennsylvania, the president hardly sounded like he's warming up to the russia probe. >> now, we're being hindered by the russian hoax. it's a hoax, okay? >> reporter: mr. trump is still bending the truth when it comes to his relationship with the russians, telling his supporters, he's no friend of the kremlin. >> i'll tell you what. russia's very unhappy that trump won, that i can tell you. >> reporter: despite the fact that vladimir putin just reveal at their joint summit, he wanted a trump victory. >> translator: yes, i did. yes, i did, because he talked about bringing the u.s./russia relationship back to normal. >> reporter: democrats accuse the president of being at odds with his own national security team, who warned the world russia is trying stistill tryin interfere in u.s./russia elections.
>> the president was missing. and as you said, he was not only missing from that event. the next day, he calls it a hoax. and what president trump did in helsinki and what he did yesterday in calling the russian probe a hoax, it gives a green light to mr. putin to continue his activities here in the united states. >> reporter: and as one of the president's top intelligence officials conceded, it's not fully known what mr. trump told putin behind closed doors. >> i'm not in the position to either understand fully or talk about what happened in helsinki. i'll turn it over to the national security director here, to address that question. >> reporter: the president is still nursing his grudges with the media, disputing any news reports that he kept the queen waiting during his visit to britain last month. >> i'm waiting! so, i was about 15 minutes early. and i'm waiting with my wife, and that's fine. hey, it's the queen, right? we can wait. but i'm a little early. honestly, folks, it was such a beautiful, beautiful visit and afternoon.
but they can make anything bad, because they are the fake, fake, disgusting news. >> reporter: mr. trump again turned to the issue of immigration, this time trying to defend his past comment that mexican immigrants are rapists and criminals. >> coming down the escalator, and you remember what i said, they're sending -- do you remember that? they're sending. and i mentioned words -- i won't even mention them tonight, because there's a lot of young people here, but i mentioned words, and everybody thought it was wonderful. but then, about two days later, they said, did he say this? did he say that? guess what. what i said is peanuts compared to what turns out to be the truth. it's peanuts. now, getting back to the russia investigation, a source familiar with discussions inside the president's legal team says deliberations over whether mr. trump should sit down with mueller have been going on for months. the president is fully aware of all of these risks, we're told, but a source said the president has been advised that talking to
the special prosecutor would be a good thing for the institution of the presidency. wolf, it's unclear whether or not the president will heed that advice. we do expect rudy giuliani, the outside lawyer, to visit with the president, while he's in new jersey for this vacation week. but, at this point, wolf, i think it can only be described as crunchtime for a critical decision for the president to decide whether or not he's going to sit down with robert mueller. big decision coming, wolf. >> certainly is. jim acosta in new jersey, thanks very much. joining us now, anthony frante, the former director of the national security council cyber response team. anthony, thank you very much for coming in. we saw the nation's top national security chiefs yesterday make a very powerful case about russian interference in the u.s. elections in 2016. what they're doing right now towards the midterm elections. we heard a very different line, though, from the president last night. does that hinder the effort right now, the very different line from the president, does that hinder the effort to counter russian aggregatission?
>> yes, absolutely. first, i want to say that i was very happy to see the intelligence officials make that announcement. i think that was a huge step in the right direction, as far as educating the american people about the cyber threat we're facing from nation states. this isn't an election cycle threat, this is an ongoing threat to undermine our way of life here in the united states. and yes, absolutely, the conflicting messages, it's exactly what it does. it introduces so much doubt and it sends mixed messages, not only to the states and state officials, as they're working diligently to protect their infrastructure and their voting process, but also to the american people. >> and the fbi director, christopher wray said that there are now investigations going on in all the field offices across the country. is that a good idea? >> absolutely. i mean, those investigations never stopped. i was on the obama administration, carried over into the trump administration, worked this issue diligently with my colleagues on the cybersecurity direct rat. and the investigation never
stopped. essentially, this started in the summer of 2016 and still carries on today. >> yeah, my sense was if the president were really serious, he would have been at that event, wouldn't have been in the briefing room, would have been in the east room at the white house or the rose garden. he would have introduced all of his top security, national security chiefs. he would have made a very tough state, directed at the russians, but he was absent on that front. one individual who was there, general paul knackasony, head of the national security agency, also head of the u.s. cyber command, i want you to listen to what he said, because it's significant. >> the u.s. cyber command and the national security agency are tracking a wide range of foreign cyber adversaries and are prepared to conduct operations against those actors. our forces are well trained, ready, and very capable. we will work in conjunction with other elements of our government to ensure we bring the full power of our nation to bear on any foreign power that attempts to interfere in our democratic processes. >> all right, so that's a strong
statement. what i heard him say is that the u.s. as offensive cyber warfare capabilities to do to the russians what they're doing to the united states. but i didn't hear him say that the u.s. is ready to do that. >> sure. i mean, that is a very bold statement. i mean, one of the things that we are always concerned with while on the national security council is we wanted to de-escalate cyber effects operations. the last thing we want to do is continue to escalate and to cause havoc in our way of life. i mean, we have to appreciate that a computer network is involved in every single element of our lives. so, to conduct offensive cyber operations, we better be pretty serious about it and we have to understand the full effects. >> because the russians would understand that. they understand sanctions to a certain degree, strong statements. but if they are told by the united states, if you continue to meddle in u.s. elections, to undermine u.s. democratic institutions, the u.s. is going to launch an offensive cyber warfare attack against you.
we're going to release all sorts of information you don't want to see released, because the u.s. has great capabilities in this area, right? >> absolutely, of course, the united states absolutely has great capabilities in this area. however, the united states also has to consider their posture, their cybersecurity posture, because just as easy as we can launch these effects and operations against an adversary, an adversary can launch them against us. >> so is that why president obama didn't launch offensive cyber attacks against the russians, when he knew what they were doing leading up to the 2016 election? >> president obama did conduct various stern warnings and operations against the russians. i mean, it started with his in-person meeting, where he gave vladimir putin a stern warning. it continued for the first time in history. president obama utilized the red phone to issue a stern warning to the russians, told them to knock it off, continued with
economic sanctions. president obama expelled 35 diplomats, closed two facilities, and what a lot of people don't know is president obama teed up a variety of classified options. teed them up and handed them to the trump administration to affect. >> but he didn't authorize, he didn't give the go ahead to launch those operations. and the russians continue doing what they were doing. they weren't deterred and they're continuing to do it right now. >> well, we don't know if president obama authorized those operations. those operations would be classified. and it certainly is not something that would be advertised for the purpose of us not wanting to escalate the situation. the russians know what we did, just like we're watching the russians, they're watching our activities. so it is going to be interesting to see how this continues. i do think it needs to start with a consistent message from the white house and the government and we do need to help these states. >> speaking of a consistent
message, we know that in may, the white house actually eliminated the position of cybersecurity coordinator at the national security council. there also have been some major departures of cybersecurity officials at the fbi. so is that sending the right message? do the fbi -- does the fbi, does the national security council have the capability to do what it needs to do? >> so i think that's a fair question. there have been some departures. i do know the white house eliminated that position. i do think that position is important at the white house. coordinating the inner agency cybersecurity efforts is a difficult job and does require senior leadership in the white house. i was disappointed to see them dissolve that position. but i do know that team is working extremely hard every single day, probably some of the hardest-working people in the executive office building on the white house campus. at the fbi, that is a natural, natural result of people
giving -- contributing dedicated careers. those were decorated officials who served some upwards of 30-plus years. and that is just the cycle. i assure you, having walked the halls of the j. edgar hoover building and having walked the halls of an fbi field office, there are incredible men and women working, seeking the truth, investigating these matters every single day. and the fbi will continue to serve the american people. >> anthony ferrante, thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks. >> also, thanks so much for your service to the country over the years. appreciate it very much. >> thanks. just ahead, roger stone, the madam, and robert mueller. where will this new angle in the russia investigation lead? and as jurors hear testimony about paul manafort's alleged crimes, can the president effectively distance himself from his former campaign chairman?
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out exactly what robert mueller is looking for. they've known each other for about a decade. they've been friends, at points. they've been coworkers at points. roger stone worked on her campaign when she was running for new york governor in 2010, on this platform of legalizing prostitution and marijuana. and then more recently, at the end of 2016, she joined roger stone's payroll and has been helping him out with clerical work. but in all the people in this orbit that i talked to, nobody could really put their finger on when exactly they thought that kristin davis might know about roger stone that would be of interesting to mueller. >> ryan, how do you think it fits into the wider probe? >> i think the fact of her eccentric past is probably no t the big issue for the investigators. stone is known to have a lot of colorful characters around her. i think what sara said, the fact that she did this clerical work for stone, that she may have some insight into his personal dealings with other people that mueller's team is looking at, that seems more likely to be what's of interesting, similar to stone's other assistant, who
they want information from. >> and i assume they're really anxious to try to figure out precise will what stone's connection to wikileaks was, to guccifer 2.0, which the u.s. government now says was simply a front for the russian intelligence service. >> that's right. and roger stone has admitted he traded messages back and forth with gauccifer 2.0. he at times bragged about talking with julian assange during the campaign and then walked that back and said he wasn't in contact with julian assange. so the people around him and even roger stone himself are waiting t ining to be indicted. they think an indictment could be coming at some point. they say it's trumped up and roger stone has done nothing wrong, but they're also bracing for potential financial charges. they know that mueller is going through his past dealings, the work he has done, and the people he's worked with in the past. there's no telling what mueller could find along the way that he decides is worth prosecuting. >> i'm sure, sabrina, the
president is worried when he sees what's going on not just with roger stone, but with michael cohen in new york, and allen weisselberg, the chief financial officer at the trump organization, have been called to testify as well. i'm sure he's not happy about this. >> absolutely. and i think it's important to recall that although roger stone was removed from the trump campaign in its early stages, he has known trump closely for decades and he has acted as trump's most long-standing political adviser. and so i think if you look at the way in which roger stone increasingly seems to be a target of this investigation and you go through all of these contacts that he did have with the russians, you mentioned guccifer 2.0, he even took a meeting in may of 2016 with the russian national who went by the name, henry greenberg, who claimed to have damaging information about hillary clinton. i think one thing that mueller is certainly interested in is not just what were roger stone's activities and whether or not they were legal, but what specifically did the president know about what roger stone was up to at that time?
>> you know, ron brownstein, the president's legal team, they seem to be pretty confident that the president is not going to get an indictment from mueller's -- mueller's investigators. they seem to be, though, suggesting, you know what, we're going to play this out in public opinion right now. and they're trying to generate that kind of support, especially among their base. is that a safe bet on their part? >> well, look, the office of legal counsel, the justice department has twice determined that a sitting president cannot be indicted. but the first time they did it, richard nixon was in the white house. and the second time they did it, bill clinton was in the white house. each time, they had an incentive to reach that conclusion. it's possible, certainly possible that the special counsel could choose to challenge that if he believes the evidence warrants a criminal action against a sitting president. but it is more likely that they choose to take whatever they find and move it into the political arena. and i think on that front, you would have to say that the president is having one clear kind of effect on public opinion. he has mobilized and moved opinion among republicans to the point where republicans in
congress have been intimidated from really performing any kind of oversight. we're a long way before we start talking about impeachment. but today, you could be looking at oversight at many different aspects of these questions, including exactly what happened in helsinki, and rather than doing that, congressional republicans, particularly in the house, have been kind of more engaged in trying to undermine the investigation itself. so in that way, the focus on public opinion has been a success. the cost, of course, is that most americans believe the investigation is fair. the fbi is not biased against the president. that was both in the quinnipiac poll just the other week and the republicans risk, in essence, sending a message to any american who's ambivalent or complicate e-- conflicted about president trump, that they will not perform insight or constrain him in any way. >> do you think the president is going to sit down for an interview with mueller's team? >> for six or seven months, we've been -- >> going on since january, they've been talking about that, trying to work out some -- >> they really haven't made any progress. they've exchanged letters back and forth since then, and the
leaks have been, trump really wants to sit down and his lawyers are saying "no". it eventually has to come to head, right? we know from giuliani that the special counsel sent the white house a letter the other day, outlining maybe perhaps a more circumscribed set of questions. they have to make a decision now, and mueller is finally going to have to decide, does he give up hope that the white house is actual cooperating and issue a subpoena? and then there'll be a legal battle over that. just two points over what ron said. one, it's also worth noting that the prosecutor in the watergate case and in the ken starr's investigation of bill clinton, both believed that they could indict a sitting president, even though, obviously, neither did. so that issue has never been settled. but giuliani himself just said that their whole strategy is about impeachment. so they've publicly said that. >> go ahead. >> well, they want it to be about impeachment in terms of, they believe it will gin up more of their base and the other side in the midterm election. and i think, you know, we are a long way from that. but ryan's point, it just
underscores, really, how significant this fifth supreme court justice could be, on so many issues, brett kavanaugh. the questions of a subpoena, could a president be indicted? not to mention all the policy issues we're fighting, such as to revoke california's authorities on fuel economy standards, which just occurred yesterday. this -- on so many fronts, the critics of the president are counting as the courts to be a counterweight to republican-controlled congress that has been unwilling to function in any way as a counterweight, and that avenue could be significantly narrowed if this fifth supreme court justice is confirmed. >> that's an important point, indeed. we'll see what happens on that front. everybody, stick around. just ahead, a live update on that deadly fire raging in northern california. why fire crews are facing a much-harder task tonight. chicken?! chicken. chicken! that's right, candace-- new chicken creations from starkist. buffalo style chicken in a pouch-- bold choice, charlie! just tear, eat... mmmmm. and go! try all of my chicken creations! chicken!
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the agency is looking at cuts that could save more than $300 million in 2020. one cut -- reducing the number of air marshals, eliminating screening at small airports, staffing cuts at tsa headquarters and changes the benefits are also being discussed. tsa did not comment. juliette kayyem, a former official with department of homeland security under obama is concerned. >> ending security at certain airports and ending or flat lining the air marshal service are inconsistent. if you're going to decrease security at certain airports, what you would want to do is increase the presence of air marshals or other security features just in case. >> cnn revealed the most controversial cut -- eliminating screening at small airports like this one in redding, california, where bryant garrett is the manager. >> since i as the airport don't want to take on either the liability nor the cost and the
airlines don't want to take it on. >> we are the police, remain calm. >> air marshals are the last line of defense, armed agents aboard planes to prevent hijackings. critics have questioned its effectiveness but the tsa has defended the program as a deterrent. just as recently as may, the tsa defended the program. it raises the question about why the agency is discussing cuts now. cnn reached out to tsa multiple times but did not receive any response but the big question tonight is when you hear about all these cuts that are potentially big discussed here, it is a matter of the risk against aviation changing or is it that the agency under strict pressure to cut? >> excellent reporting, rene, thank you very much. breaking news next. the latest on the deadly build fire still growing in northern
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get out of hand. as fire continues to bear down on california, there is no relief in sight. after days of relative calm, high winds are fanning the flames. >> wind coming in clears the airspace so we can see what we're doing and have an aerial fire fight however it does mean increased fire activity. >> at the carr fire which has already destroyed more than 100,000 homes, hot and dry conditions have made the hillsides tinder dry with not a drop of rain in the forecast. >> what would happen is a shift in mother nature. >> in the small town of lewiston there's heavy smoke over the ridge as a non-stop cycle of helicopters drops fire retardant on the mountains. almost everyone in town has long evacuated but not james dibarello. >> my wife and dogs got packed but i stayed to do what had to be done. >> reporter: deborello has volunteered to feed their cats. and even their turkeys, too.
>> uncle james will take care of you. >> reporter: he has nothing packed and no plans to leave. >> at the wrist i'll jump in the river and let it burn over. >> reporter: armed with two water trucks and a friend, he's planning to defend his neighborhood even if flames reach town. when you look over the ridge and smee smoke, are you not afraid? >> when your number's up, your number's up. >> more than a dozen fires are still burning across the state, visible even from space. officials reporting friday morning the mendocino complex fire is now even bigger than the carr fire, threatening over 9,000 buildings. even as big flames have crossed over the ridge and toward the community of upper lake -- >> the kids have left, the grand kids have left. >> reporter: -- some like theresa pena are ignoring evacuation orders. >> i have to stay here until the flames are at my door because i got nowhere else. >> reporter: the good news for the town of lewiston is that
Interviews with political figures and news updates.
they're speaking from the same playbook. but this is a tough line to walk, andrea. >> ken dilanian, you had dan coats, head of national intelligence, questioned about the dissonance there. let's watch. >> in the run-up to the helsinki summit, u.s. officials, ambassadors to nato, ambassadors to russia, said that the president would raise the issue of malign activity with the president. >> i'm not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened at helsinki. >> ken, it does seem that dan coats and the rest of the team have still not been briefed on what happened during that private one on one. >> and that's remarkable, andrea. dan coats is the nation's top intelligence official. he needs to know these things, he needs to understand where the russians are coming from, and what potential negotiations took place between the president and the russian leader. this news conference was such a fascinating mixture of cynical
meddling. that's not saying whether the president has given authorization for cyber operations. as of a few months ago, i'm told, cyber command did not have that authorization from president trump. >> that's terribly important, obviously, for us to be going on offense. admiral stavridis, general nakasone had this to say, let's play exactly what ken is referring to. >> general, have you been ordered at all or authorized to conduct any offensive cyber operations in response to this? >> so my guidance and direction from the president and secretary of defense is very clear. we're not going to accept meddling in the elections. it's very unambiguous. >> again, that answer is ambiguous. but there were some hints from secretary of defense jim mattis that we might be ready to undertake offensive cyber responses. >> let me start by pointing out that surreal disconnect between the president and his four
intelligence professionals. this is kind of like pearl harbor in terms of an attack on the country, andrea. and this would be as though after the pearl harbor attack you didn't get the president coming out, instead you got the chiefs of the army, the navy, the marine corps, saying we're going to prosecute, we're going to go forward, we're going to defend the nation. this is a time when you really expect the president of the united states to be speaking to the american public. so let's really underline the strange aspects of this historically. in terms of offensive cyber, i know general nakasone well, he's a straight shooter. he's trying to keep on the inside highly classified information there. we have a great deal of offensive cyber capability. to date, we have chosen not to deploy it. i think that's a mistake. i think it's time we started to look quite seriously at a range of offensive cyber actions in order to retaliate for this ongoing russian activity. look, the thing with russians,
andrea, they have an old proverb which is that when you are probing with a bayonet and you encounter pu countecounter mush. when you hit steel, withdraw. we'll have to show some steel in the cyber world. i hope general nakasone is prepared to do that. i would like to hear more, at least to the congress on a classified level, about what options are on the table. let's time we took this more seriously than we have to date. >> and russia also misbehaving according to treasury sanctions today on north korea. that's something you know very well, what we're doing at sea, even, there's a talk that there's a multilateral naval force. i want to talk more about this dissonance factor. this is the president talking about kim jong-un and north korea at that rally last night. >> what i did with north korea was great. i got along great with chairman kim. i got along great.
i got the hostages back. didn't have to pay anything. they're not testing any more nuclear. they haven't had a test in nine months. and you know what else? they're not sending rockets over japan and they're not sending missiles over japan and they're not launching missiles anymore. they haven't launched one in nine months. >> at almost that exact moment, the secretary of state, admiral, was in the air, heading to singapore for a meeting of asian nations where he's going to talk about north korea and about compliance with sanctions. and he was telling the press on the record that they are cheating and that their neighbors are cheating. russia, china, others are cheating, breaking u.n. sanctions, which we now see the treasury acting on today. >> indeed. another remarkable disconnect. and, a, it tells you that the political season is really unfolding, and clearly the president is just throwing red
meat, red ribeye steaks to his base. but that is not doing our nation much good in terms of our security. and secretary pompeo is in exactly the right place, which is to evince frustration, to take action. and i think that if we are going to be serious about choking off north korea, it's going to require an international naval task force so that we can avoid the kind of sanction busting that we know russia and china are doing right now. here's the good news, andrea. at least we're still on a diplomatic track. and i will give the president credit ca credit, there have not been any further nuke tesclear tests or launches, but that program is continuing to build. we have to stop it. i think secretary pompeo is our best bet. >> thanks so much for that, admiral stavridis, ken dilanian, and kristen walker at the white house. breaking news, houston
police department announcing the man suspected of killing a local cardiologist, a well-known cardiologist, has now been found dead. police say that the apparent murderer committed suicide. dr. mark hausknecht was killed bicycling to work. he formerly had treated president george h.w. bush. he was celebrated in his field and he was tracked on a bicycle by this alleged killer who has now been found apparently a suicide. coming up, alternate reality. president trump declaring russia was not happy about his presidential victory. really? despite vladimir putin saying the exact opposite at that summit in helsinki? time for our reality economic. stay with us. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports on msnbc. and i'm stillt even though i live with a higher risk of stroke due to afib not caused by a heart valve problem. so if there's a better treatment than warfarin, i'm up for that. eliquis. eliquis is proven to reduce stroke risk better than warfarin. plus has significantly less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis is fda-approved and has both.
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directly contradicting what vladimir putin told the world in helsinki, that putin did want donald trump to win the 2016 election. also contradicting of course his own national security cabinet only hours earlier in that unprecedented white house briefing. joining me now, charlie sykes, contributing editor at the weekly standard, and michael steele, former gop chairman, both msnbc contributors. charlie, you're in wisconsin, in the heartland. what are people there saying about what we're seeing as dissonance, but perhaps it's working? >> well, this is the definition of cognitive dissonance. it was truly remarkable listening to that briefing yesterday and realizing that what they were saying contradicts what the president was saying, then watch them go out at that rally and once again undermine and undercut that entire message. if the point was to rally the
nation behind confronting the russian attack on our democracy, the president clearly cut them off at the knees. now, is it in fact working? i'm not sure. obviously the president's base is still behind him. but i think at this point in the midterm campaigns, we have to ask whether or not these rallies and sort of the bizarre dark forces that he's unleashing at these rallies is actually going to work with those swing voters or those soft republican voters who are going to be determining who controls congress. >> the other thing about this, though, was that he was actually doing something for lou barletta, one of his favorite republican congressmembers. but barletta is running against a very popular democratic senator, bob casey, and casey has a long, the, his family roots are in that district. but you have to win the suburbs of philadelphia in that state. michael steele, as a former
republican chair, you know that's not the way to reach out to the people in the suburbs. >> it is not. and i think that's one of the -- pennsylvania is a bellwether for a number of important races coming up this fall. and the fact that the president is so narrowly playing to a base, he feels good in that setting, he's having fun, he's riffing and cussing and doing this and the folks are loving it. to charlie's point, the rest of the country, the independent voters, center/right democrats and republicans, are looking at this and going, what is this all about? there is nonan inclination right now, i think, andrea, to empower that kind of mindset in washington any longer. and that's why you see the numbers for the president dropping. that's why you see the generic ballot for republicans holding on to the congress moving away from them. it's because of moments like we saw last night. >> you also see the tariff wars.
out where you live, charlie, wisconsin is being so hard-hit in dairy, in all kinds of ways. the farmers are being hit. and also the auto industry is potentially going to be hit hard by aluminum and steel. again, china today saying that $60 billion in retaliatory tariffs are heading our way. >> well, yes. i mean, you think about the jobs numbers we had earlier today. you would think donald trump and the republicans would be cruising with these economic numbers. but you have this cloud of the tariff wars over the economic numbers. we're the home of harley-davidson, iconic american company that's been attacked and vilified by the president. the larger point that michael is also making is that donald trump is this huge gravitational force distracting republicans from being able to talk about the things they want to talk about. they want to talk about the economy. and yet donald trump keeps
throwing out this chaff, keeps stepping on their own message. i can't help but think these attacks on the media, the rise of unhinged conspiracy theories, won't play well in the suburbs and swing area of states like pennsylvania and wisconsin. >> this stuff that works with the base, the polling is hard to figure. >> yes. >> we don't know what the mueller probe is going to be, and he's played that well in terms of demonizing mueller and any result of the investigation that comes. and at the same time, talking about a government shutdown, against the advice of every republican leader in the house and senate. >> you actually are raising a very important underlying point, i think, andrea, about, okay, so how does this really play out, given all these other variables that are still yet to fall into place, from mueller to whether
or not the president actually pursues a policy of shutting down the government sometime between september and october. for donald trump, that's his ace card. that's what he keeps up his sleeve, the idea that we're guessing, we don't know how these things play out. some of this is defense and offense at the same time for him, where he goes out here to sort of encapsulate himself in the love of crowds like this that sort of protect him from whatever may come from a mueller probe, for example. but it also gives him that leverage to push back if he wants to and threaten the party, ostensibly, with shutting down the government, and to, quote, say to them, you guys go deal with that, i'm having fun over here, you go deal with the mess that's created over there. it's a different form of throwing a bright shiny object and people following it down a rabbit hole. he's throwing many bright shiny objects in the air at the same time. and the question for the party is, are the voters paying attention to any of those, are there really focused on, okay, what is my situation right now
going into this november election? job numbers and all that notwithstanding, how does this play for me? and i think, back to your point about swing voters, i think those swing voters are moving away from the trump circus and focusing more on the fact that they want something a little bit different and this ain't it. >> i wonder how many evangelicals and family value folks, however we define that, are worried about the children and are also worried about the fact that we had to bleep the president of the united states at a public rally because of profanity today. maybe we didn't have to. let's talk about that later. turning now of course to the effort to reunify migrant families, with our thanks to michael and charlie, the trump administration is today trying to shirk the responsibility to reunite more than 500 children still in government custody. msnbc's jacob soboroff who has been on top of this border crisis from the very beginning has the latest from a court filing, jacob. >> reporter: that's right, andrea, we have a court filing
that came in from the aclu and the trump administration, the parties in this case. first, an update on the numbers. remember, 2,551 children overall were separated from their parents by the trump administration in a systematic way that had never been done before. as of yesterday during this filing, 572 of them still remain in government custody. they have been calling this category "ineligible for reunification." that word does not appear in the latest court filing, but essentially it's the same group of kids we were talking about before. 410 parents from that group were deported before they were able to be reunified with their children. what is most extraordinary, andrea, but what we learned in this latest filing late last night is that the administration is essentially suggesting that the aclu now go take responsibility for tracking down and reuniting these children with their families. to say this as clearly as i can, the party that separated these children from their parents is
now saying, look, we got sued, if you guys want to reunite these kids, you go find them yourself and we'll do our best to help you do that. it's pretty extraordinary. >> the last time i looked, we did not vote for the aclu to be running the government, or dhs, or anything else in this country. i think we voted for donald trump and his cabinet. >> that >> reporter: that's exactly right, andrea. the aclu is essentially defending themselves from this proposal, proposition, that will be talked about in court later today, by saying that the government essentially has endless resources. they have as much money, as much personnel as they possibly can. i talked to an administration official today who basically said, look, the aclu is on the air all the time talking about this issue, people are raising money to find these children. it's a preposterous theory, quite frankly. >> jacob soboroff, thank you so much for taking the time to bring that to us. coming up, lifestyles of the rich and infamous.
did paul manafort cook the books to support his very expensive tastes? we'll get the latest from the courthouse and from the world of fashion. stay with us, right here on andrea andrea on msnbc. oh! oh! ♪ ozempic®! ♪ (vo) people with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of once-weekly ozempic®. in a study with ozempic®, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than seven and maintained it. oh! under seven? (vo) and you may lose weight. in the same one-year study, adults lost on average up to 12 pounds. oh! up to 12 pounds? (vo) a two-year study showed that ozempic® does not increase the risk of major cardiovascular events like heart attack, stroke, or death. oh! no increased risk? ♪ ozempic®! ♪ ozempic® should not be the first medicine for treating diabetes,
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the first week of the bank and tax fraud case against paul manafort wraps up later today, as prosecutors describe the defendant's financial accounts and years of extravagant spending, especially on closets-ful of custom tailored suits including examples that are so fashion forward, we had to bring in an expert to help the legal eagles out. joining me now, justice reporter julia ainsley. harry litman, former assistant attorney general. and our expert "washington post" fashion critic. robin, first to you. pictures are not permitted to be shown of much of this in the courthouse to the jury. but we've seen the pictures. can you tell us who spends $15,000 on an ostrich jacket and what's the difference between python and ostrich? what does this tell you, if you
were doing a psychological profile of the person wearing these clothes? >> the choice of something like that ostrich or python, these are exotic leathers. they are, one, not that readily available, and they are also extremely expensive, and they are quite distinctive. someone who decides that's the way they want to go is someone who wants people to notice their clothing and who wants people to sort of see how expensive it is. i think it's also interesting that a lot of the suits, we're talking about custom made suits. but you can't really distinguish them from something that might have been purchased off the rack. they don't have any sort of particular personal flair to them. it's more about the cost. and certainly it's about the volume. and i think a lot of that suggests to me that this is someone who is not so much
interested in style as they are interested in quantity and price tag. >> conspicuous consumption. at the same time, according to the evidence, julia, that has been produced, especially the bookkeeper the other day, this was a man who was dead broke by the time of 2016 when he was volunteering to work for donald trump for nothing. >> that's right, andrea. the bookkeeper testified yesterday that around 2015 to 2016, the bottom really fell out for the manaforts. and today we've been able to get more into the finances as we've heard from the person who put together the tax returns for both mr. and mrs. manafort as well as the partnership, the company that manafort ran with rick gates. he said an interesting thing just now as i was leaving the courtroom, not only did manafort obscure some of the sources of his income, he did tell him about the foreign bank accounts
in cyprus, but he asked him to lie. he said, will you please say this is a private presence where my wife and i stay in new york so we don't have to pay taxes on it. and he wrote back and said, it's never been my understanding that it's your private residence, in fact it's a rental, a business expense, and you need to pay taxes on it. we're seeing that it's not just that manafort didn't keep track. he willfully, knowingly obscured these data points in his finances. that's exactly what the prosecution needs to prove in this case, that it was knowing and willful. >> harry, as the former prosecutor, how damaging is it that the judge here, who is apparently very well-respected by his colleagues, with his taking a very forceful role in arguing and directing both prosecutors and defense on how they should frame questions, even, and in keeping pictures of all of this extravagant closets
full of clothes, in keeping those pictures out of evidence so the jury doesn't see them, how damaging is that to the prosecutors' attempt to put some, you know, visual elements together as well as just these data points? >> he's tough. i've tried in front of judge ellis, and he seems to get a special flair out of really pushing on the prosecution. i don't think it's the case, however, andrea, that they'll see none of these. many of them were admitted. he refused to have them published, which is to say, passed along to the jury. but the jury in the eastern district of virginia will see them when they're deliberating. but how damaging? you know, a little bit. a little bit of flavor. but look, i think overall, prosecution is a storyteller's art. and they are definitely being able to pursue their story in broad strokes this week. and in particular, i think
heather washkuhn has emerged for nominee for best supporting actress yesterday, not that she's acting, but she was a devastating witness, i think. credible, position of trust, sees everything, and really buried him with the bookkeeping details. so we've had to date, setting the stage of the ukraine, then the ostrich jacket, and now all the bookkeeping stuff. even without the pictures, it's all going in very well. they'll see many of the pictures anyway later. and i think the stage is now set for rick gates to come forward and tie things up, probably no later than early next week. >> and robin givhan, from your article in "the post," you wrote, a man should not be prosecuted for his fashion choices. although maybe in some cases they should. those choices show who the man believes himself to be. manafort wasn't interested in bespoke fashion.
he wasn't buying designer brands as proof of tribal membership. he wasn't hunting down elusive products as testament to his cultural cache. for him, it's about accumulation of monopoly money, having the most expensive stuff. on top of his landscaping and everything else, what's so remarkable, after the bookkeeper testified the bottom had dropped out, he was still living at that level. >> when people are buying this kind of merchandise, as the fashion industry well knows, it's not just about, you know, buying a jacket or a suit or an overcoat. it's really about creating a sort of personal public identity. that's whatwe we're really seei
here. it's not just about labels and brands. it's about identity. >> finally, harry, when we talk about this trial, we have to also remember there is an undercurrent here, as we've been talking about it all week. it's not about russia, it's not about the campaign, but it's showing how much he was in hock to the russian oligarchs, even though the judge said you can't use the term "oligarch" in the courtroom, that is in the back of the jurors' minds. >> it certainly could be. the bookkeeper testified while he is the campaign manager, they're losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. they can't pay health insurance. he's got over $1 million in credit card bills. it paints an absolute portrait of financial desperation. and, you know, you've got a financially desperate guy running the campaign of a major political party. it's a recipe for political disaster. >> thanks so much, robin, thank
you for your fashion turn and your great analysis today. and julia of course, and harry litman, great weekend all, thanks. coming up, full court press. the president intensifying his attacks on the media. has he gone too far? you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. introducing zero account fees for self-directed brokerage accounts. and zero minimums to open an account. we have fidelity mutual funds with zero minimum investment. and now fidelity has two index funds with a zero expense ratio. because when you invest with fidelity, all those zeros really add up. ♪ so maybe i'll win ♪ saved by zero
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people. and they are. they are the enemy of the people. the press honestly is out of control. the level of dishonesty is out of control. >> particular with us. don't believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. they can make anything bad because they are the fake, fake, disgusting news. >> the fake, fake, disgusting news. that was the president of the united states last night to a crowd in pennsylvania, using the press again as a foil to whip up the crowd at that campaign rally in wilkes-barre. on the same day his own daughter ivanka said she disagrees with her father, calling the press the enemy of the people. she said she would not do that herself. let's get the inside scoop from a pair of reporters who are well-experienced in those attacks and rallies during the campaign and ever since. ashley parker, white house property at "the washington post" and a pulitzer prize winner. and jeremy peters, reporter for "the new york times" and msnbc contributor.
ashley, watching that last night, it really does come to mind that this is his main foil in the midterm elections. >> it sure is. and this has been his foil since really the very beginning when he started his campaign. what's interesting to someone who has traveled and been at a lot of those rallies, the mood can kind of differ. there are some rallies where he attacks the media as a foil with a hard edge of menace and it can feel dangerous, uneasy, or unsafe. last night he was clearly agitated, kept returning to the media more frequently than he has in recent weeks, especially at a rally. he did it in a way that was a little bit shticky, part of the trump show, the audience played their part, they booed and jeered us but didn't seem particularly angry. they were sort of smiling as they booed us. there's some element where it's part of the show and some element when he's really angry
and it seems like he's really trying to incite the crowd against the media. >> the anger levels are hard to predict. it raises the question, first of all, how safe it is for the media. sarah sanders yesterday under intensive questioning from jim acosta, a frequent target and antagonist back and forth with the president, raising the question about the "enemy of the people" quote after ivanka trump said she disagreed with that, sarah sanders wouldn't say she disagrees. she said she works for the president. mike murphy, a republican strategist, last night had a modest proposal as to what the media should do going forward. >> cover it with a pool reporter. i don't think there's any need to put on the show that frankly the president uses for his base supporters. it's good box office for trump. the question is the journalistic
realities which is that they're being used and abused. >> i'm not saying don't cover him, the rallies aren't newsworthy, certainly on north korea and russia and other things they certainly reinforce many themes that we have to cover, but ashley and jeremy, should we be there in force so that he looks out, as he said, it could be the academy awards looking at all these cameras, why not pool it, treat it like an oval office event? >> i think that the level of hostility with which he's treated the media, as ashley pointed out, certainly escalated in recent weeks. and this phrase, "enemy of the people," while he's been using it for about a year and a half now, is especially insidious, because let's just go over the history of where that phrase comes from. leaders like stalin have used this phrase. >> it comes from joseph 12stali. >> exactly. don't you dare question my authority. trump is doing something
slightly different, basically says those people who dare to criticize me are criticizing you. they aren't just our political opponents, they are enemies, they are bad people, they are exercising bad faith. and that includes not just the media but anybody who dares to question or really investigate what donald trump is doing, whether that's bob mueller or whether that's the media. >> ashley, it does undercut not only our core values and our constitution and the first amendment, but a longstanding tradition of secretaries of state and presidents speaking out for a free press even when they have been angry for the press, certainly bill clinton was in my own experience, jimmy carter at times, certainly w. bush as well as with perhaps better reason, bush the father, angry. and ronald reagan, angry at us. but they always had news conferences, had organized interactions with the press, not just off-the-cuff interactions
when they chose to. and they never barred reporters from publicly covered events as this president has. >> that's right. relationships with other presidents, other politicians, have certainly gotten antagonistic but we haven't seen anything like this. the president is not someone, even when he goes abroad, he doesn't go abroad to export democratic or american values there. the irony, as you point out, of the president really going after the media and really not standing up for them or even the first amendment is that he more than any modern politician is a creation of the media. in a lot of ways, president trump doesn't exist without the media. so as much as he attacks us and, you know, recently barred a reporter from attending an event, he also looks back in the crowd and he is desperate to see all those cameras pointing at him and all those red lights on and all of those headlines. and a lot of his behavior in office is reflective of the
media coverage. >> not such a bad idea from mike murphy, at least worth pursuing. thank you so much, ashley, thanks for being out there for us, and jeremy of course as well. coming up, controversial praise. an african-american pastor calling president trump, quote, the most pro-black president in his lifetime. really? we'll get reaction from the head of the national urban league, coming up next. stay with us. your digestive system has billions of bacteria but life can throw them off balance. re-align yourself with align probiotic.
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>> tell me what policy that you are signaling out of this administration that's been so pro-black. >> first of all, happy 40 years on msnbc. >> thanks a lot. >> when i heard the pastor, i wonder if the pastor have been living on saturn or uranus or neptune. that deserves the fake, fake news academy award. it is such a misstatement of fact and reality. h bill clinton appointments and his important work in helping to vitalize urban america or barack obama putting the first african-american in the attorney's chair and george w. bush, you had two black secretaries of state.
it is not the kind of statement that deserves any response because it is a fake, fake news narrative. >> i also want to point out what george w. bush trying to combat the aids in africa. it was george bush working with several other advocacy groups. it is astounding given the impact on healthcare with proposals tripping down affordable healthcare and eliminating preexisting conditions, who is that going to hurt? the least empowered among us and clean water and clean air. if you look at all the deregulation, who's most impacted? the people of urban communities, many of whom are minorities. >> many of these whether education or justice or arena really would serve to reverse gains that were made under the obama years.
the affordable care act narrow health disparities and we had stronger enforcements of civil rights lost. any on that that's not good public policies for urban communities and communities of color. loud ascertations and the real facts of what we are facing today and the tremendous contributions of the prior presidents. >> i want to point out one quick thing, the propaganda efforts on facebook and others to create more divisions which started with black lives matter and charlottesville and others and ferguson even before 2016. >> let me say this, those
efforts by russia are despicable and they are hateful and those involved and aided should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. i expect law enforcement shut russia interference down. it could be russia today or another set tomorrow. get your happennds off american democracy. stop trying to manipulate the way we think. stop trying to undermine the system that gives people the chance to elect their own leaders. >> thank you so much mark morial, we'll be right back. >> thank you. it is time now for your business of the week. chances are you have an e-mail in your inbox right now. how did the two founders turned into a half billion dollars business without taking a dime
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A look at breaking news, politics and reports from around the world.
white house correspondent jim acosta. the white house wants to show the administration takes election interference very seriously despite doubt the president continues to cast. update our viewers. >> reporter: that's right. the white house tried to show the world today that it's serious about stopping russian interference in u.s. elections. but the top administration officials on display today insisting they are on the case had to grapple with one very key question, whether the president himself takes the threat to american democracy seriously. >> the president has made it clear -- >> reporter: it was a show of force as the white house and top administration officials from the director of national intelligence to the national security advisor to the fbi director to assure the american people they are determined to combat russian interference in the u.s. elections. >> we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by russia to try to weaken and divide the united states. >> reporter: director of national intelligence dan coats insisted the order is coming
from the top. >> the president has specifically directed us to make the matter of the election meddling and securing our election process a top priority. >> reporter: homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen described a grave threat. >> democracy itself is in the cross hairs. free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy and it has become clear they are the target of our adversaries who seek to sow discord. >> reporter: all of this stood in stark contrast to the president's statements. in his meeting with vice president he declined to confront vladimir putin about meddling. the president had often diminished the russian threat. >> i accept our intelligence community's conclusion that russia's meddling in the 2016
election took place. could be other people also. >> reporter: the officials gathered in the briefing room for asked about the disconnect. >> i'm not in the position to either understand fully or talk about what happened at helsinki. >> reporter: then there are the president's tweets accusing top fbi officials of being part of a witch hunt, a charge echoed by press secretary sarah huckabee sanders. >> he's certainly expressing the frustration he has with the level of corruption we've seen by people like james comey, peter strzok. >> reporter: fbi director chris wray pushed back with sanders in the room. >> i can assure the american people that the men and fwomen f the fbi are going to follow our oaths and do our job. >> reporter: the president's daughter ivanka trump told axios that members of the press are
not the enemy of the american people as her father often says. >> i've certainly received my fair share of reporting on me personally i that know not to be fully accurate, but no, i do not feel that the press is the enemy of the american people. >> reporter: sanders refused to say the press is not the enemy. his own daughter acknowledges that. all i'm asking you to do is to acknowledge that right now and right here. >> i appreciate your passion. i share it. i've addressed this question. i've addressed my personal feelings. i'm here to speak on behalf of the president. he's made his comments clear. >> reporter: each of the top officials at the white house today laid out various task forces and initiatives that have been launched to defend against russian attacks in the upcoming election. the big question is whether any of those efforts will be successful. that answer may not come until well after the november elections are over. they like to say here at the white house they're not responsible for 2016 because
they weren't in power when 2016 happened. they can't say that about this fall. >> good point. let's get some more on the breaking nubreak ing news. jim sciutto, how serious is this russian threat leading up to the midterm elections? >> listen to the senior most intelligence officials for all the agencies responsible for protecting the elections today. it's hard to imagine a starker warning from them, from the fbi, the department of homeland security, the director of national intelligence as well as the head of the nsa which is responsible for responding to cyber attacks. they use language like russia continues to have the willingness and capability to attack. they say the threat is real, it's continuing. listen to what dan coats said. he says russia is attacking the election not just in the social media sphere, but targeting particular candidates, stealing
their information as they did with hillary clinton in 2016. have a listen. >> in regards to russian involvement in the midterm elections, we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by russia to try to weaken and divide the united states. we also know the russians try to hack into and steal information from candidates and government officials alike. >> that's of course what russians did with hillary clinton and other democrats during the 2016 campaign. what we have not seen yet, they say, are specific attacks on election systems, such as voter registration, certainly not vote counting yet. we do know in 2016 while there was no russian attack on vote counting, there were probing attacks that looked for vulnerabilities, et cetera. they haven't seen that yet on these midterm elections, but they made it clear that could change at the drop of a hat.
at least to date they vice president seen that kind of interference. >> did it sound to you like the fbi is currently pursuing specific investigations? >> that was frankly the biggest news from this press conference, because the fbi director christopher wray revealed something he hasn't revealed before. that is that there are current investigations involving all of the fbi's more than 50 field offices around the country. doesn't mean you have investigations in each district but that the field offices are involved looking at what they call foreign influence nexus. that would include individual trying to influence the campaign like with maria buttina who has been arrested and charges. the funneling of foreign money into the campaign which is not only illegal but raises hard questions about governments such as russia trying to influence this campaign. >> also tonight cnn has learned that the special counsel robert mueller has been trying to arrange an interview with a
out logistically? does mueller have any leverage? would u.s. investigators be able to go to russia to conduct such an interview? >> this is why they're having these negotiations that the lawyer told me today have been going on for nearly a year, because mueller does not have subpoena power or any authority to compel the family to sit for an interview. if they were to come to the u.s. -- the son has this new music video out in which he's sort of mocking the whole russian investigation. he has actors who look like donald trump, like michael cohen. he had video of michael cohen. he has someone who looks like ivanka trump in there. he's being provocative and sort of having a little bit of fun with the investigation. if he were to come to the u.s. to perform, they could stop him at the airport. they have stopped a couple of oligarchs to question them as they come into the u.s. other than that occurring, they
really have to try to negotiate something and see if they could go to perhaps another country to have an interview. i don't know if they would have it in russia, but they would have to negotiate something like that. that's what we understand is still ongoing. their lawyer today told me he's not sure they're ever going to get to a place where they agree to sit for an interview. >> let's get more on all of this. democratic senator ben carden of maryland is joining us. senator, thanks so much for joining us. i want to get to the russia investigation in a moment. but first can the united states effectively counter russian aggression if president trump isn't necessarily on the same page as his national security and intelligence officials? >> the report i issued six months ago in regards to the russians spelled out what we
important meeting? >> it's really shocking that the director of national intelligence does not know what happened in helsinki in the meeting between the president and president putin. that's absolutely amazing. he need to have that intelligence information in order to do his job. yet he doesn't know what happened in that room. that's why as an oversight function of the united states senate, it's absolutely essential that we have the information about what happened in the meeting between mr. putin and president trump. we have not been briefed as to what happened in that room. when secretary pompeo was president on our committee, he did not enlighten us at all about what happened in that meeting. >> it's interesting. what sort of offensive operations against russia would you support as a threat to them, you better stop what you're doing, otherwise you're going to pay a huge, huge price.
the u.s. of course has offensive cyber capabilities, probably the best in the world. >> over a year ago congress passed mandatory sanctions against russia not just because of their attack against us in our elections but also their their activities in the ukraine. these are mandatory sanctions. the president hasn't even used all those mandatory sanctions. first and foremost, carry out the law, increase the sanctions against russia. your national security team told us today that russia is still actively engaged in the united states. let's increase the sanctions. secondly, work with us, mr. president. we filed legislation yesterday, bipartisan legislation with senator graham and menendez and mccain and gardener and shaheen. i joined them in strengthening the sanctions against russia, not just because of what they're doing on cyber attacks on our election system and the
propaganda but what they've done in ukraine and continue to do in ukraine. join us in strengthening the tools that you have so you can let mr. putin know that unless he stops these activities, he's in for more sanctions. >> beyond sanctions, senator, would you support offensive cyber operations, retaliation against the russians, hacking into their systems for example, disclosing their sensitive e-mails, showing details about putin's wealth, that kind of operation, something the russians clearly don't want but might listen to? >> six months ago i called upon the united states to work with our european allies as to what the cyber attacks mean under article five of nato. yes, i do think these are attacks against us and we need to defend ourselves. and we defend ourselves with all the tools we have available. i wouldn't take anything off the table, but i do think we should
work with our nato allies and recognize that cyber attacks are attacks against our country and require us to defend ourselves and to take appropriate action. >> would you want the president of the united states too te tel putin specifically, you continue these hacking activities, you continue to interfere in the u.s. election process, you're going to pay a huge price yourself, you're not going to like it because we're going to do exactly to you what you're doing to us. would you want the president to issue a direct warning to putin along those lines? >> the answer is yes, i do want the president to issue a direct ultimatum to president putin that he cannot continue to incur in our country and invade and interfere in our election, that that's illegal and we consider that a hostile act and we'll take appropriate steps. i wouldn't announce what steps they would be. i wouldn't say how we would
respond but i would make it known to mr. putin that we will take aggressive action. i think we should take action today because of what has happened far more than we've already done. >> let's get to another sensitive issue. cnn has learned that the special counsel robert mueller is offering to limit the questions he asks about possible obstruction of justice, if there's a sitdown interview with the president. he's open to having president trump answer some questions in written form. what does that tell you? >> well, first of all, i was disappointed i saw from president trump this week additional tweets that he sent out to try to compromise the mueller investigation. the president has certainly done everything he can to prevent this investigation to reach its proper conclusion. i want mr. mueller to have all the tools he needs, all the access that he needs, including the president of the united states in order to complete his investigation. the president said earlier that
he would cooperate. well, cooperate means what mr. mueller needs, whether it's live interviews with the president, whether it can be handled through questions, that's a decision for mr. mueller to make and i would hope the president would cooperate. >> thanks so much for joining us. there's more breaking news ahead. a russian spy unmasked after working inside the united states embassy in moscow for more than a decade. plus, bombshell testimony in the trial of former trump campaign chairman paul manafort. we have details. fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely. but allstate helps you. with drivewise. feedback that helps you drive safer. and that can lower your cost now that you know the truth... are you in good hands?
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we're following breaking news. a senior administration official tells cnn that a russian spy worked for the secret service inside the u.s. embassy in moscow before being fired last year. our global affairs correspondent has details. this russian woman was employed at the embassy for more than a decade? >> that's right, for more than a decade working for the secret service. of course there's a concern when you have what they call foreign service nationals, citizens of another country, in this case russia, working for the embassy. there's a concern they're going to be talking to the russian government as part of their job. but here, wolf, u.s. officials realized that there were unauthorized meetings, conversations and a lot more information being passed to the russian government, particularly the fsb, one of the primary russian security agencies than
out of the normal course of this woman's job. after several months, the woman was reported to the embassy and then she was fired. >> what kind of information specifically would she have access to and how much damage could she do? >> well, not surprisingly the secret service is trying to down play the woman's role. officials have told me that she didn't have any access to national security information or classified information. in a statement the secret service said this woman's duties are limited to translation, interpretation, cultural guidance, liaison and administrative support. at no time in any u.s. secret service office have foreign service nationals been provided or placed in a position to obtain national security information. but this woman had access to the secret service intranet system, which all employees are accessed to such as the president's
schedule, the vice president's schedule, the e-mail system. the way she was caught was that officials caught her red handed. they kind of did a sting operation, passed information to her that reached the fsb and she was caught. >> thank you very much. there's also breaking news in the trial of the former trump campaign chairman paul manafort. prosecutors highlighted his lavish spending. his long time bookkeeper testified today he was actually broke by 2016. jessica, jurors heard a lot today about manafort's expensive taste. >> that's been the crux of prosecutor's arguments. on the flip side, his bookkeeper today was on the stand saying that despite thele ma lmillions made, he was flat prosecute bbr. that was around the time he offered to work for the trump
days of testimony. but the question lingers, will he testify? the judge raised the issue, stressing he will not be penalized for the right to remain silent, but added he does testify, it will be more likely the judge will allow evidence that the irs never audited manafort, something his attorneys want to use to bolster his defense. one person we now know will take the stand rick gates. prosecutors conceded they will call gates, who some are calling their star witness. it could be as soon as tomorrow or monday. gates was manafort's deputy during the campaign and was his long time associate. he has pleaded guilty to two counts in d.c. and is cooperating are the special counsel. the defense said it intends to pin the blame on gates, saying he embezzled millions from manafort. but the prosecution is going to great lengths to showman fo man alone was spending the millions.
they've showed receipts showing what he spent on high end suits and clothing. $9,500 on an ostrich vest to complement the ostrich jacket he later paid $15,000 for. he bought suits from the most expensive in the world. but jacket, $32,800. manafort also kept his seven homes in pristine condition. his landscaper testified that manafort spent about $450,000 over five years for his hamptons home, commissioning him to care for the hundreds of flowers, plus one of the biggest personal ponds in the hamptons. and manafort kept it high-tech. he paid more than $2.2 million in electronics, including $10,000 on a karaoke system in
2010. prosecutors have also prevents these vendors with fake invoices that paul manafort may have created to look like it came from them to cover for the money he moved out of his of seas bank accounts. prosecutors will continue questioning paul manafort's accountant when court resumes tomorrow morning. that accountant has already told the jury he never knew about manafort's foreign bank accounts. prosecutors have already called a large portion of their witness list. they told the judge yesterday they could even wrap their case by next week. the breaking news continues. top trump administration officials now warning of russia's ongoing threat to america's democracy. does president trump believe them? plus, robert mueller's quest to interview a russian pop star who spoofed president trump in a music video. what does he know about mr. trump and the trump tower meeting with a lawyer tied to the kremlin? ♪ ooh, heaven is a place on earth ♪
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correspondents and analysts. i want you to listen to what the director of national intelligence said earlier today. >> in regards to russian involvement in the midterm elections, we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by russia to try to weaken and divide the united states. russia has used numerous ways in which they want to influence through media, social media, through bots, through actors that they hire, through proxies, all of the above and potentially more. i can't go into any deep details other than what is classified. but it's pervasive, it's ongoing with the intent to achieve their intent, and that is drive a wedge and undermine our democratic values. it goes to russia's intent to undermine our democratic values, drive a wedge between our allies and do other nefarious things. >> but does president trump
believe that? >> heck no, he doesn't believe this. did you see him saying anything about this? the reason they're out there talking about this is there's four walls in the room around the president and those walls are closing in. number one, members of his own party as we go into the midterm elections are out there saying we've got to be careful. number two, the indictments from the special counsel -- and i believe we're going to see more of them -- are pretty dam ining. if you look at what happened in the past week about social media, facebook is out with detailed reports saying this is how the russians are continuing to attack us. and the most significant piece, i think the reason why we saw this in the press briefing today, you've got people on capitol hill including the secretary of homeland security, presumably close to the president, saying i don't really care what the president says. i've got to get out and say we continue to see interference. what's the white house supposed to say? everybody's coming in saying
it's still happening. >> dan coats said the russians are trying to drive a wedge between americans. they're trying to spread disinformation, alienate america from its allies including nato allies. as you know, the president's critics say president trump is trying to do the same thing. >> if you look at the recent weeks alone, you could make that case. he walked into the nato summit and wouldn't commit to america coming to the defense of some of its most longstanding allies. he has continued to escalate the risk of a global trade war. here at home he has intensified his attacks once again on the media, trying to discredit any coverage he doesn't like as fake news, calling journalists unpatriotic. what he hasn't shown a great deal of concern for is an ongoing evident by the russians to interfere in the u.s. elections. it's striking that on the one hand republicans have tried to
distance themselves from the president's comments and said they take this issue seriously. but yesterday republicans in senate blocked $250 million in election security funding. i think ultimately what the president has done with the president of at least some republicans is made the job of his intelligence chiefs a lot more difficult, because he is not providing them with the tools they need to prevent another attack on u.s. democracy. >> i want you to listen to another revealing moment from the news conference earlier today. >> how do you explain the disconnect between what you are saying, his advisors, and what the president has said about this issue? >> i'm not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened at helsinki. >> that's pretty shocking, three weeks after the helsinki summit the director of national intelligence says he's not in a position to understand fully or talk about what happened. >> it is remarkable. he's not just saying i'm not in a position to talk about it. he's essentially saying i don't know what happened.
it has been two weeks. we the american people and trump's own administration don't know what was discussed, what representations may have been made, what deals the president might have made. the little information that has trickled out about that meeting has been pretty worrying, the president being open to the possibility of russian authorities interviewing the former u.s. ambassador to russia. i do think this touches on a larger theme of the trump administration, which is that president trump insists there is nothing untoward about his policy toward russia. yet at every turn he seeks to either hide or out right lie about what that policy might be. he's not just hiding it from the american people, he's hiding it from the very individuals within his administration who are tasked with providing him that crucial context and information so he is making good decisions on behalf of the united states. >> that news conference today at the white house, how much of it was optics trying to take away from some of the other stories out there right now? >> it was clearly optics. but i don't think it's as much
about trying to push other stories aside although the white house does that all the time. but i think it's about the optics about what's to come in november, what we're going to look back on when indeed there is some interference. if it is as pervasive and persistent as described. i watched that today and i said we're going to play sound from this press conference in november and december when we see what the interference impact really was. i think it was quite clear that this white house understands they have a vulnerability on this issue because the president is not at all interested, hasn't seemed to be, in putting it front and center. so the administration is coming around the president to make sure they're out there saying, hey, we're on top of this, even though it's clearly not priority number one for him. >> everybody stand by. there's more news we're following. the special counsel robert mueller wants to question the russian oligarch and his pop star son who encouraged that notorious campaign meeting in trump tower.
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the questions supposedly as far as obstruction of justice is concerned. he's also willing to let the president answer some other questions in written form. >> it's not especially surprising that mueller is willing to compromise. both sides are incentivized to compromise here. what it shows is that mueller is still intensely focused on having this interview, on getting trump on the record particularly as it relates to obstruction of justice. we've seen how terrified the trump legal team is of actually having that meeting, the risk that the president might ultimately perjure himself. it might raise the possibility that the next step is not going to be new indictments but instead litigation over a subpoena of the president. >> that could drag on months and months as it goes through the courts. do these developments, this latest offer from mueller to the president's legal team, does it suggest that an actual interview is more or less likely? >> the first thing it suggests
is mueller's interest remains in wanting to get in front of the president, and the president's interest remains in looking like he wants to be cooperative. both sides see value in allowing that negotiation to continue. nobody sees value in cutting it off just yet. whether or not the interview takes place, i still think a full-on, in-person interview is not likely to happen. i think the trump legal team will probably be able to win some internal battles with the president to keep that free and broad kind of conversation from happening. >> you saw the "new york times" report today that the president actually thinks if he does have a sitdown interview with mueller's team, he believes that he could convince them that the whole russia investigation is a witch hunt. >> i get to laugh on this situation. so we've got dozens of indictments including both americans and russians against the most storied prosecutor,
that is robert mueller, of the past generation at least. i would say the fbi's been around since 1908. robert mueller is the most famous fbi director in the 110-year history of the fbi. the president thinks after he failed with kim jong-un, after he failed to persuade putin to not interfere with elections, after he failed to persuade congress to repeal pope to become a page. mueller will say keep talking. when you are done talking we'll see if anything you said is true and anything you said is a lie. >> if he refuses to sit down and have this meeting and there is a subpoena from mueller that could drag on for a long, long time. the white house wants this to be over with already. >> there is no evidence that it will be over anytime soon. i don't see how robert mueller
will conclude this investigation without sitting down with the president. i think the president has repeatedly said he wants to sit down with the special counsel and tried to project this confidence. you see if you look at his fixation with the russia investigation he is clearly very concerned about the effect that it has had on his presidency and indictments on key figures within his campaign and early days of the administration and his own attorneys do not want him to sit down with mueller because i think there is a very real concern that the president might perjure himself. we will learn more about it in the coming weeks. >> a quick thought. we learned that a russian national, a russian woman who worked at the u.s. embassy in moscow for more than a decade, works for the u.s. secret service there, was kicked out because she was a spy for the russian intelligence agency. how much damage potentially over the ten years could she have done to the united states? >> the most important thing is what information she had access
to. there are policies to prevent foreign nationals to getting access to national security information. it is designed specifically to prevent damage in this kind of situation. >> we'll see what happens in that front. thank you very much. the breaking news continues here in the situation room. the giant wildfire burning in northern california is growing tonight. we're going out there for a live update. ♪ hawaii is in the middle of the pacific ocean. we're the most isolated population on the planet. ♪ hawaii is the first state in the u.s. to have 100% renewable energy goal. we're a very small electric utility. but, if we don't make this move we're going to have changes in our environment, and have a negative impact to hawaii's economy. ♪ verizon provided us a solution using smart sensors on their network that lets us collect near real time data
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we are following breaking news of the deadly wildfires scorching parts of northern california. it has grown to more than 125,000 acres. let's go to cnn on the scene for us. fires damaged or destroyed more than 1,500 homes and other buildings. what is the latest? >> reporter: it has been a week now since fire tore through this neighborhood. it was only today that people were actually allowed to come back and see what was left of their homes. it was a pretty emotional experience for people to see their homes looking like this. what might make things more painful or hard to understand is for them to walk down the block and see other homes looking like this one. the man who lives in this house actually ignored evacuation orders and managed to save his home with just a garden hose. tonight as some 20 wildfires
rage across california a survivor describes how he made it through. the carr fire tore through his subdivision a week ago torching the woods behind his house and the homes across the street. he shot this video on his phone as he watched. johnson ignored evacuation orders defending his home with only a garden hose as flames lit up his fence, deck and raced through the trees. >> i was freaking out trying to get that to stay where it was. i couldn't stop it. i kept spraying the trees and stuff just trying to keep it at bay. >> reporter: the order was lifted today as people came back to see what was lost. for many it was everything. >> it is devastating to lose everything. it is unreal. you just can't prepare for something like this. >> reporter: the carr fire has already destroyed more than 1,000 homes making it one of the most destructive fires in
california history. the ferguson fire near yosemite national park has forced a large portion of the popular tourist attraction to shut down. >> we are trying to do a tactical firing around the area to protect the giant giant -- >> reporter: crews are trying to stop the flames from crossing over the paved road. plan b is a fire break bull dozed a few miles away. even that may not stop the fire thanks to the extremely hot and dry conditions. >> if i took 100 embers and threw them how many will catch fire? >> 98 embers will start new fires out of 100. >> it is because the low humidities and the very dry fuels are coupled with high
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we haven't seen that in a while. so unlike this white house really. any chance we'll get answers to any of these big russia-gate stories making headlines today? >> well, we got plenty of questions on those topics. it's likely sarah sanders, particularly as it relates to the personal opinions on the mueller investigation, whether he will do an interview that she will kick that over to his outside counsel, rudy giuliani who has spoken to nbc news in the last several hours. giving us a sense of where things stand. effectively saying there was a letter from mueller's team to the legal team representing the president. and there will be some narrows of the course of the topics, but they will still focus on collusion and obstruction of justice. i think it was last in may when he said it, walking on the south lawn that he's open to talking about all of this with robert mueller. that new reporting for "the new york times," insisting that the president really wants -- that
public why is it that if he did nothing wrong he does not feel comfortable answering questions about it. >> well, we can already hear that answer. his answer would be in that case you can't trust these people. >> yes, i guess -- i guess the counter to that would be the president has allowed and encouraged all of his white house officials, the folks closest to him, nearly all them, to go in and speak with mueller. he has encouraged that. he has told them to do that. he could have stopped it. he could have created impediments there. why is it he allowed them but didn't do it himself? >> jonathan, you also reported on negotiations today. trump appeared to believe he is the guy who can sway bob mueller. is this all about what you say is this rage he has over what he sees as both the government and the media trying to undermine him? >> yes, i want to piggy back on michael's very good point there. the president believes that he can go in there and clear his
name. to lift this cloud that has been hovering over the west wing since he took office, since before he took office. what we saw, it's all happening sort of at once here. his tweet storm yesterday morning was -- remains rather striking here, 24 hours or so later. in which he called for jeff sessions to end this probe. now, of course, we heard sarah sanders in yesterday's white house briefing say that was just hemorrhagesterring an opinion. it wasn't an order. and of course sessions himself can't do it because he recused himself from this probe. but the timing of these negotiations come amid a backdrop of the president growing angrier and angrier with what's happening. >> i was struck by one of the things that you wrote that a confidant of his told you, he's in a dark place over all of this. >> that's exactly right. twofold. that he's watching the manafort trial develop live on tv. it is not just something -- it is something in his face. he's seeing it on cable news. he's upset by it. he believes those charges are trumped up. he believes technically they're not about russia, he believes it is a means to try to get to him.
he's not that unself-conscious. he knows the distinction between a con and what happened. do you think on air force one, he didn't know he was not telling the truth? does anyone believe that? is he that much in his own head. i don't believe that. there's a certain infantalizing of trump -- >> okay, i'm going to interrupt you for just a second because we actually have breaking news on that meeting. i want to go to ken dilanian. with more on who he wants to speak to, meaning robert mueller, and why. what can you tell us? >> hey, chris, well, the russian american pop star, russian pop star, sorry who helped set up this trump tower meeting, and his lawyer's telling our colleague that he is in talks to be interviewed by special counsel robert mueller. that's fairly significant because the agalarov family, his father is a russian oligarch with close ties to vladimir
putin and they were partners with donald trump in the 2013 miss america pageant. he recently made a rather bizarre video that seemed to suggest he sort of had it with donald trump. the video portrayed, you know, scantily clad women in a hotel room with that trump impersonator. if he's willing to talk about what he knows about how that trump tower meeting was set up, that's significant. just to recall, he sent a message to this music promoter rob goldstone to donald trump jr. saying this russian lawyer wanted to meet and had incriminating information about hillary clinton. that's according to e-mails and according to goldstone. >> elizabeth, so you have somebody who was crucial in setting up this meeting that's at the center of a lot of these questions. ayman agalarov. he puts out this video that seems to suggest he's had it
with donald trump and now he's in negotiations to talking with robert mueller. what do you make of it? >> well, think what it shows is mueller is tightening thes into, slowly, slowly, brick by brick, building a very potentially devastating case against donald trump. i have to agree with bill. i happen to think donald trump has no intention whatsoever of going before the special prosecutor because donald trump happens to be be a coward. you saw him right next to putin. this is the great tough man? this is america? no, he was a wimp. he's not going in there. he doesn't want to be prosecuted. he's very concerned that he might not tell the truth because he hasn't and we know he falsified a statement about the trump tower meeting. so i think that aga -- however you pronounce his name. >> agalarov -- >> or others are likely to come forward here. mueller's not finished with this investigation. i think one of the really
control of the message, to get it where they want it to be? >> well, i think that's really been what rudy giuliani has accomplished. they brought him in to be the president's advocate. the president felt like there were not enough folks out there who were pushing his agenda on the mueller investigation. he thought he was the only voice. and what they have done is adopted a strategy where they do not think the president has any legal exposure. they do not think that mueller will indict him. so what they're focused on is public opinion. the only thing they think is a threat is the house of representatives holding impeachment trials. the only way to impact that is to move the public sentiment. and that's what giuliani has tried to do. he has confused people. he's pushed different theories not backed up by the facts in many instances. and it has helped muddy the waters on the investigation. and erode some of bob mueller's standing. if you look at some of the polls
that have come out in the past few weeks or months, there has been, you know, some impact on mueller and on the way that the public purchase sieves this. and the longer the investigation goes on, the president believes, the more that giuliani can beat this, beat the drum on this, the more successful they will be at influencing people's views. >> rudy is a fascinating part of this, bill krystal. the president is going to be going to pennsylvania tonight. the last time he was in wilkes-barre was october of 2016. there you see jeff sessions. rudy giuliani was there. both of them adamant trump is this rule of law guy. and not, to quote rudy then, a serial liar like hillary clinton. fast forward to today and trump says session needs to end the russia probe. here is how rudy defended that tweet. >> we said immediately it's an opinion. he used the media he uses for
opinions, twitter. he's established a clear sort of practice now that he expresses his opinions on twitter. he used the word should. he didn't use the word must. there was no presidential directive. didn't direct him to do it. he's not going to direct him to do it. >> bill, is rudy giuliani doing great with the president's base? here we go. are we going to the briefing? not yet. okay. she sometimes make these long statements at the top so we'll wait. is he helpful just with the base? is that offset by what he could potentially doing? >> i think serious lawyers are -- look, he's not going to be indicted. trump personally, it's a fight about public opinion -- >> i'm sorry, we have to interrupt. sarah sanders is now taking questions. >> critical infrastructure. last week, the president chaired a meeting of his national security counsel to address ongoing threats. he asked the officials standing
next to brief the american people on the work being done to protect the integrity of our elections. efforts are under way to provide cybersecurity assistance to state and local authorities and actions to investigate, prosecute and hold accountable those who illegally attempt to interfere in the process. i want to welcome director of national intelligence dan coats, fbi director christopher wray, secretary of homeland security kirstjen nielsen, director of the national security agency, and national security adviser ambassador john bolton, to make some comments and take questions on this topic. as you all know, we've addressed what occurred during the 2016 election numerous times and rather extensively. the purpose of today's briefing is about what we're doing now and in the future to protect the integrity of elections, moving forward. we ask you stay on that topic. in order to help this run smoothly, we ask you direct the question a specific person.
i'll turn it over to ambassador bolton to open up and make some comments. >> well, thank you very much, sarah. what we'd like to address today is election security and the 2018 election, and the future. the president has made it very clear what that is. we've had a number of inquiries, including a letter to me the past couple of days from five senator, signed by senator schumer and others. we've made copies available to you. it forms a kind of framework of the briefing the heads of age y agencies are going to give you today. there are other agencies involved. these are the four primary ones. i think it's important that we address the question of the
president's involvement in there. his leadership, his determination, to prevent foreign influence in elections. we meet on this constantly. the senior staff and the white house. we meet with the heads of the different agencies. we've already had two full national security council meetings chaired by the president. as i say, countless other discussions as well. since january 2017, the president has taken decisive action to defend our elections systems from meddling and interference. this includes measures to systems and processes, to confront russian and other foreign maligned influence in the united states. to confront such aggression through international action. and to reinforce a strong sanctions regime. as you know, elections are
administered by state and local governments. we'll be addressing that through the comments, the heads of the operating agencies. also to say by way of introduction that many federal government actions to protect elections in the united states such as those implemented by the intelligence community or law enforcement agencies are sensitive and highly classified. we do not witch to make efforts of our adversaries any easier through injudicious public disclosure. we have offered to do before and continue to offer briefings to members of congress in security facilities. i'd like to turn this over to people whose agencies have the responsibility. we'll start off with director of national intelligence dan coats. followed by kirstjen nielsen. she'll be followed by the
director of the federal bureau of investigation christopher wray. and the director of the national security agency general paul nokosani. dan. >> as director of national intelligence, i would like the american people to know that the intelligence community and all agencies are postered to identify threats. the president has directed us to make the matter of the election meddling and securing our election process a top priority and we have done that and are doing that and will continue to do so. we have incorporated the lessons learned from the 2016 election and implemented a broad spectrum of actions to share more information across the federal government as well as with state and local governments and also with the public and the private
sector. the intelligence community continues to be concerned about the threats of upcoming elections. both the midterms and the presidential elections of 2020. in records to russian involvement, we continue to see a progressive messaging campaign to try to weaken and divide the united states. these efforts are not exclusive to these elections but certainly cover issues relevant to the election. we are aware that russia is not the only country that has influenced our domestic political environment. as such, we will continue to
monitor and warn of any such efforts. i will make sure the intelligence community is working together and integrating across organizations and missions and seeking greater transparency with the public. instituted a broad spectrum of actions covering election, analysis, reporting, education and partnerships. all designed to provide the best threat assessments to federal, state and local officials as well as to the public and private sector when necessary. for example, my office leads the interagency working group now meeting weekly as a push towards november. with the department of justice, fbi, department of homeland security, cia and nsa, includive of regional cyber and counter lejs experts, all focused on
integration of our efforts. the intelligence community's focus right now is persistent support to the fbi, to the department of homeland security and other agencies in their election responsibilities and my office is ensuring these organizations receive timely and proactive intelligence community support. >> good afternoon. thank you all for joining us. i want to start by briefly mentioning on tuesday dhs hosted the first national cybersecurity summit. this brought together industry leaders and academia to discuss opportunities to join forces to counter threats. i want to thank all of those who joined us. all who participated. and those who signed up to concrete actions to confront cybersecurity challenges. across every critical infrastructure sector from
energy to financial services to transportation to communication and so many others, a single attack can have widespread and cascading consequences. i look forward to working with the nation's leading minds in the digital realm as we stand up the national risk management center. it's zblounot just risk we have worry about. our democracy itself is in the cross hairs. free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy and it has become clear that they're the target of our adversaries who seek as the dni just said to sew discord and undermine our way of life. i share the intelligence community's assessments, past efforts, and those today to interfere with our election. our adversaries have shown they have the willingness and capability to interfere in our elections. dhs has and continues to work closely with state and local
election officials throughout the country by offering a range of services to help identify weaknesses in their election systems. whether it's offering no cost, voluntary technical assistance, or providing technical advice on ransom ware and destructive m malware, our department stands ready to provide tailored support. this is yet another example where one size does not fit all. i'm pleased to inform you that to date all 50 states, the district of columbia and over 900 local governments have partnered with dhs in order to bolster the resilience of the nation's election infrastructure. various states also have organic capabilities and are engaging with the private sector and academia to improve the elections. it requires aggressive and ongoing vigilance. everyone must play their role to ensure every vote is counted
correctly. as all of us here today gain new insight, we are committed to providing the best information available. the progress we've made is real and the nation's elections are more resilient today because of the work we're doing. we must continue to ensure that our democracy is protected. i'll turn it over to director wray. >> good afternoon, everybody. >> afternoon. >> last fall, after i -- shortly after i became director, i stood up a new foreign influence task force which was designed to counteract the full range of malign foreign influence operations targeting our democratic institutions and our values. the task force now brings together across the waterfront
of fbi expertise who were talking counterintelligence, cyber, criminal and even counter terrorism, designed to root out and respond to foreign influence operations. for their part, our adversaries influence operation have encompassed a wide range of activities. just like we have a multidisciplinary response, that's because the threat is multidisciplinary. just a few examples of some of the things we've seen over the past, targeting u.s. officials and other u.s. persons through traditional intelligence trade craft, criminal efforts to suppress voting, provide illegal campaign financing. cyber a tacks against voting infrastructure along with computer intrusions targeting elected officials and others and a whole slew of other kinds of influence, like both overtly and covertly manipulating news story, spreading disinformation, leveraging economic resources and escalating divisive issues.
but it's important to understand this is not just an election cycle threat. our adversaries are trying to undermine on a regular basis whether it's election season or not. there's a clear distinction between on the one hand, activities that threaten security and integrity of our election systems and on the other hand the broader threat of influence operations designed to influence voters in their opinions. with our partners, we're trying to counter act both threats. we have three pillars to our operational strategy. the first piller is our investigations and operations. and for a variety of reasons, which i hope are obvious, including operational sensitivities. i'm not going to be able to describe the full extent of those efforts. but i will tell you that our foreign influence task force works with personnel in all 56 fbi field offices. even as we speak, we've got open
investigations with a foreign influence nexus spanning field offices, fbi field offices, across the country. so make no mistake. the scope of this foreign influence threat is both broad and deep. second pillar, i said there were three pillars. the second is focused on information sharing and intelligence sharing. we're working closingly with partners in the intelligence community and in the federal government as well as with our state and local partners to establish a common operating picture. just last week, as an example, we disseminated a list to our state and local law enforcement partners of various foreign influence indicators for them to be on the lookout for. things like malicious cyber activity. social abnormalities and foreign propaganda activities. the idea is to marshal additional eyes and ears in the fight. we're also working with our international partners. to exchange intelligence for
combating the threat. this is a shared threat with allies. the third pillar of our approach is based on our strong relationships with the private sector. technology companies have a fro frontline responsibility to secure their own products and platforms. but we're doing our part by providing actionable intelligence to better enable them to address abuse of their platforms by foreign actors. so this year we've met with top social media companies and technology companies several times. we've given them classified briefings. we've shared specific threat indicators and account information and a variety of other pieces of information so they can better monitor their own platforms. it's going to take all of us working together to hold the field because this threat is not going away. as i have said consistently, russia attempted to interfere with the last election and continues to engage in malign
influence operations to this day. this is a threat we need to take extremely seriously and to tackle and respond to with fierce determination and focus. and together with our partners, both those here and some of the other partners we've talked about, i'm confident we can protect the integrity of our democratic institutions and maintain public confidence in our electoral process. thank you. >> good afternoon, thank you for joining us. i appreciate the leadership and support from the president, the secretary of defense, the director of national intelligence. i believe our mandate is clear. as part of its mission to defend the nation, the department of defense is providing intelligence, information support and technical expertise to the department of homeland security for use by state and local officials to prevent foreign interference in our
elections. this is a vital mission for us and the nation. it draws on our deep experience and expertise in continuing work in this area. our support has been ongoing and will continue through the midterm elections. we are also providing intelligence and information leads to the federal bureau of investigation on foreign adversaries who are attempting to sew discord and division within the american public. this information is shared with appropriate entities to alert them of malicious cyber actors. u.s. cyber command and the national security agency are tracking a wide range of foreign-cyber adversaries are prepared against those actors attempting to undermine our midterm elections. these are sensitive and require confidentiality for success. i won't discuss the specifics except to state that our forces
are well trained, ready and very capable. i have complete confidence in the forces under my command. we will work to ensure we bring the full power of the nation to bear on any foreign power that attempts to interfere in our processes. >> thank you. as i said at the beginning, if we could stay on topic and also if you could when asking a question direct it to a specific person. and as always after we finish this part of the briefing i'll be back to answer other questions on news of the day. john, go ahead. >> sir, director coats, if i could direct a question to you. let me take you back, if i could, to helsinki, the president seemed to indicate that he may believe vladimir putin when he says he doesn't -- didn't have any influence in the 2016 election. but what is your belief about the russian government involvement in meddling in 2016?
and if, as you say, russia continues to try to influence our electioral process, does tht mean nothing much came of the meeting? >> the relationship to the 2016 election, of course, none of us were in office at that particular time. but both the president, the vice president, think everyone on this stage has acknowledged the fact the ica was a correct assessment of what happened in 2016. we have subsequently made the determination to make this a top priority. that that doesn't happen again. we're throw everything at it. we'll be discussing that here today. relative to my discussions with the president on whatever issue it is, those -- i do not go
public with that. so our focus here today is simply to tell the american people we acknowledge the threat. it is real. it is continuing. and we're doing everything we can to have a legitimate election, that the american people can have trust in. in addition to that, it goes beyond the elections. it goes to russian's intend. to undermine our values. drive a wedge between our allies and do other nefarious things. and we are looking at that also. we are talking about elections, ensuring the american people -- >> clarify, so because both you and director wray said that russia continues to try to meddle in our elections -- >> they do. >> and influence voters. are we talking about rogue russian individuals? are we talking about the kremlin? >> i think you can -- both and even add to that, russia has used numerous ways in which they want to influence through media,
social media, through bots, through actors that they hire, through proxies, all of it is a bov and potentially more. i can't go into any deep details. it's pervasive. it is ongoing. with the intent to achieve their intent and that is drive a wedge and undermine our values. >> i have question for director wray. the special counsel mueller has indicted more than 20 russian officials based on work by the fbi. the president has tweeted that that investigation by the special counsel is a hoax and should be shut down. i know you've said you don't believe it is a hoax. why would the american people believe what you're saying about the fbi when the president says that the investigation by the special counsel is a hoax and when the press secretary yesterday said there was a lot of corruption within the fbi, do
you have any response to those things coming from the white house? >> i can ensure the american people the menned an women of the fbi starting from the director all the way on down are going to follow our oaths and do our jobs. >> thanks, sarah. i have a question for director coats. how would you characterize the efforts to meddle in the 2018 election readtive to 2016? in general, is the pace of those operations in any way operative to 2014, 2012, or is it more intense? >> relative to what we've seen for the midterm elections, it is not the type of robust campaign we assessed in the 2014 election. we know through decades they've
tried to use propaganda to sew discord in america. they stepped up their game big time in 2016. we've not seen that kind of robust effort from them so far. as i mentioned publicly, just a few weeks ago, we're only one keyboard click away from finding out something that we don't -- haven't seen up to this particular point in time. right now, we have not seen that. >> do you see it directed to any particular party? is there any particular party benefiting from 2018 russian efforts? >> what we see are the russians are looking for every opportunity, regardless of party, regardless of whether or not it applies to the election, to continue their pervasive efforts to undermine our fundamental values. >> in the run-up to -- >> i'll try -- >> perhaps ambassador bolton can
weigh in as well. in the run-up to the helsinki summit, officials, ambassadors to nato, to russia, said that the president would raise the issue of malign activity with president putin. he didn't discuss that, at least at the press conference. you're saying today the president has directed you to make the issue of election meddle ago priority. how do you explain the disconnect between what you are saying, his advisers, and what the president has said about this issue? >> i'm not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened in helsinki. i'll turn it over to the national security director here to address that question. >> yes, the issue was discussed and, in fact, president putin said i thought at the press conference but certainly in the expanded bilateral meeting when the two leaders got together with their senior advisers, president putin said the first issue that president trump raised was election meddling.
>> i guess the question is at the press conference, the president didn't highlight any of the malign activities you have and his advisers have. and so should americans believe that he is listening to you, your advice, or that he is going his own way when he's having meetings like he did with the president of russia? >> i think the president has made it abundantly clear to everybody who has responsibility in this area that he cares deeply about it and he expects them to do their jobs to their fullest ability and he supports them fully. >> i believe this is either for director coats or -- i'll let either of you choose. since social media was brought up, there's a recent facebook having just shut down some 32 accounts believed potentially to be from russia. can you give us an idea? is that a large amount? is that a -- just kind of the tip of the iceberg? and then generally speaking with these social media companies,
facebook, twitter, instagram, how much have they progressed or have they not progressed in what you would like to see in terms of progress from 2016 and identifying the threat? >> so first, i'm not going to discuss any specific ongoing investigation. but what i will tell you is that activity of the sort you're describing is a good reflection of the fact we have to have a public/private partnership in this particular threat. that's why when i talked about our three pillers of the fbi's foreign influence task force, we're spending so much of our effort trying to engage with the social media and technology companies because there's a very important role for them to play in materials of monitoring and, in effect, policing their own platforms. what we have to have happen, which started happening in a way that's more robust, more robust than before the 2016 election, we're sharing with them actionable intelligence in a way that wasn't happening before. we understand better what they need. they're sharing information back
with us based on what they find. there are things they can do on their platforms voluntarily in terms of terms of use and things like that that the government doesn't have a role in. we learn things from them and we can use that to have our investigations be more effective. we've got to keep getting better at it. i think that's what we're seeing. >> ambassador bolton, in your letter, you talk about ordering the closure of the dance lates in san francisco and seattle. these are two tech hubs. what happened there that led you to do that? >> the purpose of expelling the russian individuals that were expelled was to send the signal to russia that their conduct in conducting a chemical weapons attack in great britain was unacceptable and this was the mode of retaliation designed to show we will not tolerate that
kind of activity on the territory of the united states or any of our allies. and we expel a lot of the people who we think had knowledge of it or had other activities in the united states that we considered unacceptable. >> this i guess would be for me, secretary nielsen or mr. wray. the meddling campaigns seem to fall into two broad categories. the sort of information campaigns which challenge the information upon which americans use to make their determinations. and then the more physical interferences into the machinery of voting, tabulation of voting, voter rolls, the machinery that the states run. can you guys describe what you're seeing specifically in the run-up to this coming election, in both of those areas, do you worry more about one than the other? do you have -- are there specific threats that maybe you can't even talk about, that you can say there have been specific threats in both of those
categories so that -- and how should americans process that, where we're going to go to the polls in a few months? should people be confident that when they pull the lever, they're secure? >> well, i think we've said this fairly consistently, that in the context of 2018, we're not yet seeing the same kind of efforts to specifically target election infrastructure, you know, voter registration databases in particular. what we are seeing are the maligned influence operations, in effect, information warfare that we've talked about, and that didn't really -- that's a 24/7, 365 days a year phenomenon that doesn't turn necessarily on whether or not we're in the middle of an election season or not. as director coats said, any moment is just a moment before, you know, the dial can be turned up one, much as we saw in 2016. again, not in terms of affecting the vote count, but in terms of penetration of voter
registration databases or something like that. that, in turn, can be a vehicle for them to try to sow discord or undermine confidence. we have to make sure we're pushing back on it, which is what we're doing. >> sarah. >> the way we're splitting it, we're all partnering together, but your question just shows a little bit of the division of labor so dhs is focused on the election infrastructure and support of state and locals that have the primary responsibility, and then we support the fbi's efforts in countering for an influence. but with respect to the infrastructure piece, we have seen a willingness and capability on the part of the russians, and so we're working very closely with state and locals to ensure we're prepared this time around. part of that is encouraging states to have this ability. whatever happens, we want to assure americans the day after that their vote was counted and it was counted correctly. regardless of what might happen, we will be prepared but we also want to make sure we have that auto ability.
>> secretary, will the government shut down october 1st affecting any of these efforts? >> what we have done, as you know, is in 2017, dhs designated election infrastructure a critical infrastructure sub sector so we prioritize efforts so any state that requests a as, et cetera, we will continue to prioritize in our budget, thank you. >> for the director, for the general, can you unpack a little more about what you said there? you said there was a question for the director and a question for the general. can you give us a better sense of who specifically has been targeted? we know at least two senators have said they've been targeted by hacking, by people impersonating government officials. is it members of the senate, members of the house, is it democratic and republican campaigns? and then a separate question for the general. >> we follow procedure that's been agreed on some time ago.
in terms of when we -- we see this type of information, it is processed through the leadership of the house senate chamber and then decimated to the member who was targeted. so we have taken that action and i'm not in a position to release those names. >> would you support legislation imposing sanctions on russia now that you're saying they have, in fact, interfered? or attempted to? >> we already had some of those -- a lot of sanctionings in place. i would support any efforts that we can collectively put together to send the signal to russia that there is a cost -- a price to pay for what they're doing. if we want to have any kind of relationship whatsoever in dealing with things of mutual interest, the russianings have to stop doing what they're doing or it's simply not going to happen. >> general have you been ordered
at all to authorize or conduct any offensive cyber operations? >> my guidance and the directate is very clear. we're not going to accept meddling in the elections. it's very ambiguous. >> -- for the 13 russians that were indicted -- >> thank you all very much. we really appreciate you being here today. we'll take a couple more questions on other topics today. jill, go ahead. >> thank you. i want to ask about the president's tweet on north korea. he is addressing kim jong-un. he said, quote, i look forward to seeing you soon. are there plans in place about a second meeting? also, he said he received a letter from kim. what did the letter say? did it address any of the reports that appeared to show that kim is not actually looking towards denuclearization? >> that's a lot of questions rolled into one. i'll try to address each one.
he did receive a letter. i believe he received it on august 1st. there is not a second meeting that is currently locked in. to chairman kim's letter, the president has, and that letter will be delivered, and i can't get into further detail. >> the letters addressed -- >> i can say the letters addressed their commitment from their joint statement and that was made at the sing poor summit and they're going to continue to work together. >> can you address -- >> again, i can't go any further. >> ivanka trump made two statements this morning at odds with position, of her father. she said the media are not the enemy of the people and called family separation at the border a low point. >> certainly the president himself has stated that he doesn't like the idea of family separation. i don't think anybody does. we also don't like the idea of
open borders. we don't like the idea of allowing people into our country if we don't know who they are. the president wants to secure our borders which is why he has asked congress to fix fix the l. we haven't been unclear about what our position is here. we want to secure the borders. we want to change the law. it's congress' job to do that. we'd like them particularly democrats to stop playing political games and step up and do their jobs the president is frustrated. 90% of the coverage on him is negative despite the fact that the economy is booming, isis on the run and american leadership is being reasserted around the world. this week the media refused to recover his remarks in florida highlighting efforts on work force development. the pooler for the press said there was no news made despite the fact that the governor of the state joined with dozens of businesses to announce thousands of new jobs. that may not be news in washington, d.c., but it's news
in the state of florida that people that didn't have a job before this president took office have better opportunity and the opportunity to have a job moving forward. that's actually real news and something that people in the state of florida and across this country appreciate and that was totally ignored. not only that. before a journalist on cnn claimed that the president hadn't taken questions in over a week despite the fact that same journalist in a live shot from the two and two press conference that the president had with the prime minister of italy moments after making that accusation. with this sort of misinformation and lack of interest that is so pervasive in the media, it's completely understandable for the president to be frustrated. john decker, go ahead. >> reporter: sarah, i wanted to ask you about the conference call that took place yesterday involving u.s./china trade relations. is there a timeline as to when or if the president may pull the trigger and impose harbor sanctions on china?
harsher tariffs on china? >> we are tocontinuing to monit that process. >> reporter: is the goal at the -- quickly, is the goal at the end of the day to get china back to the negotiating table the way they were at the negotiating table with american trade officials just a few months ago? >> the goal at the end of the day is to end the unfair trade practice that china has engaged in for decades and that the administrations before this president have ignored. >> reporter: returning to the question of election security, the president has said other people also may have been involved in the efforts to interfere with the 2016 election. do any of the people that we saw up here, has there been any evidence from the intelligence commute there were others besides russia involved in election meddling? >> there are others and we know that there are others that are considering making attempts in 2018 which is what our focus is
moving forward. as you know, none of us were here in 2016, but we're here now and the individuals that were standing up here moments ago, the focus and the full weight of the government asked by the president directed by the president is to protect the election strzok in 2018 and moving forward, and that's exactly what we are going to do. >> reporter: who were the others that were involved -- >> i can't get into specific details, but our intelligence shows there are a number of others that are looking at and considering engaging particularly in 2018. >> reporter: you said that they are trying to help democrats. you suggested that the russians would be trying to help dpems n democrats in the midterm elections. is there any evidence that the democrats are -- the russians are trying to help democrats in 2018? >> i think you can see just from what took place over in the facebook. i know director wray wasn't at liberty to speak about the specifics and i can't get into a lot of them. i can tell you that a number of them were anti-presintand that g
reasons. john. >> reporter: sarah -- >> sorry. i called you before. go ahead. >> reporter: i wanted you to respond to the standard rule proposed by the administration today. the 20 states attorney general who said they will sue this administration. this is part of their kmancompl. they say the health of our children, seniors, and community are at risk. it increases the rising cost of climate change for our states. the administration's response is what? >> that the reporting that we're reversing obama era fuel efficiency standards and presefr pre-empting the california standards is false. what the epa released was a notice of proposed rulemaking. not a final rule. it lays out options for how to go forward with standards and the notice asked for comments on the range of options. we are opening it up for a comment period and will make a final decision the end of that.
>> reporter: from 10% to 20% on the move of tariffs, what made the president say this is why i want to do it? >> again the president's been clear he is holding china's feet to the fire and he wants to stop the unfair trade practices. >> reporter: can i get a question? >> sorry, i'll come to you next. >> reporter: going back to election security, the other night in tampa the president mentioned voter independen.d.s. issed administration looking at proposing a voter i.d. law or pushing a voter i.d. law? >> i am sorry. what was the last part of your question? there is a lot of feedback. >> reporter: the administration, as part of this election security, also looking to do a voter i.d. law to push something like that through congress? >> we are doing everything we can to protect the 2018 elections. the integrity of those elections. moving beyond 2018 to 2020 and after, we haven't made a final decision, but certainly looking at every option available.
it's not unreasonable. if i return something to a department store, if i have to cash a check, i have to show my i.d. in order to do those things. it's not outrageous that if you are going to vote to decide who the leaders of the local communities, state, and federal government are going to be, that you would be asked to show an i.d. jim. >> reporter: i wanted to follow up on sarah's question from npr. she asked you about ivanka trump's statement that the press is not the enemy of the people, and she asked you whether or not the press is the enemy of the people. you read off a laundry list of your concerns about the press and things that you feel like are misreported, but you did not say that the press is not the enemy of the people. i think it would be a good thing if you were to say right here at this briefing that the press, the people who are gathered in this room right now, doing their jobs every day, asking questions of officials like the ones you brought forward earlier, are not the enemy of the people. i think we deserve that.
>> if the president has made his position known, i also think it's ironic -- >> reporter: would you mind telling us -- >> i'm trying to answer your question. i politely waited. i said it's ironic -- >> reporter: which is why i interrupted. if you finish -- if you would not mind letting me have a follow-up, it's fine. >> it's ironic, jim, not only you and the media attack the president for his rhetoric when they frequently lower the level of conversation in this country repeatedly. repeatedly the media resorts to personal attacks without any content other than to incite anger. the media has attacked me personally on a number of occasions, including your own network. said i should be harassed as a life sentence, that i should be schoeked. i.c.e. officials are not welcomed and personal information is shared on the internet. when i was hosted by the correspondent's association, you brought a comedian up to attack my appearance and called me a
traitor to my own gender. in fact, as i know -- as far as i know, i am the first press secretary in the history of the united states that required secret service protection. the media ratchets up the verbal assault against the president and everyone in this administration and certainly we have a role to play, but the media has a role to play for the discourse in this country as well. >> reporter: if i may follow up, excuse me, you did not say in the course of those remarks that you just made that the press is not the enemy of the people. are we to take it from what you just said, we all get put through the ringer, we all get put in the meat grinder in this town, and you are no exception. i am sorry that happened to you. i wish that had not happened. but for the sake of this room, the people who are in this room, this democracy, this country, all of the people around the world are watching what you are saying, sarah, and the white house for the united states of america, the president of the united states should not refer to us as the enemy of the people.
his own daughter acknowledges that and all i'm asking you to do, sarah, is to acknowledge that right now and right here. >> i appreciate your passion. i share it. i have addressed this question. i have addressed my personal feelings. i am here to speak on behalf of the president. he has made his comments clear. >> reporter: the national archives told the senate judiciary chairman today they probably aren't going to be able to finish up the document direction regarding brett kavanaugh until october. that's obviously later than the timetable i know you guys and senate republicans are hoping for. any comment on that or any potential assistance the white house can give the archives? >> we want to be as helpful as possible. several senators have stated there will be up to and over a million pages of documents to review, including over 300 judicial opinions. his documents, a staff secretary tell us the least about his judicial thinking than the million pages from his other
necessity for the entire mueller report to be revealed. it needs to be a transparent process. 80% of the american public wants this to happen, including republicans. the u.s. house of representatives unanimously passed a resolution calling for the report to be released in its entirety. >> all right. we've just lost our connection with denny heck, but a very important development unfolding right now. wement we want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer in washington. only moments ago president trump reacted to the summary of robert mueller's findings, claiming he was totally exonerated, calling it an illegal takedown, the entire russia investigation that failed. that's from the president of the united states. robert mueller did not find that president trump, his campaign, or his associates conspired with russia according the attorney general, william barr. barr also says mueller did not have enough evidence to
prosecute what's called obstruction of justice, but could not exonerate the president completely. manu raju is on capitol hill, where we're getting more reaction. it's rather intense right now. what's the latest? >> yeah, democrats in the house are making it very clear they are not satisfied with this four-page letter from bill barr. they're demanding the full release of the entire mueller report. they also want the underlying evidence that has led to bob mueller making these conclusions. they want that provided to congress, provided to the american public, and you're hearing from top democrats on down, house majority leader steny hoyer just putting out a statement, demanding full release of the report. the chairman of the house judiciary committee, jerry nadler, made it clear he wants to bring bill barr before his committee to hear his public testimony. he said in light of the very concerning discrepancies and final decision making at the justice department following the special counsel report where mueller did not exonerate the president, we'll be calling
attorney general barr in to testify before house judiciary in the near future. now, it's still unclear exactly how much of the report bill barr plans to release. he said in that four-page letter that he does plan to release -- his goal was to release as much as i can consistent with applicable law. he doesn't say how much that's going to be. democrats clearly are not satisfied, pushing for much more. republicans say this is a complete exoneration for this president. they're saying democratic efforts to probe into russia collusion, probe into obstruction of justice, which house democrats are planning to do, should be abandoned now that the mueller investigation did not find any crimes that were committed in those regards. nevertheless, democrats say the first step here is to get the full mueller report. that will be their road map going forward. the question is will the department comply, and if not, will subpoenas come? democrats are warning that's the next step. >> all right. stand by. i want to play for our viewers
who may just be tuning in here in the united states and around the world, the president's reaction only moments ago, just before boarding air force one on a flight from florida back here to washington. he stopped and made less than a minute statement. >> it was a complete and total exoneration. it's a shame that our country to go through this. to be 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. hopefully somebody is 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. >> jeffrey toobin is with us. let's get your reaction, jeffrey. these are historic moments right now. >> well, it certainly is. the allegation that the trump campaign, that donald trump himself worked with russia, supported russia in russia's efforts to elect him president has been repudiated by this report. that is an unambiguous conclusion. what started this investigation, what prompted rod rosenstein to name robert mueller as the special counsel in the first place was the firing of james comey as director of the fbi in 2017. the question of whether that was obstruction of justice, whether the president was firing james comey in an effort to hinder or stop the investigation of him.
that has been resolved in an ambiguous way in this report, frankly, because under circumstances that are frankly unclear, mueller turned that question over to his superior in the department of justice. it does not appear he concluded one way or the other about whether the president obstructed justice. the attorney general did conclude that there was no obstruction of justice. as he said in this letter, it did not ab solve hsolve him of . that's certainly worthy of further investigation. >> very important, indeed. our political contributors are here. let's go down the line and get your reaction. it's pretty stunning, all these developments. >> i think there's a lot of democrats that wrote checks about campaign collusion that robert mueller did not cash. so i have questions for the democrats and the trump campaign. for the democrats, namely people like adam schiff and senator
blumenthal, who said they have evidence of criminality and wrongdoing, what set of facts were looking at that robert mueller did not? let's be out with this information already. for the trump campaign, why all the lies? why all the lies regarding contacts with russian officials? in the bill barr memo, it says that many russian affiliates made offers of campaign help to the trump campaign that they did not act upon. maybe that's why they lied. or maybe it's the reason michael cohen is going to a jail cell and they're trying to protect his business interests. i want answers about that too. >> wolf, i think this is going to be deeply disappointing and unsatisfying to a number of democrats, but i think it's important to remember that this is not how democrats won in 2018. nobody ran on impeachment. nancy pelosi is not saying we should impeach. she wasn't saying that a week ago, wasn't saying that two weeks ago. there's a lot of questions that are unanswered coming out of this four-page document that we've seen democrats clearly indicating they're going to
pursue. including the fact he was not exonerated, president trump was not exonerated on obstruction of justice. there are also a lot of questions that i think democrats have about the lack of explanation for the trump tower moscow meeting, for the sharing of polling. so this will continue as it was going to before. the obligation or the role of mueller was always to investigate and then pass it along. that's exactly what's going to happen. >> there has to be a credibility reckoning for these democrats. adam schi iff especially. all assured the american people they had evidence. it's been fashionable lately to say they came with receipts. they promised this for two years, and it's been completely blown up today by the special counsel's report. that's number one. number two, it strikes me that what mueller has proven beyond a shadow after a doubt is russia interfered with our election, that trump had nothing to do with t and it all occurred on obama's watch. we need an accounting of how we
failed at this at the end of the last administration and how we're going to stop it in the future. i think that's what a lot of folks want to know. how did we fail? how do we stop it? >> i agree with you. and number one on my list of questions is why then did mitch mcconnell obstruct the idea of a bipartisan notification to the american people? you like to make this talking point about how it happened on obama's watch. >> it's not a talking point. >> it is a talking point. >> it's a fact. >> it was mitch mcconnell who stood in the way of notifying the american people. on the one hand, this is good for the country, frankly, because as someone who participated in this election and worked for hard in this election, the idea that the russians, we know they obstructed all of our hard work, that was very troubling. so i think for america, this is a good thing, but certainly there are a number of questions that remain. i think the most important thing, frankly, is what happens next. barr has left very much open how much information he will now give to congress. and i think, not to make a pun,
but the bar is very high for him because if you believe that the president has been exonerated, then there's absolutely no reason to give congress everything they've asked for so this thaek answer both amanda and scott's questions. >> pamela, you're getting new information. >> we're learning that the process of scrubbing mueller's confidential report has already begun at doj to see what else could be provided in this memo released today by bill barr. he did say he wanted to work with special counsellor mueller to figure out what else could be released, while keeping an eye on grand jury information, classified information. that process is under way, according to my colleague laura jarrett. the next phase is important. yes, he's going to be potentially releasing more information, but this enters a whole new chapter. one chapter is closed. we know today robert mueller found no collusion. that's something the president had been saying for nearly two years, as long as this investigation has been going.
it is a win for the president. obstruction is a little messier when you read this. however, bill barr, his attorney general, essentially exoneratinexonerates him. >> and rod rosenstein. >> who i was told is staying on as sort of a heat shield for bill barr. bill barr is this hand-picked attorney general who wrote a memo saying that the obstruction probe was fatally misconceived. so now this new chapter is a fight over disclosures from the report. the white house has been bracing for this. it knows the order of battle and is preparing for a subpoena fight with the democrats who have already threatened that. also, pardons. what is the president going to do? his attorneys have said that once this probe is over with, that is when he's going to look at pardons, consider them. you heard him today say a lot of people were hurt through this investigation, as shimon pointed out. raises the question, what's he going to do next? >> the whole issue of pardons clearly coming into focus. the president said a lot of people have been hurt in this illeg illegal takedown.
>> wolf, i think one of the important points here for the president certainly, even people around him, in late 2016, early 2017 advised him to accept that the russians did interfere in the election and what you've heard for the last two years is his refusal to even budge on admitting that. now, we have yet another finding here from the special counsel that did, again, says it did happen. i think one of the reasons why the president did that, he didn't want to give an inch because he did not want to essentially concede he had any help in the election and put himself in a place where, again, what we find in this investigation would undermine his election. here we have another finding from the special counsel that it did occur. obviously no americans were involved in that process as part of a conspiracy. again, the president at some
point might want to have to admit that it did happen. he was elected. we don't know, obviously, what role, what difference it made to have the russian interference, but it did happen. >> such an important point. you said no u.s. person or anyone related to the trump campaign knowingly coordinated. that's an important point. one of the reasons why everybody has been thinking that there was fire with the smoke is because of the president's actions or inaction. yeah, he's been tough on some issues related to russia, but rhetorically, the bully pulpit has been absent with regard to russia. absent. in the face of russia meddling in american elections. the statement here says they actively were able to get in to the dnc's e-mails, that they were able to meddle more effectively to hurt hillary clinton. republicans who worked along the
trump campaign said russia tried but just weren't successful on their side. regardless of how you look at it, they're the ones who should come into focus now, particularly as we go into the next election. >> abby phillip is getting more reaction at the white house. what else are they saying? >> for months and months, the trump campaign has been essentially waiting for this moment to figure out how they're going to use -- deal with the mueller report as they go into 2020. now today they issued this statement calling it a total vindication for president trump and suggesting that the democrats have lied to the american people. wolf, the last line of their fairly lengthy statement on this, really, i think, incapsulates the message from the trump campaign to the american people going into the 2020 election. the american people should take notice the democrats have lied to you while president trump has been hard at work building a booming economy and making you safer. so there's a twofold argument here. the president has been focused on the economy, focused on safety and security.
democrats have been pushing collusion, what they called a collusion conspiracy. this is how they're going into 2020. one of my colleagues, betsy cline, just spoke to a senior trump campaign official a few moments ago who said this is going to be one of the tools they use to try to woo moderate voters going into this next election. moderate voters have been pulling away from president trump for a long time, particularly in the suburbs. it's one of the factors that helped democrats win the house of representatives. it's really an open question right now whether that will actually be effective. but from the trump campaign's perspective, they believe this is an open door for them to say the president's been treated unfairly these last two years. there was no underlying crime of collusion, and they're going further on the obstruction issue, as you all have been discussing. that's not as clear in the letter from bill barr. they're saying this is a total vindication from the president, and they want to use this as a way to restart a conversation with moderate voters about what
president trump has been up to as president and perhaps push those moderate voters away from democrats. they're suggesting that democrats have been blind sided by their inability to deal with the 2016 election and have been pushing conspiracy theories. so a really interesting window into how they're already, as of this very moment, pivoting to 2020 and feeling very hopeful about what it means for president trump to move over this hump of the mueller probe that he's been kind of waiting for all these months and these last two years, wolf. >> significant development, indeed. james clapper is joining us right now, former director of national intelligence. in additi anxiety anxious to get your reaction. what do you think? >> well, it's actually more forthcoming than i thought it would be, but it certainly leaves a lot of unanswered questions. of course, like everybody else, i'm curious about mueller's decision to defer to the department of justice on a
determination about exoneration. clearly the white house and president already are spiking the ball in the end zone. i guess with some justification. >> well, they're making the point that there was no collusion, and in the mueller report, there clearly is evidence there was no collusion, that no one from the trump campaign conspired or colluded or cooperated with the russians to interfere in the u.s. election. that's pretty significant. forget about the obstruction of justice for a moment. >> it is significant. you know, i think in a way, even if you're an opponent of trump, that is reassuring. that's a good thing for the country a country in any event. >> i'll read another line that makes that point. bill barr, the attorney general, in his letter to congress, he quotes from the mueller report saying, the investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities. what's also significant, as you
well know, you were the director of national intelligence at the time, there was a lot of evidence that the russians at the highest levels were trying to interfere in the u.s. election. >> exactly. one of the things that this mueller -- this summary does, i don't know about the actual report, but the summary makes that point, reaffirms once again and discusses the russian interference and the two dimensions of it, which was the disinformation campaign and the hacking. it's a shame that the president continues to refuse to call that out or to acknowledge what the russians did. he's been consistent about that since we briefed him in the last administration on the 6th of january, 2017, about the russian interference. this report reaffirms those findings. >> i went back and re-read earlier this afternoon that report you released on january
6th, 2017, during the transition that you made available to the then president elect donald trump. you concluded in that report that u.s. intelligence, with high confidence, said that the russians had three goals in mind in interfering in the election. one, to denigrate hillary clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency. two, help donald trump's election chances. and three, undermine public faith in u.s. democracy, to sow dissent, in effect, hered in the unit -- here in the united states. looks like the russians got what they wanted. >> they did. they were imminently successful. that kind of interference is continuing. we can look forward to it again in 2020. >> your successor, dan coats, told congress a few months later that the russian cyber operations will continue to target the united states and its allies. it's still going on as we speak
right now. that was the whole investigation. the mueller investigation was designed to determine what the russians were up to and then also go into whether or not americans were helping the russians and apparently the bottom line is there was no evidence that criminally americans were helping the russians. >> that appears to be the case. i know when i left the government in '17, we certainly didn't have any direct evidence of collusion then. i think we all had faith. i certainly do, did in bob mueller. if there was evidence there, he would report it. and there wasn't. that's a good thing. it's a good message for the country. >> james clapper, thanks so much for joining us. always important to get your perspective. appreciate it. >> thanks, wolf. >> let's continue, amanda. what do you think? this is going to be a political
issue. there's no doubt about that. the republicans and democrats -- on conclusion, the democrats have a weak case. on collusion, they may have something to argue. >> i think there's something to explore in the way donald trump governs. he's had a strangely positive relationship towards russia. now we know it's not because there was collusion, but this memo states there were multiple offers from russian affiliated individuals to assist with the trump campaign. here's why i want the report to come out. what knowledge did donald trump have of those offers of assistance? and did those offers, although not acted upon in a cooperative way, influence his policy towards russia? >> jen? >> i think the point that a lot of people have raised, there's a fitness of his role as president here that we should question. over the last two years, he's done absolutely nothing to prepare for the intervention of the russians that's ongoing, that will likely be a part of 2020. that speaks to whether he is behaving as a president should, never mind speaking positively about vladimir putin and having
secret conversations that aren't read out. i do think there's an important warning for the democrats here. abby was reporting on how the white house is thinking about this. the reality is russia and this entire probe did not even register on internal polls for democrats across the country. it was not an issue anybody was talking about on the campaign trail. we should not change that now. and that's a warning to presidential candidates, other people running in tough elections. there are other issues to be running on. let this play out on the hill with the judiciary committee. that's where it should sit for now. >> the president made a 50-second statement we all heard before boarding air force one to fly back to washington. it may still happen, but i was sort of surprised. you would think after two years of this kind of investigation he wouldn't alert the tv networks and say, i'm going to address the nation from the oval office later tonight. >> may suspicion is they're getting their ducks in a huddle to make a big splash this week. the campaign, the white house,
there's no question where they're going to head with this. it's going to be, how can you trust a word these democrats say when they so willingly and recklessly lied to the american people for two years about collusion? you've got a president here who's delivering on jobs, delivering on this, delivering on criminal justice and that. it's a very simple argument. i suspect they're going to start making it tonight, monday, and they won't stop making it until this campaign is over. and guess what, you raised the word fitness. a lot of americans are going to say, how fit are the democrats to run the country if we can't even trust them to tell us the truth about something so serious. >> i hope they use adam schiff in ads and that's the best thing they have because we'll win. >> nancy pelosi was very wise to take a step back some time ago and say, talk about what she was going to do, what the agenda was going to be and to show that frankly on capitol hill, democrats can walk and chew gum at the same time. all these other investigations -- this is my advice to the democrats. have the fight about getting the evidence.
let those investigations continue, but show your agenda is for the american people. i think nancy pelosi was wise to put that out, particularly knowing the way this was going to come down is exactly what i would have predicted, which is what happened. on friday, we learned we were going to get a summary, which meant that from the beginning, barr was going to be able to set the narrative in the first critical 24, 48 hours of this story. we all have lots of questions, but most americans, when are they going to tune in and hear those questions? what they wanted to hear was, was there collusion, what did the russians do, something about obstruction of justice, right. so for the democrats to stay focused on the issues, i completely agree with jen. but that doesn't mean -- remember, we still have, what, ten other investigations that are still ongoing. so this is still going to hang over the trump administration, no question. again, the democrats are going to have to just show they can walk and chew gum at the same time. >> but karen, the democrats and
republicans still have the highest regard for robert mueller. >> absolutely. >> everyone was saying, let's wait to hear what robert mueller has to say. let's not come to any conclusions. robert mueller has now completed his nearly two-year investigation. and he's come to conclusion. >> we don't know what those conclusions are. we know what bill barr says those conclusions are. >> we know one of those conclusions is there was no collusion. >> again, this is a memo. jeffrey toobin made this point. this is a mem my that was created by rosenstein and barr, two people who we already know were immaterial my katplicated obstruction. rosenstein was implicated in the firing of jim comey. this is their read of what's in the report. we have not seen the full report. and we've been talking about some of the questions. >> are you alleging they are lying? >> no, i'm saying that this is their spin on what's in the report. i want to see the report. >> they actually quote from the report. >> the quote from the report, i'll read it. this is from the mueller report that the attorney general quoted
in his letter, page two, in the section russian interference in the 2016 u.s. presidential election. this is a quote from mueller. the investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities. that's a direct quote. >> okay, but there's also the direct quote that says while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. >> that's on obstruction of justice, not on collusion. on collusion, mueller is firm, no collusion, as the president has said for two years. no collusion. >> right, exactly. it is black and white. there was no collusion. i don't think you can be clearer than that. he's quoting directly from the mueller report. >> he knows it could be made public one day. bill barr wrote this knowing full well f it gets to that, a federal judge could demand the report be made public. bill barr, i imagine, was mindful when he wrote this. that's probably part of why he
and rosenstein basically cleared him on obstruction, saying his conduct wasn't obstructive. they put in that line there that mueller didn't feel that way, that he wasn't exonerated, which raises a lot of questions. >> i think a lot of people are going to raise questions about rod rosenstein. he wrote the memo to explain the firing. >> but in fairness, when he wrote the memo saying comey should be fired, he was referring to what comey did to hillary clinton. he wasn't referring to what the president of the united states was doing. he was saying what comey did was disgraceful to hillary clinton, saying he wasn't going to charge hillary clinton, but here's all the dirt on hillary clinton. to do that only days before a presidential election. that's what rod rosenstein was saying at that point, which the democrats totally agreed with at that point. >> and we know he was directed to write that memo. >> he was asked to write a memo. he clearly was citing what james
comey, the then-fbi director, did to hillary clinton and damaged her campaign. >> but we also know directly from president trump, who said that he fired jim comey in part because -- >> that's what the president said. >> he said it. >> i'm just trying to be fair to rod rosenstein, what he wrote in that memo. >> if there was some kind of conspiracy, let's say, at the department of justice or the fbi to not bring charges and kind of word it this way, i think there would be ways people would come out and talk about it. look, i think we saw that during the clinton investigation. the fbi, there were people very unhappy she wasn't going to be charged. we saw that. there was a process. the department of justice did not feel there was enough to pursue charges against her. what comey did, much different than what we see here from bill barr. >> against justice department regulations. >> so bill barr found a way to tell us the findings of this investigation without giving us the dirt. we know there's plenty of dirt
in this report that they could have expressed. he found a way -- and i do think that credit needs to be given to bill barr for doing it this way. there was a lot of questions about whether or not he was going to release information. he told us on friday he would. he kept his word. this is pretty detailed. >> as far as rod rosenstein is concerned, you also have to give him credit for doing what he had to do, to make sure given the fact there was so much confusion about the way the president carried out the firing of james comey did create this whole suspicion that he was trying to obstruct, trying to bury the russia store. i think rod decided to do the right thing, which is to appoint someone independently to look at this. the president said it was 13 angry democrats. turns out these 13 angry democrats, as he likes to call them, did an honest investigation and found that there was no collusion. the president, in some ways, brought this upon himself with the way he conducted himself. >> i just want to point out
where there are issues and where there needs to be further investigation on issues that the special counsel came across. we've seen that being farmed out. it's been handled by other u.s. attorneys, fbi agents. those are not going away. as far as this investigation, for mueller, it's done. there are no more indictments. this idea that there may be sealed indictments somewhere, that's over with. now we look forward to what is next, how much more information gets out, and what's going to map in new york. >> kellyanne conway just tweeted this. we'll put it up on the screen. congratulations, president trump. today you won the 2016 election all over again. and you got a gift for the 2020 election. they'll never get you because they'll never get you. that was the tweet from kellyanne conway. >> i feel like that's a little inside joke between them. a little awkward. the important thing is what i've already turned on here. if they want to run on this report, the democrats should still run on health care and the economy and other issues that
helped them win in 2018. they may try, but we didn't have success in trying to do that early on in 2018. so that continues to be an important warning. as much as we can applaud members of the department of justice, and that's good for the constituti institution and good for america, but there also is a role and obligation and a responsibility by democrats who are leading the committees in the house to leave no stone unturned and to try to answer some of the questions that are unanswered here. that's an important part of the process as well. >> if the democrats are going to run on other issues, not only should they forget about impeachment, flnancy pelosi already said forget about impeachment. there's got to be bipartisan report. but does it mean that these various committees, should they forget about that and focus in on substantive issues where they can work with the president, infrastructure for example, and
get things done for the american people? >> not exactly that, but i think we can -- i think a lot of democrats should take a page from the mayor play book where he talked about issues that we should really focus on that the american people care about. the reality is many people looked at donald trump, thought he was gross and disgusting, and still voted for him any way. that still may be the case today, so let's focus on what we're strong at, which is health care, the economy, and a lot of these issue where is we can have a good battle. now, there are questions about his fitness to be president, to be commander in chief, to deal with foreign policy issues. those are character issues that i think are still part of the argument. >> you raised the issue of whether they should continue other investigations. i'm sure they will, but their anchor around their necks now is whatever they do on other investigations is always going to be clouded by the fact they got this one so wrong. promising evidence of collusion for two years, having mueller blow that up, now all the rest of these investigations, a lot of people are going to say, well, are you selling us a bill of goods on that the way you did
on the collusion statements you made? i think the rest of their investigations are going to be tainted moving forward. >> but who's a lot of people though? i think the american people, let's treat them with intelligence. if the president broke the law, they're going to want to know that, regardless of how he broke the law or what the law was. i think they deserve to know that. >> we can talk about the politics of this, but kellyanne's tweet congratulating the president for winning, let's look at how he won. he blasted, he weaponized the investigation. he refused to sit down for an interview. that will have consequences for every president under investigation to come. so yes, it is a political decision. do the democrats give up on the obstruction ball, so to speak? because bill barr essentially says that's wide open. we didn't make a determination on that, but there's evidence, so democrats, if you want to pursue it, go ahead. but are they so burned on this, they give unand say we're not going to play that game because we can't beat the president? >> let's ask an influential democrat. chris coons is joining us on the
phone right now. what do you think? now that this report is out, now that robert mueller himself has concluded there was no collusion, is it time for the democrats to curtail or step back from these other investigations? >> wolf, i don't think that should lead us to the conclusion that other investigations into misconduct by the trump organization, the trump campaign, the trump inauguration are invalid or should be curtailed, frankl curtailed. frankly, if anything, i think the fact the special counsel refused to reach a conclusion one way or the other about whether president trump committed obstruction of justice means that more than ever we have a responsibility to get access to those materials and to conduct a thorough review of it. i'll remind you, special counsel mueller and congress have different charges. mueller's charge was very narrow. frankly, i think it is a good
thing that mueller did not conclude that our president conspired with a hostile power in the conduct of his campaign. mueller's report, at least the summary we've gotten from barr, leaves wide open both the question of obstruction and makes it clear that other investigations should proceed. i'll remind you, the mueller investigation led to 37 indictments and a series of guilty pleas and convictions, including the president's campaign manager, national security adviser, and personal attorney. it's hard for me to see how that is a complete exoneration. it strongly suggests that at the most senior levels, folks in the trump campaign had a whole series of inappropriate contacts with russians and then lied about it. if there was nothing for them to hide, why did they do so much lying and misrepresenting? and why do that to the extent that you've now got a half dozen
senior people with convictions or guilty pleas? i do think i have trusted all along that special counsellor -- counsel mueller would do a complete investigation and supply materials so we in congress can do our job. >> you're absolutely right. he said the president was not completely exonerated on the issue of obstruction, but he also said, and the report quotes mueller, a man you greatly admire as saying this, quote, the investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities. that's a hard and fast statement. >> that's right. that's how i read it.
and i think that's a significant conclusion, but given the open question about obstruction, i still think congress needs to have access to the full report. >> are you ready to say, senator, there was no collusion? >> i want to see the full report because at the very least, the trump campaign at the highest levels had unprecedented and inappropriate contacts with the russians. but i think it is a good thing for the country if the mueller investigation concluded that our president didn't directly conspire with a hostile foreign power. >> it wasn't just the president. bill barr was quoting from mueller himself saying there was no collusion, there was no coordination, no conspiracy between the trump campaign. that means others too, besides the president, and the russian government in these illegal -- in russia's election interference activities. i guess the bottom line is, do
you still have complete confidence in robert mueller? >> i see nothing that would undermine my confidence, even though this is a striking result. i think there was abundant evidence or suggestions of high-level, frequent, and inappropriate conducts with russians in the trump campaign. i think robert mueller is a career professional in law enforcement and someone who i have no reason to doubt or question. >> and specifically on this whole point when he says there was no collusion, the president goes way beyond that, saying no collusion, no obstruction. the president also said, we just heard him say this whole investigation was an illegal takedown that failed. that's the president's words. he said it was a shame that the united states had to go through
this. it was a shame, he said, he had to go through this, and he felt badly for all these individuals who had already been charged and convicted, potentially hinting at a possible series of pardons. what's your response? >> ikds not more strongly disagree. i don't think it was a shame that the country had to go through this. i think if anything, it shows our commitment to the rule of law, that no one, including the president, is above the law. frankly, i think the president would have been well served not to have spent so much time in the last year criticizing, critiquing, harassing robert mueller mueller and his investigators. he would have been better served to let it play out, as his attorne attorneys initially advised him. i think the president may be claiming complete exoneration, but the folks who have had to plead guilty or who have been convicted i think speak loudly otherwise. >> the president clearly feels sorry, feels sad about those
individuals. i don't think any of us should be surprised if eventually at some point down the road people are pardoned as a result of all of this. senator coons, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you, wolf. >> elie honig is joining us now, used to work at the u.s. attorney's office in the southern district of new york. the mueller investigation is over. mueller has concluded no conclusion. as far as obstruction of justice, he's left that whole issue up to the attorney general and the deputy attorney general. he says there's not complete exoneration, but he deferred to the attorney general, bill barr, and the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein. a lot of other investigations in the meantime are continuing, including in new york where you used to work for the u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york. what are they up to? >> so wolf, there's no question about it, nobody should be spiking the football just yet. as you said, there are many pending investigations, and i think by far the most potent threat to the president and the people around him comes from my
old office, the southern district of new york. we already know the southern district has convicted michael cohen. we already know they're deep into the hush money payout, the campaign finance case. we saw that search warrant earlier this week or last week which reminded us just how much the information the southern district has. we know they're digging into the inaugural committee, the trump org. there's a couple important advantages that situate the southern district deferently than robert mueller. first of all, there won't be any politic political blow back on the southern district like there may be on congress. that's not going to apply to the southern district. second of all, mueller had a narrow mandate. southern district can go anywhere the evidence takes them into the finances, wherever the evidence goes, the southern district will go. last, the southern district has a long and well-deserved reputation for being nonpolitical, for being relentless, and for being tenacious. this is the no over for the southern district by any means. >> if the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york decide they want to charge the president of the united states
with a crime, wouldn't they first have to go to at least the deputy attorney general and probably the attorney general himself to get authorization for that? >> yes, wolf. i don't think the southern district will try to indict the president directly while he's in office. that is a long-established doj policy. as much as the southern district prides ourselves on being independent, they will not openly balk an exhausting policy. if we're talking about people around the president, high-ranking people in the trump org, i think that would have to go up the chain to the deputy attorney general and probably the attorney general. we're talking about a different set of crimes here. we're talking about primarily financial crimes. i think the evidence will be a lot more black and white than it might have been on collusion, corruption, obstruction. so you could well have a different outcome. >> did mueller do the right thing in deferring to the deputy attorney general and the attorney general to decide whether there was enough criminal intent, enough hard evidence to go after the president on the issue of obstruction of justice? >> i'm not entirely sure, wolf. look, i have the highest regard
for robert mueller that i could possibly have for any prosecutor. i was surprised that he punted. look, there's no other way to put it. he punted the obstruction of justice decision. what prosecutors do all the time is we make very difficult razor-edge decisions. he could have at least gone to the attorney general with a recommendation. i'm surprised he went to the attorney general and said, i have no recommendation, you decide. let's remember, william barr has a very specific, and i think, extreme view of obstruction of justice. he said in his memo that he submitted to doj unsolicited before he was attorney general that mueller's theory of obstruction was fatally misconceived, and he had said in a prior interview that mueller's theory of obstruction was, and i quote, asinine. so i don't think we should be surprised that william barr came out where he did, given that he had openly stated he completely disagreed with mueller's view on obstruction. >> so let me get more legal analysis. so from the legal perspective, where do we go from here?
>> well, i think these other investigations will obviously continue, and i would just say with respect to the southern district of new york, they do report to the attorney general. so whether or not they have additional evidence that is against the president or his inner circle, that information, if they're going to prosecute, that's going to go up to the attorney general, certainly if it involves the president. i think we just need to keep in mind that the southern district of new york still does reside within the justice department. as far as the two matters that are described in the attorney general's letter, i think we have ongoing senate intelligence investigations that still are looking at russian influence. i think the conclusions drawn by the special counsel's office will perhaps help chairman burr if his report is leaning towards also identifying that there was no so-called collusion or connection between the trump
campaign and the russian government or russian surrogates involved in influencing the election. and i think on obstruction, there's going to be a big fight with the hill. on obstruction, congress is going to ask for certainly the report but also more underlying information. i also just want to comment for a minute, wolf, on the interview you had with senator coons, just to draw the distinction between the way that senator coons characterized bob mueller and his investigation. senator coons was probably surprised by some of the result in this let eveter, but he stil exhibited a respect for the special counsel and his investigation. contrast that with the president's statement that it was an illegal take down that failed. even though there are circumstances and favorable information in the attorney general's letter to the president, he still can't stop himself from attacking the justice system and attacking the process in an independent review of activities. >> yeah, he said the whole thing was basically illegal.
elliott, let me get your sense where this all is heading in the immediate future. >> yeah, i think what we really need, though, is we really need to see robert mueller's underlying findings. i think there are a number of unanswered questions here. many people, many americans, many lawyers, people who run investigations, are curious as to why, for instance, the president wasn't interviewed or even, you know, donald trump jr. or other individuals who were close to this. so that's one fundamental question that i think we really need to think about here. ultimately, this question to not address -- for mueller not to address the obstruction question and to echo elie's word, punt it to barr. i have it in my notes, punt is the word i have as well. it's an odd decision when he could have just remained silent on it. or the attorney general could remain silent on it. so why was that decision made? that might have been, as we talked about in the last hour, wolf, perhaps a sign to
congress, opening the door to congress investigating this. as senator coons said a moment ago, congress has a different charge than law enforcement. pardon me, than the legal system. congress, number one, isn't held to the reasonable doubt standard. number two, they are assessing the propriety of the conduct. they are assessing fraud, waste, abuse, and all other things in the administration. again, before you even get to this lofty question of impeachment, just what's appropriate for the president of the united states? so i do think -- you know, we should -- the american public, people may not see this, but we should split this out into two different things. what happens in courts and what happens in congress. but again, there's a huge public interest in the findings of this report being made public. congress itself has voted 422-0, 80% or 90% of americans have been polled to say they support the release of the findings. for all those reasons, many of us need to see what's in it
rather than the four-page document from the attorney general. >> everybody stand by. shimon, you know a lot about the southern district of new york, the u.s. attorney there. where's this heading? >> i would say -- and as we've been reporting, i think this is something that still consumes the president and consumes the president's attorneys. they are concerned about the southern district of new york. they are still in the middle of this campaign finance violation where the president's been implicated. it is the department of justice, just for everyone to keep in mind, that's implicated the president in that crime, right. it's not like it's some other -- he's an unindicted co-conspirator. it's the department of justice that's decided not to bring charges on the obstruction issue. those investigations are very much ongoing. that's going to be a big focus going forward for all of us, certainly a lot of reporters, the american people will want to know what's going on there. they're a tough office. they do not let things go. the fbi in new york, they're
tough. they have certainly investigated a lot of political corruption, local political corruption, state political corruption that we don't hear about. those fbi agents are the ones that are doing this investigation in new york. they're a tough group. so the other thing want to make one point is i do think more is going to be made public. i think bill barr is showing us what he intends to do, what he did today. the other thing that's probably going to hold some of this up are those other investigations like in the southern district of new york. i think once we start learning about those and those charges are brought forward and there are indictments, then we may learn more about what's in this report. keep in mind, there are still ongoing investigations, and bill barr is saying this is one of the reasons why he needs to wait to make a lot of this public. >> remember in the documents that came out this past week on michael cohen, there were 20 pages of redactions in the hush money payment scheme where the president is a co-conspirator. so certainly the legal cloud still hangs over the president,
but certainly this was a huge cloud lifted today for the president and his team. his legal team, who have been fighting until the very end for the president not to have to sit down with robert mueller, and they won on that. >> manu raju is on capitol hill and has a statement from the democratic leadership in the house and senate. >> that's right. nancy pelosi and chuck schumer just issued a joint statement about the mueller report. they said that the fact that the special counsel's report does not exonerate the president on a charge as serious as obstruction of justice demonstrates how urgent it is that the full report and underlying documentation be made public without any further delay given mr. barr's public record of bias against the special counsel inquiry. he's not a neutral observer and is not in a position to make objective determinations about the report. they're referring that he has been critical of the inspection.
he made a memo about the obstruction of justice aspect. he said he wasn't ready for what mueller was looking into. that's what they're saying. democratic lieaders say that bar sent to capitol hill today raises as many questions as it answers. and they say that obviously for the president to say he is completely exonerated contradicts what mueller said and mueller said according to bill barr's letter that he was not completely exonerated even if they were not going to move forward with the prosecution of a crime. nevertheless, the point of the democratic leaders are making they want the full report public as soon as possible without delay. that is their underlying message. they're trying to say they're not putting much stock into what bill barr is telling congress. >> a strong statement. >> a strong statement. and it underscores a point karen was making earlier today. it's an important one.
maybe it goes -- it's obvious but we should underscore it. what we have here is the trump appointed attorney general setting the narrative. i mean, he literally wrote it. he's setting the narrative with quotes and other parts of the mueller report, but the idea that he sent it to congress. he put it out in the public. he's making clear that this is what he wants everybody to come away with. and we don't know the substance underneath all of these conclusions. we don't know how they got to these conclusions, because we haven't seen the report. and so what you just heard from manu with the joint statement from the democratic leaders on capitol hill is an attempt to pull back control of that narrative. it's in the going to be easy. let's be honest. it is not going to be easy for democrats to do this. it's a conclusion, and it could be a while before we see the full report, and the hope among
republicans is by the time they get there, everybody will have moved on. >> i think bill barr wrote this letter with exactly that in mind. look, this is the process. this is a law that congress passed. this is a system and a process that the congress established. and so it is up to the discretion of the attorney general to distill and summarize what robert mueller found in his investigation. you can bet they wrote this letter. you know he wrote this letter knowing in the end at some point mueller's findings are going to be made public. he wants to make sure this can be supported by that, and i think just knowing how bill barr operates, i think that's exactly what was his guiding force. that might have been why we've been waiting a few extra days than what we initially anticipated. i think it's important. i think members of congress have every right to ask for this and to bring robert mueller up to testify and explain why he
stopped short of reaching a conclusion of obstruction. while find out what was the discussions behind the scenes about that. and i think that's a very important part of the process as well. >> and scott, the bipartisan overwhelming unanimous vote in the house of representatives, 420 to 0 asking for the mueller report to be made available to congress and the public. where is that headed? >> i don't know a republican that doesn't want this whole report to come out. they want it to come out. bill barr says it's my intent to release as much of this as i can. every republican i've spoken to says we should have the report. head cruz said it on cnn this morning. i suspect it will come out. i don't have a problem with mueller answers questions. he spent a bunch of money and two yore years on this. i think the american people want a full set of answers. it's appropriate. >> do you agree when they say we want everything? >> yes, but it says in this letter 500 witnesses were
interviewed. i do not agree that this congressional process should be allowed to drag innocent people through the mud. there's a reason they weren't put into a real court. and we shouldn't use the court of public opinion to besmur. the reputation of others. >> there are other investigations going on. we may still see some folks in court, scott. >> i think it's important to remind people that the reason the statute was changed was because there were intimate details about clinton's relationship are lewinsky. that was a lot for the public. that's why it was put in place. that is different from whether the public deserves to know the details of whether or not a president obstructed justice. all the discussions and conclusions about the russia investigation. there should be redactions for sources and methods not to put people at risk. >> for classified information. >> yes. but there's no reason for the rest of it not to be released.
when barr says he wants to release as much as possible, democrats are skeptical. he's a trump appointee and he's endorsed the firing of comey. we don't know how long the report is. mueller wasn't consulted in the letter. there's reasons there's questions being raised. that's part of the role of the opposing party. that's what they're doing. >> donald trump is the catch me if you can president. he engages in a lot of questionable, unethical behavior. when it comes to the russia investigation, but we found here it was not criminal. but this isn't over. there are prosecutors chasing down virtually every organization he's been a part of, and somehow through bluster, blockading, politicizing the investigations, he won this one. we'll see if he gets away with it again. >> i think it's fair to say he talked about quite a bit on the campaign trail in 2016. this is how his business career has played out as well. when someone is going to sue him, he countersues and he drags it out.
right? this is very much as you said, this is the catch me if you can. this has been his strategy for a very long time. and it's worked for him. the question becomes will it continue to work for another two years. >> the white house has a lot of power here. i think it's important for people to remember. even though the democrats are going to push and they're going to subpoena, the white house has a lot of control over the time line, and they can push and wear out the clock. that's probably what -- >> and already with the congressional investigations they've been slow-walking. their responses to the request, they haven't been come plying with the requests. >> they slow walk the request for an interview with the president. i mean, look, and they've been undermining the process. i think that is something we should take away from all this entire process. the president essentially was trying to undermine and trying to impede this thing even though obviously there was no finding of on strzbstructiobstruction. we should look at the way the president behaved during the entire process. and it was not good. it was not a good way for a
president to behave when you have a legitimate investigation that needed to get answers, and all he did was try to find ways publicly to obstruct it. again, not in a criminal way, but in ways that we all could see. those -- that's not a way for a president to behave to undermine his own government. >> and reading this and seeing this and the whole obstruction issue, now you understand why the president's team did not want to fire mueller, why did not want him to do anything that would -- they were very concerned. it's clear about the obstruction issue. >> the president's lawyers? >> yeah. and now we understand why. they didn't want him answering questions about that. and remember, there was all this talk. is he going to fire mueller? now we understand why. >> well, that and as we talked about last hour with rudy giuliani and jay sekulow, the notion of stopping the president from doing an interview, written
or otherwise on obstruction. it was a game changer. it was. it was a game changer. >> are the democrats on the hill, you know the hill well, going to be sort of gun shy right now about going too aggressively against the republicans given the report. >> they came out aggressively saying you were wrong. you know, you were completely out over your skis from the beginning, and you just need to stop. in order to try to make clear to the american public and also to the democrats who now have the subpoena power in the house, okay, just take a breath before you do that. there's no indication that democrats in the house are going to do that for the reasons we were talking about with sn and y. the things they're looking at following the money, other issues related to the trump administration. the inaugural committee. >> and bill barr's letter gives the democrat a little bit of wiggle room.
it gives them enough runway for them to continue to do some of these things. >> because of the one line the special counsel states that while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. that's the specific line from robert mueller. >> you know, we know that they deliberated for nine hours yesterday and today. if i was putting a bet on it, i would think page three of this memo was what a lot of that dlib r ration was about. and including that line. if you read it, it's sort of messy the say this is. look, it's basically saying the special counsel didn't exonerate him on obstruction of justice, but if you continue reading bill barr is attorney general and rosenstein exonerated him. they said his behavior outlined by mueller did not constitute obstructive conduct. >> and on mueller not having anything to do with what we're reading is important. >> i think it's important. >> they wanted to keep it separate.