Extential Question News Today

Administration. though the health and perhaps survival of american democracy was on the minds as many as trump prepares for this big showdown meeting tomorrow with vladimir putin. so at this joint press conference in war saw halle jackson again asked if president trump accepted that russia was behind the hacks. the president did not cite the authority of the u.s. intelligence assessment. that would be the easiest way for any president to handle the question. no, instead, he went out of his way t...

Extential question but then he kind of quickly backed into a political mode. >> yeah, thats right. and its interesting if you look at his actual scripted speech he gave out in warsaw, he was really trying assure our western allies. try to signal to the european countries who have been very wary of his moves, the west can stand together. but in his statements there at the press conference and his statements to hally jackson about the russian interference were just kind of mind-boggling, because h...

Sanction. so what are the vulnerabilities you see? >> youre right. the republicans at large have decided that the russias interference in the 2016 election was a real problem. and the sanctions bill, what it does, is it limits the white house ability to unilaterally lift sanctions on russia. but speaking of politics, that pole you spoke about at the top, it find that this russia question is really a partisan question. if you dig down into the numbers. you find that 73% of republicans find that d...

Interference means that they somehow tipped the election that makes him defensive. he cant put them in separate categories to say, yeah, they interfered but they didnt influence. >> it doesnt mean that your home was invaded, and thats a separate question. and if the underlying event here is the as you know from covering so many of these, the macrofactors that go into any presidential race, i dont know if you could point to any one thing ever to tip a presidential race. >> yeah, and the fact is n...

Theres certainly a whole range of topics of which we disagree. she was furious when we pulled oaof the paris agreement. and thats an area where she aligns with former president obama. so those lines undercut him. >> and kristen, thats sort of the foreign side. at home what are you hearing about the white house aides about thafr confidence in the president to stick the landing with putin tomorrow? >> look, thats a great question. i think theres? division. remember, h.r. mcmaster says theres not a...

Election or not, its true that the white house has done little or next to nothing to stop it from happening. again, we know from comeys testimony the president really didnt weigh in on this question how to prevent a future cyber attack. we know that the attorney general jeff sessions. to your point, huge partisan break down, right of whether something illegal took place. but, rick, 27% of independents, that is to say far more republicans are concerned about illegally here. >> yes, i think the ne...

There are real questions as to whether hes the right guy for this particular job. >> michael isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for yahoo! news. congratulations on this scoop. thanks for being here. >> thank you, rachel. i will say this story that isikoff published today, part of the reason i wanted to have him on today to talk about it, this is not just a washington gossip story about who doesnt want to be associated with trump or what big names have been approached and what theyve sa...

The question was, did the president ask? they are answering by saying he didnt feel pressure. theyre not addressing the question of what actually was discussed in that meeting. >> and adam, in terms of the other sort of -- the other person in that meeting, what you describe is that there was a larger group that was meeting for a briefing at the white house. again, this was march 22nd, according to your reporting, and the president asked as that briefing was breaking up, he asked not only for dan...

Asked -- director of national intelligence -- getting asked whether he and the nsa director discussed amongst themselves these requests from the president. watch. nine seconds. watch. >> have you talked about this issue with admiral rogers? >> that is something that i -- i would like to withhold that question at this particular point in time. >> not a term of art. i would like to withhold that question. thats not a thing. dan coats said he would like to withhold on that. pause. we all got pregna...

Know, the intelligence agencies separate from the politics. and for the president to seemingly appeal to him to encourage him to reach out to comey was something that coats was not -- obviously had problems with and clearly did not feel comfortable with. >> to be precise. what youre able to report is that the president basically inquired with dan coats as to whether he could do this? and dan coats -- is that fair? >> that would be an accurate way of describing it. he asked him if he would be wil...