that e-mails that donald trump jr. was sending to some of the russians who were going to join them for that meeting would never get out, raising the specter of obstruction of justice. so we saw when donald trump jr. testified before the house intelligence committee last december, that he wasn t willing to answer questions about those very conversations. he cited attorney client privilege which democrats thought did not apply because neither donald trump nor his son were attorneys. so whether or not republicans would follow through with subpoenas as they did with steve bannon last month is still remains to be seen. but as stewart also told us, they are in for the long haul here, just getting started after just two hours. and robert costa, let s talk about hope hicks and the role she plays, first in the campaign and transition of course and now the white house. having first met her years ago, she was at president trump s side. then candidate trump.
so i don t think we will learn anything significant from hope hicks today. other than great adeptness on her part of not answering questions. she was a one-time ralph lauren model. she worked for ivanka in ivanka s business. she was in public relations. she comes from a family very, very close to the trump family. to the trump children. she has operated in the white house with increasing authority because of her closeness, her proximity to the president. increasing prominence but whether she is exercising is hard to say. because the workings of the white house are opaque to me and i suspect to a good many people in the white house. the claim of executive privilege is preposterous. you can t claim skebexecutive privilege on someone you had at the time who was not an executive. he was confused about that because during transition he was exercising essentially presidential power as with the carrier episode where he flew to
the house speaker, paul ryan was pressed about whether that s able to pass the senate. he would put it on the floor of the house. it did pass the house but only when connected to an expansion of gun rights, the concealed carry reciprocity bill. he left that open but he also kind of struggled to answer the question of whether congress was doing enough. he s meeting with parkland students today. he has his own kids who are high school age. i pressed him on that question. is congress doing enough of what these kids are hear asking their congress to do. here is part of how he answered that. of course we want to listen to these kids. we also want to make sure that we protect people s due process rights and legal constitutional rights while making sure that people who should not get guns don t get them. this kid was clearly one of
that s how it is described in the damascus suburb, attacked also with chlorine gas. russia claims the rebels gassed their own people for international sympathy. medics say that s ludicrous. yet again, they ask for help to stop the assad regime from bombing their clinics. and good day, everyone. i m andrea mitchell in washington. trump s closest white house aide and campaign aide, hope hicks, is behind closed doors. still not clear whether she is answering questions or asserting some sort of privilege against testifying. as the president is exploding against the russia probe on twitter. declaring the mueller investigation and congressional inquiryes a witch hunt in all caps. joining me now, chief white
indiana and pressured a company into doing something it didn t want to do. the executive privilege, as legal legally defined, involves conversations with the president of the united states. well, it can t be among his advisers. but let s be clear. the trump administration has not unwilling to assert privilege. that s not what they are doing. they are refusing to answer questions. and the house is letting them get away with it. that is something that didn t happen in previous investigations, when either a democrat or republican was in the white house. they say, we have legitimate questions. answer them or give a legitimate privilege. so answer. or face subpoena. or face subpoena. even if everyone still got along there would be a tremendous mismatch. these fellows, not tremendous