Sam Vinegrad News Today

He refused, threatened to resign and thats when President Trump backed down ultimately deciding not to fire the Special Counsel. But again, were seeing this new point of frustration from President Trump with these new attacks. Again, the most direct at robert mueller. The backdrop is important to point out. A few days ago, the president s former Attorney Michael Cohen spoke to a number of sources who then told cnn that he was ready to testify to the Special Counsel that President Trump approved ...

He says the meeting totally legal done all the time in politics but according to the email that special Counsel Robert Mueller has, this was a meeting to get information from the prosecutor of Russia On Hillary Clin Hillary Clintons campaign. How is that legal . The question is how is it illegal . A meeting of that nature constitute a violation of the law . Now critics have pounced on this, anna, suggesting that the president and his legal team are moving the goal posts despite calls for this in...

Testimony, hale was one of the people who did not respond to that email. were hearing some -- from some other reports in an ap report that he intends to tell congress that the pompeo might -- mike pompeo was reluctant to defend his ukraine ambassador because it would hurt efforts to get military aid to ukraine, and there was concern about how it would be perceived by rudy giuliani. so well probably hear more about all that effort, that push to get rid of yovanovitch, the role that giuliani had a...

The very least. >> and the call transcript. before we go, elie, this may be the extent of witness testimony that democrats get here. if the white house effort is, a, successful or stretches out long enough in the courts so that it doesnt happen before the timeline the democrats want here, your view, do you have enough? >> i think you do. you base it on the call, on the next. and you dont have an inner inner circle witness. ideally youd get one. maybe bolton, mulvaney, rooney. you have enough wit...

How this will be measured. and i think part of the problem, as sam just pointed out is what are the two sides going to devote to this in terms of resources. is mexico going to, at some point, agree to a safe third country agreement where theyre saying yes, we too can be a home for asylum seekers, not just the united states? they didnt agree to that here and on the u.s. side is the u.s. going to devote, again, as sam said, more resources toward more border agents, more immigration judges and immi...

David -- katherine rampell and sam vinegrad. david, start with you, this agreement is now set, it was agreed to last night. but the political battle as we just heard from nancy pelosi is just beginning. what do you make of the president now claiming that this agreement is going to mean that mexico will help prevent the flow of immigrants to americas southern border? >> so, alex, two things. i do think its good that he backed down from the tariff threat and i also think that this deal, unlike som...

About dysfunction in the white house, of course dysfunction in the white house is sometimes related to immigration policy but it does seem like when all else fails he returns to immigration. he believes that that is the way to activate his base and that is very well part of the reason why he proposed, again, these deeply stupid tariffs that would have caused much more harm to his base than likely to mexico. but im not sure he thought that through. yes, with an eye towards 2020 i think that might...

Lawmakers, the weak jobs report, estimates of the economic disaster that would have resulted, as well as these some 140 business and agricultural groups that came out explicitly against this policy, all of those things together, most likely, convinced this administration, convinced the president that, you know, its not worth delivering on this threat that was going to basically burn down our own house and thats why i think we see trump essentially accepting relatively minor -- one might even arg...

Adviser sam vinegrad. she spent two years in the obama administration helping to prep for the presidents daily brief. the president making a lot of accusations about this reported assassination attempt. where do you think its headed. >> president said a shield of love protected him from this assassination attempt. i think youd be hard pressed to find any madoro supporters. more than half of the population lives in poverty. hundreds have fled because of extreme shortages. he runs a virtual dictat...

Were ready to invite president trump to moscow to be my guest. he has such an invitation, i told him that. im ready to go to washington. >> trump had originally invited putin to come to washington this fall. shocking many in washington including the director of national intelligence. the white house has now pushed that invitation back to some time next year. and that brings us to your weekend presidential brief, a segment we bring you every sunday night highlighting the most pressing national se...