to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty -- the language that was in there about acquire some people quibble over, but their commitment to the npt was clear and i misspoke in that regard. >> thank you. i appreciate your comment in response to questions from senator markly and others about keeping a seat at the table through the paris agreement and the general approach that suggests. i believe climate change is a major concern for us in the long term and the short term, and that it's human caused and there are actions we can and should take in response to it as a trained chemist, i respect your training as an engineer, would urge you to be a tttentive to t science because i think it is overwhelming to this point. i do think the jpoa structure, p 5 plus 1 that brought it into force and is enforcing it and the paris climate agreement are two examples of tables where we should have a seat at the table and be advocates and be driving
it. i want to ask you about one other table that was literally designed where the seat for the united states is still empty. there has been discussion about the south china sea and china's aggressive actions in building islands. the u.n. convention on the law of the sea, decade ago, was advanced by republican administration but has still never been ratified by this senate. and in june of 2012, you signed a letter indicating in your role of ceo of exxon/mobil, you supported the law of the sea. i was a member of this committee when then chairman john kerry convened seven hearings where panel after panel of four-star admirals and generals and business leaders and national security leaders and former republican leaders, the administration and senators all testified in support of this, yet we fell short of ratification. had we ratified it, we would have that seat at the table to
aggressively assert the international law of the sea and to push back on china's actions, which during that debate were hypothetical, today are real. would you work to support the law of the sea convention if confirmed as secretary? >> well, i will certainly work with the president. we've not discussed that particular treaty. certainly my position i've taken in the past was one from the per sti -- perspective of the role i had at the time. i am aware of objection people have. that is the principal objection people have. when given the opportunity to discuss this in the inter agency or the national security council, i'm sure we'll have a robust discussion about it. i don't know what the president's view is on it and i wouldn't want to get out ahead of him. >> well, let me ask about that
if i might, because i came to this hearing with a whole list of questions. and in response to others, you've addressed many of them. where, in my view, you have a notable difference of view from at least some of the concerns based on some campaign statements by the president-elect. no ban on muslims, no nuclear arms race, no nukes for japan, south korea, saudi arabia, no abandoning our neto allies. no deal with russia to accept the annex asian of cry krimea. all of these to me are quite encouraging. but they suggest some tension with statements made by the president-elect. how will you work through those differences? and just reassure me that you will stand up to the president when you disagree on what is the right path forward in terms of policy. >> i think earlier in the day someone asked me a similar
acknowledged at this time. however, anybody who wishes to come down can do so. so, it's going to be menendez, rubio, sha hee n, rubio, card in, james markly. >> sounds like a pretty full third round. i'm glad everybody is interested. >> thank you. mr. tillerson, i admire your stamina. you've been through several rounds here. and from my perspective, i hope understand while my questions may seem tough in some respects, i take my role of advise and consent of any nominee important. in your case you have a unique background coming to this job. so, trying to understand the person who is going to be the chief advisor to the president-elect in the meetings you just described where everybody gets around the table, but in foreign policy it's going to be you. so, i try to get from the past a gleaming of it so i understand where you're going to be in the future. i hope you understand the nature of my questions. let me take a quick moment. you heard a lot about cuba in proportion to things in the
senator risch's comments on iran, iran was designated a state sponsor of terrorism in 1984 following its connection to the 1983 bombings of u.s. marine personnels in lebanon, a horrific event. killed 241 u.s. service personnel. that label on iran has unfortunately not changed. just this june the state department in its annual report on global terrorist activity listed iran as the state sponsor of terrorism. the report indicated that iran in 2015, quote, provided a range of support including financial training, equipment to terrorist groups around the world including hezbollah. it has been brought to my aa tension that between 2003 and 2005, exxon/mobil sold $53 million worth of chemicals and fuel additives to iranian customers. alarmingly, exxon did not originally disclose this business with iran in its annual 10 k annual report with the sec
in 2006. exxon/mobil only disclosed this information to the sec after receiving a letter from the sec asking for explanations. the securities and exchange commission asked exxon to explain these dealings because iran at the time was, quote, subject to export controls imposed on iran as a result of its absence in support of terrorism, and in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and missile programs. it went on to say we know your form 10 k does not contain any disclosure about your operations in iran, syria and sudan, close quote. exxon's response has been transaction were legal because infinishian, the transactions did not involve any u.s. employees. in other words, this was clearly seen as a move designed to do business with iran to evade sanctions on iran. so, i have a few questions for you to the extent that you are familiar with this, of the
customer at the end of that deal, and whether you can ascertain that exxon was either knowingly or unknowingly potentially funding terrorism. one of the customers in this sales to iran was the iranian national oil company which is wholly owned by the iranian government. the treasury department of the united states has determined that that entity is an agent or affiliate of iran's islamic revolutionary guard core. the irgc is iran's main connection to its terrorist activities around the world and pledge allegiance to iran's supreme leader the iatola. in other words, the irgc and the foreign arm, the kuds force are the army. they are currently in syria now helping assad remain in power. so, can you tell the committee whether these business dealings with iran did not fund any state sponsored terrorism activities by iran? >> senator, as i indicated earlier, i do not recall the
details or the circumstances around what you just described the question would have to go to exxon/mobil for them to be able to answer that. >> you have no recollection of this as the ceo? >> i don't recall the details around it, no, sir. >> this would be a pretty big undertaking to try to circumvent u.s. sanctions by using what may or may not -- i'm not ready to make that determination -- a legal loop hole to do so. but it would be pretty significant. it wouldn't come to your level? it wouldn't come to your level that the securities and exchange commission raised questions with your company about lack of disclosure? >> that would have. i'm just saying i don't recall -- 2006 would have been the first year that i would have been looking at those things. i just don't recall this is all i'm saying. >> do you recall whether exxon/mobil was doing business with three different state sponsors of terrorism, including iran in the first place? >> i don't recall.
again, i'd have to look back and refresh myself. >> i would hope you would do so and i would be willing to hear your response for the record because i think it's important. moving to a different thing because it's all in my sanctions field. i'm trying to understand that. regardless of whether or not you have read the bill that senator card in and i and others have sponsored in a bipartisan basis, do you believe that additional sanctions on russia, in view of everything that has been ascertained, is, in fact, appropriate? you may view that some may be more useful than others, but do you believe any additional actions in terms of sanctions on russia is appropriate for their actions? >> well, i would like to reserve my final judgment on that until i have been fully briefed on the most recent cyber events. i've not had that briefing. and as i indicated, i like to be fully informed on decisions -- >> i appreciate that. i would just say that in the public forum that you could read
or any other citizen could read, it's pretty definitive by all the intelligence agencies of what they did. so, it just seems to me that whiem i know you're cautious and you want to deal with the facts, that's the essence of you being an engineer and a scientist and i respect that. there are some things in the public realm from which one can deduce a decision. i'd like to hear your response for the record as well. >> when i know there is additional information and there are additional facts in the classified area, i would wait until i've seen all the facts. if i knew that there's nothing else to be learned and this is all the facts and there's nothing else out there, then i would say i could make a determination on -- because this is all we know. but as i have been told, at least i'm aware, there is a classified portion of this report that, when i have the opportunity, i look forward to examining that. and then i'll have all the information in front of me. >> i have one final question, mr. chair, but i'll wait for my
next time. >> in order for efficacy to prevail, please go on. >> so, in light of efficacy, so, here's characterizes in essence my big question for you. it is an article that appeared in time magazine, and i really want to hear your honest response. i'm going to quote from the record. what russia wants from tillerson is one that stops putting principles ahead of profits, focusing instead on getting the best political bargain available and treats russia as an equal. quote, for the next four years, we can forget about america as the bearer of values, said a former russian energy minister who went to join the opposition. america is going to play the deal game under trump. and for putin that is a very comfortable environment, he told
the radio host this week in moscow. it's an environment where states men sit before a map of the world and they haggle over pieces available to them, much like putin -- this is the article, not me -- like putin and tillerson did while weighing the oil fields in the arctic. through the canny eyes of a political deal maker, washington's oldest commitments in europe and the middle east could be seen in much the same way, as a stack of bargaining chips to be traded rather than principles to be upheld. i'd like to hear your -- that's not you being quoted, but that's a characterization that was in one article, but beyond that it's a characterization i've heard many times. and, so, to me that comes down to the core of everything i've tried to deduce in my line of questioning to you and i want to give you an opportunity to respond to it. >> i haven't seen the article in its entirety, but i'll just deal with the quotes that you read. if you conclude that that's the characterization of me, then i have really done a poor job
today because what i had hoped to do in today's exchange on the questions is to demonstrate to you that i'm a very open and transparent person. i do have strong values that are grounded in my person ideals and beliefs and the values that i was raised with, and they're under pinned -- i've spoken to the boy scouts earlier this morning. they're under pinned by those same values, duty to god and country, duty it to others and duty to yourself. that has guided my life for all of my life, and it will guide my values and it will guide the way in which i will represent the american people if given the chance to do so. i understand full well the responsibilities and the seriousness of it. i don't view this as a game in any way as that article seems to imply. so, i hope, if i've done nothing else today, you at least know me better. >> thank you. if there's no objection, there
has been a response from exxon/mobil that my staff gave me relative to the sudan, iran, syria issue. i'm going to enter it into the record if that's okay for everyone to be able to peruse. with that, senator rubio. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. tillerson. you can see the finish line, we're almost there. i really just have four clarifications. i don't think they'll take long. going back to the sanctions piece to build on what senator menendez just asked you, it's my recollection that your testimony earlier this morning, i had asked specifically about sanctions on those who conducted cyber attacks against the united states. not specifying russia in particular, just a bill that said anyone who has guilty of cyber attacks or infrastructure would be subject to sanctions and your answer if i recall correctly, we would want to weigh other factors. that's why you wanted the flexibility not the mandatory language. there may be other factors to take into account such as trade
and economic with that country or actor before we chose whether or not to use a tool such as sanctions. so, in essence, even if you had information available to you or will in the future about specific actors, that alone may not be enough based on that testimony. there are other factors that you would want to take into account before making your recommendation to the president about whether or not to institute sanctions. is that a correct characterization? >> yes, it is. and i think the way i would try to explain this, at least why i'm taking this position, sanctions are not a strategy. sanctions are a tactic. and if we are going to engage -- and i'll use russia in this case, but i can use any other country that these sanctions would apply to. if we're going to engage in trying to address a broad array of serious issues, i'd like to have this as a tool, as a tactic. if it's already played, it's not available to me as a tactic in
advancing those discussions and trying to come to some conclusion that best serves america's interests and america's national security interest. it's a powerful tool. i'd like to be able to use it tact tickly. if it's already been played, it's not available to me to use tactically. >> okay. the second is a clarification of the exchange you had with senator portman about an hour or so ago. he asked you whether there was basically any sort of cooperation with iran where we may have a confluence working on iran. that's the way we have to engage in the overall process. just to clarify, does that mean you would be open potentially to working with iran on issues that we have potentially in common such as defeating isis? >> well, defeating isis is the one that's right in front of us and we're already kooptding with them in iraq. >> okay. the third question has to do with sanctions on krimea against senator portman's question.
i believe your answer was and i caught it on television, i had just stepped out at the tail end of the first round. and he asked -- and i think your testimony was along the lines of we won't change anything right away after we examine the situation. but embedded in that was the notion that potentially at some point there could be an arrangement in which the united states would recognize russia's annex asian of krimea if the government in kiev signed off on it or accepted it as a broader deal to ensure peace and stability. is that an accurate assessment of the testimony as i third? >> i think what i was trying to recognize is that since that was territory that belongs to ukraine, ukraine will have something to say about it in the context of a broader solution to some kind of a lasting agreement. i'm not saying that that is on the table. i'm merely saying i don't think that's ours alone to decide. >> okay. here's my last clarification. and it's more about the hearing here today in general.
in the end of the last round, at the end of questioning, you said there was some misunderstanding in alluding to human rights. you said we share the same values, but you are clear eyed and realistic about it, end quote. i want you to understand the purpose of the questions i've asked you today because they are in pursuit of clarity and realism. on the clarity i was pleased when your statement today used the term moral clarity and that's what we've been missing the last eight years. that's why i asked you whether vladimir putin was a war criminal. you declined to label him as. i asked about china, whether they were one of the worst human rights violators in the world, which again you didn't want to compare them to other countries. i asked about the killings in the philippines. i asked about saudi arabia, being a human rights violator, which you also declined to label them. the reason was i'm not trying to get you involved in international name calling, but for the sake of having moral
clarity, we need clarity. we can't achieve moral clarity with rhetorical ambiguity. i also did it in pursuit of realism because here's what's realistic. you said you didn't want to label them because it would ruin our chance to influence them or relationship with them. here's the reality. if confirmed by the senate and you run the department of state, you're going to have to label countries and individuals all the time. you expressed today's support from the -- which labels individuals and sanctions them. you are going to have to designate nations as sponsors of terrorism or organizations as terror groups, again, a label. and one i think a lost us care about is trafficking and persons report which specifically labels countries and ranks them based on how good a job they're doing. that concerns me because that one over the last year, the rankings and the tier system has been manipulated for political purposes. they upgraded cuba and malaysia because we're working with them to improve relations. we he didn't want to have a
label out there that hurt the chances of doing that. that's why i think it's important. but here's the last reason. you gave the need for a lot more information in order to comment on some of these. and believe me, i understand that. it's a big world, there's a lot of topics. these were not obscure areas. i can tell you, number one the questions i asked did not require special information we have. all these sources were built on voluminous open source reporting, rights groups, the leaders sometimes themselves when it comes to the philippines, state department, et cetera, and so we're not going off news reports alone. but the selling point for your nomination has been that while you don't have experience in government and in foreign policy, you have traveled the world extensively. you have relationships all over the world, and you have a real understanding of some of these issues as a result of that. yet today we've been -- i've been unable to get you to acknowledge the attacks on aleppo were by russia and they
would be considered under any standard human rights, somehow you are unaware of what is happening in the philippines, you are not prepared to label what's happening in china and saudi arabia, a country that my understanding you're quite aware of. women have no rights in that country. that's well documented. have you visited there, anyone who has would know. i want you to understand this, too. i said this to you when we met. i have no questions about your character, your patriotism. you don't need this job. you didn't campaign for this job. it sounds like a month and a half ago, someone said you were going to be up here today, you'd say that's not true. there's only one reason for you to be sitting behind that table and that's your love for this country and your willingness to serve. i do admire that, i do. but i also told you when we met the position you've been nominated to, is in my opinion, the second most important position of the u.s. government with all due respect to the vice-president. it is the fashion of this country for billions of people, for hundreds of millions of people as well, and particularly for people that are suffering
and hurting. for those 1400 people in jail in china, those dissidents in cuba, the girls that want to drive and go to school, they look to the united states. they look to us and often to the secretary of state. and when they see the united states is not prepared to stand up and say, yes, vladimir putin is a war criminal, saudi arabia violates human rights, we deal with these countries because they have the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet china is the largest in the world. it demoralizes these people all over the world and it leads people to conclude this, which is damaging and it hurt us during the cold war and that is this. america cares about democracy and freedom as long, as long as it is not being violated by someone they need for something else. that cannot be who we are in the 21st century. we need a secretary of state that will fight for these principles. that's why i asked you these questions. that's why i ask those questions because i believe it's that important for the future of the
world that america lead now more than ever. so, i thank you for your patience today. >> thank you, sir. senator sha hee n. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for giving us some additional time. i want to just comment on senator rubio's statement and senator menendez's because the concern i think i have listening to your testimony today is that your he will kweeloquence cannoe undercut. what i want to know is which values are going to prevail. and are you deferring on answering some of these questions because of concerns that statements that the president-elect has made. so, i won't make that as a rhetorical statement. i don't know that you need to respond to that unless you would like to. but i do think that's a concern
that i have listening to the discussion today. i want to go back to nonproliferation because it got short shrift. the five most recent u.s. presidents, including barack obama, george w. bush, bill clinton, george h.w. bush and ronald reagan, i think you said this morning earlier that you do support the new start treaty which is the most recent of those agreements. but more broadly, do you support the long-standing bipartisan policy of engaging with russia and other nuclear arm states to verifiably reduce nuclear stockpiles? >> yes, i do. >> thank you. and i want to go back to climate change because i appreciate your recognition about the science and your concern as an engineer about wanting to have scientific evidence. i would argue that we have a lot
of scientific evidence. in new hampshire we have a sustain ability institute at the university of new hampshire that produced a report that pointed out the impact of climate change in new hampshire and new england region, i won't read all of those, but two that i thought were most alarming is that for the new england region as a whole right now, the majority of our winter precipitation is rain. it's not snow. that's having a huge economic impact in new hampshire and other parts of new england on our ski industry, snowmobiling, maple sugar industry. and also by 2070 new hampshire will begin to look like north carolina. so, there are tremendous economic implications of that as well as implications on everything from our wildlife, our moose, our trout, to our
fauna and lots of other things that affect the state. now, i do appreciate your comments about being at the table as we continue to negotiate around climate change. in 2009 the u.s. government, along with other nations that are part of the group of 20, the g-20, agreed to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. i for one believe that the science shows that fossil fuels have contributed dramatically to climate change. and while much of the responsibility for this g-20 agreement falls on the treasury department, the state department also does have a role in overseeing the objective. so, i really have a two-part question here with respect to subsidies for fossil fuels. the first is at this time when many of our oil companies, particularly large oil companies
like exxon are reaping very good profits, do we really need to continue these subsidies? and second, if confirmed, how would you as secretary of state help to fulfill our international commitment to phase out those fossil fuel subsidies? >> well, since it's two-part question, obviously the first part, i'm happy to offer a personal view on even though that's not within state department's role to make that judgment. this just comes from my understanding of how the various tax elements and tax codes treat certain investments, certain research credits and whatnot. and i'm not aware of anything the fossil fuel industry gets that i would characterize as a subsidy. rather, it's simply the application of the tax code broadly, tax code that broadly applies to all industry. and it's just the way the tax
code applies to this particular industry. so, i'm not sure what subsidies we're speaking of. if you want to eliminate whole sections of the tax code, then they won't apply to any other industries as well. i just say that as kind of a broad observation. so, as to the state department's role, then, in participating in sum its or discussions around others taking similar action, it would be with that view in terms of how we're going to apply things at home because i think the president-elect's made clear in his views and his whole objective of his campaign of putting america first that he is not going to support anything that would put u.s. industry in any particular sector at a disadvantage to its competitors outside of the u.s., whether it's automobile manufacturing or
steel making or the oil and gas industry. so, it would depend upon how the domestic part of that and how that decision is made by others would then inform the positions that i would be carrying forward in the state department. >> we're going to break away momentarily. senator marco rubio is outside the hearing. he's speaking to reporters, answering questions on his tough questions of rex tillerson. let's listen in. >> he's been nominate today what i believe is the second most important position in the u.s. executive branch, the second most visible american on the planet. and from a government perspective. and, so, i intend to take this very seriously. >> do you think they'll be willing -- >> indication you won't actually be able to support his nomination? >> i wouldn't read into either one. i think it is an indication of why the hearing, from my perspective, involved the questions that it did. it's not an effort to embarrass anyone. this is a gentleman who didn't need to do this.
i mean, he was headed for very comfortable retirement. and the only reason he's doing this is because he loves america and wants to serve it. and i respect that deeply and i wanted him to under it. but i also wanted him to understand these questions were designed for very specific reason, and that is that if we're going to have moral clarity in our foreign policy, we need to be clear. and i don't want to see us move towards a foreign policy in which human rights only matters when nothing else matters, when something more important isn't standing in the way. >> is it because of donald trump on these issues? >> this is the criteria i believe should be applied to every one of our secretary of states, no matter who the president may be. >> if he couldn't resolve your concerns in a hearing, a day-long hearing, how could he resolve your hearin resolve your concerns when the hearing is over? >> i'm going to look at this, a very important decision. i recognize partisan split of the committee and what it all means. i have to make sure that i'm
100% behind whatever decision that i make because once i make it, it isn't going to change. >> if you make the decision to vote against him, you could staal this committee, this nomination in committee. are you prepared to be the one republican to vote no? >> i'm prepared to do what's right. i'm not analyzing it from a partisan standpoint. i was elected by the people of florida, i have a very clear view on foreign policy, in my presidential race and in reelection. i swore an oath a week ago to defend and uphold the constitution of this country. my view is that the president deserves wide latitude in their nominations, but the more important the position is the less latitude they have. it's like a cone. it's really wide. in some positions as it gets higher and higher, the discretion becomes more limited and our scrutiny should become higher and i consider this the highest of them all. >> if you decide, would you still let it go out of the committee unfavorably or -- >> i haven't analyze it this
way. i'm not going to vote two different ways. all right? >> senator, there are also as you know, the intelligence committee having intelligence from the russians about potential information that could compromise donald trump financially and personally. have you been briefed about any of this information and are you concerned about that? >> as i said on the campaign, i'm not going to comment about anything that was procured or could potentially be the work of a foreign intelligence agency to undermine a political process. so, i have trust inial the agencies involved and obviously the congress will have a role to play at some point. not on that matter, but on anything. i'm not going to comment on things like that. >> as a critic of russia, are you concerned about trump's ties to russia? >> again, i just operate on what we know to be true and i'm not going to allow -- i think the russians have already achieved a large objective of theirs and that is to undermine the legitimacy of the -- of our presidential election, pit us against each other. i think they're sitting back and saying, you know, we've got
americans fighting over our involvement in the elections. that's perfect. it undermines their democracy. we're going to take our job seriously. we're going to work hard to get to the truth but i'm not going to be an active participant in furthering that division until all the truth is out one way or the other. okay? thanks, guys. >> thank you. >> so there you see the news, important news. senator marco rubio of florida basically saying he's not sure if he's going to vote to confirm rex tillerson as the next secretary of state. there are 11 republicans on the senate foreign relations committee, ten democrats. jim sciutto, if he votes against, if he votes against this confirmation, that confirmation could stall as our correspondent pointed out in the committee. >> that's exactly right. it would be significant, no question, and we've been sitting here watching. what had been a very smooth hearing. there were some tough questions there, but it wasn't the fire works some had predicted going in when rex tillerson was announced particularly in light of his ties to russia, a long
history of vladimir putin and in light of the difficulties with russia. it seemed smooth. it's interesting raising, repeatedly raising the possibility of voting against him and it's interesting, it's not really on the issue that we would have expected that to happen. we might have expected it to happen on russia, but we had rex tillerson say many times russia is not our friend, does not share our values, we have to get tougher on russia. he holds open the possibility of let's have discussions, maybe there is a way to dee escalate. he didn't come out there embracing russia. in fact, he differed with president-elect trump on the muslim ban, on giving nuclear weapons to u.s. allies on a departure from neto article 5. all those issues he was mainstream. what ends up possibly tripping him up from marco rubio's perspective is issues of human rights, not wanting to call out vladimir putin for killing civilians in syria, not wanting to call out saudi arabia for violations of women's rights or the philippine president duterte
for extra judicial killings, not the issue we expect -- we don't know what's going to happen to trip this up. >> he said i'm prepared to do what's right when asked. will you vote to confirm rex tillerson as the next secretary of state? the people of florida elected me to do. he's leaving it open. >> he is. the question sult mattly does marco rubio want to expend this political capital on blocking one of the flagship nominees for donald trump's cabinet. it wouldn't only be an issue for marco rubio of crossing the president-elect donald trump and his choice, but it's also an issue of him crossing mitch mcconnell and creating an enemy at the very beginning of this new republican congress out of the republican leader. does he -- mitch mcconnell promised donald trump not only would he get these nominees confirmed, but he would do so quickly without drama. this could be some drama if marco rubio were to hold up this
nomination. does he want to create an enemy of mitch mcconnell when marco rubio will have priorities of his own he wants to pass through congress. he could use this to extract concessions later from mcconnell if he shows that he's thinking about this and then ultimately does support rex tillerson. >> as you point out, jim sciutto, he really wanted rex tillerson to say that, yes, the russians are engaged in war crimes, for example, in aleppo, in syria right now. he didn't hear that. >> he didn't. deft answers i might say from rex tillerson. keep in mind if he were to get through, he would be america's top diplomat. for america's secretary of state to say to an ally of the philippines, yes, their president is murdering people. that has import. you can understand him wanting to be diplomatic as the nation's top diplomat there. but clearly not satisfying answers to marco rubio. i suppose we should give marco rubio credit that at the end of the day that's what a confirmation hearing is about,
about asking hard questions. he said it's the the second most important job in the country. and if he feels that his conscience doesn't allow him to vote for him, then he's doing his job as a senator. >> yeah, he's very passionate about these issues of human rights. you see this as part of a bigger problem potentially for maybe for some of the other cabinet nominees? >> potentially. i mean, on all of these hearings what we're seeing consistently are democrats and some republicans really looking for the issues where they can show a wedge between some of these nominees and the republican party and the president-elect donald trump, and there are plenty of these issues, not only russia, but in some of these other issues like nato. we talked about the trans-pacific partnership today in this hearing and tillerson said he actually does not oppose it and would -- suggested he would support these multi lateral trade agreements that donald trump has not supported. and, so, i think we're really seeing sort of these fights that will continue throughout this
administration previewed in these hearings, and democrats and even some republicans are airing them in public. that could be a problem for donald trump moving forward. >> i want to go to our correspondent on capitol hill right now. you were right in the middle of that q & a with marco rubio. the headline is he is not saying he will vote to confirm rex tillerson as the next secretary of state. >> reporter: absolutely, very significant what marco rubio said coming out of this hearing. he has significant concerns with tillerson and his answers through the course of this day long hearing. he said this is the second most important job in government. and as the secretary of state, you need to have moral clarity and speak with clarity around the world. and he said that through the course of this hearing, he was not hearing very clear answers to very clear questions, namely about russia. at the beginning of this hearing today, rubio saying that
actually whether or not -- if vladimir putin is a war criminal, he said, do you think vladimir putin is a war criminal? rex tillerson conanswer that question. similar, through the course of the hearing, asking questions about china, one of the biggest human rights abusers, similarly mr. tillerson said a human rights abuser. i'm not sure if it's one of world's biggest human rights abusers. questions about philippines and saudi. rubio was not satisfied with those answers. so, wolf, if he votes no on this committee, it could be enough to stall the nomination because there's only one seat difference between republicans and democrats right now on the senate foreign relations committee. it could be enough to stall the nomination. there are still ways republicans could presumably avoid a deadlocked committee in which they would not be able to get the votes out of the committee. there are procedures they could do to advance the nomination to the floor and try to prove it on a full senate floor, but that is
frowned upon. it is -- it doesn't usually happen in the senate. we don't know if it will actually get to that point. suffice to say if rubio votes no, it will be extremely significant. donald trump may have to choose another nominee, especially if he does not get that approval of the senate foreign relations committee. so, very significant. rex tillerson's testimony did not satisfy marco rubio's concerns. it is not clear what exactly will actually alleviate those concerns. he's not going to have a chance to question him further. so, other than in written testimony. a big development just now outside the hearing room for marco rubio saying he doesn't know yet whether he can support rex tillerson. he still has significant concerns about key issues that tillerson would deal with as secretary of state, wolf. >> he said i'm prepared to do what's right. he refused to say whether or not he would vote to confirm. very quickly, manu, the ten democrats on the senate foreign relations committee, you're working under the assumption that all of them will vote to
deny confirmation. but there are some of them who might vote yea. >> reporter: that is absolutely true. it's possible some democrats could turn the other way and eventually vote for mr. tillerson. perhaps they could save tillerson's nomination. we don't know that yet. i did ask cory booker specifically, the new jersey democratic senator, are you open to supporting rex tillerson. and he said that he is open to it. he did not rule outvoting for rex tillerson. so, we'll see when push comes to shove how the democrats and the republicans on the committee eventually vote. but if the democrats decide to vote in unison and rubio votes no, that is big, big trouble for rex tillerson. and on the floor of the senate, wolf, there are also concerns from, say, lindsey graham, the south carolina republican voicing concerns about tillerson's views on russia. and if rubio votes no, i'm sure that could persuade lindsey graham, potentially, to vote no on the floor of the senate as
well as potentially his friend john mccain, another sharp critic of russia. those are three republicans, all three of those republicans if they vote no, that means tillerson is not going to be the next secretary of state. you raise a key point, what do democrats do, they have not made a decision them self. perhaps some of them end up voting and saving rex tillerson. it could come down to the wire, wolf. >> some of those democrats have said they are certainly open to the possibility of voting to confirm. senator chris coons, he hasn't decided yet but he seemed at least open to that possibility. manu, stand by for a moment. dana bash is with us. dana, this could be the first major speed bump or hiccough in the major confirmation process for donald trump's potential nominees. >> he could. let's just talk about kind of, i don't know if it's irony or just kind of the strange situation we are in politically here with marco rubio who was one of the last of trump's primary
opponents for the presidency for the republican nomination now potentially holding the fate of his nominee for secretary of state in his hands. and doing so, not because of politics. i mean i think it's genuine and those of us who have followed marco rubio in the senate know this is his passion, foreign policy is his passion. you can tell by the way that he questioned rex tillerson. where he was going, he really wanted answers and the fact he talked about moral clarity and realism in the way that rex tillerson would conduct himself. that kind of tells you what the answer to that, about the politics. but i do think, you know, you kind of remember back to when donald trump was making fun of rubio throwing the water over his head, little marco, that is all coming to fore. now, having said that, to your point i was actually just looking at the list of democrats on the committee, although there are ten democrats up for reelection in trump states in
2018. many of them are not on this committee. a lot of, frankly, more liberal democrats on this committee. but it doesn't mean they won't vote like chris coons to give him who he wants to secretary of state. >> clearly russia now, the whole relationship between the u.s. and russia, non-relationship if you want to call it that, and the personal connection between the president-elect and putin, it puts rex tillerson in answering tough questions for marco rubio about war crimes, is he a war criminal, putin, for what he's done in krimea, in syria, in aleppo. it puts him in a very awkward position. >> you kind of saw rex tillerson strike that balance, walk that fine line between giving a nod to senators telling them what they wanted to hear which is, yes, russia is an adversary. i think he went further in a lot of places than donald trump did, calling russia adversary. saying he did believe russia --
putin probably was behind the hacking. by saying that their actions in krimea were illegal. he definitely didn't want to go as far as to kind of personally criticize putin, talk about any actions that they might take against putin. and i thought it was very interesting. in addition to that, he was saying, listen, i know russia. i know vladimir putin, and i'm going to know how to talk to him. i know what they want. what do they want? they want to create their sphere of influence. they want influence in the world, and this is why they're going into krimea. this is why they're going into syria. if you can give a nod to how they are trying to spread their influence and try and bring them to the table, then he thinks that there may be a more constructive relationship. and he also said that the u.s. needs to get tougher with russia, which i thought was ironic because president-elect trump is talking about better relations. he said in ukraine that they should have -- the u.s. should have shown a more robust military posture, that russia
accepts and respects strength and the u.s. needs to be a lot stronger. and as he did throughout the hearing, he was talking about weak leadership by the obama administration for not standing up to putin and kind of said, look, the reason we are where we are now is because of weak leadership. >> i want to be precise. the current secretary of state, and you covered john kerry, the state department right now, they have not called putin a war criminal. have they they haven't called putin a war criminal. secretary kerry has been very careful. these are legal definitions that the lawyers have to sign off on. he has gone very far up to the line to say that it looks as if war crimes have been conducted and these should be investigated and he has been not shy about criticizing vladmir putin. >> he has not branded the war criminal before the international criminal court. enter it has said it does appear that war crimes were committed by syria and russia and they
should be look into. didn't skirt the line but looked up to it. >> tillerson has a close relationship with russia. listen to this exchange with tillerson before the foreign relations committee earlier this morning on russia. >> i think what we are witnessing is an assertion on their part to force a conversation about what is russia's role in the global world order. the steps being taken are simply to make that point. russia is here. russia matters. they are a force to be dealt with. that's a fairly predictable course of action. the important conversation we have to have with them is does russia want to now and forever be an adversary of the united states. do you want this to get worse or does russia desire a different relationship? we are not likely to ever be friends.
our value systems are starkly different. we do not hold the same values. i also know the russian people. there is scope to define a different relationship that can bring down the temperature around the conflicts we have today. >> a very diplomatic response. those were questions posed by marco rubio. >> rex tillerson here have drew all these issues prebted a very mainstream policy for the u.s. very consistent on russia. bush tried it, obama tried it. try today get friendly. it didn't work. the muslim ban, something that
donald trump on the campaign trail held out that possibility. so you have a very mainstream guy, a very bipartisan foreign policy there which puts him in direct contradiction with his president. does that pull the president towards the center. is this an indication this doesn't show his plans. >> i think it is the latter. when everything that i have heard, a big part of the goal of the transition and frankly of donald trump himself was to get people whom he considers peers so he does have the respect to listen to him. if rex tillerson does come to donald trump with what you call a mainstream foreign policy that perhaps he will let rex tillerson kind of lead the way on that. obviously, there are very
specific issues where they do differ. that will be fascinate tog see. the big point we were talking about in a lot of the hearing and this press conference that trump had this morning on russia, the question going in was whether it was going to be rex tillerson's achilles he'el has done this so well and gotten an awrd. >> even if it stalls, they have procedures to bring it up for a floor vote and see what happen when is all 100 members of the senate vote? >> it is very rare. i believe the last time they this this was john volt when he was a nominee to be an ambassador. it was stalled in the committee for a very long time. they just circumvent the committee and put it on the senate floor. it doesn't happen very much for a reason. the leadership of both parties
and the senators themselves want to give deference to the committees. that's why they exist. >> i think you need to remember, john bolt, who most of this committee did not want was one of the main candidates for secretary of state now for deputy. be careful what you wish for. if marco rubio does not vote in rex tillerson and the president-elect is force td d t look to someone else, he may look to john bolton. >> we are going to take a quick break and resume our special coverage. much more coming up right after this.
how important this process is, to getting confirmation, as we saw what happened in 1986. more importantly, i think he took head on a lot of the critics and criticism of decisions that he's made and votes he's cast. and i thought in particular, with cory booker becoming historic, you saw the first sho for the 2020 democratic nomination for president. let's just put that on the table. certainly, that's part of the drama and theater of what he chose to do. but i also found it somewhat ironic that just in january of 2016, in legislation that he co-sponsored with mr. sessions, that celebrated those who walked from -- walked the selma mile, if you will, that he referred to him as it was a great honor to work with him and that he appreciated his commitment to civil rights. and yet now sees him as -- he referred to him as a danger
with -- danger to our country, as he's been quoted to say. the politics is not lost here. i think everyone in this town understands that. and to have this staged the way it was with the civil rights community, those who were supportive of mr. sessions versus those who were against mr. sessions, first time i've seen that kind of play out this way. i thought that was dramatic and very effective. >> michael steele, thank you. don't go anywhere. you're not getting off that easy because i'm going to have you react to what we just witnessed in the past hour. to our viewers joining us, the top of the 2:00 p.m. hour here on the east coast, welcome. we are juggling and continue to juggle many different events. we just saw the wrap-up of the sessions hearing. we saw -- we all witnessed on live televisionnbsolutely extraordinary press conference by the president-elect, his first since july. and earlier our day started with
germany would have done and did do. as far as hacking, i think it was russia. russia will have much greater respect for our country when i'm leading it than when other people have led it. if putin likes donald trump, guess what, folks, that's called an asset not a liability. >> turns out that collection was just on the one topic of russia and vladimir putin. michael, a lot of people who do what you do for a living, have been around the process, were a little shaken by what they saw today on so many fronts, bumping up against not just tradition but precedent. we had a former ethics lawyer in the obama administration come on the air with us today who said that what he heard, quote, guarantees scandal, corruption and controversy for at least the first part of the trump
ramifications of what he's about to do and whether or not he's listened to that. the lawyers may have advised it, but they're ultimately going to take to heart the orders that their client gives them in terms of how he wants this stuff structured and how he intends to deal with it. so, yeah, i think there's going to be a lot of legal challenges. the question on the legal side is who has standing to bring any lawsuits against donald trump to force his hand on some of this stuff. that's one thing. but i still think the underlying ethical perception is one that will create the biggest to turn for the incoming administration. at the end of the day, that eats at the american people a lot more than anything else. and for an administration that's talking about cleaning swamps and being transparent and wanting to do all these things, it starts with this, i think. >> michael steele, thank you. as we always thank you for being patient with us and sharing your opinions with us. before we go to kristen welker, who was in the room,
it's been a while since we ran through just what it is tha donald trump said on all these topics, so if you'll forgive me, this may hopscotch, as the event did. starting with a lot of car companies are going to be moving in. he meant moving into the united states, moving jobs in or, in some cases, back to the united states. our drug industry has been disastrous. they are getting away with murder. he called himself perhaps the greatest job producer that god ever created. he talked about this intelligence leak as something nazi germany would do. he called the website buzzfeed a failing pile of garbage. in a shouting match with jim acosta from cnn called cnn fake news. about senator lindsey graham, republican of south carolina, quote, he's going to crack that 1% barrier some day. about the ability of
turned down a $2 billion deal with dubai. i have no conflict of interest provision as president. quote, i'd be the only one who would be able to do that. and on and on on obamacare, a disaster. it's going to be replaced simultaneously, perhaps, the same hour with its replacement. he talked about the wall with mexico. said we're going to build a wall. don't feel like waiting. that was to explain that mexico will reimburse the united states for the cost of the wall. well, kristen welker, you were the only one among us in the room for that event. dy get it about right? >> reporter: you did. i think you got the list very right. pretty impressive because he certainly did cover a lot. to kind of underscore the point you're making, this was a candidate who was in a constant state of battle. i think what we saw today is
be improved. so, i think this was a wide-ranging press conference. it covered a number of issues. but there's still a lot to drill down on as he's just about nine days out from inauguration, brian. >> kristen, we had immediately following the event -- you were making your way out to the camera position where you are now on fifth avenue. we had the attorney nor eisen onhe air, former ethics lawyer for president obama. i was so struck by his quote. i wrote it down. he said what he heard today guarantees scandal, corruption and controversy. and you heard our discussion with michael steele. is it possible that donald trump, who after all, hired a prominent attorney from the d.c. firm jones day to be his white house counsel, and can get all and any of the legal advice he pleases right now as president-elect, is it possible he is getting that bad advice
that would make him lay out a business agreement that is now open to challenge and could enshroud the start of his presidency in controversy? >> reporter: well, i think that we're in unchartered territory because we've never had a president who has also overseen a vast business empire. so, you heard the pushback. you heard his attorney there prebutt any critic who would say, why isn't he fully divesting himself from his business interests? in other words, leaving no shred of a doubt there could be no conflict of interest. the response to that is that he would still be, if he, in fact, divested himself, getting money in some way, shape or form. i think there's still a lot of thor questions around tt and also around the fact that his business interests are going to now go to his adult sons. and will that not present conflicts of interests in and of themselves? that's going to be a
case-by-case basis, brian. absolutely, this is something that is going to be open to intense scrutiny over the next four years and in these days leading up to the inauguration. we're now going to have to drill down specifically on what his team of attorneys said today and whether or not it actually stands up to legal statute. those are some of the key questions. a lot of critics saying, well, having his kids run his businesses doesn't necessarily get rid of the conflicts of interests. it just compounds some of the really tough questions. you heard him at the end, though, ending on that very striking note, pointing to the pack of manila folders next to him saying, this underscores just how complicated my business empire is. i'm hoping my sons do a good job of running this. if not, they're fired. reminding everyone at the heart of this, he is, in fact, a businessman. >> kristen, welker, thank you for that assessment outside trump tower. for those who did not see the event, on just the subject of
conflicts -- potential conflicts of interests, here is part of what donald trump had to say on that front. >> i have a no-conflict situation because i'm president, which is -- i didn't know about that until about three months ago, but it's a nice thing to have. i have a no-conflict of interest provision as president. it was many, many years old. this is for presidents because they don't want presidents -- understand, they don't want presidents getting tangled up in minutia. they want a president to run the country. i can actually run my business and run government at the same time. >> we actually have a lawyer standing by to talk to us on this front. greta vis watching this with us. what do you make of that? >> it's very complicated because he has many business arrangements. we all knew when he was elected he's a businessman. that's not a disqualifier to be president. he just has to be 35 years of age. it's going to be difficult. sometimes it's going to be
thorny and get a lot of criticism, but if he has transparency of it and let the american people know and if he follows the law to the letter of the law and he has lawyers carefully monitoring this, that's okay. but even if he does everything perfectly fine and does everything to the letter of the law, you can expect, this is washington, he will be criticized by his political opponents. make no mistake about it, this is complicated, but i think everybody has to be practical in the sense that he can't just sell all his assets and move into 1600 pennsylvania avenue. >> what is -- when you hear the ethics lawyer for the obama administration say to us this quote i've been repeating that this guarantees scandal, corruption and controversy. what about the advice donald trump is getting potentially opening the door to an early time in his administration just enshrouded in all of this? >> what you said is ethics --
ethics adviser for the obama administration, that's the first key that this has highly risk of being political. highly risk of being political. anybody who walks in that white house has the potential for scandal. it may not be business. it can be a whole lot of other things. that seems to be one of the most popular industries here in washingtwatc washington, d.c., is scandal. there's potential for it, of course there is. one thing my attention is on is not something he does during the four years in the immediate scandal but is there a risk he makes any decision now with an eye on the fifth year or the ninth year when he'll be back out as a citizen and making business decisions, is there any any decision he makes right now will in any way influence something down the road? but, you know, he was elected president. i think the fair thing to do is cut him a break on the issue of this. he's got lawyers. assuming those lawyers are decent and honorable. and we're going to have to sort
of sort our way through this. without any question, this should be subject to very, very strict scrutiny. not just today but every step of the way. >> gret tashgs thanks. we'll watch your broadcast for yo coverage of the event we all witnessed today. ali velshi remains in our studios here in new york. when he says, i have this no conflict of interest thing. >> this is interesting. we need to sort of step back from thinking about conflict of interest as just a legal phenomenon. there are all sorts of conflicts of interests because i'm makinging a decision that seems to be in the interest of one party or a large party but, in fact, i might be benefitting from that. his whole way of perceiving this is odd. there are people who will say, if you have the ability to profit, as greta says, later on, or if your sons have the ability to profit from something, that is a conflict and some of that is perceived. the idea we're standing and listening to sheri dillon, his lawyer from morgan lewis, his
lawyer for a long time, by the way, having her explain that it's not a conflict doesn't actually make it not a conflict. i take exception to something greta said, while i welcome her to the family, he can sell his businesses. it may be hard. it may be unwieldy. it may be difficult. but this is the presidency of the united states. this isn't a side job. when he continues to say that, there's some sense he's not necessarily fully accepting the gravity of what he ran very hard to do and got. this is difficult and it's complicated, to be president of the united states. if he wanted to sell his things, he could. if he wanted to put them in a blind trust, he could. he's not doing that and that's the problem. >> i keep hearing this defense that we knew what we were getting into, in effect. we knew we were hiring donald trump to be president of the united states -- >> i agree with that. i agree the people -- in many cases the people he often refers to in those industrial states who referred to him, don't care a bit about this discussion we're talking about right now.
if he brings jobs back, if he raises wages, if he gets a result that gets us better economic growth, this becomes an ivory tower conversation. >> let's do a thinghey teach you in tv school and that is reference the video that is airing on the screen right now. that solitary man is the ceo of exxonmobil, rex tillerson, for the purposes of our conversations today, he has been nominated as the next secretary of state to the united states. imagine his timing, his hearing starts today. overnight last night americans and that includes members of the house and senate, got to kind of chew on a potentially explosive story, knocked down vigorously today by donald trump, about information that russia may possess on donald trump that would be greatly compromising to him on a personal, financial and political basis. we thought we would bring a
guest of high esteem to our studio to help us talk about the relationship between the united states and russia, thomas pickering, former u.s. ambassador to russia under president clinton, 1993 to 1996. among his jobs, on behalf of this country, ambassador, welcome. >> thank you. >> good to see you again. >> it's nice to be back. >> what's the -- i always call it the viewer's guide. what do we need to know about russia, about our relationship to russia and what, if anything, set you off today listening to donald trump on this? >>e need to know t relationship is troubled, that there is- at this point there is some afemoral relationship between donald trump and vladimir putin. that might change things. it's not impossible. vladimir putin may be in the mood to change, having not progressed very far with the projects he's now undertaken,
but we don't know. the evidence on the compromise, the piece of information that is, in fact, out there that seems to be collected by the russians with the potential of having influence on donald trump is not yet verified. the u.s. intelligence community has been careful about that. and, indeed, we haven't seen after perhaps a couple of months of trying in washington that any of the press has come up with anything that says this is the real mccoy. so, trump is saying what he normally would say under these circumstances. it's fake news. we don't know how this is going to play out. we do know two things that are very important. one, russia is a very important country for us that possesses a nuclear power that could destroy us and we them and the two of us the globe. it's not a fooling around matter. the second and most important thing i would say is, the
intelligence community should not be a punching bag. the intelligence community is a serious bunch of very able people. i've known many of them over the years and have great respect for them. and they do a very tough job very well. and when 16 or 17 agencies agree, and this was on the prior material, then it's time to pay attention to them and not time to turn them into a virtual reality tv show. but get on with governance, which is something i've been saying. governance is a very tricky problem. ali velshi just said it's hard stuff, and i couldn't agree with him more. this is the toughest job in the world. and it isn't, in my view, a job you can turn into a virtual reality tv show as much as we might want to have that entertainment coming our way. >> mr. ambassador, i'm not crazy to put it another way. we're sitting here looking at guy who's been nominated for
secretary of state, in part, because of his relationship with russia and putin. and i'm not crazy in that we have heard people suddenly bending over backwards to normalize the idea of vladimir putin and russia. >> we need to be careful. i have the greatest respect for rex tillerson, and i have watched him in action, not close up, but from time to time. but i also think it's very important that as we deal with russia, we have to know we're not going to agree on everything all the time, but we also have to know there are some things we can come to agreement with them on as we did the soviet union, which is to stabilize the international situation so that people with, put it this way, trigger fingers are very careful about what they do on both sides of that divide. and i lived through the cuban
missile crisis as a young diplomat. and i was worried. a lot of us were very worried. we don't want to be back in that kind of unstable, uncertain situation where individuals on both sides n one way or another, are threatening. it is not a useful way to proceed and not something that i think we want or the russians want. so, it is time to reach out. president-elect trump do that? i don'tow. there is an openingere a i would be silly to denigratet. but at the same time, i think it requires smarts, stability and sensitivity. and those demands are very real and very important for the next president of the united states. >> ambassador, thank you. >> thank you, brian. >> thank you very much. to our viewers, we are going to be heading back into the hearing room after an update from hans nichols over at the pentagon. hans, on the story in chief, this story we first talked to
you about yesterday that has been knocking around, depending on your online source. it's been published in great detail or glancing detail. we've only published as much as our news division is able to confirm. how can you update us on that? >> well, the important thing about this is being appended to the news briefing trump got. trump was clear he never got a verbal briefing on this. but for those inside the trump organization, the transition team, and there are a lot of them that want to fundamentally reform the intelligence agency, they just got a big argument, brian. for people like general michael flynn, who will be leading the national security counsel, the nsa, for all those that want to fundamentally rethink the way the united states gathers intelligence, they have an argument. they have an argument the cia, fbi, dni, everyone was potentially a little sloppy in getting this report.
i was trying to speak to a number of people today. the plans to sort of revise and revamp the intelligence structure haven't been baked in, but there are those within the trump organization, in that transition, that really want to rethink the way it's done. brian, that's why that hearing tomorrow with mike, let's see if he gives any idea on how to rethink the intelligence agency. >> they have an argument now. now the large standing army in washington as they have just picked a giant fight with a branch of government absolutely essential to the presidency. hans nichols at the pentagon, thanks to our viewers. we are now going to go into the hearing room, listen to the confirmation hearing. this is rex tillerson, nominated to be this nation's next secretary of state. on the other side, at the
break, katy tur will be here. >> can it be effective. looking at your other options as well. i'm not dismisses ive of the sanctions -- >> you characterized the obama administration as weakness but you're saying you wouldn't necessarily do anything different? >> in that instance, i would have done something different. >> military force? >> show force at the border of the country that already had territy taken from them. >> american military? >> no, ukrainian military force supported by the u.s. providing them with capable defensive weapons. if that's not seen across the border, then it's not a show of force. >> switching gears now. this value of american value of transparency, correct? >> yes. >> and accountability in government, correct? >> yes. >> i have a concern, it's not a great one, you can allay it right now, that as leader of a private company, you made it
clear in many ways that you were first and foremost accountable to shareholders, employees and customers, but as secretary of state, you're accountable to the american public, and would be expected to keep the media, the public, constantly informed of general activities. and i just know that when my staff did a rough calculation of past secretaries, interactions with the press, clinton had over 3,200, kerry had about 3,000. when you were at exxonmobil, it was a far, far smaller number, but i imagine as secretary of state your going -- you believe in the importance of transparency, of engaging with the public, of answering to the questions that often come from the media? >> yes. and i indicated in my opening statement that that's part of earning the public trust, also to engage with this committee. that's a way to communicate with the public as well. >> you will bring press corps with you as you travel oversaes
and you will commit to having those regular interactions with the press? >> if confirmed, i will look into what would be appropriate to take. i have not -- i have not gotten that far in my thinking. >> okay. and so you haven't thought through about issues of accountability and transparency? >> i have thought through issues of accountability and transparency. your question was the size of my press corps, i think. >> no, it was not. my question was access of the media and public to the work of the secretary of state. >> we want to ensure at all times, if confirmed, the secretary of state and the state department is fully transparent with the public. that's part of my cment of being truthful and bei -- you know, holding ourselves accountable as well as others accountable. >> okay. switching gears. i'll get back to this in the next round of questioning. in fact, i'm going to yield back because it's a new line of questioning. that's all i have. >> okay.
i will -- just as a matter of sharing some information, the supplying of defense -- lethal defensive support to ukraine at a time when we were only sending used night vision goggles and mres was something that was strongly supported in a bipartisan way on this committee under chairman menendez's leadership. i just want to say that for the record. i didn't view the response to be necessarily in any way outside the norms of what this committee overwhelmingly supported at that time. i'm just saying that for information. and i'm more than glad to talk more fully about that. so, we're going to start the second round. they're going to be seven-minute rounds. and we're going to go in the same order we began. if senator rich comes in, i would like to be able to give him time since he was around
earlier and now has a conflict. with that, i'll send -- i'll turn to senator cardin again. >> well, once again, thank you, mr. chairman. first, mr. chairman, in response to senator menendez's questions about lobbying in regards to the iran sanctions act, just to make the record complete, i'm going to ask consent to put into the record the lobbying disclosure form from exxonmobil corporation that indicates the -- approximately $3.4 million was spent on behalf of lobbying the iran sanctions act. i'll put that into the record. without objection. i wanted to be cirman. putting some information into the record. >> i understand you became chairman while i was talking, but -- >> you always have to watch out. >> without objection. >> thank you.
second thing, mr. tillerson, i want to just underscore a point. we talk about in the office, this has come up several times, and that is, you keep referring to the fact of your concern in regards to the ukrainian sanctions that were imposed against russia for their actions in ukraine that you were concerned that american companies could be at a disadvantage because of europe being treated differently, the grandfather clause, et cetera. and then when we talk about leadership, and it was very true on iran. senator menendez took the leadership on this, that but for the u.s. leadership, we wouldn't have gotten other countries to act. so, if we take the position we're going to the lowest common denominator, we're not going to get anything really done. you talk about being tough and taking tough position, it requires leadership and requires us to be willing to go the extra
amount. one last point on this. i agree with senator corker. we've never had any administration believe that congress should take away their discretion. that is absolutely fact. whether democrat or republican administration, they would rather do away with congress. we understand that. we get it. but you, i assume, understand the advantage we have in america with the separation of branches of government. and it could be helpful to you as our -- if you're confirmed as our principal negotiator, to have clear directions from congress that you must impose sanctions, must impose nctions, unless you get real progress towards the issues in which those sanctions will be imposed. take advantage of the independent branch of government. work with us. so you can have those strong tools to help america's interests. i'm going to take most of my time on this round to go over an
issue senator cork and i have been working through. i'm not going to spend a lot of time going over some of the issues on tax returns. we'll save that for a different time for our committee because it really involves an internal debate here more so than our nominee. but as a result, i had sent to you 20 questions to answer that are related to the tax issues because we didn't have the tax returns. and before the close of business for asking questions, i will be proposing questions to you related to your tax issues in order to better understand areas i think we need to have information on. we are concerned about the fact -- i'm concerned. i think members of the committee are concerned. that you will have some private interests. you're going to continue to operate a farm. you're going to have a charitable foundation. you have a real estate firm. a real estate partnership.
we need to know a little bit more how that operates from the person who's going to be secretary of state. you have trusts thatre being set up and how those payments are paid out over time, we need to have a better understanding of how that operates during your term if you're confirmed as secretary of state. so, that type of information is useful to us. i'm still trying to figure out exactly how this trust you're taking restricted stock, and if confirmed, selling it to become -- or putting cash in rather than restricted stock, but then you are able to withdraw the funds from the trust in the same schedule as, i believe, as the restricted stock would have become actionable. but as a result of that, you're also putting contingencies on
your receipts so you can defer the taxes, as i understand, defer taxes for a significant period of time. these are issues that i think we have to have more transparency on, because they're big dollars. $180 million, if i understand, of restricted stock. the tax consequences are about $70 million. these are not types of tools that can be used by average americans. i think we need to know more about those types of issues. we also have concern about making sure that all of your employees have been properly documented and taxes paid. that's a standard issue that's been raised now in confirmation hearings. senator corker and i may not think it's relevant to the final -- not relevant. determinant to final confirmation but it's relevant for us to have that information before we make answers. i'm going to ask you to answer these questions for the record.
i hope we'll be able to get the cooperation in a timely way so that the committee can have this information before we're called upon to act on your nomination. you can respond. >> i'm happy to try to answer the areas of concern you have. i indicated that in the original questionnaire, that it's my objective to address concerns you have. you know, i am -- i'm also, though, mindful of privacy issues afforded to every american and privacy issues afforded under individual tax returns. i'll do my best to answer questions you have. but i hope you'll also respect the privacy of myself and my family. in the long-standing privacy of individuals' tax returns. >> i can assure you that that will absolutely be observed, as i had explained to senator corker, much of this information
is not even reviewed by members. it's strictly by people who can tell us whether we have a problem or not. i absolutely respect what you're saying. and my full intentions are to fully maintain your legitimate right to privacy. i look forward to following up on that. i thank you for your reply. >> thank you. just for the edification of the committee, i think it's true that over the last four years, i have worked as the lead republican on foreign relations to ensure that we move candidates out as quickly as possible nominees. i think at every nominations meeting we've had, that's been stated. and what i've shared with the ranking member is, we have a tradition here that we are following. this has not been a committee that has asked for tax returns. it's asked for a disclosure form. and just because we were so
overwhelmingly helpful with the democratic president's nominees doesn't mean that we want to be changing the standards or unhelpful, if you will, under a republican nominee. so i just have tried to keep things exactly the same. exactly the same. disclosures are exactly the same. and, you know, as far as getting into -- i've told senator cardin that if there is a substantial issue we need to look at that would affect senator tillerson -- excuse me. you don't want to be demoted to that. to nominee tillerson's role, then i'm more than glad to look much deeper into it. and if we need to have somebody from the outside do so. but to get into silly got-ya question, not that you've done that, that's just not what we've done in this committee. and i hope we will not turn this process into one that turns
qualified people away from wanting to serve. again, if there's some substantive issue that we need to pursue and we need to get into some private setting and have someone come in from an accounting firm that really matters as it relates to his ability to not have conflicts as a secretary of state or something like that, i'm willing to look at it, as i know he is. asking questions that are not in any way determinant in any way is belittling the committee and a huge change in the protocol and the respect with which we've dealt with nominees and their privacy. >> can i just -- >> but i thank you for working with me. >> would you just yield for one moment? i thank you for that. and i can assure you, the disagreement on supplying tax returns has nothing to do with mr. tillerson. it's a discussion we're having. it has not at all delayed any of our operations. i fully expect that i will
continue to use whatever means i can to change our committee practices so that we do have our nominees, as many other contest in the senate require, to file tax returns. that's not unique. small business, i've been told by senator shaheen, requires. second point i would make very quickly, the second point, the ability of the members to ask questions for the record and ask questions of the nominee has pretty well been respected. and i would hope that right would not be diminished. that we have the ability to ask questions of the witnesses in regards to areas that we think are important. >> no one in any way is trying to diminish that. i know you and i have agreed on a series of questions that will come from the committee itself and mr. tillerson, as i understand it, is going to answer those. i would think absolutely the aarrangement he has with exxon
is something that should be fully vetted and everyone here understands that that is going to happen and he's going to make that all forth -- and has, actually. i would just say, again, we may wish to change our standards four years from now. our most recent secretary of state, as i understand it, as a couple was worth over $1 billion. had all kinds of far-ranging investments. and as a committee, we never tried to force a tax return issue. they filled out the disclosures and we as a committee asked them questions. same thing happened with secretary clinton. so, all i'm trying to do is not in any way change the way that we operate because of the outcome of an election.
and continue to be that island of bipartisanship as we continue to operate regardless of who wins an election. i'm in no way trying to infer that you're attempting to do that. i'm just telling you what i'm attempting to do. i'm attempting to do. i'll turn to senator rubio. >> mr. tillerson, when we met on monday night, thank you for coming by, i provided you a copy of a bill which was provided in the last congress which i anticipate will be filed in the new congress by senator flake and leahy a remove the travel ban by americans to cuba. if you were confirmed and that bill were to pass congress, can you commit you would advise the president to veto that bill? >> senator, as to the current status of travel to cuba, that is going to be under discussion with the president-elect. i think he's been fairly clear on his intent that he is going
to ask all agencies essentially on day one to do a complete review of recent executive orders and the change of the status of travel to cuba as well as business activities in cuba. so, it would be my expectation that the president would not immediately approve that bill until after that review had occurred because that would be part of a broader view of our posture toward cuba. >> if he doesn't act on the bill, it would become law without his signature. my question is at this time, you cannot commit to supporting a veto of that bill should it pass? >> i would support a veto because i don't think we want to change the current status of things until we've completed that review. >> that was the question i wanted to get to. if a bill were to pass congress that would remove the u.s. embargo against cuba, and there hasn't been democratic changes on the island of cuba, would you advise the president to veto a bill that lifted the embargo on cuba? >> if confirmed, yes, i would. >> can you also commit that you
would advise the president to reverse many if not all of the obama administration's cuba regulations andxetive orders regarding cuba thatere recently submitted in 2014? >> as indicated, i expect a comprehensive review of all those executive orders. from the state department perspective, i would want to examine carefully the cry tia under which cuba was delisted from the list of terrorist nationses for terrorism. and whether or not that delisting was appropriate and whether or not the circumstances which led to that delisting still exist. >> you do not currently have an opinion at this time as to whether cuba belongs on the list of terror sponsors? >> i would need to examine all the criteria that were used to make the current determination and then utilizing the expertise of those in the state department, again, informed by the interagency process to look at those criteria that would put
cuba back on that list. >> as i'm sure you're aware, there is a dispute between china and japan over the control of the senekaku island change. if china tried to take over island chain with military force, would you have the united states respond with military force? >> we have long-standing ally commitments with japan and south korea in the area. and i think we would respond in accordance with those accords, which are not a nato-type agreement. but certainly, we have made commitments to japan in terms of a guarantee of their defense. >> i want to -- in your opening remarks you referred to human rights. i'm glad that you did. and i wanted to walk you through a few examples quickly. i shared with you when we met on monday, a political prisoner database maintained by china contains more than 1400 active records of individuals known or believed to be in detention. do you believe china is one of
the world's worst human rights violators? >> china has serious human rights violations relative to categorizing it against other nations i would have to have more information. but they certainly have serious human rights violations. >> well, since president rodrigo duterte, "the los angeles times" reports 500 people have been killed. is-n your view s this the way to conduct an anti-drug campaign? >> senator, the u.s. and people of the philippines have a long-standing friendship. i think it's important we keep that in perspective in engaging with the government of the philippines, that that long-standing friendship, and they have been an ally and we need to ensure they stay an ally. >> that's correct, mr mr. tillerson. but my question is about the 6200 people killed in these alleged drug raids. do you believe that that is an
appropriate way to conduct that operation or do you believe that it is something that's conducive to human rights violations we should be concerned about and condemning? >> senator, if confirmed, again, it's an area i would want to understand in greater detail in terms of the facts on the ground. i'm not disputing anything you're saying because i know you have access to information that i do not have. >> this is from "the los angeles times." >> well, again, i'm not going to rely on solely what i read in the newspapers. i will go to the facts on the ground. i'm sure there's good, credible information available through our various government agencies. >> one of the sources for that number in the campaign and its nature is president duterte himself who openly brags about the people being shot and killed on the streets who he has determined are drug dealers without any trial. so, if, in fact, he continues to brag about it, would that be reliable information you would look at and say, okay, it's happening? i mean, what's happening in the philippines is not an intelligence issue. it's openly rerted, multiple
press accounts, the president-elect has spoken about it, and, quite frankly, the president of the philippines has admitted to it and, in fact, brags about it. my question is, in your opinion, is that an appropriate way for him to act and should it influence our relationship with the philippines? >> if the facts are, in fact, supportive of those numbers and those actions, then i don't think any of us would accept that as a proper way to deal with offenders, no matter how agr egregious the offenders may be. >> i'm sure your aware of lack of rights of women in saudi arabia. in your view, is saudi arabia a human rights violator? >> saudi arabia does not share the same values as america. i think the question is, what is the pace of progress that should be expected for the kingdom of
saudi arabia to advance -- advance rights to women and others in the country. >> as it currently stands, do you consider what they do to be human rights violations? >> i would need more information to make a true determination of that. >> you're not familiar with the state of affairs for people in saudi arabia, what life is like for women? they can't drive. they have people jailed and lashed. you are familiar with all of that. >> yes, senator, i'm familiar with all of that. >> so what more information would you need? >> in terms of when you designate someone or label meone, que is, is that the most effective way to have progress continue to be made in saudi arabia or any other country. so, my interest is the same as yours. our interests are not different, senator. there seems to be some misunderstanding that somehow i see the world through a different lens, and i do not. i share all the same values that you share and want the same things for people the world over in terms of freedoms, but i'm
also clear-eyed and realistic about dealing in cultures -- these are centuries' long cultural differences. we can't effect them to change. in the many years i've been traveling to the kingdom, while the pace is slow, slower than any of us wish, there is a change under way in the kingdom of saudi arabia. how and if they ever arrive to the same value system we have, i can't predict that. but what i do believe is, it is moving in the direction that we want it to move. what i wouldn't want to do is to take some kind of a precipitous action that suddenly causes the leadership in the kingdom of saudi arabia to have to interrupt that. i'd like for them to continue to make that progress. >> thank you. >> senator menendez. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. tillerson, i know that you're new to this and i know the chairman was trying to help you out on the question of lobbingy on sanctions. you stated on the record that to your knowledge neither you nor
exxon ever lobbied against sanctions. that you were merely seeking information. i have four different lobbying reports totaling millions of dollars as required bit lobbying disclosure act that lists exxonmobil's lobbying activities on four specific pieces of legislation authorizing sanctions, including the comprehensive iran sanctions accountability and divestment act of 2010, russian aggression act, ukraine freedom act of 2014 and stanford ukraine act. i know you're new to this, but it's pretty clear. my understanding is when you employ lobbyists who submit lobbying forms under the law, you are taking a position. is that not correct? >> if the form clearly indicates whether we were -- i don't know -- i haven't seen the form you're holding in your hand. does it indicate we were lobbying for the sanctions or against the sanctions?
>> i know you weren't lobbying for the sanctions. but -- >> well, if the form -- it says specifically here, specific lobbying issues. russian aggression provisions, energy. you weren't lobbying for sanctions on energy, were you? >> i think that's a description of the subject that was discussed. and i haven't seen the form, senator, so i don't -- >> well, you don't -- let me just edify for the future. you don't need a lobbying disclosure form to simply seek information and clarification about a bill. that's not lobbying. lobbying specifically is to promote a view, a position, whatnot. so, that's -- i ask to have these included in the objection. >> no objection. >> so, there was lobbying here. i know senator booker asked you about usa engagement. you said you don't know about. but exxonmobil is listed onusa engage, whose whole purpose --
i'm sure while exxon is a huge corporation, like the state department is a big entity, you may not know every minutia what's going on but you have to generally understand you're giving direction whether to lobby on certain positions or not, you want to take certain positions or not. like you told me earlier in your world conversation with the president-elect you didn't discuss russia, it's a little difficult to think you actually don't know that exxon was lobbying on these issues of sanctions. >> my understanding is those reports are required whether you're lobbying for something or lobbying against something. you're still required to report you have lobbying activity -- >> you believe you were paying money to lobby for sanctions? >> i don't know. >> can you imagine being in a position where you would have your company and shareholders to lobby for positions that would affect your bottom line? >> i don't know, senator. it would depend on the circumstance. >> let me turn to mexico, a little different part of the
world than we have been discussing. some of us care about the western hem sphere. the president-elect stated any wall spent on the wall will be paid by mexico. vk mexico pay for it s be a hall mark chant at trump rallies. now he says the american people will pay for it and have mexico reimburse us. the last time a country tried to wall itself completely from a neighbor was in berlin in 1961. and that wall was constructed by communist east germany. former mexican president last week tweeted that somehow we are conducting foreign policy by tweets these days, that trump may ask whoever he wants but still neither myself nor mexico are going to pay for his racist monument. another promise he can't keep. close quotes. as you're well aware, the president-elect has repeatedly referred to mexican citizens who
have come to the united states as saying they're sending, quote, people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems with us. they're bringing drugs, they're bringing crimes, they're rapists and some, some i assume are good people. mr. tillerson, do you think mexicans are criminals, drug dealers and rapists? >> i would never characterize an entire population of people with any single term at all. >> do you think that those comments help our relationship with mexico, our third largest trading partner, a trading partner that represents $583 billion in trades of goods and services, including our second largest goods export market? >> mexico is a long-standing neighbor and friend of this country. >> and so that doesn't help your job as secretary of state, does it, if you are to achieve nomination? >> well, we're going to engage with mexico because of their importance to us in this h
hemisphere and we have many common issues of concern senator rubio took care of some things i cared about. when you and i met, you indicated on cuba you needed more time -- which is fair -- to come to your conclusion about your opinion on u.s./cuba policy and the obama administration changes. i want to share with you the latest report by -- it's not me, okay, by amnesty international. that noted, quote, despite increasingly open diplomatic relations, severe restrictions on freedoms of expression, association and movement continue. thousands of cases of harassment of government critics and arbitrary arrests and detentions were reported. thousands, that's their quote. the cuban commission for human rights and national reconciliation, which works within cuba documented more than 8,600 politically motivated detentions of goth opponents and activists during the year. there's a group of women who march every sunday to church with glad oel yeahs, called the
women in white, they get beaten savagely because of their peaceful protest. i hope you would agree with me that if our engagement is still going to allow that to take place, then something's wrong with our engagement. something fell short. and i have a specific question on cuba. do you think that as a condition of establishing diplomatic relations with cuba, we at a minimum should have insisted on the return of fugitives, cop killers, like new jersey cop killer joe chezimart and other fugitives being harbored by the castro regime? >> i do, senator. >> thank you. now, would you finally commit yourself if you are confirmed as secretary of state to work with us and others, mexico that have cop killers and other fugitives in cuba, to make that conditioning of any future transactions as it relates to cuba? >> senator, if confirmed, i look
forward to working with you most specifically, as well as senator rubio and others, who have have a great depth of knowledge on cuba to ensure that we are not relaxing the pressure on cuba to reform its oppressive regime. certainly as i indicated in response to a question earlier and in my opening remarks, the cuban leadership got a lot out of the most recent deal. we need to make no mistake about where the flows of funds are going inside cuba and the cuban people got almost nothing. as i indicated, the president-elect has been very clear on his intent to direct a bottoms-up review of the entire relationship with cuba. >> thank you. >> i appreciate the great senator from new jersey acknowledging that when our nominee has left an impression, that i don't think he is wishing to leave. i give him an opportunity to change that. thank you. with that, senator -- >> mr. chairman, thank you. >> he has a ten-minute segment
during a news conference with italy's prime minister, a news conference heavy on world pressure points include north korea and iran. john roberts tonight. >> the summit was meant to be from the close ties between the two countries and their mutual cooperation to fight the scorch of terror. the need for which was underscored even as the two leaders were talking. >> terrorism and global hot spots were high on the agenda today as president trump met with italy's prime minister paolo gentiloni, learning of the shooting in paris as it was wrapping up. >> it looks like another terrorist attack. what can you say it, it never ends. we have to be strong and we have to be vigilant. >> the two leaders also spoke about north korea and iran, north korea issuing a new threat
warning of a "super-mighty preemptive strike that will quickly and immediately wiped out u.s. imperialist invasion forces in south korea and its surrounding areas but the u.s. mainland and reduce them to ashes." the u.s. has so far been of the keith north korea and check through negotiations with the leaders, but kim jong-un is much more of a wild card. >> do you believe that the leader of north korea, kim jong-un, is mentally unstable? is that one of the reasons that you are so concerned with these latest developments? is he a man who can be reasoned with? >> we are building our military rapidly. a lot of things have happened over the last short period of time. i have been here for approximately 91 days. we are doing a lot of work. we are in very good position. we are going to see what happens. i can't answer your question on stability. i hope the answer is a positive one, not a negative one, but hopefully that will be something that gets taken care of. >> after a week's today to
participate in military exercises with australia come at the aircraft carrier carl vinson are finally steaming for the sea of japan. today the president appeared to play down the imminence of military action, saying his talks two weeks ago with president xi jinping appeared to be bearing fruit. >> i can say from my standpoint, i like him very much, i respect and very much, and i think he is working very hard. many other things have happened, some very unusual moves have been made over the last two or three hours, and i really have confidence that the president will try very hard. we don't know whether or not they are able to do that, but i have absolute confidence that he will be trying very, very hard. >> in his press conference for the italian prime minister, the president also made it clear he remains highly skeptical of the iran nuclear deal despite the fact his secretary of state, rex tillerson, certified on tuesday that iran is living up to the terms of the joint comprehensive plan of action. >> do you have reason to believe
that they are cheating on the jcpoa? >> they are not living up to the spirit of the agreement, i can tell you that, and we're analyzing it very, very carefully and we'll have something to say about it in the not-too-distant future. but iran has not lived up to the spirit of the agreement. and they have to do that. they have to do that. >> the president and the prime minister reaffirmed their commitment to work together and through nato to fight terrorism at the islamic state. when asked if he saw a role for the u.s. and the deteriorating situation in libya, president trump indicated he sees a limit in global conflict. >> i do not see a role in libya. i think the united states right now has enough roles. i do see a role in getting rid of isis, we are very effective in that regard. >> the french president francois
hollande said he does believe it is a act of terror, and one of the finalists, francoix fillon, says he believes that campaigning should be paused. >> bret: i spoke with prime minister paolo gentiloni about his country's relations with the u.s. and the changing economic environment in europe. i started by asking him what he was hoping for from his meeting at the white house. >> well, first of all, to confirm the strength of our relation. the u.s. had a very, very strong relation, and we consider this the pillar of our foreign policy. and second, i hope to have a common view on how the meeting we are having insistently of the
g7 will be helpful for the major free world economies to go united in the world that we are facing, and i hope that we will renew the efforts, both of america and italy in the mediterranean region that for us is security, migration, and the fight against terrorism. acting together is very relevant for us. >> bret: it is such a fascinating time with so many issues pending. one of the biggest is brexit and great britain leaving the e.u. what does that mean to you? >> it is obviously a negative decision, but we respect the decision of the people. negative because it weakens, in
any case, the european union. britain was one of the four man counters of the club. i hope we will have a fair negotiation, and to have a fair negotiation, what is crucial is to maintain e.u. unity. we are not more together in the european union, but we remain friends and partners. >> bret: do you fear other countries will follow the u.k.'s lead? >> i don't think this is now the real situation in europe. well, you can never know. but we have had a lot of discussion in the previous weeks on the possibility in certain countries, and the netherlands, and austria, of prevailing
opposition anti-e.u., but i don't think that this possibility is real. >> bret: we have seen this rising nationalism, not only here, obviously with president trump's election, but brexit, the popularity of marine le pen. how strong do think this nationalism is, and you see it in italy? >> the fact that many countries are asking to defend their national interest is understandable. the fact that many countries are stressing the necessity to defend their own tradition, their own history, that is the vitality of our democracy. what is negative and could be even dangerous is when nationalism becomes another thing, an instrument to fight
your neighbor or other countries. unfortunately, we commit the europeans, are the master of this kind of danger because we provoked two world voice exactly for this reason. one nation against another. there are different degrees of nationalism. >> bret: how concerned are you about the migrant crisis in the mediterranean? >> it's one of the two main issues in europe know, one is migration, the other is growth, economy, jobs, investments. as far as migration is concerned, i think we need a couple of things. one, more countries available to share the burden. we can't accept the fact that geography decides the burden is to greece or italy or whoever.
second, we have to strengthen our action to defeat the network of smugglers and traffickers. this is not spontaneous movement. it is something organized by criminal networks. will this counter the phenomenon? no. we need developments to cancel the phenomenon. but you can reduce the flow. >> bret: your country about the u.s. to fight drones from sicily into libya to fight isis. how would he describe the relationship today? >> the support of the government with u.s. air action and with our logistics support has been
very effective, and now it is no more there. but if you have a failed state, a fragile government in this situation, there is always the risk of terrorism infiltrating and terrorist threats. so what we need is, having made some mistake in libya, we, the italians, the americans, the french, the u.k., we have to be honest in recognizing this. now we have a duty, even a moral duty to contribute to stabilize. it is still fragile. there is a government, but we have to enlarge spaces and to gather other forces around this
government. >> bret: it is a serious problem. you are the president of the g7. italy has always been, it seemed, open to russia, but considering russia's moves here in the u.s. prior to the elections, maybe other european nations as well, what would it take for russia to get to g8? is that a possibility? >> at the moment, no. what is, i think, not only possibility but a necessity is to maintain an involvement, an open door, a dialogue with russia. the idea of isolating russia, this is what history shows us, has always been counterproductive. who knows if, in the future, direct involvement. but it is not for the g7. >> bret: not this time around. >> for sure. >> bret: president trump has said he wants nato countries to
step up as far as how much they are contributing to nato. 2016 data had italy at about the 20th. is this a legitimate concern, and is it going to step up its contribution to nato. >> we respect the commitment that we took. we are on track gradually, because our economy is growing, but we would like to have it faster growing. you can name every single military operation of nato from the baltic to the balkans and you will see an italian strong presence. so this is something we are very proud of, and it is not an alternative to augment military expenditure with a rate that will be manageable for our economy and our growth. >> bret: it is legitimate for president trump to call for the
2% gdp? >> absolutely. it is legitimate, and it is legitimate for us to say that this engagement, we are there, we will it correctly. >> bret: just talked with middle eastern leaders who had spoken with president trump, and they were effusive about how the situation had changed from their point of view in the middle eas middle east. i'm wondering if there is a sense in europe about president trump. if you were to describe it, is it apprehension, is it opportunity? >> the europe and the u.s. are so strongly connected, the fact that you change the president cannot change the relation between europeans and americans. these are two of the pillars of our western democracy. nobody is interested to have bad
relations. and i think also the u.s. administration understands the importance of europe. it is not something of the second world war, it is something for now and for the future. >> bret: what keeps you up at night? >> [laughs] so many threats. but you have to sleep. [laughs] >> bret: mr. prime minister, we appreciate your time. >> grazie, thank you. >> bret: in the meantime, tens of thousands of people are gathering right now in caracas, venezuela, one day after nationwide demonstrations against the governments they are left three people dead and hundreds arrested. also today, the state department says it is looking into an almost 20-year-old lawsuit that led to the venezuelan government to seize a general motors factor viii this week. gm has about 2700 workers in that country.
it says the government's asset seizure is illegal. president trump's ambassador to the united nations is trying to shake things up there. senior correspondent rick leventhal tells us nikki haley has come to the world body with a unique agenda. speak at 7,929th meeting of the security council is called to order. >> every three months for the past 17 years, the united nations security council has matured is called an open debate on the middle east, focusing on the palestinian question and at school for an independent state alongside israel. critics say the meetings have traditionally been israeli-bashing sessions and accomplished little. if we are speaking honestly, we need to start with the chief culprit, iran and its partner militia, hezbollah. >> refocusing on state-sponsored terrorism, signaling out iran's support of hezbollah, which she
says is the far greater threat. >> where there is terror, where there is death, where there is complete disregard for human life, there is iran. >> iran continues to play a destabilizing role in the region. this is most clearly seen in syria. >> russia, a key iranian ally, was quick to change the subject. >> we would like to express our categorical disagreement with the attempt to tailor this to the domestic context and the focus. >> by blaming all others but the occupier, the u.s. seeks to erase the question rather than addressing it. >> saying hailey's determination could eventually being results. >> i think a cultural shift is underway, it takes persistence, and she is going to bring end.
>> the session lasted more than six hours, and they did extend per investor hailey's request, but there was nothing else remarkable about this meeting, and her tenure ends in ten days. bret? >> bret: rick leventhal. thank you. up next, hate crimes and what is called victimization chic. first, fox 4 in dallas as bernie sanders tries to fire up democrats in north texas, sanders held a rally in grand prairie about half between dallas and fort worth. the event is part of what is being called the come together and fight back to her. fox 11, the city declares a homeless shelter crisis, that enables organizations to operate without going through bureaucratic red tape. lastly saying there were 28,000 homeless people living inside
the city. and this is a live look at new york from our affiliate fox 5, smoking may soon be getting a lot more expensive for new yorkers. democratic mayor bill de blasio wants to raise the minimum price for a pack of cigarettes to $13 in the city. the current minimum is $10.50. de blasio possesses antismoking agenda could reduce the number of smokers in new york by 160,000 in the coming years. opponents say the city's high prices have already pushed many smokers into buying untaxed and unregulated cigarettes on the black market. that is 25 look from outside the beltway port "special report" pete will be right back so when it comes to pain relievers, why put up with just part of a day? aleve, live whole not part. tell you what, i'll give it to you for half off.
all the time in the news, hate crime, culture of hate. but what does it really mean and how many of those so-called crimes are real? doug mckelway looks into those questions tonight. >> last week, and indian-owned store in charlotte, north carolina, was set on fire and a racist note left behind that read "we need to get rid of muslims, indians, and all immigrants." it was signed "white america." this week, police arrested a african-american man after police showed him lighting the fire. the police does not track fake hate or false crime. >> there are a large number of cases, certainly dozens or hundreds of year, and have been for at least the past 30 years. >> the website vacatecrimes vacatecrimes.org tracks them, expelling a jewish man is the primary suspect in hundreds
of bomb threats, in january, a black waitress in virginia claimed a customer wrote on the receipt, "great service, don't tip black people." >> shocked, very shocked. >> the customer maintained that it was written by the waitress who was upset over her one cent tip for bad service. and a muslim woman who claims that three men attacked her and tried to pull off her key job was accused of the campus focused on micro-aggressions and safe spaces is the perfect incubator to fake hate crimes. >> this isn't just my opinion. this is apparently widely recognized them. i would say 80% of events that occur on the campus are hoaxes or pranks. >> they believe that vacate makes up only a tiny fraction of the real thing. >> we have tracked a spike in
hate crimes since particularly the election. so in the week after the election we tracked 111 separate incidents. >> there was a time at which the institutions that dominated and provided that social control were the church and involve and educational systems, and i think that has shifted, and this results in the dumbing down of the consumer. >> one example, when a youtube hoax or pulled this prank. >> we spoke a different language on the plane and now we're getting kicked out. >> that's insane. >> it was picked up as potential evidence of a hate crime. >> vacate crimes, despite their huge drain on police resources, are usually classified as misdemeanors. some say elevating them to felony status would go a long way to ending them.
>> bret: a key mortgage interest rate has fallen to its lowest level in five months. freddie mac says the rate on the 30-year fixed home loan stands at 3.97% tonight, a drop from four and eight hundredths last week. the dow up 174, s&p 50018, nasdaq 54. u.s. markets to u.s. politics, saying former president obama is to blame for the party's recent electoral failures. dnc chair keith ellison made the comment yesterday in minnesota. >> barack obama could have been a better party leader, and i think that the fact that he wasn't has put his legacy in jeopardy. we lost a lot of statehouse seats, secretary of state, his true legacy is in danger, and i think that he can't say that he wasn't part of those losses.
who else >> bret: ellison's representatives say he was talking about reality and not trying to be overly critical. turnover on the supreme court and sometimes impede correspondent peter doocy is here to tell us what the prospects are and what he is hearing. do we know who might be the next justice to retire? >> bret, we have a short list of who the short timers may be. >> it is just a very general rumor for the last six months around washington, d.c., and i assume it is somebody that is in their late 70s or early 80s, and there is probably three people that fall into that category. it could be any one of those three. it could be somebody else. >> the three being alluded to there are liberal justices ruth bader ginsburg and stephen breyer and then the
independent-thinking justice anthony kennedy who support justice gorsuch in after serving as his mentor. if president trump was to replace any of them with the reliably conservative justice, it could solidify the currently shaky majority, saying they think they will pick a nominee from the list candidate trump circulated during the campaign, a list that still has 20 well-known conservatives judges on it. less pressure for a moderate because as long as republicans control the senate, they benefit from that nuclear option used a few weeks ago and that they can confirm someone with just 51 votes and they still have got 52 on their side, bret. >> bret: a lot of talk about movement on health care. >> we know they have been using recess to try to find middle ground on a deal, but a freedom
caucus spokesperson tells me it would get rid of insurance regulations while protecting people with pre-existing conditions. even though a senior g.o.p. aide cautions me there is still no text yet, no way to know how close a vote is, president trump now says he hopes it is next week. >> we have a good chance of getting it soon. i'd like to say next week. but i believe we will get it, whether it's next week or shortly thereafter. >> the president is also hopeful they will vote for the change. >> bret: family members after government held prisoner in iran are pleading with the trumpet administration tonight to do something, anything. correspondent rich edson has that story from the state department. >> these men's families are putting their trust in a tweet. iran sentence circle meant to
ten years in prison. iran says they spied for the united states. in october, then heaven candidate trump tweeted, "iran has done it again, taking two of our people and asking for a fortune for their release. another family wants president trump to follow through. >> every day i wake up, and i wonder if today is the day that i'm going to get any bad news. >> he is a businessman and scholar. his attorney says he was the only american excluded from a prison release following the iran nuclear deal. instead, in february 2016, iran arrested his 80-year-old father, a former representative of unicef. >> president obama failed to secure the release of siamak
namazi. >> like the previous administration, trump officials have raised their case. >> we have joined recent calls for the immediate release of all u.s. citizens unjustly detained or missing in iran. >> this is an important step forward but it needs to be followed up by immediate and aggressive action. >> and the namazis state the situation is becoming more urgent as baquer is ill. >> if we do not secure their release very soon, i will not see my father, i will not see siamak, my brother. >> the iran nuclear deal, saying it now involves all aspects of iran's behavior including missile tests, promoting terrorism, and imprisoning americans. bret? >> bret: >> bret: rich edson ate state department. last night we told you about the case of former cia officer
sabrina de sousa and her ordeal after she was convicted in absentia. after the kidnapping of cleric abu omar. de sousa says her sentence was reduced but she may have to go and testify. today, i asked the italian prime minister about de sousa's fate. >> the decision has already been taken by the president of the republic who reduced to condemnation, and this created the possibility for this former agent to go back to the u.s. there is no search from italian authorities at all and no call from the italian parliamentary bodies. >> you think it is pretty much wrapped up? >> yeah. >> de sousa said lawyers said that she has emails asking her to appear before a committee, and since a report last night,
de sousa's attorneys said they had been contacted by the white house and a senior state department official is being assigned to her case. de sousa's attorneys says no long from the italian government has contacted them to indicate there has been a change in her status or that she is no longer required to do community service or testify. we will follow up. the nation's top law-enforcement officer has has a message to people who want to enter the u.s. illegally. now welcome jeff sessions and john kelly, in el paso, texas, today, observing southern border operations. >> for those who still seek to violate our laws and enter the country illegally, let me be very clear. don't come. please don't come. when you are caught, you will be detained, adjudicated, and deported. >> bret: tonight come up we are learning more details about the alleged deportation of an illegal immigrant who came to the u.s. as a child.
correspondent william la jeunesse is in tonight. >> we are going to have an immigration system that works. >> as a candidate, donald trump promised to deport so-called dreamers. that has yet to happen. >> we had a deal with daca. >> juan manuel montes said he was having a hunch with a friend near the border when he was accosted by a porta patrol agent. unable to find his daca i.d., montes says he was deported, it claimed the administration denies, claiming "there are no records to support montes' claim." instead, officials say montes was already in mexico when they caught him a day later trying to sneak into the u.s. by climbing over a fence. >> dock and relays are not being targeted. i don't know why this individual was picked up. >> saying montes did have a
legitimate docket status but by going to mexico, he lost his protection. >> when our agents on the frontline encounter people, they are going to enforce the laws on the books. >> critics jumped on the montes story for what they consider trumps inhumane policy. calling it disturbing, alarming, senate minority leader nancy pelosi. montes' lawyers hope to prove he did not leave the u.s. voluntarily. >> i bet there is plenty of surveillance video we going to see if he crossed or did not cross. >> stick with the judge hearinge lawsuit also handled the trump university case. >> at the time, they claim to indiana-born curiel couldn't be fair. as for montes, now living in mexico waiting to out outcome of his case as of 750 70,750,000 r docket recipients. >> bret: president trump talks paris terror, iran news, and
whether north korea's leader is crazy. we will talk about what we heard today in the news conference and my interview with italy's prime minister. the panel joins me after a quick break. roller derby. ♪ now give up half of 'em. do i have to? this is a tough financial choice we could face when we retire. but, if we start saving even just 1% more of our annual income... we could keep doing all the things we love. prudential. bring your challenges.
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saying the relationship is close and saying the chinese president is moving things when it comes to north korea. >> i really have confidence that the president will try very hard. we don't know whether or not they are able to do that, but i have absolute confidence that he will be trying very, very hard. and one of the reasons that we are talking about trade deals and we're talking about all of the different things, but we are slowing up a little bit. i actually told him, i said, you'll make a much better deal on trade if you get rid of this menace or do something about the menace of north korea. because that is what it is. it is a menace right now. >> bret: foreign policy and that news conference today, also, my interview with italy's prime minister, stephen hayes, mollie hemingway, charles lane, and jason riley, and had an institute senior fellow. jason, i'll start with you. your thoughts on the iran nuclear part and north korea
first? >> i have seen some mixed messages. you have met us -- i'm sorry, secretary of state rex tillerson saying it looks like he may be n might be following the letter of divide here. you have trump saying but they are violating the spirit of the law. yesterday, sean spicer told martha maccallum, we are still reviewing end, we haven't reached a conclusion. i think we want to see the administration get on board in terms of how they're going to handle it. what we do know is, if they don't, the future is north korea. and we see what a menace north korea has become because they have a weapon. we cannot let iran get to that point. >> bret: charles? >> the president says they are violating the spirit, but they don't say exactly how they are violating the spirit. and he understands he ran against it and the deal has all kinds of shortcomings and
defects, but he doesn't have an alternative. in the meantime, if they are living up to the letter of it, means they are a little under control. far more imminent problem is this ballistic missile/nuclear thing that is happening. i thought it was remarkable the degree to which he seemed to be leaning on, counting on his new best friend, the president of china to fix this thing for him. the chinese have failed to deliver on that score many times in the past. >> bret: does seem like he references frequently that meeting ingmar lago. >> interesting that so many pendants seem interested on russia, not that those aren't
focusing their attention there, and he seems to be optimistic. >> bret: steve? >> i think jason's point about iran is right. we are hearing next messages. i think there is a reason for it. the reason is, iran got the goods, got the rewards early, and now it is about compliance. so if the administration tears up the deal, iran has already gotten much of what it took to get it to sign the deal. the united states and people who keep iran from getting a nuclear weapon now want to test the compliance. to broaden the picture, the administration has changed the way it is talking about the threat from iran. the obama administration had chosen this deliberate policy, the decoupling from everything else iran does. you heard in rex tillerson's comments yesterday, you heard from other people in the administration, that is over. that is not happening anymore. going to take on iran, looking at the nuclear weapon, looking
at the terrorism, but it is doing in the region. >> bret: the question is, can you do that, keep the deal, but with the pressure on the other elements, funding table rests? >> it is tough, as steve said. we are not negotiating it from a position of strength, trump isn't right now, because they have the goods, including a lot of hard cash, actually. it is difficult. we'll see. trump is keeping us guessing, probably keeping the iranians guessing too. to follow up on charles' point about north korea, yes, leaning on china to do this is incredible. and explicitly holding out better trade deals. i told them, if they want better
terms, wanted more and better trade agreements, you take care of north korea. it is pretty explicit. >> bret: president trump with "the art of the deal." this is an interesting dynamic between the italian prime minister and the president on the issue of libya. >> we need countries like egypt and tunisia that are close to the ap. we need a stable and unified, and divided in conflict would make stabilityworse. the u.s.'s job -- u.s. role, sorry, in this is very critical. >> i do not see a role in libya. i think the united states right now has enough roles. we are in a role everywhere. >> that was the old 2016
candidate trump. we are overstretched come up with been wasting all of our resources on these pores in the middle east, libya was a disaster that give us benghazi and all the best. i'm not sure the italian prime minister was really prepared when he said what he said to run into the 2016 edition of president trump. that was a flash of something yet you been trying to play down recently when he is talking in a more friendly way about nato and the commitments overseas. kind of a stunner. >> bret: mollie? >> i think they might've been responding to slightly different questions where the italian p.m. is wanting to emphasize the importance of coalition building and president trump that we don't want to get too involved in foreign agencies. >> bret: i will sit at the italian prime minister does think that the europe, u.s., italy made a mistake in libya ad has a responsibility. he said in the interview with me, a moral responsibility to help the government to get on
its feet. that is a role. >> wanting to point out that the larger needle role, the larger issue of nato alliances is but it's really interesting from ths discussion. so many members of nato talking about, again, threats from russia and whatnot but not having the budgets that indicate that they are taking those threats seriously or having their military resources allocated in a way that understands those threats. these are the types of discussions that are helpful and good to see. >> also very complicated when you heard president trump say the u.s. has no role in libya, moments later, a leading role in inviting hezbollah. libya, you fight isis, you fight in libya, not to mention al qaeda. hard to imagine winning a war that the president has said that he wants to win without some u.s. role in libya. >> bret: more with the panel about that a news conference, health care, and what lies ahead next week in congress. just ahead.
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liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance. ♪ >> which one is more important do you do have, a vote on health care or a vote on a bill to keep the government open? >> i want to get both. are you shocked to hear that? we are doing very well in health care. we will see what happens. this will be great health care. it's evolving, you know, there was never a give up. the plan gets better and better and better. it has gotten really, really good. a lot of people are liking it a lot. we have a good chance of getting it soon. i would like to say next week but i believe we will get it. as far as keeping the government open, i think we want to give the government open. don't you agree? i think we'll get both. speak to the president today, that deadline is april 29th for.
health care expecting to move forward next week. indications that the house speaker are saying that it is difficult but we are close. >> at the white house had been talking about having something very soon. this week, we see house leaders temper these expectations and state may take a little bit longer. certainly, conversations are going well. most interesting, the freedom caucus, which is blamed for the failure of the first bill, somewhat unfairly, as shown itself to be quite open to negotiations and the moderates are the ones who are a little bit intractable. >> bret: where is the hinge point? do we know? what gets across the finish line? >> one of the issues is the question of the essential health benefits. this package, under the existing obamacare, has to be in every one of the plans and the exchange. will there be any wiggle room on that? related, the question of supplying the government subsidy to the lower income people who are trying to get money on the exchanges. the republicans in the congress actually have a lawsuit, as i
understand, going against it because the funds have not been appropriated. that is the kind of money that trump is holding over the heads of the democrats to get them to somehow come in on this. >> two things. one, we haven't seen legislative language, which we usually see before. >> bret: apparently, there is a conference on saturday. >> on the other hand, i think trump is very desperate, frankly, for a big legislative victory in his first 100 days. i think his supporters are very desperate for a big legislative victory. i think he is eager to sign something. i wouldn't put it -- i don't think it's impossible that something will get done. i think trump -- republicans control capital held, they control the white house. his supporters want to see something other than executive order signed. >> bret: the other thing is a government shutdown. what will happen to fund the government? you have the issue of the border wall, funding for the border wall, whether that will be a sticking point.
funding for obamacare subsidies. there are threats by democrats of putting something that says president trump has to show his tax returns by july 1st. all kinds of things could happen next week before we get to the end of the week. >> landmines all over the place. i think next week is likely to be a very heavy "newsweek," unlike what we have seen recently. [laughs] going back briefly to the health care debate, one of the most interesting proposals came from two members of the freedom, how's freedom caucus. $50 billion risksharing fund that has the enthusiastic support of some other freedom caucus members, who are opposed to what was happening before. it's backed by house republican leadership and the question remains how do moderates react to this and are they willing to continue to negotiate. >> bret: the question is, does he get it done? >> i think he does. the desperation is what makes it most dangerous. getting it done right is the most important thing.
not getting it on speedily. everyone wants to get it done. >> just to remind everyone, passing through the senate before it can be called a legislative victory. what we are talking about here is getting something through the house and claiming a victory on that. it's far from clear to me that whatever the house ends up producing is something that will remotely resemble the final law, if any, that they produce. >> bret: in the meantime, the big enchilada when you talk to ceos is tax reform. you have leader saying it will happen this year. [laughter] >> when you talk about landmines, every line of the tax code has ten lobbyists there to defend it. i don't see that happening. i just don't. i don't see it happening. >> bret: on that optimistic note, we will end here. thank you, panel. tea party, one little girl will never forget.
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and now. i'm back! aleve pm for a better am. ♪ >> bret: finally, tonight, every so often we will end with a picture of the day. marine and kevin recently had a magical tea party with his 4-year-old daughter, ashley, and california. his wife arranged the whole thing and surprised the pair. rosette and kevin, who, by the way, is a tough drill instructor, we are told, for the marines. he was a bit hesitant at first but she was able to convince him after and seeing how happy it made her daughter because "he would do anything for ashley even a tea party." marines can have tea parties, too. we thought we would share that picture with you. thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. that is that for those at "special report." fair, balanced, and unafraid. "the first 100 days," by the way, that 100 days is coming to an end, they shall have a new
>> jesse: he is being looked at right now for not registering as a foreign agent. >> juan: that's a scandal in and of itself, he had a million dollars from turkey and then opposing any action that would not benefit a turkey as a u.s. official. >> jesse: that is not the focus the investigation. >> juan: trump said this was a witch hunt, you're doing the opposite. kevin mccarthy said it is a joke, i bet the russians are paying trump, this was last summer. i don't want anybody to say that someone is paying me. there was big news today that seems to me when you have rod rosenstein who was the deputy attorney general and acting attorney general because jeff sessions has recused himself tell people he knew comey was going to be fired, when he said the memo as a basis for comey's
firing. he was set up and used as a stooge. >> greg: i'm sorry, all of these errors are not political errors, their human errors. when trump says to comey, he's a good guy, go easy on him, that's a boss does. >> kimberly: why is that an error in the rosenstein piece in particular? >> greg: i don't like this guy, can you do a report on the them. i think i've done that many times at work. >> kimberly: that's an error? >> greg: its nonpolitical human error commits what a guy does who's been a businessman. space bar you say it's loose semantics. >> kimberly: you're saying it's more loose semantics more than intent. before it's write a memo that will cover me because i want to fire him.
>> juan: press secretaries didn't say trump told rosenstein to write the memo. it seems to me when you also have reports that the trump campaign had 18 undisclosed contacts with the russians in the last seven months, oh, gee, something's going on. then you have a trump saying that this is the greatest witch hunt ever. what does that do? >> greg: the opposite of a witch hunt is the way you might have approached lois lerner or how the media approached lois lerner and the irs scandal. if that's the opposite of a witch hunt. nobody bothered to hunt anythin anything. >> jesse: if you're on the defensive, your shredding documents and withholding information from congress, a holder was held in contempt of congress four. hillary destroyed a 30,000 emails, that's look a little defensive to me. >> juan: after all of the republican probes and hearings, anything?
>> jesse: that's why he was fired because he botched that investigation. >> greg: you're laughing at the same argument you used on him. you're saying there's no there there because there hasn't been an investigation. >> juan: i said there was an unvested emma and extensive endless investigation of the benghazi, and irs. if >> kimberly: president trump today also denied that he shut down the fbi investigation against his former national security advisor, michael flynn. >> did you at any time urge former fbi director james comey to close or back down the investigation into michael flyn flynn. >> president trump: no, no. next question. >> have you wondered if anything you have done is something that might be worthy of these criminal charges as some on the left are implying? >> president trump: i think it's totally ridiculous, everyone thinks so.
we have to get back to working our country properly it so we can take care of the problems that we have. >> kimberly: no. if >> greg: what do you expect him to say? do you think you're guilty of anything that was illegal? you've got me there. what you expect them to say? >> juan: how about the old al gore, mistakes were made. he knows that mistakes were made, he knows there's been an admission the trump team and knew that mike flynn was under investigation when they put him in his national security adviso advisor? >> kimberly: how would you if you knew he was going to take the podium -- >> dana: i think referring to the special counsel, it would be fine, i'm going to talk about whatever. if they know, fine, just say nothing more. just be quiet, move on.
i also think that we can do this whole thing about what about in the past and it makes for good discussion and i do not like hypocrisy at all. i like that part of the discussion but it doesn't matter a hill of beans when it comes to this actual investigation. they'll say what about this, what about that from eight years ago. everyone should want this real tight and get it over with as quickly as possible. >> kimberly: with the likelihood of that? >> dana: i don't know if the facts, as more and more stuff comes out, the $500,000 in the turks, a conversation with susan rice, action that was not taken on his advice that wasn't disclosed and mike pence didn't know about that, nobody ever told me that he was under investigation, michael flynn's people say -- there's a lot here that i think will be cleared up pretty quickly by a professional like
bob muller. >> jesse: flynn is a problem, as much as it pains me to say made a great point to the other day that hoping is not obstruction. if hoping was a crime, everyone would be in prison. the >> dana: when your boss says i hope you do this, that's why you document things, if that includes harassment or something like this -- >> jesse: if someone says i hope what happens if i don't considered harassment, but they have a lower threshold. before you might, but that's not what the law says. >> jesse: i think the law might be intense to undermine. >> dana: president trump is saying he's not under oath, -- >> jesse: i'd hate to compare it to obama, there was not a smidgen of corruption in the irs. >> juan: here's the problem with intent.
he tells everyone else get out of the room, i just want to talk to comey. >> jesse: maybe it was a romantic dinner, you don't know. >> kimberly: things are very different in the business boardroom, i want to have a talk, you are night ceo to cal, everyone leave the room. very different here and he needs to be advised as to what's proper to protect the president and the united states. coming up. yes, sweetie. >> greg: i'd politely been trying to interject. one of the key examples with flynn whether it was right or wrong, it was not a political move on his part it's called a human move. if you're a nonpolitical person, what do you rely on? loyalty. he thinks this guy flynn made some mistakes but he's a good guy. that's a human response, it might not be the right response, it's not the political response,
but it's a guy who defaults on loyalty which is kind of a human quality. >> kimberly: i'm glad we waited for that point i appreciate it. president trump says he's close to picking the new fbi director will tell you who the frontrunner is, stay tuned, nex next. ♪ liberty mutual stood with me when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night. hold on dad... liberty did what? yeah, liberty mutual 24-hour roadside assistance helped him to fix his flat so he could get home safely. my dad says our insurance doesn't have that. don't worry - i know what a lug wrench is, dad. is this a lug wrench? maybe? you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. you need one of these. you wouldn't put up with an umbrella that covers you part way,
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the president leaves on his front foreign trip tomorrow. >> kimberly: really both sides get along with him very well, he is very personable, he's bright, he's somebody that he tends to identify more with republicans. somebody that senator mccain has considered as a running mate, a vice presidential choice before he chose sarah palin and different things i see him attend in terms of the hudson institute and whatnot, he's a very smart as it relates to foreign policy and national security. i think he's a patriot and very hard-working, i don't think he would be a bad choice. i think he would be a good choice, it depends. you have to evaluate all the potential options and candidates who would be best suited for that particular organization, which is a very important one especially during this time. >> dana: democrats support him? >> juan: no.
this was a surprise to me because like kimberly, i've had very positive experience with senator lieberman over the years, i find him trustworthy. here's a situation right now. he was with a law firm since he left the senate and the law firm has representative trump and some litigation, in addition to which he is back to john mccain who was is very close friend in the senate, the three amigos, mccain, lindsey graham, and senator lieberman on somebody issues. he backed mccain against obama obama, that didn't sit well with the hardlines politics of the democratic party. subsequent to that, oppose the iran nuclear deal that obama was struggling to get past in the face of republican opposition. >> dana: just because his law firm had done some work for
president trump who is a billionaire, it doesn't mean that joe lieberman was actually working on any of that business, i guess we would have to see if that was the case, doesn't seem he would be tainted in that way. >> jesse: i think is a great choice to be fbi director. i interned for joe lieberman when i was at trinity college in connecticut. >> kimberly: it explains her greatness, it's lieberman's wor work. >> jesse: was after, that games after. i think it smart enough if trump ever invites him over for dinner, he'll say no. he's not an electric speaker so i don't think he's going to be hot talking it's all over the place. just remember what his background is, he was part of the recount and urged gore to drop out to save the country and to heal the country. he was also someone that voted against clinton, what he did in the office was reprehensible. he voted for the iraq war, he's a principled guy with integrity.
>> nonpartisan nonpartisan in y respects. >> juan: he's never been a prosecutor, he's never been an fbi agentthe justice department. never handled a major agency. >> dana: do have an interesting feelings on joe lieberman? >> greg: lieberman is a reasonable democrat, he's an old white male and we've had enough of them appeared to mike. we are overlooking the obvious choice, who is available right now beloved by the media no matter what she does, chelsea manning. the bigot the mike biggest trader in history, who has the largest amounts of classified documents and 35 years and everybody still loves her. you know how you hire a safe cracker to hire a crack proof safe? hire the biggest trader so you can fight espionage.
that make sense to me, the media will love it. >> juan: jessie thought they were going to say chelsea clinton. why not hillary clinton, she's available? >> greg: only person with less expertise than chelsea manning is chelsea clinton. >> dana: one of the most absurd comments about president trump ever from the ladies at the view, will play the tape next. of. of. the homeowner was outraged. luckily the geico insurance agency had helped her with homeowners insurance. she got all her shingles replaced. hansel and gretel were last seen eating their way through the candy cane forest. call geico and see how easy it is to switch and save on homeowners insurance.
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unfairly or as unfairly, let's talk about barack obama. >> jesse: barack obama. >> greg: the mainstream media was so obedient that he was left unchallenged and it resulted in a mediocre president. he had the potential to become a good president but he never had to try, he never had to explain himself. if you requested that he slain himself, that would be construed as racist. if you criticized obama, you were a bigot, we went through that for years. that assumption resulted in trump because of so many people were tired as being smeared as racist when they were just conservative. >> jesse: he never faced any adversity, that he had to overcome in his presidency. >> juan: what is going on? you yourself, i can say, i can give testimony, i'm a witness
come on greg gutfeld going after obama regularly. >> jesse: one guy on what network. >> juan: our network doesn't count, were not the biggest cable network in america. the biggest in the world. what an amazing claim, he opened himself up to such criticism that senator mccain would say no, no, i was treated worse. if you think about president clinton who was impeached, you think about richard nixon who was forced out of office can be a thing about jimmy carter who was mocked for failing or whatever he was doing, paddling with rabbits. >> jesse: they called trump a clan member. >> greg: they called him hitler. [laughs] i think that was fake news, the rabbit story. i don't know how many people
know the rabbit story. >> kimberly: please tell. >> juan: he whacked the rabbit rabbit. >> kimberly: i think he murdered a bridge >> juan: at ln the country come obama wasn't born here. >> jesse: wasn't at hillary clinton who started that? >> greg: just raising the question, where was he born? >> jesse: i hope he was born in america. >> dana: that whole birth tourism think about total human error. >> greg: that was a jab at me. >> jesse: when she makes a comment like this on the view, people watch at home obama was treated really poorly, they
yelled at you lied during the state of the union and they hear about the birth certificate or two people just say, you have to be kidding me. >> kimberly: the mainstream liberal media liberals are like the laugh track, everybody cheered. that's what people believe. that's what she believes. >> juan: if you attached president obama's name to any of the stuff that has happened to president trump in the last month, don't you think that this network, republicans would go ballistic? >> kimberly: they loved him, he was there guy, they would put them back in for a third term. >> jesse: they called him the messiah, they said he was a rock star. >> dana: i think there's a distinction that whoopi goldberg is making.
president trump is saying no one is treated worse by the media. she said nobody's treating worse she means the republicans. the media didn't treat president obama badly. i think obviously the media takes a shot at republicans for decades, you have to factor that in. do you remember that first press conference when president obama as to what and chancy about the white house? there was actual news happening that day. i think president trump is much more accessible to the press even though he gets frustrated with them, he punches them and they punch back. i bet he does a lot more -- they get to hear his direct thoughts from twitter. >> greg: who is more transparent, trump or obama? >> dana: trump is not even close. >> jesse: big shots democrat makes a shocking admission about his own party. ♪
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♪ >> juan: one of the major reasons president trump is in the white house is because he connected with middle-class voters. many of whom it fed up with the typical ways of washington. now, chicago mayor rahm emanuel a big shot in the democratic party has offered his diagnosis for why the democrats seem so out of touch with regular america. >> i think we don't talk about and fight for the middle class, if they don't hear we are for them, were not going to convince them that they are wrong. it's not just a set of values that respect who they are in their lives. i think they can come off as a party disdainful of them is the bedrock of this great country. >> juan: do you agree with
rahm emanuel? >> dana: i think it would be wise to listen to him. if you think back to 2006 when republicans lost all the seats in the midterm election during president bush's second term, who led the democratic effort for all those seats to be one? it was rahm emanuel. i think he understands politics and messaging very well. he's in the midwest is not on one of the coastal states were he's cocooned. if the dealing stories out of the house weren't digging up all the oxygen in the room, i think the bigger story would be the democrats six months, seven months after the election are still completely in disarray, they do not have a strong leade leader. they do not have a plan, they are running in all directions. they benefit from all of this trump coverage so they can escape under the radar. >> juan: so kimberly, what you hear which rahm emanuel says, he says democratic values are okay, it's just that middle-class americans aren't hearing it. is he lying or is this real?
it's a failure to communicate. >> kimberly: how convenient for him to say they're the ones with the problem, they are not hearing it. the democratic party is perfect. he's not accepting actual responsibility to say that there needs to be transformative change within that party. if you don't take this election as a complete wake-up call, working-class men and women and middle-class families across this country resoundingly made a choice to go with donald trump and not to go with the party, why? because they are not resonated ticket speaking to their values come out to their pocketbook, to their dinner table at night to the gas in their car, to the job security that they hope and pray for. to be able to take their children. they need to wake up because this should have been an easy lay up for them and it's not, in the stead trump got it on a three-pointer shot. >> juan: he said this,
president trump goes after the big cities like chicago for all the murderers and an end philadelphia and new york but he never goes after the suburbs where there's a real opioid crisis, never mentioned it. >> greg: he's a little late to the party. i think he's going to tell us about an great new setled seinfeld we should be checking out. he wouldn't know the middle class but sat in his lap. this is a guy in the middle of biweekly bloodshed in chicago was taking time out to chick-fil-a, his priorities are based on the people he hangs out with that charity auctions and cocktail events. he would break down it hypes if you want to walmart or a fridays or applebee's which have great ribs by the way. not the one of the midtown area, but it's okay. my point is this, he is so irrelevant and far gone, this is a story we talked about months ago. that was horrible to it, we
could do better. >> juan: i saved this one for you because i think you would be the man to think is this the right solution. here's what he says, he thinks what we need to do is stop focusing on trump's antics, trump's statements, trump's tweets and a focus on the issues, the policy debates. >> jesse: i'm not going to say he's right -- he's right here. even when he's right, he still speaks about americans like they are a different species. he's speaking about us and them and they don't understand us. it comes off as it's not me, no one wants to vote for a snob. he comes off as the pc police, they don't understand desperate he's like an anthropologist of studying some ancient tribe in order to gain their trust and trick them to sell them his land
or something like that. trump speaks to regular americans, he doesn't need a translator. how do i talk to middle-class people? it's corny, i'm not buying it. >> juan: i think he is onto something with the economic message. >> greg: he's on to something everyone else was onto two years ago. >> juan: kimberly said it right, democrats are still in disarray largely after this and their approval numbers are down now to the point where there almost equal with republicans. >> greg: everybody's down, let's face it. >> juan: some emotional news to discuss when the five returns, were going to pay our respects to the founder of fox news, roger ailes, he passed away, back in a moment. i've found a permanent escape from monotony. together, we are perfectly balanced, our senses awake, our hearts racing as one.
i know this is sudden, but they say: if you love something... set it free. see you around, giulia ♪
in fox news' wild success but among those to which there were no opposition to their views. of those outside the news may not have liked fnc but their lives have also been improved by smarter analysis created by healthy competition. roger created a more informed public by making our competition work for it, which probably drove them nuts. the mark of an achievement is that you can't imagine the world before it. what was news like before fox news? it was a place where diverse opinions or scared, were millions of patriotic americans were ignored by a mainstream media dominated by a world of frightened, dull witted conformity. that era died when fox news was born. i wouldn't be sitting here if it weren't for roger. he gave me a show in the dead of night called red eye even though he had actually met me first. what was he thinking? i'm 1 of hundreds of stories like that.
he was a man who saw something in all of us, potential, talent, edge, things that other people didn't see, we will always be grateful for that. we saw something in him too, something will likely never see again. i'm going to start with you dana, your thoughts? >> dana: when you said you wouldn't be here, i think that is true possibly for everybody here at the table. for me, i had never expressed my own opinion in public before i came here. i had been on television, i was speaking on somebody else's behalf. i don't know what he saw inmate that i thought i could do this, i remember when we first started "the five" six years ago, were talked about legalization of drugs, what do you think, i don't know. with some time and space to develop your career is actually developed here for me. i saw this george w. bush doesn't think he would've been president without roger ailes and the political consultancy he
provided for him and the humor. i would say this so i don't take up all the time. if you're interested and committed cajuns or television or you want to improve your own presentation style. he wrote a book called you are the message. if you haven't read it yet, put it on your list or reread it. it gives you the best insight in how to be a good communicator. it's technology agnostic, it's how to be the best communicator is yourself. my sympathies for his family. >> kimberly: that was also very instrumental in my life, it was part of the assigned reading at uc davis and my rhetoric and communication class. i loved the book, and i underlined, i highlighted it, no big deal. i never forget the day i was on cnn, roger ailes would like to speak to you i was like well. like "the wizard of oz" ." i want to tell you i think you're doing a great job on
television, interested in coming to the fox news channel. i was so excited i bought my book and it was all marked up and i was so happy to have him sign it. to meet somebody that had such an incredible, form of impact on so many people's lives. i came over here and he took a chance on me and developed me from a prosecutor into a talent, he saw something in all of us, each of us have a unique story. what i really loved most about him as he was such a loyal person. he was very devoted to his employees whether you were on camera, off-camera, we all mattered. he cared about our families, what my father was dying he was there for me. he became a second father to me. this is a complicated life he lived, he made me a better person. certainly a better cohost and on-air talent, very good to my
son, we share sunday's -- it was all part of the family even though my parents have passed away and i have no family here. my heart goes out to beth and zachary who was a lovely young man who's been raised incredibly well, bless him and his commitment to not only the channel and all of our lives and to this country. >> juan: looking at it from a purely political standpoint, i think he had a key role in nixon, i think he had a key role in reagan, that's where i met him. i think he had a key role in george hw bush's presidency. he not only created the top cable news channel in america, but he also put powerful people in office i'm just as her talk about mitch mcconnell, he wouldn't be there without roger ailes the senate majority leade leader. his influence and power is so incredible, i do think you've
got to discuss, he left here and very troubled circumstances. terrible charges against him, it's just not the roger i knew, not the roger i loved. he was so great to me come up and he persuaded my wife that i should come here back in 1996, 97 when i first signed a contract. just a great call all around. >> jesse: at i'm incredibly grateful to work for roger ailes, one of the most patriotic people ever met. one of the funniest people very quickwitted. great judge of talent, understood the tv screen, an excellent storyteller and i owe everything to him. my whole life and career the last couple years, it is unfortunate he left here in conjunction with some of the charges, inappropriate behavior.
i just want to say he's been a great father, great husband, i feel terrible for them and i wish them all the best and he's a very influential american. >> greg: one last thing, i was watching sean hannity on tucker and he said something that was so -- it sounded just like me. when hannity started he said he was terrible. i was worse. the fact that somebody would stick with you when you are bad, he stuck with hannity when hannity claims he was bad. you should have seen redeye in 2007, a sweaty mess like me? he stuck with it may be because he wasn't watching it, but he stuck with it bridget once again, our deepest condolences e five" returns in a moment why do some cash back cards make earning
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and it's hanging on for dear life. that is what amg driving performance means. and this is where it lives. the 503-horsepower mercedes-amg c63 s coupe. >> kimberly: time now for one more thing. roger ailes the founder of the company died today at the age of 77. he was a patriot, he love this country, especially the men and women in uniform. on a personal note, he hired me in 2006 and he saw something in me and gave me the best opportunity of my life. i will be forever grateful. he was the most generous open hearted man who prided himself on loyalty and that's exactly how i will remember him. he saw something in each and every one of us who work here at the fox news channel. his camaraderie and positive
attitude made this place thrive. he taught all of us to push ourselves, to believe in ourselves, if we could reach high to retire. may he rest in peace and god bless his wife beth and son zach. >> juan: first of all, god bless roger. but it's been another crazy week in washington if you been washed in stomach watching the news. while everyone think partisanship is at an all-time high, take a look at this picture. here have ultraconservative arkansas center tom cotton, thence s of nebraska and leading democrat in defiance of trump senator chuck schumer of new york. people began capturing this photo it looks like schumer and i are smoking reefer outside of wedding. they were not smoking reefer but as you can see in the second child, senator mccain joined
in it so maybe there were a talk legalizing reefer. >> dana: video shows use of the turkish thugs who were beating up american citizens on embassy row. there's no video does date shot by voice of america that shows that race of erdogan himself saw what was happening, blessed it, turn around and walked back into the embassy. i would ask mr. president when you see air to him at the meet, punch back verbally. if he's able to deliver a message like this committee should do that nato in front of all of those leaders. >> jesse: address a scandal called tight gate, i wore a tie last night that was very, very controversial. it was from a britches in chappaqua new york, i was wandering the woods looking for hillary which are good to see on my weekend show on 8:00 on saturday night.
marker. their blood type, their d.o.b., their social, in case the very worst happens. that's how dire and how broad this storm is on the coast of texas. so obviously, over these next few hours, we'll be covering this. we're a bit hampered because communications right at this point, after landfall, can often enter into a kind of dark side of the moon phase. some satellite television trucks because of rain fade and high winds lose their ability to broadcast a signal. even some satellite phones can't work. cellphone service is down along with power. so we'll bring you reporting from it from our friends at the weather channel, from our own meteorologist bill karins, when we can. now to the other news that is happening tonight. somewhat under the cover of the first natural disaster of his presidency, a category 4 hurricane making landfall in the united states, the president and
our white house stories, on the phone with us, our friend and colleague, the host of our 4:00 p.m. hour here at msnbc, nicolle wallace, the former white house communications director, of course under president bush 43. nicolle, you're reaction. >> well, it's important to stipulate, after listening to the top of your show, that i was the white house communications director during hurricane katrina, where the president for whom i worked suffered a lot of political damage for responding in a way that was judged as subpar. most importantly, by the people who lived there, by the victims of that storm. and to see someone, those were mistakes made inadvertently, those were, you know, sequences of errors in judgment made by many people at many levels. but all the blame ultimately ended up at the doorstep of the white house, and that's how it works and that's how it should work, the buck has to stop somewhere. to see someone do something that
amounts to pouring gasoline on the open wounds in the wake of his charlottesville response by pardoning someone like sheriff arpaio while a deadly storm, a storm that from the space station looks as big and as dangerous as hurricane katrina, it's one of those things that knocks you over with its audacity. and to suggest that this president is addicted to chaos, to connect the questions from james clapper and republican senator bob corker about his competence and stability at this moment, would not be an exaggerated tie to draw. and to see him incapable of letting a single day be about anyone other than him and his inability to stifle a single political impulse is a stunning thing to observe. >> nicolle, from the podium in the west wing briefing room today, in realtime, on your broadcast, you chose to highlight something the president's kind of domestic security adviser said to a
briefing about government institutions. do you recall that? and what's its relevance to what happened tonight? >> so the president's homeland security adviser tom bossard took to the white house podium and stood behind the podium and said it's a dangerous thing to question your government institutions, especially on a day like today where people need to have basic trust in evacuation orders, in weather forecasts and whatnot, that lives are on the line. and i don't know what could be more -- you know, what could drive that home more than the reporting you just shared at the top of your show about first responders, writing their vital information on their arms with permanent pens. so to have that thrust against the pardon of a man who the mayor of phoenix described as terrorizing the citizens of phoenix, who a judge found to have committed a crime, to have violated the civil rights of the
citizens, is just staggering. i know we talk about the death of outrage. we talk about, you know, shame on us for continuing to be surprised by this president's gall, if you will. but there's nothing -- you know, someone pointed out today that this hurricane actually provided an opportunity for the president to for once show some interest in displaying that he has an interest in governing somewhat outside that base of 33% and to release and announce this pardon for joe arpaio shows that he simply does not. >> nicolle, i've got one more for you. that's sebastian gorka. not a household name. but certainly a well-known name in political circles. he did some time at breitbart. he has long been rumored to have political ties to very unsavory far right groups in europe. he had a minimal title in the white house, kind of a deputy
assistant, but he was nonetheless a lightning rod. he is out tonight, again on this friday night of a category 4 hurricane making landfall in the lower 48. fair to say that he could not have worked in any other white house but this one? >> oh, more than fair to say. you know, i don't know that he could have been associated with any other moment in politics than this one. i think this is -- i think that john kelly's tenure as white house chief of staff, why it has coincided with really some of the most controversial moments of donald trump's presidency, those are all because of donald trump. but at a staff level, it is clear that, you know, if you view problems with paperwork as maybe 11% of the problems that this presidency has, he is really in firm command of that 11%. and getting rid of gorka was essential to that. i see it as sort of the other half of the oreo cookie of
getting rid of steve bannon. >> nicolle wallace, thank you very much for joining us by telephone tonight. as i said, a number of stories breaking. one of them just happens to be the first and perhaps there's no way of knowing, perhaps the worst natural disaster of donald trump's presidency just coming ashore tonight in coastal texas on the gulf coast. nicolle wallace, our thanks. let's bring in our panel of journalists who will from time to time tonight we'll lean on for reaction. vivian solana is with us, we're proud to say an incoming nbc news national political reporter, after, if you ask us, spending way too long at that wire service, the associated press. but we're so happy to have her on board. matthew nussbaum, political white house reporter, is back with us. here in the studio, a "boston glo globe" columnist.
indira, you're here with us. same reaction, same question as to nicolle, your reaction to these twin stories. and we're just getting started, there are others. >> triple, quadruple, quintuple. >> these two lead stories from the white house. >> certainly the arpaio thing, the president had telegraphed for everybody clearly, by saying let me tell you he's going to be okay, i'm not going to do it tonight, but you can be comfortable, all but promised it. this was clearly telegraphed. it is shocking. it's shocking because this is a man who flagrantly, although he was supposed to be law enforcement in upholding the law, he was clearly violating the law repeatedly in contempt of court. he was found to be so. he was doing this for years, specifically racially profiling people, picking them up not for any known offense, but simply because they were hispanic and he suspected them of being illegal aliens. and, you know, this has been a
base issue for donald trump. it fits into the whole thing with the wall and the untruths he has told about illegal immigrants causing so much crime in america, which the actual statistics show is not true, that native born americans commit crime at higher rates than immigrants, legal or illegal. but, you know, facts matter to us, but not to the rhetoric that donald trump has promoted. >> can i ask you, and i don't mean to interrupt, a version of a question i just asked nicolle, fair to say no other president would have granted this pardon we're seeing tonight? >> well -- >> early term, before sentencing, all of those things. >> yes, i think that's absolutely right. and, you know, so that is a big surprise. i think the gorka news is you know, gorka has tried to go out on his own terms. the story out there is he submitted his resignation letter, he said forces aligned with make america great again are descend enter adescendant ad
the ascendant forces are trying to get him out, and he was getting hit on all sides and wasn't able to do what he wanted to do. i agree with nicolle, he wouldn't have a job in any other white house even as an intern. there are a lot of people who question his academic credentials. he's a one-note sally on violent extremism all the time. a lot of people will be celebrating that he's out. the question is whether it changes the president's thinking. that's very much an open question. i don't think it will change the essential way the president sees the world and views things like violent extremism. >> matthew, because we've all been in this business too long, we ourselves made warnings at our editorial meeting around dinner time tonight that this is a friday night in summer. traditionally a time when you get news out. the problem is, you just don't
traditionally do it while so many million americans are under the gun tonight and while the national weather service is issuing warnings for inundation along the coast of texas. >> well, there's never a quiet friday, it seems, in this presidency. but you're right, it's very odd to do something this politically controversial as the arpaio pardon, one, in the wake of charlottesville, which was a racially charged incident to begin with, to participated tdo sheriff who violated the civil rights and profiled the people in his district, and two, as you're saying, to make this move when we're facing a major natural disaster. the first real disaster of this presidency that wasn't of the president's own making. i think we can all agree on that. to make something this controversial, to sort of steal the spotlight like that for something that only pleases your political base, when you have this moment where the nation should be coming together to look after the folks down in texas and louisiana, i think
it's really startling. like you guys were saying earlier, maybe we shouldn't be surprised anymore during this presidency, but sometimes it's hard not to be. >> vivian, of course there are other things going on, but these two are our lead stories. as nicolle and i discussed, as we've been talking about since we've been on the air, he couldn't have telegraphed any more strongly to that crowd in phoenix that this was coming. >> absolutely. and it's really important to remember that this is basically the latest chapter in president trump's war with the judiciary. he has taken great issue with the fact that the courts have stepped in and tried to block both his travel ban and his immigration efforts. and here, while he has been able to reverse that and he hasn't been able to sort of have a full-fledged victory against the courts, this is one way that he can push back, is by pardoning someone like sheriff arpaio, who is a controversial figure. it is also his way of flexing muscle and showing his supporters, look, i told you i was going to be tough on law and order and here is a guy who is
tough on law and order, let's get him out there and working for us. there's one other thing to consider. this is president trump's way of rewarding loyalty. we know now that he is really big on showing, you know -- favoring people who have shown their loyalty throughout his campaign and into his presidency. sheriff arpaio is definitely one of them. he was an outspoken supporter from the start. the fact that he would come out, president trump would come out and now pardon him, it's really not that surprising because of how he's demonstrated, you know, his favor to anyone who has shown that loyalty throughout the course of his time in office. >> indira, we're starting to have this discussion about government institutions. you heard nicolle echoing what was said from the podium. earlier today, jim acosta over at cnn said on the air, this is why the fake news label is so pernicious, because we in the news business tonight really need the people along the coastline in texas, really need them to heed these warnings. we're not making up these stats
from the hurricane hunters, the brave people who tonight are flying through the center of the storm. we're not making up these forecasts or the inches of rain they're expecting. but this is all of a piece. this is all a kind of slow motion attack on some of the aspects of our society. >> i totally agree with you, brian. i think the problem is, i don't want to sound too dark and orwellian here. i've seen it as a foreign correspondent in many societies that i've covered. when presidents do things like attack the news media and try to undermine our credibility, it's one pillar of a democracy. they try to attack other institutions. we've seen it going on in venezuela, attack the judiciary, attack the legislature. you want the people to only believe in you. that is what we've seen, president trump is trying to make his people believe only in him and not trust anyone else. where this becomes a huge
problem, as you say, once you've convinced people that the media, that the national news media is fake news, then if they're not going to trust what we say, it becomes a danger to life and limb, as you say, if people are not heeding instructions that they should be evacuated from places like corpus christi, it becomes, you know, potentially major national disaster. >> i don't want to get two deep this early in the evening, but vivian, you're a former baghdad bureau chief at your young age. how often do you reflect back on that assignment, of all the assignments you've had in your life, what it meant during that time of your life and where you were, to be an american? >> i mean, it's fascinating to see, you know, even throughout the years before that, i mean, i was overseas in the middle east during the george w. bush years, and there was constant fear of anti-american sentiments because of the iraq war. then we went into this sort of, you know, peak where president obama came in and everyone thought things would reverse. then they found he wasn't supporting the efforts in syria to kind of curb that violence there.
so, you know, it's sort of always been a roller coaster. but what's so interesting is the mix of views that i hear about president trump throughout the middle east and even in south asia. a lot of people really welcoming the fact that he could be tough on groups like isis and take a tougher role with his military to kind of intervene in some of the conflicts overseas. a lot of people overseas really welcoming that, because they feel they have no other option but the u.s. at the same time, they also look at the u.s. as this, you know, capital of liberty and democracy in the world, and the rhetoric he says when he's really rejecting certain groups, he's not promoting sweeping unity throughout this society, it really makes people's heads spin because they don't understand how this could be an american president, how the american people could vote someone in who wouldn't stand for everyone, who wouldn't represent everyone. >> i just need to pause our conversation, as we tried to make plain at the top of this broadcast, we'll be pivoting all night long, i'm afraid, between
topics, between the political news tonight, and we're just getting started plowing through that, and the situation we're following on the coast of texas. i want to show you what's being broadcast right now by our friend at the weather channel. we have their permission to be dipping in and out of their coverage tonight. that's mike seidel up in the upper right hand corner. the fearless veteran meteorologist mike seidel in port lavaca, texas, where before the end of tonight, they're going to get all the storm they can handle there. he has been at times unable to stand up in the hotel they're staying in has quickly been surrounded by rising water. they're 25 miles inland, by the way. that gives you some visual idea. we are so fortunate to have in our very own studio here tonight our friend bill karins, our meteorologist. and bill, take it away. tell us everything we need to know about the storm, including are we calling it landfall yet as the center of the eye passed
the median? >> i keep hitting refresh on the national hurricane center website for when they put the official word out. they have said we are very close to the official landfall. the northern eye has made landfall. the western eyewall is now onshore. but the center of the eye is not onshore yet. that should happen in the next hour or two. we'll officially have our first major hurricane landfall in over 12 years in our country. by the way, this would also be the strongest since charlie hit florida, being a category 4 storm. here it is now on the map. you can see this bright red, this is the eyewall that is clearly onshore. the first thing, the big concern was corpus christi. that's the biggest population center on the map here, near the center of the landfall. they are being spared the eyewall, good news for all the people that evacuated corpus christi who are watching this, there was so much concern for their property. there will be damage, there will be trees down, but there won't be a devastating wind effect on the city. we'll wait and see what the rain does in the days ahead, but as
far as the winds and the storm surge, you dodged that. this is as classic as it gets for a buzz saw hurricane. you can see the well-defined eye over the barrier islands and moving onshore. even though corpus christi is being spared, there are small port communities that will be devastated by these winds in the storm surge. one of them is rockport. this little peninsula here across from corpus christi has about 25,000 people that live here. it was all completely evacuated. there's a couple of storm chasers out here that have been showing their video. it's incredible, 120-mile-per-hour winds it's gusting up to. this is where the storm surge is at its worst through the peninsula here. further up the coast, this is all barrier islands. this is all a national refuge area, no population here at all. that's were the 130-mile-per-hour winds are, and no one lives there, so that's fantastic as far as that went. wind gust reports, we're losing our stations, some of the stations break, they just kind of break down and won't be fixed until the storm is gone.
we're still getting wind reports now in the 40 to 50-mile-per-hour range as far inland as victoria. about 300,000 people live in victoria. some of them didn't evacuate. you're going to get these winds and then you'll have to deal with the horrific rainfall forecast we'll have to deal with the in future with the storm. as far as the storm predictions go, i want to point out, in the next 12 hours, one of our short range computers only takes this storm about 45 miles inland. that is walking speed, brian. that's as fast as you and i walk down the sidewalk. that's how slowly this eye is going to move inland. for those people i just mentioned and small towns and communities getting hit by the storm, they'll still be getting hit 12 hours from now. it should begin to slowly weaken after landfall. this is as we go through 9:00, 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. the center of the storm is south of victoria and still the southern bands heading through chris christie. because of this crazy, wobbly forecast path, as we go throughout saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, a
little corkscrew action, that's the reason why this storm will be historic, a billion-dollar weather disaster, because of this forecast right here. this is pink, 20 inches of rain, widespread. look at all the square mileage that is from victoria to corpus christi, outside of san antonio, outside of houston, outside of austin, all the way through houston with upwards of 36 inches of rain. brian, the hiydrologists that ae responsible for the river forecasts, they're coming out for across the board record crest on all the rivers in this region. that's unheard of. that will go well into the middle of next week. there's people that will be spared from the wind and the surge that then will lose their properties from the epic flood about to occur. >> we've got to remember all the souls in the path of this storm, our fellow citizens tonight having a very rough friday
night. bill, thank you. bryan norcross, the meteorologist who kind of came to fame locally in miami during hurricane andrew, because of his calming and constant presence and his exact forecasts, he's a meteorologist with the weather channel now. earlier tonight, he said some version of, i wouldn't want to be in victoria, texas tonight. our own correspondent is standing by. you know, it's going to get much rougher as we go on. and we get into the evening. but gary sanders, tell us, what's the wind speed, what kind of precip are you looking at tonight? norcross really did say that about where you're standing. >> well, i'm in town here in victoria. and we do not have the hurricane yet. we've had some tropical force gusts, that's about it.
as you just heard bill explain, this harvey storm is going to come here and will kind of sit over this area. that's the greatest concern. there are two evacuation centers here. they're at capacity. they told people who came after they filled up, sorry, there's no room here, you'll have to go somewhere else. many of those people decided to return back to their homes, many of the homes in this neighborhood have people who have hunkered down for the night. the real concern of course is that when folks wake up in the morning, they're going to see this storm is sitting on top of victoria and will be continuing to hammer this area. and as bill said, for hours. now, tonight at the request of the texas governor, the president has signed an order releasing the federal funds for the disaster area before the disaster happens. but as we saw earlier with mike si seidel at port lavaca, we saw
him getting hammered with those winds and those winds are coming here. it's a slow moving storm. for the folks that live in this area, the misery will be that this will continue. it's kind of hard to see in some of the darkness here. but there were some old oak trees, some of them 350 years old in this town, that are probably going to go down. folks told me they got out yesterday and started trying to thin the trees out so that they could get some of those branches out. they know there are going to be problems. the police right now are in the area. they're just patrolling. a curfew is going into effect. that curfew will continue tomorrow into the morning. they don't want people out and about. at the end of the day here, they know that harvey is going to be a rainmaker. there's going to be a lot of wind. and brian, they know there's going to be some long term damage here, something that's going to take the order of weeks for folks to recover, once they get through this. and it's not even here yet. >> they're in for a rough night, rough couple of days.
kerry sanders, we'll try to come back to you. i want to talk to you about this emergency declaration tonight. thanking our viewers for rolling with us through these stories. we're going to fit in our first break. when we come back, a complete update on the hurricane, complete update on all the stories we're covering in the world of politics and the trump administration, when our special broadcast continues. >> the water has not encroached on 35. it certainly isn't over the lav ack can a bay bridge. no, please, please, oh! ♪ (shrieks in terror) (heavy breathing and snorting) no, no. the running of the bulldogs? surprising. what's not surprising? how much money aleia saved by switching to geico. fifteen minutes could save you
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we want to cover a little politics. the last tweet tonight, 10:00 p.m. eastern time, 33 minutes ago from the president at camp david. "i am pleased to inform you that i have just granted a full pardon to 85-year-old american patriot sheriff joe arpaio. he kept arizona safe." let's fact check that last claim with our friend charlie sykes, radio talk show host, about to be bestselling author. he's with us from his home state of wisconsin. charlie, i have sesaw you on th reacting to this. i'll ask you for the first time and completely organically, your reaction to this tonight.
>> well, first of all, what an insult this is to law enforcement. think about this, that you have a law and order president who is using his pardon power to pardon a man who defied the law and court orders in order to violate constitutional rights. this is obviously a political pardon. it is a dog whistle to the base that essentially you are reaching out at the moment when your whole wall, the promise of the wall that mexico is going to pay for is about to fall apart, that you have singled out this man whose career has been all about abusing illegal immigrants but also legal hispanic citizens. but i think the larger point here, and i really want to make this point, everything that nicolle wallace and your other guests have said is absolutely true. the juxtaposition of the hurricane and this particular decision. i do think there's an inflection point here. also, you actually have the
president signaling that he is prepared to use this unchecked power to essentially say that if i like you and you're a political ally and i can score political point, that i'm going to put you above the law. now, some people may think we're going too far. but this send a signal to the russian investigation and other people involved in this as well, that the president is flexing this muscle, he's trying out this one power for which there are no checks and balances, to say, you know what, i can do this. if i can do it with joe arpaio, and i can skate and get away with this, what signal is he sending to other people who might be caught up in other investigations, in other wrongdoing involving his administration. so this is really an extraordinary moment in this presidency that has had so many extraordinary and stunning moments. >> so you think he is taking the power of the pardon out for a spin, to kind of -- >> yes. dry run. >> -- establish this ability in
the public mind that this is something you do, especially, what are we, seven months into a term, that he didn't go through the usual just department process we've learned tonight, this was just something cooked up in the west wing. there are counsel at the just department for pardons. they didn't get a piece of this. >> right. one of the things we're learning is, we believe in our constitutional system of government there are checks and balances. but really, it is kind of an honor system when you think about it. the system assumes the president is an honorable person who will use that power in an honorable way. what the president is essentially -- he's really been testing. going down and seeing which doors are unlocked. he's obviously been fascinated with the areas in the constitution where the president is above the law, where there is no check from the judiciary or for congress. and he's using it in this particular case. look, joe arpaio is not -- was not just doing his job.
he is a caricature of everything that is -- that people say of the bad law enforcement. that's why it's an insult to law enforcement. most people in law enforcement do not engage in these practices, do not abuse citizen rights, do not abuse prisoners, do not engage in the kind of unhinged birtherism and political chicanery. everything that people have said about jo ae arpaio has been pron out by the president of the united states. as you pointed out, the pardon power is virtually absolute. >> charlie, i have to get you on the record with the fact that the president started the day by taking a swing at republican senator bob corker of tennessee. >> right. >> friend of the white house. >> right. >> who very forthrightly, ita
thought, and cautiously choosing his word very slowly, talked about his concerns over the president a few days back. if you stack up the broad swings the president has taken at people on social media, it's a long list of people of just one party, the president's party. >> right. well, the editorial in "the wall street journal" is that the president divorced the gop congress. look, you're seeing pure donald trump id this week with all the specification about the grownups in the room. senator corker has been a friend to this administration but donald trump has once again proved he is a thin-skinned snowflake. i think it was chris cillizza who ran the numbers and said donald trump has now attacked 20% of the republican senators. think about that. from a strategic point of view, that makes no political sense. if in fact donald trump is
serious about advancing his agenda, if he's serious about governing, you know, these are self destructive moves. but i do think that donald trump has signaled he's more interested in settling grievances, punching back and launching what appearans to be grievance presidency rather than one where he wants to be judged on his accomplishments. >> that number of senators will be really tough if you attack a member of the home team. thank you very much for hanging out to talk with us late on an august friday night, we appreciate it, have a good weekend. i want to let folks know vaughn hillyard of our team was the first that we know of to contact joe arpaio tonight by telephone and get his first reaction to the news of this pardon. apparently his counsel, arpaio's lawyers were given a heads up
late this afternoon, let's call it, by white house counsel. they knew this was come. members of the public and viewing audience kind of knew this was coming if you watched the phoenix event. but this is sound from vaughn hillyard's conversation with joe arpaio just tonight. >> i'm very prevent of what the president has done. right now, i have to thank the president for standing by me and standing by law enforcement. and so, very humbled. >> do you feel like you've been vindicated by the president? >> yes. and i think he -- i think he understands my situation. >> joe arpaio reached by phone tonight. again, we are balancing the stories in the world of politics with what you see in the corner of your screen, this massive, sprawling, menacing and dangerous storm that is not
going to go anywhere for several days. it is going to make textbook landfall tonight, and that's about it. it's going to stay just over land, just off the very fertile gulf waters. they are full of nothing but hurricane energy this time of year. and sadly, millions of people are going to be in its path. that is a high shot at the city of galveston, texas tonight. a lot of folks in a lot of places having a very hard time with this. another break. our coverage will continue after this. ♪ hey, is this our turn? honey...our turn? yeah, we go left right here. (woman vo) great adventures are still out there. we'll find them in our subaru outback. (avo) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. get 0% apr financing for 63 months on all new 2017 subaru outback models.
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[ sound of wind blowing ] there was nothing supposed to happen there. we just wanted to show you this. that was jim cantore, our friend from the weather channel, wearing what appears to be a specially fitted weather channel batting helmet and goggles. he is in corpus christi as we return to our coverage of the storm. important to remember, corpus christi is down and to the left. it's a southwest of the folks having the sportiest time with this weather tonight. corpus christi is getting the other side of the eyewall. traditionally, in a hurricane, the upper right, that is where most of the energy goes. that is where they get the toughest ride. our correspondent katy beck has
been driving around the streets still remaining open tonight in corpus christi. katy, i said earlier tonight, the best news for that metropolitan area, they were off by just a few miles. and kind of like sandy here in new york, this was an intense low. but if it had been a little further south, those bands would have packed the water up into corpus christi bay. and instead, it's on the other side of the storm. i'm not sure that makes people more comfortable tonight. but hopefully it will lessen damage and flooding. >> reporter: yeah, brian, i think that's true. i think there is a sigh of relief for the people living here. that being said, driving around right now, it's pitch black in corpus christi. a lot of power outages as well as structural damage. i'm standing in a burger king parking lot. as you can see behind me, the entire sign was toppled over a
couple of hours ago in this parking lot. a massive sign that really could have caused some serious threat to life had anyone been underneath of it. fortunately this area has been mostly evacuated since early this morning, not by mandatory order but by voluntary. a lot of people getting out of the way of this storm as these winds come through. now, it's not feeling like we're anywhere close to what was predicted in terms of, you know, 125-mile-an-hour winds. but we're definitely experiencing torrential rain and very heavy wind right now. >> katy beck in corpus christi, thank you very much. sadly, hurricanes love things like burger king signs and cracker barrel signs and the roof over gasoline pumps, among the first things to go when you cover a storm. we're fortunate to be joined tonight by john nielsen gamen, a ph.d. in meteorology, texas a&m
professor of sciences, and a climatologist. you're the closest thing to an expert on the entire state. did we get it right earlier, that this is going to amount to a stationary waterfall on an already water logged portion of the texas coastline from now until mid-next-week? >> yes, brian, it looks like it could be a very big problem for texas. the strength of a hurricane doesn't really affect how much rain it produces. it's the speed, the forward motion that matters. with this storm stalling out, it looks like we're going to see amounts of rainfall over a widespread area that we really haven't seen before. the best way i can characterize it, if you think of the mississippi river, how much water it's delivering constantly, imagine that happening for five days straight over south central texas.
then multiply that by 3.5, so the equivalent of 3 1/2 mississippi rivers dumping steadily on that state. that's going to cut off communities. all that water has to go somewhere, we'll see the rivers go out of their banks. >> talk about where we've been fortunate. >> i think what you referred to earlier with the storm missing major metropolitan areas is very good news. if you have a place like galveston with several tens of thousands of people, it takes a long time to evacuate. and with this storm forming right in the backyard over the gulf of mexico, making landfall so quickly, it was a very dangerous storm. we're lucky that it hit a place where there wasn't a large number of people that had to get out of the way. >> what if this is come up into the city of houston, a metropolitan area that large?
>> we saw houston just barely dodged the bullet with hurricane ike back in 2008 with the storm surge. at this point, we would have seen more demonstration because the storm is a category 4. ike, for all the storm surge it brought was only a strong category 2. it didn't produce a lot of wind damage like what harvey is capable of producing. >> as this meanders and stalls and dances around the coast, we were saying last night the european models looked like a bird's nest. pick your route for this storm. but way too many projections have this kind of taking a hard right and going to houston at the end of a couple of days. as it meanders, is this -- i'm trying to explain it in human terms. will it always kind of have an arm to reach out over the gulf and get as much moisture as it needs to survive and keep
turning counter clockwise? >> yeah. it's going to be tapping into the moisture from the gulf as well as the moisture it produces in terms of rainfall. the ground is going to be saturated. it's going to create its own moisture supply. some places will see the same water come back again as it evaporates and it's produced as rain following it. following it. the intensity of the storm will weaken as it's over land. trees and less moisture available. but the rainfall will be widespread. there lob pockets of heavy rainfall. those won't be where the storm itself is located. there will be a broad swath of rain with this storm. >> our great thanks to you. from texas a&m helping us explain to our audience what the 28 million residents of the state of texas can expect for their brothers and sisters who live close to the coastline. again, this made landfall
tonight. about in the last hour as a category 4 storm. it won't stay at that designation. but then again, the wind, the storm surge has never been the greatest danger from this storm. it's been what's about to happen. it is a colossal rainmaker. there are no steering current aloft. normally, it would hook on to a tributary of the jet stream and you've seen hurricanes come up out of the gulf and scoot on out in a high arc that leads them out over bermuda and the cold waters of the north atlantic. they lose their energy. and they die. they end up as a cloud bank over scotla scotland. this one has no such plans because there are no such steering current to take it anywhere but coastal texas. we are looking at a rainey vept that could still be going on
wednesday of next week. we will get our attention back to the world of politics. it says something about the pace of news we're covering tonight that we have yet to get to the fact that north korea launched three intermediate range missiles tonight. more on all of it when we come right back. my experience with usaa has been excellent. they always refer to me as master sergeant. they really appreciate the military family, and it really shows. we've got auto insurance, homeowners insurance. had an accident with a vehicle,
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stories. cat 4 hurricane makes landfall in texas on a night when we have a pile of political news. chief among those stories, the pardon tonight by the president of sheriff joe arpaio in arizona. now, for some recent politics, remember that the president has gone after john mccain. remember that the president went after john mccain in his home state for the vote he cast on health care. he also went after the other republican senator from arizona, jeff flake. remember the president in arizona did not mention the "uss mccain" the tragedy on board. the namesake ship for the mccain familiment father and grandfather, who like john mccain currently served this country with distinction in the military. john mccain, arizonan has reacted to the pardon of sheriff
joe arpaio. we just got this piece of paper. i'll reed it aloud to you. sno one is above the law and the individuals entrusted with the privilege of being sworn law officers should always seek to be beyond reproach in their commitment to fairly enforcing the laws presidethey swore to u. mr. arpaio was found guilty of contempt for profiling latinos living in arizona based on their perceived immigration status in violation of a judge's orders. the president has the authority to make this pardon, but doing so at this time undermines his claim for the respect of rule of law. as mr. arpaio has shown no remorse for his actions. john mccain former p.o.w. in vietnam, former standard bearer for the republican party as you may know is back home in arizona undergoing round one of cancer treatment, including chemotherapy for a recently
diagnosed glioblastoma. a very aggressive form of brain cancer. john mccain has now spoken. let's talk about all of this news with our panel. with one proviso. in about a minute we're coming to the top of the hour and have to welcome a new audience as our spot news coverage continues tonight. vivian salaam a, matthew nusbaum and endear a remains with us. powerful words from not just any member of the u.s. senate. >> absolutely. he's right to speak out. i'm glad he did. a gop congressman from michigan, justin a mash also tweeted that he was auto appalled that the president would pardon someone who is supposed to be a law enforcement official but who was flagrantly ignoring the fourth amendment, violating it. i don't think this should come as a surprise to us. our own president has repeatedly shown his disrespect for the
today the russia investigation took a major step forward. for the first time a member of the president's inner circle faced questions on capitol hill. put another way, this investigation has now come within one man of the president. he is arguably the closest man to the president. white house senior adviser and son-in-law jared kushner spent more than two hours with the senate intelligence committee and then he made a public statement saying he never colluded with russia. it comes as trump pours the pressure on his own attorney general, jeff sessions, who rekuzed himself from the justice department's russia investigation months ago. a decision the president has not been able to get past. . he wrote about sessions on twitter this morning, referring to his own attorney general, mind you, as our beleaguered attorney general. and tonight the "washington post" as a new report headline, trump leaves sessions twisting
in the wind bile berating him publicly. it reads in part sessions was once considered one of the trump's closest advisers and enjoyed access few others had. now he is left to endure regular public crimson by his base. it adds some in the white house are going so far as to toss out names of replace mts for sessions, names like ted cruz of texas and former mayor rudy giuliani both have distanced themselves from this speculation. then tonight the president bored air force one and flew to west virginia to give a address to 30,000 boy scouts. the reaction to what he said started as he was say going. it when it became clear offense giving a rally speech, adult speech to 30,000 boy scouts who go to hear the president relit fwat his election convictsry
include that it's harder to win the electoral college pan the popular vote. heard the him talk about the so-called war on christmas, the effort to pass health care, and then some. >> by the way, just a question? did president obama ever come to jamboree? we won and won. so when they said there is no way to victory, there is no way to 270, you know i went to maine four times because it's one vote. and we won. but we won. one vote. i went there because i kept hearing we're 269. but then wisconsin came in. many, many years, michigan came in. so and we worked hard there. you know my opponent didn't work
hard there, because she was told -- dsh the polls that's also fake news. they're fake polls. but the polls are saying but we won wisconsin. so i have to tell you what we did in all fairness is an unbelievable tribute to you and all of the other million and millions of people who came out and voted for make america great again. and by the way under the trump administration you'll be saying, merry christmas again when you go shopping, believe me. merry christmas. secretary tom price is also here today. today dr. price still lives the scout oath, helping to keep millions of americans strong and
healthy as our secretary of health and human services. by the way you're going to get the votes? he better get them. he better get them. oh he better otherwise i'll say tom, you're fired. i'll get somebody. >> on that note let's bring in tonight's starting panel, white house reporter for the "washington post" ashley parker. white house reporter for the associated press, vivian salama, and fresh off air force one vaflg traveling with the president to west virginia tonight eli stokols for the "wall street journal." eli before i toss the first question to you i want to show the reaction that started coming in tonight, some of it from people we know and colleagues here. we have some of the twitter feeds to put up on the screen. starting with richard painter, the former ethics czar in the boy scouts must distance themselves from that offensive attempt to politicize scouting and turn them into a trump youth organization.
steve schmidt of the mccain campaign, this eagle squout is appalled. mark salter i was a boy scout five or six years, the whole point of the experience was to teach kids not to grow up to be like donald trump. and one more from our own nicole wallace who was retweeting a twitter rant the president went on just tonight about "washington post". she said serious question, mr. president, is this the tweet you started to type as an apology to the boy scouts before your rage toward the media took over? eli we both covered a lot of events and you're in a hurry to get back to the motorcade and all kinds of things. sometimes it's not readily apparent at a live event exactly what it is you're seeing. was it apparent in real time that this was a very adult kind of campaign trail rally speech? >> yeah, in abecause you could see the crowd after a campaign
in which we saw so many times in candidate feed off large crowds, tonight he maybe 40,000 people packed around that amphitheater. they were giving him a pretty good response cheering loudly when we walked out on the stage the first thij he did was criticize the media said we wouldn't report the size of the crowd. the second thing he did was ad-lib this line about who the hell wants to talk about politics when you're in front of the boy scouts? and that was a big flash being red light. usually when paurs what donald trump says he will say-like you know a people don't know this that's code for i just found in out. when donald trump said i'm not going to talk about politics, you knew immediately that a lot of political red meat was coming for me a lot of meem night not have thought this was appropriate he was talking about killing obamacare. joking et about firing tom price process to a manhattan cocktail party and back they were giving him positive feedback i'm sure the president loved the reaction
he got and probably the news coverage to the extent the networks stayed on it. >> it's starting to sound like he has a obsession relitigating the the electoral college victory unbelievable we heard that again tonight. ashley parker, we move on to the fact that one of the eagle scouts in his cabinet was not present tonight. we saw health and human services. we saw energy. we saw interior. we didn't see justice. jeff sessions wasn't there. but jeff sessions is a man in the news. tell us the latest on what you know. >> sure that was a pointed absence that jeff sessions former eagle scout was not there. but he is sort of weathering a storm of his own right now. which is basically the president is actively incredibly frustrated with him. and according to aides the president despite making his name on the catch phrase you're fired is not that good at firing
people. and so he is not necessarily going out and firing jeff sessions. he also realizes there would be a huge political controversy if he fires him. but according to aides who have a sense what he is thinking he is doing everything in his power to get jeff sessions to resign that includes the interview with "new york times" where he trashed his attorney general. and then this tweet today where he called him beleaguered. and also sort of asked in very sort of stark and stunning terms why aren't you investigating hillary clinton my political rival. the white house is going so far as the president has been floating names internally who he might be a good replacement for are jeff sessions and including ted cruz and rudy giuliani. >> vivian you've grown 30 years in adjournism experience in six months and learn ag learned to toss out the phrase he would never dot dot dot. as all of washington try togs
war game out what this could be about. it could be about mueller. it could be there is someone in mind for the justice department. and it could be that he is waiting for congress to go on recess to appoint that person and really blow up washington. >> or it could be just that president trump does not really handle crimson and opposition weapon. we've seen that. every time someone pushes against him about a policy or any of his views he comes back swinging. and see that in the situation now with jeff sessions, and the fact that jeff sessions would take a step back and recuse himself from the investigation. president trump sees that as his way of succeeding to the possibility that there could be an issue with the campaign in terms of collusion, in terms of any kind of controversy surrounding them with russia. and so he has taken that very, very personally.
and from someone who he once presumed to be loyal to him. that was a sign of disloyalty. that really affected their relationship. but what's more interesting now is what we've seen collectively. what my colleagues just talked about. what we saw today in west virginia andway we saw today with jeff sessions. i covered national security. one of the things i hear from so many people here in d.c. and more broadly in the country that i speak to is what this is doing to our countries institutions when gou aefr the media, when gou after cabinet secretaries so publicly it starts to chip away at the institutions of this country. it's really starting to alarm a lot of people who feel this is not the time and particularly when we found ourselves so vulnerable to outside influences such as what happened with russia last year and you know whatnot. it's really starting to alarm a lot of people that the president is really just pouring gas on an open fire. >> eli, since vivian mentioned natural security it actually plays into part of his twitter
fusel ade tonight. i don't think we've taken the time to make them all graphics because there was a flurriy obviously after the boy scout event. but i know you -- one of them caught your eye because it was about a mission overseas. >> well about these payments to syrian rebels that the administration has stopped. russia wanted the u.s. to stop the payments. there was a "washington post" story about that and late tonight after he got back to the white house the president tweeting here about the ending that program really confirming the program existed. it was a classified program he he has now declassified it as presidents can do but he is upset again as like vivian mentioned an institution, the "washington post", the media, request with the courts he looked today -- go back to the tweet this morning about beleaguered general jeff sessions should investigate hillary clinton his political opponents sarah huckabee sanders came back and answer the
question as few minutes with reporters. one of the questions she got was is the president serious? does he really want the justice department to investigate his past political opponent. >> her answer was well i would think he wants the justice department to investigate anything this they believe to be a potential crime. if you just play that back save that -- set that aside that is stunning. what we are seeing what we've been talking about since the show began is this president's anger at his justice department and attorney general for investigating him because they're not sure whether or not his campaign may have committed some crimes during the last election. it's really just sort of a stunning moment and stunning political tin ear tone deafness whatever you want to call it. >> ashley at the risk of being accuse of naval gazing let's talk about our profession. i've said around the newsroom the last couple of months the
last thing you want to be this year is a pull it'ser prize judge. good luck there because i think we could double the number of them usually awarded for the reporting that has gone on in the first six months of this administration. there hasn't been this great a time to work for the -- because jeff bezos owns it amazon "washington post" since the montana mid-70s. with that in mind when you hear a president say to this spirited audience of 30,000 kids in the most american organization you can think of, boy scouts of america, when you hear him tell them their news media are fake, what the effect do you think that might have? >> well, i think it goes back to the point earlier in the program just about the president either intentionally or unintentionally oh or probably some combination of both chipping away at a lot of these democratic institutions.
and i would crew the media first among that. i think it has a kor ohsive effect. it's not with god people when people don't trust the media. the media used to be a place where people turned to for fact checks. they trnd heard something a politician said wanted to know if it was true or not or if it was going on with the community. but to be clear that's still the function we perform. but the president is sort of throwing shade i don't think that's good for democracy or for the people but for whatever he says i don't think as you've seen by the stories coming from sort of all major publications, the media is in no way cowed. often when the president pushes backs against a story on tietz about it it means the reporters and uks publications are on the right tra track. >> vivian as much as i read the toledo of you you are tasked with the fastest version of journalism. i've seen all of you search for ways to put the new normal -- a lot of the old modifiers we used to use covering presidents aren't enough anymore.
>> well, one thing that is really important for all of us we've learned to do this in realtime is fact check. and it's nothing necessarily personal to president trump in particular. but it's the fact that he is so active on twitter. and that lends a totally different dynamic to covering the presidency than it has in the past. of course i wasn't covering the white house under previous administrations so it's hard to compare. but certainly from what my colleagues tell me this is a lot faster pace. you're getting in a lot more information. i get in early and covering tweets trying to decipher them sometimes we're not sure what he is talking about. we spend the morning really trying to understand and interpret to the american people receiving the message can better understand what he is saying. all of those things are definitely new challenges, exciting but also you know sometimes very difficult. >> vivian salama who at least one war time overseas post-ing i'm not sure which was more
difficult or daengs. ashley thank you. eli, thank you very much. great beginning panel tonight. coming up after our first break, jared kushner and the questions that remain to be answered in this overall russia investigation. we're just getting started on the monday edition of the 11th hour." you know what's awesome?
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staffers. behind closed doors. more on that in a bit by the way. earlier, kushner had released an 11-page statement. in it he admitted to four meetings with russians. he says he didn't know about the russia meeting in trump tower in advance with donald trump jr. and asked to be called out of it early. later, at a white house lectern and with the white house as hisback drop he read a short statement to the reporters in the white house driveway. >> since the first questions were raised in march, i have been consistent in saying that i was eager to share any information i have with the investigating bodies and i've done so today. the record and documents i have voluntary provided will show that all of my actions were proper and occurred in the normal course of events of a very unique campaign. let me be very clear.
i did not collude with russia more do i know of anyone else in the campaign who did so. i had no improper contacts. i have not relied on russian funds for my businesses. and i have been fully transparent in providing all requested information. >> joining me noy jeremy bash former chief of staff at dod and cia and importantly former chief counsel for the house intel committee and the former u.s. ambassador to russia during the obama administration. veteran diplomat mike mcfall guy i do this as round of questions as a committee first round to both of you starting with you jeremy, the wording he used there and elsewhere in the statement. what was important to you to you about his wording and what words weren't in there, perhaps? >> well it depends on the definition of colluding. i think an important question that bob mueller will ask and that congressional investigators will ask is did anybody in the
senior levels of the trump campaign know the russian government was helping to intercede and help the trump campaign. process obviously the nation flew that october 7th. nafs the date 9 homeland security and director of national intelligence said russia is the culprit. after that jared kushner and mike flynn had multiple meetings that's going sob followed up on. as of the june you 2016 meeting did jared kushner don jr., paul manafort know what was stated in the email that the russian government was trying to help. >> ambassador mcfall anything stand out to you from the wording or omission. >> two things. first of all, that email we've all read it, read the subject line. they said they're going to provide information to help the trump campaign. if the verb collude is not the right one -- is not the one that
jared kushner wants to use what's the right one? because it sounds like collusion to me. what is that act? that was described? the second thing -- i don't want to get ahead of my skis we want to know the full disclosure what he said when we get a chance. but when he said very carefully in the statementdy not rely on russian funding for businesses, that was very striking to me. because rely is a very strong word thap that suggests he is dependent on them. but he have business contacts with russians? did he have investments with russians? that sentence left it open. we simply don't know the actual business operations that he had with russian investors skroo. >> jeremy, were you surprised as one who has been around washington a along time as the stage craft of it? someone pointed out the new leader of ireland was not afraided a lectern like that when he came out to meet with reporters and used a very ram shackle micron stand. the marine opens the door the president's son-in-law comes out at a very formal. there is nothing ambiguous about
that back drop. >> no question had he had full backing and support of the white house both literally and figure testifily. . he did a good day from the perspective of legal team they controlled the narrative wrote the lever-page statement got the facts out on the table in the way they wanted to present. of course we don't know what the questions were behind closed doors. but injury ultimately both committees are going to ask him to testify publicly if he is willing to put out a public statement they want to question him on the record under oath in front of cameras. >> ambassador, knowing the russians as you do, if i appointed you chief counsel to any one of the committees and brought you in the hearing room having promised you that a strange russian woman wouldn't i troll i by sitting behind you with your family, what would you want to ask mr. kushner again colored by the knowledge of the russians?
>> i have two central questions, brian. one what was the content of that conversation? what did she bring? it's been alleged she handed over some documents. what were in the documents? we don't know the content of that meeting. it's been described to us that he wanted to leave because there was nothing there. maybe he wanted to leave because there was something really scarey there and he didn't want to be part of it. the content is still mysterious. second, i want to know woi he discussed with ambassador kizlyak the idea of going into the russian embassy to have conversations with officials back in moscow. allegedly it was to talk about syria. jared kushner has a joint portfolio but solving the syrian war is not one of those. allegedly it was too sensitive for whom not to hear what was going on? i want to know what was behind that conversation that led him to come up with that idea or led ambassador kizlyak to come up with that idea. >> and jeremy, last question
goes to you, this actually was your job. so if you were in your old job as counsel to house intel, what do you want to hear. >> i want to know what role he played when sally yates the accurate aing attorney general wardson the white house and the president that the russians were able to blackmail the national security adviser? importantly i want to know what what was his role on advising the president on whether to fire jim comey. ultimately broien the issue of obstruction of justice with regard to president president's own actions vis-a-vis comey that is a larger had you in the investigation. >> after yet another eventful day on this topic we say modestly to viewers we don't think there are two guests in television better equipped to talk about in day. than the two we have here. jeremy, michael thank you so much after another break president trump takes aim at fellow members of his party when "the 11th hour" continues. "got a minute? not for me, for you."
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ending the obamacare nightmare. they now have a chance, however, to hopefully, hopefully fix what has been so badly broken for such a long time. and that is through replacement of a horrible disaster known as obamacare. >> that was president trump today before his trip to west virginia tonight. putting pressure on his own party to get a health care bill passed. the senate will vote tomorrow as we said to advance bail, repealing obamacare however it's not clear which version of the legislation will be on the floor as you may know a little civics republicans need 51 votes to move forward but appear short of it. we learn tonight as we said john mccain who has been in arizona after being being diagnosed with brain cancer will return to washington to vote on something called the moeks to proceed, first step toward bringing up the real hvg bill. his yes vote is critical. joining us tonight politics editor for the root, jason
johnson back with us and lob lining libertarian jim sharp about a back with us jr germane place of arizona. welcome to you beth. jason in the break i asked you the question i'm going to ask you right now, how does mitch mcconnell approach a lectern and microphones if as people believe this could be a suicide mission? how are you going to move the four -- perhaps more republican deeffectens despite john mccain making this heroic journey back fl o from arizona. >> they have no chance. and this is a way to swla play kate president trump and lack busy. that's what they're doing at this point. they don't have the votes to even proceed to debate. here is the thing brian this is what's also key. when rand paul and susan collins a murkowski when the first one or two say no that's makes it okay. >> makes it okay. >> makes it easy fore everyone else to back out. i don't see it moving forward.
mitch mcconnell is wasting political capital on what people don't know. >> he susan consequently have moral authority. she is not a bomb throw ner the back row. she is a prominent members. >> these not back ventures near not afraid of donald trump hear they're not heller in nevada. they're not on marjleenle seat they outperformed trump in their own states. they can vote their conscientious and the voter will have their back. >> jim we were thing about you a because i'm sure it's been an emotional time in your state especially for republicans who love john mccain and are wonning hows in going to play out. but be your party your political party and trump's choice of words, he rarely chooses words by accident or on a whim. there is usually a leonard for everything.
and today in his remarks he more than once called the republican party they, third person, as if not to be a member. >> yeah, brian thanks. first off, is john mccain just a tough son of a gun or what. >> i'm closing the show tonight with some of the best comparisons i've heard on how tough he is. so. >> yeah. and you know though i'm not a republican i worked during my political time primarily with gop candidates. you know what this kind of makes sense because dprufrp is it kind of a johnny come lately republican. he garnered a lot of support from people really trurly populist. he is hoping to drawen oh the base to push republicans who buoyant shouldn't be doing this to apiece donald trump but voters. they propzed voters this year a years and they said they were going to repeal and replace obamacare now they don't seem to be able to do it. they did it in 2015 they took
this same vote in 2015. but they did that knowing to it president obama at the time was not going to sign in. so you know they need to do this for the voters they need to to do because they propzed not because they need to appeal donald trump. >> jason this is another way in presidency upends the rules when you're trying to get something passed on the hill you go out on the root road and talk to the customers and you sell it to them process. he has not taken that ownership and listen who who is missing in our conversation and we're guilt of this too often we're not talking about the customers, the anxiety in states like arizona what's happening to health care premiums availability? >> you know it's two years ago at this point obama has a townhall. he goes to ohio. he answers questions. the number one sales person in this country right now should be donald trump and he is failing. he is i had hiding up in the bleacher like two muppets making fun of his own party. rather than making people feel safe and secure. he doesn't just have to tell it
the americans. he has to go to the marginal senators if john kasich gets mad of you rob i will campaign on your behalf instead he is throwing totmans from the sidelines. i complete by agree with the other guest the republican parties hoes if to the base. the american people may not like what they're doing. but there is this is a pledge and the fact after seven years they don't have an plan it's an embarrassment how democracy supposed to operate. >> what if the president turned this just crazy pie in the sky thinking what if the president turned to the governors just to name a couple, colorado, ohio and tennessee, and said, you three level headed governors put your heads together and the senate has promised me that we're going to coal he is around what you -- where the rebuke rubber meets the road you think are the health care challenges we're going to try to do the
best for your folks. >> boy, i don't know. i don't know how that would go to be honest with you. he might want to consider talking to our governor we've seen the worst of what obamacare has to offer. it's unfortunate you know we have seen huge preemious increases we're going to have only one choice in each one of the obamacare exchanges in our counties this coming year. we're seeing another increase even though we saw 16% increase previously. pifrpg it's a great idea. especially because medicaid happens to be a big sticking point on this. and that's -- that's distributed at the state level. so i think it makes a lot of sense for him to bring kwofr governors in. i just don't think -- as much as his base likes to think he does, i just don't he is very good at working with a lot of other people to be honest with you. >> there is that. jim, how can our viewers hear you on the web. >> available at ktar.com. and they can listen on the good
old fm dial on 92.3. >> thank you for coming on jason always a pleasure. another break for us. back with a member of the senate intelligence committee. and still ahead as we continue, new reporting on the president's new communications director. and another possible shake-up at the white house when the 11th hour continues.
intelligence. that's the procedure they go through, the intelligence committee with the kmarm and vice chairman. the procedure is the staff goes through different questions and tries to put the puzzle together the best they possibly can. then we had of an informal briefing at 2:00. the members we had an informal briefing what they talked about. in until we get the transcripts in front of us at the formal meeting that decision will be made to bring him forward. i think there is enough interest where jared would come before the kpt, the full committee, the intelligence. >> what will your reaction be if the president fires mueller or if the president tries to pardon members of his own family. >> let's talk about mr. mueller first. i just -- i think there would be a severe reaction up here because of the person doesn't have a stellar reputation and the stellar career and give so much service to our country at the highest level and have the -- have the total cohesion of republicans and democrats believing that this person will
exercise the rule of law, protect the rule of law and act upon the rule of law. i don't know of anybody else that fits that category. so saying all of a sudden he doesn't fit that or he is unfit for serving and he would not be respectful of the decision he makes. i don't think that would be accepted at all or very well at all on both sides of the aisle not just democrats but democrats republicans alike. as far as the pardon, i think it's just premature to talk about any of this. i don't know why this is even coming up we're just trying to fine the facts. and people talking about pardons, it baffles me now to even be speaking about that. >> let's talk about your constituents, the people of west virginia, the president as we've already noted traveling there tonight process. >> right. >> first of all, do they all believe obamacare, the a.c.a. is dead if you ask them in would they say about a because we keep hearing that from the president and most republicans. and secondly, how many trips
home with you make without a deliverable, without something to say, we're doing this for you because we shared your anxiety over health care? >> well every demographic of my state is affected. if you're old, if you're young, if you're in the middle somewhere, if you had opiate addiction mental illness we're helping so many. senior citizens, nursing homes. you name it we are affected by this, the same at other rural states are too. so i have said, a vote to proceed tomorrow if that's where mitch mcconnell and the leadership from the republicans is taking us i would say a vote to proceed is a vote to repeal and the reason i say that there is no way that they can say we're going ahead and proceed on the bill so we can fix it.
if you want to fix the affordable care act i want to fix it. put if in committee and let's work through the process where we have experts coming in we can dissect that bill and find out what makes it better from the people who are worked it before, the things that have failed and let's get the private sector wsh the private market if you will stabilized. let's make sure that people that got health care the first time, the expansion, 20 million people are now going to through education and management we're going to show them how to use it effectively and efficiently and save money long the way. >> do you think the attorney general should should resign? do you think he will? >> i don't think he should. he did exactly what he was supposed to. he rekeyesed himself from being involved in the michael -- in the investigation because he and michael flynn had a relationship and they were campaigning together and on the campaign trail. i think rudy giuliani said it he did the proper things by the rules of justice. i don't know what the reason would be. but i will say this. the president or the chief
executive -- i was governor of my state and i wanted to put my staff and have people around me. the president has that prerogative to do. that's part of the job and he has to have a team that he believes in. and he will make that decision. i don't think what jeff did by recusing himself he did exactly what he should have done. >> joe manchin thank you for being with us. >> thank you sir. >> the late headline for the "washington post" on the man whose friends call him mooch. also known to the rest of us as anthony scaramucci. the new white house communications director. this includes what new changes may come. we'll have the writer of the piece on with us next.
since that's been overused. would "i" taken that meeting? i'm not sure. >> white house communications director anthony scaramucci calling the president's 39-year-old soon kid, and the russia probe completely bogus. tonight, "the washington post" is reporting that scaramucci may be pushing a staff purge at the white house. quote, he is meeting one on one with aides in an effort to understand each person's contributions. that's within the communications shop. scaramucci's planned overhaul is likely to leave priebus more isolated in the west wing. the coauthor of the article, ashley parker has agreed to stay even later with us tonight. she's back with us. ashley, thank you. as i ask you this next question, since you are all over social media, i want to show you
something tonight that is also all be the next chief of staff and may be the priebus >> that's certainly what some allies of scaramucci have been floating. to be clear, if that does end up being the case, and i think we're far from knowing this, he's four days into his job, is the communications director, it would add insult to injury to reince priebus who fought this
appointment vigorously and basically lost. and it was a clear sign the president was choosing someone else over his wishes, and notably, in this case anthony scaramucci as he made very clear several times reports directly to president trump. so it's a tough situation for reince to be in. >> do you have evidence that these staff reviews he's conducting -- and again, west wing employees in the name of the president have the right to have a loyal staff of nonleakers, though it will tough to be in the ashley parker business after that. do you have the feeling it's all in the comshop or is his purview a little bit broaderer to encome fas west wing? >> he has a broad purview. one of the things that was striking is this white house can be divided into the family and the help. and the family is president
trump and his actual family, his daughter, ivanka, jared kushner, and continue family who are these aides who've been with him since the campaign, and they're very close with him. and the help is the rest of the staff who works hard for him, but feels very expendable as we're seeing this week even with attorney general sessions. one thing that was striking is that anthony scaramucci comes in for whatever reason as family. what we're hearing most about is the communication shop, that makes sense because he's the communications director, but i do think in theory his mandate, especially if he does a good job for the president might end up being broader. >> we cannot thank you enough. your day starts earlier than hours, i'll put it that way. we cannot is that you think enough for agreeing to stay late. thank you so much. we'll be looking for your byline again tomorrow.
coming up after our final break, we heard reference to this earlier. just how tough is john mccain? we'll take on that question whether the "the 11th hour" continues. she's nationally recognized
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and so with that in mind, noting he is needed and his arrival will be used to great dramatic effect, john mccain will of course the. while the vote is simply to move a health care bill closer to being the real thing, stl be a real moment. ed surgery just 11 days ago after all, and he vowed or better yet, warned his colleagues he'd be back. in recent days we have heard people call john mccain, quote, tougher than a boiled owl and, quote, tougher than a $2 steak. those are good ones you're free to use them. in that toughness in that way, we will see what john mccain is made of tomorrow and in the days to come. that is our broadcast for a monday night as we start a new s to come. that's our broadcast for a monday noigt as we start a new
they're telling us that they're starting slowly to unload these places. there are five sets of those. so it's very slow and we're pretty far back in the line. it's going to be at least two hours. he also says he doesn't know what's going to happen to us once we're deplaned, where we'll go in the airport and what resources will be available to us. he said it will take a number of days before things get back to normal. we're in it for the long haul. we've totally run out of water. they've asked us kindly not to flush the toilets. otherwise everyone seems to be in a relative calm. they gave us beverages about an hour ago and we're just waiting. >> wow. it doesn't sound good. how long have you been stuck there? >> we landed at 2:15.
so about five hours. >> wow. and the pilot is telling you it could be two hours more before you can get off. did you hear what led to this? >> reporter: it's unclear to us. it's a construction issue. as far as we know there's no power at the airport. lucky for us. people are stuck in trams. we're on a plane with power. my phone is charging, we have air conditioning. we all have basic needs, we have toilets. but we're sort of lucky in that sense. the problem is we don't know how much longer we're going to be on this plane. >> right. and you said people are in pretty good spirits still? >> all things considered. i don't think there's going to be a mutiny. i think everyone understands that this isn't something delta has done to us. we all have to wait and hopefully we'll get off soon. >> we will be in touch with you, betsy. i hope so too.
keep up that positive energy. what else can you do. let's get to the bottom of what happened. thanks again. let's bring in cnn's kay ly hartung. >> ana, georgia power saying they expect to have power restored to the airport around midnight. we received this statement. they say they believe the issue may have caused a fire which caused extennive damage in an underground facility. they say it was safely extinguished. they entered the area to assess the damages and study the damages. while the cause is not yet known, georgia power system responded by isolating areas where the system wasn't operating correctly to ensure safety. no personnel or passengers were
in danger at any time they say. ana, they're giving them until midnight. i spoke to a pilot a little bit ago. he told me he was prepared to not be back to work for another 24 to 36 hours. >> again, that's five hours. kaylei kaylee, what are their plans? what have they been told the options are? >> reporter: i can tell you the numbered have dwindled since we've been here. by my observation, the quickest way, the most efficient way out of this airport is by marta, the public transportation rail service that exists in atlanta. that station has been open all
on me now, of course, one of them being our tv light and lights like you would see as a construction light that have been brought in. tower lights along this walk way as well as inside the doors to my right where the airline counters are as well to allow people to communicate with officials here, law enforcement, security, and whatnot, to try to find them a place to go because as one atlanta police officer told me, it's not safe or sanitary for anyone to think it's good idea to stay here overnight. >> oh, my. kaylee hartung, thank you for that report. this airport the size of atlanta will throw a monkey wrench into the entire country's flight schedules especially at the peak of the holiday season. i want to bring tom in. you've been look at flight trackers, seeing how this is going to impact the ripple effect so to speak. what are you finding out?
>> i think it's just the volume they're going to have to deal with. it's not just one airline. atlanta being a major hub, typically it's 24/7 with that cluster we saw in the original image. this could be significant. we'll have to sit and see what happens. obviously with the thousands there, accommodations are going to be first and foremost priority for all of them. >> tom sater, thank you. of course, atlanta airport is a major hub for airlines all across the country. i want to bring in former faa safety inspector david sues who's joining us from denver. david, with pilots stuck on the tarmac, what kind of impact could this have on the country? >> as you said, it's like a ripple effect. it's like dominos falling. you have to worry about crew rest times. i have to rest a certain amount of time every 24 hours. now it's really messed up.
that's the first thing that pilots are going to have to worry about. if they could take off, could they do that within their duty times or change the crews out. >> we've talked to our betsy klein. it could be another two hours before they get off. they've been asked not to flush toilets. they don't have running water in these planes. do airlines and airports prepare for a potential incident like this? >> there are protocols but it starts back with the georgia power protocol. there are three trunk lines that go into the airport. one is for security, doors, getting in and out. that's number one. the second trunk line is for any, still essential, but air traffic control equipment, things like that that would do communications. but if i'm reading this right, there has not been any communications with anybody in the waiting areas, the border
areas, so that tells me tear two might be down as well, which could be really catastrophic. i don't think in the history that i know of that there's been an airport that's gotten a tier 2 trunk cut. that's a serious situation. the protocols that they do at the airport, the tearier 2, it surprises me they're letting people stay in the airport at all. i would be having the people evacuating out of the airport if the fire isn't contained. but it sounds like it's contained. >> they're hoping to have it prepared by midnight. there was a tweet by former secretary anthony foxx apparently stuck on one of the delta planes in atlanta right now. he write, there is no excuse for lack of workable redundant power source, none. does that strike you as odd too? >> very much so.
as i said, there's three power tiers, but each of those power tiers have three redundant sources. they have the power source itself. it comes from two different counties. the fact that it all went down, it's truly inexcusable. not only that, you have generators, backup sources, there's so many redundancies in each one of the power trunks, that i can't imagine why it would have shut down other than if it was a fire that was expected to propagate to certain areas and other areas and they may have shut them down ahead of time to make sure there wasn't electricity that would carry those fires to another location. i mean that's a possible. somebody's going to have toance answer this at some point, and it's not going to be pretty. >> we'll continue to follow up on this. up next we'll speak to the former homeland security
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a drop of dawn and grease is gone. continuing to follow this breaking news out of atlanta, the busiest airport in the world at a total standstill. all commercial flights are canceled. thousands of passengers are stranded in pitch black terminals. georgia power says it may be midnight before the power is restored. let's talk it over with the former managing director on the. huge, huge hub for so many airlines, but the airline officials have not held any kind of press conference six hours into this mess. what's your reaction? >> well, i think delta, which is the main operator out of hartsfield is probably missing the boat on this. i mean they have probably 90% of
the flights in and out of hartsfield today, and they should be communicating not only with their dmers but with the public. this is going to be a nightmare for a good two to three weeks for delta. this is the most crowded time of the year. the number of people on the planes are all in the high 90s. these customers are going to have to be reaccommodated. it's going to cascade onto other carriers. it's a very tough situation. >> power outages at airports seem to be fairly rare. we don't hear of it often. your thoughts on the response so far. >> we don't know what caused the outage, but they do occur. >> we're hearing they believe it was a fire at their power station, i guess. >> yeah. and the airports are supposed to have bakeup power to two levels.
they're supposed to be able to degrade their air traffic system down to a lesser level and still keep operating, but apparently this fire was of such magnitude it shut down the alternate sources of power as well. this is going to have to be investigated very carefully after this event because this shouldn't have happened. >> so thousands of people are obviously stuck at that airport, no power until midnight. we're hearing they have construction lights set up to help people see, get where they're going. what should airport officials be doing to help keys these passengers safe and orderly? >> they need to get as many of their passengers first off the plane, off the tarmac, and into the -- into the actual airport structure itself. then they need to start transporting passengers to nearby hotels by the airport and in downtown atlanta.
sunday night, thankfully, a lot of the hotels have not a heavy bookings. they need to give people some comfort for the next 12 to 24 hours while their systems come back up. then it's going to be a very tough rescheduling challenge. >> when we hear from passengers who are stuck on airplanes who have been on the ground waiting to get off for in some cases five hours already and they're being told it could be another two hours or so before they can even deplane, does that surprise you? >> it doesn't because of the sheer number of aircraft and sheer number of passengers. but my guess is that atlanta has not trained for this kind of disaster before. you know, you don't -- it's hard to imagine a total shutdown during one of the busiest flight days of the year.
my guess is they've been taken a little bit by surprise. >> aren't we all taken by surprise by this. peter goelz. thank you. i want to get more perspective. juliette, you say this situation is unacceptable. explain why? >> unacceptable across a number of areas. first of all, the communication is just completely lacking. i think people are guessing what's going on. we just got a press release from i think atlanta energy that it's likely a fire. that's a couple hours later. so just on the response side, protocols do not appear to be being followed. look. systems break down. people understand that. what's not forgivable and what's
somewhat inexcusable this many hours later is that the system would have gone down so massively for so long. in other words, we talk about resilient systems in critical infrastructure and part of that means you have backup plans, you have redundancies, you don't have a single point of failure. in other words, one fire doesn't cause the largest airport in the united states or airport traffic in the -- >> the most business airport in the world. >> yeah. in the world. so that's how people in homeland security think about it. whatever the cause, it might be fire. we didn't know that. it could have been nefarious. what we look at is how do you build systems that can handle the boom, right? that causes the disruption. whether it's a fire or attack or hurricane. i would say this is not inspiring right now. >> bob, as far as reacting to a crisis, what grade do you given the airport so far roughly six hours or so far in? >> a failing grade, ana.
where is the on-site generator? everybody in the world has an on-site generator. they're ready for it. they could keep planes up and keep services going. the fact is juliette is absolutely right. our infrastructure is also getting a failing grade. this should not happen. you also have to keep in mind how vulnerable airports are to be taken out by electricity by terrorists. they could do it and we're not prepared in the least. >> juliette, give that it's 7:30 right now, no more flights out tonight, what does the airport do to take care of thousands of people who may be stranded there? >> it seems to me you would have established emergency protocols to get people off the planes. they are stationary, atlanta is -- you know, it's a
sophisticated airport. you should be able to get people onto the tarmacs, onto the runways, and into the terminals. they shouldn't be sitting on airplanes for hours on end without bathrooms. it shouldn't be happening. it's not like there's a blizzard going on. they can get out in the rain. first of all, you want to protect people's health and safety and security and once you get the generators back going you're going to have to essentially reprocess hundreds of thousands of people who are traveling during the holiday season. this is going to be a week-long delay, i have no doubt about it. it's not just atlanta. think of every airport in singapore. think of all these airports connected to atlanta that are now being impacted by this. this is -- this is a disas -- disaster is a little strong to say, but this is sort of an embarrassment and most
importantly, it's got to be a lesson learned. we cannot have our infrastructure be so vulnerable. >> you say it may not be a disaster. i think the people stuck on planes with no running water and no bathrooms may think this is a disaster. bob, we're hearing from officials it may have been caused by a fire. for your a while it was who did this, how did this happen. it does highlight a potential vulnerability. how much of a target are our power grids and electrical facilities? >> let me tell you when u joined the cia, they took us through a course where we take out an airport. it's very easy to do. you have to anticipate it. you need to red team it, green team it and so foncht it's just very, very easy to do. and, again, i go back to
on-sight generators. you sort of expect either a fire or a terrorist attack and you have some sort of backup. if this had been a terrorist attack, it would have been a total catastrophe for all of our nation across the united states, almost clearly another 9/11. >> bob baer and juliette kayyem, i really appreciate it. all right. a star studed gala is a few minutes away. we're on the live carpet. you see celebrities pouring in and we're going to be taking you there to the red carpet coming up next. stay with us. our recent online sales success seems a little... strange?nk na. ever since we switched to fedex ground business has been great. they're affordable and fast... maybe "too affordable and fast." what if... "people" aren't buying these books online, but "they" are buying them to protect their secrets?!?!
hi bill. if that is your real name. it's william actually. hmph! affordable, fast fedex ground. weraise their voice to sayo lethat this presidentle is unfit for office and needs to go. i love it! yes! yes! [ chuckles ] there it is -- over there! mcminnville, tennessee... poughkeepsie, new york... milton, indiana... chattahoochee, florida... wow... we're looking at the whole country. not just the coasts. even in utah, we're starting to realize trump has been doing things that are against our laws. i definitely worry about war. north korea. i don't want that guy's hand near the bomb. sick to my stomach. he's not the kind of person that should be running our country. the things that he does has consequences. is this going to be here for my grandchildren? he's not being held accountable. if we have the vote, like we have for election day, they will impeach him. times square is the crossroads of the world. nation across the united states, up next.
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in just minutes, a little less than a half an hour from now, 8:00 p.m. eastern, "ckr nn heroes: all-star heroes" kicks off. kelly rib pa will join anderson cooper. as always the star-studded gala will include the unveiling of cnn's hero of the year. polo sandoval is joining us now as cnn heroes and heavyweights make their way down the red carpet. so, polo, who have you been talking to? >> reporter: way too many to name. things are slowly winding down on the red carpet which could only mean things are getting
started inside where the main event will be. there was one of the heroes who i spoke with that leads a nonprofit in cape town south africa that helps some of the orphans who perhaps have lost their parents to aids. these are parents from all walks of life, all corners of world, everyday people doing remarkable things. the celebrities i have had an opportunity to speak with on the red carpet tonight say tonight is about them. those heroes could be your neighbor. that's the other point. tonight is not only a chance to celebrate what some of these heroes have been doing in making this world a better place but perhaps starting to think about your neighbor, somebody from school, somebody who you know that is changing the world, making it a better place. perhaps they should be nominated for next year. maybe they should be walking down this red carpet. but for now everybody's now preparing for the main event starting here in a little under 30 minutes. we'll have the top ten heroes of
the year plus the answer to that question you posed a little while ago. who will be awarded hero of the year. that will certainly come with more benefits, financial support that they perhaps need to continue operating their nonprofit and doing even more good, ana. so it certainly has been a very busy night, but it certainly will be an emotional and a an even busier night in the hours ahead as cnn's heroes gets under way. >> and, polo, last hour, you talked with diane lane. talk to us about her thoughts and what a big deal this is. >> absolutely. some of these hollywood figures, some of them have played heroes on television, but tonight it's about the real hero, those who do everyday acts of kindness not only to help others but to make this world a much better place. we have some individuals on the red carpet, what they've been telling us, sharing, their inspirational stories, here's
one of them. >> it's sort of like the holiday gift to the world to be reminded of the human spirit and how we don't take no for an answer when it's for something good. we must continue the furtherance of helping where we can, doing what you can with what you have where you are and what you've got. >> diane lane and others are giving of their time. the main message is this certainly is kind of a reset moment for everybody, perhaps even some of those recognized figures. andrew day and others performs, all of them saying tonight is about the real stars, the heroes. >> people who are changing lives. polo sandoval, thanks for reporting. up next, atlanta airport frozen as a power outage paralyzes the world's busiest airport. up next, we'll talk with a pair of travelers who have been stuck at the airport for more than six
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of good news here all day, is power at the concourse, power has been restored. georgia power says they're planning to restore power by midnight. we'll see if that's able to happen. right now, one of the top priorities, getting folks out of this airport and off the planes that are still sitting on this runway. i want to bring in evan amberson. his flight landed at 1:00. he just walked out of the doors. his mom came here to pick him up as he's home from college for christmas. tell us how it happened? >> we were on the runway for four hours and they taxied us to the area by the b terminal. and after about another hour of waiting, they pulled us up a set of stairs and we walked down the
stairs onto the tarmac. they had guys with the light making us a little pathway. we walked down the pathway and there was another set of stairs into the plane tube -- i'm not sure what it's called. >> the jet way. >> that's what i'm looking for. it was really steep and then when we got into the b concourse, everything was dark and there were people with flashlights. then i had to walk all the way to where the plane train would be, walk down the escalator and all the way over to ground transportation, but there was a huge line for the escalator and i walked up to the t concourse all the way over and got out to here. >> such an ordeal. what kind of communication were you getting while you were on that plane for five hours? >> so the pilot gave us updates every half hour. we really didn't know what was going on until about 2:15.
he was like, okay, the airport's out of power, we're going to be sitting here for a while. at first they didn't know -- they had a couple of ideas what had happened. they thought maybe an animal crawled into a transformer and exploded it or the construction crew had cut a power line is what we heard. but it was a good four hours of not hearing much. they tried to get a catering food in because the plane ran out of snacks and water that. never worked out. eventually we got communication from air traffic controllers who were using hand-held radios because they didn't have power. they told us we were going to taxi to the b con kour. >> and mom tells me sushi and steak dinner for evan as he's finally home. >> good for him. there's light at the end of the tunnel. thank you. we'll continue to follow this breaking news. the ripple effect of this ground
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thank you so much, sir, for being with us. what have you learned about this situation, what led up to it? >> well, we're working with the city. it is, you know, clearly a power outage that has affected the airport. what we do in a situation like this is work with the airlines, the airport, essentially just to ensure that the system is safe. and so, you know, obviously with no power, it's very difficult to operate within the airport, and so, you know, we imposed earlier today a ground stop for all flights going into atlanta, and we're working just to ensure that the airlines can continue to operate around the situation there, but we're really waiting for the airport and georgia power to come back to us as to when the situation is resolved>indeed, a fire that caused the power outage? >> that i don't know. you'll need to talk to the airport or the power company for that. >> i'm looking at tweets from people stuck on these planes. one of them being the former transportation secretary, anthony fox. one line stood out. he says, there is no excuse for lack of workable redundant power source. none. do you agree with that? >> well, you know, certainly for our air traffic facilities, we have backup power for all of the critical air traffic facilities. and i'm sure that the airport, you know, will be looking into the situation to see what happened. it is a situation for a critical infrastructure like this. you do want to see backup power, so that you can ensure that it will continue to operate under a variety of circumstances. but there is still a lot left we have to learn. >> michael huerta, thank you so much, the administration of the federal aviation administration. we appreciate you taking some
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airport. again, it happened about seven hours ago, and now we're hearing, slowly, power may be returning. the lights have come back on in at least one part of the airport, but all commercial flights into and out of atlanta are canceled for tonight. tom sater is here from the cnn weather center. tom, how is this impacting flights across the country? >> ana, we're a week away from christmas eve and volume is only going to increase throughout the week. flight explorer, flight tracker 24, flight aware. let's talk about the differences. first, i want to show you a typical image on flight explorer. and you can see the activity and what a major hub this is here in atlanta. look at the activity here. the inbound, the outbound flights, it's like a spirograph. now i'm going to show you what it looks like now. it was really something, about three hours ago. let's go to flight aware. and you'll be able to see a lot of dead space. i mean, there is a lot of open sky in this area. what we have noticed, though, which has been interesting, in and around the atlanta area, is
we're seeing significant travel and congestion down into some of the airports in florida. significant around tampa, orlando, jacksonville, all the way down toward miami. so many of those flights may be going there temporarily. this is not going to be an easy fix. i think this is going to take a while. >> it's not just going to take flights today, but probably the rest of the week, as you pointed out earlier. tom sater, thank you. more breaking news now, senator john mccain will miss the final vote on his own party's tax reform bill. a vote expected in just days now. he is, instead, returning home to arizona after spending several days hospitalized at walter reed medical center as he has been battling brain cancer. and he was there, recovering from the side effects of chemotherapy. now, president trump says he has spoken with the senator's wife. listen. >> i did speak to cindy mccain and i wished her well. i wished john well. they've headed back, but i understand he'll come if we ever needed his vote, which hopefully we won't. but the word is that john will come back if we need his vote.
>> we're also hearing from the senator's daughter, meghan mccain. she tweeted, "thank you to everyone for their kind words. my father is doing well and we are all looking forward to spending christmas together in arizona." senator mccain is 81 years old. meantime, out west, wildfires have taken a huge toll in southern california in the past couple of weeks. residents say the deadly fires have turned what was once a paradise into a war zone. sadly, like any war, there's a human cost. this is cory iverson. he died of burns and smoke inhalation while he was battling the thomas fire last week. firefighters held a solemn procession for their fallen comrade today. his procession traveled from ventura to san diego, where iverson worked as a firefighter. a woman also died trying to flee the flames of the thomas fire. just moments away now, the 11th annual "cnn heros: an all-star tribute" kicks off. in new york, this is what the red carpet looked like a short time ago. guest co-host kelly ripa will
join anderson cooper and a slew of celebrities to honor ten everyday people changing the world for the better. and as always, the star-studded gala will include the unveiling of cnn's hero of the year. here's a sneak peek. ♪ take a stand ♪ make a stand for what's right ♪ >> announcer: these are everyday heros. they inspire and change lives every day. >> we want to make sure that they make better choices when it comes to violence. >> when you lose your child, the love doesn't go away. it has to find a place. i'm lucky i found a place to put that love. ♪ you've got to walk that walk ♪ yes, you do >> announcer: they are truly what it means to be a hero. >> it is people helping people, the best way we know how. >> when they see me, they always feel happy. >> just give them a chance. they can do anything you ask them to do. >> announcer: tonight, cnn presents a very special live event. >> hey, i'm anderson cooper.
fbi before he fired him last february. setting off a new round of questions about whether the president's actions amount to obstruction of justice. >> well, if you take the president's own statement, his tweet that he knew michael flynn was lying to the fbi when he fired him, which means that he knew michael flynn had committed a felony when he asked comey to stop the investigation. and when he fired comey when he refused to do so and when he fired sally yates and when he called michael flynn in april to tell him to stay strong. all of these acts are to impede and obstruct justice. >> a source close to the white house acknowledging the severity of the misstep to "the washington post" which writes a person close to the white house involved in the case turned the saturday tweet a screw up of historic proportions that has caused enormous consternation in
to in legal circles about whether or not a lawyer would have sent a tweet or even dictated a tweet like the one that came from the president's feed on saturday. >> i think that's why a lot of people find this to be so remarkable, the motion that the president's lawyer would potentially get the president into more legal jeopardy. but john dowd, the president's lawyer over the weekend was very insistent he was the one who dictated this tweet to the social media director. he also acknowledges, as you pointed out, he essentially conflated two things that had previously been set by the president's special counsel ty cobb that mike flynn lied to not only the vice present but to the fbi as well. so there's been a fair amount of damage control over the weekend and throughout the day. but it's also just very striking this new argument that john dowd is making which is that the president cannot commit obstruction of justice.
argument that's very reminiscent of what richard nixon once says after leaving office. if the president does it, it's not illegal. it's not a crime. of course, that's an argument that hasn't been accepted in the past by an awful lot of people including the house of representatives which in the nixon case and bill clinton case included obstruction of justice among the articles of impeachment that they lodged against the presidents in those questions. now whether you can charge obstruction in a court of law may be a different thing. given that a president is in office and impeachment is the main remedy for what we'd call high crimes and misdemeanors, the house has clearly made clear it does consider obstruction to be something the president can be held accountable for. whether these actions count as obstruction of justice or not is a different question. that's something that is still up for debate. but it is funny to say or it is unusual to say that a president is simply, by virtue of being president, immune from the charges to begin with.
matt, let me bring you in here. you have been doing -- you have an incredible body of reporting around these questions. i want to ask you specifically about what we learned over the weekend about flynn's crime. we learned that flynn was charged with lying to the fbi, but in those charging documents, we learned that he was very far from some sort of rogue actor and i think we've learned since our program that his e-mails were in communication with k.t. mcfarland. a campaign aide and also getting direction from jared kushner. i believe your byline was on this story. "new york times," e-mails dispute white house claims that flynn acted independently on russia. mr. trump and his aides have suggested that his concern about flynn's potential legal jeopardy was influenced by the president's admiration for his former national security adviser. but the new details underscore the possibility that the
president may have been worried not just about mr. flynn but also about whether any investigation might reach into the white house and perhaps the oval office. this seems to get at the heart of the question that remains unknown which is why? why did mike flynn lie to the fbi about his russia contacts? any new leads today? >> yeah, no, you're absolutely right. because it's not clear that if mike flynn had said to the fbi or even to the vice president, yeah, i talked to the russian ambassador and told him to just cool his jets and don't worry about these new obama sanctions. we'll get into office and take care of this. it's not clear if he had said that that there would have really been a problem. now there's this theoretical logan act violation, which is never successfully been used to prosecute somebody which is this idea that private citizens can't be negotiating against the interests of the united states.
so if flynn had been truthful, would we have been in this boat? i'm not sure because there were a great many people in the transition who wanted to calm the russians down. because the russians were key to their foreign policy going forward. >> and ken dilanian, let me bring you in on this specific thread and ask you where the investigation into what the president knew and when he knew it stands right now. >> well, just to pick up on what matt was saying, bob bauer has an interesting column today in which he seems to argue that the reason flynn lied is because president trump may have told him to lie. obviously, that's an allegation unproven but he theorizes it's implausible that donald trump didn't know that mike flynn was going and talking to the russians about sanctions given that others on the campaign team knew and were staffing donald trump in mar-a-lago. that's, obviously, an open question for us, but, you know, bob mueller knows the answer to it because mike flynn had to offer a proffer before he made
the sweetheart deal to plead guilty to one felony charge and explain to the special counsel what he would testify to. not in every detail but in the broad strokes. and so to the extent that mike flynn knows anything about the trump campaign and collusion. he was involved to try to get hackers to find hillary clinton's missing e-mails? all of that is something robert mueller knows the details on and the only question is filling in the blanks, continuing to investigate. mike flynn knows whether jared kushner told the truth. he knows a lot and now as somebody else said, he gets up every day wondering how to please robert mueller and that cannot be a good thing for this white house. >> two more men who may wake up every day wondering how to please robert mueller are the white house counsel don mcgahn and the president's son-in-law jared kushner. let me read this from "the washington post" and we'll talk about it. the post writing, inside the secretive nerve center of the mueller investigation. the stelts morning arrival thursday, last thursday, white house counsel don mcgahn became
the latest in a string of high-level witnesses to enter the secretive nerve center of special counsel robert s. mueller's investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election. 20 hours later, mueller and his team emerged into public view to rattle washington with a dramatic announcement that former national security adviser michael flynn would plead guilty to lying to the fbi. mb g mcgann was scheduled to return friday but they postponed it to allow mcgann to help the white house manage the response to flynn's plea. as ken and matt have suggested, bob mueller knows exactly what don mcgahn told donald trump unless, i guess it's always possible he's exerted some sort of privilege suggesting his conversation is with the president, his client would be privileged. but it is likely that with mueller getting closer and closer to the president himself, we will find out in pretty short order what -- if the president's
tweet over the weekend saying that he was aware that mike flynn had lied to the fbi was something that don mcgahn had told him or not. how worried are all of these senior aides who were sort of in the vortex of this house of mirrors if you will, about whether or not they can simply keep their stories straight from one another's. >> officially, of course, the line here at the white house is that they're not worried. there's nothing to be worried about. the point that you make about don mcgahn raises two other issues. one, you have a number of the president's top advisers going in to talk to robert mueller. and we've been told that's going to happen in the coming weeks. number two, the fact that he had friday to come back and deal with the bombshell that flynn had plead guilty to lying to the fbi. i spoke to one source who is close to the president who called that development a very, very, very bad development. essentially acknowledging what the white house, what the
president's legal team won't say officially which is that, look, this is getting much closer to the west wing, to the president. now again, and i want to stress this point, the president's legal team says, look, michael flynn can't say anything damaging to the president because he doesn't know anything damaging. but there are concerned that even if you believe that line of thought, nicolle, there are concerns about what michael flynn might say to robert mueller. so i think the point can't be underscored enough. this is getting closer and closer to the president and that is making life very complicated for all of the top advisers here at the white house. >> peter baker, let me play you something. i've heard one of the concerns that the -- not just this current legal team but the legal teams past that have tried to serve this president in this investigation have had is that they're not always sure that they're getting the full story from the president and they're not always sure they're getting it first. this was the president with
lester holt. >> because my white house counsel don mcgahn came back to me and did not sound like an emergency of any -- didn't make it sound like he was, you know, and she actually didn't make it sound that way either in the hearings the other day like it had to be done immediately. this man has served for many years. he's a general. he's -- in my opinion, a very good person. i believe that it would be very unfair to hear from somebody who we don't even know and immediately run out and fire a general. >> what's so remarkable about that is, we now are going to have a conversation -- bob mueller is certainly investigating what the white house did after sally yates came to don mcgahn, white house counsel and said, hey, mike flynn is a potential target for blackmail from the russians. if you believe the president's twitter feed, he also learned at some point that mike flynn had lied to the fbi, even though
sally yates testified to congress that that's not exactly what she said to don mcgahn. but they have in the president someone who conflates interactions. someone who projects onto interactions certain things. i can't imagine that anyone in this white house is going to testify under oath or to bob mueller's investigators that there was nothing to worry about. they've been warned that flynn was a potential target for blackmail by russians. i imagine the things they did from that moment until the day he was fired are very much under close, close scrutiny. >> you are exactly right. a couple weeks and it was only after it was publicized in "the washington post" that they did fire general flynn at that point which, of course, always raised the question of why alarm bells didn't go off and why they didn't take it more seriously in a quicker fashion. it was the very first days of the administration. and they were busy and consumed by lots of different things. a lot of fires going.
some of which they had set themselves. and, you know, clearly they had not focused on this the way they would, you know, in hindsight the way you'd say they probably should have. mike flynn was there for 24 days in office. he's presumably going to have something because the special prosecutor isn't going to get him off a single charge like this given how much other evidence he seems to have accumulated unless he's getting something of value. the something of value would have to be during the campaign, the transition and during those 24 days. >> matt, i'm going to play chris ruddy but you'll understand why i'm doing this after. let's watch and talk about it on the other side. >> at the end of the day, my view is that robert mueller poses an existential threat to the trump presidency. he's gotten four major, two conviction, two plea agreements, lightning speed. >> that was one of the president's closest friends,
somebody he's known to talk to regularly. he's of news max, news organization. not really someone who would be predisposed to admire anything about bob mueller, but he described him as moving at lightning speed with four major, two convictions, two three agreements. so it's undeniable that bob mueller is working with some urgency to get to the bottom of this. >> yeah, and just look at what the white house is saying in response to these moves by bob mueller. they're saying, look. all these charges show no collusion. and, see, i'm totally exonerated. but that's the corner that this white house has been boxed into. their former national security adviser is under -- pleaded guilty. their former campaign chairman is under indictment. two former aides have been charged. there were not even a year into this administration. if the best argument you can make is, see, we're not in
cohoots with the russians to tip the, leks, it shows how much defense they're having to play here. bob mueller is looming large. the white house very much wants to get through this period at the end of the year where their senior staff are being interviewed. they very much want to be able to turn this around on bob mueller and say you've enjoyed everybody at the white house. you've done what you need to do. tell us we're not the focus. move on to whatever you need to do next. that's what they're hoping for. >> what are the odds of that happening? >> not very good. i think these white house interviews are about the obstruction of justice strand of the investigation which probably would not take as long as the collusion strand which is going to take a lot longer because in order to make that case, he may need the testimony of paul manafort. paul manafort may want to go to trial and that could take a year. it feels like there's a lot left to gathor the question of, did senior members of the trump campaign knowingly collude with the russian effort.
i don't think that's going to wrap up any time soon. >> the tweets will go on and on and on. >> kristen welker, ken dilanian, matt and peter baker, thank you. the law & order president rips the fbi. the assault on the top law enforcement agency and part of a disturbing pattern of seeking to destroy the credibility of anyone or any institution that doesn't bend to his will. and all in for roy moore. donald trump finally leading, but on behalf of a man accused of sexual misconduct by more than nine women, including one who was 14 years old. we'll show you who is following the president's lead just eight days out from election day. stay with us. your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement
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for an untraditional white house that serves a convention-busting president, there was something very traditional to be surmised in mike flynn's court documents on friday. when it came to what message to pass on to russian ambassador sergey kislyak about russian sanctions, mike flynn called his deputy katie mcfarland. when it came to what to tell the russians and others about a u.n. resolution about israel, flynn consulted jared kushner. flynn was not a free agent. he had not, to borrow a phrase, gone rogue. "the new york times" reporting, mr. flynn was in close touch with other senior members of the trump transition team both before and after he spoke with the russian ambassador sergey kislyak about american sanctions against russia. joining our panel today, kimberly atkins, chief washington reporter for the boston herald, now an nbc
contributor. michael steele, former chairman of the rnc. jason johnson, msnbc contribute our and amy stoddard, associate editor and columnist for real clear politics. let me start with you, chairman steele. this mike flynn fantasy that he was some rogue actor, some guy who lied but didn't have to does not compute. glen kessler from the post tweeted it's worth keeping in mind that flynn served in the military for 33 years and was trained to follow orders in a chain of command. >> and that's the key thing right there. given his closeness to the president, then candidate trump, there's no way he'd go outside of that bubble on a rogue mission on his own to act on behalf of or in the interest of donald trump without someone senior, if not donald trump himself, signing off on his actions. that is the nature of the man. that is how he's approached these things, and i think it's one of the key things that
mueller and his investigation teed off on in the very first instance. if you go back to the beginning of this, flynn has been a key player because he, of all the people outside of his family, trump's family, was the closest to the man. >> you convinced me in the makeup room where all the magic happens before the show that there may be some questionable storytelling about who authored that now controversial tweet on saturday saying that the president had to fire flynn because he lied to the vice president. and the fbi. you don't think for a minute that dowd wrote it? >> the probability that a lawyer protecting the president of the united states would author, i don't know if you pen or type a tweet, an incriminating tweet to get his boss in trouble. >> like how dumb are we? how dumb do you think we are? >> after consult with my lawyer frinds i've learned lay peel like us use the word plead.
john dowd would not have -- >> i was hacked. it wasn't me. >> that was anthony weiner's first response. someone else found this. like it doesn't -- it just strains any sense of credibility. we know this president. no one tells him what to say when it comes to twitter, otherwise they would have snatched it out of his hands eight months popping clearly this was him. he has a record of saying incriminating things. if this was just about the president incriminating himself and making clear he was engaging in obstruction of justice. mueller is going for something more. if we go by the president's words himself, he pretty much is in trouble. >> he wants it to stick. >> he's dealing in a fact-free zone. kimberly, let me bring you in on the question of the overlap because we have all of the people on the right saying, look, friday was an awesome day
for the president. no russian collusion. well, we don't know that. and the big whopper of a lie that we do know about was about russian collusion. it may have been bungled but it was about that meeting in trump tower. the big whopper of a lie told by the president and the only known unknown is who else was aware of the fact they were telling a lie. and not that it's a crime to lie to the press but this was sort of the ease with which -- and you're talking about all of them -- now john dowd his lawyers is involved in the lie about who sent out the tweet. how many white house aides could be incriminated just in the false statements about russia which could lead mueller to the doorstep of russian collusion. >> there was nothing exculpatory about what happened last week. all we know is there was one time that michael flynn lied, that he admitted to. we don't know all the other times he may have lied. we don't know who else may have
lied. we only know this as a tool used by robert mueller and its investigators to get to the bottom of everything that going on. it's more what we don't know. we have found incidents time after time after time where people in this administration are caught in bald-faced lies. like lying is something that happens with a fair amount of ease in this organization. so again, lying in itself is not necessarily illegal. but if you are covering something up, if you are consistently lying in order to cover something up. and the big question is, why did michael flynn lie about these -- his connections to ambassador kislyak. what was he trying to cover up at that time that was going on in order to -- in the first plaus? >> i worked in the white house. if you have k.t. mcfarland and jared kushner calling the plays on what should be commune kated with sergey kislyak, a meeting has been had. and the only question -- and the only question is, was the president in the room? >> yeah. >> it's pretty much the only
thing at this point. impossible tong think he wasn' aware of it. this is the other thing about flynn and whether it was just this one lie. we thought when papadopoulos got busted, that was bad enough. he had been wearing a wire. but between papadopoulos and now flynn, you can almost triangulate on anybody in this administration. like i know you talked to one of these guys. whenever you tell me, i can run it past either of these people and see if it's true. the noose is really getting tighter on so many different people and you can't keep pretending you weren't at meetings that everyone knows happened. >> as that noose tightens, individuals want to loosen it a little bit to include somebody else's neck. >> people now facing questions but are not really being scrutinized too much by the media are don mcgahn, white house counsel, who was in receipt of information -- here's what we knee know. he received information from sally yates. he was told mike flynn could be a target for blackmail from the
russians. based on the president's tweet is suggests don mcgahn, and the tape i justice showed you from the president's comments to lester holt, it suggests the president believes don mcgahn is the person who shared information with him about mike flynn's other potential legal or criminal liabilities. we don't know the extent of that. another name is rick dearborn. there's an article about how these may have been bungled contacts but contact in coordination with russia was attempted. "the new york times" reporting operative offered trump campaign kremlin connection using nra ties. wow. a conservative operative trumpeting his close ties to the national rifle association and russia told a trump campaign adviser last year that he could arrange a back channel meeting between donald trump and vladimir putin. the russian president, according to an e-mail sent to the trump campaign. that aide is another sitting staffer. the staff has to have a lot of
long lunches with lrawyers on k-street. >> they're running out of lawyers not already booked in this case. this is the thing if you look at the way the president talks about world leaders of any nation all over the globe, with the exception of vladimir putin and russia. if you look at 51, i think the count is now, of official contacts with trump campaign or trump administration with russians. it just doesn't sound like this was an energetic reset attempt with the russians. it sounds like more. the other thing is, if you look at that -- >> what do you mean more? it doesn't sound like a policy shift? it sounds -- >> we don't have evidence of collusion, but -- >> take collusion out of it. bungled coordination. >> way more than an attempt to just have a good relationship with russia starting on january 20 ppt the speculation now and the curiosity about that discussion between sally yates,
then still at doj and don mcgahn, where she relays this about flynn, is that he was actually in more danger than a violation of the logan act which in your first segment you talk about -- people have not been prosecuted under that. as someone who not only worked in the military but at the highest levels of the national security apparatus, flynn would know those conversations with the ambassador would be recorded and he probably could tell the fbi about them without lying. if he was saying, look, we're anti-sanction. it's on the cover of every paper. this isn't news. it's not a secret. the idea of him lying to the fbi, the idea of sally yates saying he could be compromised and the subject of blackmail is probably about something that is larger than a logan act violation. >> you agree with that? >> completely. there would be nothing wrong, they said throughout the campaign, we just want a better campaign with russia. >> donald trump said americans
are killers, too. his putin love knew no limits, michael steele. >> i don't know what the fascination is with putin, but he's got it bad, really bad. and i think it could be this thing that really, in the end, vexes him to the point where he'll be standing in front of the american people going -- he just won't have an explanation and that's why mueller is so important here because mueller is the one who is going to give context and explanation for a lot of this. >> that picture is going to be filled in eventually. we're following breaking news at the supreme court which has just ruled that the trump administration can enforce the travel ban. nbc news justice correspondent pete williams is standing by outside the supreme court. pete? >> this is version three of the so-called travel ban. this was announced in late september. this was the new restrictions on visas from certain countries. for the most part it continued the travel ban except puts an additional restriction on north korea, venezuela and other
countries. and after it began to be enforced, the lower courts in hawaii and maryland said it couldn't be enforced against close family members. grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. today the supreme court lifted that restriction allowing the government to enforce it completely. no exception for family members. only two justices, ruth bader ginsburg and sonia sotomayor said they would have kept those in place. >> this is a huge victory for the president but he has says this version doesn't go far enough. he likes version 1.0 and 2.0 better. does this give him some legal footing to go back to those more severe bans? >> no, i don't think so. those more severe bans are, to a large extent, a dead letter. but what i do think is the -- remember it was the supreme court that initially upheld the family restriction on theole travel ban. and said you had to have a restriction for close family members. now they're saying you don't.
this may be a sign that this latest version of the travel restriction, this visa ban which the government put in place after carefully checking how every country in the world handles the visa application for people who want to come here. it may be a sign that the supreme court is going to be much easier on the administration when this case gets here. it's a good sign for the administration, i think. >> did it come down simply seeing this as something that was clearly a president's -- any president's authority to do? >> we don't know because all -- it was a very brief order. it simply said the request for a stay on these injunctions is granted, and we'll see how it plays out in the lower courts. when it gets up here, the supreme court said we'll take a second look at it but they didn't give any reason for what they did today. >> pete williams at the supreme court, thank you. kimberly atkins, any surprise? >> i think that is a little surprising. we did see, as you says, in the past, particularly this one
restriction that the grandmother exception that it seemed overly broad and they left thatta -- allowed feem continue to do that. in that sense it's a bit of a surprise. last week the retweets of these purported anti-muslim videos, the first thing i thought of is that's going to make it harder for the administration to say we're not anti-muslim. we're doing this for national security. it seemed to be a big blow to that case. it may still be at the lower court about the fact the supreme court is going in the opposite direction is good news for the white house. >> and some courts have suggested that the president's tweets get to his state of mind but obviously not this supreme court. the fbi defends itself from the law & order president who spent the weekend and today smearing them. you won't want to miss this.
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among the most alarming tweets from the president this weekend, this one. after years of comey with the phony dishonest clinton investigation and more, running the fbi, its reputation is in tatters. we'll bring it back to greatness. that brought about swift condemnation from folks who know the fbi best from sally yates -- the fbi is in tatters? no. the only thing in tatters is the president's respect for the rule of law. the dedicated men and women of the fbi deserve better. this from former ag, eric holder. nope, not letting this go. the fbi's reputation is not in tatters. it's composed of the same dedicated men and women who have always worked there and do a great apolitical job. you'll find integrity and honesty at the fbi and not at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. the president railing against what sounds like every man and woman who serves in the fbi. >> and the idea, irrespective of
those individuals who put their life on the line and serving communities across the country, this is all about how he wants to create a narrative around these institutions of government and culture and society. and have -- reshaped in his image, in his mind thought if you will. people look at them the same way he does. the idea starting with the media. now a significant number of americans think the media are not good for america, anti-americans. and the only way it stops is if people just stop injefgesting t crazy and push back on it and call it what it really is. >> what is it? >> what it is is a president who is unhinged when it comes to these things. he see the world through his perspective centered around one person and one person only. it's about him. not about the leadership at the fbi, not -- >> a former diplomat said if an fbi agent gets hurt, this can be
traced back to donald trump. i heard that from former diplomatic security when he retweeted the anti-muslim videos. i've heard that from a lot of campaign reporters on the road with him when they were screaming and spitting at the press pen. we made a list of all the institutions and independent agencies. it's the fbi, the free press, independent judiciary, diplomats, including his own top diplomat, rex tillerson. i guess he called him a moron. maybe that one stands equal. congress. all the congressional leaders and political opponents like hillary clinton. i want to read something from "the new york times" which wrote in an editorial. he's casting the men and women of the fbi as unreliable if not worse, just as he has previously done with cia agents, federal judges, scientists, congressional budget office analysts and journalists among others. the president wants to undercut just about anybody who is an independent source of information. it's a classic tactic of autocrats who people -- as
people who have spent time in modern russia, china or venezuela can tell you. the attacks on institution that check his power continue. amy, what do we do? >> oh, i don't have that answer for you, but i can tell you this. i think, obviously, in the campaign, his own supporters knew he had authoritarian impulses and voted for him anyway. he won this election by 77,000 votes against a very flawed candidate who i think skirted the law herself. and here we are. but he continues to speak to a third of the country with a very passionate authoritarian style. and the courts, the congress, the constitution be damned if it's the wrong day for any of those. i will say that i can only imagine the republican lawmakers that i have covered all these years and know well, michael, how loudly they would be screaming if barack obama went after the fbi and eric holder
did not stand up for them. it is really quite a day for jeff sessions to be hiding in excellence. number one -- and i'm not sticking up for comey, but this is something to think about. a year ago the guardian reported in november of 2016 that the fbi was completely pro-trump and anti-hillary. and they thought she was a corrupt criminal. if you look back, the reason that comey made all these mistakes and soiled his reputation is because even though you're not supposed to comment on cases he was worried that leaks would come out about him closing that case which is why he gave the july 5th press conference. later he had the october 11th, i think it was, letter. both times he stepped in it because he was so terrified of his own political skin that letter on, leaks would come out from the fbi, people who were anti-hillary. so at that time, obviously, the trump campaign was very pro-fbi. but i think it's a really sad day for jeff sessions and chris ray at the fbi and the doj that they can't stick up for these
men and women? >> where is chris ray, jeff sessions? these men and women carry out missions directed by the director of the fbi who was, i think, confirmed 100 to nothing. and part of the reason we're here is also because of what you just said. the people thought hillary's private e-mail server was the same as donald trump's assault on democracy. it is not. it's just a bad thing. >> and at this point, it's not autocratic impulses. this is goals. we're all hanging by this thread that one day we won't have a saturday night massacre. he's just going to get rid of mueller and the republicans in congress will twiddle their thumbs and say we should have done something about it. two things are problem 80. it's not just attacking these and saying i am the law. i can command everything one way or another. but it's this weird way the president sort of turns all politics into this m.c. esher
painting. you have liberals cheering for the fbi, an organization that's gone after -- and so people don't know who they can support because this is a dangerous president. so all of this, i -- it confuses public discourse, endangers our democracy and makes it problematic to know who our real allies are. >> make something of these, our top diplomats apolitical, putting them on team america and leaving donald trump over here trying to get vladimir putin's abs? >> that may be the case if it wasn't such damage being done. you have, look, donald trump, when he tweets and makes these statements, two audiences in mind. himself and his most ardent supporters. he doesn't care what other people think about them. he doesn't care what the effects of them are. if you have a substantial percentage of the american people who think the fbi is a political organization just out to get him and it's corrupt and part of the swamp, if you have
people when he tweeted those videos. he didn't consider what was that going to do to his muslim ban case or relationship with the uk, one of our most important allies. or american diplomats. he doesn't think about any of that. he is pushing it back, identifying an enemy who was a problem for him and i don't think he cares about the consequences or at very least doesn't think about them. >> he doesn't think. but when we come back, going all in on roy moore. donald trump throws his full support behind the accused sexual molester and the senate majority leader walks back his opposition. and a republican who thinks this is just going to blow over is sadly mistaken. we'll bring you the latest on that alabama race. (avo) when you have type 2 diabetes, you manage your a1c, but you also have a higher risk of heart attack or stroke. non-insulin victoza® lowers a1c, and now reduces cardiovascular risk. victoza® lowers my a1c and blood sugar better than the leading branded pill.
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allegations to be true? >> i believe the women, yes. >> then how could you let the people of alabama decide? the president today made it official endorsing roy moore, and it's worth reminding our audience, moore has been accused of sexual misconduct with multiple teenaged girls. michael steele where are we? what is happening. i'll read your tweet. it's depressing me. your tweet made me feel better. your refusal to acknowledge you just endorsed a pedophile for the vote is a real -- >> yes. i wish republicans would find something of a backbone or any other anatomy part to allow them to say the real thing. a dear price to pay for the party next year. women and men around the country are looking at this going i cannot believe that you value the vote of a pedophile over
leading this country, over protecting women, who finally are finding their voice to come out and speak to these types of behaviors and the aggression against them, and this political party, which has stood on the moral high ground for lo these 30-plus years, sanctimoniously telling people how to live their lives, should do and shouldn't do, sank moectimoniously judgin people because are where they live, now can sit back and say, we want people to decide what they want to do. really? this is it? >> we used to be part of that party, and how did it come to this? i agree with you. all of those trespasses led to this being in women's uteruses, telling people who to marry and who to love what to do in the bedrooms put us on this corrupt panel. the least conservatives things we did as a party. conservatism means out of my life. what i thought it meant when i
as young and impressionable. how did we get here. because over a period of time we've ignored the base. when they were saying, you promised a., b. and the c., we didn't do it. leadership didn't do it. that was a cauldron boiling and then the leadership decided to get down with the money, get down with the deals, with different relationships that took us on a pathway that here we are now. there is no anchor. there's no more anchor to the party that allows it to look at what the president is saying and has done in this regard and say, wait a minute. that's not who we are. we saw that when the president came down that escalator, stood before the american people and called out the mexican-american community talking about rapist and whatnot. we had a document. oh, no. we'll have a different relationship with latin-americans and all americans of hispanic origin. oh, no. toss it out of the window because that bright, shining object represented by trump was more alluring and more promising
than actually going out and committing yourself to the american people. >> there's another aspect to this, too. donald trump and roy moore wouldn't are doubling down on this if they didn't think they could win. >> right. >> so that's the problem. you have a lot of people -- i stalk to people who say, you don't like mcconnell, and we don't like that mitch mcconnell is telling the people of alabama what to do. that makes me support roy moore even more. these things are probably fake. it's fake news. it there wasn't a contingent of the elech tlctorate that would up this kind of things -- >> seems like the ultimate day of reckoning for the smear that was fake news. if donald trump smears the media long enough, the media told their neighbor, roy moore molested that are child when they were 14, they won't believe them. >> more basic. look at voters down in alabama, a lot of people in this country, you have to understand from an electoral standpoint a lot of
conservative republicans already think the democratic party is inherently immoral, the party of sharia law and black lives matter and gay marriage. there are people who believe two adult men having a consensual relationship is more offensive than what roy moore was accused of. to those people voting for him is still a better decision. >> i make that case for tribalism. the ones that do believe the allegations still would never vote for a democrat. choosing that. >> exactexactly. >> i argue what they did for bill clinton and ted kennedy, no one trying to stop the fact tribalism prevail, neither party. >> sneak in one more break and belong be right back. to reach your business goals it takes more than buzz words. it takes tools. tools to help you work smarter on "your business" we'll focus on techniques to attract customers and drive growth. getting you and your business to the next level.
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so we know how to cover almost swe've anything.st everything even a "red-hot mascot." [mascot] hey-oooo! whoop, whoop! [crowd 1] hey, you're on fire! [mascot] you bet i am! [crowd 2] dude, you're on fire! [mascot] oh, yeah! [crowd 3] no, you're on fire! look behind you. [mascot] i'm cool. i'm cool. [burke] that's one way to fire up the crowd. but we covered it. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ but on the inside, i feel like chronic, widespread pain. fibromyalgia may be invisible to others, but my pain is real. fibromyalgia is thought to be caused by overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. i'm glad my doctor prescribed lyrica. for some, lyrica delivers effective relief
for moderate to even severe fibromyalgia pain. and improves function. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions, suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worse depression, unusual changes in mood or behavior, swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or blurry vision. common side effects: dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain, swelling of hands, legs and feet. don't drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don't drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who've had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. with less pain, i can do more with my family. talk to your doctor today. see if lyrica can help. may be crazy, sending roy moore to the senate is the craziest idea. what happens if he wins? >> goes to the senate, serves as a united states senator. >> no. >> yes.
>> phil mattingly, thank you so much. dana bash who used to run up and down those halls for years and years and years. phil has talked to folks on both sides of the aisle. confident that the house will get to this and nancy pelosi was so key in brokering this deal why is she standing there now for four-plus hours and saying no? >> i saw you write that down and because you're you, is why you picked up what you did about nancy pelosi. to people at home, it makes no sense. >> not at all. >> because she's getting attention for the issue she's upset is not in there. she understood because she is as sort of seasoned and tough as a legislator as they come, that at the end of the day, we saw what happened in the senate a few weeks ago.
they tried to use the immigration issue as leverage for keeping the government open and it didn't work. >> shut the government down. >> it didn't work out so politically, at least in the short term, for democrats. nancy pelosi is making -- using the megaphone that she has by saying, you know what? i want to get a promise from the republicans that if the senate brings this up the house will as well. she's trying to shine a light on this issue. why? politically. phil touched on this. there are many people in her party who are furious about giving uch the leverage of immigration, giving up the leverage of the dreamer issue and letting this package that a lot of things a lot of people want from military spending, health community centers, disaster relief for hurricanes. lot of people in the conservative movement and even
democrats who don't like it, because it is a lot of government spending which many of them campaigned for for years. at the same time they're taking baby steps. the question after this happens, and assuming it will ultimately pass the house and our government will stay open and there will be a two-year budget deal, then when the senate turns to immigration, which technically is supposed to be tomorrow when they start debate, how does that play out? that's a very big question. >> that's what we watch for tomorrow on immigration. more breaking news out of the white house. senior aide to president trump has resigned after two ex-wives went public with accusations of domestic abuse. i'm talking about rob porter. trump's white house staff secretary. he denies these allegations but is stepping down anyway. dana is with me. i also want to bring in jeff zeleny, our stand-in senior white house correspondent.
jeff, rob porter has denied this entirely but yet he chose -- he's left the white house. tell me more. >> indeed, brooke, fairly abrupt decision to announce his resignation. the white house staff secretary is a very important person in the west wing, largely because they handle the information flow into and utilize of the office. lot of proximity to the president. he was an aide fo orrin hatch and others on capitol hill. he did announce he was resigning today in the wake of that report of verbal and physical abuse of his two ex-wives. this is first reported by the daily mail. this is something that has been percolating a bit. yesterday several white house aides stood by him and said they were going to support him. and then today he resigns when some photographs were published
also online of a black eye of one of his former wives. let's take a look at this statement. these allegations are false. i took the photos given to the media 15 years ago. and the reality behind them is nowhere close as to what's being described. he goes on to say i've been transparent and truthful about these vile claims but i will not further engage publicly with a coordinated smear campaign. he is also having a personal relationship, we hear, with hope hicks, white house communications director, who, of course, is very close to the president. that was one of the reasons he was viewed so highly inside the west wing here. it was one of the reasons he was being protected. certainly interesting he announced he was resigning today. we're not certain the date of the resignation. it will happen some point in the future. >> if have you this photographic
routine. everyone is hired at the white house. then they go through background checks for security clearance. that's when this was learned, some point last year about abuse allegations. it's all surfacing in the last couple of days at the daily mail.com report and then he decided to resign, rather abruptly, i would say, today, brooke. >> what are you thinking on this? he's saying he didn't do it, but he's leaving. a big job. >> a very big job. look, as jeff was saying, it's too early to know the real details. i don't know that we'll ever know the real deal. in talking to people who worked with rob porter in the white house and before that on the hill, but particularly in the white house, they're pretty surprised by this. those who interact with him as a colleague are pretty surprised. they call him extremely soft
our mj lee was talking with senator hatch and he said his statement -- he says this. i'm heartbroken by today's allegations and every action i've had with rob, he has been courteous, professional and respectful. i do not know the details of his personal life. domestic violence in any form is abhorrent. i am praying for rob and those involved. however, the white house released a statement from senator hatch in his name saying it is incredibly discouraging to see such a vile attack on such a decent man. shame on any publication that would print this and shame on the politically motivated, morally bankrupt character as issins that would attempt to sully a man's good name. >> boy, that's trumpy. so was he saying that? >> his printed statement released by the white house in the senator's name. we are told that the senator,
once his office learns more about this, wanted to release their own. >> interesting. >> the white house clearly trying to put a different light, blame the media light on this. and, again, we have to point out one of the people at the center of this is the white house communications director hope hicks in charge of messaging. we are told by multiple people familiar with the situation that she is having a personal relationship with rob porter. that one of the complicating dynamics but certainly orrin hatch wishing his former colleague well but stepping way back from what the white house is trying to say in his name. brooke? >> jeff, thank you very much. dana, thank you. next, marching orders, secretary of defense james mattis weighing in on president trump's request for a military parade as more and more veterans are speaking out, saying no to any sort of parade. one senator calling it cheesy. >> also, kim jong-un's youngest
sister now being sent to lead the north korea delegation at the winter olympics in south korea. what we know about her background and the role she has in her family. keep in mind, this is happening as the vice president announces added pressure on north korea ahead of the olympic bes. [burke] at farmers, we've seen almost everything so we know how to cover almost anything. even a "red-hot mascot." [mascot] hey-oooo! whoop, whoop! [crowd 1] hey, you're on fire! [mascot] you bet i am! [crowd 2] dude, you're on fire! [mascot] oh, yeah! [crowd 3] no, you're on fire! look behind you. [mascot] i'm cool. i'm cool. [burke] that's one way to fire up the crowd. but we covered it. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪
what can a president [ do in thirty seconds? he can fire an fbi director who won't pledge his loyalty. he can order the deportation of a million immigrant children. he can threaten an unstable dictator armed with nuclear weapons. he can go into a rage and enter the nuclear launch codes. how bad does it have to get before congress does something?
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washington down pennsylvania avenue. i don't know. we'll have to try to top it. >> before we talk about the political implications of this parade, i want to take you back to the end of the gulf war. this is what was being broadcast right here on cnn the last time the u.s. held a military parade in 1991. >> announcer: this is cnn. >> the parade featured military equipment, the patriot missile got the loudest applause. you'll remember during the war it got the name scud buster. >> this parade meant we're finally home. this is finally over and the american people appreciated what we did. >> they, to me, meant that going through operation desert storm and desert shield was worth it. and made me realize just how much, you know, the people back here, you know, are standing up for us. and appreciated what we were doing. >> good to see the country
showing their support. i think it's -- hey. it's good to see my daughter, you know. >> there was controversy over having a victory parade from anti-war activists to arab representatives who said there should be no celebration over the deaths of more than 100,000 iraqis. some even called this a campaign rally for george bush. >> let's have a conversation. former speaker for new york city council and steve lonagan former republican for the u.s. senate and he served in ted cruz's campaign. great to have both of you on. we talked to two veterans last hour. you said both your fathers served in the military. chris, just starting with you, do you think it is a great idea, honor our military, have a parade or too much of a trump show? >> i'll quote my father, larry quinn, '91, world war ii veteran in the navy.
he think it's ridiculous, a waste of money. honestly, he believes and i believe him, victories are to be celebrated, and veteran's day. the president called for this parade because he had fun in france, liked all the big guns and troops parade in front of him. this really smacks of the president liking the way the north korean leader dictates a little too much. this seems about donald trump and making sure everyone knows he has the biggest button and not about veterans' sacrifices. >> what do you think, steve? >> coming out of new york city, which gives america the biggest military parade every single year, called fleet week, where we parade our united states navy up the river and thousands enjoy seeing that, there's no reason we couldn't show the great job the president is doing rebuilding our military,
sequestration, demilitary strength. it's on the mend, getting stronger every day. the world knows it. why not show off to our military how proud we are of that. >> steve just told the truth of what this parade is about, showcasing what republicans believe is donald trump's successes. that's very different than fleet week, a longstanding tradition to give the men and women of the navy and marines a break and celebration. >> longstanding parade, christine. longstanding parade. >> it's more of a gathering than a parade, fleet week, but longstanding, yes. that's about the men and women. as you said, steve, this parade the president proposing would be about saluting the president's so-called good work. political, serving and supporting military. >> saluting the greatness of our military, of sacrifice so much in this longstanding effort in the middle east. losing men and women every single year. enough is enough. let's tell the world we have the most powerful military on the planet earth and they should stand down. >> people shouldn't need a parade that salutes the
president, as you said, the president's so-called successes to know that america is the greatest might morally and militarily in the world. we are losing that posture and that position and people seeing us that way because of the president's behavior. >> our military is getting stronger every day. we're building our military forces. isis is disintegrating because of this military. their morale is being reboosted after being demoralized under barack obama and sequestration efforts and it's about time we show the world what we're made of. >> the world knows. >> the world doesn't know. you think the world knows. >> let's listen to the secretary of defense who jumped in to the white house press briefing and offered this when asked about it. >> as far as the parade goes again, the president's respect, his fondness for the military, i think, is reflected in him asking for these options. we've been putting together some options. we'll send them up to the white house for decision.
>> general was on last hour who pointed out more of the sort of reticence. he was of your camp saying, listen, if our military is a bunch of bad asses, pardon, we don't need to show the world. we just know we are. let me add one more piece of sound. republican senator lindsey graham weighed in as well. >> i'm not looking for a soviet-style hardware display. that's not who we are. that's cheesy and shows weakness, i think, quite frankly. a parade where can all say thank you and honor them would be fine. i would like to see kids marching, honor military families. >> okay. i just wanted to get those voices in the conversation as well. let's move on to our former vice president, joe biden, here at cnn last night. he was on with chris cuomo and offered this when it comes to the president. >> i just marvel at some of the
things he says and does, like, what, two days ago, anybody that didn't stand up and clap for him was unamerican and maybe even treasonous? >> he said it was tongue in cheek. democrats can't take a joke. >> let me tell you, he's a joke. >> that's been the headline, coming from former vice president, calling the president a joke. >> coming from a guy who plagiarized an entire speech, people seem to forget. you have to question who the joke is. biden is irrelevant. nobody cares what he has to say. and the president, again, is presiding over the greatest economy we've seen in decades, rebuilding of our american military, great economic growth, stock market growth despite recent corrections and an economy second to none over the last 30 years. >> wow! >> huh? >> so, obviously, bringing up the speech from the labor secretary is really having to
reach back in history, to criticize joe biden. >> you learn from this. >> you do. but joe biden has moved on and served his country well. if you look at recent polling on the former vice president, it shows that many, many americans care what he has to say and what he thinks. let's stop for a second. there is all this upsetness that joe biden has said this about the president. let's remember all the horrible things that donald trump said and did regarding president obama's citizenship. he, in essence, called him an illegitimate american citizen, constantly, disrespectfully demanding his birth certificate, leading the so-called birther's movement. you want to talk about somebody being disrespectful to the president of the united states and to the office of the presidency, it is our present president, donald trump. not joe biden, a man who has dedicated his life to service to this country. he has sacrificed in the light that have. >> i hope joe biden runs for
president trump, so donald trump can beat him and send him to retirement once and for all. >> i don't think that will be the outcome. >> thank you, steve and chris. appreciate both of you. kim jong-un's sister becomes the member of the dynasty to ever cross the border into south korea. what is behind her history-making trip to the olympics and what we actually know about her, coming up. for your heart... your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement
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high-profile delegation, his sister, kim jo-yung, first time any member of the kim dynasty has set foot on south korean soil. let's talk it over with i have a zillion questions for you. first and foremost, what do we even know about the sister? >> we know she's probably the youngest of kim jong-il's children. we don't even really know that. we don't know the number. >> of siblings? we don't even know? >> we don't know. most korea watcher think she is the most capable of kim jong-il's children. which means she would be the absolute ruler of north korea if she weren't a woman because it's a very male dominated society. so, therefore, that puts her out of the running. because it puts her out of the running, it also means she's not competition for her brother, kim jong-un, who is actually in charge. and that means she's become extremely influential.
even, for instance, the number two in the regime. he's not that important. kim jong-un tells him what to do. he actually listens to his sister. >> with the sister, as we said, the first time someone in the family has set foot on south korean soil, are they worried about her interfacing with south koreans? would there be any danger? would they want to keep her, i don't know, if a private homestead of staying in some big hotel? >> i think both the south koreans and north koreans think the same way. they want to control all interactions that she has. you know, she could be talking to people like moon jae-in, the president of south korea, but it will be under very, very defined circumstances and they certainly don't want her talking to ordinary south koreans or to people who just go to the olympics. this will be one of the most closely choreographed items at the olympics. >> it's possible -- i was asking you in commercial break we know
vice president pence will be over there for the opening ceremony. you could have -- we don't know the seating chart but you could have this sister and the u.s. vice president sitting certainly under the same roof. >> yeah. well, this is important because mike pence, the vice president, said look we're not ruling out discussions with north korea while he's at the olympics. he's not trying to set them up. moon jae-in, who does want to see a dialogue between north korea and the u.s. could very well try to arrange something, make it look accidental. all sorts of possibilities that can occur. you know, this is south korea, after all. anything can happen. especially at a very volatile time like this. and if pence does meet kim jong-il -- jo-yung, it will be one of the biggest stories this year. >> even korean language -- someone explained to me if she started talking to someone in
south korea, it's almost like someone like us talking to someone from the 1950s. we speak the same language but there's a barrier. >> even more different than that. what's happened is that you have two koreas. they sit side by side. but they've had very different developments since 1948. so, people -- the dialects are different. word usage is different. there are very difficult communications problems. we're seeing this now with the woman's ice hockey team fielded by both north korea and south korea, same team. they're having problems talking to each other. this is going to be -- you know, this is one of the most fascinating things. yeah, they're all koreans but they're two very different societies. >> so noteworthy. gordon chung, thank you so much. we'll watch this limp beings very closely. appreciate you. breaking news out of the white house. senior aide to president trump up and resigning after two ex-wives have gone public with accusations of domestic abuse.
he is denying this, by the way. just in, was the white house aware of the allegations? a live report on that is next. i have type 2 diabetes. i'm trying to manage my a1c, and then i learn type 2 diabetes puts me at greater risk for heart attack or stroke. can one medicine help treat both blood sugar and cardiovascular risk? i asked my doctor. he told me about non-insulin victoza®. victoza® is not only proven to lower a1c and blood sugar, but for people with type 2 diabetes treating their cardiovascular disease, victoza® is also approved to lower the risk of major cv events such as heart attack, stroke, or death. and while not for weight loss, victoza® may help you lose some weight. (announcer) victoza® is not for people
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more breaking news out of the white house now. senior aide has just resigned. staff secretary has been accused of domestic abuse by two ex-wives. he has vehemently denied these allegations. >> reporter: that's right, brooke. these allegations have come out in the media in the last 24 to 48 hours or so. i'm told by someone in the white house that staffers inside and officials were generally aware of the nature of these allegations made against rob porter for months now, but they did not know, quote, all the
gory details, this person tells me, that have surfaced in these recent media reports. that would be of interest to people in the white house, of course. because not only of the nature of these allegations but in regards to porter's security clearance n his role as staff secretary, it's certainly not a role that is well known to most people outside of the white house and this complex, but that was a role that required porter to be in touch with a lot of the documents that are coming in and out of the oval office, not only executive orders but once john kelly became chief of staff, his role really grew larger and came to encompass more things, briefing clips and whatnot that were brought to the president, but someone with a security clearance that would have to deal with the nature of those things, the security of those things here, brooke. right now we're told that staffers inside the white house were generally aware about these allegations that had been made against porter. >> kaitlyn, thank you. he's denying it, but he's resigning. more on the russia
intelligence investigation. say they go may have to enforce subpoenas to talk to former campaign manager lewandowski and chief strategist bannon. [ clock ticking ]
what can a president do in thirty seconds? he can fire an fbi director who won't pledge his loyalty. he can order the deportation of a million immigrant children. he can threaten an unstable dictator armed with nuclear weapons. he can go into a rage and enter the nuclear launch codes. how bad does it have to get before congress does something? he's a nascar champion who's she's a world-class swimmer who's stared down the best in her sport. but for both of them, the most challenging opponent was... pe blood clots in my lung. it was really scary. a dvt in my leg. i had to learn all i could to help protect myself. my doctor and i choose xarelto®
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investigation into russia meddling. informing schiff he will not voluntarily return before the committee, corey lewandowski. >> page peyton, good to see you. >> good to see you, brooke. >> bannon saving what he has to say for mueller and schiff says not so fast. >> now we're seeing the congressional investigations play out in many ways, the way we've seen some of the special counsel's investigation play out. because subpoenas will now be served and presumably enforced if they do not come to terms and voluntarily appear in front of these committees and produce whatever documents are being requested. once the subpoena is served the lawyer force bannon, they can file an objection to that. it will eventually go to court for resolution, as to whether or not they actually have to appear and provide whatever documents are being requested.
>> okay. that's those two guys. let's talk about the president. because the latest, you know, sort of strand on the story of will he, won't he talk to, you know, bob mueller, mueller's team, special counsel when they ask -- they haven't yet. his lawyer are trying to avoid that potentially. to me what's being overlooked here is the rationale to why trump wants to talk to him from our reporting page. it's because the president thinks he is a master at these sorts of things because of his experience with lawsuits and the fact that he has been in so many depositions. >> brooke, i have represented many people, high-level executives, political figures, never the president. but many people who were targets of a criminal investigation or subject of a criminal investigation. and they think if they just had the chance, they could go in there and explain it all to the investigators. they could talk themselves out of being charged. that makes absolutely no sense.
especially in a case like this. this is not the beginning of the investigation where the special counsel's office is simply trying to gather they already have a lot of facts. the purpose is to confront him with those facts. the missing link is the intent of the president. the only way the special counsel's office really gets to that intent is to interview the president. so there's no legal reason for doing it. any lawyer worth his salt or her salt would never let the president go into an interview like that. >> so you talked about your different kinds of clients who went in and thought they could talk themselves out of it. in this case we're talking about the president. is it hubris? >> absolutely. what are you going to do? convince the special counsel's office that they're bronco whatever conclusions they've made? we don't know what conclusions they've made but they have reviewed a lot of evidence. they know things the president presumably does not know about what other witnesses like
michael flynn may have said during his cooperation with the special counsel. so you don't go into an interview and think you can have a man to man showdown when you don't know what the other side has. there's a no win scenario for the president by going into a meeting like that. >> let me play one piece of sound. this is from congressman trey gowdy. he is blaming the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein for what he sees as bob mueller's overreach. >> fear that jurisdiction may wander a bit. i think it already has. it has already wandered a little bit but i would not blame bob mueller. i would blame whoever drafted the jurisdiction and the chart per empowered him. if you look at it, it says matters that may arise from the investigation. what in the heck does that mean? is that a bank robbery in topeka, kansas? >> and that came from rod rosenstein? >> yes, ma'am.
>> what's the root of the message? is that another example of trying to get out ahead and weaken the mueller investigation? >> i think so. if there is an obstruction charge or a money laundering charge or something that arises out of the investigation but is not directly related to the russia part of the investigation, then you may have trump and some of his supporters in the white house and in congress saying, wait a minute. this was something the special counsel was not even supposed to look at and because his direction was so poorly drafted and vague, he was able to, as representative gowdy said, wander into these areas. but that's necessary for an investigation like this. we don't know what evidence the special counsel will uncover during the investigation until the investigation is over. so you have to give the special counsel some leeway to pursue those leads and there's always a check. always a check by deputy attorney general who can say no. don't go there. >> thank you so much. coming up next, a search scandal
that has now turned into an ethics investigation. have you heard about this nashville mayor's story? she is accused of getting her lover's daughter a job with the city. we have that scoop coming up. your brain is an amazing thing. but as you get older, it naturally begins to change, causing a lack of sharpness, or even trouble with recall. thankfully, the breakthrough in prevagen helps your brain and actually improves memory. the secret is an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember. so we know how to cover almost we've anything.st everything
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also under scrutiny, whether she used her power to get her lover's daughter a job. >> at this point she has said she isn't going anywhere. she plans to remain in her post despite the increasing pressure on her in the wake of having an extra-marital affair with the head of her security detail. part of that comes from the new special committee. that was established by the metro council last night. the resolution that formed committee passed overwhelmingly. the committee will be made up of xoums will investigate over whether mayor barry misused funds while having this affair. there have been various trim that's she took while the man she was having an affair with, sergeant rob forrest, was also on the trip. barry's spokesperson released a lengthy statement outlining each trip in question and detailing
what was paid for by taxpayers and what was paid for personally by the mayor. now, in addition to her travel schedule, the hiring of sergeant forrest's daughter to the legal department is raising some legal questions. barry does admit that she personally recommended macy amos for the job but several other people also recommended her as well. he also said that it is his decision to make and that she was qualified and the department is completely independent from the player's office. in addition to the on special committee, the attorney general's office is looking into this, the tennessee bureau of investigations are all looking into the mayor's conduct. but there are some signs literally that she still has support in nashville. two billboards popped up on busy highways that said we love our mayor. and as if the scandal wasn't enough, the mayor and her family are still recovering from the tragic death of her 22-year-old son max of an apparent drug
ex-wives and ex-girlfriend. how does the fbi fit into that. we just learned some very interesting if not completely clear information from the head of the fbi director. i want to bring in chris cillizza, who is here with me to discuss this. there is a lot to unpack here from russian meddling in the election and how that feaffects the midterms coming up. the timeline had it comes to rob porter, you know what, pause for a moment, chris, let's return to the testimony at the senate intelligence committee. >> -- they're out in the community, and i can tell you the community values what they do on the island. >> thank you. and an op-ed by a number of former intelligence analysts call the nunes memo and the release, quote, one of the worst cases of politization of intelligence in modern american history, unquote. you said you had concerns about that memo. i know you can't get into the
sure i stay on the unclassified side. we have seen intentions to have an impact on the next election cycle here. >> director coats? >> yes, we have. >> anyone else? admiral rogers? >> yes, i think this would be a good topic to get into greater detail in this afternoon. >> according to news reports, there are dozens of white house staff with only interim security clearances still. to include jared kushner until last week, to include white house staff secretary rob porter, who i would assume would have regularly reviewed classified documents as part of his job. director coats, if someone is flagged by the fbi with areas of concern into white house staff with interim clearances, should those staff continue to have access to classified materials? >> let me first just speak in
can be in a position to receive or not receive. so i think that's something that we have to do as a part of our security clearance review. the process is broken. it needs to be reformed. as senator warner has previously said, it is not evolution, it is revolution, we have 700,000 backups so we have situations where we need people and places, but they don't yet have that. your specific question, i think, i would like to take up in the classified session. >> chairman, i'm over my time, thank you, director coats. >> thank you, mr. chairman. director coats, director pompeo, admiral rogers, you all talked about evidence that the russians would intend to do things that would be active in our elections. i really -- it seems to me two divisions of that activity.
different from state to state. that's a strength, not a weakness in my view. but what are some of the things we can do to be more helpful to local election officials and encouraging them to share information when they think their systems are being attack ed getting more information to them than we have. there is a lot of criticism in the last cycle that we knew that some election systems were being attacked and didn't tell them they were being attacked and so the three of you, in any order, let's just do the order i started with, director coats, director pompeo, admiral rogers, any thoughts you have on what we can do to protect and how quickly we need to act this year. >> the intelligence community is aware. we want to provide a -- collect and provide as much information
as we can so we can give the warnings and alerts so we can share information back and forth with local and state and election processes with the federal government. department of homeland security, department of the fbi, obviously were involved, given these are domestic issues. but we do look to every piece of intelligence we can gather so we can provide warnings. it is an effort that i think the government needs to put together at the state and local level and work with those individuals engaged in the election process in terms of the security of their machines, cyberplays a major role here. i think it is clearly an area where federal government, foreign collection, potential threats and interference, warnings, and then processes in terms of how to put in place security and secure that to ensure the american people that their vote is sanctioned and
well, and not manipulated in any way whatsoever. >> director pompeo. >> i was referring to the former, the first part of your question, not truly to the latter, the things we have seen russia doing to date are information types of warfare, the things that senator warner was speaking out most directly earlier. with the respect to the cia's role, we have two missions, one is to identify the source of this information, make those here aware of it so they can do the things they need to do, whether that is fbi or dhs. so that they have that information, we're working diligently along many threat factors to do that. and then the second thing is we have some capabilities offensively. to raise the cost for those who would dare challenge the united states elections. >> and after admiral rogers, i may want to come to you and see on the same, sharing information, any impediments to sharing that information with local officials, any reason we
wouldn't want to do that. admiral rogers? >> the only other thing i would add and this is also shaped by my experience as cybercommand where i defend networks, one thing we generally find in that role, many network and system operators do not truly understand their own structures and systems. so one thing that i think is part of this is how do we help those local, federal, state entities truly understand their network structure, what its potential eventual nrbl tvulner. it is not an intel function, but it is part of how do we work our way through this process. >> director wray? >> i think that's one area that has been a lot of discussion about whether we're doing better and this is one of the areas we are doing better. we, together, at the fbi, together with dhs, recently, for example, scheduled meetings with various election, state election officials and normally the barrier there would be classification concerns. whether somebody had clearances.
we were able to put together briefings appropriately tailored and with nondisclosure agreements with those officials. so there are ways if people are creative and forward leaning to educate the state election officials which is, of course, you know, where elections are run in this country. >> hopefully we'll be creative and forward leaning and we'll want to keep track of awe'what e doing there. thank you. >> senator king. >> thank you, mr. chairman. first statement i want to make is more in sorrow than in anger. i'll get to the anger part in a minute. the sorrow part is that director coats in response to a question from snr collins, you gave an el quantity factual statement of the activities of the russians and the fact that they're continuing around the world and that they're a continuing threat to this country. all of you have agreed to that. if only the president would say that.
i understand the president's sensitivity about whether his campaign was in connection with the russians and that's a separate question, but there is no question we have got -- before us the entire intelligence community that the russians interfered in the election in 2016, they're continuing to do it and there are real imminent threat to our elections in a matter of eight or nine months. my problem is i talked to people in maine who say the whole thing is a witch-hunt and it is a hoax because the president told me. i just wish you all could persuade the president as a matter of national security to separate these two issues, the collusion issue is over here, unresolved, we'll get to the bottom of that, but there is no doubt as you all have testified today, and we cannot confront this threat, which is a serious one, with a whole of government response, when the leader of the government continues to deny that it exists.
now, let me get to the anger part. the anger part involves cyberattacks. you have all testified that we're subject to repeated cyberattacks, cyberattacks are occurring right now in our infrastructure, all over this country. i am sick and tired of going to these areases, which i've been going to for five years, where everybody talks about cyberattacks and our country still does not have a policy or doctrine or a strategy for dealing with them. this is not a criticism of the current administration. the prior administration didn't do it either. admiral rogers, until we have some deterrent capacity, we'll continue to be attacked. isn't that true? >> yes, sir. we have to change the current dynamic. we're on the wrong end of the cost equation. >> we're trying to fight a global battle with our hands tied behind our back.
there is a stunning statement in the report, they will work to use cyberoperations to achieve strategic objectives unless they face clear repercussions for their cyberoperations. right now there are none! is that not the case? there are no repercussions. we have no doctrine of deterrence. how are we ever going to get them to stop doing this if all we do is patch our software and try to defend ourselfs? >> those are very relevant questions and i think everyone -- not only at this table, but in every agency of government understands the threat that we have here and the impact already being made through the cyberthreats. our role is to provide all the information we can as to what is happening so our policymakers can take that, including the
congress. and shape policy as to how we are going to respond to this and deal with this in a whole of government way. >> just never seems to happen. director pompeo, you understand this issue, do you not? we're not going to be able to defend ourselves from cyberattacks by simply being defensive. we have to have a doctrine of deterrence if they strike us in cyber, they're going to be struck back in some way. may not be cyber. >> i would agree with you. also i would argue i can't say much in this setting, i would argue that your statement that we have done nothing is not reflect the responses that frankly some of us at this table have engaged in, in the united states government engaged in before and after this -- but both during and before this administration. >> but deterrence doesn't work unless the other side knows it. the doomsday machine in dr. strange love didn't work because the russians hadn't told us about it. >> it is true. it is important that the adversary is not a requirement that the whole world know it. >> and the adversary does know it in your view?
>> i prefer to save that for another forum. >> i believe that this country needs a clear doctrine, what is a cyberattack, what is an act of war, what will be the response, what will be the consequences and right now i haven't -- >> senator, i agree with you, we -- it is a complicated problem given the nature of -- i take responsibility for not having been part of solving that too. there is a lot of work to do. we need a u.s. government strategy and clear authorities to go achieve that strategy. >> i appreciate it. i just don't want to go home when there is a serious cyberattack and say we never really got to it, we knew it was a problem, we had four different committees of jurisdiction and we couldn't work it out. >> yes, sir. >> that's not going to fly. >> yes, sir. >> senator, i might add that we don't want to learn this lesson the hard way. 911 took place because we were
not coordinating our efforts. we're now coordinating efforts. but we didn't have the right defenses in place because the right information was not there. our job is to get that right information to the policymakers and get on with it because it is just common sense if someone is attacking you, and there is no retribution or response, it is going to incent -- incentivize more -- right now a lot of blank checks, a lot of things we need to do. >> thanks. i appreciate that. >> senator langford. >> thank you. you and i talked last year about the same issue that senator king was just bringing up about cyberdoctrine and point person on who that would be and a person that would give options to the president and the congress to say if a response is needed, and is warranted, this is the person, this is the entity that would make the recommendations and allow the president to make decisions on what the proper response is. has that been completed?
is there a point person to bible to give recommendations on a appropriate response to a cyberattack to the president? >> that has not yet been completed. your understanding of these stand-up of cybercommand and the new drirector replacing admiral rogers, the decision relative to whether there would be separation between the functions that are currently now nsa and cyber has yet to be made. general mattis will -- is contemplating what the next best step is. and there is -- they have involved the intelligence community in terms of making decisions and that role. but at this particular point, we cannot point to one sort of cyber czar. but various agencies throughout the federal government taking this very, very seriously and there are individuals that we continue to meet on a regular basis. the odni has something called
ctik, a coordination effort for all the cyber that comes in so we don't stove pipe like what we did before 9/11. so things are under way. but in terms -- in terms of putting a finalized -- this is how we're going to do it together still in process. >> with respect to responses to that, these are title ten, dod activities unless granted to another authority. there is a person responsible. sa secretary mattis has that responsibility in all theaters of conflict with adversaries. >> thank you. i want to bring up the issue of the rising threat of what is happening just south our border in mexico. homicide rate went up 27% last year. we had 64,000 americans that died from overdose of drugs, preponderance of those came through or from mexico. we have a very rapidly rising threat it appears to me. what i would be interested from
you all is on a national security level and what you're seeing, what are we facing, what is changing right now in mexico, versus ten years ago in mexico and our relationship and threats coming from there. >> i would defer to you -- >> you're watching the senate intel committee there with all of the heads essentially of the intelligence community. we have learned a lot of new information about russian meddling in the election, what is planned for the upcoming midterm election in 2018 and also some breaking news when it comes to how the fbi informed the white house when it came to the rob porter scandal. we're going to take a quick break. we'll be right back with more after this. as you get older. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember.
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we have just heard from the heads of intel agencies is going to try to interfere is already under way when it comes to the 2018 midterm elections. we have been hearing from the director of national intelligence, the head of the fbi, the head of the dia, defense intelligence agency and others. i want to bring my panel back in to talk about this. we have josh campbell, former fbi special agent, now a cnn law enforcement analyst, dana bash with us, and chris cillizza, cnn politics reporter and editor at large. there are so many places where we could start. this has been a pretty informative hearing as we were hoping it would be that we could learn more information. i want to start with the rob porter scandal. and how the fbi, we just heard from the director, christopher wray, he was asked about as we really don't know the timeline coming from the white house, about what they knew about rob porter, allegations that he had physically assaulted his two
ex-wives and a girlfriend as well. and the -- and christopher wray said this when asked about the interactions between the fbi, which does that background check for security clearances, did one on rob porter. here is what he said. >> the fbi submitted a partial report on the investigation in question in march. and then a completed background investigation in late july, soon thereafter, we received requests for pollup inquiry. and we did the follow-up and provided that information in november and we administratively closed the file in january and then earlier this month we received some additional information and we passed that on as well. >> when you look at that, and he also said before that, because he didn't want to get into
specific conversations, but he said the fbi followed established protocols. the fbi has not come under fire when it comes to this. it is the fbi, what did they know, did they just -- was ignorance bliss in a way in keeping rob porter in such a key role where he's privy to so many classified information, where he's so close to the president. and this makes it clear that there were multiple -- it does not stand to reason that the top aides at the white house were not aware of the type of allegations that were being made about rob porter. >> exactly. what we just heard from the trump appointed director of the fbi is that ignorance was not bliss because there was no ignorance. the white house knew at multiple stages, at least maybe -- he didn't say who was informed. you have -- it would be very difficult to think that at least the white house counsel didn't know. and then that white house chief of staff ultimately in november
when this -- the full report was completed, and certainly by last month, in january, when he said the administration closed the case. so this completely throws the revolving, evolving white house explanations of what happened into disarray. it completely counters that. and i think at the end of the day, now the question is are we going to get answers from the white house counsel don mcgann, are we going to get answers that we have not yet gotten from the white house chief of staff, john kelly, and can they keep their jobs? and lastly this is what happens when you send a press secretary out to say something that is just flat wrong which is what sarah sanders did yesterday, when she said this isn't us, this is the fbi. well, guess what, the fbi director just happens to be in a
public forum the very next day and he can completely contradict that given the facts of how the process goes, but also how this particular process goes. >> that seems to be a desperate process, after days -- this is so clearly it is so clearly an unforced error and internal error on the part of the white house to then hear sarah sanders say that about the fbi. >> yeah, and, look, last thursday rod shah was in a similar position. he at one point said that porter had been terminated, which was patently untrue. he, to dana's point, he said the fbi background check is ongoing. that was february 8th. if the case had been -- the file had been closed according to director wray in january, it seems unlikely. i think what you have is two -- three main principles there. don mcgann, the white house counsel, john kelly, the white house chief of staff and the president of the united states, all of whom are not -- first two cases, the staffers not
necessarily it seems like sharing the full story at the start with the staff. and that's hugely problematic. trump is in his way different in that no one questioned that he knew about this prior to last tuesday, i believe. the issue for him is different. it is, well, people say privately he's very upset and condemns this, but publicly he seems to be sympathizing with porter. that's sort of over here. but mcgann and kelly are really making it difficult for the sarah sanders, the rod shahs and anyone else trying to plan -- make a cohesive story that is internally consistent. >> what did you think hearing christopher wray say that, he couldn't comment on specific conversations, but he made it clear the fbi was following up -- after the partial report, the completed report, they were asked for more information, the fbi was. they gave more information and
they closed -- that was in november. in january, they closed the investigation, got more information in early february and passed it on. it is -- you would expect and maybe you can speak to this, that was substantive information that the fbi was passing on about rob porter that had to do with the allegations. >> it is true. i think what we saw there is the classic chris wray, even keel, provide the information, they knew what they were getting when they brought him on as the fbi director. and many in the fbi have said, he's going to provide information and go along with what the facts are. so they had to have known that the facts would get out at some point. i can't understand for the life of me why they would have come out, violated the crisis communication 101 rule, tell it all, tell it fast, and provide this narrative that they knew the fbi would come in and counter. >> we're going to listen in, arkansas republican senator tom cotton asking chris wray the fbi director about the steele dossier. >> -- to the threat posed by china and chinese telecom
companies. senator rubio spoke earlier and i agree with what he said about the threat of a rising china and the threat of confucius center and telecom companies and unicom and telecom pose to our country. i introduced legislation with senator cornyn and senator rubio to say the u.s. government can't use ute and the u.s. government can't use companies that use them. and i'm glad some companies like verizon, at&t and others have taken this threat seriously. could you explain what the risk is that we face from zte and waway being used in the united states, the risk that companies, state governments, local governments might face if they use waway or zte products and services. >> i think probably the simplest way to put it is deeply concerned about the risks of allowing any -- >> we're monitoring the senate intelligence committee hearing,
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one more way comcast is working to fit into your life, not the other way around. interest when the president is put if charge of declassifying information that could complicate an ongoing investigation into his own campaign. >> well, senator, as we have been very clear, what our view was about the disclosure and accuracy of the memo in question, but i do think it is the president's role as commander in chief under the rule that was invoked to object or not to the declassification. so i think that, you know, that is the president's responsibility. >> regardless of whether there is an appearance of actual conflict of interest. >> i leave it to others to characterize whether there is appearance or actual conflict of interest. >> if the president asked you tomorrow to hand over to him additional sensitive fbi information on the investigations into his
campaign, would you give it to him? >> i'm not going to discuss the investigation in question with the president, much less provide information from that investigation to him. >> and if he wanted -- if he received that information, and wanted to declassify it, would he have the ability to do that from your perspective? >> information from the -- >> however he received it, perhaps from members of the united states congress. >> i think illegally he would have that ability. >> and do you think the president should recuse himself from reviewing and kldeclassifyg fbi material -- >> i think recusal questions are something i would encourage the president to talk to the white house counsel. >> has the fbi done any legal analysis on these questions? >> well, happily i'm no longer in the business of doing legal analysis. i now get to be a client.
and blame lawyers for things instead of being the lawyer who gets blamed. >> have you blamed any lawyers for their analysis -- >> what's na. >> have you blamed any lawyers for their analysis? >> i have not yet, no. >> okay. is the fbi getting the cooperation it needs from social media companies to counter foreign adversaries on their influence on our elections? >> i think the cooperation has been improve iing. i think we're continuing to work with the social media companies to try to see how we can raise their awareness so that they can share information with us and vice versa. i think things are moving in the right direction. but i think there is a lot of progress to be made. >> what more do you need from social media companies to improve the partnership you would like to have with them to counter these attacks in. >> well, i think we always like to have more information shared more quickly from their end. i think from their perspective,
it is a dialogue. they're looking to get information from us about that it is we see, so that they can give responsive information. so i think we're working through those issues. >> do you believe the social media companies have enough employees that have the appropriate security clearance to make these partnerships real? >> that's not an issue of value, but i would be happy to take a look at it. >> plaez do and follow up with the committee. one thing that makes guarding against foreign intelligence threats on social media so complex is that the threat originates overseas and so that would be within the jurisdiction of the cia and the nsa and then it comes to our shores and then it passes on to the fbi and also the social media companies themselves. i'm not aware of any written ic strategy on how we would confront the threat to the social media. does such a strategy exist? in writing? >> i would have to get back with you on that. i would be happy to look into it
from my perspective right now. a written strategy, specific strategy is not in place, but i want to check on that. >> please do follow up and also last year congress passed a bipartisan russia sanctions bill. however, the administration has not imposed those sanctions. what is your assessment of how russia interprets the administration's inaction? >> i don't have information relative to what the russian thinking is in terms of that particular specific reaction. there are other sanctions that are being imposed on russian oligarchs and others through the united nations and through other things that have been done. in reference to the jcpoa but specifically on your question, i don't have an answer for that. >> can you -- >> may i make a comment, i think it is -- i think we ought to look at that in a broader
context, how the russians view all of the actions of this administration, not just a particular set of sanctions or the absence thereof. as we have watched the russians respond to this administration's decision to provide defensive weapons in ukraine, to push back against russian efforts in syria, sanctions placed on venezuela were directly in conflict with russian interests. the lists of places that the russians are feeling the pain from this administration's actions are long. >> but director pompeo, i'm sure you would agree that in order to understand the full scope of effect it also important that we analyze each discreet component, including what is the interpretation of this administration's failure to enact the sanctions as has been passed and directed by the united states congress and a bipartisan manner. have you done that assessment? >> on closed session i'll tell you what we know and don't know about that discreet issue.
i agree with you, it is important to look at each one in its own place. i think what we most often see in terms of russian response, it is to the cumulative activities in response to russian activities. how the united states responds to those in a cumulative way. >> i look forward it our conversation, thank you. >> yes, ma'am. >> director coats, you alluded to the activities of trans national criminal organizations. i'm thinking particularly as regards our neighbors down south. of our border. recently i heard somebody refer to the cartels, the transnational criminal organizations as xcommodity agnostic, they'll traffic in people, they'll traffic in drugs and other contraband all in pursuit of money. >> whatever brings in the most dollars. >> senator manchin and others alluded to their concern about -- and certainly we all
share the concern about the deaths and overdoses caused by drugs in america. much of which comes across our southern borders -- >> you're watching the senate intel committee as it questions the heads of the intelligence community. and specifically we just heard california democratic senator kamala harris asking christopher wray the fbi director about perhaps conflicts with the president declassifying information that had to do with a member of his campaign. that was in the nunes memo that we saw the declassification of. chris cillizza, i want to ask you about this. it seemed to me that chris wray wasn't biting. he said this is the president's job. whether to classify or declassify, she kept -- she asked repeatedly even if there is a perceived conflict and he said that's for other people to decide. >> he's not going to get -- you don't -- you don't get to become the fbi director by being dumb
about politics. you know, these jobs have a big element of politics in them. he is not going to get in the middle of litigating what remains a hypothetical situation. he won't say, if this happened, then this. >> senator risch said to him not too long ago, well, he said to everybody, but then he singled wray out, warned them about getting enveloped in domestic politics. >> the criticism, theoretically, the reason the white house originally gave for the firing of jim comey was the mishandling and this sort of -- the going around the chain of command as it related to his handling of the hillary clinton e-mail investigation during the 2016 campaign. now, donald trump later said, well, the russia thing to lester holt and that clouded it. the real explanation of why comey was fired, the rod rosenstein memo that trump allegedly based the firing on was this idea that comey had gotten to -- had inserted
himself in the political process which makes chris wray more mindful not to. >> he might have said i'm not going to get involved in the politics. but he did in a re clever, very direct way by saying more than once that he had grave concerns. which we know that he had because the fbi put out a very unusual statement before the president ended up declassifying the republican memo. but as you were saying, when we were watching, one thing to see it on pap, another thing to hear him say it repeatedly. he might not be getting involved in politics, but he's making his stance very, very clear, which is political. >> and choosing, josh, his moments. >> he walks a fine line between his boss, the president of the united states and the rank and file who want to know that someone is out there defending them. >> one other thing i think is really important. remember, donald trump ignored the statement from the fbi, grave concerns, what chris wray has reiterated today, ignored the recommendation of the fbi
and rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, to not release the nunes memo for fear it presented an incomplete picture factually. donald trump cited chris wray, the fbi, rod rosenstein, the justice department, for their concerns about the democratic adam schiff memo. in one week span. so on one hand, he ignored it. on the other hand, he cited it. if you work for the fbi, that has to be -- you're clearly being used when it is advantageous to donald trump. >> they're trying to take the high road and say even though one memo was released which they disagree with, they don't look at it, well, we have to release the other one because the first one was released. they care about the protection of the information and that's going to be their theme. >> i want to see what you thought about something that senator susan collins, republican from maine, talked to the fbi director about, who really i was surprised has been
somewhat the star of the show when it comes to this hearing. here's what she was asking him about when it came to what a really unprecedented in recent decades, clearly politically motivated attacks on the fbi, on the doj, by president trump. >> the president has repeatedly raised concerns about current and former fbi leaders and has alleged corruption and political bias in the performance of the fbi's law enforcement and national security missions. i want to give you the opportunity today to respond to those criticisms. what is your reaction? >> well, senator, i would say that my experience now six months in with the fbi has validated all my prior
experiences with the fbi, which is that it is the finest group of professionals and public servants i could hope to work for. and every day, many, many, many times a day, i'm confronted with unbelievable examples of integrity and professionalism and grit. there are 37,000 people in the fbi who do unbelievable things all around the world and though you would never know it, from watching the news, we actually have more than two investigations. and most of them do a lot to keep >> that part was actually kind of funny, dana, there's more than two investigations? they are doing a lot of work, but he seemed to seize this moment to speak to his rank and file who may be feeling bruised by these attacks. >> no question. and look, this was a toss over the plate, a softball from susan collins so that he could get that kind of comment out about
the fbi rank and file in a way that, frankly, some people have wondered and have criticized him for not doing in a more robust way when the president has criticized the fbi. i thought that was really noteworthy. then if you kind of take a step back, bri, on the whole crux of this hearing which is supposed to be worldwide threats, her colleague from maine, angus king, reminded everybody about what this is all about, which is russia interfering in the 2016 election. and he pleaded with all of the intel heads, please convince the president of the united states that this is a real threat. i mean, can you imagine that that's where we still are, that he doesn't really take it seriously and that a united states senator on the intel committee has to plead with the whole ic to try to convince the president? >> he wanted them to impress the national security importance of that on the president.
you wonder, of course, they've probably already tried to do some of that, but it was so interesting to hear senator king reem fa si reemphasizing that. i do want to go to kaitlyn. kaitlyn, you talked to your sources about the rob porter allegation. what was going on at the time the scandal of his ex-wives broke? tell us what you learned. >> reporter: this comes out of a shift of the narrative coming from the white house about who knew what when about rob porter when these allegations of abuse first surfaced and he bankrupab resigned last week. we're learning not only did he take an important role in the white house, not only that, rob porter was in serious discussions to be promoted when he abruptly resigned last week from the white house. now, he was the staff secretary, a very crucial role in this
white house because he handled all the paper flow that came to the president's desk, executive orders and whatnot. but not only that, he was being considered for several other positions, elevated policy roles across the nation, as well as the deputy chief of staff role, a position that the person who had been serving in that role for less than three months stepped down last week, as cnn reported. we now learned that not only that, rob porter was considered being elevated, considered being promoted in this west wing which just shows these white house officials who were aware of the allegations against porter were able to overlook these potential indications of trouble in his past they had been alerted to by the fbi in order to have someone who is seen as a professional, seen as someone really competent in this very chaotic west wing. and that really just goes even further with what we just saw from the fbi director, christopher wray, right there,
brianna. >> kaitlan collins, thank you for that detail that there were discussions of a promotion for rob porter when all of this broke. now we're going back to the hearing and listen to senator jack reed ask a question here. let's listen. >> we essentially are relying on the investigations that are underway. >> so the answer -- >> both with this committee and the hpsy committee as well as the special counsel. >> you're not taking any specific steps based on the intelligence to disrupt russian activities that are occurring at this moment? >> we take all kinds of steps to disrupt russian activities in terms of what they're trying to do. i think i'll turn it over to director -- >> let me finish with this. are you finished, mr. coats? >> yes. >> thank you, sir. >> senator, we have a
significant effort i'm happy to tell you about in closed session, and it is not just our effort, it is an all of ic effort. there may be others participating as well to do our best to push back against this threat. it's not just a russian threat, it's the iranians and chinese. >> i understand, director, we have mutual threats. but one threat that has been central to our -- and you've testified this publicly -- the last election there was a russian influence. this election they seemed to be more prepared. they've learned their lessons. the simple question i pose, has the president directed the intelligence community in a coordinated effort to not merely report but actively stop this activity? and the answer seems to be, i'm hearing, the reporting is going on as we're reporting about every threat coming into the united states. let me get back to, quickly -- do the other panelists have anything on this point?
>> i can't say i've been explicitly directed to, quote, blunt or actively stop. on the other hand, it's generally clear to generate knowledge and insight, help us understand that so we can generate better policy. that directive has been fairly explicit, in fairness. >> again, you may agree or disagree, collecting intelligence and acting on it in a coordinated fashion are two different things. >> yes. i also acknowledge our role as intelligence officials. >> we've talked a lot about china, fifias, their involvement in trying to buy companies in the united states. what i think has to be pointed out, too, they are undertaking a significant national investment in artificial intelligence and quantum computing. that is dwarfing anything the
administration is proposing or suggesting. if artificial intelligence has even half of the benefits its promoters claim, it is going to be short of disruptive. quantum computing has the capacity to undercut cryptology as we know it. the experts can correct me if i'm wrong. some of the negativisms that quantum computing can generate based on infinite amounts of water which people have to be wondering. what is our program for ai and quantum computing that will match the chinese? burt decoates, you seem anxious
to answer that. >> we're treading a very narrow line here relative to discussing this in an open meeting. >> i don't want to tread that line, but we do have to recognize that, again, the chinese activity to appropriate or intellectual property is obvious. they're generating they're own intellectual property at a rate that could be disruptive, and we are not matching them. again, this manhattan analogy may be a little out of date, but when we saw the potential effects of a scientific development back in the '40s, we spared no expense so that we would get it first before our opponents. the chinese seem to be making that type of commitment very publicly. billions of dollars that they
said publicly they have a plan and will implement. >> and we will provide that information to the extent we can collect that information. but just like the manhattan project, we don't share steps taken to address it. >> i understand. thank you, senator. >> thank you, mr. reed. i hope you'll come back to the closed session this afternoon. i think you'll get some fidelity in that closed session. we're about to wrap up. everybody can look up. there are no more questions so you don't have to lose eye contact with us hoping you're not the guy they're going to ask to answer. you can tell who the newbies are -- >> you're watching all the intel chiefs testify before the senate intel committee. we have heard a number of interesting things about u.s. preparedness for russian meddling in the upcoming election. it is expected to be fierce. that is very clear from what we have heard from all of these heads of different agencies. also, when it comes to the rob
porter scandal, that top aide to president trump who resigned or was pushed out after allegations by his ex-wives that he abused them made very clear by the fbi director that they kept the white house in the loop. not looking good there for the white house as we head into the rest of the day looking for more information from the white house. we'll continue to monitor this. we'll be right back. get money back hilarious. with claim-free rewards. switching to allstate is worth it.