The kremlin throughout the election. Its a lot to ask about, a lot to dive into. In addition there are so many issues that president elect trump has yet to address about tax reform, syria, and much more. He will have an opening statement, were told, we assume about resolving conflicts of interest, and then he will answer reporters questions. We dont know if a few reporters question or a lot of reporters questions. He reacted angrily on twitter today. Thats right, we reached out to the Transition Team to get a response about the Intelligence Committee report and the briefing on friday. We did not get a statement from the trump transition. But president elect trump did issue a statement later on, talking about fake news and a political witch hunt. We werent sure if he was talking about our report or the fact that other News Organization had printed i think fairly irresponsibly an entire dossier on which some of the annex that we referred to had been based. We now await president elect trumps response not only to the stories of the last day but also questions from reporters. Evaluated not faced questions from potentially adversarial press in quite some time, after that july press conference, he pretty much stopped, with a couple of exceptions, pretty much stopped except for reporters, anchors of channels that were rooting for him openly. Were hoping there will be some challenging questions, respectful but challenging, about this report, this allegation, and also much, much more Going Forward in terms of what kind of president hes going to be, what kind of administration hes going to have. Jim sciutto, among the latest tweets, once again, he seems to be at bitter odds with the u. S. Intelligence community. No question. And lets be clear. He has tweeted a lot of things, hes alleged fake news, et cetera. He and his team have not answered the essential question of our report which was that he was briefed on this, he and the president , president obama, that the fbi is investigating this, as are republican and democratic lawmakers. He has not answered that essential question yet in any public comment. And also, just to add, the question about the underlying charges and the twopage dossier, the twopage synopsis provided by the Intelligence Community is very different from this 35page dossier which is full of all sorts of uncorroborated and unsubstantiated reports that we did not report on. But this 2page dossier, this twopage synopsis which we understand to have been fairly broad in terms of its descriptions, the basic questions for president elect trump are, were there contacts between anyone related to his camp, emissaries, surrogates, whoever, and anyone related whatsoever to the russian government, and do russians have any damaging information, financial or personal, as they claim to have. Gloria, this News Conference taking place only a few days before the president ial inauguration, the stakes clearly for the president elect to do well, to explain what he understands is going on, these stakes are enormous. Well, you know, initially this press conference seemed to be just geared towards the question of how donald trump is going to divest himself and how hes going to deal with the conflicts that arise between his company and which is all over the world, and his job as president of the United States. And it seems very clear that we learned in the last few weeks that his sons are going to run the company effectively, and hes going to try and separate himself. So well have to see how he can do that. I mean, its very difficult for somebody like donald trump to just put everything into a blind trust, because weve never had this kind of a situation where you have a multibillionaire Real Estate Investor as president of the United States. But having said that, that was going to be the main topic of this. Now, given the reporting of cnn and others yesterday, i think this is going to turn into questions about just what the relationship was between the Trump Campaign and or emissaries from the trump orbit, even if they werent members of the campaign, and people in russia. And i think questions have been raised about whether there was any communication, whether that was done to effectively undermine the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, and i think that reporters are going to want to know answers to these questions. We have an idea of what donald trump might say. But i do think that theres going to be an awful lot of questions about what did you do and when did you do it or when did people in your campaign do it. If you take a step back and think about how extraordinary it is that we are a week and two days away from him being right back there, becoming the 45th president of the United States, and heading into that pretty remarkable moment, he is at war with the Intelligence Community, which is only escalating after your report, instead of taking a step back and perhaps trying to think about, well, maybe this is an example of why its not the greatest idea in the world for a president to be openly berating the Intelligence Community, he doubled down, tripled down on it. And its really, really remarkable, given the fact that, you know, jim, you cover these guys every day, the Intelligence Community, theyre not perfect, they have flaws. Theyve made some big mistakes. Theyve made some big mistakes. But at the end of the day, when he becomes the president , they are there to work for him. They are the ones who are going to be hes going to be sending out on secret cl clandestine missions that nobody else knows about, hes going to have to rely on them for information about north korea and other things. The fact that hes coming into the presidency, way beyond odds, really at war with these people, is unbelievable. Theyre going to inform every Key National Security decision this president has to make. Does north korea have a nuclear missile. Exactly. Is there a terrorist attack pending on the u. S. Homeland. Where to send u. S. Forces into dangers way. Theyre going to be inform him. The question becomes, the way the relationship is starting, not just for him and his political fortunes, it is fundamentally dangerous for the country. I want to take issue with this. Because youre suggesting hes at war with the Intelligence Community. Hes at war with the leaders of the Intelligence Community. Hes at war with the people who have presented this assessment. These are political leaders. These are people appointed by barack obama. To say hes at war with the person in the bowels of the cia, wherever it is, is ridiculous. Thats not true. There is broad agreement within the agencies. Early on there were stories that there was disagreement, weve debunked that. Those assessments dont come from the political leaders. I work on the board of a Cyber Security company and i talk to people in that field, and theyre talking to people in the bowels of that organization that dont feel that way. What are they specifically objecting to . First off, to suggest that this was a hack. It was not a hack. It was a phishing hack on john podesta. They call it an influence operation. The idea to point to things that you say clearly points to russia, if you know anything about this area, the bottom line is if russia did this, you are wouldnt know it because it would be five steps removed. They wouldnt leave breadcrumbs to say this is obviously russia. If it was obviously russia, it was possibly the intent. Satisfiaside from the specif maybe youre right that there is a disconnect between some of the leadership in the Intelligence Community and some of the rank and file. But to jims point, the fact that this is so public right now does put in danger the rank and file, the officials who are out and trying to interface with assets and officials and counterparts in very dangerous parts of the world. And theyre going to go back to the officials and say, why should i trust you, why should i believe you, your president elect doesnt even believe it. That will be resolved in two weeks. When new leadership of those organizations, and those leaders will actually do the work and give the president i think what he will see as a more are you saying that James Clapper and james comey and john brennan, mike rogers, are completely partisans . I would say that the document they had was more of a political document than ive seen in a long time. I want to get to you in a moment, but senator, donald trump, the president elect of the United States, tweeted three hours ago, intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to leak, quote, leak, into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in nazi germany. Thats what was going to say, wolf. Trump has disparaged women, people color. Now he is attacking the Intelligence Community. How will they do their jobs out in the streets . Youre saying in two weeks all of a sudden donald trump will feel better about the information hes getting. I dont think thats how it works. This is dangerous. This is not a partisan issue. A foreign entity has meddled in our elections process, thats something across the board we should all be concerned with. Perhaps donald trump is concerned that hes not a legitimate president. He needs to deal with those issues. But he is about to assume the highest office in the land. And he has to step into this. And im just shocked that this is whats happening, disparaging our Intelligence Community. I want to bring in David Axelrod joining us i believe from chicago. David, youre one of our senior political advisors. I wonder if you can tell us more, ive heard this tale told, that when george w. Bush was handing over the reins to barack obama eight years ago this month, one of the bits of advice he told him was, and youll pardon my language, dont piss off the Intelligence Community. I dont think your language was that offensive there, jake. But yes, i think that was part of the message that he delivered. Look, jim went over some of the issues. I would have another, which is north korea and the threats that kim jong un has made in recent days towards the u. S. President s have to rely on this intelligence. Here is the issue. If in order to impeach what you find unfavorable reporting, you go to war with the Intelligence Community and try and undermine their credibility, and weve just heard some of that here, then how are people to react when you present them with intelligence and say youre going to make a decision based on that intelligence, after having impeached the Intelligence Community . It is a very, very dicey proposition for the president elect to be doing this. And he may come to regret that down the line when he has to make some very sensitive decisions. Senator santorum, i suppose what youre saying is this problem will go away when dan coats replaces James Clapper, assuming that happens, and he has the leaders he wants heading the Intelligence Community. Look, i think he believes that this was an overpoliticized process, and that he is he sort of rejects he rejects that out of hand. Based in part, based on his own knowledge of what he saw and didnt see and the information hes been able to gather. So this is an issue right now, its a big issue, i agree with it, but i think it will be knot as big as issue once his people get in charge and youll be able to see the facts behind it. Another parts of the really is the fact that Senior Republicans in congress, most notably john mccain, lindsey graham, you know, we heard marco rubio questioning mr. Tillerson today about russia and putin, these people believe that there ought to be a special committee to just peel this back, layer by layer, take a look at this. Whether you have new People Energy or not, they believe it is their job as congress, why shouldnt they do that . Here comes the president elect of the United States. Hes walking into this room at trump tower, the lobby at trump tower in new york city surrounded by his two adult sons and his daughter ivanka. Lets listen in. United states. This is an opportunity to be here today to allow the president elect to take your questions. After the president elect makes some remarks, he will introduce miss sherry dylan, a prominent attorney in washington, dc with the Prestigious Firm of morgan lewis who structured the agreements pursuant to the president s business arrangements. She will give brief remarks. Before we start i want to bring your attention to a few points on the report published in buzzfeed last night. Its frankly outrageous and highly irresponsible for a left wing blog that was openly hostile to the president elects campaign to drop highly salacious and flatout false information on the internet just days before he takes the oath of office. According to buzzfeeds own editor, there are some serious reasons to doubt the allegations in the report. The executive editor of the New York Times also dismissed the report by saying it was, quote, totally unsubstantiated, echoing the concerns that many other reporters expressed on the internet. The fact that buzzfeed and cnn made the decision to run with this unsubstantiated claim is a sad effort to get clicks. The report is not an Intelligence Report plain and simple. One issue the report talked about was the relationship of three individuals associated with the campaign. These three individuals, paul manafort, Michael Cohen, and carter page. Carter page is an individual who the president elect does not know and was put on notice months ago by the campaign. Paul manafort as adamantly denied any involvement. And Michael Cohen who is said to have visited prague in august or september did not leave or enter the United States during this time. We asked him to produce his passport to confirm his whereabouts on the date in question and there was no doubt that he was not in prague. In fact mr. Cohen has never been in prague. A new report actually suggests that Michael Cohen was at the university of Southern California with his son at a baseball game. One report now suggested apparently its another Michael Cohen. For all the talk lately about fake news, this political witch hunt by some in the media is based on some of the most flimsy reporting and is frankly shameful and disgraceful. With that it is my honor to introduce the next Vice President of the United States, mike pence. We are nine days away from the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States of america. I am pro foundly honored and humbled that i will take the oath of office to serve as Vice President of the United States nine days from today. But i am even more honored to stand shoulder to shoulder with a new president who will make America Great again. Now, the president elects leadership and his energy during the campaign was impressive. But as the chairman of the transition effort, i can assure the American People that his energy and his vision during the course of this transition has been even more inspiring. To see the way he has brought together men and women of extraordinary capability at a historic pace in this cabinet, 19 of the 21 cabinet officials have been announced, Nine Committee hearings already scheduled, seven more soon to go on the books in the next several days. And it is a compilation of men and women with an unprecedented caliber of leadership and background to help this administration move our nation forward. Perhaps thats why theres been such a concerted effort by some in the Mainstream Media to delegitimize this election and to demean our Incoming Administration. You know, i have long been a supporter of a free and independent press and i always will be. But with freedom comes responsibility. And the irresponsible decision of a few News Organizations to run with a false and unsubstantiated report, when most News Organizations resisted the temptation to propagate this fake news, can only be attributed to media bias and attempt to demean the president elect and our Incoming Administration and the American People are sick and tired of it. But today, well get back to real news, to real facts. And the Real Progress our incoming president has already made in reviving the American Economy and assembling a team that will make America Great again. And well hear from the president elect about issues that are of paramount importance to the American People today. It is my honor to introduce to all of you my friend and the president elect of the