The latest news from around the world with hosts John Berman and Poppy Harlow. Reporter well, poppy, probably the headline at this point is, out of the earshot of the jury this morning, judge t. S. Ellis who is a veteran of these sometimes complex and controversial criminal cases in Eastern Virginia advised attorneys on both sides in an attempt obviously to avoid any prejudicial inferences being drawn by the jury, told attorneys on both sides to avoid, if they can, the use of the word oligarch. And thats important because some of the bosses and people in power in ukraine have been referred to as oligarchs. Obviously the meaning of oligarch is a member of a Power Structure in which the power rests with the few, as opposed to suggestion or inference that an oligarch might be a criminal. This case is the Defense Strategy and the Defense Strategy here, susan, is my client, Paul Manafort, knew nothing, did nothing wrong, hands are clean. It was all his deputy, rick gates. Thats a bold move, especially when you think about the fact that rick gates could be a key witness in other the other trial and other charges against manafort tied to russia. What do you make of it . That pretty plainly is the strategy. I think one thing to keep in mind though is this isnt going to be gates word against manaforts. In these types of financial crimes, these types of financial investigations, there is a huge amount of documentary Evidence Bank records, wire transfers, tax forms. And so the notion here that this is really going to come down just to gates word against manafort, there really is going to be a lot of evidence a lot of documented evidence. So i think sort of anyone whos looking at at least what we know in public really has to be baffled that Paul Manafort would choose such a risky strategy to go to trial in the first place. Once hes made that choice,
maybe this is the strongest sort of tack to take. Lets talk about that choice. He did make a clear choice and is the only one so far to make the choice of the americans charged not to cooperate with mueller. We know from the New York Times reporting yesterday hes told friends he thinks hes innocent, he thinks he will be acquitted as prosecutors look at this. Many of them thinks he faces a huge Uphit Battle Toward Acquittal and that this is a big, Big Challenge for him. Last hour, a guest said he has a lot of information on a lot of people and if he flips, could he be in jeopardy. Why do you think manafort has not cooperated . Well, as i said just a moment or two ago, i think he feels like is playing with house money. He can go through this trial and if he loses, the prosecutors will still take him in. I was a federal prosecutor but youre not going to get as good a deal. Correct, i do agree with that. But the thing hes facing is a significant jail time either way. Even if he were to cooperate,
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uber is moving in a new direction. Forward. President trump is calling on Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions to end the russia investigation just a few moments ago on twitter. Keep in mind, sessions has already recused himself from all russiarelated matters. We reached out to the Justice Department for reaction, they declined to comment. With me now, robby mook, former Campaign Manager for hillary clinton. Doug heye, former rnc communications director. Doug, is this anything the American People should be surprised about this morning even though it is a direct
report, it appears, to his ag or just more of the same . It is more of the same, just hyped up a little more, amped up a little more. This is what donald trump does. The reaction ive heard from so many republicans, whether on the house or senate side, is disappointment that this is the latest step the president s gone. Heres why, poppy. We just had great gdp numbers that came out on friday. Well have the jobs numbers that come out this friday. These are opportunities for the president to hype up what hes doing for the economy. He he should proclaiming these numbers with bagpipes, theyre so good for republicans. This is what they want to talk about in november. The Mueller Investigation is not what they want to talk about and Firing Mueller or firing Jeff Sessions is not a good road for republicans to go down politically or obviously if youre talking about the principles in governing. Robby, dana bash has some interesting reporting that the president is really concerned that the mueller probe, youve got the manafort trial, just going on right now, getting a lot of attention, that that will just fuel opponents and critics of his. The Polling Numbers though from cnn show the opposite. They show at least americans confidence in bob mueller and the russia probe is waning. Right . 48 in march, 41 now. Do you think the president s fears are real or imagined . Well, i think the president should be concerned that hes in deep trouble because it looks like he is and it looks like a lot of people around him are. We learned this weekend it looks like he may very well have obstructed justice in this particular case. Thats why i find it particularly ironic that he seems to be continuing to try to obstruct and end this case so publicly. Im not so worried about those Polling Numbers. I think first of all, the president s just driving a strategy here to make this another partisan fight. So thats why you see the separation in those numbers. The bigger issue is we just need to get the truth. We need to let mueller do his work and come out with the report. I think the report is going to
be quite damning and i think the American People will have to face that evidence. I have a similar concern to doug, actually, that i think real you shall use are being obscured by this food night that the president s creating. We just learned yesterday the president S Administration is trying to go around congress to cut taxes even more for millionaires. Congress should be apoplectic about that but the republicans seem to just be taking that lying down, conceding their power and constitution to the president here. It is just incredible we are not talking about it. We had a whole segment in the last hour. My fault, i went long with senator ed markey in my interview. We didnt get that in. With you doug, the administration and Treasury Department has said it is looking at ways to change indexing. It is very complicated but basically how investment would be taxed when it is sold. This would disproportionately help the wealthy. Bush administration looked into doing it and said, no, you need congress to get behind us on this one if we actually wanted to do it. Whats your read on what this would look like for republicans
and at least the administration looking into it . It is a bit schizophrenic. There is no republican that will tell you we dont like tax cuts however we can get them. Republicans typically before donald trump was president talked about a Strong Congress versus a strong executive. During the obama years quite often Democrats Cedeed power to the presidency. Congress is receding in power. Somebody who puts the privacy of congress first, thats troubling to me regardless of what party or what administration is doing it. Regardless of what i think about the tax cuts which i think have had a great impact on the economy so far. Robby, let me ask you about hillary clinton. She is getting out there more, speaking out more, she is putting her money where her mouth is, donating to these 19 different candidates. As someone who ran her campaign and as someone who looks at the party right now thats sort of identifying who do we stand more with . Are we more the party of nancy pelosi or alexandria acasio
ortez. I think the future of our party and our success is in these candidates in districts who are running for office. I think shes doing the exact right thing which is to get behind these people and help them win. I think we create these false battles, so to speak, in washington, d. C. About, is the party about this person or that person. The party right now is about winning these individual House Districts and the candidates in these House Districts are very different because our party is very different regionally. At the point that we are in a president ial primary, yeah, we have to pick somebody to lead our party and we can have that. I think she is doing the exact right thing, get in there and help these people win in these individual races. Thats an interesting point. Weve got to get it more defined as we head in to 2020. I want you both to listen to what the president said last night. He was talking about voter i. D. S. Then it went a bit odd. Listen. We believe that only american citizens should vote in american elections. Which is why the time has come for voter i. D. , like everything else. Voter i. D. If you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card. You need i. D. Thats not true, doug. But putting that aside for a momen moment, whats he trying to say . Having been to a Grocery Store as recently as yesterday i know thats not true for that gallon of milk i had to buy. Im not sure what the president is trying to say here. Im somebody who supports voter i. D. Laws but also knows too often republican State Legislatures make it then harder for people to get i. D. S, primarily in africanamerican or minority neighborhoods, which is a real problem when you are trying to demonstrate you arent doing this in any kind of hamhanded way. It is not clear what the president is trying to say here which, unfortunately, is often
the case. Thank you both, robby, doug, thank you for being with us and pivoting on the breaking news. Less than 100 days until the midterms. Facebook this morning is sounding the alarm. Social media giant says it is pulling suspected russianlinked accounts trying to influence the elections. Are you one of them . Ahead. This is your wakeup call. If you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, month after month, the clock is ticking on irreversible joint damage. Ongoing pain and stiffness are signs of joint erosion. Humira can help stop the clock. Prescribed for 15 years, humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Before treatment, get tested for tb. Tell your doctor if youve been to areas
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identify ties to russia. Part of the reason for that is that the efforts of the people behind these misinformation campaigns, theyve grown much more sophisticated. So when Sheryl Sandberg says, this is an arms race, this is something that isnt going to end, it is for that very reason. So facebook powers time, money, manpower into this issue. 20,000 staffers dedicated to this issue, to combating misinformation. Even then, it is a game of whack a mole. They can only monitor problems like this and bring them to the attention of lawmakers, and then effectively put the ball in their court. If theres a victory here for facebook this week, it is that they got ahead of this problem and notified congress about it ahead of the 2018 midterms as opposed to the last election cycle when they didnt really take the problem seriously until after the fact. Right. So seriously that they saw their stock drop a lot last week because they say were putting privacy above profitability right now to try to correct
course on this. Thanks for the reporting. Lets talk more about this now with michael daniel, former Cyber Security coordinator and special assistant to president obama. Nice to have you. Thank you for having me. So, you said, look, it is not surprising that facebook found this kind of activity and we know from all our u. S. Intelligence agencies that they were going to do it again. But the when you look at what the head of Cyber Security policy at facebook says. These bad actors have been more careful to cover their tracks, in part due to the actions we have taken to prevent abuse over the years. So theyre saying it is even harder to detect this time around. Why . Well, the actors in this case would be doing exactly what nathani nathaniel, the head of facebooks Cyber Security policy, said there, which is they are taking steps to make sure that it is difficult to do forensics. They are masking their activity where theyre coming from, how they are doing it, how theyre setting up the accounts. They are taking steps to make
sure that it is more and more difficult to conduct the types of forensics that would tie this activity back to malicious actor. So wont they just keep adjusting and wont they just keep changing and making it more difficult as facebook and google and twitter work to keep up with them and eliminate the threat . Sure. I mean thats how its always been in the Cyber Security field. As the malicious actors make a change and the defenders adjust, then the attackers adjust again. Miss sandbergs comments about it being an arms race is a very apt analogy. I want you to listen to something that Vice President mike pence said just yesterday here in new york. Really pointing his finger back at the white house in which you work. You work leading Cyber Security under the Obama Administration and heres his read. The last administration all but neglected Cyber Security. Even though the digital threats were growing more numerous and more dangerous by the day. In 2014,